The soundtrack of Our Man’s day begins with an exterior shot of his driveway. As we see him backing his pickle-water-green Prius into the raging maelstrom of being (RMOB), we hear the Dave Matthews Band playing a long intro:

BUMP itty bump BUMP/BUMP itty bump BUMP/BUMP itty bump BUMP/BUMP itty bump BUMP

Oh OH, Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh/Oh OH, Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh x 2

Our Man at the wheel (sounding astonishingly like someone trying to imitate Dave Matthews):

Come on and dance,Come on and dance Let’s make some romance…

So, hold that thought. The ending to the soundtrack of Our Man’s day starts with a long shot of the ’07 Prius coasting silently down the hill at 48.6 miles per gallon.

Our Man pulls smoothly into his driveway, past the neighbor’s gas-fed pickup (9.3 miles per gallon if driven down the side of an office building).

All this time we hear the fingers of a guitar god picking way up the neck, sounding clean notes that blend quickly into a voltaic riff of distortion. (Note to those voltaically challenged: that’s a good thing.)

Our man waits patiently for the drums to come in before rolling into his deceptively self-deceiving impression of John Fogerty singing and chooglin’ on a short-scale Rickenbacker 325 air guitar while simultaneously driving downhill in a dented hybrid.

Hey tonight, gonna be tonight, dontcha know I’m flying, tonight…

Okay. The beginning and the end are in the can and the theme has become apparent. Our man is a dancing, flying, impersonator with a serious grandiosity thing percolating beneath the spot where his hair used to be.

And just like a guy who can’t decide what he wants on his sandwich, Our Man can’t decide on the soundtrack to the middle part of his day.

Metaphorically speaking that’s the part that goes in between the two slices of 12-grain wheat bread in the aforementioned sandwich. Or, to use hep slang, the part that’s inserted between the Big Opening Number and the Big Closing Number.

(Hep: dumb term that fired Hubba Hubba in early 50s and was itself overthrown by Hip, Son of Cool, circa 1959)

Our Man is leaning toward Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You.” Maybe more appropriate: “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World. (And what are you going to name your little boy Mrs. World? Jimmy Eat? How very abnormal.)

The middle tracks may take some time. But anything worthwhile takes time because all the unworthwhile things like tweeting and twerking have called ahead for bandwidth using Al Gore’s name.

Ultimately, Our Man believes that if you spend every moment of your life surrounded by the kind of music that syncs with your very cool opinion of how others see you, then your teeth will sparkle; you’ll get a call announcing you have won a million bucks and all you have to do is email your bank account number for the cash transfer; and your woman will stop telling you to quit slouching and stand up straight like a big boy.

Oh, and there will be Cherry Garcia for dessert.

Dontcha know I’m flying…

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013, all rights reserved