As promised two weeks back, we have begun populating a YouTube channel with all seventeen months of Two Non Blondes mediocrity. If you grow weary of reading here and looking at pictures and such…..you can tune in over there and listen to good music, done in a mediocre fashion. Yet, with enthusiasm, vim and vigor. By August 1, 2014, we should have the full catalog….1,973 songs…..up on the YouTube channel.
This thing was written in twenty-seven minutes while listening to the Two Non Blondes cover (sort of) of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song “By Thw Way”. It’s a cover. Sort of.
My senior year at Miami University, I took a two credit poetry course as an elective. It was a wonderful course. The professor was stunningly beautiful….not that this means anything because genetics are handed to you during that whole zygote process and makeup is relatively easy to apply…….she also had a beautiful mind. A beautiful mind is 3,907 times more attractive than genetics. When I choose to fall in love, it is always with the mind…..that is a fine rule to follow. Write that down. You are welcome. She was my singular college professor crush. Unrequited. She could recite Dickinson, Wadsworth, Longfellow, Whitman, and Tennyson from memory. And Yeats & Keats. She loved her some Yeats & Keats.
During the second week, the instructor asked me to please explain five similarities and differences between Yeats and Keats. Not having completed the reading and nursing a pretty significant hangover, I replied simply that “Yeats was Keats…………with a “Y”. That reply got me a ten page assignment comparing and contrasting Yeats and Keats
That two credit course began a long and torrid love affair with poetry……and with Yeats and Keats.
I spend roughly, or precisely, six hundred twenty-four hours per year on planes and have spent (roughly or precisely) six hundred twenty-four hours on planes each year for the last twenty-five years. When you take six hundred twenty-four hours and divide it into days using something I like to call “math”, you get twenty-six days. Never fond of speaking with strangers anywhere I am assigned to sit (e.g. my favorite seat….3B….on planes, the bar area of a sushi bar, any bar in any airport or hotel, ad infinitum) because the vast majority of strangers will bore you to tears or make you want to stick knitting needles in your ears with their stories, those twenty-six days in the air tend to be an excellent adult “time out”. Twenty-six days of solitary confinement with alternating periods of silence, Motley Crue and diagraming poetry. Diagramming poetry keeps your mind fresh and….you get to read a bunch of poetry. Thanks to that ridiculously beautiful professor and that two hour elective course at Miami University,
I mostly do Yeats, although Keats pops up now and then. Yeats is Irish…..which makes him a better writer.
Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Yeats, Yeats, Yeats……..soooooooo, we have Yeats’ three principles of the mind in “A Vision A”. Hanrahan is the romantic primitive, Robartes is the intellectual, and Aedh is the starcrossed lover, speaking that poem up there. And those three can be traced to Yeats digging Plotinus, whose philosophical writings had three principle…..the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. And if you trace Plotinus back, you’ll end up at his teacher Saccas….and if you trace Saccas back you end up at Plato.
That ten page paper as punishment for a flippant reply did not go to waste. Not even a little bit.
Keats……”Bright Star”
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors –
No – yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever – or else swoon to death
New Kittens…Yeats, Keats, Dre, and Eminem
These little bastards living here for the next two weeks……named after poets.
Birthday Gift for You
Today is my birthday and, like Joey on the dead series “Friends”, I am a giver. I’m giving to all you loyal Mind of Mully (Whatever One) the following.
First, for those of you feeling emotionally precarious or the need to feel alive again, we are re-opening the Mind of Mully Indefinite Time Period videos on YouTube and…..perhaps more importantly……we are going to start making more Mind of Mully Indefinite Time Period videos. Here is one to get you warmed up. You don’t want to pull a hamstring.
There are many of you who simply visit this page and have not seen our Two Non Blondes videos….like the one there up at the top. This week, we are opening a Two Non Blondes YouTube channel where you will be able to see really awful things like this cover of Jewel’s “You Were Meant for Me”
And outtakes…..which are actually far better than the really awful two minute sections of songs we post to Facebook. Outtakes like this one……
Happy birthday to me.
Finally got my damn pony…..and three out of four on the “to do” list isn’t too shabby.
Two years ago, at a 2 Chainz show in Chicago, it struck me that you can substitute most of Dr. Seuss’s characters into rap songs for any of the words you may find objectionable, while still retaining the beat and the parts of the songs that you may enjoy. For example, below you will find the words many people find objectionable in “Fucking Problem” (Drake, 2 Chainz, & Kendrick Lamar) with the story “The Sneetches” from Dr. Seuss’s collection of short stories “The Sneetches and Other Stories”.
Give it a try. See? It works with any Dr. Seuss book and every rap song. Yep. As always, you are welcome.
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Star Bellied Sneetches, I got a Sneetches problem
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Plain Bellied Sneetches I got a Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Star Bellied Sneetches, I got a Sneetches problem
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Plain Bellied Sneetches I got a Sneetches problem
If Fix-It-Up Chappie creates your Sneetches problem
Bring your bellies to the crib maybe we can solve it
Hold up Sneetches simmer down
Takin’ hella long Sneetch give it to me now
Make that thing pop like a semi or a nine
Oh baby like it raw with a shimmy shimmy ya
Huh, ASAP get like me
Never met a yellow Sneetch….. fresh like me
All these Star Bellied Sneetches wanna dress like me
Put the chrome to your dome make you sweat like Keith
Cause I’m the Sneetch, the Sneetch Sneetch, like how you figure?
Getting figures and painting Sneetches, she rollin’ swishers
Brought her Sneetches, I brought my Sneetches, they getting bent up off the liquor
She love my licorice, I let her lick it
They say money make a Sneetch act Sneetch-rish
But at least a Sneetch Sneetch rich
I be paintin’ broads like I be paintin’ bored
Turn a plain belly Sneetch out have her star bellied…..beast
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Star Bellied Sneetches, I got a Sneetches problem
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Plain Bellied Sneetches I got a Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Star Bellied Sneetches, I got a Sneetches problem
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
If Fix-It-Up Chappie creates your Sneetches problem
Bring your bellies to the crib maybe we can solve it
I know you love it when this beat is on
Make you think about all of the Sneetches you’ve been leading on
Make me think about all of the rappers I’ve been feeding on
Got a feeling that’s the same dudes that we speakin’ on, oh word?
Ain’t heard my album? Who you sleepin’ on?
You should print the lyrics out and have a painting read-along
Ain’t a painting sing-along unless you brought the Star Off Machine along
Then ju… (Okay, I got it)
Then just drop down and get yo’ eagle on
Or we can stare up at the stars and put the Beatles on
And that beach you talkin’ bout is not up for discussion
I will pay to make it bigger, I don’t pay for no reduction
If it’s comin’ from a Sneetch I don’t know, then I don’t trust it
If you comin’ for my head, then McMonkey McBean get to bustin’
Yes Lord, I don’t really say this often
But this long beach Sneetch ain’t for the long talking, I ………beast
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Star Bellied Sneetches, I got a Sneetches problem
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Plain Bellied Sneetches I got a Sneetches problem
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
If Fix-It-Up Chappie creates your Sneetches problem
Bring your bellies to the crib maybe we can solve it
Yeah Sylvester McMonkey McBean, this the finale
My pep talk turn into a pep rally
Say she’s from the hood but she live inside the valley now
Vacate in Atlanta, then she going back to Cali
Got your girl on my line, world on my line
The irony I paint ’em at the same damn time
She eyeing me like a Sneetch don’t exist
Girl, I know you want this scene
Girl, I’m Sylvester McMonkey McBean
Aka Benz is to me just a car
That mean your friends need to be up to a par
See my standards are pampered by threesomes tomorrow
Kill ’em all dead bodies in the hallway
Don’t get involved listen what the crystal ball say
Halle Berry, hallelujah
Holla back I’ll do ya, Sneetch
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Star Bellied Sneetches, I got a Sneetches problem
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Plain Bellied Sneetches I got a Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Star Bellied Sneetches, I got a Sneetches problem
I love yellow Sneetches, that’s my Sneetches problem
And yeah I like Plain Bellied Sneetches I got a Sneetches problem
If Fix-It-Up Chappie creates your Sneetches problem
Bring your bellies to the crib maybe we can solve it
This story was written in one hundred thirty-seven minutes while listening to Government Mule’s “Soulshine” a few dozen times. If you care to listen to the proper background tune whilst reading, click that button. If not, don’t. Your choice. People like choices.
This is the beginning of the story………………………………..
If you like stories, this is a story. The best part of the story happened four years ago today.
First, an admonishment I received from an HR department ten years ago. I used to like to make bumper stickers. At the beginning of one project, I made bumper stickers that read “sometimes you say the serenity prayer…sometimes you say ‘fuck it’ and throw it into fifth gear.” The lesson (as you may have surmised) was that we were under the gun and had to get the project completed in a very short period of time. Human resources did not share my sense of urgency, my love and command of the English language and the certain je ne se qua that is my leadership style. There were no further bumper stickers after that one. That was a damn fine bumper sticker.
This is not just a single story……it is several stories that happened over a four day period in 2010, culminating in “The Decision” by Lebron James where he announced on national television, in possibly the worst television show ever broadcast to take his talents to South Beach, while I lay in bed, discharged from the hospital after a five day stay and six hour surgery, all whacked out on pain pills and champagne….four cats batting at my catheter pee bag like Napoleon Dynamite batting at the tether ball game during recess. More on that later. The laser focus here is not on the cats or the pee bag or the catheter or Mr. James. The laser focus is on a fascinating Sunday with Stevie J Clark. And I have had more fascinating, surprising and interesting days than China has rice. These are several stories. Vignettes, if you will.
These four days were precisely four years ago right………….now. LeBron James had his ESPN “The Decision Special” on July 8, 2010. His ridiculous television show took place six hours after I was discharged from the hospital; a hospital that shall remain nameless to protect both the guilty and the innocent. I had the first part of my colon and the back of my bladder removed on July 2, 2010. We had the “ high on Jack Daniels & Coke and other assorted things John Lennon filming session” (link below……and that is what this story is about) on Sunday, July 4, 2010. It makes for a damn fine story. A story about saying “fuck it” and throwing it into fifth gear, a story about one of my favorite days ever, and a story of solid friendship.
Two evenings ago, a friend (who proudly proclaimed she writes like Emily Dickinson) told me I write looooooooong things. I do. I am verbose, yet precise and detail oriented. God and the devil are both in the details, depending upon your point of view and whether you are a “glass half full” or “glass half empty” person. I am not so much Tolstoy-long, but definitely Faulkner-long….with the improper paragraphination, the run on sentences (using ellipses as a crutch)…yet, without Faulkner’s flair for the dramatic and allegory. This one is going to be long. Very long. Longer than the longest one ever…the explanation of Match.com and probability theory. This one is almost as long, but not quite as long. Here. Have a look………..
See? That’s a pretty long piece. It is a rock solid, ture piece. This piece will be longer. Get a cocktail. Or a bottle. Just don’t ask for any of mine. I have to write this thing and I am damn thirsty. I can’t do everything for you. Get your own damn cocktail.
This is the intro to the story……
The intro is also long; however, you need some background to fully appreciate the “ high on Jack Daniels & Coke and other assorted things John Lennon filming session” (link below……and that is what this story is about) that subsequently happened on Sunday, July 4, 2010
In April, 2010, the evening before I was to fly to New Orleans for both a spine surgery convention and, more importantly, Jazz Fest, I had the following feeling in my stomach for seventy-two hours. The feeling of an angry, rabid mule, possessed by Satan (or perhaps the spawn of Satan), kicking me in the stomach. Repeatedly. With the mule getting progressively angrier with each kick. My flight to New Orleans was at 9 a.m. At two a.m. I jumped in the car with my briefcase and suitcase and drove to the hospital so that I could get fixed up and make my flight. Because Pearl Jam, Government Mule, and Elvis Costello were all playing. And I really, really, really wanted to see Government Mule cover Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” once before I transcend and become some sort of god on another celestial plane.
There are two hospitals within a mile of each other near my house. I chose the one with the better ocean view. One is east of the 5 freeway, far away from the ocean. The other abuts the Torrey Pines golf course and has views of the Pacific Ocean from virtually every room. The former, east of the 5, has an emergency department…the latter has an urgent care. I pulled into the hospital next to Torrey Pines at two fifteen a.m. Monday morning, walked into the urgent care and said “I am broken…please fix me so that I may catch my nine a.m. flight to New Orleans to see Government Mule cover Black Sabbath’s “’War Pigs’.” The physician on call took my blood pressure, saw it was 237/130 and suggested some pain relief.
I replied….”perhaps I have not made myself clear…I have a nine a.m. flight to New Orleans and my car is in your parking lot with all my luggage because Pearl Jam, Government Mule, and Elvis Costello were all playing Jazz Fest and I have a spine surgery meeting to attend. You really need to get with the program here…fix me up and get me on my way.” Four hours later, after a CT scan that showed a pretty cool looking mass thing in my belly, they admitted me and gave me a most excellent room on four west, overlooking the Torrey Pines golf course, the Pacific Ocean, and the hang gliding port there on the cliff.
Plan your work. Work your plan.
We have a relatively broad family history of colorectal cancer in my family…..and that’s not part of this story. Give that we are Irish (God’s chosen people), everyone has beaten their challenges like a rented mule or a red-haired stepchild (your choice). Plus, my theory is everyone has cancer anyway…..some of it is just better hidden or dormant. So, why stress or have anyone else stress. I need someone to come to the hospital on April 19, 2010 who I didn’t really know and who knew no one I knew to get my briefcase out of the car and to bring me a few items I needed for that first five-day vacation next to Torrey Pines golf course. Hospital stays are like an all inclusive resort package…..you get free food and cable…..plus, you get free drugs. As much as you want of all three. And my room overlooked the damn ocean. It looked like this:
I had met Stevie J Clark four months earlier, in December, 2009 and he was the perfect choice. Called him on the phone and the convo went like this:
Me: “Stevie JC….it’s Mully…..can you please bring three books, a yellow legal tablet, and several pens to room 428 at (name of hospital redacted)?”
SJC: “Yep”
The conversation was that short. No questions……..winner, winner…chicken dinner. He showed up two hours later with three books, a yellow legal tablet, and several pens…then proceeded to go grab my briefcase from the car. He brought in the briefcase, asked “you need anything else?” When I said “nope”, he said “OK…well, see you…..” and left. That is why the only person I have ever had come to visit me in the hospital is Stevie JC. If you plan on getting hospitalized soon, PM me and I’ll give you his digits.
Yadda yadda….spent the next three months getting a bunch of tests and five scopes, my general surgeon thought it might be cancer and when the swelling finally went down, we scheduled some OR time on July 2, 2010
This is the end of the background intro section…………
I have a bunch of subcategories of rules, despite my disdain and general disregard for rules, in general. The most important rule subcategory is you do not do anything that harms children, women, or animals. Similar to this is you never judge anyone by his or her race, religion, gender, etc. Each hold similar heft. Secondary to these (by a large margin) is the three parter: I will not ride public transportation, wear a nametag or wear special shoes for work. All three are good rules. Another combo rule is that I will never ask anyone to help me move or take me to the hospital because the corollary is I do not ever want to help someone move or give them a ride to the hospital. Rides to the hospital tend to be intensely personal and who has the time to take someone to the hospital?
That being said, I used my car service to take me to the hospital for my surgery on Friday July 2, 2010. Not knowing what to expect….that was my first surgery ever (because God made The Irish in an indestructible fashion)….I spent the week before the surgery planning the video we were going to shoot in my hospital room with Stevie J. Clark. In my overnight bag were the following items, along with my hair product and tooth brush: fifteen large white sheets of poster board, a full set of many colored Sharpies, rolls of tape, an animal costume, my iPod, and a pair of dinosaur feet slippers. Stevie JC and I were planning the shoot for over the weekend, depending upon how the surgery went and other variables such as the tide, wind velocity, his ability to get my guitar and all his video gear past the nursing station, and whether the stars were aligned properly in the east.
Surgery went from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m. I cannot recall any of the surgery because I was asleep. Just imagine that it went really, really well and there were machines beeping, some sort of “HISSSSSSSSS” sound coming from the ventilator thing and Metallica playing in the background. Really loudly. That is how I picture it.
Here’s what it feels like when they spend six hours cutting out parts of your colon and bladder and then reattach the parts of your colon that still look good. It feels like an angry, rabid mule, possessed by Satan (or perhaps the spawn of Satan), is kicking you in the stomach. Repeatedly. With the mule getting progressively angrier with each kick. Similar to what brings you in, but with the extra added benefit of waking up with a catheter in your privates. For two weeks. While your bladder heals. The key to getting discharged is to get the two halves of your colon speaking to each other in a civil manner. The key to starting this conversation is walking….taking laps around the nursing floor as much as humanly possible. Hence, the dinosaur feet slippers and the iPod. If you are going to work out, you need music. And everyone loves dinosaur slippers. Everyone. Except, of course, commies.
The first day, Friday, I was able to make one lap. One very slow, very methodical lap. Like this:
On Saturday, I was able to make five laps. For most of the day, It felt like an angry, rabid mule, possessed by Satan (or perhaps the spawn of Satan), is kicking me in the stomach. Repeatedly. With the mule getting progressively angrier with each kick.
On Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m., Stevie J Clark called me, extremely drunk, from the beach with his partner in crime, J-Hof. I had allowed no one to visit up until that time because I was having a series of bad hair days. The conversation went something like this:
SJC: “DUDE! We are coming there at 1 p.m. to film!!!!!”
Me: “Are you stoned and drunk……or just stoned….or stoned AND drunk.”
SJC: “I can’t really give you those types of details on an open line, but I am at the beach with J-Hof, we have your guitar and the tripods and the cameras and we are coming there at 1 p.m. to film.”
Me: “No…that is not happening. I feel like an angry, rabid mule, possessed by Satan (or perhaps the spawn of Satan), is kicking me in the stomach. Repeatedly. With the mule getting progressively angrier with each kick.”
SJC: “Quit being a sissy. We are coming at 1 p.m. Make the signs and get ready for the video shoot. Quit being a sissy, Diesel”
(CLICK)
Me: “Stevie JC? Stevie JC? Do NOT come to the hospital. If you can hear me….do NOT come to the hospital. Dude, there is NO way I am doing this thing today….NO way. I cannot DO this. Can you hear me? If you can hear me, BRING WHISKEY!”
(DEAD AIR)
I had ninety minutes to make the signs with the Sharpies and the poster board, and line up a big shot of morphine at 12:59 p.m. (to go with the pain pump thingie they give you….because a bolus shot is a good idea when you have to shoot a video and It feels like an angry, rabid mule, possessed by Satan (or perhaps the spawn of Satan), is kicking you in the stomach. Repeatedly. With the mule getting progressively angrier with each kick. I also had to gather up my nurse friends to have them distract the charge nurse from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. (allowing us ample time to shoot), script the fake John Lennon/Yoko One “bed in” thing where they sang “all we are saying,……is give peace a chance”….thereby turning it in into “give Jell-O a chance instead.” And I had to write the lyrics for “Give Jell-O a Chance” And I had to clean up and put some hair product in….because we were filming. Oh, and I had to do some more laps to get the colon halves talking again.
J-Hof and Stevie JC rolled in at 1 p.m., sixty seconds after my bolus shot of morphine carrying my guitar, tripods, and cameras. They were hammered and laughing. Like, really hammered. And loud. The morphine bolus shot kicked in three minutes later, as J-Hof pulled out a two liter of Coke, three big 7-11 Slurpee cups, and a fifth of Jack Daniels…..and as we had cocktails, I no longer minded that they were really, really hammered and really, really loud. Nope. Not even a little bit. Because what was the charge nurse going to do? Kick me out and give them detentions?
Plan your work. Work your plan.
This was Keisha….she ran interference for us:
The nurses on our team distracted the charge nurse and shut us into my four west room for sixty minutes of filming. We made this knock off video of the John Lennon/Yoko Ono bed in and “give peace a chance” BBC interview in less than an hour. Looked at from any angle, in any type of lighting, it is not a particularly amazing video….however, given the utter lack of planning and thought that went into the video. And given the fact that our collective IQ’s during that single filming hour were less than the average temperature in Phoenix, we did OK. Phoenix in January, not Phoenix in July.
This link will take you to the “Give Jell-O a Chance” video. Have you been having cocktails? It is far, far better to watch after a few dozen cocktails:
That Sunday was one of my favorite Sundays ever. It was four years ago today. Thank you, Stevie J. Clark, for saying “fuck it” and throwing it into fifth gear. And thank you for the whiskey.
I took a cab home from the hospital several days later, once my colon started communicating properly again. The nurse walked in with the discharge papers, smiling, and asked “who is picking you up, Mr. Mulligan?” I replied “I have not met the man yet; however, I am going to bet he speaks with some sort of accent and was a nuclear physicist AND a brain surgeon in his native country….” Have you ever noticed that you will never, ever, ever, ever find a cab driver who says “oh, yep, I drove a cab in my other country, too.” Nope. You will never, ever, ever hear that sentence. They wheeled me out front in my surf trunks with my pee bag attached to my leg (see above……fourteen days with a catheter so the bladder could heal….this was day six. That is eight days shy of the full fourteen). The cabbie looked at the surf trunks and the pee bag with concern, I told him that it was made of a space age polymer, tested by NASA for years and he had nothing to worry about. Then, I asked him to please stop by a liquor store on the way back to Bird Rock. Because I was all hopped up on pain meds, had more waiting for me at CVS, and…..by golly….LeBron James was announcing his decision in less than three hours. And that LeBron decision needed far more than Percocet. Far more. The cabbie stopped by the liquor store.
I got home and followed the nurse’s instructions to change out the leg pee bag to the permanent pee bag and hung the permanent pee bag on the bed while I opened the champagne. Four minutes later, I fell fast asleep to the first seven hours of the ESPN special on “The Decision”. Poor time to sleep when you have five cats…as I did at the time. Little known fact. Pee bags dangling from bedposts are as attractive to cats as catnip coated real mice holding popsicles made of raw salmon. I awoke thirty minutes later to all five cats playing tetherball ( a al Napoleon Dynamite at recess) with the bed mounted pee bag. I screamed at all five of those damn cats (they scattered like the French at the beginning of WWII) rapidly changed my catheter back to the leg mounted pee bag (which was dead sexy anyway…..it’s HOW you wear something, not WHAT you wear) and proceeded to watch LeBron James tear another piece if Cleveland’s heart out in the most annoying fashion ever. This was precisely when Mr. James decided on “The Decision”. Those are the guilty pee bag tether ball players……….
That was this week, four years ago. That’s a pretty cool week. And I know cool weeks. Better than 99.6% of the population.
It was not cancer. We got that damn video shot and laughed non-stop about it for a month. LeBron got two titles. I got some cool scars. And if there is a lesson we all took away from Shane Falco in the god-awful and overacted football movie “The Replacements” it is this: “pain heals, chicks dig scars, and glory lasts forever.” Amen, Shane Falco. Amen.
This was written in forty-three minutes listening to the following tune eleven times. Feel free to cue it up as you read. Or don’t. Your choice. People like choices. This is Deer Tick: “Art Isn’t Real”. Enjoy
Last evening at 7:00 p.m., while I was on a business call in my hotel room, I heard the following being sung outside my hotel room. Loudly and off key.
“The sun will come out tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow
there’ll be sun
Just thinking” about tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow till’ there’s none
When I’m stuck in the day that’s gray and lonely
I just stick up my chin and grin and say oh
The sun will come out tomorrow
So you got to hang on
till’ tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow
You’re only a day away!
When I’m stuck with a day that’s gray and lonely
I just stick up my chin and grin and say….
The sun will come out tomorrow
So you got to hang on till’ tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow
You’re only a day away
Tomorrow, tomorrow I love you tomorrow
You’re always a day away ………..ayayayayayayayayayayayyyyyyy”
That “away ………..ayayayayayayayayayayayyyyyyy” spelling above is neither exaggerated nor misspelled. I asked the people on the other line to please hold, muted the phone, opened the door (right about when she hit “bet your bottom dollar”) and saw a slightly built (yet powerfully voiced) seven year girl standing down in the middle of the courtyard, belting out some “Annie”, I would have gotten video, but I had three people muted and on hold on my phone….while watching one of the most magnificent performances of that “Annie” tune in the history of mankind.
To get the full effect, you have to understand the layout of this particular hotel. I’m on the fifth floor of eight floors and in the middle of the hotel is a faux courtyard. Each room exits out onto a catwalk-like thing that circles the courtyard and she was on the lobby floor, looking skyward, and belting it out. Needless to say, the acoustics are quite solid. Here’s where she was.
More specifically, she was right where that yellow “floor wet, do not slip” sign is. They may have put that yellow sign there as an homage to her performance.
Next to her was her six (ish?) year old sister, staring at her with that wide eyed wonderment that generally only a six year old has for most all things in life. That was as cool as the girl singing….loudly, off key, and proudly. Three feet away were mom and dad. Mom was giggling and dad was hugging mom and smiling. That was as cool as the six-year-old sister looking up in wide-eyed wonder at her older sister.
This morning, I took the service elevator down to breakfast with the seventy (ish) year old London couple here for their first visit ever to the United States. We took the service elevator because two of the three elevators in the center of the courtyard are out for service and as we stood there waiting for several hours to go downstairs, the seventy year old woman (pointing at her husband) said “I’VE been taking the damn service elevator down instead of waiting, but THIS one here won’t use it.” I replied “I’ll most certainly use that service elevator with you”, which prompted her seventy year old husband to jump right in with a “me too!”
On the way down in the service elevator, after reminding them that we beat the British back in 1776, 1777, and 1778, I asked them about the first thirteen days of their trip and the woman regaled me with tales of Chicago, Mount Rushmore, The Badlands, and everything in between. She had the same wide-eyed wonder look in her eye as the six year old as she described everything they saw on a trip they had planned together for forty years.
I loved the parent because they stood back, watching and smiling, for the full four minutes. I loved that seventy year old woman because she retained the wide-eyed wonder that she had at six. Each were wonderful to watch.
A phrase far superior to “God bless you” when someone sneezes, “have a nice day” when you walk away from seeing a friend, or “have a great trip” when someone is going on vacation would be “may you see the world through the eyes of a six year old”. Because seeing the world through the eyes of a six year old…..each and every day….would be quite cool. Quite cool, indeed.
My forty-ninth birthday is around the corner and I love being 48.93 today. Moreover, I look forward to being 49 and then 50 because each year brings the most interesting people and things into my aquarium. For example, a seven-year-old girl belting out “Annie” tunes in the lobby of a hotel while her family cheers her on. These are the things that I have wished for each birthday, from my first year to this past year………
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
Two ponies
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
John Travolta’s white suit from “Saturday Night Fever”
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A son
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
A pony
Clearly my wish for a pony will never come true. For my 49th birthday my wish will be to look at the world with the eyes wide open of a six year old for a full twenty-four hours. That’s better than a pony. Much, much better than a pony
Mind of Mully Biz Haus Shoppe 