this is for all the people who don’t feel very shiny or happy this time of year.
december is a whirlwind kind of month around here. we have BC’s birthday. we have chanukah. and we have christmas. it’s a crazybusy time. i never remember whether i’ve gotten the whole presents thing right. BS usually has one full day of cursing out the christmas tree lights (because apparently, there is always one bad apple that spoils the whole bunch.) the kids are wound up on cookies and frosting and dreams of what presents will be coming around for them. i know we should be feeling the joy, but there are moments…
see, there’s this tacit assumption that during holiday time, everyone should be feeling happy and peppy and bursting with love. it sickens me, to be honest, in it’s self-centeredness. if you’re depressed, well, it seems like the world around you is having a great big party and you have not been invited. (n’yeah n’yeah.) and even though people will often try to involve you and get you in the spirit so to speak, they may become angry when you simply don’t have it in you.
and then you’re sad and rejected. goody.
depression is very real. having experienced it myself after giving birth to BC, i can honestly tell you that you feel like you have dug yourself a deep hole and nothing will pull you out of it. fortunately, it’s a bit less stigmatized than it once was. if you’re lucky, you might either know you need help, or perhaps someone close to you will suggest it. you might needs meds; you might need to talk to someone. hell, you might need both. and if you don’t have health insurance, call your local health department, as they may be able to let you know how you can get help you can afford.
but please. get help. no one has to be happy. but no one should have to suffer this sort of pain, either.
i love me some holiday music. and i always, and i do mean always, love me my chrissie hynde.
i may not have grown up with christmas in a big way, but i always love songs that evoke the holidays in a meaningful way. and this song is a sad but meaningful meander into hynde’s soul. and what a soul that must be. hynde has been a part of rock for most of her life: she has been linked to everyone from the sex pistols to the kinks (well, ray davies, to be precise) to the mccartneys to simple minds.
i love her swagger; her talent; her independence, even her animal rights activism. a boyfriend once told me i was irritating because i liked to hide behind my chrissie hynde bangs. yes, i think i always wanted to be a lot more like chrissie hynde when i grew up. the lady has balls.
and even so, you can hear a tenderness in her voice, the way it breaks, all through 2000 miles. a creaky loneliness is evident, brushed with hope.
10 years ago today, i was in quite a predicament. i was pregnant beyond all recognition with a little person: you, my darlin’, a challenge even before you entered the big world. after an ultrasound every month for the previous 9 months (due to low amniotic fluid), you just didn’t want to let me see whether you were a girl or boy. (i’ll be darned if one time, you actually held your tiny hands in front of your naughty bits so we couldn’t see.)
but i knew.
you didn’t seem to want to move a lot at first; and since i had read all those stupid baby books that all first-time moms read when they’re expecting, i was suitably nervous — were you okay in there? then, when i was resting one day, six months along, watching some VH1 show on the Beach Boys, you started suddenly to kick the living crap out of me every time the Beach Boys sang. and yes, daddy went out and bought a Beach Boys CD to test out the theory: yes, every time you heard the Beach Boys, you got really, really excited. (so much for my lyin’ in bed just like brian wilson did.)
so there i was, very pregnant. and my blood pressure, normally picture-perfect, was zooming into the stratosphere. on december 1st, when i showed up to the OB-GYN practice, the doctor on call put you and me on a monitor, and sent me home. come back tomorrow, she said. if your blood pressure is still so high, we”ll bring you back in the evening. see, dr. loewith is solo tomorrow, so we’ll let her get through her day and then induce you in the evening after she’s less busy.
so enter december 2. i had assured daddy that he could bring the car into the shop and take the bus and metro downtown to work; the doctor the day before told me that they’d make me wait until the evening and then put the proverbial jumper cables on to get you moving into this world. enter the indomitable dr. loewith: she put us on the monitor again, told me that you didn’t need to be in me anymore, and i surely didn’t need you in me anymore, either. i should waddle my wisconsin-sized ass across the street and admit myself: it was time to have a baby.
but your partner dr. XÂ told me that i should have to wait until you’re less busy since you’re on your own today, i explained to her.
pffft, she replied. that’s stupid. who cares how busy i am – if you need to go in, you need to go in! (i will point out to you, darlin’, that the other dr. somehow left the practice soon afterwards. and oh, how i miss the refreshing candor of dr. loewith and wish she hadn’t moved west.)
so, i waddled my gigantor self across the street, then up to the third floor of the hospital. and i made a phone call. BC, i would have paid money to see the look on your father’s face when i told him that i was, in fact, having a baby. now. yes, right now. and yes, i knew that the car was in the shop, and i knew you had to figure out how the hell you are going to get to the hospital after taking a bus to the train and the train to a train and then walking to work. but your daddy, in typical daddy fashion, just. figured. it. out.
that’s just what he does best.
so at some point, daddy showed up, huffing and puffing. i know he was there in time for my epidural; i know because something went wrong when the doctor first put the needle in my back and a wave of weirdness went straight down my leg for a split second. (your daddy, man that he is, never explained to me what happened. well, not until i was about to get my epidural when i was in labor with your brother, that is. honey, he pointed out, the needle bent in your bone. you broke the needle.) (yes, ladies. this is exactly what you want to hear when you’re about to be stuck again in a terribly sensitive place, a place where if something goes wrong, you don’t walk. ever.) but then, it was working, and i was working with it. ah, childbirth… a walk in the park, right? oh, it hurts, but i can manage it, i’m a pro, i’m…
huh? OW!
guess what, sweetie? mommy goes through epidurals like your brother goes through slurpees. i needed my fix. and i needed it now. i tried to talk to daddy in my sweetest voice ever.
honey, can you please tell the nurse i need more epidural?
daddy, who had been there with me throughout the lamaze classes; who had suffered through all sorts of unmentionable baby information sessions, tried to talk the supportive patter he had learned so well:
honey, he said, try to breathe through it.
now, BC, you know i am not a violent person. but trust me, darling, that when you are in the throes of labor pains, you may end up swearing like a longshoreman. you may end up making promises, insane promises, just to make the pain go away. you may even pledge to vote republican; it makes your head spin how it feels. i am telling you this because i need you to understand this next bit, something i have never before and never again done. you need to know that i was out of my head in agony. and your father’s supportive alan alda jibberjabber made me think he didn’t really understand me. and sister, i needed to be understood. right there, right then. i grabbed hold of your daddy’s nice clean oxford shirt, right at the collar. i pulled him close to me so that he could hear me. i looked him in the eye. and i uttered as clearly as i possibly could:
your father, looking like a deer in the headlights of a speeding HumVee, immediately snapped out of his nice-guy stupor and hopped to it more quickly than i have seen him do anything in his life. voila! my epidural arrived. and evil exorcist mommy receded and happy, halcyon mommy returned.
in fact, dr. loewith nearly missed you arriving; i was chillin’ and coolin’ like a snowman so much, i had no idea you were making your way down the highway. whoa, stop pushing! she cried. huh? i’m pushing? oh, so that’s what i’m doing!
well, sister, i had literally 10 minutes of pushing that i knew about before you arrived. and there you were, all red and screaming your little head off. i was thrilled beyond belief to see you, to meet you. (you know i cried. that’s what i always do, major boohoo that i am. i’m happy: i cry. i’m sad: i cry. i’m hungry: i… wait. that’s what YOU did back then.) i counted your fingers and toes: pinky, you were as perfect as the 4th of july. we snuggled before you were whisked away to be cleaned and tested and probably grilled on your involvement in the disappearance of jimmy hoffa.
all’s this to say that 10 years ago today, you changed my life forever. you made me a mom. and while every day has not been a shiny, happy cakewalk, i would not trade you for all the tea in china (in spite of what you might think some days.) you manage to smile, no matter what. which makes me smile, no matter what. you are the sunniest, the funniest, and the bunniest. i love you to all the pink, purple, and rainbow moons and stars.
it’s World AIDS Day; and it’s also a return to Guilty Pleasure Mondays around my little world. i’m sure you’ve OD’d on your fair share of blatantly bad 70s songs; and i promise that the only bad songs around here for the next month or so will be bad only because you don’t like what i like. i realize i set off some nasty earworms. here’s hoping your minds return to their regularly-scheduled programming. and soon.
anyway, what you didn’t see over the past month is the fact that we’ve had some pretty crappy times here in wreke-land. in fact, when i think about it, it almost sounds like a monty python skit gone very, very wrong, like G-d was trying out new and improved plagues and we were the test kitchen. death; lice; floods; surgery; bronchitis… it’s just unbelievable how it all went down.
there are moments in life when you just feel alone in the world. and this song, for me, is always the soundtrack, in spite of it’s dated ’60s sound.
nevertheless, whenever i think about how it is for others in the world, i am always reminded that we are blessed.
the big mamajama. ’cause i couldn’t ignore it, now, could i.
this one perpetually tops worst 70s songs lists, running neck and neck with (you’re) having my baby. and you really have a DC-area restaurant chain, Clyde’s, to blame for this one:
yeah. i always think of stuffed shrimp when i hear this one.
i always marvel at americans. they get up in arms, self-righteously apeshit about sex. yet who are the homophobes you witness waving their arms at football games in time to YMCA? and who do you see singing afternoon delight with their kids when the song is about enjoying a nooner with the missus?
and they somehow even didn’t blink when, after this single hit skyrocketed in flight to the top of the charts, the starland vocal band got their own TV show featuring a new and corny comedian named david letterman. captain and tennille at least had a few hits — but this group literally had one! one lousy countrified bit of schlock chockablock with benny hill-worthy hints about naughtiness. nudge nudge, wink wink. pullllease.
corny, corny, corny. i knew it then, and i know it know. i think we were so preoccupied with the nation’s bicentennial that we let this one slip into the top spot of the charts.
———————-
it being the last day of november, i am freeing you all — fly, be FREE! — from the curse of blatantly bad 70s songs. for now, of course. you never know when one will show up on a guilty pleasure monday. (i don’t always have great taste, you know.) who knows : maybe i’ll do a month of guilty pleasure mondays that will make people vomit or weep with joy. (or both? it could happen.) thanks to all for joining me on this journey to ear-bleeding nirvana and for sharing your candidates. special thanks to middlebro and leifer for their contributions. i can share their addresses if you’d like to send hate mail.
may the force be with you. or, as one of my favorite TV characters said in the 70s, nanoo, nanoo.
oh, miss vicki, miss vicki. i love you when you’re with carol burnett, especially as cissy in gone with the wind:
so why did you have to go and spoil it by creating a melodrama of your own?
basically, this lovely ditty — which control freak sonny bono turned down when it was offered to cher — concerns a sister, a brother, a cheating wife, brother’s former best friend, and the corrupt legal system of the South. it was even turned into a TV movie at one point with kristy mcnichol, dennis quaid, and mark hamill (LUKE??? you fell to earth and landed in Georgia??) did the nation hate the South so much that people made this song a hit just to remind the South that it hadn’t amounted to much good, not even since the Civil War came to straighten it out? lawd have mercy.
anyway, some things about this song i don’t understand, not now, not in the 70s:
1) what self respecting person goes up to a friend and announces that they’ve been sleeping with their wife while he’s been away? duh. i have a death wish.
2) what sister could stand by and watch her brother go down for murders she committed?
3) and now, why is she basically confessing in song? dimwit.
4) just how did the sister hide the body? and,
5) where the hell is the amos boy? probably shacking up with the sister, i bet.
anyway, i think i see the inspiration for mama’s family here. mama’s angry, vengeful, and violent family.
(and how did this become a hit? you can’t even dance to it.)
ah, morris. or is it MaurÃcio, as you started out life in your native brasil? i hear tell that a california court found you guilty of plagiarism in 1988, that you stole this monster of a song from french singer line renaud? well, as we all know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. and that means that a gazillion people love this song, as it has been covered by everyone from fraaaaaank sinatra to nina simone to the offspring.
when i was young, i would stay home from school sick and watch game shows all day long. i loved game shows and still am bummed that daytime tv lacks these gems. (and no, we don’t get the game show network, sadly.) one of the shows was the incredibly painful chuck barris creationthe gong show. at age 11, i was able to discern that these folks had to be doing some serious drugs on that show. zany didn’t describe some of the moments. but the most memorable show of all was the show when every single act came on and sang feelings. the song was that ubiquitous, and someone — barris?– was having a huge laugh about it. it was one of the most hilarious shows i ever saw.
and that is how i try to remember this song whenever it comes on while i’m on hold for a doctor’s office. otherwise, i might tear my hair out, strand by strand. so sappy. so dripping with sugar.
i don’t know about any of you, but i don’t want to turn on the radio to hear another couple kvetching about their relationship. (i tune in to Dr. Phil went i want that nonsense. and i tune into springer when i want to see lower class people fist-fighting with their partners. cos nothing says lovin’ like a roundhouse punch.) this song practically SCREAMS bad soap opera. it’s pure melodrama from an earlier time. how it became a hit record in 1978? well, barbra was probably still riding high from a star is born, and neil, well, let’s just say that neil did well when other people recorded his songs.
break out the turkey and give me some schmaltz. schmaltzity-schmaltz schmaltz!
seriously, what really happened is that both barbra and neil recorded the song (in the same key, natch) on two separate albums. some clever dj, probably bucking for a promotion for his creativity, sliced the two versions together for his audience’s listening pleasure. babs and neils got wind of it and decided, hell, let’s get the royalties for this suckah. and VOILA! a new star was born.
on the bright side, they never got to make the feature film that was planned based on this song, as neil got busy with his remake of the jazz singer. (see? there IS a G-d!) can you imagine the movie? (no. try not to. it will wreck your day.)
okay, okay. i can’t be completely mean on a holiday. here’s the one version of the song that you might enjoy. ice-t and tupac, a marriage made in heaven. it’s definitely not a turkey.
canadian terry jacks had his one and only hit with seasons in the sun, a song adapted from french treasure jacques brel’s song le moribond (in english, the moribund.) (is it me, or does he have a chia pet growing on his head?) while jack’s sanitized version doesn’t feature little facts like the wife’s infidelity (or even the existence of the priest), it certainly jerks enough tears out of anyone within earshot. is he singing to his wife? his daughter? his bank manager? who knows.
the beach boys covered this lovely ditty but, probably in a moment of sanity, never released it. that freed our friend terry, who sang on the beach boys version, to release his version with his soon-to-be-ex-wife susan in 1974. (earlier, the two had been part of a group the poppy family. a group with an equally awful song that became a hit, which way you goin’, billy. however, as the song is from 1969, we can’t officially include it. but rest assured: it, too, bites.)
of course, it can, and does, get worse. witness nirvana singing this timeless classic. my secret boyfriend, dave grohl, is being tortured singing, to use the word loosely:
see, it’s an evil song. it disintegrates with every additional cover of it.
yep, jacques brel may be alive and well. but thanks to seasons in the sun, i bet he’s also mad as hell.
