Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 9

Learning to Disengage

News from the home front: Our youngest daughter survived the college application process that seems to have started infinity years ago and was made extra sporty in 2019 thanks to the Operation Varsity Blues admissions scandal. Don’t worry, I successfully photoshopped her face onto an Olympian pole-vaulter’s body and sent the pic to USC, so she’s all set for next fall.

Actually, she played her cards very close to the vest – we never even read her personal statement or essays – and came up with her list of schools with only a modicum of parental input. It was a good list, and she’s off to a school next fall that seemed from the start to be the right fit for her. It’s not a school that seems like an easy fit, by the way. She’s going to have to put a lot of herself into making it successful, and I’m mostly relieved about that. I think part of college is making yourself a little bit uncomfortable – it’s too big, or too rural, or too city, or too bohemian, or too preppy – and seeing what you do with that irritant. The whole oyster/pearl thing.

But the fact of the matter is that she graduates high school in May and heads to school in September and then my husband and I will be empty nesters.

As the good people at Grown and Flown say, “Parenting never ends.” Obviously. I called my 85-year-old mom last week when I got upsetting news about a friend, because I knew she’d make me feel better, and she did. Our other college girl asks for my opinion on certain subjects more now than she did when she lived under my roof. I understand that I am not setting my child to sea on an ice floe.

But in terms of hands-on feeding/driving/cleaning up after/doing laundry for? I’m about to have my workload cut to the bone, for the first time in 21 years.

I’m trying to be sentimental about it, but I just can’t work up a tear about not needing to transfer the 845 separate drinking receptacles sitting on my kitchen counter to their final dishwasher destination, four feet away.

The thing that will be hard, though, is putting my internal sensors into hibernation (calling it “retirement” feels like tempting fate.)

One of my mom’s catchphrases during my childhood that eventually became one of mine is, “A thousand times a day, dear, a thousand times a day: your mother thinks about you, at home, at work, at play.” That’s it. It’s the shaping of your day by the needs of someone else’s, in a way that is so deeply ingrained that it’s not even conscious.

Obviously 18-year-olds don’t require nearly the same parental exertions as were necessary in the diaper-changing years. Still. I get up and start working at 6, because at 7:30 I need to be upstairs making sure people are up and moving and forms are signed and lunch stuff is available. I never schedule meetings between 8-9 in case I need to drive to school. I try to wrap up most things by 4:15 when the front door reopens so I can be around if I’m needed again, but I always leave myself a few more mindless tasks to complete in my office in case what’s actually needed is utter silence and reprieve from a mom who is saying, “How was your day? What happened? Did anything interesting happen today?” Although even if Mom’s not asking those questions aloud, she is downstairs in her office listening hard for evidence of the answers.

The 5:30 pm drive to ballet each evening, especially once we’ve picked up the other kid who asks my daughter a ton of questions about school, friends, and college: a goldmine of listening and assessment. Same when we are given the post-ballet report over a very late dinner. And although I recently told some friends, “I don’t parent past 10 pm unless you’re barfing,” it’s a full day of being on alert, even so.

I imagine it as a control center in my brain that simply scans a grid of my children’s physical and emotional states all day, every day, when we are under the same roof. Like a radar sweep that operates in the background until you hear the warning “blip” and pop into action.

My older daughter tells me that when her college friends ask her how her parents are going to cope once the younger sister is gone next September, she says, “Don’t worry about my parents. They have things to do.” My book comes out this fall and I have a million related tasks and plans. My husband will be stepping into some new responsibilities at work himself in the coming months. We’ll be busy, all right.

I just need to figure out how to disengage the Mom Sonar first.

My younger daughter loves this band.

***

Marketing genius that I am, I only recently remembered that I wrote an eBook back when the girls were much smaller, with a collection of essays on parenting (of humans and pets.) The Family Mix is still available for your eReader if you ever want to give it a go! There, that’s my hard sell.

***

See you at the Cat Club on 1190 Folsom Street San Francisco on April 13 for the next Midlife Mixtape ’80s Alternative Dance party! All are welcome – it’s a fundraiser for Bay Area food banks so bring your change for the bar buckets! All details here…

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CommentsMy son is still in the single digits but I know I will be in ... by TracySO MANY SLEEPOVERS. I'm getting new guestroom towels. by Nancy Davis KhoOne-sided, in the BEST way. No one disagreeing with you. Plus, ... by Nancy Davis KhoMe too! Fingers crossed xoxoox by Nancy Davis KhoWell at least we will be there together for moral support…and ... by Nancy Davis KhoPlus 5 more...Related StoriesSqueezing the Juice Out of the SemesterCollege Search Season Is Upon UsMake It Last 

Ep 51 Grown & Flown Co-founder Mary Dell Harrington

“Letting the kite string out”: Mary Dell Harrington, co-founder of the Grown & Flown media platform for parents of kids aged 15-25, talks about the “digital dinner table,” helping first generation college kids, and the benefits of meandering.

Grown and Flown website
Grown and Flown Parents Group on FB

Awwww. If this isn’t music made for 8-year-old girls, I don’t know what is.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!

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CommentsI hope your hip is healing fine – and glad we got to distract ... by Nancy Davis Kho (@midlifemixtape)Nancy, I really enjoyed listening to this podcast while I did ... by RisaRelated StoriesEp 44 Moving Consultant Margaret VandergriffEp 40 Headcount Co-Founder Andy BernsteinEp 48 Concert Photographer Aimee Giese 

Turn Down the Music and Read: Daisy Jones & the Six

I’ll say it up front: I’m a sucker for a good music-themed oral history. Mad World, Meet Me in the Bathroom, VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave…I love when an author can masterfully blend a bunch of competing narratives and timestamps to show us the complexities and he said/she said/they said stories that comprise real life.

So even if my local indie bookseller Kathleen HADN’T greeted my every visit to Great Good Place for Books in Oakland over the past six months with “OH MY GOD NANCY YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE Daisy Jones & The Six SO MUCH, I CAN’T STAND IT” I probably would have bought it as soon as I realized it’s a fake oral history of a fake ‘70s rock band’s rise and fall. I mean. Coincidentally, I had just whipped through author Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, so I know she can tell the hell out of a story.

Daisy Jones & The Six was worth the all-caps hype from my bookseller. We start out meeting The Six, an Eagles-esque rock band fronted by charismatic and definitely sex/drugs/rock n’roll lifestyle-appreciating Billy Dunne. Separately, Daisy Jones (an homage to Stevie Nicks, or Linda Rondstadt?) is on the rise as a singer and songwriter whose own self-destructive tendencies threaten to derail her. When Daisy and the band are finally pushed together through the engineering of their business managers, it’s magic, but fragile magic. The group’s star rises, and so do the personal costs. There is so. much. longing in this book.

It’s very Fleetwood Mac-ian.

Reid’s mastery of the oral history form is terrific – the way the description of a single incident changes completely based on the blind spots and sensitivities of the person telling it, giving you a clearer and clearer understanding of the individual characters. I also loved where the story came through in the omissions. You’re clipping along reading and suddenly you think, wait, did I miss something? Did he really just say, “The next morning?” What happened in between?

And the characters are so strong, especially the female characters. You will not be surprised to hear that the book has already been picked up for development into a series by a certain Hollywood powerhouse whose name rhymes with Schmeese Schmitherspoon. The audio version of the book has Jennifer Beals voicing the Daisy Jones character – brilliant casting.

I had a chance to hear Reid read (hahaha oh god I make myself laugh) last week at Great Good Place and was flabbergasted to hear her say that until she wrote this book, she really didn’t know anything about music. She was being interviewed by Alex Green of the Stereo Embers site and podcast and mentioned a few rather well-known ‘70s bands that she’s since become fond of, saying, “Did you know about them?” Like the universe as represented by Alex had been keeping them a secret from her.  Whatever her lack of prior knowledge, she proved a quick study, creating a nuanced, authentic version of the ‘70s music industry, with a ferociously satisfying ending.

You’ll clip through it in no time and wonder when they’re going on a reunion tour.

Speaking of the ‘Mac – here’s Neil Finn playing Landslide with Stevie Nicks on the latest tour

*** Hello Dancers! I’m DJ’ing your favorite Alternative ’80s dance hits again on Saturday, April 13 at the Cat Club in SF, 9 pm – ? This time around we’re going deep with English Beat and Human League, and we’ll be raising $$ for Bay Area Food Banks. Come one come all! Send me your requests!

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Ep 50 Listeners’ Advice to Younger People

“You do you”: Reassuring, practical, and inspiring, Midlife Mixtape Podcast listeners share advice for people younger than them, including what they’d tell their younger selves (Don’t sled backwards!)

Nancy’s advice to her younger self includes “Go to that one Prince show, dummy.”

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!

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CommentsYou can’t change other people. So true! by Glynis MasonRelated StoriesEp 45 HONY Mixtape Couple Ellen and DavidEp 49 Gutsy Girl Caroline PaulAdvice To Your Younger Self 

Concert Review: Billy Idol and Steve Stevens

The Band: Billy Idol and Steve Stevens, March 8 2019. This “Turned On, Tuned In, and Unplugged” tour by ‘80s uber-icon Idol and his lead guitarist of 30 years is described as “an opportunity to enjoy their hits, deeper album cuts and songs that influenced them both in a new and intimate setting. Plus, hear spoken word interludes from Billy Idol adding color to the stories behind the songs and career of one of rock’s most compelling survivors.”

I’m giving to you straight at the top of this review: I was never a huge ‘80s MTV-era Billy Idol fan, though I would never deny that he was talented. Just wasn’t my cuppa. But when I read his 2014 memoir and learned more about his roots in the London ‘70s punk scene with his first band, Generation X, I delved deep and found I really liked their sound. So when I saw the tix for this show I thought it might be an interesting opportunity to see a 63-year old punk do his thing.

The Venue: The Palace of Fine Arts Theater in San Francisco. Fifty percent of the reason I bought these tickets was because I’ve been to PFA before and it is a perfect music venue…if that music is folk or classical. I mean. Built in 1915 as part of the Panama Pacific International Exposition, with big cushy rocking seats and no dance space, this is the binary opposite of a punk venue. Chalk one up for morbid curiosity.

The Company: The minute I hit “Purchase” on these tickets I was considering putting them up on StubHub and buying myself lunch with the proceeds. Then I mentioned it to my friend Michelle Villegas Threadgould, a Millennial Latina punk music journalist, who yelped and said, “OH MY GOD PLEASE TAKE ME.” If the hippest youngest music writer I know thinks Billy Idol is cool, who am I to say no? (Check out her essays in the fabulous Women Who Rock book that came out last year.)

Here’s Michelle and me back when we were young and innocent, aka five minutes before the show started.

The Crowd: Ok, I am exempting everyone who sat behind row L because you were behind us and may have been totally fine. But Rows A-K: are you kidding me?

It appears to have been the first concert for many, many of you, elsewise why did you talk through the whole show? Why the fist pumping during the ballads? Why, two girls down front, did you selfie-film yourselves with your backs to the stage so Billy and Steve could be the wallpaper to your no-doubt-riveting livestream, for so very long? Why, couple directly in our sight line, so much dry-humping and butt-patting? There was no safe place to put our eyes so Michelle and I kept gazing at one another in horror. The tech bros and the suburban housewives on Rumpsringa were really, really a lot.

But I will reserve special ire for one man, who unfortunately sat in the very center seat of the front row. Appearing to come straight from a meeting at his enterprise software company with his matrix direct reports on agile software development and bimodal IT, he just wanted to get his swerve on, I guess. That wasn’t the problem.

It was that he treated the front row as a cocktail party, traveling from person to person for a chat, even during the ballads, with Billy Idol singing about 54 inches away. For a while he was up to some social engineering, trying to get suburban housewives to rotate in to his seat between his buddies, then Dancing By Himself, then high-fiving and hugging the livestreaming selfie girls. The way he roamed up and down the front row talking to everyone in their seats, I think maybe he was trying to get his steps in for the day for his LifeTracker app?

Finally, thankfully, someone asked security to have a Come to Jesus with him, at which point his annoying behavior was confined to the four square feet around his center seat, where he pogo’d and fist pumped with deep commitment, for the remainder of the show.

If it sounds like I got distracted from headliner’s storytelling and song performance, well, at least the audience story had an arc I could follow.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Save the date

If the question is whether I’m glad I went, I’ll say yes. At this point, I’ll buy a ticket to see any artist I haven’t yet seen play live and in whom I have more than a passing interest, and Billy Idol and Steve Stevens more than meet that criteria.

Steve Stevens created all the amazing guitar riffs you associate with Idol – just think of the first few bars of “Dancing with Myself” or “Rebel Yell”- and his solo turn in the middle of the show was super impressive. It kind of cracked me up to see hear a guy once nicknamed “The Duke of Darkness” talking to Billy in his Brooklyn accent; I just kept expecting him to give a deli recommendation of where to getting the thinnest sliced ham.

And Billy Idol certainly remains an icon of my youth. Michelle drove us from Oakland and had her Spotify set to “Essential Billy Idol” on the way across the Bay Bridge – we only came to a song we didn’t both  know all the words to as we were pulling into the Fillmore neighborhood, an hour later.

Billy told a lot of stories, a sort of stream-of-conscious “Behind the Music” that included the phrase “Fu*k me stiff!” more than once. So…that happened. If you consider the impact of thirty years of punk vocals and punk lifestyle on a person, I’d say we were hearing Billy’s 2019 best. (I particularly liked the acoustic “Kiss Me Deadly” from the Generation X years – I’ll post a clip over on Instagram.) And in the end, what notes he might not be able to hit, the tech bros and Rumspringa housewives nailed, so the whole concert was a match made in heaven.

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Ep 49 Gutsy Girl Caroline Paul

photo Olga Shmaidenko

“Value bravery”: Author, pilot, and former San Francisco firefighter Caroline Paul talks about the importance of instilling bravery into girls instead of fear, the changing laws of midlife attraction, and her punk rock Jackson Browne phase.

Caroline’s website
Books

You Are Mighty
The Gutsy Girl
Lost Cat
A Little Tea Book
East Wind, Rain
Fighting Fire


When Your Twin is a famous Baywatch Star, and You’re Not

Thanks, Caroline, for the excuse to sing along with this one at the top of my lungs while I wrote the show notes. It had been too long. “And the benediction of the neon lights…”

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!

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Church Ladies

Once upon a time in 2014, I wrote a “midlife music crisis” memoir that did not find a publisher. I am well past that disappointment by now, and in fact recognize it as a stepping stone to the book that DID find a publisher and comes out this fall. That said, the memoir, which chronicled my efforts to find more “midlife-appropriate” concerts to go to, contained some anecdotes about people whom I adored.

Like my church friend Leigh, who passed away last week. I’m sharing this excerpt in loving memory of a wonderful woman.

***

When you’re busy raising a young family, it’s easy to get stuck with a narrow band of acquaintances who are all either your age or your kids’ ages. That was true for Andrew and me: most everyone we knew in Oakland was a parent we’d met through our children’s schools, or a kid who attended them.

There was only one place where I spent quality time with people born before rock n’ roll was invented, and that was at my lefty, activist Episcopal church in the Oakland hills, where white heads outnumbered all others by a two-to-one ratio. Church was where I got to roll two deep with Leigh.

She and I had met a couple years earlier, when we were set up on a sort of sacramental blind date. Leigh was one of the many elderly widows who attended our church but no longer drove, and needed a ride each Sunday morning to and from her downtown Oakland senior housing high-rise.

I had signed up as a member of our church’s “Ride Brigade” after I flamed out in my stint as a volunteer church school teacher for the preschoolers. When I first volunteered for that gig, our daughters were preschoolers themselves and it felt like a reasonable way to dip my toe in the water of holy involvement. Given that my primary childhood church memories were of the frosted cookies at coffee hour and of being reprimanded by Mom and Dad whenever my sister Sally and I got hysterical laughing in the pew yet again, I knew that the sole group of Episcopals among whom I stood a chance of having superior religious knowledge were those who still rode in car seats and watched Dragon Tales on PBS after their nap.

Even so, for those few years that I taught preschool, each Sunday required a full week of cramming from a Children’s Bible and one mighty prayer to the good Lord above: Please, God, don’t let the children ask any follow-up questions. Snack time in my class took almost the full hour, and I was not above letting the kids who sat in circle time on the floor go off on a tangent about their pets or their funny cousin, to shorten my active teaching time. When the church introduced a new curriculum that encouraged the children to actively “wonder” about scripture while a teacher used beautifully crafted play sets to guide thoughtful discussion, I knew my St. Peter Principle level of incompetency had been reached. The chance to drive grateful widows who might otherwise have been homebound couldn’t have come at a better time.

I’d never met Leigh when the ride coordinator called to tell me who I’d be driving her the last Sunday of each month. I assumed she was part of the posse of elderly ladies who sat in the front left side of the sanctuary, canes and walkers leaned up against the pew in front of them. When I pulled up in front of her apartment building that first morning, I only knew that my rider was ninety-something. I expected to park the car and get out to offer my arm, in case she had mobility problems. Before I could even turn the ignition off, though, a tall woman with close-cropped white hair bounded out of the building’s sliding glass doors carrying a small potted orchid in her hand, and leapt into the front seat of my car.

“Nancy?” she said, a big smile on her face. A glitzy flower bobby pin she’d fastened into her pixie cut caught the sunlight.

“You must be Leigh,” I said.

Leigh leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “This is for you,” she said, handing me the orchid and settling comfortably back into her seat, like she’d ridden shotgun with me a hundred times before. “Let’s get out of here.”

Within five minutes, I learned that she was one of the original Pan American stewardesses, had married a pilot, raised six sons, worked as a reading specialist, and loved adventure. Leigh told me that she and her late husband Hugh had actually walked across Africa together, from one side of the continent to the other.

“What year was that?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t remember,” she said, “but it was quite an adventure. We met the Masai.” When we realized that we’d both had the good taste to marry tall men of Chinese extraction, our friendship was sealed.

We pulled up to the church parking lot, where burrowing redwood tree roots make the blacktop uneven and perilous. I suggested to Leigh that I drop her off at the front door. She rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue against her teeth.

“Nancy,” she said, exasperated. “I just told you I’ve walked across Africa. I think I can manage a parking lot.” I had to scurry to keep up with her once she got out of my car and sprinted toward the church’s front door.

I doubt Leigh had ever pulled any punches, but now, in her ninth decade, she’d permanently disabled her internal editor and let fly with frank observations and questions. Here’s a short sample of our conversations over the months that followed.

“You know that woman who drives me the second Sunday of the month, Nancy? She’s horrible. She veers all over the road.”

“Leigh, do you not feel safe driving with her? That’s not a good situation. Do you want me to call someone to arrange a switch?”

“Well, I figure I gotta die some way. May as well be in her car.”

Or, wrapping up some anecdote about her forty-five-year marriage, “You understand what I’m talking about, Nancy. These Asian men are so good looking, you can forgive them a lot.” She also warned me that I should never leave her alone with Andrew, because she was liable to flirt with him.

Or, my favorite exchange of all, conducted during the silent prayer part of the Sunday service:

“Nancy! What is waxing?”

“Leigh, shhhhhh, keep your voice down! I’ll tell you in the car on the way home.”

A long pause.

“I HAVE MY SUSPICIONS.”

Of course I was smitten with Leigh. She was full of gumption and grace. She was a fan of art-house movies and ice cream, so we’d catch both every few months. The Ride Brigade rules dictate that we should call the night before to remind our passenger about the next day’s pickup. Whenever I called Leigh to remind her that I would drive to church the next day, if she still wanted to go, she’d guffaw. “Of course!” she’d say. “What else am I going to do all day? I never have plans.”

One Sunday in late May, I asked, “Do you want to go to the San Francisco Symphony with me next month, Leigh?” as we drove home.

“Of course! What else am I going to do all day? I never have plans,” she answered, without even asking what day we’d be going.

***

The day of the symphony dawned bright and sunny, a perfect day to go into San Francisco. As was my custom with Leigh, I’d called her the night before to remind her we had plans.

“Do you still want to go to the symphony, Leigh?” I asked. “I’ll pick you up at 12:30.”

Leigh sounded surprised to hear from me, though I knew she’d written the date and time of the symphony in big letters on her refrigerator calendar in her orchid-filled apartment. I wasn’t sure whether it was because she’d expected me to cancel, or that she hadn’t remembered our plan.

I found out the reason when I arrived the next afternoon and Leigh wasn’t waiting for me in the lobby of her high rise. I’d left extra early to pick her up, in case something like this went down, so I wasn’t worried about being late. The receptionist suggested I check the dining room. “She’s getting a little more forgetful these days,” she said, lips pursed, and I realized I’d been noticing the gradual change too. I walked down the broad carpeted hallway and peeked through the glass walls of the dining room. Sure enough, there was Leigh holding court over baked chicken at a table of fellow residents.

“Leigh?” I said, as I approached her table with a smile. “Still want to go to the symphony with me?”

Leigh looked stricken and jumped from her seat. “I knew I forgot something!” she said, and with her customary speed she left her table mates and meal in the dust and began sprinting toward the front door.

“It’s okay, Leigh,” I said. “You need to go back to your apartment to get your purse and your jacket. We’re fine on time, don’t sweat it.”

After a few minutes, Leigh bopped back into sight through the lobby doors, now with her purse and jacket, and didn’t stop apologizing for her memory lapse until we were almost to the symphony parking garage in San Francisco a half hour later.

Davies Symphony Hall was imposing on the outside, but an island of modern minimalist beauty and calm within. Between the expansive staircases, the graceful pendulum lighting, and the wall of windows that looks out onto the neighboring Opera House and San Francisco’s City Hall, the sense of grand occasion was impressed upon audience members from the moment we stepped inside. We needed to celebrate.

“Leigh, how about a glass of champagne?” I suggested.

She beamed at me. “I would love that.”

We sat at a little table looking out toward City Hall with its gleaming gilded dome and watched as symphony goers from kindergarteners to old folks milled about. As the champagne bubbles tickled our noses, we toasted each other, the beautiful day, and cute Chinese husbands, then headed for our seats in the higher reaches of the hall.

In our section, each row stepped down from the one behind it, which meant that our shins were even with the heads of the people sitting in front of us. Leigh nudged me and tilted her head backward, so I turned to look and came face to face with a Seeing Eye dog who was obediently parked at his master’s feet in the row behind us. If the yellow lab had wanted to, he could have licked our ears without moving his head.

Leigh and I both giggled and bent over our Playbills, waiting for the music to start.

***

This is the Dvorack cello concerto Leigh and I heard that day, featuring Gautier Capuçon. It was cool, but not as cool as Leigh.

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CommentsWhat a fantastic story, thank you for sharing! I wish I'd known ... by SeanTruth is, I wish I had been a more reliable companion to her ... by Nancy Davis Kho (@midlifemixtape)Awww… love this. Thanks for sharing. by JillI recall hearing you you talk about Leigh a lot, and what a ... by FloribundaWhen I “wondered” to the kids about a particular Bible ... by Nancy Davis KhoNancy, what a wonderful tribute to Leigh. Your post reminded ... by Su-sanRelated StoriesRide BrigadeAdvice To Your Younger SelfEgo Decernere 

Advice To Your Younger Self

If you’ve tuned into any of the Midlife Mixtape Podcast episodes you know that I always wrap up my interviews by asking guests, “What advice do you have for younger people, or do you wish you could go back and tell yourself?”

No offense to First Concerts, but this is usually my favorite part of the interview. It’s where the wisdom of earned experience shines through, in ways pragmatic and lofty. Many of the guests start by saying that, even if they COULD go back and talk to their younger selves, their younger selves would have ignored the advice. Ouch. Relatable.

Still, the answers tend to be profound and are still, I think, helpful reminders regardless of your age. Let go of perfectionism. Take more risks. Don’t worry so much what other people are doing. Wear earplugs when you go to a concert.

So for the FIFTIETH episode of the Midlife Mixtape Podcast – 50! What? I KNOW! – which will air on Tuesday, March 12, I want to know from YOU:

What advice do you have for younger people, or do you wish you could go back and tell yourself?

Here’s how to send in your answer:

Leave a comment on this blog post
Email me your life advice at dj@midlifemixtape.com
Send me a tweet or Instagram comment @midlifemixtape
Leave me a voice mail right from your computer! If you’re reading this on your desktop or mobile device, you’ll see a blue button on the right hand side that says, “Advice To Your Younger Self?” Just press it, and you can start recording with one click. I would LOVE for people to do this so I can incorporate your actual voice on the episode!
Record a voice memo into your phone and email it to dj@midlifemixtape.com. Again, it would be so cool to hear and share your story in your actual voice.

And to celebrate this special Golden Jubilee episode, I will choose one lucky person at random from everyone who sends in some life advice to win a copy of the Mixtape Game. I got this for Christmas from my niece and it is hilarious.

Send me in your hard-earned life advice by March 7 please! I can’t wait to hear/read it…

For the approximately three minutes that I tuned in to the Grammys last Sunday, I got to see Korean boy-band group BTS stand smoldering around a microphone, and I thought, huh, I need to up my K-Pop quotient. Tell me what to do? You bet I will, SHINee. So much advice.

 

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Ep 48 Concert Photographer Aimee Giese

“Redefining success”: Aimee Giese on pivoting from corporate work to creative endeavors, the importance of challenging yourself to new things at midlife, and a brilliant tip for recording shows that doesn’t annoy everyone else around you.

Aimee’s website Greeblehaus.com
Follow Aimee on Instagram

Aimee’s new music rec for Midlife Mixtape listeners: Jukebox the Ghost. Super fun listen/watch.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – the song is “Be Free.” He’s heading out on tour, opening for Matt Nathanson (woot woot go Kyle aka M.!) – check out the tour schedule here!

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High School Musical Redux

I am on the receiving end of an endless supply of PR email pitches, related to music (“Check out the latest ramshackle country punk group!”) to babies (“No More Wipes!”) to indelicate women’s health issues that are so embarrassing to read, I gasp and hit delete to save my delicate sensibilities. (Vagisil can’t help that its CEO’s name is Keech Shetty, or the fact that I have the maturity of a 12-year-old boy every time I read the brand name and CEO name in the same sentence.)

But I recently got one from a casting agency that made me sit up in my seat.

via GIPHY

They’re casting a reality TV series that will reunite high school musical theater casts from the ‘80s and ‘90s to perform their pubescent magnum opuses. And they want ME.

Brighton High School “Anything Goes” 1983 performers: who’s in? This former corps dancer with no speaking parts is ready for her close up (provided the lens is smeared with a touch of Vaseline, and I’m given some time to stretch and wrap my knee.) How refreshing will it be to approach our high school drama from a middle aged POV?

For instance, where we once scampered out in fishnets, top hats, and tap shoes onto on a bow-shaped platform that extended into the audience, the 2019 update could see us stopping for the obvious question we left unasked back then: who built this platform? Was it Mr. Tschorke’s wood shop class? Because everyone knows that’s just a front for getting high in the photo dark room next door. Structural integrity doesn’t seem like it was their top concern. Then again, the dancer’s combined weight load in ’83 probably wasn’t a top concern either.

Could we approach one episode from a dietary standpoint, and by this I mean, how DID Tab, chocolate ice cream, and sesame bagels count as a balanced backstage meal for me in ‘83? At least until Saturday nights when I got in a few servings of grapes, thanks to Messrs. Bartles and Jaymes? Comparing what I ate then to the maniacally healthy diet 50-something me must follow in order to not gain weight every second of every day (mostly celery, with a dusting of chia seeds on Cheat Day): so much room for tears and desperation, which we all know is the heart of good reality TV.

We can also, hopefully, have the conversation that simmered just under the surface in the early ‘80s: the director is not “loud” or “showy” or “flamboyant.” He’s gay, and that’s cool. Should have been cool then. The entire high school owes that man, as well as the middle school choir director, an apology for being so repressed, and while we’re at it how about apologies for all the other marginalized kids and adults who performed a harder acting role than any of us onstage had that year?

I could see this show having endless spin-offs. High school class officers: reunite and re litigate whose job it was to plan the stupid prom, anyway, and why was the Treasurer ALWAYS late for meetings? High school language clubs: let’s see who can still conjugate “schmecken” or “vivre” or “corer.” Follow up question: was it worth all the flash card hours? How about putting the two powerhouse regional football teams back together to replay The Big Game? The only eligible players are the one who still fit into their uniforms, and both those guys will probably snap an Achilles.

I love the idea of reuniting the cast of one of our high school shows to see if any of us still have it, “it” being defined as four working limbs and hairlines/waistlines within a 50% tolerance of ’83 values. Mr. Tschorke’s woodshop kids can do the measuring.

Besides, thirty-five years ago as  I shuffled off to Buffalo while wielding a white-tipped cane, I had no idea how fitting the eponymous song lyrics would be in 2019:

The world has gone mad today


And good’s bad today,


And black’s white today,


And day’s night today…

Anything Goes!

Yeah I mean Patti Lupone’s version is ALSO good, if you like things like professionalism and talent. I happen to think they’re overrated.

*** Did you mark your calendar yet? April 13, 2019 – Next Midlife Mixtape ’80s Dance Party at the Cat Club San Francisco. Featured bands and the beneficiary of that night’s fundraising TBA, but get it on the calendar and start rounding up your friends now!

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