I’m ripping that post title off of JiveTurkey because this is really just a list of stuff I want more of and stuff I’m sick of. Let’s start with the negativity because that’s my favorite part.
I have had enough of:
Statements about Whitney Houston and addiction. I know her death was untimely. I know addiction is serious. I’m just so, “Oh…bummer,” about her death. People lead messed up lives, they’re taken advantage of, and then they die in the tub. Alone. Just like all the rest of us.
Chris Brown and the cloud of bullshit that comes with him. I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to talented people who are also piece-of-shit human beings. I do know that responding to the women who tweeted appalling requests after his Grammy appearance with, “They get what’s coming to them,” or “Someone should beat them so they know better,” is pretty vile.
“Kids these days” whining. They wear their pants too low. They listen to terrible music. They don’t know who Paul McCartney is. Yeah, you know what that makes you? A cranky old person set in their ways and the reason why no substantive changes ever happen. Shut up.
Valentine’s Day hype. “Wah, I’m single and this day is so hard for me,” or “Please validate my relationship by gushing over the gifts that my significant other gave to me.” It’s just a day. Do it or don’t.
Communities on the internet and, obviously, the internet in general. I think at some point I may have been concerned about the dynamics of any given group of people on the internet, but that’s not the case anymore. It’s just one facet of life. If people are being jerks to you, disengage.
This dress is a little too small on me at the moment. I’m wearing it today and the buttons are working kind of hard. I’m really ready to get back to a normal level of activity. Speaking of which…
Cheers:
My neck is definitely getting better. This morning I was able to put my left ear close(r) to my shoulder, which I wasn’t able to do even yesterday! (Note: I started writing this post yesterday, so that fact might be relevant when considering the jeers section.) And I thinkthe numbness in my fingers is pretty much gone. I definitely still have issues with stiffness and tightness and pain, but measurable signs of recovery are so exciting. Check out this exciting physical therapy action shot!
No, that's not a booger. That's my nosering.
The husband and the baby. I really do just love the crap out of both of those guys. Despite my aforementioned annoyed indifference toward Valentine’s Day, we had a sweet time last night getting ready for the baby’s festivities at school. He signed his Valentines while I worked my crafty magic into a Valentines box in a swirl of Spongebob wrapping paper, box cutters, pipe cleaner, and ribbon.
Hold on a sec, Martha's calling me.
The husband had another Pittsburgh Track Authority performance at Belvedere’s on Saturday and it went really, really well. Again, about 300 people showed up to hear them and the headliner, Kirk DeGeorgio, and it was really cool to see so many people dancing for them. I’m so proud of him and them. I think something big might be brewing for them.
Mine's on the left. Aren't they cute? All squished together and wondering what the hell they're doing? *
Once again, I done brought the bake sale vibe to this performance and made brownies, which everyone assumed had drugs in them. (They did not.) Both were recipes from blogs that I read that I had pinned to Pinterest. They were Peanut Butter and Fleur de Sel Brownies and Mexican Hot Chocolate Brownies.
Along those lines, I’m finding that Pinterest is much more useful than I thought it would be when I first started using it. I do, however, need to start a board called, “Stuff I Tried from Pinterest that SUCKED,” because there have been a few duds.
Completely unrelated, the phrase, “Where’s Wallace?” has been a common refrain in our house and circle of friends, even though the scene from The Wire that it originated from first aired like 10 years ago.
It’s all very serious and intense, but then we got a Steeler named Mike Wallace. Whenever he does something good, the refrain, “WHERE’S WALLACE?” or “WHERE WALLACE AT?” goes flying. Imagine my glee when I came across this children’s book the other day:I have now redefined my life goals and am going to become a preschool teacher so I can read this to my young charges. What could be more adorable than a bunch of 4-year-olds saying, “STRING?!?! STRING! LOOK AT ME!?”
I think it’s safe to say that the husband and the baby and I squeezed the last drops of summer out this weekend. After work on Friday, the husband and I went to see Our Idiot Brother while the baby was at his piano lesson. I strongly disliked the movie and spent the next few hours sulking about why good writing with interesting characters is so impossible to come by. Of course, the last place you want to be when you’re lamenting the state of American culture is the mall, and that’s exactly where we were. I sauntered through the food court, addressing every guy that passed me as, “Bro.” We went to Dick’s to get the baby some soccer stuff, and I lost it temporarily in the entrance. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it, but they had a banner up for this initiative that they’re working on with Jerome Bettis about preventing concussions. Which is great, obviously. But they used this picture of Bettis.
Nothing looks amiss about this picture until you crop his face (and more importantly, his mid-sentence facial expression) and put it right next to the word concussion. Let me illustrate.
CONCUSSION
I also took issue with this product, which was being sold as a Tailgate Toss.
This game, my friends, is not called tailgate toss. It’s called cornholing. I don’t know where it got its name, though I imagine it was thought up by a bunch of Beavises not unlike yours truly. Point is, if you’re going to go cornholing with your buddies before the big game, call it what it is.
Then I went in the store and bought a yoga mat and some soccer stuff, tied my cardigan around my shoulders, and flounced off in a cloud of Soccer Mom.
Friday night, I polished off the last bottle of wine from the absurd number that we consumed at the beach. I spent the rest of the night trying to act like I wasn’t completely sloshed. I don’t think I succeeded.
Saturday, we went to Idlewild to fulfill our quota of Family Fun, Dammit for the season. It was actually a really nice time. I guess since it was 90-some degrees out and a “limited operations” day, people stayed home so we were able to gallivant about without ridiculous crowds. It was some church’s picnic day and I only saw one creepy “purity” shirt on a 9-year-old girl, so that was cool. (Seriously, Jesus fans, it’s great that you’re all about abstinence, but I find the omnipresent discussion about the sexuality of little girls kind of weird.) Limited operations didn’t affect us too much. The ferris wheel and a few other rides weren’t up and running. But what did cramp our style was the lack of lollipops on the Good Ship Lollipop. You know how you pace around the tiny boat on that swampy water and then a junior from St. Vincent’s deadpans. “Yarr. Thanks for visiting me ship. Have a sucker?” Our visit ended with, “Yarr. Thanks for visiting me ship.” And then…nothing. No lollipop. It was really awkward because I was standing there looking at this kid like, “Soooo….?”
I only took one picture because I only had my phone. It’s this:
That’s the husband in the green shirt. He’s in the process of putting his hands up as he and the baby ride the Whip. But I know at some point I’m going to forget what this is and wonder, “Why do I have a picture of the husband being held at gunpoint by an idyllic white picket fence?”
When we got home that night we popped over to my mother-in-law’s house for one final session of nightswimming. R.E.M., would you mind providing us with a brief musical interlude?
Yesterday, we had some vague plans of doing stuff around the house, but when it turned out to be cool and rainy all day, we just laid around and napped. It was nice. I did all of the laundry and put some summer clothes away, so if the cool temperatures upset you, don’t worry. My act of putting the sundresses in the bins in the attic have ensured us three weeks of sweltering heat at some point soon.
The baby took a three-hour nap, which was nice because he was being a humongous jerk prior to that. When he started crying because he couldn’t do something in a Wii game and I couldn’t help but laugh, he told me he hated me. So, yeah, no more Wii for him for awhile.
On a more serious, commie note, I want to acknowledge Labor Day and thank the National Postal Mail Handler’s Union and the Communication Workers of America and all of the laborers who came before them. Because of the NPMHU and the CWA, the husband and I grew up with health insurance and parents who weren’t so overworked that they couldn’t be in our lives. Despite only having high school diplomas, our parents were able to raise children who would go on to receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Thank you for fighting for a better life for yourselves, for me, and for my son.
Not long after I published my post on Friday noting that I hadn’t uploaded last day of school pictures, I realized that I totally had and just forgot all about it. Dur. So, here is the (not so much) baby on his last day of third grade.
That crumpling sound you hear is my heart. Please ignore.
But anyway, I’m coming off of one of the best weekends I’ve ever had and I have the messy kitchen and piles of dirty laundry to prove it. Friday night I accompanied the husband to Eclipse where he was playing records. That place is decent, though I was a little put off by the Ikea-heavy decor and the odd 1998 look of the place. However, the original glass block bar is so cool-looking. I gawked at it for a good 20 minutes. We took off kind of early because we had a big day on Saturday.
I got myself and the baby up kind of early and my mom took us into Shadyside where I was getting a long-overdue haircut and pedicure. My mom dropped me off at home and she and the baby went to Legofest at the convention center and I made one more stop to the nail shop to get my fingers looking nice. It was, as Truvy from Steel Magnolias would say, “a full day’s beauty.” Then the husband and I got dressed and headed into town.
Aren't we swell?
We ate at Seviche, which we’d been dying to return to since we ate there last year, and had one of the best meals ever. Here’s our obscene list of tasty things:
Strawberry Mimosa Champagne Mojito
Cuban Pomegranate Martini
Trio of Chips and Salsa
Traditional, Curried Tropical Fruit, and Fire & Ice Seviches with Ahi Tuna, Scottish Salmon, and Hamachi
Mojo Criollo Nigiri
Bistec Bocadillos with Filet Mignon
Chorizo Wrapped Diver Scallops
I also made the executive decision to order a really expensive bottle of Malbec and noted to the waiter that we splurged because of the special occasion. As a surprise at the end of the meal, he brought us a piece of Tres Leches cake with fresh strawberries and two glasses of Champagne.
After dinner, we walked over to the Consol Energy Center for the Sade concert. It was a happy coincidence that it came around the time of our anniversary, because it was the no-brainer special event. And the concert was so, so amazing. Sade the singer and Sade the band are all so beautiful and talented and smooth and wonderful and sexy. Sade didn’t speak much, but when she did her soft British accent made things like, “Pittsburgh, you’ve built a lot of bridges and they all lead directly to my heart,” and “He charms the birds out of the sky because they want to bask in his light,” sound beautiful and poetic instead of kinda cheesy. The stage was gently lit and adorned with sheer white curtains that would dramatically fly away or drop into the recesses of the floor.
The music, of course, was beautiful. The highlight for me was “By Your Side.” I’ve always liked that song just fine, but never really regarded it as one of their greatest. But for that song the stage was lit in this warm, sunset color and at the end confetti was shot out over the audience. The husband and I were literally by each other’s sides and I knew that we would remain that way for many more years to come.
Edited to add: Can’t believe I forgot to mention Father’s Day, which we spent at my mom’s house with my dad, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. After a slight panic early in the afternoon, we had a rad cookout and then went to see Super 8 at the drive-in. Yeah. This weekend ruled.
Over the long weekend, we made our annual pilgrimage to Detroit. After carefully considering the lineup and cost for this year’s festival, we decided to not attend the festival proper, and instead save our time, money, and energy for the after parties and the city at large.
It felt a little weird to not be marching down Jefferson toward Hart Plaza every day. But, as I explained to someone who asked, I just don’t feel like it’s for me anymore. The promoters are catering to a different crowd (read: wealthier and, I’m sorry, not at all sophisticated in musical taste or public behavior). The lineup is just not as worthwhile for me to endure the discomfort of sharing a space with people who are either too young or too old to act the way that they do…not that there’s a good age to wake up and say, “Today I think I’ll experiment with wearing just underpants.” Although, from what I understand, the behavior of festival attendees in general was extremely subdued compared to that of people in town a few weeks ago for a country music festival. Apparently, nightmares came to life and rode into town on John Deere tractors.
Anyway, our loose plan was to do some touristy things that had been on our list for awhile, take it day by day as far as the festival goes and set aside money for daily admission if there was someone who we really wanted to see and didn’t think we would have another opportunity. We would eat well, check out the sights, head back to the hotel for disco naps, and then enjoy the nightlife.
This worked out wonderfully.
My Twitter and Facebook remained virtually silent throughout the weekend, until finally I stopped laughing long enough to report:
By that point, I had spent nearly every minute since Friday afternoon with the husband, the sister-in-law, the sister-in-law’s boyfriend, Frank, and Noleian, plus other groups of Pittsburghers like Jwan, Liz, Adam, Preslav, Shawn, Kristine, Curt, Amanda, Tony, Sarah, and Arnie. We had been all over the city, exploring eateries and neighborhoods that we’d never seen before. Then we would go out and dance ourselves silly before returning to the hotel and waking the birds up with our slumber party antics. We had so much fun.
There was a decent amount of cutting loose, including an ill-advised plan on Friday to sample Four Loko and Blast by Colt 45. As I heaved the cans down from their shelves at the party store, I explained, “We’re all going to try a little bit of each. It’ll be like a wine flight!”
I took some tasting notes from the assembled imbibers:
“It smells like…something I’ve smelled before.”
“It looks like…something I’ve seen before.”
“Hmm…It’s like you soaked a urinal cake in beer and drank it.”
“Gives you corpse tongue.”
“Tastes like they had a bum swish this around in his mouth and then spit it in a can.”
The Strawberry Watermelon was terrible. The Blueberry Pomegranate was okay, but we were alarmed when a small amount spilled on the nightstand and stained it immediately, as we suddenly became aware of what this concoction might be doing to our insides. The Lemonade Four Loko was almost pleasant, but it’s worth remembering that we were probably irrevocably brain-damaged by the time we cracked that bad boy open.
With that milestone behind us, we headed out to see Suburban Knight and Juan Atkins. Suburban Knight was awesome. Juan was apparently hiding a wet blanket in his leather pants because he immediately made things weird and not fun, so we left.
On Saturday, the sister-in-law and her boyfriend and I went to Hamtramck, which is a city within Detroit, and met up with the husband, Frank, and Noleian at Detroit Threads. It was a cool record store but is also a vintage clothing store. This was a huge bonus for me. When I go on record shopping trips with the husband, I usually poke around for a little bit and keep an eye out for stuff that I know he’s looking for, but I can’t help but get bored after awhile. The selection of clothing that they had was really impressive and well-organized. The sister-in-law and I both actually found a number of items that were a) cute, b) decently priced, and c) fit us. It’s pretty hard to find all three of these qualities in many vintage stores, in my experience. I bought two dresses and a totally badass coat that I’ll have to take pictures of and show you. So excited about them.
We were going to go to Slows BBQ for dinner but they had a two-hour wait and we were getting murderously hungry. We ended up at Mexican Village, which was decent but not outstanding. I was pretty proud of us for going through multiple pitchers of salsa (yes, pitchers of salsa) and margaritas.
That night, we went to a cafe/performance venue to see Kai Alce and Omar S, which was so, so great. The venue is notoriously hot and within minutes we were all sweating. This did not deter us from going crazy the rest of the night, especially since Omar S’ set was completely bananas. I kept looking at the husband and saying, “What is this track?” and was frankly disturbed when he didn’t know any of them, because that dude is a veritable walking encyclopedia of dance music. I then said out loud, “I think maybe Omar S was abducted by aliens and they gave him a stack of records to play. I’m concerned.”
We finally got to a point where we had to step outside, and the husband and I bumped into Scott Grooves. He and the husband needed to exchange records, so we walked with him to his car. It was a unique kind of delight to come upon Scott’s mid-80s Pontiac Parisienne and to watch him open the trunk to reveal a meticulous collection of plastic bags. What an odd fellow.
On Sunday, we went to a Detroit Tigers/Boston Red Sox game at Comerica Park. It was slightly miserable for the first inning or so as it was in the mid 90s and sunny. But it eventually cooled down. It was cool to see a Major League baseball game somewhere other than PNC Park and we got to see Big Papi hit a home run. Comerica Park is very…busy. It seems like when it came time to decorate it, anything that was standing still was outfitted with a tiger, a baseball, a bat, a Chevy, a fountain, a bridge, or sometimes all six.
Also, this happened:
Which only bolstered my suspicions that aliens were present and indicated to me that CLEARLY I need to drink and get little sleep more often since it does so much for my critical thinking capabilities.
For dinner, we went to Buddy’s Pizza, which was ridiculously tasty. I’ve not done extensive pizza taste tests over the country, but I feel like, objectively, Buddy’s has some of the best.
The after party that we had planned on attending was shut down and without a real back-up plan we ended up just staying in for the night, which was kind of dumb. We should have just gone out, but oh well.
Monday we finally made it to Slows which was OHMYHOLYGOD delicious. Let me blow your mind here for a second (vegetarians, look away).
Green beans, pulled pork, chicken, and brisket. The brisket literally melted in my mouth.
An unfortunately too dark picture of our ribs, macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, and baked beans. I wish I could have documented the meal better but my hands were shaking in anticipation from the meat fumes.
Banana pudding with banana slices and Nilla wafers. Swoon!
Then we were all kinda meat-drunk.
Since we were right by the iconic Michigan Central Station, we decided to walk off a little bit of our meal and check it out like good yuppie wannabes post-industrial ruin tourists urban explorers I-can-see-this-becoming-some-really-wonderful-loft-apartments-starting-in-the-low-300s!
It’s just…stunning. It’s huge and smells kinda weird but is still really, really beautiful.
Someone who used to work there just happened to drive past and told us how gorgeous and busy it used to be. He didn’t sound sad. Just matter-of-fact.
I felt kind of bad about the pictures that I took this year, since so many of them capture what people would see as negatives. But it’s hard to capture stuff like this:
…a grown man and his friends, laughing, for a few precious days not caring about whatever has them down, genuinely having a wonderful time with people who truly understand each other. Or this:
…the beauty of a renaissance center shrouded in fog late at night. If you’ve been there, then maybe you understand what I’m talking about.
Anyway, our last night was going to be at a house party featuring Andres and Malik Pittman, both of whom I adore. I was especially excited about Andres since he’s responsible for one of my personal anthems.
Unfortunately, the barbecue turned on me and I spent an ungodly amount of time in the bathroom. I resigned myself to the fact that I was too sick to go out. I crumbled into bed and turned on TV while everyone else went out. I was in the middle of a really depressing program about Gettysburg (the average time of a limb amputation in field hospitals was 12 minutes) when Frank texted me and asked if I felt like I could possibly make it out. “Maybe,” I replied. Then I decided that there was no way that I was spending our last night there in bed. The husband drove back to the hotel to get me and I shuffled to the car, ginger ale in hand. When we got to the venue, the bouncer let me in for free because I was wearing my Northland Roller Rink shirt. I was pretty proud of myself for rallying, even though I had to elbow some people out of the way to get some choice real estate near a window, as it was too hot for me in my, er, sensitive condition.
I came home to Pittsburgh feeling tired and kind of gross, but my spirits were totally rejuvenated. I love my friends. I love my husband. I love that we do this together every year.
The instructions for this post say to write a letter to this band or artist but I’m not going to. Here’s some more truth for you: I hate the open letter format. Hate. It.
Anyway, at different points in life, I’ve found different music comforting. Back when I was a teenager, I really liked Janis Joplin and R.E.M. A few years later, I always turned to Nina Simone and Radiohead. These are all still in my arsenal, but for the past several months, the artist that has been helping me a lot is Andres. He’s a hip hop producer from Detroit via L.A. and his most recent album, Andres II, has been a favorite of mine since it came out.
Andres II isn’t strictly hip hop. The only way I can really describe it is roller skating music. Fast, but not too fast, funky, soulful, and the perfect inspiration for going faster, further, staying in the flow even if you’ve taken a nasty spill.
When we were in Detroit a few months ago, our CD of Andres II didn’t leave the player in the car because it was an absolutely perfect soundtrack. And one night we were driving fast down one of those big, wide streets downtown where everyone cruises with their insanely cool cars. It had been a brutally hot day and the night brought such relief. This song was playing as the Detroit wind blew through my hair. And for a few minutes, I was really, really happy. Since then, whenever I hear this song, I think of that moment and smile.
About four and a half years after Frank stood a few feet behind me, supporting me as I married the husband, I stood a few feet behind him as he married his wife. It was super cool and I felt incredibly lucky to be able to say to people who asked me that day, “Frank and I have been friends for 11 years. He was in my wedding and now I’m in his.”
It was a lovely day and it’s so life-affirming to witness the union of two people who are genuinely in love and devoted to each other. Those really are the moments that we live for, you know?
I brought my camera and thought about grabbing it a few times, but ultimately decided to leave it in my bag and just experience the day. Besides, there were professionals on hand to capture the action. I did snap a quick picture of myself in the mirror, because I wanted to make sure that my hairdo was documented.
I met up with the bridesmaids at a salon on Saturday morning and told the hairdresser that I just wanted my hair blown out straight. He nodded, then pursed his lips, then finally said, “I think we should do an up-do!” Err, okay. I was not facing the mirror for most of the ‘do’s creation, and kept getting increasingly nervous when I saw ringlets out of the corner of my eye and when the hairdresser said, “I need another can of hairspray.” Forty-two bobby pins later (I counted), I had that super cool hairdo. It went well with my dress, which was pretty retro. The husband and the baby thought I looked silly, but whatever. It was fun to play dress-up.
I was wearing a pretty hardcore foundation garment and I understood why women in the 40s, 50s, and 60s were so thin: you can’t physically eat very much of anything when the possibility of stomach expansion is simply eliminated.
The cookie table was epic. People were practically sick from eating so many and there were still hundreds left over. Relatedly, if anyone wants to come over for snickerdoodles, I have a couple dozen.
After the wedding, the husband and I went to VIA because he was slated to play records. It was a pretty cool event and it was encouraging to see so many people just out and taking in musical performances that they probably wouldn’t have given a second glance otherwise. (Shh…can you hear that? I can hear someone’s horizons broadening!)
We got to see Dam Funk perform, which was pretty cool. He and the husband chatted afterwards and are, like, BFFs now.
I sat down at my desk last Wednesday morning, tired, sore, and frazzled from sleeping through my alarm and having to rush out the door. The familiar sounds of my daily life made their way back into my brain and I became kind of sad. I was glad to be home, as I always am, particularly because my back could not sustain another night in our discount motel room bed. But having spent so many days in a row with some of my favorite people on the planet made settling back into the normal groove of things difficult.
As I mentioned in my previous post, we were in Detroit over Memorial Day weekend for the music festival and its related events that we attend every year.
Probably only the folks who have at least a passing interest in the music featured will care about my evaluation, but those of you who don’t might appreciate a glimpse into the subculture where I spend part of my time.
To sum it up: Nothing gold can stay. I don’t think anyone really believes that the accidental beauty of the first few years of the festival could ever last and I don’t think anyone is opposed to change, but there’s a difference between changing and blatantly going down the quickest path to the most possible money, all while spewing empty platitudes about “internationalism.” If the only way to have a festival every year is to churn out such nonsense, then it’s best to let it die gracefully before it’s too late.
People like me and my husband and many of our friends got into dance music in various ways. At the time that we all met, the best way to hear dance music in all of its genres was at raves, which at the time (the late 90s) were already past their prime. Occasionally, there was an all-ages night at a club, but those were never that great. Whatever half-hearted interest that I had in the culture of raving was pretty much gone after about a year and a half of going to them. I liked staying out all night, I liked dancing, I liked hanging out with my friends. I didn’t care for the pseudo-infantile behavior that began to dominate the culture. But, and I still maintain this viewpoint today, just because I think something is dumb, it’s not hurting anyone, so you go ahead and cuddle your teddy bear and suck on lollipops, even though I’m pretty sure I just saw a grey hair on your head.
Music and culture changes and out of the quintessentially 90s and neon versions of house and techno and the like, a new version emerged. One that was more grown-up, deeper. Baby-making music, if you will. Or perhaps just a mature and refined iteration of what came before it. There was no particular culture attached to it. Adults who still preferred to dress like Rainbow Brite were welcome to attend clubs where this kind of music was played, though the spectacle of, “Look at me! I’m shiny and glittery and dancing with glow sticks! LOOK AT ME!” had definitely been replaced by a feeling of letting only the music be the focal point, allowing listeners to truly lose themselves in it and dance and be free. Letting go of the ego and letting the id rule for a bit, if I may draw on my Psychology 101 class from 1999 (gulp).
Going to the festival for the first time was a revelation. Here we were, outside, in the daylight, surrounded not only by people from all over the country and the world who had emerged from rave culture into the same general moment in dance music, but by families and “regular joes” from Detroit, by raver kids whose devotion to moments of a technicolor existence was almost endearing, by musicians of various levels of fame and infamy. Through the awkward adolescence of raves, we had grown up and were comfortable listening to the weird, the deep, the soulful, the rambunctious, the political, the luscious beats of a generation of people, no matter what their age, who were finally comfortable in declaring, “This is the music that I like. This is the music that helps me to define who I am. This is the music that I hear at my most joyful and my most desperate. This is the music that will be played at my wedding, at the births of my children, at my funeral. This is the music that will be played in my next life.”
I had a transformative moment in 2005 when some of the Underground Resistance guys closed the festival on the main stage. They played “Transition,” while images of people like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Albert Einstein flashed behind them. The crowd of thousands around me melted away and I was alone when I heard the lyrics, “Point yourself in the direction of your dreams…and make your transition.” From that day on, I did, freed from the notion that I needed to worry about the uninformed and frightened opinions of people who would dismiss this music as silly and scoff at my inspiration.
Transition or not, my annual trek back has changed a bit each year. The cost of admission goes up, a necessary evil that we’re told is the only thing keeping the festival going year after year. A cost we’ve been happy to pay to support the work of the people from that city who have helped so many people figure out their lives through music. Something else changed, too, though. Artists from Detroit are bumped from better time slots and given lesser areas to play in favor of their more European counterparts, those who make and play the same music that got old 15 years ago, the music that is almost rhetorically composed for the Rainbow Brite crew who fork over $60 for the opportunity to feel like they’re getting away with something. They parade in front of each other, eager for reactions, armed with an arsenal of camera-ready poses, dying for that first moment when someone points and finally, finally notices them. In the background, the music could be Carl Craig or it could be Linda Ronstadt. They would scarcely notice the difference. They pay good money and lots of it for admission and shirts and blinky, shiny things that vendors sell because they know an opportunity when they see it.
This year, nearly all of the Detroit artists were shuffled unceremoniously to an underground stage that, despite the organizer’s best efforts, still sounded like listening to an off-balanced washing machine while nursing an earache. The glittering kids danced outside, in the sunlight, to tracks that they couldn’t name to save their lives, that could very well all be the same record or mp3 for all they know. They formed dance circles, breaking up whatever collective energy had been present on the dancefloor, so that they could stand and watch one person dance. If that isn’t the saddest goddamned thing ever, I don’t know what is.
Again, they are welcome to. I am happy to share that experience with anyone. But I didn’t feel like I was in a position of sharing this year. I felt like I was stuffed in a basement while the higher bidders enjoyed what used to be our moment in the sun.
I don’t want to focus entirely on the negative. We did hear some good music at the festival and even more at the after parties that we attended. The husband has a good round-up of the music that we saw/heard/got down to while we were there. Not surprisingly, his criticism of the unprofessional and/or just plain shitty aspects of the festival management are drawing ire. The organizers had previously agreed to sit down with him for an interview, but later recanted. I, however, as a professional writer, offer up my tape recorder for any statements that they want to make. If people like us, a numerical minority, who are genuinely passionate about the music and the experience of it, are no longer important, dropped in favor of the wealthy and serotonically tweaked, then just say so and we’ll stop bugging you with all of our demands for care and quality and respect.
Sigh.
Aside from the fact that, last Wednesday morning, I pried my eyes open and stared, confused, at the numbers on my alarm clock which read “7:55” aka The Time at Which We Should Be at the School Bus Stop Holy Crap You’re Late as Hell O’Clock, getting back into all of the aspects of life seems to be increasingly difficult every year. Only this past Monday did I cook a meal and pack my lunch. Over the weekend, I got most of the laundry done (but not all of it). There are still several bags of random travel things gathering dust in our entryway. And I still poke around my office, unsure of what I normally do during the hours of 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. I’ll figure it out eventually.
That’s me at my desk. I’ve been in this position most of the day because I have this really annoying stomachache.
So what’s been going on with me? Eh, a lot and not much, know what I mean? I’ve been really busy at work, aside from being doubled over and groaning. The baby had his first Little League game last Saturday, which followed their annual parade down our main street to the ball field. (more…)
I’m pretty sure that every spring around this time, my brain goes to work blocking my memories of how stressed I get. This is always an incredibly busy time for me at work and yesterday I was thinking about how the three springs prior to this one, I was taking two graduate classes (and getting As). I really can’t even begin to imagine, nor do I want to, how completely freaked out I must have been. And I really don’t know how I didn’t a) flunk out of grad school b) get fired or c) permanently alienate my family and anyone who had the misfortune of coming into contact with me.
I voiced this concern last night. “You were annoying, that’s for sure,” replied the husband. Gee, thanks.
That saying that God will never give you more than you can handle might have some truth to it, provided that God or some universal force does, in fact, exist and determines exactly what pile of shit we’ll fall into and God or this universal force has either a drinking problem or is just sadistic and prickish (because, really, WTF?). My evidence for this is that the baby has been pretty well-behaved up until this year.
He’s not up to anything really delinquent. All of the flies in our vicinity still have wings and he has not seen the inside of a juvenile detention center. But something in him realized that some bad behavior would no longer send his mother completely off the edge so he decided to try some out.
A few weeks ago, I received a phone call at work from his teacher, who sounded so completely DONE that I very nearly offered to buy her a drink. The baby had incrementally raised his level of douchiness over the preceding week or so. At first it was mostly small, isolated incidents of not listening, but by the time I received the call, he was nearing Lord of the Flies levels.
I listened quietly as his teacher, who I know is a reasonable person with as much patience as one should have in a second-grade teaching position, listed the increasingly assy things he had done. I wasn’t entirely surprised. A lot of it was stuff that we struggled with at home, just amplified by the presence of other 8-year-olds.
I apologized and immediately set up a parent-teacher conference, screamed via email to the MamaPop writers that I was sending him to Dutch country, and then the husband and I started crafting the crack-down.
We drew up a contract that outlined the behaviors that had to improve considerably over the period of two weeks and the privileges that would be removed during that time. No DS. No Wii. No Cartoon Network. Earlier bedtime (which will remain in place because I think he might have been a little sleep-deprived, contributing to his behavior). No arguing. No whining. Doing what he’s asked to do the first time. We would evaluate his performance in two weeks. If he had improved, he would start to get some of his privileges back. If he hadn’t, we would take away more stuff: no TV, no iPod, even earlier bedtime, no excursions with grandparents. No fun or joy, basically.
All three of us signed it and posted it on the fridge. We explained to him that it’s bad enough that he wasn’t behaving well for us, but we were disappointed/PISSED that he wasn’t behaving at school.
He got it. He cried, mostly because he was going to miss his DS, but partly because he felt pretty rotten about screwing up. A couple of times I’ve explained to him exactly how and why I get stressed and upset and how his behavior affects that (ie, I’m just trying to make a nice life for us and it’s hard and you being a jerk makes me feel like crap) and while still over his head, I think it twinges his empathy. So that’s good.
By the time we went for our parent-teacher conference, his teacher informed us that he had done a 180. So, I think I’ll go ahead and put a W in our column.
I don’t know. It felt kind of severe, but we really wanted him to understand how not cool it is to behave like a jackass. It’s an important life lesson, you know?
Not exactly a kids' album
Of course, it might not be entirely his fault. Last night, while looking through the baby’s iPod, the husband said to me, “Did you put The Chronic on here?”
“Um…maybe?”
It appears I was not paying close attention when adding music to the baby’s iPod and added an album that, while undoubtedly a classic and one that I hope will be part of his regular rotation in the future, is not entirely appropriate for an 8-year-old and his spongy brain. Tonight’s project: re-evaluate iPod contents.
This week has really worn me out. Busy at work, busy at school. Plus, my cat started harassing me at 5:30 this morning, flopping butt-first onto my face, knocking my glasses off of the nightstand, and pawing at my hands and head when I buried myself in the covers. It’s a dreary day here and combined with the early morning, I’m really ready to curl up at home.
I’ve been taking the bus to work and listening to Pandora on my phone. This morning it selected a few Beatles tracks for me. I haven’t actively listened to the Beatles since perhaps high school. But this song came on this morning and it made me feel very serene. Thanks, randomized internet radio, for knowing what I needed to hear. Have a good weekend, kids.
I have now redefined my life goals and am going to become a preschool teacher so I can read this to my young charges. What could be more adorable than a bunch of 4-year-olds saying, “STRING?!?! STRING! LOOK AT ME!?”
