This summer, man. Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.
It was the kind of summer that had me contemplating breaking glass on The Emergency Plan, but then I read this: “… nearly all of the people I served with were unfulfilled in their expectations of the whole affair, myself included.”
No kepi for me!
***
I was also saddened by Paul Ryder’s death. He was the bassist of the Happy Mondays.
I’ll spare you the (boring) explanation, but I had a miserable senior year of high school. At night I’d put Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches into my Sports Walkman and go for long runs. It was a reliable tonic.
O! “God’s Cop”! “Step On”! “Dennis and Lois”*! Thou art forever my jams!
Here’s a bit from Ryder’s Times obituary:
A year later he taught himself to play the bass guitar. In his untutored style, he referred to the instrument’s strings simply as “the fat one, the thin one and the one down from the fat one”…
… it was Paul who came up with the name Happy Mondays. After signing on the dole on a Thursday, his benefit giro was supposed to arrive on Saturday morning but seldom came until Monday.
My friend Ben said in our chat group that the Happy Mondays might be even better than the Smiths. I was all: Dude. You know the penalty for blasphemy. It is only in deference to your grief that I stay my hand.
But I will say this. If you’d like me to be quiet and stare off into space for several hours, ask me if I’d rather see the Smiths in their prime, or the Happy Mondays in theirs.
***
Lastly, shoutout to the lady on the Charlotte – Des Moines flight who, seeing Twin 1’s silent meltdown at not being seated next to me, readily switched places (to a middle seat, no less). She was awesome, instantly. Let’s be like her.
Alright, back to school, back to work. Be well, Gentle Reader.
* When the twins were little I would merrily sing at their bathtime, “We all learn to wash at the scrubbers club, where we wring out the dirt with rub-a-dub-dub!”