This year for the 2023 A-Z Blog Challenge, I’m going to begin by listing a song or musical subject, and then see how fast and how far I can completely blow up my own “stream of consciousness,” and head “off the reservation,” by linking every real, and “Zulu Delta-imagined” fact, piece of music trivia, or not so apparent connection to what is racing around my head to that song in an “unstructured, graffiti-like” format. Complete and utter nonsense! Turn it up and turn it on, but as Van “The Man” Morrison said…….”It’s already turned on!”

Bruce Springsteen wrote the song “Fire” in 1977.

The Pointer Sisters released it in 1978 and took it to a Number Two Smash Hit in the United States.

I remember the first time I heard the song. I was embarrassed that I “secretly” liked the song as it was considered “Disco” at the time, and we all know that at the time; “Disco was the enemy!”

Today we know that the Pointer Sisters version is an absolute Gem!      

At the 1:50 minute mark, the song fades out to just an echo and booms back in with “Now Romeo and Juliet!” So Classic.   

Springsteen had seen Elvis in concert in 1977, and soon wrote the song so he could give it to Elvis.

He sent it to Elvis, but Elvis died soon after that.   

I remember the day Elvis died. It was like when old people told us the story of where they were when they heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK, or from my “own life,” the incidents on 9/11. Everywhere I turned that day, there was Elvis. 

It’s like Mojo Nixon tells us….” Elvis is Everywhere!”

What’s going on in the Bermuda Triangle? “Elvis need ships, Elvis needs boats, Elvis needs planes!”

So, as I stood at the city bus stop in Downtown Providence that day in 1977, I, like my nephew Aziz after me, wondered just why Elvis was such a big deal.

I also wondered why the phone store I was leaning up against, was making just as much of a big deal out of now “allowing” people to “own” their home phones, not realizing this was not possible in the “Ma Bell Era.”

As I waited for my bus to arrive, and for the Elvis hysteria to die down (neither happened soon enough), I stared across the street and a warm smile came to my face. It was the locally owned Riccotti’s Submarine Sandwiches Shop. On the rare occasion I did have some extra cash, I would venture over and get an “exotic” Ham and Cheese Grinder. They had the best bread rolls!

In Rhode Island, we also call Subs, “Grinders.”

A double bonus was to have a few extra quarters, because although I was not a big fan of video games, Riccotti’s had their very own “Sea Wolf” Submarine Hunting Video simulator, complete with action periscope! With my belly filled with the best grinder in the state, it was only natural for a high school sophomore to want to sink as many surface vessels as I could and enter my initials in the ‘high score screen” for all time, and all to see…..well, until the next fool would play. Hey, why do you think they call it “Sophomoric?” 

Off the record and with no empirical data to back this up so many years later, I doubt the sub shop “owned” its own video game as the majority of the vending machines at the time (soda, cigarettes, pinball, and video), were owned and operated by the New England Mafia Boss up on “Federal Hill.” Enough said.

An actual Sea Wolf Class Submarine for the U.S. Navy would soon be built at General Dynamics Electric Boat, at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.

“Fire Indeed.”

For any of my longtime readers “missing” my random subject A-Z Blogs, or any new readers who want more absurdity, I’ll leave a link from my entry to the A-Z from 2017. It’s as chaotic as my present series, but most of all, that blog ended with a version of the late great Sam Cooke singing a letter “F” title; “Frankie and Johnny.” Lets leave with that music!

https://zuludelta45.net/2017/04/01/alt-aliens-alternative-asine-facts-and-so-on/