Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 44

I Listened to KidzBop So You Don’t Have To

There were a few things that I never brought into the house when the kids were small. Mommy and Me matching outfits. Glitter (at least not after that first jar.) And any CDs designed for kids that would, in the process of listening together, make my own ears bleed. So when this Blog Hop challenge came up (“I Did [WHATEVER] So You Don’t Have To,”) the KidzBop CDs -“Today’s Biggest Hits Sung By Kids For Kids!”- seemed like the perfect masochistic choice.

The basic premise behind this musical franchise is that a group of peppy, vocally blessed children sings a selection of big radio hits, taking out any bad words or vulgar references that might put an innocent underage listener on the express train to a life of iniquity.

I struggled with where to even lay my hands on this auditory jewel. I try to buy books and music in actual stores when I can, because I’d like to continue to have access to those establishments (and have their tax dollars benefit the city in which I live.) Besides, what’s worse than buying something like this on Amazon, only to have your “You Might Also Like!” choices rigged forever against you? But then I pictured the moment when I would have to skulk up to the cash register at Amoeba Music in Berkeley and hand over “KidzBop 26!” to the pierced, newsboy-cap wearing gal in the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s t-shirt, Amazon seemed the less awful choice.

So:

Having now listened (almost) all the way through to the twenty-sixth KidzBop album – yup, this moneymaker has been going strong since 2001 – I am left with one question:

Why?

This has nothing to do with the child performers, who are terrific and play no part in the critique I’m about to give. May they all go on to happy careers on Season 16 of Glee.

But to consider this question fully, I divided the tracklist into three neat categories: Sugary Sweet, Strange Choices, and Seriously, Artist, Were You So Desperate For Money That This Seemed Like a Good Idea?

The Sugary Sweet category were those songs whose original performances were such perfect pop confections that to add in a children’s version of the song feels like pouring a cup of sugar on top of a mug full of whipped cream. “Happy” by Pharrell, “Story of My Life” by One Direction, and “Let It Go” from Frozen…the kid-friendly version of these songs was so close to the original that I wonder why they even had to be made. A few times, when I was driving with this CD in the car stereo and my mind was elsewhere, I’d be humming along with the Sugary Sweets for miles before I even realized I wasn’t listening to the original song. They’re the acoustic equivalent of carrying coals to Newcastle.

Strange Choices were those songs that, because of subject matter or language choices, made me uncomfortable to hear a child crooning. “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry (Make me your Aphrodite-gross, no,) “All of Me” by John Legend (love your curves and imperfections – you can pretend that’s allegory, but we know Legend really means his lady’s Sports Illustrated-worthy curves), and “Timber” by Ke$ha land in this column. No amount of cleaning up Ke$ha lyrics make us forget that she wakes up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy and brushes her teeth with a bottle of Jack. And in Ed Sheeran’s “Sing,” when the girl in the song offers him a joke and a bottle of water rather than a toke and a bottle of tequila, my reaction was, why not just not sing a different, non-tequila referencing song?

And finally: Seriously, Artist. These were the heartbreakers that made me think I should be listening to Pandora less and buying albums and band t-shirts more, because their inclusion implies a heartbreaking level of pecuniary need. Better that, than to attribute a depressing level of cynical sell out to artists I genuinely like. “Pompeii” by Bastille, “Team” by Lorde, and “Best Day of My Life” by American Authors. Ugh. I can never unhear the cash register chimes on those songs.

If you’re in the market for music the kids will like, allow me to recommend Dan Zanes, former lead singer of the Del Fuegos, or Taj Mahal, or They Might Be Giants, talented musicians who create family friendly music that you are not ashamed to play on the car stereo even after the kids jump out of the car for soccer practice. Better yet, play them real music and consider the occasional cuss word or misogynistic lyric a jumping off point for a heart-to-heart conversation about language and equality and manners and creativity.

If you do that, then when your kids are teens, one may jump into your car after school, listen for three seconds, scream “ARE YOU LISTENING TO KIDZBOP OH MY GOD MOM” and flip quickly to the alternative rock station. When you both hear Sheppard singing “Geronimo,” she may sigh a huge breath of relief and say, “See what you were missing out on?”

You will then both fall silent on the drive home, praying that “Geronimo” is not included on KidzBop 27.

***You think this is bad? Wait’ll you see what my funny blogging friends did, so you don’t have to:

I Had Food Poisoning While Sitting On A Diaper Genie So You Don’t Have To – Smacksy I Spent 3 Solid Days Obsessing Over Grout Color So You Don’t Have To – Elizabeth McGuire I Wrote Another Godforsaken Blogiversary Post So You Don’t Have To – Ann Imig I Toured Washington DC in a Night Bus So You Don’t Have To – Wendi Aarons I’m Surviving October So You Don’t Have To – The Flying Chalupa


                    CommentsThank you for saving my ears, my brothers & my sister in-laws! ... by Mariana MayaBy: I’m Surviving October So You Don’t Have To | theflyingchalupa.com by I'm Surviving October So You Don't Have To | theflyingchalupa.comI knew when Jacob learned all the words to songs like Stiletto ... by KirEvery time I see a Kidz Bop CD, I shudder involuntarily. I'd ... by Kristin ShawSeriously, I had no idea what kids bop was. I'll never forgive ... by TarjaPlus 5 more...Related StoriesTurn Down the Music and Read: Dancing With MyselfStill in Rotation: Steady On (Shawn Colvin)Hold the Heathen Hammer High 

Turn Down the Music and Read: Dancing With Myself

Billy Idol, born William Broad, is the poster child for artists who made the transition from measured success in the pre MTV era to MTV-fueled superstardom. In his new autobiography Dancing With Myself (Touchstone/Simon&Schuster, 2014) Idol sets out a vivid, fast-moving account of a young punk rocker from Bromley, England whose sneer, leather pants, and bleached hair found a HNL* of fame once he was catapulted into the visual medium.

My friend Barry insists that Idol’s original band, Generation X, was one of the best punk bands ever. I hadn’t known that Idol and his mates actually opened a club in London in the late ’70s called the Roxy, so that Generation X and other punk bands who were being turned away from established venues would have a place to play. Idol clearly remembers the DIY punk era with great fondness, though where he is clearly thinking “romantic” when he describes club walls splattered with blood from syringes, spit, and semen, I tend to think “infectious disease.”

Idol’s MTV-era stuff always felt a little calculated to me, watered-down “punk” designed to appeal to the masses. No one can argue, though, about whether it worked. As I read about the process and inspiration behind each of Idol’s hit songs, I could hum every tune and never once had to look up a video to remember what he was talking about. In retrospect, his approach was incredibly effective at tapping into what people wanted to hear. Who can’t sing at least a few bars of “Eyes Without a Face?” or “Cradle of Love”?

It’s a wonder Idol had time to write songs as prolifically as he did, given the level of attention he received from “birds” wherever he went. You get the sense it was hard for him to even fetch the mail without some underage girl throwing herself at him. You also get the sense that he worked not very hard at all to fend off advances, despite long-time girlfriend Perri Lister (you’ll remember her as the bride in the “White Wedding” video.) He expresses all kinds of remorse about his wandering eye, during proud and Penthouse-worthy recaps of what exactly he had to be remorseful about. Definitely not a book to share with the kids.

But every story needs a good villain and by the middle third of Dancing With Myself, we have it: drug addiction and Idol’s denial that he has a problem. These sections read like a cautionary tale, proving that heroin and crack can make even talented sex god rock n’ rollers act like idiots. Between the time Idol was holed up alone in his NYC apartment, naked, unable to even find his black t-shirt on his black rug because he didn’t want to crack open his red velvet drapes, and the time he was passed out in a Bangkok elevator with the door opening and closing on him and a scandalized Mel Gibson – I repeat, a scandalized Mel Gibson­ – scurried his family away, Idol was one of the saddest literary bastards I’ve read this year. Had he not gotten the help he needed to get clean and stop snorting truckloads of coke – and the book is uncharacteristically light on details about how this transpired – his follow up single could have been “Face Without a Nose.”

To his credit, Idol has no trouble apologizing for the mistakes he’s made, the relationships he ruined, and the opportunities he missed because of his drug use. He apologizes for sinking a rented Jet Ski in Thailand – a Thai family’s livelihood – for good measure. But he doesn’t dwell, and you probably shouldn’t either. He’s Billy Idol, man. He has the best intentions, a huge appetite for life and love, and he’s been on a wild journey. In this book, we all get to come along on the ride.

Idol’s also just announced a World Tour in support of his latest album – check it out.

*HNL=Hole Nutha Level

***

Thanks to the kind folks at Touchstone/Simon&Schuster, I get to give away a copy of Dancing With Myself. Want to win? Just come out to the next Midlife Mixtape “I Have to Work Tomorrow Early Bird ‘80s Dance Party” on Thursday, Nov 7 at 7 pm, at the Cat Club in San Francisco. I’ll pick one lucky winner that night and hand over the book on the spot…at which point my guess is that DJ Damon will throw this song on the wheels of steel. Hope to see you there!

                    CommentsI may get this one. Generation X was a very good punk band with ... by LanceRelated StoriesTurn Down the Music and Read: Exile in GuyvilleTurn Down the Music and Read: Mo’ Meta BluesTurn Down the Music and Read: Mad World 

Still in Rotation: Steady On (Shawn Colvin)

Still in Rotation is a feature that lets 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.

My friend Vikki Reich and I share a haircut, and an ongoing concern that on bad hair days we resemble Hermie the Elf. After reading this essay I realized we also share the experience of having Shawn Colvin’s Steady On be a formative soundtrack for a time of young and unsteady love. So honored to have her with us today.

Steady On (1989)

by Vikki Reich

It was the Spring of 1990 and I was a junior at Grinnell College. Melissa Etheridge had just released Brave and Crazy and the campus lesbians were convinced she was a lady lover. The Indigo Girls had released their self-titled album and everyone was feeling Closer to Fine and Shawn Colvin had just released her first album, Steady On. It was a great time for women in music and for women who loved women in music.

And this is where I must share with you my deep, dark, musical secret: I have not listened to Melissa Etheridge or the Indigo Girls in years. This is lesbian blasphemy but Melissa Etheridge is a terrible lyricist and the Indigo Girls’ harmonies aren’t as captivating as they used to be. But, for me, Shawn Colvin’s lyrics and voice stand the test of time and she will always hold an honored place in my music library.

But back to 1990.

I had absolutely no idea I was gay. I was not struggling with my identity, was not keeping secrets. I was simply bounding through college life with the insight of a Labradoodle. There were rumors and gossip that I was a lesbian and I found the attention flattering but it didn’t lead to a single moment of introspection. My brain was busy with important things like playing guitar for hours and rugby and figuring out when Chicken Filet Day was at the cafeteria.

Then one night, I went to an off-campus party at a friend’s house and spent the evening drinking cheap beer and playing guitar. My friend had a friend in from out of town and, after we finished playing a song, my friend leaned in and kissed her visitor, and I tensed, a physical reaction that came with no accompanying thought. I sat staring at them for a moment and then packed up my guitar and music, made an excuse and bolted.

When I got home, I teased apart everything I was feeling and realized that I felt jealous, that I was attracted to my friend, that I was a lesbian. And that night, I pushed play on my cassette player, curled up in bed and listened to Steady On.

I knew that my life would never be the same and took comfort in the lyrics of the title track:

China gets broken

And it will never be the same

Boats on the ocean

Find their way back again

I am weaving

Like a drunkard

Like a balloon up in the air

I am needing a puncture and someone

To point me somewhere

I’m gonna keep my head on straight

I just hope it’s not too late

Open up the gate I go straight on, steady on

This album centered me in the coming months as I came out to friends and family, as I began dating. I fell in love to this album and when I fell asleep in a woman’s arms for the first time, I did so to the haunting tune of Dead of the Night. I remember lying there, listening to her heartbeat and thinking, “Yes. This is right.”

When my junior year ended, I headed to southern Missouri to spend the summer at my mother’s house. I hadn’t planned to come out to her until the summer was over but she asked and I was honest and our relationship fell apart. That summer, I had my tapes and my guitar–that’s how I survived–and I sat in my room and taught myself to play Cry Like An Angel, finding comfort once again in the words:

So look homeward baby

Keep your eyes on the sky

They will never forgive you

So don’t ask them to try

This is your party, I know

it’s not your ideal

May we all find salvation

In professions that heal

That was all 24 years ago. In those intervening years, I fell in love with my partner and had two kids and watched as my mother held each of them without judgment of their parents. Steady On was the soundtrack of my coming out–the good and the bad. When I listen to it now, I feel nothing but gratitude for the music and the words, for being on the other side of figuring it all out. And any time I’m feeling a little lost, I remember that boats on the ocean find their way back again.

The music stands up to the test of time. Wish I could say the same about the video.

 ♪♪♪Vikki Reich writes about the intersection of contemporary lesbian life and parenthood at her personal blog Up Popped A Fox and publishes VillageQ, a site that gives voice to the experience of LGBTQ parents. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner and two kids who provide the soundtrack of her life, which involves more beatboxing and improvised pop songs than she ever could have imagined. 

                    CommentsSo good. by LaurieRelated StoriesStill in Rotation: Soul Mining (The The)Still in Rotation: All the Great Hits (Commodores)Still in Rotation: Young Americans (David Bowie) 

The Striped Shirt Parable

I met my husband because we both wore the same shirt to a bar one night. Per our marriage contract, this sentence MUST follow that first sentence: “I was wearing a man’s shirt; it wasn’t like he was wearing a lady blouse or something.” Specifically, we both showed up to our campus pub wearing a blue striped Breton sailor shirt. My husband accessorized his with a girlfriend, but the sartorial coincidence in the mostly empty pub was too obvious to overlook. He ditched her to come over and have a laugh with me about it.

Then it got weird, because we discovered that we’d both grown up in upstate New York and had lived in Philly during the same four years. Furthermore, we’d both bought our Breton shirts at the same Philadelphia Army Navy Surplus store, called I. Goldberg. It was like we’d been living parallel lives that had suddenly taken a right-angle turn toward one another. They weren’t quite ready to converge, but it was only a question of time.

In fact, we got married 22 years ago today. My husband stopped wearing his striped shirt as soon as we graduated, sensing perhaps that a fashion choice that seems downright masculine when you’re on an insular international business campus surrounded by 40% European students might not work as well in, say, our new D.C. neighborhood. It was fine with me, because I continued to wear the crap out of mine. After about ten years, it was threadbare. I just tossed it and appropriated my husband’s shirt, for another decade.

I loved that shirt. It exactly the right length to skim my hips in a flattering way, and it was soft and stretchy. More than that, it symbolized the momentary chance, the little bit of magic that brings our partners into our lives. Just imagine if that night I’d instead opted for one of my extensive collection of Western wear shirts that I accumulated while living in Phoenix. We might never have met.

But after the past decade of wear, even my husband’s version of our shirt has been worn out. Threads hang everywhere, there’s a ballpoint pen mark by the neck, and bleach stains in random locations look like a map of an unknown country. The shirt looks like it’s 22 years old, and then some.

So when we planned a family trip to Philly in June, the first time we’ve been back together since before we got married, one of my goals was to stop by I. Goldberg and buy a new sailor shirt. You can find the shirts anywhere online these days, but the I. Goldberg angle was important to me. Edifying-educational vacations being what they are, we careened with our daughters from the Liberty Bell to the Barnes Foundation to Betsy Ross’ house and the Reading Terminal Market, and left ourselves very little time to shop. But on our last night there were ten minutes, if we hurried. So I prodded my older daughter down the street with me in the 93 degree heat and humidity – the likes of which she has never experienced in the Bay Area – so we could make it there before the doors shut.

The store hadn’t changed an iota. It has a distinctive musty smell, looks like it is merchandized by a hoarder, and screams “fire hazard” with every rack of khaki green cargo pants and camouflage vests. “Do you have any striped sailor shirts?” I said to the clerk as I trotted past her, already scanning racks and knowing that we had two minutes before they’d kick us out.

“Downstairs,” she called back.

Downstairs at I. Goldberg makes the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory look like a model of fire safety. In the far back corner, I spied stripes on a round rack and galloped over, the faster to get back to street level where there were exits. Upon closer inspection, there were no blue striped shirts, only red. I grabbed one in my size anyway, held it vaguely against my chest to see that it would probably fit, and herded my daughter back upstairs where there was at least some air, even if it was Philly-summer-piss-heat air. Thirty seconds and fourteen dollars later, I had my replacement Breton shirt.

Only in the three months since, I figured something out. That shirt wasn’t a replacement. Aside from being the wrong color, it wasn’t long enough, and the cuffs didn’t stretch. The neck’s a little tight, compared to the old shirt anyway. The fabric’s nice and thick, and if it didn’t have a predecessor, I’d probably like it just fine.

But the fact is that I like the old, worn out, storied, comfortable shirt infinitely better. After 22 years, it’s not flashy. But it’s got soul, and I already know its idiosyncrasies and quirks. It makes me feel good, even though I’m worn around the edges myself. So I’m going to stand by it until all that’s left of it is a tattered fabric square. Because even then, I’ll still feel lucky to have it.

Thus endeth The Parable of the Striped Shirt, and the 22 Year Old Marriage.

As Poi Dog Pondering sings, “…the only thing that speaks the truth is the eloquence of passing time…”

***Ok, remember that Bo-Curious story? I cross posted it to the Huffington Post, and they liked it enough that they invited me to talk on the HuffPostLive “Hot Bloggers” segment yesterday. A few unflattering camera freezes aside, I think it went okay. Even if a commenter during the live broadcast said I looked like “an older Justin Bieber.”

 

 

 

 

 

                    CommentsFunny. I came here to write, “I. Goldberg, sigh.” and see ... by AlisonHappy Anniversary to dear friends who already know that a ... by MollyYeah, nevermind that husband of 22 years, I know, you wrote ... by EllenIt's a Philly-tastic, Poi-tastic extravaganza, just for you… by Nancy Davis KhoWhat are the chances? WOW. I love stories like this, ones that ... by KirSigh. This entry. You had me at I. Goldberg but then you threw ... by EllenRelated StoriesHigh School, Then and NowI Interview Because…Still in Rotation: Skylarking (XTC) 

Hold the Heathen Hammer High

Last night I read at Litquake’s Barely Published Author night, and shared an excerpt from the memoir I’ve been working on for the past two years. This is what I read. I’ve added in some choice photos, just for you Midlife Mixtape readers.

Update: thanks to Jeff Von Ward, there’s video! I read right after the wonderfully talented Lee Kravetz, author of Supersurvivors, read a wrenching story about the Rwandan genocide. Never felt so Hashtag-First-World-Problems in my life.

I’ve been an avid live music fan ever since I saw my first show when I was 14 – Bow Wow Wow. But when I was 45, a bouncer at a Vampire Weekend concert asked if I was just there to drop off my kids. My memoir is about the ensuing identity crisis and my effort to find concerts that would be more “midlife appropriate.” I’m reading tonight from the chapter where I went to my first Heavy Metal concert.

***

Shortly after the kids went back to school in September, I surfed across the website for San Francisco’s DNA Lounge. The home page was black with acid green accents, advertised the upcoming “Carnival of Death” tour, and had just hosted Decrepit and Jungle Rot, so I knew this had to be the place. I went the “Calendar” view, picked a date Maria had pre-approved, and bought us two tickets. Only then did I study the bill closely.

Týr, from the Faroe Islands. Moonsorrow, from Finland, Metsatöll from Estonia, and Korpiklaani, also from Finland. I called Maria immediately and said, “It’s a night of Northern European metal!”

“I can finally wear my Viking helmet!” she said. Maria is an extremely proud Swede, and she’d gotten the hat as a gag gift, a soft fabric silver helmet with two thick yellow yarn braids that reach past her shoulders.

Worried about counterbalancing Maria’s outfit, I spent an inordinate amount of time in the days leading up to the show fussing over what to wear. What’s the right amount of leather that says “eager beginner metal fan” without veering into Halloween costume territory? A leather biker jacket would have been perfect, if I’d had one. At least I could finally wear the cheapie cuff bracelet I bought years ago that has thin metal chains cascading from its sides; I hardly ever do because the chains drag through whatever you happen to be eating at the time. That seemed very metal!

On the night of the concert Maria showed up at my house wearing her Viking helmet and carrying a bag of baked goods. She and I co-managed a café together during college, and neither of us feels comfortable if we’re apart from a home-baked pastry for more than three hours. We always pack a to-go bag of treats, which bouncers generally try to confiscate. So we do what we must. At concerts, our muffin tops are actually made of muffins.

“This is going to be awesome,” I said as we drove over the Bay Bridge into the city, trying to convince myself just that.

My stomach had been churning all day. It was one thing to brag to anyone who would listen that yeah, I’m gonna hit a metal show tonight, no big, I go to a lot of shows like this and bask in their looks of surprise. But the closer we got to the club, the more I second guessed myself. What was I thinking, metal?

The show was on a Tuesday night, so traffic was light and we soon turned onto Eleventh Street. A line had formed outside the club and as I drove by slowly, Maria pulled off her faux Viking helmet and shoved it into the bottom of her purse, never to mention it again.

The crowd did not look like it would appreciate an ironic Scandinavian accessory, except perhaps as welcome provocation to do some ass-kicking.

Black clad and bespiked, the fans in line were wearing motorcycle jackets like the one I didn’t have, along with kilts (for the men), long knit skirts with combat boots (for the women,) and miles of straight hair (for both.) Maria and I were about to look like total suburban douchebags.

There wasn’t much I could do but park, eat a cookie, and gird my loins for entry.

***

Flashing our tickets at the bouncer, we walked into the DNA Lounge. The club is a standard black rectangular box, an elevated stage at one end and a bar at the other. Maria and I headed for the bar, making our way past clumps of unusually tall men in kilts. Had I left at that moment, and don’t think I wasn’t still considering it, my initial impression of Northern European metal would have been that basketball-playing Scots loved it.

Next we stopped by the merch table. There were T-shirts that said, “We Eat Iron and We Shit the Chain,” which made me feel that my jewelry game was on point. You could also buy large banners that featured a Viking banging a shield next to a swan that swam in a pool of lava. Such was my determination to blend in that instead of turning away from apparel items like a black hoodie printed with a disturbingly vivid and anatomically correct wolf-man holding a spear, I started making inane, enthusiastic conversation with the young woman working the merch table.

“Oh this shirt is great! Maria, isn’t it great!” I enthused, picking up a black T-shirt that I would never ever in a million years wear in public, featuring indecipherable writing and a raven sitting on a bloody skull. The merch clerk watched me, one pierced eyebrow raised, as I carefully folded the shirt and replaced it in the pile with clammy palms.

Then the lights dimmed, and my first metal show started exactly the way I always feared it would: in a cloud of dry ice smoke, with three bare-chested guitarists wearing leather pants, their long hair fluttering in the breeze. Folk metal band Týr, from the Faroe Islands, was about to rock.

The music started off raw and guttural, the thunder of three guitars pushing like a physical presence to the back wall and then rebounding through the crowd. Everyone around us roared their approval and threw their heavy metal salutes into the air: pointer and pinkie fingers extended, thumb firmly holding down the middle two fingers to the palm. I couldn’t quite figure out at what angle you were supposed to hold your wrist – palm facing the act, palm facing your face, palm facing the audience member wearing a Fu Manchu mustache and chain mail? I swiveled my rookie salute around carefully, trying to discern what looked most tough, and admired how my little dangly cuff chains complemented the look. Kind of a “We Eat Metal and We Accessorize With The Chain” effect.

But I soon succumbed to the rawness of the music. Its sheer volume drowned out the constant little voices in my head, the ones that compile grocery shopping lists and count backwards from family birthdays to figure out when to mail the card and urge me to remember to make appointments for everyone to get flu shots. I couldn’t hear anything but Týr. And the invitation to blank out those internal voices and shake my hair to loud, loud music felt extraordinarily cathartic.

At my last dentist appointment they’d recommended a night guard to address the sudden onset of nocturnal teeth grinding, something I’d diagnosed as “Mother of Tween and Teen Daughter” syndrome. As the band played on, and my head bobbed toward my shoes with increasing energy, I began to think that a steady diet of Viking Metal shows would achieve the same tension-reducing effects as meditation or Xanax.

And then, on the third or fourth song, I heard it shining through: harmony. Even if I couldn’t understand the lyrics Týr was singing in their native tongue, this music had complexity and depth and range with which I’d never credited metal.

I widened my eyes at Maria. “Oh my God,” I said. “I think I love this!”

“Me too!” she said. We bumped shoulders in solidarity but kept our focus on the stage.

One song, “Sinklars Visa,” sent chills down my spine. It started with a thirty-second a capella bit referencing Faroese history – something about the Scots, but frankly it could have been about bringing cable television to the archipelago for all I understood. It was also some of the most beautiful folk music I’ve ever heard. The wild guitars contrasted against the delicate harmony of the musicians’ voices with a dark and urgent beauty. I threw both arms up in the air and gave it a double Heavy Metal Salute. When Týr sang “Hold the Heathen Hammer High,” I wished I had one to brandish, even if it was only costume grade.

Týr’s music was a revelation. I could totally be a midlife metal head! This music fan reinvention stuff was going to open up all kinds of new avenues for me. I was going to leave this show and reexamine every single youthful fear to which I’d clung. Maybe I’d try sardines! Maybe I could finally stomach Quentin Tarantino films! Maybe it was premature to reject the second fashion coming of harem pants so quickly!

Mari and me with Tyr lead singer, Heri Joenson, plus rookie heavy metal salutes

Then pagan metal band Moonsorrow from Finland took the stage.

Interested in hearing more about the book as it rounds the final lap toward publication? Consider adding your name to my Book Lovers List. Thanks in advance!

                  Related StoriesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: Diana RossMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: Dave Matthews BandHigh School, Then and Now 

High School, Then and Now

One of the pleasant things about being involved in the planning of my upcoming high school reunion is reconnecting with once-close friends with whom I’d lost touch. (The list of unpleasant things includes the need to beg like a whiny child to get people to sign up; the threatening by one classmate of a lawsuit if I didn’t stop harassing her by alerting her the reunion was approaching; and the realization that my jokes about ‘leave time to book those spray tans and hair extensions!’ were hitting some people VERY close to home.)

It’s weird, as those old friendships sputter back to life, to see where we have all landed, all 350 of us who spent four years traversing the same building together (and in many cases the same middle and elementary schools.) Especially this year, because so many of us have children who are themselves high schoolers. It means a stark confrontation between the way we experienced high school in the early ‘80s and the way our children experience it now.

Here’s one very obvious example: in 2014, school officials would probably frown if a giant blow-up Molson bottle were the centerpiece of the “Sea-nior” class homecoming float, especially considering most of us were 17.

Lots of us took AP classes, yet we still had time to watch 456 hours of MTV each week. You can pick on 21st century high schoolers for the amount of time they spend staring at a small screen, but I’d throw down my “120 Minutes” viewing habit as proof their parents weren’t exactly Amish.

Our SAT prep consisted of sharpening two pencils and making arrangements to borrow our parent’s car to drive to the test. Our kids’ SAT prep requires months of diagnostics, tutors, online tutorials, and practice tests. Which is part of the reason they don’t have time to learn to drive.

Our parents were never up in our academic business. I mean, my mom was, in the sense that she worked at my high school. But even she had no idea how I was doing in my classes until the report card came home. I think if you had dropped my parents into the school they would not have had the slightest idea how to navigate anywhere besides Mom’s office and the auditorium where I danced in all the musicals. As for me, I found myself giving my daughter directions to her own guidance counselor’s office the other day. “You go past Ms. Cummings desk, to the left, and she’s the third door down.”

But perhaps the biggest change is with the nature of college visits. My friend Jeff responded to the reunion email to let me know that he and his wife are busy helping their high school senior with the college decision process. “You should see our college visits now – formal campus tour, interview with Admissions, lunch with a student from our area, meeting with the coach, sit in a class, blah blah blah. All with me and my wife joining every step of the process. My poor kids.”

Because when Jeff and I were seniors, here’s how our parents did college visits: they approved a plan for Jeff, Brian, Lisa, and me to pile into someone’s car and drive up to visit my brother at his college five hours to the north. We left on a Friday, came back on a Sunday night. What happened at that college, stayed at that college, but I can tell you that there were no formal campus tours, admissions interviews, meeting of coaches or sitting in on classes. There was a great deal of blah blah blah, but not the type of blah blah blah you see in 2014. Jeff remembers a Batman drinking game, a Dire Straits album, and a dive bar. I, frankly, didn’t even remember that Jeff came with us – I thought it was my other friend Jeff. So you can see it was a highly successful college visit, all around.

But the thing is, THAT kind of college visit was highly motivational to me. Maybe I wasn’t talking to professors, but I was soaking up the promise of college life like a dry sponge tossed into a pool. High school was not a particularly happy time for me (I know, do you see the irony of me helping plan the reunion? Because I sure do! Hahaha! Sob sob sob.) But those college visits sans parental supervision let me see that it would behoove me to work my tusch off so that I could have my pick of colleges to attend. I came home from that trip – and others like it, to see my sister at Syracuse University- absolutely burning up with ambition. I wanted to crush at academics and everything else, so that there would be no obstacles between me and that independent, better life, waiting just down the road.

We took our eldest daughter on her first “official” college tour over the summer and it was very nice. The student tour guide was enthusiastic, we walked about 7,843 miles over campus and heard about impressive programs and buildings and opportunities. It’s a great school, and I’m convinced it could be a good fit for her. The admissions office makes it absolutely as pleasant for the parents as it is for the kids – providing everything short of a landing pad for the helicopter parents.

But some part of me believes that she’d be better served if I sent her with three good friends for the weekend to see what being a college student is really like – the bad and the good. To have her come home in one piece and not tell me much. And to get that spurt of incentive to make high school but a pleasant memory on a much grander journey.

***Just a reminder: I’m reading on Sunday, Oct 12 at San Francisco’s Litquake, at Barely Published Authors night – hope to see you there!And we’re officially only one month away from the next “I Have to Work Tomorrow” ’80s Dance Party at The Cat Club in San Francisco – get those babysitters on the phone!

                    CommentsThat's why I didn't know which Jeff it was. In sunglasses, they ... by Nancy Davis KhoYes. I remembered. I had those photos of the four of us in the ... by LisaDude, did you remember it was Gallant? All these years: thought ... by Nancy Davis KhoMy oh my, that was a fun trip. Thanks for reminding me to let ... by LisaThat Molson bottle was the best – can you even imagine that ... by JillRelated StoriesBenignStill in Rotation: Soul Mining (The The)BlogHer 2014: Stories Still Matter 

Wanted: Perfect Neighbors

Today’s the day. Our newest neighbors, the couple who bought the house belonging to our beloved, late Ceil, are closing on the sale today. The gossip is flying like flak around here as people chitchat over their dogs’ tangled leashes or pass one another at the one mailbox in the neighborhood. I heard he’s a pediatrician! I don’t think they have kids, but why would they buy a three bedroom place if they weren’t planning on it? Anyone know what the wife does?

And of course, because all of us are the embodiment of “House Poor” here in the Bay Area: How much did they pay?

I realize, what with the ink drying on the closing papers today, that it’s a little late to create a wish list of attributes for my new neighbors. But since they’ll be living directly across the street from us, I feel like we should have a say. And a sugar-borrowing gal can dream, can’t she?

Wanted: Perfect Neighbors

We: are an Oakland neighborhood that didn’t used to be distinguished enough to merit a name, but thanks to the Homeowners Association and the latest real estate bubble, find ourselves now living in an area with a fancy moniker and official signage. We lack sidewalks, or flat streets on which to teach your children how to ride bikes, and our utilities sag overhead because we are so far down the city’s priority list for “undergrounding.” But on a clear day, if you go to the end of the street and stand on your tiptoes and look around the utility wires, you can see the ocean.

We are an Oakland mélange of ages, races, and religions (exemplified by the winter holiday lights that spell out “Oy! Joy!” on one neighbor’s house every December) but unified on one important thing: we all jump out of the way when Oakland’s mayor careens through in her car, heading out from her house two streets over.

We believe in free sharing of green bin space. If you set your green bin by the curb half empty on garbage day, we believe it is our right to put our leaf overflow in there. It all evens out eventually.

You: were probably priced out of San Francisco, or maybe read the New York Times article about how Oakland is the new Brooklyn. That’s fine. You’ll soon see that Oakland is its very own category.

Required:

Children in need of babysitting, or a plan to produce such children within nine months. (Nothing like that first night in a new house to celebrate!) You won’t know until you have children how lucky you are to have two teenage babysitters living directly across the street, but they won’t be here forever. And they need to earn some of their own money so they stop taking ours. Failing the presence of or plans to produce children, have animals that need pet sitters. Our kids are versatile. We’re seeking the Full Employment Act here. Willingness to remove political signs in your yard within 3 days of election results being announced. Best not to give the mayor anything to aim for with her car in your yard. An aversion to seasonal blowup decorations. We already have a neighbor who has the market on blowups covered. Must agree that parking directly perpendicular to our driveway is a recipe for disaster. Because of the angle of our driveway, I promise you we cannot see your car until the back end of our car has pushed its side panel in by eight inches. We know this from experience. Promise that you will not change our favorite ‘70s-tastic feature from Ceil’s house, which has never been on the market before: the blender that is built into the countertop, perfect for churning out milkshakes to the afterschool crowd. If it makes you feel more 21st Century, feel free to use it to make kale smoothies. Willingness to pretend that you didn’t see our family spill out of our house arguing loudly about whose fault it is we’re late, slamming car doors, screeching out of driveway, then screeching back in again because someone forgot something and now we’re going to be even MORE late. Just…look away. Never mention it. A full bag of sugar and at least six eggs at all times. We repay in cookies.

Optional:

Frustrated dog non-owner. You could totally borrow ours for the occasional overnight. Or weekend. Or week. Vegetarian who cooks in large quantities. We already have a neighbor who is a master barbequer and brings us leftover ribs, and another who mixes up the strongest Gin and Tonics around. We just need some vegetables to round out the meal. A hankerin’ for yardwork – ours. You sit on the high side of the street and look directly down onto our yard; keeping it spruced up is really more for your benefit than ours, anyway.

Something you’ll fall in love with about Oakland right away: when it’s sweater weather in San Francisco, it’s still shorts weather in the 5-1-0.

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Bo-curious

Growing up, we didn’t talk about that kind of thing. It would have been considered scandalous. I was raised to believe that God had certain plans and expectations for me as a woman, and to err from that path would be sinful. But as I became worldlier and met others who had tried it, my curiosity grew. I found myself inexplicably drawn to its adherents, feeling queasy yet titillated as I heard their stories. Maybe it wasn’t as unnatural and self-destructive as I’d long believed.

I’m talking, of course, about Botox. I admit it: I’m Bo-curious.

My first brush with a dealer came when I was in my early thirties and scheduled a mole check with a dermatologist, part of the annual care and upkeep that a marshmallow-shaded person like me needs to stay healthy. Call it payback for summer afternoons in the 1980s spent on a folding lounge chair on my back patio holding Human League’s Dare or Split Enz’s The Living Enz gatefold albums in my lap. I’d cover the albums in tin foil, to turbocharge the effect of the sun’s rays on the baby oil I’d slathered on.

I thought this dermatologist would spot-check my spots and go on her lab-coated way. But she saw a more urgent matter at hand.

“You know you’re a perfect candidate for Botox,” she said, tapping a pen here until I was cross-eyed and could no longer read the name of the cosmeceutical printed along its side. “Those lines between your eyebrows would respond very well.”

I LoL’d. Me? Botox? I was young. More than that, I was philosophically opposed to cosmetic procedures performed by medical professionals (though I clearly had no qualms when it came to procedures performed by barely credentialed “aestheticians.”) I believed that vanity had no place in aging. It was a philosophy I’d arrived at in my dewy twenties after studying photos of just-plain-folks like Lauren Hutton and Sophia Loren, proof of how all women grow more beautiful with the passing years.

True, by my thirties, the sleeplessness that came from having two daughters under the age of five had etched new lines and shadows on my face. But not enough to turn to an elective medical procedure that involves shooting a toxin from old Bessy into my face. “No thanks,” I said to Doc Botox, smug and sure of myself. I went home that night and recounted the story to my husband with glee. “Can you believe she asked me about Botox?” I said. “Who does she think I am?”

Fast forward ten years. Those little girls are teenagers and those faint vertical lines look like they’ve been drawn with a Sharpie. It looks like I’m using my face to show my support for an athlete whose jersey number is eleven. Who does Doc Botox think am I? The patient whose next visit will pay off her condo in Hawaii.

The truth is, I look and feel the age I am, which is closer to sixty than to thirty. I started wearing progressive lenses last spring, and now constantly do a slow nod to get the right part of the lens between my eye and the object on which I’m trying to focus. It makes me look like a languid bobblehead. There’s a lone age spot on my right hand, a scout party sent to see if conditions are right for colonizing.

I try to convince myself that it is neither vain nor hypocritical to spend my lunch hour making my “maximum angry face” into my webcam so that the Botox web site can show me what I’d look like after treatment. After all, a Columbia University study recently pointed to a psychological benefit of Botox – I mean, beyond the immediate gratification of looking in the mirror and thinking, “Hey there! I remember you from 1991!” Because Botox paralyzes the frown muscles, you spend relatively more time smiling than frowning, which scientists say tricks your brain into thinking that you truly are happier. Now that’s the kind of side effect a person would actually like to hear, when watching pharmaceutical ads that juxtapose scenes of wholesome families frolicking in a meadow against rapid-fire recitations of the three hundred ways the drug they’re selling might also kill you.

Besides the few high profile actresses whose mugs have been frozen into the same expression for “joyous” and “despairing” and “Madame Tussaud model,” I did stop mocking Botox right after my dermatologist mentioned it. A few years later I had lunch with a college friend who looked terrific, happy and well rested, which, with her full time job and four kids I was 99% sure she wasn’t. “Botox,” she confided over dessert. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” She’s not anyone I’d consider vain. What’s wrong with doing something that makes you feel happier? I don’t judge my friends for making sweet love to a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Americone Dream, or replaying that scene of Daniel Craig emerging from the surf in Casino Royale over and over. And over. And over.

I’m taking baby steps to satisfy my bo-curiosity. I’m thinking of making an appointment this fall to have Doc Botox laser away the sun damage on my neck and chest. If only the Duran Duran liner notes hadn’t required so much study in direct sunlight, while wearing a spaghetti strap tank top.

And maybe, while I’m sitting in my paper gown and wondering, as usual, whether the office workers across the street have any sort of telescope or binocular setup, I’ll grab a Botox brochure from the display stand and sneak it into my purse for further study when no one is watching.

Because even if curiosity killed the cat, I think it’s worth investigating whether some cow toxin might revive it.

About face, makes me wonder…

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Midlife Mixtape Concert Review: Diana Ross

The Band: Diana Ross, September 26 2014. Motown/R&B/Soul/Disco diva who went from strength to strength after leaving the Supremes, The Divine Miss Ross (I can’t imagine referring to her without some sort of honorarium) was named Female Entertainer of the Century by Billboard Magazine in 1976. Now 70, she’s still performing, and on the road with the “In the Name of Love” tour. I can’t say I’m a knowledgeable fan, but back in April at the Oakland Museum’s vinyl exhibit I came Miss Ross’ first solo album and was so taken with the cover – seriously, doesn’t she look like a beautiful tiny orphan child in urgent need of a benevolent patron and a cheeseburger here? – that I snapped up tickets to this show the day they went on sale.

The Venue: The Paramount Theater in Oakland. The Paramount’s Art Deco movie house glamour, all gold and glimmer, was perfect for Diana Ross. The only tricky part of the Paramount is that’s not easy to tell which of the lavish downstairs bathroom/lounges is the ladies’ and which is the gents. We sat in the bar between the two, watching a security guard whose sole job it was to repeatedly redirect women from the men’s room.

The Company: My best friend Maria, and I will say this right away before she puts it into the comments below. YES. I did say we should wear sequins. YES. She did show up with a sequined sweater. NO. I ended up not wearing my sequined blouse myself, because I thought it would be too hot. Mea Culpa.

All night, Maria would point out sequin-wearing duos and say to me, “Aww, look. I bet one of those women told the other one to wear sequins, and then actually wore them herself too, just like she promised. Isn’t that nice?” What. EVER. Maria.

The Crowd: Sequined women. Also, many long dresses that were not just trendy maxi dresses. These were serious, going-to-a-formal-gala long dresses, liberally sprinkled with glitter, cut up to here and down to there. As for the men, they were mostly gay couples, but a diverse selection of gay couples, from cowboy hat wearing tough guys to schlumpy graying Dockers wearing guys to impeccably turned out young men in fedoras. Lots of blond highlights, across gender, race, sexual orientation, and age lines.

Age Humiliation Factor: Shortest concert ever.

Diana Ross took the stage at exactly 8 pm. She was done with her encore – which wasn’t technically an encore, but a drawn-out refrain from the closing song of the show, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” – at 9:15 pm. My entire family was shocked when I walked back into the house at 9:40.

Cool Factor: It’s the New Style

After the third of four costume changes in a 75 minute show, Maria looked at me and said, “I dress too small.”

Miss Ross’s inspirational outfit formula: gigantic outerwear atop slinkier color coordinated sequined dress. The first outfit, a cloud of turquoise netting, is something that I swear to god my Barbie wore in ’72. Then came the black glitter topped by lime mink. Then our favorite, a purple parachute fabric puffer coat atop navy blue sequins. She brought the night home in a sunny froth of yellow.

The upshot? Here are a few pictures of me cleaning the house over the weekend. Get used to this look.

Housecleaning a la Diana Ross

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Surrender.

The fourth song of the show was “Stop in the Name of Love,” which gives you some sense of the massive strength of Miss Ross’ song catalog – when that’s your throwaway fourth song, you are mighty confident. And rightly so. Even if the show was short, every single song was an audience sing- and dance-along – well, with the exception of the two jazz/blues selections from her 1972 screen debut, Lady Sings the Blues, both beautifully rendered and gratefully accepted by the audience as a chance to sit down for a second.

Here’s the deal: Diana Ross still sounds amazing. Her voice was perfect, exactly as you remember it from radio and album plays. From “I’m Coming Out” to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and everything she sang in between, she showed why she wears the diva crown and a giant purple puffer coat the way the rest of us wear t shirts and jeans. Long may she reign.

Next show on the calendar: Erasure at the Fox Theater, November 1

***

San Francisco’s annual literary festival, Litquake, is just around the corner, and I’m proud to say that I’ll be reading there this year! The event is “Barely Published Authors” at the Makeout Room on Sunday, October 12 – (cheap) tickets here. Would love to see familiar faces there – I’m giving the completed memoir its first public airing, with an excerpt on That Time I Went to a Metal Show.

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Benign

About six months ago my oldest daughter said, “Hey, there’s a weird bump on my arm, I should probably ask the pediatrician about it.” It didn’t hurt her, she said, but there it was, a quarter-sized firm lump, just south of her right elbow. She couldn’t remember when she first noticed it: could have been weeks, months, or years earlier. Coming from the “rub some dirt on it” school of wound care, I said something along the lines of “Ok, add it to the list of questions we’ll ask when you have your regular annual check-up in August” and forgot about it.

To spare you the suspense: it was a benign tumor, and as of last Tuesday’s surgery at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, it is no longer in her arm. But the three weeks starting at the end of August when we went from casually pointing it out to the pediatrician, who referred us to a radiologist for an ultrasound, who referred us to the Pediatric Oncology Clinic at Children’s,  who referred us to another radiologist for an MRI, who referred us to a pediatric surgeon to have the bump removed and biopsied: those three weeks were surreal.

From the very beginning I believed it would turn out to be nothing, based on what the medical professionals were saying but mostly on sheer faith. As a parent, how do you go into that situation believing anything else? It is your job to know that everything will turn out fine for your child, to train formidable force of will on that thought. You can’t really entertain other possibility.

That’s what haunted me. Even as each test and exam gave us one more reassuring data point that there was nothing scary going on in her arm, I kept thinking to myself: parents of really sick kids never believed anything would happen to their children, either. At the heart of all my belief in her eventual well-being lay a dark kernel of dread. And that kernel wasn’t loosened until the tumor was gone, and she was back home lying on her bed eating Trader Joe’s Parmesan Crisps, watching Parks and Rec on her laptop while floating along on a cloud of Tylenol with codeine. The dread didn’t disappear for good until I got the call two days ago from the oncologist who said the biopsy showed it was benign. Benign: the most beautiful word in the English language.

I was exhausted throughout those weeks, not physically, even though it was hard to sleep. It was the mental exhaustion of wondering (how long will it take for the doctor to interpret the MRI?), revisiting (why didn’t I take her in for that lump when she first told me about it?), worrying about her (this is an awful lot for her to handle, especially at the beginning of junior year), worrying about her sister (shunted to the side temporarily while we run between appointments and talk about treatments.) When I wasn’t doing those things I was praying and chanting the word in triplicate: “benign benign benign.”

I didn’t tell many people at first, because I didn’t want to have to keep repeating the story, and I didn’t know yet whether it was the bad thing or the awful thing. But at some point I knew we needed prayers for my daughter, and a lot of them.

My minister was happily flipping quesadillas on the griddle at church for Welcome Back Sunday when I took him aside and told him. He said, “Let’s turn this griddle into an altar. But don’t lay your hands on it ‘k?” and then we prayed right there. At a bat mitzvah between the MRI and the surgery, I managed, but only just, to not yell her name during the Healing Prayer because I knew she’d be embarrassed. The school counselor’s secretary offered to “take her name to the altar and talk to Jesus.” Shari offered to call me during the surgery for a good cross-country pray. Lisa asked her meditation group to devote its practice to our kid, and our Jewish friend Joe raised it up to his Evangelical Christian minister father in law. The point is, I felt like we had pantheistic coverage, though I do need to work on my contacts in the Buddhist and Islamic world.

Blogger Julie Gardner recently wrote a beautiful post about the worries we carry, called “Your Bag Won’t Always Be This Heavy, Mom.” I couldn’t even look at my bag for the past few weeks, let alone pick it up. But our friends and family were happy to shoulder it for us so we could focus on our daughters. Jill called and asked, “Do you want baked ziti or kugel for dinner on Tuesday?” Andrea met me at the house to help get our 5’9” daughter from the car into her bed to sleep off the anesthesia after the MRI, and weeded my garden while she waited. My mother in law sent a cheerful bouquet of yellow flowers, and my parents sent the kids each a $5 bill, which, nobody don’t like a $5 bill. Maria texted me our favorite prayer from our favorite wacky church lady, the 14th century Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, just after our daughter was wheeled into surgery:

All shall be well,

And all shall be well,

And all manner of thing shall be well.

In other words, “benign, benign, benign.”

My daughter’s friends were also incredibly supportive, including the one who showed up a few hours after surgery with a plate of delectable chocolate cupcakes that helped chase away any lingering anxiety. Parents of our younger daughter’s friends offered to take her for ice cream and dinner so she didn’t get lost in the shuffle. I was grateful for everyone who emailed and called and texted and said, “Don’t bother calling me back, just wanted to let you know I was thinking of you.” It truly helped.

I was awed during this time: at the courage my older daughter showed, the bottomless love for his children that renders my stoic husband so vulnerable, the resiliency my younger daughter displayed when her parents’ attentions were elsewhere for a little while.

I was reminded that no matter how scary things are, pockets of humor persist. Right before she was wheeled in for the MRI, the Radiology Department doors swung open and a male administrator flew past. “Her nail polish is metallic so it’ll mess with the MRI results,” he yelled over his shoulder, “I’m heading down to the gift shop to see if they sell nail polish remover.” After the polish was off and the MRI was underway, three nurses came out to the waiting area separately to ask where we get our nails done, because the polish was so hard to remove. So much for my idea of taking her for a manicure a few days earlier, to keep her spirits up.

When we got the final, final call on Wednesday that the tumor was benign, I finally released the breath I’ve been holding since September 5. I’m hopeful my funny bone will fully recover soon, too. I’m left now simply with the need to express thanks, to God and all the people who do His work here on earth: pediatricians, radiologists, oncologists, surgeons, nurses, child life specialists, compassionate teachers, cupcake baking friends, texters, prayers, callers and emailers.

She’s ok, so we’re ok. Thank you.

I’d keep you safe, I’d keep you dry, don’t be afraid Cecelia, I’m your satellite…listened to this song driving back and forth to the hospital and it’ll forever be associated with the memory of this month.

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