I Don't Like Mondays

I just had a smoke break. I went and sat in the shade (it’s wonderful that I must now sit in the shade, instead of huddling in the sun trying not to freeze to death) and read and listened to my Walkman, which is set on random, because that’s the only way to fly. I was reading a collection of Philip K. Dick short stories. In one of them, a non-fiction piece I’d never read before called “Strange Memories of Death,” I came across this passage:

Going down to the newspaper vending machine, I buy today’s Los Angeles Times. A girl who shot up a schoolyard of children “because she didn’t like Mondays” is pleading guilty. She will soon get probation. She took a gun and shot schoolchildren because, in effect, she had nothing else to do. Well, today is Monday; she is in court on a Monday, the day she hates. Is there no limit to madness?

The girl’s name, if anyone’s interested, was Brenda Ann Spencer, and Dick was wrong about her probation: she is still in prison. The incident took place in January of 1979 at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, and afterwards Spencer really did say, when asked why she had done it, “I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day...I had no reason for it, it was just a lot of fun.”

Spencer shot 11 people, two of whom died. This means, of course, that she’s been far surpassed in the 28 years since, at Jonesboro and Columbine and a few weeks ago at Blacksburg. I suppose progress has many possible definitions.

Anyway, I know all this about Spencer, not because I religiously follow news of school shootings, but because Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats was moved by the incident to write a song called “I Don’t Like Mondays,” which hit #1 in the UK in 1979 (people just love a good tragedy, especially if it’s served up in great sloppy dollops with a good soundtrack attached). It’s an excellent song, and a few years ago Tori Amos covered it on her album Strange Little Girls

The silicon chip inside her head

gets switched to overload

And nobody's gonna go to school today,

she's going to make them stay at home.

Daddy doesn't understand it,

he always said she was as good as gold

And he can see no reason

‘cause there are no reasons

what reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why? I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why? I don't like Mondays.

Tell me why? I don't like Mondays.

I want to shoot the whole day down.

And the thing is this: as I sat in the shade and read Dick's words about Spencer and her trial, the song that my Walkman randomly chose to play was Tori Amos’ version of “I Don’t Like Mondays.” I am absolutely fascinated by weird little coincidences like this.