The Good Songs

Hello All:

I know we haven't heard much, lately, about him; but the Cableman is still around. Here's a brand new story in which he chats with a customer about the 'good songs'.

The Good Songs

It wasn't a terribly involved work order for the Cableman; simply pay a visit to one of the apartment units at the end of town, and do what is referred to as a "reconnect" for the new tenant who moved in. Such a job is called "reconnect" because no wiring needs to be added; everything had been previously installed the first time. The Cableman probably disconnected the cable outside in the utility box when the previous tenant moved out.

Sure enough, as the Cableman opened the utility box, he could see his own writing on the black tag with the apartment unit, 1A, written on it; black to indicate that the cable was supposed to be disconnected if there were ever a question.

"This should be easy..." commented the Cableman to himself as he walked up to the main entry door of the apartment building. He pressed the doorbell for 1A.

A second later, the "buzz" was heard which was cue for the Cableman to enter. Once inside, a “burnout” opened the door to unit 1A and greeted with a stoned-stupid smile, "…hey...". He had a lit cigarette in his hand, and the Cableman hates cigarette smoke. From the looks of it, the customer was terminally stoned—not from just recently smoking weed, but because he had done it so much in his life that he now had permanently altered brain cells.

"Hi, I'm here to hook up your cable." acknowledged the Cableman.

"Right this way." signaled the customer while walking back into the apartment.

Inside the place reeked of burned food—maybe over-cooked pizza in the oven—and cigarette smoke. Again, the Cableman hates cigarettes. Oh, but there was one good thing about the customer's living space. The song, 'lunatic fringe' by Red Rider was playing on an old stereo in the family room. The Cableman always liked that song.

"Okay, where's the TV at?" asked the Cableman.

The customer pointed to the opposite wall of the stereo. "Over there. I think it's cable ready." Then he asked, "Is my music bothering you?"

"No, Red Rider is fine with me." reassured the Cableman.

"You mean you like 'lunatic fringe'?" asked the customer with such a surprise.

"Yeah, who doesn't?" cited the Cableman upon turning on the TV. He fumbled through the remote and adjusted the settings so that it would receive cable signal. Then he selected scan. The TV began saving channels, indicator that it was successfully connected to cable service.

"Hey..." called out the customer. "Do you know this song is about the murder of John Lennon?"

"That's a fallacy." corrected the Cableman. "It's actually about modern-day racism and hatred against Jews... well modern-day if it were the 1970s/80s."

"Are you sure?" challenged the customer.

"Absolutely!" answered the Cableman. "The lyrics come right out and say it. It takes the listener back to Nazi Germany when Jews were hunted down." As the TV continued to scan the channels, the Cableman recited some of the lyrics to 'lunatic fringe'. "I know you're out there... you're in hiding... This is open season, but you won't get too far, cause you gotta blame someone for your own confusion." By then it was the end of the song and the European emergency siren was heard. "And hear the sirens?" concluded the Cableman. "That's the Nazis coming after the Jews."

"Whoa!" exclaimed the customer. "Dude, you just freaked me out! I can totally see it!"

“Interesting thing…” continued to the Cableman. “The reason why people think ‘lunatic fringe’ is about the murder of John Lennon is because the song was recorded on the very night that John Lennon was murdered.

“Really???” exclaimed the customer.

“Yup.” affirmed the Cableman. “That explains the fallacy associated with this song.”

The TV was reaching the end of the channel search which meant that the Cableman had to go back to concentrating on his work. He now had to check the picture quality to ensure that all was well. During this time the song on the customer's stereo changed to 'lay down Sally' by Eric Clapton.

"Oh, what is this?" complained the customer.

The Cableman overheard the griping and thought that the customer was complaining about the less than desirable picture quality. "Don't worry, I can fix that." he reassured.

"No, the song!" corrected the customer. "This song sucks! How can they play something so cool like 'lunatic fringe', and then go to this crap?"

"Sorry, I thought you were talking about the picture.” answered the Cableman. “But I'm going to have to fix this for you. It's probably a rusty fitting outside. As for the song, I know what you mean. It was never my favorite. But that's what you get with variety."

"You know what they need?" began the customer.

The Cableman took a deep breath and reminded himself that sometimes it's necessary to socialize with the customer. "What?" he asked.

"They need a station that plays nothing but the good songs... you know, the good songs!"

"I have a lot of songs in my collection." revealed the Cableman. "Which ones are the good ones?"

"Oh come-on, man!" argued the customer. "Don't tell me you know what the good songs are! You know... the good songs!—like 'lunatic fringe', or songs by Van Halen and Ozzy Osbourne... you know, the good songs!"

"Oh, I get it now." answered the Cableman. "You like all that hard rock."

"Yeah!" exclaimed the customer.

"Like Judas Priest?" suggested the Cableman.

"Yeah!" exclaimed the customer.

"Or how about Billy Idol—'white wedding'?"

"There you go!" agreed the customer.

The Cableman speculated for a second, "Well, it's a radio station that you're listening to. Some of the people out there like this song by Eric Clapton, so they have to play it." Then he excused himself, "I'll be right back. Let me check the connections outside."

Three minutes later the Cableman returned to the apartment unit. "Okay, I noticed the cable fitting was a bit rusty, so I changed it." he informed. Then he paused. There was no longer any music playing. "What happened to the music?" he asked

The customer rolled his eyes in disgust, "They started playing ‘rocket man’ by Elton John.

"Not a good day with the radio for you." cited the Cableman. "But maybe your picture quality can be better. The Cableman flipped through the stations to verify that all was well.

Suddenly, the customer started singing, "I want my... I want my MTV..."

The Cableman sighed to himself. "Almost out of here." he thought.

"I want my MTV..." the customer continued to chant.

"You actually have that in your channel lineup." interrupted the Cableman in hopes that the customer would quit singing. But don't expect any music videos. They stopped doing that years ago."

"Oh, I know!" answered the customer. "They suck, now. But the song from Dire Straits is cool."

"Another one of my favorites." agreed the Cableman while reaching for his clipboard. "You're all done. If you need anything else, just call our office."

But before the Cableman could leave, the burnout customer had plenty more to say. He signed the paperwork and then added, "Hey, you know that station that I want that plays nothing but the good songs?”

“Yeah…?” affirmed the Cableman.

 “It actually existed once upon a time. Right when I started summer break after graduating high school, a radio station out in Detroit went on the air and celebrated with the listeners by playing non-stop music—commercial free—for six weeks. And it was all the good song just like we like. It was nothing but Ozzy, Van Halen, Aerosmith, The Who—all the good songs. Me and my buddies, we pooled together all of our money from graduation cards—you know, the ones that your family members give with money in it—and we bought tons of weed, acid, ‘shrooms, and I don't even know how much beer and liquor. For the entire six weeks we just partied our asses off, nonstop, while listening to this radio station. I don't even remember what station it was. But it was great! We got into car accidents from being so messed up and had to go to the hospital a couple times. One of my buddies went to jail for a few days. But when he got out, he just continued partying with us. I think one of my buddies actually died in those six weeks, too.”

“Eww…” remarked the Cableman.

“And get this!” continued the customer. “My old man had a job lined up for me at some factory that I was supposed to start around the middle of July. My starting day was the very day that the radio station started playing commercials. And ironically, all of our drugs had been used up. I just went into work that morning all sober and feeling like crap. But I was so messedup from partying for six weeks that I couldn't even think straight. And all I could do was stand there in front of my boss and say, 'uhhhhh...'.

“Like you did this morning at the door when you said, ‘…hey…’?” suggested the Cableman.

The customer laughed and conclude his story, “I was fired after two days because I couldn't work."

"Did you ever come down after those six weeks of partying?" asked the Cableman.

"Probably not..." answered the customer.

The Cableman laughed while walking out the apartment door, "So you're a real modern day Rip Van Winkle!"

The End!

Soap In Your Eyes

Hello All:
Back to work/school after what was hopefully a nice weekend for you; we start Monday with a peculiar short story.

Soap In Your Eyes
Ask any kid what his or her favorite day of the week is, and he or she will surely answer Saturday.
Why Saturday? Why not Friday, Sunday, or Monday?
Well, Saturday is that one and only day of the week which is 100 percent isolated from the school week. Monday sucks for the obvious reason that an entire week of school is ahead. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday aren't much better; only closer to Saturday. Friday does bring some sense of hope that the final bell for the day will allow leaving school for the next couple of days. But Friday does include that unpleasant thing of having to be in school. And then there is Saturday, the one day in which a kid can sleep in and then enjoy the day without the bother of having to go to school. He or she can even put off doing homework. As for Sunday, it's okay. The problem with this day is the fact that a kid is occasionally reminded of having to go back to school on Monday.
For Eric it was a Saturday morning, just a bit past seven o'clock. He rolled over and took notice of the early morning sun shining through his window. But he was in no hurry to get out of bed. Eric felt like he could lay there and doze off for about another hour or so for some dreaming. It was his much earned right as a kid to do this, being that the stupid alarm would wake him up on Monday through Friday.
Eric closed his eyes, and lay there while listening to the outside sounds of trees rustling in the gentle, early morning wind. A few blocks away, someone was mowing their lawn--nothing terribly noisy to distract Eric from falling back to sleep.
But then there were the sounds of soft, sneaky footsteps entering the bedroom, followed by the unavoidable creek on the floor. Yes, someone was in Eric's bedroom; probably his jerk older brother, Martin.
Perhaps if Eric simply lay there and pretend to be sound asleep, his brother would go away.
The footsteps came closer and closer until a presence could be felt very close to the bed. Eric could sense that whoever was near did their best to keep from laughing. And then there was the peculiar scent of popcorn and cotton candy as-if whoever it was had been at a circus or carnival. What was Martin doing? Did he go to a carnival on Friday night?
Thumbs were smashed into Eric's closed eyes, with some sort of lotion or gel rubbed in.
"Quit it! You jerk!" shouted Eric. He immediately opened his eyes.
But it wasn't Eric's older brother Martin who stood over the bed. Rather, it was an obnoxious clown with painted face and large, red rose. It wore a ridiculous outfit of loud colors. "Smile! There's soap in your eyes!" called out the clown.
And that's the last thing poor Eric remembered seeing that morning. He had to close his from the painful sting brought on by the soap running in. Stupid clown! And if that weren't enough, Eric had to fight the clown off, blind, as he continued rubbing soap all over his face.

The End!