Recently I read my 2nd cartoon strip in two days where the cartoonist drew an animal texting. In the first one, a dog texts a picture of doo doo to his owner. In the second one, a dog sniffs along using an app called, “Ipeed.”
Yes, pets are texting. Commenting on humans, of course. But have we reached the end of communication, people?
Now, I’m a fan of communication. A very big fan. (Cue NYC joke: “Are you a Giant fan?” “No, I’m an air-conditioner.”) Like most folks, I can also be incommunicado. Just not feelin’ it. You feel me? And when that happens? I seek music. Music. When nothing else works. When they’re nothing left to say.
Especially when death is closing in all around. All these rock stars 69-ing. Dying at the age of 69 or close to it. And my favorite Uncle Billy on his last legs in the suburbs of Detroit…
So I go to the movies to hear music:
Elvis Costello’s 2015 performance doc called Detour. Costello is an excellent communicator about conversation. His songs contain lyrics like,”I guess the reason we’re not talkin’/There’s so little left to say we haven’t said.”
That’s from “Good Year For The Roses.”
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/elviscostello/goodyearfortheroses.html
From the same song, this one works when trying to talk about death:
“While a million thoughts go racin’ through my mind
I find I haven’t said a word”
Another great EC song is “Talking In The Dark.”
“Without you, I’m not conversational
Without the sense of the occasional
Without you, I miss talking in the dark
When the barking and the biting is through
We can talk like we’re in love or talk like we’re above it
We can talk and talk until we talk ourselves out of it”
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/elviscostello/talkinginthedark.html
More recently, he wrote this:
“And every word that I have spoken is true
Except for those that were broken in two”
That’s from “Church Underground.”
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/elviscostello/churchunderground.html
In Detour, ” Elvis has a gigantic TV onstage and he goes and stands inside it. Hilarious! He sounds like an old vaudeville performer only with modern lyrics. In fact, his final song? “Buddy Can You Spare a Dime?”
Music makes me feel so much better.
Because meanwhile, everybody’s 69-ing. 69 used to be about sex, now it’s about death. David Bowie and Alan Rickman, dead at 69. Dan Hicks, Maurice White, and Glenn Frey, each 74.
My Uncle Billy made it to 79. His father, my grandfather Papa John, made it to 102. Something in the math is off there. More about Uncle Billy TK soon.
Did you get all this? Any of it? What I’ve been trying to say? Yes? Then I have communicated with you. A better way perhaps — through storytelling, the way Elvis Costello does it.
Until next time,
