By popular demand, Harold Graham performing "My Rocketbelt Daze" on the baritone ukulele. Video by John B. Carnett, who was covering the conference for Popular Science.

(Thanks to whl, streettech.com, and smithmag.net for pointers.)

My Rocket Belt Daze
by Harold Graham
Copyright 2006 by Harold Graham


I am getting old and feeble now
and I cannot work no more
They put the old rocket belt away
No more demonstrations in front of JFK
No more flights at the U.S. Pentagon

Oh, my rocket belt days are over
My fame is fleeting fast
The task before you people
Is to improve upon the past

Wendell, Ed, and Ernie are up there looking down
Their spirits now are roaming with the blessed
Their efforts on the project
Brought them great renown
I tip my hat up to them
I wish they'd come back down

Oh, my fame is fleeting fast
Reporters never call
Haven't had a press release
in years
But sometimes in the springtime
More often, in the fall
I remember certain details
After tossing back some beers...

The new issue of Symmetry hit the streets. In it is Simon Singh's account of the mock feud he got into with pop singer Katie Melua.

Originally, the song went:
( Original lyrics )
Singh persuaded her to re-record the song with more scientifically accurate lyrics:
( Revised lyrics )

He writes, "Thanks to my flippant spat with Katie, people who would never think of picking up my 500-page book on the big bang were getting a dose of cosmology. As a writer who wants to get people excited about science, the writing of the original article was probably the most productive hour of my career."

According to my Number One Lunch from China House in Warrenville:

"In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

This time of year, the Christmas music starts invading my head. And I get to thinking about it. I'm not the only one.

Last year, I learned of a wonderful set of essays by Tris McCall, a New Jersey rock critic, reviewing fifty holiday songs.

( Some Quotes )
McCall's critiques of "Let it Snow" and "Linus and Lucy" are also good examples; if you like these, you'll probably enjoy reading the whole thing.

I was looking at a story about The Chicago Folk and Roots Festival.

Only an eyeball-typo transformed it into The Chicago Folk and Robots Festival.

Which would have been more interesting, don't you think?

I have a new thing to worry about.

My old comrade Dunderscore came by, to show off his tiny new cellphone. It had a color screen. It had a camera. It was a slick piece of twenty-first century consumer electronics.

Then he mentioned that he could assign a unique ring-tone to the phone number of a person who might call him. If the phone erupts with "The Stars and Stripes Forever," for example, he would know Uncle Sam was calling.

This is a perfectly logical extension of two capabilities: caller ID plus musical ring-tones.

But I began to fret.

What tune was he going to assign to my phone number?

What if it's something embarrassing? "Baby Elephant Walk," say, or "Boy, You're Gonna Carry That Weight," or "Too Fat Polka?"

Suddenly I wanted to control the tune I was known by.

Maybe I will have to take pre-emptive action, track down which of my friends have these phones, and ship them a ring-tone file that I believe suitably represents my character. (I understand they can accept MP3s now, not just a set of synthesized tones.)

This is an aspect of self-knowledge upon which I had never really reflected before. What's my theme song?

I want something noble and positive, possibly something light-hearted with a sense of fun, but which doesn't negate my seriousness about the important things in life.

And I also want to avoid songs that lots of other people will be using. So "Fanfare for the Common Man" is out.

At various times in the past, certain songs have recurred in my head as I went about my daily business, and I found myself humming them frequently. But "San Antonio Rose" or "The Poor People of Paris" or "Begin the Beguine" wouldn't particularly be associated with me by other people. Plus, two of them are about places I've never lived and have scarcely visited.

I was born in Rochester, New York, but I don't know of any songs about the place. I've lived around Chicago half my life. But while "Chicago, Chicago" is certainly a toddlin' song (whatever that means), those who actually live in the city sometimes get prickly when I say I'm "from Chicago," because I have never resided within the city limits, but only in Lisle, West Chicago, Warrenville, or Aurora.

Maybe there's a song about auroras I can find. But what would the 156,973 other residents of Aurora, Illinois use for THEIR songs? Not to mention that town in Colorado.

Back when I was courting, I used to have Leon Redbone on my answering machine singing "Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now." K. thought this was charming, but we had to change the outgoing message to accommodate the fact that we're both living at this number, and in the years we've been married, I haven't hauled out the turntable so I could play Leon's LP into the answering machine.

I could send Dunderscore one of the song parodies I've recorded; however, they tend to be lacking in dignity.

I suppose the song people most associate with me is "Benson, Arizona," the love theme from the movie Dark Star. I perform it frequently. It's a wistful ballad of lost love in country-and-western style, such as a spacegoing trucker might listen to over the light-years of the long haul. That may be my best choice.

Any suggestions?

And what song do YOU want your friends' phones to sing, when it's you on the line?

Roger Ebert reminisces about hanging around Old Town in the heyday of Chicago folk music.

This was triggered by listening to the Midnight Special broadcast memorializing the late Fred Holstein.

I was a good bit younger, but I visited some of the same clubs in some of the same years. They helped give Chicago that magic aura that made me want to move here. And I heard Fred Holstein play often.

By the way, whl got the wireless link going the other night. So maybe I'll go listen to the broadcast myself. Good timing.