Boo Boo's Shoe Blues

Today was one of the crankiest and most scattered in recent memory. Actually it started even before I was awake, as I dreamed that I had overslept by almost an hour and a half. My mother showing up in the dream offering to "help" was an added touch. As relieved as I was to wake up at 5:35, it still was not enough time to motivate my two children, once awake and dressed at around 6:20, to move in any particularly urgent fashion. This was drawn into even sharper relief by the multiple battles my daughter and I seemed to have over shoes.

It was just a mad race the entire day. I opened the office, then my boss and I made a dash to another meeting, and when we arrived back at the office the entire rest of the day was spent in a mad scattered dash from task to task. I believe I got something done today but I'm not entirely sure what it was.

But I was utterly delighted to find that a package had arrived for me from Amazon.com. It contained two cds, one of which I had been especially eager to enjoy. I opened the package and found rock that babe by The Mammals. I had to wait all day to enjoy it on the ride home.

When I came to this song, Bad Shoe Blues, I realized, this is how I had been feeling all day. I couldn't seem to get a break, kind of like when you can't find a good pair of shoes, or you can't get your six year old Boo Boo Daughter to just put on her shoes without an Academy Award winning performance.

Everything is a mad race, and not all of it is really good for us. In fact, a lot of what we do, what we accept, what we go along with, is pretty bad for us. But yet it just keeps on rolling right over us, flattening our lives into perfectly boring even predictable stretches of time.

The Mammals are just a fun, smart band. They sing and play to the beat of a different trad drum entirely. Among them are some wonderful trad legacies; Ruthie Unger is the daughter of Jay Unger who composed a great deal of the soundtrack to the Ken Burns Civil War Series. Tao Rodriguez-Seeger is the grandson of noneother than Pete. That's some gooooood music pedigree.

Here's Bad Shoe Blues. Go here to hear the whole thing along with a couple of other mammalian treats that will be blogged someday soon.

Well I can't find shoes to suit my style
Except the worn out pair in the throwout pile
The toe's too tight or the heel's too stacked
Or they were made by a slave in an unfair fac'try

Well I wish I had time to sew my own clothes
I wish I had time to smell a rose
But a rose today don't even smell good
Tomato don't taste like a good tomato should

They're all hydroponic, supersonic
What ever happened to the cure-all tonic
We're poppin pills and choppin' chromosomes
And keepin' everyone alive so we're never alone

Well we used to have fur
But now we know better
So every little lady
Needs a hand-knit sweater

That landin' strip is thin and long
Oh Lordy how we mow the lawn

Ohh freedom's just another word for nothin' left to loose
But everything is nothing if you take my right to choose
My life, my death, my joy, my ruin
Get off my lawn with your holy boo-hooin'

Progress is good, progress is bad
hope springs eternal and life is a fad
The people get cleaner, bacteria meaner
Filter out the fat so the label says "leaner"

Well there's hormones in the food
And hormones in the water
Nice to meet your wife
Oh, 'scuse me, that's your daughter

Well she walks like a woman
And eats like a bird,
And talks like a trucker
Or haven't you heard?

Freedom's just another word for down to your last dime
It hits the fan, you're spic and span, and still got plenty of time
No stocks no bonds no market crashes
We all fall down when its ashes, ashes

Well I can't buy shoes to suit my style
'Cept the worn-out pair in the throwout pile
The toe's too tight or the heel's too stacked
Or they were made by a slave in an unfair fac'try