I still have a bit of leftover melancholy. And I’m fighting with myself. I’ve been allowing myself some very bad snacking, knowing that I have to be stricter with my diet and not yet willing to put myself through it. In fact, on Monday night I stopped in at the local market to purchase basic stuff, aware that I had no snackies at home. Good, I told myself, so you won’t have anything, as I simultaneously decided to see if I could locate the cookie aisle. If I don’t find it in the next 3 seconds… Then I heard those dreaded words – May I help you? “I hate to say it, but I’m looking for cookies.” The guy laughed and led me to the nearby aisle, and asked why. “I didn’t want to say it out loud,” I explained leaving it at that. I also didn’t want to tell him that he was now to blame for my cookie purchase, and would be further to blame after I finished the whole package, which I did. But I also exercised. I’m not letting myself get away with that. In fact, I’ve been upping the aerobics and the workouts are now longer. I’ve been doing that for six days straight. And I was going to do that tonight, after eating half of a 16oz bag of pistachios, but I’ve been thinking of Vicki, and I’ve been thinking of Amy, and of this particular story. I was so anxious to write it, that I gave myself permission to stop the workout after the half hour aerobics section.
Back when we were in our mid-twenties, when bodies were healthier, leaner and more fit, we were lying on the beach. It was one of those great summer days. Sunny and hot, it was a perfect day to play hooky and go down to Jones Beach. We were lying side by side, toes facing east to maximize the sun coverage, and bikini-clad, though nothing immodest. Of course, mine was black. Most of my clothes have been and are still black. True, it’s sexy, but also very practical. Amy and Vicki were slathered in sunscreen. I come from darker stock and never bothered. Amy covered her face with a big floppy hat, Vicki with her shirt. We lazed, yes that’s the best word for it. Lazing – when the sun is covering your mostly naked body, warming and soothing, the wafting beach smell of ocean and body oil, and that progressively muffled generic beach sound of chatter, squealing, waves and gulls. Lazing – not quite asleep but retreating further and further into yourself. I was awake enough to sense that I should shift one side of my untied bikini top to avoid any embarrassing slippage, and awake enough to hear someone say “Don’t touch your breast,” just as I did so. Wait. What? So I feigned another shift and then heard “I said, don’t touch your breast.” Yeah, okay, that was for me. I grabbed the strings of the top together at the back of my neck, sat up, turned around and said “Are you talking to me? Because if you are – shut up.” I glared for a mere moment at one of the guys and laid back down, realizing that I just saw more than a half a dozen guys some sitting on beach chairs, some standing, all facing us. Having loaded the gun, I closed my eyes as Vicki shot forth. She landed into these jerks yelling at them that they weren’t allowed to be pigs on the beach. “What, you don’t like pigs,” one said while another oinked. She went on for a bit, then returned to her sunbathing. Soon the chatter of piggy men stopped and they were gone.
Amy hadn’t stirred once during the whole thing, but was able to relate to us what they had been saying before I had touched my breast. I, they had determined, was the easy one (you know, because of the black bikini thing), and Vicki was a good girl because she was wearing a cross, a fact that Vicki disputed every time we brought up that story. It was a small gold cross, probably a gift from a relative, but it was there nonetheless. Amy never told us what they said about her.
While I’m pretty much back in the swing of things exercise-wise, it’s slow-going with the eating better, and yes, less. Thursday, if you remember, was my day to get back on the stick. I’d already gotten three pretty good workouts in for the week, adding two more for Friday and Saturday, but I couldn’t start rethinking the food consumption on the day promised as I had to eat the leftover chicken taquitos, vegetable samosa and three-cheese pizza from the ex’s visit the day before. I also polished off what was left of a 20oz bottle of coke. That was a treat. I’m not drawn to soda, I drink a lot of seltzer, water, coffee no sugar, and the sweet coke flavor of my youth tasted good and provided some impressive belching that even woke Max from a deep sleep. So, I am not going to post my weight again for quite some time, which should please my cousin, who thought I was insane to do so in the first place.
As I said, the ex was over Wednesday and he came equipped with a backpack with an additional jacket and I don’t know what else inside, except for the sandwich-sized zip-lock baggie he produced from the pack that contained 17 CDs. “Where’re the covers,” I asked. “Yeah, and I don’t know how many of them actually work,” was his response. He wanted to play this one while I heated up the assorted of frozen aforementioned delicacies. I don’t know who Heidi Berry is, but I could tell immediately that this was not up my alley and it made me think back at a time when ex-2, with whom I had a minorly major relationship tried to set the mood with Enya. Not that there was any mood-setting attempts Wednesday, mind you. I listened to this CD that one time, and in fairness I put it on again this evening and noped my way through the beginning of each song. Heidi Berry had a few Celtic folky-type albums in the late 80s and 90s. This was her last in 1996 followed by a compilation.
As for the other naked CDs, we will only explore 14 of them as we are done with Heidi Berry, one is the Squeeze best of that my financially irresponsible friend had given me, and another is the Eurythmics best of CD that the ex had given me a long time ago along with my first, and still only CD player.
On a totally unrelated note, I love opening up a new notebook and this one feels really good. It’s Staples brand, and is 1-subject, college ruled as are all my notebooks, 100 sheets with a sturdy turquoise cover and crisp, clear lines. I like it. I should probably use the turquoise pen now. This one’s purple. I always have a black or dark blue pen as a back-up because sometimes you’re just not in a pastel kind of mood.
I have promised myself that when I hit the next weight milestone I will treat myself to a sausage and pepper hero from the truck outside my office building. For years I’ve been tempted by the aroma but have yet to succumb. The last milestone, which was getting comfortably under 150, came before the holiday season and being that I do experience holiday blues I was not about to make it worse for me by denying myself treats. I did not spoil myself rotten nor treat myself to something I had not yet earned, and I did start to pull out of it after the beginning of January.
Then I received an email that convinced me that I would need to be miserable a little longer. A memorial was to be held for my dear friend Vicki to mark the one year anniversary of her very untimely and unexpected death. I miss her, I miss her, I miss her. So much so I actually spoke at the service that was this past Friday. I hate speaking in public and often explain that I am a writer, not a speaker.
It was billed as the Concert for Vicki as she was fond of the annual Concert for George that honored her favorite Beatle. Her husband started it off by playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on flute. Her sister spoke then sang a cappella a song from Mary Poppins that they used to sing together as kids, her oldest son spoke of their sharing of musical tastes and played a Mozart piece on piano. Various people played various classical pieces on various instruments, and others spoke. It was all very nice, however I kept thinking that someone needed to play some Talking Heads, a group she loved – a little “Psycho Killer” on clarinet, or Elvis Costello, whom she also loved. I think she would have appreciated hearing someone bang out “Pump it Up” on piano or even “Watching Her Detectives” on violin. But it was so good to see some of my surrogate family again. I spoke for a little over a minute, a prepared speech that I started off by explaining that I would rather have a Brazilian wax in Macy’s window than speak in public. I never looked up from my typed page, but fortunately I heard some laughter. And then I spoke about how Vicki entertained us one time when we were still in our teens by reading from Winnie the Pooh and I read a short quote.
I have allowed myself further wallowing by eating incorrectly, not exercising enough and gaining back some of the belly I had shaved off, by making myself promise myself that I would get back on track starting tomorrow, the day she died a year ago. The sausage and peppers will just have to wait a bit longer.
There is no doubt about it, “I Want to Take You Higher” is the best exercise song ever. At five minutes and twenty seconds of driving beat that never wants to end, hammering home the point and impelling uncontrollable movement. I’m exhausted just writing about it.
While exercising to Sly and the Family Stone for the umpteenth time with their message of believing in yourself, and generally just going back to those days in my mind, I thought of a time when my brother and I were visiting my father in New Jersey, where the divorced fathers of New York seemed to have been banished to. We were spending the day at his then girlfriend Lil’s house. I remember liking Lil, but not really knowing her. Her daughter, though she may have been about twice my young age, didn’t strike my as an adult with her short bleached hair, gobs of eye make-up and mod little mini-dress trying to emulate ‘60s model Twiggy. And her recent college grad boyfriend in his suit and tie who seemed to have already made an impression on my father and joked with him that there were no vice president jobs in the paper. I think the reason I was not comfortable with the couple was that they did not seem genuine and struck me as bratty. If I knew better at the time I may have described them as opportunistic. I didn’t really warm up to them. After dinner, we watched the 1949 Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn classic Adam’s Rib and the conversation turned to how a woman couldn’t be president. In a room of six, I, who had not even crossed into the double digits age-wise, was the only one questioning why not. Lil, seeing my frustration, gently smiled at me and assured me the others were right.
Thank god, or whoever, for Mrs. Peel. She was my hero. Someone at that time that I could really look up to. Emma Peel, as played by the phenomenal Diana Rigg, was the semi-bohemian super spy on the mid to late 1960s British TV show The Avengers, and was every bit the equal of her male counterpart John Steed. Mrs. Peel, who by the way, was to be originally played by Eleanor Bron, was the coolest of cool in her catsuits that made her look more unconventional than voluptuous. She had no fears, but was healthily dubious of pain, could flip two guys at one time without breaking a sweat, and was just beautiful. She, and to a lesser extent, America’s Honey West who had a pet ocelot named Bruce and was played by the perfectly formed Anne Francis, were major influences on me and perhaps made me strive to be a stronger person and more independent female. Would I have been such a strong willed little girl who felt there was something wrong with thinking that girls were inferior to boys, women to men, if it hadn’t been for the likes of them? And then, Diana Rigg left her successful role, woefully so for me, to do Shakespeare. I admire people who go after their passions even if it means putting a sure thing aside. Though I don’t know if she met with the success she had back then again, I’ve seen her in other things over the decades, but a couple of years ago when I was about to give up my premium cable channels, I stopped on one to see what this Games of Thrones thing was all about. I just happened to catch a scene with an old woman and immediately recognized by voice and then by face that it was my old mentor Diana Rigg, who at the age of 76 plays Lady Olenna Tyrell.
And so we go from Game of Thrones to “Cynthia on the throne,” which is the line from “Dance to the Music” that introduces the horn section. It’s the line that my city cousin and I, and I’m sure many others thought was “Cynthia on the drums,” as it sounds, but never made any sense. There was that aha moment when I learned, after all this time, what Sly sang, and understand why. When I wrote the post on Sly and the Family Stone at the end of December, I noted how trumpeter Cynthia Robinson had made a big impression on me in the late ‘60s. I thought she must be one tough chick, taking on a guy’s role and shouting at us in her ballsy, gritty voice to “get on up and dance to the music” or playing her solo in “I Want to Take You Higher.” Of course, like many of us, she says she was shy, but she had a passion and a goal. In high school, she says, she wanted to play the flute, but there were none available and the clarinet didn’t appeal to her. She saw some guy playing the trumpet and fascinated by what she saw and heard asked him if she could try it, and that led to her status as legendary trumpeter. Much of this is chronicled in a 2013 interview with Robinson in Rookie magazine at http://www.rookiemag.com/2013/08/cynthia-sly-and-family-stone/, in which she discusses her struggles with being accepted as a musician. There’s also a great early, pre-fro picture of Sly and Cynthia that accompanies the article.
As for a woman not being able to be president, not only may I be around to see that in my lifetime, I think history has proven that it is men who can’t be president. Or maybe just shouldn’t. And I’m being bipartisan here. And while I’m mentioning Diana Rigg/Emma Peel, Honey West and Cynthia Robinson as positive female role models of my childhood, I should throw in Bonnie Raitt and her slide guitar, and astronaut Sally Ride, whom I may just write about some day soon. And be prepared for more Sly, cause I am now obsessed.
Okay, so it was yesterday. I live in a high rise in downtown Manhattan. I have no car, therefore no driveway and any walkways in my complex are shoveled by others long before I step into the cold brisk air. There are no kids to entertain, except Max but he’s inside no matter what the outside world is like, the only difference being I’m home when I shouldn’t be. I could have walked over to the office even though it was closed, as the storm wasn’t quite as bad as predicted and my area was not hit hard. But I didn’t. The only thing I had to worry about was if the power went off. And it didn’t.
Power going off is not a good thing when you live on a high floor. The last and only time it happened in this apartment was during Super Storm Sandy. I was supposed to have my surgery the very day that Sandy hit. The ex had called the day before to tell me he thought I should cancel it. I had to laugh as I imagined him imagining me on the operating table with dim lights flickering on and off and a surgeon wearing a miner’s hat. I informed him that the Governor would have more of a say in that than I did, and besides, my wonderful round surgeon kept in touch with me before and after, as we did eventually have to reschedule it for the next week when they got their power back. It just so happened to be on the day we then got hit by a nor’easter that started that afternoon. I would like to now extol the virtues of my friend, the financially irresponsible one who had to move back to Connecticut recently, who was a most dedicated friend that afternoon, getting me home by finding the one available taxi during the snowstorm, getting my medication and buying the things that I could stomach after the anesthesia – a package of supermarket bagels and chocolate chip cookies. She stayed with me the entire night.
But, getting back to Sandy, my building is right on the river and a surge flooded the basement shorting out the power for about 700 apartments on that Monday evening. On Wednesday, when we heard that it was going to be another four days without electricity, I had to go downstairs. I needed more candles and a flashlight and thought I would walk to the office and use the phone to call my stepmother in Holland to let her know I was alright. It took 15 minutes to get to the ground floor and while it was doable, my legs were like rubber as I wobbled over to the office only to find that they were operating with limited power so the elevators were not running. I did find candles and a flashlight, and hung out a bit before attempting the climb back up to my apartment, which I was not looking forward to. I had only quit smoking about five months prior, but even when I was younger and barely smoking at all, I still didn’t do stairs well. A few others were using the stairs which were now dimly lit with emergency lights, and I was a little embarrassed having to stop every two floors to catch my breathe. Two men were approaching and the younger one scooted ahead while the older, older than me and pretty fat, stayed with me. Turns out he’s a vascular surgeon and instructed that when I started huffing and puffing every two flights, we would stop on the landing and chat until I could talk without gasping for air. We did that for near 30 flights until he departed on his floor two below mine. I got home with legs a’throbbin’ and stayed put until sometime in the wee hours of Friday morning when the light woke me from my sleep making me think it was sunrise. I looked toward the window with its blinds raised to take advantage of the lights of other apartment buildings, but it was still dark. There was no daylight coming in. It was coming from a lamp left on in my apartment. And so ended that saga.
The point of that story is yet another, but thankfully very short story about how the other day while going up to my apartment, the elevator stopped four floors below mine and while people were getting on I noticed it had indicated it was going to go back down. Now it could have been that I forgot to press the button as I work in a building where you press your floor number to summon the elevator and just get in so it can take you where you’re going, or the elevator just decided on its own that it didn’t want to go up that high. Either is a plausible explanation. So I got out and decided to just walk up the four floors. And – here comes the point – I did, and only became out of breathe when I neared my floor. I have now doubled my capacity to walk up stairs without getting winded. And I owe it all to rock ‘n roll.
The other night a friend told me that, like her I have to tell the backstory first before I get to the point of the actual story. She was undoubtedly being kind as she is nowhere near as bad as I am, plus I don’t just have backstories, I have side stories going in all sorts of directions. Yes tangents, but with help I can find my way back and figure out the connection. I’m currently trying to write something, one of those things that reaches back and messes with one’s head a bit, dredging up stuff that takes me astray and clogs up the story’s gist. I can take it, I’ve been there, but for your sake I shall shake loose those clinging little side stories with deference to the larger ones. Not yet being there, and it being Sunday, a posting day, I thought I would treat you to some personal trivia about my likes and dislikes.
Inspired by a member of the WNEW-FM Fan Club, who touted “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee as a great old song, I decided to think of other songs that have been very popular which I cannot stand. That song my friends, is number one on my list. I’m really surprised at Bernie Taupin, who has been John’s writing partner and lyricist from years ago, for this piece of tripe. Some others that have made my list over the years are Stephen Stills’ “Love the One You’re With,” Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town,” “Brandi” by Looking Glass (look where that got them), and Carlos Santana’s “Evil Ways.” C’mon, the woman is “evil” because she’s hanging out with her girlfriends when he comes home to an empty house and no one cooking him dinner. You think I’m going to like that? Then there are songs that I really, really like by very popular artists that I just never got into. As we now know, I am crazy about The Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’.” I also like “Pump it Up” by Elvis Costello, who I saw in concert in the early/mid 80s because Vicki was a big fan and got a bunch of tickets for a show at Jones Beach. Boring, boring, boring. Oh, except that was the concert we went to when Amy was flirting with the ex, or vice versa, as I was there with my new boyfriend at the time. That was the one who resembled Springsteen. I’m sorry, I don’t remember when I mentioned that I had a boyfriend who looked like Bruce, but I have a few times. I did get back with the ex afterward. Then we broke up again, and so on.
One of my all time favorite songs is “Whipping Post” by the Allman Brothers. And even though I also like Gregg Allman’s “I’m No Angel,” I don’t like him. He done Cher wrong and wasn’t there for his kid. Ptooey.
Another little bit of trivia about me that has nothing to do with anything, I sometimes try to end my workouts by 8pm so I can watch reruns of reruns of The Big Bang Theory, which is just about the only thing I do watch on TV these days because it never fails to make me laugh, and oddly enough, it has helped me understand certain people that have been in my life just a little bit better.
I still don’t have Tom Petty’s new album, which I have said I would purchase as soon as it hit the discount rack. That may be a while. You may have thought that one of my close local friends would have gotten it for me for my birthday or holidays, but no. Since most don’t even read my blog I can say whatever I want about them and have gotten a dig in before that went unnoticed. I will again when so moved. Like now. This though is no reflection on my old friend who runs a bar up in Chelsea and has loaned me some very important vinyl, and also provides me the opportunity to say that I have an old friend who runs a bar up in Chelsea.
I did find Full Moon Fever, Petty’s first release sans The Heartbreakers, but filled with Wilburys, to be enjoyable, though not as much as the first record by the whole group that we listened to a short while back. This does contain hit songs like “Free Fallin,” “Yer So Bad,” The Byrds’ “Feel A Whole Lot Better,” which sounds more like The Seekers I think, and “Runnin Down A Dream.” It may or may not make it out again for a workout, probably more for company, but what I find puzzling is that the inside booklet is dotted with half moons. Why is that do you think when the album is called Full Moon Fever?
It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
I had the radio on, I was drivin
Trees went by, me and Del were singin Little runaway, I was flyin
The Best of Sting was one of the recent dollar CD purchases from Housing Works. I like Sting and I liked The Police, whose songs I can sing along better to than those from Stings solo career. However, I own no music of either, till now. My friend Amy liked The Police very much. Her musical tastes ran the gamut: classical, rock, new wave. Her interest in The Police I think was largely due to her finding Sting to be quite appealing indeed. Did I mention that before when I wrote about her around Halloween? Or perhaps when I found The Police CD in the library that time. In any case, she wasn’t chatty about her attraction to certain men, at least not to me, but she didn’t have to be. I understood in the few words she would slyly offer that she was attracted to Sting, Peter Martins of the New York City Ballet, and enjoyed flirting with my boyfriend, better known these days as the ex. Let it be known though that as a longtime flirt myself, something I believe I have a talent for, I genuinely support the practice and its benefits as long as both parties understand that it is just healthy flirting. I knew that Amy would never cheat on her husband and could appreciate that others found my guy attractive, so I had no problem with her benefitting from his charm.
There are some beautiful songs on Sting’s best of, like “Fields of Gold” and I like “Englishman In New York.” Not the best and not the worst to workout to, but I forced myself anyway, thinking about Amy and old times. By the way, last time I wrote about her, I mentioned that she had a trench coat named Basil but neglected to note that it was herringbone, an important fact to omit. And another by the way, my favorite Police song is “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” but I will always be pissed that Sting’s collaboration with Eric Clapton, “It’s Probably Me” from one of the Lethal Weapon sequels wasn’t nominated for an academy award. Stupid Disney year.
The Housing Works near my City cousin is great. Lots of stuff, good turnover. Plus they have a big CD collection. Nothing I could get too excited over, but hey, they’re a buck each, and for the five I bought there I could get one from the discount section of Barnes and Noble.
Last night, I wasn’t feeling that desire to exercise or write. I tried watching Knight and Day, a movie that always cheers me up, but turned it off less than midway through and forced myself into the kitchen to do the dishes. I was running out of forks and coming dangerously close to having to resort to what was left from the old set of glasses that are kept for those times I can’t get myself to wash dishes. I didn’t want to get to that point. I thought I’d put on the King Crimson CD that was among the five and came without its cover so I’ve little notion of what it is. But I remember me some King Crimson, “Court of the Crimson King” and all that, and they were among the favored bands of those high school friends who liked The Grateful Dead, The Kinks and Pink Floyd.
The music on this particular CD, which began with background noise of some sort, sounds like someone, or possibly more, learning to play a few different instruments. A lot of that abstract stuff. Just the kind of thing I hate. Okay, dislike a whole bunch. Hate is such a strong word. The first of the three songs or compositions, was a half hour improv. Needless to say, I was not inspired to exercise to it, or move about even a tad, but I did get the dishes done and then some. Problem is they don’t stay done.
Tonight – Back to Sly.
Let’s face it. The Beatles were magical. We all loved them no matter what we said, and our parents made fun of them, but they knew who they were. Our mothers dutifully took us to see their movies and I don’t think they minded sitting through them with us. The lads were adorable after all. I can speak for my own mother when I say that she found them much preferable to the likes of Jerry Lewis.
When Hard Days Night came out, I was still way too dopey a kid to get many of the jokes, but when I saw Help I was a wee bit more aware and maybe a wee bit more mature, or maybe Help is jus the better movie, as I’ve always felt. It has that wonderfully bizarre storyline, the charm of its four stars and the character actors like Leo McKern and Victor Spinetti, who also had a pretty meaty role in Hard Days Night, and the performance by the most excellent Eleanor Bron in her very first movie. Her character, Ahme, double-agent and champion of the Beatles, was the hero of the movie and an impressive force as a cool, confident, courageious and really smart woman who was also exotically attractive and impecably dressed in fashionable yet somewhat unusual attire. She has a delightfully droll exchange with Paul on the dance floor, but my favorite scene is (and I am doing this from memory as I haven’t seen Help in quite some time, though Hard Days Night has been showing up on television lately) later in the film when the Beatles are blown into the water and find themselves swimming in the ocean not knowing which way to go. Then on a reef or a jetty we see Ahme clad in a black leather caped maillot (that’s a one-piece bathing suit – fancy, huh) and a jeweled black bathing cap. She waves her arm way up in the air and delivers the memorable line, “Beatles! Hello!” to perfection, and she rescues them yet again.
Tidbit: The character of Eleanor Rigby was named for Eleanor Bron.
Bron was also the female lead in the Peter Cook/Dudley Moore film Bedazzled as the object of Moore’s nebishy shy Stanley Moon’s silent affection and the reason he makes a deal with Cook’s cunning devil for his soul. Bron is required to play several versions of her character and holds her own with the clever comedy duo. Tidbit: Raquel Welch turns in a magnificent performance as Lust.
That was only the second time I saw Eleanor Bron in a movie, I think, and after seeing her in the Albert Finney/Audrey Hepburn movie Two For the Road, and performing with Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I knew I would be a fan for life. For those of you Ab Fab fans, she also played Patsy’s mother.
Eleanor Bron has not just died, nor is it her birthday, but let’s salute her anyway, just because she deserves it, gosh darnit. I’d love to have my friends over to watch the movies I have mentioned, but I’ll bet that if this ever happens, I’ll wind up having my own private Bronathon alone.
“Both men and women are fallable. The difference is, women know it.” – Eleanor Bron
The Walrus Was Paul 