I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE JACK FAMILY-“You Are My Sunshine” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

According to Reno Jack’s biography: The Jack Family was a bunch of musicians who jammed out to whichever song was chosen by whoever was singing. Unrehearsed and free floating each member choosing an alias with the last name Jack just having fun away from the pressures of presenting original music. The band had names like Reno Jack, Bunk “Everyone Drums” Jack, Chief Don Jack, Mercedes Jack, Monterey Jack, Nevada Jack, One-Eyed Jack, Y “Tip” Jack and The Jackets backing singers.

This is the slowest, mopiest take on “You Are My Sunshine” I have ever heard.  Reno Jack is know for “country blues” and this version sounds like the most depressing part of both genres.

[READ: July 30, 2019] “The Pancake Supper”

Thomas suggested that all of the teaching analysts go out for a pancake supper twice a year.  Not at the fancy pancake house, but at the modest open-all night Pancake House & Bar.

Because Breakfast foods, except for cereals, that contain inordinate amounts of sugar, have, in my experience, a comforting, antidepressant quality.

The first to arrive was Manuel Escobar who disagreed with that sentiment: “I suppose that is true is you are an American.”

Escobar flirted with the waitress.  He also wanted to make love to Thomas’ wife.  Thomas was introspective about this:

It has occurred to me from time to time that an affair between this man and my wife could be harmless enough, and might solve a variety of problems in my home life.

Up next was Maria who immediately praised Escobar’s work.

Thomas disapproves:

professional colleagues should assume one another’s integrity and leave it at that.  I make it a rule never to give people favorable opinions of their work–not even those exceptional, open-minded people who admire my theories concerning reality and its dissolution through polite social conversation.

She was followed by Richard who never removed his ridiculous panama hat.  Thomas has found that that groups immediately become anxious, wary, ill at ease around Richard.  This is a problem for the man since he specializes in Group.

More “doctors” arrive (there is a discussion that most of them are clinical therapists not doctors, but those with PhDs bristle at the distinction.

When it’s time to order, Thomas is stuck with a choice of pancakes or not.

Choices between banalities are some of our more intimidating ordeals in life.

The dinner proceeds inside of Thomas’ head and we see the way he thinks.  Thomas surveys his colleagues–Maria, whom he used to have sex with when they were interns–and wonders if everyone is sleeping with each other

But drama enters when Richard begins choking on a bite off of someone else’s plate:

by threatening to fatally gag on other people’s food, [Richard] had taken the role of usuper, ‘capturing’ not only the food but the sympathies of his peers.

Then, when Richard won’t let Thomas out of the booth, Thomas climbs over the seat and grabs a piece of toast. After making a speech, it becomes clear he intends to hurl the toast across the room.

Have you ever noticed?–people, no matter how beautiful or desirable, invariably will, if observed closely while going about their daily business of keeping alive, begin to seem like monsters.

This story is so internal that it kind of drifts away on to the ether.  But I enjoyed the inner workings of this cl;early disturbed therapist and obviously found so much that I liked quoting from it.