Like many other people, I am massively obsessed with Michelle Obama. Massively. THIS website follows her every outfit, in exhaustive detail, but also with tons of r’spect and love.
I am trying to figure out if I can pull off a brooch ala Mrs. O. Do I have lots of other things to be doing? Why, yes. But I need to ponder this brooch issue for a few hours. Excuse me.
I just wrote all that sad song stuff and then read THIS about a giant hero named Ron Borowski giving an elderly woman an incredible birthday gift. We should all try to be as kind as this motorcycle dude.
Viva la vida!
Fiona has some songs that are necessary for feeling properly sad.
“I KNOW”. Here’s one VERSION, which unfortunately has a little edit, but it’s still awesome; and here’s another live at the beautiful old LARGO. This song literally gives me the chills. Not figuratively. I’m not just saying that to impress upon you that it’s amazing. I get a little ghosty chill in my actual body when I hear it.
“PARTING GIFT”. “It ended bad, but I love where we started.” This is how I try to remember all of them. I mean, I try to try.
“WHAT’LL I DO?” What will I do? I don’t know…hmm.. Usually what I will do whenever I hear this song is want to cry in a profound way over every person I’ve ever loved and lost, as if it just happened yesterday. Not even in the morning yesterday. Even more recently than that. Just last night yesterday. There are so many famous versions of this tune, but Harry Nilsson’s is really, really sad. Don’t let the grand orchestral stuff shake you from appreciating the complete despair of Harry’s voice. It’s some really excellent despair. And I think that the lyrics to this song are pretty much first place in the sad breakup lyrics contest. Oh, Irving Berlin. You’re really very talented.
It’s snowing. Hard. For some reason, my building, which is usually a very responsible building, is not sending up any heat through the radiators. So today I am sitting inside wearing a scarf. That’s not a very good sign about the temperature of your building. To take the edge off this, I am listening to Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” which is the song I listen to when I need to not worry about things.
Did I ever tell you the Stevie Wonder story? I saw him at Hollywood Bowl last summer and he was incredible. Played for over two hours, passionately laying into all the hits as me and my friend ate cheese and drank sangria. And then, at the end of the night, as his backing band (which included, at times, his seven year old son on drums) played “Superstitious,” Stevie got up to say goodbye. But that’s not exactly what he said. He said, “Now it’s time for me to leave you. But know that I never really leave you.”
Somehow that got me. The fact that he went to the trouble of saying it, plus the fact that he is Stevie Wonder, made it feel true. And there are moments now when I listen to his music and it feels truer and truer.
Along these lines - something that I’ve wanted to post here because it made me incredibly happy: Bruce Springsteen, he of the crotch in your face super bowl performance, blogged his experience of the half time show. I have a special place in my heart for Bruce, who I came to kind of late. That a guy who’s been doing it for so long can still write about a show with this kind of excitement and joy is a fucking wonderful thing. Read it HERE.
(A sexy/funny/awesome live Bruce video right in this LINK here. I was noodle oodling around youtube a few years ago and found this Bruce performance of “Fire,” a song I made out to in college a million years ago, and I was both delightfully aroused and amused. The money shot is his final line near the very end. You’re welcome.)
Lastly, one other thing I wanted to put here: I’ve been loving the stuff Maira Kalman draws on the nytimes blog. I want to eat brownies with her.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-02-06/american-psychos/
I like THIS.
I love the writers at Jezebel.com. Part of the gawker/defamer empire, this Lady-Biznezz focused site is a funny and interesting watchdog, calling out all the hateful woman hating snark (often on their sister - or brother - sites) that seems to be over 500 percent of the web. At the same time, they got bite of their own. But they’re never mean.
Anyway I saw this morning they linked to a Dove ad thing that for some reason (they pretty much cover the reasons, so I don’t need to go into it too much here) is weirdly compelling. I have the same mixed feelings about the Dove campaign as everyone else (again, they go into it) but this is just a few minutes where a commercially funded, ideologically tricky campaign yielded something that feels like a little spark of connective humanity. Especially after yesterday, where I spent the better part of wakingness watching the news from Gaza and sinking into the despair that will tend to cause.
HERE it is. Well done director Pinny Grylls (awesome name.)
Still can’t really talk, but at least able to kind of squeak out consonants. Went out this morning, bought the paper, and squeaked to the nice lady at my coffee place that I wanted a hot chocolate.
“What?” she says.
“ht chlt.”
“Aw, you poor thing.”
“Tks.”
I have really bad laryngitis. I can’t talk. Like really can’t.
This afternoon a friend gave me (via email) an excellent recipe for a hot toddy. I think that’s what St Bernards carry in their neck barrels. Or at least, it should be.
Today I went out and bought some whiskey. The good stuff.
So now I’m on hot toddy #3.
I feel really, really good.
Aside from hot toddys, here’s something ELSE to make you happy.
Have a nice weekend all, be good to each other.
You know how sometimes late at night, you’re half watching TV, and you’re in your pj’s, maybe you’re doing dishes, maybe you’re just moving things from here to there, seeing how a picture would look on this wall and not that wall, rearranging the sock drawer, and just generally doing the not ready for bed shuffle? These are the moments when something on the tube catches your eye and kind of sinks in deeper than it would have if it wasn’t 2am. Because you’re a little transparent, a little soft. Like the pot of overcooked pasta I masterminded yesterday.
The other night I was in this state. And I’m kind of listening to CNN as I potter about in my insomnia. And then Larry King comes in, I guess the third replay of the night, and his guest is Jim Carrey. About whom I know basically nothing except that he’s Jim Carrey.
And what I learn about Jim Carrey, as I gradually migrate closer and closer to actually really watching TV, is that he seems like a very nice thoughtful guy. I know about him living in a car at some point and that his family was poor and stuff like that, but I don’t know anything about him now. Anywoop, the rub is: King asks him about dealing with depression and sadness and hardship. Which it seems Carrey has had his fair share of. And then, around 2:33am, I hear Jim Carrey say this:
“I just got to the point where I realized the only way to look at life is to believe that everything that ever happens to you, is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.” [or words to that effect.]
I can’t explain exactly why this immediately got emblazoned on every mental license plate, pillow, bumper sticker and mug that I have in my head, but it did. Maybe it was the way he said it, maybe it was the time, maybe it was the fact that all my fidgeting and insomnia was clearly the outward manifestation of an inward fidgeting, a slightly askew metabolism…it doesn’t matter. All I know is I started pouring all the little bumps and bruises through the filter of those words and felt like I saw everything differently.
I know. Jim Carrey? Why? Dunno. But I now consider him a friend.
It’s a nice little banner to put in your head for 2009. Hurrah for New Year everyone! Trumpets and yay! May your new year be peaceful and beautiful and delicious, like the perfect bowl of spaghetti.
I recently got asked to do a really raucous/joyous fun show at Joe’s Pub. My assignment was to reflect on the duet between Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore.” HERE they are singing in a legendary performance at the 1978 Grammys. It’s all incredible. Her ‘fro, his burns. There’s such a spark between them; the way she touches his face; the way he looks at her, as a man only can when the woman he’s beholding is wearing a lavender sequin onesie.
Anyway, it’s chilly out. So I thought posting something about flowers would be appropriate. This is the essay I read at the show:
When I hear this song, I have two strong reactions: the first is a feeling of awe at just how sincere and earnest it is. My second reaction is: thinking about how rarely any of the guys I’ve dated have ever bought me flowers.
I admit, part of that might be my fault. The last time a guy brought me flowers was basically my first date. Sweet young fellow that he was, he showed up at my door with a red rose. I was fifteen years old and way too obnoxious to be into the gesture of flower giving. I wasn’t a dick about it to his face (I don’t think) but I remember feeling embarrassed, that the flower giving routine was too girly. I was young. I wore combat boots (they were cool fucking boots, ps, zippers on the sides….)
Since then, I seem to have selected the kinds of guys who don’t buy flowers. It’s not that I don’t like nice guys – I like ‘em nice. It’s just that my type has tended toward witty, over-educated man-children. Funny guys, smart guys, but the kinds of guys who have trouble with the naked raw sincerity that comes so easily to Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand. And it’s not that they’re not capable of making gestures – it’s just their gestures are almost always more ironic than sweet, turning I love you into “I love you,” with finger-y air quotes framing both sides of the thought.
My first serious boyfriend once presented me with what looked like a bathroom scale but was in fact an automatic foot massager, that he later admitted to me he bought off the street in midtown. I love getting foot massages so aside from the fact that he got this for me because he personally hated giving them, it wasn’t a bad gift idea. But then I put batteries in it. It started shaking violently for about five seconds and then never worked again.
After him there was boyfriend #2. He had a good heart, but he also had some issues. What kind of issues you ask? Well, the kind of issues that might lead a person to present their girlfriend on Valentines Day with a dog collar from which hangs a tag that has my name on it and under that his phone number and the words, “return to [his name].” He said it was supposed to be funny. Haha. I’m a dog. I get it!
There have been other boyfriends, mostly (not entirely) in this mold. But in the last year or so, I’ve started to think that maybe getting flowers wouldn’t be so bad. It’s not that I don’t like funny gifts, or original gifts, and it’s definitely not about expensive gifts. It’s just I was getting sick of engaging in relationships where the passion felt like it was coming from a Yule Log – a picture of passion, a funny comment on passion, but a passion without actual presence and without any sustainable, comforting warmth to offer.
I started thinking, that maybe there’s something occasionally refreshing in how sincere and earnest flowers are. Like the Diamond-Streisand song. At first I thought the song was schmaltzy – but then I watched the performance again, and realized that in fact it’s not. I think it’s the opposite. It’s simple. It’s two people committed to creating a feeling. To the feeling of this song. To the story of the song. Schmaltz is often defined as florid art, with florid literally meaning “covered with flowers.” But this song is not covered in flowers. It’s a song about the absence of flowers.
In April, when I was still living in Los Angeles, I got involved with a guy. We’d met back East and had one of those dates where the person says one thing you like and that surprises you, and then another and another, and then you kiss, and the kiss is likable and surprising. Then he came out to LA, and on night #1 we kissed again, and on night #2 he stood me up. Which was also surprising, because I didn’t think people really got stood up anymore. I thought people only got stood up in old timey movies, where you see a woman sitting at a restaurant table topped with a bright new candle, waiting for her date, and then you time lapse to her an hour later with an almost empty glass of wine, the candle burnt down to a waxy nub, the waiters hovering in the background, unsure what to do, faces full of pity.
He called the next day, eager to see me but confused as to why exactly I was upset. Didn’t I understand? He was just bad at scheduling, he explained. A perpetually bad scheduler. Nothing personal.
I tried to explain to him that he’d made me feel like I was in an old timey movie, and not in the good romantic way where Clark Gable lays his jacket down over a puddle for you or Gregory Peck takes you on a Vespa ride through Rome. I told him that if he wanted to go forward he would have to make some kind of gesture to let me know he was sorry. And then, for the first time in my life, I suggested to a man that he buy me flowers. He seemed unsure I was being serious – and again, I take some blame here, maybe because at that point I wasn’t totally sure I was serious. I was scared to be serious. I was scared to be the woman who was asking for something. I was scared to be Barbra Streisand (perhaps legitimately terrifying.)
But I let him convince me to go to dinner, and from dinner, back to my house. That night as we were going to sleep, he was having tummy troubles (dinner had been a bit disappointing.) I went to my medicine cabinet to get him the last of my Mylanta chewables. I love Mylanta chewables. They taste yummy, they work quickly, and the experience of gnawing on them is kind of like chewing minty gravel (just try them – they’re delightful.) The one challenge is, they’re a little hard to find. I don’t like giving them away, lest they be discontinued. But he was a guest. And I liked him, even though it was becoming clear I should not.
The next day he was taking a late flight home, and I let him hang out in my house while I went to work, giving him the key to lock up upon leaving.
When I returned, I opened the door cautiously, expecting a floral avalanche. (A floralanche.) Or at least, A Flower. None. Nothing. I actually pulled back the blankets from my bed, just in case my bouquet was hidden. Still nothing. I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t leave me even a small, slightly petal-y gesture.
And then I saw it. On top of the fridge. A bottle of Mylanta. It was liquid, not chewable. And next to it, on the back of his card, he’d drawn an arrow pointing to the bottle with a little note. It’s a “gesture!” it said. These weren’t air quotes, floating and then gone – they were on paper, written down, permanent. Irony. The discrepancy between what is said and what is meant. What is presented: a gift. What is meant: this is not a gift. What is presented: I am here. What is meant: I’m not really here.
There’s a saying “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” With the Mylanta bottle, this guy was practically begging me to know: he was, literally and figuratively, full of shit. At least this was his situation when it came to me. But it would take a few more months for this to sink in. Along the way there were other gestures, gifts, emails and things put in the mail, and some were in fact quite sweet - but this was the first one, and as it usually goes, it wasn’t all that different from the last. In fact, the last was much worse.
That night, however, I called him, and laughed about the gesture; I told him that it was silly and funny. That I got it. Because part of it was silly and funny. But part of it was something else.
Even then, six months before my feelings would turn sour, I knew in my gut, where my own stomachache was beginning to churn: half-real affection leads to half-real gestures. And just as diarrhea pills are not a substitute for flowers, half real-affection is not a substitute for genuine love.