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| Me&Ev, as in, ever notice daughter is 1 letter away from laughter? |
If you asked me yesterday at breakfast if I’ve ever had a musical gig that paid me money, I would have: a) thanked you for even thinking the question; b) laughed; and c) said “nope”.
But. Had you asked me at lunchtime, you’d have gotten a “yup.”
My motorbiking daughter Ev does too– a fact I added as an excuse to use this picture.
I have a limited repertoire of motorcycling songs but I admit that one is the ’60s hit, “Born to Be Wild,” written and recorded by a Canadian band called “Steppenwolf” in 1968.
The thing about “Born To Be Wild,” is that it became the unofficial theme song for the movie “Easy Rider,” starring Peter Fonda who–I’m just stating a fact here–I’ve been told I kinda look like.
And Peter Fonda rode a Harley-Davidson. Which is the brand of bike I currently own.
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| NOW THAT I THINK about it, Nicholson kinda looks like my brother Ed |
The model of Harley I have is called Sportster and until recently the Sportster was the littlest Harley-Davidson going.
When Sportsters first appeared in the late ’50s, they were considered very cool but that’s changed. One clever writer described the transformation thusly: When they were introduced, people knew a Sportster was the kind of bike The Fonz would ride. Now it’d be Potsie.
Still, it’s big and fast enough for me.
Besides, I seriously don’t care what kind of bike I’m riding. I’ve never been on a motorcycle I didn’t like. And I digress.
Tuesday morning, I was roaring along Toronto’s Lakeshore Blvd, belting out “Born to Be Wild.”
“Like a True Nature child,,” I sang, “we were born born to be wild fly so high never wanna die-ie-ie. Born to be Wi-i-i-i-ild” and like that.
That’s when I recalled my money-making singing gigs.
When I was a little kid, before Easy Rider made the song famous, I used to go over to my lifelong friend Trevor MacIntyre’s house. There was a guitar there. Neither of us knew any chords though I just this minute remembered Trevor took drum lessons.
I banged on the guitar; Trevor and I would sing the phrase “Born to Be Wild”over and over and over again as loudly as our little pre-pubescent voices would let us, and his father would pay us to stop.
PetesBlog&Grille 