Pinball Wizard, 1969
Ever since I was a young boy,
I've played the silver ball.
From Soho down to Brighton
I must have played them all.
But I ain't seen nothing like him
In any amusement hall...
That deaf dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pin ball!
That's the first verse of Pinball Wizard from the rock opera album Tommy which debuted in early May of 1969. I was one of the first to hear it. Palladia, one of our many cable channels, broadcasts music concerts. It shows old ones, new ones and mostly filmed ones. The other day I saw the Who from London, filmed in 1970. They sang Pinball Wizard. I thought about how much things have changed in the last forty-five-years. What would this song sound like now?
Pinball Wizard, 2014
Ever since I was a young boy,
I've played the silver ball.
From Soho down to Brighton
I must have played them all.
But I've not seen anything like him
In any amusement hall...
That profoundly hearing and visually impaired non verbal kid
Sure plays a mean pinball.
I love classic rock. If a group has less hair and more winkles than me and needs help up on the stage, I'm probably a fan. I suppose kids born this year will think of my music like I thought of Al Jolson and Rudy Vallee.
What are some of the things kids born in 2014 may never know?
1. The post office: Before e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, Skype and Instagram people paid money for small decorated squares called stamps. These went on envelopes called mail. There were big buildings in each city called Post Offices where mostly rude people worked. If you needed help they would ignore you while they 'looked busy.' They worked for the government. Mail was put in collection boxes, sorted at post offices and delivered to the home. It usually went to the correct address.
2. Parking meters: There was a time when people frantically looked in their pockets, purses, car floors and cracks between the seats for coins to put in meters so they could leave their cars parked for up to thirty minutes. Cool Hand Luke went to prison for cutting these off their metal poles.
3. Bank Tellers: Real people worked inside behind bullet proof glass. You would stand on line (hoping the person in front or behind you wasn't sick) and wait for one of them to hold up their hand and say "Next." Yes, we used to go inside banks to make deposits and withdrawals.
4. Paper statements: Come-on now, isn't it about time we all went digital. No more trees need to die.
5. Paper checks: Same as above and see number one.
6. Cable TV: Once upon a time people had something called an antenna that received TV signals 'through the air'. In the early 1960's cable TV was born and eventually hundreds of TV stations came into the home through a wire (or cable). Around 2004 new providers offered streaming programs and people cut their cables and went to Wi-Fi or 'through the air.'
7. Toll booths: People worked in little boxes and collected money for driving on certain roads. (Sonny was killed at a tollbooth in "The Godfather.") Now transmitters in the car send a signal and the toll is auto deducted from our bank account. A camera takes a picture of the license plate and driver so we don't cheat. One day (just for fun) cover your license plate and wear a Ronald Reagan mask when you drive through.
8. Phone booths: Can you imagine, having to find a working telephone out on a public street and putting money in it just to talk with someone.
9. Newspapers: Before everyone had a computer in their pocket and at home people read newspapers. They were like web pages printed on paper. People bought them from stands or boxes or had them home delivered by a kid on a bike who threw them on the porch, or in the wet bushes. Once read they were used to line the bottom of the bird cage, wrap fish or in the case of my strange Uncle Bob get stacked and saved in the basement for forty years.
10. Bookstores: A retail store where you would go to buy a book.
11. A book.
I've wanted to share this with you for some time, Avie sent this joke; I think it's a good one. Two ladies talking in heaven:
Silvia: Hi Barbara
Barbara: Hi Silvia...how did you die?
Silvia: I froze to death.
Barbara: How horrible.
Silvia: It wasn't so bad. After I quit shaking from the cold, I began to get sleepy and eventually had a peaceful death. How about you?
Barbara: I died of a heart attack. I suspected that my husband was cheating so I came home early to catch him in the act but instead I found him in the den, alone, watching television.
Silvia: So what happened?
Barbara: I was so sure there was another woman somewhere I started running all over the house looking. I ran up to the attic, I ran down to the basement. Then I went through every closet and checked under all the beds. I looked everywhere and was so exhausted that I just keeled over with a heart attack and died.
Silvia: Too bad you didn't look in the freezer-we'd both still be alive.
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