Still on my mind.

Basically, I want to be that guitar.

Too Good To Wait

Were I a good blogger, I would have waited a couple of weeks to post this. March 2 would have been my late husband's* 61st birthday, you see. But it's getting near sundown, it's snowing again and we are alone in the house together. Like so many times before, I am too overcome.

Happy early birthday, my darling. I miss you.



*Wedding may have taken place in my imagination.

You take the good, you take the unbelievably bad...

I'd say that I'm a big fan of everything through Edna's Edibles. When it burned down and became Over Our Heads, the show started to lose me. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was no longer ten, but it suddenly seemed that there were too many tertiary characters appearing out of nowhere, and Mrs. Garrett's presence got more and more confounding, and the homoerotic tension between Blair and Jo went from charming to FREAKING DO IT ALREADY, and then, out of nowhere, Cloris Leachman. The whole premise of the show suffered major suspension-of-disbelief problems after the first two or three seasons anyway, since no 18-20 year-old women I know would voluntarily share a bedroom unless the circumstances were very, very not what you would base a 1980's network sitcom on.

Of course, The Facts of Life as most of us think of it--Blair and Jo trading barbs, Natalie and Tootie gosh-golly-gee-ing around in pigtails--didn't actually come about until season 2. The FIRST season was thirteen episodes of pure bliss, and it stands alone in its unintentionally Felliniesqueness. Don't get me wrong, the first couple of Jo seasons are great, but nothing--NOTHING--out-camps the the houseful of superfluous girls hilariously overacting some of the most appalling dialogue every written. Sue Ann smokes pot! Is Cindy a lesbian? Blair wants to do the headmaster! Natalie finds her birth mother! Nancy loves Roger! Mrs. Garrett's ex-husband teaches the girls how to gamble! Blair's mom is a slut! Tootie, the original Rollergirl! Natalie buys a bong from a record shop to put jelly beans in! Plus, you have the sleaziest, 1970's-jailbaitiest costuming imaginable(one false move and we would have been able to see Lisa Whelchel's virtue for ourselves), you have Molly Ringwald as an 11 year-old, you have the Drummonds constantly popping up for no apparent reason, and nothing makes any rational sense whatsoever. It's a hot mess made in heaven.

The clip below is what started my lifelong girl-crush on Lisa Whelchel. Not even her descent into blithering, fundy psychosis can shatter my love completely (although it has facilitated significant erosion), because freaky-for-Jesus or no, she took my breath away--especially when her character was still vaguely skanky and chilled and kept a joint in her lipstick tube. The uptight, overachieving heiress Blair Warner of post-season 2 still bewitched me, but I clearly remember thinking that, when I got to be a teenager, I wanted to run around in purple satin hot pants and have long, luxurious, golden hair. This was before I was old enough to understand the cruel genetic lottery, of course.

Thing I discovered on walk today:

There are certain items on my iPod that I have no choice but to skip over if I am in a public place. Added to that list today is anything off of Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" album.

I was meandering down one of the (normally deserted) residential streets, running a finger along the low stone wall separating the houses from the pavement when, convinced of my solitude, I gave in to the unbearable temptation to (ever-so-softly) sing along with Jimi when he got to the "some people say...daydreamin's fo-hor the...lazy minded FEW-EW-HOOLS" part in 'May This Be Love'. I had my earphones blasting, though, so it was probably more like a moderate and hideously off-key shout, because I looked up from my reverie just in time to see a guy sitting in his parked truck, eating his lunch and laughing his ass off at me. Then he gave me a thumbs up. I can only hope that meant "Right on, Hendrix girl!" and not "Your assery on my behalf is much appreciated!"

Eh, either way. Let them laugh, laugh at me. Right Jimi? I wove you.

The Shat In the Hat

Because I'm currently struggling to produce more substantial wordsmithing and yet I still long to share my innermost being with you, I embed a Youtube treasure that is particularly close to my soul.

99.89996% of everything I love about life is contained within its five minutes and two seconds, not the least of which is The Shat himself.

"We're all fucked. It helps to remember that."

Goodbye, Daddy.

The Deal sisters are gods.

But of course, we all knew that.

EuGENIUS.

I’ve been quietly digging Eugene McDaniels for several years now, and it has recently exploded into full-blown obsession. Only the best music creeps up on me like that. When the roots are there and suddenly the flower blooms and fills my soul with colors, that’s when I know it is real love.

Eugene McDaniels has a voice that is clear, mesmerizing and completely without trickery, which is the rarest, most wonderful musical talent that can be bestowed upon a human being. Look for it sometime. It’s a lot more difficult to find than you might think. That he gels with deceptively gentle funk and biting, hilarious, intelligent lyrics that are classically timeless and timelessly profound is just a happy coincidence. The magic tumbles out of him and into me, closing a 38-year gap in time like it’s nothing extraordinary and he just happens to be standing right behind me with his finger on my spine. Mostly, though, it just makes me so butt-shakingly happy I could kiss my iPod.

Quintessential “Cherrystones” below. I recommend it loud, and with adequate boogieing space.

R.I.P. Buddy Miles

Goodbye, Great One.