Like a still image, a song can transport you back to a moment in time that has been forgotten. For instance, during the wild fires of Southern California in 2009 I had a very real flashback when Shakira’s song; “Whenever, Wherever” blared out from the radio while driving on the Glendale Freeway. The smell of a burning hillside mixed with fumes of diesel, the thump, thump, thumping of the helicopters overhead transported me immediately back to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Music is sort of a synthetic acid, which enhances flashbacks of one’s own memories. Scans of the brain show that when people listen to music, virtually every area of their brain becomes more active. Which may explain why I have overcome a learning disability with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.
Strange as it may seem, when I listen to music as I am doing right now, it forces me to focus and keeps my ADD at bay. Growing up, my parents could never understand why I would play music when reading or studying. They would just shout at me to turn the record player or radio off. But, instinctively I need this learning aid to focus .. go figure! Music helps me concentrate. Once I sit down, play my music I fall into a Zen like zone and my brain slows down to a crawl so that I can concentrate. If it were not for music and the computer I would probably be selling used furniture in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
But when you combine music and dance it can bring back the passionate fire of our youth and the peacefulness of our softer and more graceful years – maybe they are never expressed more fully than through a song and a slow dance. It is the medium of music and dance that is tangible to our soul and expresses to the world who we truly are and who we can be. The best part of music for me, is when my arms are wrapped around a woman and I can feel the beat of her heart to the tempo of the music. We become lost, yet together in sync as the lyric’s nourish our souls. Unaware of time and space we dance losing isolation to become a bridge of kindred spirits as a karmic connection begins to blossom between us……….would you like to dance? Hit it Bobby.
BOBBY CALDWELL – What You Won’t Do For Love (1979)
While researching material for Cue The Camels, I came across this old journal entry from a shoot I did in Egypt. Which was included in my book Cue the Camels.Assorted images from my years in the Middle East
We were not mentioned in S. E. Hinton’s book The Outsiders. Hinton’s novel takes place in Tulsa Oklahoma in the mid-sixty’s which is a beautifully written anthropology of the class division between high school teenagers. The Socs (pronounced ˈsoʊʃɪz / so-shis, short form of Socials) were from middle income to upper income families on the south side of Tulsa. They drove new cars given to them by their daddy. Thier social uniform were wheat jeans, penny loafers, button down collar madrases shirts, and white socks. Their haircut was reminiscent to the moptops of the Beatles. On the other hand, the greasers were boys from lower-class blue collar families from north Tulsa. Most were shade tree mechanics driving old 50’s Chevrolets and Fords that were retrieved from auto salvage yards. Their uniform were Levi’s, hand me down jean jackets, tee-shirts, Converse All Stars, and most important Brylcreem for that Elvis pompadour look.
In between the two tribe were the nameless kids who’s economic standing was somewhere between the families of Socs and the Greasers. We were the nerds, the geeks and socially inept when it came to girls. It is true that one of the most important qualities that can help teens establish their own identities is the ability to “fit in.” Finding friends who understand their problems and relate to them is paramount for teenagers. It wasn’t long until we realized that what we had in common was our interest in doing cool stuff instead of campaigning for popularity at school or smoking in the back of the school. We created our own tribe and we called ourselves “The GTO’s, Order of the Pythons” .
From 1964 to 1968 we produced movies using our parents Bell and Howell movie cameras. At first, we filmed our friends acting goofy around the house and favorite hang outs -that was in the 8th grade. By the 9th grade we were charging kids 50 cents to be in our movies and they didn’t just hang out at the parents’ house anymore. Kids were being blown up, shot at and chased by the bad guys in War movies, Spy movies and even a Roman drama. Growing up in Oklahoma the culture allowed hunting as a normal recreation which gave us access to shotguns, black powder and a great locations. The Verdigris River which is northeast of Tulsa was our favorite location and isolated from civilization and parental control. All the tall guys had to be the bad guys (the Germans) the little guys were the good guys (the Americans). We bought army surplus and dyed the fatigues black and spray painted the helmets and wore them backwards so they would look like German helmets. Once we had a old, gray ’59 Ford station wagon. We painted a couple of swastikas on it, filled the back up with black powder and drove it down the river and blew it up. We did this until we graduated from Will Rogers High School in 1968. Needless to say, we went our separate ways pursuing a life outside of Tulsa.
In 2010 as a result of facebook this little band of brothers reestablished the brotherhood -but, not without loss. In May of 2008 Dean Bishop who crated the GTO’s and was our mastermind passed away from cancer – Dean was financially supported and cared for by fellow members Rex and Ricky Gray until his death. Dan Lundy the tallest member of the GTO’s passed away in the mid 90’s from cancer after being exposed to agent orange in Vietnam. The surviving members of the original six GTO’s including myself are: Rex Gray and brother Ricky Gray and Dan Battreall.
I am eternally grateful to my band of brothers for not only giving me wonderful memories but laying the foundation for the career I enjoy today.
I slid my right boot then my left boot into the hole leading to the tomb’s tunnel. There was the soft, muffed sound of my pants sliding against the rough stone as my feet fell into the tomb. My knees passed and my thighs followed – which was as far as I got. I was stuck between two worlds. My companions started laughing before cheering me on. “Push! Push, Dave”. There was a scraping noise as my 34 waist and belt buckle tried to shimmy. I’ve been told in the past, during romantic endeavors, that I have ‘a booty like a black man’ – something I’ve always thought of as an attractive asset, but which, in this instance, was a real liability. ‘I think I’m too big, guys,’ I told my audience, ‘I’m wedged in!’ as giggles grew louder and escaped from the darkness of the tomb. I too began to chuckle, which was uncomfortable considering the added pressure of stone against my waist.
When I returned to the States and the Tonight Show, I shared my big ass adventure with one of the comedy writers for the show, Larry Jacobson. We both had a good chuckle when Larry added. “You know Dave, if you were Kim Kardashian you’d still be stuck in that tomb.
One of my favorite movies of all times is One Night On Earth. It’s a cinematic dream of just how connected we are as a species and all the synchronicity that life flings at us. The movie is a collection of five stories involving cab drivers in five different cities from around the world. Which is a causal or persuasive link to my nocturnal behavior of getting out of bed, grabbing my camera and climb behind the steering wheel of my KIA and drive. I actually like driving late at night. When I say late, I don’t mean 10 PM, or even midnight – I mean like the witching hours from 2 am to sunrise. There is no other time of day where you can see typically the most congested street completely empty. It’s like being teleported as the last man on earth. A bat maneuvering in the dark, it uses a process called echolocation. Echolocation refers to the process of using echoes and sound waves to navigate around objects. For my excursion into the great Basin of Los Angeles, I too use echolocation in the form of music to tap into the auditory cortex of my brain and beyond to the “seat of the soul” the pineal gland. The music dictates when I should proceed straight ahead or turn left or right. Tonight’s soundtrack is “A Perfect Place” a Morricone-esque soundtrack by Mike Patton. Ready set go! Among the endless metaphors for life, a road is perhaps one of the best. There’s times for speed, times for caution and times to stop. Ahead, the lights of a psychic storefront beckon me to take time to stop and enjoy the cold Pink’s hotdog I picked up earlier. This is A Perfect Place for my One Night On Earth.
444 months, 1931 weeks, 13514 days, 324,328 hours, 19,459,690 minutes, 1,167,581,426 seconds. Thank you Bill W and Dr. Bob for a wonderful and exciting life with true friends who have never let me down….thank you my brothers and sisters.
Uh-will the wind ever remember the names it has blow in the past?
And with this crutch, its old age
And its wisdom it whispers, “No, this will be the last”– Jimi Hendrix
Mary is 94 years old with severe dementia, and resides in a hospice facility in Oklahoma. And she’s my mom. On November 6th, 2020 mom passed away from complications of Covid-19. This is the last moments I spent with mom.
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Mom sits silently in her wheelchair vacantly staring at the bear wall above her bed. On occasion she will touch her locket that hangs around her neck. I know she feels like leaving, but she can’t go. Mom doesn’t know that this is her tomorrow. There are only fleeting moments when the depths of her dementia recedes, and she sees me sitting on her bed.
“What are you doing here?” She asks.
As quickly as I can answer. Mom vanishes back into the dark corridors of her mind. She’s gone, only to be replaced with an empty stare to the white wall above her bed. My love for the woman who gave me life isn’t always available, but somewhere in moms mind I can only hope she knows that I have not abandoned her.
I open my computer and start to play music to fill the void of silence in her room. Out of the corner of my sight, moms leg starts to gently move, I slowly turn my head so as not to detract from moms gaze. Following her leg down to the tip of her fuzzy pink slipper. Mom begins to tap the metal footrest of her wheelchair. Mom smiles, and the paleness of her cheeks disappears and is replaced with a rosy pink color hue. I wonder, what if I play music from her youth.
Playing a mix of Frank Sinatra songs, the room fills with big band music with “Ol’ Blue Eyes” at the mic.
“ I always liked him” she says somewhat abruptly.
“Mom were you a bobby-soxer?”
There is a pause as mom searches her past, “Yes.”
She looks over at me after answering.
“Who are you?”she ask
“Mom, I’m your historian.”
A broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterdays life
Exposure and Other Worldly Morsels 