Bob Pittman: News

Hallelujah, the CD’s are in. They are available for sale at CDbaby and they can be downloaded at Digstation. Links to these websites can be found by clicking on the Buy or Links Tabs. The album can also be downloaded on itunes. All eleven songs can be heard on this website by clicking on the Music tab, and several of the songs can be heard at www.myspace.com/totallycatchysongs.

More info coming soon.

On a cold winter morning at the end of January, 1956, Bob Pittman was about to be born amid the biggest blizzard in Chicago history. With water pipes busted from the unparalleled sub-zero temperatures, and the radiators useless, his mother, Siarah Pittman, strung out on amphetamines, as usual, moaned like a hyena as her water broke, froze in midair, and shattered like glass into jagged pieces as it hit the squalid apartment floor. Sobbing, shaking, forsaken, she struggled to control the suicidal thoughts that raced through her mind as she pulled on her mukluks and climbed though snow drifts eight foot deep four blocks to the Woodlawn Tavern where her alcoholic husband, renowned Chicago Attorney Heinrich Pittman, was holding court with his latest entourage of lowlifes and floozies.

“High,” Heinrich’s nickname and physical condition after nine’ o’clock in the morning, “It’s time,” she shrieked, stumbling into the dank den of derelict debauchery.

“Sigh,” Siarah’s nickname and usual waking activity, “You’re right. Time for another drink. Bartender, another round for the house.”

“No,” she moaned in agony, barely able to get the words out, “Baby’s coming.”

“That’s what she said,” Heinrich smirked to the garrulous guffaws of the gathering gaggle of inebriated inebriants surrounding the debacle of Bob Pittman’s impending birth.

“No, you malevolent malingerer masquerading as a man, I’m having a baby. Your baby. Now,” she stammered.

“Sigh, why didn’t you say so? This calls for another drink. Bartender, set me up. And pour a double for my wife here.” Heinrich turned to the salacious siren seated at the bar to his right and whispered as he winked, “If you don’t mind honey, I think my wife needs a parking space. Don’t worry, I’ll see you later.” With that the comely chartreuse quickly kissed Heinrich on the cheek, slithered off the barstool, and disappeared into the smoke filled haze. He turned back to his wild eyed wife, “Perch your overripe cherry up here honey. Let’s celebrate.”

“Why you filthy philandering excuse for a father…,” she said screaming as she began pummeling him with furiously with frozen fists.

Heinrich grappled to grab her grinding gabs and groveled, “Calm down, baby. No need to have a cow.”

Just then Siarah Pittman had a contraction so jarring that it stopped her in her tracks. She wailed a sob so loud it could be heard all the way to Kankakee. An eerie silence enveloped the bar as she gasped for air. “Is there a doctor in the house?” queried Heinrich. “No,” he paused in the cool dead air, “I guess I’ll have to do this myself.”

Heinrich turned to crowd. He said, “Help me get her up on the bar.” Two minutes later Bob Pittman’s tiny purple head pushed its way out of the prickly passage into the perilous pandemonium of his own predetermination.

The package expunged, the crowd cheered, the chord cut, Heinrich beamed in exaltation, “Another round for the house.”

Siarah sighed almost inaudibly, “Make mine a double.”

Heinrich looked quizzically at his wife. “Where’s William?”

Two year old William Pittman abandoned by his mother in the freezing apartment shivered violently as his frostbitten toes burst through holes in the feet of his pajamas. He stared forlornly out of the front window into the desolate blurry white grey darkness of the wintry urban landscape nibbling on the vaguely sweet flakes of lead paint that he gouged with tiny fingernails from the window’s pane.