SEASONS IN HELL Vol. I, No. 5
Astros (44-44) @ Dodgers (56-32)
July 16-19, 2009
•Chavez Ravine, El Lay
•”City In The Smog” (On a clear day, UCLA)
Little fish, big fish
Swimming in the water
Come back here, man
Bring me a Dodger
VENTILATOR BLUES. The other day I was driving back from lunch, and I decided to take a short cut I knew down some side streets to get back to work. Soon I was sailing along, going over some figures in my head, humming a Marilyn Manson song to myself, driving through these little picturesque Old Beaumont neighborhoods, and thinking about how clever I was. . . I was just at peace with myself, really.
Then I came around the last turn before an intersection with a major thoroughfare, and I had to slam on the brakes. Parked along this side street, along the side of a strip shopping center, was a big McLane Trucking semi-tractor/trailer, with the back door part way up and a ramp down to the street. Two guys with hand trucks were unloading something going somewhere, just taking their time. There was traffic coming the other way, so I had to sit, because the street wasn’t wide enough for me and the oncoming traffic to pass next to this big truck.
As I sat there and waited, I was calm at first. I had just got finished singing the last verse of “The Dope Show” to myself, and realized with satisfaction I remembered all the words this time. But as the minutes crept by and the oncoming traffic kept on coming, I realized all the time I’d saved by taking the shortcut was being eroded away. I was being forced to give up an advantage I had secured for myself, goddammit it, through no fault of my own, and as I sat there staring at “McLane” in large bold letters on the ¾-rolled up back door of the this trailer, something in my mind snapped.
It didn’t help that Drayton McLane’s pro baseball team had just subjected us to another desultory series, playing half-assed baseball at home against the Nationals, the worst team in the major leagues; all this with a chance to get over .500 and make an emphatic statement about their second-half chances just before the All Star break, a chance at a psychological boost for the team and its fans heading into the brief mid-season respite.
But, no, I thought, how could that ever happen? Not with an owner who had himself a Nieman-Marcus team and then opted to go cut rate, bringing in a smiling, vapid Wal-Mart manager fond of motivational cheers and cheesy bromides; cheap knock-off Wal-Mart players who somewhat resemble the ones in the tonier stores, but cost a lot less; a cut-rate front office – hell, he even chintzed on the radio announcers, replacing quality with a couple of generic markdowns I still haven’t learned the names of after 4 or 5 seasons of them, nor do I care to. That goddamn McLane, I thought, sitting there in the heat, looking at the back of his goddamn truck – that motherfucker is personally out to cheapen the quality of my life, with everything he does. Well, not this time. I grabbed the gun from under the seat, and reached over to open the door of my truck.
I don’t know what stopped me from doing what I had every intention of doing that day – mainly, standing there in the street with my pistol, methodically blowing out every tire on that tractor and trailer that was sitting there with Drayton McLane’s name all over it, causing me so much annoyance. I’ll teach these motherfuckers. . . but then, I wasn’t really mad at the poor truck driver and his helper. They were proles like me, trying to make a living working for some rich bastard who picks his teeth with money while casually averring that us have-nots just need to learn to think like champions. Motherfucker. Then he foists a Wal-Mart baseball team on us and tries to act like it’s the real thing. It was Drayton McLane I was really shooting at, those 9mm cartridges ripping through the recap tires (of course) were really tearing through him and his cheap-ass, metaphysically corrupt philosophy of how to do things, and his fucked up ideas about just how gullible we all are. “Fuck you, McLane,” I was screaming, as I reached for another clip. People were gathering around now – at a distance – to watch. “This is the last fucking time you. . .”
But I didn’t do it. The mental image I had of me doing it, standing there in the street like fucking Dirty Harry, killing this truck, caused me to start laughing at myself. I was amused too by the idea of the poor driver, huddled down behind a nearby dumpster on his cell phone, calling 911: “Yes, ma’am, he’s wearing tan Dockers, and a casual short-sleeve button-up shirt, eggshell color maybe, kind of looks like a Hickey Freeman. . . yes, ma’am, he’s got a 9mm Beretta, yes ma’am. . . yes, every single tire on my rig. . . he keeps saying something about ‘another effing great idea by Pam & company’, I don’t know who ‘Pam’ is, no ma’am. . . ” Drayton McLane (and his truck) are just lucky I am a mentally healthy individual, more or less, and that I normally end up laughing at myself when I get really torqued about something stupid, instead of starting to shoot. But that is still no excuse for what he is running out there onto the field every night, at MMPUS and elsewhere, trying to make us all believe it is a real, contending baseball team. Um, no, it is not. McLane is the old man greeter at the door, Cooper is the department manager who smiles at your complaint but doesn’t really give a fuck, and this is really a fucking Wal-Mart team, put together in some sweat shop for 20 cents an hour overseas. American Cheaply made, should win the pennant break in a few months time.
**********
Thursday (16th)
9:10 p.m. CDT, FOX-Houston
Friday (17th)
9:10 p.m. CDT, FOX-Houston
Saturday (18th)
9:10 p.m. CDT, FOX-Houston
Sunday (19th)
3:10 p.m. CDT, FOX-Houston
**********
We live on the edge of a body of water
Warmed by the blood of the cold-hearted slaughter of the otter
Wonder how she feels? Mother seal?
It’s no wonder the Pacific Ocean is blue
PACIFIC OCEAN BLUES. I used to despise the Dodgers with as much venom as I do now the FTCubs. Well, almost as much. Of all the old NL West opponents, I think I hated the Dodgers the most, more than Atlanta, more than the Giants, even. Part of the reason was that the Dodgers were consistently good, and often took part in undoing the Astros hopes. The rivalry was probably at its peak in 1980 and 1981, when the Dodgers, fresh off of 2-3 NL West pennants and a couple of memorable World Series appearances, had the division wrested from them by the upstart Astros; in 1980 in a one game playoff in LA; and almost again in the screwed up, bifurcated 1981 season, when – the Dodgers won the “first half” of the season by virtue of being ½ game up on the division when the players were suddenly locked out the second week in June. The Astros won the “second-half” of the season (the Reds actually had the best record in the division overall and were the ones who really got fucked over royally in the deal. . . too bad, so sad, Dickities) only to lose to LA in an extra round of playoffs necessitated by MLB turning the post-season into a tee-ball league type round-robin tournament. Everybody gets to play, everybody gets a ribbon. Bud Selig did not have a hand in that particular mess – he was too busy selling used cars in Wisconsin at the time – but he should have.
Up above the sunny skies in South California
There’s a wounded rocket flying high, heading homeward
It came from a hollow, under a hill
And soon there’ll be nobody left to kill
In California
I also hated most of the Dodgers players, individually and collectively. I had a grudging respect for Reggie Smith and, to an extent, Davey Lopes; but, ooooh, the rest of ‘em. . . I hated Steve Garvey with a passion. And Mickey Hatcher and Rick Monday and Steve Yeager and Mike Scioscia (who I have since come to respect.) I couldn’t stand Don Sutton or whiny-ass Tommy John or the Aggie lefty they had for a few years, I can’t remember his name at the moment. And let’s not forget Dusty Baker, or the drunk-ass “Five O’clock” Bob Welch, with his drunk-ass buddy Rick Sutcliffe. Or Bill Russell. I especially hated Bill Russell, though I cannot remember exactly why. I think he started a fight one time or something. And all the rest who came and went. And then there was Tommy Lasorda. There aren’t words to describe my withering distaste for that fat-ass, self-promoting sack of crap.
On through the 1980s, the Nolan Ryan no-hitter, the 22-inning game, etc., the Astros-Dodgers rivalry festered and flowered. The Dodgers seemed to usually get the best of the Astros, which only made me hate them more.
Then in 1994 the NL reshuffled the divisions and, suddenly, half the old rivalries were gone. Evaporated. Still, it took a long time for my enmity for the Dodgers to subside. But it has by now. It has been over fifteen years since Houston and LA mattered all that much to each other, and the old feeling just isn’t there anymore. Most of the old adversaries are long gone. This recent batch of Dodgers is quick and successful and – dare I say it? – have become a team I grudgingly admire. They play something like the old Dodgers did, built on good pitching; with an offense based as much on speed and opportunism as raw power. They have been quite successful of late, pillaging in the Western provinces for a couple of years now; and they have even earned a bit of affection from me for completely fucking over and unceremoniously dispatching the HurriCubs in last season’s NLDS. I even like Charlie Steiner now, who has emerged as the voice of the Dodgers for many, since Vin Scully has basically eased into semi-retirement. To my surprise, Steiner is quite listenable. He just did not do anything for me back in his New York/ESPN days; but he has made a smooth transition to the West Coast. I hear him a fair amount on XM, and he is mostly pleasant to listen to, is informative, and calls a good game.
Last night, Captain Black went dancing at the Whiskey A-Go-Go
When a well-known groupie knocked him back, busted his ego
Stoned out of his head, he crawled off to bed
The following morning he went to the pad
The missile was standing, pointing to the skies of
California
However, the Dodgers being the Dodgers, they insured my nascent admiration for them would have a wet blanket thrown over it, by going out and acquiring Manny Ramirez mid-season last year from Boston, where he had entirely worn out his welcome. In baseball terms, it was a brilliant move. Manny had a fabulous last half of the season out in the El Lay sun, and was a large factor in the Dodgers success. In a way, Manny is kind of a modern day version of Richie “Dick” Allen, the extremely talented mercenary and sometime malcontent the Dodgers imported for a year in the early 1970s and dropped into their mostly Punch-and-Judy batting order in hopes of getting over the hump. It didn’t quite work for them then, but you’d have to say it has this time around.
Of course, Manny hasn’t had much at all to do with this season’s success, sitting out most of it on suspension for using performance enhancing drugs, some kind of Viagra or something, I never did quite get it straight. But he is back now, and I cannot think of any negative scenario his return means for the Dodgers. They’ve already been through the traveling freak show atmosphere that comes with employing Manny after bringing him in last year, and it did not hurt them any. Fears he would somehow negatively affect the Dodgers team chemistry did not materialize, either. If Manny gets back in and starts hitting anything like he did last season, wow. The Dodgers, currently 7 games up on the rest of their division, might finish 15 games ahead.
But before I get to effusive about LA, I would do well to remember that this team essentially sprung from the loins of the hated old 1970s-1980s Dodgers, after all. The fucking Steve Garvey Dodgers. The Kirk-fucking-Gibson Dodgers. The fucking Tommy fucking Fat-Ass fucking linguini-in-clam-sauce Lasorda fucking Dodgers. Those motherfuckers, the ones I used to hate so much. So, you know what? Fuck the Dodgers, these Dodgers. Fuck ‘em all (save for our old friend Brad Ausmus, of course; unless. . . my friend BudGirl might, well. . . tell you what, I’d better let her make any further comments on that aspect.)
The red balloon was flying high, watching the weather
Captain Black was trying hard to get it together
Immediate names came into his brain
A rocket from China, a Russian plane
He pushed the wrong button and soon there’ll be no place called
California
**********
PITCHING MATCHUPS
Thursday July 16 (9:10 p.m.)
Houston – Wandy Rodriguez (8-6, 2.96)
•”He’s so high, you can’t get over him
He’s so low, you can’t get under him
He’s so wide, you can’t get around him
Help me, somebody. . . ”
Los Angeles – Randy Wolf (4-3, 3.45)
•Wolf has been healthy in 2009 so far – this will be his twentieth start of the season, which leads the NL. He’s really a 6-inning pitcher these days, with Joe Torre tightly managing his pitch counts bringing in his relievers early and often. This results in a hell of a lot of no decisions, but in a very pedestrian sense, Wolf gets his job done – he keeps his team in games. The Dodgers are 12-7 when he starts.
Friday July 17 (9:10 p.m.)
Houston – Roy Oswalt (5-4, 3.85)
•”You thought you knew where I was and when
Looks like I keep fooling you again
You thought that you’d got me all staked out
Baby, looks like I’ve been breaking out
I’m a dark horse, running on a dark race course. . . ”
Los Angeles – Chad Billingsley (9-4, 3.38)
•Billingsley is 24 years old, and in his 4th MLB season already. He is tied with Wolf for the lead league in starts. A strikeout pitcher all the way; his K/IP ratio is down slightly from last season, but that is quibbling. He hasn’t had a win since mid-June, four of his last five starts were no decisions.
Saturday July 18 (9:10 p.m.)
Houston – Mike Hampton (5-6, 4.52)
•”The student body’s got a bad reputation
What they all need is adult education
Back to school it’s a bad situation
But what you want is an adult education. . . ”
Los Angeles – Clayton Kershaw (7-5, 3.16)
•Kershaw is 21 years old, a stylish lefthander in his second major league season. Out of Dallas, he is right behind Wolf and Billingsley in the games started category. He has won his last four decisions (in six games.)
Sunday July 19 (3:10 p.m.)
Houston – Russ Ortiz (3-4, 4.44)
•”Who could ever be so cruel?
Blame the devil for the things you do
It’s such a selfish way to lose. . .
But I know it’s nobody’s fault, nobody’s fault
But my own.”
Los Angeles – Hiroki Kuroda (3-5, 4.67)
•”My mama borned me in a ghetto
There was no mattress for my head
But, no, she couldn’t call me ‘Jesus’
I wasn’t white enough, she said
And then she named me ‘Kung Fu’
Don’t have to explain it, no, Kung Fu. . . ” *
* – For anyone who missed him, I pity you. Curtis Mayfield was a rock ‘n’ roll genius.
**********
WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE. I am writing this series preview from the sunny climes of the beach, specifically from Caplen, on the Bolivar Peninsula.
I’ve written series previews down here once or twice before, and at least one was for a Dodgers series, too, I believe. Anyway, as I am sure I related somewhere previously, it is a tradition in my family to pack up the household and move to the beach for 2-3 weeks in the middle of the summer, to escape the heat back in town, literally and figuratively. This time is a little bit different than any others, though. This is our first significant time down on the peninsula since Ike came through.
The beach is so weird to me now. The landscape has literally been transformed. The Bolivar Peninsula is really just a big sand bar; big enough that your normal everyday weather doesn’t affect it all that much. What Ike did was move the whole fucking peninsula around. It eroded some beaches and built up others. Tons and tons of sand washed up onto the land and settled. One of the first things you notice is there is very little green anywhere. All the open marshland as well as the carefully cultivated lawns in the subdivisions are now covered with sand. The sand dunes that used to run from High Island all the way down nearly to Point Bolivar are entirely gone. You can see the gulf from anywhere on the peninsula now, which I actually kind of like. By the same token, I was looking out the north-facing windows of the cabin yesterday, one of the relatively few cabins that survived intact, and I realized that the tugboat and barges that appeared to be moving magically across the landscape were actually sailing up the Intracoastal. I’d never been able to see the ship canal from the beach side of the highway before. I’ve been coming down here all my life, and now it is hard to recognize anything. People have told me with all the landmarks washed away, they could not find their own property after the storm. It was just one giant sand pile. They were using old surveys and GPS to find the buried roads and streets. The whole effect of this lack of almost any significant landmark is kind of surreal.
Actually, though, I am amazed at how much has come back down here already, and there are numerous signs that the recovery effort is ongoing. There is heavy equipment everywhere, mostly Galveston County crews rebuilding the beaches. When I saw it a couple of weeks after the storm came through, I did not think Bolivar would ever be habitable again. But it is slowly coming back. Until the next storm comes through, anyway.
A couple of evenings ago me and the beagle were taking a walk down the beach, just before sundown. He was having a great time, sniffing out who knows what and running off in every different direction at once. He chased wading birds, and dug up a pair of bikini bottoms and brought them to me (I have no idea.) He is a pretty dog, all beagle but a mix between the standard breed, and a “lemon” beagle on his mother’s side. He is almost all white, with just a patch here and there of brown and black. He looks like a show dog, but he is not. What he is, is wild as hell. And he can pretty much run free down here (unlike in town), and he was enjoying our walk very much, and I was happy for him.
While the dog was doing his thing, the man was walking along, alternately staring out to sea and at the horizon and the setting sun, and looking ahead at miles and miles of empty beach before us. What a gorgeous scene, I was thinking. I was looking down, too, trying to avoid stepping on anything really sharp. This part of the beach, near Gilchrist, has always had a lot more shell than the rest of the beach down here, I don’t know why. As I looked down at millions of fragments of broken up seashells, it occurred to me that what really defined this picture postcard scene more than anything else, was death. Death loomed everywhere. In the broken shells, on the empty beach. Looking inland at the barren landscape that used to be full of beach houses and people drinking and laughing and barbecuing and shooting off fireworks. All gone. There were dead bodies, too. Most of those were found with everything else that used to be on this peninsula, washed up on the far shore of Trinity Bay, in southern Chambers County. There are many more, I am told, that have yet to be found.
I’d like to be really dramatic and say part of me died in that storm, too; but that would not be accurate. I am sorry for what happened down here, sorry for everyone’s losses, but I find myself strangely unmoved by the complete leveling of a place I spent so many happy hours, from childhood up to last summer. It just doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. It is still the beach, after all. Despite all the hell-raising and womanizing and surfing and whatever else I did down here for all those years, the truth is that all that ever really mattered to me was the beach itself, the wide stretch of smooth sand and then the ocean. That part is still here.
My life went where it went, but I always, always had the beach in the back of my mind. I still do. Just the physical act of sitting or walking on the sand and looking out to the gulf is so powerful. I can sit out there for hours and just stare at the horizon, listening to the surf. I took up surf fishing several years ago, not because I am such a fanatic about catching fish, but rather so I would have a cover when I wanted to come down here and just meditate. A guy sitting on the beach for hours staring out to sea with a fishing pole in his hands is one thing; a guy just sitting there all day looks a little weird after awhile.
But just looking was never really good enough for me, either. I was never more than a half-ass surfer, but I really didn’t care. I just liked the feeling of riding on a wave, the accompanying lifestyle, and the fact the pursuit caused me to spend every available moment on the beach, with people as inspired and crazy as I was.
But even more than surfing, my favorite thing of all is to swim in the surf, at night and preferably alone.
**********
INJURIES
Houston – Aaron Boone (heart condition), 60-day DL, 2010 – Thanks to Boone, I went and got my ticker checked. . . “Ticks just fine,” my doctor said, then he told me about his new boat; Doug Brocail (strained left hamstring), 15-day DL, early July maybe – Brocail has missed three entire seasons due to injury in his 18 years, and parts of two others; he has pitched in just 7 games this year.
Los Angeles – Ronald Belasario (RHP) (right elbow), 15-day DL, mid-August – former Magnum, PI and Airwolf producer blew his elbow out in a bar; Jonathan Broxton (RHP) (big toe), day-to-day, will linger all season – Just about anything gets you on the injury list these days; Hong-Chih Kuo (LHP) (left elbow), 15-day DL, return unknown – Whatever; Doug Mientkiewicz (1B) (right shoulder dislocation), return possibly mid-July – Wow, I had entirely forgot this guy; Eric Milton (LHP) (back), 15-day DL, out for the season? – He doesn’t really have a job to come back to, anyway; Will Ohman (LHP) (left shoulder), 15-day DL, return unknown, needs MRI – Deteriorating shoulder not a good sign; Xavier Paul (OF) (staph infection) 15-day DL, return unknown – Staph will kick your ass, no lie; Jason Schmidt (RHP) (right shoulder) 60-day DL, surgery scheduled, return unknown – Out since early 2007, his right arm is basically duct-taped to the shoulder; what a joke.
**********
INTO THE SEA, EVENTUALLY. I picked up the somewhat dangerous habit of swimming in the ocean at night when I was 12 years old. My scout troop was camping out at Gilchrist, not far from Rollover Pass. That was probably the best campout I ever went on. The surf was really rough that weekend, and we body-surfed all day long. Then at night, we sat around the bonfire we’d made from driftwood, and listened to our scoutmaster (who was a pervert, we later found out) tell stories that were either supposed to be funny or scary, I forget which. That got boring pretty quickly, and me and a friend of mine slipped away in the darkness and went down to the water’s edge. I wanted to go swimming, but he was too scared to. So I went by myself.
I have always been a strong swimmer. Not for speed – I never swam competitively – but I could swim all day and never get tired. And I had no fear. That spring, in order to qualify for Second Class scout, I’d participated in a mile swim. They would take all the boys to a spot on the Neches River, above Collier’s Ferry on the Jefferson County side, and we were to swim from there a mile downstream, to a pick up point on the far bank of the river, in Orange County.
A mile sounds like a long way, but actually it was a pretty easy trip. In the springtime the current in the Neches is pretty strong, one can almost float a mile as fast as swim it. In fact, the toughest part of the mile swim was getting across the river to the opposite bank before you passed up the pick up point. That current was strong. . . you’d be in the water and see big cedar logs passing you up, and sometimes a drowned dog, or a water moccasin. . . it is a wonder no kids drowned. I doubt seriously the mile swim is still conducted in this manner.
WE LIVE AS WE DREAM, ALONE. Anyway, that night at the beach I swam out into the surf alone, and it was the most incredible feeling of freedom and loneliness, I’ll never forget it. I was hooked. Since then, I have gone swimming in the ocean almost every chance I got. I like swimming at night especially, because no one knows you are out there. You are on your own. If you get fatigued and start going under, no one is going to save you. You’re fucked. On the other hand, knowing no one is watching over you, being your ‘lifeguard’, is part of the allure. People say, “I’m all alone,” all the time. But when you are out in the water by yourself at night, so far out the lights on the horizon from the beach highway are just tiny dots, you know you really are all alone.
I read a story once about Clint Eastwood. In his early 20’s he was in the military reserves, and one night he and another guy were flying from Alaska, I think, down the Pacific coastline to somewhere in California. About 2 miles offshore in northern California their plane shut down, and they ditched in the surf. The plane sunk quickly, and Eastwood and his buddy realized if they were to live, they’d have to swim 2+ miles at night, through the cold and rough Pacific, to the California shoreline. So that is what they did.
That story is just incredible to me. At that point Eastwood hadn’t even begun acting yet. He had his whole fabulous career and life ahead of him. But I am guessing he probably had his life-defining moment out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that night, when he was barely twenty years old. It had to seem like it was all downhill from there.
I DON”T KNOW IF I’LL MAKE IT HOME TONIGHT. I really got into night time surf-swimming in earnest in my twenties, and have continued up to today. I’ll just disappear for a couple of hours, no one knows. Usually, when I get to the water’s edge, I swim straight out against the surf for 750 to 1000 yards. Depending on the tides, that is past the third sandbar, the water is probably 25-30 feet deep. That is a tiring swim, so once I am out there I float for a little while and rest; then once I’m rested I swim parallel to the shoreline for a mile or so, then head on back in.
And that is it, really. A friend once told me that at dusk and just after is when sharks like to look for dinner. I hadn’t known that, but I will occasionally feel a sand shark ramming into the side of my leg with it’s snout. That is startling, and it scares the hell out of you, which is why they do it, I think. Sometimes I’ll come back in criss-crossed with welts from jellyfish; though I’ll admit that they usually look a lot worse than they really are. Mostly it is just stings from cabbage-heads, which itch more than hurt.
I’ve been asked, Why? Almost immediately I will hear Perry Farrell’s voice in my head. If you ask why, you’ve really asked and answered the question. Why? Because it makes me feel free. Because it makes me feel all alone. In short, why the hell not? I could (theoretically) get swallowed whole out there by the biggest sand shark in recorded history, there one minute, gone the next. Or I could huddle in the safety of my beach cabin, safe from a seemingly unthreatening hurricane that seemed unthreatening right up until the moment the giant dome of water it was pushing ahead of it suddenly showed up on my doorstep, and washed me away like so much flotsam and jetsam; only to wash up days later mangled and tangled up in a bunch of trash and debris on the shoreline of a remote marsh in southern Chambers County, where I might not be found for years and years, if ever.
Given a choice, I’ll take my chances swimming with the sharks.
**********
Astros split the series, 2-2.
California survives earthquake after fire after mudslide after drought, we get wiped out by one wayward, half-ass hurricane. Joe Niekro and Dave Smith are dead, Steve Garvey and Tommy Lasorda live on. I was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Eve, when the New York Times said, “God is dead, and the war’s begun.”
I’ve got the revolution blues
I see bloody fountains
And ten million dune buggies
Coming down the mountains
I hear that Laurel Canyon
Is full of famous stars
But I hate them worse than lepers
And I’ll kill them in their cars
— “Revolution Blues”, Neil Young
THE WEATHER
It never rains in Southern California (but it pours, man it pours.)
++++++++++
Buddy, ain’t this LA? I’ve traveled such a long way
Buddy, ain’t this LA? I’ve traveled such a long way
And I still don’t know where I am going
But without my baby, I’d better not stay
++++++++++
When you’re out there, in this world alone
There’s gonna be many a night, you’ll miss your happy home
It’s gonna rain down tears, rain down tears
And you’ll need a shelter somewhere
++++++++++
Trip the light fantastic
Dance the swivel hips
Coming to conclusion
Button up your lips
Walking, walking in the rain
**********