I drank alone

(707 words)

It was 1985 when George Thorogood released “I Drink Alone,” his excellent ode to solitary inebriation. I first heard it in a place where drinking alone was a logistical impossibility.

All hail Athens, Ohio!

With nearly 15,000 Ohio University suds guzzlers packed into a small college town with 72 bars within knee-crawling distance the party never ended 

I called it the drinker’s Disneyland

Besides wanton boozin’, the giddy scene included anonymous sex, illicit narcotics, disdain for authority and the pervasive mindset that the moment was all that mattered.

That many who shared these selfish narcissisims have ascended to leadership positions when coronavirus began to wipe out the world is purely coincidental.

But I love the song and the sentiment even as I never dreamed it would apply to me. Sample lyric:

My whole family done give up on and it makes me feel, oh, so bad

The only one who’ll hang out with me is my dear Old Granddad …

And we drink alone

I was then and forever will be a social drinker. I enjoy the company, all the banter and the bitching, that goes along with sitting next to either friend or stranger at the instant their burdens begin to lift and they feel free to cut loose, when all their repressed humanity is allowed to flower.

See, I’m not a solo drinker like, say, Homer Simpson, who when asked if he ever drank alone responded, “Does God count as a person?”

I mention this now because last month at the height of the shutdown I drank alone. Really drank.

Yeah, all by myself.

Well, it felt like Keith Richards was right here swapping shots, but only in spirit, which when you’re drinkin’ alone is better company than many actual folks.

Keith was one circumstantial factor in my decision to get drunk all alone up here in my 3rd floor office.

First of all, we were at the height of Shut Down No. 1. I hadn’t been drinking in 8 weeks, the longest I’d been sober since, gee, 4th grade.

Second, I’d earlier that day been blindsided by a monumental professional disappointment. A local charity had taken steps to purchase 300 copies of my Fred book to to give to area graduates. I was in my car on my way to Pittsburgh to retrieve the books from the printer when the call came informing me, sorry, they’d changed their minds. For God’s sake, they’d already dictated to me what they wanted the thank you inserts to say.

Given what you know about me and my situation, I have one question…

Who wants to buy some books!

Third, I’d been obsessively playing Keith’s 2015 solo album, “Crosseyed Heart.” His solo stuff is fantastic. It must infuriate Mick to know that while he’s one of the five coolest men on the planet, he’s only the third coolest guy in his own band.

Lastly — and this must not be undervalued in the context of this story — I had right there on my desk an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee sippin’ whiskey.

That’s Keith’s favorite!

I’d bought it for a visiting friend who blew me off. My friend may have let me down, but Keith never will.

So given the confluence of circumstances, I did what came natural.

I drank alone.

I figured I was entitled to tie one on, to get sloshed, pie-eyed, skunked, hammered, all tanked up, tipsy, three sheets to the wind.

With Keith as my soulmate, I proceeded to do shot-after-shot straight from the bottle. With the music cranked, I got good and drunk all by myself.

I took the bitter edges off what had been a really bad day. I rosied up my outlook on life and drained about three-quarters of that straight up Jack.

Then I napped on my desk.

So what did I learn?

When the situation calls for it, I can be my very own best drinking buddy. I now understand why for all these years friends, bartenders and total strangers have kept buying me drinks when I tried to leave the bar. Over the years, it probably adds up to a small fortune in free drinks.

And I guess that’s why, given my precarious finances, I’ll always be a social drinker.

When you drink alone, the next round is always on you.

Related …

No. 1 party boy from No. 1 party school

My history of drinking at/near work

Roll on, Stones

Giving our hearts to Mick Jagger

(751 words)

My face bore a grave expression Sunday when I summoned the 12-year-old to the kitchen table. I took both her little hands in mine and looked her straight in the eye.

What was she doing tomorrow?

“Nothing.”

“Very good. Then I want to take you to the hospital to see if you can donate one of your heart valves to save the life of Mick Jagger.”

She teeters mostly on the edge of that whole honor-thy-father-and-mother thingie, but her seething reaction leads me to believe any day now that Biblical admonition will mean as much to her as “Be kind. Rewind.”

“I WILL NOT! I DON’T EVEN LIKE THE ROLLING STONES!”

I swear, I’ve never felt more like a fatherly failure. Her visceral reaction caught me completely off guard. I was so certain she’d be honored I’d spent the entire afternoon standing before the bedroom mirror practicing introducing myself as the father of the girl whose heart part now beats in Mick Jagger’s chest.

Now, I don’t know if it’s possible — much less advisable even — for doctors to transplant a healthy heart valve of a 12-year-old female into the ailing ticker of a 75-year-old rock star. For all I know the procedure could endanger the donor, whom I love despite all her sassy tastelessness. 

Or maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe they don’t use human donors. Maybe today’s replacement heart valves are constructed out of scissored cardboard or old twist off bottle tops.

But it would have been just so cool to have contributed to the endurance of the greatest rock band the world’s ever known.

I wonder if Jagger is having to haggle with his health care provider over things like deductibles and if he gets to see his primary care physician.

He’s fathered eight children with five different women. His public announcements emphasized his rockin’ eagerness to get back on the road with the band. I wonder if his more private consultations about post-surgical activities involved his eagerness to get back in bed with supermodels.

It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve probably thought about Mick and the Stones at least once almost every single day of my life for most of the past five decades.

I can’t remember a time when they weren’t an essential part of my life.

Music has always been very important to me. And because I’ve worked almost my entire adult life in a small room all by myself I’ve chosen to play loud (mostly) rock music to soundtrack my long, lonely days.

And on the days when that didn’t involve Rolling Stones music, it always included The Stones as an option. I’d read the books, study the documentaries and concert films, and race to share the news of band turmoil and reconciliations with my like-minded friends.

The Stones are as much a part of me as your heart valves are of you.

In hindsight, the wisdom of these decisions is open to question. After all, few are the criteria by which I can be considered a success.

Who knows? I might have a raft of best sellers under my belt had I decided years ago that cerebral rigor might be best achieved by writing in tomb-like silence or to New Agey whale sounds.

But my days would be so much dimmer without so much Stones. 

It’s an interesting time for the band. I anticipate any day now the combined age of the four key bandmates (301) will finally surpass their combined weight.

They last went into the studio in 2016 to record an album of classic blues covers. “Lonesome and Blue” is outstanding, but leaves me hungering for another overdue album of originals, something they haven’t produced since the truly stellar “A Bigger Bang” in 2005.

But as the Jagger news portends, we’re coming to the end of maybe the most vibrant story in the history of music.

 The Stones won’t live forever. They are mortal.

Well, not Keith, but that goes without saying.

We’ve never seen a performer like Jagger and there will never be another. I feel blessed to have shared the planet with him at a time when mass media gave us access to all his indelible talents.

Given these soulful adorations, you might wonder why I’m not the one offering my valves to extend the earthly duration of Sir Mick.

That’d be impossible.

For as long as I can remember, The Stones have always had my whole heart.

Related (Does anyone ever read these?) …

Mick Jagger: An appreciation

9th graders learn who’s better: Stones or Beatles

Stones 50 best? FeRRRget it

Keith’s bio: Warts ’n’ warts

Roll on, Stones

The day-long swim meet from Hell

(638 words)

It was an indicator of either my desperation or my depravity, but after five hours of confinement I began to feel a kinship with people who become refugees because of acts of war or acts of God.

I’d lost all perspective.

I’d equated my situation with those who’d lost their homes, their humanity and their hopes in cruel circumstances beyond their control.

But, hey, that’s what five consecutive hours of the Chestnut Ridge Winter Swim Championships will do to a rational dad.

Understand, at five hours we weren’t even half done. Oh, no.

We’d loaded up the car at 6:30 a.m. Saturday for the 40-minute drive to Penn-Trafford High School in Harrison City. I’d miss out on a day’s worth of televised college basketball, agreeable meals, reading in my recliner — all the hallmarks of refined civilization.

To top it all off, our day began with low-grade marital discord when Val accused me of being negative.

The nerve. 

Perceptive nerve, true. But still.

We arrived at sunrise to find every parking spot taken. I don’t know how many parents/coaches/supporters/staff were invited, but not one of them had the sense to decline.

I found a distant spot in a muddy field and said a fast prayer the Saturn wouldn’t sink up to the axles.

We were herded into one of two massive gyms and told to carve out floor space.

Kids, ages 8 to 14, were everywhere. They were blaring their popular music, throwing toys and screaming for attention.

Now, I love kids.

My kids. 

After two hours, I tried to recall the last time I was marooned in a situation so rife with unruly tumult. I had to go clear back to 1981 in Buffalo.

I didn’t go there to see kids swim.

I went there to see the Rolling Stones!

This was the same kind of atmosphere, but with better toilets and less weed.

Really, I should have brought a keg and tried selling beers on the sly.

Had I been given to an amoral bent, it would have been a swell time to summon a local hooker for some commercial  recreation in the backseat in the ol’ high school parking lot.

It’s practically patriotic.

But either scenario would have likely led to me being caught and exposed as a bad father.

And the pressure to appear “good” in these situations is overwhelming. Why else wasn’t there a revolt after say, Hour 7?

I was told organizers used to break this mammoth fundraiser into a morning and an afternoon session. The problem was the morning parents would leave before lunch and the afternoon parents would lunch prior to arrival.

The coffers weren’t filled to satisfactory levels.

And that’s what it’s all about.

Really, an event of this grandiosity should never be held at a local high school.

It should be held in Rio.

If you’re going to have pretensions of Olympian impact, you should hold your event at Olympian venues.

Seating was at such a premium I missed one of Lucy’s relay races because the already cramped viewing area was too packed to admit even one more parent.

If you think missing the event left me saddened, you’re mistaken. If anything, seeing the events was even worse than being incarcerated in the gyms.

I’ll never understand parents who feel the need to scream, “Go, Peyton! Go!” at a kid whose ears are underwater. Steeler playoff games are less raucous.

Oh, and the event I missed was just one of four — four — from the entire day.

All told, our daughter was in the water a grand total of 7 minutes and 43 seconds of an event that lasted 12 interminable hours.

It was utter madness.

On a day when the actual participants are barely in the water, it’s the parents who put up with this crap who are the ones who are all wet.

Related …

5-hour swim meets too long; driving me crazy

Swim meets and my history of hugging

Yes! Trophies for all the kiddies!

Now ear this!

You’re the greatest swimmer ever! Now what?

Re-run Sunday: Happy Birthday, Mick Jagger!

Happy 72nd Birthday, Mick Jagger! I wrote this in ’12 after he’d appeared on SNL. He was, of course, mesmerizing. We’ve never had a more compelling performer. Here are some of the justifying reasons . . .

This is bound to be controversial, but I’d rather watch Mick Jagger stand still and read “The Cat and The Hat” than look at most supermodels naked.

The calculus changes if the supermodels are in motion on a trampoline or if Jagger is singing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” something I’ve heard him sing  about 1,000 times.

He is the most mesmerizing performer in recorded history.

I realized this after watching for a second time him host “Saturday Night Live,” a show that’s been so uneven for the past 15 or so years I usually find it unwatchable.

It’s all there in the opening monologue. His every gesture, his phrasing, his posture, his winking acknowledgement of his scandalous history -- it’s impossible to take your eyes off him.

Hoover Dam is less electrifying.

I love both Elvis and Frank Sinatra, but we’ve never seen anything like Jagger, a singer/songwriter of some of pop culture’s most indelible hits and the frontman for the band that’s performed live for more people around the world than anyone in history.

Biographer Laura Jackson wrote, “It is impossible to imagine current culture without the unique influence of Mick Jagger.”

Hollywood will be unable to make a credible movie about Jagger or the Stones until the minds of anyone who’s ever seen them have gone mushy. Because no actor can play Jagger.

Only Jagger can be Jagger. He cannot be duplicated

I thought about saving this for July 23 when Jagger will turn 68, but he could be dead by then. So could I.

Heck, we all could.

Well, all but Keith.

But here are some performances and essential Jagger references, trying to avoid the obvious, that never fail to start me up:

• “American Pie,” by Don McLean, 1971 -- Jagger, at the time a self-described anarchist, dominates this classic, one in which he’s never mentioned by name. 

So, c’mon, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

 Jack Flash sat on a candle stick, ‘cause fire is the devil’s only friend

And as I watched him on the stage, my hands were clenched in fisted rage.

No angle born in hell could break that Satan’s spell

And as the flames climbed high into the night

I saw Satan laughing with delight

The Day the Music Died

This is prophetic allegory. Forty years later, nothing has broken Jagger’s spell and a recent chart topper is Maroon 5’s hit “Moves Like Jagger.”

• “You’re So Vain,” by Carly Simon, 1972 -- Throw out all the speculation about who the subject of the song is, the star of the song itself is Jagger. He’s the background singer that really kicks it into a higher gear and steals the song -- and I’m always surprised how few people realize it’s Jagger so distinctively singing background.

I love how Carly has maintained the mystery of the song’s subject, and has often denied it was Mick. Of course, she, too, denied she and Mick were ever lovers while she was married to James Taylor, a lie that’s since been acknowledged. So he did sleep with Carly -- the rascal -- and is rumored to have modeled the “Hannah Honey” character after her in the sublime, “Memory Motel” from 1976.

• “Ned Kelly,” 1970 -- One of the most fascinating aspects of Jagger is his utter inability to convincingly act like anyone other than himself. No where is this more apparent than in this, one of the worst movies ever made. It’s about the Robin Hood-like antics of the historic Australian bushwhacker and features a soundtrack by Waylon Jennings. So it’s 20th century movie about a 19th century Australian starring an English rock singer featuring songs by an American country outlaw. It’s proof drugs were prevalent in Hollywood long before shows like “The Flying Nun.” Yet, I always tune in for even a little bit whenever it’s on. It’s Jagger.

• “Don’t Tear Me Up,” Mick Jagger on SNL, 1993

The only thing derided more than Jagger’s acting are his solo albums. I don’t find them as objectionable as most but, like Keith’s solo efforts, each seems like something is missing -- and that would be the other Glimmer Twin.

But in 1993 Jagger released the credible and entertaining, “Wandering Spirit,” which bats a little better than .500 in catchy tunes, the best of which might be “Don’t Tear Me Up.” He performed it live on SNL with what Keith Richards later described as “some little jerk-off band.” But his performance is fantastic. The song starts off slow and then, like so many great Stones songs, explodes in exuberant fury.

This show also features a hilarious skit where Mick pretends he’s Keith and Mike Myers plays Mick as the two feud over street cred: Best line: “Keith” argues one point by starting, “Mick, you ignorant slut.”

• “Champagne & Reefer,” The Rolling Stones, “Shine a Light,” 2008 -- This is the kind of song that convinces me the Stones will be playing the blues in dive bars if the crowds at the arenas stop showing up. It features the harmonica-wielding Jagger trading riffs and vocals with the great Buddy Guy. Two giants playing the blues.

• “Tattoo You,” music videos, 1981 -- Music videos were in their infancy when the Stones filmed these stark videos of “Start Me Up,” “Hang Fire,” and “Worried About You.” Done in one take, they barely bother to lip sync the vocals. It’s gloriously haphazard with just the band pretending to play instruments in a barren room. It shows just how dominant Jagger can be without even the slightest of props. The best is the often-overlooked gem, “Worried About You,” a song that starts out sweet as Motown and ends up being a massive musical monster. It remains to me among their most compelling videos, second only to the playfully sexy “She Was Hot.”

And, in conclusion, some of my favorite Mick vocals on Stones classics, again hoping to avoid the obvious:

• “The Storm,” b-side from Voodoo Lounge, 1994 -- The gritty kind of song that makes me wish they’d huddle in the studio for 10 days and bang out nothing but blues. With apologies to Carly Simon, nobody does it better.

• “Rough Justice,” A Bigger Bang, 2005 -- One of my favorite Stones lines:

One time you were my baby chicken, now you’ve grown into a foxxxxxx . . .

One time I was yer little rooster, now am I just one of yer cockssssss . . .

• “No Spare Parts,” Some Girls, 1978/2011 -- I almost had to pull the car over when I first heard this on satellite radio last year. It’s a country leftover re-release snagged from the “Some Girls” sessions. Jagger re-recorded the vocals to this and others like the equally great “Do You Think I Really Care?” He’s never sounded better. It’s taken more than 40 years, but he’s actually learned how to sing. 

• “Monkey Man,” Let It Bleed, 1969 -- If for no other reason other than to hear him sing the incendiary line, “Well, I hope we’re not too messianic or a trifle too Satanic . . .”

• “Star Star,” Goat’s Head Soup, 1973 -- Hard core gangsta rappers have never managed to be as reliably filthy as every line in this song. The profane title’s sanitized so they could include it on the album. Like “You’re So Vain,” only with dozens of obscene references, this one debases Steve McQueen, John Wayne, Ali McGraw, Polaroids and tricks with fruit. It’s Chuck Berry’s music, but it’s Mick Jagger’s life.

We should all be glad we’ve been able to see so much of it.

Let's move nation's capital to Kansas!

In 2005, I launched a movement to, for reasons social and financial, relocate our nation’s capital from Washington, D.C., to Lebanon, Kansas, the exact geographic center of our polarized nation.

Eight years later, not much has changed. We are still mired in gridlock and my many grand movements are still met with reactions ranging from indifference to ridicule.

But one thing has changed.

Today I can blog about it!

So here’s the story I submitted to various prestigious publications in 2005. No one saw the merits of my genius. In fact, I don’t remember anyone even responding.

Perhaps you’ll see the benefits. If so, please feel free to share the story with friends and any influential legislators.

And here’s a tip: you might be wise to start buying real estate in Lebanon while it’s still cheap.

Here’s the story, dated and typically error-ridden as it may be . . .

(756 words)

The Beltway gridlock has the nation mired in another series of seemingly insoluble problems. From saving social security to excessive fuel costs, the politicians we look to for creative leadership appear incapable of divining the answers that will move America forward.

That’s why it’s time to think outside the box or, more precisely, outside the Beltway.

It’s time to relocate the nation’s capital to Lebanon, Kansas, the geographic center of the contiguous United States.

Sound preposterous? The Founding Fathers didn’t think so.

Washington, D.C., became the nation’s capital because its location was a logical compromise for legislators who’d have to ride horses and bone-rattling buggies over terrible roads for long distances. The shores of the Potomac made perfect sense 214 years ago when our infant nation of just 13 states clung to the east coast. But even as manifest destiny pushed our population ever westward, our capital’s location has remained stump stubborn while the country moved farther and farther away from it.

Consider the majority of our illustrious state houses. When given opportunities to settle in more renown marquee cities like St. Louis or Chicago, Missouri and Illinois bestowed capital status on the centralized, if unremarkable burgs of Jefferson City and Springfield. Same goes for capitals in lunch bucket towns like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Columbus, Ohio, and Lansing, Michigan.

The move would spark an immediate and enormous savings in congressional travel expenses. Gas prices would plummet. Taxes could be slashed.

Better still, the move would instigate the purification of a political process that seems irrevocably poisoned in swampy old Washington.

When the conservative stalwart Wall Street Journal savaged Republican Majority leader Tom DeLay for a series of alleged ethical lapses, it seemed to imply the fault wasn’t DeLay’s inability to tell right from wrong, but instead stemmed from a foul-smelling infection thriving inside the Beltway incubator.

“In Beltway-speak, what this means is that Mr. DeLay has an ‘odor;’ nothing too incriminating, nothing actually criminal, just an unsavory whiff that could have GOP loyalists reaching for the political Glade if it gets any worse. The Beltway wisdom is right. Mr. DeLay does have odor issues. Increasingly, he smells just like the Beltway itself.”

The Journal makes Washington sound like a fraternity house where prudent guests wipe their feet on the way out.

All of which brings us to bucolic Lebanon, Kansas. For those who think there is no center in our polarized political world, it’s time to consult a map. You’ll find Lebanon, pop. 273, at the exact center. That only 273 out of 308 million Americans can lay claim to true centrality points out the scope of the problem.

No politician in the past 30 years has won high office by boasting of being a Washington-insider. That little conceit will end when we move the capital to Lebanon.

“You can’t get much more outside than Lebanon,” says city clerk Connie Herndon. “We’re 60 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart.”

Yes, utter desolation. Congress will be free from the pesky distractions of Gucci-hooved lobbyists, $700 wine-drenched dinners at The Palms, and the comely hookers, mistresses and interns who’ve reduced so many would-be statesmen into fondling fathers. What does Lebanon offer?

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” Herndon says. “It’s a farm community of old farmers who work during the day and stay in at night. The only thing that qualifies as entertainment is a local choral group who gets together and sings patriotic songs.”

Hmmm. Sounds like red meat for a Red State.

“Well, the year before they sang popular songs from the ‘60s.”

Perfect. A bipartisan glee club capable of swinging from The Stones straight to Sousa.

Of course, some things won’t change. Lebanon is the very heart of the heartland. It is farm country and that means manure. Sorry Wall Street Journal. It’ll sometimes stink in Lebanon, too. But at least the fertilizer in Lebanon is used to nurture farm produce and won’t wind up being broadcast on C-Span.

Moving the nation’s capital out of Washington and to farm country will no doubt be dismissed by some as, well, a corny idea. But it’s worth a try. Clearly, the Beltway is broken. It’s time America made a statement that would show we’re going back to the grassroots of our democracy. Goodbye Beltway.

Hello Bib Overallway!

The new capital will start off with one impressive surplus. The farm town will be so awash in fertilizer the local glee club will be performing patriotic ditties above the fruited plain in hip waders.