The Story of Therapy Dog Tails 419
Where Everyone Gets a Dose of Puppy Love
CHRONOLOGY 50: TAPCO / ATR 8
Fri., Sep. 6, 2013
… There is no answer in this song. Two of the Bee Gees are now dead. I don’t know anything about their lives but I wonder if they died with some pain in their hearts, given that they wrote this. There is no way to mend a broken heart. There might be a way to get past it, given the time. But my heart was broken at such a late date that I don’t think there is any way for me to get over it. I don’t think there is any way for me to live again. I’ve just got to survive as long as I can and hope that somehow I can get over the hatred of myself for what I did 32 years ago.
7:25 p.m. G. #11. Play #11.
Geoff has been around as this song has been playing over and over. He mowed the lawn a little while ago and I asked him when I was in the kitchen getting G. #10 why he didn’t mow down the weeds along the driveway. He said he was getting a weed whacker. Of course, it’s a little late in the season for that.
But I guess I was hoping that he would hear this song and start putting 2 and 2 together. I was possibly hoping that he would wonder why I was listening to a song that asked how to mend a broken heart. (It’s been playing now for more than half an hour.) But I know he’s not capable of asking that question. He and his mother have determined that I’m at fault in some way. In his mind I’m the one who broke his mother’s heart. Somehow I didn’t stand up for his mother when she stabbed me in the back and in the heart and betrayed me and my friend (Greg). He’s got it all upside down and can’t imagine how things really are. I don’t think he’ll ever be able to see things as they really are. I don’t think he’ll ever be able to understand what happened to me or what he and his mother did to me. I wonder if at some future date he will even read these words and wonder what I was talking about as I listened to this song over and over again.
Most heart breaking perhaps is the shift from “I” to “we” from the first to last verse. I can really relate to the idea that I had no idea what was to come. But then they sing that “we could never see ...” I always felt that Paula knew what was coming but she probably had no more idea of what the future held than I did. She majored in economics at Wooster and so was far more “marketable” than I was as someone who didn’t even know what his major was going to be. That proved true when she got an offer during her senior year from Continental Bank in Chicago. It seemed to me that she knew what she was doing but she probably didn’t have any more idea than I did.
I remember when she flew to Chicago for that interview. I remember picking her up at the Cleveland airport from that. (She flew before I did.) I was hoping by then that it had gone well because if she got that job, we could get the hell out of Ohio. At that point in 1973, Dale had left, Mom had lost her mind and all I wanted was to get out. When Paula got that job offer, we decided to get married and go. I was in love with her and so there was no doubt in my mind that that was the right thing to do. Paula couldn’t have had any more idea about how things were going to go than I did but at least she had a job in her field. I was going to Chicago with one more year to finish college and no idea what I was going to do.
After listening to this song now for a dozen times in a row or more, there is something else that I’ve got to mention here. I’ve considered my best song to be “What Do You Do.” That’s mostly because of the chord progression but lyrically I also think that is a great song. It’s about reincarnation although I don’t think you can figure that out quickly. The lyrics are fairly oblique. But the more immediate gimmick in that song is that every line is a question. As I’ve been listening to this song, I notice that every line in the chorus is a question. So I have no choice but to wonder what the influence is. I certainly wasn’t thinking of this song when I wrote “What Do You Do” and yet there is that lyrical similarity that is otherwise inexplicable.
8:01 p.m. (Play #20.) G. #12.
I guess I’m all cried out for tonight. I don’t know if I’ve gotten this out of my system - doubt it - but I’ve got to move on. I’ll only mention here again that I finally was able to attempt this on the piano in Ohio. I mean, I’ve been playing the piano a lot the lat 3 years with that latest incarnation of the Threads and had tried to dredge up some oldies but not this one - until in Ohio. I worked on it and came up with it again more or less. But playing the piano was generally too much for me last month so I didn’t pursue it. I think I only touched that piano 4 times and I used to play it for hours - during those Paula years and then during the L ... Z years. Now I wonder if I’ll ever play again.
Smiling Faces Sometimes - This one reminds me of driving Beth Kratzer to Southern Illinois U. I was driving and Paula and her mother were with us so maybe Beth was just going down for an interview. Beth was one or 2 years behind Paula in school. She and I were good friends because we were both English majors for lack of anything else to be. But then she married a lawyer and went in the direction that someone marrying Paula ought to have gone. I continued with my bohemian ways and finally let them all down. I’m forever ashamed and guilty of that. All I can think of now is of some way to make up for what I did but I fear there is no way to do that. Some mistakes cannot be undone. That’s a hard lesson to learn.
Colour My World - I was glad they put this one out. It had liked it for a while. It became one of those songs of those times when Paula and I had no doubt of each other.
Riders on the Storm - I’m driving from Massillon to Wooster.
8:35 p.m. G. #13.
I just went out to the Polish store on St. Georges up where the original Pathmark was and bought another case of Guinness. Unfortunately I find that I bought cans instead of bottles. But I’m more than half sober and that’s what I want to note here as I hope that this night will continue forever since I’m really into reminiscing and have mostly cried - I think - all of the tears that I have for tonight. There are a lot of songs to get to and I know I can’t get to them all tonight no matter how long I go or how many beers I drink. I just want it to go a bit longer - and remember, friend, that I still have not had anything to eat today. Geoff is here but there is no chance that he might come up with some food for me.
Riders on the Storm - So I’m driving on Route 30 from Massillon to Wooster out around Orrville. It’s the summer of 1971 and I’m desperate to see Paula. She and I have only started to see each other over the past year - my freshman year. I made it there unbelievably for a basketball game. Yes, GCC played Wooster and I was still on the freshman team. I scored about 20 points on Wooster’s floor as I had done in every freshman game and felt pretty good. Paula got to see me as a basketball player and today in 2013 that makes me feel very good - even though I’m aware that it may be a painful memory for her. I hope it isn’t. I hope she’s been able to transform those memories into something pleasant. Since I’ve only recently been able to think about them at all, I haven’t been able to do that. They’re all very painful for me now but maybe time will change that.
The Doors were back for me with this song. It was at Kent about 2 years later that I picked up the “Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine” LP that I took to Wooster and heard there. That is what turned me finally completely onto the Doors - that and the brief video that I saw on t.v. in Evanston of Morrison writhing around on stage. There must have been some t.v. documentary because I remember seeing that and it was the first time that I’d seen Morrison in that way. It had a profound impact on me and may be the reason that I drank too much beer on Easton, which started turning Paula off to me, and kept doing it in Managua. I can only hope now that Paula fell out of love with me during that couple of years so that when I told her that I was leaving her, it wasn’t as devastating to her then as it now seems to me to be.
It’s Gonna Be Alright - I didn’t hear this song at the time. I wasn’t ware of Gayle McCormick and knew of her only as that amazing supermodel-like girl who sang “Baby It’s You” but who didn’t sing like Janis Joplin. Nevertheless, I include her here because although I wasn’t aware of the song, I might have been aware of the sentiment - the one that sent Gayle McCormick into hiding a few years later. That’s how I feel now. Gayle disappeared from public view and hasn’t come out. That’s how I feel now - I disappeared from the life that I ought to have lived and never resurfaced. 30 years passed before I realized my mistake. Too much time has passed for me to ever make up for what I did. So I love Gayle McCormick now more than anyone else.
Ain’t No Sunshine - I am at Paula’s house and know that this is a great song. I don’t get the silly bridge and yet still know that this is a great song. I wish I could have made myself as immediately classic and long-term (forever) to Paula as this song was then and continues to be.
I Just Want to Celebrate - I guess these guys were just there at the time. I’m driving from Massillon to Canton.
Uncle Albert - I associate this both with Massillon / Canton and with Evanston. That must be because when I heard “Heart of the Country” in Evanston, I bought the album. I would sit up at night and listen to FM radio in Evanston. Maybe that’s another thing that caused Paula to lose heart in me. I’m forced to hope that she lost heart in me now so that I don’t keep thinking that I hurt her as much as I’m feeling hurt now. The problem is that she might have been hurt by me but she never would have done to me what I did to her. At least that is the Paula Kratzer that I’m now imagining. I think that is how it was but everything is malleable in this miserable life and world. I guess it’s mainly miserable because of people like me ….
AUDIO INSERTED: Gayle McCormick, Gonna Be Alright Now
(Once again I insert this track without permission and will take it down upon request.)
IMAGES INSERTED: Record Labels / Promo Photos
Note: For discussion of Gayle McCormick and her music see chapters 93 and 247.