my evening with the smooth operator
on exploring regular routes in irregular ways
No need to ask
He's a smooth operator
Smooth operator
Smooth operator
Smooth operator
Read this version of the foolsletter oozing smoothness.
Get so smooth you’re slimy.
We move in space with minimum waste and maximum joy
As you do, picture yourself as a young Christian Slayter.
Pump up the volume days.
You’ve a copy of Lenny Bruce’s How to Talk Dirty and Influence People next to your turntable. Pretend really hard that you’re cool. Pretend so hard that you convince yourself for a moment that you really are much cooler than you think.
Let the moment drip through you.
Take your time. Let the music work it’s way down into ya’.
No place for beginners or sensitive hearts
All right, got the picture?
Good.
Let’s begin.
When sentiment is left to chance
No place to be ending but somewhere to start1
(don’t read the stuff in brackets in the gravely voice - make this more David Tenant as Doctor Who, or as Bendelswitch Dingerodd as Sherlock but then of course once the brackets close, go back to that cool sounding guy - if only for a moment, who knows, I’m always here too)
I saw an old friend tonight.
He drives the bus.
I met him at the mall for his last run around the city.
The platform at the terminal was empty and cold.
A few new people, young, new to the city, new to the country, new adults barely in their twenties shuffled and gazed at phones as they waited.
(watch that youtube video on repeat once you get tired of the Sade song - it really helps with the slater thing. we’ll change the song soon… well, not super soon. I likely have to play this Sax solo seven or eight more times before we switch the tune.)
A few people with a lot of dreams almost frozen.
In process.
Moving.
Just a little more slowly than they thought.
The salt dusted air tore at my nose before he pulled up.
We rolled around town.
As we talked about our kids, he piloted The Enterprise through an asteroid belt.
People shuffled on, people shuffled off.
They showed their passes and tapped their cards.
Cars blocked the road.
Progress was stopped.
Nothing moved.
No bus.
No traffic.
And funnily enough?
The dude was sweat on an ice cube.
Yeah, that cool.
Well Jimmy, we are where we are and we’re not moving an inch until the car in front of us is out of our way.
It was as simple as that.
We are where we are.
And we’ll move when things are ready.
I envy the fool
With the power to be so actively passive.
(i spent a whole lotta time looking for outro music to this foolsletter and i gotta say that after such a cool dude christian slayter feeling kind of evening, i felt great, hopeful and ready to take on the world and instead of some sort of moody saxahmahphone music, my i felt bouncier than that so the final theme tune is more about chorus than anything. you can listen to that song here if you are so inclined.)
(Do I need to cite this song? You know who this is without annotation or mention? Perhaps I should. But this time? I won’t. But now that you’re hear, switch from Sade to Jerry Rafferty’s Baker Street. Bask in the majesty of that sax line. There are few things that humans have created that are nearly as beautiful as that sax line. Go on, listen to it. I wonder if I can find a file for just the sax line bare.
Good lord that’s just… But the sax is what drives it.
The guitar solo is pretty rad.
This song and smooth operator belong together.
Give it a listen.
tell me that they don’t.)
(i dare ya)