Blues singer's gravestone: "I didn't wake up this morning .... "
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The Rules of Blues:
1. Most blues begin, "woke up this morning ..."
2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the blues, 'less you stick something nasty in the next line like "I got a good woman, witht he meanest face in town."
3. The blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes ... sort of: "Got a good woman - with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher - and she weigh 500 pound.
4. The blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch or a jail cell, you stuck; ain't no way out. You picked the wrong color shoes to wear this morning, that ain't blues.
5. Blues cars: Chevys and Cadillacs and broke-down Fprd trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or SUV's. Most blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train, anyway.
6. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of unusually bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Gary Coleman could have. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.
7. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is.
8. Breaking your leg skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg cuz an alligator be chompin on it is the blues.
9. Chicago, Kansas City, and Memphis are still the best places to have the blues. New York City may do. Malibu, Palm Springs, the Hamptons, and Vancouver, no way. Also, you can't have the blues in any place that don't get rain.
10. You can't have no blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the bus stop, by the parking lot while it's raining, or sit by the dumpster.
11. Good places for the blues: a) highway; b) jailhouse c) empty bed d) bottom of a whiskey glass. Bad places: Gallery openings, Ivy league institutions, golf courses. Starbucks may eventually qualify for the blues, but not yet.
12. No one will believe its the blues if you wear a suit unless you happen to be an old ethnic person and you slept in it.
13. Do you have the right to sing the blues? Yes if a) you're older than dirt b) you're blind c) you shot a man in Memphis d) you can't be satisfied. No if you have all your teeth b) you were once blind but now can see c) the man in Memphis lived d) you have a retirement plan.
14. If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it's the blues. Other acceptable blues beverages are a) wine b) whiskey c) bourbon d) muddy water e: black coffee. The following are NOT blues beverages: a) mixed drinks b) Snapple, c) sparkling water, d) latte e) 5-hour energy drinks.
15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another way. So are the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You don't have a blues death if you collapse during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.
16. Some women's names for the blues: a) Sadie b) Big Mama c) Bessie d) Frankie. For men, a) Joe b) Willie c) Little Willie d) Big Willie. Persons named Scott, Mark, Maynard, Sierra, Sequoia, Auburn, and Rainbow can't sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
17. A starter kit for an acceptable blues name: a) a physical infirmity (blind, cripple, lame, etc) plus b) a good given name or nickname and c) the name of a fruit (Lemon, etc) or the name of a former president (Jefferson, Fillmore, etc).
18. I don't care how tragic your life: you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues. You best destroy it by fire, flood, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or a shotgun. Maybe your big woman just sat on it. Then you can sing the blues.
13. Do you have the right to sing the blues? Yes if c) you shot a man in Memphis
There must be an awful lot of people singing the blues these days.
13(C) Is not really complete unless you done shot a man in Memphis, the Pohpoh be's at de'do and it's you woman what done brung them there. Even then, if you gots a back do', it ain't the Blues. Just yet.
