Stranger to Stranger: A Brief History of My Life in Vinyl and the Record all of Seattle and America Needs to Hear. (Whew)

A Sleep Up Ambien Production

   Let us appreciate together  the greatest album of, in our year of Paul Simon, 2016. Let us also appreciate that with the help of reading I know four S words that are both adjectives and describe the best album of ever this year?! I thank my Jesuit education and inspiring writers.  Calling to us with it's many musical feel good pop on top/ sardonic and ironic/ you don't need a gin and tonic (Ok, enough of my attempt at rap.)

   Simply put. I haven't heard an album speak to me like this since I took that hit of acid in 89' and the Alf posters on my wall were talking to me. (I'm kidding. I was to young for Alf). Let us begin by turning to the reason for the write! 

But first, a little something of history. Bare with me. 

STRANGER TO STRANGER 

"I'm just jittery, it's just a way of dealing with my joy."-Paul Simon (Title track)

   I fancied myself as a vinyl listener back in 08' when then freshmen senator Barack Obama from Illinois was running on hope and change, and I was all out of it. The Change. I was broke. I hoped to get out of the rut I was in stuck between school, dependency,  depression and whatever my highs and lows of the time could find. I had to wait to get randomly shot by an East Cleveland gang to find my joy.

It happens.

Shit?

Sometimes.

I had discovered many years before this year that my parents had a record collection. I can remember being about ten and wondering why we kept an old civil war refrigerator. (Yes, they existed. Hey, General Grant needed to keep his brew cold.) I looked inside one day old enough to walk but crawling to what I would soon discover, history. My parent's musical history and the timeline I would soon discover of music put on it's original form, vinyl. The problem was we didn't have a record player that worked! My Dad had more CD's and still does then Motley Crue has police reports. I had to carry the torch.

Fast forward to the summer of 08'. I decided to take a road trip to the south, stopping in Louisville to visit some family. I stopped in Bardstown Rd in downtown Louisville. A place known for it's hip culture and southern men Neil Young would be proud of.  This was the height of my depression. This summer. I won't get into it. I knew I would recover but I needed something, anything to keep going and music has always been my holy land. Up before then I held on to my parent's records but needed something to play them on. That all was about to change! I'd find my audible Excalibur!  

Some people remember their first kiss, their first time having a snack pack, the first time they heard the Beatles. I remember all of those and the first time I went to a Poison concert. Yeah I was born at the end of 83' to give you some perspective. 

There's a scene in one of my favorite movies Almost Famous where our hero, a clueless nerd with a knack for writing is inspired to follow his dreams by listening to the album Tommy in a dark room with a candle. "It will set you free" his sister writes.

It's how I felt in that record store buying my first record player, which I still own and play for my daughter. 

"Diagnosis: Schizophrenic 

Prognosis: Guarded

Medication: Seroquel 

Occupation: Street Angel" 

Paul Simon 'In a Parade' Stranger to Stranger

   I couldn't wait to get back to my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, the home of rock n roll. Feeling like a rock star I remembered my southern trip and had such anticipation to get back to my room to listen as William Miller did with the snap, crackle and pop of history. 

   Most of the artists my parents listened to I had already heard of and had been fond of. They usually had the record and CD but not always. 

   Up until that point I had never heard an album in its entirety. I had been cheated by singles. Oh I could listen to a cd all the way through, but it wasn't the same. People ask me all the time, and by people I mean my lovely wife. "Why do you listen to records?" To Which I say something wise like,

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." Dr. Phil Mcgraw!

No, I listen to vinyl because I want to appreciate the music as the artist intended it to. You don't watch a comic, watch a movie, look at art and decide at the 3:00 mark, "Eh, I'm done. Next!" Or maybe you do. You do you, and I'll do me. 

What I knew of Paul Simon in the summer of 08' is that he was half of the duo Simon and Garfunkel (I is smart), he played his song 'the Boxer' when SNL came back after 9/11. He had a hilariously groovy song and video with Chevy Chase "Call me Al." Back when I was 13 a renaissance friend who was a hipster before it was cool and identified put the song "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes" on a mix cd. I was impressed. 

What I also knew that summer was I had Paul Simon's classic album Graceland as a record. 

   I can remember it was the first album I placed on my new record player and was immediately transfixed on the sounds, spins, scats, and other S words. I can't believe at 25 I never heard this ALBUM. The lyrics were hilarious and actually made me laugh and the music was music to my ears.  For that moment I danced, depression was lost and I felt that if I played this record at least once a week for the rest of my life I could die happy. I didn't know I had to get shot to sustain happiness but hey it's not for everyone.

I digress.

It wasn't a collection of songs so much as it was a symphony to me. The rest of that summer I felt like William Miller.

"Mom?! I'm in Cleveland!"

FAST FORWARD 8 YEARS LATER!......................... Where are we going?

   I know I'm late to the party. The day is July 3, 2016. I'm at my job at Microsoft going through the motions. I'm scheduled today at an off site location through my company and I get to sit front desk in a building where eight people work and read all day. My job is hard. So hard in fact I have to decide if I want to bring my cell phone charger in, you know in case I use it to much during.....WORK.

I'm getting off topic.

I read some site and it said that Paul Simon had a new album.

Cool.

I brought it up on you tube's channel and hit play.

There's not a giff, video, or picture to express what I thought as I sit there drinking my free coffee at work at 6 in the morning. 

Simply put? Magical. 

Seattle's self described only newspaper The Stranger has found her soul mate in Paul Simon's aptly titled album.

STRANGER TO STRANGER

   Seattle, much like the rest of the country, is going through hard realities. In our Emerald City the Wizard of Oz is illusive with inequality. I'm lucky enough to live on the east side,  Redmond, where our problems are that the WiFi might be a little in and out and traffic is bad. 

   (As of this writing their have been two well known police shootings and shootings of cops in Dallas causing chaos, death, and destruction.) That's within two days. 

   I wish I could tell you that the opening sounds of Simon's twanged guitar (equipped with an opening of Buffy the Vampire Soundtrack like Howl), intricate sounds of various horns, drums, sounds could alleviate the sorrowed streets of America.

It won't. 

This voice is a stranger in a strange place and a strange time.

   Much like Seattle, Paul Simon has found that strangers are strange, witnessing strange behaviors.

(I'm not going to bore you with the intricate parallels between what I see as a critique of American society and this album's playful apocalyptic serenity it gives the listener. I can go on for hours, but I'd probably bore you.

I'll let you give it a listen. Paul's website. Also known as Paul's Boutique

Stranger to Stranger tells us the apocalyptic present time of our hero, with a heart for the homeless vagabond finding his way home. These 'street angels' OD, celebrate, creating for the 'hoot of it.' The street angels wants the American Dream painted in various forms. It's not just the 9 to 5. It's Jack Kerouac On the Road.

He's all of us. We are the street angels in spirit and one pay check away or one accident away from becoming just that.

The album wastes no time with humor and a dark sarcasm that only a Paul Simon song could fathom in The Werewolf. In this song, our stranger, our bridge over troubled water notices that a werewolf is coming.

This bass line comes in as if John Coltrane's bassist was inventing the MotherShip Connection as he steps outside to get a 'breathe of nicotine.' This Beuna Vista Social Clubesque jazz blends in so beautifully with Simon"Milwaukee man led a fairly decent life

Made a fairly decent living, had a fairly decent wife
She killed him. Ah, sushi knife
Now they're shopping for a fairly decent afterlife"

Sounds like a nice nursery rhyme eh? 

That's not even the werewolf. What is the werewolf that our hero sees?

"Ignorance and arrogance, a national debate

Put the fight in Vegas, that's a billion dollar gate"

Want to bet he's talking about what's happening in America right now? 

"Revenues, pay per views, it should be pretty healthy
The usual productions, and it all goes to the wealthy"

   The jovial tongue and cheek demise of our Milwaukee man to me is the disappearance of the life expectancy of white middle aged males in this country. Guess then, who's the wolf? 

Well, he/she could be all of us. All the fears we have of the invading hordes and I'm not talking about the White Walkers from Game of Thrones. Our own fears, often misguided rarely examined. Well the Werewolf will find out what they are. And soon.

Our hero isn't complaining  he admits. Some might call it a defeatist attitude but I think it's more then that. Our hero is more concerned with finding joy in what's perceived as the joyless. 

  Paul Simon makes clear he's going to remain as cryptic as a Pharaoh's will and as on point about cultural trends as Lenny Bruce. 

   Next up? Ever been to a club and you can't get into the VIP area you were once in? 

No?

   To superficial of an example? How about this.

   Have you ever been denied a student loan? A housing loan? Denied services based on your sexual orientation, how you identify or the color of your skin?

   Well hey give this a listen. It's deeper then the whimsical lyrics. 

No wristband? Sorry, you can't get through the door.  

What's the wristband? You decide.

  Remember when Jack Black talked about the man to the kids in the movie School of Rock.

  I'm sure Seattle residents who are on the line of poverty and destruction can relate to not having a wristband. How about the residents of the voter ID laws? 

   Our hero describes the scene when those who haven't been given wristbands rebel.

"The riots started slowly, from the poor and the lowly, From the kids across the low lands,

who can't afford the wristband." 

   We've all had and been denied our wristbands in life. Hey I remember when swatches were in and pogs and well I still play Magic the Gathering so no judgment please!

   The funked out jazz and cool Miles Davis feels go right into a clock ticking. Throw away track? Or preparing us for our Emerald City journey as we approach our street angels. I must admit, when I first heard this song it reminded me of sounds in the Bruce Willis movie The Fifth Element and a child like cartoon choo choo train making sounds. How's that for an eclectic sound? Paul pulled of the amazing track with sounds and precision that are as whimsical as our character who is living on the bottom rung of Seattle economically but whose spirit is of the most high. 

The song is as Seattle as the grey clouds and passive aggressive kindness. Consider the day in the life of a Seattle personisque lyrics. I feel like I had this conversation when I moved here to Seattle five years ago with a guy on Capital Hill. Did he know about this? This street angel? 

   Our hero ends up talking to this transient. His heart goes out to this street angel and many more like it. He says hi, and he replies. 

"Nobody talks to me much

I said, nobody talks to me much

Nobody."

So he says
"I make my verse for the universe
I write my rhymes for the universities
And I give it away for the hoot of it
I tell my tale for the toot of it
I wear my suit for the suit of it
The tree is bare, but the root of it
Goes deeper than logical reasoning

   Paul could have taken this track after he made the song 'Homless' off Graceland. In fact, I feel so many of the songs on the Stranger album share a sardonic, uplifting beat and rhythm both lyrically and spiritually with the songs on Graceland. The Tree is bare but the root of it, goes deeper then logic or reasoning. My favorite lyric so far in this album that has been on repeat since I heard about it. 

I can remember that summer day of 2008 coming from Mississippi to Tennessee living the Graceland lyrics as I couldn't wait to play records for the first time. I no longer feel like a Stranger in a strange place Seattle. Martha Stewart told, "It's a good thing."

"The Mississippi Delta was shining

Like a National guitar

I am following the river

Down the highway

Through the cradle of the civil war

And my traveling companions
Are ghosts and empty sockets
I'm looking at ghosts and empties
But I've reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland"

Well, the review ends but the music stays the same and changes with our days folks. Why only four tracks to review? 

You be the judge, jury, and hopefully not the executioner of the ethos that is this album.

We are werewolf's who need wristbands becoming and interacting with street angels.  

   

Steve Martin said it best, as I take a break from writing to continue to find joy in cleaning. "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture."

Well it's been fun dancing this love shack. 

Sleep up, and sleep in Seattle . Tune into the good vibes. This is Action Jackson signing out of service. Have a raining day.