Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 29

Concert Review: Har Mar Superstar

The Band: Har Mar Superstar, May 14 2016. Here’s what I knew about Har Mar aka Sean Tillman prior to the show: Juliette Lewis was in one of his videos, he maybe plays disco music, and he’s a dead ringer for porn star Ron Jeremy. Plenty enough for me to say, “Why not?” and buy two tickets.

The Company: My grad school roommate Pam, who lives in Toronto with her husband and three kids and a bulldog and her demanding full time job. Our infrequent phone calls and emails over the years mostly consist of the following messages: “Why don’t we see each other more? Can you come out here? I’m going to come see you, I seriously am,” and then nothing ever happens.

But Golden Jubilees are important so we decided this was the year we’d just meet in the middle. We started talking the second we found each other on Friday night at O’Hare, and the conversation continued until we parted on Sunday afternoon at O’Hare, with breaks for sleeping. Even those sleep breaks included a 2 am passing-outside-the-bathroom conversation.

The Venue: Lincoln Hall, Chicago IL. When Pam and I started planning this escape back in January, we decided she’d pick the restaurants and I’d pick the entertainment. Since my Windy City pal and Valslist music maven Val Haller took me to Lincoln Hall a few years back, I started (and ended) with their website calendar. Great spot – the bar in front has a dining area, then you go through some doors into a snug little hall that is ringed by a balcony with seating. Feels really intimate and when you’re with Har Mar, you wanna get intimate.

The Crowd: Young Midwesterners who drove home the region’s rep for friendliness. Within five minutes of arriving there was a ring of people around us saying, “You haven’t seen Har Mar? He’s got the body of a porn star, and the voice of an angel!” “He’s caramel-covered sexuality!” “Looks like an accountant, sings like Sam Cooke!” Everyone was so excited for our maiden Har Mar voyage.

And the Chicago Nice just kept going. Midway through Har Mar’s set, two young women did my makeup at the bar after I complimented them on their matching lipstick shade. A sweet long-haired guy rocking an Axl Rose bandana situation insisted we meet his friend who had just arrived at the concert directly from India. A bearded chef apologized because he worried his friends’ bopping shoulders were distracting us. When Har Mar gave a touching shout out to Prince then sang “When You Were Mine,” I hugged it out with a young woman who said Prince’s music helped her survive a bout of childhood cancer.  A tall guy standing behind us offered to take some pics because he had a better angle – of this.

Basically, Pam and I have a new family now, and we’re moving to Chicago.

Cool Factor:

I don’t know that Har Mar Superstar will ever be a household phrase. That just makes his fans even more appreciative. Har Mar, you shot me.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Well, definitely do not bring your sitter. They are not ready for this jelly. 

I don’t think I can probably explain the appeal of a man who performs in print leggings you might normally see on a seven year old girl; then strips off his shirt and does a weird yoga headstand, then wipes his back hair of sweat with a towel that he tosses into an audience that is screaming its full-throated approval. You definitely would not want a teenage girl to try to make sense of this. I’m a grown-ass woman still wondering what happened last Saturday night.

Har Mar. Thank you so much. You were amazing. #harmarsuperstar #lincolnhall #voiceofanangelbodyofapornstar

A photo posted by Ashley Camp (@ash_gash_bgash) on May 14, 2016 at 11:19pm PDT

I can only say that Sean Tillman has an amazing, soulful, warm voice, his band exudes righteous funk, and you laugh through the entire show as you try to reconcile what on earth it is that you are enjoying so much. Maybe it’s that Har Mar Superstar doesn’t just encourage you to wave your freak flag high.

He wraps himself up in his and does a slo jam.

Next show on the calendar: The Cure at Shoreline Ampitheater

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The Spitboy Rule Mixtape

Michelle Gonzales and I met when we were castmates in the 2013 Listen To Your Mother show in San Francisco. Sure, her sexy boob tattoos hypnotized the audience, but it was her story about joining her son in his elementary school talent show that hooked them (and me) for life. Michelle’s got a new memoir out about her life as a Xicana punk drummer for the punk band Spitboy and I asked her to make us a mixtape inspired by her book, The Spitboy Rules…

The Spitboy Rule Mixtape

by Michelle Gonzales

Like everybody else, Perimeno punk rockers probably do get stuck in a rut. Many listen to music from their youth, not bothering to seek out new music. Some refuse to listen to new music produced by their old favorite artists because they’re afraid it won’t live up to the music they were making when you first discovered them. For these reasons, I am thrilled to get this guest spot on Midlife Mixtape – to play some of my old favorite songs and some of my new ones.

Like us mid-lifers, a lot of old music holds up really well and deserves being discovered over and over again, but that shouldn’t stop of us from continuing to discover new music, new sounds, and new ideas. Many of the songs on my playlist are only on vinyl, some are only on CD, some are only on youtube, and all feature Latinos. You probably know this already, but not all Latinos play mariachi music or sing in Spanish – some say Latinos invented punk. I’ll let you all debate that. In the meantime, I’ve got a mix tape for you to listen to that includes some of my music and music made by friends.

“Take”  The Shhh

The video depicts a closeted trans woman attempting to steal a skirt from a small boutique run by Garlika Stanx and Alice Bag. Let’s just say the punishment does not fit the crime and the whole thing will warm your heart.

The Shhh is a side project of the legendary Alice Bag and Martin Sorrondeguy (Garlika Stanx). I could watch this video everyday, and if they ever go on tour, I am going to beg to be their drummer. If you don’t know, Alice Bag is the most famous punk rock Latina in the world, and the author of Violence Girl: From East LA Rage, To LA Stage, a Punk Chicana Story. Her band The Bags formed in the late 1970s, in the early days of punk. She inspired so many of us. Martin Sorrondeguy is the singer of Los Crudos and Limp Wrist. I’ve been friends with Martin since the Spitboy days. You can read all about our friendship in the book.

“Curiosidad” Los Crudos

Since I just mentioned Martin Sorrondeguy, I have to play a Los Crudos song, my favorite, “Curisosidad.” Turn your speakers down if you’re not used to pure hardcore punk, but don’t worry, like all Los Crudos songs, this one is short — just 50 seconds long.  It’s about rejecting shame and gendered racial stereotypes, accessing our curiosity, and questioning everything, and it has a great guitar lick.

“Babylonian Gorgon,” The Bags

This song is a near perfect punk song. In 1979, if someone asked you what punk sounded like, you would describe this song: fast, loud, with a driving beat, and defiant lyrics about a woman who owns her anti-social behavior, who refuses to live up to anyone’s standards. The singer, Alice Bag, is a true punk pioneer for all women in punk and for Latinas everywhere.

“In Your Face,” Spitboy

I often think of “In Your Face” as one of Spitboy’s signature songs, but that might just be because I wrote it. It’s about the objectification and commodification of women’s bodies to sell products. The lyrics are particularly succinct, and I still can’t believe I wrote it in my early twenties. If you watch the video closely, you’ll see that I break a stick and barely miss a beat when I have to reach out and grab a new one.

“Love Like Murder,” Kamala and the Karnivores

I play guitar and sing back up on this track from the three song 7” Kamala and the Karnivores release, “Girl Band,” 1989. Kamala and the Karnivores was a pop punk band that, at the time, was loved by nerdy dudes who fetishisized female musicians, and just about no one else. I was asked to join Kamala and the Karnivores after my first band broke up and before I formed Spitboy. Ivy, the singer/song writer, painstakingly taught me to play each guitar part, which I’d forget easily, so she’d have to teach them to me all over again. I said “yes” to playing rhythm guitar player because I was already hooked on being in a band, all female bands. Kamala was the drummer, so I couldn’t have taken over on drums for the person the band was named for.

I’ve noticed that in recent writing about Lookout bands that Kamala and Karnivores are finally getting the respect they always deserved, and when you hear “Love Like Murder,” you’ll get what I mean.

“Seriously,” I Object

There are actually no Latinas in the female fronted hardcore band, I Object, but “Seriously” is a Spitboy song, our first song, a song that I wrote. It’s a simple three chord song (it actually may have four or so) that I wrote in advance of Spitboy’s very first practice. It’s a song about sexual harassment, and I Object ’s version is so great. There’s nothing like hearing your own song covered the first time and hearing a band improve on it too.

“Xicanista,” Bombon Band

“Xicanista” is the newest release on my playlist, and the latest by Bombon Band, a surf rock trio of Xicanas from San Pedro, California. It’s a surf rock meditation whose only lyrics are “Somos Xicanistas. Somos Feministas!”

We are Xicanas. We are feminists!

“Gothic Summer,” Prayers

When fellow writer Tomas Moniz told me about cholo goth group, Prayers, I was all in without even hearing a single song. This song “Gothic Summer” sealed the deal, and then I heard singer Lefar Seyer/Rafael Reyes discuss the importance of self-love and how loving his band mate was a form of that love. I think I’ll be a fan forever.

You can see evidence of the affection he talks about it in the beautifully shot video. And who doesn’t love a video shot in a cemetery with black and Latino kids of various ages running around having the happiest water balloon fight ever? Prayers’ forthcoming EP is called Baptism of Thieves. The song “Gothic Summer” came out in 2014, but I’ll be rocking it all summer 2016. I hope you will too!

***

Want to read more? Michelle is giving away a copy of The Spitboy Rules 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 Wednesday, May 18 at 5 pm PST!

Want to see Michelle’s fancy tattoos in action? Join us on Thursday, May 19 at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland at 7 pm where she’ll read and dish about life as a Xicana punk rock drummer!

Michelle Cruz Gonzales, a Xicana writer, writes memoir and fiction and is the author of The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band. In the 1990’s MCG played drums in and wrote lyrics for the all female hardcore punk band, Spitboy, not a riot grrrl band. Spitboy toured extensively in the US and overseas and released several albums. MCG’s essay “Does Your Mom Play Drums” was published in the Listen To Your Mother Anthology  and her story “Juan, El Pájaro” one Honorable Mention in Riversedge Literary Journal contest.

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Turn Down the Music and Read: Life Moves Pretty Fast

I’m going to take a break from my usual monthly music book review to detour into movies, but when you understand that this is a book about ‘80s movies, you’ll no doubt agree that in that decade, music and movies were so intertwined that they’re basically the same thing anyway. To prove the point, quick, name that ‘80s movie:

Oh Yeah from Yello on Vimeo.

Or that one:

Or that one. (This is kind of a trick question.)

I think you’re picking up what I’m laying down here, and I didn’t even have to resort to this:

My bookstore owner friend Kathleen at Oakland’s Great Good Place for Books pressed an advance copy of Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned From Eighties Movies (And Why We Don’t Learn Them Anymore) by Hadley Freeman into my hot little hand a few weeks back and said, “Here, read this and tell me if we should carry it.”

I was not expecting much, to be honest. Of course I loved Dirty Dancing and Ferris Bueller and The Breakfast Club when they came out, but I have gotten a little leery about revisiting the movies of my high school years after a few Family Movie Nights at which I trumpeted, “this was the BEST movie when I was in high school!” only to find myself apologizing to the girls at the end for making them sit through something that had not aged well at all. Hadley will hate me for this, because for her it is the movie against which all others are judged, but Ghostbusters was the WORST.

But by the time I got to the last page of Life Moves Pretty Fast, I was pumping my arm like Judd Nelson walking away from The Breakfast Club, about how my generation’s teenage movies packed a wallop on issues like feminism, class warfare, a woman’s right to choose, and, as one chapter title puts it: “Romcoms Don’t Have To Make You Feel Like You’re Having a Lobotomy.” Peppered throughout are lists like Top Five British Bad Guys and Top Ten Weirdest Songs on an ‘80s Movie Soundtrack. Here’s one of those: “Peace in Our Life” by Frank Stallone, described by Freeman thusly: “Sylvester Stallone’s brother singing about peace in a movie in which his brother bombs the world. God bless you, Stallone family.”

I was also fascinated by her thoughts about why those kinds of messages and role models are missing from the current film landscape – skip this paragraph if you have managed to keep up with the movie industry in the past ten years, but I sure haven’t. So I’d never thought about the connection between the huge amount of money generated for film studios by overseas markets, and the need to create movies that don’t rely on nuanced characters or culturally-specific dialog to appeal to a non-English speaking audience.

In other words: in 2016, movies that get widespread distribution are superhero films with a lot of explosions. Not those about a girl named Andie talking with her dad about the rich kid she has a crush on, and whether she should fight for him, followed by a heartbreaking hallway scene in which she has to stand up for herself to said rich kid. I’m not too JAZZED about the 2016 varietal, in comparison.

The only real downside of this book is that you’re going to spend the next two weekends binge-streaming 80s movies with your kids and demanding that they acknowledge that Eddie Murphy was ripped off when it comes to his contribution to getting more black actors in film, for instance, or that Baby Boom was really one of the few movies in which a woman is shown having both a baby and a career without losing herself.

(But go ahead and skip Ghostbusters. I’ll take the heat.)

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Finally, A Graduation Celebration, with Minted.com

This post is sponsored by Minted.com

I did not expect the last part of the college application process – the deciding where to go– to be the hardest part.

The whole thing has been hard work, no question, starting at the end of sophomore year when our oldest daughter got sucked into the college vortex for real. Prepping for standardized tests, smooshing college visits into vacations, working on essays, researching schools, all the while trying to keep the grades up that would let her get into any of those schools: challenging and time consuming. But we expected it to be, so it wasn’t a surprise.

Then once all those applications were filed, it was just like Tom Petty said.

It felt like we were all holding our breaths to see where she’d end up, a state of suspended animation. Are we going to Family Camp this summer? Who know – depends what the start day is of her school. Will you be back east in the fall? Probably, at a parent’s weekend somewhere, but I have no idea where. My daughter found a good way to pass the time: online shopping for bedding. She figured regardless of what state the bed was in, she was going to need sheets.

I couldn’t wait until the end of March when all the decisions would be in and this whole stressful process would be OVER and it would be all fizzy apple juice and celebratory cupcakes around here.

But that’s when the pain of choice hit.

I want to say from the get go, I recognize we are lucky my daughter had choices. It helped that she didn’t even bother applying to the University of California system, that vaunted and once-upon-a-time-affordable institution designed to educate the state’s youth. Now, due to rising costs and the pressure to accept out of state and international students who can pay full rates, UC’s have acceptance rates on par with the Ivy League. I have spent much of the past month saying, “THAT kid didn’t get into THAT UC? Are they crazy? S/he is brilliant and accomplished and nice! Who gets into the UCs anymore?”

Blame her New York native parents and their rose-colored memories of the Atlantic Seaboard, but we knew our daughter had her sights set on the East Coast. She also wanted liberal arts schools that offered mechanical engineering and dance programs, so that shortened the list pretty quickly. She did a ton of research before applying, and only submitted applications to schools she could see herself attending.

Which was the problem. To attend one, you have to NOT attend every other one.

Thus began the great Pros and Cons Debates of April 2016. Almost every evening there was an anguished discussion about what advantages each school had, what it lacked, whether rankings really mattered, what other majors they offered, has anyone researched the dorms, do you know anyone who’s currently a student there to talk to, what’s the Greek situation there? All of the schools were great. None of them were perfect. It was harder to eliminate schools from that list than to eliminate losing Republicans from the current presidential race.

Our youngest daughter was about ready to move out of the house, what with the nonstop college talk. In fact, she may have, for a few days. Don’t judge me, we were really distracted by which school’s cafeterias were reputed to serve better food and which ones would accept AP credits. The point is, our whole family was a hot mess last month.

Then we went to the Accepted Student event for the school that kept bubbling back to the top of the list, and got a contact high from the student and alumni spirit in the room, and our daughter liked the other kids she met who plan to attend there, and that night she said to us, “Can we look at sweatshirts on their website?”

And that’s when the celebration finally started, and we could get to the fun part: ordering the graduation announcements.

I went straight to Minted.com– it’s where I order our Christmas cards every year, which means that my entire address book is already uploaded on their site, because they will address your envelopes for free. Do you understand how appealing that is to someone who is always running a day late and a dollar short, and has a graduation party to plan?

And I loved Minted’s – they’re fun and fresh and there are so many customization options that you don’t have to worry you’ll send the same card as everyone else. To be honest, I had to skip right over the grad announcements where the mockup showed a picture of the kid at 5 and the picture of the same kid at 18. I mean. What mother has the fortitude for that side-by-side photographic comparison?

We opted instead for this design, using a dance photo and one that, I think, shows my girl at her happiest and most relaxed – the real her, the one we’ll miss so much next year.

She and I sat together at my computer for about 12 minutes and tweaked the wording, the colors, and the font and BOOM – announcements done. It’s the first thing in this entire college process that was both easier and more fun than promised. I’ll definitely use Minted.com again after we run the college application gauntlet for our younger girl in three years.

Assuming she’s talking to us again by then.

Have a high school grad in your life? Check out Minted.com’s designs and if you use the code GRAD2016, you’ll get 15% off your order – expires 5/9 so get cooking!

My new keychain

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Mom2.0 and Podcasting Potential

Last week I attended the Mom2.0 Summit, a conference that locks moms, media, and marketers together in a hot conference room until someone comes up with a win-win-win idea. Well, it’s maybe not as dire as it sounds, what with the conference rooms being at the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel, and marketers from Dove and Tree Top serving us cookies and champagne in the Dove Lounge and apple juice in hipster take-home mason jars, and keynoters like Soledad O’Brian and Spotlight producer Nicole Rocklin giving us the low down on the win-win-win ideas they’ve created.

Also I was there with my humor writing posse, which means that even (especially?) the garnish on thirty-dollar cheese quesadillas at the Ritz was fair game for riffing. I spent much of my blogging conference time trying not to spit coffee out of my nose laughing as these friends weighed in via text from other conference sessions or the seat next to me with their thoughts on what’s what.

And in case you didn’t see the skywriting or the insert that appeared in every print newspaper in America last week, I turned 50 while I was at Mom2.0. That’s why I was kicking and stretching so much during the conference.

I also used that milestone to guilt Alfonso Ribeiro of Fresh Prince fame to pose for a picture with me after he’d emceed the Mom2.0 Iris Awards ceremony, because champagne. My birthday karaoke/interpretive dance after-party in someone’s hotel room required not one but two visits from hotel security, which assures me I am already doing 50 right.

Tomfoolery and security guards aside, Mom2.0 provides both high level inspiration and practical, pragmatic tips for treating your blog like the publishing company it could be. So when I saw there was a session on podcasting led by Jane Maynard, Kristen Chase, and Meagan Francis, I beelined it. I have been intrigued by podcasting forever. The whole idea of how to do it, though, feels overwhelming. I have to have a mic? I have to edit it? I have to know how to upload it to somewhere? It’s enough to make me dump some Dove champagne atop my Tree Top Apple Juice and put my head under a blanket.

The podcast panel, however, wasn’t about to let me give up so easily. Jane (“This Week for Dinner”) in fact encouraged me to put my head under a blanket – among her other helpful technical tips, she told us that’s how she sometimes records her podcasts to make sure the sound quality is high enough. Meagan (“The Home Hour”) clued us into the formats and lengths that work well for various purposes and encouraged us to experiment. And Kristen Chase (“Spawned”) made podcasting seem like the Next Big Thing that also happens to be the Most Fun Thing. Then she went and won an Iris Award for Best Parenting Podcast with her partner Liz Gumbinner the same night, so that’s what you call an Authoritative Source.

All of which is to say:

I’m going to try podcasting this year. And I’d really like your thoughts about what you’d like to hear in a Midlife Mixtape podcast. Would you please leave me a comment, below, or email me at dj@midlifemixtape.com with your thoughts/feedback/suggestions? Tell me if you listen to podcasts, what length podcast works for you, what topics you’d like to hear covered, whether you’re available to come hold my hand through all the scary technical stuff. I’m all ears.

I’m terrified/exhilarated to make this goal public, but I figure it’s harder to back down once you’ve taken out a billboard. (Just like it’s hard to deny that I’m fifty to my neighbors, after my sister and brother had this waiting for me in my front yard when I got home from Mom2.0.)

Maybe it’s the new decade talking, maybe it’s the oldest kid heading off to college, but I feel ready to try something challenging and new.

And anyway, how hard could it be? The podcast panel gave us these four simple tips, and I’ve already nailed #1.

I think the people upstairs from us at the Ritz were impressively accepting of our late night hotel party until the emotional group rendition of this one started.

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The Music Apprenticeship Ends

So there I was standing on the floor of the Fox Theater crying uncontrollably last Friday night.

Let me back up.

When I saw that young British blues rocker James Bay would be stopping through Oakland in April, I snapped up a couple tickets without deciding who I’d bring. Then it occurred to me that the perfect person to see James Bay, he of the lithe sexy rocker frame, long hair, and cheekbones sharp enough to cut meat, was a teenage girl, and that I have one of those in the house who leaves for college soon. So I offered the ticket to @KhoKhoPuff, and she gladly accepted.

I only realized later that this would be the last show we’ll see together before she graduates high school and heads off, first to work at a summer camp in New York and then – after some seriously intensive laundry – to college in Pennsylvania. We’ve had a really good run together at the Fox in the past couple of years, seeing Lorde, Brandi Carlile, Jenny Lewis, Vance Joy. It’s the Mommy N’ Me outing that only gets better with time, because now she can use the bathroom without me needing to come with her, and ably defends our space in the crowd when I have to procure my sacramental Lagunitas IPA.

So we get inside the Fox and, without discussing it, head straight to what is now our spot, under the right-hand gold deity. And we’re chatting, and looking at the crowd, and talking about what we think the opening band will be like.

And suddenly my eyes brim over with tears and tears are rolling down my face and my mascara is imperiled, and I’m as shocked as my daughter is at the spectacle. Because even if my head keeps it at a distance, my heart knows this is the last time, for a long time, that I get to take this girl, who has grown up to be an excellent, excellent concert companion, to a show. (The younger child hates concerts. Hates ‘em. Because teenage rebellion.)

I am not prone to drama, and I’m not freaking out that she’s 18 all of a sudden because, to paraphrase my friend Marinka, “I can read calendars and I understand how time works.” She’s ready for college. We did our jobs right. She’s supposed to go. And I understand full well that this is not our last LAST concert. Believe me, as long as I’m paying for the tickets, she’ll find a way to get home.

But I could not stop tearing up there in the Fox because it is the end of this particular era. And it’s been great. And I’m sorry to see it come to a close.

Especially because my young Padawan has taken so many of my lessons to heart:

She wears sensible shoes and jackets with a lot of pockets to shows, the less to rely on a purse.
She rushes her dining companion through dinner so they can get into the venue plenty early, to secure a spot with clear sight lines.
She photographs sparingly, if at all, and takes no videos with her phone.
She WILL NOT BE MOVED by people who try to jostle her. Two short girls attempted a run around her, and eventually sprawled onto the floor with their legs akimbo between the opening band, a sibling trio called Joseph, and James Bay. Even though these girls sat on her feet, she wouldn’t give them the benefit of more space. As I encouraged her to defend her God-given territory, since she was there first, she said, “You know, most moms would probably say, ‘be polite, make room for them,’ but not you.” Then we high-fived.
She cracked jokes throughout the performance. When James Bay asked for the 342nd time for us to clap our hands louder and faster, she said, “My arms are killing me, I don’t know if I can go on, why is he so mean, god, James Bay, lay off!” etc.

Truly, there is nothing left to teach her. Maybe that’s why the tears. They only stopped when I distracted myself by thinking very hard about the Warriors 73-9 record. (Don’t you dare mention Steph’s knee because I’ll start again.)

Once I finally collected myself, we enjoyed our evening. James Bay is an extremely talented young musician. Distinctive voice, great guitar player, and a stage trick that captivated the tons of young women in audience: he came out to the front of the stage and simply stood still, allowing the spotlights to shatter into a thousand ecstatic directions off the angles of his delicate cheekbones. Or as @KhoKhoPuff put it: “Watch out, he’s smoldering at us again!” He’s a gorgeous lady-man looking guy with a hat and a British accent, and he uses all of that to keep his audience in thrall.

Therein lies the one last concert-going lesson that my daughter needs to learn. But only Time teaches this one.

Watching Bay scamper around in pants so tight that I’m certain his feet needed massaging afterward to restore blood flow, I found myself thinking of Jon Farriss.

Farriss was the drummer for INXS and, empirically speaking, one of the best looking male musicians produced by the ‘80s. Young, talented, wore a hat, had an accent.

Look at Farriss smirk and smolder at 1:04 in this video. I mean.

That 1:04 smirk n’ smolder is the look James Bay gives his fans. A lot. He doesn’t have to do more because his cuteness, along with the guitar prowess, takes him all the way to the finish line right now.

Here’s Jon Farriss now.

Still a very nice looking man, could be a philanthropist and a saint for all I know. But the smirk n’ smolder is only going to get Jon Farriss so far in 2016. That’s just life. From my research, Farriss seems to have made the most of his opportunities. He still performs, but has his own label now, and produces other musicians. He started off cute, sure, but knew enough to keep adding to his bag of tricks over time.

And that’s not the worst lesson for a college girl – and James Bay – to be reminded as they head off into the wild blue yonder.

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Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Mom and Dad: look away. I mean it, you guys.

When I left suburban upstate New York for college in Philadelphia in 1984, I was confronted with a species I had never before encountered: City Boys. These were boys who liked art house movies, had more than just sneakers in their footwear wardrobe, and spritzed with colognes unknown to me but definitely not Brut (by Faberge) favored by every male in my high school.

I was, to be blunt, infatuated by City Boys. Three of them in particular, two from Philly and one from LA: Michael, Robbie, and Steven.

While all three of them were foxy, my interest wasn’t romantic. It was sheer lust for their urban sophistication. I was straight outta the suburbs and admired how they traveled in a chic, worldly trio, cracked sarcastic jokes, dropped music references I didn’t understand. One of them knew Kevin Bacon – I’m talking about THAT level of sophisticated, ok? During the first months of freshman year, I followed around in their wake, along with a few of my friends who seemed much less undone by them than I was.

I knew what a corn pone I was, but that didn’t matter as long as Michael, Steven, and Robbie didn’t figure it out. So in the first weeks of college I jettisoned my Rochester accent, got a new haircut, begged my parents like a brat to send me money for some boots that I thought would up my fashion plate status. I fronted so hard at being City Cool whenever I was around those guys, it was a cardio activity. They were always kind to me, so I figured I was putting it past them.

And then one gorgeous spring day during second semester, there was a knock on my dorm room door. Michael, Steven, and Robbie, fresh from being cool somewhere, had come to invite me to join them for the afternoon. “We’re going sunbathing on the roof!” they said. “Want to come?”

The roof was the roof of the Quadrangle, freshman housing at Penn that is designed to look like the quad at Cambridge. It is an absolutely beautiful Gothic complex, my favorite building at Penn. It is also three or four stories high, depending on where you are standing. And there exists no staircase to its roof.

Unsubstantiated rumors of this mysterious rooftop sunbathing spot had begun circulating once the mercury hit 70 degrees – I knew the women’s crew team used it, and the City Boy Trio had a personal interest in being up there when those gorgeous smart sporty crew girls stripped down to their sports bras. Of course they knew how to get there.

A reasonable person – a mature person – a person convinced of her own self-worth and not trying to be someone she wasn’t – would have said, “That’s nuts. I’m not climbing up onto a roof. I have neither the strength or the balance of those crew girls.”

I said, “Let me get my sunglasses!” Because to a 19-year-old college student with City Boy fever, that’s what seems like a good idea at the time.

I can’t really type what happened next because 31 years later, my palms still get so sweaty when I think about this escapade, they keep sliding off my keyboard. Suffice it to say, there was a point when I had slithered out a fourth floor window and was balanced on a parapet, reaching up for a City Boy Hand, looking at the ground four stories below me and thinking, My parents are gonna kill me when I die.

I didn’t die. I made it to the rooftop, where I pretended to sunbathe while actually focusing super hard on not having my heart beat straight out of my chest, which would have ruined the line of sight between the City Boys and the girls’ crew team. Honest to god, I have zero memory of getting back to terra firma. My mind just refused to hold onto the experience. But here I am, a survivor.

And I think the reason I survived is so that I can say to my City Girl as she heads off to college next fall: Suburban Boys are just like the rest of them. They’re not worth climbing out onto a ledge for.

And that cologne? It’s just Axe.

One prompt, thirteen bloggers…click through to see what Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time to:

When Did I Get Like This?

Arnebya

Up Popped A Fox

The Flying Chalupa

Suburban Scrawl

Elizabeth McGuire

Two Cannoli

Genie in a Blog

Smacksy

Good Day Regular People

My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog

The Mama Bird Diaries

 

Forever the anthem of Freshman year, because General Public played a free concert in conjunction with Spring Fling at the Quad.

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Ladies First

In the next few weeks I’ll be attending and presenting at some inspiring and illuminating events focused squarely at women, and I couldn’t be more excited. Sharing with you in the hopes that you’ll be able to join me or can help spread the word!

April 21: Watermark Conference For Women

This one-day conference presents at the San Jose Convention Center brings together women from all over the Bay Area for professional development and networking. Keynote speakers for 2016 include Abby Wambach, Mindy Kaling, and Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive, whom I got to interview for the San Francisco Chronicle’s Style section a few weeks ago for a story that ran yesterday. There are a crap ton of other impressive speakers too – check out the full roster here.

As part of Watermark’s social media Street Team, I’ll be live-tweeting the keynotes on 4/21, as well as breakout sessions on “Unconscious Power Dynamics” and “Aging with a Vengeance.” In the afternoon, I’ll be leading a social media round table on “Extending Your Blog’s Reach.” Follow along Thursday on @midlifemixtape if you’d like.

Or better yet, come with me! Tickets are still available and it’s a great investment in your professional career, regardless of what field you’re in. I guarantee you’ll come away with practical advice and you’ll make some amazing connections. At last year’s conference I got to sit on a shuttle bus between author Gail Sheehy and former Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt, and I’m still kind of woozy with the thrill of the discussion we three had. We three. You know, me, Gail, Gloria.

April 27 – 29: Mom 2.0 Summit

I’ll be heading to that hideous spot, the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel, to tough it out for three days of conversations between mom, marketers, and media at the fabulous Mom 2.0 Summit.  I’m looking forward to yet again realizing that I should be podcasting; connecting with my blogging friends in real life; and holding their purses as they collect their Iris Awards for being blogging superstars. Last year it was Andrew McCarthy handing over the hardware; given what I wrote recently about Blane being the worst ‘80s movie love interest ever, it will be significantly less awkward for me if they send Duckie this year.

May 6: Listen To Your Mother

[image error]The San Francisco performance of the Listen To Your Mother staged reading series that seeks to “give motherhood the microphone” will have an extra body on stage – me, as the emcee. As an alum of the 2013 cast, I couldn’t be more honored and excited to participate, and I’m especially pumped having read this year’s essays. What a wonderful, diverse, funny, and touching group of stories – and the perfect way to celebrate the moms in your life on Mother’s Day weekend. A portion of ticket sales will be donated to Oakland’s Elizabeth House, a residential transitional program for women with children who have experienced homelessness, violence, addiction, and/or poverty.  Tickets still available for the show at 7:30 the Brava Theater – check it out!

My sister, can I get some? Sure, Monie Love, grab the mic and get dumb.

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Things I Learned From My Big Brother

Yesterday was my older brother’s birthday. Our girls don’t have a brother, and I sometimes feel sorry for them, growing up without the distinct and singular energy that can form between siblings of opposite sexes. There are lessons to be learned from a brother…and you don’t get to pick ’em. Here’s my shortlist of lessons learned at my brother’s side.

The art of the comeback. My brother’s number one gift to me was teasing me nonstop. Not in a mean way, at least not past our high school years, but relentlessly, with great wit and speed. The only way to survive was to grow a thick skin and a fast response reflex. Between him and my older sister, it was like living in full-time comedy boot camp. To this day, nothing makes me happier than sitting around with my siblings and just letting fly with the frank observations on each other’s clothing, physical ailments, and life decisions. It’s like hitting in the majors.
The reassurance of being protected. My brother was a senior in high school when I was a freshman, a big guy who played football, and I don’t think it’s sisterly exaggeration to say he was kind of a big deal. When the rare male soul came around to take me out, my brother stood at the kitchen window that faced the driveway, arms crossed across his chest and legs out in a power pose, and he’d just watch them through the window. No words. Just watching. The driveway had a tricky angle, and the sweat situation was dire for many of these boys as they backed us out of the driveway and narrowly missed the chain link fence. I always pretended to be annoyed, but knew that none of those boys would try anything on me for fear of the Wrath Of Her Brother.
The satisfaction of a wet dish towel snap that leaves a mark. I don’t think I need to explain this except to say that two of three kids were on dish duty every single night.



The love of a menagerie. From the time he was a little guy, my brother has harbored an inner zookeeper. My parents indulged it, so in addition to the family dog and rabbits, my brother’s room always held terrariums and cages with lizards, hermit crabs, gerbils, and a two-foot long iguana named Spike. As an adult he still has turtles and just keeps trading up to bigger and bigger dogs, which he owns in multiples – right now there’s a Great Dane and an Irish Wolfhound. I fully expect his next dog to be Clifford the Big Red one.
The appreciation of the long walk. Every day when we’re at Family Camp, my brother walks all the way around the lake, which involves bushwhacking, a portage, and getting lost and scratched up at the same exact point on the far side of the lake, no matter how many times he does it. I try to tag along at least once or twice if I can. I love how my brother treats this daily walk as a sacred ritual, a ritual that includes stopping to admire tree fungi and poking frogs with a stick.

[image error]

From one of last year’s strolls

The need for a diverse beer inventory. The older I get, the lower my interest in fancy cocktails drops. You know what I like? Beer. Cold beer, preferably an IPA. I always chalked it up to living in Munich, but it’s just as much influenced by my brother and his encyclopedic knowledge of brews, his joy in visiting small breweries, and his utter disgust with the monochromatic offering at my house (fist bump, Lagunitas IPA!) Whenever he visits, he first inspects our beer inventory. Then a week or two later, we have a shipment sitting on the porch of the weirdest most whackadoodle selection of craft brews you could imagine. Want a He’Brew? I’ve got one for you. Scotch Ale? Got that. Line up for your S’more Porter, too.

[image error]

Current beer situation

The beauty of being a loyal sports fan. My brother is true to his school, and that school is Clarkson University and its Golden Knights hockey team. When I mentioned that his niece had gotten accepted at a highly regarded engineering school in the same division, he said, “That’s great! Does she know their hockey team sucks?” She didn’t even know they had a hockey team, obviously, and if she had it probably would have been a negative. But I appreciated his reliability.
The love of Rush. Of course he loved Rush, he was a teenage boy in the ‘70s growing up near the Canadian border. And I had to DISlike them in equal measure, to keep the sibling power balance in place. But a couple of years ago he got me to agree over the phone to watch “Beyond The Lighted Stage,” the documentary about Rush. He lent me his copy of the DvD, after first giving me a separate call to negotiate the terms of its return, which involved a viewing deadline.

When it arrived, its tattered cover attested to how many times he’d already viewed it, and I sat down grudgingly to watch. Two hours later, Rush was one of my favorite bands – not for the music, that’s still hard for me to appreciate – but for the sweet, sweet band members and the strength of their bonds. Kind of reminds me of my sweet, sweet big brother and the bond I have with him.

Happy Birthday, Big Lar!

Don’t hate us because we’re Amish models who like to pose with garbage cans and our mom in the background.

[image error]

 

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Still in Rotation: Friend Or Foe

Still in Rotation is a guest post feature in which talented writers tell Midlife Mixtape readers about an album they discovered years ago that’s still in heavy rotation, and why it has such staying power.

When I think of a writer whose “Still in Rotation” album essay I think could be intriguing, there’s always a delicious suspense between asking them to participate, and finding out what album they pick. Ninety-five percent of the time, they choose something I never would have guessed. One hundred percent of the time, I’m vastly entertained by their story of musical true love. Case in point: Melisa Wells, who I know from the interwebs in our concentric BlogHer/Listen To Your Mother circles, and her proprietary relationship with post-punk pinup boy Adam Ant.

Still in Rotation: Friend or Foe (Adam Ant)

By Melisa Wells

I have always loved music. When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, some of my favorite songs included Jim Croce’s “Bad Bad Leroy Brown” and Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died”, more than likely because of the prominence my hometown played in their lyrics. I also loved the band “Chicago” back then. I wonder why.

When I was eleven we moved to Ft. Worth, Texas and that’s when I started listening to American Top 40 every weekend. My first concert was—unfortunately for the adult me because it’s not an exciting story—Kenny Rogers. My music tastes ran, for lack of a better word, vanilla.

When I started high school in Knoxville, Tennessee I had a musical reawakening. The (second) British Invasion was in progress. While I adored Duran Duran like all other girls my age and was heavily sighing at Simon Le Bon with my friends, privately I had someone on the side just for myself: Adam Ant.

Adam was a former-punker-turned-New Romantic whose music was New Wave-y but not completely mainstream. I became a fan upon hearing the strong drumbeats of the music he created early on with his group (the Ants), and by the time they disbanded and he released his first solo effort, “Friend or Foe”, I was gone. Diehard. Adam Ant for life. He completely had me at “Hello, I Love You”, his cover of the Doors classic.

Okay, I lied. That song, though I loved it, wasn’t what grabbed me; it just gave me a great opportunity to reference the movie “Jerry Maguire” for the purpose of this essay. He actually had me at “Desperate but Not Serious”, because it had a great beat and it, I mean HE, was oh, so sexy. My fourteen-year-old self had known nothing like it before, but SWOON.

I mean, look:

Hashtag Still Swooning After All These Years.

His real name is Stuart Leslie Goddard and he was born on November 3, 1954, facts that I proudly shared with anyone who would listen, facts that—let’s face it, Gen Xers—weren’t as readily available then as they are today. I did the work. I was on the inside. I was a Superfan, an Ant Person. I had THE Adam Ant poster on my wall. I even dressed like him for Halloween.

His biggest US hit, “Goody Two Shoes”, was on the Friend or Foe album; the song made it to Number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100. When I was 14n I took the song at face value: to me, it was literally about being a Goody Two Shoes. I adored the video, and I, at my Ant-craziest, imagined myself as the blonde-streaked subject of Adam’s admiration:

Fast-forward to the late 2000’s. Adam published his autobiography, Stand and Deliver, which I devoured. I learned all about his difficult childhood, his relationships (including a love affair with actress Heather Graham, for whom he wrote “Wonderful”), and his struggles with bipolar disorder.

After reading the book his music, especially the songs from Friend or Foe, suddenly took on new meaning for me and the lyrics made much more sense with the complete backstory. “Goody Two Shoes” wasn’t simply about teetotaling and eschewing cigarettes; it was about the constant intrusion of the press and their demand for details that he considered none of their business:

Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?


You don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?


Subtle innuendos follow


There must be something inside

“Desperate but Not Serious” was similar in theme:

Mister Pressman, with your penknife

Always asking about my sex life

And who with

And how many times 

The title track, Adam claims in his book, was about the extreme reaction people had upon getting to know him, and his lack of caring about which direction they took:

Take it up or leave it

I’m not gonna change a bit

If it means heartache

Then leave it out for your sake

I tried and I tri-tried

To take care of my insides

Nobody’s perfect so leave me if you object

The entire album, as it turns out, is a cacophony of anger, cynicism, and frustration towards the press, fame, and even his ex-wife, set to bouncy, Motown-inspired beats full of horns and guitars. The instruments sing a much happier tune than the lyrics, and that I have loved this album for thirty-four years and counting is no surprise to me because many other favorite songs of mine have similar juxtapositions. This album full of them has the added bonus of my very first fantasy boyfriend.

I was finally able to catch Adam Ant live in October of 2012, and it was worth the wait. My sister and I road-tripped to Milwaukee to see him and we were rewarded for arriving hours early, with prime real estate at the edge of the stage. We were within feet of my very first crush for the duration and, speaking of feet, my sister actually touched his boot while he sang. It’s an act about which she is still so excited and proud that every time his name comes up in conversation, she exclaims, “I touched his boot!” I can’t say I blame her: I’d be adding that to every single social media bio I have, if it were me. It was an awesome show and I floated on air for weeks after while my endorphins faded away and my serotonin levels gently fluttered back down to normal.

Do I still listen to Friend or Foe? All the time. Have I turned my husband and grown sons into Ant People? Absolutely not. Do I care? No. The fourteen-year-old me never wanted to share Adam anyway.

Adam Ant for life.

  ♪♪♪

Melisa Wells has been writing online at Suburban Scrawl since 2007 and works on the BlogHer social media team, neither of which does much to discourage her addiction to most social media platforms. She is the co-producer of Chicago’s Listen To Your Mother (LTYM) show and is the New Cities Mentor for LTYM National. She and her husband Jim have raised two terribly awesome sons, twenty-one-year-old J and twenty-three-year-old D. She is a Type A Control Freak Perfectionist who loves to travel, exercise and float in sensory deprivation tanks. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @MelisaLW, and on Facebook at Suburban Scrawl.

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