"Perfect Strangers" - Deep Purple/"In The Still of the Night" - Whitesnake

Randy and I took the boys and two of their friends to see Deep Purple (backed by a 38 piece orchestra) at the Beacon Theater in NYC last week -- this was Tyler's birthday present.  He is crazy about Deep Purple.  He is so crazy about Deep Purple that if they have a band member that was singing on a certain album he likes (such as, Glenn Hughes) he will go and find all of THAT guy's other bands and end up being really into them.  Which is why I had to tell him we were not driving to Buffalo to see Black Country Communion the other day.  And we're not driving to Rochester to see Judas Priest, either, but that's another story.

I'm not a big fan of the Purp, but there was this one summer when I was listening a lot to their Greatest Hits cassette in the sweltering non-air conditioned bedroom I shared with my little sister.  They had just had their 80's "comeback" and their two 80's songs were also on this hits album.  I liked "Hush" and "Perfect Strangers" the best.  There was something dark and twisted about the music in this song that fit in with that deep unsettled feeling I was walking around with that summer.

It was 1988, I had just turned 19 years old.  I was mostly focused on boys, partying, and hiding out from my concerned mother. I was sort of attending Western CT State University and I was working at the Mall and sometimes at Food Bag - a convenience store that made fried chicken and sold gas.

Food Bag was at an intersection of a few diverse neighborhoods, when I was growing up, Beaver St. in Danbury had low income housing and was the closest thing to "projects" that my town had.  In the other direction was a very strongly Portuguese neighborhood and large old Victorian houses that had been converted to apartments and were full of drunk college kids and other people who needed tons of roommates to pay the rent.  Food Bag was at the center of all this, the spoke in the wheel.  We were so busy all the time that it could get pretty comical.

I got in trouble a few times - once for making crazy faces at the security camera (because I believed nobody looked at it) and another for writing "Turkey Boob" on the sandwich labels instead of "Turkey Breast".  But hey, I was a very imaginative person stuck in drudgery, what else was I going to do?  We have millions of stories from Food Bag - my brother worked there too for a while.  The hours were perfect for a college student and it didn't require a lot of brains, just common sense and a cool head.

Right around this summer I was spending a lot of time with my coworker Dee from Food Bag - we clicked within minutes of meeting each other and were thick as thieves.  We would always try to get into bars and be thrown out unceremoniously because she had a slew of older brothers and a lot of people knew who she was.  We did find this one place that let us in, so many times we'd drink at her house before loading up a car and going over to North Salem around midnight to go to this place called "Whitney's".  Oh man, was that a freakshow.

Danbury is on the border of Brewster, New York, and there are two very different liquor laws between the states.  In CT, bars close at 1 on weeknights, 2 on weekends.  No booze of any kind is sold after 8pm or on Sundays. In New York, you can buy beer whenever and liquor before 9pm (at least that's how it was in the 80's-90's, being a sober alcoholic, I have no idea what's going on now).  Bars were open until 4am EVERY NIGHT.  Party animals from CT would say they were going "on a Brewster run" which meant they ran out of beer.  We also would close the bar in our town and then a caravan of drunk idiots would go across the border to the first bars we could find to keep it going until 4:00am.  Whitney's was one of those bars -- so it didn't get busy until after 1 in the morning.  We got there around midnight to secure a stool at the bar and to flirt with the bartender who is the reason we were able to get in there in the first place-- he thought Dee was cute.  Some guy used to go there dressed in an opera cape and introduced himself as "Lestat" and he kept asking if I wanted to live forever.  I also had a marriage proposal from someone who told me he wanted to make me his "African Queen".  Which is hilarious, because I am of German descent.  We loved it there, not just for the fact that we could actually GET IN, but because insane stuff kept happening and one thing Dee and I loved was the weird.  It seemed like when it was just the two of us, the weirdest stuff happened.  That also happened with my future roommate Jenn.  I know I'm the common denominator, but I honestly thing it was the chemistry between me and these two friends of mine that attracted bizarre people, conversations, and opportunities.

My mother was none too thrilled with this lifestyle of mine - and I was living at home - so I did a lot of sleeping over at Dee's so my mother wouldn't have to worry waiting for me to come home at 4:30am and also so I wouldn't have to hear it.

At the same time, I was hanging out with Mothra when she wasn't with her boyfriend and somehow we had reconnected with this kid Jay that was a few years younger than us.  They rode the same bus in grade school and high school and he always had a wicked huge crush on her.  I started flirting with him for the hell of it and next thing I know, I ended up kind of having a bona fide crush on him.  It made me feel wrong because he was a senior in high school.  He was also one of those guys that was cynical and mocking all the time.  I had no business crushin' on him, but I did.

We would talk on the phone late into the night, and I was FRAUGHT with tension.  He flirted but wouldn't bust any moves at all.  Then one night, it all escalated to a "dare" and he DARED me to walk to his street (which was just about a mile away) and he would meet me on the corner and we would...what? Make out?  Yes, make out.  And that's what I did.  I crawled out my bedroom window in the middle of the night to walk a mile -- I don't remember why I didn't just drive, maybe my car was messed up? -- in the pitch black windy roads of my neighborhood to make out with this twisted high school kid.  It didn't ease my crush at all because the kid was a great kisser.

So of course, this song, which was still pretty popular that year, always makes me think of the lengths I went to when I was still so demented I would go so totally out of my way just to kiss a guy:

I still get slight erotic flashbacks when I hear it.  Not so much because of Jay, but of how I was so drunk on frustrated lust.  I would listen to this song over and over. The album "Whitesnake", Guns and Roses "Appetite for Destruction" and Deep Purple's greatest hits were the soundtrack to that summer.

There's a P.S.  Later that winter things with Jay went south (we never really dated and made out a few times but were more friends than anything MORE than friends, which frustrated me at the time), but not before he, Dee and I went on a 'scavenger hunt' one night driving around taking photos of random people and making up insane stories and ending up throwing a very lacy nightgown on the statue of the Virgin Mary in front of Jay's very Catholic high school.  Dee still has the photo of us laughing in front of what looks like lace on a rock - Jay took the photo.  Apparently, it was a huge scandal and none of us were caught.

I also went to see Deep Purple, well Guns and Roses really, they opened for Aerosmith and Deep Purple at Giant's Stadium, and my kid is horrified that I left about 3 songs in to the Deep Purple set.  I wasn't really there for them.  The concert last week was incredible - Steve Morse is a SICK guitar player and Ian Gillen sounds pretty good for an old man, even though he ran out of air a few times, he still could really scream.

Black Sabbath - "War Pigs"

In 1990 I had the pleasure to see Ozzy Osborne live, on his birthday.  My friend Lisa and I went, and all the way to New Haven, all the radio stations were playing various Ozzy/Black Sabbath songs, and we were laughing because we heard "War Pigs" so many times, that when the band hit those distinctive opening notes, we groaned and rolled our eyes.  Ozzy put on a great show, I think he might still have been messed up back then, but he had the whole audience in the palm of his hand.  At the end of the night, they dropped tons of balloons that said, "Happy Birthday, Ozzy" on them, I kept mine for years, despite it's deflation.

However, this song doesn't really remind me of the show.  It now reminds me of my two unofficial stepsons, Tyler, age 16 and Ryan, age 14.

Despite living in a house with two musicians passionate about music, our boys never seemed that interested in music.  At one point I asked Tyler (at about age 11) what his favorite kind of music was, and he said, "Video game music." Yes, they were very into video games, mostly fighting and samurai video games.  Then came the whole "Guitar Hero"-"Rock Band" video game craze and the guys were introduced to a bunch of music and they started doing some exploring on their own.  I'll never forget Tyler coming to me and asking me, "Have you ever heard of Meat Loaf?". 

At one point, Ryan got sick of playing plastic guitars and expressed interest in "real" guitar, so three and a half years ago, both Tyler and Ryan started taking lessons: Tyler took bass lessons, Ryan took guitar lessons (they're both awesome, by the way, and Tyler has also picked up the drums). I believe they started off liking Metallica but then found Black Sabbath and it became Black Sabbath all the time.  They've now spread out and have become big fans of Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Dio, Blue Oyster Cult and many other fine bands from the 70's era. 

During the Black Sabbath phase, we were all in the car heading somewhere, it doesn't matter, when "War Pigs" came on the radio.  Tyler asked us to turn it up.  The four of us then began to sing it, pretty loudly, all together.  At the end of the song, Tyler said, "That was a nice family sing-along song, wasn't it?" and I started laughing really hard.

All my life I told everybody who would listen that I didn't want kids, that I didn't have a maternal cell in my body.  I admitted I was incredibly selfish and that I wanted to be a poet rock star and would rather die than be "trapped" by a kids/a family.  I didn't hate children, I claimed that I loved them so much I knew better than to have any.  Love changed everything.

When I moved back to CT in 2002, my full intention was to regroup, save money and move back to New York City as soon as I humanly can.  What's that old saying, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." Yeah. 

Right after Jesus Christ Superstar,  my brother auditioned for a production of Godspell - I went along as moral support and to have something to do.  I remember hearing this guy audition through the door - he played guitar and was singing "Stray Cat Strut." He was really good.  I wanted to Jeff Gilooly him to get him out of the competition for the role of Jesus.  Matt got the role of Jesus anyway, and this guy - Randy - ended up being part of the cast.  During rehearsal, I noticed him - he was cute, but quiet.  I heard through the grapevine that he had been married, but his wife had passed away leaving him with two small boys.

Randy and I didn't really get to talking until closer to the end of the show.  We ended up sitting near each other and talking for hours at the cast parties, almost to the exclusion of everybody else.  We had lots in common -we both loved music, and we both played guitar and sang.  We decided we'd get together and jam and maybe be a band.  I really liked him a lot, but was a little afraid of the "baggage", and I figured that his widower status and kids would be enough to keep my growing romantic feelings in check - that I would still move back to New York City, but that this musical collaboration would be a nice distraction.

Eight years later, I am still with him.  I didn't count on falling in love with him.  I also didn't count on his boys being so damn charming and sweet and falling in love with them, too.  It wasn't long before I was at his house almost every night and then just changed my address. 

The funniest part about this is I am far from trapped.  I actually feel freer and MORE myself than I ever could imagine.  Some friends worried that I'd be living in the shadow of another woman, his wife, but I tell them like I told him - he loved her the way he loved her.  He's not going to love me the same way, he's loving me the way he loves me.  I do not love him in the exact same way I loved my ex, I love Randy the way I love him.  And as much as I love both boys,  I can't make up for the fact that they lost their mother, I know that I'm the next best thing but that I can't replace her.  I don't want to replace her.  She is their mother, I am the lucky woman that is now mothering them.

If you had told me 11 years ago that I was going to leave New York City, live in the rural suburbs and raise two boys, I would have laughed until I had an aneurysm. What I also would never have believed if you told me was that I would be so happy, content, and grateful.  Our family is not conventional and I am far from bored.  It's almost like God heard me and said, "Oh yeah? How about THIS family?"  and laughing, spread his wings and designed the perfect family for me.  After feeling like an "outsider" for most of my life, I have found the people I belong to.

The very fact that "War Pigs" is our in-car sing-along song proves it to me.

The Beatles - "Eleanor Rigby" - And Other Early Musical Influences

For my 4th birthday, I was given a orange and white plastic portable record player.  When the lid was down it looked kind of like a modern plastic suitcase. I loved it.  With the record player, I was given some Disney albums and some of my mother's old 45's.  My mother also bought me the 45 for "Yellow Submarine" because she thought it would be a good kid's song.

Little did she know that I preferred the B-side, which happened to be "Eleanor Rigby." 

Lutherans don't believe in reincarnation, but I don't know else how to explain my instant connection to the lonely people in this song.  I also think I wanted to know the answer to "Where do they all belong?" because I already knew I wasn't exactly right.

Don't get me wrong, I was definitely young, and my second favorite song was from Dumbo.

So I wasn't exactly a pre-gothic/emo type at age 4.  Eleanor Rigby spoke to me, Yellow Submarine did not.  Did that make me a screwed up four year old? Maybe.

My mother gave me a lot of her 45's.  My parents were squares.  My parents like show tunes and some modern music, but neither of them had their fingers on the pulse of what was hip.  I grew up listening to Broadway, Disney, pop songs from the 50's, doo wop, Simon and Garfunkel, Chicago and the Beach Boys.  Later, after my parents were divorced, my Dad had other music that he played in the car - the Muppet Show soundtrack, Queen, Supertramp, more show tunes.  I didn't really start exploring the radio or music on my own until I was about 10 or 11.

So some of the songs below were big favorites from ages 4-10.  I wish I could find all of them, some of them were hilarious B-sides to big sappy songs.  My Mom was a big Perry Como fan.

"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" was a song my Dad would often play on the piano, and I would sing along with him.

Ooh! The Aristocats! One of my all time favorite Disney movies, I loved this Soundtrack, very jazzy/swing.  They never re-release this one! I wonder why? Oh yeah...watch the video:

"Spinning Wheel" was another big song on the Dad's Piano Hit Parade:

Ah, old awesome Chicago before Peter Setera took over and wussified it.

One of my all time favorites from Paul and Art.  In fact, my Dad once improvised while playing the organ at church and played the melody of "Sound of Silence" on the bass pedals while playing the old Lent hymn "There Is A Green Hill Far Away" on the upper keys, and the story goes I gasped and turned around and started excitedly telling my mother about what he was doing, because at age 4 or 5, I recognized the bass line immediately. 

You know, watching these videos, I'm struck by the racist stereotypes in both Dumbo and The Aristocats...I wonder if that's why they haven't been re-released in a million years? Wow.

Barry Manilow - "I Made It Through The Rain"

The year was 1981 and I was in 7th Grade at Immanuel Lutheran School. Our Church was throwing their inaugural Dinner Cabaret, a fund raiser that included dinner (roast beef, green beans with almonds, boiled potatoes, always) and a show.

The show was a variety show comprised by different acts performed by church members.  The principal of Immanuel Lutheran School (ahem, my father) dressed up as a girl and sang, "I'm Jest A Girl Who Cain't Say No" while sitting on the lap of the Assistant Pastor.  There were dance numbers, and a "Who's On First" number, and many different kinds of vocal stylings.  The Youth Group, of which I was a member, decided to perform "I Made It Through The Rain" with a twist.  The girls stood around the piano and sang while the boys did a dance number with umbrellas.  It was cute and funny.

The rehearsals took place in the school gym, where incidentally the Cabaret would also take place.  I was one of the few 7th grade girls singing, while a few of the 7th grade boys were dancing, but the bulk of the performers were the (scary) 8th graders who were all cooler than me.  I was very nervous being around them, feeling awkward, dorky and horrible - which is pretty much how I felt all through grade school, but if you saw me then, you'd understand.

I need to digress a moment and talk about Flair Optical.  Flair Optical was owned by my grandparents and located in Hollywood, Florida.  My grandfather was an optician and my grandmother, well, Grandma Rootbeer put the FLAIR in Flair Optical.  Considering their target market, the fashionable frames were skewed toward South Florida Retirees.  Now, my parents were divorced, my mother a single Mom with a limited income. Grandma Rootbeer hooked us up...all I had to do was take my pathetic myopic eyes to a local optician who would measure my pupil distance and the bridge of my nose and we'd send these measurements and my prescription down to Grandma and Grandpa.  A week or so later, voila, free glasses.  But keep in mind, I am a 12 year old goofball wearing South Florida Retiree glasses.

Wait, look:

Here are my brother, cousins and I sporting Flair Optical glasses.  This photo, incidentally, was a huge hit at Flair Optical.

However, a very socially conscious, boy crazy, painfully self-aware 12 year old did not find the very large glasses a big hit.  However, they were free, and I wore them and while they may have caused me emotional pain, I had no other options. I believe they were very similar to the ones my ginger cousin in the middle are wearing in the photo.

So, there I was in the school gym on a rehearsal night, trying not to do anything totally uncool that would cause me to suffer open ridicule.

I was goofing around on the opposite side of the gym in the dark while the rest of the act was working their dance steps or gossiping around the piano when suddenly the director called for our act to start.

Panicking, I took off into a full-on run for the stage.  I was in an enormous empty gymnasium.  Completely empty except for one lone basketball lying off center on the floor.  I hit that basketball at full speed and caught some air.  In my mind's eye, I see this as a spectator, not as the actual jackass who is airborne.  I'm helpless to stop the forward momentum and hit the ground chest first, my arms out to the sides almost as if I'm doing a swan dive.  Mr. Holmes, the school custodian, always waxed the gym floor until it was hard and shiny like ice.  On my stomach, arms spread, I slid about 12 feet, but the impact had jarred me and my huge glasses hung diagonally across my face, one arm still hooked behind my ear, the other dangling down by my jaw.

From what I hear, this was quite a sight.  From the laughter that met me when I skidded to a stop a few feet away from the piano, I imagine it was.  My friend Cecil still can't tell that story without laughing so hard she can't breathe.  Well, I HAVE A STORY ABOUT HER, TOO, so...yeah.

I love me some Barry Manilow, and this song is a fine song, not my favorite of his, but this song will always remind me of that first Cabaret, being involved in youth group and all the joy and pain that brought into my life.  This song reminds me of the smell of the Immanuel Lutheran School gym, those putty colored mats that hung from the cinder block walls.  That particular funk in the girls' locker room -- old water and Comet.  This song reminds me of roast beef and the dumbwaiter in the kitchen at Immanuel Lutheran School, and the boys we sent down the dumbwaiter.  This song reminds me of that coterie of scary 8th grade girls and how they'd bring their curling irons to school to get their hair to flip JUST SO.  This song reminds me of my friend Jimmy, who was the only guy to get the dance moves right away and the only one that didn't look miserable doing the dance.  This song reminds me that I, too, made it through the rain of supreme dorkitude, and that though I didn't know it that humiliating night, I would soon find the others who got rained on too, and made it through.

Incidentally, you couldn't pay me enough money to go back to 7th grade, they don't print enough.

Spandau Ballet - "True"

Sophomore year in high school, I met him accidentally because he was in the car with my friend and her boyfriend when they stopped by.  I had never met him but was standing under the mistletoe hanging in my hallway and sort of pointed up at it in what passed for charming at 15 years old.  So he did what any spontaneous red blooded teenage boy would do and dipped me back for a kiss.  A real kiss.  A great kiss.

Boom!  That's how we met. 

I ended up liking him more than he liked me.  I give him tremendous credit though, because he told me no lies, he told me exactly where he stood, he did nothing to lead me on.  I knew adult men who weren't as mature or as kind as he was back when he was a teenager.

We went on a few dates, and laughed a lot.  I believe we went to see Gandhi, primarily because it was a long movie which meant we could make out for about 3 hours.  I still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what, Gandhi sat down for a long time and then England went home?  Don't know.  I do know that after the movie he purchased onion rings and a black coffee and that wasn't as much fun to kiss.  We talked about books and music and practical jokes.  He was one of the coolest people I had ever met, at that point in my life (parochial school really limits your social circle).

This song is my song for him, and it's because I misunderstood the lyrics.  For years I was under the impression the first verse of this song was "So true, funny how it seems, always in time, but never mine for keeps. Head over heels when toe to toe, this is the sound of my soul."  Which made sense to me because he was great! A great friend, a great kisser, but never mine for keeps. 

The actual line is "Always in time, but never in line for dreams." This would not apply to my little thing for him.  We didn't date for long, a few weeks maybe?  I'm sure I had hurt feelings at one point because I was an oversensitive romantic weenie who lived to pine, so at some point I know I played my "cassingle" of "True" a few times in a row and cried.  I might have written a poem.  And then I could be his friend.

Happily, he was someone I would run into again a few times in my life in different stages - we had mutual friends in college.  He's my friend on facebook.  He's still an amazing human being and I'm proud to count him among one of my favorite people that I've known in my life.  He is still one of the coolest people I know, a go-to guy for good books or good music.  He's a good husband to his wife and a great father, and I respect the hell out of him.  Still a straightforward stand-up guy.

And when I hear this song, I think of him. I also think of innocent little 15 year old me, the girl who thought the biggest tragedy in love is someone who wouldn't be mine for keeps, OR stand in line for dreams, I guess.  I think of the me that wouldn't have known what to do with a committed boyfriend if I had one at that point anyway; the me that was more comfortable pining for what I couldn't have rather than dealing with what I could have; the me that swooned to English bands with falsetto voices and slicked back hair. 

"True" hasn't aged very well, it's a very obviously 80's song which is why it always ends up on "The Best of the 80's!!" compilations or playlists and on many soundtracks.  I believe it makes all of us who heard this song first at a school dance suddenly remember our innocence.

Bruce Springsteen - "Backstreets"

When I was about 12,  I fell in love with the Tiger Beat frequent cover-boy, Matt Dillon, an up and coming movie star with big brown eyes and floppy hair and a cute smile.  One of the issues of Tiger Beat asked Matt Dillon what song he wanted played at his wedding and he said, "Born To Run" by Bruce Springsteen.  I had never heard of Bruce Springsteen, or if I had, I hadn't paid any attention to him.  But suddenly I was compelled to hear the song that was going to be played at my wedding to Matt Dillon.  So I gathered my allowance/babysitting money and marched into Record Broker on White Street in Danbury, CT and purchased the album "Born To Run".  I brought it home, put it on my record player and promptly forgot all about Matt Dillon and fell head over heels in love with Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce Springsteen is the only musician that has ever inspired me to write a fan letter.  I threw it out when I re-read it because I felt that it was stupid and didn't want to embarrass myself. I think I wanted his respect.  Bruce Springsteen is the first guy who made me yearn for something I couldn't explain, I didn't have the words for what it was I was pining for back then.  But when I heard his lyrics, I felt that yearning.

I've been known to diagnose girls with something I call "Thunder Road Syndrome". In the song he claims that Mary is "waiting in vain for a savior to rise from these streets".  He claims he's not a hero, but again is proposing to drive her out of town, off into the future with someone that doesn't need her to be beautiful because Eh, she's all right.  He gives hope to those non rock-video-vixen-types like me that some quirky-hot romantic guy with a guitar and a car would still sweep them from off their front porch and away from their horrible rinky dink home town.  Some girls are still waiting in vain, not knowing they can get their OWN guitar and their OWN car and get the hell out of dodge. BUT this syndrome only exists because the song speaks to that deep part down inside of us that wants to be rescued by someone who isn't even going to make any promises to us, adding that element of sexy insecurity and danger, allowing us to be a wild risk- taker instead of being completely taken care of like some suburban housewife.  It speaks to the wild part that wants to be taken but not really kept.  Bruce gets that.  God, I think I still might love him a little.  Well, I love the guy he was when he wrote that song, he's kind of all liberal and angry at everything now and I think he's too busy trying to make statements to notice there's magic in the night.

When I hear any song off the album "Born To Run" I am transported through time back into my bedroom that I shared with my younger sister Amy.  I can smell the heat coming out of the old register in the wall, and smell the tubes of my mother's old record player, she had the kind that looked like a suitcase, it was a few years before I'd get my Emerson "stereo", so I had to be content listening to Bruce on a turntable that was capable of playing something at 78 rpms.

"Backstreets", though, is the song I loved the most.  I had never been in love full of defeat. I had never gotten wasted, tried to escape my hopeless existence, and my town didn't have any back streets that I was aware of, but oh...I could just cry during the bridge, when he almost screams "When the breakdown hit at midnight there was nothing left to say, but I hated him, and I hated you when you went away."  Yes. I felt that.  I recognized it and while I related to the pain, it was the doomed passionate love that led to the pain that I craved.

Do you know any 12 year old boys? Then you probably know that I knew that it was hopeless for me to find anything like that in my 7th grade class.  I was funny looking, talked too much, and my glasses were too big for my face.  I knew the deal.  None of them would be okay with me not being a beauty, but being all right. Bruce wouldn't be okay with me either, because I was 12.  I could wish and hope but I knew that he would never ask me not to turn him home again.

Thus began a lifetime of unrequited love for broody musician types. Sometimes they loved me back.  But not when I was 12.  I mourned something I could never have at 12.  My whole life ahead of me, I knew I was missing out on something that I might never have, because I wasn't the kind of girl that Bruce Springsteen would write a song about.  I would get very moody and upset and take it out on my poor sister.

That piano run that Backstreets opens up with, those plaintive notes are enough to throw me right back into the heartbreak of wanting more than I can have at the stage of my life where I am.  Wanting to hang out with the last of the Duke Street Kings, but knowing that can never happen, because I am too young and I don't live in New Jersey.  Devastated because I am too nerdy to be one of those cool tough girls who end up in a car with Bruce Springsteen.  Longing for an escape from my small town, longing for someone to see something in me that was worth breaking me out, but still not promising me anything, because that would be too easy. Longing for someone to inspire me to take a big risk for love, passion, and rock and roll. 

Tenacious D - "Tribute"

The summer of 2002, I had just moved back to Connecticut, a broke-ass woman looking to rebuild my life.  I had moved in with my mother (TEMPORARILY, I made sure everybody knew) until I had enough money to move back to New York City.

Three things saved my sanity that summer.  My brother was also living at home, and he is one of the coolest people on the planet, I auditioned for the local community theater production of "Jesus Christ Superstar", AND my mother's house was less than 10 minutes away from my best friend Mothra's house.

When rehearsals began I would get into these combative debates with Annas about music.  Annas was in a band with M____, a guitar virtuoso playing in the pit.  M____'s brother was playing Jesus, but Jesus was a jam-band kind of a guy. M______ was more straight ahead Norwegian Death Metal, while Annas liked some prog rock and Anna's brother, Awesome Disciple liked a lot of everything.  What we all liked was Tenacious D, and we'd run around singing Tenacious D lyrics to each other, or M___ would break into "Kyle Quit The Band" much to our abject joy.

My brother also liked Tenacious D - sure, they were funny, but OMG, Kyle Gass could REALLY play guitar and I loved Jack Black's vocals, and their harmonies together, unreal.  A lot of people might think of them as a novelty band from their later movie, "Pick of Destiny" but those of us who remember them from Mr. Show know that these guys are the real deal.

Mothra was in it for the video, and do you blame her?  We made my brother play it over and over again on his computer, relishing in the little things, like how Jack rips his shirt open and Kyle's serious "guitar solo" faces while shoved in that little studio booth.  The dancing, too, of course.

I expected that summer to be the worst summer of my life, out of the city that I loved like it was human, broke, jobless, heartbroken, few prospects.  I look back on that summer as a summer of real joy, though.

One night Mothra and I decided to drive up Route 22, and we were playing "Would you rather..." and it started off pretty normal.  You know, "Who would you rather do, Matt Damon or Ben Affleck?" (Matt, definitely, no question).  Mothra and I degenerated into horror inducing choices, and we HAD to make a choice. Larry Budd Melman or Larry King.  We dug deep into the past and threw people we knew back in each other's faces, and would laugh so hard Mothra would do that thing she's been doing since she was 16 -- pounding on the steering wheel and slamming on the brakes because she was laughing too hard to drive.  We drove all the way to Dover Plains with aching stomachs from laughing.  And here we were, 34 years old and cackling like utter loons, just like we always have and I suspect always will despite how "mature" we appear to be.

I would sit on the breezeway in order to smoke and would bring my guitar outside, and my brother would sometimes join me and we'd sing some songs together.  We usually did Southern Cross, but one of the songs we tried to play was Tribute.  We got good enough playing it that Mothra's then-boyfriend's band let us get up and play it at the now-defunct Colorado Brew Pub.  We didn't do that bad of a job, either.

Dayo Matteo and I rip Tribute at the Colorado Brew Pub

I listened to quite a few songs/albums that summer, I had The Who's "Tommy" and Rush's "2112" on cassette, and I had to drive my brother's car - which only had a cassette player for a while.  The Red Hot Chili Peppers came out with "By The Way" and I couldn't stop playing that CD.  But when I think of the summer of 2002, I think of Tenacious D, and I think about how for a few brief months, despite feeling lost, I had bonded with my brother and my best friend a little deeper, laughed a lot harder than I had laughed in months, made some great new friends up here in the boonies and couldn't remember the greatest song in the world.

The Cure - Let's Go To Bed

My best friend in grade school had a cooler house than mine. Not only did she have a front porch, but her bedroom had slanty ceilings and hidden closets you could hide in.  She had her own phone.  They had a very plush and funky velvet couch we never sat on.  They also had cable.

My mother did not have cable.  We couldn't afford it.  We were also the last people I knew to have a microwave and "totalphone" in the 80's, but it was the lack of cable that hurt the most, because lack of cable meant lack of MTV.

See, MTV isn't what it used to be.  MTV used to belong to me and my friends.  We would sit watching for hours WATING for that ONE VIDEO that we passionately loved ("Hungry Like The Wolf", or maybe later, "Hot For Teacher").  We ended up watching a lot of strange stuff that the English bands were doing. Little did I know we were in the midst of the Second British Invasion as music critics like to call early New Wave of the post punk early 80s.

No band personified it for me more than the Cure.  Here was this yelpy dude with crazy hair and lipstick and flat out saying he wanted to go to Bed, which MEANT SEX! Freaky AND titilating.

I can't hear the opening notes of this song without being thrust into my best friend's living room, in the dark, sitting on the floor with our back against her couch, butt numb from sitting for hours, eating Elio's Frozen Pizza.