Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Lunchtime at the Nursing Home


Everyone's asleep at lunchtime. Seated next to Paul was a man also named Paul who says he got a degree from MIT and had been a computer programmer. He's in his 70s or 80s so he must have been in the early days of the computer industry. He actually couldn't remember his own age and his nurse was sort of guessing. I actually thought he was around Paul's age, in his early to mid 60s. But who knows in here. 

At a certain point it just becomes a sea of gray, no matter the generation one came out of, no matter the race, no matter the background story. It's all white hair and grey pallor to the skin. And at this destination all must listen to Frank Sinatra and Perry Como and Dean Martin. Some management or executive's idea of what these people should want to hear.

This is what I'd like to play them today: Mississippi Fred McDowell's "Goin' Down To The River", The Ramone's "I Wanna Be Sedated", Hall and Oats "Your Kiss is on My List", "Sally Go Round The Roses", Tim Hardin's "Don't Make Promises You Can't Keep", Modern English's "I'll Stop The World and Melt With You", Bill Wither's "Using Me", anything by Marvin Gaye (I'd just play the whole record), Stereolab's "Wow and Flutter"...

1 comment:

  1. Yes! The Ramones! Marvin! How about some Animals? Your post reminded me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKDXuCE7LeQ&feature=share

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