The Groove
Saturday September 16th, 2017 with Elorious Cain
EMILY BRISK 2 - "soundtrack of Emily's mysterious predicament part 2"

(continuing from the July 22 show) ------------------------------------------------------ Emily didn't even realise that she had slept the night on a chair outside of the house she had mysteriously found herself in. She had awoke to the sound of a nearby boat. She was suddenly both nervous and excited all at the same time. She wanted to get off the island so desperately. She quickly took a white towel and waved it in the air above her head while she proceeded to use every bit of her voice to make noise! She began to calm down as the small yacht slowly approached the island. Was she going to get saved? Would she be able to borrow somebody's cell phone and call her work? After that second night's sleep she could remember how she worked in a biotech company in Boston. She wanted to make sure she wasn't awol. She needed the job! When the boat finally docked Emily could hear several teenaged girls loudly singing some kind of spanish song. A tall woman in a scout uniform quickly got off and started approaching Emily who couldn't contain herself with relief and excitement uttering, " I'm so happy you came! I've been left alone on this island. I need to call my work in Boston. Can I borrow your cell phone?" The woman from the boat stood a distance away with a perplexed look on her face asking, "You speak English? How did you get on this private island? Who are you? What in the world is a cell phone?" That lady was a scout leader who didn't really buy Emily's explanations. Emily was requested to sit at a safe distance as 5 uniformed young people were marched off the boat and into the house. They were quietly speaking amongst themselves in spanish as they walked by pretending not stare at her - the strange mysterious woman. Emily felt offended by the sudden ostracism. She didn't do anything wrong. She felt that she was a victim of circumstance. Not some kind of threat! After five minutes the scout leader came storming out the house with an angry tirade: " There was a cooler with refreshments for the scouts nicely set up waiting in this house! What did you do? Did you eat and drink everything in it? What am I supposed to feed the kids with now?! You are trespassing. You are also a thief! This island is a camp owned by the Scouts of America. That cooler and it's contents were for the camp!!" I'm going to the boat to radio the Coast Guard." Emily was practically tearful as she repeatedly apologized and kept explaining that finding oneself stranded on a mysterious island stressed her out and made her super hungry and thirsty. All the same Emily kept insisting that the Coast Guard could help her get home to Boston. The Scout leader started calming down and sympathizing when Emily's plight. She assured Emily that there were other refreshments on the boat saying, "I am something of a perfectionist when it comes to organizing outings for my scouts. It just really bothers me when things get fussed up! " The scout leader wasn't interested in getting Emily arrested for theft or trespassing. She eventually contacted the Coast Guard because she thought Emily wasn't right; in bad shape and in distress. Emily would spend the better part of her second day on the island alone on the beach listening to that disco radio station perplexed by the way that woman had never ever heard of a cell phone. The more Emily tried to explain it all to her the weirder things seemed to feel. Something about the situation was terribly off. The scout leader began thinking that Emily was something of a nut job: going on about some kind of phone people could walk around with. Emily sensed that, and it disturbed her deeply. Eventually one of the young scouts cautiously approached Emily to offer her some food and a drink of apple juice. Her name was Charmaine and she proudly said, "I got to come out and give you lunch because I can speak English! We speak it at home. My mom insists that my family needs to help keep it alive 'cause it's considered to be a dying language and all." Stunned by what Charmaine said, Emily sarcastically asked "Well then, what language does everybody speak in America?" Charmaine reacted with loving laughter, "Spanish silly!" Suddenly the loud sound of a woman hysterically laughing came out of the radio. Charmaine laughed with it for a few seconds and when music started again she asked about the radio. When Emily said she had found it in the parlour in the house, Charmaine was very surprised: "Before we leave this camp every time Mrs. Stanton insists that we completely clean that house. We did it last Sunday before we went back to New York and there was no radio there. I've never ever seen a radio like that!" Emily explained that it was a simple old style am-fm radio yet Charmaine never heard about am or fm bands. She insisted that there was just one band for public radio access - not called am or fm! Then she moved a little closer to Emily to ask, "What is that strange music?" When Emily said "Disco" Charmaine said she had never heard of it. "Maybe you call it Dance Music or E.D.M. it's all the same thing" Charmaine insisted that all she knew was the popular renditions of today's folk and country. Yet her curiosity was sparked: "Is this 'disco' the music of your country? I kind of like it." Emily reacted so naturally, "Most of the time I listen to radio stations in my car that mix a little disco with soft rock or pop. I don't really like it. I'm enjoying this radio station because they just play continuous music. They don't even identify themselves! The stations in Boston have advertisements and promotions. Sometimes you go to other stations back and forth looking for a good beat. It's really rather a nuisance" Charmaine asked, "What is soft rock?" As the interaction went on Charmaine seemed to tell Emily that there was no such thing of Rock music or even Jazz. Charmaine had never heard of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones or even current groups like U2. Charmaine had never heard of Michael Jackson, Beyoncé or any hip hop artist. Hip Hop evidently didn't exist at all. She also managed to tell Emily that while growing up in a nice house in the South Bronx, in all of her sixteen years, she had never ever seen an African American. She ended the conversation with, "The African empires are the richest countries. Americans go there for work to send money back home. I think you might only see Africans in embassies down in Washington, Maryland." Emily couldn't believe her eyes or ears. After Charmaine rejoined her friends for a hike around the island, Emily sat hopelessly confused. She stared at the small yacht wondering what was going on. Nothing seemed to make sense.