During the week of March 15-21 there was an article in the Juneau Empire online about the downtown public library celebrating 20 years in its present location atop the parking garage.  (Link to the article: http://juneauempire.com/stories/032009/loc_412540983.shtml)  The garage is right on the waterfront where the cruise ships dock in summer.  It has great views of Gastineau Channel and Douglas Island.  I remember the library’s earlier location in the building that now houses the city museum up on the hilly Main Street and near the governor’s mansion and State Office Building (known locally as the S.O.B).  After that it was in the ground floor of the “Spamcan” building that’s farther down the hill on Main Street.  The article describes how the city was lucky that the opportunity to build on the parking garage arose.  It’s a great location.  To get to the library, you have to take a single elevator up 4-5 floors.  They’re labeled 1, B, C, D, and L.  While ascending the elevator makes a funny buzzing sound at each floor that some have jokingly compared to flatulence.  I once rode up with some English cruise ship officers and one of them jokingly said “excuse me” at each floor.  I hope they haven’t changed the elevator.  I remember going to the library to do research for a debate for tenth grade English.  My debate partner and I were distracted by the view of the sailboats in Gastineau Channel.  And then there were those many times spent sitting in the comfy chairs with views of the channel reading from large selection of magazines.

I’ve been to other public libraries since then: the old downtown Seattle library and its uniquely designed successor; the large Los Angeles Central Library with its homeless patrons, unrivaled collection and availability of books and audiobooks (people in L.A. don’t seem to read as much as those in Seattle, though I think that’s changing).  Juneau has another impressive library at the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) where I became an expert with microfilm machines.  My wife’s favorite is the public library in Renton, Washington that straddles the Cedar River.  These days, I make do with the Covina Public Library and the Cal State L.A. library.  But with all the libraries I’ve visited and frequented, the Downtown Juneau Library always figures prominently.  Happy 20th Anniversary!

Back on Sunday, January 11 we were driving home from church and listening to 100.3 FM The Sound.  It was the My Turn segment where a guest DJ, usually someone famous in music, plays what they want and talks about their choices.  My Turn airs between 6 pm and 7 pm every Sunday.  A previous week had Pau Gasol and Sasha Vujacic from the Lakers.  On January 11 the guest DJ was Noel Gallagher of the band Oasis.  He played some pretty good music, mostly older stuff.  As we were listening one particular lyric caught our ears:

“I eat more chicken (than) any man ever seen, yeah, yeah,”

Now there’s a song lyric you don’t hear very often.  The song was “Backdoor Man” performed by The Doors.  It’s a funny lyric similar to when Queen sing, “Gimme gimme gimme fried chicken,” and the end of the song “One Vision”.  I couldn’t think of the most chicken I’d seen a man eat other than when I had a half chicken meal at Juan Pollo in early November 2008.  That was a lot of food.

Further research revealed that the song “Backdoor Man” was actually written by Willie Dixon.  That makes sense that The Doors didn’t write it because it seemed a bit silly even for them.  Later artists influenced by Willie Dixon include Jesus and Mary Chain and PJ Harvey.  The entire stanza that contains the lyric is funny.  It goes:

You men eat your chicken
Eat your pork and beans
I eat more chicken any man ever seen, yeah, yeah
I’m a back door man
The men don’t know
But the little girl understand

It tells a funny story or at least conjures up some funny images.

Two weeks later on January 25, Brian Wilson of Beach Boys fame was on My Turn.  He also played a song that mentions food in the lyrics: “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” by Jay and the Techniques.  Wilson described the record as his favorite.  It was another silly-sounding song from the 60’s.  Who knew there were all these old songs about food?