break out the booze

once upon a time, i was a young man.

actually, the story i'm about to tell takes place before i was even a young man. i was very, very young, not even to the point where my grandma started calling me a young man, which was probably well before the age of young-manhood. the story i'm about to tell is from pre-young-manhood. i wasn't more than 10.

once upon a time, i was a pre-young man. because i grew up in a fabulously wealthy family, i had a clock radio. many of our neighbors were destitute, and did not have clock radios. my family, however, received monthly stipends from my uncle, John Peter Morgan, and thus, we could afford clock radios, even for the pre-young men in the family, possibly including my younger brother, who, at the time must needs have been but a babe. in any case, along with my silver spoon and my golden monacle, i had a clock radio.

i am not one for clock radios: to this day i do not use one to awake. instead, i have an internal chronometer, much like my idol, mister data. if i wish to wake up at 0630, as i did today, i simply set my internal chronometer before i fall asleep. then, at 0300, i wake up every 15 minutes, check the local time, and go back to sleep if it's earlier than 0630. if it's 0630, i also back to sleep, because i'm fucking tired and 0630 is way too early to wake up when i'm as tired as i am, so i stay in bed until 0700, which is also too early but i've got to get into work so i get up anyhow and make some coffee which is a little under roasted this week.

in any case, that's just how my idol, mister data, does it, i'm sure. except he probably has an event driven internal chronometer. that's the benefit of 23rd century positronic network programming.

so, when i was a wee lad, i had a clock radio which i evidently did not use to wake myself up. but, i did use it to lull myself asleep. the clock radio picked up the local Old People's AM Radio Station, which broadcast lame old people music at all hours of the day, because where I grew up, there were many Old People, and you never can tell when an Old People will be awake an in the mood for some smooth jazz or other easy listening music.

One song that put me to sleep on a regular basis, I remember clearly, as if i were listening to it now instead of Norwegiean symphonic death metal, which, in fact, I am actually now listening to. The Norwegians tell me it's A-OK to end a sentence in a preposition, and they invented symphonic death metal so I'd say they're pretty much an authority on the subject, no matter what you may personally think, dear reader.

The song that lulled me to sleep regularly in my pre-young-manhood featured the refrain (which google, damn youse, tells me I have misremembered):

If that's all there is my friend
then let's keep dancing
let's bring out the booze
and have a ball
if that's all
there is
to love

Apparently this is a song by one Peggy Lee, whom, I'm sure, is famous. However, be warned, o ye blog commenters: if you acknowledge the fame of Peggy Lee, you thereby mark yeself as An Oldster, since, as I've mentioned, I was listening, in my pre-youth, no less, to an Old People's Station, which would mean that should you recognize this song or Peggy Lee, you mark yourself as An Old Person 20 years ago when this song was new to me, and that makes you Old + 20, which is pretty freakin old, sorry mom.

Here are the full lyrics, which I have just located. I will read them with you for the first time, substituting in my mind the lyrics as I remember them for the lyrics as google reports them:

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.
And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire"

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

Anyhow. Looking back, now that I am myself approaching Old, i find my view of life coming in line with Peggy's. much has changed, and i've suffered, to some minor extent, teh slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. i said recently that i used to have a fortress of solitude, but i lost the way to it (once again, ending a sentence with a preposition, but this time, for dramatic effect (no doubt lost on my illiterate philistine audience (not you, of course, dear reader))), and this sentiment of mine, worded so specifically in my own dialect, resonates with Peggy's words -- as if Peggy's words have been guiding me all these years to cynicism and un-impressedness, even though i had more or less forgotten all but the refrain.

the refrain, though, has been with me most days.