(The Talking Heads, 1979)

Splash was humming this morning. He was inside due to the return of the gray cold by the Fire Pit. It was ominous indication he may be thinking again even after that last memo from the HR Department at Socotra House. They get irritated, since his antics frequently cause meetings between them and Legal, which in turn result in querulous memos to the Writer’s Section.

The lyrics were old but familiar, at least for some. The title was one we used to laugh about, being actually engaged in a sort of war at the time and supported the idea of trying to live through it. We tried to get Splash to stop, but it was useless. He has claimed we don’t know the nature of new conflicts, the violence all wrapped up in cyber and manufactured information. We were afraid he might burst into the lyrics, which would have all sorts of potential trouble since he can’t limit himself to the number of seconds permitted under copyright law, or content control from Legal.

Actually, it was sort of a catchy tune, and if some of the words came back, they were only the ones in 19-second bursts that would comply with “Fair Use” provisions of law associated with the copyright holders, David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison. They are pictured above, around the time that song soared to #80 on the Billboard charts.

We personally ranked it much higher since we could see ourselves in the tune. One of the lines became a standard way to describe meetings we didn’t want to be in.

At the time, their band Talking Heads were called “one of the most critically acclaimed of the ’80s.” A New York group, they integrated elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut American image. It was similar to the look we tried to keep while on active service. A couple of us were in the northern Indian Ocean then, which looked a bit like this:

It is a little hard to keep the memories separate from the 19 seconds we can use at any given time, sort of like saying the above image, captured from the United States Ship Midway, is offered only in lo-resolution for illustrative purposes since we can’t remember who took it but have carried the high-resolution image around for years but can’t use except for this crappy version. The view is pretty much what we saw while skipping rope amid parked jets for exercise in the hangar bay in front of the portal to L3.

Splash stood up and burst into 19 seconds of song:

Heard of a van, loaded with weapons
Packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway
A place where nobody knows.

The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I’m getting used to it now…

At the time, 1979, we were looking for vans full of all sorts of stuff. At that particular moment, they happened to be located in a nation called Iran. We used all sorts of ways to find them.

One of them was by our own aircraft, and was the only time I have actually seen Iran, which in my professional experience was a sort of brownish sere-colored blob that contrasted nicely with the shallowing but bright blue waters of the Hormuz Strait. I don’t know if the Iranians claim copyright restrictions on it, and we may have been able to see it for more than 19 seconds. But we had no attorneys in the jet’s four seats. Splash was continuing his yodel from yesteryear.

Transmit the message, to the receiver
Hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas
You don’t even know my real name
High on a hillside, the trucks are loading
Everything’s ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime
I might not ever get home…

We all laughed at that, since most of us got home, even with the speculation that we wouldn’t. The unlucky ones who didn’t at least can still vote. Splash said that, not us, since we already read all the notes from HR that we can handle at the beginning of the week.

DeMille was anxious to get us back on track. He waved a sheaf of papers the young Attorney had printed out and frowned. “We can’t use this stuff except for the book that we can’t publish. Think about the implications of that. They say we can get back some discipline and produce mildly ironic commentary on extraordinary events. Provided we don’t identify any government figures by name or position. And avoid copyright restrictions. Let’s get serious.”

Splash had paused to let DeMille have his leadership moment and then launched again, referencing some old activities no longer popular with people who have difficulty rising without an alarming series of pops and groans:

“This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco
This ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey
I ain’t got time for that now…”

There was general agreement on that first line, since it was a mnemonic from another war. Melissa summed it up best, since her experience with that time had involved a lot of waiting around for people caught up in the machine. Their presence was necessary for things she thought important and the waiting sucked. Those days were long and had no schedule for resolution. She had to live the life we did not find in the Plan of the Day (POD).

The execution of those days involved some of the people on the ship behind The Green Door, who had the right cryptologic keys to communicate with people far away from the ship who had access to a variety of collection techniques we still can’t talk about except with a lot of curled waving fingers simulating air quotes.

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco
This ain’t no fooling around
This ain’t no Mudd Club, or C. B. G. B.
I ain’t got time for that now!”

That was startling, because it wasn’t Splash. Melissa had moved to a space between the two comfortable rocking chairs occupied by Buck and Loma. She began a graceful swaying that joined the gentle rhythm of her hair with the smooth movement of her hips. Buck was wearing a black mortarboard hat from his academic days with the square brim pulled down to obscure his eyes. He lifted it for a better view as Melisa’s lilting voice lifted.

It reminded us of that brief time many had ventured onto the dance floor to imitate- badly- the graceful moves of our parents, who had already taken their grace to the grave. Buck couldn’t resist. He rose and joined her in song:

“Burned all my notebooks, what good are
Notebooks? They won’t help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace
The burning keeps me alive
Try to stay healthy, physical fitness
Don’t want to catch no disease
Try to be careful, don’t take no chances
You better watch what you say.”

DeMille gave up and began to sway himself, his notebook unburned. “That,” he said with a minor twirl, “Concludes today’s production meeting. But I would ask you to consider what it is like to be living in wartime. Maybe Legal will tell us what war we can talk about.”

Our young attorney just smiled as she got up and began to sway. She had never heard the song before. But she seemed to think it was sort of catchy.

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