OMC - How Bizarre

I dropped out of college and started dating a schizophrenic. I was a dumb kid. So to pass the time, I got a job in Cary at a hotel, a Courtyard Marriott. I worked at the front desk, checking in guests with some kids who became my closest friends. Some came and went overnight; some stayed for years and are still there, 10+ years later. I still dream about that place sometimes.

One of the random people that came in and out of the courtyard was without a doubt the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Her name was Nicole Mugabarabona (I think is how you spelled it). She was from Burundi. She married a tiny Jewish guy from New York who was in Africa with the Peace Corps. He married her and brought her to the glorious Westgrove Towers of the sprawling metropolis of Western Blvd behind the K-mart. She was going to Wake Tech to get a degree in hotel and restaurant management while her husband finished his degree at NCSU.

Nicole was gorgeous. Like, Naomi Campbell, but prettier, if that's possible. She was the first person I’d ever met (until I started dating a Vietnamese guy) that had no body hair except the obvious places. It never occurred to me until I met her that people who lived in hot places didn’t need arm hair. She was the most completely un-shy person I’d ever met. She was hilarious and random and had no idea how amazing she was. I talked to her about all kinds of weird stuff. I was the first person to introduce her to a Thrift Shop. We went to the American Way on Capital Blvd and I swear to God, she filled 4 shopping carts full of jeans and spent $500 on clothes to send to her family and friends back home.

Now that you know a little bit about her, I will explain how this song comes into play. We front-desker’s had a little back office area at the Courtyard and we had a little bedside alarm clock that we would leave on G105 during our shift (3-10pm).

One night, Nicole is back there sitting; eating dinner or something, and this song is on the radio. Suddenly I hear her sigh very loudly and say, “I HATE THIS SONG!” and I walk around the corner and I ask why? She says in her adorable and gorgeous Hutu accent, “What is in the face? They say, ‘Every time I look around, it’s in my face…’ but they never say what is in the face. I hate this song so much.”

Every time I hear this song I think of her and I laugh laugh laugh.

The Beatles - It's All Too Much

I knew this post was next on my list, and I've wanted to avoid it, but it's time to try. This was the reason for the delay between posts.

George Harrison wrote this song for his wife, Pattie Boyd. I knew it from the Yellow Submarine, the first movie my dad bought me on VHS. All I ever really knew about this song was that it was a celebration. I knew even as a kid that this song wasn’t all about kicking the Blue Meanies out of Pepperland. It had more to do with loving someone so much and so intensely you are about to lose your mind, you can’t handle it. It’s too much.


This song 1) makes me think about how freaking awesome and amazing the Beatles were. Duh, It’s a given. And 2) about seeking and craving and finding that kind of blinding and breath-taking feeling of loving someone that much.

He was a part of my life for only a split second. We met on a Monday, fell in love on a Wednesday. Spent a few weeks together. He was bold, tall, humble, and hilarious. I haven’t seen him in almost two years, but I still think about him. He would kiss me and I would want to die because I almost couldn’t handle the love he brought out of me. It overwhelmed me.

We were leaving a local coffee shop, driving down Everett Ave, stopped at the stop sign in the middle of the night. It was freezing out. This song was blasting on the radio. I put the car in park and we just stared at each other. We just sat there and listened to the song, just looking. No one came up behind us; no one drove by on Brooks. When the song was over he kissed me. It was one of the most purely beautiful and love filled moments of my life, even though he is gone and the love is gone now, it filled me then. It overwhelmed me.

This song makes me think about: him. Always. It’s torture.

Bela Fleck & The Flecktones - Big Country

This one should be short and sweet because it reminds me of something that just hasn't happened yet.

This song makes me inexplicably happy for absolutely no reason. When I hear it, I imagine myself free, driving away, somewhere in the west. Hot, alone, top down, mountains and mesas flying past. I wonder why sometimes I'm so desperate to leave the US time and again when there are so many places I need to discover in my own backyard.

This song reminds me to explore.

Missy Elliot - Get Ur Freak On

I once worked for a local North Carolina State University (ahem) and worked in a basement office, much like I do now. My boss was a woman who was mildly insane and/or obsessive compulsive. She would print every email 3 times. One for her desk, one for the file and one just in case. Her office was floor to ceiling shit she would lose over and over again and then blame me for everything that went wrong. I stayed for a year and a half and then took a lateral transfer at the same exact pay to the dean of engineering's office.


It was a little bit worse. rather than be stuck in the basement in the corner, all alone with my then napster and funradio.fr obsession, I was now in a cube farm surrounded by overachieving women in their late 40s who liked to clip coupons and talk recipes. There was one girl who was my age (at the time I was around 25) who was from Johnson county, had an accent so thick I could barely understand her, and three kids already. I spent my time playing neopets and listening to BBC1 streaming online (both of which are blocked at my new job, for probably the best reasons) and trying to email funny things to Mark and Lard. (I got on the show twice! hoorah!)

The point here is, when this song came out in summer of 2001, I was working in the dean's office and doing what I needed to do and had time to spare. I wasn't allowed to wear headphones, so I had my speakers as low as I could stand it. The ladies in the office always had to make some comment when they walked past about what they heard. One day this song comes on and the girl my age leans across my counter and says "Gawd you listen to the strangest stuff. What is she saying?" and she stand there for a while and then says, "Get your free cone? Like a free cone of ice cream?" and I said yes. Yes it is.


This song makes me think of how much I hated that job and when I got laid off because of budget crap, I was so very happy.

U2 - BAD

There are songs I have heard my whole life, written before I was born, that I know as well as my own heartbeat. Songs that mean so much to the global ear that you would be a fool to overlook them… All You Need is Love, Born to Run, Baba O'Riley… etc… But for me personally there is one song that has meant more, carried more weight, stopped my heart, broke me down and built me back up again over and over again. A song that even after hearing it a billion times, if it catches me in the right way, I will cry like a baby 99% of the time … that song is "Bad" by U2.

I was a little slower than some on the U2 train… In the early 90's I was hitting puberty head-on and becoming a panic-obsessed depression monger, as I think many of us were around 13 or so… nothing was making sense to me and the world was really sucking… this conflicted with my carefree retarded-ness of my childhood (I was fat and awkward, but I didn’t care, I was funny, I was a good artist, etc…) and the teaching of my church that I had gladly accepted and reveled in. But for most, puberty is when hairs grown, hips protrude and boobs appear... this happened to me as well, but what I remember most about puberty is the sudden and overwhelming shock and utter disbelief that the world really kinda sucks. People are cruel to each other, people starve to death in my own back yard, animals are tortured for hair products… a million reasons to stay indoors, burn candles and write bad poetry, which is what I did for the next 3 years.

But somewhere in the middle of this darkness and sorrow, a blinding bright ray of hope shone through… a kid I'd known since birth had given me a copy of Achtung Baby. I was intrigued to say the least. I had just recently decided to damn all top 40 Billboard stations and work on expanding my musical snobbery. I had already discovered bands like Siouxsie or The Smiths… I had a mental block telling me U2 were too big and I wouldn't be able to connect... I have one piece of advice for you all, if you really want to fuck up a 13 year old, give them a copy of Achtung Baby. I, literally, until that first note of Zoo Station, had no idea music could sound so good and so interesting, mean so much, inspire so much passion, propel such beliefs and give me so much hope all at once. Immediately, within the week, I did some research, (which was back then, non-internet, and consisted of me begging a ride off my mom to the library so I could go look up old issues of rolling stone and billboard magazines,) found out how much more of this music I was missing and immediately began a quest.

That next week, two things happened… I bought a copy of the Unforgettable Fire and a VHS copy of Rattle & Hum. Both of which contained the song "Bad." I will admit the Rattle & Hum version hooked me first. I had been preoccupied with the majesty that was Pride (In the Name of Love) on the actual LP, but to see the man sing "Bad." It gutted me. There is something about this version that brought it all home.

Maybe it has something to do with the shirtless, sweaty, be-suspender-ed, long haired Bono. Or Edge's bolo-tie, cowboy hat, Indian braid and quilted vest combination. Larry's baby face and concentrated grimace? Adam's cool confidence and mini-head-banging-session towards the end… The moment when both Edge and Adam are facing Larry, all stomping to the beat… the Sympathy for the Devil tie-in… the bittersweet tune, the astounding lyrics… the creaky silly woowoo's!... so much to love in one song.

I have watched this video no less than three times this morning, trying to pick the one thing I could say that stands out the most. The perfect moment to say, "This is the moment U2 becomes the greatest band in the universe to me." And every time, around 2:38… the first scratchy, powerful "Wide Awake! I'm not sleeping…" I lose it. I just lose it every single time. I get chills and feel tears well up in my eyes. And I believe that is the moment when I finally, for the first time, felt understood by someone in the world. That someone that I'd never met, somewhere I'd never go, might know how I feel. It's the moment I realized that there was a name for the feeling of hyper-awareness of all things rotten that you pray will be better one day… for you, for your family, for the world… It's the moment I knew that God could use people in places you wouldn’t expect to give you hope in ways you never thought possible.

Suddenly, there I was at 13 thinking, "I am awake. Wide awake. I know what's going on, by God. I get it!"

I've since learned the song was written in reference to a friend of Bono's who was a heroin addict. As I grew older, the song meant other things to me. When I was in the middle of a severely abusive relationship with an alcoholic, but I didn’t have the self-confidence or knowledge to get out of it, the song became my prayer. For him and for me. That he could let it go. That I could let him go.

This is something I have never admitted to anyone. It's been so long now and I've forgiven myself for everything that happened back then… but he would manipulate and force me to steal things so he could get money for alcohol or drugs. I was a dumb kid. He convinced me I was horrible and ugly and no one but him would ever have me, and he barely wanted me as it was, so I had better take what I got. So one afternoon after we had driven around to a couple different bookstores so he could steal books and then trade them at other book stores for cd's, then in turn sell the cd's to record shops, I had the Wide Awake in America EP in the player. And on the way to the store to exchange the stolen books, something just snapped. And I suddenly figured out what was going on. I had somehow conveniently ignored the beatings and name callings and theft and lying to friends and family for him… and the myriad of other red flags that were trying to tell me to get the hell away from this guy… and then suddenly out of no where, this song hit the right nerve in the right place in my brain and it finally struck me… this song was a prayer. For a friend who needed help. And I was that friend. And Bono was praying for his friend to take care of himself, to love himself. And in a way, maybe Bono was praying for all of us. Even me.

We got to the store and I refused to go in. the name calling and threats hurt, but I didn't go in. One more major fight two days later, after two years in hell, he finally moved out.

That was seven years ago.

Since then, when I hear this song, I hear passion. I hear re-birth, I hear retribution, but mostly, I hear a prayer for everyone I ever loved to be safe. To take care. I hear a prayer from a very good friend to take care of myself.

This song makes me think of: U2, Rob, a bus drive back from a U2 concert, My brother, grace, redemption and peace

Bobby Brown - On Our Own

I thought long and hard about this today. Do I put up a holier-than-thou front and only post about the "cool" songs that are sprinkled through my memories? Or do I stay true to my sudden realization, "Holy crap I have the most random shuffle on my iPod ever!" It would be very easy for me to only post about the standard acceptablesof rock, but if this is really all about the songs that have strongest memories for me, then this is where I landed today. I understand that a post about Bobby Brown so close to the beginning of this blog may deter some, hopefully the story will make up for that fact.

First of all this makes me think of; my dad and brother had gone out of town for some reason, so just mom and I were left alone for the weekend. She took me to see Ghostbusters II. This is the first movie I remember seeing alone with mom. The next, and I think last, was Steel Magnolias.

Next, this makes me think of middle school dances. I was 12, in 7th grade. My brother had moved up to high school so it was one of my first dances without "supervision." I was an awkward and chunky kid, I didn't have a lot of friends, but I never really cared about that, as I was a little strange, but I had a feeling I should, so I had some desire to fit in. But still, I wore weird clothes and read a lot. I didn't care about sports or boys. Why in the world I went to a dance alone, I have no idea. I've always been drawn to a) a lot of people dancing at once to extremely loud music and b) I can't stand being left out. If something cool was to happen and I would have missed it, I would be so pissed at myself.

So the gym, which probably the size of my parents garage in retrospect, (or not,) seemed gigantic. At the far end, away from the entrance, was the dj with gigantic speakers and disco balls. I don't remember speaking to anyone. I think I tagged along with a couple kids I hung around casually, running back and forth to the bathroom to talk about boys. Or they did, at least. I stood there and said things like, "Yes, I think he was looking at you." and "Yes your blue eyeshadow looks great."

I was people watching and critiquing the music. I saw on the bleachers for a while. when I look back on middle school dances, I think of the first dance in 6th grade where I sat by myself and cried a little because no one asked me to dance (I had some sort of fairy tale notion that I was an ugly duckling turned swan at that point). I think about the first time I ever slow danced with a boy named Nick, who my friend Summer later dated (post-high school) and said he had a fetish for listening to her pee. I also think about this song.

I was bored following Tina Hayes, (a girl my age who had the glorious misfortune of being the only girl in school taller than me at 12, and I was already 5'8" or so by then) and wandered towards the front of the gym to feel the vibrations of the music. There were all the cool kids doing the running man and kid 'n' play dance to songs like Joy and Pain. Suddenly this song comes on, and I distinctly remember thinking, "fuck it." and I started dancing. I am a terrible dancer. But I didn’t care. This is officially the first song I ever danced in public to.

Side note: this song also makes me think of my friend Adaam, because he sent me the YouTube link once months ago and agreed with me with regards to its awesomeness.

This song makes me think of: being 12 and strange.

The Chemical Brothes ft. Richard Ashcroft - The Acid Test

As the inaugural post and the song that made me think of creating this blog, I apparently hold a place of honor for the Chemical Brothers. I had always liked the big beat sound (Prodigy, fatboy slim) but it was a sound that was abusing its privileges and was being thoroughly over-played. I liked "Block Rockin' Beats" and "Hey boy, Hey girl" but never enough to buy the album (back when we used to buy albums.)

In Jan 02, I was working at the now defunct Record Exchange in Raleigh, NC and we got the promo copy of Come With Us. I threw it in the player and didn't think anything of it, and then this song comes on and it was one of those moments when you know you're hearing something you're going to play to death and love forever. It was also one of those moments I replayed the song in-store several times, way too loud, but wound up selling several copies of it, in the process (a la high fidelity, a feat I was able to accomplish several times with such strangely unpredictable albums as The Who's Quadrophenia and Peter Gabriel's Ovo.)

The video = awesome. The song is even better. Every time a new C.brothers song comes out, I get so excited thinking it's going to be this great, but usually it isn't. My 7 year old niece thought the video for Salmon Dance was cute, but the song was just a "Meh" from me. Star guitar's Michel Gondry video is the shit, but otherwise, I keep holding out for another home run from Manchester.

This song officially makes me think of: the Record Exchange. (A word of "warning": this fact may become a trend!)