This post was inspired by Marika and her commenters complaining about songs that repeat nonsensical syllables, such as the Police’s “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” (I hope I punctuated that correctly) and Journey’s “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” My own contribution was “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” by a band that made up its name, Steam, because the members were appalled that this song became their lone hit single.
Because this post was inspired by Marika, who often has user pics of herself as an adorable child, I opted for a new user pic, a twelve-year-old Becky at Lynne’s house for the first time. I’m not actually smoking that cigarette. In an attempt to pretend that I was one of the cool kids (I was giddy at being INSIDE the house of a girl who’d sneered at me and mocked me the year before because I was such a prissy little failure as an athlete in such respected sports as three-legged races), I grabbed one of Lynne’s daddy’s Camels when she or somebody went to snap a photo of me. Not too many years later, Lynne and I would be sucking at Benson & Hedges Menthols like there was no tomorrow, prompting a raid on my room by That Old Woman, who was at the time That Menopausal Woman, and a stern letter from my father from around the world in Korea.
But I digress.
After reading Marika’s post, I was trying to come up with one song that I hoped never to hear again–when I flashed on grilled pork chops. The answer was clear.
My cousin had a vacation cottage in Mexico Beach, Florida, which my parents sometimes used. One year, my sister Debby and her kids went with them, and my first husband, who may have been only a boyfriend at that time, and I decided to join them all. On the night in question, my parents grilled pork chops for dinner.
My love for pork chops is legendary, perhaps as much because of the way I eat them as that I, a girl who squeals over the adorability factor of baby pigs, will eat them at all. I’m sad to say that as long as I’m among family and close friends, I go after those things like a stray dog. A pork chop bone is CLEAN when I finish it. CSI: Green Acres wouldn’t be able to get a trace of tissue off those bones.
So we ate our grilled pork chops, then the rest of the family sat back to enjoy their post-dinner cigarettes. (These were the days before the government would break into your home and arrest you for smoking.) While they smoked, I twitched. My parents, in that way of parents, had convinced themselves that the Benson & Hedges Menthols had been a phase. In a way, they were right. My sister left the table and returned with my secret stash of Merit Menthols and set them in front of me. That Lucky Strike Chain-smoking Woman shook her head, while my father looked mournful, sighed his trademark sigh, and said, “I thought I’d have ONE child who didn’t smoke,” just before he inhaled his Vantage.
Later, Debby, the Boyfriend, and I went to the Miracle Strip in Panama City, and after a glass of wine and a ride on some screechy metal something that was an OSHA incident waiting to happen, I started feeling bad. REALLY bad. Lie down in the back seat of the car and beg my Creator to let me die bad.
It was the longest trip of my life, that ride back to Casa Tobacco. And it was made worse by Leon Russell moaning from the radio. I don’t know the song. But I remember that it went something like this:
My baby left me
My baby left me
I said my baby left me
Oh my baby left me
She went and left me
My baby left me
She was my baby
And you know she left me
I can’t believe
My baby left me
Yeah she left me
Oh she left me
At which point I was shrieking from the back seat, “Get over it, you whiny bastard, MOVE ON!”
And Leon replied:
So I got the blues
Yeah I got the blues
I said I got the blues
The blues, the blues, the blues
I got the baby left me blues
Because my baby left me
She left me
My baby left me
Oh she left me
Did you know my baby left me
Oh my baby left me…
It wasn’t the shame of being exposed as a closet smoker. It wasn’t the glass of wine or the Tilt A Whatever. Leon Fucking Russell made me throw up all night long, and I haven’t eaten grilled pork chops since. Lest any jig-dancing pigs or PETA members feel they have cause to rejoice, my ban does not extend to fried or baked pork chops.
Oh. My. God. Every summer from age 10-15, I spent at least one day at the Miracle Strip in Panama City Beach.
And barbecued is the only way I will eat pork chops–unless I am at an Emeril restaurant and can get a stuffed one.
So many questions … the first is how did you ever have a second cigarette? I tried my first cigarette, and then it was just a puff when I was 27 and I nearly puked. There is no way I could have had a second one, I am always curious how people started … secondly what year was this? With that I can research and surprise you at a later date with that little song.
I have a very similar reaction to that song WHAT ABOUT ME… you know it goes What about me, it isn’t fair, I’ve had enough and I want my share, or something like that … I just want to smack the guy and tell him to suck it up like the rest of do
Two things.
First: As soon as I hit “post,” I thought to myself, Self, Marika is going to find that song and torment you with it until the end of time. Are you insane?
Second: Give you dates? Publicly? And dispel the myth that I’m thirty-five? Are YOU insane?
Oh, you think I can’t find out? I am so research girl… it will be mine by the end of the day, I need a challenge
Work on your novel. Or finish mine. That should be a challenge. It is to me.
I can do both, finish my book and then do the song thing. Multi tasking … I feel challenged now, I can’t walk away from that – it’s not the way of my people
After you find the song, finish your book, Becky’s, and MINE. We’ll all be so happy.
And I know the name of the song….
omg! pork chops!
if you ever, ever, EVER get the chance, go down to Clear Lake, and eat at Perry’s. It is the best pork chop you will ever have.
i promise!
I will make a note of that. I like Clear Lake. And Kemah.
But…but…isn’t Clear Lake where NASA is?
I won’t take Mark to get a pork chop there.
But…that…that…that is JUST evil!
No, you see, Mark G. Harris doesn’t WANT to go to NASA. In fact, I think he may have paid off Lisa to get out of going to NASA.
Evil would be if I lured him into my car by saying, “Let’s go see Lindsey and Rhonda. And Sugar! Cute puppy!” Then once he was strapped in, I took him to Clear Lake to tour NASA and also refused to take him out for the best pork chop ever.
THEN you could be proud, Endora Joan.
Damn you Becky! You foiled me again!
HEY!
there is a Perry’s at Cutten & Cypresswood
This post rules to no end. I love learning new little tid-bits about you. 🙂
Thank you. I needed someone to say a nice thing to me. I’d be so lost without my friends.
Pork, the other white meat
Does this count, too?
Billie jean is not my lover
Shes just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
Billie jean is not my lover
Shes just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
Billie jean is not my lover
Shes just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, she says he is my son
She says I am the one
Billie jean is not my lover
Billie jean is not my lover
Billie jean is not my lover
Billie jean is not my lover
Billie jean is not my lover
Billie jean is not my lover
Re: Pork, the other white meat
No, that one gets a pass because it’s so freaking danceable. Or however that might be spelled.
Re: Pork, the other white meat
damn. Well I did try. I kept thinking of songs by Micheal, like You got to be started something…and so on. I think all his songs are danceable.
Re: Pork, the other white meat
Who honestly would have believed that the kid WAS his son? I mean, really.
Mmmm…pork chops…
Geek.
Haaaaa, Greg!
“Geek.”
Yes?
I see an excellent opportunity here. I can not resist this chance.
Yes, I will take this opportunity
AND KEEP MY Fricken Mouth shut, so I don’t say somethin stoopid.
Discretion, as they–or at least Shakespeare would–say, is the better part of valour.
I am trying!
There is nothing that can compare to a po’k chop pan fried in real grease. I haven’t eaten one in 15 or 20 years which is also about the time I was eating potato chip sandwiches..
I used to love a potato chip sandwich. I thought I was the only one. But then I thought that about something else too, boy was I wrong!
Gee, I never realized so many people had a secret passion for potato chip sandwiches. And now were outing ourselves on LJ.