A gift to all my friends who didn’t get individual song dedications. (more are coming before xmas, don't worry!)
This is my personal list of albums that rocked my world in 2010. This list isn’t necessarily built upon popularity, sales, merit, integrity, talent or professional opinion. These are just the albums that got the most playtimes on my ipod and the shows I went to and enjoyed the most this year.
10) Vampire Weekend – Contra It’s entirely possible that it is just not cool to like Vampire Weekend anymore. Especially now with the awkward use of the song “holiday” in the car commercial, but I played this album a lot this past year. It made me happy when I was down and it made me wiggle when I was wiggly. It is a fun album. It was a fun show.
9) The Dead Weather – Sea of Cowards Not a song on this album that I didn’t fantasize I was singing. If I could start any band, I would go back in time and I would be Alison Mosshart and I would be in the Dead Weather. There are a million and one things I love about this band. Barring the fact that I am somehow madly in love with Jack White (don’t judge, he is heaven on earth to me,) I honestly really like this album and I want to be in a band just like this.
8) Javelin – No Más Had the privilege of seeing these guys twice this past year, the second time saw an impromptu stagecrash party at King’s. This album is a massive amount of fun, if you are in the mood for it.
7) Glasser – Ring Mind. Blown. Another one of those bands/sounds I wish I was a part of or knew how to do. This is opposite end of the spectrum from Dead Weather, but I can’t listen to this album without imagining I AM this album. When I get lost and put myself into the sound, that’s when I know an album or an artist has really got me hooked.
6) Gauntlet Hair – (Miscellaneous 7” releases… I dunno.) This is a wildcard. There are no actual album releases for Gauntlet Hair. They are on the Forest Family label (along with Cults) which was founded by members of Gorilla vs. Bear (see over on the right at the blogroll for a link to GvB). Mp3s have leaked out one at a time and each one blows my mind harder and harder. Nothing I have ever heard sounds anything like these guys. I haven’t been able to see them live yet, but I am dying to do so. I can never listen to one of their songs once; they always get put on perpetual loop. I deafen myself constantly with these guys. (click image for a few downloads!)
5) Caribou – Swim For as much “electronica” music as I listen to, as I peep over this list, I am seeing a really eclectic list… Caribou is probably the only group I would classify as straight electronic, maybe Javelin, but I would almost put them as hip-hop or something. Caribou is science. Caribou is amazing. Probably one of my top 5 shows of the year.
4) Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh My goddess. My hero. Erykah Badu is all that is good and glorious on the earth. Her music has defined me and saved me more times than I can count. This album was so good I bought the actual CD. Window seat made me cry so hard first time I heard it. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt exactly what she describes.
3) Future Islands - In Evening Air A newer obsession, but maybe only because I got to see them play live so many times this year and the crowds that love Future Islands MAKE you love Future Islands. Sam is beyond description, he is a firestorm of amazing.
2) Gray Young – staysail How much have I talked about Gray Young in real life or on facebook to my friends? They are probably sick of it. If Gray Young is playing, I am there. After months of a close friend whose musical opinions I trust implicitly (which is VERY RARE, trust me) telling me how much I would love these guys, suddenly Hopscotch rolled around and GY happened to be the first band on the first night that I saw. And within moments I realized 2 things: I see the lead singer guy almost every day at my lunchtime coffee shop – funny! We have sat across from each other, headphoned and ignoring the world, about a million times. That is appropriate and a good sign, such kindredish behavior can only result in something I would like… and then yes. I very much like. I have told my friends that when I see GY play live it’s like I got in a time machine and went back to witness the rebirth of U2 if they were born in like… Portland or something. These guys kicked off a very healthy and robust Post-Rock obsession for me. The more EITH, Caspian, or El Ten Eleven I listen to and love, the more I thank Gray Young for blowing my mind. This album and subsequently every show I have seen of theirs this year has been the best show ever. I finally, recently after a show at kings and a shot of Jamesons, broke "the Fourth Wall" and hugged the crap out of Dan, the bassist, and gushed about how much i love them. He probably thinks I am nuts now. Or a massive drunk. Either way... Gray Young is amazing. Go See Gray Young!
1) Menomena – Mines This was a hard decision. But I ultimately went with not so much the album I rocked out the hardest to (staysail) or the album I danced my ass off the most to (in Evening Air) or felt the most obligated to worship (New Amerykah) as my number one… I went with the album that broke my heart and spoke my language so hard I almost wanted to sue for copyright infringement of my inner dialogue. Mines, from beginning to end, is so completely fantastic and raw. When I finally got to see them live this year, everything I had heard about how staggeringly perfect their live performances could be was proven to be true; flawless and outlandish. Sometimes the right song can hit you in the right way and it changes you forever. If you don’t understand this sentiment, you are certainly reading the wrong blog. When Menomena played “Dirty Cartoons” live, I wept openly. I have only cried at U2 and Morrissey shows; this phenomenon has now lifted Menomena into the upper echelon of bands I respect and adore. Make me cry live, I love you forever. Menomena made me their bitch that night.
After returning from "college" when i was 18, I fell into a routine of rebellion against my parents. Anything and everything i could think to do to break their rules. I had been at school, on my own, and had to come back home. I didn't want to be there, they didn't really want me there. But this was way before i had my respectful moment of enlightenment, before i really understood that they were just people who really just wanted to get some sleep and didn't want strangers in their house breaking shit and stealing stuff. so what did i do? stayed out to ungodly/unsafe hours for an 18/19 year old girl and made really poor decisions. Looking back on it now, I didn't really make any huge mistakes. I never drank at the time, maybe took a hit or two off a bong, but very rarely, definitely wasn't having sex because i was probably my biggest and most unattractive at the time... I was mostly running around seeking any sort of distraction from the burning and ever present "WHO AM I?" question (still looking, if anyone has any hints, btw,) and looking for anything to make sense in the midst of my recklessly propellant panic disorder.
In the midst of this 5 or 6 year haze, a haze i have thought so many times to document and have only succeeded in getting down a few blog and journal entries (because it is so bizarre, bewildering and painful to remember and mostly so far removed from who i am now,) I managed to find and retain some of the very best friends of my life. We would go to house parties and IHOPs and concerts. We would mostly drive around and listen to music and eat donuts and and get lost in doing absolutely nothing. Eventually everyone coupled off, found their direction in life and went back to school or got jobs, or just ... grew up. Don't mean to give a spoiler alert here, but hey, spoiler alert... I have done none of these things. I am still the one at the coffee shop all day, going to house parties and concerts and never settling on a philosophy, career, degree, routine or partner. Sometimes I feel like i dodged a bullet because I don't have to pay for day care or I'm not roped into a single career forever because that's all my education says i can do. I'm not stuck with the same one man I will resent and regret forever. Mostly I feel forgotten, overlooked, and pigeonholed... Despite all the drastic changes in my mind and body in the past few years I am almost certain I will forever be the fat girl who loved a little too hard and made terrible decisions. My wish and assumption is that there are still a handful of people who knew me then and have watched me grow and still love me, regardless. These people who adopted me and became my surrogate sisters and brothers, who I feel certain secretly watch my back and would take maybe not a bullet for me, but a punch or two.
One such person i met back in these dark days was actually someone I reconnected with from high school days... Lesley was a few years my junior and I remember her as the wild child across the gym in homeroom. Then she came to my senior prom with my friend Pete, and wound up at the after party that night. I just remember her fearlessness. I remember being jealous of it; I remember being catty and bitter about it... I remembered her for years after i graduated and then seemingly out of nowhere, she came back into my life.
Rob and I had gotten to a final bow (part I) of our relationship. I finally grew the tiniest set of balls and started granting myself a modicum of a social life. I had for a year or more, basically confined myself to the house hiding from life and from him. This, as i have learned, is pretty typical behavior of women in abusive relationships. This wasn't something he enforced in our dynamic, it was some warped decision i had made on my own. It had something to do with feeling like i was setting a good example... If i didn't go out, there was no reason he should. If i didn't drink, he shouldn't need to, etc... The guilt i carried with me for the next 10 or so years was the reason i never let myself drink. This is my theory, anyway. When I had finally gotten to the point where i was trying to stand up to him, is when things got the most destructive and violent. I had cowered in the corner for so long that when I finally stood up a little, was when shit really started hitting the fan... and the doors and the bed and the ceiling... I want to reiterate one fact however... Rob did not "keep me prisoner" or trap me into that relationship. It was my own stubborn need to "fix" him... I've honestly gone through enough therapy to understand everything that happened and have forgiven both him and myself, implicitly.
I honestly will never forget this day. and it's something I think about all the time, I have mentioned before how i am so good at appreciating miniature moments of simplicity... this was one such moment that I honestly don't think I've ever talked about it, and if i mentioned it to Lesley she probably wouldn't remember it... I had made an announcement to Rob that i was going out for the night. I just wanted to go to the coffee shop and write and read and be outside for a bit. I hadn't been in months, maybe a year or more... Rob, of course, had to come with me. (I even remember what I was wearing, a white v-neck undershirt of my father's.) I took a sketchbook and sat on the patio at Mission Valley while Rob sat in the car drinking beers, waiting for me; I had a time limit. Then, from nowhere, I look up and there is Lesley... Just as beautiful, friendly and open as she ever was. She and a handful of her friends sat with me and we chatted for a while and I was eventually invited to some house party or some night out with the crew. I agreed and we exchanged numbers. I went out with her and the people that would become my closest new friends. It was probably within the week that I finally stood up to Rob for the last time and things ended. I finally felt remembered, I felt like someone wanted me around. After 2 or more years of hiding in the bathroom and giving everything, including blood, to a person who was so enraptured with their own disease i almost ceased existing, it was such a relief to just... get outside.
I never told her this, and I don't know why and I am glad i get the chance to do so now...
Lesley, of all the people that I barely managed to hang onto throughout that time in my life, including my own family, for whatever reason, you were the one that got through to me. you were the one that gave me the strength to break free. you saved my life. I have ALWAYS credited you with that, and my love for you is so strong i don't even know how to tell you because even here, even now, 10 years later, I am fighting back tears... If you hadn't remembered me, taken a chance on talking to me; making me remember that i deserved friends and that i might still have a cool/fun person inside of me; i might still be in that place. I might have lost me completely.
There have been times I have backtracked. Times when the sorrow, pain and self-disappointment is so strong I find myself once again looking to terrible choices to numb it away or find an excuse to sit in denial and break promises. god knows why I do half of what I do, and I know I have spent my entire lifetime trying to figure out why, but you were the one person who has known me from the beginning of who i was, from that awkward goofy high school kid, to who i am now, and you have never stopped loving me or believing in the best of me. you have forgiven me for stupid mistakes and my spontaneous flakiness, you have encouraged me to take chances and dance like a wild woman. you introduced me to basically everyone i know now. you have the greatest heart and the biggest brain of almost anyone i think i know. I have so much respect for you, I sometimes feel like I want to hide things from you to keep from disappointing you, almost the way i do with my family, and for that i am sorry. I know we aren't close the way we used to be and time marches on, etc, etc... But i hope you know that I know how lucky i am to know you and have you in my life. you are my hero, you saved my life and i love you.
The reason i chose this song to represent Lesley is because I've never heard it and not thought about her, first of all. And also, I love the irony that when we became our closest, through the Raleigh Goth scene, there wasn't a Monday for many, many years we weren't at Legends and I would just love when she would convince Joey to play this song and I got to watch her do the swoop & twirl Goth dance to Darude! I remember very vividly the first time she played it for me in her creepy little basement apartment and her excitement of how much she liked it... so ironic and amazing!
Most people have really good practical and useful skills. I have mentioned it before; the things I am good at aren’t tangible or useful in an everyday sense. I am really good at being in love, for example. I am infinitely patient in traffic jams. I am kind to strangers. One thing I seem to always think I should ad to my resume one day is “Master of Gratitude.” I am so thankful all day, every day for the beautiful gifts this life and God have given me. I don’t want to take this to a religious level, but it’s hard to say the word “gratitude” and not think about faith, about feeling like you have to say that “thank you” to something or someone. I am a Christian, yes. But more often than not I find myself sending out ambiguous thanks out into the unknown. If it’s God or Karma or Grace or my own ego who knows... Whatever it is that prompted this very nice thing or person or experience to happen. I am Queen of acknowledging impermanence, singular miraculous moments, beauty, truth, and love. I know way too well how quickly it can all be taken away, so it is my all day every day mission to be grateful the gift of every second of my life. This sometimes comes across as manic and wild, this sometimes comes across as …nice? It’s a delicate balancing act.
There are certain songs, which while although not profoundly affecting my life in some deeply significant way, that when I hear them, I always remember to thank God or who/whatever for the things that make me smile when I hear them. This song, while not a song that has a deeper meaning or possessing lyrics which touch my life in a meaningful way, makes me think of a certain friend whom I shared so many life changing moments veiled as seemingly insignificant happenings with which will always remind me how lucky I am to have him in my life.
My friend Andrew (aka Roo) has somehow become one of the people I most respect and admire in the whole world. I’ve known him a very long time, and I don’t think either one of us would deny there was some awkward competitiveness or tension between us when we first started hanging out. Both being so free spirited, opinionated and arts minded, I think we may have clashed some in the beginning. We were both in this strange ‘trying to figure out who we are’ mode, which for him meant finding his place in society as a gay man and for me meant trying to find a way to be okay who I am, in general. (I still struggle, of course!) Then somewhere along the way we realized we were both hanging out at the coffee shop on Wednesdays, doing the Independent crossword. I can’t even really tell you the timeline of events, but over the years, Wednesdays have become one of my favorite days of the week. I get the crossword and I get Roo time. We trade music, gossip, crossword clues, day dreams, boy stories… As the world seems to keep coupling up and fading out, there is me and there is Roo and we are trudging ahead doing our own things, being amazing, and using every possible outlet; musically, artistically, poetically, prosaically, physically, to express ourselves…. Never making excuses, never accepting criticism harshly, never hesitating to make something beautiful out of nothing.
Not only is Roo my weekend warrior buddy, (we are the ones on the dance floor first, we always make the dance party happen,) and someone I would call my aesthetic soul mate; but there are so many little things about him that make him one of my very besties… to name a few; his job is his passion. There are so few people I know personally who work in the non-profit sector who truly love and work hard at their jobs. Over the years, hearing the stories and ideas that come from this group of folks, I am consistently amazed that I have a friend with such a noble and what I consider an almost romantic job; it’s absolutely the kind of work Jesus would high-five us for. It’s taking a soup kitchen-esque kind of help and bumping it up 1,000 notches.
There have been very few people who have been able to sit me down and say “you are being an asshole, stop.” Or “you are being obsessive, I will not have this conversation with you anymore.” Or “this is why you are wrong” or even more importantly “this is why you are great.” Roo has said these things to me on many occasions and he has become one of the only persons on the planet that I trust to tell me the truth sometimes. My other best friends have never hesitated to tell me the truth, but as women we have that little fine line we don’t cross. Also women tend to emphasize kindness and won’t be harsh with me, the way I definitely need sometimes. I respect Roo so much because he will kick my ass sometimes. Hard. And I definitely need it.
As I stated above, Roo is my weekend warrior partner. You will be hard pressed to find a weekend night where we aren’t at some bar, making a dance party happen. Or someone’s fabulous front porch, talking crazy and being flamboyant. Or maybe in someone’s back yard at a bonfire… mostly, we are at that same wild bar, swigging cheap beers, scoping out boys and dancing like crazy people. This song, when it first came out, was a song I knew instantly would be a song Roo would love. I took off running with it to him. (aka I think I emailed him?) While it did get overplayed and overhyped to death, there was a window of a few months where it was pure magic. Now that the flood has died down a little and it’s not being played nonstop and hyped to death, this song can pop up at the bar and bring the house down all over again. When I hear this song, I get this memory in my head of Roo, jumping in circles with me at Neptune’s, and we’re fist-pumping like wild people. I will always smile and think of Roo when I hear this song.
Long ago, before I became this pinnacle of sanity you have now grown to know and love, I “dropped my basket.” I had succumbed completely to my then undiagnosed Panic disorder completely and turned my life and adrenal glands over to a drug called Effexor. This drug, while you are on it, seems to be a kind of miracle drug. Nothing switches, no wild uncontrollable thoughts about death, no racing heart and sweaty palms in otherwise safe situations; synthetic calm after years of self-torture and exhaustion. However, there was a downside or two to this “miracle drug”. My serotonin levels eventually became so evenly leveled that my brain tricked me into believing that I had no consequences what-so-ever; I was like a blank sheet of paper. I wasn’t high, I wasn’t low, and I wasn’t anything but a poor decision maker with no shoes on. I got laid off, I didn’t care. I lost my fiancé, I didn’t care. I had to move home with my parents… whatever. I didn’t wear shoes for a year or two… who cares?
Somewhere in the midst of this haze, as I found myself every day at the same damn coffee shop, doing puzzles and chain smoking, I met a girl who would become my anchor and partner in crime; Anne, who has affectionately become known as “N’abney” through a manipulated pronunciation of her first and last names. I had known her barely a heartbeat when she walked across the street and bought me a crossword puzzle dictionary from the used book store. It was love at first nerd. What followed was a then several month progression of Anne and me clinging to each other throughout our follies and downfalls. I was losing grip on life in general, Anne was lost and trying to finish school. All we knew to do was to smoke drugs and go wild and have earth shattering conversations while we bawled our eyes out in our cars.
Eventually, everything came to a head. My family was slowly cutting me off in every way. I had no money and my dad took away my cell phone first, and then my car. Anne saved the day by letting me borrow her early 80s beige town & country, affectionately known as the “Nazgul”, for the screeching death sounds it made due to its lack of power steering. My friends, one by one, took me aside and said “get your shit together or we can’t be friends anymore.” (This is a testament to how evil SSRI’s, especially Effexor, are when not properly administered or monitored.) My friends gave me an intervention over a medication my doctors intentionally put me on. Then the last straw… my health insurance granted me as a severance from my last job ran out. My parents refused to pay for the then $120/mo prescription, as there was no generic, and I literally went completely cold turkey off Effexor. You can do a quick Google search and see how dangerous and wrong and terrible this experience was for me.
Digression/point of post: one of the things I do the best and I know I do a lot is give people nicknames. Whether that nickname is something you did once that was silly or just a ridiculous mispronunciation of your name; everyone at one point or another gets a nickname from me. Some people have more than one. It’s an endearing thing I do; it means I care enough about you or something. I have only been the recipient of a nickname that stuck once, and that was from N’abney… One night in the midst of all this haze, Anne, while driving around with another of my long time best friends, Bart, called and sang the entirety of this song, all the while substituting my name in place of “Karma”. I had, at one point, had a few friends that would sing Culture Club’s “KARLA Chameleon” to me in the halls at school, but it never really caught on. Some people outside of the N’abney inner sanctum still call me “karla police” now. Piggybacking off the nickname, I once had a brilliant idea to start a cable access show where I would dress as a cop, walk around NCSU’s brickyard and stop kids listening to headphones and ask what they were listening to. If what they said did not please me, I would “arrest” them and make them listen to some Joy Division or the Buzzcocks or something. This idea, as all great ideas that rise from the haze of marijuana smoke, never came to fruition, not unlike the great “cheese as currency” debate of ’03.
I have never heard Karma Police without thinking of N’abs. I somehow have more “in jokes” with N’abney than just about anyone else in my whole life. That girl has saved my life so many times I can’t even count anymore….
N’abney & Karla Police = burning the 80s… 4ever! xoxox
I’ve never been a huge Bob Dylan fan. Well, a Bob Dylan fan, in general. In any capacity. I never had a strong opinion one way or the other. His music was always just there; background noise. Something to ignore like Musak or that nondescript coworker you pass every day in the hall and nod to, but you never really learn their name. That was me and Mr. Zimmerman. We had a very “you don’t interfere with me and I won’t bug you” relationship. Honestly the majority of my experience was when he would randomly pop up on a radio station; I would hear myself mentally professing, “Wow. Who is a Bob Dylan fan? Who listens to this man sing and gets really psyched about this voice?”
I eventually found myself working with a woman from Australia who was a wild Dylan fan; to the point where she would follow him around like the Grateful Dead. Literally would take vacation time to go see him. And she was an otherwise amazing woman and was my best friend in the office despite the fact she was in her late 50s and I was in my mid-20s at the time. She would bring me graham cracker “sandwiches” filled with butter and encouraged a healthy vegemite addiction. I haven’t worked with her in forever, but through the miracle of facebook, I’ve gotten back in touch with her and her daughter, who was also a very close friend.
I don’t even remember when it happened, definitely in the past 5 or 6 years, as that is the time I have worked at my current job, of which I have eventually found myself listening to an internet radio station called Radioparadise. Good mix of world, eclectic, standard rock, 80s and alt-country, etc. One day this song pops up. I was about halfway through this almost 12 minute song, barely paying attention when the line “Her profession’s her religion / Her sin is her lifelessness” and I hear myself saying “hold up now - what?” and I got to googling.
By the way… This is my all day/everyday. When I am otherwise “working” at my job, I am most likely playing professional music critic in my head. I do a lot of previewing via other blogs of songs (see the blogroll to the right over there to see where I get the majority of these songs) and when I’m not in the mood to troll blogs, I play radioparadise. For the first few years I listened to RP, I would keep a notepad beside my computer that was basically a list of songs or artists to download (as well as a notepad for a list of songs I want to write posts about). I found a great many artists who have become main staples of my musical diet through this website. And once in a while, I’d almost say once or twice or 40 times a day, a band will come on the radio and I find myself thinking “hmmm where is Cake from?Where did David Byrne go to college? What is the meaning of this Eels song? Why is Elbow so amazing?” so I have to sit online and read Wikipedia articles or band sites for a while. Long digression short; I Google. A lot.
This song comes on, these lyrics hit me, and I get online and find out more about this song. The supposed Steinbeck connection (Cannery Row?) and the Duluth hangings… and I finally had my light bulb moment with Dylan. This is the song that made me go “Ohhhhh… Okay. Bob Dylan. Gotcha.... Depth!”
Not that I am in any way, shape or form a "big Dylan fan", now. I still don’t even own a single album, just a handful of songs I’ve grabbed here and there, but I don’t ignore him anymore. And I feel it is entirely irresponsible of me to not at least acknowledge WHY people are Bob Dylan fans without dismissing him completely.
This song reminds me that I can be wrong and opinions can change. I never thought I would like any Dylan song. I also never thought I would like mushrooms. Who knew?
PS - I am now stuck listening to Elbow all day. I tricked myself. People... Listen to Elbow. seriously.
Earlier drafts and planning stages of this blog was a sort of retelling of the many loves in my life via “our songs”… while that is certainly something that has seemed to occur many times through my posting, I also felt it was really important to include stories about my family and childhood as well. So I did. But the awkward fact remains that the majority of these posts are about men from my past whom I have had unresolved crushes on or dated or whatnot. I’m trying to break them up, but I wonder/worry if it’s not becoming entirely too Oedipal that I post one blog about some guy I used to date and then a post right after about my dad.
I was a freshman at ECU. Around this time, I had discovered the internet. This was back when you paid by the minute for AOL and dad would flip when he got $200 or $300 bills. I would chat with complete strangers about Jane Eyre and U2 and fart noises, who knows what 17 year old kids did back then. (Who knows what they do now?) I would chit chat for a minute or two about nothing, write down screen names and when I got back to ECU, I would open up email/pen pal correspondences. It was a lot of fun! I kept up with a lot of these kids for years because of it. One such person was a boy named Mike from Huntington Beach, California; a shaggy blonde photographer/skateboarder.
I had this great idea once, or twice, Or twelve different ideas including novels, essays or even screenplays based on this one most profoundly important statement of my whole life... (Maybe after all these years and all these unfinished ideas and poems and songs and stories can just be summarized in one stupid little blog post and it can be put away for good?) This is the thing that I feel defines so much of who I am and what I believe in this world: I never met the first boy I ever loved.
Back then (1995/1996) you had very limited options for web access. AOL and maybe Prodigy? It was such an abstract and exciting concept for me, (well for everyone when it first started happening.) I used AOL at home, (when home,) and some freaky ancient DOS based chat program in the labs at school (when at school). I can’t really remember talking to him on AOL, but I remember and still have the first email I sent him from school. And I have every email that happened after, of which there are hundreds. (One of my ideas was to simply collect all these emails and just stick them in a notebook and give it to a publisher. Who knows, maybe one day I will.) The emails were silly getting to know you “this is my life” emails for a week or so, then suddenly they were novellas. Straight Novels. Hundreds of pages several times a day. Filled with craving for each other’s brains. We were ridiculous. We were smitten. We told each other about our whole days and our whole hearts. I would skip class to write him. He would skip work to email me. The most romantic and beautiful thing of my life happened because of this boy. (I say boy, I was 17 at the time, and he was 18.)
This sterile email conversation plowed along full steam for weeks; months. Valentine’s Day was coming up and I don’t remember if I asked outright if anything would be coming my way, or if I just kept my wishes secret and hoped for the best. But what happened turned into something much more magical than anything I could have ever expected. It was the first day in weeks we hadn’t “spoken”. We had not communicated in any way other than the very first brief chat and the emails that followed, yet we called each other boyfriend/girlfriend. It was my first full day or not speaking to my first real boyfriend. As the day trudged on and after my 5th trip to the computer lab to check emails as well as checking the mailbox outside our dorm room and seeing nothing, I resigned myself to lying around on my bed feeling pathetic and weepy and eating pudding cups, resisting the urge to cry.
Sometime around 7pm, as my roommate and I were lying around watching something like PCU for the 8,000th time the phone rings. I jump and grab it. I called out a “hello” and heard nothing. My heart flipped. I knew it was him. I walked out the door and sat on the ground in front of our door. “Hello? Mike?” and suddenly the music. He played this song, start to finish, saying nothing. And when it was over, he just... hung up. I sat splayed on the ground, panting, my heart beating so fast it was like a hum. I whispered his name over and over again, wishing he hadn’t hung up; praying he hadn’t. I sat there for quite a while with the beeping receiver in my hand, shell shocked. The best part of it all was the emails we sent to each other the next day. He told me all about how nervous and excited he was all day because he knew what he was going to do. I told him about how much I tortured myself with anticipation and expectation. He told me how his heart raged when he heard my voice for the first time. I told him about how there was no more exceptionally perfect gift he could give me other than music.
It was only a few weeks later that we spoke to each other on the phone for the first time. I sang Alanis Morrissette to him. He sang The Cure to me (note: both of these songs are obviously ruined for me). I read him my poetry, he described his photography. We stayed on the phone together until 6am and I let him hear the bird chirping outside my window before I fell asleep. That was one of the most glorious nights of my life. Thinking about it now, my face burns. It was so long ago, but I still think about the gifts he gave me, the birth of the hopeless romantic. The girl who believes in love beyond reason was born from his words. I mailed him pictures I drew; he mailed me photographs he took. We talked about where we would live when we got married. We named our children. I had one picture of his face. It is the only picture of his face I’ve ever seen. Probably the only one I'll ever see.
Then the distance, the stress, the cost of the phone calls, the expectations, the hope... It got to be too much. We imploded. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and make anything and everything happen. He had a much clearer grip on the fact that we were just dumb kids with zero cash. It ended and I was devastated. Correction: I was Devastated with a capital D. He would still write me once in a while, but his messages got shorter and less sparse. I was so confused and hurt. We eventually stopped speaking. I would try for years to email him, although I haven’t in a very long time. 10 years or more, maybe. It amazes me that in this time of information overload where you can find so much information about anyone, anywhere, anytime; this guy is practically non-existent. I only wonder if he still thinks about me the way I still think about him. Even if he is married with 2 kids (which he probably is). Even though logic and real life says in every way he shouldn't... I still hope he does. Just every once in a while I hope he thinks about us and he smiles.
There is more to say. Maybe one day; not now. I just wonder is all. This song brings it all back. Like a fucking hurricane.
I honestly haven’t listened to it all the way through in years; can’t even do it now.
I promise you this; you will never ride in a car with me and let a Beatles song come on the radio where I don’t explain their significance in my musical education. I will nearly always explain the same things: The Beatles taught me to sing. I am completely incapable of hearing or singing along with any Beatles song and not singing the harmony. The Beatles explained the execution of harmony before I even understood what it meant. Then, if you’re really lucky and I’m feeling chatty, I may go into the story of my childhood Saturday mornings with you.
My dad is a total Technophile. Or, he mostly was, now he’s just a slow-paced retiree with a golf addiction (we still love him) but he still has that 80s-esque yuppie compulsion to have the newest gadgets. I can remember when the first VCR came into our house. It was one of those gigantic ancient bad boys that was the size of a small coffee table. This was also back in the day before the production companies had released the licensing on cassettes, so very few places actually *sold* VCR tapes, only rented them. Of which, until I was older there was only one place that actually rented them; it was called Video1 in South Hills Mall; I think its part of a bridal shop now. But the point is, back when tapes were still scarce, they were purchasable, but viciously expensive; $80? $75? … a lot. Dad bought a few. I remember kinda feeling like hot shit because not only did my family have a VCR but we actually had TAPES. Dad bought the most random things… Patton, first of all (his favorite movie), Teen Wolf (what? Why?) And Yellow Submarine. Also Tommy got in there somehow at some point. Of course. (Reminder to self to write a post about Tommy.)
I was raised on the musical. My dad, in addition to being a Motown junky and a classic rock aficionado, was also inexplicably very into musicals… this is one of those million reasons why I always joke that my dad is gay. (Ps my dad is actually the antithesis of gay; he just has very funny things like this about him that I love to pick on him for.) (Ps again – I don’t know how I just made this connection, but this fact about my dad is most likely the predominate reason why I went to college for Musical Theater Performance. Durr.) So there was a big portion of the record collection I gleaned from my dad that was Rogers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber stocked. I listened to Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy more than just about any other records in that collection. I’m not even sure if you would consider Yellow Submarine a musical (I would) or just a really long music video.
Of the vinyl I inadvertently hoarded away from my dad, there are 2 albums I am most emotionally connected to. The red and blue albums. The “best of”s I suppose. I used to sit in the floor turning those albums over and over again, watching the boys age before my eyes. Dad had sat down and recorded most of his vinyl, these albums included, onto cassette tape, and these tapes were probably played more on those Saturday mornings that any other one thing. My brother and I would ride around with Pop on these Saturdays singing our hearts out and I felt in my soul that harmonizing was the right thing to do; no one explained to me how or why to do it. (This was my Mozart playing thirds moment, I suppose?) It is impossible for me to listen to any Beatles song without singing the harmony. I joke that the Beatles taught me to sing.
I went today to see the new biopic about John Lennon, Nowhere Boy, in the theater. It was pretty spot on and was shot in all the right places. It was basically the telling of John’s childhood/early teens up until Hamburg. (Digression: it really amused me that there were so many people in the audience who didn’t know his story? Growing up with Aunt Mimi and that his mom died after being hit with a car? The gasping horror emitted by the majority of the audience made me kinda roll my eyes a bit… I wanted to be like, “people. Why are you here? Did you not know this shit already? Spoiler alert. Duh.”) As I stated in my facebook status update, I really only got weepy at the end, as the credit rolled there was a slideshow of childhood pictures, leading up the Quarrymen, which included babyfaced pictures of Paul and George. (I will have no hesitation telling you George is my favorite Beatle. Inside and out, I love that man on an atmospheric level. Missed forever… xoxo) so yeah, I forget that people don’t get as ‘involved’ with their favorite artists; needing to know entire biographies and meanings to certain songs. Also, having spent such a significant amount of time in Liverpool (story for later?) It was really cool to relive these places that I saw in the film again.
I have struggled off and on with my dedication/admiration of John Lennon. Yes, there are a bazillion reasons to love him, but there are those 2 or 3 little things that he did in his life that make me snarl a little. This movie helped humanize a little more of those things that bugged the crap of me about him, so that’s good. Also the boy playing him in the movie was so balistically hot, especially towards the end with those big ole black frame glasses and pea coat (so much how I like my men. [Plus beard. Obvs.])
This blog post has inadvertently become every discussion about the Beatles my brother and I have ever had. Of which there have been infinite. If my brother was guest blogging he would then have a terrible opinion about his favorite album/song and then I would force him for the bajillionth time to listen to the b-side of Abbey Road (you cannot deny it. None of you. Don’t make me make you listen.) Brother would then tell me for 200th time that he can never really tell which Beatle is singing and he would have to be dead to me for a while.
There is a new multimedia experience I am trying to add to this whole blog situation. I made a terrible quality video of me singing. Mostly this is to give you insight to my all day/everyday. Yeah, I know it’s dumb to drive around with headphones, but I just can’t get it loud enough without. I cannot listen to a song I know without singing alone. Especially in the car. I am a car singer extraordinaire.
My favorite part of this video at the end is when I am talking to another driver who is making poor decisions. Lol at the constant turn signal noise. I crack myself up. Enjoy.
There is only one thing in the world I think about more than music, which should be baffling to some people, but when I confess what that thing is it should come as no surprise: Love. I think about love a lot. A LOT, a lot. What it is, what it means, what it could be, what it should be… What I want, what I have, what I need, what I feel. What I deserve, why do I deserve it? Is “deserve” even the right thing to say? Does anyone DESERVE love? Is it a human right or is it a privilege? What is the ratio to human suffering and the retribution in the form of someone worshiping the crap out of you? Have I suffered enough? Is there such thing as karma? Am I repaying some karmic debt from some terrible thing I did in the past in the form of being forever alone? Why? Isn’t my faith enough to combat this self-imposed solitary confinement? Am I doing it to myself? Am I just too stupid to know how to love correctly? Why am I my favorite person on earth and yet I am no one else’s favorite person on earth?
There are a thousand other questions… I won’t burden them with you for now.
So I was walking in to work this morning and this song randomly popped into my head, so I was walking along, whistling the tune, when I realize. Damn, I’ve really never had that. How have I never had the kind of love I deserve, to this point? How do I keep missing the mark? I have such a good, clear vision of what it is, what it feels like, I know exactly how to love someone else, but why has no one ever figured out how to love me? Why hasn’t anyone bothered? I’m so …. Loveable? How is it even possible that no man has written a love song about me? How have I never gotten a love letter, like a hand written “you are perfect” love letter? How has no one ever written me a poem? How have I never gotten a mix cd from a man? How is this even possible? ME? Of all people? Me, the girl who has made more mix cds than friends, the girl who makes such perfect mix cds I should practically put this skill on my resume. Never has it happened; it blows my mind.
I should clarify. Yes, men have loved me. Men have loved me well; socially acceptably, restrainedly, technically correctly, cautiously… but I don’t want that. I want the right man to love me the right way. I want someone to go the whole wide world just to find me… so then I say this, (I type this,) and I hear the voice of my conscience and my father and certain friends saying things like “you should be reasonable and you should accept that men are the way they are.” I hear every ex of mine say, "You live in a fantasy land." Or something like that. I would rather live in a 'fantasy land' than on a planet where that kind of love doesn't happen. I don’t want a sane, rational, calm love. I know it exists! I know it as well as I know that *I* exist, or god exists; I can feel it. Look at this song, for Christ’s sake. There are men that feel like this. Look at every incredible love song written by a man. Look at Ian Curtis or Shane MacGowan. Look at Lord Byron or Nicholas Sparks, even. Listen to Explosions in the Sky, dammit. There are men that are capable of great loves and very capable of expressing that love without hesitation or fear. I want this man. I have a habit of saying that I need a man to have bigger balls than I have. And for someone to have literally no physical testes, I have certainly dated my fair share of weak men.
About a year ago, actually a year ago this month, my ex, Gigi, and I split. We had a good run, but there was about a million things wrong with our relationship, which I really don’t feel like going into right now… after a month or two of going wild and being free I started having that “oh god, why did I dump my boyfriend, I might have screwed up” feeling. I ran into a good friend who had me make a list. I made this list. This is part of the “story” as I related it on my private journal at the time, 3 days before my last birthday:
I’ve been in love before. Lots. I have loved more in my little lifetime than most people do in five lifetimes. There is nothing on earth I have pursued or fought harder for than true love. I have loved men who pulled my pigtails, men who didn’t know I existed, men who knew I existed and exploited me, men who abused me, men who tried to hold me while I wriggled free, men who loved me some but not enough… I almost got married once, but we were kids. I can look back on that and see how we both dodged a hellacious bullet, but I mostly think I missed my only chance there. I was with Gigi for almost 3 years. We ended things at mostly my insistence because I thought we were going nowhere and at the secondary insistence of my friends who KNEW we were going nowhere and that someone who would love me how I needed was out there. I knew it too. I got single, I got laid. I met some guys, I dated one young guy and had a really good time and dumped all my emotional garbage on him that I never dealt with after Gigi. I got really close to losing my mind for a minute there. I kept talking to a good friend of mine who kept insisting I meet this one guy because he was my ‘soul mate.’ I knew who he was talking about but I let old ugly me take over and insist that I had no chance with this guy. Through some impossibly coincidental circumstances that I, at the time, took as fate (which was the prognostication of my entire spiritual downfall let me tell you,) we wound up dating. I literally did everything by the unspoken girl rule book, aka ‘He’s Just Not That into You,’ every Cosmo mag EVER, everything your mama ever told you about how to get a man and every bit of bad bar bathroom advice from your girlfriends all in one. I played it cool, I acted indifferent, I stayed calm, I didn’t run my mouth, I didn’t get carried away, I let things happen, I was a cool customer. But somewhere lurking in the shadows, as always, was the ‘OMG MAGIC! TRUE LOVE! TAKE A CHANCE, THIS COLD BE IT!”
We had a few really amazing nights together, then one REALLY amazing night together and I realized that I was falling stupid head over heels for this guy. So what did I do? Got drunk and told him, of course. And what did he do? Run for the hills, of course. There are some really stupid circumstances surrounding this situation. One of which is this: either right after or soon before Gigi and I split I was hanging out with one of my hippie mama outcast weirdo’s at the coffee shop and she told me to make a list of everything I could ever possibly want in a man, as if I created him in a lab, make it as outlandishly impossible as I wanted, just dream out loud…. I made the list. This man was the list. NO ONE SHOULD BE THAT LIST. IT DOES NOT EXIST. IT IS ME WITH A DICK… …I am so pissed that I am getting pissed about it. He was so different; I don’t want to get over him. I want the phone to ring. I want magic. I had the opportunity to see him again last weekend and I was a fucking coward and I drank myself into blackout status. Don’t remember the majority of the night, just that I finally told him that I loved him and he pretty much patted me on the head and said “Aww, you’re just drunk!” and then proceeded to let me drive home…? In what universe is the logic that I am too drunk to understand what love is, mean that I am in any way capable of driving? This thought fucks me up too much to continue right now.
Part of the first, which is not explained in the journal entry above, no one ever saw that list except me and my best friend until him, now you. As me and this guy were dating, I started feeling brand new about it all, about life in general, it was off the charts exceptional. Not just him, but the way I *felt* about him, the way my body and my heart my very being reacted to his existence and presence. The calm and confidence I felt when I was near him or thought about him. I asked my best friend about it, and she simply said “well yeah, because he’s ‘the list’.” I thought about it for a minute and pulled the list out of my wallet, where I had toted it around like a good luck charm for almost a year and read through the list. By the time I got to the bottom I was crying because I knew I had found him. It is an amazing yet almost horrifying feeling when you realize you’ve met the love of your life. Maybe it’s what parachuting feels like? … The best and worst feeling ever. It was all within the same week that I realized I had found him and I loved him that he broke up with me. I was a wreck for a long, long time. (I had a really shitty summer this year. Lost my faith, my coping abilities, too much weight, etc...) Sometimes I still backtrack; mostly now-a-days I propel myself recklessly forward, taking whatever chance life throws at me to prove me wrong about him. So far, no luck, but it doesn’t mean I won’t give up giving up on him. I’m trying, still. One day it’ll stop being him I compare every man to forever. I’m really ready for that to happen. But the point of this is… the list.
When he ended things, we sat on my couch and cried like idiots and I decided to show him the list. I can’t say what he felt when he read it; I just know we were both emotional wrecks that day. I did my best to stay strong and make the hurting me hurt him less. I loved him that much. So I kept my head up and waited until he left to lose it. but after he read the list, he either that day or in a later email said something to the effect that I needed to add one more to that list… a final bullet point that says more or less that the man of my dreams has to be “ready and willing to accept the kind of love that I have to offer.” So yes, that. I have thought about that a lot. It’s something my best friend and I have discussedmany times. So the thought that this guy was "everything but" has helped talk me down off that “but he was THE ONE” ledge many times… but the right word or song or thought or memory triggers him like a leg cramp; I am paralyzed with the loss. I’ve stopped talking about him and reconnecting him to everything and everywhere I go (much to the relief of my friends, I’m sure) I’ve stopped crying myself to sleep and finding myself driving in circles on the beltline listening to horribly heartbreaking love songs. I stopped hurting and started dating. I’m moving ahead slowly, doubting every step in the opposite direction from him, but I have no choice, so I keep walking. Some days are terrible, some days are awesome. Most days are just another day without him, but what are you going to do, right?
So what I NEED is the right person feeling that much for me. And I could have any guy being in love with me, but I want THE guy to be in love with me. The one I love back… The perfect one, the man from before plus one - how can something so seemingly simple be so hard? I still fervently believe the man of my dreams will be that list; he will be gratefully excited and ready to accept my intense level of love, he will write me unprompted love letters and show up with red tulips because it’s a Tuesday and he loves to make me smile, he will push through a crowd of strangers to get to me across the room because he is so excited to see me, he will sing acoustic version of glam rock pop songs to me on a barely tuned guitar in a dimly lit living room; he will love me so much it leaves me shell shocked and drunk without the drink.
on second thought, I think I might actually hate this song.
I have several families. My nuclear; my mom, dad, brother, niece and I. (we are the only ones of us around for hours in any direction.) My extended; the ones sprinkled through Mount Airy and Galax - my aunts, uncles, cousins and remaining grandparents. The hyper-extended; the few floaters in Detroit, Virginia, SC and even Germany. Then the surrogate families… since my brother and I grew up so “far away” from our other kin, we were adopted into a few other groups, we were raised by villages… 1) Our church and 2) my dad’s coworker world. This song makes me think of #2 (although my church family is a huge part of who I am, even though I no longer associate myself with this church – a post for another time, I’m already mentally preparing for it).
The 80s in Raleigh was a much different place than it is now. I grew up off Lake Wheeler road, (an area eaten alive with subdivisions and strip malls now,) but the house my father built, at the end of the cul-de-sac still remains. I find myself sometimes driving by, it’s not too far from my home now… about halfway between where I live inside the beltline and my parents’ home in Apex. Driving down that little unlined back road beneath the loblolly pines and puttering past the split level ranch homes of that neighborhood really does something to me. I time travel every time. I am kissing a boy for the first time, (Chris) after he pops a wheelie off a plank of plywood propped on a cinderblock in his back yard. I am learning to ride my bike, albeit pathetically, while the whole neighborhood watches me crash. I hear pine needles crunching beneath my Zips. I smell dogwoods and lumber while my dad builds the freestanding garage... But one of the strongest memories I have of that house are the block parties.
Does anyone even have block parties anymore? Does penny candy still exist? I can understand that my niece may never know what a VHS tape or a rotary phone is; I got that. But trick or treating without fear? Banana seat bicycles and realistic toy guns without the orange cap in them? (My God, did you ever think they would stop selling Jell-o Pudding Pops? They did! They are gone! You will never eat another REAL Jell-o Pudding Pop!) Wandering off deep into the woods to explore for hours with the promise to be home by dark and never explaining where you’ve been… can kids even do that now? That was the majority of me and my brother’s “play time” as kids… just… walking off into the woods... Exploring. We would walk for miles up into strangers’ back yards and then just… wander back. Stick fighting; jumping creeks… are there even any creeks left in the 27606? Lake Wheeler is 1/3 the size it was when I was a kid. We didn’t have shows the glorified teen pregnancy much less even understand the concept of reality TV… we watched The Dukes of Hazzard and the Muppet Show and we went to bed.
My dad began working for this company almost 40 years ago. Rather than go into his entire history of employment, I will tell you he worked his way up through college, starting as a surveyor and ending up in upper management when he finally retired a few months ago. My dad got me my current job, where I worked 2 stories below him for the past 6 years, with him and the extended family I grew up with. I loved working with my dad and these guys. I wish he was still here. Dad basically created the department he later became responsible for. The men who created this section with him worked with him (some are still here) from day one. These men (and women) became my dad’s best friends and one of my surrogate families. They would always throw Christmas parties together, we kids all graduated kind-of around the same time (I was younger than most,) and we all played together. One of the best parties the group would throw, and the ones that stick out the most are the annual pig-pickins.
Please remember, this is going back a lot of years for me, so while my details may not be 100% accurate, the feelings of these memories are flawless. The smell of the pig cooking, the crispness of the fall air as they day would come to a close… Chocolate Chess Pie, my mother’s laughter, vinegar, my dad in flannel with a big full red beard, my second dads; Jim and Scotty teasing me and encouraging my shenanigans, showoffs and general attention seeking behaviour; and the music. Always the music. Dad would pull out his full Kenwood stereo and set up the vinyl. Mostly Carolina Beach music, Motown and a little classic rock thrown in. I sometimes wonder who has listened to my dad’s vinyl more now… me or him. How many times can a child listen to Steppenwolf’s ‘68 self titled first album and be normal? Is it ‘normal’ for an 8 year old girl to know all the words to The Pusher? (ps - in case it is not blazingly apparent... i was perhaps the coolest kid ever.) Dad would test me, play “name that tune” to entertain his friends. I’ve mentioned it before, when my parents would punish me, they wouldn’t send me to my room or ground me, they would take away my music… Hell. On. Earth.
There is very little Shag music I can hear now-a-days and not think of these pig pickins. Where I don’t think of that little ranch house and the smell of the pig cooking and the taste of the sweet iced tea. I hope I can give my own non-existent children experiences like this one day. Or, at least my niece. These songs, Major Lance, the Temptations, Wilson Pickett, the Drifters, the Coasters, the Platters, and the Four Tops – these songs are the ones that bring me back with the strongest intensity to the innocence and childhood euphoria of Swiftbrook Circle. Much like Hank Williams, Sr and roy are the strongest connection to my mom for me; This music, the deep swinging soul of the Southern black man, this will always bring me back to my daddy.
