Tag Archives: music

Eddie Van Halen. This One Hurts.

08 Thursday Oct 2020

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Eddie Van Halen smiled like a kid when his hero gave him the thumbs up. He smiled like he saw the love of his life across the room. He smiled like he was up to sumpthin… who me? Oh, yes, you. Then he serenaded or assailed you with the wit of his strings.

There can be only one. And that is cliche. But tonight that’s how it feels when I think and write about Eddie Van Halen. A friend asked for a best memory with a Van Halen song involved.

I’m not sure how I got the cassette (probably borrowed from a friend or my brother). Popped it into the Sears stereo. Heard “Eruption” and just … Did you ever hear a piece of music and wonder what just happened to you? What the hell just happened to me? Never heard anything like it. I’m an 80s Mtv grrl, so I’ve seen a lot (oh my word a lot) of videos. When I went back to wash in Van Halen just now, most of what I see is Eddie playing like “this is kidstuff and I’m having fun.” He played with a joy, a playfulness I haven’t seen in many other bands. He had a guitar made for his creativity because he needed something more, which is not surprising. Many creatives have to have things built or changed for them so they can CREATE because what is in the here and now is just not filling and satisfying. I want us all to smoke that cig and take a swig and write that thing, that easygoing swagger that’s easy as breathing, breathing pie. Eddie, no one is like you. But we gotta try.

Taxi Ride

13 Saturday Jul 2019

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There was a time when I didn’t want to fly because I hated flying. You know, the act of flying. That thing where wheels up, pressed into seat and all the bad things happen in the first few minutes or the last few minutes when rubber meets the road when it’s all gonna be okay or it’s the moment you wished you burned your journals before you left home. 

            Then there was the time I learned to understand how the act of flying works: you get over the fear of the crashing thing and realize the bigger picture is you’re at the mercy of the airlines. Sure you ordered a ticket online (which no one taught you how to do, you figured it all out yourself, wishing you had someone looking over your shoulder to guide you and say good job!), then you marked the days you’d be away, getting ready for the big day like you were cramming for a test the night before hoping there’d be no mechanical failures or oversold seats or the other dumb things dumb airlines do.  It all works out, once you realize how flying works, and as long as you keep taking deep breaths and pretend you are a mourning dove flying or a dolphin diving you are fine.

            Then it’s all over and you need a ride home in the soaking thunderstorm that kept you from getting a gate, sitting long on the runway but that’s okay, too. It’s like being stuck in a subway car or the DMV. It’s inconvenient but at least you’re in one piece, okay?  So I walked the mile to find my bag (which is actually Dad’s luggage he never used) and went outside to see if there’s a Norfolk taxi black and white available.  Nope.  Life is full of decisions, you know, like should I sleep on the plane or watch a crappy movie that the chick with the prosthetic right arm is streaming across the aisle.  I chose the Eastside taxi instead of calling for the usual because I was so tired, I just needed to get home and didn’t care as long as it had four wheels and a go.  An elderly black man abandoned his fast food meal on the front seat and loaded my one bag. I told him where I needed to go, that I preferred the back way but he said I-64 was fine this time of night, no traffic, so I said fine, whatever. He drove like an old man and I liked it and then I was annoyed and then I liked it because I wanted him to move faster but if he did he’d be hitting the deep puddles that had accumulated during the thunderstorm I’d been sitting in at the airport.  Norfolk gets a lot of water but hasn’t found a way to drain it effectively.  He was a conservative driver and part of me was like “go man go” and the other part was like “thank you for not hydroplaning us into a terrible accident that makes me regret not burning my journals before I left.” 

And then!  And then.  He plugged in his music playlist and it all came home: Diana Ross of the 80s through the speakers.  Goddamn, I wanted my roller skates and silk shirt and forgot the airplane and my ache from sitting twisted so my elbow didn’t touch the other guy’s elbow and the crappy movie and leaving a writer’s nest and missing him singing ‘At Last.’ We made small talk. I told him to avoid the I-64 entrance across the way because it’s probably 3 feet deep by now, go back up town. He appreciated the advice from someone who’s lived here a while.  I tipped him good then dumped my stuff on the couch and slept like I hadn’t slept before. 

Universe, Fingerpaints.

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

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I wake up at 0400, I don’t know why.

My Hoya plant climbs and changes direction all day, pushing out leaves that start out maroon then turn green, looking for something cling to, I guess, but I don’t know how. They don’t care why.

Somebody’s gorgeous, imperfect black Mercedes 350 D sits in the parking lot, and I don’t know who it belongs to. Should I do penance for coveting?

I had a dream and you were in it and I was awful to you. Should I apologize?

My son shivers under a pile of covers every few weeks and nobody knows how to fix him. When will we find the answer?

Who will tend our nerves and muscle, spine and hips, and tell them stand down, the money has come, go and get well, healthcare has come?

What does an unaching body feel like?

Where does music come from?

Why are those finger-sized fishes jumping out of the bay into the air?

Where did my pouch of flash drives go?

What will my next best writing look like, and who will tell me “Yes, we want this.”

Are you the one tapping on my window at night when it rains, sounding like somebody is dropping berries onto my windowsill from the roof in the middle of the night?

Who’s going to put all this stuff away, and wash laundry, and take the garbage out, and pay bills, and wash the car?

Does anyone else hate the fact that Greenie’s is gone and wonder what will replace that beach bar that the mayor said yeah that was nice but it’s time to move on?

How many children are still without their parents at the border and will they ever see them again?

Peace in our time?

Are aliens shunning us?

Who made the first fishing net?

I dunno.   It’s all just Universe painting, I guess.  Meanwhile….who can think with all this going on…  20180926_070410

Blessed Commotion

29 Tuesday May 2018

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gray morning 5:30
take it slow
purple ink on my writing finger
scribbled notes on junk mail
some important message needs decoding
something about Friday melanoma (again)

Michael Shannon sings with a band
I think he wants to be Jim Morrison
an Aztec frieze of fearsome teeth and feathers
neck bent, back bent, knees bent
hearing the secret, being the ceremony
sweat
becoming
apart
receiving
transmutation connection
high-five.

what feathers can I be on this soupy morning?
mmm. I shall wear a blanket of all of you,
an Aztec frieze of fearsome teeth and feathers
that I plucked when you invaded the sparrows nest
brown brood barely able to fly hiding on the shed nearby
neath the tree some might call a weed but full of green
shade and safe from blue jay, osprey
cardinal witnesses the catbird wanting to infiltrate
and the raven–I heard the raven’s feet touch the lamp
when it landed and croaked, wanting fledgling meat
vulnerable, but he was late to the show.

feathers for my blanket made of attempted murder
a witness, an empty nest,
red, blue, black, brown, white
Coffee on the way to the job, I’m late (again)

Bodies In My Trunk, Respectfully, Goodbye.

15 Tuesday May 2018

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I know the blue footlocker didn’t materialize into my teenage life like something that Scotty would beam up to the Enterprise, all magical-like.  I know the footlocker came from somewhere, and I’m guessing I got it either from a friend or from a yard sale. I kept the locker in my room somewhere. I’ve worked hard trying to remember where I kept it. Strange how some memories are present, the kind you can stub your toe on, and other things are just so unclear.   It wasn’t the centerpiece of the room, though. That was my stereo. This footlocker is dinged up, dogged up, gouged blue metal with brass corners and lock. I think I kept stuffed animals on top and glasses of tea.

When I left my teenage home I brought the trunk with me, my strong shoulders unceremoniously stuffed it into my Bronco, hauled it up two flights of stairs, and I kept it somewhere in my apartment. I’m not sure where. It wasn’t the centerpiece, though. That was my stereo.

One night, a man suggested that he was going to bring me, his soon to-be-wife, to meet his mom tomorrow, a backwards proposal. I squealed and we rolled around on his waterbed by the light of his Plasma Ball (look it up), and I hugged him so hard, excited and happy and it all felt so right. Later we dragged a 10,000 pound couch I got from a neighbor I no longer needed to my Dad’s house. Everything else got moved into my future-spouses house via our trucks, including the rusty, dusty footlocker.  I remember opening it on the bedroom floor, exploring old yearbooks and notes from boyfriends rediscovering all those feelings. I did not write down all those things that flooded back, blooded back, as I remembered those high school days. I shoulda. We tucked the locker into a root cellar where my old stereo went. I mean, he had his sound system and mine wasn’t needed, after all, just like some of the stuff that came from my mom’s apartment after she passed, and Dad’s house after he passed along, too.

The blue and brass footlocker pockmarked with rusty volcanoes is in my bedroom now because I asked one of the apartment maintenance crew to help me upstairs with it. If I was a teenager I could have done it by myself, but my rotator cuff says no-go. We pulled the rusty trunk out of my trunk and we lugged it upstairs.  I asked the young lady who reminds me of me (you know, running around after her dad, wanting to learn everything) if she likes the Thirsty Camel so I could buy her lunch.  I’ll repay her as soon as she will allow me. I know she will say yes.  Meanwhile, the trunk where I told my son all the dead bodies are buried sits alongside my bed.  The rusty key is somewhere. I have a screwdriver plan B in case I can’t find it. From memory I know my yearbooks are in there and a shoe-box filled with notes from those I loved and loved me. Not sure what else I will discover, but the focus is that this is where the bodies are, a life left behind and should not be ignored.  How will I reckon them, those notes in ink I can still smell?  What can I do with the past that was part of making the me who is not the same me anymore?

I see a bonfire in my future, not an angry one filled with hate and the desire to harm, but one that burns hot and clean.

The World Awaits You, or, Meeting Henry & Seeing His Travel Slideshow

09 Tuesday Jan 2018

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Prepare to be uncomfortable. Prepare to be challenged. Prepare to leave your Western constructs and ideals behind. Get a passport and go visit Kerala on Friday.  You will give me one hundred reasons why you can’t, and Henry Rollins will give you one hundred twenty reasons why you can and you should. You will be a changed person when you leave your doorstep Henry promises, just as J.R.R. Tolkien promised in his tales, but there’s more at stake here in terra firma of 2018.

I wanted so much to tell you what it was like listening to Mr. Rollins give us the backstory of the photos he’s taken on his Travel Slideshow tour. I wrote a pile of pages and when I took a breath, walked away, and came back all I could see was me fan-girling all over my Dad trying to get him to understand why it was so important that he listen to this rock band, see how smart and wise they are, full of boundless passion and world interest, won’t you love them just like me, Dad?

Henry doesn’t need anyone to fan-girl all over him, and he doesn’t need me to promote or explain him or his books or his tour. Henry has, however, explicitly asked all who will listen to get a passport and travel.  To get uncomfortable, to be challenged, to try to see the world without Western filters. To see the people who aren’t making headlines, the young and old, everyone in between whose clothes are clean though they sift through garbage for food, whose children are happy and playful though they play in graveyards, who sell their fresh foods at the market and have better diets than we do. Discover colors and tastes, notice the flesh, the sinews, the strength, the smiles, the customs that make us different and one.  That Ismail and Awa and Hai on the street ain’t the devil but just a dude, as we all are, having a life, doing their thing, and it’s the politicians that really fuck everything up. And we have the power to make a change, not a “Democracy or else you backwater jerks” kind of change, but the kind that brings access to clean water, food, healthcare, and school without fear.

For those of you who are already doing this, you get it. This is old hat for you.  For those who have a problem with anything that whiffs of globalism or liberalism, I hope you will still give travel a chance.  Anyone who hasn’t seen Mr. Rollins on his speaking tours, I say see him pronto. He’s an entertaining and insightful speaker, and you will not be unmoved one way or the other.

(And now for the fan-girl part, because I hafta, and you can skip this no problem.)  Through my Dad, I was able to get a VIP ticket to meet Henry after the show. About 25-30 other people were there. We lined up and got to meet him and he was no different on the floor as he was onstage. When you see him on TV, that is the real, authentic Henry, as every good punk knows, there is not one fake thing about him.  My turn came and I approached him sheepishly. We shook hands. I thanked him for all that he does (What does he do? Well go look it up, he’s laid hands on more of our servicemen than our current president will probably ever do). I asked could I hug him, he said yes, and we did and some pics were taken.  As I walked away I turned back and pointed and said loudly, “KEEP GOING!”  He looked at me and smiled and hollered, “I WILL!”  So wonderful.  Do I need to meet him and hug his hard body again? No. But I will keep reading his work and seeing him live when he comes around. He inspires me, and I hope to get uncomfortable and be challenged and write about it from another part of the world before I kick the bucket.)

Solstice at the Thirsty Camel

22 Friday Dec 2017

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There is glitter on the table and salt in my book
gritty on my arm as I press down to write.
I sip and lick salt from my fingers.

No one sits in the center of the room
bodies huddle at the bar, hug the walls,
so I sit at the back where I can see you all
Ballcaps, hoodies, Santa hats, sweaters
Blondie in a ballgown texting who knows what.

I claimed a table for friends tonight,
brought a candle and journal to fill the time until their faces appear.
One by one they come and we make the ‘howdy stranger’ talk
over light beers, battered onions, and speakers playing a bit too loud.

She came in last, her withered body wrapped in sagging jeans
and a pretty white sweater made of cloud,
her face tells me her kitchen is on fire.
We danced around her fire all night trying to douse it with smiles
and talk of the sunlit moon, Saturn in transit, but
she wanted to sit in her kitchen fire.
We left her there watching as she poured old wine into older skins
wondering why everything in her world leaks
pushing hope away on the longest night of the year.

Lenny came on and gently, so very gently, plucked strings in the dark
to tell us about that famous blue raincoat, the one torn at the shoulder
and I knew we were meant to be here

and that we should always carry hope like a lighter in our pocket
for those nights we go astray.

Jim Nabors

01 Friday Dec 2017

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Jim Nabors has left us. I am glad he is in peace. I can’t say that he’s the reason I wanted to be a Marine. It’s too complicated for that. (It’s certainly more complicated than the unyielding call of the jets flying over the warehouse where I toiled.)  His most recognizable character, Gomer Pyle, was simple in nature, kind of heart, which seems antithetical to being part of the war machine. He was part of my childhood thanks to Mom and his voice… oh. Jim Nabors’ voice.  I learned about passion by his voice alongside Andy Williams, Johnny Cash, Cher, Barbra Streisand, so many more. I heard his voice sing the hymnals I recognized from church, and it moved me, a girl of impressionable age.   Jim moved on, and I am grateful to the internet for sharing his performance of Impossible Dream (The Quest).  I dare you to listen and not be moved and reminded that the world is the life and we are stewards of it all, and our voices are holy. Our voices are holy.  (don’t waste it all.)   He is with my mother now, who introduced me to black and white TV. Shazam, and Golly, and Surprise.

Oh, by the way.  Tell me how you feel after reading the lyrics to this song. How does one bear it, how will you learn to bear it, where does your strength come from to sing those notes he sings effortlessly the power of that poem, to find the will, and the will, and the will to do anything at all, in those years that I didn’t know I had any power at all, little girl? Jim’s song seems effortless. I will never write or live or be as effortless as the victory of his voice… but it sure does give me something to strive for.

I may or may not stop weeping on the sound and the voice of his memory. And that’s just okay.

Generations of Metal & Thank You’s

04 Sunday Jun 2017

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Taking a moment to acknowledge my yesterday, a long day, but a great one.   I looked out the hotel room window last night, curtains open just a bit for some light.  I was wrung out from headbanging for 2.5 hours and shouting myself hoarse, so I committed my body to the sketchy sheets of a king bed touching memories, hoping I wouldn’t forget them this morning as I drove home.

Thank you to Sanctuary, the Iron Maiden tribute band, who put together a pre-concert meet and greet at the Hard Times Cafe, complete with t-shirts and heaping plates of delicious nachos.  You brought old friends together and we made new ones complete with class picture after the gig was done.  Thank you, Rob, for donning the giant Eddie shroud once again so everyone could get their picture taken with you.  Rob, you make great memories for us, and I’m glad you’ve been a part of what’s become a Sanctuary tradition.

I suppose I should say thank you to Iron Maiden, for they are the reason we all became friends, the reason we come from near and far, congregate and hug and sing.  Yesterday as I stood in the tavern watching Sanctuary play, I looked around and saw people of all ages, shapes, and stripes. Looked at the younger ones who are here with their mom or dad, I felt like the night should be called “generations.” Maiden keeps playing, we keep returning, and the music/vibe will live on through the kids. Well. I hope, anyway.

Shifting gears to the lawn, which is the back end of an ampitheater (shed)  venue.  I guess I should be grateful I even got a lawn ticket because the place was sold out.  This was my first Maiden show on the lawn, and you know?  I rather liked standing barefoot in the cool grass, the moon shining overhead.  Thank you, Kent, for keeping me company during the opening act, a band I had no desire to see but they proved themselves to be tight musicians. Not thrilled by their shtick, but like you said, everybody’s gotta have one.  (Still not gonna buy their music, though.)   It was nice chatting with you, and how you randomly found me out of 30,000 other bodies I have no idea. I didn’t steal your purple sneakers as promised, so you’re lucky.

Thank you, two nameless teenagers who were more interested in dry humping during the opening act. First time for seeing that, I must say, and I have seen a lot of things. Little girl, you gave quite a show on that blanket on your back, three knuckles deep in your pie, and your boyfriend getting into the act.  You made a lot of guys happy watching you. Perhaps the world will become a happier place if more of us came in public? Who knows.

Thank you, nameless young father who brought his 4-year-old to his very first concert.  I noticed that when your son, Bear, had enough during the Maiden show you and he curled up in blankets and went to sleep. Thank you for putting your son first. It gives me hope for our generations.

Thank you, two guys who stood next to me during both bands.  (You shall remain nameless as one of you did something he kinda of knew he shouldn’t have and wouldn’t want his name broadcast.)  It was a pleasure meeting you and watching your banter, the product of a close and long friendship.  Thank you, Mister X, for allowing me to watch you as you experienced your first, and possibly last, mushroom trip while seeing Maiden.  I got to see your journey, and yes, it WAS beautiful. Thank you, Mister X, for being concerned that I was alone at a concert, aghast that Kent “left” me to take his place down in front, no matter how many times I told you, it’s OK, I go to shows by myself all the time!

Thank you, Iron Maiden, for playing a tight show.  Nicko’s drums sounded better tonight than I’ve heard in a long time (though… the guitars are still a little fuzzy here and there.)  Bruce, your energy and enthusiasm unflagging as always. Thank you for acknowledging the fans who came from other countries to see you, as they always do, pressed together down front, and reminding us in banter and song that we are all “Blood Brothers,” a family.

People who I would not like to thank, which probably has no place in a “grateful” post, but oh well! To the trains who trundled past and blew their horns not 300 feet from my hotel room three times as I clung desperately to sleep…to the person who thinks it’s a great idea to charge $5 for a bottle of cold water, to whoever designed that “parking lot” — that gravely bottlenecked rats maze a rat couldn’t find its way out of, and to the merchandising team who wants me to pay $45 for a t-shirt…. SUCK IT!   (And as an aside, I’m betting more than half those people behind the wheel were not able to be designated drivers.)  *yikes*

Back to grateful:   I don’t know how you did it, Kent, being down in the front (pit) area to finding me in 30,000 other people as we’re walking through the concourse, but whatever it was….  thank you for helping me find my car in that ridiculous parking lot.  Next time I will be more diligent in noting where my car is on the grid, but your company was appreciated.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, thank you 2001 Lexus for getting me there and back again.  You have been a faithful, reliable prairie schooner, and I couldn’t have done it without you — or the the man who helps keep her steel wheels on the rail.  Thank you.

Truth To Power

05 Monday Dec 2016

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…. and then someone posts a link to a song that “Disturbed” covered, majestically, forcefully, and relevantly “The Sound of Silence,” by Simon and Garfunkel.  I was this close to shutting down my writing for the morning, getting ready to move on into some kind of useful action for the day like taking a shower and writing Christmas cards, but up pops that post.  I don’t know when he saw it, and I don’t know why he chose to post it today, but I only know it affected me this morning as it did the first time I saw it:  I cannot sing the song without tears and clenched throat. I imagine myself some kind of “Americas Got Talent” contestant, sturdy in my creative beliefs, but then the music cues and when I try to sing it, everything turns to waterfall, my throat choked with rocks and my soul wanting to heal the rifts, and I croak tears instead of strength.   I’m not sure how anyone can sing that song and not become puddle.   Simon and Garfunkel recorded the song in 1972. I was four. Did I know what soul was, rifts, waterfalls, pain, passion, or tenement halls were back then?  Surely not.  But I remember that song, that whole album, along with Andy Williams and Cher, Perry Como, Johnny Cash.  You know, my mom and dad never sat us down and said, “Here, boy, listen to this song, it will change your life. This is literature. This is passion, this is what it’s all about!”  Music was a background to things like washing dishes or erecting the Christmas tree with Bing Crosby. Loretta Lynn taught me that unless I stood by my man I am not a real woman, because only real women weep for their absent men, shuffling room to room, tears dragging at their cheeks, searching for their dignity, keeping their children in line and dinner on the table because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  (Poetry.  Lurking.)  And then I started to grow and understand not everyone has my Freedom, and the power in the cry for it!

I am moved to tears this morning because of a song, not because I am sad, but because of power.  It’s like the emotion the church wishes it could elicit from me, that eyes-closed, hand gripping dress rapture they wish they could incite from us every Sunday.  I read poems, dusty words on a yellowed page by authors nobody cares about, and they push me farther and farther down into disbelief, but so much wanting to believe that I was born with a sword in my hand and the fate of the world lies on my skill, cunning, and resolute in the power that I cannot fail.  I laugh in the face of your certainty.  Songs like this one, sung on street corners for change in a garbage poet’s voice, lowly, unhelpful, occupying a flash in a rebel’s mind teach me where the real people come from, their songs dark and misunderstood, but they never for a moment waver in their faith and belief in the song.    There is hope behind the neon gods we made, and it won’t take much to show it.  We just have to keep on keepin on.

PS:  Just got back from running errands and played the song again, this time with the window open, mindful of the time, one must not Disturb one’s neighbor after all,  and I sang this baby without a catch.  Yeah!  \m/