Prime The Pump

Is it just me or is the human race failing to live up to its potential? Maybe my expectations were too high. We tend to kill the good ones, don't we?

Maybe my only role here is to show the ones around me where the joy hides.

The villains have devised a way to keep any of us from criticizing the military industrial complex. Shame the critic as unpatriotic. Scare the populace with the threat of terrorism, nuclear holocaust, raging immigrants. Imply that to question the military is to disrespect the soldier. 

The real enemy wears stars.

We need to fight for love. Not oil, power, land and ego.

Come on rock'n'roll- save us again.

Louder Music, Finer Opium

Well, sir, having been sliced and diced, fried, dyed and laid to the side, folded, spindled and mutilated, run over, run down and run ragged- here comes Valentine's Day. If cupid sees his shadow I don't see my heart until April fools' day. I'll be glad when this silliness is over.

Sometimes I worry, whatever will I do when my beauty fades? How will I make my living? Then I remember, I don't have any beauty. I don't do anything. You call this a living?

The simple minded always seemed pure of heart in my eyes. Then came politics.

Enjoy every biscuit, sweet girl.

Folded, Spindled, Mutilated

If overthinking is the major source of unhappiness, I must be the most miserable soul alive. To tell you the truth, I'm making big plans for happiness. I'm learning more about love and dignity from my sweet Jamaica as our precious time together runs out.

No wonder I've never loved successfully. I've wasted time looking for it and it's always right in front of you. Let your love flow, indeed.

So Shoot Me

Sometimes the quicksand of despair gets the upper hand and I writhe for what seems like forever in an attempt to figure it all out. You might just call it the blues. I come by it honestly. My mom had a knack for misery.

Lucky for me, I score high on the other end of the scale, as well. Maxine had a penchant for joy, too. I test well.

Sometimes I talk too much. Sing too loud. I see stuff that other folks don't see. Oh, it's there. You just have to jiggle the dial to pick up my frequency. In an AM world, I'm all FM.

If you're gonna keep your soul and your heart open, you're gonna suffer some scrapes and some bruises. If you don't, you're gonna miss the best parts. Don't look for love, just love.

Soapbox Demolition Derby

When peace and love and rock'n'roll came along I was fashionable for, maybe, the first time in my life. It didn't last of course. Oh, I'm not complaining.

What the preacher calls loss, the poet refers to as a broken heart. Maybe the reason that we don't love with total abandon is to avoid some degree of the inevitable.

There's evidence that I love too hard. I was never cool. I could never be fashionable. Again.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

Hula Hoops and Spelling Bees

If I had known I was gonna live this long I would have danced more. Loved harder. I wish I had peed outside more often like the  other guys. I regret not having spent more time with each and every pet. I'm sorry that I chased the almighty buck, sold out and made all that commercial pop music.

Just kidding about that one.

If I ever told you that I love you then rest assured that I love you.

At some stage in life I remember overhearing older folks whining that there was a time when their spelling was perfect and their handwriting was pretty. I never believed a word of it. Now I can't spell kat. I can recall watching old fools pick up hula hoops and sigh about how easy it used to be as it slipped over the beer belly and down over the white socks. There's nothing to forget. Right? I can juggle bowling balls as well as I can hula hoop.

We all laughed a decade ago when Willie Nelson quipped that he had "outlived his dick."

Who knew?

No reason to get good at old age. It won't last.

Last Of The Rockers

I suppose that I've defined myself by rock'n'roll since I was a kid. Everything that I might call myself sounds pretentious as it echoes in my head. I'm no poet. Oh, I can string together a little alliteration and a few cheap rhymes but if you're waiting for me to swoop in for the kill with a pinch of assonance or a bit of flashy onomatopoeia with sentiment to stir your patriotism, take a seat.

If anything I'm less of an artist and I don't qualify for musician by anybody's standards.

Rock'n'roll was an attitude. The music was incidental.

Chuck Berry was an artist. A poet. A musician. Chuck Berry was a genius. Chuck Berry was rock'n'roll.

When a nineteen year old white boy went downtown in Memphis in 1954 wearing pink pants and a black lace shirt with too much eye makeup, that was a punk. That was attitude. You ever been to Memphis?

Little Richard. Gene Vincent. Fats Domino. Even the names drip attitude. What's an Elvis Presley ?

The music wasn't new in 1956 and the music's not dead in 2018. The attitude went out of fashion. The fact that it was unfashionable then is what sold it to us- the rockers.

Come on, rock'n'roll, save us again.