22 December 2010

Yes, We Have No Socotras/Holiday Road

Gentle Readers,

I am packed and hitting the Holiday Road for Michigan. I had to think of the Lindsey Buckingham song from the National Lampoon movie “Vacation,” with the brilliant Chevy Chase as hapless suburbanite Clark Griswold.

This was the only Vacation film that did not feature Randy Quaid as "Cousin Eddie" character, which could be related to the feature story in Vanity Fair this month about the alleged plot to have him killed. Apparently he and his wife are quite mad, and I am deeply sympathetic.

It is a very strange matter, the paranoia that drove them from a pedestrian show-biz career to being self-styled targets on the run.

It is far stranger than I can deal with this morning. I threw things in the general direction of the roller-bag, and have both clear and brown beverages to drink wherever I wind up when the light fails today.

Did you know that in the third Griswold epic, European Vacation, the family's name is shown as "Griswald", though in every other film it is spelled "Griswold?”

Anyway, I am rolling out of here for Michigan and whistling the very complex lyrics suitable for the solitude of the Bluesmobile on the big road. Think of me, if you will, on the wide gray Police couch at eighty miles an hour across Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan:

“I found out long ago
It's a long way down the holiday road
Holiday road
Holiday road

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Take a ride on the West Coast kick
Holiday road
Holiday road
Holiday road
Holiday road

I found out long ago
It's a long way down the holiday road
Holiday road
Holiday road
Holiday road
Holiday road”

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
Randy Quaid’s madness is his own
Lindsey Buckingham’s lyrics, all three lines, are reserved.

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