Mamma Told Johnny Not to Go Down Town

When I joined the Navy a lot of people said it was a bad move, that I wasn't the type of person for that life and that I have a problem with authority. In addition I just never appeared to be that gung-ho type of dude. It is probably more of a surprise that one of my favorite things that I have done in the military was running cadence in Officer Candidate School. Navy OCS is not only run by Marine Corps Drill Instructors, but the best ones they have. In turn there are some serious son of a bitches working your ass fifteen hours a day.

My Drill Instructor was Gunnery Sergeant Carlsson. He was a Recon Sniper. He was a thin 150 pounds with 250 pounds of bad ass stuffed into him. I liked him a lot, and he didn't hate me which is probably the mushiest a man like that gets. When we'd run cadence, feet hitting the ground every 3/4 of a second with precision screaming about killing someone halfway around the world...you really felt like you could take on the world; and win.

"Just hit the sand and I know I am in Iran, we're gonna kill who is in command...."

"Greased Gun, K-Bar by my side, these are the tools that make men die..."

"Running through the jungle it's hot and dry, can't stop running boy you're gonna die, when up jumped a cobra and he looked at me, wanna be Recon go through me..."

"Up from the rack in the middle of the night, I make a head call and I'm ready to fight..."

"When I get to heaven, St. Peter is gonna say, How'd you make your living boy? How did you earn your pay? I replied with a whole lot of anger, lived a live of death and danger..."

Some of them are funny, others are terribly motivating but there is one in particular that is quite beautiful, and in this version one can actually hear the emotion of the Drill Instructor's voice while he and the men chant is moving down the road. In its entirety: (The first verse is interwoven after every verse)


Lo Right, Lo Right, Leeeeefta
Lo Right, Lo Right, Leeeeefta
Lo Righty, Lo Righty, Lo Righty Lefta

Mamma told Johnny not to go downtown
The Marine Corps recruiter was hanging around;

But Johnny went downtown anyway
To hear what the recruiter had to say

The recruiter asked Johnny what he wanted to be
Johnny said I wanna join the infantry.

So Johnny caught a plane out to Vietnam,
To fight some people called the Viet Cong.

Killed a hundred men with his rifle and blade,
Only god knows how many lives he saved.

Johnny was bad and he was brave,
Johnny jumped on a hand grenade.

Saved the lives of the men he led,
But now poor Johnny he was dead.

Before he died this is what he said,
To tell his momma when he was dead

Momma, momma, don't u cry,
The Marine Corps motto is Semper Fi.

Singin' Lo Right, Lo Right, Leeeeefta
Lo Right, Lo Right, Leeeeefta
Lo Righty, Lo Righty, Lo Righty Lefta

It is beautiful, touching and it almost makes me cry every time I listen to it. I think about Johnny's mom crying over his grave when she is handed a folded flag. About the Honor Guard firing three times in precision. About how that took place countless times throughout the years.

Then other times I think about Johnny being some punk high school kid with a bad attitude in a white t-shirt with a pack of cigarettes wrapped in the sleeve making fun of the athletes and the geeks, working on cars and cruising the strip. How they shaved that duck tail off his head and put him thousands of miles away to kill people he never even knew existed. And how even though Johnny was not the typical recruit he eventually was made into a man, when the time came he made the right decision. How thousands of Johnnys made the right decision time and time again for their comrades, their country and so many other reasons they never even thought of or new about.

I am confident that in this recording there was at least one recruit who was a Johnny but instead of 'Nam he lost his life in the mountains of Tora Bora or Fallujah. Right now there is another one singing this cadence in the early morning haze and heat of Paris Island who will do the same. It supports the idea, the existential idea that all those Johnnys are still living, as long as the Uniform survives so does the man, as long as there are men willing to sign on that line, so does his spirit and with that so do us all. "Lo Right Lo Right Leeeefta, Lo Right Lo Right Leeeefta..."


Here is the actual song, the video is worthless as the song is beautiful.

"OL'55" Tom Waits- Closing Time

It's quarter after twelve and I have to be up in five hours for work. My girl just kicked me out of her apartment after a fight, and sitting here now I'm thinking about what kind of mess my life is and how much I hate every minute of it. The thing is I usually think that, it isn't a depression or a negativity issue, hell I don't really know what type of issue it is but I do know it is always with me.

The funny thing it is difficult for people to have compassion with my situation. And they are right to feel that way. Once a week I play golf at a private club that is 200k a year to join and I don't pay a dime. Every other day I eat and drink like a King at a very famous and elegant restaurant in Manhattan where a meal for two will run over five hundred dollars and I don't pay that either. I am my own boss and make my own rules. I have two cars in Manhattan one of which has a set of plates on it that lets me park anywhere and do anything without any consequences. Women hit on me even though I have a gut these days, I go to parties in penthouses. And when that gets lame I paddle out and surf (quite competently) a sport which people seem to take up and fail at constantly. Afterwards I'll take the Penn out and Striper fish. I know how to fly, drive a boat, played a professional sport....but even sitting here now reading it all doesn't cheer me up. Single, in a relationship and anywhere in between and I am still just numb and stumbling through life most of the times.

But there was one time in particular when I felt totally whole. When things could never get any better and I was living in the moment like an Alzheimer's patient looking for his slippers. In the moment. Not thinking. Not knowing. Not caring. Not worried. And while at that time I was not listening to this song it is all I think of when it is played.

I was driving on Route 98 or Lilian Highway on the outskirts of Pensacola. I just crossed the Lilian Bridge and on the left was two trailers sandwiched together making an adult book store. I laughed looking at it when I passed by thinking of the time my old roommate and I drove there at two in the morning just to check out the crowd, a roommate who was now long gone and never to be seen again. A man who had been a bike messenger, a veterinarian and a trader on the Chicago Futures Exchange. In short a man who was never at a loss for a good story. I continued to drive along barefoot with a bathing trunks on and a linen shirt unbuttoned. If Kiara Kabukuru and Manute Bol had a child I was darker than him at the time and my waist still fit into those Dolce & Gabanna 31 jeans I just gave away to the clothing drive a month ago. The carburetors in my 1988 Grand Wagoneer were ticking and sputtering through the early morning purple as the sun was about to rise at my back. There was no soundtrack except for those carbs and the wind noise passing through the triangle window on the passenger's side. I had forty three dollars, two twenties and three singles in my webbed pocket of my trunks, the last time I had been with a woman was over a year ago and there wouldn't be one for almost another year.

When I finally turned around the sun was dead in my face so I threw on my issued aviator glasses, turned the A/C off, rolled down the windows and smelled the sweet humid air of the south permeating through the old leather seats and mixing in with the coconut air fresheners I had scattered throughout the tan interior. Back past the adult book store, over the bridge and due south until I hit the bridge that lead into Perdido Key. Once a top the sun was cresting over the gulf on the left, on my right I could see far into Alabama. After the bridge I took the gradual right turn and floored the heavy V-8 for the three mile straight away that took me through the state park, through just empty sand dunes on the right and a glass blue-green sea on my left until I hooked a full right hand turn down Lafitte Reef where my house was the third on the left. I parked the Wagoneer under the stilt house, walked into the back yard which was a canal that connected to the intracostal waterway, jumped off the dock, rolled on my back and kicked around.

I climbed the decayed wooden ladder on the dock, walked the small boardwalk back to my house, sat on the wrap around porch and took a fresh pinch of Copenhagen. My mind was still blank, empty and effortless. Opening the sliding doors I passed out on my couch with the windows open and a small breeze wafting though the room.

I've had times like that before, and I've had times like that since. But I always keep coming back to that one time. They have always gone quickly, they have always been holy and man I was feeling alive right then and there. I don't think there is any message in that. It isn't something I lament over the passing of, it is something that just is and when it is it is perfect in every way. When lady luck is with you it is something you just can't explain.

"When God Made Me" Neil Young-Prairie Wind

While it has a beautiful Melody "Imagine" is on my list of most hated songs. Written by a pompous hypocrite who screamed of equality while living in The Dakota above those "average people". Mr. Peace and equality also not only cheated on his first wife but was known for beating her at will. He abused and neglected Julian, would go on violent, drunk benders for periods of a time and also stood in the face of other musicians spouting vile hatred. Such behavior is of course par for the course for some musicians and stars and to be honest it is not that behavior I am condemning but rather the blatant hypocrisy the man portrayed.

The song "Imagine" in my mind is such a polarizing attack at religion and in a way subverts the message he is trying to instill. Because the problem is not religion (and in full disclosure I am not religious in any way) but rather the followers of said religions that hold a viewpoint that cannot be changed. Kinda like John's....It is hard to write a song about acceptance while asking the listener to imagine a world without a method of life that the majority of the planet hold dear to their hearts. But I guess we aren't as smart as John and can't make decisions for ourselves.

Strangely enough Neil Young's politics are on par with Lennon's and 180 out from my own but this song is the song "Imagine" hoped it would be. It is a cry for tolerance without denouncing any particular race, religion or country while asking. Neil's genius is using that deity's, who causes so much strife in the world, viewpoint to question the beliefs that followers of said deity hold so true. He isn't saying that God is a bad thing, nor is the belief and dedication to him. I think Neil is saying that the man himself doesn't care. I think that he presents his questions of religion in simply that, a question and not a demand; and does so in terribly simple, beautiful verse.

Did he give me the gift of love
to say who I could choose?
Did he give me the gift of voice
so some could silence me?
Did he give me the gift of vision
not knowing what I might see?
Did he give me the gift of compassion
to help my fellow man?

It sings like a lullaby. It makes one think right there on the spot the beautiful attributes of man and what we do with them. It makes one think of how fortunate we are and how incomprehensibly intelligent a being would have to be to create us with said attributes. How we can chose who we love instead of being forced by blind genetics. How we can see beauty and more so horrible sights that will certainly change us because we have free will.

In the end my beliefs of what God is like is that of a parent, he puts some ideals into our heads and lets us run wild without restraint hoping that we will act steadfast to those principles. We can or we can't but he isn't going to make us do either. And this is the reason why I love this song and these idea and keep them close to my heart. True tolerance is tolerance. Period. I'd like to imagine a world where this was true. And that means that because I don't think homosexuality is a way I would want to live my life or my children live theirs I am not a bigot. It also means you shouldn't push that life style on me or my children because they are mine. Like God I will instill ideals in their minds and if they chose to live as a homosexual I will be happy for them. It means that because I don't think dogs should be in the house that I hate dogs, nor do I think you should keep them out of yours.

Three days ago I was walking down Worth Street here in Manhattan and a man wearing a Texas Rangers hat and jersey was walking in the other direction. In my mind it is fully acceptable to hit that person on the back of the head with a solid steel pipe and watch him fall to the ground. And the reason why is because he is doing it on purpose, he doesn't like the Rangers that much. What he wants to do is start controversy. That man is not unlike the Gays parading down Fifth Avenue shoving their beliefs in our faces or the Muslims trying to build a Mosque when 80% of the people don't want it there. That is not tolerance. That is not trying to live peacefully with one another and that is exactly what Lennon does in "Imagine"

Neil on the other hand leaves it for us all to decide and he does it more beautifully and with more class than any before. He does it coming from a somewhat radical background of political activism but a background devoid of hypocrisy and hatred. A background of true tolerance, from such a background it is no wonder he is such a beautiful man and artist.

"War" Edwin Starr-June 10th 1970 Single

On January 31, 1968 The United States launched the Tet Offensive. In the course of one year 4,124 American forces were killed, 19,295 were wounded and 604 are still missing till this very day. There were riots over civil rights at The Universities of Wisconsin, North Carolina and Howard, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead with Robert Kennedy. The Zodiac killer was running rampant through the streets of San Francisco, and HIV made its arrival in the United States. That same year Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield penned one of the most famous protest songs of all time and gave it to The Temptations. But it was never released until it after Edwin Starr's version in 1970.

Things were not getting better for the United States at that time. Early in the year Jeffery MacDonald murders his wife and family at Fort Bragg, My Lai takes place, The US invades Cambodia and four students at Kent State were killed by Ohio State National Guardsmen. Jimi Hendrix dies and the US repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. These events changed the face of America, scarred it and left it with wounded pride.

But the music of this era is in my mind the best we ever had to offer. There was The Stones and The Dead, Airplane, Joplin, Motown, Folk, Dylan; while America was losing its footing on the world stage it was solidifying its place as the music center of the world. Whether it be love or hate when we are tuned up we are at our most creative, we are alive and at our most full animalistic selves.

Within four seconds Starr comes in with full Baritone and captures the feeling of the era. There are no if ands or buts about it here, the listener is getting thrown right into the riots and walking through the jungle scared shitless. He's watching a monk burning himself in the streets, watching his friend bleed to death screaming about going home while medics stick needles of morphine into his chest. And if that doesn't put you in the fight from the start when the boots start stomping in at the last minute visions of polished black leather coming for you certainly will.

There's B-52s at 20 thousand carpet bombing while A-4s drop napalm on villages. There's mosquitos on every visible part of your sweat stained body as you walk through the jungles waiting for a booby trap to go off or the man in the black pajamas to jump out from the bush. There's a woman with bushy underarms and saggy breasts burning her bra on a street corner next to a black panther extending a leather glove into the air. Jim Lovell is one hundred miles above the earth trapped in what he deems his final resting place, and a scared Second Lieutenant makes a decision that will change the course of his life. All these events are bottled up in that first four second drum roll until it comes back out with all the venom, spit and hatred that marks the dark side of man.

War itself has existed without stoppage for over four thousand years. As much as we want it to stop it never will. For one decade the effects and affects of war produced some of the most amazing soundtracks ever laid down. It makes me wonder why we are so different today. Maybe it is because we like to say we are concerned about the war but we don't feel it ourselves at home, maybe if your son was over there scared, shaking and wondering if this day will be his last while you sit at home worried sick over him, thinking the same thoughts we would feel it. But instead there's that new reality show on tonight and what the fuck I'll just throw a new plasma on the credit card so I can watch it in style. The moral bankruptcy on all levels is as heartbreaking as the intellectual and artistic dearth in popular culture. From my count the United States has had three Viet Nams since the first one but only one that spurned musical genius. I don't think that says a lot about us or at least it doesn't say anything good. The only thing that war was good for is gone in the present day: Music.

"Seven Year Ache" Rosanne Cash-Seven Year Ache

The day I had my old Porsche delivered a guy around my age who lived in my building came down into the parking lot for a look. He had shaggy blond hair, a small belly hanging over his stone J Crew pants that fell over Gucci Loafers, his blue oxford shirt tucked in except for the back which hung over his bridle leather weathered belt. He looked like a typical wealthy southern boy from an upbringing foreign to my own and of course I didn't like him for one second. However we started talking about cars for a while and he told me I inspired him to go get his old jalopy out of the garage for a spin. I had to go back to work for the remainder of the afternoon so I said I'd see him later and maybe we'd catch a drink but I said it in the way we ask someone how they are doing as a greeting and never pause to hear an answer.

When I returned home I saw a silver 1962 Ferrari 250 with red leather interior sitting next to the Porsche. It had some patina to it, the seats were torn, the headlights were inoperable and it smoked terribly. He threw me the keys saying "Have you ever driven a Ferrari?" which I had many times but never one from this era, followed by "...well if you can fly a plane you can drive a Ferrari" We cruised around town with thick blue smoke wafting through the air along with the notes of twelve cylinders of steel clanking up and down five thousand times a minute.

We would go on to be great friends. And he would tell me how he thought I was a tanning salon douche bag from Miami with bad taste when he first saw me. That first day we saw each other before the cars when he was looking at the apartment that he would eventually buy. We would go on to have nights upon nights of drunkenness, whether it be at his place at the Ritz Carlton where we made a pitcher of martinis in a pewter cask forged by Paul Revere or at the Timuquana Country Club where Ella would feed us drinks until we headed to the men's locker room where a big old black man would make us some more until the final one when he would pour it into a Styrofoam cup and send us on our way. We'd head out to my old Range Rover, put both of them in the cup holder, fire up that eight cylinder, roll down the window and put this song on. Like many things he introduced it to me. He also introduced me to TSI which was some strange hipster bar downtown which was usually our next destination.

In TSI we stuck out like pornstars at a NOW rally. Khaki pants, button downs, Rolex Submariners and some form of Italian loafers for both of us. We'd sit at the end of the bar and watch old communist propaganda videos that were projected on the wall while the Brooklyn Carpetbaggers (or wannabe Brooklynite dreamers) danced the night away in their usual sway and uninterested manner. I remember drinking ice cold Kronenbourg 1664 while hacking Marlboro Lights. I remember him telling me this song was about me and remember thinking about it and not fully understanding what the hell he meant, it could have meant a lot of things and to this day I am not quite sure I know for sure.

But what I know for sure is that Rosanne Cash is a wonderful talent. As much as I don't like her father as much as 99% of the rest of the world (read: as much as those hipsters who had no idea who he was until he did a Nine Inch Nails cover and became cool to them) I think she certainly got a good share of his genes. Her voice has the range and her lyrics have that simple dead in you face purity that the old man had a knack for nailing down. I have always loved the way so many of her lines in this song roll off the tongue and while the 80's style engineering in the behind it is so passe I think it works.

So what does it mean? I always took it to mean I was slumming it with the women I was running with around town at the time. Of course there were good ones but there were a lot of sleeved tattooed ones walking in and out of my door with substantial emotional problems. There was an ex Playboy Bunny with two kids who flew off the handle constantly, another who drank Jack Daniels like a Hell's Angel, a bosses twenty year old daughter...Then I also think it speaks to where I was then in life and how I was holding myself back in so many ways.

However I don't really care what the song means, who I was or how many years we took off of our lives those two years. It was one hell of a ride, often times quite literally and as much as I hated being in that town we sure made the best of it while we were there. He moved more south, I moved up north and am always waiting around for him to call at the last minute to tell me that he is in town and if I wanted to grab a drink later, just like that first time surrounded by those two beautiful machines on the river in our parking lot.

"Losing My Touch" Keith Richards-Forty Licks

So I have been gone a while but I guess that is what happens when life occurs around you, when the digressive diatribes I write about actually happen, when you're down and alone or up high and reelin' with the blonde on you arm. I have some new music including a choice Mumford & Sons album which was sent to me from Korea by a very dear friend, some ooooold school Fleetwood Mac (bet you never knew they were a blues band before they started banging each other...) and even some obscure Elton that I never even knew existed.

But for now I want to dig into this beautiful, deep Kief song and in particular the one day when it struck me and made my heart standstill. I have gone into great lengths about how much I adore Kief's phrasing, licks and songwriting and this song is certainly no different. However this song hit me in the face one sunny Florida day and though I hate the word it was the most surreal experience in my life.

I had just gone through a big change in my life, I was lonely and a full fledged alcoholic. Every night I'd slam a dozen martinis followed by a twelve of Rolling Rock and a shaky drive home. I'd fall asleep restlessly and wake up to the depression of alcohol and the situation I was in. A few months into it I purchased the car I have always dreamed of in hopes it would snap me out of my funk when all it did was throw another drain on my bank account. It seems as though there was really no way out of it and I was consumed with simply staying in this situation until my liver failed or I killed myself with a car accident.

But there were a few times when I felt different and I would drive in that newly purchased car out to the beach, jog six miles and lay around looking at the college girls playing catch (badly) and flirting with the boys much younger than myself. One day I rolled down there on a terribly clear, dry eighty degree day, the kids were back in school and there was little activity on the beach itself except for some retirees strolling with their dogs and the random kite surfer a quarter mile out gliding along. The remainder of the day I have very little recollection of until I hopped back in the car and cruised along the strip.

Well there really isn't much of a strip in Jacksonville Beach by the pier but there are two surf shops and a few bars. As I turned onto the main road there was not a soul on the street. No one. There was nobody at the bar that overlooked the road and the beach beyond in the distance. It was the eeriest thing I have ever seen, zero activity with zero people anywhere to be seen. I had the windows down and started to hear the beginning of this song. It was so loud I check to see if it was coming on through the speakers in my car. The thing was that I don't even have a working stereo (to this day) in that car.

I pulled over to the side of the road and shut the engine off, opened the door and closed it very slowly as if I didn't want to wake the street and the town up. I gingerly walked across the street as one would across a bedroom trying not to wake a child. I couldn't pinpoint where the music was coming from and walked into the surf shop and didn't see anyone. Headed back out again I looked into the bar and saw a huge speaker facing out of a window and walked towards it. About midway through the street I stopped and just listened, unconsciously and without self awareness I stood there and heard:

I ain't going to keep it long, baby
But just long, long enough
I've got to pick up my passports
And I've got to get my stuff

I don't know why it happened. I don't know how it happened that day for a few minutes on a bright September afternoon there was no one within a few hundred yards, no cars driving and not even a stray cat running across the street. If I could have figured it out I wouldn't have had those goosebumps running all over my body and that sinking feeling, tightness between the cheeks...or any other reaction to being terribly scared and curious at the same time. It seemed demonic. It seemed surreal and it seemed perfect. It was a hand coming down and smacking me across the chin.

It didn't smack me out of my problem. That same night I drank another twelve martinis followed by another dozen Rolling Rocks. But it did make me feel better and more aligned to the world because I not only realized that there are times when even Kief loses his touch, and at that time I certainly had lost mine, sometimes that is okay. Sometimes it is a good feeling to be hopeless, to know that things couldn't possibly be any worse. Then other times that experience makes me think about the randomness in the world and how when you do lose your touch it could be just your time to do so, the odds are staggering. Staggering just like that day, like how I changed my life and how staggering music can be when it becomes the soundtrack of your life.