Music of the Day: Bryan Savage, Gotcha’

One of the “newbies” at the slaughterhouse has brought a “boombox” to work, which in and of itself is not a bad thing. The bad thing is that this person’s “taste” in music seems to consist entirely of a love of “oldies.”

Today, for instance, I heard Janis Joplin, Cher, the Guess Who, Huey Lewis and the News, and Steppenwolf. That’s just what I allowed myself to actually “hear.” I tried to concentrate on other things so as to avoid listening, but Janis Joplin and Cher, for instance, penetrate my brain to its mushy core and I had hoped, some many decades ago, that I would never have to hear another “song” by either of those two. Today, I heard both, almost back to back, and that may account for my little accident at the shop. Nothing serious, just a missing finger (which is making writing this both slow and painful—but not nearly as painful as having to listen to Janis Joplin and Cher).

My job is sometimes pure drudgery and it is often messy and smelly, but today I felt sorry for the DJ’s at the radio station that broadcasts this recycled swill. How does one sit in a tiny broadcast cubicle all day and listen to this stuff? There must be powerful, soporific drugs involved, that’s all I can figure—I’d go stark raving bug-nuts in about 30 minutes, or roughly ten old songs, and my collapse and breakdown would occur live, on-air, and in stereo.

And as I write this (yes, I’m still at the slaughterhouse) the absurd and profoundly stupid lyrics to “One Toke Over the Line” are wafting about the room, with some toe-tapping going on over in one corner of the shop. My shift must come to an end soon or someone else is liable to lose a finger, or something more vital. I can’t take any more of these musical flashbacks, so here’s hoping that we encounter no “oldies” stations on the islands—more reports on that as required. . . .

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.