I had a couple of VERY odd musical interludes this week...
The first one was a really bizzare fan-boi moment, while I was driving down to the Cape on Wednesday. I was playing the soundtrack to "The Empire Strikes Back" as my travel music (WHAT?? Fanboi, here!!!), when I was cruising down Rt 25, I happened to be driving by a place where we used to gather after King Richards Fair on Saturday and Sunday nites. For years... A **LOT** of fond memories of eating and drinking and singing with good friends after a long day appeasing the crowds on chilly autumn afternoons at KRF. The place was of course "Penners" (before that it was "Persey's Place" - we knew it in both incarnations).
Penner's burned down during the winter about two years ago. No one was hurt fortunately, but it was totally destroyed.
Naturally, I was thinking of this as I was driving down Rt 25. Penner's lies just beyond a hill in the road, you cannot (or rather could not) see the place until you crested the hill, but it does (or did) have a tall red, clapboard tower or chimney that peeks over the hill. As I approached the hill I saw the tower poking up over the hill, apparently unscathed by the fire. In fact, looking quite, pristine. I was surprised, I thought that by now they'd have bulldozed the ruins and built something else... could it be...? DID THEY REBUILD...??? The music from my car stereo was playing the quiet, incidental music of movie conversations as I drove up the hill... As I crested the hill and the building proper came into view, a suddenly strident and particularly brutal rendition of Darth Vader's theme burst thru the speakers... my jaw dropped... I slowed down. Penner's had, of course not been rebuilt... It's burnt out hulk lay sprawled before me; the front entrance was not recognizable. I slowed to a crawl on the road as Vader's music trumpeted through. The roof was caved in in the center of the building. The music began to taper off to a more somber and brooding telling of Darth Vader's theme as I pulled into the parking lot... The side entrance and the entire wall along the side entrance were nothing but burned out, scorched, collapsed and boarded over, falling over particle board. I drove to the side where the outdoor deck was. It, at least was still standing - partially - many collapsed beams and along the outside wall of the building where we sat many a nite you could see blackened ripples in the now charcoal wood where the fire had licked up along the shingles and wall for what must have been a considerable time before the firefighters got there. Vader's music was fading now, and I pulled out of the lot and continued on my way, stunned.
*sigh*
Ciao, Penner's.
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On a more upbeat note (literally?)
Ok... so... I'm walking around over at Brown University, just having an afternoon walk...
Walking around amidst all the old brownstone dormitories and courtyards... across the quads... kids tossing baseballs and frisbees... admiring the architecture... and the nubile young bodies...
There was a marching band playing on one quad... as I turned one of the corners they started marching straight for the sidewalk - right in front of me! They were in front of me (all 50 of them) all the way back to my car - thru all the courtyards, streets and sidewalks between me and my car - a good 25 minutes! I had my own marching band!! (Granted, I had no control over what they played - I would have preferred Darth Vader's Theme, but THEY were playing the theme from the Muppet Show almost all the way - oddly appropriate anyway... (it was apparently some sort of thing to welcome in the freshmen at Brown - go figgur)
At one point, they took a break from playing and I said to the kids in the back row, "Goddammit! I always get stuck behind one of these things when I'm in a hurry..."
They just fell out laughing...
An afterthought... Could it be that the only tune the Brown Marching Band knows is "The Muppet Show"? *SHUDDER*