pop muzak
What is the proper response to detoxed versions of The Doors' "Light My Fire" while wandering down an air-conditioned yogurt aisle at Monoprix? Does one sway one's hips as if lost in dreamy memories of naked summer solstice bacchanals? Melodramatically fill in the missing words, transforming the French grocery store into a produce-y karaoke? Giggle quietly to oneself, honoring the late Jim Morrison with a moment of recognition while contemplating the raise in prices of Comté?
Unsure of how to react when this very thing happened on Thursday, I did the same thing I'd done so many years before when an elevator music rendition of "Riders on the Storm" trickled through the stereo system at the Carmel Crossroads Safeway: I looked for my dad, eager to see how he'd turn a strange pop cultural situation into hilarity, accompanying the muzak with hippie flailing under the unflattering fluorescent lights.
But my pop lives in California, and I in Paris, and instead of pealing into grateful squeals of laughter at his ironic jerky dance, I remembered his unconventional sense of humor, and his infallible ability to make me laugh until I cry.
I miss our impromptu jollifications. It has long been an unending source of entertainment of mine to play sappy tunes from the 60's -- The Association will always do -- just to see his exaggerated parody. Before I left California in May, he confessed that when he worked at Sea World as a teenager, before he left San Diego for Monterey so many years ago, the management would play Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on insanely heavy rotation. Not surprisingly, it drove his teenage mind mad, and ruined the cheery Dating Game tunes for him forever.
Discover Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass!
Joyeuse fête de la musique !
Unsure of how to react when this very thing happened on Thursday, I did the same thing I'd done so many years before when an elevator music rendition of "Riders on the Storm" trickled through the stereo system at the Carmel Crossroads Safeway: I looked for my dad, eager to see how he'd turn a strange pop cultural situation into hilarity, accompanying the muzak with hippie flailing under the unflattering fluorescent lights.
But my pop lives in California, and I in Paris, and instead of pealing into grateful squeals of laughter at his ironic jerky dance, I remembered his unconventional sense of humor, and his infallible ability to make me laugh until I cry.
I miss our impromptu jollifications. It has long been an unending source of entertainment of mine to play sappy tunes from the 60's -- The Association will always do -- just to see his exaggerated parody. Before I left California in May, he confessed that when he worked at Sea World as a teenager, before he left San Diego for Monterey so many years ago, the management would play Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on insanely heavy rotation. Not surprisingly, it drove his teenage mind mad, and ruined the cheery Dating Game tunes for him forever.
Discover Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass!
Joyeuse fête de la musique !
Comments
BTW...I remember Dan's "jollifications" with a big smile, too!
Love ya, miss ya,
Tante Lisa