Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!

wrote back that the fish had talent. For a bunch of monthly payments, the naive poet would have his or her songs put to music, performed, recorded on a record and then, the scam made the fish believe, the new songwriting team could start the journey to getting the songs on the Billboard charts. The song sharks never really tried to sell the songs. Their money was made from the poet’s investment. They got several hundred dollars (plus financing fees from the payment plans) to bang out a quick musical chart for whatever poem was sent in. They’d get a bunch of jaded musicians to do one take on each song and record dozens in one afternoon. They would make an album’s worth of these song poems, record them, press enough for everyone whose poem was recorded, and send them off to the marks. For a few hundred dollars, you got your poem set to music and you had a professional recording of it. You also had some hopes and dreams. In some people’s minds, you were also a fool. It’s like that with hopes and dreams.

Some of the vinyl never made it back to the lyricists. Song sharks pressed too many, or they bounced from the address, or maybe they miscounted or got a bulk rate, I don’t know, but these song-poem records were dumped into used record bins for a nickel apiece or something. Who would buy these mysterious unknown records? Tommy Ardolino. I have Tommy’s collection in my home now. There are a lot of them to wade through and Tommy waded with glee. Most of the songs are about Jesus or a president, but some of them have a purity you’re never going to get out of any other kind of music. The collision of the naive and the cynical at the speed of CERN. Musicians who don’t care at all performing hack music around words that are nothing but passion. Here is the poem that was turned into Tommy’s favorite song poem. I urge you to take a moment and find it on the Web and hear the music. Hear the singer struggle with the meter and the rhyme that doesn’t rhyme without the writer’s exact dialect (“route” and “foot”). This would never be a real song, but why not? If music is communication of the heart, this sure is that. All that’s wrong with these lyrics is the juggling. The magic is perfect.

Do You Know the Difference Between Big Wood and Brush? (Louise I. Oliver, 1974) as recorded by Gary Roberts & The Satellites

Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?
Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?

Some men when going through the change
Don’t seem to patch things [up] at home and remain
Some men stay with their wives for many years
Keep pushin’ forward, tryin’ to conquer their fears
Brush sometimes seems to get into their way
Causes them to want to get out and play
Brush has a tendency to get in their way
Comes along and drives them astray

Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?
Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?

You may think this is hearsay, and I don’t know what I’m talkin’ about
But hear this story about my sister, and you will soon find out
Her husband dropped her at the hospital, as he had always done
She got [up] to leave and waited for her husband to return
She went over and called home on the phone
But he did not answer, he was not at home
He had been fairly punctual in the past
Then she looked and saw him through the window glass

Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?
Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?

He said he was late ’cause he’d run over a woman’s foot
This was the beginning of his search for another route
He had been accusing her of holding him back
He went out to meet that woman, he’d thought he was on the right track
As time went on she thought that things were going along good
But he said things were bad between them as they stood
His other woman had called the house several times on the phone
But June came along, he slipped into the house, got his clothes and was gone

Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?
Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?

Then one year and five months later
Her life could not be any greater
He called on Thanksgiving night
Said he was coming home to get things right
Brush always seems to burn out, but big wood keeps burnin’ on
That’s why he turned around and came back home

Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?
Do you know the difference between big wood and brush?

I judge people by how they react when I play them Tommy’s favorite song poems. Everyone laughs, but I judge them by the quality of their laughter. Maybe it’s all in my head. My analysis is probably just an extension of how I already feel about the potential new friend. The laughter is a place to project my unconscious thoughts, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like I can hear differences. I want the laughter to be pure. Laughter about all human hearts and not at some dipshit buying his dreams in the back of the National Enquirer. I laugh, not because the songs are stupid, but because the songs are too true. Lady Gaga is protected by skill. She’s good and good makes her bulletproof. The people who write song poems don’t have any armor at all. They are running around naked wearing antlers and we all have fully automatic weapons with laser sites. There is something about a cynical person singing sloppy truth that makes me need to hug my children. That might make you laugh, but if you laugh the wrong way, I may not want to play you any more of my records.

Tommy’s death was a tragedy, but he had a kind of charmed life. Tommy’s working-class mom and dad got him a drum set as a child and he banged to his swinging records all the time. His favorite band in the world was NRBQ (he shared that with Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney and a bunch of other wicked famous music people). He wrote a letter to NRBQ’s keyboard player, Terry Adams, and somehow, with parental consent, at fifteen