Ode To A Grasshopper…

Back in the 1990′s I discovered The Doors.  I don’t mean that I didn’t know they existed before then, I’m sure I did. But I got hooked on them in a big big way. For months they were all I would listen to.  Their music spoke to me on some level. Looking back on that time I’m sure I was struggling with … something. In my early 20′s, trying to work out where I fit in the world, what I was going to do with myself. You know that kind of angst. The Doors seemed to be a fitting back drop for that time.

But this post isn’t about the Doors. It’s about a Grasshopper. Its actually about both.. and music and … well okay I’ll start this again.

When I had been younger I wanted to own a record shop. An idea that never has completely left me even now. But when I was in my 20′s I decided that I was also going to sell reconditioned retro 50/60′s furniture. Way before being retro was cool I might add. I didn’t have a name for the shop, until one day while watching  The Doors Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

Jim is dancing around on stage during the song The End.  He notices something on stage, bends down to look at it to see what it is, gets up dances around a bit more and then as he picks up his mic again starts singing/chanting

I think I’ll open a little shop
A little place were they sell things
And I think I call it, “Grasshopper”

There it was! The name I’d been looking for my whole life! I would name my little shop Grasshopper, it’d be an in joke, Doors fans would get it but no one else would. But wait Jim was looking at the grasshopper on the stage again…

Oh, I blew it, it’s a moth
That’s alright, he ain’t got long to go
So we’ll forgive him

Well calling a shop Moth wasn’t going to work, it didn’t have the same ring to it… okay I’d stick with Grasshopper… and I’d have a little moth flying through the P’s it’d work. It was sorted… in my head anyway.

The shop never did happen, came close though but it’s still there in my head with all it’s funky junk and it’s big green sign out front.

So the point of all that… what do you call a blog when you can’t think of a name… combine your favorite color and the name of the mythical shop you were going to run all those moons ago.

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