Tiller asked me today, when we were laying on the bed reading after a day of waterlogging ourselves at the pool, “Mama? Where is Daddy? Is he lost?” He is out of town on business. So, we texted back and forth with Daddy for a while, and then she wanted to send him a song.
So, she sang this , on the fly, for me to record for him. First and only take.
This one is fitting my mood this morning. . .
Years ago my heart was set to live on
And I’ve been tryin hard against unbelievable odds
Gets so hard at times like now to hold on
Guns they wait to be stuck by
And at my side is GodAin’t no one goin to turn me round
Ain’t no one goin to turn me roundPeople round you tell you that they know
The places they have been, and it’s easy to go
They’ll zip you up and dress you down, and stand you in their role
You know you don’t have to
You can just say noAnd there ain’t no one goin to turn me round
Ain’t no one goin to turn me round
Ain’t no one goin to turn me round
Ain’t no one goin to turn me roundI’ve been built up and trusted
Broke down and busted
They’ll get theirs and we’ll get ours if you can just
Hold on
Hold on
Hold on
Hold onYears ago my heart was set to live on
And I’ve been tryin hard against unbelievable odds
Gets so hard at times like now to hold on
Gonna fall if I don’t fight it
And at my side is GodAin’t no one goin to turn me round
Ain’t no one goin to turn me round
Ain’t no one goin to turn me round
Ain’t no one goin to turn me round
— Big Star
I so wish this post included a photograph. I just realized that I still get a sick enjoyment out of thinking about the twisted up feeling of being twenty years old and purple-haired, all heartbroken and angry and listening to that guitar in Nirvana’s “Aneurysm.” Not sure what that’s all about. I was just editing some .NET tests, listening to my 90’s iTune mix and it came over me. . . .
I guess i just can’t think of much in my love life these days to get all angry about. Things now are not very aneurysm-inducing, but it is hard to rock out to that song and not think of something I wanna get pissed about. I mean, what am i gonna do, get angsty about having to cook Kraft Mac and Cheese?
And yes, this post is partially about avoiding getting back to work.
p.s. Dogwood Girl is still looking for pictures of herself with aforementioned purple hair! Come on, people. I know they are out there. I want to make my kids laugh at me, before they get so old that they will just roll their eyes. One of the best things about getting old is that it is FUN to laugh at myself. Help a girl out here. Honey and Laura, this mostly means you.
I don’t mind the weather
I’ve got scarves and caps and sweaters
I’ve got long johns under slacks for blustery days
I think that it’s brainless to assume
That making changes to your window’s view
Will give a new perspective
So, yeah, the anxiety is getting me down, and I feel like I’m in a rut. So, we’re going to my happy place. I don’t care how cold it is. I think it just might actually give me new perspective.
Tiller saw her first show today. She is three. Okay, not an actual concert, but she did check out of preschool early and go see Phoenix with me at Criminal Records. (Good mother? Bad mother?) It was pretty damn crowded and, evidently, hipsters don’t let kids go to the front so that they can see over all their cold weather hats, so I held her up in the back while they played. Note to self: Get there earlier to score room up front. She liked the songs she knew (Lisztomania and 1901) and kind of put her head on my shoulder and hummed and patted my back during the others. That was sweet. They sounded pretty good, especially his voice. I was proud of Tiller picking out the instrument when they played the keyboards. She said, “Piano!” which is close enough for me. She asked me while we were waiting “Why are there no other kids here?” Then later, we saw another one. She was being taken out of the store, so I guess she lost interest. She was about the same age, but damn, was that kid all decked out. She was wearing rainbow legwarmers for God’s sake. Whatever. . . Tiller totally outlasted her. In fact, tills made it through four songs, and only lost interest when they played Lizstomania for the second time. (Evidently, they had technical difficulties the first time, and they were recording it for radio.) I rewarded her with pizza at Savage. They had pizza at Criminal, but i know better than to mix Tiller, pizza, and comic books. All in all, a nice outing on a beautiful day.
Glad I went, too, as it continues the rock and roll wave I’ve been riding of late. I saw Yo La Tengo a couple weeks ago both at the instore at Criminal and their show at Variety. Sunday night, I saw Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks at Masquerade. (Great show!) Then last night, Todd and I saw Dr. Dog at The Loft. That was the best of all the shows, in my opinion, and i really like Frightened Rabbit a lot, so that is a pretty bold statement. I still think the Frightened Rabbit album is my favorite so far this year (Thanks for the introduction, Spaceboy!), but Dr. Dog’s musicianship was amazing. They sounded great vocally and they were the tightest band I’ve seen in ages, especially in a venue of that size. Added plus: Got to hang out with Robin and Vanessa.
I haven’t seen this many shows in a one month period in ages. I cannot REMEMBER seeing more than three bands in a week in . . . probably since before I had Rollie. It has really reminded me of how much I love seeing live music and that I need to remember to stop saying, “I don’t have time for that” and start saying, “I need to do this for me.”
Video from Criminal today. Guess not too many folks are back to work and posting video yet, because this was the closest I could find. Sound is great, though. Kind of bummed that I couldn’t find any video of the Frightened Rabbit or Dr. Dog shows. Found We Were Promised Jetpacks, but the sound was kind of funky. Same with the Yo La Tengo. Oh, well.
So, Todd is in NYC all week for work, and he gave me the afternoon off yesterday, so that I could have kid-free time before the week kicks into gear. I rode down to L5P with neighbor Scott and his friend Seth. Ah, the glamour of arriving anywhere in a minivan. Nothing like it.
We proceeded to Criminal Records for the 4 pm Yo La Tengo instore. Scott bought the new album and got it signed. He is a record nerd, which always cracks me up. He is v. knowledgeable about music and we like a lot of the same stuff, and I even like him despite the fact that he likes Phish. YLT played a short set (mostly new stuff, including the fun “Periodically Double or Triple,” and a Beatles cover – name? Cannot remember) bantered with the crowd in their usual witty and self-deprecating way, and sounded pretty good. A fun time, despite the fact that I am coming down with a cold, and it was hot as Hades in the damn place.
Speaking of, let’s take a moment to discuss my thoughts on dressing for Fall in the South, shall we? I automatically think that you are a complete idiot if the temperature is in the 70s and 80s and you wear any of the following:
I then bought a couple of CDs (browsing without children! No hand-holding! Awesome!) and then went next door to The Porter. I had not been there before, and I LOVED it. Great beer list; knowledgeable, witty, friendly staff; comfortable bar stools; good pub food (at least what I had – the Porter Poppers – was excellent). I love the atmosphere and had a wonderful, three-beer afternoon to myself, sitting at the bar, reading for a couple hours, periodically looking up to watch the folks outside walking by in the rain.
I am my mother’s daughter, so I did chat up some fellow patrons and the bartender. Met a couple people who had driven all the way from Florida to see Yo La Tengo. I am always impressed by road-tripping music fans. (As long as they like good music, of course.) And then another guy sat down next to me. Turned out we had both grown up in Atlanta and knew some of the same people. Georgia and Ira from YLT came in, presumable for dinner, and walked to the back of the bar. Todd arrived, having pawned the kids off onto my dear sister. We had another beer and chatted with the Atlanta guy, nodding our heads as the conversation got weird, and involved his life and death experience, and how he saw levitating beers come up out of their glasses and float in the air. Nope, not kidding. He said all this with a straight face, and I love my husband, because we both just nodded like we were listening seriously to him, and never took our eyes off him. Nodding, nodding. But we know one another well enough that we were having an unspoken conversation that went something like this:
Todd: “Did he just say that he died and then came back to life?”
Me: “He just said that he and the chick from the band BabyShakes watched their beers leave the glasses and float up solid in the air and then splash back down on the bar. No one else there saw it.”
Todd: “Yep. Did he just say that she understood all this, and that he figured out the whole thing in numbers and did the math? Were there numbers after the decimal point?”
Me: “Yep. They had a connection. What the fuck is he talking about? Is there a mathematical formula for crazy?”
Todd: “Yes, evidently, there is, and he has solved it.”
Me: “I’m going to chug the last few sips of this beer, then excuse myself to go to the ladies’ room.”
Todd: “I’m gonna get the check and pay up.”
Me: “Tip the bartender well.”
Todd: “You know it.”
[Aloud] “It was so nice meeting you. You take care now, okay?”
After that, we paid up and met Scott and Seth at Vortex. Not my favorite place to eat, but Scott wanted it, because he can’t eat there with children. This is a common theme for parents. It is like when I don’t have kids with me, I choose where to sit based on it being where I wouldn’t usually sit with the kids. This is usually the bar.
The best part about this was that I got to see the first quarter of the Bulldogs playing Arkansas. The rest of the night, I received stellar and timely text updates from both Brett and Jason B. It was much appreciated, and Brett got extra points with Todd for his unsolicited Auburn updates, including the non-score-related “Auburn fans have a Brokeback Mountaineers sign.” Good job, boys. Will be watching the DVR-ed version this afternoon.
We headed over to the show. I ran into a guy i knew in Athens named Roger. We caught up for a while, and then I headed down to see the show up front. YLT were good, as always. Todd and I discussed the fact that Ira always seems to bring it full-tilt. I like the fact that he is aging, but still seems to rock out and have a blast just like a teenager. I have seen them quite a few times, and they always do a good show, but this was not one of their better ones, in my opinion. This probably owes more to the fact that they played mostly new stuff than to any deficiency on their parts. Highlights for me were still the more rockin’ older songs: Deeper into Movies, Autumn Sweater, etc. Autumn Sweater sounds different every time that I hear them play it and i loved this loungier version. Georgia did a few songs. I love her sweet voice, and that she is such an enduring rock chick. In the face of so many bombastic female voices in rock, her quiet modesty is refreshing.
Afterwards, we met friends Gretchen and Brownlee at The Porter for a last beer. (Feeling kinda ookie, I opted for a water.) And headed home! All in all, a great day despite the fact that I wasn’t feeling a hundred percent. Hopefully, the memory of my mostly kid-free day will get me through the week ahead.
Walter Woodrow Palmer
Born January 5th, 1916
Died July 6, 2009
Rest in peace, Pops. I love you.
This song is sticking with me this morning.
Iron & Wine
Sodom, South Georgia
Pop’s not doing so well. Got the call that his vitals were all going downhill pretty quickly. Lisa and I both felt like we wanted to be here for mom and Dad, and for Pop. We took separate cars, to accommodate our adult schedules.
Driving down this afternoon was strange. I cried in my car on the highway, driving 80 mph listening to Guns N’ Roses version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and coming up on a wall of thunderstorm seen from a distance. I could see curtains of rain coming down from the sky, with light shining through too, in that weird way that happens with storms, all green and grey and silver and purple. Some moments the heavens just seem closer.
Just finished writing an obituary for my dying grandfather. It made me feel weepy and it made it seem real that he won’t be with us much longer. Felt the same heaviness when i dropped off a porch swing that he made with his own two hands at a friend’s house last night. It did make me laugh in a bittersweet way that she will be painting it bright pink. Listening to Frightened Rabbit’s “Old Old Fashioned” and reading a story about kids during WWII driving out to a new bridge in Alabama, parking on it, and pulling out an old crank record player and dancing in the moonlight.
Feeling melancholy and weepy, in a life is twisted and beautiful kind of way.
So, a friend of a friend went to The Decemberists show that I raved about a week or so ago. She drove to Atlanta from Columbia to see them, then went and saw them the next night in Raleigh. Her pictures are much better and she even got a little video.
I also found some video of some of my favorite parts of the show:
A little of “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid”:
“The Rake’s Song:”
“The Queen’s Rebuke/Crossing:”
Cover of Heart’s “Crazy on You.”
And I know I said it in that post, but i will say it again: Becky fucking kicked some serious ass that night.
And one for good measure:
Bandit Queen, the song I wished they had played in Atlanta. They played it a week ago in Pennsylvania. Fuckers.