Showing posts with label Roger Sterling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roger Sterling. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 03, 2017

Teaching the world to sing, one record at a time

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It may have been something I ate. Still, last night I dreamed that I was Don Draper from Mad Men . . . the post- enlightenment Don Draper who'd like to teach the world to sing (in perfect harmony).

I was with Roger Sterling and my ex-wife Betty (as opposed to my ex-wife, Betty), who wasn't dying of lung cancer anymore. We were obligated to go to some stuffy occasion at some tony, modernistic (circa 1971) apartment in some newish high-rise that looked like all the other newish high-rises.

That detail made it difficult to figure out exactly where we were going. Eventually, we did. And we got there.

Inspiration from a 1964 record sleeve
As expected, the affair was staid, and the guests dull. And stuffy. Fakey, even.
Naturally, being Don Draper, I had a drink or three and for some reason wandered into the kitchen, which wasn't tony or modernistic. It was old, and it was a little shabby.

A gal was in there, dressed like a normal, blue-collar human being -- not a wealthy poseur. She was cooking and pouring drinks. And she was dancing to the music from an old radio or phonograph, I forget which.

I looked back out the kitchen door at the immaculate, expensive and quite sterile condo. I looked back into the kitchen, which wasn't any of that.

I decided the door was a portal into another dimension, and the kitchen was in another world -- a more real world than where I started. Then I walked through another door on the other side of the small kitchen area, and I found myself in a garage or storeroom. (A garage would have been damned interesting, considering high-rise. Then again, alternate dimension . . . so we're good.)

There, a young person was teaching an old, suspendered geezer to do the latest dance . . . to that music that was playing. I may not have known what the hell was going on, but the song had a good beat, and you could dance to it. My self-consciousness wasn't needed here, and it was all good.


WHAT DOES it all mean? Beats me -- I'm no shrink.

Maybe I taught the world to sing after all. Maybe I should have taught the world to dance instead -- though if you've ever seen me dance, you'd probably tell me to stick to the "sing" thing.

For the purposes of this here podcast -- 3 Chords & the Truth -- I'd like to think it's the kitchen . . . and the down-to-earth young woman cookin' and pourin' bourbon-and-Cokes. I'd like to think it's the other young person teaching the old fellow something more contemporary than the Lindy hop.

I dunno, maybe it's the geezer teaching the young'un the Lindy hop.
Either way works.

Any which way you call it, however, it's not the expensive, modernistic apartment full of stuffed shirts acting like a bunch of phonies. Old Don merely endured that kind of thing, and Enlightened Don liked it even less.

And come to think of it, there's not a damn thing "alternate" about the Kitchen Dimension.

Now give me a bourbon-and-Coke and a hug.

Ding!