Kathleen From The Bronx
10-16-2007, 06:13 AM
Dear Ron and Fez Shooow,
So the opening song today was, "Knock Three Times," by Tony Orlando and Dawn.... I was just waking up of course, right in time for the show and I groggily thought, "What the hell is goin on here???" Then as the consciousness of the waking world began to seep into my brain, it hit me.... "This must be the work of The Big Cat!" I shuffled towards my back deck and lighting my cigarette I paused in front of the radio for a moment..... Shaking my fist at the speakers while narrowing my eyes into a menacing wince I uttered, "You'll pay for this one Big Cat!!! OOooh-ho-ho-hooo YOU WILL PAY DEARLY!"
Nahhh... I'm just kiddin... I didn't mean it... Well, I really did pull that routine....but just in case I was secretly being filmed.... It was all done for dramatics..... Actually I found it pretty fuckin hilarious to wake up to the sounds of Tony Orlando crooning.... I know that I have rambled endlessly in the past about how, for me, memory is so intrinsically bound to music....It's true of this particular song too! "So you have a flashback associated with Tony Orlando and Dawn, Kathleen?" you may be wondering...."How could this be, child of the 80's???" Well stop ya wondering! Why yes, naturally I do.... When I hear Tony Orlando sing, "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me," I always think of my grandmother. I'll get to that in a second or two.... Lemme explain..... My father had a strange and eclectic taste in music when I was a wee kidlet..... By that I mean deeply embarrassing....
Growing up we lived on the first floor of our apartment building.... Our kitchen and living room windows faced into the courtyard that connected the three buildings.... Now and then on a Saturday morning, my parents would get it into their heads that we were all gonna clean the house.... Those windows would fly open.... and my pops would turn on the stereo, putting on one of his records that would send music pouring out onto the streets outside..... into the ears of passerbys and people waiting for the bus.....and I found it just horrifying. You see, everyone else's parents like current music, no matter how bad, it seemed more acceptable.....or salsa.....There was also salsa......It was all at least something that my young mind found, "normal," for the neighborhood. Not my pops...
On rainy days that he would want to, "get us out of the house," sometimes we would take the subway into Manhattan...down deep into The Village to this cramped, dusty-feeling record store that housed tons of classical music, and opera, and jazz..... as well as rarer old finds..... He would spend what felt like hours in there picking out more music to clean to I guess...... He had gigantic bookshelves just full of records and I can assure you that I would cringe to hear just about any of it, especially if I thought that my friends or neighbors..... or even strangers would hear it tooo...... I mean.... Sometimes it was opera, classical or jazz....Sometimes it was classic country..... Sometimes it was early 1900's ragtime which would make me just want to scream, "WHHYYYY???!!!" as I listened to lyrics like, "it's the best band in the land...honey lamb!" or, "In the good old summertime..... in the good old summertime..... Strolling through the shady lanes with your baby mine.... You hold her hand, and she holds yours, and that's a very good sign. That she's your tootsie-wootsie, in the good old summertiiiiime......."
OK??? Is that not enough to kill???! You see what I'm sayin???
It was just embarrassing..... but nothing, nothing was as frightful as the times that my father would put on the German Beer Hall music on those cleaning days.... At those times I was pretty sure that he was just nuts...or that all this really was done with the cruel intent to ruin my life..... even though I knew that he liked it cause it reminded him of the many trips to Germany he took for his job with TWA..... STILL! I'm tellin you it was a RELIEF if he decided to play The Clancy Brothers..... At least everyone in the building and neighborhood knew we were micks! At least that made SENSE..... Thinking about those kinds of Saturday mornings, distinctly I remember the feeling of fresh air blowing through open windows, sending the curtains billowing.....the smell of furniture polish..... and the awful, awful shame!
Humiliation could also be felt at times, rolling through the neighborhood in the car.... heading outta the Bronx here or there.... if the windows were open.... I briefly brought up my fathers affinity towards classic country.... At times driving up Bainbridge Avenue I would be slumped down so low in my seat so that perhaps I couldn't be seen as Slim Whitman yodeled.... What proved to be a small measure of deliverance was that my pops did not nearly have the variety of tapes that he did records, so car trips were not quite as fraught with my typical childhood feelings of social awkwardness regarding that matter.... The fact is, most times in the car he would listen to WPAT Easy 93..... Not to say that was in any way cool.... but you understand, once you've lived through the horrors of the German beer hall.....you'd take it.
Back then the easy listening station didn't play the lighter music of the day.... Their typical line-up consisted of a mix of elevator sounding music.....Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass... Hey that guy came up today..... They'd also play old standards...sung by Frank Sinatra... or sometimes they would play some Neil Diamond.....It was kind of this light 50's, 60's and 70's kind of deal...... There were lots and lots of Burt Bacharach songs.......I'd hear many of them on those car trips sung by Dionne Warwick....oh my God.... They probably should have just called WPAT, "The Burt Bacharach sung by Dionne Warwick Station"...."Do You Know the Way to San Jose???"....."Anyone WHO Ever Had a Heart," or "Walk on By..." WPAT Played all that kind of stuff..... a lot! Seriously so much Burt Bacharach..... Fifth Dimension too...... They had that song, "One Less Bell to Answer." I can remember being little in the car and hearing those lyrics, "One less bell to answer...One less egg to fry....One less man to pick up after....I should be happy.....But all I do is cry," and wondering why this lady being so sorrowful would be focusing on breakfast so damn much.. I didn't get it....but I knew it felt sad...
You guys were talking about this today; people who have no connections to music... who are not moved by music.... Do children even notice the lyrics of music? Dave thought that maybe kids didn't realize or recognize lyrics like that... maybe that's why some people never get into music at all.... Something like that...... I don't know man, I definitely remember pondering about so many lyrics I heard, whether I liked the song or not......
Ron mentioned an experience from his childhood proving that as a child he absolutely observed lyrics and thought about them as a kid, noting the song, "Last Kiss." Hearing those lines, " Oh, where oh where can my baby be? The Lord took her away from me She's gone to heaven, so I got to be good.. So I can see my baby when I leave this world," and thinking about them he said that he thought, "Oh my GOD! She's DEAD!" and related how he felt crushed by that realization...... I dunno, I can really identify with that feeling as I've been rambling.........
Just like hearing that 5th Dimension song and feeling perplexed by why on Earth this lady would be singing about eggs....I didn't completely comprehend what that all meant, but I knew it seemed heartbreaking......and back to Dionne Warwick, I can clearly recall being in the car listening to WPAT as my father drove up up to The Cross County Mall on a cold, gray Fall day as it rained.... My head against the window, and Etch-A-Sketch on my lap, looking outside hearing her sing, "Walk on By," while watching raindrops bead on the car window, I felt mad confused as to why if this singer was feeling so sad, why wouldn't she want him to stop and be nice to her... make her feel better..?? Like I said, I was a kid...... I heard those words and maybe didn't get the meaning.... how it feels when your heart has been broken to see the one who did it on the street.....Don't worry bout me mothafucker, don't be nice to me now, it'll just make it harder..... Yeah..... I didn't get that then..... but I do believe kids certainly HEAR lyrics..... When I think of that song I think of that rainy moment in the car and it feels oddly lonely and comfortable all at once.....
I mean... there are other such instances.... I can also recall hearing Hall and Oates sing, "Man-eater," as I was ice skating when I was five at the rink that used to be there offa Broadway in the Bronx, near 231st Street...... I was skating around thinking, "So what it this? This lady eats men? Watch out boys she'll chew you up!!?? What, is she a monster!?" I wondered about that as I was skating...I remember ice-rink smell mixed with pizza a concessions... I kept thinking about that song as we rode home on the bus.... The concept gripped my little mind so that I kept trying to figure it out as I looked out the bus window, riding passed the IHOP, passed The Jesse James Saloon; a landmark that intrigued me as well........
Anyway.... Yeah... So I definitely remember thinking about songs when I was a child, even if I didn't understand them! Rambling....The whole reason that I brought up WPAT was that besides all that I have mentioned.... now and then you'd hear a lil Tony Orlando and Dawn on those airwaves as well........ I was vaguely aware of that Tony Orlando and Dawn for some reason anyway... maybe cause they were on on Regis and Kathie Lee in the morning a couple of times that I saw....I know that I saw em sing, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree," on that show.... In any case I know that I had heard, "Knock Three Times," on the radio.....
Now that I think of it, what was the deal with this guy?! Could he not just EVER straightforwardly ask out a chick?? He was always lookin for coded responses...... knock on the ceiling.... give the oak tree a yellow bow tie.... then I'll know that you think I'm aces! What the hell? As I sit here feeling all irritated about his lack of gumption now I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he had a song called, "Check the box marked yes if you like me." C'mon Tony Orlando! Step up ya game..... Uuhhh... but I'm sposed to be talking about childhood music memories here..... It confused me that Dawn was his back-up singers... I was like, "Are the both named Dawn? Is only one of them and the other one gets no recognition???" Yeah.... weird shit..... OK! Finally.... the point! When I was a kid, if I'd hear that song, "Knock Three Times;" I'd always think of my grandmother who lived in the same building as us, up in apartment 3D. Noooo not because she had a glorious Tony Orlando 70's mustache... She did not!
When I'd hear the lyrics, "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me," I'd think of her cause she lived in the apartment right below my best friends in the building.....and if they were running around up there all loud and wild, from her wheelchair she'd grab a broom and hit the ceiling repeatedly.... She was NOT singin, "Ooooh my sweetness!" during thses times..... She was yelling, "Will yez shut the hell up wit yez!!??!" crankily in her Irish accent. Yeah, another embarrassing memory form my childhood. My mother would always tell me that grandma didn't feel good so that's why she was so hot-tempered anymore.... My moms always said that it was a shame we didn't know her when she was younger cause back then she was so much fun..... I decided to take her word for it.... All I know is that when we'd be out later playin kickball with my friends in the courtyard, if that broom handle hitting the ceiling incident came up, I'd just have to shrug and say, "Yeah I dunnoo..." And of those times is what Tony Orlando and Dawn will always remind me......
And rambling about all this... I have been thinking too about what Ronnie brought up, that a certain percent of the population believe that no one really enjoys classical music or jazz or opera.....They seem to conclude that these supposed fans simply pretend to appreciate it so as to appear snooty and refined....... See, I also think that's pretty funny myself, but I disagree with the sentiment. Dave claimed that he was one of those people that held that belief... that to say that you like those forms of music is the same thing as pretending to like caviar.....It's putting on airs..... Well, I absolutely love caviar and I've started diggin opera... I sure do love jazz... AND The Grateful Dead... and all the punk rock I loved growing up too....... and I ain't got no reason to front.... Like Ron said, "Why can't some guy huff glue AND enjoy a night at the opera???" I see no reason at all.....none at all... I believe that for just about ANY kinda music out there there will be people who are there just for the scene... but I also think that the majority of any scene really do love it and get something out of it...feel something from it all....
As much as I hated the music that my father inflicted on us growin up, and as many times as I secretly wondered if he listened to it so unabashedly loud just to torture me..... I really know now that there was just something in it for him...memory or whatever..... I know that, "it," was there for him as much as it was for the woman I saw in the row in front of me the time I saw Pavarotti sing who was just crying and crying she was diggin it so.... This really large woman was just so moved by his singing that inky streams of mascara ran from her eyes down her face pooling in the crevice of her double chin.... That was real.... As much as I did not enjoy so much of my father's music back then....sometimes I think back on all those shelves full of records and how he left them back wit my aunt in the Bronx when we moved....and how when she moved away too they got donated and given away.... and I kinda wish that I had them now.... after all of that.... I wonder where they are and if they're being listened to...... It's weird.....
Then I was thinking about something else that you guys had been talking about..... It stemmed from the question of whether it's wack to wear a hat reppin one team and a jersey or shirt of another..... I can tell you that some fashion faux pas like that is a move that at one time I would find pretty grievous.....but now I think, "Well whatever ya wannadoo." My ideas about fashion have become quite laissez faire..... I have adopted a kind of different theory about fashion as of late.... and that is:
I tend to think these days that all clothes are a costume.
Maybe I have to appropriate such an attitude for myself as I have in the past made mention that perhaps I appear kinda hippie....or gypsy-like....or homeless....something like that... Perhaps it's all in some sort of vein of self-comforting...."There, there, it's just a costume..".. I'd say most likely it's an idea that I have somewhat borrowed as a result of my love of Wes Anderson films.
Besides the fact that I love all the stories and characters, there is no ignoring that the man seems obsessed with costumes, and uniforms.... stuff like that.... There is always a certain school-play pageantry about the ways in which each character dresses...... A family dresses all in Adidas sweat suits.... a failed tennis star still rocks his sweatband..... a writer dresses like Wild Bill or somebody outta the Old West.... There are jumpsuits and insignias.....and green velvet suits....... I just dig it all.... Somehow it has influenced me to see whatever anyone is wearing in life as some sort of costume in whatever role that they may be playing in this world...... if life is to be a somewhat tragic comedy....like a Wes Anderson film.....
If I see a guy with a mullet in in denim cut-offs rockin some stars and bars wife beater, I don't dig the look but I assume it's just for the part he is playing in the life-movie.... Zoobaz? Go fuckin for it...... I used to kind of mock, but now thinking of it this way, it's more like bird-watching....people-watching.... I can mark it down, check it off..... Ahhh yes, the Hot Topic Punk, there she is...... Native to the mall and various shows...... I like spotting them just as much as the velour-track-suited fat guys and the quirky little Salvation Army shopping chicks who buy old-lady sequined sweaters and broaches....the irony! There are all kindsa roles to be filled.
It's like you guys were talking about..... I'd take any of that all over what you termed, "The branding of America," where people feel like they have to obtain a certain bag, or shoe, or be head to toe brand-name.... I'll take tackiness over that shit. I appreciate a costume it turns out..... Could explain why I dig it when a certain Brian of mine dresses like an old-timey baseball player to drive a truck.... Senseless....costume?? Sometimes I when he's on the way out the door I'll have to ask, "What is this look today? French Fur-trapper???" or if striped socks are involved, "Pirate??"
I did not miss the point of the discussion, don't worry..... I got what you were saying about band t-shirts and sports team regalia...... I know what you mean about wearing what you are into all over your clothes.... but I mean, I just see it as all costumes too.... If that makes sense. Meh...... All clothes are costumes..... That's me gimmick.
Well, I better stop babbling over here with all my peculiar idears.... You know I'm fuckin crazy, so don't listen to me...... I just think that perchance I've finally stopped caring...??? I really don't give a shit what music people like or if they are fakin it or what triflin outfits people put on.. In order to authenticate this assertion I'm opening my windows, it's a nice day out already..... I'm gonna blast Edison Lighthouse's Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)..... not that I have my own memories associated with this cheese, but anytime my father would hear that song, without fail he'd turn it up by telling us that when he was in Ireland in 1970 it seemed to be playing everywhere he went, it was huge.... That's not my memory but I always liked the sound of it... to imagine my concept of 70's Ireland with that song in the air and all of that stuff......... I'm gonna listen to that out on my back deck in my Christmas Snoopy nightshirt and legwarmers and have me a beer and a cigarette and not care what it looks like..... YEah... yeah.....
I have not always, but I'm thinking now... that whatever you're into you should do it with the windows wide open and not give a rat's ass what anybody thinks about it....oh...oh.... with rare, rare exceptions. Ain't nobody needs to be fuckin a robot; even with the windows shut and the drapes tightly drawn..... We've gone over this before... they're not to be trusted. Ron said it himself- "I guarantee you that the robot will blow you and then snap your neck."
On that note, thanks for a great show..... Have a good day honey lambs-
Signed,
kathleen from the bronx :):):)
So the opening song today was, "Knock Three Times," by Tony Orlando and Dawn.... I was just waking up of course, right in time for the show and I groggily thought, "What the hell is goin on here???" Then as the consciousness of the waking world began to seep into my brain, it hit me.... "This must be the work of The Big Cat!" I shuffled towards my back deck and lighting my cigarette I paused in front of the radio for a moment..... Shaking my fist at the speakers while narrowing my eyes into a menacing wince I uttered, "You'll pay for this one Big Cat!!! OOooh-ho-ho-hooo YOU WILL PAY DEARLY!"
Nahhh... I'm just kiddin... I didn't mean it... Well, I really did pull that routine....but just in case I was secretly being filmed.... It was all done for dramatics..... Actually I found it pretty fuckin hilarious to wake up to the sounds of Tony Orlando crooning.... I know that I have rambled endlessly in the past about how, for me, memory is so intrinsically bound to music....It's true of this particular song too! "So you have a flashback associated with Tony Orlando and Dawn, Kathleen?" you may be wondering...."How could this be, child of the 80's???" Well stop ya wondering! Why yes, naturally I do.... When I hear Tony Orlando sing, "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me," I always think of my grandmother. I'll get to that in a second or two.... Lemme explain..... My father had a strange and eclectic taste in music when I was a wee kidlet..... By that I mean deeply embarrassing....
Growing up we lived on the first floor of our apartment building.... Our kitchen and living room windows faced into the courtyard that connected the three buildings.... Now and then on a Saturday morning, my parents would get it into their heads that we were all gonna clean the house.... Those windows would fly open.... and my pops would turn on the stereo, putting on one of his records that would send music pouring out onto the streets outside..... into the ears of passerbys and people waiting for the bus.....and I found it just horrifying. You see, everyone else's parents like current music, no matter how bad, it seemed more acceptable.....or salsa.....There was also salsa......It was all at least something that my young mind found, "normal," for the neighborhood. Not my pops...
On rainy days that he would want to, "get us out of the house," sometimes we would take the subway into Manhattan...down deep into The Village to this cramped, dusty-feeling record store that housed tons of classical music, and opera, and jazz..... as well as rarer old finds..... He would spend what felt like hours in there picking out more music to clean to I guess...... He had gigantic bookshelves just full of records and I can assure you that I would cringe to hear just about any of it, especially if I thought that my friends or neighbors..... or even strangers would hear it tooo...... I mean.... Sometimes it was opera, classical or jazz....Sometimes it was classic country..... Sometimes it was early 1900's ragtime which would make me just want to scream, "WHHYYYY???!!!" as I listened to lyrics like, "it's the best band in the land...honey lamb!" or, "In the good old summertime..... in the good old summertime..... Strolling through the shady lanes with your baby mine.... You hold her hand, and she holds yours, and that's a very good sign. That she's your tootsie-wootsie, in the good old summertiiiiime......."
OK??? Is that not enough to kill???! You see what I'm sayin???
It was just embarrassing..... but nothing, nothing was as frightful as the times that my father would put on the German Beer Hall music on those cleaning days.... At those times I was pretty sure that he was just nuts...or that all this really was done with the cruel intent to ruin my life..... even though I knew that he liked it cause it reminded him of the many trips to Germany he took for his job with TWA..... STILL! I'm tellin you it was a RELIEF if he decided to play The Clancy Brothers..... At least everyone in the building and neighborhood knew we were micks! At least that made SENSE..... Thinking about those kinds of Saturday mornings, distinctly I remember the feeling of fresh air blowing through open windows, sending the curtains billowing.....the smell of furniture polish..... and the awful, awful shame!
Humiliation could also be felt at times, rolling through the neighborhood in the car.... heading outta the Bronx here or there.... if the windows were open.... I briefly brought up my fathers affinity towards classic country.... At times driving up Bainbridge Avenue I would be slumped down so low in my seat so that perhaps I couldn't be seen as Slim Whitman yodeled.... What proved to be a small measure of deliverance was that my pops did not nearly have the variety of tapes that he did records, so car trips were not quite as fraught with my typical childhood feelings of social awkwardness regarding that matter.... The fact is, most times in the car he would listen to WPAT Easy 93..... Not to say that was in any way cool.... but you understand, once you've lived through the horrors of the German beer hall.....you'd take it.
Back then the easy listening station didn't play the lighter music of the day.... Their typical line-up consisted of a mix of elevator sounding music.....Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass... Hey that guy came up today..... They'd also play old standards...sung by Frank Sinatra... or sometimes they would play some Neil Diamond.....It was kind of this light 50's, 60's and 70's kind of deal...... There were lots and lots of Burt Bacharach songs.......I'd hear many of them on those car trips sung by Dionne Warwick....oh my God.... They probably should have just called WPAT, "The Burt Bacharach sung by Dionne Warwick Station"...."Do You Know the Way to San Jose???"....."Anyone WHO Ever Had a Heart," or "Walk on By..." WPAT Played all that kind of stuff..... a lot! Seriously so much Burt Bacharach..... Fifth Dimension too...... They had that song, "One Less Bell to Answer." I can remember being little in the car and hearing those lyrics, "One less bell to answer...One less egg to fry....One less man to pick up after....I should be happy.....But all I do is cry," and wondering why this lady being so sorrowful would be focusing on breakfast so damn much.. I didn't get it....but I knew it felt sad...
You guys were talking about this today; people who have no connections to music... who are not moved by music.... Do children even notice the lyrics of music? Dave thought that maybe kids didn't realize or recognize lyrics like that... maybe that's why some people never get into music at all.... Something like that...... I don't know man, I definitely remember pondering about so many lyrics I heard, whether I liked the song or not......
Ron mentioned an experience from his childhood proving that as a child he absolutely observed lyrics and thought about them as a kid, noting the song, "Last Kiss." Hearing those lines, " Oh, where oh where can my baby be? The Lord took her away from me She's gone to heaven, so I got to be good.. So I can see my baby when I leave this world," and thinking about them he said that he thought, "Oh my GOD! She's DEAD!" and related how he felt crushed by that realization...... I dunno, I can really identify with that feeling as I've been rambling.........
Just like hearing that 5th Dimension song and feeling perplexed by why on Earth this lady would be singing about eggs....I didn't completely comprehend what that all meant, but I knew it seemed heartbreaking......and back to Dionne Warwick, I can clearly recall being in the car listening to WPAT as my father drove up up to The Cross County Mall on a cold, gray Fall day as it rained.... My head against the window, and Etch-A-Sketch on my lap, looking outside hearing her sing, "Walk on By," while watching raindrops bead on the car window, I felt mad confused as to why if this singer was feeling so sad, why wouldn't she want him to stop and be nice to her... make her feel better..?? Like I said, I was a kid...... I heard those words and maybe didn't get the meaning.... how it feels when your heart has been broken to see the one who did it on the street.....Don't worry bout me mothafucker, don't be nice to me now, it'll just make it harder..... Yeah..... I didn't get that then..... but I do believe kids certainly HEAR lyrics..... When I think of that song I think of that rainy moment in the car and it feels oddly lonely and comfortable all at once.....
I mean... there are other such instances.... I can also recall hearing Hall and Oates sing, "Man-eater," as I was ice skating when I was five at the rink that used to be there offa Broadway in the Bronx, near 231st Street...... I was skating around thinking, "So what it this? This lady eats men? Watch out boys she'll chew you up!!?? What, is she a monster!?" I wondered about that as I was skating...I remember ice-rink smell mixed with pizza a concessions... I kept thinking about that song as we rode home on the bus.... The concept gripped my little mind so that I kept trying to figure it out as I looked out the bus window, riding passed the IHOP, passed The Jesse James Saloon; a landmark that intrigued me as well........
Anyway.... Yeah... So I definitely remember thinking about songs when I was a child, even if I didn't understand them! Rambling....The whole reason that I brought up WPAT was that besides all that I have mentioned.... now and then you'd hear a lil Tony Orlando and Dawn on those airwaves as well........ I was vaguely aware of that Tony Orlando and Dawn for some reason anyway... maybe cause they were on on Regis and Kathie Lee in the morning a couple of times that I saw....I know that I saw em sing, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree," on that show.... In any case I know that I had heard, "Knock Three Times," on the radio.....
Now that I think of it, what was the deal with this guy?! Could he not just EVER straightforwardly ask out a chick?? He was always lookin for coded responses...... knock on the ceiling.... give the oak tree a yellow bow tie.... then I'll know that you think I'm aces! What the hell? As I sit here feeling all irritated about his lack of gumption now I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he had a song called, "Check the box marked yes if you like me." C'mon Tony Orlando! Step up ya game..... Uuhhh... but I'm sposed to be talking about childhood music memories here..... It confused me that Dawn was his back-up singers... I was like, "Are the both named Dawn? Is only one of them and the other one gets no recognition???" Yeah.... weird shit..... OK! Finally.... the point! When I was a kid, if I'd hear that song, "Knock Three Times;" I'd always think of my grandmother who lived in the same building as us, up in apartment 3D. Noooo not because she had a glorious Tony Orlando 70's mustache... She did not!
When I'd hear the lyrics, "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me," I'd think of her cause she lived in the apartment right below my best friends in the building.....and if they were running around up there all loud and wild, from her wheelchair she'd grab a broom and hit the ceiling repeatedly.... She was NOT singin, "Ooooh my sweetness!" during thses times..... She was yelling, "Will yez shut the hell up wit yez!!??!" crankily in her Irish accent. Yeah, another embarrassing memory form my childhood. My mother would always tell me that grandma didn't feel good so that's why she was so hot-tempered anymore.... My moms always said that it was a shame we didn't know her when she was younger cause back then she was so much fun..... I decided to take her word for it.... All I know is that when we'd be out later playin kickball with my friends in the courtyard, if that broom handle hitting the ceiling incident came up, I'd just have to shrug and say, "Yeah I dunnoo..." And of those times is what Tony Orlando and Dawn will always remind me......
And rambling about all this... I have been thinking too about what Ronnie brought up, that a certain percent of the population believe that no one really enjoys classical music or jazz or opera.....They seem to conclude that these supposed fans simply pretend to appreciate it so as to appear snooty and refined....... See, I also think that's pretty funny myself, but I disagree with the sentiment. Dave claimed that he was one of those people that held that belief... that to say that you like those forms of music is the same thing as pretending to like caviar.....It's putting on airs..... Well, I absolutely love caviar and I've started diggin opera... I sure do love jazz... AND The Grateful Dead... and all the punk rock I loved growing up too....... and I ain't got no reason to front.... Like Ron said, "Why can't some guy huff glue AND enjoy a night at the opera???" I see no reason at all.....none at all... I believe that for just about ANY kinda music out there there will be people who are there just for the scene... but I also think that the majority of any scene really do love it and get something out of it...feel something from it all....
As much as I hated the music that my father inflicted on us growin up, and as many times as I secretly wondered if he listened to it so unabashedly loud just to torture me..... I really know now that there was just something in it for him...memory or whatever..... I know that, "it," was there for him as much as it was for the woman I saw in the row in front of me the time I saw Pavarotti sing who was just crying and crying she was diggin it so.... This really large woman was just so moved by his singing that inky streams of mascara ran from her eyes down her face pooling in the crevice of her double chin.... That was real.... As much as I did not enjoy so much of my father's music back then....sometimes I think back on all those shelves full of records and how he left them back wit my aunt in the Bronx when we moved....and how when she moved away too they got donated and given away.... and I kinda wish that I had them now.... after all of that.... I wonder where they are and if they're being listened to...... It's weird.....
Then I was thinking about something else that you guys had been talking about..... It stemmed from the question of whether it's wack to wear a hat reppin one team and a jersey or shirt of another..... I can tell you that some fashion faux pas like that is a move that at one time I would find pretty grievous.....but now I think, "Well whatever ya wannadoo." My ideas about fashion have become quite laissez faire..... I have adopted a kind of different theory about fashion as of late.... and that is:
I tend to think these days that all clothes are a costume.
Maybe I have to appropriate such an attitude for myself as I have in the past made mention that perhaps I appear kinda hippie....or gypsy-like....or homeless....something like that... Perhaps it's all in some sort of vein of self-comforting...."There, there, it's just a costume..".. I'd say most likely it's an idea that I have somewhat borrowed as a result of my love of Wes Anderson films.
Besides the fact that I love all the stories and characters, there is no ignoring that the man seems obsessed with costumes, and uniforms.... stuff like that.... There is always a certain school-play pageantry about the ways in which each character dresses...... A family dresses all in Adidas sweat suits.... a failed tennis star still rocks his sweatband..... a writer dresses like Wild Bill or somebody outta the Old West.... There are jumpsuits and insignias.....and green velvet suits....... I just dig it all.... Somehow it has influenced me to see whatever anyone is wearing in life as some sort of costume in whatever role that they may be playing in this world...... if life is to be a somewhat tragic comedy....like a Wes Anderson film.....
If I see a guy with a mullet in in denim cut-offs rockin some stars and bars wife beater, I don't dig the look but I assume it's just for the part he is playing in the life-movie.... Zoobaz? Go fuckin for it...... I used to kind of mock, but now thinking of it this way, it's more like bird-watching....people-watching.... I can mark it down, check it off..... Ahhh yes, the Hot Topic Punk, there she is...... Native to the mall and various shows...... I like spotting them just as much as the velour-track-suited fat guys and the quirky little Salvation Army shopping chicks who buy old-lady sequined sweaters and broaches....the irony! There are all kindsa roles to be filled.
It's like you guys were talking about..... I'd take any of that all over what you termed, "The branding of America," where people feel like they have to obtain a certain bag, or shoe, or be head to toe brand-name.... I'll take tackiness over that shit. I appreciate a costume it turns out..... Could explain why I dig it when a certain Brian of mine dresses like an old-timey baseball player to drive a truck.... Senseless....costume?? Sometimes I when he's on the way out the door I'll have to ask, "What is this look today? French Fur-trapper???" or if striped socks are involved, "Pirate??"
I did not miss the point of the discussion, don't worry..... I got what you were saying about band t-shirts and sports team regalia...... I know what you mean about wearing what you are into all over your clothes.... but I mean, I just see it as all costumes too.... If that makes sense. Meh...... All clothes are costumes..... That's me gimmick.
Well, I better stop babbling over here with all my peculiar idears.... You know I'm fuckin crazy, so don't listen to me...... I just think that perchance I've finally stopped caring...??? I really don't give a shit what music people like or if they are fakin it or what triflin outfits people put on.. In order to authenticate this assertion I'm opening my windows, it's a nice day out already..... I'm gonna blast Edison Lighthouse's Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)..... not that I have my own memories associated with this cheese, but anytime my father would hear that song, without fail he'd turn it up by telling us that when he was in Ireland in 1970 it seemed to be playing everywhere he went, it was huge.... That's not my memory but I always liked the sound of it... to imagine my concept of 70's Ireland with that song in the air and all of that stuff......... I'm gonna listen to that out on my back deck in my Christmas Snoopy nightshirt and legwarmers and have me a beer and a cigarette and not care what it looks like..... YEah... yeah.....
I have not always, but I'm thinking now... that whatever you're into you should do it with the windows wide open and not give a rat's ass what anybody thinks about it....oh...oh.... with rare, rare exceptions. Ain't nobody needs to be fuckin a robot; even with the windows shut and the drapes tightly drawn..... We've gone over this before... they're not to be trusted. Ron said it himself- "I guarantee you that the robot will blow you and then snap your neck."
On that note, thanks for a great show..... Have a good day honey lambs-
Signed,
kathleen from the bronx :):):)