Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about the Rez Juke catch-up (4 of 9).

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Ok...so far all I've learned about trying to write shorter entries is that the problem I have with writing any kind of blog entry is most often my personal attention span. I posted my last entry an hour and fifteen minutes ago...I went downstairs to check for mail (two minutes, three tops), came up, opened Facebook, had one notification and a message from my mom, and boom! It may as well be 2028 now, and instead of looking up Greyhound fares for my next trip back home during Thanksgiving I should be wondering where all the flying cars from The Jetsons are.

I've also realized that unless I make these things about five sentences long, they won't all be done by the end of tonight...and I'm giving up Game Four of the World Series (#LGM) to accomplish this, because trying to concentrate on writing while listening to anything else means for me nothing gets done.

So anyway, this song..."I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself". I don't have a really funny personal anecdote for it, so this'll have to do instead.

It was originally written by Burt Bacharach   and Hal David  , and has been covered by a gang of recognizable artists (including Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick)...although I believe the first time I heard it was on The White Stripes' Elephant.

And while I know I've had to have heard plenty of Bacharach compositions all throughout my life, my original impression of him will always be from the movie Austin Powers  . And now that I'm thinking about it, I guess I do kinda sorta have a story.

My aunt and uncle, years ago, purchased a second home kinda out in the middle of nowhere...a little vacation cottage thing with some land. Nothing big...they'd go up there on the weekends during the summer with their dogs just to get away from the city for awhile. Us brilliant kids called it "The Green House" because, well, it was a green house.

And, like the brilliant kids we were, my sister and I had access to it on occasion. It wasn't close enough that we could just run up there whenever we wanted, but still enough to make a weekend out of it. So we'd get a bunch of friends and a ton of booze and get stupid and have fun.

Since The Green House was out in the sticks and no one was there all that much during the year, my aunt and uncle didn't get cable or satellite tv service or anything. There was a video store up the road I think, so we'd rent some movies for entertainment when drinking games weren't doing it for us anymore. And Austin Powers   was a popular repeat-viewing option at the time.

Apparently everyone passed out during it one late Saturday evening- everyone, with the exception of my buddy Verno, who could easily outdrink everyone else. And when you're 25-ish and can outdrink everyone else, you don't always realize what it is you're doing when you're so hammered yet also the last one awake. The old adage always goes "Don't be the first one to pass out at the party."...but it's kinda messed up when you're the last one, because there's no one else to tell you when you're acting upon a bad idea.

Verno's girlfriend at the time happened to wake up during one of the Fembot scenes  ...and she found him sitting on the floor in front of the tv, half-dazed, totally oblivious to the other people in the room sleeping in chairs or on couches, and he was givin' himself a good ol' once-over. She was startled, because who wouldn't be when they catch someone jerkin' off, and she called his name a few times. He just looked at her blankly, and kept at it like "Whatever."

I don't remember how the story, ummm...finished (I know...poor choice of words), because this happened gawd, like, over 15 years ago, and most of the original people present that night have since gone their separate ways. And that, my friends, is, I guess, the story of Verno not really knowing what else to do with himself.

"I need your sweet love
to beat love away."
Lyrics.  

Oh crap...the dead people! Forgot about that. Ol' Burt's still kickin' it with the ladies, but Hal passed on a couple of years ago. And the White Stripes are pretty much never, ever, ever getting back together again. Poor Meg White. Everyone used to call her the talentless, ugly one, but then Jack White moved to Nashville and Elvis'd up his hair like some kind of hillbilly Grease cast-off. RIP, Jack White's cooler long hair...Meg, I'll take my coffee with two creams and two sugars, please, and stop giving me a flyer for your bands "No Cover Charge" night at the shitty dive bar you're playing at if you don't want to keep fishin' 'em outta the tip cup.