this one for Lou

If life is just a journey
I need a slower car
I’ve seen too many places
On the way so far
You need to go both left and right
To find out who you are
Before I was a nun
I was a cheap porn star

 

This for #lyricalfictionfriday

It doesn’t follow the rules which are explained here but it is Friday and it does feature lyrics.

And being Friday January 26 it is also Australia Day and, for better or worse, a significant day down here.

And if I’m trying to “erase you from my mind” then what better way to do it than erase your entire history?

Whether or not you agree with the indigenous peoples of this country that the date itself is highly offensive (and, let’s face it, you’d have to be an idiot not to understand why they find it offensive) I think it reasonable just to take their word for it and move it to one of the other 364 days available (how about the stupid day when we celebrate the birthday of the Queen of England – even though it’s not actually her birthday?)

But this old song has nothing to do with all that stuff. It’s primary sentiment is within the chorus and that is a sentiment that I would urge people to act upon regardless of the date.

Don’t waste time. These are the best years of our lives.

******************

Oh, Michael, all the lines are down. It’s Australia Day again

Everytime the wheel slows down I think of all my friends

Whatever happened to the days way back when the Bondi Lifesaver

was always raging?

I’m standing here in Oxford Street and the ghosts are howling

and geez it’s raining

Don’t waste time. These are the best years of our lives.

I said, don’t waste time. These are the best years of our lives.

I wish I had been around when the Bondi Icebergs reigned

Sometimes I sit and think of it and I dream of better days

Whatever happened to the days way back in the nineteen thirties

All those endless parties?

I’m still too young to understand how it was back then

When the party ends

Don’t waste time. These are the best years of our lives.

I said, don’t waste time. These are the best years of our lives

They say the circle turns around. There’ll be better days

And I don’t mind waiting

I wish time had stopped ten years ago

But I’m learning slowly life is always changing.

Don’t waste time. These are the best years of our lives.

I said, don’t waste time. These are the best years of our lives

I got a letter from Doctor Pepper it was ten thousand words to the page

He was talking about Gurdjieff, and I dozed off about half way

Whatever happened to the days way back, when the world was safe

And seemed worth saving?

We search for leaders on our hands and knees

But don’t ask David, because he’s still crazy

*********************

But ….. while I’m on the subject

Here’s another

I’m living in the land of Oz

I’m living here because

My folks lived here

They brung me up

And their folks lived here too.

(If you’re white you can come alright

But if you’re black you better get back)

Living in the Land of Oz

Another SOC challenge from Linda

Today’s odd prompt was not a word or words. It was 2 letters. ‘O’and’C’.

This is a true story. It really happened. I swear. If you don’t believe me then go see for yourself. I think it happens every day.

I was staying at Newport beach a little while ago with some time on my hands and I wanted to investigate a new Bose sound system and pretend that I could afford to buy it. Newport Beach is located in Orange County, California, within the United States of America.

Orange County. The OC.

I wandered across the road from where I was staying to a smallish ( by Californian standards) shopping mall to investigate. The shopping mall was called Fashion Island. That name alone should have alerted me to the fact that I was venturing into foreign territory.

As I entered I discovered a large sign upon which was a list of the various shops within the complex together with grid-referenced information so that one could then discover the location of any shop relative to the position of the sign.

I couldn’t find the Bose store but as I was scanning the sign I noticed beside me an attractive middle-aged woman who was in similar difficulty. The two of us must have looked like a couple of aliens from different sides of the galaxy who had arrived simultaneously at the same bus depot and were wondering what to do next.

Just then a police officer appeared beside us. “Can I do anything for either of you lovely people?” he asked.

It was not the sort of question that I am accustomed to hearing from officers of the law and I was a little taken back, but the opportunity was there for me to allow the woman to speak first. So I did.

“Ah, yes,” she murmured, “Can you direct me to Victoria’s Secret?”.

I know it is juvenile, but any mention of shops entirely dedicated to women’s underwear bring upon me feelings mixed with mysterious excitement and embarrassment. I avoided eye contact with her. Why, I wondered, amongst all these shops, on this day, standing beside me, did she have to ask about that one? But then I glanced over to sneak a look at her and realised that, in this strange new universe, she was preordained to ask for that very shop.. Nevertheless I wondered if the two of them may have been speaking in code.

The police officer smiled and took one step forward to where he could point directly at the lingerie displayed in a nearby window. “Why, ma’am”, he announced triumphantly, “it’s just there.”

She turned her head and looked at it. “Ahhh,”she said, “yes,” and then pointed in the opposite direction, “but my car is over there.”

“In the car park?”
“Yes. In the car park.”
“Well,” the police officer continued helpfully, “you could walk over to Victoria’s Secret, get what you need and then walk back to your car.”
“Yes, but my car is over there.”
“And Victoria’s Secret”, he pointed again, “Is over there, fifty feet away.”
“Can you drive there?”

If the police officer was frustrated at all then he wasn’t showing it. He thought about her question. “Well,” he offered, “you could go back to your car, drive out of the car park, turn right, join the highway, keep following it till you see a 7-Eleven where you turn right again, and that will bring you into another car park around behind us here and if you go right over to the west side of that car park and go as far forward as you can then you should be able to see the back of Victoria’s Secret. Which, as I say, is just over ….”

“Good,” she said, “thank you. I think I’ll drive.” And she was gone.

When he turned to me I expected us to share a moment of misogynistic mirth, but his face was unchanged. I wondered, for a moment, if I may have been in the company of an android.

“And what can I do for you, Sir?” he smiled.
“I’m looking for the Bose shop.”
“Well, Sir. That’s a bit trickier. It’s on a different level altogether and I think it might be best if we take the escalator just over here to our left. I’ll walk you there.”

And he did.

As we were nearing our destination I turned to him. “Let me get this straight,” I said, “you’re a police officer, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“With a gun.”
“Yes, Sir. A generation 4 .45 caliber Glock 21.”
“Don’t you have anything more important to do than guide silly old men around shopping malls?”

He smiled at me again. “Sir,” he explained, “this is the OC. This is Orange County. If we see a car on the road here that’s more than 4 years old we pull it over. Apart from that it’s quiet. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

 

Not only am I a few days late for this (how have I not noticed it before?) but I intend to cheat from the very first word (the 6th actually). It is for Linda’s SOC prompt (Though not the current one, it would seem) in which we are challenged to write something (anything) based on the sixth, seventh and eight words of a random document. I walked into my little library and closed my eyes before randomly selecting a book and opening it at page 1. That’s when I cheated.

So …..

May I skip a word? The seventh, eighth and ninth words in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez are ‘THE FIRING SQUAD’.

The book, if you haven’t read it, has very little to do with capital punishment. I think it has something to do with a community living in isolation whose understanding of a shared reality is different to those of us who don’t live in such isolation and have, therefore, a different shared reality and a different understanding. But not a more valid one.

It’s probably best to quote the whole sentence. “Many years later, as he faced THE FIRING SQUAD, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice,” it says, and I think that gives you a good idea of what is to come. Though the book does not have a lot to say about ice, either.

But today we need to focus on words seven, eight and nine.. THE FIRING SQUAD. Those three words, I think, say some fairly horrible things about humanity. I think they describe humanity’s inability to deal with itself. Humanity has come up with some fairly reasonable ideas about how to deal with itself over the years. But I don’t think THE FIRING SQUAD is one of them.

The ‘death penalty’ is, after all, a nonsensical term. I remember reading of a man who was strapped to the electric chair. He had done something very horrible, no doubt. The authorities asked him if he had any final words to share with the world before they flicked the switch. “Well,” he is reported as having said, “this certainly should teach me a lesson.”

I suddenly remember an essay by Henry Miller. ‘Murder the Murderer’, it is called. Mr Miller doesn’t think THE FIRING SQUAD is much of an idea, either. So I am in good company.

During One Hundred Years of Solitude we discover that Colonel Aureliano Buendia is just as confused about life as the rest of us although, in the end, he sees “a century of daily episodes, in such a way that they coexisted in one instant”. I don’t really know what that line has to do with anything or if it gives us any insight into life or, indeed, into death. I mention it because I notice today that I underlined each word about One Hundred years ago, the first time I read them.