I don’t know if Ricky Deising slept with one of Genghis Khan’s wives in a previous life to warrant banishment to South Russia or if Ricky D’s the luckiest guy on Earth. My pal has an NPR radio show in one of the last wild places. Isn’t technology amazing? A Canyon High boy, thousands of miles away in Juneau, Alaska, and you can hear him on your smart watch or car stereo.  Ricky’s show runs Thursdays mornings, at 11, Left Coast time, www.krnn.org. This isn’t a shameless plug. It’s a public service. We all need to dance more. We all need time to be goofy.  Ricky was in Canyon’s first class — 1969. He was the Cowboys’ first drum major. There are many disk jockeys, blessed with the gift of gab. Deising has mastered the art form of playing joyful music. Eclectic, jump-around-the-house music.   There’s so much junk, so much noise on the airwaves. His playlist is simply magic. Church hymns. Pounding rock. Blues from a century ago. Ricky D just played a song by a band called the 5,6,7,8’s. Get it? They were the Japanese all-girl band in Quentin Tarantino’s 2003 “Kill Bill” film. With beehive hairdos and tight dresses, the four girls look like they stepped out of a 1968 prom/time machine then were demonically possessed by The Ventures. You cannot — not — at least wiggle to this song.  I’ve never been a good dancer. But that, a titanium hip, 842 physical maladies, deafness and no self-esteem whatsoever doesn’t stop me from dancing or loving music. I hate to admit it. But, there are more than the two kinds they taught in school — Country AND Western. My little girl is a senior in college, sneaking up on 22. When she was here this summer, we were temporarily addicted to old “Law & Order” reruns. We’d dance around the living room to the theme music, then dive to our respective sofas to watch the show. The “Law & Order” theme is one of the great, forgotten dance tracks, impossible to fumigate once stuck in your brain. Same thing with another song.  My pal, Curtis Stone, has a kid brother, Jon. A couple of Sand Canyon boys. Jonathan would call me, frequently, to hum the theme to the old TV show, “Bonanza.” Then, he’d hang up. This was before the days of caller ID and cellphones. Curtis, a Grammy-winning musician, would follow up with calling, just to sing, “… a three-hour tour … A three, hour, tour …” over and over and over again. I still have an eye twitch from the theme to “Gilligan’s Island.”  My daughter Indy Pie and I started singing contests when she was 5. Her early repertoire had some Swiss cheese holes in it because, well, she was 5. We’d grade each other on a scale of 1-to-100 and that little stinker always low-balled me. One of the sweetest requests I’ve ever had is having my daughter ask me to sing her a song. We’d drive to the beach. I’d sing for an hour both ways. Today, she has one of those fancy apps that can play any song ever written. But when she was little? She just wanted to hear me sing. One of her favorites was, “The Wise Old Owl.”  “He has ears like a cat, and his eyes are yellow … He lives on mice and grasshoppers, too … And late at night he cries … Wooo ooooo oooo ooooo ooooo …” It’s such a narrow parenthesis, where you can belt out a ditty about insect-eating predatory birds and your audience lights up like Christmas, begging for more.  Once she requested a fresh new song. I offered an old George Jones depressing country ballad.  “I’m just a bartender. And I don’t like my work. But I don’t mind, the money, at all. I’ve seen lots of hard cases. And lots of sad faces. And folks with, their backs to, the wall …”  Indiana loved it. As if checking for spies, she looked around suspiciously, then reminded me what I already knew:  “We better not tell mom you sang me a song about drunk people in a saloon.”  “Roger that.”  Herman’s Hermits? “Henry the VIII?”   Bouncy lyrics told the tale of a poor British chap who had eight wives. In my defense, I wasn’t advocating polygamy to a 6-year-old. Henry was legally separated between each of the sincere nuptials.  No matter what our generation, I think most of us sang in school. At some point, we stopped. Why? Most of us are guilty of shower singing or one-man karaoke during a tedious afternoon commute. But, dratted life can be erosionary. We don’t sing with others. We don’t sing to others. Sadly, the lullaby is such a lost art.  For 60-plus years now, my best pal Phil and I call each other on our birthdays to belt out twisted, terribly inappropriate Happy Birthday arias to the other. Several years ago, Phil had flown to Florida to see his ailing father and called me midday with shrill, shattered glass notes and lyrics of failed procreation with long misplaced wives. We laughed ourselves silly. I asked how his dad was doing.  “Johnny,” said Phil. “He died about an hour ago.”  And there is a song I shall never forget.  I marvel at my Alaska friend, Ricky Darn D, at all the lives and hearts he touches, sharing his music on a Thursday morning. Songs are a wonderful gift to give.  When Indy was here this summer, she picked up my guitar, strummed a few chords and made a sour face. Besides being a heck of an artist, my girl’s musically inclined, plays several instruments and pointed out that my six-string was “… terribly, irrevocably, sinfully out of tune …”  “That has little bearing on me, dear Indy Pie of mine,” I noted, “for I am terribly hard of hearing.”  Perhaps, with my singing, it’s better that way …  Like it or not, John Boston has lived in and written about Earth and the SCV for eons. His johnlovesamerica.com multimedia entertainment site launches 12:01 a.m., Halloween.  The post John Boston | ‘I’m Just a Bartender, on a 3-Hour Tour’ appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.