Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Middle Aged Business Man Sings Second Childhood Blues and Then Some


I was outside on Sanday morning, having a whale of a time "personalizing" our garden by adding those quirky touchs that make it ours, as seen in the above photo. I planted a prickly pear cactus (salvaged from our previous garden) in a cement container perched on a tall metal pedastal. Nice! You don't think to meet a cactus eye to eye. The air was warm, the morning was flawless...
And suddenly our neighbor to the southwest did what he sometimes does: he introduced the entire community to his idea of bliss. The stereo- apparently hooked up outdoors- was cranked and we were awash in "L.A. Woman". It dawned on me as the music careened through several different Doors greatest hits, that this wasn't even Jim Morrison and company but some Doors cover band. I can only imagine our neighbor flailing away, swinging some invisible microphone, lariat-style over his head as he plangently crowed about loving him two times. Heaven help us. I sure hope he was wearing leather pants This is surely mid-life crisis writ large.
I don't know why these individuals who wish to share their great good taste never treat our ears to Brahms or Prokofiev or Bartok and turn the neighborhood into a mini-Tanglewood. Typically, their selections run to songs and bands popular when we were teenagers, and I for one have had enough of The Doors. The morning ran straight down hill, however, as The Doors were followed by The Allman Brothers.
Despite the aural assault, I completed my garden chores and was quite happy with the results. I am considering hooking up a feed to my studio stereo and blasting my idea of auditory nirvana  Shostakovich string quartets followed by Alban Berg piano miniatures with a goodly dose of, yes, Kurt Cobain. Rock on, little brother!

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