Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 31

Concert Review: Vance Joy

The Band: Vance Joy, February 26 2016. Darling Aussie mop head and ukulele maestro, Joy first hit the scene with the single “Riptide” from his debut album in 2014, which caught Taylor Swift’s attention. Once T-Swizzle invited him to open for her 1989 tour in 2015, singer/songwriter Joy was destined for greatness, or at least for concerts full of screaming yet sincerely devoted teenage female fans. Fun fact: before becoming a musician, Joy was a talented Australian Rules footie player. Not that he needs a backup plan, but it’s always nice to have one.

The Venue: Fox Theater, Oakland. Move along, all you 3,000 new Uber employees who will soon be working at the renovated Sears building across the street. Nothing to see here. Don’t start buying up all the Fox tickets so us old-timers can’t get in anymore.

The Company: My high school Lisa and her music-loving teenage son, along with my oldest daughter. The kids made straight for the floor near the stage, while we moms stood a bit further back. For some reason, if you were drunk and at the Fox last Friday, it appeared to you that Lisa and I were, in fact, a staircase down to the floor section. One after another, people kept barreling into our backs, saying, “I jes wanna mee my friendsh over there” and we’d say, “We are not the stairs. You cannot go through us to the floor. There are the stairs, over there.” At some point Lisa just began taking them by the waist and physically moving them to the staircase. We must look very angular and supportive.

Do we look like a staircase?

The Crowd: By us, young women on dates with their schmoopy schmoop bearded boyfriends, none of whom looked to be having as much fun as the gals. I suspect they bought Vance Joy tickets for their girlfriends for Valentine’s Day, and were hoping to be the downstream beneficiaries of all the estrogen surges that Joy’s romantic songs inspire. On the floor by the kids, they said it was mostly teenage girls in packs of three or more. There were two black people. #JoySoWhite

Opening Act(s): Jamie Lawson and Elle King. Did you know Jamie Lawson is the first person signed to Ed Sheeran’s label? You would if you’d come to the show, because Jamie Lawson shared that info over and over and over, except for when he took a break to tell us that had a number one song on the British charts at the same time Sheeran’s song was #2, or to tell us that the next song he was going to play had been featured on Jane the Virgin. He had a nice voice – the British Phillip Phillips – but Lawson needs to take a deep breath and slow his self-promotional roll. The closest he came to acknowledging the crowd or his surroundings was to say, “This is my first time in Oakland, so…” and then just trailing into silence.

I did feel a little sorry for the reaction the kids had when we told them after the show that he was 40. And I quote: “Ewwwwwwwww.”

Lawson could take a cue from Elle King, aka comedian Rob Schneider’s daughter, aka the bluesy-voiced singer of “Ex’s and Oh’s,” aka my vote for the next James Bond theme song performer. (Side note: Sam Smith just won an Oscar for a song that was not only the worst of the nominated songs, but only the worst Bond theme song ever. I think Smith is adorable but how how how did that happen?!)

King is a confident, powerhouse singer and musician (banjo and guitar) who also knows how to work the crowd, from complimenting the beauty of the Fox to telling us what a great audience we were to chiding us for not being sufficiently peppy when she asked if we were excited to see Vance Joy. Then she says, “I’m part Filipino, any Filipino people here?” and being that we’re in the Bay Area, the place erupts, and she say, “Yeah, you’re probably all my fucking cousins” and we all had a good laugh and decided that we love Elle King and want to go get pedicures and brunch with her. She rocks.

Worth Hiring the Sitter?

I’m mindful of the fact that my main concert going squeeze just turned 18 and is about to leave me for college, so any concert that @KhoKhoPuff wants to go to right now, I go. But it’s not like this one was a sacrifice. Vance Joy is adorable and winsome, the kind of polite and self-effacing young man you want to see your child falling for. I’m totally enjoying his debut album Dream Your Life Away.

Joy’s lyrics are pretty much overflowing with young romance in a really sweet and endearing way that is getting harder and harder for me to remember in my dotage. For instance, he prefaced his newest single, “Straight into Your Arms” with an explanation about how he was trying to capture that feeling of when you walk into your lover’s home, drop your keys and shoes, and settle onto the couch with them, and how perfect that feels.

Lisa and I both had to admit that if our husbands did that, we would likely greet them with, “Seriously, did the front hall seem like the right place to drop your shoes? You know we have closets. And why did you take my keys to work today, where are yours? Well I don’t know, where did you see them last?” The song “Your Mess is Mine” is probably a better description of people like us who’ve been married two plus decades.

Don’t mind Lisa and me, Vance Joy. We’re doing the Best That We Can. You keep doing you and you’ll be just fine.

Next show on the calendar: all-female Guns N’ Roses tribute band Paradise Kitty, Viper Room LA

                   
CommentsWhen are we going to start going to concerts together, Julie? ... by Nancy Davis KhoAch! Thanks for the catch! I rely upon my army of free copy ... by Nancy Davis KhoI love this post and I agree with everything from Sam Smith's ... by julie gardnerI always feel like I'm in the EXACT wrong spot at any GA show, ... by AlexaWhen even Daniel Craig in the music video doesn't make me like ... by Nancy Davis KhoYES! Thank you for this: “…the worst Bond theme song ... by JillRelated StoriesDon’t Put It OffConcert Goer Group TherapyConcert Review: Morrissey 

February 29th Free For All

I think everyone should get February 29th off. From work, school, health problems, money woes, bad hair days, everything. February 29th should be an international “Treat Yo’self” day. That it lands on a Monday this year is even more reason to reclaim it for selfish purposes.

via GIPHYI mean, is the world going to fall apart if everyone just sleeps in an extra hour and eats pie for breakfast, one day every four years? It is not. No one really counts on this day, anyway. February 29th is the reason that the otherwise catchy, “Thirty days hath November…” mnemonic fades off into a jumble of words at the end that no one ever says the same way twice: “except for February alone, which has more, or something, can’t remember how the rest of this goes, mumble mumble mumble.”

In some cultures, like Hollywood Ireland, February 29th is a day that a gal can ask a guy to marry her, and if that guy happens to be Matthew Goode, it seems perfectly logical to me.

But what I’m suggesting is we push the boundaries even a bit further on Monday and really, really, do what you feel like that day.

Here’s how I would like to spend mine:

5:45 am Curse the sleep-robbing demon called Aging for waking me up this early on the regular, and demand to be put back into a deep slumber. Aging has to comply, because it’s February 29th and I’m the boss of my February 29th. It’s not like I’m getting up for work today.

7:00 am Wake up for real, luxuriating in sleeping “late,” meaning to an hour that would have made me cry in my twenties if I had to get up at that godforsaken time.

Drink coffee and eat cornmeal cherry scones from Arizmendi. Even though I gave up sugar for Lent, I like to think that even Jesus lifted his Lenten fast on February 29th. That was the day one of the disciples dropped by the desert with some In N’ Out for him.

While eating scone, read. Read. Read. Conquer Mt. Bedside Table Reading.

10:00 am Watch a rom com or a Jane Austen movie (BBC version only) while it’s broad daylight outside. Don’t even feel guilty about it. Probably eat Fritos.

12:30 pm Nap. All the dogs next door will be quiet, because February 29th is the day they get to fulfill their wildest dreams of not being put into the backyard for 15 hours a day.

2:30 pm Take a two-hour hike with my friend Jill during which we solve all the problems of the world, starting with the definitive decision on how we should price our respective consulting/writing/design services. See many German Shorthaired Pointers on the hike, all of whom will bow in deference to the memory of Achilles.

4:30 pm Collapse on couch. Someone in my family will offer to massage my sore feet. I haven’t worked out the specifics on this yet, because it’s also February 29th for my family and “rubbing Mom’s toes” probably isn’t on anyone’s Treat Yo’self wish list.

5:00 pm Phone calls to people I keep meaning to call, but don’t, because we have so much to catch up on that a short call is pointless. Somehow this needs to stretch for three or four hours, without impacting my dinner plans. I’ll leave that up to you to figure out, February 29.

6:00 pm Dinner. I’ll take some nice domoic-acid free Dungeness crabs and a buttery chardonnay. February 29 is magical, right? And magic may be the only thing that can resolve the toxic bloom that is preventing Californians from the annual crab feed gluttony that is their birthright. Maybe Matthew Goode has the answer.

7:30 pm Finally sit down for a family viewing of Mom’s favorite movie, Gallipoli. Yes I know it stars that anti-Semitic boor Mel Gibson, but I didn’t know it back in ’81 when I fell head over heels for its Australian accents and horseback scenes. My family has proven so incredibly resistant to watching it with me that I made “Watch Gallipoli with family” the single item on my Christmas list. Since December 25th we haven’t had one night that we’re all home and available to watch it, in part because whenever I say, “How about Gallipoli tonight?” the kids call their babysitting clients and beg for work. But on February 29th, it’s see it when I see it. (Not unless it sees me first.)*

Let’s make dreams come true, February 29th. How would you spend yours?

*adaptation of a Gallipoli quote I’ve used 3x per week, going on 35 years.

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Pull Over, It’s the Fashion Police

I’m a firm believer in karma, that concept that things are kept in balance over time. Lousy bosses get laid off, considerate drivers will hit a string of green lights when they’re late for an appointment, and your offer to carry groceries for an elderly neighbor transforms into an equally helpful gesture for your parents from one of theirs. You can’t predict when and you can’t predict how, but the Universe always achieves its balance.

Which is why I’m both proud and terrified to tell you I’ve been officially deputized as a member of US Magazine’s Fashion Police.

You know Fashion Police: those last three pages of US that you flip to first when you’re stuck in line at the grocery store behind a coupon clipper, or when you’re waiting at the nail salon for the owner’s time/space alternate reality “we can take you in fifteen minutes!” to turn into the real-world hour that it actually takes for a chair to free up? On those pages you’ll see some celebrities donning misguided or just plain ugly fashion Don’ts, with captions provided by an ever-rotating squad of Fashion Police.

My friend Wendi turned me on to the opportunity; she’s hoping to be considered the Godfather of the Fashion Police, probably because she wants an excuse to wear her pinky ring and a shorty fur coat. Even if I’ve always read US from back to front so I can start with FP, I hesitated at first: I like making fun of situations, but not people.

“You’re not making fun of people. You’re making fun of their clothes,” Wendi responded.

OH. Well I do that in my head all day long. May as well get a publish credit for it.

So I’m a few weeks in and enjoying the challenge; we have to come up with our quips pretty quickly so it’s a good mental stretch if nothing else. Particularly because I have two disadvantages:

I usually don’t know who three of the seven celebrities are
I usually really like at least one of the outfits

For the first problem, due mainly to being “Don’t-Know-Who-Any-Of-These-People-Are Years Old,” I hit good ol’ IMDB for help, which then leads me to watch movie or tv trailers, where I’m invariably sidetracked by a song off the soundtrack, which is how I end up following Icelandic band Kaleo on Twitter. So it’s time consuming.

The second one is harder. There was recently a series of grommet dresses that, hand to God, I would have worn every one of them. How’s this for a caption: “That’s cute, do you know if they sell it in a size eight?”

At the end of the day, the biggest issue is this: I am commenting on the outfits of some of the most gorgeous, well-maintained people in the world, while I, with my face made for radio, sit in my home office wearing jeans and one of my husband’s old button-down shirts. Although since getting this gig I have made more of an effort to look presentable in the morning, which I count as fully achieved if I’m wearing both earrings and shoes.

Who am I to judge? Karma being what it is, I fully expect and accept that someday soon, I’ll be walking down the street and some famous starlet who is nonetheless completely unknown to me will pull over in her car and yell, “Whatsa matter, did you get dressed in the dark? Does the clown you stole that outfit from know it’s gone? Midlife Mishegoss, is more like it!”

But then I get a picture like this in my inbox.




Embed from Getty Images

And I remember: I didn’t choose Fashion Police duty. Fashion Police duty chose me.

                   
CommentsWho is that, and what is she wearing?! I couldn't be more out ... by EllenRelated StoriesSongs To Put You In The MoodDance, MomSuper Bored 50! 

An “If You’re Lucky” Mixtape

If you ask Yvonne Prinz, author and co-founder of Amoeba Music, how we met, she will tell you we were in a band together that broke up because she insisted on playing the theremin. She will be lying, but she loves a good scenario. We actually met after I wrote her a mash note about her YA book Vinyl Princess, which remains one of my very favorite reads of any genre. In part I loved it because for a while Yvonne blogged in the voice of its teenage vinyl-loving heroine and gave out astoundingly good music recommendations along the way. Yvonne’s latest YA novel, If You’re Lucky, is a thriller set on the Cali coast, a page turner from the opening paragraph. And as you’d expect from someone who founded the world’s largest independent record store, her book’s playlist is top notch.

If You’re Lucky Mixtape

by Yvonne Prinz

“If You’re Lucky” is the story of Georgia, a paranoid schizophrenic teenager who lives in False Bay, a fictional hamlet on the foggy, moody North coast of California.

On the first page of “If You’re Lucky”, Georgia learns that her only sibling, Lucky, a likeable, easy-going adventurer, has drowned in a surfing accident in Australia. This event sends her reeling. Almost overnight she goes from somewhat stable to fragile to increasingly volatile to believing that her dead brother who starts to appear to her as a ghost, is trying to tell her that he was murdered by the charismatic “Fin” who has arrived in False Bay claiming that he and Lucky were “like brothers” back in Australia. Fin has handily charmed the entire town in much the same way that Lucky did. Georgia, fueled by “messages” from her brother, pursues the notion that there is something more sinister in his intentions.

This novel came to me in fits and false starts and middle-of-the-night epiphanies and endless rewrites. Some days it felt like the book was a beast that was haunting me, bullying the story out of me. Creating this story was a completely different experience from anything else I’d ever written. I believe it transformed my writing, partly because it was my first thriller and partly because the rewrite process was so difficult. I lived in that foggy town for so long that I think I went a little crazy but there’s something to be said for a writing experience that pushes the author to the edge. I think it might bring out your best work.

My playlist is a combination of what I think might be going on in Georgia’s head and my own feelings about the place and what happened there:

“Poison Oak” – Bright Eyes

I love these lyrics. I think that Oberst wrote this song to go with my story. That isn’t true, of course, but the song reminds me of my character, Georgia, and her brother, Lucky. Georgia has always been in awe of Lucky’s ease in his life. He brought the world home to False Bay with him when he returned from his adventures and he made it seem small and friendly. After he’s gone, Georgia doesn’t know how to look at the world anymore. It becomes big and scary. When she starts to lose her grip on things, she knows something very frightening is happening to her but she can’t quite define it or express it in a believable way and then it gets tangled up with her mental illness. She disappears into the woods and wakes up in a hospital with a bad case of poison oak.

“I fell asleep with you still talking to me and you said you weren’t afraid to die”

“In My Sleep” – Austin Hartley and Kendall Jane Meade

This one’s a weeper. Georgia is hanging on to her dead brother too tight and she sees him in her dreams, always in the water, always reaching for her. She wakes up gasping for air. I don’t remember where I found this song but it speaks to what Georgia is experiencing and her loss.

“Sailor Song”- The Felice Brothers

The Felice Brothers are self-proclaimed slouching Hudson River Pirates. They seem to have a song for every occasion. This one speaks to me when I think about what’s going on with Georgia as she starts to lose her grip. Her delusions start to define her life as she slips away from reality. I love the old-timey feel of this tune. The Felice Brothers are fearlessly atmospheric in their compositions and arrangements.

 “Shangri-la” – Mark Knopfler

Lots of surf culture in this story. Georgia’s brother Lucky thrived in that life. He worked here and there and then followed the waves around the world. I’ve always loved the way this song speaks to that Gypsy life that Lucky embraced. We get to know Lucky through the backstory Georgia tells throughout the novel. This song goes nicely with that story.

“Minor Swing” – Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli

In Chapter Nine, Sonia (Lucky’s girlfriend) and Georgia take a drive down to a small bar in Bodega (near where Tom Waits now lives, incidentally) to see a Gypsy Swing band. They’re surprised when Fin gets onstage to sit in with the band. He’s obviously an accomplished guitar player and neither of them knew anything about this. Later in the story it’s revealed that Fin is the son of a musician, who was very much like Django Reinhardt. This adds to Fin’s mystique and that night at the bar, Sonia starts to fall in love with him. How could she not? I’m a fan of Gypsy Jazz and I loved building a character with a flourish like this, another dollop of intrigue, another layer to explore.

“Be that Man” – Goran Bregovic featuring Eugene Hutz

I used this video to help me in creating the Fin character, a charmer with Romany roots and a certain worldliness, someone for Georgia to fall for and then start to wonder about. Eugene Hutz (of Gogol Bordello) is much older than Fin but I used him as a guide. Fin has that same swagger and charm to spare.

“Trickster and seductress, we, tap dancing on mine fields every day.”***And here’s one bonus video for you – the hot-off-the-presses book trailer for If You’re Lucky…Want to win your own copy of If You’re Lucky? Leave a comment below with the name of your lucky song (define it however you will.) I’ll pick a winner using Random.org on Tuesday 2/23 at 5 pm PT.

Yvonne Prinz is the award-winning author of “The Vinyl Princess” and “All You Get Is Me”. A Canadian, living in San Francisco Bay Area, she is the co-founder of Amoeba Music, the world’s largest independent record store.

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Don’t Put It Off

The other day a radio station I follow on Facebook posted a link to an old (2011) online discussion between two music critics called “Why do pop culture fans stop caring about new music as they get older?” I almost stopped reading after the fifth paragraph, where it is revealed that the one critic noodling over this question is all of 33 and filled with worry about losing his music cred over time. And then again when I looked at the sidebar scroll to see that there were approximately 800 paragraphs to go in the essay, analyzing whether and why people cling to the music of their youth.

I didn’t need to look at the byline to know it was two male music critics.

Has there been anything as self-important in the history of time as a bearded guy with an alphabetized music collection wearing a t-shirt by an obscure band that never found commercial success? The same snob who refuses, on disciplined principle, to bob his head even one millimeter during a One Direction song, a feat which is even more difficult than resisting gravity?

I think what got to me about the essay was the juxtaposition with another story I read the same day by the San Francisco Chronicle’s music critic, Aidin Vaziri, about the “In Memoriam” section of tonight’s Grammy award show. Of course a photo of Bowie anchored the piece, and on page two there was a list of other rockers lost in recent months: Lemmy from Motorhead, BB King, Maurice White from Earth, Wind, and Fire, Paul Kantner from Jefferson Starship…it was a long, long list.

While any of these musicians could claim fans across the spectrum of age, it’s fair to say that most of the names on it were Baby Boomer icons, or older. If a Gen X musician passes– like Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots back in December, at age 48, or when Adam Yauch aka the Beastie Boys’ MCA died from cancer in 2012, at age 47 – they’re still in “that’s much too young” territory.

But even we in the Slacker Generation are hurtling toward a point in life going forward from which people the same age as us will die with regularity.

And I guess that’s what has me so annoyed with the whole belly-button gazing nature of a discussion about what constitutes good music and why every generation to follow the one we happen to find ourselves in is wrong about their definition.

You know what is good music? The kind that moves you. Maybe it’s big band, maybe it’s merpunk, maybe it’s The Smiths. What moves other people is really none of your beeswax. I cannot stand Train, truly I cannot. My job is to avoid listening to that band, not converting their fans. Life is too short for that kind of nonsense. In the words of that sage philosopher, the little girl on YouTube whose father is trying to help her with her carseat when his own seatbelt is unbuckled, “Worry about yoself!”

via GIPHYFurthermore, if you think you’ll be able to enjoy the music that moves you played live, forever, you’re nuts. I had so many chances to see the Beastie Boys play live and I never went, because it was marginally inconvenient each time. And now I never will see them in concert, and that’s a shame. Because live shows are empirically different from listening on your headphones. They’re about community, and spontaneity, and finding a huge smile plastered on your face.

So today, before the Grammys “In Memoriam” roll rolls, I implore you: go buy some tickets to see a musician you love play a show next time they’re in town, even if it’s marginally inconvenient. Or buy tickets for a band you’ve never heard of, playing at a club you drive by all the time and want to check out. Or ask someone younger or older than you what concert they’re going to next, and join them.

The worst that can happen is that you end up not liking the show.

Which is still way better than seeing the musicians’ names on the Grammys “In Memoriam” list one day and realizing that you missed your chance.

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Songs To Put You In The Mood

When Alexandra of Good Day Regular People suggested a blog hop in which we talk about the best songs for Valentine’s Day listening, I agreed right away. February 14th is, after all, a day for getting in the mood. And nothing sets the mood faster than the right soundtrack, as St. Barry White has proven again and again.

What’s most entertaining to me, though, is how the songs to set the mood differ for a 23-year-old woman who is on her third date with a guy she swiped on Tindr, and a 40-something woman who has been married for as long as that girl has been alive. At this stage, I don’t want to hear that you only have eyes for me. If you love me, you will also have eyes for the level of oil in my car and the overflowing compost bin on the kitchen counter.

So here’s my hot, steamy, and extremely realistic Valentine’s Day 2016 playlist.

Black Coffee In Bed – Squeeze

I can’t adequately explain the tidal wave of love that engulfs me when my husband rolls out of bed five minutes before me to hit the “on” button for the coffee pot, so I can get back to dozing until the beep tells me it’s brewed. There is no point to me in being vertical if I can’t pour a hot cup of joe within 60 seconds of achieving that state. And, apologies to Squeeze, but I don’t even want it brought to me in bed, because if it spills I have to wash the sheets and that’s one more damned thing on my to-do list. The mere pressing of the “on” button: that’s good lovin’, right there.

Winds of Change – Vance Joy

During the morning hour  in which we perform the precisely timed choreography of “who gets the bathroom when” as we all prepare for our day, there is a constant information exchange in the background: do you need me to pick up the dry cleaning, are you going out to a concert tonight, are we driving the girls to ballet or home from ballet, did you remember to call the insurance agent? And always, always: When are you coming home, my love? Because I need to know what time to start dinner.

Check the Rhime – A Tribe Called Quest

That midday phone call isn’t for whispering sweet nothings or expressing longing for when we will be reunited. It’s for seeing if the bike store called yet about the obscure part that had to be mail-ordered, or what the phone number is for that ophthalmologist who is not turning in the glasses receipt to the HSA account. When you work at a big bank with very restrictive Internet policies, it’s more efficient to call the little woman and ask her to “just check one thing” for you. I may as well check the rhime while I’m at it.

Bills, Bills, Bills – Destiny’s Child

The mail arrives and the most exciting thing isn’t the Valentine’s Day card. It’s the bill from the Bay Bridge Authority because your Fastrak transponder didn’t register last Thursday as your car sailed through the tollbooth too fast. But don’t worry, I got you, Boo. I’ll pay your bills (from our shared bank account.)  In part because it’s clear from the picture on the bill that it was me at the wheel.

WTF – Missy Elliott

The 4:30 panic. What should I make for dinner tonight? Please, for the love of all that is holy, say something, anything besides “anything.” I was officially out of dinner ideas in 2003. WTF am I going to make tonight? Me thinking of the answer sometimes looks a lot like me practing my fresh new hip hop moves in front of the big reflective window the kitchen.

Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen            

My husband was the one who made me into a Bruce fan, so the Boss is our love language. Plus, the Bay Bridge is jammed with bike-riding banker heroes on a last chance power drive, trying to make it home in time for the aforementioned dinner.

Girlfriend in a Coma – The Smiths

Remember when we used to go out for a romantic evening to celebrate our love, dear? Me neither. Depending on the day either one of us has had at work, this song could be “Husband in a Coma” or “Wife in a Coma” or “Couple in a Coma” once we hit the sheets. We are long past the point where our kids tuck US in at night, turn off all the lights and set the alarm. We’re usually completely asleep before 10 pm.

Though maybe we can rally for Valentine’s Day.

via GIPHY

***


It’s a good old fashioned (by which I mean circa 2013) blog hop! Click through to see what songs put these fab bloggers in the mood…

Good Day Regular People

My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog

Laurie White

Smacksy

Mrs. TDJ

 

 

want more? Here’s a bonus “The Bitter With the Sweet” playlist from my friend Matt Fogelson of Fine Tuning.

                   
CommentsBut wouldn't our 23 year old selves be surprised that the ... by Nancy Davis KhoI'm spending Valentine's evening at the hairdresser's with two ... by Nancy Davis KhoThank you. Because nothing says love like, “Bills Bills ... by Nancy Davis KhoANd now I want to do my list over! Nancy, this is superb (and ... by Alexandra RosasYou slayed this. Squeeze and The Smiths and The Boss? I ... by LanceYour list. Tis a thing of beauty. xox by Lisa Page RosenbergRelated StoriesDance, MomSuper Bored 50!Whooooo You Looking At? 

Dance, Mom

Time was, I thought I was a good dancer.

My education was mostly self-study, undertaken Saturday evenings in front of the television via the University of Solid Gold. If Darcel Wynne, the Solid Gold dancer with a forehead as vast and inspirational as the night sky, dropped to the floor and writhed during the show’s weekly interpretive dance performance of the country’s Top 10 hits, my sister Sally and I dropped to the floor and writhed. If Darcel did a pirouette followed by a shoulder shimmy and a crouch on the floor, we were spinning, shimmying, and crouching. If Darcel kicked her leg up over her head then fell into a split, we held onto each other’s legs and attempted to manually recreate the move while laughing hysterically.

Many snowy weekend days in Rochester during the ‘70s were spent choreographing dance routines across the large square landing at the top of our staircase, each diagonal pass made even more exciting by the knowledge that if you didn’t kick-ball-turn in time, you might hurtle down a flight of steps.

From there it was a short leap into classes at Miss Debbie’s studio, where she didn’t see anything weird at all about having sequin-clad preteens spin and shimmy suggestively to “Beast of Burden,” to performing as a dancer in all of my high school’s musicals, and then taking modern dance/hip hop classes in college. At my dance hall peak, I had a flow to make DJs come out from their booths to ask me on dates or to give me free passes to come dance at other clubs where they worked. (Hey. It’s not bragging if it’s true.)

But over the past ten years, I have started to feel a little bit like the Tin Man minus his oil can. Body parts that used to swivel now do a four-point turn, shoulder rolls look more like involuntary muscle twitches, and while I can still get low low low low low low low I require the help of at least two people to get back up again. When I pop and lock, I actually pop, and lock. Maybe hosting all those dance parties at the Cat Club in the past few years just made it more obvious.

At the BlogHer ’15 closing dance party last year the DJ finished his set and said to me, “Oh yeah, I noticed you on the dance floor.” I reported this breathlessly to Sally, who was at BlogHer with me, and she deadpanned, “I don’t think that means what you think it means anymore.”

Add it to the blanket rule my family has about not allowing me to dance at bar/bat mitzvahs for my own sake if not theirs, and you can see that my forties have done a tarantella on my dance ego. So, with my faithful hiking companion no longer demanding his daily walk in the hills, I decided maybe it was time to take a dance class once a week, and confirm that my Darcel moves are still there, just hibernating. A couple of weeks ago I finally made it to the Oakland hip hop dance studio near the girls’ school, after years of people telling me to check it out.

The verdict is in: I’M TERRIBLE.

And yet, the sorest muscles I have after class are my cheeks, because I cannot wipe the ear-to-ear grin off my face.

The first day I walked in and did what I always do in situations where I’m a newcomer on my own: throw myself on the mercy of the veterans. “Hi, I’m Nancy and I’m terrified,” I said to the lady in the track suit next to me in the farthest back row available. Sonia couldn’t have been nicer telling me what was about to go down, as we bobbed and swayed to Earth Wind and Fire music. Sure enough, the instructor came in, walked us through a short warmup routine, then before you could say “Five six seven eight” we were off to the races learning and adding on to choreography with “A Love Bizarre” blaring through the studio.

It’s been so long since I’ve had the mental challenge of making brain and body work together to learn new steps and drill them over and over. It was gloriously impossible, trying to master one step before we were off to the next combination in the routine. The great irony is that the one step that I screw up the worst is the only one I know from all my hours in the ballet studio watching the girls: the pas de bourrées. You’ll know I’m supposed to be doing pas de bourrées if I’m standing stock still and intensely staring at the feet of whoever is in front of me.

I have no flair, yet. I’m concentrating so hard on getting the basic choreography and keeping my left and right straight that I don’t have bandwidth for smoov. Plus half the time I’m so excited by whatever song comes onto the PA (“’Crazy in Love’? YESSSSSSS!”) that I start freestyling a little bit, which causes me to miss the next step I’m supposed to be learning. I also don’t think anyone at that studio, least of all the instructor, notices or cares.

But I have goals. I see you, ladies of the front row, throwing down the hot sauce with your moves and reminding the instructor that he said start on the LEFT, not the RIGHT, for that combination. I see you, 60-something bearded guy who blocks steps and practices the cha-cha-spin in the short breaks while the women in the room simultaneously hot flash and have to go dump their sweatshirts on the chairs that line the room. I see you, young German dude who is probably an exchange student at Cal and can’t wait to let his buddies back in Hamburg know that he is learning “echtes Ami Hip Hop!!!” You’re all giving me something to shoot for. It’s almost too much awesomeness to cram into one hour.

Luckily, there’s always next week.

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Super Bored 50!

Oh my gosh, did you hear? Did you hear? It’s Super Bowl weekend, right here in the Bay Area! There are giant “50” statues everywhere, there’s a “NFL Experience” mini city in downtown SF, and ticket prices for the actual game are through the ROOF.

I’m sorry, I wasn’t dozing off there, I was thinking with my eyes shut. Let me just use my shoulder to wipe the drool off my chin.

I would try to think of something more boring to me than the upcoming game, but it would divert my attention from watching the settlement cracks above my office doorframe, which I find interesting in comparison to The Game Formerly Known As Super Bowl L Until The NFL Realized That No One Can Identify Roman Numerals Who Isn’t Roman.

Of course, I wouldn’t even care enough about it to write a blog post devoted to the game if it weren’t being held in Santa Clara this year. Regardless of what the interstitial photography shows you, the game is being played 40 miles south of San Francisco, not at Fisherman’s Wharf with a sea lion cheer squad. It’s like when the Warriors won all those games last year at Oracle Arena right here in the 5-1-0, and every nationally televised game cut away to shots of Coit Tower and Alcatraz, which are bridge traffic, too many tourists, and a $6 toll away from The Town where it all went down.

But it’s inescapable. With the arrival of the game right here in our back yard, the news here is All Super, All The Time. There may be an election season underway, there may be Boko Haram terrorism attacks in Nigeria, apartments may be falling off the erosion-damaged cliffs in Pacifica, but what we REALLY want to know is: who told Cam Newton to wear these pants?

(BTW I’m qualified to say this now, having been officially deputized into US Magazine’s Fashion Police Squad a week ago. Check a newsstand near you for the issue featuring an Oompa Loompa and a supermodel on the cover.)

Also super is the inconvenience to anyone who wants to go into San Francisco for any reason; they’ve basically blocked off 20% of the 49 square miles of the city, and not the 20% that people wish would be blocked off (wherever tech hipsters earn $450k and swoop up the apartments and hog all the outlets at the coffee shops.) So everyone is taking BART and other public transportation options, systems that are challenged at the best of times. Throw in a couple of protests that snarl traffic even further and you got yourself some Bay Area residents who are even less primed than normal to be excited about Denver v. Carolina. Is that even the lineup? I dozed off again.

I don’t hate football, but having grown up in Buffalo Bills territory during the era when they were most famous for letting the championship slip out of their fingers over and over again – and seeing what that did to my dad – I like to keep it at a healthy remove. Which was probably news to my football-loving husband, seeing as during the first few months of our courtship I LOVED football. Why? Because he did, dummy, and it was the only way I could spend an extra four hours with him on Sunday. Once we were living together, I stopped pretending to care. Then I birthed the poor man two daughters who became ballerinas, one of whom refers to ALL athletics with the umbrella term “sports games,” and you can see that he really suffers.

Of course, I’ll still watch the game this Sunday at my neighbors’ annual Super Bowl party, by which I mean I’ll watch the ads and the halftime performance and then leave for the kitchen when play recommences. Because I do have a competitive drive related to this game: It’s just that mine is directed at the buffet table.

Super Bowl L is bringing a lot of big acts to the yard, including Pharrell tonight at Pier 70. Good luck getting there through the protesters, the tourists, and the hipsters.

                   
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Whooooo You Looking At?

Last month my nephew David and his wife came for a visit from their home in Boston. It was the first time Sherry had ever been to California. Despite persistent drizzle and rain, this cute couple managed to see all the high points of the Bay Area, from North Beach to Alcatraz to the Embarcadero and Union Square, to burritos at El Farrolito and (my personal favorite) dinner at Desco in funky Old Oakland. Their last day with us, before they took the redeye back to Boston was a lazy Sunday; we capped it eating mac and cheese takeout from Homeroom and watching the Democratic debate.

After the debate ended we watched the local news and there was one story and one story only: the weather. Reporters on the street in rain gear, reporters at the beach watching waves hit piers, meteorologists in the studio: all united to give us a comprehensive, 360-degree view of NorCal’s major weather issue:

It’s raining.

You know how embarrassment doesn’t reach full flower unless someone’s there to witness it? That’s how I felt during that 6 pm news hour. Because in front of two people accustomed to the bone-chilling, months-long slog of a Boston winter, panic over ½ inch of rain really seems overblown. I mean, you may get your suede shoes ruined, and your hairstyle may not be at peak fleek when it’s pouring out. But – minus the freak tree topple – as long as you drive slowly and take common sense precautions, by which I mean don’t be the idiot at the end of the pier where a reporter is doing a remote spot about the rising tide and sneaker waves, rain probably isn’t going to kill you.

But you know what might? Owls.

The last few weeks, we’ve heard a nightly solo of “whoooo, whoooo, whoooo” from very close by. Like, in our yard close by. Anyone who’s seen Harry Potter understands my excitement: I thought I was finally going to Hogwarts. When that didn’t happen I reluctantly accepted that yes, we live near a canyon with lots of tasty morsels for owls to eat, and it makes sense they’d congregate nearby. Unlike virtually any other repetitive animal sound (I’m looking at you, neighbor with four barking dogs who keeps them outside all day) the hoot of an owl is neither annoying nor distracting. It’s just very cool. David and I even spotted the owl one night when he was here, sitting high atop my next door neighbor Chester’s tree, fanning his wings out every time he hooted.

The next day Chester and I were talking through the hedge, as we do. Chester is fantastic. He is a retired older gentleman from Louisiana, and I use the term “gentleman” deliberately. His cadence, his manners, his kindness mark him as one of the classiest guys I’ve ever met. Chester spends his outdoor time either a.) doing yardwork in blue coveralls or b.) smoking meat in his hand-built brick BBQ. When Achilles was still alive and needing to water our lawn every 30 minutes, Chester and I talked through the hedge all the time. Now it’s a special treat.

I asked Chester if he was aware there was an owl hanging out in his big redwood and by hanging out I was pretty sure it had taken up a pied-à-terre there. Chester did know. And proceeded to tell me that he’d recently seen an episode of Frontline in which a man was charged for murdering his wife, who had shown up at home one night with a big gash in her head and promptly died. I’ll shortcut it: wasn’t the husband. IT WAS AN OWL, who had swooped down on her head thinking she was prey of some sort, and gashed her with its talons, and that was all she wrote.

“I’ve told my daughters to be careful of this owl when they come to visit,” Chester said. Chester doesn’t ruffle easily – there’s a reason our girls know to get Chester first if there’s a hint of trouble and Mom and Dad aren’t home – so his look of worry, even partially obstructed by the hedge, meant something serious to me.

Now if I have to go out at night, to throw out some compost or walk up to the car, I yell, “It’s me owl, it’s me!” Then I put my hand over my head and run. It’s not to dodge raindrops: it’s to prevent an owlicide.

But at least, when it comes to matching my Boston relatives when it comes to stories about natural disasters that come from the sky, I can finally hold my head high.

Who am I? Someone who is going to see Vance Joy play at the Fox this month, that’s whooooo.

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Little House on the Prairie Redux

I got a Facebook message from my old middle school friend Katie the other day. “You saw they’re doing a Little House on the Prairie remake, right?”

I had not seen. But it made sense that the news came from Katie, who, like me, spent most of 5th and 6th grade dressed in prairie clothes, making corn husk dolls, and writing letters to the cast of THE BEST TV SHOW EVER to see if maybe they were looking to hire some extras for the schoolhouse scenes who could bring their own costumes to the set.

I mean, LHOP was my jam. I had a self-study PhD in long winters, sod houses, and Happy Golden Years (the worst book of the series.) I knew everything about both real characters and the ones on the television show, and had the notebook with dividers to prove it.

If my older brother wanted to make me mad, which was pretty much his job description when we were 10 and 13 respectively, he had only to say, “Oh, is Bucky on tonight?” Bucky was Melissa Gilbert, aka Halfpint, aka Laura Ingalls on the show, and she had a slight overbite, so he called her Bucktooth, then nicknamed her Bucky. It made me cry, which made him laugh. The circle of (sibling) life.

I liked Gilbert, but it was the other Melissa – Melissa Sue Anderson, whom I called “Missy” because I was a dues-paying member of the Missy Fan Club and we were tight like that – who I wanted to be. That long blond hair, just like mine! That placid demeanor – just not like mine but whatever! And most of all – the noble way she navigated the Season 4-and-beyond blindness. I used to bump around in my basement wearing one of the many “old fashioned” dresses my mom kindly sewed for me, seeing what it felt like to be Missy the Actress being Mary the TV character based on Mary the Book Character. Not so much Method Acting but Messy Acting.

One of the more absurd moments in my life happened thanks to LHOP. I got sick while sitting in my fifth grade classroom – fever, headache, who knows what – and got sent home. My parents both worked but I assured Mom from the phone in the nurse’s office I’d be fine until they got home, I was just going to lie down anyway. I was probably very excited to have the house to myself for a change – it almost never happened in my family of five and at age 11, I had a vivid imagination that needed a lot of space to be fully expressed. Then I walked home because it was the ‘70s and we didn’t roll with a lot of fancy stuff like “rides.”

Once I got inside, I did what you do when you’re so sick that you’re sent home from school with a fever –changed into my finest LHOP tribute wear, including a bonnet, bloomers, and apron. But I didn’t really feel well enough to play. Actually, I didn’t feel well at all. Actually, I thought I was maybe going to faint or throw up or some combination of the two. Actually, I almost passed out onto a couch and then got scared that something was really wrong with me.

I at least had the good sense to call someone for help, someone nearby in my close-knit neighborhood. I crawled to the yellow wall phone in the kitchen and dialed my next door neighbors, the Bruce family, praying Mrs. Bruce would answer.

Uh oh. It was Mr. Bruce, who taught AP History at the high school I would eventually attend. I like to think that when he burst through the back door to bring me orange juice and baby aspirin, he felt a historian’s appreciation of the sight of his next door neighbor kid blacked out on a couch, dressed for a time period before penicillin. I mean, if he’d been a geometry teacher or something, it might have been awkward.

(Side note: this episode gave Mr. Bruce, a sarcastic and funny man, full license to tease me for the rest of my life. Like when he was the proctor for my SAT test in 11th grade and approached my desk, looked over the bubbled-in answer sheet, and let loose a snort of derisive laughter before walking away, shaking his head. I couldn’t even blame him.)

As for whether I’ll watch the new show, not bloody likely. Without Michael Landon, can it really be an accurate depiction of 19th century life?

Then again, I assume they’ll need adult extras for the scenes set in the Little Town on the Prairie. Maybe I’ll ping the director to let him know that Katie and I are available.

Just as soon as I confirm availability of my seamstress and medic.

C’mon, you know you laughed every week when Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush – that’s right, they were twins according to my careful handwritten notes – bit it on the downhill run.

***

Speaking of my mom – I had a piece published on the wonderful travel writing website WorldHum this week, about a road trip that she and I, along with my sister and my aunt Noonie, took to a famed Spiritualist Assembly in western New York last summer. Check it out!

                   
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