Oh, Mama, Can This Really be the End?

I had one of those moments the other day. Although that could probably be equally well phrased “one of those days the other moment,” given the chronometric upheaval I know I at least have experienced with the presidential transition – how can it be true that that was less than a fortnight ago?? Any time-warp happening in your life, or is this merely my anomaly?

I had an appointment with the dentist this week, and not one of those twice-a-year scrape-clean-and-floss numbers that I have come to tolerate pretty well. This time there was some actual drilling and excavation required, courtesy of a couple fillings from decades back that were failing. But we got the lidocaine administered with minimal discomfort, and headphones on to drown out what even the dentist acknowledged would be potentially annoying noise and vibration. Almost perfectly synchronized with the startup of the drill, up came the Gilmour-Waters classic “Comfortably Numb.” And, truthfully, for all but the last couple minutes of what must have been ten or more, the pertinent tissues were, indeed, in something close to that state. Head, not so much.

In hindsight it might have been the visual and aural ads for a stage show here in town right now (or lidocaine side-effect?), but over the last couple days I have experienced internal gremlins riffling through my mental playlists for pertinent citations, as exemplified by this musical gumbo:

Put on my blue suede shoes
And I boarded the plane
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues
In the middle of the pouring rain

She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call
'Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall

You say you’re gonna get your act together
Gonna take it out on the road
But if I don’t get out of here pretty soon
My head’s goin’ to explode

Passin’ trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles

Now the preacher looked so baffled
When I asked him why he dressed
With twenty pounds of headlines
Stapled to his chest. [ed: brings to mind “News” in Butch Cassidy]
But he cursed me when I proved it to him,
Then I whispered, “Not even you can hide.
You see, you’re just like me,
I hope you’re satisfied.”

Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale

Halfway home, we’ll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea

Sure I like country music
I like mandolins
But right now I need a telecaster
Through a vibro-lux turned up to ten

Her home is on the south side, high up on a ridge
Just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge

Now the rainman gave me two cures,
Then he said, “Jump right in.”
The one was Texas medicine,
The other was just railroad gin.
An’ like a fool I mixed them
An’ it strangled up my mind,
An’ now people just get uglier
An’ I have no sense of time.

And after we get good and greasy
Baby we can come on home
Put the cowhorns back on the cadillac
And change the message on the code-a-phone