Time IS Money (Zurich, May 1985): Methuselah meet Jimmy James; Jimmy James, Methuselah; likewise, I’m sure…

(On my way to Budapest, May 1985 http://nationalismeasterneurope.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/27-29-may-1985-first-journey-to-hungary-eastern-europe/)

I suppose I thought I was somehow “under cover.”  Methuselah here, dressed all dapper for his big, rainy Sunday afternoon outing on the cog-rail, had grabbed the cassette box of the tape I was listening to on my walkman.

“Time is money…American?…Time is money…American?” he kept on repeating.

‘Annoying is old Swiss codger,” I thought, “Annoying is old Swiss codger…”

I figured it was the only English he knew (it seemed to be).  How dare he just assume I was an American!  (Although all he had to do was to look at my shoes, my sneakers, and work his way up to the anti-social headphones.)  And on top of it all, the oldest stereotype in the books about Americans:  time is money–all business, no time to stop and smell the roses, no time for people, no time for small talk, got to earn money, buy a house, buy a car, news at 11, etc etc.

Oh yeah, one slight detail I had forgotten:  the title of the tape he was looking at was “Time is Money,”–I gathered this as he pointed his finger at the title and repeated it again (my powers of observation no less that Spiderman’s radioactive-blood “spidey senses”).

He was right:  time was money, or rather Time is Money.  Only problem is I have scoured the Internet since–the incident above happened in Zurich in May 1985–and cannot find any reference to the existence of this tape–if you once listened to a tape, but can’t find evidence of its existence on the Internet, did it really ever happen?

—

I was reminded of this the other day when, after almost two decades, I came to one of those extreme satellite delay realizations that you kick yourself for for not getting sooner and yet seem to make so much sense.

I must have listened to “this next one…is the first song…on our new…al…bum…” and the driving bassline that introduces the Beastie Boys’ “Jimmy James” on Check Your Head hundreds of times.  I always loved that driving bassline–to the exclusion I guess of listening to the songs words or digging to see the samples used in the song (now easily facilitated by the Internet)…that is, until the other day.

No wonder, it turns out, I really like that driving bassline and found it hauntingly familiar:  the song is a tribute to Jimi Hendrix, who early in his career used the stage name “Jimmy James.”

It all came back to me.  In the spring of 1985, much to the amusement and derision of my suitemates during my first year in college, I had started to get into listening to Jimi Hendrix–Jiiiiiiimmmmmmiiiiii, they would yell at me as I entered the dorm suite (I was straightlaced and uptight…people thought it somehow didnt go with my personality).  But, I was also CHEAP!  So I had loaded up on those cut-outs and never heard of, exploitative of a dead guy who can’t defend his copyright, cassette tapes of Jimi Hendrix before he and the world got Experienced (well, at least before the Jimi Hendrix Experience hit the big time).  They were, I believe, mainly under obscure German labels.  (I have been able to find one of them online–an Astan label album entitled “My Best Friend” with a photo of Jimi on the cover that suggests his best friend was not animal or mineral, but herbal http://www.discogs.com/Jimi-Hendrix-My-Best-Friend/release/624755)  Anyway, much to my dismay, I can’t find any of these old cassettes among junk I have saved through the years, got embarrassed about, and then purged, much to my later dismay (this includes airline timetables, newspapers (sports sections), RFE/RL Research (dont ask), and cassettes and albums).  Believe me though that Time is Money did exist!

In searching for these old albums on the Internet, I came across some youtube videos…and there it is, at 0:14, as the great site http://www.whosampled.com/sample/view/1533/Beastie%20Boys-Jimmy%20James_Jimi%20Hendrix%20and%20Curtis%20Knight-Happy%20Birthday/ identifies, that driving bassline throughout “Jimmy James,” from Jimi Hendrix and Curtis Knight’s “Happy Birthday.”  No wonder it was familiar:  that May, who knows how many times I listened to that song on those cruddy cassettes on my walkman.

Below, the original video (8/1/1992) for the Beasties’ “Jimmy James” (video starts only about thirty seconds into clip) and a version of Jimi Hendrix and Curtis Knight’s “Happy Birthday” (is that the Orange Bowl in Miami everybody is dancing at?–update, no it is the LA Coliseum, pays to watch the whole video..)…plus a “bonus” from those old crappy, but strangely nostalgia-inspiring cassettes…

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