Fish and Whistle notes

  "I was writing about exactly what was going on that day. There was this hole in the street right in front of my house. All these trucks would hit the hole, and the house would shake. And down the street, they built a car wash, which I liked because I always like to keep my cars clean. I took my car down there - there were no attendants, you just put your money in - and everything worked except the rinse cycle. So all the soap dried up in my car. That was the kind of day it was.
  I really did scrub a parking lot on my knees ("On my very first job/I said thank you and please/They make me scrub a parking lot/Down on my knees"). My first job, when I was 12 or 13, was at Skip's Fiesta Drive-In, which was the big place for the hot rods to hang out. I worked there during the daytime and helped this old Swedish janitor with his chores. The carhops wore hula skirts, and kids would buy the cheapest thing, a cup of custard, so they could watch the carhops and stuff. And then they'd take the custard and throw it on the ground. The next day, I'd be out there on my knees with hot boiling water with ammonia, trying to scrape this custard off. I thought, "This is what it's all about, all my jobs are going to be like this."

1978 John introduced this song: "This is a song here off of my from his new record it's called uh --- (chuckle)" - there's a little prayer you're supposed to say to yourself when 3 or 4 real small things all go wrong at the same time and become a big problem... it's called Fish and Whistle" c:July 1978

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