According to KC, how to create, bait, set a hook: Be born with the gift | MARK HUGHES COBB

You could say chaotic, or turbulent, disordered, murky, every which way but abstruse, yet any week in which a fella:

• Gets the honor of paying tribute to the life of a magnificent woman such as Shelley Jones;

• Has time to chat about $450 million's worth of ongoing construction at the University of Alabama, including not just needed roads 'n' bridges, but a re-emerging University Club, and the $133 million Super Trouper at the end of a decades-long tunnel, the Smith Family Center for the Performing Arts;

• Bounces a few words with gentleman farmer and genius pianist Chuck Leavell about his little side band the Rolling Stones;

• Learns more about unions and management I'd garnered in decades;

• And tops it with KC, of, but not with, the Sunshine Band. ... Uh-huh uh-huh.

I wasn't kidding when I told Harry Wayne Casey that I use "And that's the way -- uh-huh uh-huh -- I like it" at least three times every week.

As in response to:

"Hey Mark, you're typing in a noisy atmosphere, again, surrounded by walls of books. Don't distractions hurt?"

or

"Dude, you're standing in a parking lot staring at the moon." (It's actually a couple of paired stars or satellites ― I'm guessing, as each seems to shine with three light sources, and they don't move, relative to me at least; aka geostationary orbit — in eastern and western quadrants that have been freaking me out for years now, as I can't find anyone who can explain 'em. Or even, insert 'Twilight Zone' theme here, anyone else who can see 'em).

or

"Nice job on the (whatever story/review/tribute). You have (a gift/voice/da noive)."

Hooks: Some are musical and lovely, if unnecessarily infectious.

Others are insidious, hiding bloody threat beneath a guise of sense, or concern.

The Raspberries cast hooks for days; ditto Lady Gaga, ABBA, Neil Diamond, Huey Lewis, Prince, Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, Flo and Eddie/The Turtles, the Monkees, OutKast, Buddy Holly, Carole King, Fountains of Wayne, the Who, U2, The Association, the Jackson Five, the Osmonds ....

That seemingly endless string of Utah kids cut a groovy ditty about gas-burning cars polluting our planet in 1972, "Crazy Horses," for an album of the same title. It went Top 10 because NOBODY could tell it was about gas-burning cars polluting. Hair-helmeted Mormons swinging Vegas-lounge-singer bellbottoms, grinding out the Funky Chicken! Who cares what they're singing?

I do: "Never stop and they never die./They just keep on puffin'; how they multiply./Crazy horses, will they never halt?/If they keep on movin', then it's all our fault."

More hooks than Roland Martin's tacklebox, from the Yamaha organ slide played through wah pedal and out a stack of Marshalls, to the almost-BTO-chunky guitar riffs, and on to Jay's and Merrill's legit growly-rock voices.

Let's pause to say one of the best things about the Internet is reaction videos: various These Kids Today listening for the first time(s) to classic-rock/pop/funk stuff, and having a freaking blast. Things you and I may have grown up with are absolutely blowing their minds.

I've watched a handful, largely at the gym, and one thing they have in common: Relentless positivity. Something I learned in college, writing reviews: There's little benefit to raw negativity. Speak out only if you think you can help, in some way.

A couple linked here might have a bit of NSFW language, so beware before letting kinder listen: "Down by the Lazy River" matches "Crazy Horses" for eye-poppin' candy kitsch.

Hooks catch. They're tough to remove, and can make you bleed: Your psyche, if not your actual brains, through your ears. I've never consciously listened to KC's songs, but can hum every dang one of 'em. That's hookery. So I asked: How do you know where to set a hook? How do you carve one? How how HOW, interrobang!?

KC did not know. Sometimes you're just a born hooker. It's a gift.

My thing seems to be pattern recognition, weaving disparate voices and anecdotes into a narrative that seems, um, seamless.

In theory.

Shelley knew more than one magic trick, but this one was phenomenal: In a Bama Theatre packed with gabbles of schoolkids yakking, squeaking chairs, and generally playing with horses, all she had to do was raise one hand to summon absolute silence.

Merlin, Gandolf or Dumbledore may have been able to match that, but few others. According to the Harry Potter Compendium, The Silencing Charm (Silencio) " ... renders the victim temporarily mute, working on both beasts and beings. It is immensely difficult to perform, more so on ravens than frogs."

Too bad a wizard wasn't about Friday to wave Kay Ivey off from gloating over the pain of 2,000 ― and many more, multiplying by families, friends and other supporters ― Mercedes-Benz workers who committed long, hard hours, wishing to have a stronger voice in their lives: "Alabama is not Michigan, and we are not the Sweet Home to the UAW."

Apparently, one thing "we" are is tacky. Ivey blurted this taunt just after the vote went no, either oblivious to the fact she was insulting thousands, or knowing but not caring.

You guess which.

Some believe in the holy benevolence of capitalism. Others, like, well, anyone who can read, think, or balance a checkbook, knows the trickle hasn't rained down, 40-plus years since Reagan baited his hook with voodoo economics, disguising the barb with what some saw as avuncular charm, killing the middle class, killing the American dream.

Keep your head down. Accept what your betters deign to give you. Talk about fairy tales: If we keep giving more to those who already have it all, avarice will vanish, and they'll shower us peasants with pennies.

You may as easily ask Smaug to cough up a goblet. It is not in the nature of dragons to share.

If they keep on hoardin', then it's all our fault.

Mark Hughes Cobb is the editor of Tusk. Reach him at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Magical thinking: Shift gears without grinding | MARK HUGHES COBB