Have you ever tried to cancel your cable-TV service? I did. Tried, I mean, and I believe I have succeeded — but it was not too easy. I tell this tale in my Impromptus today. I also have some notes about politics, society, and showbiz. (Maybe showbiz is part of society. And part of politics, too.) Give it a whirl, here.
Let’s have some mail. Last week, I wrote about Tiger Woods and the critical question “When should one retire?” I was thinking particularly about athletes and singers.
A reader writes with a quotation from Grace Slick, of Jefferson Airplane and other fame. Talking about her own retirement, she said, “All rock ’n’ rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire.”
“Grace Slick” is a wonderful name. (She was born “Grace Barnett Wing.”) (“Grace Wing” isn’t a bad name either — except that people, on hearing it, might think “Gray Swing.”) On the subject of names, a friend lets me know of a golden one. William Lee Golden, of the Oak Ridge Boys, has been married four times. His first wife was Frogene Normand.
Sensational.
Saturday, I was writing about the honorific “His Excellency.” A reader writes, “Do you know that the governor of Massachusetts is called that, formally?” He is. Here is a sentence from the state’s constitution: “There shall be a supreme executive magistrate, who shall be styled, The Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; and whose title shall be — His Excellency.”
In recent weeks, readers and I have been talking about songs — songs we like or love; songs that trigger particular memories for us. A friend of mine — a reader in California — sends me a beautiful, beautiful letter:
Dear Jay,
A song that always triggers a distinct memory for me, perhaps because it is such a distinctive song, is “Sukiyaki,” by Kyu Sakamoto. (The formal Japanese title is “Ue o Muite Arukō,” which translates, “I Look Up as I Walk.”)
Every time I hear this, I’m back in the summer of 1963. I was almost nine years old then. My memory is that of playing in the big pool at the swim club that my family belonged to. The PA system was tuned to the local Top 40 station and was on all the time. Since “Sukiyaki” topped the charts that summer, this song was played over and over.
What I particularly remember is looking at my mother one time as the song was playing. She was sitting in a deck chair in her sunglasses and bouffant hairdo (since she was a brunette, her hairstyle was the same as Jackie Kennedy’s), smoking a cigarette, reading a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, and tapping her foot to “Sukiyaki.”
We were both extremely happy at that moment.
Have a listen. Has there ever been a pleasanter pop song?