Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 25

Music-Themed Holiday Gift Guide

O Holy Night, it’s already end of November and I’ve done zero holiday shopping so far this year – whoops. Normally all that’s left for me buy by December 1 are the tangerines for the toe of the Christmas stocking (that go uneaten in favor of the chocolate, but at least I try for the healthy option.) Not this year –  2016 kept knocking me down every time I got up.

Suck it, 2016. No tangerine for you.

I do, however, have lots of ideas for Christmahannakwaanzukah gifts for the music lovers, book readers, and sense of humor-havers in your lives. Some caveats: I believe in paying creative people for their work, so I still buy albums and print books (for which the musician/author gets a much higher royalty percentage.) I encourage you to shop locally. And this year in particular, I’m trying to find products that are made in parts of our country where manufacturing jobs have been lost. Maybe if people weren’t so disaffected and hopeless about the economy, they wouldn’t have been so quick to support someone offering them (false) promise.

Albums

Hamilton Mixtape I’m not even going to start on how the soundtrack to Hamilton is the most-listened album on my iPhone for the year, when I only downloaded it in October. (Join me on the latecomer’s bandwagon, where I am trying to make up for tardiness with evangelism!) But now there’s a new Hamilton Mixtape, produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Questlove, on which artists like Sia, Usher, and Nas reinterpret songs from the show. Which one is my favorite? Whichever I happen to have heard last, which today was “It’s Quiet Uptown” by Kelly Clarkson. Yes that was me sobbing as I drove down Park Boulevard at 8:20 am today. It drops December 2 but you can preorder and get a bunch of tracks now.

22, A Million – Bon Iver. It’s been forever since Justin Vernon and Co. have released an album, but totally worth the wait. With 22, A Million they’ve added on an electronica edge to the band’s more traditional folk feel, and it works in unexpectedly beautiful ways. This is what I play when we have dinner guests or when everybody just needs to calm the heck down, which is all the time lately.

Best Summer Ever, Har Mar Superstar I hate trying to pick my best concert of the year because frankly there are moments at every show when I think “this is IT.” But if I HAD to pick, I’d say the unexpected delight in discovering Har Mar back in May, at a live show in Chicago, pushed it to the top of the list. Afterward I started listening to Best Summer Ever on repeat and it reinforced that yes, this very funny and entertaining performer who looks like a cross between Ron Jeremy and your dentist has real chops with R&B, soul, and funk.

This is the song that Sean Tillman likes to sing as he moves through the crowd…dispensing sweaty hugs to a lucky few, like my friend Andrea.

And finally, because some of you will remember back in the beginning when this blog was basically a long mash note to Neil Finn’s musical career, and you’ve stuck around for the ride: Crowded House is celebrating its 30th anniversary with deluxe reissues of all the band’s albums. Check out the full list of albums here. (Honey, don’t bother buying any for me…I, um, took care of it a while ago.)  If you don’t have any Crowded House and don’t know where to start, buy Together Alone. Trust me on this.

Music Books

Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain by Alan Light. My friend Laurie has a theory that all the supercreative geniuses leveled up this year, to leave our planet before it got Trumped. Between Bowie, Prince, and Leonard Cohen, I’d say there’s something to it. We’re all a bit nostalgic, right? This is perfect for the Prince fan still trying to cope – I wrote a longer review of it here.

On Bowie by Rob Sheffield – a must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in Bowie, this is basically a book-length love letter written by my favorite music writer of all time, Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield.

I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons. This book came out in 2012 but if you or a Cohen fan in your life hasn’t read it, this would be a great time to pick it up. Acclaimed music journalist Simmons worked closely with Cohen in writing the book.

Born to Run: A Memoir by Bruce Springsteen. Ok, Bruce, you better not level up anytime soon. We need you. Loved this comprehensive and soul-searching account of Bruce’s days from childhood in Freehold, NJ, until today. Longer review here but a riveting account that reads like Bruce sings.

The Spitboy Rule by Michelle Gonzales. Let’s hear it for the girls in the bands – like my pal Michelle who was drummer for ‘90s punk band Spitboy. I love this memoir and its sharp observations about being a Xicana woman in a white male’s game. The Author Mixtape Michelle wrote for Midlife Mixtape is a must-listen.

Music-themed gifts

Farm to Feet socks – based in Mt. Airy, NC, Farm to Feet uses US materials, US manufacturing, and US workers. I bought this pair at REI – how cute would these socks be as stocking stuffers? Lots of other patterns available.

Concert Ticket Stub Doormats  from Lakeside Photo Works near New Orleans. I was really challenged thinking about which ticket stub I’d use, but then I remembered – we have a back door AND a side door!

Music Art prints from 17th And Oak on Etsy – I love the designs and muted colors of these lithographs. How cool would it be to have a “Mods” and “Rockers” poster next to each other on the wall?

Funny Music Themed Tea towels – I’m on the fence about these. Do they say, hahaha? Or do they say, “I’m a white privileged wanna-be creator of rap parodies who drives a minvan and says ‘On fleek!’ a lot?” You tell me. I’ll include the link in case it’s the former.

Insignia portable speaker – this little $20 Bluetooth speaker lives in my suitcase; it’s the perfect itty-bitty travel speaker, and the carabiner means you can clip it wherever it gives you the best sound. (Thanks to my friend and frequent conference hotel roomie Liz for turning me on to this one.) I attached this to my dad’s hospital bed back in July and he and I had an Avett Brothers Shuffle concert one evening, and it was kind of a transcendental moment.

And one final, last minute recommendation: last year Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings released “It’s a Holiday Soul Party,” and Santa left it under our Christmas tree. We will play it this year with extra reverence and gratitude for brave, brave Sharon Jones, may she rest in peace. The celestial choir just got a KNOCKOUT soloist.

It’s a Holiday Soul Party by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

                  Related StoriesLetters For Scarlet – The MixtapeUp and At ‘EmA Walk Through My Bubble 

Letters For Scarlet – The Mixtape

Julie C. Gardner and I bonded online over our shared love of dogs, music, and reading. We’re also both moms of college freshman and, though we’ve never met IRL, provided moral support to another in the weeks leading up to our eldest baby birds flying away last fall. I’m thrilled to bring you a playlist Julie put together while writing her debut novel, LETTERS FOR SCARLET: A NOVEL…and a giveaway of the book at the end of the post.

Letters for Scarlett – The Mixtape

by Julie C. Gardner

Once upon a time, I wrote this in my diary: I want to be a teacher like my dad and an author like Judy Blume.

(I’m certain there were exclamation points. I was ten. I felt things deeply.)

Being Judy Blume proved impractical, so I taught high school English. For 16 years I urged my students to soak up words. Find their own voices. Pursue their dreams.

Go. Get that thing tugging your heart. What are you waiting for?

It was a good question.

Eager for inspiration, thirsty to learn, I read and read (and read). Books. Interviews with authors. I will be you someday.

Then one of them said something like this:

“I want my characters to do one thing, but they keep misbehaving.”

What a load of horseshit, I thought. How pretentious. YOU’RE THE WRITER! IT’S NOT MAGIC! MAKE THEM BEHAVE!

(In my head I screamed this in all-caps. I was Owen Meany. I felt things deeply.)

Then came my leave of absence and the first draft of a novel.

Picture me living my dream! Picture me eating my words!

Letters for Scarlet grew from the seed of a story. Ex-best friends—now 28 years old—receive letters they wrote to themselves a decade earlier. In the interim tragedy would strike. Past conflicts haunt their present. This is all I knew when I started. Surely the rest would come.

My fingers tapped the keyboard and questions clogged my brain.

What tore Corie and Scarlet apart?

How did this alter their future?

Where would these (mystery) repercussions lead?

Picture me heading in one direction…Picture them veering off path…

These characters aren’t behaving. Now what?

 Seriously.

NOW WHAT?

I turned to a specific playlist over and over (and over) of songs released during the years Corie, Scarlet, and Tucker would’ve been friends. Urgent rhythms. Angst-filled lyrics. I inhabited the heads of my former students. Then I imagined them ten years older.

How had they changed? What moved them now? Which conflicts caused the deepest wounds?

Each time I encountered a sticky plot problem, or a character’s progress ground to a halt,

I’d pop in my headphones and run. For miles and miles (and miles). The familiar tunes were hypnotic. Every tangled thread unraveled. Answers to questions. Pieces of puzzles.

Like magic, they came to me.

Of course this is what happened to Scarlet. That’s exactly what Corie would do.

The story was supposed to go this way. Always.

Why didn’t I see it before?

I know. This sounds like horseshit. And maybe I’m pretentious. Nevertheless. I had no idea where Corie and Scarlet would end up when I met them. Their journey evolved one step at a time. One page at a time. One note at a time.

So.

I owe that author an apology and probably a thank you. From her I learned something priceless: it’s never too late to believe in magic.

It’s also never too late to chase your dream. (I learned that on my own.)

Go. Get that thing tugging your heart. Make a playlist while you’re at it.

The End.

My Letters for Scarlet Playlist. (Original. Unedited. Potentially embarrassing. And yet.)

Dashboard Confessional – Hands Down – 2002

Blink 182 – Feeling This – 2003

Muse – Time is Running Out – 2003

Snow Patrol – Run – 2003

AFI – Silver and Cold – 2003

Papa Roach – Scars – 2004

Jimmy Eat World – Pain – 2004

The Killers – Somebody Told Me – 2005

Coldplay – Fix You – 2005

My Chemical Romance – Welcome to the Black Parade – 2006

Brandi Carlisle – The Story – 2007

***

Want to read the book that inspired the playlist? Julie is giving away a copy of  LETTERS FOR SCARLET to a lucky Midlife Mixtape reader! To enter for your chance to win, leave a comment below…we’ll use Random.org to select a winner on Friday, November 25 at 5 pm PST!

Julie C. Gardner is a former English teacher and current novelist. She lives in Southern California with one husband, two kids, and three dogs. At home she’s always outnumbered, so she makes up characters who will take her side. Her debut novel, Letters for Scarlet, was released by Velvet Morning Press in April, 2016. You can find out more about Julie by visiting her website, her Facebook Author Page, Twitter, and Instagram.

                   
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Up and At ‘Em

From the peaceful round-the-lake rally against Trump in Oakland on November 13

Ok. Enough.

I have unfurled from my tight ball of misery over last week’s election results, slipped through the shock, dawdled in the dread. I’m ready for action.

I have no idea whether the following are the right things to do, or whether they make a difference. I do know that wallowing makes me feel powerless, and I refuse to feel powerless in the face of a Trump presidency. So here’s what I’m doing. If you have more ideas about how to move forward in a positive way, please share them in the comments.

Limit Facebook and Twitter

This is huge and difficult for me; I spend a lot of time on both sites because anyone who wants to be a published author is told to build their audience that way. I have a lot of friends and family members with whom I am connected, in meaningful and joyful ways, on social media platforms – how else would I know what my friend’s college ex boyfriend’s adorable little baby in Edinburgh looks like? (Hi Jonah! It’s me, Aunt Nancy!) I’ve used them to find amazing writing elsewhere on the web.

But in the weeks before the election and especially in this past week, it felt like opening Pandora’s Box every time I logged on – “what fresh hell am I going to read now?”  to paraphrase St. Dorothy of Parker. Everyone’s shooting in a circle. People are raw, and need to express themselves. That is all fine and justified and right. I also know at some point, their pain paralyzes me. And I’m not helping anyone at that point.

So I’m taking a lot of the time I might have normally spent online to

Call My Representatives

On Monday morning I called the local offices for each of my California congressional delegates and told them the same thing: Thank you for your service. I know we are now the minority party, but as the Republicans taught us during the Obama administration, the minority party can always play the part of the toddler whose bones have turned to jelly and refuse to take one more step forward, thereby stopping the entire family in its tracks. I told them it is my hope that they not allow policies and laws to pass that go against everything that our great state – which by the way even WITH all our lefty liberal activist policies is the sixth largest economy in the world, and growing– stands for.

I’m also calling people like Paul Ryan and leaving messages. No, I’m not his constituent, and yes, his mailbox is full, so if anyone has his cell number hit me up. But I want him to know that he is the Speaker of the House, and that House belongs to all the American people, not just the 26% of eligible voters who chose Trump. I plan to keep filling up his voicemail for four years. I’m going to leave messages for Governor Jerry Brown (or, more likely, just run into him at an Oakland restaurant). Representatives need to hear what’s on our minds.

Read Real Things

If you haven’t read Sarah Vowell’s punchy, smart slices of American history like “The Wordy Shipmates” about the Puritan’s journey to America, or “Unfamiliar Fishes” about Hawaiian history, you are missing out on a writer who brings history alive with humor and an eye for the absurd. This week I pulled out and reread her 2015 book “Lafayette in the Somewhat United States,” about the French teenager who became a central character in America’s revolutionary war. I was trying to recall how she characterized George Washington as basically the Commander of Losing. Forget military triumphs: he spent most of the war figuring out where he could strategically lose against the British, with his ragtag and underprepared army, but still stay in the fight. It made me feel better about having asked our super talented new state senator, Kamala Harris, to basically please just stay in the coatroom for the next six years. There’s precedent, ok?

Just like there is precedent for a deeply divided nation (hello, Continental Congress) to create progress in spite of themselves.

NPR also has some suggested reading as a way to bridge the political divide. I’ll add “Strangers In Their Own Land” to Mount Nightstand.

Make My Dollars Do The Talking

Just made my first-ever contribution to the ACLU. Will re-up my Planned Parenthood annual donation at a higher level. Realized that our regular and ongoing contribution to an outdoor education program serving lower income students in Oakland has lapsed, so I’m getting that straightened out again.

I also downloaded GrubHub, whose stock has dropped since the CEO issued a memo to employees saying that if they shared Trump’s “nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics,” they should resign. That’s my food delivery app from now on (sorry Munchery, but you were getting later and later at deliveries as it was.) Also, I don’t like yogurt much, but I’ll be buying Chobani brand every week, maybe to use as a face mask. Their CEO makes a concerted effort to hire refugees at his plants, which made him a focus for a smear campaign by Breitbart.com. For more ideas on companies to support and avoid with your buying dollar, take a look at this list.

I already pay for subscriptions to the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times. If you want to support journalism that has a chance of holding the new administration’s feet to the fire, you might consider supporting publications that can make it happen.

Will continue to recoil if my hand accidently brushes an Ivanka Trump boot at Nordstrom Rack.

Pray for the New President

I am a person of deep faith, and deep doubts. I doubt that Donald Trump will be a good president for most of us. But I understand I am called to exhibit love to everyone who God loves, which means EVERYONE, NO EXCEPTIONS, which is really a pain-in-the-ass requirement of faith, tbh. So I am praying to God to help Donald Trump to be good at his new job. That’s the prayer. Be a good president, Donald.

I would be overjoyed if he conquered all my doubts.

I couldn’t pick just one song today, so I made a whole Protest Playlist over at TueNight.com if you want to check it out.

                   
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A Walk Through My Bubble

The view from my bubble on Election Day

I knew I lived in a bubble. Northern California, where “organic or non-organic?” is a question asked more frequently at a grocery store than “paper or plastic?” since everyone carries an NPR tote bag for groceries. Also, we banned plastic bags, twice. So over the past six months, while I saw a total of three pro-Trump signs in the region, I knew I was getting a skewed view of the election in the city where I’ve lived for almost twenty years. But how skewed, I had no idea. None.

My husband tried to prepare me. “We have twice as a high a percentage of immigrants as any other state in the country,” he reminded me. One in four of the country’s immigrants live in California, in fact. Oakland, the city where I live, has one of the biggest LGBT populations in the country. And while gentrification and the tech worker onslaught is certainly affecting the housing market, we still have a thriving black community in the 5-1-0, not to mention Asian and Latino communities.

That’s not the case everywhere else. I forgot. That’s on me.

I stumbled around the house in shock on Wednesday like most everyone I knew, my stomach tied in knots. I decided that afternoon I’d walk up to the little village near us to buy some groceries. (Northern California hippie life, man; I thought I’d save some gas and get some exercise while buying my organic yams and almond milk that I’d carry home in my nylon back pack.)

As I made the trek up and back to the store, I found myself sharing furtive glances at strangers, all of us acting like we were filing into or out of a funeral. A tiny grimace of shared pain, an effort to project sympathy. In the grocery store, I hugged a married lesbian friend who has teenage kids, but we didn’t talk much. What do you say?

I kept walking. And at some point I began to picture what my bubble would look like if someone took away all the things that make it a bubble. If someone removed the minorities, the immigrants, the queer community, anyone who doesn’t look like me, who looks like all those middle class white women who helped put Trump over the top. What if you could peel people off, like one of those anatomy reference books that show a drawing of a human body and allow you to pull back transparent pages with major organs or circulatory systems.

I walked past a baseball diamond where two guys from the elementary school after-care program organized a fierce game of kickball. Big black guys with long dread locks, trying to tame the squirrel herd that is a mixed age elementary school sports program. I’ve met both those men before, when my daughter was a CIT in their summer program; you couldn’t imagine more gentle, positive, fun guys for your kids to spend their afternoons with. They’d be gone, as would ¾ of the children waiting in line to kick the ball (and for some reason chanting Vanilla Ice raps.)

The two short Asian security guards who work at competing banks in the village but meet up on the corner to chat in their native languages in the afternoon: gone.

My lesbian friend in the grocery store – gone. And with her the Latina checker with whom I trade a lot of recipe ideas; the old Ethiopian man who carefully took the change she gave him and placed it into a collection box for the local food bank; the Asian mom with two kids placing items into her shopping cart and patiently listening as they unspooled their school day to her. Seventy-five percent of quartet of middle school girls watching an iPhone video and giggling outside the frozen yogurt store, which would also be gone because its owners are minority.

Take all that vibrancy and diversity away and who would be left in my village?

Me. White hetero Nancy. Plus my white friend Kathleen who runs the bookstore, and the white middle school girl outside the nonexistent froyo store. Unless of course she turns out to be gay.

What I wish is that I could invite some people who live in very different parts of the country than I do into my bubble, to see for themselves that living among people unlike me isn’t scary. I don’t feel threatened. I am a minority in some places I go, and that’s ok. I sometimes don’t understand what people are talking about near me because I don’t speak their language. But I presume that, like me, they’re completely self-absorbed and I’m very likely NOT their Topic A. Gays and lesbians? Especially as I get older, I fail to understand why doubling your chances to get flirted with is a bad thing.

Of course, opening the bubble works both ways. I need a better understanding of what I so dreadfully misunderstood up until now. I found this article extremely enlightening. I forced myself to read the blog post of young relative of my husband’s who is adamantly pro-Trump. I won’t link to the post, because he is also anti-immigrant despite the fact that his immigrant uncle, my father-in-law, supported this young man’s extended family in myriad ways during his life. But I will keep reading stuff like it. To better understand the anger, because how do you address the root of a problem if you’re unwilling to dig in the dirt?

And I’ll keep fighting, inside my bubble and out, to protect and project the values with which we have tried to raise our teenage daughters: respect for others, a love of learning, hard work, honesty, and kindness.

And gratitude at the good fortune that lets us live where we do.

One day. I still want to believe it.

                   
CommentsHe's so talented – love that one too. by Nancy Davis KhoPapa D! I miss you! When are we going to hang out at Meadow in ... by Nancy Davis KhoThe fact that you and are so shocked is a BIG part of the ... by Nancy Davis KhoWe could call it, “THE INTERNET”! And take it easy on the ... by Nancy Davis KhoThat's the only way forward. (Love your blog, btw, going to ... by Nancy Davis KhoPlus 5 more...Related StoriesEasy Halloween Costumes for Parents of College KidsLosing My EdgeTurn Down the Music and Read: Born To Run 

The Other Significance of November 8

Tomorrow, November 8, isn’t just Election Day. It would have been my parents’ 58th wedding anniversary, if Dad hadn’t passed away in July. And so the Universe shifts just a little, because for the first time since 1958, my Democrat Mom’s vote will not be cancelled out by that of her Republican husband.

Actually, there’s no way my dad would have voted for Trump. Dad was one of those reasonable, socially liberal but financially conservative Republican types who felt adrift from his party in the last years. Trump is exactly the kind of bullshitting shyster that my dad loathed. He is not “good people” as my dad defined that sobriquet: someone who is honest, hardworking, and just generally not a dick. My brother and I think Dad would have written someone in. Possibly our sister.

So maybe Mom and Dad wouldn’t have cancelled each out on this anniversary/election day after all. But there’s something sort of heartrendingly poetic about Mom voting alone for the first time that one of the presidential candidates is a woman. Mom is one of three sisters, and she raised two daughters and has four granddaughters. She grew up in the town where Susan B. Anthony lived and was buried. Hillary was her state senator, and Mom actually met her once at a luncheon that my sister took her to at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY (you see why my sister deserves that write-in vote.) It was in Seneca Falls, one hundred and ten years before my parents got married, that Susan B. led the call for the Declaration of Sentiments, demanding that women be given the right to vote.

My parents didn’t see eye to eye on politics. But they stayed together for 57 years, because there was so much more to them than their political affiliations. They listened and they compromised (most of the time.)

Tomorrow has the potential to be a really sad day, for a lot of reasons.

But I have faith we’ll give Mom a good reason to smile.

This is my mom’s favorite song by her favorite singer so here it is, lady.

                   
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’80s Song Lyrics Reinterpreted for 2016

Last night I was the emcee for The Basement Series, a quarterly reading series in San Francisco that raises funds for Dave Eggers ScholarMatch and Lit Camp. The theme for the night? The Morning After. One of the things I love about writing is that you can give the same prompt to ten different writers who will take it in ten different directions. No one who reads a blog called “Midlife Mixtape” should be surprised where I took my two-minute intro.

Back in the ‘80s when MTV and I were coming of age together, lots of popular song lyrics sailed straight over my teenage head and into the blue unknown. From a distance of thirty years, it occurs to me that perhaps it wasn’t that I was unripe, or that the lyrics were nonsense. It was that their real meaning wouldn’t be revealed until society and technology caught up in 2016. Let me give you a few examples.

Too shy shy, hush hush, eye to eye. When Kajagoogoo sang this in 1983, I thought it referred to the gurgle in your throat when you saw someone super duper cute across 10th grade chemistry class. But in 2016 it’s obvious: it’s the string of emojis you’d text to someone at a Silent Disco, inviting them to meet up with you later.
That point is probably moot. What point? In Rick Springfield’s 80’s magnum opus, it was whether Jessie’s best friend was a douchebag. Of course he was. This guy was not only writing love songs to his friend’s girlfriend, he was leaning far too hard on his rhyming dictionary to come up with the word “moot.” You know what point is definitely moot in 2016? Whether Jessie’s girl chose wrong. Do a Google Image Search of Rick Springfield and you’ll see what I mean.
Push it real good. If I need to explain the original interpretation to you, you shouldn’t be here at a reading series that gives out free beer. In 2016? Advice to the Bay Area commuter about how to fit onto BART during rush hour. Next.
When doves cry. Back in 1984, I liked to think those doves cried the tears that filled the bathtub in the opening scene of the Prince music video that would change music forever. But as his untimely death has prompted us to dig for deeper meaning, I have to think that he was giving us forewarning about what scientists are calling the Sixth Mass Extinction.
We don’t have the time for psychological romance. At the time, Cameo’s “Word Up” spoke to the pretty ladies around the world about prioritizing the dance floor, and the waving of hands in the air thereupon, over a deeper, psychological commitment. In other words: Cameo invented Tindr.
And finally: Save a prayer for The Morning After. I’d like to think that Duran Duran knew we’d be here tonight, that you’re all saying a prayer of thanks for literature and these talented readers. Or maybe you’re saying a prayer of supplication, as you consider what you’ll submit when you apply for the life-changing event that is LitCamp.

But I think we all know this song refers to November 9th.

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Turn Down the Music and Read: Born To Run

When I popped into one of my favorite indie bookstores in Oakland to buy Bruce Springsteen’s new memoir, BORN TO RUN (Simon & Schuster, 2016,) two dudes were working behind the counter. I knew all I had to say was, “I’m looking for Bruce” to get one of the guys to lead me right to the book, which is exactly how it went down. This supports my long-held theory that Bruce is truly a guy’s guy, which I need, to rationalize all the years I wasted not listening to his music until my husband put a stop to my obstinacy.

As I paid, I asked the two clerks whether anyone knew if Bruce wrote it. (Ghostwriters are real, people, even for the artists you love the most.) The same man who led me to the Bruce book took mortal offense. “NO! He’s such a good songwriter! He wouldn’t need a ghostwriter.” I said, as gently as I could, “That’s a different kind of writing, though, isn’t it?”

Guess what. Bruce did write this terrific memoir, and even if I hadn’t fact-checked that to be sure (check out the great Terry Gross “Fresh Air” interview in which she asks him,) BORN TO RUN reads like Bruce sings: sincere, maybe not entirely polished, but with such creativity, and in a voice that you’d mistake for no one else’s. The book is honest, sometimes brutally so, wide-ranging, and makes clear that Bruce envisioned his path to success and put in every bit of himself along the way. He cut his teeth gigging along the Jersey Shore, and takes justified pride in his ability to make his audience feel something, a skill honed in a million little bars where no one was paying him any attention.

The initial chapters, about his life in Freehold, New Jersey in an Italian-Irish mixed marriage household, read like plain good memoir, with fully realized characters and tensions and nostalgic descriptions of American life in the ‘50s. His father’s shortcomings and disappointments, the strength of his mother and her family, and the ethos of the New Jersey working man – which, at the end of the day, is exactly what Bruce considers himself even if his factory happens to be a stage – are described in a way that make the creation of songs from “Thunder Road” to “Death to My Hometown” seem almost a foregone conclusion.

If Bruce held his friends and band mates to high standards through the years, this book makes it seem like he didn’t let himself off the hook either. He points to mistakes made, shortcomings in his performances, lessons he had to learn and relearn. I especially appreciated the frank accounting he gave of how depression – perhaps a legacy from his father? – finally caught up to him in his sixties, and how he coped/copes with the help of doctors, medicine, and Ms. Patti, the bandmate-turned-wife who keeps him tethered. I also loved when he writes about his three kids because, at the end of the day, aren’t we all blathering idiots when we’re given a chance to brag about the kids?

Old time Bruce fans, newish ones like me, people who have never heard Bruce before (I’m talking to you, Planet Mars) – BORN TO RUN offers an entertaining, rich look at the life of a true American original.

And makes it clear that the only one who missed out by insisting that Bruce was for the dudes was me.

Always and forever my favorite Bruce song.

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Easy Halloween Costumes for Parents of College Kids

Just because the kids aren’t underfoot anymore doesn’t mean you can’t get in on the Halloween fun this year! As a parent of a child in college, there are loads of frightening disguises for you to consider. And the good news is that you already have all the components laying around the house because God knows the cost of tuition means none of us can afford a store-bought costume.

Pauper. This one is almost too easy. Wear whatever you have on right now, carry a checkbook emptied of all the checks, and just say, “Can you tell me where the bursar’s office is, please?” over and over. To make this a couple’s costume, have your partner dress as a college student and trail you around saying, “I need another textbook for my Physics class!”

Cyber Spy. Requires a laptop, a smartphone, and a variety of social media accounts, through which you will track as much of your child’s social life on campus as is possible. Accost strangers with your screens and say, “Is that Mary crouched down in the corner of that kid’s Instagram picture that I found by searching for #HerUniversityName? Is that a campus bacchanalia? It kind of looks like Mary, from the side, but I don’t recognize the toga she’s wearing.” To elicit a realistic and bone-chilling scream, accidently “like” a post that your child is tagged in, so they will instantly realize you are creeping on them.

Mrs. Claus. This plays on the fact that you can’t seem to adjust your cooking measurements to take into account that you have one less mouth to feed, so every night at the dinner table brings a new adventure in overeating. Stuff a pillow under your shirt, or, more likely, just arch your back a little, dress in red, and say, “Eat, Papa, EAT!” as you proffer a tray of last night’s leftovers. For extra realism, tuck a bag of your child’s favorite snack foods under your arm. You have plenty, because you keep buying it just in case they show up for a surprise visit home.

Melancholy Ghost. You know how you are constantly drifting through your child’s empty bedroom, emitting loud sighs as you gaze at the framed photos or the sports trophies or the school pennants and posters? You know how you moan quietly when you pass their empty kitchen chair, or glance into the coat closet emptied of their outerwear? Throw a sheet over that mess and take it to the street where it may earn you some candy, at least.

Public Service Announcement. Do you see danger lurking behind every corner, and boil it down into urgent texts that you send randomly to your child? “Wash your hands! Drink a lot of water! Never leave a party alone! Bring your ID with you when you go to vote!” Do you also have a large cardboard box and a telegenic smile? Cut a square in the front side of the box, use a Sharpie to draw on some TV knobs, put the box over your head and voila: The More You Know™.

White Rabbit. Leverage the fact that you are counting down the minutes until your child comes home for their next visit by dressing as everyone’s favorite nervous timekeeper, with an oversize clock and twitchy nose. (You don’t have to admit that you’ve also set a stopwatch, two calendars, and a giant hourglass to help you mark the passage of time.)

When are you coming home, my love?

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Nods to Nasty Women

 

A photo posted by caryn (@lettheloverbee) on Oct 20, 2016 at 8:32am PDT

 

Last week in my exercise class, the older lady next to me slid easily into a split that would have been the envy of any high school cheerleader. As I supported myself on my hands and struggled to force my legs further apart from where my hips hovered a full ten inches about the carpet, I watched her out of my peripheral vision. So strong. So flexible. So cool. So when the teacher granted us permission to stand up, I leaned over to my neighbor and said, “You are my splits heroine. That is amazing.”

She laughed it off but I was still glad I said something nice to another woman. Because you know what, ladies? We have been drug through the dirt in these past weeks. As genders go, we have been disrespected and belittled even more than usual. And we Nasty Women need to start building each other up again. Right now.

I am talking about using the next three weeks to single out women for praise, not for what they look like, but for what they do. Who they are. How they help. I think it’s time for an epidemic of “You go, girl!” compliments, Nasty Woman to Nasty Woman.

Because when we emerge from this muckfest on November 9th, we are (according to Nate Silver 83.5% assured) going to have our first female president. And we better be in a mood to celebrate that extraordinary Achievement in Ovaries.

Like the public service announcement says: If you see something, say something. “Your presentation was really informative and well organized.” “Whenever I come into your store, you seem glad to see me, and I want you to know that makes me want to shop here more.” “I am always impressed at how you talk with your kids when they are tired. You show so much patience.” I don’t care what it is. We are so attuned to seeing the negative at this point in the game. I worry our brains are becoming hard-wired for it.

I’m asking you, male or female, to look for the positive in the women around you. Look for where someone is working hard. Look for where someone is making a difference.

And if that someone is a woman of color, or a young woman, or a disabled woman, so much the better. I am up to my neck in white privilege, and I still feel beat down as we stagger into the last days of this campaign. Can you imagine what women who weren’t born on third base like me feel right about now, after all the crap that’s being heaved skyward – not just about their gender, but about their ethnicity and/or religion and/or disabilities in this election?

The only thing I don’t want you to do is base your compliment on something that they were born with – their shiny hair or their green eyes or their figure. The stuff that a certain presidential candidate believes is the real measure of a woman’s value.

I mean, that stuff is all fine to acknowledge, whatever. God knows I’ve coveted my friend Shari’s long red Annette-O’Toole-ish hair since the second I met her. But let’s look a little deeper, at things that AREN’T based on physical appearance – like the fact that Shari just had her first-ever screenplay air on Disney to an audience of 3.1 MILLION PEOPLE. Girl. GIRL. That is yuuuuge. That is exemplary. The Nasty Woman in me bows down to the Nasty Woman in you, Shari.

We women have been overserved this year on being mistreated, belittled, and underestimated. Starting today, starting right now, let’s give a nod to the Nasty Women in our lives. Let’s shore each other up for this final stretch so that on November 9, we feel like we could run the greatest country in the world.

Because – if we all get to the polls on November 8 – one of us will be doing just that.

Channel this girl, girls. H/t to Michelle Gonzales for my new favorite video. My nod to Michelle? This year she published a fantastic memoir about her years in the ’90s as a punk drummer, called The Spitboy Rule. Check it out!

                   
CommentsI can claim no credit for that picture but it sums up the ... by Nancy Davis KhoAnd Sile let me just tell you how much I appreciate the way you ... by Nancy Davis KhoShari, I really do want your hair, in the creepy “let me wear ... by Nancy Davis KhoLove this post, Nancy. (And that Nasty picture with HRC! That's ... by MelissaThank you Nasty Nancy! I am so on it. The poor women in my ... by Síle ConveryCan I just say how much I love you, nasty Nancy? Thanks for the ... by Shari SimpsonRelated StoriesThe Thunder Beneath Us MixtapeLosing My EdgeLitquake 2016 

Things I Learned at Parents Weekend

As a first-time parent of a college student, I have learned many new lessons this fall. Parent’s Weekend last month was particularly eye opening, so I thought I’d share my newly acquired knowledge so your learning curve can be flatter than ours.

Be True to Your School. Back in September on Move-in Day, I made the rookie error of wearing not a single pixel of our daughter’s school’s colors. In my sensible grey tshirt built for carrying things, sweating, and weeping, I stood out against the field of parents dressed head-to-toe in blue and orange. So for Parent’s Weekend, I brought along an old orange jacket and wore it over my newly purchased school t-shirt from the bookstore, thinking how rah rah I’d look now.

WRONG. Not when throngs of dads wore long pants or Bermuda shorts printed with the school’s mascot, and mothers wore school shirts in different cuts for each different event. The cake taker was the dad at Sunday brunch wearing a blue and orange striped oxford that bore the school insignia and the names of his children AND their graduation years, in a bit of custom embroidery that stretched clavicle to hip bone.

Next year? I’m going full body paint.

Parental Protectiveness Prevails. At the Study Abroad Information session, a woman (decked out in an orange dress, obviously) prefaced her question with a rambling discourse on the fact that her daughter wanted to go to Europe, and had a lot of friends studying there in various cities (all of which she listed for us) and the daughter wanted to visit them during her weekends. “Is there someone who can make her travel arrangements?” As the question rambled on into its fourth minute, I realized she was basically describing a Study Abroad Concierge.

Seriously? Take it from this Study Abroad veteran. Would a concierge have said, “You and your four American female roommates should take a train behind the still-closed Iron Curtain to Budapest, and when you are swarmed at the station by people whispering offers of room in their homes for cash, take the cheapest one because what could they possibly do to incapacitate all five of you of once?” Would a concierge have said, “You and your male friend should make a bet with another co-ed couple about which pair can hitchhike from Vienna to Salzburg faster.” Would a concierge have said, “Night trains from Venice may be scary, but you’ll survive. Probably.”

No.

Hmmm. Maybe that mom was on to something.

Although here I am winning in Salzburg in ’87

Small Time, Big Change. College is unparalleled in the way it opens up new horizons for our children, and how quickly it happens. For instance, in four years at her Oakland public high school, my daughter attended possibly one, maybe two sport events, and she wandered into one of them by mistake, looking for a friend. She has long referred to all team sporting events with the generic term “sports games.”

And yet in the spreadsheet of activities she sent us ahead of Parent’s Weekend, a scant six weeks after she’d arrived on campus, we noticed that she had scheduled us to see the men’s soccer game back-to-back with the football game.

“Do you attend sports games now?” I texted her, astonished.

“I don’t even recognize myself anymore, Mom,” she answered. Then we stopped texting because she was at a football game, and I was busy reattaching my head to my shoulders.

Regression Analysis. Maybe it was being on such a beautiful campus on a warm fall weekend that encouraged some parents to let loose. Or maybe it was that every school-sponsored Parent’s Weekend event came with tickets for three free drinks per adult. All I know is that when we heard that there were parents dancing on tables at the frat parties in the houses at the edge of campus on Saturday night, I thought: wow. If your goal is to demonstrate to your kids the dangers of over imbibing and making a fool of yourself in public, these moms and dads were teaching a master class.


Time Management. When our daughter decided last April to attend this school, I called up to reserve a hotel for Parent’s Weekend right away, only to find that the only hotel in the vicinity with rooms available was just off the interstate and a favorite with truckers. Little did I realize how lucky I was to even grab that room: turns out that on the exact day that marks one year before the next Parent’s Weekend, orange-and-blue-clad parents who are much better organized than I am called up all the nice hotels in unison and book them solid, within one hour. Even the truck stop hotel is full right now for Parent’s Weekend 2017.

But I have a plan. I’m going to call the Study Abroad Concierge and have her take care of it.

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