sides
Spent a day with my buddies Danny and Toby. (Yes…we were skiing.)
Danny hadn’t been on the long sticks in over a year. He did well. His greatest contributions however, were in the humor department. As with all good ski humor, it begins on the lift. We catch the 10th chair up. Danny’s impressed.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been up on the mountain this early, this soon.”
Toby and I are both quiet. I just turn to look at Danny.
Now, I love Danny to pieces. I’m positive every person on the planet has at least one of this kind of friend. The kind where the minute you meet him you just know - we are going to laugh like crazy. That’s Danny. We lived in his house when we first moved here for a few months. We’ve spent countless hours saving the universe or protecting the democracy from terrorists on the Xbox. We’re in a Life Group together. In spite of only having met Danny a little over a year ago…I know him well and vice versa.
I don’t know one single story about him that involves him being on time let alone early. In fact, we have coined the phrase “Danny Time” to justify being 30 minutes late as actually being on time.
Danny glances over at me.
“What?”
“Forget about it. For some odd reason that doesn’t surprise me at all.”
Somehow, some way we get talking about John Denver. (Again, there was no alcohol involved so I’m not really sure how this came up.) Danny starts referring to John Denver as “JD.” Like - “You know, there’s nothing like a good JD song to get you in the mood for skiing.”
Which Toby and I both laugh at because we honestly have no idea what in the world Danny means.
“You fill up my SENSSSSSSSSSESSSSSSSSSSS…..”
People on the chair in front of us turn around. Yes…some idiot is on the lift singing Annie’s Song at the top of his lungs.
The good news is we are on a 6-person lift. It gives Toby and I an opportunity to spread away from Danny.
“Like a night in the Forrrrrrrrresstt. Like the mountains in sprinnnnnnnnnnngtime. Like a night in the RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIN!”
I start debating how dangerous it really is to jump off a lift. I never thought a 6-person lift could be so small. I try to use distraction on him.
“You have John Denver on your iPod?”
“Yes…but there’s a reason for that.”
“You like crappy music?”
“I was a DJ so I had to have some crappy music because some of that crappy music is good to dance to.”
“Like You Fill Up My Senses?”
“It’s called Annie’s Song.”
I’m thinking - who the heck is Annie - but instead I say something of the effect - “So John Denver had a dance album?”
Toby picks up on this and comments - “You gotta know that some Chinese cover band has done a John Denver tune like that.”
And so went the rest of the day. Danny would often inform of us of the hipness of JD. That he would have loved to see JD’s music evolve to the next level had he lived long enough. I of course, can’t see the Emo John Denver making it besides the fact JD wasn’t actually young when died.
Danny’s big question of the day was - which rock-and-roll artist would you want to bring back from the dead - the ones that overdosed or the ones that crashed in planes?
A short list of each before you cast your own vote:
Overdosed: Jimi Hendrix, Andy Gibb, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison
Plane Crash: Buddy Holly, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Ritchie Valens, Otis Redding
As you can see…we get a lot done when we ski.
Tags: drug overdose, John Denver, plane crashes, ski
26 responses so far ↓
1 daveb // Mar 12, 2008 at 3:00 pm
1. The King (Gibb…are you serious?)
2. Stevie Ray Vaughn
2 Laura Campion // Mar 12, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I have not commented lately, but I must say first off that I love John Denver’s music so back off. I would bring back plane crash vicitms for sure.
3 clay // Mar 12, 2008 at 5:09 pm
you “forgot” to add patsy cline on that list. haha.
4 Grant // Mar 12, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Dave - it’s one or the other…either bring back the druggies or the plane crash victims.
Not pick one from each list.
I picked the plane crash list…mainly because of Stevie Ray and Otis Redding…of the Bar Kays.
Patsy Cline…good night…
5 Kitty Smith // Mar 12, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I’m laughing so hard that tears are coming down my cheeks. John Denver? Really? Maybe I ought to pick up skiing just for the “bonding time!”
BTW, I’m voting for the plane crash list, too. I love Otis Redding - and I also love Patsy Cline, although I’m pretty sure that was a car crash!
6 Grant // Mar 12, 2008 at 9:18 pm
This is Clay’s fault.
Patsy Cline is NOT on the list to bring back.
7 MikeS // Mar 13, 2008 at 8:42 am
So how do you guys get any skiing done. I’m laughing just thinking how many times you had to ride a lift and what may have been discussed on those rides.
Plane Crash - Stevie Ray & Otis Redding, Buddy Holly & Richie Valens - MAN!!!!
8 clay // Mar 13, 2008 at 9:38 am
patsy cline definately died in a plane crash at the age of 30. i am protesting this post until patsy cline is added to the list.
9 Mom // Mar 13, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Crazy …my vote for Patsy Cline and Buddy Holly.
10 kris // Mar 14, 2008 at 8:27 am
please add me to the Patsy Cline backers …
11 Kitty // Mar 14, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Okay, I’m joining with Clay and Mom. I LOVE Patsy Cline!!
12 Kitty // Mar 14, 2008 at 7:42 pm
And you’re right, Clay. It was a plane crash. My bad!!
13 wayne // Mar 16, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I had a drink in a hotel bar in Kansas City where Patsy Cline last performed before she died. Well, at least that’s what the bar tender claimed.
14 Grant // Mar 16, 2008 at 7:52 pm
What’s with Patsy Cline? I mean I think I can name 1 song of hers - “I’m Crazy For You” or something like that.
Milli Vinilli had more hits than her, right?
Did they even have planes back when Patsy Cline was singing?
15 wayne // Mar 16, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Well, you were hanging with a guy singing JD on a ski lift — what’s so wrong with patsy cline in that context?
16 Grant // Mar 16, 2008 at 9:30 pm
It’s not like I knew he was going to bust out JD’s catalog when we got on the lift.
The other thing that just hit me…
What’s more disturbing… the fact that IF he had busted out a Patsy Cline song - nobody would have known what it was…
OR…
Whenever any JD song is done, we all know EXACTLY who wrote/sang it?
17 Mom // Mar 16, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I am shocked that you do not appreciate Patsy Cline…she had many hits…Crazy , Walking after Midnight , I Fall to Pieces to name a few. She did die in a plane crash in 1963 somewhere in TN.
But you are correct not many would recognize her songs vs JD.
18 clay // Mar 16, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Sweet Dreams and Faded Love to add to the list. and ill give you a dollar grant if you know who wrote Crazy.
19 MikeS // Mar 17, 2008 at 7:41 am
Dude, at some point you’ve got to stop fighting it (Patsy Cline thing) and go with it.
Sure, we (the general public) knows more JD songs than PC songs, but you’re not going to win this one.
Besides, in spite of the fact that she lived way before JD, she was still a great singer.
20 Grant // Mar 17, 2008 at 9:20 am
John Denver wrote Crazy, right?
If you brought back the plane crash stars, technically she’d get in because the original question didn’t limit which artists. We only listed a few examples of each category.
So JD would be back on the scene if we brought back the crashes as well.
I’m just saying the only time I hear Patsy Cline songs is when I’m suffering through a romantic comedy movie and the girl is walking the streets of New York in the middle of the night remembering her true love.
21 clay // Mar 17, 2008 at 9:31 am
poor patsy. actully, willie nelson wrote crazy.
22 Danny and The Trees | the G sides // Apr 7, 2008 at 10:21 am
[...] ski day with Danny last week. The first generated so much dialog I thought I’d share about this one as [...]
23 Danny // Apr 7, 2008 at 3:04 pm
First of all, I want to comment on the John Denver thing from last time….
I have him on my iPod because the Presidential Election in 2004 (I was programming election databases) was one of the most stressful times of my work life. Afterwards, upon leaving San Jose where I was stationed, my boss and I were decompressing on the Hertz rental bus when John Denver came on. And, yes, it was Annie’s song . It was so matching the mood of that day that it is embedded in my mind (probably, forever). It is on my iPod because every once in awhile I used to play it for my boss if things got too stressful (as a joke). I digress …
What is at stake here now is your lame current list of musicians that died via the two methods I mentioned. Let me make the list more final:
Plane Crash: Buddy Holly, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Ritchie Valens, Otis Redding, John Denver, Aaliyah, Big Bopper, Patsy Cline, Jim Croce, Glenn Miller, Ricky Nelson, Jim Reeves
Overdosed: Jimi Hendrix, Andy Gibb, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Bon Scott (AC/DC), Tommy Dorsey, John Bonham, Florence Ballard (The Supremes), Tommy Bolin (Deep Purple), Steve Clark (Def Leppard), Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Pete Frandon & James Honeyman-Scott (The Pretenders), Jerry Garcia (The Grateful Dead), Judy Garland, Billie Holliday, Dinah Washington, Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy), Keith Moon (The Who), David Ruffin (The Temptations), and Hank Willams
24 Peter Benjaminson // Apr 8, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Flo Ballard did not die of an overdose. She died of coronary artery thrombosis (a heart attack caused by a clot in an artery.) The autopsy found no trace of illegal drugs in her system and only traces of legal ones. See my book, The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard, released on April 1 and available at my website, for the complete story.
25 Peter Benjaminson // Apr 9, 2008 at 5:12 am
My website is http://www.thelostsupreme.com. The book is also available at bookstores and on Amazon.com.
26 Tom Selleck Movies // Oct 10, 2008 at 9:53 am
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