CARLTON FLETCHER: Albany on a journey in quest for its lost soul

Now when you’re feelin’ low and the fish won’t bit, You need a little bit of soul to put you right.

— Music Explosion

I was cutting up my first watermelon of the season Saturday when Gerry Rafferty’s wonderful 1978 hit “Baker Street” came on the radio.

(Technicality: The song actually played on the TV, satellite radio being one of the features of the TV package I have. I won’t bother naming the provider since I’ve spent the last three or four days without service and I’m kinda peeved at them. But that’s a different story.)

Now I’ve heard “Baker Street” maybe 478,842 times, and I still dust off Rafferty’s “City to City” album and crank it up on occasion. Point being, I’m very familiar with the song.

But for one of those mysterious reasons that no one really seems to understand, a line from the song hit me Saturday like a freight train, so shook me I had to put down the knife I was using to cut up the watermelon lest I do some damage to myself or some random animal among our menagerie that might wander by.

This city desert makes you feel so cold, It’s got so many people but it’s got no soul.

This is what I thought immediately: That’s Albany.

I’m not one of the doom-and-gloomers I plan to talk about in a bit, but as I sussed out this revelation, I became more and more convinced that Rafferty had nailed it. The big thing that we’re missing in Albany is soul … not the Ray Charles, Otis Redding “soul” that changed the face of popular music, but the strength-of-purpose soul that comes from within.

This realization hit me so hard, I couldn’t let it go. By the time I climbed into bed for the evening, I’d come up with a working theory that perhaps shines a light on our city’s soulessness.

My premise starts with the idea that there are four distinct groups of people in the Good Life City. I came up with names for each group: The Thugs, Bugs, Hugs and Slugs. (In my head, I added “Thugs on Drugs” to the first group to keep the rhyme scheme going, but then thought that might be overkill, although the majority in that group are likely involved with illegal narcotics.)

THE THUGS: This group is made up of the city’s real criminals, the ones who commit robberies, are involved in drive-by shootings, text while driving — yes, you do belong with this group — vandalize public property, sell drugs to young people and are involved in other nefarious activities. (Note: Sorry, people with saggy pants and TV stations with loud commercials don’t quite qualify here.)

THE BUGS: These are the people who prey on the community (like gnats and leeches), the ones who refuse to work when they’re able, who file false disability claims and live a life of leisure at our expense, the con men and women who take from the elderly, the more gullible among us and sometimes from government installations (ahem, MCLB). They’re the ones who work harder at gaming a very gamable system than they’d have to if they actually got a job.

THE HUGS: These are the really good people in our community, the ones who are engaged, motivated and refuse to give in to peer pressure when everyone around them is spouting doom and gloom. They are the reason our community doesn’t crumble under the weight of all these other deadbeats.

And then there’s …

THE SLUGS: While they’re not as diabolical as the thugs (on drugs) with weapons, they’re in many ways even more dangerous. The Slugs are the ones who have nothing better to do than to read the latest news or listen to the latest gossip and spend the rest of their day putting a negative spin on it for anyone willing to listen. They sit at their homes or places of business, weapon of choice a computer keyboard, and start spreading their poison the second any new bit of news filters its way down.

It doesn’t matter if it’s seemingly good news, the Slugs are going to spin it negatively. Let some actual bad news get out, and their week is made. For some inexplicable reason, these people revel in misery, finding pleasure in passing along any tidbit that might darken someone else’s day … who cares if the info is factual?

Unfortunately, as we wander along like Dorothy and her friends on their journey to Oz, finding our city’s lost soul is an elusive endeavor. It’d be a lot easier if we didn’t have so many Thugs, Bugs and Slugs.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].