I’m pretty sure I’ve come down with a bad case of the summertime blues. And, as everybody knows, there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues, so the best I can do is sit and wonder what I’m a’gonna do.
This is exactly how my family and I look this summer, except that instead of being happy because we're staying at our beach cottage in the Hamptons, we're bored and angry because we've got nuttin' to do 'cept fer sittin' on the porch and bitchin' about the weather at home in Colorado.
I won’t be taking a vacation, that’s for sure. Because I gots no money, no time.
I’d love to take two weeks off and hop in the automobile with my wife and kids to go see some of the rest of America. Or take six weeks off and jump in a plane to go see a big chunk of Europe. Or take a year off and board a cruise ship to go see as much of the world as we can fit into 365 days of pure escapism. The world is really, really big—I don’t give a shit what Disneyland says about it being a small world, afterall—and I suspect it’d keep us entertained right up until the end.
But barring a miracle on the scale of coaxing water out of a stone, none of those things are going to happen. I’ll be taking what they call a “staycation,” or what poor people everywhere angrily refer to as sittin’ on the porch. No wonder poor people always look a little pissed off and a lot bored. Porch sittin’ ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, and it ain’t cracked up to be much.
If I’m super, super lucky—I rarely am–I’ll be able to keep myself from nodding off on the morning bus ride to work so I can take a quick look-see at Colorado’s famous mountains as they flash by my window. I’m sure the peaks are magnificent, because tourists travel here from all over the world to see their purple mountain’s majesty.
I see them—the tourists, not the mountains—all the time on the famous Pearl Street Mall & Ye Olde Tourist Trappe in Boulder, where I work. A lot of them—again, I’m speaking of the tourists here–seem to love ice cream, and toy shops, and dining at al fresco at cafes, although not necessarily in that order.
But I hate them—let me clarify that I’m still talking about the tourists–what with their contented-smiley faces, colorful tom-tinkers, drippy waffle cones, and whatnot. I hope the happy bastards all get painful sunburns sitting outside eating pasta alla carbonara in Colorado’s famous sun, which is about a mile closer to the Earth at this altitude than it is in New Jersey or California or wherever it is they hail from, and often takes ignorant tourists by surprise.
I in the meantime, I’m jus’ a’gonna to sit here and wonder what I’m a’gonna do, ‘cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues. Damn the luck.
Maybe you should call your congressman, because you’re not too young to vote.
Lorena – Hey, how would you know how old I am? Maybe I’m a 14-year-old genius from the Deep South, which explains the wife and kids.
No, you’re right. I’m not too young to vote. But I can’t vote because I didn’t go to work, told the Boss I was sick, now I can’t use the car,’cause I didn’t work a lick.
You should try living in Youngstown, Ohio, where the skies are cloudy all day….
And where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play.
In Youngstown, more like,
Where the gangs and the mafia play.
LOTGK – Dear Youngstown chamber of commerce, tourism board and local crime families: I had nothing to do with this comment. I’m sure Youngstown, America’s vacation hotspot, is not where the gangs and mafia play. In Youngstown, the gangs take their work very, very seriously, and well they should.
The tourism board of Youngstown came up with this fine slogan about our fair city.
Youngstown! It’s a nice city to fly over.
LOTGK – Haha! I will remember that next time I take a trip back East.
I hear you, loud and clear. It’s stuff like this that makes some of us specially cranky — and worse when surrounded by vacationing arseholes complaining that they only got to go to Vancouver or California or some such because the economy’s so bad and they just couldn’t afford the European tour they’d been hoping for.
Frank Lee MeiDere — True story: I heard a run-of-the-mill actress on NPR yesterday complaining because competition and dropping wages have cut her salary for 5-7 weeks of work to a meager $70,000 a year from the $300,000 to $500,000 she used to make. I would have wept, but I’m all out of tears for all the rich folk who’ve mad(e)off with everybody else’s money.
Listening to The Who’s version of Summertime Blues definitely helps me. Even in winter.
And yeah, may those waffle-cone eating tourists be lactose intolerant!
Music can really change a person’s attitude. Strangely, for example, I often find that I cheer up when I listen to blues music. Go figure.
Whoa…that’s interesting. I just noticed that the last comment before mine is from 2009. It took me close to a minute to realize that the reason was because this post is from last summer! Remind me never to work overnight again.
Who’s got the Summertime Blues now, huh? I mean ‘eh’. Forgot that I was Canadian for a sec.
I wrote this post yesterday, so it can’t be from last summer, CheesyMike.
I think.
Honestly, now I’m seriously confused by your comment, and starting to wonder if Superman did one of his trademark reversing time maneuvers by flying around the world at the speed of light.
Looking at my comment today, I can see how it reads a little confusing and disjointed.
But yes, good old blues is often very uplifting and does the trick better than a self professed ‘happy’ song.
I assume the drugs and alcohol wore off, then.
Or kicked in.
The effects sorta depend on where you land in the old addiction cycle.