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Since he died, Kurt Vonnegut has become one of my favorite authors.

Tonight, I got home from the extra-long shift I had to work because someone else called in, and I’ve been drinking beer and reading Vonnegut.

Deadeye Dick, to be precise.

This book was written in 1982, and perhaps it was during a time when Vonnegut needed money for a new house, or something. Not his best work. Rides the coattails of Slaughterhouse Five and especially Breakfast of Champions with a little Cat’s Cradle thrown in. Its protagonist is a 50 year-old pharmacist.

I am a 40 year-old pharmacist.

There are some memorable lines. This one just caught my eye:

If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended, and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.

Curiously enough, I was just explaining today to one of our newer employees, a young lady who is a twenty-something year-old pharmacist, that the song playing on the radio was by a man who was at the time known as “Johnny Cougar.”

I explained to her how the hand claps in that song were from a clap machine loaned to Johnny by some guys in the next studio who had more money and equipment than he did. Those were the Bee Gees. Barry, the musical genius of the group, thought the hand claps would sound good in Johnny’s song. And Jack and Diane as we know it was born.

Jack and Diane was a hit in 1982, the same year Vonnegut’s book was published and his pharmacist turned 50.

Its most memorable lyrics are as follows:

Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of living is gone.
Oh yeah they say life goes on
Long after the thrill of living is gone.

Just finished listening to the NPR article on the album Allison Krauss and Robert Plant have done together called Raising Sand. If you’re a fan of either (or both) of them, be sure and listen to the audio of the interview (it should be available by noon today). I especially like Plant’s explanation of why he doesn’t care for the term “duets”.

Krauss has what some have described as “the purest voice God ever gave a human,” which much of her work with Union Station seems to validate, and Plant, well as you can see from the pics in the article, he looks like death warmed over, but he’s a brilliant musician and music historian, and probably more intelligent and articulate than most any other rock star alive (listen to some of his past interviews if you get the chance, it’s like William F. Buckley with a sense of humor, and talent). That he, Jimmy Page, JPJ and Bonzo ever got together is one of greatest blessings in our musical history.

These two are supposedly already making plans for a 2008 tour. I’d certainly pay a premium to see that. Let’s cross our fingers.

Anytime I’m plotting another motorcycle trip out west, find myself looking over Eastern Arizona, and notice Winslow, I can’t resist picturing standing on a corner and a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford. I think everyone must do that.

Back in 1990 I saw a video that, for some strange reason, got stuck in my mind and never came unstuck. It was called “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo.” Stickmen doing the “Walking Man”, “ax”, “tomorrah”… something so very catchy about the video and the story it tells. Also I think of it anytime I hear mention of the town of El Segundo.

Tonight I ran across it on YouTube. Cool. Now I know where to find My Wallet as well as that girl in the flatbed Ford.

Check it out: