Tag Archives: The Barista Cycle

associated with the 1996 concept album, The Barista Cycle

It’s Saturday night, Michelle

Michelle... it's Saturday night, Michelle...

Ma Bell is back…

After the Reagan administration broke oup the (once government sanctioned) AT&T telephone monopoly (to “lower telephone costs”… back then my phone bill was about $7 a month) it split up into pieces and then the Texas based piece started buying up the other pieces and now the Texas based piece IS AT&T… in name if not in spirit. A lot of money changed hands, if nothing else. Must have benefitted someone. You’d think.

Anyhow, what with AT&T back in the news I’m hoping I might not have to explain the bad pun that drives this song. That said, there’s a bit of an autobiographical element to it… not that I sat home alone nights while my gay friends were out having a swell time but rather that I did work as a temp for a regional Bell, working long hours for a few intense weeks, and not only observed the peculiar dynamic of a workplace that was about 2/3 straight women and 1/3 unstraight men but heard more than a few women lamenting the unavailability of the sharp-dressing, well-turned young men. (As one of only several straight men, I thought I would clean up. But it’s harder to compete against them pretty boys than a good ol’ boy like me might imagine… )

Anyway, as I pointed out in the first posting of this song, it was written as part of my 1996 project, The Barista Cycle. That project revolved around songs written using the names of the current distaff staff of my favorite coffee shop. The songs were pointedly not intended to be about their namesakes. Still, fate provided a bit of resonance: the real Michelle eventually left the coffeeshop to become… an airline stewardess. And one of her best friends when last we talked was a handsome young male coworker…

previous AYoS version

Michelle (It’s Easy to Be Sad)

Michelle
Ma Bell was such a strange career choice
I know you did it to be around all them pretty boys
but I’m afraid you will never be annoyed
by smooth operators down in the break room
they’ve all got something else to do

Michelle
Ma bell was no place to meet boys
all the best they’re all just someone else’s toys
all of the strut and all of the noise
all the clothes and all the poise
they’ve all got something else to do
Michelle

It’s a saturday night michelle
It’s a saturday night michelle
It’s a saturday night michelle
And when Monday morning comes around
You know you’ll hear how it all went down
and you know how it’ll make you feel
the same old loneseome way
It’s easy to be sad
when all your boyfriends are gay

Nothing means nothing anymore… except those kids [JoZynn]

Eternity is where parallel lines meet and all lies are true… [Kristin]

Leave a reply

Kristin (Was Never Here)

He had it pretty good until he met her.

Neither of them meant for anything to happen. She had kids, a husband. Her husband loved her, took care of her and the kids. And she loved her husband, too, but…

He wish he’d looked down and saw her ring instead of looking straight into her pale, blue eyes that first day. After that, it was too late.

They tried to be just good friends but he could feel the gravitational force between them, pulling so hard it distorted time and space around them.

One day he knew he had to leave.

He wrote her a long letter and put it in the mail the morning he was leaving. But the fates decided to get fancy… the mailman, recognizing the address, delivered the letter directly, at about the same time his clutch blewout in front of his apartment house. He had the car, packed up to move, towed to a local shop and he was sitting on the stoop of his empty apartment when she showed up.

Her eyes were puffy. She sat on the stoop next to him in the early afternoon sun. Her knee bumped awkwardly against his, more gesture than accident.

“I have to go, you know,” he said, looking at her Taurus in the street absently.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He could see the child’s safety seat and some kid’s toys in the back seat.

She reached across and lightly pulled his face toward hers. Before he knew he was kissing her. In public. On his stoop. In broad daylight.

It was a strangely innocent kiss — but a passionate kiss, too, even in its bittersweet deilcacy.

She got up, didn’t say anything, walked to her car, got into it without looking back and then she was gone.

After a few moments his soon-to-be-former-landlady appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

“Wasn’t that Kristin from…”

“No.”

“I coulda sworn…” and she wandered off, making a show of sweeping tiny specks of something or other off the sidewalk and into the street.

previous AYoS version (September 28)

Kristin (Was Never Here)

Kristin was never here
You didn’t see her slip in the back way
You didn’st see her float up the stairs
You didn’t see her perfect hand on my door
Because Kristin was never here

She loves me twice as much as him
Lord, I know that’s true
but she loves those kids 10000 times more
and, man, I know that too

Nothing adds up or works out right
Nothing’s gonna make it so
I’ve run the numbers a million times
at the bottom line I gotta go

Kristin was never here…

one last time I swear we only kissed
for a moment there were only two
eternity is where parallel lines meet
and all lies are true

You didn’t see her slip in the back way
You didn’st see her float up the stairs
You didn’t see her perfect hand on my door
Because Kristin was never here

He tattooed her name in a secret place… it said "Lisa"

4 Replies

Lisa

His two big sisters told him Lisa was trouble.

His mom told him Lisa was trouble.

His little sister told him the same thing.

One night his dad called from Miami to tell him his mom told him to call and tell him Lisa was trouble.

He knew Lisa was trouble.

It wasn’t like it wasn’t obvious.

It was just that he was, any way you look at it, helpless.

It was like his life started when he met Lisa. He’d just been waiting around to live. Getting by. Keeping people off his back. But Lisa made him want to please her so bad. It was a compulsion. For a year and a half everything he did was, in one way or another, an attempt to make Lisa happy.

And it wasn’t like he hadn’t known from the very first day that that was probably impossible. It was almost as if it was the very impossibility of pleasing her that made him crave it all the more.

And yet he also knew that she wanted to be happy. He could feel it.

And, finally, he knew that she didn’t know how impossible her own happiness was. And that made the compulsion to go to any length to please her all the more irresistable.

Today’s acoustic version

Full version (1996), from The Barista Cycle

Losing Lisa

Lately it looks like I’ll be losing Lisa
Danged if there’s a thing I can do to keep her
It scares me what I used to do to please her
‘Cause now I know there’s just no pleasing Lisa

Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa
Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa

Gave all my records and my stereo to Lisa
gave up my band and dropped out of school — all for Lisa
Tattoed her name in a secret place — it said “Property of Lisa”
What a waste of time ’cause nothing ever pleases Lisa

Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa
Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa

Got a second job just to buy nice things for Lisa
Laptop, cell phone, wetbar in her car — all for Lisa
But she’s not impressed, she’s not happy yet — that’s just Lisa
‘Cause nothing in the world will ever please that girl — that’s our Lisa

Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa
Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa