Funky Handyman

It's one of dem bomp chicka WAH WAH chick-a-chick-a-chick-a WAH WAAHHH Wednesdays.

At noon today our maintenence man, Hajj, buzzed the door to come fix our "vintage" oven; if the stove is plugged in, any one of the four burners will every so often light itself. This is rarely a good thing unless you can plan to install spontaneous combustion machines into the homes of your enemies.

After I answered the door in my jammy-jams, Hajj came in and, after a brief how-do-you-do, preceded to the kitchen, home to the offending appliance. Whilst walking through our [impeccably-decorated] parlor, he started, well, grooving. Head-bobbing, backside-wagging. The mixtape from an earlier post was playing on the hi-fi, and he was diggin' that strange.

"Never heard this version before... that Ike and Tina?"

Over the next 30 minutes I sipped a cup of ultra-yummy joe whilst Hajj made things right and talked tunage. It turned out that my unassuming handyman, née Rodger Collins, released several well-received albums, toured with some big, big time acts, and even had an extended stint in Vegas with some guy named Elvis. In a remarkable coincidence, he mentioned he was a pallbearer for the late Ike Turner.

So Hajj, thank you kindly for putting the strut in my step today. I encourage all my loyal readers to funk along with me and the Foxy Girls in Oakland.

That's right he said it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a really cool story - I'm glad you have a blog again.

Anonymous said...

Nate and his stories:

"I met Keith Richards in Miami, James Brown's drummer was hitting on my mom, my handyman was one of the biggest soul singers to come out of Oakland."

You know who my handyman was? No one, just my landlord's son. Although I do think he once rescued a kitten from a tree outside my house.