Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 49

Happy Reeses Hoarding Holiday!

Today, Good Friday, marks the start of a very special season: Reeses Peanut Butter Seasonal Product Hoarding Season.

The women in my natal family are unapologetic Reeses eaters. Always have been, always will be. But my mother, sister and I rarely stoop to the bright orange and brown two-pack available near the checkout at grocery stores. We reserve our affections for the Reeses Christmas trees, the Valentines hearts, and especially the Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs that started it all at Easter time, lo these many years ago.

See, these bigger products have a better peanut-to-chocolate ratio than the flimsy little cups, a heartier peanut flavor. And everyone knows that peanut butter is protein, so there is an argument to be made that eating a Reeses Egg for lunch is nutritionally balanced. I should know. I make that argument a lot between February and April.

As soon as the Christmas goods were taken off store shelves, the heart-shaped Valentine’s Day model appeared, joined a week or two later by the flagship model: the Easter Egg. It must be noted that back when the Easter Egg was still the only game in town, my sister wrote Reeses a letter suggesting a Christmas tree-shaped version. She received a terse note back in which the company wanted to make it crystal clear that if they chose to release a product like that, she was NOT the source of the idea. Guess what hit the grocery aisles that December? Even so, we couldn’t stay mad about the Reeses Peanut Trees, because boycotting them would only hurt us.

Even if those products have been on shelves since last December, the real season doesn’t start until today, and here’s why: holiday Reeses taste much better when they are purchased from the Clearance aisle. I learned early that the moment you stumble across a pile of Reese’s 6-pack Valentine’s Hearts and it’s marked at 99 cents for the WHOLE PACK, your enjoyment factor climbs by 150%.

But won’t they get stale? Not hardly! Stick those 6-packs in the freezer and on a July day when you’re feeling too lazy to make a sandwich, unwrap one and savor the juxtaposition of a cold, sweet, salty crunch of a frozen heart against the oppression of hot day.

If you ever go to a movie with my mother, there are three things you can be assured will happen. She will sit in the last aisle of the theater. She will complain about the people around her loudly slurping sodas or crunching popcorn. And at some point mid-screening, she will nudge your arm and silently hand over a Reeses heart, egg, or tree that has just defrosted in her purse.

So while other people celebrate the Easter season through egg hunts and roast lamb dinners, you’ll find me glorifying God and peanut butter at the drugstore, in the candy Discount aisle.

Back in the ’80s, before Match.com, most couples met when walking down the street listening to cassette Walkmans, absentmindedly eating foodstuffs, and then colliding. Good times.

***If you’ve ever driven with your kids on a school field trip, you know it’s true: you scan the list of children assigned to your car and hope these kids aren’t on it.“Top 9 Kids You Dread Seeing In Your Field Trip Group” – my latest over at NickMom.com.

                   
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Moms Are Nuts, and A Bunch of Us Wrote About It

When I was invited by writer, humorist, and delusionist Amy Vansant to contribute an essay to an anthology called Moms Are Nuts! I was thrilled. Which of my most epic mothering fails should I use? That time I entertained the girls by reenacting a run-in with a wild turkey and got the dog to reenact his role in the drama? That time I took my infant daughter to a homeless encampment that I thought was a Halloween festival? That time I insisted to my daughter that the chorus to the Lorde song was, “The coal house in, the coal house in, the coal house in,” and she explained that no, it’s “Send the call out, send the call out, send the call out”? SO much material.

Then Amy explained that no, this is not for stories about ourselves as moms. It’s about moms we have known. Now, my mom is a lovely lady, and I didn’t feel right throwing her overboard alone. So I strapped myself to her and wrote something that indicts both of us. It’s about how you say you’ll never turn into your mother, then you actually outdo her at her own game. And it includes a reference to the board game “Blizzard of ‘77” which, if you didn’t grow up in Rochester, you may not know. I feel sorry for you.

There is, as we say in Oakland, hella comic firepower in Moms are Nuts. My little piece is between the covers with work from Emmy winners, magazine editors, comedians, TV personalities, bestselling authors, and a Fanilow. You’ll recognize a few names from the Still in Rotation series here, like Wendi Aarons and Lisa Page Rosenberg, and the cover was designed by the next S.I. R guest poster, Mary Laura Philpott. (Check out the bloopers from the cover shoot. Philpott is the best kind of weird.)  To be included in this book is kind of intimidating, especially since the cover blurb is from none other than Laraine Newman, yes THAT Laraine Newman, who had this to say about Moms Are Nuts:

“These essays are so good and so funny, it makes me mad that I didn’t know a lot of these writers. Wait…that’s the kind of backhanded compliment you’d get from an obnoxious mom! Curses!”

I’m so excited and proud to be part of this collection and I hope you’ll check it out, on paper, on an eReader, in an interpretive dance format (we’re still working on that.) Since no one in the world buys a book unless it’s recommended to them anymore, we’d sure appreciate your help in spreading the word, posting your reviews to Amazon and Goodreads, all that jazz. This would make a perfect Mother’s Day present for anyone whose mother has ever said to them, “You look washed out. Put on some more lipstick.” Not that I’m speaking from experience.

And to make it up to my mom, I’m posting the song that she had cranked in her car CD player last weekend when I went for a visit. Because she loves her a cowboy.

                   
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Turn Down the Music and Read: Mad World

I hadn’t intended on making this Literary Music Week at the blog, but on Monday when I got an early review copy of Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980sby Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein, it seemed perverse to resist. In short: you people are going to go crazy for this book, which is available starting next Tuesday, and since I get to give away a copy, I’m not going to make you wait.

Not so much an exhaustive history as a carefully curated sample platter of the synth-tinged classic songs of the John Hughes era, Majewski and Bernstein acknowledge from the start that choosing 36 songs to represent ten years of music was an impossible task. The ones they chose are not just the ones you know: they’re the ones your kids and your parents know. (Think “I Melt With You,” “Take On Me,” “I Ran,” “Come on Eileen.”) My guess is that 80% of the feedback they’ll get on the book is along the lines of, “How could you have left out…” Maybe this will end up being Volume 1 of a series?

Each chapter follows the same structure: a short overview of the song in question, then context from the co-authors about what it meant to them and their peers. Interviews with the musicians themselves follow, with footnotes here and there from other insiders. A mixtape list of similar songs (i.e. “Five More Sexy Songs About Sex” in the “Girls on Film” by Duran Duran chapter, “Five More Songs About Science, Technology, and Robots” in the “She Blinded Me With Science” by Thomas Dolby chapter.) And finally, a “That Was Then But This Is Now” section, summarizing what the artists in question are doing today.

The artist interviews comprise the bulk of the book, which is a good thing. Whether it’s Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner of New Order refighting their battles yet again (omg, dudes, please let’s move on) or Gary Numan describing how it took him 30 minutes from opening his brand new bass guitar case to putting the final touches on the biggest song of his career, there’s an honesty and level of detail that’s highly engaging.

And the photos, oh Mary, there are photos galore. If you miss the days when young men wore contour blush and eyeliner and cinched leather jumpsuits, this book is for you.

As someone with more than a passing interest in ‘80s music, the stories weren’t all new to me. But I did appreciate how Mad World captures the context of the music landscape at the time, from the musician’s point of view. Whether it’s Adam Ant discussing Bow Wow Wow, or Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark talking Joy Division, I found it fascinating to read about what the bands all thought of each other, which ones they were inspired by and which ones they felt compelled to beat to a slot on “Top of the Pops.”

And Majewski and Bernstein are the perfect ying and yang pair of guides to the music landscape. Lori’s intros to each song remind me of every Duran Duran fangirl I knew in high school who also wore a Frankie Says Relax tshirt, while Jonathan, a self described sour Scot, is that guy who wore a black trenchcoat and read Melody Maker obsessively, his Sony Cassette Walkman jammed into is ears. My favorite intro duet was for “How Soon Is Now”, in which Lori breathlessly describes why the Smiths are in her Top 5 Favorite Bands and how being a Smiths fan reflects well on your intellect, while Jonathan has three words: “Not a fan.” They’ve done a terrific job with the book’s website too, it’s worth checking out for more photos, mixtapes and essays.

So let’s say we get the party started with the giveaway – thank you to Abrams Images for offering up a copy to a Midlife Mixtape reader! Here’s how to enter: leave a comment below with the title of your favorite New Wave song (i.e., must include synthesizer, and at least one band member has to have blonde highlights or wear eyeliner.) I’ll take entries until Monday, April 14 at 5 pm PST, then I’ll use Random.org to pick a winner (US entrants only, je regrette.) Good luck!

and it occurs to me that there may be three or four of you who have never seen the “Literal Video” for Take On Me by a-Ha. Today’s your lucky day.

                   
CommentsSorry make that 8/3! by TracyGah, too too many to love. PSB – West End Girls, DM – ... by TracyTones on Tail – “Go!” – specifically due to the mad ... by KJPThat a-ha video is hilarious! My fave part: “Baaaaannd ... by Liz @ ewmcguireIt seems that Modern English, Haircut 100, Depeche Mode, ... by AdrianPlus 5 more...Related StoriesTurn Down the Music and Read: Just KidsTurn Down the Music and Read: Rock On: An Office Power BalladTurn Down the Music and Read: One Way Out 

Turn Down the Music and Read: Just Kids

When Just Kids by Patti Smith came out in 2010, I read reviews, but it never occurred to me to pick up the book. Of course I knew who Smith was, knew “Because the Night” and a few other of her songs. But she was just enough ahead of my time that I saw her only on the periphery of my personal musical journey and didn’t think I’d connect to her memoir about the friendship she shared with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Even if it did win the National Book Award that year.

Then, over Christmas, I read Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, which referred to Just Kids in almost every chapter, as an example of how to write memoir right. Fine, fine, I thought, I’ll grab it at the library.

Almost from the first chapter, I was surprised in the most positive, grateful sense of the word. Smith exudes an almost pathological honesty, neither glossing over the darkest obstacles (bouts of homelessness, hunger, fear) to her effort to create a life of meaning and truth, nor minimizing the loving and loyal connection she maintained with her family, when such connection was as alien to the arty crowd as her willingness to be a salary slave for The Man if she had to.

At its core, Just Kids is a book about a friendship, movingly told. If I knew little about Patti Smith, I knew even less about Mapplethorpe (“isn’t he a porno photographer or something?”) But hearing him described through Smith’s eyes, reading about the years where the two of them acted as a mutual admiration society more convinced of the other’s genius than they were of their own, is to gain a respect for his tenacity and vision, even if I might not want to hang a Mapplethorpe in my dining room while the kids still live at home.

More than that, the book reminds us how transformative the right friends can be in our lives. It ends just at the point where they are both starting to get meaningful respect and commercial success in their respective fields, and it’s clear that neither of them would have gotten to that point without the other.

Maybe it’s because Patti Smith is so very good at being a friend that the book, inevitably, gets a little bogged down in the Who’s Who of the Chelsea Hotel. Janis, Jimi, Bob, a bunch of Sandys, the occasional Sam, there were times where I had completely lost the thread of who was zooming who in the hallway of the hotel.

And Patti started off as a poet, inspired by Rimbaud, so if repeated references to French poets and philosophers are off putting, you may not love it. I fell into the rhythm of the poetic writing, paired with an arc every bit as worthy of study by aspiring memoirists as Kephart promised.

Of course Smith’s creativity overflowed into many arenas – poetry, playwriting, painting, and, as it turns out, packing for France. While preparing for one such journey, according to page 225, she packed a silver Coptic cross from Ethiopa, a handful of blue trade beads from Harar, a Baudelaire cravat, and a postcard of a statue of Joan of Arc, among other goodies. Silly me. When we went with the family a few years ago, I focused on wrinkle-free dresses and a raincoat that could fold into a pouch. No wonder only one of us has been named Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

So while this review is long overdue, I’ll ask you to think of it like a good friend who you’ve lost track of: be happy that it finally showed up, even if it took awhile.

                   
CommentsSuch timing! I heard my favorite Patti Smith song on the radio ... by EllenYes! I listened to Just Kids as an audio, read by the author ... by am_penThis is one of my favorite books of all time. I love it like a ... by LaurieRelated StoriesTurn Down the Music and Read: Rock On: An Office Power BalladTurn Down the Music and Read: Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I DieTurn Down the Music and Read: One Way Out 

Midlife Mixtape Concert Review: Neil Finn

The Band: Neil Finn, April 1 2014. Often called “the songwriter’s songwriter,” New Zealand’s Neil Finn has been making music in various inceptions since the ‘70s: with Split Enz, with Crowded House (the original band in the ‘80s, and a reformulated CH in the Aughts), with his brother Tim, as a solo act, with Pajama Club alongside wife Sharon. He is indefatigable, always working on a new project, circling back to old ones, trying new instruments, new arrangements, new producers. This time around Neil’s promoting his third solo album, Dizzy Heights, backed by wife Sharon and an entirely new cast of players.

And Neil has been my #1 favorite musician since MTV first aired “I Got You” when I was in ninth grade.

The Venue: The Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco. One of the few surviving buildings from the 1915 Pan Pacific Exhibition, the PFA was designed by acclaimed architect Bernard Maybeck and looks like the ruins of a Greek or Roman temple. The grounds, which include a swan-accented lagoon, are favored by wedding photographers and picnickers. And the auditorium seats are cushy and soft. What’s not to like?

Here’s what: live shows at the PFA are sucked dry of crowd energy. It is SO quiet, SO civilized, and SO churchy inside that even chair dancing feels a little rebellious. I’ve seen Neil play the PFA twice and as much as I appreciate the soft seats and the lobby wine bar, I have a better time at the venues where people don’t stick to their chairs like they’ve been staple gunned. Except for you, two ladies in row 8. You rocked.

The Company: My husband, my BFF Maria, and her husband Ted. This is the second time we’ve double dated to see Neil at the PFA. While Maria will see anything with me (remember our Viking Metal adventure?) the husbands are a bit more discriminating. But they’ll always say yes to Neil.

The Crowd: Because we spent part of the intermission using Ted’s phone to discover something tantalizingly awful called the Racial Slur Database, I’ll refrain from saying it was a bunch of Betty Crockers and Cracker Jacks and instead say: Over 40 and melatonin-deficient. Present company included.

Special Guest: Neil’s father Richard, via Skype and a laptop. It was Richard’s 92nd birthday back in New Zealand, so Neil brought the laptop over to stage right where his dad could watch the show, wave at his son, take a couple of phone calls. Maria and I imagined him answering the phone and saying, “Ah, don’t worry, I can talk, it’s just Neil. I’ll mute it.” It was about the dearest thing ever, and culminated in a rousing audience rendition of Happy Birthday.

Age Humiliation Factor: Self-loathing.

I wanted to hate those dance-annulling seats. But they were really, really comfy.

Opening Band: Midlake

Three nice boys from Denton Texas with a CSNY vibe and a reverence for Neil Finn that bordered on manic. I think they were more eager to get offstage and hear Neil’s set than even we were.

Cool Factor: High

Our seats were pretty close.

And the set list was fabulous. As my Scottish friend Joanna might say, they went off piste a few times and “I Got You” was merely the middle of the encore, not the end of it.

Oh, and I got the set list at the end of the night, thanks to my husband telling a roadie it was my birthday. “Later this month,” he added under his breath, as we walked away.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? A thousand times, yes.

I’ve seen Neil play enough shows that when I entered a contest where you had to write a short essay about “The Act You Never Miss” and wrote about my Neil ticket archive, I won my husband and I a trip to the Grammys. So yes, I’m biased. But every show I’ve seen of his – even the last one at the PFA where, he reminded us last night, he had the flu and there was a power outage – was worth ten times the price of admission.

First off, he’s an incredibly talented guitarist and pianist. He practically had smoke pouring off Old Red, but I like his piano playing even better. His rendition of “Message to My Girl” was particularly lump-in-throat inducing last night. Here’s a vid from the 2006 Split Enz reunion tour to give you an idea.

Finn has a music catalog so broad and deep after thirty plus years in the business that to create his set list must feel a bit like sending a skipping stone back in time, barely skimming the surface of the material. He played a bunch of numbers from the new album Dizzy Heights, including my favorite, “Pony Ride.” He said this is also Richard’s favorite song from the new album because he was “the best boy racer in Te Rore.” Richard then waved to us from the laptop in New Zealand.

But there were also plenty of Split Enz favorites, Crowded House hits, and even a few Pajama Club numbers. Neil’s friendly stage banter covered everything from Khaleesi in the Game of Thrones to the America’s Cup in San Francisco last year (ouch, sorry, Kiwis. Frankly I was rooting for you over Larry Ellison.) And his penchant for conducting the audience through chord progression sing-alongs was in full effect during “Fall At Your Feet.”

But my favorite moment was when the band ripped into “I Got You” and the gal three seats down from me lost complete control and actually stood up and danced, which gave everyone else license to do the same, and for about four minutes we got to shake it. Then everyone sat down again. UGH.

Still, whether you’re seated, dancing, lying in a cot, watching on a laptop: if you get a chance to see Neil Finn, you just have to go.

Next show on the calendar: Old ‘97s, The Fillmore, May 10

                   
Comments“…Over 40 and melatonin-deficient.” HAHA! I love that. As ... by Linda Roy - elleroy was hereAlso loved his backup singer – she added really something new ... by DanaI heard Pony Ride on my local college radio station during my ... by EllenThanks for sharing this experience. On day I hope to actually ... by ShananYou NAILED the evening. Maybe he'll do a Fox show in Oakland, ... by BennyRelated StoriesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: LordeMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: Lord HuronMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The Pixies 

Midlife Mixtape Concert Review: Lorde

The Band: Lorde, March 27 2014. Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor is the preternaturally mature seventeen year old Kiwi who won this year’s Grammy for Song of the Year for Royals. With her Goth sensibility, lush songwriting, and lyrics that eschew materialism, she’s marketed as sort of an anti-Miley, anti-Taylor role model for girls. She has two backing band mates (and a backing track rather than backup singers) but it’s pretty much a solo show.

The Venue: The Fox Theater, Oakland. I was thrilled to finally show my sixteen year old daughter the inside of my favorite theater – here she is hanging out with the deities and their glow-eyes. She loved it but said, “Mom, it’s really hard to beat the Fillmore.” So sophisticated.

The Company: Aforementioned daughter, who gets 100% of the credit for playing Lorde for me the first time ages and ages ago. The selfsame daughter who I took to see One Direction a couple of years back. The same girl who said, as we left the Lorde show, “Now that I think about it, One Direction felt really inauthentic. Niall’s speech about how many albums they’ve sold – who cares?” Then, as we drove from the parking garage, she put on a song by Thomston. “I think you’ll like him, Mom. He’s an indie musician from New Zealand, he’s really good.” I could barely hold the steering wheel, I was kvelling so hard.

The Crowd: You know that really cool mom you’ve lost touch with, the one you used to talk to at your Mommy and Me/KinderGym/Baby Music class back when your kids were small? The one with good earrings who was always recommending interesting books? You’ll find her at the Lorde show with her now-teenage daughter, enjoying the music together. There was a smattering of daddy/daughter duos and independent grownups there as well, but it skewed pretty Mother/Daughter. Lots of surprised hugs and “Oh my god, she’s so tall now!” talk.

Age Humiliation Factor: Worse for the kids

Because you might be captain of your softball team, pulling all A’s in Junior year, volunteering at a soup kitchen and stockpiling money for college by babysitting for the Smith brood next door. BUT DO YOU HAVE TWO GRAMMYS LIKE YOUR CLASSMATE ELLA? Didn’t think so.

Opening Band: Lo-Fang

Lo-Fang is Matthew Hemerlein, a young Marylander who is a classically trained musician turned indie rocker who took to the stage in what may as well be the Official Twelve Month Outerwear of the Kho Family: the down puffer coat from Patagonia. My daughter and I liked him on principle just because of the coat. He also has possibly the finest head of male rock hair since Little Richard.

According to what I’ve read, Hemmerlein plays violin, cello, upright bass, piano, guitar and mandolin. During his set he switched from guitar to violin, often in the same song, and also switched from his regular register to falsetto, showcasing a versatility that will be cool to see as it develops. And when he did a cover of “You’re the One that I Want” from Grease, the teenage girls died, I mean DIED.

Cool Factor: High

These tickets were tough to score, even after Lorde added a second night, and finally required a StubHub investment. Can someone please explain to me why within one second of the onsale time, there are zero General Admission seats available…and then you click over to StubHub and there are 400 waiting to be bought at 4x the face value? Never mind. I know the answer.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Only if you have sons.

I don’t think I saw a single male under the age of twenty in the audience. But for the girls who were there, Lorde speaks and sings their language, movingly so. At one point she stopped and did a monologue about throwing a house party when her parents were out of town, and how grown up it made her feel. While the moms with whom I’d bonded with during the show and I snickered, “Yeah, real grown up, bet you didn’t pay for it or clean it up,” the girls around us were rapt. Enough so that I suddenly remembered being seventeen, when meeting my friends at the McDonalds for breakfast before school made me feel like Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin Round Table.

Ella’s a beautiful girl but not conventionally so, writing solid songs that talk about feeling out of place and being scared to grow up, and that means something real to her devoted teenage listeners. She dances kind of spastically, but seeing her live it was pretty obvious that it was just her feeling the music so, so deeply – the way teenage girls feel everything.

And her mane of hair deserves its own paragraph; it was like another band member. She’d put her head between her knees to sing a line or two and looked like Cousin It, then she’d pop up and swing it like a whip. At one point Ella said, “I know this is unprofessional but does anyone have a hair band I could use? I just washed my hair.” As a hailstorm of hairbands fell, she grabbed one, put it haphazardly into use, and ended up looking exactly like the gorgeous woman in Bryan Ferry’s Avalon video.

Like the mom of a teen daughter that I am, I am simultaneously impressed by and worried for Lorde – she’s very talented, but very young. I hope that over time she’ll take a page from Lo-Fang’s book and turn to more live instruments, switch out her backing track for backup singers, and expand that solo act a bit. Hemmerlein came out at the end to sing a couple songs with her and that was the most engaging part of the night for me, to see these two young musicians with ridiculously good hair tearing it up and enjoying themselves in the process. (And her gold lame cape-dress was the stuff of Halloween fantasy.)

Overall, solid props to a kid who is about a third of my age and handling herself like a pro. I think I want to be Lorde when I grow up.

Next show on the calendar: Neil Finn, Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco, April 1

                   
CommentsI'm so glad you didn't take the easy way out and just make fun ... by LanceThat you KNOW of. Did you touch the mop to see if it was wet? ... by Nancy Davis KhoI have a policy of at least one Roxy Music link a month. by Nancy Davis KhoThis was actually my favorite song of his that night – ... by Nancy Davis KhoI always forget you went to Cal. It's so lovely now – but ... by Nancy Davis KhoPlus 5 more...Related StoriesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: The PixiesMidlife Mixtape Concert Review: Lord Huron56th Grammy Awards Part 3: After Party 

Full Disclosure

Last week I discovered a new and odious habit. I have begun telling long stories to strangers that have nothing to do with the listener or, frankly, the situation in which we found ourselves. Three times in the space of one week.

First there was the prospective SAT tutor for my teenager who I was talking to on the phone. First we’re talking about test dates and schedules and suddenly I was off in the weeds, telling him about my friend Katrina’s book and how glad I am not to live two towns over where the women have to get dressed up to go to the grocery store. When I finished, the silence on the other end of the phone line was so protracted that I thought we’d been cut off. We hadn’t, though I’m sure the young man on the other end of the line was praying very hard for just that to take place. The upshot is that when I realized what I’d done, I decided to encourage my daughter to take the ACT instead.

Then I was talking to the receptionist at the podiatrist office (yes, my closet cleaning injury is still bothering me four months later) and delivered a monologue that ended with this riveting nugget of information: “My teenager likes to paint her nails. But I don’t.” When those words left my mouth I emerged from my fugue state, to wonder who in the world was telling this boring story, only to realize it was me.

And finally, I was chatting with a writer friend at the clubhouse of our nearby municipal driving range, aka Meadow in the Ghetto, when her sixteen year old son stopped by to say a polite hello in the middle of his golf team practice. I not only started telling him a story about nothing, but halfway through swiveled away from him to face his mom and finish the story, leaving him looking at my back and wondering whether he was allowed to flee back to the links.

That incident was so flagrant that my friend said, “You know you just pulled an old lady move, right? When you start telling a story to one person, then finish telling it to someone else?” It should be noted that neither mother nor son had any reason to care about what I was telling them, so unimportant that I can’t even remember now what it was.

So far none of my disclosures have included medical information, but surely that day is just around the corner. Let Me Tell You About My Eczema!

Is this compulsion to tell stories to complete strangers a sign of my advancing age, another indignity thrust upon me by Father Time? A cloud of existential angst settled upon me as I pictured what comes next: Murder She Wrote reruns, flax seed smoothies, and tissues stuffed up my cardigan sleeve.

And then I remembered: oh, right, I’m a blogger. I’ve been doing this for years.

Electronic music duo Disclosure teamed up with Mary J. Blige for this infectious dance hall treat – I dare you not to get up and shake it.

 

                   
CommentsWe'll do the Werthers with a flax seed chaser. GAME ON. by Nancy Davis KhoYes! This! Oh thank Goddess, it's not just me. I get into these ... by Linda Roy - elleroy was hereAt my place this week I wrote about me turning into frances ... by LanceOr as I used to retort when my older brother and sister said, ... by Nancy Davis KhoLet's stand together at your wife's next reading so we don't ... by Nancy Davis KhoPlus 5 more...Related StoriesMotherWritersFace ItAn Open Letter to the Handybook App 

#WhereILivedWednesday: Haidhauser Straße

Ann Imig of Ann’s Rants has a meme called “Where I Lived Wednesdays” in which bloggers are invited to reminisce about hovels of bygone days, and link up on her site. Want to play? Just click here and leave your link so everyone can find you…

I moved to Munich at age 22 for my first post-college job. In what I failed to recognize as foreshadowing of how free he would be in imposing outrageous demands on his employees, the company owner promised that I could lodge with one of my new co-workers and his girlfriend for as long as it took to find an apartment of my own. It was very kind of Gerhard and Anna to house me temporarily, an imposition that I’m sure made them as excited to help me look for my own place as I was to not share another dinner that ended with them licking the insides and lids of the yoghurt containers when spoons were no longer enough.

My co-worker somehow found a girl my age who was moving back to her native Brazil from Germany, and was eager to cancel her lease and sell the contents of her apartment, lock, stock, and strudel. Because the German landlady was a stickler for rules (shocker!) she would likely want the place completely emptied before she re-rented it, and it was going to take some tricky talking to get her to agree to our switcheroo on the lease. So Gerhard and I went to the apartment after work one night to check it out and get our stories straight.

The apartment building was in a neighborhood called Haidhausen, not far from my office in Rosenheimer Platz. The building itself was nothing to write home about: boxy and bland, with a narrow cement block landing that led to the sidewalk. And the apartment was on the ground floor, right next to the main entry, with two big windows into which a passerby could conceivably peek. (Wow. I just found it on Google Street View – the white van is parked right next to my windows.) I had moved from Philly, where an apartment situated like that would be highly vulnerable to a break in. In Munich, I was already realizing, I probably wouldn’t have to sweat it.  An efficient, punctual streetcar ran down the main street that was perpendicular to where I’d be living, and could drop me off steps from work.

Gerhard and I knocked on the door and the Brazilian girl opened it. We were, thereby, already in the kitchen. It wasn’t so much a galley kitchen as a single counter on the left with a sink, shelves, and a dorm-sized fridge which she was selling too. (In Germany you have to supply your own appliances in an apartment rental, right down to the ‘fridge.)  On the right: the bathroom door. Straight ahead, the single room that comprised the rest of the apartment, cunningly furnished with the best Ikea space-saving furniture the Brazilian girl could afford. A couch that became a bed, a desk that was also a dining room table, shelves that could hold clothes or books. It looked like it would take eleventy seconds to clean the whole place.

While Gerhard negotiated with her in German at a linguistic speed it would take me months to achieve myself, I glanced around. It wasn’t just that I would move into this girl’s old apartment. I’d be moving into her entire life, right down to the immersion blender and the egg whisk. I would be filling the immigrant-new-girl-shaped space that the Brazilian was vacating. I’d come to Germany with two pieces of luggage. I wanted everything she had.

Especially the achievement of living in Germany by myself for two years.

At some point in the discussion Gerhard looked at me and raised his eyebrows, indicating the whole space with a nod of his head. “Ja?”

“Ja,” I said, smiling at the Brazilian. Ja what did you say again?

The Bavarian landlady wasn’t happy, but she eventually agreed to our plan, with one iron-clad caveat. I had to empty the apartment down to the drywall when I moved, whenever that would be. I moved in with a blue suitcase and a green duffel bag.

My Haidhauser Straße apartment was the first place I ever lived by myself, and became home base – in the kid’s game sense of the word, a safe haven to rest – for all the exploration I did when I lived in Germany. I found a back way to walk to the office alongside green parks and chic restaurants and never took the streetcar. I met an American girl who was my lifeline when I just needed someone to understand an American pop culture reference. I joined forces with a group of Germans my age who immediately invited me to join their Stammtisch, their standing Sunday night get together at a pub nearby. I fell in love with a German guy who, even if he lived in a different city, was a rock of stability during my time there. I hosted a parade of visitors, grateful that the foldout couch was endlessly adaptable; sometimes the entire floor of the main room was covered in couch cushions to accommodate everyone who happened to be in town, especially during Oktoberfest.

And when, two years later, I felt the same yearning for home that the Brazilian girl had, I threw a going-away part so big that people came and left through the windows straight onto the sidewalk, sat not just at but on the dining room table, mingled in the bathroom because everywhere else was packed. The goody bag? Everyone had to take something from my apartment when they left to help me empty it out, right down to the mini-fridge. Someone is probably still using my immersion blender.

Taken by the tallest German I knew

So even if it was tiny, I was always proud of my Haidhausen studio. I started out with so little that I had to borrow someone else’s life for awhile. But I ended my time there with enough friends to violate the German fire code.

All these years later I have no idea what was on that party playlist, but I’m certain Redhead Kingpin would have made the cut.

                   
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Turn Down the Music and Read: One Way Out

Here’s the problem when you self-designate as someone who has a professional interest in the field of Music: you spend most of your time realizing that what you possess is only a tiny pinpoint of knowledge, a single note in a never-ending orchestra of sound. There are expanses so vast and deep of Stuff To Know About Music that you don’t even know what you don’t know.

Case in point: The Allman Brothers Band.

When a publicist offered me a review copy of “One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band” (St. Martin’s Press, 2014) by Alan Paul, a senior writer for Guitar World magazine, I knew only three things about the band.

1. One of the brothers dated Cher.

2. They are not the Almond Brothers. (Only had to learn that once, circa 1978.)

3. They sing “Ramblin’ Man.”

So when I sat down with Paul’s book,  I had plenty to learn. And what an awesome textbook.

Paul interviewed and wrote about the Allman Brothers Band and their Southern Rock roots hundreds of times, so we’re in good hands from Page 1. His knowledge of everything ABB shows in the masterful way he stitches together the interviews with bandmates, roadies, managers, and significant others and then steps out of the way, letting the principals tell the story. First person recollections of how the six bandmates came together and created their distinctive Southern-tinged psychedelic and bluesy sound reminded me a little of a Rube Goldberg machine. All the disparate personalities came together to form an elegant, if improbable single unit. (There’s a helpful guide at the front of the book to the characters contributing their memories, to which I referred repeatedly.)

The stories live up to the “Wild music, wild women, wild times” reputation that followed the band wherever it went. And sadly for the band and its fans, those wild times led to one tragedy after the next, from the untimely deaths of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley to multiple drug overdoses to alcoholism and even murder. It’s hard to conceive of a band in the 21st century getting up to these kinds of hijinks without their manager, Dr. Phil, or the long arm of  Twitter shutting the party down.

The “oral history” approach has its faults, though Paul can’t be held accountable; when three different people remember the same incident in different ways, I tend to think it’s more the residual effects of the drugs or age. Either Duane Allman either repeatedly pestered his younger brother to join his new band as a vocalist, or Gregg got a single phone call and went. Similarly, Gregg either hitchhiked down to Macon, GA, where the new band was crammed together on mattresses in a one bedroom apartment, or he flew, or he sold a car and bought a one-way ticket to Jacksonville. As I like to say when my own deteriorating memory is called into question: the details don’t matter! Just the big things! Gregg somehow joined forces with Duane, and the rest is history.

Through the years and the deaths and the in-fighting, the Allman Brothers Band has managed to survive, testament to the strength of the music itself. They’re with three of the original bandmembers, Greg Allman (that was Cher’s guy), Jaimoe, and Butch Trucks. In fact they’ve been around long enough that ABB is now a two-generation band, with guitarist Derek Trucks joining his dad onstage.

I was probably born too late for ABB’s music to have a nostalgic grip on me. But thanks to the masterful writing in “One Way Out,” I was more than happy to take the (Midnight) ride.

St. Martin’s has graciously offered to send a copy of One Way Out to a Midlife Mixtape reader! All you have to do to enter is leave the name of your favorite Allman Brothers song below; it’s all in service to schooling me more on the band, see. I’ll pick a winner on Tuesday, March 25 at 5 pm PST.

                   
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Face It

I have a bone to pick with my computer’s facial recognition software.

When I bought this computer a couple of years ago, I liked that it offered an easier way to unlock the operating system than typing in a password: the little camera at the top of the monitor focuses on the user, the computer learns to recognize authorized users over time, and – in theory – at some point all I need to do is smile and say ‘Good Morning!’ and the computer should unlock itself and jump to attention, ready to work.

The problem is that I am also shown, on the screen, the image that the computer is seeing. So I KNOW that two years later, the only time this computer recognizes me right away is when I look like I’m being photographed for my mug shot. That, or if I’m chewing.

If I have my hair fixed and I’m wearing makeup, forget it. The computer acts like we’ve never met. Same goes with shirts that are not of the sweat variety. It HATES earrings. On all those occasions, I get a “Computer Locked: Input Password” message.

But if I stumble into the office in the wee dark hours before the kids get up, wearing my Easter-pastel-colored flannel jammies and my hair sticking straight up, the computer is all, “Oh, hey Nancy, there you are, ‘sup!” If I sit down while wolfing a muffin that I was too distracted to realize should have been eaten in more than one bite, my computer is unlocked and off to the races before I can swallow. Today I tested it by sticking my tongue out and squinching up my eyes. Express Lane Open!

Look, I know I take full advantage of the fact that I work from home. I wear a t-shirt and jeans most days, and since I’m going to go hiking at lunchtime with the dog, it’s unethical to shower in the morning because there’s a drought and I’d just have to do it again in the afternoon. So why do more than just brush my teeth in the morning? It’s not until 3:30, when the first kid gets home from school, that anyone even sees what I’m wearing. It’s probably true that the Facial Recognition software sees me in my Vida Verde sweatshirt, or my What Would Joan Jett Do? Tshirt four days out of five.

But it’s hurtful when it acts like I’m a stranger, just because I managed to get lipstick and a necklace on before 2 pm.

So here’s the deal, software. Pretend, when I sit down looking like Walter Matthau, that you’ve never seen me before. Immediately lock yourself up, terrified, worried that I’ve been possessed by an evil spirit because I NEVER look that bad, and don’t relent until I come back wearing under eye concealer and a smile on my face.

And I won’t uninstall you.

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