Done.
Anybody here seen my old friend, Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
You know I just looked around and he's gone.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard. In Barnesboro, went to the grocery store right after. John-third grade classroom. Bobby-on vacation with my parents and younger brother. George Wallace-I was home, afternoon, called my dad to tell him. Abraham-don't remember that one. MLK and RFK both in 1968. Just a few months apart, too. Bad fucking year, 1968. But NOTHING compared to '63. Oh my God, that was awful. I was just a kid...how old was I...8, I was only eight and it was FUCKING HORRIBLE. I've written the story before of how I learned, etc., I'm not going to repeat it, but if it was bad for an eight-year old kid...I'll tell ya, it was hard on the adults. The most famous study on how Americans feel about their presidents was conducted after the JFK assassination. The researchers were shocked. The previous scholarship had been that the president was a distant figure, there wasn't a personal connection. But after the JFK assassination they found the same constellation of reactions that they got when someone's mother or father or close family relation died. Sleeplessness, crying, depression, inability to focus, I don't know what all, but they were shocked, the researchers were shocked. It must have been H-E-L-L. See, that was an entire fucking WEEKEND of trauma. JFK was assassinated on a Friday afternoon so you had the entire fucking weekend to think about nothing else, things like college football games were canceled, everybody just stayed glued to their TV's, watching Jackie still in her blood-soaked outfit...AHHHH!, the casket being boarded onto Air Force One, being taken off Air Force One, Jackie still in her fucking blood-soaked outfit, the funeral preparations, John-John's salute...AHHHH! And then in the middle of all of that fucking Oswald gets whacked by Ruby right on live fucking TV!! IT WAS FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE. "So, how was your weekend?" "Good, yours?," that conversation never fucking happened after that weekend. I don't even remember now when JFK's funeral was, had to be Monday, I would think. That walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. Jackie veiled. The clip-clop of the horses hooves. The streets were silent except for the horses hooves and that awful fucking funereal music. Those GODDAMNED muffled drums, I can hear 'em now. Okay, fuck this, I'm done.
Anybody here seen my old friend, Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
You know I just looked around and he's gone.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard. In Barnesboro, went to the grocery store right after. John-third grade classroom. Bobby-on vacation with my parents and younger brother. George Wallace-I was home, afternoon, called my dad to tell him. Abraham-don't remember that one. MLK and RFK both in 1968. Just a few months apart, too. Bad fucking year, 1968. But NOTHING compared to '63. Oh my God, that was awful. I was just a kid...how old was I...8, I was only eight and it was FUCKING HORRIBLE. I've written the story before of how I learned, etc., I'm not going to repeat it, but if it was bad for an eight-year old kid...I'll tell ya, it was hard on the adults. The most famous study on how Americans feel about their presidents was conducted after the JFK assassination. The researchers were shocked. The previous scholarship had been that the president was a distant figure, there wasn't a personal connection. But after the JFK assassination they found the same constellation of reactions that they got when someone's mother or father or close family relation died. Sleeplessness, crying, depression, inability to focus, I don't know what all, but they were shocked, the researchers were shocked. It must have been H-E-L-L. See, that was an entire fucking WEEKEND of trauma. JFK was assassinated on a Friday afternoon so you had the entire fucking weekend to think about nothing else, things like college football games were canceled, everybody just stayed glued to their TV's, watching Jackie still in her blood-soaked outfit...AHHHH!, the casket being boarded onto Air Force One, being taken off Air Force One, Jackie still in her fucking blood-soaked outfit, the funeral preparations, John-John's salute...AHHHH! And then in the middle of all of that fucking Oswald gets whacked by Ruby right on live fucking TV!! IT WAS FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE. "So, how was your weekend?" "Good, yours?," that conversation never fucking happened after that weekend. I don't even remember now when JFK's funeral was, had to be Monday, I would think. That walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. Jackie veiled. The clip-clop of the horses hooves. The streets were silent except for the horses hooves and that awful fucking funereal music. Those GODDAMNED muffled drums, I can hear 'em now. Okay, fuck this, I'm done.
