Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 32

Hair #Goals

Just before New Year’s Eve, I sent an emergency text to my hairdresser, my friend Dana. “I’m thinking rocker shag for 2016.” Dana and I go back to when our high school seniors were in preschool together, so we don’t need a lot of fanfare before we get down to business. This is the woman who once left me a cryptic voicemail: “Come in. You need bangs.”

Dana was effusive in her support. “YES! Shags are going to be big.” She’s also a huge advocate for not sticking with one haircut for too long. And I’ve had the Hermey the Elf for three years now.

I love it. It’s easy. I get to be twinsies with @uppoppedafox. But what is life without new goals? And the Rocker Shag has been an aspiration since the first time I saw Rhett Miller play. Yes, he’s a boy, but that just speaks to the versatility of the style.

This video shows Miller’s shag in many settings. It works everywhere, including strip clubs and gyms!

So on Friday last week, I walked out of Dana’s salon with the first step in my grow-out transition from the Hermey to the Rhett: The Baby Mullet.

Every day after I shower, I pull on the little tendrils in back to lengthen them. Didn’t work in 10th grade, but maybe it will work now. I feel like it’s a bid of an ode to Shirley Jones’ Partridge Family hair situation.

We all know how awkward it can be to grow out short hair. If you see me in a head scarf this winter it’s because yes, I stand with American Muslims and #StopTrump, and also, it’s raining, but mostly, because I don’t want to scare people of any religion with what’s happening on my head in the next little while.

My next appointment is in April and here’s what I’m going for by then: the Neil Finn Mullet circa 1984 (Screenshot from this interview which is so adorable, if only for Neil’s impassioned defense of the right of middle class boys to have passions.)

Once I get the Neil under my belt (or on my head, to be more precise,) it’s a short hop to the Carol Brady Mullet that my friend Neil (not Neil Finn) helpfully sent me to put on my hairstyle vision board. I love it because it combines both the Helmet Head AND the Duster Mop.

You’re making fun of me now but look who else had a mullet (thanks to @smacksy for this one.) You wouldn’t make fun of Bowie, would you?Of course, there’s a danger that I might overshoot the mark and go full 1990s Canadian Hockey Player. Please, tell me if that happens. Do it gently, over a plate of poutine and a Labatt’s Blue, eh?At the rate Dana says my hair grows (I outsource all caring and facts about my hair to her) she thinks it’s going to take about eight months to get to the Rhett, so I should be debuting my new ‘do just in time for Family Camp, where it will be squashed under a hat or coated in lake water for the week.

Probably just as well – I’m not 100% confidant the Rocker Shag works if you don’t stand behind a Gibson guitar wearing a half-buttoned shirt and windmilling your arms.

Better sign up for some guitar lessons.

Skip to 1:07 if you want to get right to the windmilling.

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An Open Letter to Technology

Dear Technology:

In writing this week’s Open Letter to Multitasking Man, I glanced back at the Open Letters tag in my blog archive and realized: I sound like a technology crank. Whether it’s my thoughts on the Handybook App or the Selfie Stick tourists on Alcatraz, all I lack is a knotted afghan around my shoulders, a TV Guide in my hand (LARGE PRINT VERSION,) and the wafting smell of Ben Gay from my aching shoulders.

So today’s Open Letter is meant to set things straight. I love you, Technology. I love the clever ways you make things easier to know, like what time it is right now in Hyderabad (10:22 pm,) and how you make it easier to stay connected with people whose absence from my life would make it measurably less awesome, like my college friend whose adorable daughter just won a middle school basketball tournament. I love how you set my coffee percolating before I even wake up, and how you heat up the floor in the downstairs bathroom on a cold day (the best home renovation splurge ever.) I love how you record Downton Abbey when I’m out so I don’t miss one melodramatic, contrived plot point, and I love how you identify any song I hear on the radio within five seconds of my pointing the Shazam app. (The latest: “Shine” by Banners.)

But what I love most about you is my Mac N’ Cheese app.

Back in the olden days of the early 2000’s,when the girls were eating the purple box Annie’s Mac And Cheese like it was its own fifth food group, getting mac and cheese on the table took WORK. You had to boil water. Then open the box and pour the noodles in. Then find milk that hadn’t spoiled, and mix it together with the all natural organic cheez powder and pray it wouldn’t clump into globs that would break apart to reveal a powdery center when the kids were eating it from their melamine bowls. Homemade mac and cheese? I only did that for special occasions, like when the Queen of England came to eat.

this is not a sponsored post. I truly love the Homeroom app this much.

But now I have a little white tile on my iPhone that allows me to order what I believe is the best mac n’ cheese on the planet, from Oakland’s own mac n’ cheese-dedicated restaurant Homeroom. From the long list of choices, including Mac the Goat (made with chevre) to Spicy Crab Roll Mac to Classic Mac, I just click my favorite, add extras like crispy breadcrumb topping, or vegetable mix-ins or a side salad that will cut the risk of heart attack infinitesimally, and submit my order.

Thirty minutes later, I pull up to the Fly Through lane around the corner from the main restaurant and dinner’s ready to go.

Thirty minutes after that, there are four empty pans of various sorts of mac n’ cheese littering the counter top, as well empty containers that once held Brussels sprouts roasted with bacon, and/or  steamed broccoli with Ranch dressing. There are also four cheese-bloated bodies littering the house, saying, “I didn’t mean to eat the whole thing. I was gonna save some for lunch tomorrow. But I couldn’t stop.”

As I tell the kids, “I didn’t make dinner. But I made it happen.” And it starts with a tiny square on my iPhone screen.

Technology, on top of everything else, you’re my sous chef, and for that I’m appreciative.

Best regards,

Nancy

This is totally not the worst rap video I’ve ever seen.

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An Open Letter to Multitasking Man

Dear Multitasking Man:

Three nights out of seven (five during Nutcracker season) I drive my two ballerinas down the winding, sloping streets of our neighborhood to their dance studio at precisely 5:50 pm. Which is the same time that you are out on the street taking a walk with your baby in your front carrier.

While walking your dog.
While watching your cellphone, with your earbuds in.

I’m not talking about a quick downward glance at your phone to read a text or check the Warriors score. You have your head buried in that phone like you are watching the Hardhome episode of Game of Thrones. The big reveal of The Crying Game. The part of The Sixth Sense when we finally understand what’s up with Bruce Willis. The point is, you are serious, and your head is cranked down and riveted to that tiny screen.

Meaning that the baby on board and the dog ambling at your feet are getting about as much attention from you as the lady in the car swooping past saying, “DUDE: pick two out of three!”

I mean, it’s great that you’re multitasking and all, by which I mean you are doing three things badly. Science bears this out: a Forbes article says, “A study at the University of London found that participants who multitasked during cognitive tasks experienced IQ score declines that were similar to what they’d expect if they had smoked marijuana or stayed up all night. IQ drops of 15 points for multitasking men lowered their scores to the average range of an 8-year-old child.”

Would you let a stoned eight-year-old strap a baby on his chest, grab the dog’s leash and his Game Boy and hit the road – a road with hairpin turns and without sidewalks?

I keep thinking of your wife, the one who probably comes home from work at 6:30 to a husband who says, “I’ve walked the dog, taken the baby for a walk, and finished watching The Making of a Murderer!” She probably says to herself, “He’s a marvel! How does he get it all done?” She needs to ask that second question a couple more times, with a couple different intonations, and start connecting some dots.

The “Pick two out of three!” line has become our standard salute as we drive past you each evening.

But then Daylight Savings happened. Last week, I almost took your whole multitasking unit out with the station wagon as we came around one of the sharper corners, because now, on top of the aforementioned three tasks:

You’re walking in the dark.
Wearing all black.

Mr. Multitasking Man, for the sake of the risk to your iPhone, if not to the baby and the dog:

PICK THREE OUT OF FIVE.

Sincerely,

Your Concerned Neighbor

                   
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Concert Goer Group Therapy

I’d hate to call it a New Year’s Resolution because we all know how quickly those fall apart (I’m looking at you, batch of chocolate chip cookies I made last night in a self-destructive run at my “less sugar in 2016!” vow). But I need to get a grip on my tendency to focus on boorish audience behavior at concerts, to the detriment of my enjoyment of shows.

Maybe I used to be better at blocking out the distractions of people attempting to step in front of the spot I’ve been holding for two hours, or people talking throughout the opening set and sometimes even the headliner, or people filming huge swaths of the show. Maybe people really do behave worse than they used to. Or maybe I’m just getting cranky in my old age.

But I find myself getting so, so angry during concerts sometimes, completely undoing what I’ve always touted at the life-restoring experience of watching live music. And then I get angriest at myself for allowing the experience take a downward turn.

Take the last time I went to Bob Schneider at The Independent SF. I love this little club, and the thing I love best about it are the two seats along the bench that lines the side wall Stage Right that provide an uninterrupted sight line to the stage, only about 20 feet away. It took some experimentation to realize how excellent these seats are. It takes some planning – and a willingness to queue up early – to secure them.

My view of Rhett Miller from the two seats in question, June 2012

So last fall Maria and I showed up early at the spot to line up along Divisadero Street, and made a beeline to those two seats when the doors opened. We can the talk paint off walls so we didn’t mind having extra time to yak as the club slowly filled up, including the benches to our left and right. Soon there were only two extra spots on the bench – one on either side of us, both with (somewhat) obstructed views. Truly – they’re not bad, they’re just not as good as what we had. Minutes before the headliner (the excellent The Wind and The Wave) took the stage, a 40-something man and his much younger girlfriend walked up to us.

“Can you guys scooch down? My girlfriend and I want to sit together,” he said.

“Sorry,” I responded. (UGH. WHY DID I SAY SORRY?) “We got here early to get these two specific seats, because my friend has a bad back and these are the only seats where you can see the stage so clearly.” Yes, I threw Maria under the bus, but she would have done the same to me, with my hearty endorsement.

His eyes got big. “You’re not going to move? We’re only going to sit for the opener, we don’t care about them. Then we’ll get up and move to the floor.”

“Sorry,” (SERIOUSLY, AGAIN WITH THE APOLOGIES, NANCY?!) “but we really want to see the opener, so we’re going to stay right here,” I said. We stared at each other.

“You’re not going to move.”

“Nope.”

The guy looked like his lid was going to flip. He had the unmistakable air of someone accustomed to having his way: just because we got to the club an hour earlier than he did, why did that give us any right to retain the seats he wanted?

Here’s how he handled not getting his way. First, he sat in the empty spot next to me, and dragged the girlfriend onto his lap so that her butt was half on my lap. (It was firm, her being young and all, but I wasn’t as into it as you’d think.) I resolutely ignored my new girlfriend and talked to Maria, which was not the result he was looking for.

So then he directed the child girlfriend to sit on the other side of Maria, leaning forward and barking across us, “Let’s talk VERY LOUDLY so these two can’t hear each other.”

He badly underestimated the situations in which Maria and I have been able to maintain our conversational flow, including during labor of our respective youngest children, while kneeling in church, and that time we were on opposing sides of a narrow ice bridge in the Swiss Alps, getting sun poisoning.

While Maria and I continued talking and he got more and more angry, his girlfriend at least had the decency to look mortified and go stand by herself in one of the many open spots still available in the venue. Now the guy was an Asshole Alone, stuck on a bench next to two women ignoring him.

Just as The Wind and The Wave took the stage, he leaned to put his face in front of mine.

“You know the minute Bob Schneider comes on, my girlfriend and I are going to come stand in front of you so you can’t see,” he snarled.

“Seriously?” I said. “This is how you want to act at a Bob Schneider concert?” Bob loves ya like peaches, Bob wants you to call him Honeypot, Bob sings funky songs about tarantulas. There’s not an aggro bone in Bob’s body (of work.)

“Yes it is,” the man said, and his face was contorted with anger. We seemed to have reached that threshold moment where things could have turned very, very ugly. California may not be an Open Carry state but who knows what lurks in the minds of men these days. My instincts told me to de-escalate, and fast.

“I hope you enjoy the show,” I said as he stood up to rejoin his girlfriend. “Bob’s a really great performer.”

“I KNOW HE’S A GREAT PERFORMER, YOU DON’T NEED TO TELL ME THAT!” he snapped.

Later in the evening, the waitress mistakenly gave us an extra beer. I walked over to him and proffered it, saying, “Here, I bought you a drink,” and he said, “I DON’T WANT YOUR BEER.”

Y’all.

Y’all.

I’m a Yankee and this whole interaction drove me to “Y’all” y’all.  I didn’t even write a review of the show, and I’ve let that rude dude’s memory fester for months.

But you know what? I feel better having finally documented that dreadful interaction. Getting it off my chest helped.

Let’s call today’s post Concert Goer Group Therapy. Use the comments section to tell me your worst boorish concert behavior situation. Tell me it’s not just me. I think you’ll feel better if you do.

And together, we can rise above the filmers, the talkers, and the scooch-requesters in 2016.

See? It would have been a shame to miss this.

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Apply Today and We’ll Throw In…

Embed from Getty Images

As of mid-December we are officially in college acceptance season, with some students paired off already with their Early Decision and Early Notification choices, while others hold back to see what other offers may come around by Spring.

It strikes me as eerily reminiscent of high school dances, where the assurance of having a dance partner when you arrived was tempered by the knowledge that if some hot new guy showed up, you were already off the market (you can tell I was raised on John Hughes movies.) Maybe you and your kid are thrilled to have an acceptance letter in hand. Or maybe you’re wondering if the Jake Ryan of schools is still out there. (Again. Blame John Hughes.)

Colleges understand how vulnerable we are at this point. Wanting the commitment, but nervous that we’ve overlooked something better.

Thus commences a maelstrom of marketing pressure that is likely hitting the mailbox (both virtual and physical) of every high school senior near you. I’m not talking about colleges where my daughter has visited, applied to, and/or interviewed. These are schools we haven’t heard of before, which is a feat considering my husband’s best cocktail party trick is telling you the mascot of the college you attended. Their basic message is “Check us out! There’s still time, if you act now!” But it’s a fine line between convincing kids that the best school for them is still out there, and stalking them like a crush who’s already doodling their Brangelina name into a notebook.

In my daughter’s daily mailbag, there are a couple of schools personally calculating the distance between her mailing address and the school’s location, to create postcards that show a car heavily laden with dorm room essentials next to a green highway signpost displaying the exact mileage to campus. The problem is, once that mileage tops 2,500, it’s a less convincing visual image than you might think. For her mom, anyway.

Then there are the schools that have filled out her entire application for her, based on something she typed into some database somewhere, and basically send her an email offering with a big green button that says “Submit.” We’re both sure that at some point, with a slip of the mouse key, she’s going to apply to University of East Jabip (“The Fighting Dustbowls!”) by mistake and I’m going to owe them a $75 application fee and an SAT score.

And pity the kid who has a birthday between now and the end of April. A friend of mine told me her early December baby got bombarded by emails from various schools wishing her all the best on her big day, and suggesting that applying to their school the perfect way to celebrate. I feel like if they were really serious, they could send some school swag as a sign of their affection. Maybe cupcakes in the school colors? (My daughter’s birthday is in February, and I am size medium, and I like carrot cake, by the way.)

Of course, there’s more to this phenomenon than altruistic impulses and a belief that your child is their one-and-only. The more students the school can convince to apply, the more selective they can appear when they do finally form their incoming class. There’s no downside to the universities and college to pursuing these kids, even if their interests and abilities are a complete misfit. That’s why the incentives get bigger and more attention-grabbing as the application deadlines approach.

But at some point, opening the daily mail starts feeling like you’re stuck on the College Home Shopping Network and it’s 2 am on the day before the budget year ends. They’re pushing product  – albeit with the use of a cast of multiracial Benetton models wearing cable knit sweaters, artfully splayed on a green lawn listening to a kindly-eyed greying professor – but colleges are a product just as much as a Thigh Master or a Shamwow.

So as a parent whose child has yet to make her college choice, all I’m saying is: I could really use some Ginsu knives.

Sorry but I had to go with the obvious.

***Yesterday BlogHer asked me to write about David Bowie’s passing. There were 843 different directions to take that sad opportunity, but in the end I went with the one that music fans everywhere recognize and fear: how do we carry on when our musical idols are gone? You can read it here.

                   
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Join the Mommune

from the vast digital collection of public domain images from the NY Public Library

I should have seen it coming when I planned the midday birthday party for my friend last month: you sit ten women with teenage children in a circle, serve them a fizzy cocktail and some coffee cake, and the talk soon turns competitive. Over what? Not college destinations or SAT scores, please don’t insult us. We fight about who is less appreciated at home.

I had a meeting last week so I cooked the meal and left it for them – after planning and shopping for it first. Then I came home at 11 pm from my meeting and all the dishes were still on the table, and the leftovers were sitting on the countertop. I ended up cleaning up the meal I didn’t even eat.

I woke up and all the dishes were still in the dishrack from the night before. I said, ‘Why weren’t the dishes put away?’ They said, ‘Oh, was it my night to do that?’ I DON’T KNOW WHOSE NIGHT IT WAS BUT IT’S BEEN WRITTEN ON THE CALENDAR SINCE YOU WERE FIVE SO DID IT OCCUR TO YOU TO CHECK?

It’s almost like they think I’ve instructed them: whatever you do, please don’t remove the undies or socks from the pants before you throw them in the hamper, and for god’s sake never wear a garment more than once. And if I do ask them to fold the clothes, I find piles of clothes in random spots all over the house for the rest of the week.

I actually have three teenagers. One of them is my husband.

Virtually every woman in that room works at a paid job – no one has loads of extra time for housework (though we did manage to carve out time for a weekday bitch session, I’ll give you that.) Even if we did, there are basic principles of equity and respect at stake, examples of fairness we want to set for our children in the rapidly decreasing time they still have at home. None of us is married to a monster or raising them. It’s just the frustration of saying the same thing to seemingly deaf ears, over and over and over: clean up after yourself. Consider cleaning up after someone else on occasion.

I leaned over to my friend Trish and said, “What we need is a commune, for moms, where work is divided equitably. You cook the dinner, you don’t have to clean it up. You do laundry this week, you’re off the hook the next week.”

Trish said, “A Mommune!”

The room got as quiet (as is possible with ten women who’ve been drinking fizzy luncheon cocktails.) Then the brainstorming began.

via GIPHY

Rules for the Mommune

The Golden Rule: Equitable distribution of all tasks. Upon this rule hang all the laws and the prophecies.
The second rule is like unto the first: No one is ever, ever reminded to do a task. They understand their obligations, and do them willingly, at the appropriate time. Sometimes even early.
For one hour each day, members will sit and compliment each other, citing specific details. “Your hair is so shiny!” “I love how you paired that skirt and boots!” “You’re really good at recommending books.”
Occasionally, outsiders like George Clooney can come in to provide extra compliments. (I told them about how George Clooney was raffling off an actual 45 second compliment session on Omaze.com, to benefit the ONE campaign to end AIDS. You’d sit with George, and he’d compliment you for 45 seconds straight. Pretty sure my friends and I broke the Omaze site later that afternoon and also cured AIDS. You’re welcome!)
Conversations are conducted with a full serving of eye contact. At the first hint of a conversational opening gambit, devices are lowered, screen sides down and on “do not disturb” mode, to the floor. Attention is paid to the speaker until the conversation winds down. Only then may devices be retrieved.
There will be so many dance parties.
Family visits are encouraged, if only so members can hear how doing everything themselves back at home is going, anyway. Oh, you don’t know where the laundry soap is? That’s a shame. How long have you had to wear dirty underpants? Don’t forget to check the insides of the pants on your bedroom floor if you need more.

We’re looking for a plot of land on the coast, maybe near Bolinas or at least near some hot springs. Let us know if you know of a self-maintaining giant cabin for sale.

In the meantime, what rules would you add to the Mommune?

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Golden Jubilee

An illustration from my super-60s-tastic baby book

2016 is the year Fifty catches up with me.

Ever since I started blogging – and surely because of the word “Midlife” in my blog title – Fifty has been trying to sink its claws into me. I’m always added to Twitter lists like “Fifty and Fabulous” and “Bloggers Over 50” which is flattering and nice, and yet to which I have responded like this:

 

I remember as a kid envisioning how old I would be at the dawn of the 21st century – 34?! IMPOSSIBLY OLD. Picturing myself at 50 was simply beyond the wildest imaginings of a kid who, keep in mind, had imagination enough to believe that the way to a bit part on Little House On The Prairie was to send a series of increasingly desperate fan letters to the young actress who played Mary Ingalls. I’m happy to just sit in the back of the schoolroom scenes, and I already have my own costume!

Fifty is for Baby Boomers. Fifty is for AARP cards. Fifty is for Grandmas who look stunned by the honorific. I mean, my older husband is in his fifties. That means, by definition, I can’t be.

Oops. In 2016, Fifty is for me. GenX, non-Grandma (AND GIRLS IT BETTA STAY THAT WAY) me. Move over, honey, make room for me on that downhill ride.

I mean, is it weird for fifty year olds to throw elbows to get closer to the stage of an alt-rock artist? If so, it’s about to get weird at the Fox Theater Oakland and the Independent SF.

But I’m trying to think about this is a positive way, and I can’t think of anyone better to emulate in this regard than Queen Elizabeth, who celebrated her Golden Jubilee year of monarchy like the boss she is – for the entire year of 2002. She travelled the world receiving accolades, she probably doubled her hat wardrobe, she threw a two-day party at the palace. She made Fifty WERK.

I may not be the queen of England, but I do have grandparents from Yorkshire. So I’ve been thinking hard about how I want this year to look.

My friend Maureen threw a 50th birthday party that I just loved – she invited dozens of her dearest female friends and instead of us shining the spotlight on her, she threw it back to us. That evening she went around the room and explained why each person there was important to her, the significance they held in her life, the gratitude she felt for them. When it was your turn, you felt like the special surprise guest on Queen for a Day.

I loved it, but I want to put a writer’s spin on it. I’d be a sniveling wreck somewhere by the side of a road were it not for the love and support of so many great people I’ve crossed paths with in five decades. So I’m going to choose fifty of those people and write one of them a thank you note, once a week, all year long (giving myself two weeks off for writer’s cramp.) That feels right to me.

I don’t need a party and I certainly don’t need gifts. I mean, there’s not a single material thing I want (well, except for the two tennis-themed posters that artist Lil Tuffy made for a seminal Vampire Weekend show at the Fox Theater in Oakland in 2010.)

Experience wise, though, watch out. “It’s my Golden Jubilee year!” is going to be the battle cry I use to take trips, buy concert tickets, linger on the phone with friends and family in far off places, get pedicures, grow my hair out. I feel like there’s another Cat Club ’80s Dance Party in me.

Because that’s a thing the Over 50 crowd knows better than anyone – your time on earth is of a finite duration, and it’s in your power to make it count for something, to spend it with the people who buoy you.

So bring it on, 2016 and Fifty (though feel free to be parsimonious with the additional wrinkles and body aches, Forty already got a head start on that so I can wait a little longer for more.)

I’ll do my best to make it a celebration fit for a queen.

God Save the Queen from DJ LE CLOWN on Vimeo.

 

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Concert Review: Morrissey

The Band: Morrissey, December 29 2015. I’ve had my heart broken so many times by the former lead singer of The Smiths due to his penchant for cancelling shows that even though I bought these tickets months ago, I refused to get excited. Not until I was on BART en route to San Francisco did I begin to believe that I might not get my usual “Sorry, show’s off” email from the venue (and believe me I hit “refresh” on email repeatedly as I rode.) But like that old boyfriend who strung you along well past the sell-by date of the relationship, he made me fall for him all over again.

To the six people on the planet who don’t know who Stephen Patrick Morrissey is, I would describe him as the most insufferable, self-important, self-righteous bastard you’ll ever adore. No one has ever described the misery of sophomore year (of high school AND college) as perfectly as he sings it in “How Soon Is Now.”

The Venue: The Nob Hill Masonic Center, perched high on a hill in one of the prettiest parts of San Francisco. Last time I was there was to see the Replacements and we parked in the $62.00 per second attached parking garage – I was not subjecting myself to that penury a second time. Here’s my tip: find free street parking downhill and make the trudge up. When you come out you can just roll into a tight ball and shoot straight down to your car.

The Company: My friend Diana, a fellow mom who has 2X as many teen children as I do. Understandably, we needed a beer and a LOUD chat session with much eye rolling and hand flailing first before we hit the show.

The Crowd: If the last time you listened to The Smiths was in high school, you may not realize that Moz has become the darling of Mexico. Truly. It’s a thing that no one quite understands – here’s a great read about it – but Moz has embraced and returned the love and it’s now a mutual admiration society. When the first two people Diana and I met at the show were Carlos and Miguel from San Jose, we were a microcosm of the SF crowd – greying Gen X alt rock fans, and people named Carlos and Miguel.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? For this charming man, yes.

I am so glad I finally bagged a live Morrissey sighting.

He’s a great performer. His voice is still strong and distinctive, and he whips his mic cord around like no one’s business, and he did a strip tease that not every 50-something guy can pull off. Not totally sure he did pull it off, to be honest, but I admire his confidence. During the 22 song show, which sprinkled in a few key Smiths tunes alongside the solo stuff, the packed crowd roared – especially whenever he had one of his musicians come out and sing in Spanish.

His ego retains its youthful vigor. All his backing musicians wore matching “Morrissey for President” t-shirts and had to come forward one at a time to introduce themselves, which I have never in my concert-going life observed. That’s usually the lead singer’s job, giving them a chance to throw in a couple of suitably flattering adjectives to the people who are making them sound so good. M-Rizzle don’t play like that. He’s all, “I once used a time travel machine to share a butt with Jimmy Dean [he’s a fan of the double entendre] ergo ipso facto you guys need to do your own introducing.”

To say that Morrissey has the courage of his convictions is to say that air is relatively important to sustaining life. Whether he was singing “The World Is Full of Crashing Bores,” with the only unflattering picture of Princess Kate and Prince William ever taken projected on the screen behind him and captioned “United King-Dumb,” or showing a reel of animal torture footage to drive home the already-not-subtle verses of “Meat is Murder,” you don’t really need to ask Morrissey where he stands on certain issues. I respect his views. I admire his commitment to veganism. But I’d rather not throw up at a concert. Diana, who’s seen him play before, had hit the lobby at the Meat Is Murder midpoint and here was our text exchange after I glanced up from where I was staring at the floor only to see a montage of chicken de-beaking. (It’s ok, we go to church together, so I like to bring up Jesus a lot when we talk.)

One thing I have to take issue with: while he performed Gangland (pretty sure it was that song, correct me if I’m wrong) he played video clips that are, by now, familiar from the news, of cops committing violence/murder against black men. I can’t stand that he did that. Those victims and their families deserve the dignity they were denied at the hands of their killers – how does playing those clips over and over, like they are a video game, serve them? Did you ever notice that those kinds of clips played on a loop aren’t the norm when the victim is white? I believe Morrissey has the right intentions here. But you go read writers like Arnebya, AddyeB, Jasmine, and Luvvie who so eloquently tell us, over and over again, why this is wrong. And you learn. And you don’t play those clips as background visuals at a freaking rock concert.

Aside from that major misstep, Morrissey – and the festive holiday crowd – gave us a terrific night, worth all the cancelled shows it took me to get there.

Next show on the calendar: Rebirth Brass Band at The Great American Music Hall, Jan 16

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Turn Down the Music and Read: Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl

As much as I have admired Carrie Brownstein, one third of punk/rock band Sleater-Kinney and one half of the brains behind Portlandia, it was the first page of Chapter One of her new memoir, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl (Riverhead, 2015) that made me fall for her completely. “My story starts with me as a fan,” she writes, going on to describe, in a way that I’ve never seen so beautifully articulated, what it feels like to be a fan – that concerts aren’t so much about the music as they are about the feeling of being there in community, about nostalgia, about the way music colors the world in which we live. I’d recommend this book based on Page 1 all by itself.

But wait, there’s more!

Brownstein writes with the same dry-eyed objectivity and wit that you’d expect having seen Portlandia, but in Hunger also pulls back the curtain on the passion, the drive, and the obstacles that took her from being that music fan pressed against the barriers at a B-52s show to being part of a band that acclaimed rock critic Greil Marcus declared “the greatest rock band in the world” in 2001.

Brownstein, along with bandmates Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss, created a sound that gets lumped in with the Riot Grrrl movement, but after reading Hunger I’m less eager to apply those feminized labels to their sound. Brownstein makes the point, politely but relentlessly, that no male musicians are asked “How does it feel to be in an all-male band?” or “How does being a father affect your music?” They’re just really excellent and innovative punk musicians. It would be nice if it could just be left at that.

I once took a fiction writing workshop where our instructor used a Sleater-Kinney song to teach the concept of “voice” – how creating crisp, identifiable voices for various characters drives the urgency of the plot. Listen to the dialog back and forth on this breakup song – one voice high and tremulous, the other low and urgent, no question of blurring the two characters. I think of it a lot.

Family wise, Brownstein had a tough row to hoe, but she writes about her parents with warmth and empathy. That tone carries through in how she describes her bandmates, even ones who were kicked out along the way, even the ones she dated and then broke up with. If you’re looking for a dishy, disrespectful tell-all, move on to a New Order book. Brownstein emanates niceness and normalcy; it’s a wonder she made it in rock.

I mean, when Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006, her first instinct was to go volunteer at an animal shelter, where she won a “Volunteer of the Year” award. Consider that Eddie Vedder showed up at their last show and “…He stood up there in front of our crowd this time, ukulele in hand, and said that he’d always wished he had been able to see the Beatles or Led Zepelin in their prime, or Keith Moon play with the Who, but that he felt lucky to have seen Sleater-Kinney.” It’s like John Lennon showing up at the animal shelter offering to socialize the cats.

In 2012, six years after they last played together, Brownstein and Tucker were hanging out because of course they’re still buddies, unlike pretty much every other musician who gets a memoir contract, and the result was this year’s No Cities To Love, one of my favorite albums of the year. There’s still so much there there.

About the only complaint I have about this book is because I love Portlandia and would have happily read 150 pages on it; I think she gave it two words and those words were “Fred Armisen.” Different topic. Different book. But I do understand now what the impulse was to write this skit.

Did you get a bookstore gift certificate for Christmas? Spend it on this book. An iTunes gift card? Buy No Cities to Love. Get a puppy or a kitten? Carrie would definitely approve.

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Happy Holidays from Midlife Mixtape

Here’s a new take on an old carol to liven up your 2015 holiday playlist…

                   
CommentsHappiest Christmas to You and Your Khos! Love the song. ... by Lisa Page RosenbergRelated StoriesThe Nine Stages of Christmas Card WritingMy Kind of Holiday PartyHoliday Shopping Recs 2015