“You find a wave and try to hold on
For as long as you can
You made a mistake you’d like to erase
And I understand
What’s next for you and me?
I’ll take suggestions
We toss and turn
In undertow
Time to let go…”
LINK
“In Undertow”
“The English Patient”
Huge crush on KST.
“One For My Baby”
“The song was written by Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics), with Mercer allegedly inspired by his “torch” for Judy Garland, thirteen years his younger and someone with whom he would carry on a longstanding extramarital affair. It originally appeared in 1943 as part of a relatively forgotten Fred Astaire musical, but was longing for the performer who could inhabit the narrator telling his troubles to a bartender right before closing time.
Those “wee, small hours of the morning” were always the domain of Frank Sinatra, so it’s no surprise that he found the song intriguing. He first took a whack at it in 1947, but it wasn’t until 11 years later, on his downcast concept album Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely, that he truly claimed it from all other comers (although Bette Midler gained temporary ownership with her performance for Johnny Carson’s farewell show.) With pianist Bill Miller tinkling away the memories and Nelson Riddle providing the string arrangement to break his fall, Sinatra propped himself up against the bar and gave a performance for the ages. As he remembered, “The atmosphere in that studio was exactly like a club. Dave (Cavanaugh of Capitol Records) said, ‘Roll ’em,’ there was one take, and that was that. The only time I’ve known it to happen like that.”
“One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)” brilliantly hides all the particulars about the relationship that we know is the cause for the narrator’s drinking and bargaining. Instead it plays out as a one-sided conversation, yet one where we can tell Joe the bartender’s reactions by the tone of the lyrics and Sinatra’s subtle inflections.
Joe is benevolent when the drinker confesses, “We’re drinking, my friend, to the end of a brief episode.” He’s reluctantly obliging when asked to tune the jukebox to something “easy and sad.” And he stands fast and firm when it’s understood “I could tell you a lot but you’ve got to be true to your code.”
The bridge makes a sudden melodic turn, as if the narrator believes he has an important point to make. The hackneyed rhyme of “know it” and “poet” betrays the fact that the broken-hearted fool at the bar is starting to feel the effects of his alcohol. But he snaps out of it to reveal what he’s really trying to do, a futile attempt to small-talk his way out of a sadness too intense to bear: “And when I’m gloomy, won’t you listen to me/Until it’s talked away.”
In the final verse, the narrator realizes that his time in the bar is running out, which means that the reality he’s been trying to avoid is creeping ever nearer. Sinatra’s voice soars out of any hints of inebriation for a moment of vulnerable lucidity when he sings, “But this torch that I found it’s gotta be drowned or it soon might explode.” Then, one last repeat of that eternal toast to lost causes: “So make it for one for my baby and one more for the road.” Sinatra’s improvisation at the end, repeating over and over how long the road ahead for his character will prove to be, is one final dagger.
If your heart has ever been broken but good, you’ve had the same conversation as the one portrayed in “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road),” even if it was only an inner monologue with no bartender in sight. For all of you, Arlen provided the wistful score, Mercer the telling dialogue, and Sinatra, who else but Sinatra, the voice of limitless loneliness.”
Detroit, Michigan (2014)
“A friend gamely volunteered to go along on a Jay Bobb-version of sightseeing. First stop: 19946 Dresden Street, Detroit, MI.
Former childhood home of Mr. Marshall Bruce Mathers III, since bulldozed.
(It’s the empty lot directly to the left of the white ruin.)”
Warren, Michigan (2014)
From FB:
“After spending three years in ninth grade due to truancy and poor grades, Marshall Bruce Mathers III dropped out of Lincoln High School at age 17:
“Let’s do the math,
If I was black, I would’ve sold half,
I ain’t have to graduate from Lincoln High School to know that…”
Detroit, Michigan (2014)
From FB:
“This is the trailer park on Eight Mile Road where they filmed the movie. It’s scary to not only think people live in these pieces of crap, but that they also have to survive the brutal Michigan winters in them, too…”
Detroit, Michigan (2014)
From FB:
“The confluence of two very different musical directions.
Straight ahead and running East to West is 8 Mile Road, as made famous by Marshall Mathers. Running North to South and intersecting it at this point is Telegraph Road, as made famous in the eponymous song by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.
I bought “Brothers in Arms” in ’85 because of “Money For Nothing.” That got me interested in the band, so I coughed up the money to buy a cassette of “Love Over Gold,” which had both “Telegraph Road” and “Private Investigations.”
I remember sneaking in my knock off Sony Walkman into High School and sitting in the back of the class and putting my head down so I could listen to that tape over and over.
About the song, Mark Knopfler said he wrote the song after traveling by bus through Detroit: “The lyrics narrate a tale of changing land development over a span of many decades along Telegraph Road in suburban Detroit, Michigan. In the latter verses, Knopfler focuses on one man’s personal struggle with unemployment after the city built around the telegraph road has become uninhabited and barren just as it began.”
Knopfler added, ‘I was driving down this Telegraph Road… and it just went on and on and on forever, it’s like what they call linear development. And I just started to think, I wondered how that road must have been when it started, what it must have first been…'”
“8 Mile”
I went through basic agent training down here in the Golden Isles from October 2002 until January 2003.
It was the culmination of over nine years of concerted effort to obtain the career that I wanted:
Graduated in ’93, couldn’t find a job, joined the Army in ’94, got out in ’97, then spent five years working shitty jobs until I finally got the call in August 2002.
Once I got that call, it was a period of excitement and jubilation.
I quit my job training to be a police officer with the local city department and had about a month and a half to prepare for training.
However, I had no money and now no job, so I decided to try and get a job at Blockbuster during the interregnum.
However, the night before my job interview I went out and got REALLY hammered and then showed up for it late, unshaven, and reeking of cheap hootch.
I would jokingly tell my future classmates that I had been turned down for a job working at Blockbuster before becoming an agent. That always got a laugh.
During the time before that fateful phone call in which they told me I’d be receiving a Fed Ex envelope with the full offer of employment, I had plenty of opportunities to quit and try a different path since this one was clearly not working out. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give up on my dream.
I knew I had until the age of 37 to achieve my goal and I was willing to keep trying until I had no other options left.
It was a very bleak period in my life. I would call my answering machine (remember those?) multiple times throughout the day from my shitty warehouse job hoping against hope that there’d be a message from one of the multiple agencies I had applied with letting me know I had finally been hired.
So, when I finally got down here for training, I was ready to celebrate.
I was with a new group of people all pursuing the same career path and we were all ostensibly happy to be going through training together.
For me, basic agent training became much like College 2.0.
By the time we finished in January 2003, I was partying close to four nights per week. And then getting up at 6 AM to go do PT.
We had a really funny core group of guys with hilarious personalities, and because of 9/11 we were training Monday through Saturday. That meant that Saturday night was usually off the hook.
We’d start partying in one guy’s “dorm” room that was located on a corner and was near another classmate’s room. These “dorm” parties got so out of control the local private security constabulary would invariable show up at least twice per night to tell us to turn down the music and calm the fuck down.
The soundtrack of those parties was always Eminem.
“The Eminem Show” was released in June 2002 and I had never actually listened to him. I just knew he was controversial and “dangerous” according to Dick Cheney. (Or maybe his wife thought that.)
But someone had the CD and we listened to it from start to finish, over and over again.
Whenever “Without Me” came on we’d all rush to grab Bleakmore’s karaoke microphone and try and sing along with it. That’s what I’m doing in this picture, replete with my stylish sunglasses that I never wore (actually tinted eye protection from my job working in an industrial supply warehouse) and my ubiquitous Oakland Raiders ski cap. (Incidentally, the t-shirt I’m wearing under my hoodie was one I picked up in an Army/Navy store. All it said was “Innocent Bystander.” I wish I still had that shirt. It cracks me up.)
But what really turned me into a fan was the movie “8 Mile.” It was directed by Curtis Hanson (who directed the film version of James Ellroy’s book “L.A. Confidential” which I once read) and had a major and surprising effect on me.
I didn’t even want to see the movie, but we had nothing better going on one Saturday evening after training and we all decided to go to the local mall to watch it.
I was stunned.
For some strange reason I identified with the movie and with the Eminem character SO MUCH.
And I don’t even like rap music.
Even when I was teaching new agents I used to bring that movie up.
I’d ask them if they knew what it was about and when the few who had seen it tried to explain I’d correct them and say it was like “Rocky” except instead of boxing it was rap music. I’d remind them it was about a white rapper from Detroit (played by Marshall (“Eminem”) Mathers) who is working a dead end job and struggling with his life and his Mom’s an alcoholic and is dating one of his high school classmates and he’s trying to break into the world of rap and his nemesis is a guy named Papa Doc whom he has to defeat in a final brutal rap battle.
And I’d use that as an example of how you should always examine your life and understand both your strengths and your weaknesses and that you must be ready to acknowledge your deficiencies with your eyes wide open, because if you try to sweep them under the rug then they can be used against you. But by acknowledging your weaknesses and being clear-eyed about your life you can actually place yourself in a position of strength, just as “B. Rabbit” does during his rap battle with Papa Doc.
And then I would re-enact the final part of the rap battle, spitting Eminem’s sick rhymes like I was some gangsta:
“Don’t ever try to judge me, dude
You don’t know what the fuck I’ve been through
But I know something about you
You went to Cranbrook, that’s a private school
What’s the matter, dawg, you embarrassed?
This guy’s a gangster? His real name’s Clarence
And Clarence lives at home with both parents
And Clarence parents have a real good marriage
This guy don’t wanna battle, he shook
‘Cause ain’t no such things as halfway crooks…”
By the time I got to the “halfway crooks” line, a third of the class had their collective jaws on the floor, a third were rolling with laughter, and the other third were helping me to finish the lyrics.
When I whipped that little skit out of my ass and did it correctly, it was like being on stage. It was absolutely sublime. I felt like I made a real connection with these kids. These future agents.
And then I’d explain that Cranbrook was the private school that Mitt Romney attended and that the actor who played Papa Doc also played the Falcon in all of the Marvel movies.
In 2014, I made a pilgrimage to Detroit and hit all of the spots I could find associated with Eminem and “8 Mile.”
Still one of my favorite movies of all time.
February 27, 2021
On this date the runic half-month of Tyr commences. It is a time of positive regulation, when one must make scarifices and work hard in order to progress. Tyr (or “Tiw” or “Tiu” after whom Tuesday is named) was the ancient Teutonic chief god, ruler of the year, and the god who made it possible for Fenris the Wolf to be bound until Ragnarok, losing his hand in the process.
Song Of Ajax 