OK, to get into the feelings of this story, play the first clip then the second asap after the first one ends. Then start reading while the song is playing for the full effect.
The time was the early 1970's and your pal was 26 and living the life. It was a time in my life where all I wanted to do was have some fun and party. And that feeling just ended last week. Just kidding it was two weeks ago.
Well any way back in the day I spent most of my time being high, getting high or looking for something to get high with. And all of my friends were doing the same thing. It was not with hard drugs like heron it was mostly pot,grass, herb, reefer, you know marijuana.
Well one of my favorite things to do was get small, (Look it up, Steve Martin use to do a routine about getting small.)turn off the lights lay back and listen to Alison Steele on WNEW-FM. She was a disc jockey who came on at 10PM and go all night. She would always start her show with a line of poetry and then segway into a great song of the day. She use to take me on such wonderful trips with her imagery, her voice and her musical picks. She had this sultry voice that just seemed to take you away to the outer limits. Or it could have been the pot, who knows.
I don't know why I was thinking about "The Night Bird", thats what she use to call herself, but it was a good feeling to think about her.
5 comments:
I remember that Steve Martin routine. My dad used to listen to those albums all the time when I was little.
Is 'getting small' really about getting high? I just thought he was being absurd.
I'm envious of older people who experienced radio in a more romantic time. Everclear wrote a song about staying up all night listening to the radio, waiting for your favorite song to come on. I can only imagine how that anticipation heightened the experience.
Ah!--The Nightbird! I heard about that gal.
And yes Spence there was something to be said for waiting for your song on the radio; or waiting for your pics to come back from processing after your vacation. The anticipation could be maddening. But in retrospect, it was exciting. Now its like, you get home from vacation and the vacation's over. Your pics are already done and its just back to work.
Music was a big deal back in the day. It seemed to go hand and hand with that moment in my life, that we all changing to world.
Music alway seems to mark periods in your life.
Lodo:
Luckily, I got to experience the tail end of the 24 hour photo development phenomenon. I met my wife in 1999 (we were both 18) and we have that entire whirlwind era of our lives thoroughly documented with cheap disposable camera pictures. It was always fun to wait for the pictures, and you're right, the anticipation could be maddening, but it was part of the experience.
I agree music's the best Willie. Which is why its so sad to see how how little great music's being made here in America. Poor kids. They have more of everything then we used to (food, music, entertainment) --and they get it 10x as fast. But the quality of it all is shit.
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