Fast Car | City Reliquary Museum | Roman Empire | YouTube Rabbithole
Alright @YouTheReader,
Today’s tune is Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. Born in Cleveland on March 30, 1964, Chapman’s parents split up when she was only 4 years of age. Her mother refused to accept child support from her father so she and her sister were raised on welfare while her mother worked low-paid jobs. At 14 years old, she wrote a song called Cleveland ‘78 which addressed many hardships of her childhood. From a young age she was very socially and politically aware, she told Rolling Stone, “I think it had to do with the fact that my mother was always discussing things with my sister and me - also because I read a lot. A lot of people in similar situations just have a sense that they're poor or disenfranchised, but they don't really think about what's created the situation or what factors don't allow them to control their lives."
Cleveland ‘78 was one of her first big breaks as an artist as she was awarded a scholarship to a prep school in Connecticut. From there she would attend Tufts University in Massachusetts. One of her goals as a child was to become a veterinarian, but she ended up changing her studies to anthropology and African studies. After many summers of mowing lawns, she eventually started playing her guitar on the street. “It's worse than playing in a club because there's so many distractions. You can feel rejected if people don't stop, so you have to kind of insulate yourself." Eventually, she would make her way into performing at Boston Coffeehouse gigs. While many people could tell she had a ton of potential, she once sent her rough tape audio to one of her classmate’s uncles who worked at CBS Records, and received a rejection letter stating that she “tune her guitar.”
In 1986, Tracy Chapman was introduced to a manager at Elektra Records and just 2 years later she produced her first self-titled album that came out in 1988. It was on her debut album that her hit single Fast Car landed #1 in Ireland, #5 in the UK, and #6 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Chapman went from performing on the street to singing at Wembley for Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Tribute.
Chapman began writing Fast Car one late night in 1986 with her small Miniature Dachshund. She told Far Out, “She didn’t always stay up if I stayed up late, I think she was sitting on the couch right next to me, when I first started writing the music and the first few lyrics, I think the first part of the song that came to me was the first line ‘You’ve got a fast car…’” and the dog’s ears perked up. This just further illustrates why doggos are the absolute best.
Sorry Quick Antedote here: Last weekend at Kelly’s Tavern in Nanuet, I was on my final pint of the afternoon and was lucky enough to be sitting down with an awesome couple next to me. They run their own business while also raising kids, so in these situations, I always enjoy learning and picking up perspectives from others. (Running a business and family, two things I’d of course like to have one day.) When Week to Week Notes came up, mind you I was 5 pints in, I sorta let it slip that I’m at peace and don’t feel like I have much to prove to myself. It was more like, “I’m at the point where I’ve had a bunch of ups-&-downs doing this and everything from here on out is gravy.” I guess that’s because when I first started this, I did feel like a zero with nothing to lose, and while this might not be much, it is something. Now mind you, I’m still deeply motivated and wake-up driven every day to try to make more of Week to Week Notes, but as wild as it sounds, that’s the fun part.
In the opening verse, Chapman sets the scene that she wants to get out of her current situation, but it sounds sorta naive or may come across a bit like the saying the grass is always greener. In the 2nd verse, the time has passed and she once again is desperately mentioning to her partner that they have a fast car. This time around, she has done a bit more research on where they can go and has even put in more effort by working. This could represent that it’s not as naive of a thought.
In the 3rd verse, she finally explains the situation of why she wants to get away in a fast car. It describes a heartbreaking story of her parents splitting up because of her father’s bouts with alcoholism. He’s stuck in that life and her mother isn’t around either. While learning a bit about Tracy Chapman’s backstory, this may not be exactly like what the narrator of the song is going through, I’m sure in real life she had similar sorts of struggles and needed to make sacrifices.
If you don’t like this song, please keep it to yourself or go tell the nearest tree outside.
In the chorus, the narrator of the song is reminiscing about a time while she was in the Fast Car. For a moment in time, she was free and got to escape her hardships. She also got to spend it with someone who made her feel whole and that made her feel like she could make something of herself. Rather than physically drinking for a high, she got drunk on this feeling in the Fast Car.
In Verse 4, she and her partner with the car are still in the same difficult situation. They still drive around in the Fast Car from time to time but certain realities of life are still holding them back from leaving. Despite this, she is still hopeful that they can get through it.
There have been so many times during my Stumblin’ Along of drinking pints of Guinness and talking to new acquaintances where people have said in some regard these two things… “Please don’t be an asshole” and “Good luck with this.”
Sometimes (like yesterday) I’ll type something a bit facetious like all I’m championing is where to find a proper pint of Guinness. Hopefully, at this point, you get that’s just me being a bit of a sarcastic arse (I do be like that sometimes, I’m working on it), but of course, the goal is to promote good causes.
After shaking hands and getting a “good luck man”, of course, I always try to give a stoic head nod and thanks back. When I do leave the fine-drinking establishment, I do get a bit choked up by it. Think about it, usually, I’ve never met the person behind the bar or sitting next to me, and a half hour later they are wishing me well. I wish more people could get that kind of sentiment because it’s something that always sticks with me. It gives me a feeling that everybody deserves.
The 5th Verse is a sad circle of life moment. She, like her mother in Verse 3, is paying the bills while her partner with the Fast Car is now out drinking like her father. Now they have grown up and had kids of their own, who the partner with the Fast Car isn’t around to see. All the hopes that she had in Verse 1 are past tense as she is resigned to the fact that she is stuck.
Tracy Chapman once said, “I had so many people come up to me and say that they felt it was their song, and someone told me at one point that they thought I’ve been reading their mail. They were saying, ‘You seem to know my story.'” (Rolling Stone) It’s a story about how life can come at you fast and the lesson could be that if you don’t take chances, time will inevitably slip away. Simultaneously, it also represents just the brutal nature of life, where sometimes you can want and hope for something more, but we all face our own realities and circumstances that are out of our control such as paying bills, putting food on the table, etc. so it’s not easy or sometimes doable. The ambiguous ending kind of leaves you melancholy because of course, you’d like for her to finally get in the Fast Car, but she now has a family and kids of her own who’d she be burdening the vicious cycle upon. I guess the moral here is if you have an opportunity, take it. The melody of this song is amazing and it is brilliantly written, no wonder Rolling Stone has it at #71 on their 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time.
On to history…
Last Sunday somehow in my drunken stupor I Stumbled Along to The City Reliquary in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The museum filled with very cool New York City history is open on Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 6 PM. For a $10 visit, you can see a ton of cool relics from The City, this week's Stumblin’ Along on Week to Week Notes features a piece on… Jackie Robinson…
Last week, I was going on about Seltzer, which was interesting, but the portrait above the Seltzer Bottles is more important. Jackie Robinson is one of the most important Americans of all time. This week, we’ll focus on the lead-up to breaking the color barrier in baseball. Next week, with it being the Super Bowl, it’ll be focused on the history of the Super Bowl, and then the following Sunday we’ll get into Jackie’s playing days.
Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia. His middle name comes from President Teddy Roosevelt. He was the youngest of 5 children born to parents Jerry and Mallie Robinson. His family at the time were sharecroppers. His father was out of the family picture when Jackie was only an infant. The reason for his disappearance isn’t exactly known, this was the 1920s South so he could have been looking for a fresh start, others say it was for another woman, or he could have just as easily been arrested for simply being outside of his county in Georgia. Black men in Georgia at the time had to be known by their local sheriff and if they left their county, could be subject to unlawful arrests. His whereabouts after Jackie’s birth is unknown.
In 1920, Mallie Robinson, out of options, moved the entire family to Pasadena, California, to live with her brother. While in Pasadena, Mallie worked as a housekeeper. Jackie Robinson recalled, “I thought she (Mallie) must have some kind of magic to be able to do all things she did, to work so hard and never complain and to make us all feel happy…” She worked hard around the clock and eventually was able to save up for their own home. The Robinsons moved to a predominantly white neighborhood in the Pasadena area and they were the only black family on their block. Despite owning their own home, the Robinson family would routinely deal with cruel neighbors who would call them slurs and even call the police on them for no apparent reason other than they were African-American. Despite these hardships, the Robinson family persevered and over time the neighborhood became more accepting.
As a kid to make a buck or two, Jackie Robinson worked selling newspapers and vending hot dogs outside of the Rose Bowl Stadium. He was always a good athlete, so sometimes in school, he would get free lunch from his classmates if he played on their team during recess. Without a father in the picture and unaccepted in his white neighborhood, Jackie Robinson and some of his other non-white friends formed the Pepper Street Gang. They didn’t exactly cause too much trouble, more minor offenses like stealing fruit, vandalizing cars with dirt clumps, and my favorite ripping off golfers by taking their golf balls before selling them back. Non-white kids weren’t allowed to play in Little League sports at the time, but Pepper Street Gang would play non-organized pickup games, sometimes against white kids, and there would be bets involved. Eventually, though, Jackie Robinson credited two men, Reverend Karl Downs and a local mechanic Carl Anderson, for teaching him how to grow up. Rev. Downs would routinely check in on Jackie Robinson while Carl Anderson caught teenage Jackie in the act of some street mischief. If not for these two strong men, he wrote in his memoir, “I suppose I might have become a full-fledged juvenile delinquent.” (Grunge)
Aside from Downs and Anderson, Jackie Robinson also had a role model in his older brother, Mack Robinson. An American Olympic runner, Mack Robinson ran alongside Jeese Owens in the 1936 Olympic Games. Both African-Americans embarrassed the hell out of Hitler, winning silver & gold medals in the 200m event. Mack Robinson’s son explained that “[Mack] had the mindset that he was going to beat any and everybody. The shoes that he ran in were the same shoes he ran in when he was in college. He didn’t get a pair of brand-new track shoes, but Jesse Owens did. And so, because of that, he came that close to beating Jesse Owens.” Despite winning these medals, President FDR dropped the ball by only allowing white athletes into the White House. Jackie Robinson looked up to Mack and so when he was in high school at John Muir Technical, he earned varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track. (Oregon)
Once he graduated from John Muir Technical, Jackie Robinson continued his education and sports career at Pasadena Junior College where he started to make a name for himself. Two years after playing sports at Pasadena Junior College, UCLA eventually came calling in 1939, and Jackie Robinson earned a football scholarship. As a running back, Robinson set the UCLA record for yards per carry (12.2 ypc), he also was the team punt returner, and in those days everybody played both sides of the ball so he was a defender as well. Robinson was named an All-American in 1939. That was in the fall, Robinson also played hoops in the winter for UCLA. As a basketball player for the Bruins, Robinson scored roughly 40% of the team’s sports while averaging 12.4 and 11.1 points per game in his 2 years. (Slam Online)
Despite his success in sports, Robinson never thought a professional sporting career would be possible. In the fall of 1941, Jackie Robinson played semi-pro football out in Honolulu while working around Pearl Harbor. He aggravated his ankle and was on a ship back to California on December 5, 1941, meaning just two days later, Pearl Harbor would be bombed by Japan. Robinson wrote, “The day of the bombing we were on the ship playing poker, and we saw the members of the crew painting all the ship windows black. The captain summoned everyone on deck. He told us that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and that our country had declared war on Japan.”
In April of 1942, Jackie was drafted into the US Army. He served as a member of the all-Black 761st Tank Battalion stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. The nickname of the battalion was “The Black Panthers.” During the summer of 1944, while Robinson was meeting up with friends at the African American officers’ club, he sat down next to Virginia Jones, a black woman who could pass for being white and was the wife of one of Robinson’s friends. By June of 1944, the War Department decided to desegregate military buses for practical purposes even though the South still had Jim Crow laws. Despite this, the bus driver at the time told Jackie he had to get to the back of the bus and stay away from Mrs. Jones. Jackie Robinson responded that the Army recently had made changes to Army buses. When the bus arrived at the station, Robinson was placed in their patrol car and questioned about the incident. On July 17, 1944, Jackie Robinson was formally charged with 6 violations of the Articles of War: insubordination, disturbing the peace, conduct unbecoming an officer, insulting a civilian woman, and refusing to obey a lawful order of a superior officer. Once it was quite clearly proven that Robinson did no wrong, he would later be acquitted of all charges and sent to a military camp in Kentucky where he served as a coach for the army athletics. On November 4, 1944, he was honorably discharged from his duties. (NPS)
Following his military service, Jackie Robinson would join the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball League, which will be a cool spot to start from 2 Stumblin’ Along Sundays from today…
This Week’s Bit on The Roman Empire
This week your quick bit on The Roman Empire brought to you by Week to Week Notes featuring Ancient Rome: The Exhibition in New York is on the Roman Legionary’s Equipment.
The Roman Legionary would carry or wear full armor, supplies, and equipment during their marches in hostile territories. These items would include the likes of…
They would also carry a backpack of about 14 days worth of food and cooking equipment. All of the equipment could weigh up to 30 kilos or 66 pounds… No wonder they wore a bunch of togas during their free time.
Emperor Diocletian
In 284 AD, Emperor Diocletian tried to rebuild the Roman Empire by insisting its citizens make certain sacrifices for the emperor in charge. (Pretty convenient of him.) Christians at this time refused to take part which led to ruthless violence. They were known as The Dioclentianic Persecution which lasted 20 years. Despite Emperor Diocletian’s best efforts, Christianity prevailed as it became the empire’s preferred religion when Diocletian retired and Emperor Constantine took over. Thanks, Grandma!! ❤️