Dave Barry: Roger and Elaine

Contrary to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. This is because guys don't really grasp what women mean by the term relationship.

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward... I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking:... so that means it was... let's see...February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means... lemme check the odometer... Whoa! I am way over due for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed -- even before I sensed it -- that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my school girl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their...

"Roger," Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have... Oh God, I feel so..." (She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger.

"I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Roger.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.

"No!" says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"It's just that... It's that I... I need some time," Elaine says.
(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can,tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one tha the thinks might work.)

"Yes," he says.

(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

"Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Roger.

"That way about time," says Elaine.

"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."
(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

"Thank you, Roger," she says.

"Thank you," says Roger. Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it.
(This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and every thing he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression,and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: "Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"

LBJ Explains It All

“I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

-- President Lyndon Johnson, as recorded by staffer Bill Moyers, 1964, while campaigning for the Civil Rights Act

Apocalypse Now Redux

I am very late to the party on the extended version of this one, but my god - that scene at the French plantation upriver is astonishing.

More than ever for me, it’s the finest war movie ever made. Some of the pyrotechnics may not have aged well, but that’s merely a quibble in the context of a three-hour+ film that will haunt me even more now, over forty years since I first saw it.

Newport Folk Festival 1965

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It was a steamy Asbury Park Saturday night, in the Summer of 1965. The small club where I hung out and occasionally sat in on acoustic guitar with a group of musicians who called themselves The Solipse Singers (and who later became the eclectic - and iconic, in the minds of some - band The Insect Trust) had no air conditioning. But because the club was in a basement, it was a little cooler. The dank overlay of spilled beer and stale cigarette smoke somehow made it tolerable.

Sometimes, I wonder whether a young Bruce Springsteen might have stopped by on one of those hot Saturday nights. It was Asbury Park after all, and not far from the boardwalk. I'll have to ask him, the next time I see him. Yeah, right.

"Like A Rolling Stone" was on the radio all the time that Summer, and Bob Dylan's transition to electric guitar in the studio was complete. Although we didn't know it at the time, a group called The Hawks was playing at a bar in nearby Somers Point, and would join Dylan after Newport as "The Band". We too were done with folk music, and more than ready to inject some good old rock and roll into our folk sound.

After the group's last set, we packed up and toked up and some of us ended up at at Nancy's house, and everyone thought that it might be a good idea to go to the Newport Folk Festival. Bob Dylan was scheduled to appear at the Sunday evening concert, which was more than enough for us. 

 Nancy suggested that we take my 1956 Ford, and I said "Sure!" By now, it was 2AM Sunday. I would be surprised if all of us had more than twenty dollars between us, but things were far less expensive then, and we didn't really concern ourselves with such trivial considerations. We were going to see Dylan at Newport.

The Insect Trust., circa 1970

The Insect Trust., circa 1970

I don't remember much about the drive, other than Nancy spotting a car ahead of us with the license plate "FEET", which (along with the drugs we had ingested) caused protracted laughter and hilarity, from Milford all the way to the other side of New Haven on the Connecticut Turnpike.

Shortly after sunrise, we entered the Festival grounds, which I remember as not being paved. It was overcast, and already steamy, but the salt air smelled much better than the club did the night before. Somehow we got inside the gate. I don't remember paying any admission. Times were different then. 

We must have eaten something, but I don't remember what it was. What I do remember is the Chambers Brothers playing "People Get Ready" at the morning gospel session. We wandered around, stopping at workshops that interested us, until it was time for the afternoon concert.

Finding the front row unoccupied, we were settling in to the sounds of Richard and Mimi Farina when the skies opened and a brief but intense torrent of rain hit. There was no time or place to escape to, so we all just got wet. Very wet. And actually, it felt pretty good, and cooled everything off, in a good way.

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Butterfield Blues Band. Elvin Bishop, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield. 

Butterfield Blues Band. Elvin Bishop, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield. 

After the rain ended, the Farinas continued. And then it was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The drugs had worn off, but the music kicked in and we were transported by it. Nancy said "Isn't that Dylan in the polka dot shirt?", pointing to a cluster of musicians at the side of the stage, behind the speakers as the Butterfield Band concluded it's set.

"Yeah, it is," I said. They were assembling for a brief sound check for that evening's performance. So we got to see the rehearsal of the legendary evening concert - the one that Elijah Wald so perfectly captured in his fine book, "Dylan Goes Electric". Dylan had assembled members of the Butterfield Band as a backing group, which included Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop - two outstanding guitar players. I remember All Kooper being there as well, on keyboard. 

The sun came out just as they launched into "Maggie's Farm" and we were blown away. I remember some booing in the audience (there allegedly was more booing at the evening performance), but none of it was from our row. We couldn't make out all the words, but the sound and the attitude was exactly what we were looking for. Dead on. 

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We hung around for the rest of the afternoon workshops and activities, but we felt the adrenaline from the Dylan sound check beginning to run out and we made our way back to the car, and, eventually, home.

So I can always say that I was there when Dylan went electric - just not at the evening concert. But it was every bit as transformative for this bunch of young musicians as it would have been had we stayed around - maybe more. 

 

Snowmageddon: The Final Mile

I spent at least two hours over the course of yesterday cleaning up after Saturday’s blizzard. Pretty standard stuff: driveway, stairs, walkway, sidewalk. (Tremendous props to my neighbor and her Ariens.)

The problem is that I live in a house on the corner of a busy street, and the plows always choose my corner to deposit huge mounds of plowed, compacted snow right at the end of my sidewalk.

This time, the mound was at least five feet tall.

I took it on this morning and won, so that the kids walking home after school today won’t have to walk in the street like they did early this morning. It took me about twenty minutes and was exponentially more difficult than the two hours I spent shoveling yesterday.

So I hope they’re grateful, but suspect they’ll walk in the street anyway.