I am your neighbor

Dear MamaKitt,

Why is it that, upon hearing (as I did this morning) Outkast’s (or, really, Andre 3000’s) “Hey Ya!” my memory is of sitting in your teensy car in a parking lot outside a Boston-area CVS?

For some reason I have this sense that one time, when I was visiting you, we had a CVS errand, but stayed in the car to enjoy the full, glorious deliciousness that is “Hey Ya!” before going inside. Is it possible this really happened? Is it possible that, as I find myself wanting to declare, this was also the first time I’d heard the song?

I don’t rightly know. I do know that Andre is FABULOUS and sessy as all get out, and I wish he would burst back onto the scene, because I miss him terribly. In all his endless iterations.

I know it’s not a glamorous memory. But the image of you and me in your little car in the CVS parking lot flashed immediately and specifically into my head when I heard “Hey Ya!” today. Even before it made me think of Andre 3000’s abs! And that’s saying something.

Love,

The Girl on the Swing

I was educated at Woodstock

Actually, I wasn’t educated at Woodstock. I was educated at the Yarmouth Clam Festival.

Something tells me we’ve touched on this already, so I’ll keep it brief: each year, when TGOTS and I were growing up, a nearby town had a summer festival dedicated to the aforementioned bivalve. There weren’t actually too many clams on display, that I ever saw, but there was a lot of good food, music, arts and crafts, and general happy summerness.

One year, my mother and I planted ourselves at the music tent and caught a couple of great acts (“great” being a relative term, since it was Maine and it was the ’80s): There was the Wicked Good Band, an unparalleled novelty group whose 45s and cassettes we owned and whose songs still run through my head (“road kill, road kill, bashing beasties in my Blazer is a wicked decent thrill”). And then there was the group that featured the town’s high-school band conductor on vocals and lead guitar.

I don’t know if this group had a name. And right now I can’t even remember his name, which is driving me nuts. But he was young, and dark-haired, and handsome — leagues away from our school’s conductor, a stout, middle-aged fellow with a perennially red face and a not-unrelated perennial bout with alcoholism.

Anyhow, this young and handsome conductor had a secret life in a rock band, which was so cooooool, and my mother and I got quite a kick out of stumbling upon them. I had my trusty portable tape recorder with me — yes, there was a period of time when I brought that thing everywhere, and as a result I have what I’m sure is a time-capsule-worthy documentation of my young life. Among the evidence is an hour or so of the band conductor’s group reeling off various hits, punctuated by my mother’s and my commentary, and underlain by the ambient noise of — well, a clam festival.

“Soul Man” is what brought me back there today. I remember there were also Beatles tunes. And the rest is lost to history. Well, at least until I find that audio cassette — and some way to play it.

P.S.: I also just recalled that my bootleg Wicked Good Band tape includes a song they were later forced to stop singing by a lawsuit. It demeaned a local businessman for building condos everywhere. Man, I’ve got to find that tape! I could be rich.

Take ‘em to the bridge

Dear Justin Timberlake,

I appreciate your efforts to bring sexy back, but I fear you have your work cut out for you.

When I heard your dulcet tones and righteous grooves this morning, I was hunched over the wheel of my little beige sedan, trying not to die as I negotiated city streets apparently untouched by plows. Several inches of snow had fallen during the night, yet no one in my fair city apparently deemed it worthy of removal. The going was treacherous.

So: Hunched over the wheel, clutching it wildly at ten and two, gloves with holes at the fingertips on both hands. The rest of my outfit included a white coat with a muddy gray swath across the back, where I had bumped into my dirty beige sedan while trying to get into it this morning. I had on the boots I’ve had since I was in high school, which I for some reason keep even though they give me blisters. And my hair was clipped back in a mad arrangement of barrettes in a feeble attempt to keep it neat until I got to work.

Hot, right?

Ohhhh, yes, it was quite a picture, JT. So while I enjoyed your tune, and am, as I say, grateful for your efforts, I’m afraid sexy has gone and hid somewhere far far away, and you may have to labor long and hard to bring it back.

Go ahead, be gone with it.

Many thanks,

The Girl on the Swing

Behave, beehive

I learned about Amy Winehouse from Stephen King.

Oh, have I not mentioned that Stephen and I are BFFs? That’s because we aren’t (though my mom did have some English classes with him in college). Haven’t read a one of his books. But he does write an occasional pop culture column for Entertainment Weekly — a magazine I’ve been reading for over a decade, and can’t seem to quit — and soon after “Rehab” came out he wrote a piece extolling the virtues of one Ms. A. Winehouse.

So, I checked her out. And lo and behold, I found Uncle Stevie (as he styles himself) hadn’t steered me wrong. Loved the groove, loved the sass, and as long as I didn’t have to look at or hear about the love life of AW, I enjoyed the song. I also enjoyed “You Know I’m No Good,” especially when it was used in a now unfindable Mad Men promo.

AND … that’s about where my knowledge of and interest in Amy Winehouse begins and ends. I do, and expect ever to, associate her with Stephen King when I hear her music, which is a little strange. Or not — she looks like she’d fit right into a tale of gothic violence and horror.

WHICH, come to think of it, is what I almost got myself into, upon hearing “Rehab” this morning. I can’t help but do a little car-dancing to that song … which is rather dangerous when the roads are covered in snowy muck and the winds are so strong your car is swaying all over the place. DANGEROUS, kids. When the weather’s bad, no dancing and driving.

I wonder if there’s a rehab for that.

We’re all carried along

As I listened to “River of Dreams” this morning, I felt the mix of joy and shame I once experienced over that album, which came out when I was in college. Joy: My forever bf Billy Joel had a new album! Shame: It was 1993 and he was so not cool. And when my mother excitedly bought tickets for me, my sister, my sister’s then-partner, and herself to see Billy in concert, the confusing mix intensified. Ooh, a (free) show! But oh, what would I tell my friends?

Thinking about that this morning led me back to a couple of other joy-shame moments. Gymnastics class, fifth grade: a discussion with another girl about our plans for the evening, in which I revealed that I was going to a symphony concert with my parents. She was a big nerd, bigger than me, so I felt a fleeting flash of hope that she’d confess her love for orchestral music. No dice. “I hate classical music,” she said. “Oh me too,” I assured her. Which was so. Not. True.

Two years later, a new friend called me at home on a Sunday afternoon. A jean jacket wearing, rat-tail sporting, coooool friend. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Oh, just watching an Arlo Guthrie concert on TV,” I responded. “Do you like that music?” she asked, incredulous. “No way,” I replied. Betraying my soul once more.

I’m so glad, I thought this morning, that I got more confident about my musical preferences. I certainly haven’t had to hide or feel shame since college. Can’t think of a single time.

And then “When the Night Comes” came on.

Hee hee. As I mentioned ever so briefly in my albums of the decade list, my fella and I took in a lot of shows while we lived in Seattle, mostly very hipsterish stuff. But this one time … well, we saw Joe Cocker. We were vaguely embarrassed as we bought the tickets, embarrassed leading up to the show, and certainly didn’t tell anyone we were going. The show was fun — marked by a nearby attendee periodically yelling “Cock ‘n’ rollllll!” — but I never fully shed my embarrassment over being there. Sorry, Joe.

Even last summer, when I had tickets to see Bruuuuce, I was surprised to feel a slight shyness about it. (This is the show I missed due to baby’s fever, although I can’t find evidence that I mentioned that here at the time. I’m either not good at searching or I’m more polite than I thought.) In the days leading up to the show, I didn’t talk about it with any of my Seattle-based co-workers, who are all Avett Brothers and Blitzen Trapper and Josh Ritter. Finally, on the day before the show, a friend from work IM’d to see what my plans were for the weekend, and I confessed. “OMG, Andrew [her husband] has totally been dying to see Bruce Springsteen!” she burbled. “Really??” I wrote, weirdly excited and relieved. She waited a beat, then shot back one word: “No.”

In that case, at least, I know they’re missing out. Nothing beats the Bruce. And to hell with ‘em all: I am hereby pledging to stand by my musical choices, no matter how tragically unhip they might be.

Those golden dreams of my yesterday

Sometimes you seriously score on Auto Tunes, even if not in real life.

I’ve been waiting for this song to surface for a while, and it was the first one I landed on today: “Feel Like Makin’ Love.”

It is 1990. I am in the backseat of a car wide enough that it was probably a station wagon, on a double date. A few feet away (told you it was wide) sits The Boy. The one who likes me, really the only one who’s professed to like me since fifth or sixth grade, and one I like in return but am too mortifyingly shy to do anything about.

Even when the opportunity presents itself, such as on a double date. As I recall, we stop to get gas (hot). Either at the gas station or as we are pulling away, Bad Company’s ode to hotty hot hotness comes on the radio. The Boy seizes this chance to slide across the vast horizon of the pleather seat, put his arm around me, and coo, “So how many houses did you egg on Halloween?”

I am sure he worked on that line. Whether he was as painfully aware of the soundtrack behind us as I was, I don’t know. I wish I could go back there as my older, wiser self and call him on it. Instead I demurred, muttered, tensed every muscle in my body instead of sinking into the arm. The arm! Of a boy!

The rest of that date — our sole official one — is only vaguely impressed upon my cortex. We went bowling, and I actually had fun. We went to McDonald’s afterwards, and I couldn’t eat a thing, and at one point when it was just the other girl and me, she asked if I was too nervous to eat. I laughed it off, but holy Hannah was she right.

At the end of the evening, they dropped me off at home. Our entryway had huge plate-glass windows, so there were no secrets. Especially when your father came downstairs in his nightshirt to control the three huge barking dogs inside. You know, just to make sure they were behaving themselves.

The Boy was so sweet, and I immediately rewarded him by pretending to hate him for the rest of that year, his last in high school. I assiduously ignored him, even as I monitored his every move. And then I spent nearly twenty years wondering what could have been. Consciously, at first, and then in dream form. I know!

Recently The Boy and I reconnected on Facebook (The Musical!). Loyal reader(s) will recall that in late August, when I wrote about this before because apparently I’m a tiny bit obsessed, he was not findable there. But he joined, as everyone seems to do eventually, and sent me a note. I never would have opened that door, but once he had, I proceeded to pour out a weepy apology. OK, I didn’t pour everything out or weep, but I did say I was sorry for acting rotten. (I know!) He was very gracious, replying that I’d been out of his league to begin with, and we continued on to a lovely catching-up correspondence.

Oh, teenage love. Or bowling. Or whatever. It’s so perplexing at the time, and so simple in retrospect. And while I am not generally a fan of Facebook, I am grateful to have had this chance to clear the air and reconnect with a good person. I think the dreams have even stopped.

Take me home

For the first few months that MamaKitt and I lived together after college, I had a shitty job at a shitty bookstore near the mall. (Yes, THE mall. It was Maine. We had only one real mall. And it was [is] called—wait for it—The Maine Mall.)

Actually, the job wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been for the certifiably insane dudes with whom I worked. The bookstore was right across the street from a far superior version, so we didn’t do an enormous amount of business; this meant I could often do my reading for the classes I was taking while on the clock.

And, though I am so not a night owl, I sometimes ended up with the late shift, closing the store at 10 or 11. Then I would drive the short distance to our shitty but beloved apartment, looking forward to catching up with MK.

The drive, while short, was kind of awesome. My usual route took me up onto the highway for less than a minute, then off a soaring overpass, crossing the river to the peninsula of downtown Portland. The way the overpass was constructed made it almost feel like a carnival ride, all swooping curves and dips and climbs. It ended quite abruptly at a stop sign, and from there I passed along narrow old streets, lined with gorgeous old houses, all overlooking the river and the bay.

ANYWAY. Hearing Guns n’ Roses’ (Seriously, Axl? That’s how we’re punctuating it?) “Paradise City” this morning, I remembered one late-night drive home from the bookstore, along the route I just described, blasting GNR out the open windows. This was the beginning of my realization that I had a strong nostalgia for the hair bands I’d scorned in high school, and I was delighted to happen upon this awesomest of songs.

So there I was, roller-coastering along the overpass, driving too fast and playing music too loud. I was sufficiently alert to brake at the abrupt stop sign, but too lost in the music to realize that the decibel level I’d reached on the highway was perhaps excessive for a genteel neighborhood late at night. I remember sitting at the three-way stop, looking ahead and then to my right, and seeing a preppy, 40ish dude in a Subaru grinning at me — and pumping his fist out his own open window to the wails of Axl T. Rose.

I grinned back, and sheepishly turned the radio down. Oops. There goes the girl on the swing, causing a ruckus with her hair metal.

Ugh, sorry. That’s a long-ass story with too little payoff. P.S. How is it possible we have not yet discussed GNR? Goodness gracious.

Now I know that I’m too young

My favorite songs here on AutoTunes are not the ones that inspire a reaction in me along the lines of, “Oh, this reminds me of the time when …” but the ones that instantly and subconsciously transport me somewhere else in time and place.

This morning, stumbling upon “Sussudio,” I found myself in the basement of a house in Seattle with my brother and his then-girlfriend (she of  “your breasts get shinin’ in the sun” fame). Loyal reader(s) will recognize a familiar theme here: they were impossibly grown-up and hip, and I was thrilled to be in their presence. And watching videos with them? Top-notch coolness.

I believe this was the summer when my mother and I drove my brother’s car from San Francisco to Seattle, because he had to fly north directly after his law-school graduation to study for and take the bar exam. Sounds a bit fishy, upon reflection. But whatever, it was a great excuse for a road trip. (P.S., some day I should count the number of trips my mother took me on — there were many, and they were incredible.)

Anyhow, when we arrived in Seattle we found my brother and his girlfriend at a place they were housesitting. I assume we just spent a night or two and then flew home, but I don’t remember. All I remember is two things: the aforementioned basement video-watching, and a horrifying moment in the dining room upstairs when they and a couple of study buddies asked me, teasingly, if I was planning to join them in the hot tub later.

So inappropriate, and so mortifying to a ten-year-old girl. And so odd that my brain cached those two moments — perhaps they were the high and the low of that visit.

Footnote: I read recently a reference to the fact that, when Peter Gabriel left Genesis, Phil Collins turned it from an art experiment into a pop-song hit factory. I guess I knew that was its evolution, but I never quite realized it was such a switch-flipping moment.

Silly Canadians

There are many many many many many many many many worse ways to start the day than with a little Glass Tiger singing “Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone).”

Such a peppy song! With such oddly ominous lyrics! I toooootally remember dancing around my bedroom to this song and being thrilled to the core any time it came on the radio. And I remember sharing awe with my girlfriends when we realized our beloved Bryan Adams was supplying the backup vocals.

I do not, however, remember the video for “Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone),” which is odd, as I now see it features tweenish girl trumpet players, of all things. I was a tweenish girl trumpet player myself at the time, so you’d think I’d have taken note.

[OH HO HO YES, that’s right, I played the trumpet. Ridiculously enough. It was the only thing I could get a sound out of on the day in third or fourth grade when we all got to test and choose one of the various band instruments. YES I was often the only girl in the trumpet section. YES I realized too late that all the cool girls were playing clarinet or flute. YES this is the story of my life.]

Please watch. I promise the pungent dose of ‘80s will brighten your day. SHOULDER PADS! AND CINCHED WAISTS! ON MEN! And why is there no appearance by B. Adams? Also please report back if you agree with me that the keyboard player is the flashback Jack McFarland when Will & Grace did eighties episodes.

Been mistreated

Observation #1: When I leave for work half an hour earlier than usual, I can get to my office in about half the time. Really? Traffic picks up that much in the interim? Huh.

Observation #2: Facebook is a demon invention riddled with social landmines and interpersonal angst.

Here’s the Facebook “for instance” I’ve been wrestling with:

MamaKitt and I have a high school friend — and I use that term advisedly — with whom we are now Facebook friends. We have not seen this person (I think this is true for us both) in about eight years, and do not keep in any kind of touch. In my case, at least, my memories of this person are not, on the whole, that fond — I recall far more instances of her tormenting me than I do our having fun together. But, you know, we went to a tiny school, where everyone knew everyone else, so I accepted her Facebook friend request when it came along.

ANYWAY. I have no real relationship with this person other than reading her Facebook status updates — which have, in recent days, trumpeted a brand new relationship with a dude. Coyly, without naming him or revealing too much about him, but making clear that she’s hooking up and thrilled about it.

Now, these swoony updates follow months of “when will I be loved?” posts, which also freaked me out. Way too personal! Tone it down! We don’t broadcast these things to the interwebs! So now I’m a little bit torn, because while I am half obsessed with the saga of high school friend’s romantic life — part of it as I have virtually, involuntarily been — I am also now going bonkers with the constant professions of mad love.

The most recent status update was something along the lines of “all I want is someone to love me oh and the smell of snowmobile fumes” (I am not making that up). So I read that and think DUDE SERIOUSLY SHUT THE FLOCK UP WITH YOUR BLATANT FEEEEELINGS … but then I also think, okay, really that’s just a basic human desire, not such a big deal, everybody wants to be loved, it’s nothing to get riled up about, and maybe she should even be applauded for stating it so plainly.

Oh, Facebook — how you confound my sense of propriety and social interaction. And how you highlight, once again, my apparent inclination toward love-hate reactions to a multitude of things.

Also I think Linda Ronstadt missed a real opportunity by not including something about a snowmobile in “When Will I Be Loved.”