BREAD, LOVE & CHA CHA CHA

If I woke up one day and discovered that I couldn’t speak, and that I had to learn how to talk all over again, all I can say is that I hope there are no Xavier Cuvat records playing at the time. Ask me why. OK, I will tell you. Let’s take BREAD, LOVE & CHA CHA CHA by Xavier Cugat, for example. CHA CHA CHA is so mucho more interesting that the words BREAD or LOVE that I would immediately assume that all good words come in threes, like, for example, HO HO HO, and that all words are spoken in reverse sequence of value. Well, they are, aren’t they? “I love you,” for example. And “Rock & Roll for example.” Although not “HO HO HO" for example. And if bread love and cha cha cha were the only words I knew than I would have to think that they were the most important words in life, the staff of life, as it were, not Rock & Roll and not luvey duvey gooey I love you things. I would try to survive on bread and love, while dancing, perhaps, the cha cha cha. I would try to survive on bread bread bread and love love love, while dancing the cha, all the while not knowing which was which and why. I couldn’t do that. And I would need water. One needs water, just ask Magellan or your high school chemistry professor, the one who drinks too much. And I’m not talkin’ water. BREAD, LOVE, CHA CHA CHA and WATER. And Cuba Libres. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Then there is the problem of the word ‘Xavier.’ Must I explain that? I am hungry, thisty, and tired of dancing and too tired to explain. In the distance, somewhere, a hamburger fries. When one is all of those things, one cannot hope to explain the complexities of the word ‘Xavier.’ Please wait until I have a few more words under my belt. A little food, perhaps. At that point I will stir, I will try. I don’t care. Watch this move. I do it with my feet. I call it a love dance sandwich. Of the mind. It’s doughy and delicious. I learned it shortly before I was born, smack dab in the birth canal. I learned it, and I earned it. Cowabunga. It was a busy time, according to the advertisements that mention the ways of the day, especially when they mention car tires and funeral parlors and muscular swimmers, talking to pretty girls at poolside, smoking away.