This Song is a monthly feature of So Much Stuff, offering a snippet of association to who and where I was when it was a popular release or otherwise entered my radar.
In the early 80s, I briefly shared my Eastside apartment with a meek and otherwise sweet line cook with severe skin allergies, who turned out to also be a blackout drunk. Things got broken or disappeared, and when I returned after a weekend away to find Cheetos in my bed, I insisted she move out.
But the day she left, she took a small revenge, unlocking and leaving open a window that led onto the fire escape, and I came home from work that evening to find my cat gone. I circled the block, searching for the smartest cat I’ve ever known, inherited from my previous roommate who’d moved to Rome—and who’d named him Stupid for the blatant irony.
So when a truck blasting music trailed beside me, I did what any young woman crying in the street and calling, Stu-pid, Stu-pid, would do. I whirled around ready to unleash a rash of invectives, only to find the familiar face of Irv, one of a pair of charming Trinidadian guys who delivered furniture for the prop house often used by the photo stylist I worked for.
He joined my futile search for a while, and when we parted, Irv gave me the mix tape he’d been playing in his truck. A lively collection of Ska and what he explained was Soca (a blend of Soul and Calypso), that also included UB40’s cover of Neil Diamond’s song “Red Red Wine.” A tape I probably still have, buried somewhere in storage.
The cat, it would turn out, had merely gone down the fire escape and into the apartment of the woman living directly below me, who saw the flier I’d put up in the lobby and returned him later that night. And though I remain convinced that he wanted to, Irv never did ask me out.
So glad Stupid was okay! Oh wow, yes, the problems of calling for your smart cat in the street. Love this story and song.
Love this one!