"I am, I said To no one there And no one heard at all Not even the chair"

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Saturday January 24th, 2009 was Mr. Neil Diamond’s 68th birthday. After the ceremony, the ritual sacrifice (it was a head of lettuce, Mr. Diamond may require a sacrifice, but he is not cruel), and cleansing at the temple, me and KP decided to celebrate the only way we know how, by making giant asses out of ourselves. Hilarity, and genuflecting, ensues.

First things first, you all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mr. Neil Diamond. And a head of lettuce. But mostly gratitude.

Neil Diamond is one of those few American treasures who realized that he couldn’t hide from his genius, and ended up shaping the face of this country throughout the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and now. That’s some pimp shit. And I had no idea until only a few short months ago the cornerstone that this man is. Here’s kind of how it went:

So picture this, me and KP are cruising to the Bahamas in my sweet vintage MG convertible down Route 66 like back before it was just a highway and all those cool diners and shit were still there. I had my horn-rimmed kittycat sunglasses on and she was sporting a bitchin’ pink neckerchief, and we were a couple of wild and free career girls from the city, just enjoying our wildness and freeness. I had a Neil Diamond CD from the library that I thought I would, you know, just check out. Glory Road: 1968-1972. That’s like four years, and there were 50 songs and they were ALL REALLY BEAUTIFUL.

KP: can you please take that out, we’ve listened to it like 1000 times.
Stef: can’t you hear how great he is???

Have you ever seen rays of sunshine enter our atmosphere, travel millions of miles per hour direct from the sun and strike my CD player at just the right angle to light up the whole world? Yeah. It was like that. And now everybody thinks I’m crazy because all I ever talk about is how great Neil is. Well he is, just check him out.

Anyway, our impromptu round of Diamond and Dash (putting Neil songs in the jukebox all over town and then leaving before that Slipknot guy catches us. He’s scary.) took us to the Holiday Bar on the Westsiiide, and wouldn’t you know? They had karaoke.

Now what were a couple of chicks like us doing in a joint like that? I don’t know either, but within fifteen minutes we had all eleven people in that place singing Sweet Caroline and clapping along. The Karaoke master himself kept asking us to sing more Neil (by the way, no Karaoke master has ever asked us to do more songs, they usually try to take our spare change and ask us how ashamed we are to tarnish the ancient art and to please leave) he claimed not to know the songs, but sang along with us to such hits as Cherry Cherry and Cracklin’ Rosie.

He was cool. Plus, besides my new mom who TOTALLY ROCKED Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song and that guy who “couldn’t talk, but keeps trying to sing,” even the guy who was sleeping on the bench thing in the front was showing a little love for Neil Diamond. Around midnight we decided to spread the wealth elsewhere and tip our bartenders generously (after sharing whiskey shots with our new friend Timmy ? To Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show!), the locals were all “don’t leave! I put in another Neil song!” it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I mean, it was touching. It was like giving Christmas presents to little kids when it isn’t Christmas, or watching a puppy being born and then giving it a Christmas present after all the grossness has been cleaned away.

So please, next time you find yourself half in the bag and a little disoriented from the scenery, with a microphone shoved in your face and the command to Sing! still ringing in your ears, spread the gift of Neil. It really is the gift that keeps on giving. And check out the wildlife at the Holiday Bar sometime if you’re in the mood for adventure, you might even spot me and KP there, but please don’t tell my mom.