Digesting Deep Lyrics With A Shallow Mind

I am old enough to remember watching American Bandstand, the television program that made the Eternal Teenager, Dick Clark, famous.  The show was mostly about watching teenagers jitterbug to the popular tunes of the day.  There was one segment of the show when Dick would ask two or three kids to grade two songs, by unknown artists, which were brand new and which radio stations had not started playing on the air. He would always ask the teens to consider the beat and the lyrics.  Usually a good beat (i.e., danceable) would trump mediocre lyrics, resulting in a high score. Of course, there are other important elements to a song, such as the quality of the singer's voice, the instrumental craftsmanship, production, and originality, all of which might separate a song from others of its genre.  Nevertheless, the beat and the lyrics have remained the two most important considerations over the decades.

I have always been a beat guy myself.  What did you expect?  I'm a drummer. But, that is not to say that I don't appreciate good lyrics.  A corollary is that poor, ambiguous, inaudible  and non-sensical lyrics bug me. A case in point is I'd Really Love To See You Tonight by four-hit wonders England Dan & John Ford Coley.  That song reached # 2 on the Billboard charts in  the summer of 1976.  The first time I heard that song on the radio, I thought they were singing: 

I ain't talkin' 'bout the linen,

And I don't wanna change your life. 

 

Huh?  I ain't talkin' 'bout the linen?  I should hope not!  Those can't be the words, I told myself.  But, the next several times I heard the song I was positive that's what they were singing.  Whenever the song came on the radio, I waited for the DJ to comment on the strange lyric, but no comment was ever forthcoming.  Of course, this was before the days when lyrics were easily viewed on the internet.

 

Then, about fifteen years ago, England Dan (nee Dan Seals) had a gig at a summer festival on Harriet Island, and I went to see him.  He was pretty chatty from the small stage, maybe because there were only a few dozen of us geezers there to see him.  He played his duo's other hits (Nights Are Forever Without You (# 10), We'll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again (# 9) and Love Is The Answer (# 10)), and saved the song I'd been waiting to hear for last, I'd Really Love To See You Tonight.  He told the audience that he and his singing partner, John Ford Coley, were constantly asked about the words to that song's chorus, but in the interest of maintaining the mystique, they never divulged the lyrics.  He cited a few examples of what fans thought they were singing, including "the linen" possibility.  This was the first time I realized that I wasn't the only one who heard "linen." Then he told us what the words really were: 

 

I ain't talkin' 'bout movin' in 

 

Ah ha!  Of course!  Once I knew what the lyrics were and heard the song again, my ears no longer played tricks on me. That's exactly what they were singing!  Those words, "movin' in," are (almost) clearly audible.

 

Another brief example of a similar situation is Bryan Adams' 1985 hit (# 5), Summer Of '69, one of my favorite songs of all time.  The vocal bridge in that song includes the lines: 

 

We were young and restless,

We needed to unwind. 

 

I could never figure out that second line but, because I'm more of a beat guy and this song rocks, I did not let that little deficiency stop me from including it on the best music mix I ever made, Pud's Plethora Of Platinum (a possible topic for a future post).  And just like the England Dan song, once I found out the true lyrics, the words thenceforth seemed rather obvious.

 

And so ends the first portion of this post.  What follows are my brief observations about four well-known songs containing lyrics that bug me, plus a fifth song that I was going to add to the list but, after a personal epiphany, decided to segregate.  When I use the term "bug" here, I don't mean it in the usual sense.  I still consider all five of the songs to be anywhere from very good to great.  But each song has a word or a line which deprives the song of being even better, and that's why they bug me.  These are songs that should have been tweaked, ever so slightly, to make more sense.

 

1. You're So Vain, Carly Simon, 1972, Billboard Chart Peak # 1.

 

Let's start with low hanging fruit.  Carly had twelve hits which reached the Top 40 on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100, but You're So Vain was her only # 1.  When Carly came out with this song in December 1972, it immediately generated a lot of buzz for two reasons.  First and more famously, everybody wondered which of her seemingly dozens of male friends and lovers inspired the song.  The smart money was on Warren Beatty, who even opined to the press that he was pretty sure the song was about him.  But Carly enjoyed the attention and thus refused to divulge the answer.  Other than the rumored death of Paul McCartney around the time the Beatles' Abbey Road album came out in 1969, the identity of the singer's love interest in You're So Vain was probably the biggest puzzle of the music scene.  Carly has thrown hints over the last forty-one years, and has purportedly revealed the answer to two or three people whom she first swore to secrecy. Currently, the smart money has shifted from Beatty to David Geffen, former president of Elektra Records and therefore Carly's former boss.

 

The second reason for the scuttlebutt surrounding the song, and more to the point of this post, is that the chorus to You're So Vain includes the repeated line, "You probably think this song is about you." Well, duh! Yes, Carly, when you write a song with the word "you" in the title, there is a good chance that second person will believe it's about him.  Even her most ardent fans thought that line was a little weird, but as noted above, it got folks talking about her song for more than just one reason.

 

Incidentally, and getting back to the first point, Mick Jagger provided uncredited background vocals on You're So Vain.  He, along with other well known singers like Cat Stevens and Kris Kristofferson, were also considered possibilities of being the song's mystery man.

 

2. I Get Around, Beach Boys, 1964, Billboard Chart Peak # 1.

 

According to the Billboard charts, this is the highest ranking song ever put out by the boys from landlocked Hawthorne, California.  (The Beach Boys had three other # 1 songs: Help Me Rhonda, Good Vibrations and Kokomo, but under the Billboard ranking protocol, I Get Around is the cream of that crop.) Structurally, it is unique, partly because the chorus is sung before the first verse, a characteristic shared by the Beatles' She Loves You.  I Get Around contains four two-line verses, and it is the last of those that constitutes a head-scratcher for me: 

 

None of the guys go steady 'cause it wouldn't be right

To leave your best girl home on a Saturday night. 

 

First of all, I originally thought the first word was "All" instead of "None," because that's the only way the lyric makes sense to me.  When you go steady, you are not leaving your girl home on a Saturday night; she is with you.  But what the Beach Boys are saying, I guess, is that they like hanging out with their buds so much that, in effect, they're doing their would-be girl friends a favor by not going steady.  Three possibilities here: (1) Californians are so whacky that that's how they think; (2) Californians aren't whacky, but co-writer/space cadet Brian Wilson is, and that's his thought process; or, (3) I am the one who's not thinking clearly, and the lyric makes perfect sense to practically everyone else.  I asked Momma Cuandito for her opinion, and she opted for Door # 3.

 

3. This Boy, Beatles, 1964.  B-side of All My Loving (Billboard Chart Peak # 45), but did not chart separately.

 

Speaking of the Beatles, This Boy was the third track on the Beatles first US album, Meet The Beatles, an album which I must have played (and drummed to) three hundred or more times.  The song's setting is a guy singing to his ex-girlfriend who has now moved on to another guy.  I got started thinking about the lyrical trouble with This Boy when the Beatles performed this song on their second Ed Sullivan Show appearance on February 16, 1964. Even though the lads had two microphones at their disposal, John moved over to Paul's mic and got between Paul and George for this one song.  The three of them sang all three verses together, with John taking over the lead on the vocal bridge.  On the opening line of the song, it appeared that at least one of the three singers sang "That boy took my love away..." (the correct lyric) while at least one of the others -- probably John, who was known to forget lyrics occasionally -- sang "This boy took my love away..." (which, even though including the title of the song, was incorrect).  If you watch the video of that performance, Paul and John quickly look sideways at each other and giggle.  They knew there was a screw up, but of course they kept right on singing.

 

This faux pas surrounding the first verse presaged my personal question regarding the third verse of the song. The lyrics to that verse are: 

 

This boy wouldn't mind the pain

Would always feel the same

If this boy gets you back again. 

 

Should the first two words of the third verse be "This boy" or "That boy"?  Though I will admit that you can make a case for either, it's my contention that "That boy" makes more sense within the context of the song.  If you substitute "That boy" for "This boy," what the singer would be saying is that the girl does not mean that much to her new boyfriend.  Even if she returns to the singer, life will go on for that other guy; he won't miss her.  Apparently what Lennon and McCartney were shooting for was something different, viz., that if the girl returns to the singer, he'll let bygones be bygones.  In case you are wondering, the song writing partnership did not consult me before putting pen to paper, probably because I was a mere lad of fifteen at the time.

 

4. In These Arms, Bon Jovi, 1993, Billboard Chart Peak # 27.

 

I am not ashamed to admit that Bon Jovi is my favorite band currently making music, a fact I've already revealed in my March 30, 2013 post (a review of their album What About Now).  In These Arms is the quintessential guitar rock song, with a driving beat, impassioned vocals, a slick and speedy guitar break, three-part harmony, a tempo build-up, and near-great lyrics.  Why only "near" great?  Read on. 

 

In These Arms is the best of both worlds, a love song that rocks.  The message of the singer's unflinching fidelity to his woman is evident in the first verse: 

 

... I would do anything,

I'd beg, I'd steal, I'd die... 

 

and in the second verse: 

 

...baby, I want you,

like the roses want the rain... 

 

and in the chorus: 

 

... I'd get down on my knees for you

and make eveything all right... 

 

But unfortunately, the vocal bridge is entirely incongruous with the rest of the song: 

 

Your clothes are still scattered

All over our room

This whole place still smells like

Your cheap perfume. 

 

Oh boy, what a way to win a girl's heart; tell her that her cheap perfume stinks up the whole room!

 

The former 5. Kodachrome, Paul Simon, 1973, Billboard Chart Peak # 2.

 

This is my favorite Paul Simon song, which is saying something because I love his work.  But as much as I like Kodachrome, I thought he had things flip-flopped.  People do not dream in color; their dreams are in black and white.  Conversely, when I view things in real time, I do see color.  The lyrics suggest the opposite. After chewing on this seemingly inverted idea that Simon offers in his song, I think I've solved the mystery.  I was equating dreaming with imagining.  My bad.  Once again, my propensity to be The Linear Guy had come into play.  I did not recognize the symbolism.  Metaphors are not my forte; I was a finance major.

 

The song's theme is worthy of group discussion, as it's likely that a panel of five people would have five different "takes" on what it's about.  If I could put my interpretation in a nutshell, it would be this:  Our imagination is color, while our perception of reality is black and white.  We should not be stunned or surprised when stark reality does not measure up to our imagined hopes.  The key is the third line from the following chorus: 

 

You (i.e., Kodachrome) give us nice bright colors

You give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah! 

 

But when we look out the window or step outside, it's not always beautiful and sunny.  Half of the time it isn't.  In other words, not every day is a Chamber Of Commerce, picture postcard kind of day.  Reality can be grim, like black and white.

 

I should have figured this out sooner, when Simon is singing about gathering "all the girls I knew when I was single": 

 

I know they'd never match my sweet imagination,

Everything looks worse in black and white. 

 

I suppose now that I've come clean, someone will try to tell me that Bridge Over Troubled Water isn't really about a bridge.

Movie Review: "Gravity"

"Gravity": B+.  It is typical of parenthood that you want your children to have opportunities which will enable them to pursue their dreams to the fullest, to "be all that they can be" (to coin a phrase), and once they become adults, to have a chance to earn their living in an occupation they love.  After having seen Gravity, however, I think I would draw the line at any of them becoming an astronaut.  Nope, I would not want my son or daughter up there in outer space.  Luckily for me and my kids, they are at the stage in their lives where it's out of my hands.  I am happy to report that Momma Cuan and I have two teachers and a food & beverage manager; no astronauts!

Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on a three-person astronaut team led by Mission Commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney).  Their ship is the Explorer, which is roughly seventy miles above the Earth where there is no atmosphere.  Stone is performing some maintenance work on the outside of the Explorer, while Kowalski is floating around by means of a jetpack, untethered, enjoying the view and issuing witty quips to Stone via radio.  This tranquility doesn't last long, and once it's over the movie viewer is on her way to a nail-biting experience.

Mission Control ("Houston") orders the mission aborted when it's learned that space debris from a Russian satellite is heading toward the Explorer.  Stone balks at terminating her repair work before it's completed, but Kowalski orders her to obey.  Before the two of them can get back into the capsule, the debris arrives, dislodging Stone's tether from its mooring point on the vessel.  Hence, the dreaded "U word": unattached. She is floating around, except unlike Kowalski, she is not wearing a jet pack!

To reveal much more would be risking a spoiler.  If you think of all the things that could go wrong with a space mission, other than a launching explosion, it happens in Gravity.  Loss of communication with Houston, oxygen deprivation, loss of thrusting capabilities, fire, equipment failures, attempts to decipher instructions in a foreign language, more space debris, etc.

The special effects used in Gravity are obviously required by the setting, and they are spectacular.  This is a movie that demands to be seen in 3-D.  Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron avoids the temptation to get too cutesy with that asset, making mostly judicious use of it. (Momma Cuan admits, however, that she was afraid some of the flying debris was going to strike her in the eye!)  The views of Earth as seen from the astronauts' point of view are breathtaking and, I would imagine based on reports from "real life" solar system explorers, quite realistic.

Sandra Bullock turns in a top rate performance as Stone.  Her role requires her to play a serious scientist who is capable of athletic maneuvers when faced with one crisis after another.  There are a few scenes in which she appears to have trained hard to look good on camera when she's not enveloped in a bulky astronaut suit.  Unfortunately, we do not get to learn much of her character's (Stone's) background.  This is one of the few faults I can find with the script.  In war movies, the generals always have complete bios not only on the officers under their command, but on their adversaries as well.  It seems to me that a Mission Commander like Kowalski would do the same before they launched, yet the questions he puts to Stone as they're floating around indicate that he did not do his due diligence.

If the viewer so chooses, she can look beyond the action portrayed on the screen and see this story as a study in the human will.  In life or death situations, people have been known to find strength they did not realize they possessed. How much does faith come into play?  How much is simply man's primary basic instinct, self-preservation?  At what point does one give up to face the inevitable?  

Album Review: "New" - Paul McCartney

"New": B.  The Beatles were so huge in early 1964 that even those of us on the North Dakota prairie outposts were more than well aware of what was going on.  It didn't hurt that we were able to pull in rock stations from Winnipeg, Regina and (sometimes) Bismarck, not to mention Minot's own KCJB.  We were listening to the Liverpool lads' songs for several weeks before we ever got to see what they looked like. Once they'd appeared on the Ed Sulivan Show in February, you could not go ten minutes without hearing one of their songs on the radio, our primary source for music.

Sometimes it would be hard to tell which Beatle was singing lead, particularly trying to distinguish between Paul and George.  In some photos, they even looked alike.  After awhile it became easier to identify their voices.  One time the press asked the Beatles how they determined which of the four should sing the lead on any given song.  "Whoever knows the most words" was the reply.

I remember pulling up to North Hill Bowl with a car full of kids in January '64 when a Beatles tune came on the radio just as we were about to go in.  None of us had heard it before.  The two songs which had been getting the most air play were their first two big (# 1) US hits, I Want To Hold Your Hand and She Loves You.  But this time the tune was I Saw Her Standing There.  All six of us stayed in the car and listened to it in its entirety, a practice which lived on throughout Beatlemania.  It turned out that I Saw Her Standing There was the flip side (aka "B-side") to I Want To Hold Your Hand.  The former was so great that it eventually charted separately on Billboard, peaking at # 14.  This marked the first of several occasions when the Beatles had a two-sided hit stateside.  Other such double dippers included Please Please Me with From Me To You, Love Me Do with P.S. I Love You, A Hard Day's Night with I Should Have Known Better, and I Feel Fine with She's A Woman, just to name a few.

When the Beatles split in 1970, there immediately surfaced a worldwide hope that someday they would reunite.  But as the years went by and more rumors, both confirmed and unsubstantiated, surfaced about the intra-band friction, most realists knew it was permanently over.  All four of the Beatles, even Ringo, almost immediately released solo albums following the breakup, evidence that they had each foreseen the band's demise well ahead of time and thus were undertaking a different career path.

Paul McCartney has been prolific. In the forty-three post-Beatles years leading up to 2013, he had released twenty-three studio albums, of which fifteen were "solos."  A couple of weeks ago, the sixteenth hit the market: New.  It is Paul's first studio album since 2007's Memory Almost Full. Yep, even at age 71, the Cute Beatle is still making new music.

The thirteen songs on New noticeably fall onto the pop side of the pop-rock spectrum.  While credit must be given to McCartney for his use of a wide variety of instruments, sounds and themes, I would have been happier with a change of pace rocker or two interspersed among the mostly tepid melodies.

The most interesting track on the album is Early Days, in which McCartney surprisingly points the accusatory finger at the (supposedly) young critics who dismiss the music of the Fab Four.  His voice sounds tired -- even warbled -- as he takes on the role of defender, a surprise move by someone who you'd think would let his music speak for itself.  Instead he states his case, saying in so many words that unless you were there during the early days and witnessed all the hard work that went into the band's songs, you do not have the bona fides to turn up your nose at the music.

Now everybody seems to have their own opinion

Of who did this and who did that

But as for me I don't see how they can remember

When they weren't where it was at.

There are not many songs in the post-Beatles catalogue which so personally reflect the singer's days with the band.  Only George Harrison's When We Was Fab and his tribute to the departed John Lennon, All Those Years Ago, immediately come to mind.

The most beautiful song on New is the final track, Scared.  McCartney told the press that he wrote it for his new bride, Nancy Shevell, whom he married in 2011.  Accompanied only by a melodic piano, and using birds as a metaphor, he confesses to his love that he can't quite get the words out to tell her how much she means to him. 

The beautiful birds won't come out of their cage

Though I'm trying to set them free.

One of my favorite Beatles songs from the "middle stage" of their career is Penny Lane, which by the way is half of yet another example of their double-sided hits (the B-side being Strawberry Fields Forever).  The title track (New) to Paul's new album has an uncanny resemblance to that 1967 hit, each containing the same bouncy beat using the same instrumentation, including terrific percussion.  New is another song reportedly written for Nancy.  The message is an appropriate one for a man to sing to his bride:  I did not have a real plan for the future until I met you.  Now I have direction. 

All my life

I never knew

What I could be, what I could do

Then we were new.

After Paul's bitter divorce from wife # 2, Heather Mills, in 2008, one can certainly understand his joy at finding love again.  Therein lies the explanation of why at least two songs on New are dedicated to Nancy.

Since I have just compared one of the new New songs to a Beatles oldie, allow me to offer one more.  If you are a fan of the somewhat bizarre instrumentation and distortion found in their Revolver album, you must give Appreciate a listen.  I would be surprised if you did not think that Appreciate brings back memories of Tomorrow Never Knows.

As mentioned above, you'd be hard-pressed to find a rocker on New, but there is quite a nice little toe tapper called Everybody Out There.  Some might even label it "jangle pop," which, as a sub-genre that originated with the Byrds in 1965, has enjoyed a comeback in recent years.  Unlike many songs with a serious message, the delivery is upbeat. 

... there but for the grace of God go you and I,

Do some good before you say goodbye.

Perhaps Paul simply was not in the mood to rock this time around.  (Well, okay; the first cut, Save Us, is uptempo, but to be honest, it's not a very good offering.)  He is, after all, the composer of Silly Love Songs from his Wings days.  He has not really rocked out much at all since 1999's Run Devil Run, his eleventh solo album.  But surely he is cognizant of the feedback he gets from his live performance fans whenever he launches into a rockin' Beatles tune.  Why doesn't he attempt to replicate that style on some of his new stuff? I remember seeing him in concert several years ago.  The fans cheered wildly for every Beatles rocker on the set list, and recognized them in a matter of two or three notes.  Drive My Car, with its unique, short instrumental intro, is a good example of that phenomenon.  The fans were on top of it from the get-go.

If any artist has earned the right to record whatever strikes his fancy, that would be Paul.  I guess if I'm looking for McCartney rockers I can always play I'm Down and Long Tall Sally (songs on which he sang lead as a Beatle) back-to-back on my i-pod.  But I hope hitting age 71 is not the line of demarcation separating rock from strictly pop.  If so, I only have five more years before I might be forced to change my name to Johnny Pop. 

Movie Review: "Enough Said"

"Enough Said": B+.  Momma Cuandito and I went over to the Pig & Fiddle on 50th & France Wednesday afternoon to dissect the movie we'd just seen, Enough Said, at the Edina Theater.  As we were enjoying the tasty Brother Thelonious from California's North Coast Brewing, a brilliant (Brilliant!) thought came to me. When you see a science fiction movie, it is highly doubtful that the script writer is writing from personal experience.  Unless she has been on a rocket ship or has fought aliens, the script is mostly the product of the writer's imagination (not that that's a bad thing).  The same can be said for cowboy movies, psychological thrillers, horror movies, most war movies, most detective movies, etc. The characters in those films probably do not resemble or reflect the writer's own life's experiences.  However, in a movie such as Enough Said, which is about a middle aged couple, Albert (James Gandolfini) and Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who are divorced from other people but hoping to make a go of it, the events which occur are not that extraordinary -- in fact, most are ordinary.  As I suspected after doing a little post-viewing research, writer-director Nicole Holofcener herself was married for ten years and now has been divorced for another ten.  The script reflects the strong likelihood that she was not relying solely on her imagination.  She is familiar with the terrain.  This is the very kind of movie I most enjoy: a small scale film involving everyday people who are put in interesting situations.

The other huge attribute which the movie has going for it is that Albert is probably my favorite character of all the movies I've seen this year.  If ever a man was comfortable in his own skin, without the need to pretend he's something he's not, it is Albert.  Expertly played by Gandolfini in his final role before he unexpectedly died five months ago, Albert is not a slob, but he does not put organization or neatness at the top of his priority list.  Last year's fashions are just fine; so are last decade's.  If something breaks he is more apt to do without than to get it fixed or replaced.  He likes the opposite sex -- he's even cordial to his ex -- but he is not a chaser.  He is comfortable in his pajamas at mid-day, so why bother changing?  His  eighteen year old daughter is the most important thing in his life, but on those occasions when she chooses to be with her mother, Albert rolls with it.  He is an extremely likable guy with many admirable qualities. Of course, if you're looking for faults, those are easy to find too.

 

The story line is a familiar one in the sense that it involves one of the two main characters knowing something that the other does not, and a sequence of events which determines if, when and how the second person will find out.  This movie reminded me a little bit of You've Got Mail, in which Tom Hanks' character secretly corresponds via e-mail with a business rival, played by Meg Ryan.  He knows who she is, but she does not realize her "pen pal" is Hanks.  In Enough Said, Eva figures out that the guy she has started to date, Albert, is the ex of her new friend, Marianne (Catherine Keener).  She tries to keep that nugget of info a secret from both Albert and Marianne.  Eva may be looking for exactly the right time to fess up, but once she's waited beyond a reasonable period, all the while getting Marianne's negative takes on her ill-fated marriage to Albert, she is in a pickle from which there seems to be no escape.

 

Louis-Dreyfus does a commendable job as Eve.  The roll calls for a lot of comedy, such as her interactions with some of the clients who hire her as a masseuse, and with her teenage daughter and her daughter's friends.  Her scenes with Gandolfini, which are the best in the film, contain an excellent mixture of comedy and seriousness.  The viewer is quickly immersed in their relationship, and the fact that these are two actors we're watching never enters the consciousness.  The dialogue is witty, charming and sometimes sorrowful. Most of all, as we progress from scene to scene, it is real.  Director Holofcener, who is more well known for her work in television, knows how to keep a story moving.  At almost every turn, just when I thought a scene should end, it did.

 

I highly recommend this film.  I could not give it a grade higher than B+ due to my being unable to buy into the thought process of Eve once she has met Albert and Marianne's daughter, Tess (played by the very pretty Eve Hewson, an Irish lass who is the daughter of U2 singer Bono).  Surely Eve should have changed her modus operandi at that point and come clean to Tess' parents.  Instead, the deception continues.  But if my grading system allowed for a mark between B+ and A-, that's where I'd rate it.

The Pig On South Hill

Manitoba Provincial Highway 83 turns into US Highway 83 at the North Dakota border crossing called Westhope/Coulter, and continues on its 1,885 mile journey southward through six states on its way to Brownsville, Texas.  The first leg of the road traverses the North Dakota tundra for sixty-nine miles until it begins its descent down Minot's North Hill, where one used to find the Minot Outdoor Theater (now defunct), North Hill Bowl (my home away from home), Minot International Airport (busier now than ever), and the Ramada Inn (since changed to the Grand International, but still the spot for one of the prettiest nighttime views the state has to offer).  At the foot of North Hill lies Bishop Ryan High School (my alma mater) and Minot State University (fka Minot State College).  The highway, also called "Broadway," flattens out and continues over the Souris River and the Great Northern Railway (nka BNSF for Burlington Northern & Santa Fe) tracks.  Running past the west edge of downtown Minot, 83 eventually begins its climb up South Hill for a few more miles until it shoots out of town for Lake Sakagawea (fka the Garrison Reservoir), Bismarck (the state capital), Strasburg (home town of the famous band leader, Lawrence Welk), and points beyond.  As you drive along the 269 miles over which Highway 83 traverses the Peace Garden State, you will see farms, prairies and ranches, glimpses of the Missouri River, and if you look closely, missile silos. North Dakota farms and ranches are typically miles apart from each other, as are the towns.  Sometimes, it seems, so are the cars, as one can drive through an entire county and come upon less than a half dozen vehicles.  When you fly over North Dakota at night, you wonder if anybody's down there.

It is sometimes said that there are two ways you can tell a native Minoter.  One is that she will pronounce the city as "MY-nit" instead of "MY-not."  The other is the constant referral to the two aforementioned Hills as landmarks.  The city of Minot should have been named "Valley City," in recognition of being in the Souris River Valley, with much of it tucked between North Hill and South Hill, but by the time Minot was founded in 1886, that name had already been taken by Valley City, 208 miles to the southeast, twelve years earlier.

Minot was named after Henry Minot, an investor in the Great Northern and a close friend of that company's originator, James J. Hill.  Since its inception, Minot has always been a railroad town.  As a hub for freight trains heading for the mountains and the Pacific coast, its population grew so quickly with railroad workers (not to mention saloon owners, hookers and innkeepers) that it became known as the "Magic City," a nickname still in place to this day.  When I went to high school there in the mid-sixties, Minot, with a population of 36,000, was the third largest city in the state, trailing only megalopolis Fargo and Grand Forks. Since then, Minot's population has grown by 5,000, partially due to the recent oil boom southwest of town, but has been surpassed  by Bismarck, relegating the Magic City to fourth place.  The closest interstate highway is 120 miles away, so Minot's growth is a testament to its attractive way of life, among other things. Many towns which were bypassed by major highways, especially interstates, did not fare nearly as well.

Now that you have a little background on my town -- yes, I still like to call it that -- it's time for me to get into the main topic of my post, viz., my career as a bagger and stock boy at Piggly Wiggly.  The title of my post includes "South Hill" so that, when my life's story is written  (cough, cough!), there will be no confusion over which of Minot's two Piggly Wiggly stores employed me.  It would be an easy mistake to make, thinking that I worked at the PW on US Highway 2, over by the State Fairgrounds on the east side of town, because I lived in a development just two blocks away called Green Valley.  (I know what you're thinking and yes, I agree; it sounds like the name of a soap opera, or even an institution of some sort.)  "My" PW was about a mile south of downtown, on the lower slope of South Hill.  Along with Newberry's Department Store, PW was an anchor tenant in the Town & Country Shopping Center.

Although there were several neighborhood grocery stores spread throughout the city, there were only two supermarkets, the PW on South Hill, and our arch rival, Red Owl, perched near the crest of South Hill about seven blocks up Broadway.  I would venture a guess that almost 80% of the grocery business in Minot went to those two stores.  It was a friendly rivalry, I guess, but I used to get irked at Pook when she'd buy her meat at Red Owl.  She claimed The Pig had better produce and The Owl had better meat.  Of course my mock revulsion toward the Red Owl product did not keep me from eating it.

I got the job at The Pig the same way I got my first-ever job at Arlan's Department Store in Bettendorf, Iowa.  The Marquis was a cash register salesman for NCR, and when a new store opened up in his territory he not only sold them the registers but also trained the cashiers so that they'd be in mid-season form come opening day.  Unlike the Arlan's gig, when The Marquis had to lie about my age -- 16 instead of 14 -- to get me hired, this time I was offered employment as a real sixteen year old.  And unlike many teenagers of yesteryear and today, I usually took my father's advice.  Maybe the fact that he was right almost all of the time had something to do with that.  His advice was this:  When a new store opens, the manager is going to hire at least twice as much help as he needs.  One reason is that customers' first impressions count for a lot, and the manager is going to want the peace of mind that comes with having enough employees on hand to give excellent customer service.  But the second reason for over-staffing is that he will be observing who the best workers are versus the slackers.  If you want the job to last beyond Grand Opening Week, you need to be in that first category.

Sure enough, that's exactly what happened.  Half the people who were working there that first week never made it into the next month.  Chalk another one up for The Marquis!

A week or so before the Grand Opening, all of the newly hired stock boys and baggers were handed instructional booklets showing the proper way to bag groceries.  This twelve page, multi-color book was produced by the corporate headquarters in Tennessee.  Remembering my father's advice, I studied that little instructional as if I were cramming for a final exam.  I can still recite some of the precepts: when the customer puts her groceries on the runner in front of the cashier, estimate how many bags you're going to need so you can balance the weight of the items evenly among the bags; put the cans on the bottom for a firm base; build the walls (of the bag) with boxes; place the fragile stuff on top.  Almost everything went into a regular size grocery bag, but of course since bags cost money and the store ran on an extremely thin profit margin -- an alleged fact drilled into the employees every week -- we crammed as much as we could into each bag, within the "rules."  (An aside: Every time I see how Cub and Target send their shoppers home with a multitude of little plastic bags, each filled with just a few items, I am disgusted.)

Equally as important as abiding by the governing precepts described above, the Cardinal Rule was that the bagger absolutely had to be finished with the bagging of a customer's groceries before the cashier started ringing up the next customer's goods.  One of the worst things that can happen at the end of a check-out lane is mixing groceries from two different shoppers, resulting in unhappy customers and a miffed cashier, who now has her check-out waiting line extended while the groceries get sorted out.  A key to Cardinal Rule compliance was not only the speed of the bagger but the speed of the cashier.  Keep in mind that this was long before the invention of bar codes and scanners, so the cashier had to find the price sticker or stamp on each item and manually enter that on her cash register.  Speed was of the essence because the easiest way to figure out exactly how you (the bagger) were going to divvy up the items among the several bags was to have all the "rung-up" items sitting in front of you at the end of the lane.  A slow cashier gummed up the works, resulting in the bag boy having to unload and reload many bags due to the late arrival of several items.  It should be apparent from what I've written that in order to provide good customer service, teamwork between the cashier and the bagger was essential.  Each needed the other to do a good job; otherwise they both looked bad.

In view of the foregoing, you might say that I scored the Daily Double as a bag boy at The Pig.  On those days when we worked the same shift, I made it a point to be the bagger at the end of Debbie Pitts' check-out lane. Debbie was not only the most proficient cashier at The Pig, but also the youngest and the prettiest.  She was a sophomore at the same high school in which I was a junior.  Somehow standing at the end of a checkout lane for hours at a time did not seem so bad when Debbie was the cashier.  She was the first North Dakota girl I ever had a crush on, a fact I have never revealed until now.  To think she was only a few feet away for several hours a week, and on top of that, the store paid me for the privilege!  The epitome of my first year at Piggly Wiggly occurred at closing time one night, when Debbie asked me for a ride home. I could not believe my good fortune, although it was trimmed a little when it turned out she lived relatively close to the store.  I was hoping she lived at the Air Force Base, about a twenty-five minute ride away.

Coming in a very distant second in my list of enjoyable times at The Pig that first year would be the watermelon delivery days.  The trailer of the truck which carried the melons to our store would be too long to be able to maneuver up to our loading dock in the back, so the driver would pull up on the sidewalk in front of the store.  This inevitably occurred mid-afternoon, when the daytime employees were wrapping up their shifts, and the evening employees had just arrived to start theirs.  All hands were on deck to unload the truck, and all other activity within the store came to a temporary standstill.  The male employees would form a conveyor line from the end of the truck, across the sidewalk and through the front door, all the way to the produce department in the back.  We would stand about six or seven feet away from each other and horizontally toss the melons, most of which were relatively heavy, to the next guy in the line.  Sometimes the melons were wet and slippery, and even if they weren't, we usually ended up splattering four or five of them either on the outside pavement (the lesser of two evils) or the store's floor before we had emptied the truck. The ritual was a lot of fun, and even though it was heavy lifting, the respite from dealing with the customers was a blessing.

The third thing which merits mentioning as an unusual, if not pleasurable, activity involved a bit of what you might label "espionage."  The break room, invisible to the customers, was in the rear of the building, behind a wall separating the butchers' meat counter from the warehouse/storage room (the "storeroom").  On that wall was a two- way mirror which allowed the employees in the break room to look straight down the aisle containing small items such as toiletries, over-the-counter medicines, cosmetics and candy bars.   To the customers in that aisle, all they saw was what appeared to them as a regular mirror.  The employees had an ongoing contest to see who could spot the most shoplifters in a given month.  It does not speak well for our store's customers to report that there was at least one incident of shoplifting each month.  Almost every one of the culprits was reported by a store employee simply eating her lunch while simultaneously looking through the mirror.  I only did the "I Spy" thing a few times, and never caught anybody shoplifting.  Most of my breaks were spent loitering in Newberry's record department, wondering if I should spend $4 of my hard-earned wages on the latest album from a British Invasion band.

I don't wish to give the impression that life at The Pig was always the best of times.  To paraphrase Dickens, it could also be the worst of times, including one scary incident when I actually thought I might die.  But before describing that nightmare, I must briefly mention a couple of other unpleasantries.  I wrote above that it would be par for the course to accidentally drop watermelons when we were unloading the delivery truck. And every once in awhile someone would break a bottle of milk or pop.  Although the result was a mess, those were nothing compared to the time I knocked a large glass bottle of shampoo off the shelf.  Talk about "cleanup in Aisle 3!"  I could not sweep up the glass because the shards were stuck to the shampoo.  I tried using a wet mop, but the shampoo simply soaped up and foamed up on the floor from the water, thus creating a bigger problem than when I started.  I was afraid someone was going to slip, fall and cut herself. It took me almost twenty minutes to clean off the floor, and even with that effort it still wasn't dry.

Another unpleasantry was the after-hours meetings that our store manager, Jerry Cochrane, used to call every few months.  These were command performances, so even if we were not scheduled to work that night, we still had to show up.  We did not get paid for our attendance.  In fact, if we had worked the night shift we were instructed to clock out before the meeting started.  I expressed my displeasure with this arrangement to The Marquis, who opined that Cochrane's practice of conducting such unpaid meetings was undoubtedly against the law.  However, fearing retaliation and being a weenie at heart, I never registered a complaint with management.  As an aside, I will tell you that I have always hated meetings from that time forward throughout my working career.

Lest you think that I'm overstating Cochrane's vindictiveness, consider the following.  As you know, baseball has always been my favorite sport, and the Mid-Summer Classic (aka All-Star Game) of 1964 was hyped up to be a particularly good one.  Mickey Mantle, Harmon Killebrew, Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays (all future Hall Of Famers) were just some of the many big names elected to play in the game.  I always had watched the All-Star Game on television, going back to my Libertyville days, so I wanted to make sure that Cochrane wasn't going to schedule me to work on that Tuesday night.  I had been working about thirty-two hours a week that summer, but the schedule was different each week, including both day and evening shifts. I went up to Coachrane two days before he was going to post the schedule for that All-Star week, and asked him not to schedule me for that Tuesday night.  Coachrane barely looked at me and just grunted.  I wasn't sure until the day that week's schedule was up whether he was going to grant my simple request.  Well, he did not schedule me for that Tuesday.  The bad news is that he only gave me four hours for the entire week, and of course those four were on Saturday night.  To go from thirty-two hours to four really was a financial hit for me.  I guess Cochrane didn't appreciate my asking him for a clear Tuesday night. What a guy.

And now for my horror story.  Saturday nights were notoriously slow at The Pig, and the staff level in the store was minimal.  On one such autumn night our assistant manager, a young guy named Larry, let everyone except me leave minutes after the store closed.  Usually there was not a whole lot left for us to do "after hours," because once things started winding down while the store was open for business, the employees began stocking the shelves and sweeping the floors, putting things in order for the next morning.  The final thing Larry asked me to do before I punched out was to go back to the storeroom, break down all of the dozens of empty boxes, and throw them into the incinerator.  Even though I had now been working at the store for seven or eight months, I had never performed this task before.  Yet, it seemed simple enough. Larry disappeared into the manager's office near the front of the store, and I went to the back.

The incinerator was in the back corner of the storeroom, on the opposite end from our loading dock.  The incinerator was segregated from the rest of the storeroom by a very thick, obviously fireproof, metal wall which encapsulated the incinerator on two sides.  (The other two sides of the incinerator were up against the exterior walls, comprised of cinder blocks.)  It was as if the incinerator, which was about six feet high, was in a fireproof closet.  To gain access to the aperture for the incinerator, one had to open a very heavy metal door built into the wall of the closet, and once inside the closet, push a lever on the exterior of the incinerator which opened the incinerator's metal aperture. The space between the outside of the incinerator and the inside of the closet wall was less than two feet, barely enough to turn around.

I broke down about a half dozen large boxes and made my way to the incinerator for the first of what I figured would take me eight or nine trips to finish the entire assigned task.  The fire, which had been burning throughout the day, was blazing.  I opened the closet door with boxes in hand, but I needed a third hand to operate the aperture lever.  In a split second as I reached for the lever, I heard the closet's metal door slam shut behind me.  I was trapped inside the closet, as the door could not be opened from the inside!  (I learned later the inability to open the closet door from the inside was by design, so that burglars could not gain access to the store by coming in through the chimney in the middle of the night when there was no fire.)  The heat from the fire was unbearable, plus I was worried that the boxes I'd brought with me inside the closet might catch on fire.

Panic set in while I banged on the closet door for help.  I knew Larry was way in the front of the store, perhaps with the office door shut and the radio on.  What if he forgot about me?  He was the only other person in the store.  Since it was Saturday night, my parents wouldn't miss me until I was a no show at home after midnight.  By that time I'd either be fried or suffocated.  Other than a few scary airplane rides I've been on, it was the only time in my life I really thought I was going to die.

The nightmare ended about twenty minutes later when Larry finally rescued me.  If the same type of incident happened today, the news-starved local TV stations probably would have made it their lead item, and OSHA would have been on the scene the next day.  I would file suit for emotional distress based on the store's gross negligence, conveniently forgetting my contributory negligence.  Instead, it stayed under the radar.  That's how it was in 1964.  Larry mumbled an apology and Cochrane, as expected the next time I saw him, never said a word.

Months and seasons went by.  Pretty soon I was a high school senior.  Now when I think back I wonder how I held down the Piggly Wiggly job and still managed to get my homework done.  There was a ton of it, but I knew time management was expected once I got to college.  I usually worked most of my grocery store hours over the weekend, and took on just a handful of night shifts a week.

I've already written about the highlight of my first year at The Pig.  Coincidentally, the highlight of my second year also directly pertained to a girl, although this time it did not really have much to do with my job at all.  In late May of my senior year, 1965, I finally got up the nerve to ask Corrine Damberger for a date, and to my astonishment she said yes.  If I had known that she would have said yes on my first attempt, I would not have fiddled around for so long.  We went out on a couple of dates before the school year ended, but now that it was summer I wondered if any of her friends were aware of our new relationship.  In a small town such as Minot and a small school such as Ryan, there were few secrets.  However, because we hadn't started dating until summer vacation was practically upon us, maybe she never let her friends know.  I'm not sure why I cared about this.  I guess my thought was that if she had apprised her friends that we were going out, I could deduct that she was interested in me to a larger extent than if she had not.  Who knows for sure how a seventeen year old thinks?  We were probably a legend in my own mind.

Be that as it may, the Big Moment for me occurred on a Saturday afternoon in June.  The store was crawling with customers, and I was working my tail off at the front of the store.  There was a huge picture window which ran the length of the store front, and as I was carrying bags from the cashier line to the drive-through pick-up, there was Corrine, sitting on a bike on the sidewalk right in front of the store, looking at me through the window. She was with Mary Louise Muus, another classmate of ours, who was also on a bike.  I was taken aback, as Corrine lived in northwestern Minot, not a short distance for biking to and up South Hill. I waved and smiled through the window, and they did the same.  There was no way I could take even a quick brake at that instant to go out and visit.  They briefly watched me for a moment and then off they went, pedaling up South Hill.  The whole encounter could not have lasted more than thirty seconds.  But that was enough for me; I was on Cloud 9.

When I got off work I called my buddy, Tim Mueller, who worked at Red Owl and was Mary Louise's boyfriend.  He told me the two girls had made their way up to his store, but just like me, he was too busy to talk to them.  It is sometimes said, "Timing is everything." So true.

The rest of my last months and weeks at The Pig passed unremarkably.  More watermelons, more spying on customers, more Saturday night shifts, and of course more bagging and shelf stocking.  I was dreading the day when I'd have to give my two week notice of resignation to Cochrane, but I needed to be at Notre Dame on Labor Day weekend.  Even though that All Star game request had occurred more than a year ago, the memory of it had not disappeared from my little brain.  What if I gave him my notice and he did not schedule me at all for those final two August weeks?  That would be a lot of missed dough for me, money I was counting on.

I did not feel I had any choice but to let him know my intentions exactly two weeks from the day that I wanted to be my last.  I can still (forty-eight years later) remember the exact spot where the dreaded, albeit short, conversation took place -- in the middle of Aisle 1 right outside the manager's office.  Somehow I got the words out that two weeks from then would be my last day, because I was heading off to college.  Did he thank me for the year and a half of service, for never calling in sick, never missing a scheduled shift or never being late?  Did he ask what my future plans were or where I was going to school?  Did he say it was nice having me around, that I would be missed, or that I should be sure to stop in for a visit next time I was back in town?  Well, not exactly.  Jerry simply was not wired that way; he didn't have it in him.  Instead, these were Jerry's words, verbatim, as only Jerry could say, or even think of saying: "Don't worry, John.  We'll get some fat nine year old girl to replace you."  That was it.  If that was his attempt at humor, he laid an egg.  As I wrote above, what a guy.  On a positive note, and to be fair, he did not short-change me for shifts during those last two weeks.  But, following our Aisle 1 tete-a-tete, we never spoke again.

You might say the postscript to my story was written on June 25, 1976, the day I married Mary.  When she was in high school in Minneapolis, she worked at Red Owl.      

Movie Review: "Captain Phillips"

"Captain Phillips": A.  The timing for Momma Cuan and I to attend Captain Phillips last Friday afternoon probably could have been better.  We were still worn out from having attended the tension-packed Fool For Love at the Jungle Theater the night before.  The Tom Hanks high seas piracy drama was likewise relentless with its depiction of a commercial cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, sailing under a US flag on its way from Oman to Kenya, churning through the Indian Ocean.  Although the waters off the coast of eastern Africa, particularly near Somalia, are known to be infested with pirates, the best defense the Alabama could muster, as two motor boats carrying armed baddies approached, was a high power water spray from hoses aimed outward on each side of the ship.  This amounted to a mere inconvenience, as the young pirates had little problem attaching their portable ladder to the Alabama's deck railing and climbing aboard.

Before we get too far into the action, director Paul Greengrass provides us viewers with some background on the central characters.  We might expect extensive background concerning Phillips (Hanks), if for no other reason than he is the title character.  But what makes this movie admirable, and sets it apart from your ordinary good vs. evil motion picture, is the time spent developing Muse (Minneapolitan Barkhad Abdi), the skinny baby-faced leader of the pirates.  Muse and his cronies are very young adults -- and in one case, a teenager -- who live a tough existence in their homeland, Somalia.  Their day job is fishing, but they are under the thumb of the local warlord, who pressures them into committing crimes on the high seas. Greengrass' objective does not appear to be an attempt to gain sympathy for the young men, but a better understanding of how the world should work from their perspective.

 

Phillips is a veteran naval career man, but unlike the chief officer on a warship, most of his crew consists of civilians who cannot be expected to deal with the crisis in the same manner military enlisted men would.  One of the best, albeit short, scenes in the movie occurs several minutes before the motor boats catch up to the Alabama.  Phillips gives instructions to his men on the tactics they will employ should there be a boarding by the pirates.  The crew members protest, reminding Phillips that they did not sign on to fight; they are civil sailors (not Navy seamen) who are not interested in engaging, or paid to engage, in hand-to-hand combat with armed pirates.  Phillips' retort is that every man knew when he signed on that the charted course was going to take them through seas known to be fertile ground for pirates.  The fact that they are soon to be confronted should not take them by surprise.

 

The cargo carried on the Alabama, comprised of various goods and materials, is not of much interest to the pirates.  Neither is the thirty thousand US dollars in cash which Phillips readily offers them from the Alabama's safe if they'll just go away.  The greenbacks are chump change for the Somalians.  They intend to commandeer the ship, bring it to a Somalian port, and hold the ship and the crew for ransom from Maersk's insurance company.  The asking price will be in the high seven figures, at least.

 

Any notion by Phillips or the the movie viewers that Muse is a chump who will be easy to outmaneuver or out-negotiate is quickly dispelled.  He is shrewd and ruthless.  That point is covered both in flashbacks and in his present day, on-board actions.  For much of the time Muse is actually likable.  Once Phillips tells him he is an Irish Catholic, Muse immediately bestows the nickname "Irish" on the captain.  Later in the story, when Phillips and Muse are having a "heart-to heart" conversation, Phillips opines that there must be other things Muse could do with his life besides fishing and risking his life obeying piracy orders from the warlord. Muse's reply is poignant: "Maybe in the US, Irish, but not in Somalia." 

 

Another memorable conversation occurs when Muse informs Phillips that their last haul netted them six million dollars in ransom money.  Phillips then asks, if that's the case, where did that six million go?  Isn't that enough to set you up for life?  Why are you still a pirate?  What are you doing here?  Muse does not have an answer for that, but Phillips' point is well made.

 

As smart and (at least in their own eyes) brave as the Somalians might be, there is one stumbling block they did not count on: the US Navy.  The pirates are repeatedly cautioned, "You can't win this!"  Do they?  The price of a theater ticket will enable you to find out.

 

I came away with one dominating thought.  Since the world knows that pirates pose a real and significant threat off the east coast of Africa, wouldn't it be smarter and more cost-efficient to have at least a small military escort accompany the cargo ships, rather than waiting for a crisis and then deploying naval troops to deal with the emergency?    

Shortstops: The Daylight Play & The Neighborhood Play

This weekend the American and National League Championship Series are wrapping up, and the World Series starts this Wednesday.  It's time for another baseball post.  All three of the teams still standing as of this writing (Red Sox, Tigers and Cardinals) have very good shortstops, which supports the contention that it's pretty difficult for a team without a good shortstop to make it this far in the playoffs.  Other than the catcher, the shortstop is the most important defensive player on the diamond.  It is fitting, therefore, that on this big baseball weekend this post should discuss two shortstop plays you're likely to see at some point during the Series. 

The Daylight Play:  One of the most talked-about plays of this year's post season occurred in Game 4 of the NLCS Tuesday night.  The Dodgers were trailing the Cards, 2 games to 1, in the best-of-seven series. To make matters worse, the Bums were down 4 to 2 with one out in the home half of the seventh inning, so their backs were up against the wall.  But the southern California crowd of almost 54,000 sensed a rally brewing when former Twin, Nick Punto, doubled to the gap. With the top of their order due up next, the Dodgers were ready to mount a comeback.  Then the unthinkable happened. Punto, a thirteen year veteran with twenty-six MLB playoff games under his belt, got picked off second on a quick move by Cardinal relief pitcher Carlos Martinez to kid shortstop Pete Kozma.  Punto, himself a shortstop, should have seen it coming.  The Dodgers' rally was over before it began, the end was near, and the final score stood with the Cardinals winning 4 to 2.

If you watch a replay of the Punto pick-off, it is a classic illustration of the old Daylight Play.  The Daylight Play can commence with a signal from the catcher, or as was the case last Tuesday, with a non-verbal acknowledgement between the pitcher and the shortstop.  Regardless of who instigates the play, the Daylight Play requires a split second decision by the pitcher on whether to throw the ball to the shortstop as the latter sneaks in behind the runner. The rule of thumb is this: When the pitcher spins around to face second base, if he sees "daylight" between the shortstop and the baserunner, he makes the throw; no daylight, no throw.  As long as his foot has not remained on the rubber, the pitcher will not be called for a balk if he does not make a throw, even if he fakes a throw.  On the Punto play, Martinez saw daylight between Punto and Kozma, made a perfect throw, and ol' Nick was thereupon embarrassed in front of the LA faithful, not to mention millions of television viewers.

The Daylight Play is not as easy as it may at first seem.  Unlike a pickoff throw to first where the first baseman receiving the throw is stationary, on a pickoff throw to second the shortstop is moving, surreptitiously gliding to his left toward second base.  The pitcher has to lead his shortstop in a manner similar to a quarterback leading a receiver. Some pitchers might choose to simply aim for the second base bag, but if the shortstop can't get there the ball will end up rolling out to center field.  The better and safer choice is not to aim for the bag but to throw the ball between the shortstop and the bag. 

A skilled shortstop will not only be able to take the pickoff throw, he will be able to block the sack with one or both of his feet as he's applying the tag.  He does not have to worry about being spiked, because on 99% of the close plays of this type, the baserunner will be diving back head first.  The shortstop may get bitten, but he won't be spiked.

Sometimes, if the Daylight Play is not on, you will see the shortstop pounding his glove as he stands directly behind the baserunner.  He wants the baserunner to hear the glove and think the Daylight Play is on.  The idea is that if the runner thinks that play might be on, he will take a smaller lead.
 

Finally, on the subject of a baserunner taking a lead off second base, remember this.  The baserunner's job is to keep an eye on the second baseman.  The runner's lead off second should not be longer than the distance the second baseman is away from the bag.  However, it is the job of the third base coach to keep an eye on the shortstop, for the simple reason that the baserunner does not have eyes in the back of his head.  The third base coach, therefore, needs to keep the baserunner apprised of how close the shortstop is to the bag, so the runner can adjust his lead accordingly.  Good shortstops are tricky and stealth, and usually among the best athletes on the team.  (That partially explains why I played third base.) 
 

The Neighborhood Play:  The Neighborhood Play is deeply ingrained in baseball tradition, although you'll never see it in a rulebook.  You might say it is a gentlemen's agreement that on a force play at second which constitutes the front end of an attempted double play, the umpire will call the incoming baserunner at second "out" if the shortstop -- or less frequently, the second baseman -- accepts the throw somewhere reasonably close to the sack.  What usually happens on a Neighborhood Play is that, with a runner on first, a grounder is hit to the second baseman, the first baseman or the pitcher, and that fielder throws the ball to the shortstop in an attempt to start a double play.  A literal application of the rules of baseball requires the shortstop to have a foot (or other body part) on the bag at precisely the same moment he possesses the throw from his teammate.  But under the Neighborhood Play, that precision is not required. Have you heard that "close" only counts in horseshoes and grenades?  Well, now you know better; it counts in the Neighborhood Play as well.

The purpose of applying the Neighborhood Play "rule" is to provide for the safety of the shortstop.  The incoming runner will slide hard into second base in an attempt to break up the double play.  As long as the runner keeps his spikes low, it is not considered a dirty play.  Obviously, a shortstop who has to jump out of the way while he's throwing the ball to first is less likely to be accurate.  In order to minimize the risk to the shortstop's lower extremities, on such a bang-bang play a little leeway as described above is permitted and the mandated precision is, with the wink of the umpire's eye, not required.
 

Some of the baseball gurus in the media have predicted that the Neighborhood Play is not long for this world. Currently, umpires are only permitted to review filmed replays to determine whether a batted ball is a home run, e.g., whether a fly ball cleared the outfield wall in fair territory.  But starting next year, the replay rules are going to be greatly expanded to permit reviews of all kinds of plays (although not balls and strikes), and the precise timing on force plays at second required by a literal application of the rules of baseball will probably be enforced.  Why?  Because no umpire is going to claim that a runner is forced out if the replay shows clearly that the shortstop did not have his foot on the bag when he caught his teammate's throw.  I predict two other collateral effects.  More shortstops are going to get injured, and there will be fewer double plays.