You Can't Always Get What You Want
Amazon.com WidgetsSo this is what is on my turntable: Let It Bleed, The Rolling Stones, 1969.
I’m banging on our piano, playing along with vintage vinyl. I sound good. I sound great! I’m playing with the boys from London town and I am highly caffeinated and we are rocking! Me, Mick and Keith, we are laying down a serious groove. Like all good music, the Stones excel when no more than 3 chords are necessary to play along. This is the democracy behind rock and roll. It’s a deliciously accepting non-meritocracy. The song is in F. The riff is mostly F and B flat and then sometimes G is thrown in there for good measure. Ah yeah! The one, the four and sometimes the two (or the 9, depends on how you look at it). It’s just the blues but with the attitude of rock and roll (and I like it!).
Anyway the big one and the little one are sitting next to the piano in a cardboard box. No. Better than a box, it’s a rocketship box. The box is a long rectangular cube, up on one end, with a hole cut out in one wall for a handle. A control panel drawn on the door allows the big one and the little one to select their destination by pressing a pictograph button of a planet, star, sun or earth. For the astronauts’ comfort, a pillow has been placed on the floor of the rocketship. (My beautiful, talented and brilliant wife demands that I disclose here that it is she who envisioned and built the rocketship while I sat by and watched. Did I mention that she is beautiful and talented? And that she wrote this parenthetical remark? Great. Now, where was I?)
As an authentic rocketship, the quarters are tight. The big one enters first and scoots to one side, her shoulder snugged tight against cardboard. The little one enters backwards, backing it up, bottom first before dropping down next to his sister. They are snug but right now they are being lovely and they make it work. The big one pulls the door closed and states their destination.
“Sun” she says.
“Sun,” says the little one.
The big one begins to count down from 10.
“Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, Blast Off!”
Without a hint of the enormity required to deny gravity its hold, the children sit in their rocket, in the dark, in a box, on the floor. They are quiet. Their rocket is equally quiet. (Perhaps their rocket is a hybrid.) They are alarmingly quiet. A quiet hybrid rocket is fun. Right?
More likely, they are quiet because the first one hundred times they blasted off, their father shook the rocket and made rocket sound effects. Then, the rocket was excitingly buffeted by asteroids. Amazingly, however, around the 95th time, their father became tired of this game. Perhaps that is because he is a bad parent.
Perhaps I am a bad parent.
The children are waiting so patiently for an exciting blast off. What would Mick Jagger do?
I think we know what Mick would do.
Mick would rock!
We are traveling through the usual stages of parental denial, the children and I. We have passed the part when I issue my first warning.
“Ok rocketeers, this is our last journey. You will then need to return to earth and go color or play with your trains or something.”
We then enter the whining level of the atmosphere.
“pa-PA!” says the big one.
“pa-PA!” says the little one.
Having been buffeted through an asteroid belt of whining, the children and I enter the negotiations level of the atmosphere.
“How about one more time?”
I tell them no. I tell them that I am going to play the piano a little. I begin playing and I am kind of rocking out and I can’t stop thinking about my children sitting in the dark, in a cardboard box, waiting for some decent man to come along who is willing to give their cardboard box a little shake. Guilt-ridden, I half-heartedly give the box a nudge, a little shake, and some lame rocket noise while simultaneously playing along with Mick and Keith.
“Oh no, an asteroid.” I say. It doesn’t even sound convincing to me. The big one announces that they have arrived.
“We’re here,” she says.
They are on the sun. This should be exciting.
They squeeze out of their rocket and stand temporarily on the surface of the sun. They are not impressed. There appear to be no sun monsters to chase them. There are no flying sun monkeys to throw them up in the air and tickle them (flying monkeys are a go-to impression. Even the best players rely on the “hot hits” in their repertoire).
The little one climbs back into the rocket, nonplussed by the sun. He is ready for the journey home. Perhaps that will be more exciting. The big one just looks at me.
“Pa-PA!”
“Yes, my love.”
“Pa-PA”
“Yes, light of my life.”
“Please make the rocket fly!’
Now is the stage of evasive maneuvers. I sing to her. We are on the last track of side B.
“You can’t always get what you want.”
The second time she joins me, not getting the hint.
“You can’t always get what you want.”
We sing it one more time.
“You can’t always get what you want.”
And now the big finish.
“But if you try sometimes. You might find. You get what you need!”
Now the chorus is ahhhhhh-ing and I am ahhhhhh-ing and now the big one is ahhhhhh-ing.
The little one gets out of his box. Now he is ahhhhh-ing. We are all ahhhhh-ing and then and then….
The song ends. It was the last track on “Let it Bleed.” The automatic arm on the record player picks up and the turntable clicks off.
The chorus has stopped. Their ahhhhing is done. The album is over.
We look at each other.
Side A calls to me from across the room. The piano sits, quiet, dark.
The big one looks at me. She didn't get the hint. The little one looks at me. I didn't get the hint.
“O.K.”, I say. “Where is our rocket off to next?”
This site uses Facebook comments to make it easier for you to contribute. If you see a comment you would like to flag for spam or abuse, click the "x" in the upper right of it. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use.