There you were,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in the parking lot of a dive bar,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
strapped down in the bed of a beater pickup,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
alongside Ms. Pac Man<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and a toy retriever game,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
all dead, all going<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to the scrapyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, CD jukebox, Oh noble Encore,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with the beautiful faux wood finish,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and a bitchin’ speaker system under the hood,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
when were you last operational?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What was the song you last played?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went up to you<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and inspected the CD covers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Steve Miller and Tina Turner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New releases from 30 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some crap. Some gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Were the CDs still inside you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Had no one emptied the belly<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of this rock beast?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, the great times we had in the dive bars together in the halcyon days before digital, cashless abominations and their boring clouds of algorithms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I loathe these internet machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, I don’t want to download an app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, I don’t want a suggestion to accompany my choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, I don’t want ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No. I don’t want the hive to know where I am when I pay with my Apple Watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was always so great on a date<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to give her a sawbuck<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and ask her to choose<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and watch her saunter over to the jukebox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can tell a lot about someone by how they choose songs on a jukebox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would wait, wait, wait for that first choice<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and see if there was any hope for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bad Company hell yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Red Hot Chili Peppers hell no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dusty Springfield\u2014I’d propose right then and there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wonder if the Sportsman Tavern in Pacific City will ever forget the time I played \u201cGimme Shelter\u201d by the Stones seven times in a row at the stroke of midnight and then walked out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doubtless, not one got out of there alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So long old friend. Rest in peace in recycle or the landfill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There you were, in the parking lot of a dive bar, strapped down in the bed of a beater pickup, alongside Ms. Pac Man and a toy retriever game, all dead, all going to the scrapyard. Oh, CD jukebox, Oh noble Encore, with the beautiful faux wood finish, and a bitchin’ speaker system under the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10255,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions\/10255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}