Does This Make Me Look

I haven’t had a furry creature in my life in many years. Now Dennis and I have two. Brother and sister. Eight months old. They’ve been here almost a week. I’m writing in short sentences because that’s about the span of time I have before they A) decide to chase my fingers across the keyboard, B) decide to climb somewhere high where something will then fall, which, as long as it’s not on my head or breakable/broken, I’m getting much better at just watching come down. I’m really loving every inch of them despite the challenge to my sense of order.

Chaos. watching things fall. being okay with it. Oooh, baby, that’s a toughie. I get that life is chaos. Maybe that’s even a quote from someone famous. There’s also peace, a bit of quiet, and a whole panoply of other things as lived experience. As a collective, we’ve been backstroking through large waves of chaos the majority of 2020 and all of 2021 (and I truly hope you’re finding/have found a way to be in it that’s at best enlightening and at least manageable). Now the year is about to turn again. Other than the reality of tiny paws knocking things over (and over, and over), I’m ruminating on my relationship with chaos in days gone by. I may say I’ve never been good with it, yet I did spend a large swathe of my career in rock’n’roll where it’s regularly harnassed along with its cousins bedlam, mayhem, and tumult. Digging deeply into the Mbox, I found a thread (one which the furballs can’t get ahold of to drag off) that led me deep inside as close as I could get (for now) to my relationship with that state of being.

From the minute I felt music in my bones it unsettled me. Not the pop songs heard on the radio that my mom and I would sing along to. Those were fun and offered lift off. Nor the jazz my dad played that had power, but didn’t invite me to climb inside. Instead the first time a song soaked me thoroughly, delivered me to bliss and bewilderment, I couldn’t get off the floor of my room. Just wanted to keep the headphones on and stare at the ceiling. It was an actual physical sensation. (Thank you, Led Zeppelin.) When I found punk rock, courtesy of friends in Orange County, chaos grew a second skin. The sounds pricked me alive. They were hard and fast and had more to do with emotional agitating, rolling over broken-glass sensations than swaying to the music or lifting a lighter in the air. The sweat and sturm of chords and notes. A way to forget but also to claim. An inner space that had a basement and an attic. I’d tunnel down, try to get to China. Burrow in and be held by the solid soil of it. Or clmb up and break through the roof, grab a cloud and fly. Look down and see my heartbeat. Internal made external. Opening the door, windows, whatever cracks were available, the chaos really did shake me all night long. And I felt it. I wanted. I reveled. I listened and followed. Bathed in it. Rubbed it into my emotional skin. The chaos of it, I thought I could always step away from.

Especially being a music journalist. Perfect combination of objective / subjective. If you could hear me laughing right now, you’d know balance was not a thing for me back then. Not really. I always wanted to open up my proverbial ribcage, grab hold of my heart, and bring it out for all the feels. I admired Hunter S. Thompson for his ability to let go and create chaos, create story. His way also terrified me. Instead I’d nudge my toe closer and closer to a moment, then sometimes close my eyes and step all the way in, usually with my hand on the escape hatch. Like being on one of those centrifigal force amusement rides where the bottom drops out and you just hang there. For a split second the thought crosses What if. The floor doesn’t. Come back. My time at SPIN had a good share of those rides. The one that takes me deepest into the heart of it was toward the end of my time at the magazine. Reading Festival. England. 1992. Nirvana main stage.

It was a funny bit of business, this show. Things had not been entirely well with Nirvana, and Kurt in particular, for a little while, yet the sense of desire—that everything would turn out just fine, that they would continue to write amazing songs, that we could just ignore the damage that was unfolding in front of everyone’s eyes—kept us in a haze of hopeful. Which ultimately turned out to be more cruel than I might have imagined. I’d never been up-close-personal with addiction before, or at least I’d never recognized its face clearly. I’d always bought into the tragic artist mythos. I thought the Byron-esque lifestyle of extreme consumption was a thing that begat creativity, then you’d grow out of it. Or not. And if not, you’d have at least lived so hard and pure that the beautiful corpse of your work would sustain.

WIth Kurt, the chaos was scorching and chilling. Thrilling often, but that emotion felt just a short step away from breaking. Which is one reason why it was exciting. I’d stand near it, then move away. Cue it up on my walkman, let it shake me at a show, go back afterward and stand on the periphery. And the band played on while also coming apart at the seams. Folks would step in and stitch stuff up, then on to the next. To be clear, I’m not suggesting any revisionist history here. Kurt, according to all those closest to him who lived around him and tried, did not want to change. Did not want to stop doing the things he wanted to do, even if by extension they hurt others. This is not a tale of “if only someone had…” because some did and nothing held. (And, no, Courtney did not kill her husband. You’re Wrong About podcast has a great take here.) This is a story about a person and the storm of chaos they wrapped themself in. A Pig-Pen who everyone wanted to swirl around with and get a little of it rubbed off on them.

So end of August. Redding festival. Nighttime. Final show of the weekend. The whole day’s worth of music had essentially been a lineup chosen by the band: Mudhoney, Teenage Fanclub, L7, Pavement, Screaming Trees, The Melvins, Nick Cave. One helluva a party. I stood sidestage and looked out at bodies and bodies and bodies all waiting. Not so patiently. Kurt was being wheeled onstage in a hospital gown (also inexplicably wearing a blonde wig) by Melody Maker journalist Everett True. This was said to be in reaction to all the rumors of his crap-ass health. A send-up, a none-of-your-business, an admission. All or none of those. Calling this moment up now, watching Kurt in the chair, smirk on his face, my main memory is that I forgot to breathe. That the air felt so thin and having been in the eye of something—storm, chaos, tornado—for a sustained amount of time meant this breathwork was my new normal. But still, that particular moment felt excruciating and exhilarating. I looked out again at the audience and really did feel one with all the bodies. The lights twilight dim. The hush as he came on. As he sat and stared out. Before he got up and the crowd went nuts. Struck the first note. Then fell over flat on his back. But we all knew it was a joke. Probably. One with a distinct edge. One we were all in on, supposedly. Once up, the songs began. These quicksilver moments were always unspooling, the sound liquid filling me up again and again. I was completely untethered and remember saying something to the effect of I can’t believe this. Maybe I repeated it over and over because I know it annoyed the person next to me. She looked at me, maybe mouthed Shut Up or something. I don’t really remember specifically. But I do think my verbalizing was a way to center me in that particular bit of chaos. Anchor me somewhere. Naturally, she was in her own space and didn’t want to be reminded of me. I don’t think I cared. The wax wings I’d been flying with were melting ever so slowly, even if I didn’t altogether understand what the ground would feel like when I hit. The swirl of it held. Until it didn’t.

Looking at footage from the show, I’m reminded of how actually titillating and terrifying the whole thing was. Bonafide chaos was happening (as it did at every show). It might have eaten us all alive while the man at the center seemed so blithely unaware…yet not. This clip, minute 5:24 and on gives a good idea of what that looked like. By the time he was in the audience giving away his guitar, and tour manager Alex MacLeod was shadowing him to make sure no one actually grabbed him instead (minute 7:04) it was clear things would just be running off the rails. Like always. And I loved that. Lived vicariously inside of it. Constantly telling myself I could step away from the edge and be fine. And I could. And I wasn’t. Riding the insane energy back to the hotel bar, everyone, every. one. levitated on the fumes. At some point, Courtney, who’d just given birth to Francis Bean, called and had Kurt paged (pre-cellphone, kids). At some point, people went off to various rooms. Mark Lanegan and Kurt went to one room. Krist went to another. David somewhere else. At some point the next day I went to the airport. Everything was too bright. Painful, but when someone says Hurts So Good, that’s the moment that comes to mind.

So, chaos. Watching these new little furballs slide and slip around the apartment, jump straight up in the air, all four (eight) feet off the ground. Watch them try to negotiate things for the first time (what’s this? Well, I’ve never. Must drag across floor. very heavy. large padded thing attached. Hmm. what’s over here? a box full of coldness. Tall creature opened door. Must climb inside. Oh. door shut. very cold. dark. open door. Let’s not do that again.), I wonder about the many faces of chaos. There’s a kind I can let happen. Feel still-safe inside of. I’m talking about music here. Climbing back inside and letting myself get swept away. Again. I wonder if being better aware of where the shore is would keep my head above water? Could I still fully immerse myself and feel the weightlessness of letting go, close my eyes and not be sure where I’ll end up and be fine with that? Or was the heartbeat of not knowing the thing that kept me coming back? I honestly don’t know the answers. But as a book topples off the shelf courtesy of boy cat, Desi, and he looks at me like What? maybe I’ll just leave it there to percolate. Not everything in its place. New view. New year. RIng it in well, my friends.

Sometimes stuff happens. Things go weird, even smack-dab in the smiliest of sublime times. The week in Zihuantenejo was one of those incredible, pinch-myself extended moments of beauty that I fully relaxed into, even as a couple of things went sideways. On Dennis’s birthday, I had food poisoning (oh, down-the-beach café ceviche, I suspect you) and spent the day prone on a chaise longue and despite the ocean lulling and the sun warming, it was no bueno to feel bleh. (Next day was fine: mind at ease post negative covid test and stomach settled so we could have his birthday dinner on a beautiful terrace facing the ocean a night late.) At the airport on the way home, Dennis’s phone disappeared from his person. We watched it leave the airport and make its way back into town through the magic of Find-My-Phone, at which point Dennis turned it into an enchanted brick for no one’s pleasure. On landing, my bag failed to come down the carousel. It had gotten onto the plane with all the other luggage, according to the tracking wizards, it just didn’t seem to want to come off. A couple of days later, back in Redlands, Dennis has a new device and my luggage agreed to come home. While “It could have been worse” was for sure a thing, as those particular moments were happening, they still sucked.

So this week from the Memory Box I pull a story of a seemingly enchanted situation spiked with an emotional dip.

Metallica love their fans. Of all the bands I’ve worked with/interviewed, they are hands-down the most present and available for the people who adore them. Being present and available almost always involved contests. When I headed up the video promotion department at their label in the mid-ish 90s, there were a couple of moments in cahoots with MTV that were pretty special. One, the Live Shit: Binge & Purge Contest, happened in 1994. The deal was that one winner and a friend would be flown to San Francisco to play music with the band at then-bassist, Jason Newsted’s, house on the bay, then end the day at a restaurant making merry with the band and all like that. All of it filmed and trimmed for a half-hour special to be broadcast on Headbanger’s Ball*. The show’s host Ricki Rachtman would be the day’s ringmaster.

BJ Simpson from Cincinnati, Ohio, won. He brought his friend PJ. Yes, BJ and PJ. Frolicking with the rock gods. I’d come to live for the moment during these contests when the winners met the band or artist. I’d get all ooky and fizzly in the hours before being nervous that it would all go okay while thinking how lives would be changed. It was rarely that dramatic outwardly, but every time I hoped it would be. And hands down, there was always more emotion than when an industry event happened and all the music-biz peoples attempted their too-cool demeanor and got all laissez-fair like, “Prince, that guy in the corner? He’s pretty cool” signals waiter, gets drink, looks away. I mean, come on…once some friends and I were at a club on 14th street when word went out that Prince was there. People pointed toward a group near us, a whirlpool of people dancing around a very tiny man. That man was Prince. We couldn’t see him (tiny. he was.), but damn if it didn’t feel awesome to know he was there dancing like us. Anyhoo, back to BJ and PJ.

My MTV cohort and I went to pick up the guys from their hotel. I tried very hard to keep myself from tipping over into weird big-sister enthusiasm as they climbed into the rental car. Two shy 18 years old nodding at us. Not smiling. Very quiet. They responded to how-was-the-flight?, how’s-the-hotel? respectfully. From my view in the rear-view, they also looked like they might throw up. When we got to the house, I pulled in, killed the engine, and said, “We’re here!” with possibly to much volume and enthusiasm. Bounding out of the car and opening the back doors, they just looked at each other, then BJ said something like, “I just need a minute.” I stepped away from the car and my compadre and I stood on the grass waiting. And waiting. The MTV camera crew came over. They wanted to film the guys getting out of the car. We watched their profile through the passenger windows. It didn’t seem like they were making any moves to exit. I approached, cracked the door, and asked, “How’re we doing?” They shook their heads. Wouldn’t make eye contact. “Okay, well they’re all really excited to meet you.” nothing. I shut the door and walked away. Went and found the band and told them what was happening. Lars (drummer) nodded his head sagely. “Ah, just a case of the nerves” he said–or something to that effect probably with more swearing. James (guitar) laughed and walked over to the car, opened up the passenger door and slid in. We watched him turn toward the guys and just continue being himself, which was ‘effin James Hetfield. I mean, come on…so great. He stuck his hand back to shake theirs or high-five or something cool, then a couple minutes later, they all got out, passed us by and went into the house. MTV shot some B-roll and it was on. The best day ever was beginning.

After watching as Ricki stuck his microphone in their faces and the band tuned up while treating them like brothers, I went to get something to eat from the catering table outside. The place was gorgeous. Sloping grass lawn down to a boat dock on the bay, the house massive, the grounds extensive. I wandered a bit, then came around one side of the house and saw someone sitting alone on the back lawn, head in arms, arms crossed over knees. The person looked a lot like PJ, even if I couldn’t see his face, the hair seemed a giveaway. I approached slowly, not wanting to ruin a moment, but wanting to make sure he was alright. Hearing me, he lifted his head, the stare pretty bleak. What in hell was happening? “How ya doing?”

He mumbled. “This is the best day of my life.”

That was good, right? “It’s great!” I said, again trying and failing to modulate my own excitement.

“It’s halfway over,” he said, sounding so sad.

“Yeah, but so much more to come.” I vollied.

“Nothing will never be as good as this and it’s almost over.”

“No, come on. This is only the beginning. There’s so much more.” I’d managed to go full-Oprah on the kid mainly because I had no idea how to deal with him just having his feelings. I felt determined to rally him into full good-time mode. Instead he just looked at me like I was an annoying alien, or rather you-don’t-understand adult. “Nah. This is it. Tomorrow we go home and it’s over.” Jeez. I sat down next to him. We stared at the water. I guess I asked him questions because I found out he lived with his mom who worked night shifts at the gas station. He’d never really been out of town. Had a brother (I think. maybe a sister). Hated school. BJ his only friend. They’d been pretty popular after winning the contest. But really BJ had won, so he was just tagging along. He liked to draw. Just about the time he’d pulled out this little sketchpad from his back pocket, Jason came out, yelled, “Hey, PJ, we need you in here.” Then stepped up to us and asked him what he had there. He showed Jason his illustrations. Jason said, “rad, man” (or something like that) and “we could use these in the fanzine.” They got up and went back inside. I sat for a minute thinking on how life-changing events don’t always feel, look, seem enjoyable. They aren’t always fizzed up with happy. Sometimes they’re thick with emotional gravy. Stick-to-the-soul nutrients that need to digest. Part of the learning curve I’d observe with a lot of fans and contest winners over the years.

Stepping back into the studio, I caught the tail end of Kirk (guitarist) teaching BJ some chord changes, then the vocalizing moment you see below happened. Loud magic. Metallica loving on the BJ and PJ and them returning it. Just six guys rolling around in some music, no one any better than the next, even given the talent and income divide, none of that mattered.

The day ended in the back room of a local pizza restaurant where the cameras kept rolling and Ricki kept waving around the microphone. At some point BJ and PJ were spotted standing on chairs, beer steins in hand, singing. Good times, good footage, until it was pointed out that the boys weren’t of drinking age, so the cameras went off and the party went on. Driving them home later, they was again silence in the car—except for the high-pitched ringing in my ears, a sound I’d been hearing pretty consistently since 1991 and still hear in moments of absolute stillness. (Tinnitus, my good friends. Byproduct of the career.) We pulled up to the hotel. Sat for a bit and I thought maybe again they would refuse to get out of the car. This time there was no James Hetfield to pave the way. Finally the back doors opened and they climbed out. Maybe a little drunk, definitely walking on some clouds. That was the last I saw of BJ and PJ. Driving back to my hotel, a little emotional gravy got spooned over my soul thinking What a thing. How we have moments in our lives sometimes so excellent they can be stultifying. Beautifully poignant. Anticipation, expectation, reality. Sometimes they all collide in some magnificent memories. I don’t know where BJ and PJ are today, but wherever that is, what I hope for them in particular—not to mention all the BJs and PJs everywhere—a life equal portions fizz and stick-to-the-soul sustenance. Cheers to that.

*(I found a link to the show here and wow, I just watched it and not only forgot I’d ever seen it, but had the surreal experience of watching my trademark pigtailed self at work twenty-six years ago.)

More tales of Metallica here:

Water is my happy place. The sound, the motion, the feel. I love floating around in the stuff, especially the ocean. It was a very particular crime that in my teenagehood I saw the movie Jaws. It didn’t happen when I was fourteen, the year it came out, but somewhere around the time a person thinks they’re a tough-ass and wants to prove to their friends how they can handle anything (Exorcist, sure. bring on the tubular bells. Walk across that train trestle in the dark, well why not. Swim in the ocean as the sun sets, let’s do it.). But then I saw that damn movie and when someone suggested a midnight plunge into the Pacific, I had a million-and-one-excuses why not. Because I was smart. Also because stories affect me, whether fictional or otherwise. Case in point, when I’ve been in particularly gnarly situations during my working life, I’d think, Someday this will make a good story. If I live through it and keep my sanity intact. And, depending on your definition of sanity, I mostly have.

The Pacific ocean is the one I grew up on (and the one I’m staring at right now), but when I moved to NYC, the Atlantic was the place to visit if you wanted waves and such. I didn’t get there often. I had the Hudson to stare at if I just needed to see some undulations. But when I did visit the Atlantic, I became acquainted with its different personality. To me, the Pacific is bonfires, puka shell necklaces, passing a bottle and/or a joint. The Atlantic more boats, Hermés wraps, cocktails with gin. But still…I love me some ocean and was happy anytime I had an assignment that would take me there.

In the mid-nineties, after I’d left SPIN, I was director of video promotion for Elektra records. There had just been a change in leadership and more R&B artists were coming on the scene. One of those was an Adina Howard. Her album Do You Wanna Ride? was just out and since I was responsible for getting her video seen on MTV, when they asked her to do a live performance on the beach in Miami, lip-syncing her single “Freak Like Me“, well that was my cue to go to work. We would fly down for the taping, One day on the beach, two overnights, then back on the plane.

I figure all of us know a little about imposter syndrome. I had a pretty good dose of it going on. I’d also come to understand that when I was a journalist, artists treated me differently. With a certain amount of deference or familiarity because I was in charge of interpreting them to the world. But at the record company, I worked for the artist and they mostly treated me as such. And there was no doubt where the power dynamic was leading in this particular scenario. The ladies (Adina and her dancers) were perfectly civil, but they had some demands and I had some marching orders. First, I’d been told in no uncertain terms by my boss that Adina was not to be allowed to commander the car service that had brought us in from the airport. That seemed a pretty easy thing to do. When we pulled up in front of the beach-side hotel the first night, we all got out, the bellhops took our stuff out of the trunk, we went into the lobby. I began to check us in. They were lounging in reception, or so I thought. After getting all the room keys, I went to find them and was told by their manager that Adina and the ladies had taken the car into the heart of South Beach. Wait…what? So that was the first thing. From there it got better.

We had a dinner scheduled with a radio station that night, which until three minutes before we were meant to leave, I was sure would be blown given they hadn’t returned back to the hotel. This was a pre-cellphone time. Big stress. When the car, same one that had brought us from the airport four hours earlier, same driver, his hat slightly askew, pulled into the circular driveway, I was relieved, but also still terrified. I can’t remember the meal. I can’t remember whether I slept. I do have a clear vision of me the next day gathering them in the lobby and walking down to the beach where the taping was happening. A technicolor slice of memory at having to run back up the beach and into the hotel for something Adina or one of her dancers wanted for the performance and only having under-five minutes to get it. A visceral sense of me sweating, not being able to find whatever it was I’d gone back for, possibly being on the verge of tears and knowing that the taping was now delayed, that somehow I should have known how to circumvent this. That I was no doubt going to lose my job. Then a flash in my mind of it being over. Me raiding the mini bar in my room, stepping out onto the balcony and seeing Adina and her dancers getting back in the damn car service they’d been told not to call again. And driving away.

I think I lived in a pretty constant state of tension back in those days. A buzz of crainess that was the opposite of relaxation. The thing I look for when staring at waves and endless blue water. Not to mention, I don’t care for Miami. Or maybe it’s that the Atlantic and I don’t have a super good relationship…oh, hurricanes. But yet, my beloved Pacific can have its issues too…I just can’t fully remember them all right now. Nor am I going to try. Instead, I’m going to take my swim mask and paddle around for awhile, leave the memories behind.

Today’s audio: the waves&birds

Packing up for a long-put-off pandemic-delayed trip down to Zihuantenejo (yes, the place in Mexico that Andy Dufresne is fixated on in The Shawshank Redemption), I’ve lined up some very modern travel necessities that will end up in our luggage: FDA-approved antigen tests that will get us back into the country in time for Christmas, a nice collection of KN95 masks, my three-shot proof-of-vaccination. You know how some people say it’s about the journey? Well, that doesn’t count when talking about planes these days.

Back in my music-writing days, the air-o-plane was a place of anticipation and preparation, a mid-size carry-on of nerves, a glass of cheap wine followed by a dull headache and the curiosity about what my hotel room might look like and whether I’d packed my travel alarm clock so as not to blow whatever interview was the next day. (This was pre-device as Swiss-army do-it-all.) Some light reading about the artist or band I was going to talk to. Some listening to their music. But in the summer of 1991, there was one assignment when preparation wasn’t a thing. Bob Guccione Jr, the owner/editor-in-chief, of Spin had come up with an idea (er, gimmick) to have all the editors write down a city where a certain musical scene was happening, then he’d put them all in a hat and blindly choose where each of us would go and we’d write about it. The night before we would get a call from his assistant on what to pack and we’d be met at the airport and given our ticket. We’d smile for the camera (publicity being one-half the life of a publication) and jet off. I’d written down Tampa, Florida, where I’d heard a pretty vibrant death metal scene was blooming. I didn’t want to go to Tampa, Florida. It was just a city I knew had something weird going on. I wanted to go to New Orleans, which I knew had been thrown in the hat by another editor.

On the day of, after being told to pack for warm weather, I was handed a ticket to Tampa, Florida. Apparently, Bob had forgone the pick-from-hat idea and just sent everyone to the place they’d written down. Gah. So I went there and interviewed a lot of skinny white boys who played really grinding music with lyrics that tried to rhyme “satan” and “hatin'” and “Lucifer” and, I don’t know, “Jupiter.” I sat down in a room with Glen Benton from Deicide, one of the on-the-scene death metal bands. He had an upside-down cross burned into his forehead. Refreshed every full moon. It was a look. (I’m currently refusing to do an internet search to find out if he’s either an accountant with bangs or still working the look in the band.) I came home with a ticket for driving the wrong way down a one-way street, a lot of interviews to transcribe, and a full week’s worth of ear ringing. (If you’re curious, here’s the piece p.38.) Because it seemed I should take advantage of my tinnitus, we all thought it would be a great idea for me to immediately get back on a plane and attend an event called Milwaukee Metal Fest V. The first four Metal Fest shows had apparently been so successful they needed to have another. The line-up was a tossed salad of words that taken individually all equaled some sort of sadness and pain: demolition, malevolence, napalm, etc. When paired up, they rolled around on broken glass and shouted “I’m the best band name ever.”

I took my sorry ears to the airport for the flight to Milwaukee. I was part of a junket of journalists and because the writer from Kerrang! was wearing so much silver jewelry he took an extraordinary amount of time going through the metal detector, we barely made the flight. Once there, it was straight to the hotel, drop our stuff, and onto a shuttle to the venue. The day was bright and hot. Central Park Ballroom where the cacophony was in full swing was dark and loud. So, so loud. One note, held and sustained by growling, screaming guitars and vocals punching at each other, matched by the relentless bashing of cymbals and drums. All turned up to eleven. I’d brought earplugs and although I had a moment of shame inserting them, I did it anyway. In fact, so concerned was I that these youth were damaging their hearing irreparably, I walked up to two young men (seriously, so young) and held out my open palm with earplugs as an offering, then mimed “please take.” The horror on their face combined with the speed with which they moved away from me told me I’d made a mistake. I would not be talking to them about their love of death metal. I would instead be recognizing how old and out-of-my element I was. Ancient at thirty-one.

Wandering into the bathroom, I found my people. Scattered and lounging on the shabby once-fancy velvet couches in the anteroom connecting the ballroom to the actual sink&toilet room, a group of women were talking, doing their nails, maybe some were knitting. They were the moms. I sat down, comforted. They nodded and kept on doing whatever they were doing. Very few young women were coming in to use the toilets because there were very few of those in the audience. Every once in a while a boy would yell out “Mom, I need the car keys” or “Mom, Joey and I want to go to Burger King” and the attendant chaperone mom would rise, exit, and take care of business. I wanted to stay here all day, but that wasn’t the story I was meant to tell.

The story turned out to be something that proved how truth will always be stranger than fiction, or rather, real-life events are hands-down more interesting when they collide with culture. And being in the right place at the right time helps. Over the catering table backstage, I’d started up a conversation with the bassist for Cannibal Corpse, Alex Webster. Maybe it was because he reminded me of a character in Spinal Tap–although truth be, they all reminded me of Spinal Tap to some degree. It also helped that he was friendly in a non-creepy way. So there we were chatting when someone mentioned that the police were clearing out the house of Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious serial killer who’d just been arrested a few days earlier. (And if you’re feeling queasy or weird about this topic, then maybe don’t read further.) His crimes were gruesome and included a fair bit of cannibalism. Well, this seemed tailor-made for a field trip. As Alex grabbed the other members, all wearing their Cannibal Corpse hats and t-shirts, they headed out the door to make the two-block walk to the crime scene. Naturally, this became a perverse Peter-Pan parade since a whole load of kids milling about in the parking lot trailed along. Reaching the house, which was yellow-police-taped off, we didn’t have to wait long before the actual refrigerator was wheeled out of his house at which point the band and all the merry muck-ruckers from the festival began cheering, then the press became very excited about the crazy symbiosis of Dahmer-crime-scene and band-name alignment so a whole lot of publicity happened. Everyone was very happy. Me, because I was back out in the sunshine and was able to read lips well enough to overcome my hearing loss, the kids because this true-crime moment was rad, man, and the band because they were getting so much press. Perfect day. That night someone pulled the fire alarm in the hotel. The next day I got back on an airplane and went home. My hearing eventually returned to (almost) full strength.

Now I travel for pleasure and despite the extra precautions and stress, my emotional carry-on is more happy anticipation than work-related adrenaline. Hopefully, every one of those boys and girls have grown into some fine adults and the moms have received a sufficiency of appreciation for the hours spent waiting for their independence. Maybe their hearing is intact. Maybe all the bands are telling their grandchildren about the wild time they went to a serial killer’s house. Real life. True stories, they’re everywhere as long as you keep your ears open.

This past week, my dad, Dennis, and I went into LA to see the VanGogh interactive exhibit and before the show, we stopped at a burger place down the block. Up above the bar was a TV streaming music videos from the way-back time (80s, 90s mostly). After a raucous stadium-show AC/DC “For Those About to Rock,” Nirvana’s “The Man Who Sold the World” flashed on. Recorded in November 1993 live in NYC, it was a performance for MTV’s Unplugged series, which shockingly seems to still be a feature on the channel.

I nodded at the screen and said, “Ah. Nirvana.” My dad said, “Your old friends.” We both took a minute to watch, then I added, “I’m there. In the audience.” In the saying of that out loud, the absolute surreality of it settled in me. I mean, I’ve been hundreds of places where the song is playing and it washes over me without a thought. Sometimes, depending on my mood, I might get nostalgic. Have a moment about where I was on that particular day in both mind and body. But these flashbacks live in a fairly airtight space in me, so pretty quickly the memory will stand up, gather its things and step back into the back-then room, nodding and shutting the door quietly.

But this day I became a bit smitten with the weirdness of my 60-year-old self sitting in a restaurant in LA with my dad looking up at a place where the 32-year-old version of me was sitting in an audience watching a band that changed my life, made up of people I knew and cared about a lot. Thirty-eight years ago, almost to the day, I was in an aisle seat with my friend Chris. We were about halfway back, facing the stage and before the taping had started, Kurt had wandered into the space with a cup of tea. Heading toward us, he stopped, held out the white paper cup with green&blue swirls (standard-issue catering style), nodded, and said, “Penny-royal tea?” It felt like an offering rather than just a comment on what he was drinking, which wasn’t of the penny-royal variety but rather Earl Gray (I remember the paper tag saying so). I took it, maybe he smiled–in my memory he did–and I recognized it as a reference toward the song he would play later. The one that makes reference to distilling “the life inside of me” and asking for a Leonard Cohen afterworld in order to “sigh eternally.” His eyes were blue, his sweater green and mohair, his way shy but not. Sure but from a removed place. Friendly but don’t mistake that for friends. I thanked him, maybe with a touch of irony as if in on the joke, then handed the cup back and he went on his way, maybe offering the cup to a whole bunch of people. Who knows. He’d stopped in front of me and for the moment that’s where I lived.

The show started and by the time he’d strummed the final chords on Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?“, the last song of the set, his voice devastated by the notes he’d dug like a gravel pit, I was gone. Not in body, but all my insides: thoughts, soul. An agitation around “Please stop” and “never stop.” The former because his voice felt pure cracked pain. The latter because I wanted him to sing there always, even if it hurt. Him. I wanted to know more of what I thought he was giving us. A view into his interior? A don’t-you-see-how-it-can-rip-you? glimpse. It felt like voyeurism, yet he was offering. So I took. It’s strange to feel protective over someone you only sort of know, yet also greedy about wanting them to keep showing you things that are maybe painful to them. But Kurt wasn’t just showing that to me, he opened himself to hundreds of thousands whether through recordings or live. And again the question, was he really? Exposing himself that deeply? Or were we reading in?

Ultimately it doesn’t matter the did he/didn’t he scenario. As a channel for connection, I let myself go into the deep place inside of me. And I stayed there and learned things. And his lyrics, the band’s music, helped me get there and feel it all. Then he was gone. For real. And although I have a hard time still revisiting the place in me he opened, sitting in a burger bar 38 years later, my heart beating a bit quicker for the memory, I smile and want another sip of that tea.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend! Yesterday Dad, Dennis, and I carried on our Thanksgiving tradition of eating furkey with all the trimmings (gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, citrus-glazed sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts roasted with walnuts & blue cheese, rolls, and, of course, pumpkin pie!!!), watching footie (not the US kind, but the soccer variety. The Portland Timbers beat the Colorado Rapids to advance to Western Conference Final), drinking martinis (vodka for dad, gin for Dennis, me: wine–nada martini). There was much merriment, stories, good vibes and love.

As a big fan of words, it strikes me fairly often how arrangements of consonants and vowels can fall short of the emotions behind them. Wrestling with writing them into cohesive and entertaining ways can sometimes work. Maybe more given the amount of crack-on books, articles, and many other written/spoken formats I’m constantly entertained by. In the past weeks, two books (The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton; Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason) have transported me with words all arranged in new and interesting ways.

Maybe the sometimes-lack has more to do with personal poignant moments that aren’t easily captured. So when I think about rendering a day like yesterday, nothing really lands.

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Back when I worked in the land of classifications (record company), there were all these nifty little words that would become paired with each other to help radio stations and music television know where to place things on their playlists. So you had things like Adult Contemporary (also please to not forget Hot Adult Contemporary, Soft Adult Contemporary, Urban Adult Contemporary), Rhythmic, Active Rock (also see: Album Oriented Rock, Mainstream Rock), and naturally, Alternative. In no universe can I actually break down the divisions between these categories. If you’re truly interested in the minutia, here. Suffice to say, since I worked in video promotion and not radio, I had less need to pay attention when it came to the boundaries. Altho there was no lack of fencing placed around genres, and I did do full laps inside the pens of 120 Minutes (alternative), Headbanger’s Ball (metal. duh.), and Yo! MTV Raps (guess…), it was always fun to confuse the issue. Could the Beastie Boys play in both 120 and Yo! land? Might Alice in Chains hold court in the Headbanger’s Ball while still taking some runs around 120 Minutes? Heady stuff. But in reality, the question of the importance of what words can do is not small. They often make us feel safe and ordered. Or exposed and freaked out. Warm and dry. High and dry. Wet with sad. Many things in between. Words can only do so much and mostly they’re subject to whatever layers of meaning we’ve attached to them.

These word salad classifications seem particularly absurd when applied to music. Take Adult Contemporary. Breaking it down: You are an adult (MW def: of or intended for adults) and, er, contemporary (MW def: happening or beginning now or in recent times), therefore this is music for adults that is happening now. right. Wouldn’t that maybe apply to all music? But seriously, we could become mental pretzels taking it apart. Yet these classifications have proven useful (I’ve heard) in helping music folkx do their job. I use music as an example because I think it’s an art form more than almost any other where the act of taking it in (aurally) is such an individual experience as to go beyond words. This guy, Iain McGilchrist, is a psychiatrist and researcher who studies the brain. He talks about how when scientists study brain activity while people are listening to music, it affects more than just mood/emotions. That it fires up neuron activity deep inside that old brain-al cortex often leaving people with few actual solid words that can describe the experience. (This incredibly cool graphic breaks down how all parts of the brain are affected by music. I seriously did not know there were this many parts to the brain. doh.) Then there are the synesthetes among us. They hear music and see shapes. Or you hear a word or a name and see a color. “Synesthesia is a fancy name for when you experience one of your senses through another. … It translates to ‘perceive together’ (WebMD).

In essence, all this is to say I adore words. Of course I do, but their utility can often shortchange the moment. As I glanced around yesterday wanting to capture all the joy in the room, I knew consonants and vowels and exclamatory moments wouldn’t relay the full power. Pictures help, but just a bit. I invite you to feel free to fill in all the blanks with your own personal descriptors and happy all days ahead.

To be unsure. Of what I’m doing. Maddening given that normally, to do something, take on a project, head in a certain direction, pretty much get out of bed in the morning, there’s a general sense of “right. I have a few skills under my belt, let’s do this.” But in the last couple of weeks, taking on a new student to tutor has driven me all to distraction. First of all, I’m coming into their roster of classes with no basic idea of what’s gone on with them before, pretty much no knowledge of what’s expected from the professor or otherwise. So that’s funny. But what’s also real is my stress around it. Kind of like those dreams you have where you’re taking a test and you realize you have no friggin’ idea what the answers are. In fact, it’s not even in a language you understand. Oh, and you’re naked. When I snap myself out of that baseline panic, I realize, Lauren, ferFuxSake, no one is expecting you to understand this rhetoric class that deals with logos and pathos and other Greek-etymological words ending with ‘os’. (Bathos anyone?) Yes, I’ve looked them up, but working with this student inside a paper where they need to be used intelligently…get the f&&* out. Yes, we’ve discussed. They’ve explained to the best of…but still, I see failure standing just out the corner of my eye tapping a big clown shoe waiting to trip me.

That’s my pratfall. Rather than sanely asking, “Hey, walk me through that,” I immediately go to “Oh, miLord, I’m failing you. I’m sorry.” Then I start frantically looking for a Ted Talk or mini-Master Class where I can learn all about the subject without embarrassing myself. (SideNote: Metallica has a Master Class entitled “Being in a Band.” Curious. Won’t help me with Greek rhetoric. Probably.)

Today on the walk home from my swim, I Iistened to a great podcast interview with Meg Mason, on In Writing with Hattie Crisell. Meg talked about a quote from Ian McEwan she has pinned up on the board above her desk: “Hesitation is essential to art.” My mind went to daydreaming and how important that is to creativity–something my dad and I talked about last week when he got curious about meditation and we were exploring the difference between a purposefully empty mind and an organic letting-go as the mind wanders, bringing up all sorts of ideas and such. But Meg talked about the quote more in the realm of procrastination. Specifically, how hesitation, disguised as procrastination, springs from fear and being confronted with the sense that you may not have the ability to do the thing you’re passionate about. So you pause, hesitate. Pull back to avoid instant failure, then look it in the eye and dig for the passion to proceed. (Meg knows from what she speaks on the topic of failure. She talks about that here.) And if it just doesn’t feel right, even after giving it a good go and a stare-down and a talking-to, and then all those breaths taken, then giving yourself permission to step away. Boy, even as I write that, I know in my bones I don’t quite believe it. But as a wise-as-F woman Jami Attenberg says on the topic: “Sometimes we just have to let our work disappear and eat our failures. We tried, and that was enough.“

And wouldn’t you know it, I did a funny dance with procrastination and failure today. All morning I’d been tinkering with a certain chapter. Walking around it. Rereading it. BORED by it. But for some reason, it seemed important for me to keep it. A kind of Look-at-all-the-clever-language kind of stubbornness. I wandered away. Returned to trying to find a TedTalk on rhetoric that I could understand. Left the apartment. Went to the pool. Then, as I pretended I was a big sea turtle who knew the breaststroke, it hit me: That chapter needs to earn its keep. Justify why it’s there. Screw the fancy language. It’s not even that clever a patter anyway. As a reader, I know that if I’m going to take a ride into a scene, I want to get in the damn car for a reason and trust the character at the wheel to take me somewhere. So I came home and found the characters I’d been writing laying flat out on the hotel floor, asleep. When I’d left them, they’d been sparring on the bed…so you know, they were just over it too. I shook them awake and asked Why are you here? Where are you going? We had a bit of a tussle. They made a good case for staying, but they also wanted a couple of other players to come in and tweak the action. I mean, they were as bored as me. We came to some decisions. They’ll probably hang in. We’ll see. Which reminded me: nothing is permanent. Not fear of failure. Procrastination. Time. Characters. Nada. Well, maybe Greek has staying power. mónimos.

(Vocalized below)

“I can’t complain.” “It could be worse.” Two little sentences big on inference, short on growth. Often spotted together, these toxic twins tend to shake a sharp mental index finger as if to say, “You should know better.” Better than to air out grievances, speak about any states of disenchantment in your world, let on that sometimes things aren’t fine, thanks for asking. Doesn’t even matter what kind of not-fine. Maybe not earth-shattering not-fine, possibly just meh, yuk, stressful, icky, annoying. The I-don’t-feel-like-pretending kind of not-fine. These aforementioned ditties often stalk around behind a door marked “comparative suffering,” which is described as “feeling the need to see one’s suffering in light of other people’s pain. … people may believe that they suffer more than someone who missed their bus, but less than a starving child. … In some cases, people can be quick to judge others who they feel haven’t paid their dues.” This explanation, lifted from Wtherapy is pretty straightforward and gives a nod to Brené Brown the, in her words, “researcher, storyteller, and (currently enraged) Texan who’s spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.” You may have heard of her. She did a pretty popular Ted Talk about vulnerability that according to the Ted website has had, oh only about 55,758,634 views so far, and that’s not counting the hundreds or so that were in the audience. She also has a popular podcast. One, in particular, is on this very subject and another features a particular favorite human of mine, psychotherapist and author Esther Perel, that touches on this topic along with many other completely rad things (thank you as always to my podcast guru, Windy, for bringing it to my attention).

But enough about Brené and Esther, how and why did thoughts about comparative suffering pop into my current headspace? Well, a funny thing happened on the way to money-making, creativity, and balance: I stumbled as I often do over the fence I’d erected around my writing time. It’s clearly not a strong fence. Actually pretty flimsy given I trampled the crap out of it without even really thinking twice. Until after it was done, and I looked at my schedule and thought, Huh, that’s funny, I left no time for my writing sessions. Instead, I was feeling the heat of the little voice inside stoking my fear around money and acceptance. The one that mutters, “You better say yes. You need the money. Can’t afford to say No.” I mean, honestly, this is a do-si-do soundtrack to my life. As a freelancer, it’s always been thus. But that particular voice is not what this post is about. The shrinking of my creativity was merely the drawbridge to get me to Can’t-complain-could-be-worse land where I rolled around for a minute, but then had the self-realization to stand up and shake it off. Was pretty damn proud I recognized this nonsense of comparison was no good. Sure, it could be worse. OF COURSE IT COULD BE WORSE. That’s not the point. The negation of any emotion around any feelings is just a thing that leaves us empty. Whatever that shadow that passes over and into us is real and wants some attention. Some laying on of hands if only to say, What you’re feeling, yeah, it sucks. Carry on. I’m over here if you need me, but please don’t feel the need to pretend you’re okay.

I wonder if the need to platitude the occasion doesn’t stem from people being nervous about A) wanting to say something really meaningful but not at all sure what that is or B) not knowing what to say because they’re uncomfortable around icky-real feelings or C) not knowing what to say because no one has ever suffered as hard as them, so what the hell are you talking about? No matter which of those (or some other reason), it’s tricky territory. I get the idea of wanting so badly to have just the right thing to say that will then (in my fantasy) change their life for the better so they always think of me when recalling that time in their life. Oh, ego, you’re so overpowering. Journalist Anna Sale has a new book out Let’s Talk About Hard Things. I haven’t read it, but heard an interview with her that spoke of that very thing: People’s discomfort around topics, like death for instance, where it’s just so so so hard to know what to say and so often the conversation can fall on the side of bromides while frantically looking for the Exit sign. Cuz that’s just human. Yet. It’s also human to die, and that just freaks the f*&ck out of people (I’m in that camp too). But here we are collectively, globally in the midst of a year that’s been filled with death. And confusion. And fear. Personally, I’m someone who tends to tuck&roll through things, then when I reach a clear spot, could be days, months, years down the road, I’ll fall apart. It may look to the outside world as if I’m falling apart because, I don’t know, the orange tree we got when we moved here is really looking sad and appears to be dying. I mean, that’s sad, but probably not tears-streaming-down-face-sobbing sad. Naturally, that little orange tree (which really is suffering for reasons we can’t figure out) is a stand-in for a whole lot of emotional stuff going both far back and just yesterday. Spanning the trampling of my writing-time fence, taking on more work, and getting some crappity-crap news from the IRS, and all the way back to March 2020 when the first COVID case popped up on the local San Bernardino health site.

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I recently heard author Jeanette Winterson talk about how back in the day, folkx wore black for two years when they were mourning in order to let people know to be a bit gentle with them. These days mourning a loss has a get-on-with-it sheen and wearing all black just means you probably live in New York City. Bah, let’s all agree that we are okay with mourning all the many people and things we loved and lost during the pandemic. There is sadness and suffering inside that wants tending to, but also honest expression around. Sometimes things just suck. I’m still working on welcoming that. Holding it. Watering the tree and making sure to build a new fence around my writing-time moments. Life’s hard, y’all. (And side note: I’m not gonna lie about how hard it was to just let this end without tacking on some up-side message. Not doin’ it though. Letting things be where they are.)

(Trying something new with a reading of the blog as well. Click below for that)

Staring into the mirror last week, I studied the scene around me and thought “Hold this moment.” My dad’s reflection beside me, along with a dozen or so of his closest workout buddies, all of us marching next to our chairs as the Gap Band’s “Party Train,” (RIP Ronnie Wilson) rolled on. The class instructor, beloved and filled with the best lived-life stories, talked about this&that. The night before I’d hung out with my dad watching the last game of the World Series, no allegiance to a team except for a burning hope Texas would not win since that state has become to me a shitSHow of wrongness on most human-rights levels (sorry, Austin dwellers. I love your particular bit of Texas, but the politics…sheesh). So there I was the next morning, watching my dad as we moved through all manner of balancing and stretching, determination and free-flowing movement reflecting back at me. An intense wash of love splashed over me. A sense so strong, I felt it covering me completely. I held on. Every emotional fiber of YES, this is it. Remember this. My eyes got a bit stingy, breath ragged, which I pretended might be because of the leg lifts!?!? Underneath this tingly stuff was the realization that this was why I’m here, not just geographically, but planetary as well. That is all. This connection is everything. I glanced around at all his buddies, smiles (maybe grimaces), some seriousness, a bit of side chatting among the ladies in the back row. And there I was, beaming out while trying to keep up. If you’d have told me ten years ago that I would be a bonafide member of Silver Sneakers, my dad’s companion once a week, I’d have been surprised. In fact, I kind of was the first time he suggested I go along with him five-or-so years ago when Dennis and I were out for a visit. Thinking, what, me? Silver Sneakers, who?

At the time, Dennis and I were training for the NYC Marathon (his second, my fifth) and I naturally thought I was a badass runner whose fitness activities were more lunge-stretching against a tree after a 20-mile training run than leg stretches in a chair after a 20-minute march-in-place routine. Dennis, who at the time was involved in some sort of home-repair project at my dad’s, said something along the lines of, “C’mon, go. This is an excellent chance to hang out.” Reminding me that this wasn’t about the movement but the moment. So I did, walking into the class thinking, I’ll make the most of this by doing every exercise extra hardcore—a completely misguided thought since about halfway through, as Gina led a series of weight-lifting overhead moves—I understood that having taken 10-pound weights was a mistake. Because … well, see badass comment above … my arms were trembling and burning, my fae twisted with concentration. Jeez. By the end of the hour I was legit sweating, a whisper of humility blowing through me as we stepped out into the parking lot. My dad was moving just fine. I had maybe pulled something in my upper back from the too-heavy weights. Luckily I wasn’t running the marathon on my hands.

When the first Sunday in November arrived, we ran the marathon. (Sidenote: happy to see NYC back on the road tomorrow after celebrating last year’s 50th anniversary virtually.) That year, 2013, was a brutal marathon for me. The fifth and (probably) final. After Dennis and I split off from each other at around mile 17 on the Queensborough bridge, given he had more juice to pull ahead, I managed to finish the last few miles by scaring small children with my obscene mutterings (yelling? I think I saw an adult covering a small child’s ears) and might have screamed at someone on the sidelines of Fifth avenue for yawning. Or that was all in my head since hallucinations can often be part of the long-distance runner’s experience. I needed every drip of drive to get me over the finish line. When I did, I was probably happy (don’t really remember), I know I was relieved. I was unable to lean over to put on my street clothes after walking the one-half-mile-or-so required to get to the trucks (thank you UPS) holding my bag and out of the park. I remember hearing people yelling at folkx who were starting to sit down on the side of the road. “Don’t sit down! Walk it off! You’ll never get up! Your muscles will seize!” I kept on walking to Dennis and our meeting place at the Starbucks on Columbus Ave. Every step was like one of those weird movie camera shots where the object you’re aiming for gets further away as you move closer. I finally made it, looked through the window and saw him sitting, fully clothed, legs crossed(!!!) with a coffee chatting with someone who to me might have been Angelina Jolie since I was so incredulous he was able to do any of the things I was seeing through the window. I splat-catted against the glass and (again, in my mind) began to slide down leaving a trail of salt from my sweat-dried body. Shivering. He saw me, ran out, brought me inside and proceeded to help me become human again. Since then I’ve been a spectator at the NYC marathons (this year from a 3,000 mile distance).

Endurance. It’s what life offers. I’m happy to find that, and even though I agitate against/with it on many occasions, it feels like a just-right combination currently of being able to slow down and appreciate: What I see in the mirror. Who I see in the mirror. I’m a blue-haired senior fer crissakes (thanks, Overtone) having finally gotten the color I want on my head and the age aced crossing into 60. At Silver Sneakers marching along beside my dad, sitting next to him on the couch watching a game, sitting in our backyard sipping coffee together along with the occasional hair-trim since I became his barber during the pandemic, it’s all good. Nowhere better than here. Learning. I now use 5-pound weights during class and appreciate marching around a chair with the best of them, then I read about the runners and smile.

One of the pleasures of my job as a tutor is that I get the opportunity to take a walk through my students’ college courses while working with them on papers and such. One is a Religion major, which offers me all kinds of cool readings on Krishna (so many deities/names to keep track of in Hinduism). Also a class on the carceral system, abolition, and social justice through the lens of religion. Fask-i-nating! Another new entry into my tutoring fun is a Media Studies major. The paper I’m assisting with is for Gender and the Media and as soon as I read the syllabus I had so many thoughts (so many!), ideas, discussions I wanted to have. I had to get up and take a walk, calm down and remember I’m not actually taking this class, but am there as a support and editor in the writing of the papers. I exist as a sounding board. Someone virtually loping along beside these students as they navigate their way through the topics. Every time I feel like raising my hand and pulling a Welcome Back Kotter “Oh! Oh! Oh! I got it!” move, I take three deep breaths and tell myself, NO, this isn’t my class. Calm down.

I had the same issue in grad school where, in my forties, I was usually the oldest person. During my early-20th century literature classes. I was beyond excited about assignments to do with Edith Wharton’s “House of Mirth” and Theodore Dreiser’s “Sister Carrie” —or anything really—and that meant my hand was constantly in the air. This was no doubt annoying to the other students. I’d have a hard time hiding my exasperation when other students would be flippant during conversations I thought were deep&meaningful. (Example: during a discussion about the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and death, when asked about our relationship to loss a student offered that he’d lost his car in a parking garage once. He played it for laughs, but in that moment I was feeling the prof’s pain.) So while I don’t buy into the adage: youth is wasted on the young given the outstanding people under thirty who are currently trying to save our planet, enact gun reform, further rights for girls/young women, open eyes to social and racial justice, and so much more, I do think that college itself is a hit-or-miss moment when it comes to expecting all the deep thoughts to be fired up. I can attest to the fact that as an undergrad, I spent way more time in the campus bar doing zero research for my journalism classes than was at all necessary. Yet I graduated, had a career, then decided to go back to grad school (which, side note, did not in any way enhance my career and although I loved the hell out of it, I’m actually still paying off the student loan).

One thing I 100% remember though is thinking how mature I was. I could discourse about existentialism as if I were in Paris sitting across from Sartre. Or at least that’s what I thought. In reality, I was just riffin’ away with ideas that interested me but were in no way new or different. I mean, I was talking about a many-decades old philosophy that had been explored and opined on within an inch of its life. I didn’t have anything to add that was new. Yet still, that’s what college is for. Expansion, trying on new looks in your mind and on your body, thinking you’re way more capable (or messed up) than you actually are. Mixed bag. Obviously, it’s not as if that starts up as you enter college. I found a note in an old journal when I was sixteen complaining about how hard it was to live with my mom because we were “two adults under one roof.” Noooo, I wasn’t an adult, but I guess I was playing one on the TV in my brain.

In retrospect, this combination of confidence and confusion is so potent. It’s the launching pad for amazing learning curves but also a dose of false bravado that can be scary. One thing that tracked me from end-of high school through college was feminism. It was a time when conversations around what a woman thought, the opportunities she should have, the places she could go were seemingly irrefutable. Title IX had recently passed. There were plenty of examples in songs and movies of women on the rise. The place I put my feminism away or aside was around the bands I loved. The messages of sexuality delivered through the lyrics. Sure, there were plenty of mystical mountains and tiny dancers, but there were an equal—if not more—amount of words finding their way into my psyche about women as objects (not even going to link any here because Van Halen, AC/DC, Grand Funk Railroad, while some of my favorites at the time, offer a selection of topics that fit the bill). Anyhoo, over time and into my music journalism career I both cheered for the ladies (Patti, Joan, Bikini Kill, Babes in Toyland, Sleater-Kinney, Breeders, The Vaselines!!! Yes, and more!) but I also knew damn well how lopsided and sexist the industry was. My point here is…somewhere along the way I stopped looking at the lopsided media moments and wished upon a star that women were making headway. In a way, yes, but also not so much. Then I walked away and kinda didn’t pay attention.

So this week, after watching a fantastic short doc for the Media and Gender class called Killing Us Softly 4, it occurred to me not only how the message of woman-as-object in advertising continues to affect female self-image and autonomy, but also how insidious it is. Messages are everywhere, stepping into our brains around idealized images of women and what men want. And it will take so much more awareness and work to change that. I realized just how much after watching three Katy Perry videos that, to a one, flipped my lid with what to me seemed blatant sexism. I know zip/nada about Katy, so if you tell me she’s being ironic, maybe I can get there, but what made me scream was that she’s powerful enough to run her own show. In other words, if she doesn’t want to make a video about being a piece of food prepared and served up to be consumed, I’m pretty sure she could say “hey, let’s come up with something else.” But yet there she was being pummeled, deep-fried, etc. In the other, she was a piece on a gameboard being controlled/overseen by Snoop Dogg. My head exploded a little. I thought, I don’t want this as entertainment for anyone. I felt old, righteous, slightly helpless. If my student can make a good case for how this is reverse sexism, then I’m all ears. We did also watch “The Man” by Taylor Swift, which was thoroughly entertaining though not at all subtle. And not to sound ancient (hahahaha), but subtlety is the thing really. I might have had a dictionary definition of that back in my young-woman days, but I didn’t really get how to do it. Apparently, as I spend much of my time in the land of the young-and-figuring-it-out, I’m getting better at cheering them on. Remembering that back-in-my-day I had a hard time telling the difference between sexist and sexy. Learning by listening, reading, watching badass ladies who were not afraid to step up and explain it. I get to have those conversations in the here and now, but am also becoming well-aware of when to ask questions. Make sure I’m not missing anything. Try not to jump to conclusions. Just to extend my stay in the land of the young, I’m watching a delightful show called Sex Education. (Gillian Anderson as a single-mom, sex therapist in a British town. I mean, come onnnnnn….amazing. Best quote so far: mom: “You’re not supposed to understand anything. You’re sixteeen.).