{"id":310980,"date":"2019-10-30T06:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T20:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=310980"},"modified":"2019-10-30T06:00:54","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T20:00:54","slug":"t-o-a-s-t-tuneful-old-age-senior-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/t-o-a-s-t-tuneful-old-age-senior-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"T.O.A.S.T.: Tuneful Old-Age Senior Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Come and read, take a chance, reminiscing on my past<br \/>\nmusic and dance, two sonnets on it, slow and fast,<br \/>\nfast tempo a brain energizer, adagio my favorite tranquilizer<br \/>\nthey explain themselves, each a great internal analyzer.<br \/>\nDedicated to Deacon John Moore, my brother-in-law,<br \/>\na New Orleans Creole musician in the Louisiana Music<br \/>\nHall of Fame; and Anna Glushko, Russian ballet dancer<br \/>\nand teacher in Saipan, CNMI. Both are alive and well.<br \/>\nJohn is 80 still performing at Jazz Fest and giving em hell!<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>My Dancing Days are Almost Gone<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>\u201cA man may put pretense away who leans upon a stick, may sing, and sing until he drops.\u201d <\/em><br \/>\n<strong> \u2014W.B. Yeats, 1933<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLet me whisper into your hearing aid<br \/>\nmy dancing days are almost gone<br \/>\nthousands of hours I\u2019ve danced and played<br \/>\nsometimes literally from dusk till dawn.<br \/>\nI swear at my bad knees, try to keep them moving<br \/>\nno matter the pain, no matter how bad the hurt<br \/>\nto Klezmer, Zydeco, Norte\u00f1o I keep on grooving<br \/>\nat home, on beaches, roads made of coral and dirt.<br \/>\nI thought about it all last night and all day long<br \/>\n\u201cI don\u2019t wanna hang up my rock and roll shoes\u201d<br \/>\ngive up dancing or stop when a boogie beat song<br \/>\ncomes along, waltz with the wind, bop till I drop<br \/>\nWith two wooden legs I can still dance the Twist<br \/>\njust say, \u201cGet up and boogie! \u201d I just can\u2019t resist.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>Midsummer Night Rococo Remembering<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>\u201cRhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.\u201d <\/em><br \/>\n<strong>\u2014Plato, Greek philosopher (427-347 BC)<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nNo more peace, I heard the cell phone\u2019s obnoxious ring<br \/>\nbringing me back from a midsummer night\u2019s dream<br \/>\nwhen I was about to hear Cecilia Bartoli do her thing<br \/>\nway up in operatic heaven no need for online meme<br \/>\na cello soars and music pours back inside my head<br \/>\nJordi Savall saws away on some ancient Celtic tune<br \/>\nI wonder where this cool summer nights yarn has led<br \/>\nunder the Milky Way with a lovely crescent moon<br \/>\nheavenly song is free streaming radio glissando<br \/>\ndestroyed by sadistic static and heavy traffic noise<br \/>\nall chopped up by some radio waves commando<br \/>\nfor a small baroque chamber ensemble I would rejoice<br \/>\nto hear a viola da gamba or 18th\u00a0century harpsichord<br \/>\nor a Thomas Tallis composition echo word for word.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joey &#8216;Pepe Batbon&#8217; Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Joey aka Pepe Batbon is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is a sonnet practitioner who enjoys stargazing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Come and read, take a chance, reminiscing on my past music and dance, two sonnets&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,23672,23673,13843],"class_list":["post-310980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-lvnv","tag-nola","tag-pepe-batbon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}