wrekehavoc – Page 70 – Wrekehavoc.com

Author: wrekehavoc

reasons why i haven't rewritten my novel to any agent's requirements

Posted on March 23, 2007 by wrekehavoc

~~excuses~~ reasons follow.

1) it was 70 degrees outside today.

2) the kitchen/bathrooms/living room/room-of-choice needs cleaning.

3) Hellboy needs cleaning.

4) chick-lit is going out of style. even if my novel is chick-lit meets microserfs.

5) i’ve started my next novel. it’s using the same paradigm as my favorite work, winesburg, ohio, yet it’s thoroughly modern. and funny in parts. and it begs me daily to get written.

6) the ivy is taking over my yard. i must do battle. pyrrhic victory is in the cards.

7) my dad is turning 75 next month and i haven’t figured out what to get him except a visit from me.

8) i’m busy freaking out at the prospect of not being able to walk for a few weeks. freaking out takes time and effort, people.

9) i’m busy freaking out at the prospect of starting IVIG treatments for the rest of my life. freaking out, as i mentioned, takes time.

and the biggest reason:

10) i re-read my novel. it sucks 🙁

my next gig…

Posted on March 21, 2007 by wrekehavoc

…is this.

seriously, in two weeks, i’m going for arthroscopic surgery. while ice skating last week, i fell and managed to tear my meniscus AND my PCL. apparently, 90% of people tear their ACL; i managed to be in that great 10% for the PCL, which the dr. said takes a little longer for surgery and for repair. of course. so i don’t want to hear anyone talking about how i step in shit and up comes a daisy (and you two know who you are). i step in shit and a few thousand dollars later, i am the semi-bionic woman 😉

it’s outpatient, no big deal, at least from the surgical perspective.

i am the very model of a modern medical miracle.

chicago by sufjan stevens

Posted on March 19, 2007 by wrekehavoc

such a pretty song. i have to get his albums. i’m pretty snarky and critical; i’m the first to admit that. but this is so pretty.

i promise. the snark will return.

simon cowell: bigger than the Boss?

Posted on March 18, 2007 by wrekehavoc

simon cowell apparently has noted in an interview that he is bigger than springsteen and should therefore be compensated five times as much because he has sold five times as many records in the past five years than Bruce has. to be sure, cowell has contributed significantly to the musical sewage that pollutes our TV and our airwaves. he has shown how incredibly gullible people can be — it has been reported that Idol winners make so little cash because plenty of it ends up in cowell’s and other Idol producers’ pockets. it also shows just what a greedy, uncaring person cowell is — it’s not like he actually uses any of that cash to do anything to help anyone but himself; and considering he sucks that money out of a lot of the poorest and most desperate americans, he should be ashamed. but the best part is how little those American Idol fans care about any of that. people want instant stardom so badly, continuity and longevity mean little to them. i want the world, and i want it now.

if there was any ambiguity when john lennon said that the beatles were bigger than jesus, there certainly isn’t any with cowell’s statement. people threatened lennon’s and the other beatles’ lives; they burned beatles records; they said some nasty ugly things. all because they thought jesus was being slighted. i don’t expect anything but snide remarks from springsteen fans. the Boss, himself, probably won’t dignify this stupid inanity publicly, though privately, he probably is laughing at cowell, i’m sure.

i wonder what cowell was doing in 1973, when bruce started out. i wonder whether cowell will ever actually produce anything of merit, anything lasting, anything beautiful during the course of his career. he certainly hasn’t yet. has he taken any risks? has he broken out of the formulaic, moved away from taking UK hits and bringing them, lock, stock and barrel, onto US screens?

i wonder whether anyone will remember him in 30 years.

by the time we got to gimme shelter

Posted on March 14, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i’m beginning to think that there’s something wrong with me as a parent. other parents talk with their kids about why the sky is blue; i talk about global warming. some parents talk about the instruments in the orchestra; i talk about why i prefer a live drummer to a synth track.

so it makes sense that this morning’s conversation followed suit. BC and i were driving to school this morning when gimme shelter came on the radio. this is probably among my favorite stones’ songs, if not the favorite. BC started to rock out, which was really cute and cool at the same time. i parked the car, and we got out of the car, BC singing “war, children — it’s just a shot away, it’s just a shot away.” and the conversation went from there…

BC: mama, what do they mean by that?

me: well, they mean it’s really easy to get into a war. but they also sing later that “love is just a kiss away,” which means that they think it’s just as easy to love as it is to fight, and why not pick love instead of fighting?

BC: what a cool song.

me: yeah, but it’s a depressing movie.

BC: i don’t want to watch it.

me: i won’t let you.

BC: why?

me: because, well… you see, in 1969, there was the concert called woodstock where they had so many people coming, they just threw up their hands and let anyone who wanted to come come in. and it was overall a pretty happy and peaceful event.

so then, later that year, they decided to throw another show at a place called altamont. unfortunately, they decided that this group of motorcycle riders called hells angels should keep everyone in line at the show. unfortunately, between people at the show being on drugs and drinking too much — which you know is a bad thing — and the hell angels people being pretty angry to begin with, well, it became a scary place and a man was killed there. they made a film about it, and it’s called gimme shelter. and you aren’t old enough to watch it yet.

i noticed about this time that another mom was walking with us in rapt attention. later, i walked up to her. “wow,” she said, “you really have different conversations with your kids.”

somewhere in heaven, dr. spock is probably rolling his eyes at me.

kicking darla out of the he-man woman-haters treehouse. in reverse.

Posted on March 13, 2007 by wrekehavoc

jools is home with me today. we spent nearly two hours outside ripping out ivy, digging, riding bikes, and, in my case, getting a wicked headache which will require plenty of antihistimine power as well as tylenol. we had to go in because jools was having such a great time, he forgot about the little issue of needing a bathroom. oops.

but before that happened, i witnessed something wonderful. jools, you see, figured out how to clamber up the ladder on the playhouse, push up the entry hatch, and climb into the treehouse. BC has held this treehouse over his head now for a few years, as in “you can’t come up here, n’yah n’yah, only girls allowed!” little hellboy was so proud of himself, he let himself out of the treehouse, slid down the slide, and then clambered up again. three times. just to prove to himself that he could do it.

BC is going to be in for a big surprise…

our dinner with jax

Posted on March 11, 2007 by wrekehavoc

my dear friend jax, who i don’t see as often as i’d like, cooked an amazing dinner in honor of my birthday. (for those of you new here, jax is a friend who works at the same place as BS and who was assigned to be our “daycare buddy” when her DD, a few months younger than BC, started at daycare. over the years, we’ve realized that we are basically the same person; she is the long island italian version, and i am the new jersey jewish version.) what’s especially amazing is that she did this after being on travel for work last week out on the west coast and had just returned on friday. while she knew that chocolate is the flavor i favor in cake, she psychically knew i especially love a chocolate cake with gushy pudding in the middle.
i cannot say thank you enough about that.

i must say, though, that the show that came just before dinner, though, was priceless. earlier, BS and jax’s DH took the kids for a walk to the nearby river, where they collected shells and even found a horseshoe crab shell. you know, it was almost the stuff of norman rockwell. (jax and i sat and drank wine. oh yeah, she cooked. i did nothing.) our four kids were playing together in the house — BC and anya (8, 7.5), jools (3.5) and katie (just turned three — happy birthday fellow march b-day girl!), and we thought they were happily doing something harmless. i’m not quite sure when we realized it, but someone went downstairs to check on the quiet kids. in short, they were covered in paint. jools and katie both had purple paint in their hair (jools had a purple mohawk); anya and BC were also covered. although none of us were particularly happy about the situation, it was incredibly difficult not to laugh. we swooped up the kids, washed everyone off, and jax threw their clothes in the laundry. the paint won’t come off the clothes, and we didn’t take pictures (!), but who cares. at least no one ate the paint.

so a big shout out to my lungisland friend who busted her butt last night and who i suspect is busting it even more, now that there’s a ton of paint on her basement floor. i wish i could help you clean up.

smiling jools said to jax as we were leaving: “next time, you can come over and destroy OUR house!”

that’s assuming our house isn’t already close to being condemned, dude 😉

who's at verizon? the who, that's who

Posted on March 9, 2007 by wrekehavoc

today’s my birthday (i’ll save that for another post). for my birthday, my husband got me gorgeous earrings and tix to see the who at verizon, which we dutifully attended last night. we had amazing seats, just to the side of the stage. would that they weren’t near a person with incredibly pungent B.O. as well as a gentleman who thought that if he kept his cigarette low that no one would notice the smoke (didn’t he learn anything from his days hiding from his parents in the bathroom with smokes? room spray doesn’t mask anything, dear. smoke is smoke.) but i digress. after all, i should be able to critique a show like my dear cousin, a former rock critic for the NY Times and peer of folks like Lester Bangs and Liliane Roxon, did. here goes.

i love the who. i have seen them when three of them were still around (performing quadrophenia, no less); i felt it my civic duty to see them while two of them were still kicking. (we’ve also seen roger daltrey sing with an orchestra at wolftrap. that moment probably inspired rod stewart to embark on the most recent part of his career. oh rod the mod, why, why, WHY?) anyway, they’ve a new LP they’re promoting, endless wire, the first album they’ve done in 24 years.

first of all, i *heart* zak starkey. there aren’t a lot of people who could take on keith moon in the drumming department (well, i suppose there are in the zany antics, car-driven-in-the-pool department). yet he doesn’t imitate moon. he really puts his own stamp on things. additionally, starkey truly controls the stage. (he probably learned to do that thanks to his gig with oasis. the gallagher brothers probably need a leash.)

i had an epiphany while watching him: the who is missing their drummer and bass player; the only remaining beatles are a bass player and a drummer. they ought to get together and make one insane band. then, i thought to meself: gee, maybe we could just let zak stand in for his dad — he’s a waaay better drummer. (and i adore ringo starr; i am merely talking about his technical ability, or lack thereof.)

anyway, the one HUGE irritant of the show: could somebody PLEASE make sure the keyboards are in tune with the rest of the band? i was nearly ready to brain myself — the keyboards in baba o’reilly, won’t get fooled again, etc — totally out of tune. and what was up with roger and his harmonica? it was like he was playing in a different key. you know, people are supposed to do more in a soundcheck besides talking to the dipshit teenager sitting in the front, guys.

most people groan when they have to listen to the new material from an artist’s album. i look at it as an opportunity to “try before you buy,” so to speak. so i was interested in hearing what they’d play. pete townshend, a man i have forgiven since he created the broadway musical tommy (which i thought was the worst, most disney-fied musical i ever saw, and i’ve seen some pretty awful ones) said that they waited to bring this album to us, the audience, for 24 years because it should have “it”. (whatever that means.) to be very honest, the material from wire and glass wasn’t bad; but it did sound like recycled musical motifs from other who works. i’ll have to give it another listen, but i figured, shit — after 24 years, THIS is what you pull out? i know pete townshend can write songs in his sleep (which he also noted on stage), but can he wake up and write some original stuff, as he has done on many of his excellent solo works? sheesh.

speaking of tommy, the highlight of the show, in my book, was the tommy medley of sorts. sure, they always pull out see me feel me/listening to you, but how often do you get to hear amazing journey and sparks live? it was thrilling, except for the out of tune instruments. yes, i am screaming for those of you who wondered.

you better you bet is a sentimental favorite of mine (when we were first married, i used to quote that when BS said he loves me i said “you better!” yeah. we’re america’s sweethearts, all right.) of course, you can tell two people are married for a long time when they both state the same thing simultaneously, and this moment was no different. roger was croaking the line:

but my body feels so good and i still sing a razor line everytime.

at the same time, right during the pause, BS and i screamed “no you don’t!” yep, statler and waldorf are alive and well and living in arlington. poor roger. he’s 60-something years old, and his voice simply doesn’t have the range it used to — and a lot of the who classics require an incredibly muscular voice. i wonder if zak can sing? (G-d help us all if he sings like his dad.)

anyway, it was fun to see the who. the assembly looked more like an AARP convention, but i guess that’s what happens when a band is around for over 40 years. still, i’d see them again if they’d bother to tune properly. cos who knows — there’s always the chance that pete might whack that whammy bar.

dear john mayer:

Posted on March 8, 2007 by wrekehavoc

dear john,

writing to you this way reminds me a little bit of the modern-day version of judy garland gazing in a mirror and singing dear mr. gable to clark, though admittedly, you’d never mistake me for one of your gushy fans. for one thing, i’m old enough to be your, er, former babysitter. and, while it doesn’t bother me, in fact, i’m not as much a fan of your music as i am of the funny and warm persona in your blog. i mean, come on: your body is a wonderland will be a punch line that may follow you for years to come.

but i digress. anyway, i write because i can tell from your blog you’re a decent bloke, the kind of guy who’d come and sit on my porch with some good microbrews and debate who did the best cover of little wing (which i must tell you is probably a toss-up between clapton and stevie ray vaughan‘s version, even though they played sting’s sappy version at my wedding because it seemed to fit better. no offense, of course. i hear you covered it, too. ) you seem to be a mellow, funny guy who takes criticism decently.

so here goes. it’s about your song: waiting for the world to change. it’s got a decent groove and grows on one. but here’s my complaint: why the fuck are you waiting for the world to change? why aren’t you doing something to actually make the world change? it’s like a gen-x anthem — let’s just be bummed because the world sucks. one day, maybe someone will do something. in the meantime, i’ll just sit here with my latte and watch it all unfold. if you were trying to channel marvin gaye, you would have done a whole lot better just covering makes me wanna holler (inner city blues), even though you probably don’t have his particular street cred under your belt. still. marvin got pissed. he inspired people to act. he used this opportunity to reach people, to piss them off, to mobilize them. he didn’t encourage them that change is someone else’s gig.

just something to think about the next time you jump into music with a slightly heavier content.

as the queen of non sequitors, i would love to see you cover big star’s thirteen. but, as usual, i digress.

anyway, keep blogging. at this rate, i may even get an album. (see, i really AM old 😉

yours truly,

wrekehavoc

p.s. if you’re ever in our neck of the woods, stop by for a beer.

my hero

Posted on March 6, 2007 by wrekehavoc

in case anyone ever wonders why i can’t lapse too long into self-pity, it’s because of this little dude. mason is the son of my friend danielle, and he is one of the toughest people i have ever met. to be 4 and to have been battling brain cancer for a long time, well, i can’t even begin to say i would handle it well. but mason is a cool little dude. i’m so excited to see his peach fuzz hair and lashes growing in. he has an MRI tomorrow. i know i’m throwing him in my prayers tonight. i hope everyone else sends good vibes or prayers out there for him as well.