Lions

Pride. A pride of Leo’s nest at the Chronicle. August is our month. Today one departs, a good one – a fierce, passionate one. One we’re sorry to lose. Another one turns 27 today, one who’s all claws and balls. Sexy beasts both.

I’m a Leo, textbook: big, vain, incisors at the sharp. We’re also all pussycats, Nilsson through and through. Pet us and we purr. Millenniums we’ve been domesticated.

Berkeley, Memorial Day weekend, in the Spoken Word vinyl undersection of Amoeba Records, $2: Signs of the Zodiac: Leo, A&M Records, 1960. Artwork to die for. Mine.

“Dramatically narrated with electronic music accompaniment.”

Side One
1. “I Know You Leo” (oh yeah?)
2. “Leo at work” (“generous view and a towering ego…”)
3. “Planetary Motivations” (“the sun rules Leo and the sun is king”)
4. “Where Was Your Moon?” (where the hell is my moon?)

Side Two
1. “Leo – numbers, gems, and colors” (No. 1… the ruby… orange/yellow)
2. “In Love, Leo?” (“In love Leo? It’s the Talk of the Town. And you’re doing most of the talking. This is the greatest, grandest, most glorious romantic happening in all the history of lovers. This isn’t a simple affair of the heart. It’s a Rodan statue. A Sistine Chapel. A 14-karat-gold ruby studded temple of pleasure that outdoes the Taj Mahal.”)
3. “The Four Seasons of Leo” (“Leo begins with an insatiable need to be known, respected, and adored. He will go to any extremes to insure his need is satisfied.”)
4. “Those Who Knew”

Classic. As Masters & Johnson pronounce their palmistry in Orwellian tones, sci-fi movie noises ebb and tide with soft computer vertigo in the key of mind warp. I’ll keep a third eye out for the rest of the vinyl Zodiac.

Cosmic Grooves: Leo, Rhino CD, 2001 conquers on the first cut: Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Those Leo’s would include Fidel Castro, Napoleon Bonaparte, Benito Mussolini, Haile Selassie, Cecil B. DeMille, and Mata Hari. Stanley Kubrick. Joe Jackson’s “I’m the Man,” Jimmy Cliff’s “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” the Shangri-La’s “Leader of the Pack,” and the Rascals “A Beautiful Morning” all correspond to Leo traits according to Rhino. No Deep Purple, Machine Head’s “Maybe I’m a Leo”? Cat litter.

Mick Jagger, Jerry Garcia, Robert Plant, Ronnie Spector, Count Basie, Debussy – good band of Leo’s. Raymond Chandler, Alexander Dumas, Shelley, H.P. Lovecraft, Sir Walter Scott, Maxfield Parrish – Vida Blue. Stars of the Serengeti. Ethel Barrymore, eldest lioness.

And wouldn’t you know it. Mark Knofler’s a Leo, probably his silk spinning Stratocaster as well. Dire Straits’ “Lions,” closing the U.K. quartet’s self-titled debut, 1978 – home to “Sultans of Swing” – carves its big cats out of stone. There’s a girl, high heeling across the square, London, Paris, Copenhagen – take your pick. Those European squares, all movement and sound: sunset, roller blades, waffle carts.

Drunk old solider
He gives her a fright
He’s a crazy lion
Howling for a fight

Quick, the Metro.

Strap hanging gunshot sound
Doors slamming on the overground
Starlings are tough
But the lions are made of stone
Her evening paper is horror torn
But there’s hope later for Capricorns

She makes it home just fine, but the narrator’s got one last Dylanesque.

I’m thinking bout the lions
Thinking bout the lions
What happened to the lions… tonight, tonight, tonight?

Hey, yeah, what happened to the lions? Thirty years later I’m still wondering. And thinking. Thinking ’bout the lions.