You Can Call Me Al....
It’s been happening for almost a month now, starting sometime in that hazy, post-Christmas, pre-back to work phase - a time when the 12 Days of Christmas transitions from annoying repetitive banter-ditty to something more ominous: a warning that this period of indulgence is drawing to a close, and empty new year’s resolutions can do nothing to stop that door slamming.
So again, sometime during that period of equal parts indulgence and malaise, it started happening. At first, it felt like a one-off, nothing to really dwell on - simply an emergence from sleep to the sound in my head of a strangely synchronized synth-line, a call and response of chord resolution, the kind that could only have been written during that weird period from 1984 to 1987 that has come to be known as the ‘Eighties.’ I also noticed a slightly unsettling, wordless, percussive vocal. But again, it was the waking period and who doesn’t have the occasional, unexplainable waking moment? But day by day, new elements were added to the synth/vocal-percussion foundation. First there was a fleeting image of Chevy Chase, and then a sketchy image of a little person (too much Game of Thrones? No that can’t be it - I haven’t watched that lately, and I’ve never seen Twin Peaks.)
You can be….
Roll over in bed, clutch the pillow and try to fall back asleep….
You can call…
I can be what? Who the hell can I call? Why is my waking consciousness providing me with this range of meaningless options? Before I can consider this question, the keyboard refrain kicks in again, but this time more urgent, more threatening.
Chevy Chase….
Unidentified, yet strangely familiar, vertically challenged person…
Duh dedede….Duh dedede
What the hell is going on? Is it my alarm? Is there something in that Android chime that is triggering this?
You can be my bodyguard….
What a second...no it can’t be...can it?
You can call me Al!
Oh please God no! Why?
And suddenly I know the fear and trepidation that must have haunted Art Garfunkel and Carrie Fisher for years. That’s no dwarf - that’s Napoleon with a guitar. Why is this happening to me? Is it because I relentlessly made fun of Ryan for liking Graceland? I’ve been much better lately (one of my new year’s resolutions was to stop needlessly winding up colleagues.) So why now? Why me?
You Can Call Me Al is now a fixture of my waking routine, and it seems there is nothing I can do to fight it. All I can do is search for deeper, underlying reasons. I fear I might not like what I find.