Now the Sun’s Coming Up, I’m Riding with Lady Luck

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BB King, blesings, happiness, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, lady luck, Music, San Francisco, summer, Tom Waits

I have hated being away for so long. It’s weird not to write a post every other day. But, I must admit, I have been doing nothing but relaxing, reading, and drinking wine–just like promised. But I am back. I have two more weeks of vacation left, and I cannot promise, but I vow to at least make a concerted effort to do two posts a week during those two weeks.

The list of songs today made me happy and reflective simultaneously. Beyond the list of six, there were about 12 songs staring me in the face, begging me to write about them as well. But, that’s not the deal, right? So hopefully they will pop up soon because they are a proverbial thorn in my side.

It’s funny how ears work. Physiologically of course, but also metaphorically–in a sense. I was making fun of my mom’s music this week while being home. She just discovered Pandora, which means she has no idea how it works. She loves Adele and Rod Stewart and The Beatles and Norah Jones and Willie Nelson (see where I get it from?!). But, sadly, Mom doesn’t know how to “dislike” songs, since she doesn’t use Facebook. We were in the middle of a very important discussion on life at 11:45 the other night, at least a few glasses of wine each, and suddenly some techno crap pops up, and the two of us stare at each other. Wide-eyed, she informs me, “I didn’t sign up for this shit!”. It was great.

Meanwhile, the next night while washing dishes, I thought I heard “Ol’ 55” come on Pandora and I got a little misty-eyed. I love Tom Waits. Sadly, it was something else. I am used to hearing his much more up-beat version of “Ol’ 55” but tonight’s is the slow version, and I love it still. It’s so haunting and delicious and gut-wrenching.

I have been filled and surrounded by beautiful things for the past several weeks–pregnant bellies, gardens bursting at the seams, dear friends, sunsets over the Sierras, three amazingly devoured novels, lively discussions on education, nephews telling me jokes, puppies learning how to finally behave, the strong women of my family laughing at the top of their lungs, friends urging me home to hang out once again, finally spending time with my old friend The New Yorker once again. I don’t know if there has been a sea-change in my behavior since losing my weight, or if it is just having a summer to take it down a notch. Either way, I have always felt blessed. This summer, I feel much more pleased and even entitled to allow myself to feel such a blessing fall on me.

I remember living in England in 1997 with my friend K. Even then, I purchased music from abroad. One of the hot songs that year was “Brimful of Asha”. I brought my copy home to Colorado and proudly played it for my friends, since it hadn’t made it’s way over the Pond yet. The line that got everyone was “Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow”. When you are barely 20, songs such as these make you feel like somebody, even if you didn’t really care for them. Meanwhile, after my return that August, I took my Dad to see B.B. King, Taj Mahal, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd for his birthday. I had never known about Taj Mahal. To Dad and I, he and Kenny Wayne, twenty at the time, might have actually surpassed Mr. King and Lucille.

I don’t think I have too much to say or write, or whatever tonight. All I know is that for the first time in five summers, I actually feel ready to return to work in two weeks. I have always had to emotionally manoeuvre through a short transition on both ends of summer (or Bread Loaf, depending on how you look at it), and this year, I don’t have to.

Yes, it’s a shorter summer for me than previous summers, but I think I will survive. I am good to go. As Mr. Waits says, I have Lady Luck on my side. “Stars beginning to fade, and I lead the parade”. Who could ask for more? Happy late summer, everyone!

Queen Bee–Taj Mahal

Alfie–Joss Stone

Ol’ 55–Tom Waits

Sometimes I’m Happy–Joni Mitchell

Brimful of Asha (Remix)–Cornerstone

Mothers of the Disappeared–U2

 

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Send Down that Cloud with its Silver Lining

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Barenaked Ladies, Dean Martin, Metallica, paradox, shoes, Tom Waits

Finally, some of my metal comes into play. My freshman year of high school, a guy in one of my classes intrigued me. He was not cool; in fact, he was annoying and acted like he was ten. But one day out of the blue, he asked me if I liked Metallica. I knew who they were but didn’t know their music. I asked if they were like Guns n’ Roses, and he said kinda. I was even more intrigued.

Flash forward a good couple of decades. I saw Metallica in concert at AT&T Park when they opened for the Rolling Stones. I was 30. Metallica. Opening. For. The. Stones. Seriously? If you were to look at me, with my blue eyes, dimples, and innocent appearance, you would never think that I can thrash it. I can.

Me, in my typical tailored black pants, ho-hum sweater, the occasional big gold earrings. To my students, I am old and boring, and they think I count my twelve cats and knit sweaters while listening to classical music. Oh how they are mistaken. A couple of summers ago, I was returning from Maine to Vermont, listening to only Metallica on my iPod. It was really a sight to see–me in a rented sea foam green Toyota Yaris, driving the switchbacks of the back roads of rural Vermont, secret cigarette hanging out of my mouth. If my students could see that version of me, they’d die. Perhaps I would too.

Referring to tonight’s selection as normal is a misnomer. Metallica and Dean Martin, America and Adele, Tom Waits and Barenaked Ladies. Well, to me these are normal. Throw in some Les Miserables or Showboat overtures, and it’s a regular journey on my iPod. But I wonder what attracts me to such different forms of music. Each of these songs is from a different decade. The common thread between the six? That I like heart them.

I’ve explained my relationship with Metallica. I grew up listening to Dean Martin, but really–what 20-something didn’t own something sung by the Rat Pack after Swingers? America stems back to my love for 70s songwriters and summertime, river-floating tunes. And Tom Waits. Well, Tom is just Tom. And “Step Right Up” is no exception. It’s like Mick’s “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” on speed. But good lord, if you can’t recognize the man’s talent–well, you just might be a lost cause. You don’t have to like it, just appreciate it. Like Dickens or Proust or even the Brontë sister that I loathe more than the other. I’m not sure which is which.

Barenaked Ladies and I share many memories. I have seen them four times in concert. They’re cooky and crazy, and Canadian to boot. And then the newest musician of the six on the scene–Adele. If I could be any musician, I think I would choose her. The first song I ever heard her sing brought me to tears. Now she is a little overplayed, and I need a break but damn. If I had her pipes I’d refuse to shut up too.

Common denominator: these songs charge me up. They get my feet doing whatever it is they want to do. Our relationship is both a paradox and a compliment. I can seem to separate myself from a wide variety of music. I don’t fit a category. I wear gold shoes when I want to and really don’t care who looks at me, thinking it’s wrong. As the Ladies say, “I’m a walking advertisement for everything I never meant”. Tom Waits continues my thoughts on music–“It’s a friend, and it’s a companion, and it’s the only product you will ever need”. And finally, nailing it right back to high school and Metallica–“You labeled me, I labeled you”.

Whether it be gold shoes, red shoes, chartreuse shoes, or even plain old brown shoes, it’s how they make me feel–how they make me move. People might pooh-pooh them, or turn up their nose and find them vile or stupid or dated. But in the end, no one but me can judge that. Just like my music. It’s nice to have a trick or two up the sleeve. Always keep ’em guessing.

The Unforgiven–Metallica

That Lucky Old Sun–Dean Martin

Woman Tonight–America

Step Right Up–Tom Waits

Bull in a China Shop–Barenaked Ladies

I’ll Be Waiting–Adele

Magic of the Melancholy Tear in your Eye

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Character Sketch, Music, socks, Tom Waits, writing

I have listened to tonight’s songs twice through already. I was cleaning my bedroom. Actually, I was cleaning my whole apartment and decided to listen a little early and marinate on the songs. I sang along instead, unconsciously, and before I knew it, I had listened to twelve songs and only three registered in my brain.

With the exception of “Sad Songs and Waltzes”, these songs have been listened to over and over and over. And I have definitely even sung them over and over and over. “Fur Elise” is obviously just piano but I was obsessed with this song when I was a little girl. Even taught myself how to play it by ear on the piano. I can still play it poorly without looking. And in the early 80s, McDonald’s used it in a commercial and created lyrics. I know it by heart. I shall spare you.

The remainder are definitely sad songs and waltzes. I remember in college driving to Estes Park for the day, something I did often when I felt the need to escape life, and windows and sunroof wide open, singing “Without You” at the top of my lungs. I think I can remember even making myself cry.

My favorite of the lot is surprise, “The Heart of Saturday Night” for no particular reason other than the gut-wrenching depth of the damned thing. But I love it and will always.

Instead tonight, I was thinking of sharing a little personal writing. I have been studying the people in my neighborhood and have slowly created imaginary character sketches for about a dozen or so. Here’s one. I think it fits the sad songs and waltzes theme.

“A Face in the Jar”

Lorraine stationed herself across from the dryer, finishing up her last load of wash. The smell of bleach reached me before her perfume, probably because she chose to shake everything for several seconds at a time, and I faced her at a tight right angle.  She folded each item purposefully, as if something inherent relied on each crease. First the solid white handkerchiefs folded into perfect thirds, and then her nightgowns. There were four—each with a bright floral print; blue and white, lilac and pink, yellow and cream, and peach and white. All were cotton, all had buttoned fronts, and all fell to below the knee but above the calf. JC Penney nightgowns.

She also folded her bedclothes, bath towels, undergarments, and twill pants, each with an intentional line running down their middles. Her late afternoons on Wednesdays relied on her visit to the Laundromat. In her mid sixties, Lorraine needed something to keep her busy, to allow her to forget something before dinner. In her mind, if she spent three concrete late-day hours intentionally washing and drying, and shaking and creasing, perhaps she will forget.

The socks, the white ones from her load of yellowing whites, belonged to John. This is where Lorraine spent the most attention at the Laundromat. At first it seemed to me as if she were matching several types of white tube socks—as if each were different heights or had distinctive threading on each toe and insole. But upon careful observation, she had more than twenty of the exact same white tube sock. I watched her, as I grabbed closely related socks, ignored to turn them outside-out, and roll them up into a decent ball, like the hundreds that filled my dad’s top drawer. My eyes fell upon her work, not mine.

Lorraine’s attention was unbridled, unbroken. It was even adamant perhaps. I watched her spend fifteen solitary minutes not matching these identical socks by different knits or variant ribbings, but instead by the width and length of each foot bed. Perhaps in writing this does not seem remotely significant. Each of the twenty tube socks were exactly the same. Her agonizing attention to detail, or perhaps her unyielding methods of distraction, surrendered a solid minute of matching time per pair. Each single tube sock, lined up like white ducks in three straight rows on the Laundromat’s vinyl blue counters, swam idly—patiently awaiting their mate. A sea of lost ducks, floating silent, refusing motion.

Washing and drying, shaking and creasing, remembering and forgetting. Lorraine carefully placed her bedclothes and undergarments and nightgowns into the fading green metal cart that most City women over 50 pull with them for groceries or laundry or visits to the beauty parlor. She checked the dryer that had been still for over thirty minutes, removing nothing. It was clear that she stalled her departure. Why, I am not entirely sure. She then gathered the carefully matched socks, and laid them gently atop the dome of percale. These she covered with a cloth dinner napkin and clipped its sides down with stained clothespins to the gridded sides of the metal cart. Impenetrable. She made one last sweep of the place with her eyes, tied her scarf around her whitening hair, and walked out into the dark rain.

*          *          *

Post Script: This was inspired by “Eleanor Rigby”, although I did witness this scene. A sad waltz indeed.

Sad Songs and Waltzes–Willie Nelson

The Heart of Saturday Night–Tom Waits

Who’s Your Baby Now–Mark Knopfler

Fur Elise–Vince Guaraldi Trio

Without You–Dixie Chicks

St. Stephen–The Grateful Dead

Checking in my Rear View Mirror

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9/11, driving, Golf, Music, Tom Waits

Today, in some of the most gorgeous weather we have had all year, we played golf. It was lovely. We had teams and we did a scramble. I actually had a few great drives. Surprisingly, I can clobber the hell out of a golf ball.

When we were little, my Gram used to let us practice “golf” on her turf-carpeted back deck. She had practice balls–those plastic orange ones–and we would take her clubs, which ever each of us could get our hands on, and go to town. Gram however is not responsible for my golf habits. I have my friend Greg to thank for that.

When I lived in Connecticut, Greg took a group of kids to the driving range to blow off steam. You have no idea what our job did to we early 20-somethings. It was brutal. He needed another adult, and asked me. I assumed it was like the batting cages. It wasn’t. But what I found that day is how great I felt after pelting a bucket of balls.

I play now and again with my folks. We at least go to the driving range every so often at their club. Occasionally, I will play in the city or whenever we have a school scramble. I like it. I mean, I’m not going to lie. I strike out at bat more times than I hit the ball. But I am okay with it.

All 6 songs today remind me of my two years in Connecticut. I can loosely connect almost all of these artists to Madison. Pearl Jam is easy. I have been a fan since I was 14, so I know Vs.assisted me many early mornings to wake up my 8 boys in the dorm. Mundy is a little bit of a different story. My first spring, I went to Ireland to do a writing workshop. Any small town that had an HMV or Virgin Music or whatever, I would go straight for the top 10 local bands. Seriously. I have some of the best albums ever from this process. Actually, that’s how I discovered Damien Rice. And that’s where I found Mundy. Occasionally you can find them in the States but it’s pretty rare. I’m sure I have some sort of Euro version of their albums too, which make them pretty special. Not to mention both HMV and Virgin Music are probably as extinct in Ireland as they are here.

My best friend bought me the Air album after she saw them at the Fillmore in San Francisco. I love them. In fact, my friend Kelly and I used one of their songs in a play we wrote in which our students performed during the holidays. Kelly also introduced me to the inappropriateness of Ween and the album 12 Golden Country Greats. The songs are priceless. Just be careful who’s in the next car when you’re blaring the album. And make sure you’ve read the EXPLICIT warning.

My co-worker introduced me to Tom Waits and Nighthawks at the Diner when I mentioned that we were doing Beat Poetry in my creative writing class. I have never looked back. I have said before and I will say it again. The three people I want to see in concert are Elvis Costello, REM, and Tom Waits. I discovered Waits’ lyrical, gravelly side while watching the film Basquiat about the Haitian artist who died young. The last moment of the film, Basquiat stands in the back of an open-topped Jeep, holding a Haitian flag. It freezes, as Tom Waits’ “Tom Traubert’s Blues” plays. That song haunts my soul. It brings me back to exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, that was my job for two years.

I had a Jetta. I bought it when I moved back East. It was a great car. Actually, that’s where I started smoking. That’s where I retreated when I couldn’t handle the stress. I should have stuck with Greg and his driving range strategy. We were “encouraged” to leave campus on our time off. Easy for people who grew up somewhere in New England. They could go home. And because I didn’t have a kitchen, just a 9×9 room, I had to eat out a lot too. So I drove. Frequently. That’s when I first saw Maine, went to Dartmouth, ventured to Lancaster County, explored the Hudson River Valley. And music got me from A to B. I had a visor-full of CDs, and the first CD player I had ever had in a car.

When 9/11 happened my first full night on duty, I waited until the kids were asleep and snuck out to my car and sobbed hysterically. I mean, I couldn’t lose it in front of emotionally disturbed teens who were from the tri-state area. I can’t tell you what I listened to that night. But I know my car stereo kept me safe and tight. I was comforted. I knew my new coworkers for only a week when our world changed that day. It was too early for a hug. I didn’t know how to ask people I didn’t know for something as simple and primal as a hug. But my car had a sunroof and I remember opening it, putting my seat back and staring at the stars, knowing that other people on the other side of the country, people I loved, were probably doing the same thing. Communion through the stars and a song lingering in the cosmos.

That job changed my life in many ways. I learned more in my first month than the past 11 years teaching. Most of those two years were not rosy and cheery and lovely. But I learned to rely heavily on my music as a distraction. Clearly it worked. And I would change nothing, nothing from those two years.

Glorified G–Pearl Jam

By Her Side–Mundy

Pretty Girl–Ween

Ce Matin-La–Air

Too High–Stevie Wonder

Blue Valentines–Tom Waits