Worked a corporate gig at a major talent agency during this period while moonlighting the bars. My favorite client for whom we booked speaking engagements was The Honorable Ann Richards. She had no qualms about filling us in on the depths that W would sink to win. (He of all people brought public her ages-old bout with alcoholism during her schoolteaching years when he ran against and unseated her as Gov. of TX - so much for anonymity).
I was listening to the Rolling Stones' Some Girls CD on my commute to work that morning. The song playing in my ears after I got out of the subway and was walking into the midtown office building on 57th Street at 9:00am was "Shattered." Still jamming to that song on headphones, oblivious to anything else, I took the elevator up to the 18th floor, the song ended, and I saw the expressions awaiting me as I stepped off the elevator.
Lyrics:
SHATTERED
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Uh-huh, shattered
Shattered, shattered
Love and hope and sex and dreams
Are still surviving on the street
Look at me, I'm in tatters!
I'm a shattered
Shattered
Friends are so alarming
My lover's never charming
Life's just a cocktail party on the street
Big Apple
People dressed in plastic bags
Directing traffic
Some kind of fashion
Shattered
Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex
Look at me, I'm in tatters
I'm a shattered
Shattered
All this chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter 'bout
Shmatta, shmatta, shmatta -- I can't give it away on 7th Avenue
This town's been wearing tatters (shattered, shattered)
Work and work for love and sex
Ain't you hungry for success, success, success, success
Does it matter? (Shattered) Does it matter?
I'm shattered.
Shattered
Ahhh, look at me, I'm a shattered
I'm a shattered
Look at me- I'm a shattered, yeah
Pride and joy and greed and sex
That's what makes our town the best
Pride and joy and dirty dreams and still surviving on the street
And look at me, I'm in tatters, yeah
I've been battered, what does it matter
Does it matter, uh-huh
Does it matter, uh-huh, I'm a shattered
Don't you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side
Bed bugs uptown
What a mess this town's in tatters I've been shattered
My brain's been battered, splattered all over Manhattan
Uh-huh, this town's full of money grabbers
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots, huh
Shadoobie, my brain's been battered
My friends they come around they
Flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter
Pile it up, pile it high on the platter