Yes -- "Long Distance Runaround" (1971)

Did we really tell lies?

Letting in the sunshine

Did we really count to one hundred?

"I've suffered the tortures of the damned, sir -- the tortures of the damned."  

Those words are uttered by Alex -- the narrator and anti-hero of the 1971 film, Clockwork Orange -- after a government program intended to cure him of his violent tendencies goes very, very wrong.  Alex is attempting to portray himself as a victim rather than the sociopathic criminal that he is.

Alex suffers the tortures of the damned

I'm not a sociopathic criminal.  I'm not even an anti-hero, as much as I would like to be one.  (One of my favorite memories is of a female friend of mine seeing a photo of me taken late in my senior year of college -- complete with shoulder-length hair, horseshoe mustache, and thousand-yard stare -- and saying, "You looked dangerous!")

But I did suffer the tortures of the damned, sir, when I was trying to get back home last month from my annual Memorial Day trip to Cape Cod.

The day after Memorial Day -- the last of my extended weekend on the Cape -- started off innocently enough.  You regular readers of 2 or 3 lines know that I hopped in my hurting Chevrolet Sonic rental car (shout-out to the good people at Hertz -- thanks SO much, folks!), fired up the satellite radio, and drove to Falmouth, MA, for one final vacation bike ride.

The Cowsills

The proprietor of the bike store I patronized -- who was listening to the same channel on his satellite radio -- turned out to be a wounded Vietnam vet who had attended the Newport Folk Festival with his girlfriend (who was reputed to be a Providence gangster's daughter) and was good friends in high school with Billy Cowsill, the senior male member of the great pop group, the Cowsills.

I rented a bike, rode most of the length of the Shining Sea Bikeway (which ends in Woods Hole), and then returned to the bike store.  I hopped back in my car, left Cape Cod via the Bourne Bridge, and set my course for the Providence airport, where I would board an 8:20 pm flight to the Baltimore-Washington International airport.  If all went well, I would arrive at my home around 11:00 pm.

The Bourne Bridge

But all did NOT go well, boys and girls.  All did not go well AT ALL.

Shortly after crossing the bridge, my airline sent me a text to tell me that my flight had been delayed by two hours.  That meant arriving home around 1:00 am.  That's not what I would have chosen, but I'm sort of a night owl -- so I could live with it.

I stopped at Gene's Famous Seafood in Fairhaven, MA, my favorite place to stop for a farewell dinner after my Memorial Day jaunts to the Cape.

Gene's did not disappoint.  The whole friend clams were as delicious as ever.  And the Narragansett was ice-cold:

The Narragansett Brewing Company was founded in 1890 in Cranston, RI.  It's flagship Narragansett lager was for many years the best-selling beer in New England.  

Narragansett was purchased by the Falstaff Brewing Company in 1965.  (The government attacked the merger as anticompetitive in one of the silliest antitrust cases ever prosecuted, but which was not finally resolved in Falstaff's favor until 1974.)  

Both brands fell on hard times after they merged.  The Narragansett brewery was closed in 1981, and the last of Falstaff's ten regional breweries was shuttered in 1990.

Pabst Brewing licensed the Falstaff brand, but discontinued production after sales fell to only 1468 barrels in 2004.  (Total beer production in the U.S. in 2012 was 196 million barrels.)

But Narragansett has made something of a comeback.  The brand was bought in 2005 by a group of Rhode Island investors, and sales have been on the upswing ever since.  The readers of Beeradvocate.com give it a higher rating than its biggest competitors (e.g., Budweiser, Miller, Coors, and Pabst Blue Ribbon).

Today, Narragansett promotes its lager as "The Official Beer of the Clam":

That's a cute attempt to tie Narragansett to a famous local food, but I think they've taken things a bit far:

Note the slogan on the Narragansett can:

I think "Made on honor, sold on merit" is a relatively new slogan -- I don't see any evidence of it in the photos of older Narragansett cans and bottles I've found online.  (If any of you knows better, please let me know.)

After quaffing my Narragansett, I hit the road again.  Given the two-hour delay in my flight's scheduled departure, there seemed to be no particular reason to hurry to Providence.

Where the hell is my airplane?

GUESS AGAIN!  When I checked in for my flight, I learned that the previous Providence-Baltimore flight had been delayed sufficiently that I could have made it if I had gotten to the airport a little earlier.  (Live and learn, I guess.)

The Providence airport was almost deserted when I arrived at 7:30 pm.  There wasn't a single restaurant or bar still open.  And the only newsstand/snack store that was open was about to close.

I bought a Dr. Pepper and a Snickers bar and settled down for a long summer's wait:

Which was about to become longer.  My airline pushed back my departure time another two hours.  We were now scheduled to depart at 12:20 am.  Good grief, Charlie Brown!

Good ol' Southwest Airlines showed what a big heart it has by rolling out the snacked and soft drinks for all us weary travelers.  I snagged a free ginger ale (ice included!) and some Ritz peanut-butter crackers and made myself comfortable.

Not as comfortable as some of my fellow passengers made themselves:

By the time midnight rolled around, the departure lounge was only sparsely occupied -- most of the passengers who lived in Providence had gone home hours earlier, preferring to sleep in their own beds than to arrive in Baltimore at 1:30 am (which was far too late to connect to their final destination).

After collecting my luggage and climbing aboard the bus that took me to my parking garage, I arrived home around 3:00 am.  Ugh.

Here's "Long Distance Runaround," which was released in 1971 on Fragile, the fourth studio album by Yes.  I heard this album a lot in college -- along with Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues, King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King, and Emerson Lake & Palmer's eponymous debut album.  It was the heyday of progressive rock, much of which was unadulterated crap . . . but I'm a sentimental guy, and often succumb to nostalgia for the music of my youth.

By the way, note that the vocals and guitars in this song are playing in common 4/4 time, while the drummer is accenting every fifth beat.  

Here's "Long Distance Runaround" -- plus the succeeding track from Fragile, "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus), an instrumental that follows "Long Distance Runaround" without a break.  (Schindler's fish -- the correct scientific name is Schindleria praematura -- is a species native to the southern Pacific Ocean.  It is only about an inch long, and is one of the smaller vertebrates in the animal kingdom.)

Click below to buy "Long Distance Runaround" from Amazon: 

Talking Heads -- "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" (1977)

I been to college

I been to school

The founding members of the Talking Heads -- David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth -- met when they were students at the Rhode Island School of Design ("RISD") in Providence, RI, in the early 1970's. 

Byrne left RISD after a year, but Frantz and Weymouth (who were boyfriend/girlfriend) graduated before moving to New York City and forming the Talking Heads with Byrne in 1974.

Byrne, Frantz, and Weymouth at CBGB in 1976

Byrne (a singer and guitarist) and Frantz (a drummer) had been in other bands previously.  Weymouth was not a musician, but Frantz persuaded her to learn how to play the bass guitar when he and Byrne had trouble recruiting a bass player for their new band.  The trio's first appearance was at the legendary New York punk/new wave club, CBGB, where they opened for the Ramones on June 20, 1975.  

Keyboardist Jerry Harrison, a former Harvard student who played on Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers' debut album, joined the Talking Heads just in time to appear on their first album, Talking Heads '77.  "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" was the first track of that album, which I bought and listened to zillions of times after graduating from law school and setting up housekeeping in our nation's capital in the fall of 1977.

While the Talking Heads are best known for their original songs (most of which were composed by Byrne), they also played some covers of sixties' hits when they were getting started.

They may have been the worst cover band in history.  Here they are performing "96 Tears" at CBGB.  

And here is a truly bizarre cover version of the 1910 Fruitgum Company's bubblegum hit, "1, 2, 3, Red Light."  (What were they thinking?)

RISD, which is one of the most highly regarded art and design colleges in the United States, is located in downtown Providence, very near Brown University.  It has a number of distinguished alumni, including actor and comedian Martin Mull (class of '65), fashion designer Nicole Miller ('73), film director Gus Van Sant ('75), New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast ('77), artist Shepard Fairey ('92) -- he's best known as the designer of the iconic "Hope" campaign poster for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign -- and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane ('95).

Roz Chast (RISD '77) knows blogs

About a mile from the RISD campus is the starting point of the East Bay Bike Path, a 14.5-mile-long paved rail trail that runs along Narragansett Bay from East Providence to Bristol, RI.  I stopped there on my drive back from Cape Cod last month for a ride.

Here's one of the oceangoing ships I saw in the harbor that day -- the Panagia Lady, a 600-foot long oil/chemical tanker that is owned by a Singapore shipping company.  

The Panagia Lady

There are several large windmills in the dock area:

The Pomham Rocks lighthouse was built in 1871.  Here's a picture of it from the bike trail.

Adolph Herman Aronson was the keeper of this lighthouse from 1908 until 1937.  His family owned a cat that would crouch on the edge of the island, waiting for fish to come within range, and would then dive into the water, grab the surprised fish, and bring it back to the island.  One newspaper story about the cat was headlined "Fish-Catching Cat is Self-Supporting."

Here's a photo of the Squantum Association's clubhouse, which was built in 1900.  It's a popular place for weddings, corporate meetings, and other special events.

Here's a picture from the water:

The rail trail follows the right-of-way of the Providence, Bristol, and Warren Railroad, which was completed in 1855.  In 1891, that railroad was leased by the Old Colony Railroad (the product of an earlier merger involving the Cape Cod Railroad).

Here's the former Riverside station, which now houses a tanning salon.

Here's Riverside's World War II memorial:

Riverside was also home to the Crescent Park Amusement Park (sometimes called the "Coney Island of New England"), which had a large midway, a famous ballroom, and "Shore Dinner Hall," which could seat 2000 diners.  

Crescent Park opened in 1886 and closed in 1979.  The spectacular Charles I. D. Looff Carousel (which features 61 horses, two coaches, two chariots, and a camel) has been restored and still operates every summer.

After I was done with my ride and my obsessive picture taking, I got back on I-95 and headed south.  My next stop was a big-ass outlet mall in Clinton, CT, where I spent a couple of hours replenishing my meager wardrobe.  I don't spare my readers very much, but I'll spare you from a listing of what I bought at the Nike, J. Crew, Ralph Lauren Polo, Levi's, and Kate Spade outlet stores.  (I will note that I wasn't shopping for myself at the Kate Spade store.)  

"Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" is a love song of sorts.  The singer is well aware that love can be very distracting:

Jet pilot gone out of control

Ship captain run aground

Stockbroker make a bad investment 

When love has come to town

He decides that spending time with his babe is more important than his job:

I called in sick

I won't go to work today

I'd rather be

With the one I love

But later he has second thoughts:

Where is my common sense?

How did I get in a jam like this? . . .

The answer is obvious

Love has come to town

Here's "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town":

You can use this link to buy the song from Amazon: