You Have Yours

When one's life is full of drudgery, one is entitled to guilty pleasures.

American Idol tops my list. It's even ahead of Junior Mints. Wait...American Idol...Junior Mints. Yeah, American Idol. No doubt about it.

Another guilty pleasure is biographies of rock stars. I adore late 60s / early 70s rock and all the delicious trippiness of that era. And yes, I'll admit it, I feel comparitevly fabulous about myself every time I read about someone who had it all and ended up snorting it up their nose and blithering away in rehab.

In the past week I've read three such biographies. One was "My Life with The Dead" written by the manager of The Grateful Dead. Did I enjoy it? Of course. And I ate Junior Mints while I was reading it. It's a heady life I lead.

While I've never been a Deadhead, I do have a couple of Grateful Dead stories:

1983, Tempe Arizona: A dozen or so Deadhead wanna bes in a college student apartment (belonging to my friend Karen and her roommate Terry), pre-concert. Terrapin Station is playing. I'm thinking back to a Dead concert I had attended two years prior, in Kansas City. I thought it was boring. I'd turned to my friend half way through it and commented that I should have brought a flashlight and a book.

The day of the concert, I'd written on the white board in the dorm hallway "Trip on citric acid with the Grapefruit Dead!" Maybe that's what was missing. Acid.

After the concert, we'd somehow stumbled upon a crowd of ardent fans, waiting for the Dead to enter an awaiting limo. Finally his royal beardedness appears and the crowd asyncronously lauds little variation on two statements "Great show!" and "Hey Jerry, love you man!" This goes on for a while and is punctutated only by the lone and blasphemous cry of a spoiled 21 year old blonde: "Ew! I saw his butt crack!"

Well, I did - when he bent over to enter the limo and his baggy brown cordouroy pants slipped down. As might be imagined, it wasn't pretty.

Two years later, I'm dissing the Dead again. Mid Terrapin Station, I turn to the person next to me and say "You know...I really don't think their music is that great." The room goes silent, people freeze mid bong hit, and twelve pairs of eyes are upon me. I shrug and repeat that I think their music is just ok. I was 23 and that was a big moment for me. I chose integrity over cheaply won acceptance. It felt good.

What's funny is over the years their music has grown on me. But do I wish I had been a Deadhead? No, not at all. I didn't see a lot of joy in the faces of the gauzy dervishes whose dancing seemed almost perfunctory. If I would have followed any band around from city to city, it would have been the Beat Farmers in the early 90s. Whenever they played in Colorado, I was there, from Herman's Hideaway in downtown Denver, to the Buffalo Rose in Golden. I remember one night at the Buffalo Rose where the pre show energy was building like a storm at sea. I was close to a wall of speakers that blasted a song that was popular at the time "You want it allll, but you can't haaaave it...." That song just about killed me. I got a lot that night though. The energy of the crowd gave me no choice, they moved me with them, and I was nothing short of enthralled at finding myself in the front row, mere feet away from Country Dick Montana who, at the time, I thought was the sexiest man on earth.

At a BF concert in a small bar in Breckenridge, CO (Shamus O'Tooles), equipment malfunctions and suddenly the band is right in the middle of the bar, drinking and talking with everyone. Guitarist Jerry Rainey and I talk about his five year old son's obsession with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Joey Harris is smiley, friendly, and adorable. He makes me feel successful in my attempts to impress him with my knowledge of his previous bands. Country Dick is in a sinister mood. He stands alone, drinking beer.
The concert resumes shortly after. Some college guy (nice looking but nerdy), keeps trying to pick me up, and finally I agree to dance with him. Country Dick asks for a volunteer to do a "Sheep Shot" (a small inflatible sheep bedecked in a black garter belt. Liquor of some sort if poured into an opening and....ME. The sheep shot recipient has to be me. Some people need to summit Kilimanjaro. Some need to climb the corporate ladder. I need to be the one to do a sheep shot, and I am, as the crowd watches. A proud moment? Well, er... maybe not, but memorable. Country Dick held the sheep over my mouth,I drank what I think was whiskey out of it, and beamed at him as he said in his fabulous deep voice "There...now doesn't it taste better that way?"

Ninety minutes later the concert is over. Most of the crowd has left. Country Dick is sitting alone on the stage. He doesn't look happy. I go over to him and ask if he is ok. "I will be in a couple of weeks" he growls. God that voice. I'm 30 years old and just beginning to realize that life is short and opportunities often fleeting. I'm suddenly asking the mighty Country Dick Montana if I can have a hug. Amazingly, he smiles and stands up. He puts his long arms around me, I burrow into him, inhaling him, and we rock back and forth on the stage in each other's arms. Is he loving me? Is he about to ask me to come back to his hotel room? No. Actually I think I'm holding him up. He's pretty drunk. A few minutes later I'm telling him he should drink a lot of water, and maybe get a humidifier since we're high in the mountains. He seemed to think that was a good idea. Yep, my life as a groupie, Jewish mother style.

Country Dick died mid-concert a few years later, at a bar in Whistler, BC. Although I rarely listen to the Beat Farmers anymore, I consider them one of the great loves of my life.

I am right on the verge of discovering some new groove. I think it's going to be an artistic medium of some sort. Once it is in place, a mighty torrent is going to flood it.

The Funniest Word in the World

If you are under ridiculous pressure as a team to 'make your numbers', if you have a tribal elder amidst you who tells decades worth of vivid anecdotes, if said tribal elder has sufficient comedic talent to spin simple menu items into hilarity, then the funniest word on earth is...

Fudgana.

With proper feinged innocence, Fudgana can make bystanders in coffee shop lines snicker, serious coworkers double over in "He he he!" laughter, and young, platinum blonde, tell-it-like-it-is types proclaim "Oh my God...that sounds like vagina."

I didn't make up the word. That honor goes to Howard Johnson's, they of 28 flavors fame. All you can eat fried clams on Wednesday? Orange and turquoise exterior? Yes, that Howard Johnson's.

A Fudgana was a banana split-like concoction, best consumed at 2 am in the late 70s, preferably after a midnight movie like The Song Remains the Same. State of consciousness is probably a given here. I always had my Fudgana with coffee fudge ice cream. Fudganas were huge (cue more paroxyms of laughter from coworkers). I think they contained four scoops of ice cream in addition to bananas, hot fudge, and whipped cream.

I miss those carefree days. Ok, I'm lying. I've never been carefree. I do, however, have happy memories of Howard Johnson's on Miami's Dixie Highway. When I travel back I can see the setting perfectly: the various combinations of friends, the spinning condiment caddy with fluorescent yellow mustard, the paper placemats, the long L-shaped counter visible from my place in the booth. And yes, of course I can not only see the Fudgana, I can actively miss it, causing me to earnestly proclaim that I want one.

I forgive you if that doesn't seem funny.

Snippets

Here are a few snippets from conversations with prospective students today. Today was not an atypical day.

Appointment with 23 year old woman:

Her: I was originally going to be a massage therapist
Me: Oh really? What made you decide against that?
Her: (deadpan): I hate feet
Me: Oh, ok. Well, that's good that you realized that.


End of 11 hour day phone conversation with 28 year old man:

Him: Yeah, I've had a lot of legal problems and that's why I want to be a cop.
Me: I see.
Him: Yeah, the sooner I get this degree the sooner I can go to the police academy and then get out there and start killing people
Me: Oh, uh huh, that's great.

I wasn't really listening. I thought he said helping people. I hope he said helping people.

Elsewhere

When I ask a man where- if he could take a trip anywhere in the world- he would go, and he shrugs and says "I dunno. Somewhere warm." I think he's a moron.

Just thought I'd share that.

But then again if he says he'd choose to spend three weeks in the Amazon, I'd be in over my head. Antarctica wouldn't work for me either. For one thing it's the driest place on earth. It's true, there is virtually no humidity. Also it is not civilized Where does one find a diet coke in Antarctica? If a man's dream vacation was to spend a week fishing at a lake in North Dakota, I suppose I could bring a suitcase full of books, a journal, and my camera...

Actually it doesn't matter if a man wants to go to North Dakota, Italy, or Guam because he'll be going without me. I haven't been dating. I have no idea when I will be up to the arduous task again.

I think I was traumatized by Captain Lameass- the one with the long-nailed baby hands. Come to think of it, I think when I asked him where he would choose to go on vacation...

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Happy Nu Yaah

I went to a party last night at the home of a preschool teacher. She didn't have enough stick-on letters from her school supplies for 'Happy New Year' so the living room window wished us a 'Happy Nu Yaah'. Works for me.

Here's what New Year's Eve was like:

3:00 pm: Faauu overhears my lack of enthusiasm for the party I'm going to that evening and invites me to join her and so other coworkers at a local casino. As much as I enjoy their company, loud, crowded, and smoky doesn't sound so great.

5:00 pm: Do students really want me to call them on what is almost New Year's Eve? I wisely decide that no, they do not. A better use of my time would be to unfurl long streamers of red velvet ribbon festively over the wall of Robert's cube. For best effect this must be performed 5 or 6 times, while he is entrenched in a phone conversation. Short bursts of maniacal giggling are required for the task. I dutifully set about my work.

6:00 pm: Robert and I are the only ones left at work. Outside the window we hear the sounds of downtown Tacoma's "First Night" New Year's Eve celebration beginning. Somewhat new in town, 24 year Robert is oontemplating the limited choices for his evening's celebration. He is either going to "Go to downtown Seattle to see the fireworks and just celebrate with whoever is next to me" or join aforemention coworkers at the casino. We look out the window and wonder if First Night might be worth attending.

6:30 pm: "I know. We could go to Zoo Lights at the Pt. Defiance zoo" Robert likes the idea. Instead of going home and getting ready for the party as I'd planned, we are lost, on the beautiful Tacoma Narrows bridge crossing onto the peninsula. Oops. We make it to the zoo shortly thereafter.

7:30. How awesome is 'Zoo Lights'? Let me show you the ways:



10:15 pm: Although I forewarn Robert that even I am too young for the party we are about to attend, he insists he doesn't mind going. Our plan is to stay for about an hour, then go to the casino to wish our coworkers a Happy New Year. Shortly into the party I gently try to explain that we may be leaving early. A bitter, older man demands to know if we are going to take the rest of them with us. Sadly, he's not kidding. I don't remember what I stammered in response.

11:20 pm: The party has been pleasant. Mostly nice people, enjoyable visit with the adorable labradors in the backyard. Socially adept Robert is managing to have a decent time despite being the youngest in the room by 24 years and having to fend the aforementioned bitter old man's barbed inquiry of "What country are you from?" Sheesh. I ask when we are going to leave. Robert thinks the right thing to do is to stay at the party until after midnight. Everyone has an animal that represents them. I'm a koala bear. Robert is a dolphin. His decision is not based on his needs, but the groups' needs. He is evolved.





12:00 am: Yep, we made it. Hats, noise makers, champagne, Dick Clark, the whole thing. We go outside on the front porch a few minutes later for a glimpse of fireworks. At about 12:20 we leave.

And that was my New Year's Eve.

How was yours?