Feels Like Ooooolllld Times

So, no place is a home to me until I find a used book store (or two) that I truly love.  In Brooklyn I’ve got some Freebird lovin’, and here in Manhattan I’ve discovered Housingworks Bookstore.  Only a few days ago I picked up a Woody Allen biography at Housingworks, and maybe that is the reason why I’ve got “Annie Hall” on the brain.

Specifically, it is the final montage scene of AH that is running through my mind- the one where Diane Keaton is singing “Feels Like Old Times” as the scenes of Albie and Annie’s good times play across the screen.  It is a scene so filled with nostalgia, such a crooked-smile kind of montage.  Everytime I watch it I feel like I’ve just run into my great old flame, and that its me walking down 5th avenue or something, thinking of her/him and the time we lost the lobster behind the fridge….

I feel like that now, kind of.  Because in only a few short days I’m blowing this pop stand for a better job doing better work in a new place, up north.  It’s only for a few months, so its not a permanent goodbye at all…but still.  I’m leaving the place where I’ve been working for 6 months, and while I was frequently dissatisfied here, I like my co-workers a lot, and this job saw me through my first 6 months in the big scary NYC quite nicely.

I find myself now walking around SoHo, tripping on the cobblestone streets and remembering the first morning I started working here.  I was so overwhelmed with the New Yorkness of everything around me.  I actually got my first New York cup of coffee at Dean & Delucca- I was officially Felicity Porter, standing in that cozy, over-priced atrocity of a “grocery” store, staring out at Broadway and all the people- so many people- moving around with confidence and ownership and direction.

I’m kind of one of those people now.  I’ve joined the throngs of New Yorkers, and my Brooklyn is my own.  I have my coffee cart, my pizza place, my bookstores, my movie theater, my dog park and other park.  I even had a church for a while, which I shared with Sufjan Stevens, for Christ’s sake (literally)!  I have neighbors, I have friends, I have drama and I have a routine.

It’s just that now that I’m temporarily re-locating, I’m a bit surprised to say it- but I’m leaving home.

I feel like Emily at the end of Our Town.  I want to make a list of the things I’m saying goodbye to.  Except she was dead.  I’m just moving to New Hampshire until November.

Sometimes, I’m a little dramatic.

The Reason I Love Weddings:

Because everyone is so god damned happy!  I have not yet been to the fabled wedding where everyone thinks its a bad idea.  So far, they’ve been great ideas.  And there is no other occasion I can think of when people so easily express their love for other people- not just the couple, but the families and friends and even the band and sometimes, if you’re lucky, the caterer.  I love weddings, and I love when people I love are happy.

Happy Monday.  Pictures to be posted once Nick Benjamin has returned to his home and has uploaded some of those classic shots that had him all pumped on Saturday night.  So.  Pumped.

Play your own kind of music

Not too long ago I was talking with someone about how much I love Richard Simmons.  And it’s not for the kitsch value of loving Richard Simmons.  It is because whenever I see him, his happy face, his bouncing hair- and hear about his triumphant struggle to love himself, his devotion to his mother, his passion for helping people lose weight- I realize that he embodies so much of what are, in my opinion, the most admirable things in humans- the ability to just be whoever the fuck you are no matter what.  Richard Simmons was unhappy because he was fat- not because he was obnoxious, or loud, or gay (right?).  Because he was fat.  So he lost the weight, but not himself.  And he doesn’t apologize for anything- he’s no idiot.  He knows how we all see him, but what the fuck does he care?

You know who else is like that?  The Nanny, aka Fran Drescher.

I also loved that show- which was, actually, really funny and witty.  But again, it featured someone who never has apologized for who she is, where she comes from- she plays it up, and while others may hate her voice, I’ve always found it oddly soothing.

And of course, the Queen of “Take Me As I Am Or Walk The Fuck Away”:

  No one has apologized less or earned as much success for being herself.

I love those people who others would have explain themselves, but are too busy being busy to bother…or to notice.  Either way, I think it is a fine quality.

Tattoo voodu!

I just looked at my stats, and apparently most of my hits are coming from people searching for “tattoos”…..wow.  One American Idol reference and you’re reeling them in left and right.

 

Also, someone searched for “Dolly Parton old image” and came across my blog.  That warms my heart.

The Power of Perez?

I’ve been really bored and dissatisfied at work lately, and as such have found myself indulging in/consuming/needing celebrity gossip more than ever.  Obviously this confirms what everyone says about celebrity, and really all gossip- you turn to it when you most want an escape from your own life, and even your own problems.  I have long justified my celebrity gossip cravings as being like the best kind of escape, becauase I get to read about people who don’t feel real to me, and who do incredibly stupid, bizarre things.

About a year ago, I gave up celebrity gossip for a full month.  I’d had this moment where I was reading (again) about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and I realized a) how much I knew about them, more than I know about members of my extended family and b) how much I just don’t like them.  So I gave it up, cold turkey.  And it was great.  I was able to move away, read other things online while bored at work.  I didn’t feel the need to know what the latest headline was, who is “Just Like Us,” and all the rest.

Obviously, that abstinence gave way once more to the lust that is celebrity gossip- but for a long time, I found I cared less and less, and I felt good about myself.  However, the combination of a job that I really hate performing and figuring out how to tilt my computer so that my co-workers can’t see it has brought back the addiction full force, and I find myself digesting this crap more and more and more- its bad, friends.  Real bad.

So, today I was reading Perez Hilton online.  For a long time I resisted the lure of Perez, because I just didn’t get what was so great about him- until I realized how much information he seems to have.  It’s incredible.  The man reports on EVERYTHING and it is like a one-stop source for all celebrity news.  But still, I remain outside of the Cult of Perez, because I don’t find him particularly funny and he endorsed Hillary Clinton, like a fool, and then when she was obviously losing started to call for a “Dream Ticket.”  Point is, I maintain my skepticism.

As a somewhat objective Perez reader, I’ve long been fascinated by his seemingly random selection of celebrities he looooves and those he hates.  For example, he obviously loves Paris Hilton, and Madonna- both of whom patronize his website and interact with him.  But he hates, with real venom, people like Lily Allen and Mischa Barton.  Lily Allen in particular amazes me, because other than being young and drinking probably too much, I don’t understand the loathing for someone who makes good music and has experienced some real sadness lately.

And today, it dawned on me- something that no doubt is obvious to all those who are too good for celebrity gossip, who look down on it as plebian and invasive and terrible and the worst thing EVER.  Perez Hilton is just another fat, bitchy high schooler who needs to be loved and gains power through arbitrary criticism.  When Madonna’s source calls him to give him “inside” “exclusive” information, he eats it up and refuses to question the veracity of that information- because, after all, Madonna (the original bad ass prom queen) is talking TO HIM.  So why would he question it?  But somewhere down the line, Lily Allen must have done something (probably unknown to her) that pissed him off, or pissed off a friend of his, and now he is singularly focused on all of her mistakes and everything wrong with her.

It’s really an amazing thing to see, this “every man” who now makes his living off of becoming his own little celebrity, who wields this power over the music industry and over people’s perceptions of stars- which of course affects the business that their albums/movies/shows generate…and its all based on who pays the proper attention to him.  Madonna is no fool, she sucks up to him with an air of regality that keeps him lapping it up.  Somewhere along the line others have fallen from the grace of Perez, and his wrath is fierce and also, sad.  Because really, what does he do but give the rest of us a way to feel less bad about our boring/crappy jobs/lives by appealing to the hyenas inside of us? 

I think I’ll stop reading his website for now.  He’s just a bit too pathetic, and by extension, so am I.

Falling Slowly

This week is just inching by.  It’s 4 pm EST on Wednesday afternoon, and already I feel like it should be Sunday morning, with bacon and scones. 

I suppose that one of the reasons it is going so terribly slowly is because I’m heading up to beautiful Vermont this weekend.  Glorious, glorious, adult fairy land Vermont.  I can’t wait for the first sunset and A&W milkshake…hopefully those things will happen simultaneously.

I guess that’s it.  God, this post sucks.  But you know, I wanted to keep this thing a-live.  I’m trying to think of some song or something I can write about, but the only thing that comes to mind is the fact that I knew I was rooting for the Giants in this year’s superbowl when they said that their team word was Resilience and entered the stadium to “Stronger” by Kanye West.  That is a team I want to win.

Anyway.  That’s it.  I’m ashamed, but also too bored and too floppy-minded right now to think of anything else.  Except to say that recently, the more I read and think about Scientology, the more I’m totally freaked out.

Holy Facebook

It’s amazing how if you put your blog address on your facebook profile, suddenly 8 people are looking at your blog where before it was only 2….that’s a real jump in my blog stats, I don’t mind telling you.

Had an interesting conversation about whether or not the existence of an audience inherently endangers the quality of art.  I’m not saying this little wordpress experiment in narcissism is art, but I am aware of my audience and suddenly I’m nervous about who you’all are…so I’m going to pretend you’re not there, not unlike the tactic of hiding behind a thin tree where the only hidden parts are your eyes.

But hey, you know who has only gotten better as his audience has grown?  Josh Ritter.  His was one of the best shows I maybe have ever seen, and certainly than I’ve seen in many a long month or year.  Fun, happy, jumpy, dry, complete with seriously amazing singing along and audience participation.  Everyone should see him, but not until I get to see him again for as cheap as he was this time….see?  Narcissistic.  Told you.

This blog is clearly about music.

And we have a theme!!

Goodbye, Virginia

Picture this:

 

A 17 year old girl, driving her father’s bright red mini-van.  It is a fall night, the smell of autumn hanging in the air.  She is driving south on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, headed to her best friend’s house.  She will park her car and get drunk with her pals, embrace the sophistication of her senior year of high school as well as the reckless, insecurity of teenage youth.  She is listening to The Mix, Chicago’s shameless top 40 station.  Third Eye Blind and Matchbox 20 are at the height of their popularity and cultural impact.  The Barenaked Ladies are considered slightly indie.  She embraces all of them as well.  The window is rolled down just a little, and her hair is blowing.  She imagines it is beautiful.

 

A song comes on.  “Meet Virginia,” by Train.  She is poised to love it.  She is ready for a song to tell her how to feel, to encapsulate the freedom of her life in this exact moment.  She is on the verge of goosebumps.

 

The song is okay- its got kind of a good hook, a message of some man loving a “different” girl, something every teenage Ellen hopes truly exists (because she fancies herself awfully different).  She’s picturing a time when she’ll be able to sing along, when the lyrics will lure her in and she’ll feel something every time she hears this song.

 

And then- “wears high heels when she exercises.”  Come again? 

“Wears high heels when she exercises, ain’t it beautiful.”

 

Seriously? 

The song is lost.  Train, forever, is lost to her.  She changes the station.  Top 40 will never be the same.

 

That is the story of my relationship with the band Train.  In high school I was one of those people who claimed to “love everything except country,” (I had so much to learn), felt a little snobby because I had friends who liked Lou Reed and I liked “Walk on the Wild Side,” and I was totally not too cool for Top 40 anything.  I rode the musical middle ground, assured in my taste by my wide collection of classic rock (read: early Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, etc.) and confident enough to see the virtue in “Who Let the Dogs Out” and other early 2000’s wonders. 

 

But my top 40 world came crashing down the day I heard “Meet Virginia,” by Train.  I fucking hate that song.  And it’s not for the simpler reasons, such as the fact that Train is a terrible band and their songs pretty much sound exactly the same.  It isn’t even because they look and sound like a band that formed in the early 90’s grunge phase, stayed together and then decided to sell out in their 40’s for the music they always knew they could make, but never should’ve dared to record. 

 

Anyway, it was that one lyric that really did it in for me.  Because I ask you- Who. Wears. High. Heels. When they exercise?  That is retarded.  In that moment in my dad’s car, I realized that that is the worst lyric I’ve ever heard in my entire life.  And its not just because it’s a dumb idea- its because it was striving to be interesting.

 

That whole song is struggling to be interesting.  It’s trying to paint a picture of an interesting woman, of a complex woman- a woman who mystifies and draws you in with her strange behavior.  An example of which is her tendency to wear high heels when she exercises?  In the words of dear William Shatner, I can’t get behind that.

 

In the years since that moment in my father’s car, that lyric has come to symbolize my general distaste and occasional hatred for artistic portraits of “quirky” women.  Women who beguile boring men, who save boring men with their quirkiness and their selfless desire to save those boring men by bringing a little bit of quirk into their lives.

 

In my experience, quirky women don’t date, let alone love or waste their time on boring men.  I’m sorry, it just doesn’t happen.  I know a lot or people think it does, but those people are wrong.  The complex, interesting woman who you know that is dating that boring guy?  She’s not as complex as you think.  Women who are really out there, women portrayed in movies like “The Garden State,” “Elizabethtown,” “Forces of Nature,” “Addicted to Love,” and many others don’t end up happily turning around the sad state of affairs for a guy who loves nothing more than his bedtime tea and morning business suits. 

 

The only example I can think of where this formula worked is “Roman Holiday,” and let’s face it, Audrey Hepburn needed as much saving in that movie as Gregory Peck.  But otherwise, it’s just not happening.  So if you’re a boring guy, the jig is up.  Turn off your train, stop watching your mopey Zach Braff…you better get interesting or get used to your boring ass girlfriends. 

 

And to all you quirky girls out there who’ve never heard of Train, think of me as your ambassador to the mainstream.  I’ll fill you in on what’s out there, but I’ll never sell you out.

 

Hello world, there’s a song that I’m singin’

 

My friend named Liz turned 24 a few weeks ago, and a group of people who also love Liz joined her in a private kareoke room to sing some tunes in the company of no strangers.  It was fun, I thought.  I like those settings, I like studying human behavior around kareoke…I think you can tell a lot about a person based on what they sing, and I think we all think that which is why song selection becomes so important and self-defining.  It is, I think, a white person’s problem, but I am open to being wrong about that.

Anyway, we were there, and I started perusing the song book- and decided that the one little ditty that really needed to get sung, that I’ve never once sung in front of anyone else, and a song that is so tragically under-heralded.  “I woke up in love this morning,” by the Partridge Family.

 My love for the Partridge Family began when I was a junior in high school.  I was a T.A. for an 8th grade history class at my school, and the teacher was by far the coolest teacher ever (plays harmonica with Sam Lay, threw spit balls, the whole shebang).  Mr. Stone and I were sort of complicitly making fun of students (if any Francis Parker administrators are reading this, please note: Mr. Stone never makes fun of students.  I just want to remember that he and I were good enough buddies that we could, indeed, have been making fun of those little 8th graders together), and I looked over at his desk.  There was sitting a “Best of the Partridge Family” cd.  I made a face, and he looked at me dead pan and said “Seriously, that music is awesome.”

Mr. Stone was right.  That music is awesome.  David Cassidy has this melodic voice that is so filled with emotion, the rest of those kiddies play an alright guitar/tambourine/etc.  And the lyrics.  Good god, the lyrics of a Partridge Family song may well change your life.

Everyone knows “I think I love you,” as well they should- its a great number.  But I am loyal to track 2 of that classic Best of cd.  “I woke up in love this morning” is the darker, more desperate, more real version of “I think I love you.”  It has the same revalatory message of suddenly being aware of loving that special someone.  But while “I think I” plays it safe, even demure with its “I think I love you…I think that I’m just scared of a love there is no cure for,” “I woke up” goes balls out, nearly stalker with its “Hello girl, yes its five o’clock I know, but you just listen!  There’s something that I need to let you know.  This is you, yes this pillow that I’m hugging and I’m kissing, and one more thing before I let you go…” 

There is no pussyfooting around the issue in “I woke up.”  If “I think I” is the cute guy with indy glasses, sort of smiling at you and maybe waving just the tips of his fingers your way, then “I woke up” is the guy standing across the street, screaming your name at passing cars and maybe crying a little because, “Jesus! What is this that I’m feeling?” he asks himself.

“I woke up” is very much akin to “Every breath you take,” that stalker classic that is too often mis-interpreted as romantic.  I like to think that maybe, just maybe Sting was looking for a new, edgy angle on the tired love song,  and “I woke up in love this morning” came on the radio.  And he was inspired.

The thing about the Partridge family is that we’ll never know which and how many future artists they inspired, because no one is going on the record as saying the Partridge Family was a significant impact on their music.  But here’s what I do know.  There have been many a time when I’ve woken up with that song just rocking in my head- and those, inevitably, are always the best days.