On Borrowing Johnny's "Uprising" Cassette

I remember, back in 1984, coming upon Johnny V.'s collection of cassettes in a  carrying case type thing that held maybe 75 of them, in their plastic boxes.

Johnny was one of the better local rock musicians in the central Massachusetts area, and was a couple years older than me. I was 22 at the time. So, this would be around 1985. I had gotten to know him through my best high school friend, Ted Broughey, being the drummer in Johnny's band at the time; called: "Peer Pressure."

I had somehow been attracted to that Bob Marley and The Whalers "Uprising" album. 

And in a display of the arrogant sense of entitlement that I labored under back then, and with Johnny V. being away that day (from the house that the band lived in and where I was a frequent visitor) I thought it would be alright for me to "borrow" that album. I kind of thought that Johnny would be happy to see music he liked in the hands of another musician who might wind up promoting it in some way, perhaps even by just playing it. I felt like a student at the foot of the master, with the mantra of "Borrow this cassette and learn from it," fueling me. That overrode any pangs of guilt I might have harbored over the theft. I really grew to like that album a lot. 

As far as any thoughts about me putting a crack in the cosmic egg and allowing sin into this world, there are always going to be those misgivings, I suppose. 

"Car"ma?

About 12 years later and I was in Orange Park, Florida, walking towards the Buckman Bridge, which crosses over into the upper middle class "Mandarin" area of Jacksonville. 

It was illegal to walk across that 3.7 mile long bridge, and according to local lore, "As soon as they see you; you're going to jail" if you tried. 

In order to cross over on foot, even at a brisk walking speed, it would take about 45 minutes; and that is a long time to go without some cop seeing you in Jacksonville.

This had the effect of keeping that part of the city "upper middle class." If you didn't own a car or have a ride, you couldn't get there (unless you went all the way downtown, 17 miles away, then crossed the river on foot over a different bridge, then traveled another 17 miles back to Mandarin, where the bridge went).

And so pedestrian traffic over that particular article of infrastructure was effectively non existent.

There is at least one good reason for this, in that there was only about a 2 foot wide strip to walk on, to get across. It was between the outermost lane and a concrete barrier that was not even 3 feet high.

I had walked across it once before, after having figured out a way to do it, without "going to jail as soon as they see you."

As I approached within a mile of the bridge, on this second attempt, I had the special prop, that I had used the first time, at the ready. 

It was a clip board and a pen. 

The Buckman Bridge was undergoing an upgrade, with additional lanes being added and so, I had made it all the way across, with at least 3 cop cars going by me during the 45 minute walk, that first time. Because, as I walked, I pretended to be jotting things down on the clipboard, and I kept glancing at the concrete pylons jutting up out of the river. Most of them had no highway on them yet, giving the appearance of it being very much a work in progress. 

And I appeared to be one of the guys who was making it happen -jotting down critical figures, making notes on the spacing of the pylons -hell, I could have been an inspector! The sky is the limit when a clipboard and a pen are brought into play as props. 

About ten years earlier I had used a notepad and pen to a similar effect. I was in my 4th year of "2 year college," and had found myself homeless on a cold New England night. 

I was able though, holding a notepad and a pen at the ready, to walk into a huge factory that the night shift was operating, the huge machinery they were using keeping the place nice and warm. I was wearing corduroy slacks with a pretty nice leather jacket over a college kid type shirt; with leather loafer type shoes, perhaps being the kicker, to go along with the notepad and pen at the ready (as if I had just written something in it and was probably just about to write something else) as I just walked past a crew of about a dozen people, and on into the bowels of the factory. They had all sprung into action around the machines at the sight of my approach.

I was able to find a comfortable piece of very thick cardboard, which I hid pretty well between a wall and some large dust covered obstacle that looked like it hadn't been moved in a decade. 

I slept like a baby, to the droning hums of whatever machines the crew were working. 

In the morning, I walked past a larger group of workers who seemed to all be trying not to stare, on my way out to catch a bus for the the college. 

Despite having another clipboard and pen, 7 years later, I was not looking forward to walking the 3 and 3 quarter mile stretch. There is a certain amount of stress induced by straddling a white line while cars whiz by at 77 miles per hour just a few feet away, with only a concrete barrier that comes to half way up your thighs, stopping you from falling into the river. 

The lowness of the wall made me feel top heavy and in jeopardy of being toppled. 

But, on this, perhaps May, day I only had another few hundred yards left before I would be on the bridge, and committed to spending almost the next hour picturing what it would be like to fall to the river from the various heights the bridge attains along its course. 

There is a certain spot where the thing arches up maybe a couple hundred feet more than it already was, so as to allow very tall ships to pass under. It is at the crest of this particular section that I recall thinking of how it really would suck to get knocked over the little barrier at that point... 

Not looking forward to pretending to be working for some construction firm, I skipped along with "Could You Be Loved," by Bob Marley in my head for some reason. From the same "Uprising" album of which I had once stolen a copy of. I was just a few hundred yards short of the bridge, and singing the Marley song aloud at this point, when a little white car pulled alongside of me. 

And when the door on my side sprung open, having been shoved by a Jamaican guy from behind the wheel, the volume of the music from his stereo swelled. It was "Could You Be Loved," by Bob Marley (and The Whalers?) from the Uprising album. 

Let me try to downplay, if not debunk, the miracle in this occurrence... 

Suppose it had been Bob Marley's birthday and so, earlier along in my walk I had heard the strains of that same song coming at a subliminal volume, from some nearby radio -the stations being more apt to be playing Bob on that day. 

And that was what put the song in my head...

And so, I was singing it when the Jamaican pulled up. He had put Uprising in his cassette deck for that same reason of it being Bob's birthday. But, what if it wasn't his birthday - just an ordinary day of the year? 

And how much more of a "coincidence" was it that, when the door of the car flew open, Marley was singing the verse right in time with me?

So, the point of this blog is that I had gotten an email from a guy named Chris from Massachusetts who had known quite a bit about my early music, recorded on cassettes back in the lat 1980's and said that he was a fan and that he even reads this blog. 

It crossed my mind that it might have been AI generated, but Chris knew actual lyrics from actual songs recorded onto physical cassettes -but never uploaded to any streaming services. So, they don't exist in cyberspace. Not yet, I don't think. 

But I asked him if he still had any recordings that he could send to me in .flac files or whatever, to which he replied that the copies he had, had been stolen from him; or more accurately reclaimed from him, by the guy he stole them from, like 15 years ago.... 

...Many rivers to cross....