As if I needed a reason to feel more like Forrest Gump who famously says of himself, Im not a smart man, but I know what love is, I have to confess that some things just baffle me.
For instance, consider my transistor radio.
OK, I realize thats an arcane reference, one that will likely mystify anyone who doesnt remember the Kennedy presidency, but thats not a problem.
For you youngsters in the audience -- to quote Ed Sullivan before he introduced the Beatles to an America dying for something good -- a transistor radio is (not was) a portable source of music, one that relied on unseen AM waves to transport the listener to a very different place.
I mean, I could pick up New Orleans on mine.
Not to mention New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Boston.
That little black rectangular device was a time/space continuum machine, a lot like a walkie-talkie but with better sound quality.
True, the speaker was about the size of a Ben Franklin half-dollar, but it worked well under the covers when I was supposed to be sleeping but was actually listening.
I guess even as a kid, I was subject to insomnia which is a fancy scientific term for not wanting to miss the party.
These days, I sleep even less than I did back then, getting by on a fistful of restless hours, hoping bad dreams dont bubble to the surface ... but they often do.
Last night, for example, I dreamed that I was about to board a transoceanic flight bound for, of all places, Singapore.
The only reason I can come up with is that Singapore was the answer to a recent Final Jeopardy question, one that I nailed. And is it just me, or has that show really dumbed itself down lately? Time was, back in the Art Fleming days, that watching Jeopardy! was like taking a final exam. Now, its more like playtime before recess. And could Alex Trebec be more irritating? Such condescension, such arrogance, such shameless snarkiness.
Anyway, there I was, dreaming that I was taking a long flight over an ocean --the Pacific, I presume -- and all of a sudden, Im clinging to the wing, totally exposed to the wind and the speed and the vagaries of air travel 35,000 feet up and then, I hear the pilots voice.
Whatever you do, it tells me, dont look down.
Hes speaking to me through a transistor radio which I have, naturally pressed against my right ear, leaving only my left arm and hand to secure my tenuous grip on a piece of metal attached to a silver bird traveling 660 miles an hour over dead black churning water.
Naturally, I look down.
I mean, wouldnt you?
Singapore is nowhere in sight, this I know.
I also realize that Im falling, falling, falling, having somehow lost my grasp on the wing.
But it feels free and fine, this falling and, of course, I still have my transistor radio, which is no longer carrying the pilots voice.
Instead, its Eight Miles High, that hit from 1966, and thats always been my favorite Byrds tune, unless its Chestnut Mare, from four years later, which also features a segue about falling, falling, falling.
And when I hit the water, in my dream, I wake up.
Isnt that always the way?
Just when a dream starts to get interesting, real life intrudes.
Psychotherapists take all the fun out of the REM state, insisting that every subconscious picture tells a story. As Freud is rumored to have said, sometimes a banana is just a banana.
Same with a transistor radio.
The dream is over, said John Lennon.
And I believe him.
But when songs like I Want to Hold Your Hand or She Loves You or Eleanor Rigby or Strawberry Fields Forever or Hey Jude came though my transistor radio, there under the covers, I just shook my head in wonder.
I finally got a chance, speaking of the Fab Four, to watch the directors cut of A Hard Days Night and let me tell you, its incredible. Its so much Ringos movie and he carries the weight.
But thats not what I wanted to write about this week, the way his walk along the bank of that river neatly encapsulates everything the Beatles were all about; that is, rescuing those who were tuned in from the drab and ordinary.
A way to find exhilaration in the midst of everyday nothingness.
No.
What I wanted to do was to ask you a question since I cant quite figure it out myself and, as you all know, youre the smartest readers on the planet.
Otherwise, why would you keep coming back here, to our little playhouse, week after month and month after year?
Because you get it.
So, this is what Ive been wondering, kind of like the Grinch, after he thinks hes kept Christmas from coming to all those Whos down in Whoville.
Whats the line?
He puzzled and puzzed til his puzzler was sore.
I like that line so much.
Dr. Seuss, wow, he understood.
Maybe you can unpuzz my puzzler.
If Im listening to the Indians game on my transistor radio.
Which I have plugged into an electrical socket.
And I have four Double A batteries in place inside the radio.
Does that mean that Im draining the batteries of their power, even though Ive got the radio plugged into the wall and its an electric show?
I mean, how does the radio know if its powered by the current or the Double As?
This is a question that I cannot answer because, well, I believe we landed men on the moon and many dont.
I believe that every vote counts.
I believe in moonrises over the ocean, love at first sight, that Roger Maris still holds the single-season home run record and that Ringo Starr is the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
I believe in you, faithful readers, and that tomorrow will be better than today.
