Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #302
Guest Post by Dave Hunter (The Whalespout) + "Barefoot in the Park" by James Blake, ROSALÍA - 11/15/21
Today I have been struggling with some depression and the ethics of how to write about a seeming synchronicity in my song, which was:
"Barefoot in the Park" by James Blake, ROSALÍA
Fortunately, my dear and hilarious friend, Dave Hunter, came through for me today and randomly sent over a surprise guest post this afternoon.
And so I am happily going to cede the floor to him and his charming wit.
Here’s a little bio and a handsome photo.
Dave Hunter is a writer and producer in Los Angeles. He writes about movies on Substack and about the history of Los Angeles County on Instagram.
OK, take it away, Dave!
I don't really use Spotify or really "listen to songs" but every time I get in my car (Prius) it automatically chooses one of the songs on my phone (iPhone) to play at random. I don't really want this to happen, and one time I googled how to make it stop. You know what they said? "Record a track of several minutes of silence, and give it a title that is first in alphabetical order." Do you believe that? So-called modern technology.
OK now I'm going down to my car. The other thing about my phone is that it only has one song on it. I downloaded a song as a joke once, because I thought it would be funny to play in Hawaii, on a 2019 family vacation. Ever since then, it's played every time I've turned the car on. So it won't be at random, per se. Even though this song plays every time I start the car, it still frequently catches me by surprise. Probably because it doesn't kick in right away. The phone has to pair with the car's bluetooth first, and that can take a minute or so, and I lower my guard. And then, BAM!
“Southern Cross” by Crosby, Stills, Nash
Southern Cross, from Crosby Nash & Young's 1982 album Daylight Again, written by the great Stephen Stills in the aftermath of his divorce. So that's synchronicity number one. I am not divorced, but I have recently turned forty years old, which is the same thing.
GOT OUT OF TOWN, ON A BOAT, GOIN' TO SOUTHERN ISLANDS
Still in the emotional trauma vortex of his breakup, Stills takes out his sailboat to recenter himself, and sets out on what becomes a cross-ocean voyage. So, every time I get in the car, this song implores me to "just... drive..." But so far I have never done this, over the hundreds of car trips which began with this song across my early forties.
SAILING A-REACH, ACROSS A FOLLOWING SEA
You learn a lot about sailing in the lyrics. A following sea is like walking on the people mover at LAX.
IN A NOISY BAR IN AVALON, I TRIED TO CALL YOU
Avalon is a city on the Catalinas, where I have never been. However, -- syncho! -- on Instagram I have been traveloguing the 88 cities of Los Angeles County, of which Avalon is the 7th least populous. So I will theoretically get there some day. Though, in a year and a half of COVID, I've only written up 13 of the 88. So, will I get there, really? Will I keep that particular gimmick up? Will I always live in LA? Will I live long enough? I think these thoughts about 15% of the times I get in my car.
SHE WAS MAKING FOR THE TRADES, ON THE OUTSIDE AND THE DOWNHILL RUN, TO PAPEETE
Frankly, has any song that included the name of more than two cities ever been bad? There should be more geography in songs. I'm a bit of a map guy, which is how I ended up criss crossing LA County. I see a random place on a map, and I want to go there. (People don't like it when you call the place they live "random.") I once worked with someone from Ghana and I asked her if she knew every country on a map of Africa, as a test. She thought she would get 100% but she couldn't get all the way there. (Although guess who can.) We looked up some of the smaller ones she had missed; she was really beating herself up. Which is how I learned about about Comoros, a small group of islands which was once a French colony. They had an uprising and then an election, and the only island that voted against independence was Mayotte. So Mayotte is still part of France. Papeete is on Tahiti, which is also part of France. Seems kind of messed up. This is the kind of information you end up learning if you are a map guy, while you wonder if these colonial empires were all just built by map guys like you. Would with all due respect love to see Hawaii returned to the Hawaiian people one day.
I HAVE MY SHIP, AND ALL HER FLAGS ARE A FLYING...SHE IS ALL THAT I HAVE LEFT, AND MUSIC IS HER NAME!!!
This lyric is silly and embarrassing. There should be a rule against the lyrics mentioning "music." Exactly this kind of tendency is why I don't listen to songs that much. And most of the time Southern Cross comes on it's a race to switch it off and turn on one of my political podcasts, because I do usually find that after so many plays, the sound of the opening licks makes me want to throw up. (It's just not quite nauseating enough to record 10 minutes of silence onto my phone.) But, sometimes, something about the moment is different. I let Southern Cross play all the way through. On those trips, I sing this lyric very loud, and hit the steering wheel during the guitar solo that comes after. The song fades out. It immediately plays again.
Hahaha, thanks so much, Dave!
Truly a hilarious joy to read this today.
Cheered me up quite a bit.
You can check out more Dave Hunter on his Instagram here and his Substack here.
But, buddy, how about getting a portable car stereo like MacGruber?
Okay, that’s the three hundred and second Shuffle Synchronicities.