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Category: music

remembering

Posted on April 30, 2007 by wrekehavoc

people who knew you in high school generally are not the people you want to know when you’re a grownup. they knew a younger, sillier, more idealistic, and probably more obnoxious version of the person you’ve (hopefully) become. i speak to very few people i knew back then. however, i’ve just gotten news that the father of one of the few people i do still know and see has just succumbed to a long and arduous battle with cancer. because of my knee being what it is, i don’t think i will get up to NJ for the funeral, which troubles me a great deal. i know that this person would be there for me in a tough situation. i feel like i am letting her down in a tremendous way.

what i can do, of course, is share a moment i remember about her dad, a tough but very warm man. i didn’t get to know him much until i was in college and my folks had moved a lot closer to where her folks lived, in scenic edison, nj [motto: edison is the bagel; metuchen is the hole.] he rode on the first aid squad, which, in time, my friend did, too.

at christmastime, 1986, i was a senior in college, slaving away on my honors thesis. it was just around breaktime when my friend told me that her dad had tickets to the radio city music hall christmas show — would i like to go? even though i had spent a zillion years living near NYC and visiting my beloved aunt in the east village, i had never, ever been to radio city. lots of broadway shows, to be sure — my folks adore broadway (so yes, despite the fact that i like some really hardcore music, i also can sing showtunes with the best of ’em) — but for some reason, my folks never wanted to go to radio city.

so off we went, we three jews, to the christmas show. much of that year is blurry to me, for reasons i won’t get into. but that trip. i remember the rockettes and thinking, wow, they do the same damn thing, over and over, to different songs. but they never fail. it was a well-done performance. afterwards, though, i have a very strong remembrance of the chestnuts that were being roasted by street vendors — their sweet, smoky scent still permeates my head on some winter days. and for some reason, i remember hearing diamonds on the soles of her shoes on a permanent loop in my brain. we walked through manhattan, and i remember thinking that i’d remember that day forever.

and i have.

thank you for your generosity and for an unforgettable day. even bit players in your life like me will think of you fondly always.

no matter what

Posted on April 26, 2007 by wrekehavoc

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute? – Emily, from Our Town by Thornton Wilder

having nearly lost my mother twice before i was in college, i’ve always been a sort of carpe diem kind of gal, though there are plenty of diems i wished i’d carpe‘d and didn’t. days, weeks, months, years pass; and sometimes, i miss things. i forget things. it’s probably the main reason i write in a blog. i want to remember things – crazy things people say to me, funny moments with my family, that sort of thing. i may be one of the snarkiest people you’ll meet, but when you get up close, you find i am a giant mushball crybaby. especially on days when i have to face up to things like my mortality.

the good news, of course, is that there’s a treatment, IVIG, for my CVID. the infectious diseases doctor who is able to get me IVIG and who is graciously willing to take me on as a patient as a courtesy to my wonderful hematologist (and don’t think i don’t know that this life has me feeling like a professional patient who collects doctors like my kids collect Pez dispensers) has really moved the proverbial ball forward. the company that provides the IVIG has been contacting me today, getting health and insurance-related information from me. i am astonished at their efficiency; and i am wildly, wildly grateful that i possess solid health insurance that will allow me to do this life-saving activity without bankrupting my family. oh, i wish my family knew how grateful i am to each and every one of them. and they never really will.

when i push beyond the gratitude, i find i have to face up to this ridiculous fury i possess. it’s pointless, really, to be angry about something over which you have absolutely no control. i mean, i can be mad at myself for being fat. i can be mad at myself for not being kinder to people in my life. i can even be mad at myself for falling on the ice and ripping up my knee (though that, of course, was unintentional.) but i didn’t do this to myself. i didn’t cause my immune system to not be strong. hey. i drink my green tea. i eat my veggies. i even was exercising to make myself strong. but my genes? they just are what they are.

when i was a little girl, my mother instilled a mantra in my head, a mantra she still tells me, a mantra i have carefully taught my children. she always told me that she loved me no matter what. and of course, i love my children no matter what.

i guess this is the point where i have to look at myself and tell myself that i love myself no matter what.

tonight, i put on van morrison; and as he sang have i told you lately, i danced with my children. BC, of course, snuggled in my arms as she tried to lead while we danced (she’s just like her mom). and jools grabbed his blanket, danced with us in a big hug for about 10 seconds, then started to do his crazy pee wee herman meets david lee roth maneuver. i didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. of course, though, i knew at the end of the song, when poor BC had damp hair, i’d become a mushball mom again. and it was ok. “i love you, mama,” BC said as she looked up at me and smiled.

i guess if she can love me, so can i.

why i have the best husband in the world. reason #367

Posted on April 24, 2007 by wrekehavoc

sunday was our 17th wedding anniversary. yes, 17 years of wedded bliss. or something like that. you could not find two more different people who have so much in common. i’m sure people have looked at us over the years and marvelled that one of us didn’t end up with a toilet seat cracked over his/her head at one point or another. i’m sure he’s been tempted to do something like that. i know i have.

[to anyone out there who doesn’t know us: that last bit was a joke. really. put down the phone. no need to call the authorities.]

anyway, because i have not been getting out as much as i normally do (and couldn’t find what i wanted online), i did not yet get BS a present. (yes, i suck.) he kept saying to me, don’t worry. i ordered your present a long time ago, and it still isn’t in. so all the while, i’m wondering — what on earth did BS think of, in advance no less?

it came in yesterday, a day late but still wildly appreciated.

BS got Pat DiNizio, the main songwriter and lead singer of the Smithereens, to hand write a copy of the lyrics of my favorite Smithereens song, beauty and sadness, for me!!!!!!!!! i know most normal women out there are more interested in jewelry and other crap like that, but i actually cried. the smithereens hold a very special place in our life story together, and BS definitely put a little thought into this. to borrow from this is spinal tap: i’m shocked. and stunned.

and thankful 🙂

wear burgundy and orange today

Posted on April 20, 2007 by wrekehavoc

Wish You Were Here

David Gilmour,
Roger Waters

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

reunions

Posted on April 19, 2007 by wrekehavoc

grosse point blank is one of those movies i could watch on a loop. the soundtrack kicks; the plot and dialogue is chockabloc with tight, hysterically-wound moments, and of course, john cusack is in it. fortunately for someone like me, who isn’t doing a whole lot these days thanks to my knee, it’s also played practically weekly, so i TIVO’d it and watched it this afternoon.

watching it of made me think about reunions (since, for the two of you out there who probably never saw it — and that includes you, mom — it involves a 10-year high school reunion.) my own high school class had a five-year reunion which i did not attend (i hadn’t gotten over certain people — or myself — at that point in time); subsequent attempts for a reunion have never materialized, though people talk about it wildly on places like classmates.com. my 20th college reunion this year is happening (insert shock and awe here), and i will also pass on that. i keep in solid touch with my good friends from college (including BS, who i see daily); there are only a few curiousities out there who i will likely never see. compounding the issue is the fact that while officially, i affiliated with douglass college (i got into both rutgers and douglass; douglass had guaranteed housing, so i decided to go there), i was most heavily involved with activities and people at rutgers college. so i would sooner attend a rutgers college reunion, not a douglass college reunion (especially since the university is apparently turning my college into essentially a dormitory choice.)

that being said, there are so many people i miss and who i wish i could see again. what i really wish i could do is have a smallish reunion weekend of sorts, renting a hotel, having a dance party on saturday night, that sort of thing. i guess i ought to organize that in my copious free time. but gosh, at least a girls’ weekend with my friends would be amazing — a slumber party of sorts with my friends.

now i’m getting maudlin. perhaps there are funnier things to read out there in the blogosphere. okay. move along. who knows: maybe dooce is talking about bowel movements or her dog, chuck. it just doesn’t get much better than that, you know.

mix the dad with the coconut and snort it all up

Posted on April 6, 2007 by wrekehavoc

last week, my hero, keith richards, the man who can survive tours with mick jagger, nuclear holocausts, and falls out of tropical foliage, noted that he had snorted his dad’s ashes up with some blow. now, he is noting that this was, in fact a joke: according to his website, he planted his dad’s ashes with a “sturdy oak.”

apparently, keith’s mum is battling cancer and didn’t appreciate the thought of her departed former husband going up her son’s nose.

i find it encouraging that there is at least one person on the planet who might make keith shit himself publicly. but, as sean lennon once said, “when you die, you become a part of everything.”

and i sure as hell still believe that mr. richards senior is probably part of his son’s bloodstream.

in a word, ewww.

the perils of classic rock, take two

Posted on March 26, 2007 by wrekehavoc

i just put BC to bed with what seems to be an ear infection. she’s in a bit of pain, and i have the feeling i’ll be up a few times tonight.

so, of course, i have to focus on something mildly amusing.we were driving to softball practice earlier today (before the ear situation arose), and david bowie’s rebel rebel came on the radio. the kids love this song — who wouldn’t — and were singing the chorus. of course, i don’t know which version raised my eyebrows more: BC singing: “hot dog, i love you so” or jools singing: “hot tramp, i love you so.”

my daughter is well on her way to bowdlerizing modern music. i imagine there is a job waiting for her at the kidz bop company. meanwhile, my son is singing something that really is a wildly inappropriate utterance for a 3.5 year old. however, it reminds me of when i was his age and i listened to the hair soundtrack nonstop on my little record player in the basement. i especially loved singing what i thought were the words to one song in particular [if you’re easily offended by sexual terms, don’t click the link]. (and no, at 5, i had no idea what the title meant, either. i just liked the music.) i walked around the house singing this song for years, and no one said boo to me. when i was old enough and i could look up the words, i was horrified to learn what they meant and i never sang the song again.

my mother is one of those people who believes that when a kid is old enough and figures things out, the kid’ll act appropriately. if you make a big stink out of things, though, then the kid will fixate on the issue and you’ll never hear the end of it. i guess i’m in the same camp, especially since you won’t catch me singing that song ever again.

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.