Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Irving Hubler Jr.

December 2005

If you have ever gotten so hooked on a song that you can’t stop listening to it then you are probably one of those people with something missing from their life. I was one of those people. I couldn’t tell you why or what I felt I was missing, but the song Shama Lama Ding Dong, from the movie Animal House, had me possessed.

I didn’t see the movie or hear the song until a year ago. To explain why I hadn’t seen the cult classic about campus life until two years out of college—even though I attended the University of Oregon where the film took place—I have to blame Marin County, California dead-heads. Every time the movie was showing in somebody’s room or one campus or at the local arts theater, the audience would invariably be full of upper-middle class kids high as kites and just on the verge of trading their tie-died ‘Steal Your Face’ or ‘Shoreline 1995’ t-shirts in for short-sleeved, blue-striped button-downs and Dave Matthews Band fan club baseball hats. Not my crowd, so I avoided it like everything else those Golden Gate-ers loved so much. Then, a local brew-and-view establishment showed Animal House as a double--feature with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and who can miss the chance to see that movie, while drinking beer, again.

The band, in the movie, plays the song at a small African American club, the Dexter Lake Club, where our heroes take girls to under false pretenses. I initially found that funny because I thought it was a safe bet to make that Dexter Lake didn’t have enough African American citizens to start a glee club, let alone have their own night club (probably a sad and unfortunate bi-product of Oregon’s dark history of ‘Sundown Laws’). That passed away the moment Otis, of Otis Day and the Knights (who perform in the movie), tells the band, "Hit It," and they churn and croon their way through an unforgettable torch-song, one of rhythm and soul legend. I was frozen in my seat. My heart pounded. The hairs on my neck stood up, my head tingled, and I could feel it. I could feel my life fill up in a way that I haven’t for a while. In retrospect, I was over reacting, but who could not fall in love with lyrics like, "That is why you are my sugar-dee-dee-do."

A few days later, I sat at my computer, listening to the song repeatedly on my iPod, searching for more information on Otis Day and the Knights. I was disappointed. DeWayne Jessie, a character actor, was called up to play the role of Otis. From the success of the movie, he got requests for the band to play at state fairs, weddings, corporate parties et cetera. There was no Otis, no man in particular that was the man who set my heart on fire. I found out that one could actually book them for a show; that they were touring even to this day. It all seemed a bit hollow to me. I figured it would drop.

Three months passed, I was surprised that my iPod hadn’t busted yet, and I was on the phone with Lloyd St Martin Variety Artists International Incorporated booking Otis Day and the Knights for one night at Molly Thatcher, my friend’s bar. It worked out for them because the band had a week between their Bakersfield Basket Festival and Hot Redding Nights gigs. They had to be paid upfront, but I just put up the money that was supposed to be for my trip to Paris. I only slightly regret that decision. Jon had nothing going on that night at Molly’s and said he would charge five bucks at the door to make it worth his wild.

I am not the only one who likes Otis Day and the Knights. Molly’s was spilling out the front door with people. Jon was excited. The whole energy of the place was almost too much to handle.

I went up to Otis before their set, to make sure they played the song, "Otis-my-man, he he he, I read about that on the web site, and it is of course from the movie, yeah."

I was nervous. Was I talking to DeWayne or Otis?

"Yeah, this should be a good show. Use to playing bigger venues though, but you paid for Otis and Otis you will get." He had the serious look of a businessman, nothing like the passionate young man on stage in the film.

We stared at each other for one good awkward beat.

"Will you play the song?"

"Baby, Otis plays only the greatest." He walked away but stopped next to a poster-sized, glass framed photo. "Hey, I have these too, but they are of me. Ten dollars. Want one?"

It was a gigantic print of my ex-girlfriend Caroline Hammond. I loved her so much, even though she treated me like dirt and slept with my brother. The photo had hung above my couch as a devotional piece. After the break-up, I couldn’t live with the thing, but I couldn’t destroy it either. Jon said he would hang it in the women’s bathroom.

I guess he never got around to it.

"No," I was struck slightly dumb at the discovery of something I forgot about. "No just your Shama Lama Ding Dong."

"That’s not funny man." Otis walked away.

They opened up with Shout and the crowd went crazy; people danced on their backs on the floor like in the movie. Some people were in togas. Everyone was drunk. I sat patiently by the bar waiting for something I couldn’t describe to myself. What could possibly happen? I figured out what I was feeling. Some part of my heart hadn’t let go of Caroline. I never did anything to get rid of her from my heart. I exited the adulteress from my routines, but not my emotions. I felt bad. This whole thing and I just needed to be reminded to get that woman out of my heart. I should have gotten Neal Diamond, I felt so dumb.

They crowd flexed and cooed with joy. They had already played for an hour. Otis (DeWayne) took the mike, "It feels so good to be here at Molly Thatcher’s. We like to do for you a tune entitled Shama Lama Ding Dong, so hit it!"

The song.

The crowd disappeared to me. I fell into a chasm. I was faced with my denial and my need for execution. I knew what had to happen.

Honestly, with everyone so drunk, I thought no one would care. I ran to the back, got the photo of Caroline, and brought it out to the dance floor. Instead of cheering me on, or just flat ignoring me, the crowd and the band fell silent. I felt their doubt and confusion from their eyes, as everyone was looking at me. What they were puzzled by was the sight of a grown man, me, smashing a giant glass-framed photo on the ground, stomping on the shards and image, shouting, "I hate you Caroline! I hate your heart!"

Irving Hubler Jr lives in San Francisco where he is nice to his neighbors and takes his shoes off, leaving them outside his front door.