Soundtrack to Life #10

My Mom loved Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side - especially the part "and the colored girls go doot do doot do doot..." - until she really heard the lyrics for the first time.  After that she never mentioned it, but I think she still liked the song.  

Mom also liked Elvis Presley and a lot of cowboy singers from the 50's, her era.   She graduated Cathedral High School in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1956 then married my Dad two years later in an Italian wedding straight out of The Godfather.  (Minus the scene with Sonny and Lucy, I imagine.)  Even though my Grandparents weren't wealthy.  Even though she married someone from far away and not Italian.  Or Irish.  Or even Catholic until he converted.  Which was required to marry Mom.  No, they were very working class.  People did that in those days - big weddings.  

Mom got down to the business of being a wife and a mom and didn't really have a lot of time for music.  She brought the box of singles with her to Oregon.  We giggled at them in the 70's when they became uncool.  She got annoyed with us and put them away again.  They're probably worth a small fortune now.  Wherever they are.

We had odd albums in the house - Dominique by The Singing Nun; the soundtracks to The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins (which launched me into full on Julie Andrews fandom), the original cast recording of Hair, of all things, which came about when I asked for "Hair" from my other Grandma for a birthday present, meaning The Cowsills' hit version which I'd heard on a 45 while visiting my Mom's mom and her little brothers, my Uncles.   Grandma, not being used to buying singles, picked up the album.   Looking back on that, I'm really surprised Mom let me listen to it.   She didn't know that I looked up the word "sodomy" - the title to perhaps the most questionable song.  I looked up everything else quoted in the song as well.  And filed it away for later.

When the Uncles got old enough to road trip by themselves they came out and brought The Beatles, Cream, Santana and Iron Butterfly out with them - on 8 track tapes - and added to the musical soup that we'd brewed up on our own.  Mom liked Neil Diamond by then.  And Cat Stevens (though I was the one who owned the albums) and The Irish Rovers.  The Uncles stayed and added Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Pink Floyd and Seals and Crofts.

My brother and I were old enough to be adding our own collections to the mix - all of the popular 70's artists - and Mom had met and married a guy who brought along George Carlin albums so we learned the seven words you cannot say on television.  They were played openly at our house.

So it came as a small surprise when Mom stuck her head into John's door in protest at Frank Zappa's Catholic Girls, from Joe's Garage, streaming from his teenage bedroom.  Perhaps those lyrics were just a bit too much?  My brother, to his credit, did turn it down.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  I miss you.  We turned out okay in spite of everything and I know you're proud of us.  I hope the music never stops where you are now and they play all of your favorites.

Soundtrack to Life #9

The Shins.  I love this song.  Their sound alternates between jangly pop-py cheerful things with high (male) harmonies alternating with beautiful minor key guitar lines tied to quirky poetic lyrics.  My kind of band!  

They're playing tonight at the Crystal Ballroom (2nd night in a row) and I'm too broke to go. 

Tried the Craigslist thing.   Here's my ad from this morning:

"It's late, true, and tonight's the last show and to top it all off I'm completely broke! But I so want to go! Is there anyone out there who would like the company of an engaging, short but cute, blonde Shins fan who could lie to you and say she's 39 (and you'd never know) but believes in honesty and will be glad to reciprocate with coffee, a show or ?? later, when the money's looking better, if the chemistry is right."

And I have to say I've gotten some interesting replies.  (This was posted to "Strictly Platonic", mind you...)

But the show is sold out and only one of the responders actually has tickets in hand. And he's got me completely intimidated coz he puts out such an aura of "I'm too hot for the likes of you" that he just might have to take the "lame co-worker" he referred to in his post advertising his availability.  Unless he manages to find someone bolder than I am.  He might. 

That's okay.  I'm home now and staying put for the night.  

Soundtrack to Life #8

Gawd.  This is what was happening in Vancouver BC while I was leading a fairly sheltered 16 year old life in Eugene Oregon.

The Bowie song I've really had in my head today is Star from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars  ("... just watch me now") but there isn't a decent vid of that to be found anywhere on teh internets right now.  

That and the best video of Jean Genie has the embedding "disabled by request".  This one is an interesting bit of history for sure.

Odd aside #1  Soundtrack to Life Post #8 = legs on a spider.

Odd aside #2  Lynne Rosetto Kasper's Splendid Table on APR just played the riff from R.E.M.'s Bang and Blame!  And now they're playing out that segment with Hollow Man.  Nice!  

I should go see if the episode is online and see what it was all about...

Ah!  It is!

Haiku Therapy

Normal was in love (with you)

Clouds  Daffodils  Sod it all

Wander lonely as you like

...and then there's always South Park

Ah, the wonders of the internets!

I think I might love this man

Taking in the Tulips

Up early on this beautiful spring sunny day, plans to get out of Dodge. Somewhere. Not too strenuous. Cynthia had never been out to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm outside of the town of Woodburn an hour South of Portland if one takes the more scenic Hwy 99 East route.  We did.

I've been going out to this tulip field for years, on and off since the 80's.  It used to be just a tulip (and daffodil) farm.  They sold bulbs by mail order - and now on the internet - and let folks into their fields to enjoy the blooms while in season.  Now it's a complete festival with rides for the kiddies, craft and food booths and this weekend a wine tasting festival in the display garden.  A real money making enterprise with corporate sponsors and you can't blame 'em for turning a profit. Luckily we got there before the road in was completely jammed, but the parking lot was already pretty full at 10:30 on a Sunday.

Back in the day, if you went during the week you could have the place pretty much to yourself. Especially if it was a typical Northwest Spring Day (cloudy to rainy) which were actually my favorite days because of the way the tulip colors 'popped' against the moody gray sky and the puddles reflected the image back to you if the sun did happen to come out.  Electric chartreuse of the new foliage on the trees made you feel like you'd taken drugs and if you were really lucky you'd get a thundershower and have threatening purple-y green skies for atmosphere as well.  

The insides of a most beautiful magenta pink tulip.

An orange one.

And a yellow one.

It was far from cloudy this time out and getting plenty warm - and more crowded - by the time we'd rounded the entire field taking photos.  Cynthia was hauling around a serious camera and tripod taking as many pictures of the people as of the flowers.  We headed back to town stopping for "Full Scottish Breakfast" - at 1:30 in the afternoon - at the Highland Still House overlooking Willamette Falls.  Sat out on the deck to enjoy the day.  Wafting fragrance of paper mill and a speaker cleverly disguised as a rock on the cliff past the deck rail playing the same Irish fiddle tune over and over again though Cyn swears that all Irish fiddle tunes sound the same...  The chips were amazing and the toast cold and dry.