The Hoover Dam
July 2, 2009
We left the Grand Canyon for Vegas—300 miles at temps up to 114 at the Hoover Dam and no AC in my dam (sic) car. The prospect of enlivening music was a salve, for distraction if nothing else, the icey bandana on my neck long dessicated. I cued my iPod roadtrip playlist, and finally, finally, on the third rendition of the Eagles, “Already Gone,” it dawned on me that I had somehow mashed a button that played the same friggin’ song over and over, and I did not know which button. I was booking it down the macadam trying to beat the heat (ha!), and my Pioneer instruction manual was in the trunk. So I reverted once again to my aforementioned and simple-minded “Caliente/F.M.” vintage 1989 compilation cassette, since there was no radio I could find out in the tumbleweeds and dust devils. By the time I got off I-40 at Seligman, Ariz., for an 85-mile detour on old Route 66, I was tired of even that personal favorite playlist. Happily, Seligman is a comfy, kitschy little 66 town with vintage 50s and 60s melodies—even some 30s and 40s Depression-era folk music—wafting from the kind-hearted ticky-tack “cafés” and auto garages-cum-souvenir stores.
Then onward, from Seligman to Kingman near the Nevada state line, where I picked up a country station, some feller sangin’ about how it turned him “awn” to be some “wawman’s” “mayan.” Bully for them. (Truth be told, I felt right at “hawm” for a tad bit.) But happily the Vegas NPR station kicked in soon and I was all sucked up in the U.S. Supreme Court and firefighter affirmative action issues in New Haven, Conn. Lord, that seemed far away from where I was. But I had not read a newspaper for a week, so news of the world was welcome.
So I made do with NPR to Vegas. Even though it wasn’t music, it sustained me in an irascible sort of way. News generally hacks me off, even if I haven’t heard any for a week. Miles on, I stopped at a lonesome Texaco for a bag of ice, and Dodger reflected my 110-dgree mood in the only shade avalable, by the pump.
Now, I like NPR. Listen all the time. But it is not music, unless you count those snippets of esoteric, world-music, bangy, screechy, dissonant things they splice in between news segments in the morning when I am only but trying to assimilate my caffeine. Please.
Later, at my brother’s house one afternoon, an archival BeeGees greatest hits I unearthed provided beat for my exercise routine, but found its limits mighty quick.
Junior high all over again
So here’s what I propose: WDAV announcer, producer and work buddy Jennifer Foster, will you please compile me a personal mp3, iTunes compatible, to download for the road? Just a few of you and your inimitable WDAV colleagues’ classical favorites—the only stipulation that they be loud, so I can hear them in a 70-mph wind. No hurry, but the change of pace would be ab fab.