It is, apparently, karaoke day at the university across the street. To be fair, I’m not a karaoke fan and thus a poor judge of the relative merits of watching other people sing poorly in front of a microphone. For the past three hours I have been listening, as if they were screaming from my front yard, to a variety of skill levels belting everything from Justin Timberlake to Green Day. A criminal effort at Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” was by far the worst karaoke experience so far today, with the exception of an excruciating effort at “No Diggity.”
I’d like to attribute my karaoke criticism to a “Get Off My Lawn” middle-age curmudgeonliness; but in fact, I truly believe that whoever felt authorized to belt out Eminem before noon, and completely sober, on a Wednesday, deserves retribution in the form of multiple compulsory hours listening to Steve and Eydie (a favorite of my maternal grandmother).
We (not the royal we, the entire neighborhood) are now listening to Black-eyed Peas, “Let’s Get It Started In Here,” and I won’t accept your reassurance that it could be worse. I doubt that “My Humps” is included on the karaoke playlist.
The music is so loud that it’s hard to concentrate. What are people on conference calls doing — “Uh, excuse me. Could whoever is playing that Camila Cabello ‘Havana’ song please go on mute?” The weird thing about this is that I feel strongly that there are live musicians playing along because someone is drumming the heck out of the Havana song right now and someone else just jumped in with a very off-key saxophone.
I blame Glee and Pitch Perfect for this. We’re now singing “Price Tag,” which is the third Pitch Perfect song. Do these folks not realize that Pitch Perfect didn’t actually spontaneously bring a couple dozen really good (Broadway level) singers to the SAME college for extracurricular acapella singing?
Aaaaand now we’re on to “Cake By The Ocean.” It wasn’t a good song on the radio. Let me assure you — the karaoke version is much, much worse.
Please, send help. Or earplugs.
On a side note, I am still writing like mad. I have poems submitted to several contests and am still editing a book ….Hold on; they’re singing Taylor Swift right now and I hear sirens. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks there is a crime in progress across the street ….
Anyway, I just finished a poem that I’d love to share (I’m really happy with it) but it’s designated for a publication that doesn’t accept anything posted to social media. If it gets rejected, I’ll post it for your enjoyment.
Despite the smoke haze from the fires, it is a glorious fall day. I hope you have a moment to enjoy it.
Stay safe. Wear a mask when you go out for the same reasons you wear shoes, to keep other people safe (alternatively to keep from being thrown out of the store).
And sing in the car, in the shower, in the kitchen, just not in front of a microphone … unless, of course, that’s Gretchen Wilson currently singing Gretchen Wilson’s “I Want You To Want Me.” (It’s not.)
There wasn’t much music in our house when I was growing up. We had a mid-century style stereo record player but we only had a few records from the 40s and 50s, big band stuff mostly, and Christmas albums, which we’d play sometimes in December. I can remember getting a Jackson 5 album (I think it was GIT but I’d have to get it out of storage to confirm!) and a Carpenters album for my 7th birthday but I didn’t play them much.
My dad, who could not have been called an early adopter of technology, bought a stereo with an 8-track player sometime in the mid to late 1970s. The details are a little cloudy to me — I think he unveiled it at Christmas — I can remember sitting in our very uncomfortable living room listening to 8-track tapes of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings but Dad’s favorite song was “Take This Job And Shove It.” And that’s really all I have to say about Johnny Paycheck.
After we got the stereo, I would sometimes sit in the living room on a Saturday and listen to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 broadcast. When I got a radio for my birthday, it was a REVELATION. I could sit in my bedroom and listen to whatever music I wanted … sort of, as long as it was on a radio station that I could get and IF they played that song … but, of course, that was the world we lived in.
I didn’t have a tape player for a long time but as soon as I did, I, like everyone from that era probably remembers doing, breathlessly waited for the DJ to play my favorite songs and hurriedly pressed “record” to tape the song so that I could replay it over and over. Nothing was worse … nothing … than having your tape player jam and damage your precious cassette of music recorded from the radio, often with the DJ talking over the beginning and ending of your songs.
Mostly, though, when I was growing up, I can remember my mom turning off the “noise” and sighing. “Silence,” she’d say. “I just want silence.” I don’t have any memories of her listening to music or singing along to a song on the radio. None. That can’t be right. I know she must have liked some music but I have no recollection of it. On the other hand, my dad’s mom, nicknamed Grandma Myrtle the Turtle Traffic Light (MtTTL) by her two adoring granddaughters, loved music. She would sing along to the radio in her car. She’d sing while she was cooking. She’d sing with us while we were taking walks around the neighborhood. I don’t recall her having a good voice but, honestly, in my memory, her gravely singing just makes everything better.
Her favorite television show was Lawrence Welk. Whenever she was with us on a Saturday, we’d watch him conduct and my sister and I would dance around the room like goofs. Now that I’m going through Grandma MtTTL’s old correspondence, I have been reading about all sorts of dances and parties she went to in her teens and early twenties. No wonder she loved all that big band music. That woman was a PLAYER. It wouldn’t surprise me AT ALL to find out that she made bathtub gin.
Ken loved music too, as I’ve mentioned before, and gin, actually. I think he and Grandma MtTTL probably had a lot in common. He was a huge classical music lover and spent nearly 20 years compiling a digital compendium based on a pamphlet someone had written about the 100 best classical performances that every music lover should hear. One time, he and I had great seats at a PSO performance. We were sitting in a nearly empty row by an elderly man who was discreetly conducting the concert from his seat. The man even had a binder with the sheet music. We never found out who he was — music critic, PSO staffer, fan? It was delightful. That man was enthralled and his joy became our joy.
What are you listening to during your quarantine? Music, birdsong, the TV, your own internal monologue (stop that!), your neighbors yelling? In addition to my Spotify playlists, I’ve been “watching” (really just listening as I work) NPR Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts: Lang Lang, Kevin Morby & Waxahatchee, Black Thought (he’s an actual example of that overused word, genius), Michael McDonald, Tarriona Ball (Tank from Tank and the Bangas). I’ve really enjoyed them all.
Speaking of listening and noisy neighbors … I had a huge fight with mine — not the 90 year olds (!), the other one — on Sunday because she installed security lights, with the wattage of the noon sun, facing into my backyard. They’re motion-activated so, of course, they came on at 10:30 Saturday night when I went outside with my dogs. I turned when the light came on and stared into the eclipse sun. And then blink, blink, blink. My eyes!
Sunday, when I asked her to turn her lights into her own yard, she said, “I’ll try to accommodate you if you keep your dogs away from the fence.” Guys, she was referring to MY fence. She wanted me to keep my dogs on the other side of my postage stamp lawn because my dogs’ presence made her dogs bark. Oh, lordy, it got super real. Later that afternoon, she came outside, apologized, asked if we could start over, and moved the light. Yay and all that; but imagine how much better that entire situation would have been if she’d just listened to my objection and responded with kindness. Sigh. Neighbors, amirite?
Anyway, that night, late, I was working on a puzzle in my room, windows open to let in the warm breeze. It was quiet, no car sounds, no one walking around outside. Suddenly, there was the most god-awful noise, a shriek to make your heart stop, to raise the little hairs on the back of your neck.
I looked out the window and saw a huge cat (it might have been just all puffy fur, honestly) chasing my neighbor’s black and white prowler down the street toward my house. The shrieking continued as they fought. I’m leaning, arms on the window sill, kind of laughing as I watch the cat drama play out and I hear a man say, really loudly, “What the f**k is that sound?”
Immediately, a woman answers, “Yes, what IS that?” (Apparently other people have their windows open.) I’m laughing out loud now. I say, “It’s a cat,” as I look down at the two critters now fighting on my sidewalk. “No s**t! That’s a cat?” responds the man. “Yep,” I say. And then he adds, “Thanks, and uh, sorry for my language.”
I listen to music while I’m writing. Since I write for six or so hours a day, that’s a lot of music. This morning, my Spotify playlist selected “September,” a song you can’t listen to without getting a mood boost, even if you’re already in a good mood as I usually am. There’s nothing better than sitting down at the computer and fighting with my characters while listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire.
As I’ve said before, I no longer experience that late Sunday dread that used to ruin half the weekend. Monday is, as it should be, just another day marking the Earth’s rotation around the sun. This particular Monday is cloudy and springtime-warm. My windows are open and birdsong intermingles with the music.
While out to do the shopping last week, I took some baked treats to my son’s apartment and put them on the porch, wrapped in Clorox wipes. He came to the door and for just a moment, he stood there, while I stood in the street, and we talked — not close enough but almost too close for safety.
In the early days of quarantine, there was a frantic feel to shopping. Many people were over-buying, their voices shrill with fear. Last week, it was different. The shelves are mostly still empty and there are only a few people in the store. Costco limits the number of customers now so I waited by a cone they used to mark proper distancing until I was offered a sanitized cart.
In the refrigerated section, a very confused man was trying to select a container of milk from the cooler while his unmasked partner berated him from behind the cart. “The one with the BLUE label, Bill.” She coughed into shared air space several times while I watched from a safe distance, waiting for my turn to get milk with the blue label. She saw me watching her and coughed into her elbow.
“OH MY GOD, Bill, what’s the problem?” She looked at me. I think she wanted to bond over her shopping partner’s stupidity but I was — and still am — totally team-confused-guy. Not getting the response she wanted from me, she walked around the cart, coughed onto the glass cooler door and picked out a bottle of milk, while making tsk noises at her poor partner.
“Oh,” he said. “I couldn’t tell which one was the blue label.” I’m still wondering if he’s colorblind or if he didn’t realize that he was in the cooler section where there are ONLY blue-labeled bottles. Did she confuse him by insisting that he get a bottle with the BLUE label when there was no other choice available to him?
Although her cough was decidedly smoker-ish, with an abundance of caution, once they had passed, I selected my blue-labeled milk from a different cooler.
Leonard Cohen, “Who by Fire,” just started playing. He was once described by Scott Simon on NPR as having “a growl of a singing voice that seems to simmer and grumble up through the chords, almost like an earthquake.” Isn’t that lovely?
The rain has started, quieting the birdsong but creating its own accompaniment to my playlist. The sound also reminds me that there’s a clog in one of the gutters. I can hear the splash of water overflowing onto the patio. Either I need to borrow the neighbor’s 30-foot ladder or call someone to clean out the gutters. I hate to put the neighbors to additional risk, which is the only reason I’m not automatically doing it myself. I’ll have to enter their house to get the ladder because they’ve reached the point where it’s too heavy for them to move. I know this because I borrowed the ladder last spring to clear away the ivy growing up our back wall.
Back to the shopping: They have a table on their porch where I’ll leave food treats (she loves cookies but doesn’t bake much anymore) but when they see me, they insist on opening the door to come out and talk. Inevitably, their older spaniel bolts out the door and drops on his back for a belly scritch. He’s a cutie but I feel like I should stay back to keep them safe.
When I do their shopping, they’re supposed to text me the list (she’s an enthusiastic texter) and sometimes they do. She’ll text me, out of nowhere, something like “white flour no hurry,” which makes me laugh. It reminds me so much of text conversations with Ken. He used to text a single word and allow the recipient to build the meaning.
Anyway, last week she insisted on giving me a handwritten list, wrapped in a clorox wipe. Have you ever shopped for someone else? I used to get a list from my mother-in-law but I’ve fallen out of practice. Last week, I made the mistake of accepting the list without review but of course there were questions:
2 pizzas. You know exactly what to do with that if you’re shopping for your own family but what kind of pizza does your 90-year-old neighbor like? “No pepperoni” was the texted answer. Turns out there wasn’t much selection left, just lots of pepperoni (stuffed crust, extra cheese, etc) or the last two vegetarian pizzas that weren’t on a cauliflower crust.
2 apples. First, apples don’t seem to be a big quarantine staple. The store had an abundance of Fuji, Red Delicious, Macintosh, Granny Smith, Yellow Delicious, Kante, and Gala. “Gala,” she answered after a lengthy delay.
Small dog bisc. I almost bought Milk Bone without asking which would have been a big mistake since she wanted no-dye biscuits which I took to mean no red and green Milk Bones. Even so, I definitely got the wrong brand but she texted that Busby is enjoying his new treat.
She says that she too is enjoying her new food experiences. Her poor, long-suffering husband — who she is definitely going to murder before quarantine ends — was apparently in a food-buying rut. Regarding the flour situation: although there’s no flour at our Giant Eagle (Well, that’s not entirely true. You can still buy Quinoa flour. Hehe.), Costco offers a 25 pound bag for about $6; she took 10 pounds of it off my hands.
That huge bag in my pantry makes me hear my mom’s voice in my head — “Add bay leaves,” she’d say. “They’ll keep the bugs out.” We’ll probably use it all before summer but I’ve already added bay leaves just to be safe. The food shortages have been interesting to watch — I know, I know. Everyone is saying that it’s a distribution problem, not a food shortage problem. You say toMAYto; I say toMAHto. Whatever the reason, the end result for the consumer is lack of product on store shelves.
Anyway, the first week or so of quarantine, there was no ice cream in the store. The next time I shopped, there was no bread, no jelly, no eggs, no packaged luncheon meat/cheese, no frozen dinners, no flour or yeast. Now, there’s no pizza, no fresh lettuce, no meat or chicken, no flour, six packets of yeast(!), very little dairy, but they have ice cream.
Cars lined up to receive fresh produce, frozen food and dry goods from Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank April 6, 2020. Photo Credit: KDKA
If you’re poor, the distribution problem can be life-threatening. Our food pantries and food banks are amazing but it can be hard to connect to people who don’t have access to a vehicle to wait in an hours-long car line for food. I’ve been thinking about the woman I’ve talked about before, the one who showed up as we were cleaning up a food bank distribution years ago. She was late because she had to borrow $2 so she could buy a gallon of gas in order to drive to our distribution site. How is she managing now? Even if her situation has (hopefully) improved, there are many whose situations went from precarious to catastrophic.
Spotify has now served up some Aretha Franklin, “I Say a Little Prayer,” a solid way to end this particular post. If you live in a walking neighborhood, like I do, I encourage you to take a walk around. It’s okay. You’re allowed to go for walks. Look at the empty storefronts of the little businesses in your community — the pizza shop, the movie theater, the diner, the consignment store, the neighborhood bar or coffee shop.
Look at the signs on the doors; as I’ve said before, some will not recover. Believe me; these places are, for some, their family business, their lifelong dream. They’re going to try to be there when this is over.
Those small business owners are losing sleep, just like the furloughed workers. They’re wondering whether they can continue to pay the bills while there’s no money coming in. That cruise line, that airline, that major hotel chain — they’ll be okay. But your neighborhood is going to be forever changed by the loss of the businesses that define it.
Please be patient.
Wear a mask if you’re going to encounter other people.
All day long I’ve tried to write a gentle, loving note to honor this horrible third anniversary of Ken’s passing but the only thing in my head is an anguished cry of grief for my best friend. “Why are you gone?” are the words bouncing around in my otherwise empty head.
Why are you gone?
I can’t laugh about how irritated Ken would have been by our isolation. He — the man who never went out without first strategizing all the reasons why we could stay in — would have chafed at the restrictions, not because they aren’t necessary but because anything, once denied, is that one thing that we long for most. If he had lived, he would be one of the most at risk and we would have been far too protective of his health, which would have irritated him even more.
Why are you gone?
Tarriona “Tank” Ball, of Tank And The Bangas, once said, “There’s some areas of New Orleans where the storm has never passed.” I think about that a lot, and not just in reference to New Orleans. Recovery, resilience, isn’t a solo activity. It requires support; for me, it requires support from the one person who can no longer give it. Ken would have loved the eclectic poetry of Tank And The Bangas’ music. He would have been the person to say, “I have a new artist for you to hear.” He would have known about them before they were famous and would have celebrated their success as though he himself had discovered them. He would have been impatient with my grief, would have hated that I’m crying as I type this.
Why are you gone?
Today, a red-headed woodpecker sat on a tree branch outside my window. He climbed the trunk like a squirrel and pecked for a bit. Sometimes it was so loud, cartoonish, like the Woody that many of my generation grew up watching. Sometimes, it was a quiet tap, as soft but insistent as the tree branch against the glass when the wind blows: tap, tap. I feel his presence in everything and nothing. Sometimes, like that woodpecker, he seems to shout in my head but when I most need him, the only shouting is my own. “Why are you gone?”
