On Miles, Mary Lou, and Miscreants

I heard it. It took a while, but I finally heard it.

I’d owned Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew for a few years. I’d read many reviews praising it, so I bought the double-CD set as part of my lifelong quest to expand my musical horizons (anyone want to buy Anthony Braxton’s For Alto?).

I played Bitches Brew a few times. I played it sober, drunk, happy, sad, hungry, stuffed. Reviews notwithstanding, it always sounded like a poorly recorded, muddy, jazz-fusion mess.

But then I heard it.

One early summer afternoon in ’96 in my Spryfield, N.S., apartment as I went for a snooze (longer than a nap), I spun Bitches Brew yet again.

The warm sun on left side my face, gaping mouth half full of pillow, one ear to the world — I finally got the sneering, brooding beauty that is Bitches Brew. It’s now one of my go-to records when it gets muggy, as I will forever associate it with that summer when I first heard it.

Here’s my favourite track (crank it!):

Bitches Brew was recorded in the summer of ’69 in New York, two months before I was born. I consider it the music of me in the womb.

Except that my mom never heard of Miles Davis and would have hated it. And dad would have cursed, yanked it off the stereo, and put on a Jim Reeves record.

Now, that’s nothing against Mr. Reeves. If my main man Paddy McAloon can cover one of his songs, then for once my dad might not have been 100 per cent wrong.

And then there’s 100 per cent right. Yes, we’re both thinking the same thing: Gymnast Mary Lou Retton scored perfect 10s in floor exercise and vault to clinch the all-around gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Retton won five medals at those Games, just four-foot-nine and recovering from a knee injury with a smile so bright and warm and oh wow she’s so cute and how can I not blush when I see that Wheaties commercial?

I was 14 years old, and I was in love. These days, I’m too old for a non-alcohol-related blush, but I do still giggle a li’l when I watch that commercial.

But even though I no longer blush, I guess I still have a crush, which rhymes with flush, which brings me to a downtown Halifax bar, a broken gambling machine, and my ever-observant friend Joey.

Check it out: That gambling machine is spitting out the receipts that should stay in the machine.

Joey goes to the bar to try to redeem one: Cash back. I go to the bar to redeem one: Cash back. Joe goes to the bar to redeem one: Cash back. Ditto me.

Joey tries again: Then comes walking back to our table, saying quietly:

“Let’s go.”

And so we do, and spend the $118 at another bar up the street.

In our minds, we were Robin Hoods. We’d seen how much hard-earned money those bloody machines had taken from good, law-abiding fellow bar-hoppers over the years, and it was payback time.

I know. Losers, right? Fortunately, Randy Newman has us covered.