The Song Drew Me There

I can proudly say that I went to Bilbao, Spain, before Bilbao became hip.

When I announced that I was going in 1995, Bilbao was so unhip that my friends said:

       Why do you want to go to Bilbao?  It’s a gritty port city.
       Why do you want to go to Bilbao?  There’s nothing there.
       Why do you want to go to Bilbao?  It’s a faded industrial city.

Only my brother understood.  He said:

       Bilbao!  There is a song about Bilbao!!!

The song is in German, lyrics by Berthold Brecht and music by Kurt Weill.  It was the opening number in “Happy Days”, a musical that was a flop and closed after seven performances in Berlin in 1929.

The Bilbao Song is strong, stark, and unrelentingly nostalgic.  It wistfully describes Bill’s Beer Hall in Bilbao, a place where you could be yourself and you could get anything you wanted.

CLICK HERE to listen to the song in German (3 minutes), with a cello to heighten the wistfulness

When I went to Bilbao, I did not go looking for Bill’s Beer Hall because it is fictional.  I saw that the city was faded and gritty.  Huge cranes for unloading ships dotted the skyline.  I ate in a restaurant.  I left after spending a day there.  I felt satisfied because I had been in the city in the song.

CLICK HERE to listen to the song in English (2 minutes), sung by Andy Williams

When I was in Bilbao, I was unaware that they were building a new museum.  It opened two years after I was there.  The museum is a branch of the Guggenheim, and was designed by superstar architect Frank Gehry.

The Guggenheim is shaped vaguely like a ship and curves along the riverbank.  It is covered in titanium and reflects light that bounces off the river.  One of the main river bridges goes right through the museum.  It is spectacular.

Nowadays no one calls Bilbao faded; it is vibrant.  Bilbao has become hip and is a main tourist destination.

Bilbao once had a song.  The song drew one tourist there.  Bilbao now has a museum.  The museum draws thousands of tourists there.

Architecture has the power to transform.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Obby Dobby Is In Danger

I sent invitations to everybody in my mother’s address book.  The invitations were for an event called "Edith At Eighty", my mother's eightieth birthday pary.

I was delighted that Mr. & Mrs. Kirmser were coming.  They were our neighbors back when I was a teenager, and their son was a friend of mine.  I had spent a lot of time hanging out at the Kirmsers’ house.

On the day of the eightieth birthday party, the guests greeted me as they arrived.  Mr. Kirmser stood in front of me, with a look of concentration in his face, and said, “Hobow obare yobou tobodobay?”

I was at a loss for words, it sounded like Mr. Kirmser had had a stroke.  He repeated, again with great concentration, ““Hobow obare yobou tobodobay?”  I did not know what to say to him.

Then he broke into English, and said, “When my son heard I was coming to this party, he taught me to say that.”

Of course!  Mr. Kirmser had not had a stroke, he was greeting me in Obby Dobby, a language that his son and I were fluent in, back in our teenage years.

Obby Dobby was a secret language, spoken by putting an “ob” in each syllable.  If the syllable starts with consonants, the ob goes after the consonants; if the syllable starts with a vowel, it goes before the vowel.  How are you today? becomes Hobow obare yobou tobodobay?

Pig Latin is another secret language.  As well as Measurray, a language promoted by a New York disk jockey named Murray The K.  In Mesaurray, the phrase How are you today? becomes Heasow easare yeasou teasoday?  This language seems to have died out when Murray The K went off the air.

The value of these secret languages is that you can talk to someone in the presence of a third person who does not know the language and you can say anything you want.  The languages are also intellectual exercises, and fun.

Recently I was at a dinner and someone their made a joke about seeing four teenagers at a table in a restaurant.  All four of the teenagers were texting on their cellphones.  The assumption was that they were texting each other rather than talking to each other.

Then it hit me.  Texting enables you to talk to someone in the presence of a third person, and you can say anything you want.  Texting has its own way of abbreviating syntax and phrases; so, it is an intellectual exercise.  And must be fun because teenagers do it all the time.

Now Obby Dobby is in danger of dying out.  So is Pig Latin.  These languages are endangered in our electronic age.  Who needs a secret language when you can text?   

Now I worry about who’s going to buy all those t-shirts that say “IGPAY ATINLAY AMPIONCHAY.”

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Knee Deep In Rice

A dear friend from high school was watching a Johnny Cash tribute on television.  When the show featured the song “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town”, my friend started to laugh.

Laughter was uncalled for.  A show about a beloved icon of American music demands reverence.  The song itself is tragic; a young cowboy, ignoring his mother’s plea, takes his guns to town, where he is shot and he repeats his mother’s plea as he lies dying.

My friend was laughing because the song on the television show took her back 50 years --- back to the time when we were in high school, and I wrote a parody of Johnny Cash’s song.

Our sophomore year English teacher was named Barker Herr, and he had a pernicious case of halitosis.  I could not resist:

      A young cowboy named Barker Herr grew restless on the farm
      A boy filled with wanderlust who really meant no harm
      He changed his clothes and shined his boots
      And combed his dark hair down
      And his mother cried as he walked out

      Don’t take your breath to town, Bark
      Leave your breath at home, Herr
      Don’t take your breath to town.

Parody also served me well in the Army.  In Basic Training, you were expected to vocalize: chanting along with the sergeant as he counted cadence: “I want to go to Vietnam; I want to kill a Viet Cong”.

However, when I finished Basic and started Helicopter Mechanics Training, our platoon had no sergeant.  We had to march ourselves from the barracks to the training area and back again.  And we got to choose out own vocalizing.  The blood-thirsty cadence counts we chanted in Basic Training were dropped. 

We first turned to whistling.  You would be amazed at how nicely you can march to the theme song for “The Addams Family”.  The finger snapping helps keep people in step.

When we weren’t whistling, we were singing.  It was a grand time for parodies.  First came The Monkees, who used to think that love was just in fairy tales.

      I used to think that Army was just in fairy tales,
      Meant for someone else but not for me
      But Army was out to get me
      That’s the way it seemed
      The military haunted all my dreams.
      Then I saw my sergeant, now I’m a believer
      Not a trace of doubt in my mind
      I’m in the Army, I’m a believer
      I couldn’t leave it if I tried.

This song did more than make us snicker as we marched.  It encapsulated our mutual experience.  A few months earlier we had all been civilians, surrounded by happiness.  Now we were soldiers, surrounded by a world over which we had little control.

Next up: “Sealed With A Kiss” by Gary Lewis And The Playboys:

      It’s gonna be a long lonely summer
      Over there in Nam
      Hiding from the Cong
      Working on my helicopter
      Knee deep in rice.

This was harder to march to, but it expressed the angst that we had about being deployed to Viet Nam.

Parodies are nice and easy.  You don’t have to invent a tune.  You know the pattern your new words should fit into.

Parodies are powerful.  You can create a parody that encapsulates a mutual experience or a parody that expresses angst.  And, maybe, you can create a parody that will make someone laugh during a Johnny Cash tribute 50 years after you graduated from high school.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com