Never really that big a Sinatra fan. I suppose that I prefer Dean Martin and it annoys me that he never seems to be taken seriously as a singer. Although I would be thrilled to have huge royalty checks in the mailbox on a regular basis, I don't think that I would have appreciated ol' blue eyes adding a lot of yeah, baby and I'm talkin' s to lyrics to "make the song his."
He should have written more of his own songs. He was, in fact, a fine writer.
Now when I do someone else's song I always hope that either they never hear my version or that I haven't ruined anything for them. They certainly ain't gonna have the aforementioned royalty checks in their mailbox!
A lot of my songs dance around the personal and the autobiographical but that's just because I don't have much of an imagination. This song of Walt's is what I have always wanted to say. It's real and it breaks my heart.
One of the first 45's that I can remember my mom bringing me home was Wynonie Harris' "Letter From Home" on King. I wore the grooves off of that little record. Had no idea what was going on, I just loved the song.
I may finally be mature enough to figure some of these things out. I know my mom didn't mean to bring me a record with a man singing about his girlfriend having another man's baby. If someone had explained some of this to me it's possible, not likely but possible, that I might have fared better in my romantic endeavors. Oh well.
I never saw Wynonie and I will always regret it. He made some of my favorite records and the joy in his singing is magnificent. I guess the women loved him. That's why you play music.
Sometimes the important lessons are right under your nose. I was raised by decent folks, sweet people. Not having a father in my life, I was blessed with four uncles who made sure that I missed nothing. Little Ronny got to go on all vacations. My four aunts all spoiled me with love and affection, more than any kid deserves. My mom, of course, is the best. She took me to see Bo Diddley. What more can I say? Cousins? Well, mine were, and are, the best. More like the brothers and sisters that I never had. The crown jewel in the family, we would all agree, was Grandma. Lottie was the kindest and wisest woman who ever lived.
Yeah, I learned to be nice. I was taught to be kind and polite and I learned all about good manners. My values remain pretty much the same as Grandma's and that's shameless bragging. She taught me all about standing up for what you believe, taking care of the ones who need it and the utter foolishness of war and conflict.
For whatever reason, though, it is just now becoming obvious to me that there is no scoreboard. From the new vantage point of geezerhood it suddenly occurs to me that life is no game. You don't look around to make certain that the other guy is playing fair with you. Don't misunderstand, there's really no reason to play the role of victim. Loving is all there is, though. You don't compete. There is never a reason to withhold love.
I always heard that if you were crazy enough to crawl into the ring with one of those old timey, wrestling bears that you had to play fair. If you squeezed, they squeezed back. If the bear detected, however, that you were trying to hurt him, look out. Old Dakota would crack your ribs.
Now I look back and fret that I've spent far too much time and energy measuring the love and kindness and fairness of the other guys. None of my business, really. If a person isn't playing fair, well, that's his grandmother's problem and it's probably not something that you're gonna change. Get away if you need to, but don't play unfair yourself. Love harder. Be kinder. The pure joy of loving is the reward. I love you all.
When I answered the phone and the high pitched voice said, "I'm looking for Ronny Elliott," I calmly replied, "This is he." Don Garlits introduced himself politely and asked if we might go to lunch during the coming week.
Shoulda' been a dream, right? Here was my idol, "Big Daddy" Don Garlits asking me if I'm available to go to lunch. I was writing an automotive column for the Tampa Tribune at the time and he was in the process of promoting his first autobiography.
It gets better. As we pulled out from his house in Seffner, he asked, "Would you mind if we went by and picked up Connie Swingle?"
Would I mind? Would I mind! Geezus! Connie Swingle. Another hero. The lunatic, beatnik drag racing genius. When Mr. Garlits came back to the car from rousing Connie, he told me that Swingle was sharing the house with a dancer, you know, a dancer, and that there were mirrors on the ceiling in the bedroom. I'm gonna have to level here with you: that's probably about as wild as my life has gotten. I'm a simple man. I do, however, have an active imagination.
Now, Connie had been in Tampa, serving in the air force, when he began to hang around Don's Speed Shop on Nebraska Avenue. He was making a pretty decent living with his illegal street racing adventures. It soon became obvious to Garlits that Swingle had special gifts. When he got burned badly for the second time, he decided to turn the driving chores over to Connie.
Several years prior, after his first serious injuries, he had reluctantly given up the driver's seat to a young, amateur stock car driver, Art Malone. Malone had gone on to establish himself as a professional race driver in many categories. His heart remained with the fire breathing fuel dragsters, though, and he was soon competing with his former boss.
One happy thanksgiving day you're nestled among cousins at the children's table. Next thing you know, BAM!, you're old and you just hope to wrangle an invitation to any family's holiday function so that you don't end up hurrying through a bowl of Grape Nuts to get to the cheap, Chilean wine.
Jamaica is either six or seven, depending on when I do the counting. Angel is about the same age. My only ambition at this point is to live about as long as they do to make sure that they're properly cared for. I was wallering in the blues when this occurred to me. I'm on top of the world now and it still makes sense.
I've seen all of the Charlie Chan movies. I've over-extended myself in romance. I've had erections that have lasted for more than four hours and I've seen London. I have not seen France and, probably, not your underpants but I did shake Roy Rogers' hand.
If I have ever hurt anyone, I'm sorry. I hope that I have mostly told the truth. I have few regrets. I look forward to everything to come. I'm planning on peace and enlightenment but I'm not betting money on it. I don't have any money. I'm waiting for new songs, too. The ones that just write themselves. The ectoplasm is full of 'em.
We just inch along, don't we? I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama in the fifties. Of course I remember all of the White Only signs. The O. J. Simpson case was a stark reminder of the polarization of blacks and whites in this country. I have spent all my life with the dream in my heart that color blindness was coming. Now the Trayvon Martin case exposes a new step backwards in our culture. It breaks my heart to hear the racist comments from all corners.
My new worry is that a society that is weak and scared is a society that looks for culprits. High unemployment and unfair distribution of wealth cause fear and distrust. A government that allows us to pay for their own families' health care and medical insurance while smugly denying millions of us access to any affordable quality of care for our own is unfair and unreasonable.
On the ropes, I believe, we look for the ones to blame. The same old racial stereotypes drag their chains back to haunt us.
I have hope and I have love. I admit that I lack patience. Race, I fear, has become a convenient wedge issue for the 1% to use against the rest of us. Actually, for us to use against one another. Love your neighbor and play fair. I don't care where you were born, you can easily develop color blindness. Stand up for the disenfranchised and take care of the ones who need your help. We're all brothers and sisters and we all need each other.
In my opinion this culture peaked with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. Our debt to the ancestors of the slaves that we brought to this continent can never be repaid. My life has been enriched with Little Richard, Amos'n'Andy, Richard Pryor, Muhammad Ali, Lead Belly and Barack Obama.
Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war. Bless us all; black, white, red, yellow and brown.
We need to be careful about the heroes that we pass along to the next bunch; the kids, the ones who wait in line to decide what to do with the planet. Seems to me that Jesus, the person, was a nice guy. Sweet and funny, concerned with the plight of the poor. Poor himself and brown, too.
I've had about enough of the Thomas Edison stuff and I believe that it's time that we painted over some of the Thomas Edison High School signs and put the sign painters back to work. We need some Chuck Berry High Schools and some Captain Paul Watson federal courthouses.
Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled to have light bulbs in the house and I'm partial to my record player, too. I'll give him some credit for some of his work but I want kids to learn the whole story. Not only did Tommy borrow heavily from Nikola Tesla for his technical work on AC but he seems to have cheated in competition with his rival, George Westinghouse, who was the champion for DC.
At any rate, he invented the electric chair as a gimmick to scare the general public into his corner based on fear of direct current. He sent his PR lackeys out into the countryside to demonstrate death by electricity. They would pay the neighborhood toughs to round up stray dogs to be electrocuted on steel sheets for the benefit of the local press. We remain the only first world country to boast of capital punishment.
Never really that big a Sinatra fan. I suppose that I prefer Dean Martin and it annoys me that he never seems to be taken seriously as a singer. Although I would be thrilled to have huge royalty checks in the mailbox on a regular basis, I don't think that I would have appreciated ol' blue eyes adding a lot of yeah, baby and I'm talkin' s to lyrics to "make the song his."
