Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday & The Theme From "Dallas".

Every day I hear the music.  Jingle Bells and Happy Birthday .  I hear the music at all hours of the day and night.  I hear it when I am at home.  I hear it when I am at work.  I hear it when I am out shopping or taking photographs.  I hear the music EVERY DAY.  I never want to sing Happy Birthday again.  I despise Jingle Bells.  How is this possible?.  Street Sweepers.  Big 'ole tanker truck street sweepers.  They roll through the city cleaning the street, spraying copious amounts of water at everything in their path.  More than once I have had my shoes drenched while riding my scooter (Ken is laughing now).  Usually accompanied by a team of actual "sweepers", these trucks hose down the roads with military efficiency.  The music you ask?  Each truck has a loudspeaker blasting synthesized versions of the aforementioned classics.  It's loud.  I can hear the trucks approaching from more than a kilometer away. I can only presume the music is a way to alert pedestrians and traffic of the impending flood, but come on, can't we at least mix it up a little!  Alas, perhaps my wish has come true.  An hour ago I heard an unmistakable melody.  Familiar, but not immediately recognizable to me, I realized after a few minutes that I was being treated to a muzak version of the theme song from "Dallas".  Some guy named Jerrold Immel wrote the song for the TV show back in the late 70's and I bet he never envisioned it being used on a water tanker in Liuzhou, China some 30 years later.  I'm also going to go out on a limb and say he's not getting paid for it either.  J.R and Bobby Ewing would feel right at home.  The irony is that even though I "hear" the trucks every day, I rarely actually see them so I don't have a photo yet.  Instead I'll share this shot of a fisherman on the Liujiang River.  I like the juxtaposition of the modern city in the background and the small boat that probably hasn't change much in hundreds of years.

I love you Jerrold Immel. Now.  Once I hear your synthesized version of "Dallas" five or six hundred times, I'll be looking for something cool from Mike Post.  I always liked the theme from "The Rockford Files".   

tags: china  guangxi  liuzhou  music  photography  

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