Funny how revolutions start sometimes.
When I was a kid my sister and I used to eat breakfast in the kitchen every morning before school as my mom rushed around getting ready. She had the radio on in the kitchen, tuned to the late, great New York oldies station WCBS-FM. That's where I heard all those great old records for the first time-Sam Cook, Otis Redding, The Beatles, The Temptations, Brenda Lee, Dion. And on and on.
And so I sat there, a fat little kid in a plaid tie, and I heard a message. Those songs were telling me somthing: "There's a party out there, little boy. And you're missing it."
I was going to Catholic school at the time, but I didn't recognize God in what they were teaching me there. All I heard there was that I was guilty and everything was bad and that I was going to hell. But I heard God in Smokey and the Miracles singing "Oooh! Baby, Baby!" or Marvin Gaye singing "What's Going On."
What is luck but thinking you're lucky? And what is faith, but a belief that the world is better, can be better, than it really is? Those songs, and a 1000 like them called me someplace and they're still calling me. "There's a party out there." There's more than that, there's a whole world out there.
And sometimes when I don't feel liike I don't have the courage to face it, I just drive through the city and roll down the windows and listen to the Miracles echoing through the streets, singing "Oooh! Baby, Baby!"
When I was a kid my sister and I used to eat breakfast in the kitchen every morning before school as my mom rushed around getting ready. She had the radio on in the kitchen, tuned to the late, great New York oldies station WCBS-FM. That's where I heard all those great old records for the first time-Sam Cook, Otis Redding, The Beatles, The Temptations, Brenda Lee, Dion. And on and on.
And so I sat there, a fat little kid in a plaid tie, and I heard a message. Those songs were telling me somthing: "There's a party out there, little boy. And you're missing it."
I was going to Catholic school at the time, but I didn't recognize God in what they were teaching me there. All I heard there was that I was guilty and everything was bad and that I was going to hell. But I heard God in Smokey and the Miracles singing "Oooh! Baby, Baby!" or Marvin Gaye singing "What's Going On."
What is luck but thinking you're lucky? And what is faith, but a belief that the world is better, can be better, than it really is? Those songs, and a 1000 like them called me someplace and they're still calling me. "There's a party out there." There's more than that, there's a whole world out there.
And sometimes when I don't feel liike I don't have the courage to face it, I just drive through the city and roll down the windows and listen to the Miracles echoing through the streets, singing "Oooh! Baby, Baby!"
VIEW 25 of 44 COMMENTS
I wouldn't mind living in NYC for a while, I think. It would be surreal though. The whole thing with NY and LA is that.. you've seen it so much in tv shows, in movies, in whatever... you know, streets, names, places, and I think I've told you this before but if I'd go there it would feel surreal like I was in a movie.