Easter Turkey with Graham Parker

For some reason, for the past two years I’ve found myself listening to Graham Parker’s “Almost Thanksgiving Day” as Easter approaches. The song curdles with middle-aged discontent – just the sort of thing to hear as fall starts giving way to winter. So why do I find it so compelling in springtime?

Full steam ahead, come what may
You get the world that you make, they say
Chop up the wood and bale hay
Now that it’s almost Thanksgiving Day

The kids come and go with their things
We sit and polish our wedding rings
They forecast snow on the way
Just in time for Thanksgiving Day

The song is permeated with a feeling of stasis, oppressive and inevitable. Nothing’s moving here but the kids… and the oncoming snow will only serve to muffle everything and slow it down even further.

Out on the street some fool crashed
Drinking port wine and sour mash
That’s one man who can say
“No thanks, Thanksgiving Day.”

Then again, here’s a guy who hasn’t stopped moving. And he’s throwing up in the street. There are things to be said for being a homebody.

I’m bone weary, I’m bone-tired
The wood-stove’s last spark just expired
Dawn’s about one hour away
And it’s almost Thanksgiving Day.

The song ends on an almost hopeful note. The long night is nearly over, but Parker’s energy is waning with the stove’s heat. It appeals to the insomniac in me. Thanksgiving Day doesn’t seem to be about thanks, as Parker sings it here – in this last verse, it speaks to me about renewal. “Thanks for getting me through this,” it seems to imply. “Let’s take a deep breath before starting over.”

So maybe there’s a reason I listen to it in spring after all.

Rob

Graham Parker Mad Libs!

One more reason why I love Graham Parker:

On his My Country album, he covers the Grateful Dead's "Sugaree" with a bit of a country twang. But he changes the original opening lines just a hair, from

When the come to take you down
When they bring that wagon round

to

When the come to take you down
When they bring that raygun round

It's an off-the-wall homophone that makes his version a little more special to me, setting it in an entirely different place by changing just one word.

Shake it...

Rob

Work

Because the words came out not twist and shout
Cause that’s not what a grown man writes about
That chapter’s over, let it blow over
I found that I’ve become the owner of a brand new book
—Graham Parker, “Brand New Book”

So with a proofreading job behind me, and a little period research under my belt, I’m rededicating myself to hammering out a rough draft of a very very complicated novel. I’m realizing I can’t just dive into it and have it make any sense, so I’m going to need to give myself an outline. I’ve started using the index-card method – writing each scene down on a separate index card and then examining and shuffling them until I have some semblance of story. (I've had the central concept for years now, but in this last week I've finally begn to find a glimmer of a plot. Whoopee!) Problem is, I wanted colored index cards – I’m working with 3 different time periods, and with similar character names, I need a quick method of differentiation – and the Duane Reade I went into at lunchtime only had white ones. So for now, white ones it is. Ah, well. I’ve got highlighters.

I do have one small project to do in the next week, but I should be able to work on both simultaneously through next week. After that, well, there’s Spontaneous Combustion, which I don’t want to skip, and then clear sailing (awesome upcoming vacation notwithstanding). I guess what I’m saying by this paragraph is that I can’t use all this stuff to put work on this book off until after I come back from New Orleans. Everything but vacation, I can work around. And who knows what my trip to the Big Easy will bring to the project?

Back to Graham:

I read that book for an hour or two
and then I looked up at the night sky
I saw the big dipper and then the big bopper
and I realized how much time had gone by
Every page had something to say
but one thing that struck me as true
The clock just keeps ticking as if you’re not there
Man it either drags you down or it lifts you

Rob