When Headaches Are Not A Laughing Matter
by Bryce Martin


I have never had a headache in my life, except from my own doing, and from a rare head cold.

From my own doing would include the time I cracked helmets with an opposing football player in a high school game. That one did not last long. The two of us repeated the exercise on the next play and my headache went away.

I do not know why I have never had a headache. Since I do not have them, I do not think about them much, not until someone else brings up the subject. Moreover, someone does quite often; often enough that the misfortune of having your head ache seems quite common, except for those like me.

My cousin Jimmy and I share a common bond. We are the same age. That carries more weight than one might think. It means we experienced the same songs, the same movies, the same fads and flops. We can talk about things and share interests and understanding that someone just a year younger or older might be out of step with. There are, of course, some my age who are mostly clueless. You tend to gravitate to your own kind.

Jimmy is up on some music I scarcely know, and vice versa. That is because radio stations might play some songs heavily in certain areas and little or not at all in others. You could love it in Trona and never hear it in Galena. By the same token, he had never heard “China Town” by Max Brown, “Darlin’, Darlin’, Darlin’” by Jimmy Thurman, or “Ain’t Love Grand’ by Ron and Joe and the Crew. That is because they were regional hits by locals in my area and never reached the West Coast.

Jimmy raved over“Buzz, Buzz, Buzz” by the Hollywood Flames. It is an older song that I heard maybe two or three times. He also likes “Oh, Julie” by the Crescendos. I barely remember. I had never heard either one played enough to gain a familiarity.

We mostly played records in his room in 1958 when I visited. We both liked Jan and Arnie’s “Jennie Lee,” the Monotones’ “Book of Love,” and all by Little Richard.

I suspect Little Richard you would not want to listen to if you had just a smidgen of a headache.

Here we were years later digging out the old vinyl. I was working fulltime and Jimmy was working the summer while attending college in Sacramento.

I do not know about Jimmy but by now, I had been drunk on several occasions. I often felt bad physically and emotionally the next day from the drinking -- still, though, no headache.

He produced and album and said, “You’ve got to listen to this.”

It was Inside Shelley Berman. The selection was the one where he is talking aloud, the morning after with a hangover. The part Jimmy repeated, after he raised the recording arm and placed it on its stand, was where Berman drops an Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water and says, “Oh, my God – don’t fizz.”

I recalled the skit, even remembered seeing Berman perform it on television, but I never thought it was funny. I guess you had to have experienced a headache to appreciate the humor in it.