James wasn't certain which song she meant and neither was I but she kept humming and doodle-bopping for a few minutes while James listened. She remembered that the lyrics included the names Romeo and Juliet. She thought they were repeated throughout the song but couldn't be sure.
She hummed a bit more before revealing that this song had been lampooned during a sketch on SNL in the past. The one where they say "More cowbell!" James told her the song is by Blue Oyster Cult, and he he had it on CD. They had other good songs, he told her.
She'd try the greatest hits, but really just wanted to hear that song she kept humming until James played "Don't Fear the Reaper" on his impeccable, unseen stereo. She danced while it played. She told us that her grandparents were Basque royalty who were killed by the fascists in a cave in Spain, but that her father was hidden beneath his mother's skirts, thus surviving to become a war hero unlike any I've ever heard or read about.
It seems the man may have single-handedly saved Spain, France and Italy from the same fascists who killed his entire royal family before going on to Africa to fight the same war there. Then, she told us, he'd earned a trip to the United States where he'd finally live in peace.
But the Americans found out what a fierce warrior her father was and insisted they needed him in Germany to finish off this World War business once and for all. We were still listening to the Blue Oyster Cult while she told us about her father then being called to duty again in Vietnam and possibly other wars.
I didn't get her name, but she did tell me that her husband, who bought a copy of Snoop Dogg's Malice in Wonderland, was a professor and a city planner at the equivalent of an Ivy League university in Mexico City,but that in Texas they wouldn't even make him an engineer until he was 60 years old. This is only slightly unusual at a record store. James switched his computer/stereo back to www.RadioParadise.com and talked about his interest in local guys like Shake Russell and deadhorse. He sells a lot of guitar and bass strings, and keeps a stock of turntable needles because Radio Shack doesn't sell them anymore.
