I know it seems like I gloat too much about my view of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty, but I do appreciate it. I also appreciate that I have a second view of the City and can see the Freedom Tower and the new weird looking Path Station, and whatever it is they are doing with that. The river calms me. It takes me from my cares and woes and leads me to another place in my head. All its goings-on take me from the day, or the days to come. It gives me a sense of the bigger picture, how things work, or don’t work, as I wrote last week. I babbled last week, I know, but that’s my avoidance. I don’t write about a lot of things on my blog. Most of the more grizzly stuff I keep private. Besides, it’s the past, and the past led me to be a strong survivor, and with all my flaws and defects, it’s what I depend on most.
Cancer is a scary word, particularly when you hear it the first time. But this is my second, and I’m not so scared anymore. Those of you who’ve been with me for a while know that three and a half years ago, give or take, I had surgery for tiny, stage one lumps in both breasts. I was all prepared to do the radiation thing until my research showed me that it was actually not the thing I wanted to do. I decided to roll the dice, and had an inkling that regardless, I would be back on the surgeon’s table in a few years. So, I was not surprised at the results of the mammogram and then the biopsy, which diagnosed me with what my current regular doctor called “the least stinky” of the breast cancers. They are in the milk ducts and even though my research shows that they are possibly non-invasive, the oncologist, who was short on information, still recommended surgery, radiation and estrogen blockers. When I questioned her about the non-invasiveness, she pooh-poohed it and told me to ignore what I read on the internet. My research is random, yes, but also includes sites such as NIH and the Mayo Clinic. Disappointed that I was being once again limited to the box that doctors place you in, even those you think would have a wealth of information, my facial that I had scheduled for right after my oncologist appointment, was ever so much more informative. My wonderful facialist, whom I also refer to as my bartender, suggested that I have the surgery. I can make my own decisions, but her advice to me helped as she is more versed on nutrition and lifestyle than these doctors are, and knows me better.
I work for a medical school, and have just realized that nutrition is not something taught to would-be doctors. I come from any area on Long Island that is a cancer cluster, and after research was performed years ago, the idea that the cancer clusters could be a result of external influences such as the aquafers or power lines was denied and the conclusion was that the cancers were based on poor lifestyle choices.
But I don’t want The Walrus Was Paul to be about cancer. I’ve not even highlighted the word. I’m just sharing. If you know anything about me, you know that I’m not in this for the hits or the likes. It’s not about the attention. Well, maybe a little. The blog is just about things in my life and the cancer is just one of those things. I purposely did not lead off with the cancer thing because I don’t want the blog to revolve around it. I don’t want to think about it more than I have to. I don’t want pity, but I will take your empathy. I will sometimes have the need to talk about it, and I talk best with a pen.
Don’t cry for me Argentina. Or Brazil.
BTW – We’ve had a weekend of free STARZ, so I’ve seen Ricki and The Flash and Into the Woods (can’t have too much Meryl Streep), and I’d like to point out that Rick Springfield and the partial glimpse of his naked chest that we were treated to, makes aging look good (he’s 66 and still truly oomphy), and Johnny Depp as The Wolf in Into the Woods – yeah, I don’t even have to explain that.
I prematurely hit publish a few hours ago when I meant to hit save draft. So those of you who may have seen the earlier version, will see the difference in the two and we now have a secret.
Why did we have to dissect frogs? How was that a thing passed down through the generations. Please don’t tell me that they still do that. I had to do it. But not until my first year of high school. The class was mandatory, as was the assignment. Sure, I protested, as did my classmate. Wait a minute! Come to think of it, we refused to do it. I never did dissect a frog. Good for us.
I am fascinated by anatomy and biology, and I believe the frog dissection lesson came to mind as I was once again marveling over the intricacies of the human body, how things work, or don’t work. If I had been at all a serious student in my teens, I may have gotten more into science. But you need a good teacher, one who can make it sound as fascinating as it is. The elements were too confusing for me, but I like the planets. Geology and ecology are cool too. I am a good student of character, though I am continuously surprised by people’s behaviors. Still.
What am I writing about? I’m just babbling again. It’s an avoidance thing. It’s like doing the dishes when you should be getting that paper done that’s due tomorrow.
The authors of an article cited in Psychology Today, “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind,” stated “The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.” So now even my ability to zone is unhealthy, and going on tangents is taking the wrong path. Gee willikers.
The good thing about Sundays is that I always exercise on Sundays and write the blog post. I probably do one because I do the other. But I hadn’t exercised since last Sunday, and that’s not good. The cost is both physical and emotional. So, I’ve nothing to report this evening about music, or my weight, which I think is just stable, but not to worry. I’ll be fine. I did have a swell workout tonight, and am getting more than just the blog done.
I am forever overwhelmed by the amount of paper that piles up in my small apartment, though it is more under control than when I lived in an apartment that could eat my current abode for dinner and dessert with an aperitif. It was not only a much larger apartment, but there were more places to hide stuff. My desk, where I no longer do any work (I do it on the laptop) and only play spider solitaire, is my first target to sort through. [please see picture] When you just keep throwing mail, paid bills, notes you’ve written to yourself and work related stuff on any old surface as I do, it does become a problem and one that can no longer be hidden from guests, though I don’t think my friends really care. Regardless, for the past couple of nights I have taken the initiative to start from the bottom of the piles on the desk and either toss ’em or put them in the – I’ll decide later – pile. The desk piles have been building for a number of months and contain a surprise here and there. One discovery, something I had saved, is just downright amusing. Please, allow me to share.
I don’t think I’ve really mentioned what I do for a living, you know, that thing that pays the bills, but I work for a Caribbean medical school. As director of the department that I developed years ago (impressed?), I guide the students in their final year through the process of getting a residency, without which they cannot practice medicine. While most American medical schools have a placement rate in the upper 90 percentile, we average about 75% each year. Just so you know, there are some American schools that kind of suck and my youngish school is improving and raise their standards little by little. After each “Match” as the process of matching a medical school graduate with a residency program is called, which is now wrapping up for this year, I am contacted by other non-residency medical programs looking for cheap labor in the form of MDs for the more clerical of the medical positions. I post the positions and interested applicants will respond directly to the program. Except for one program with which I have worked for several years that offers an unpaid, yearlong, full-time position that is actually an incredible opportunity to get intensive hands-on training, and the program directors assist their charges with improving their chances of achieving residency the following year. Their success rate is impressive. As their standards are high, particularly for an unpaid program, and due to the length of our relationship, I provide initial screening for them.
With that background information, which you should memorize as there just may be a pop quiz at a time when you least expect it, here is what I found in my pile of desk papers – two resumes. The first is the sample CV I wrote for the guide I created on writing a CV – curriculum vitae – really just a fancy shmancy name for a resume. I had discovered that many graduating students didn’t know how to present themselves on paper. Using mostly fictitious information based on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, including the other cartoons that came with it like Fractured Fairy Tales and Mr. Peabody and Sherman, childhood favorites of mine, I created a resume for Sherman Peabody, who attended Wossamotta University as an undergraduate. While a student of Wossomatta U. in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, he worked as an Office Manager/Phlebotomist at Frostbite Family Practice, and volunteered with the Frostbite Falls chapter of Habitat for Humanity.
Applicants for the position are required to send me their CVs which I review before deciding if they qualify to pass on to the program’s directors. Although the requirements are listed, many of the applicants, desperate for the opportunity to improve their chances of getting a residency the following year, don’t meet them. So when I looked at the resume for one graduate, who could have been a candidate for the B list if not enough A-listers applied, something seemed amiss. She is from a warm southern state, where she did her undergraduate education, and her extracurricular activities, aside from those as a medical student, are where she currently lives in that same southern state. So I found it confusing that amongst her warm weather experience, I noticed that she had worked as a habilitation technician for Frostbite Family Practice in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota for the same five months, though different years that Sherman Peabody did, during an inactive time between getting her Bachelor’s degree and going off to the Caribbean to start the academic portion of her medical education.
As I wrote the sample CV years ago, it took a moment, and then I thought, wait, does Frostbite Falls, MN actually exist? So I Googled it. Indeed there are several references to Frostbite Falls, MN on the internet, ALL referring to the place where Bullwinkle, with the aid of his trusted friend Rocket J. Squirrel, played football for Wossamotta U. Of course Frostbite Falls, MN exists, but only for those of us that will remain Rocky and Bullwinkle fans forever, which obviously does not include the MD who submitted her not so truthful CV to me. I did not pass on her application for the position, nor did I chuck it. As sad as the situation is, it has provided much entertainment. My boss and I had a mighty good laugh over it and he in turn had a mighty good laugh when he told our school’s founder and president, who then came to me, mostly for further chuckling, but also asked me if I thought perhaps the graduate, who is now a doctor but without residency, was simply copying my format and just forgot to change the information, even though her format is nothing like the one I gave as an example. I stopped to think about it for a moment, then got kind of irked, and told the president with whom I have a decent and jovial relationship, that he should not ask me to explore the mind of a liar and try to explain it. What unfair pressure that puts on those of us that are let’s say, mostly truthful. I have not heard from the graduate since.
Nobody minds that these resumes are in the decide later pile, right?
I hung out with the ex on Good Friday, not that I celebrate these particular holidays, but the office was closed. We had our usual breakfast, did not go to the movies, but in the evening rediscovered that sake (the rice wine) is a wonderful thing. Hi from ex to J.
Btw – I do know the difference between heal and heel, and vice versa, despite evidence in last week’s post to the contrary. Oh, and Max loves that I moved the couch so it now abuts the desk.
The sign outside the liquor store yesterday read “Not sure if I want buns of steel or buns of cinnamon.”
Dear Friends:
Please tell me when I have a booger. Tell me when my eye makeup has blobbed under my eyes or if I have lipstick on my teeth. Tell me this dress makes me look fat, even though I ever feel the need to ask that question, I’m not buying the dress, and would be much more likely to ask if my butt looks too big. My butt is big. Way back in my early 20s when I seriously had not a bit of flab due to sheer luck, and was no more than a size 5/6 at 5’6”, I had mentioned to a male friend that I had a big ass for someone my size. He shot back that I had a big ass for anyone’s size. I was amused. He probably had never seen a big-butted, thin woman before. Comes from the Italian side, and directly from my mother.
Oh, and let me know if there’s some sort of weird stain on the back of my pants or if my breath could choke an elephant. Say to me – Honey, before you go into that meeting you may want to pop a breath mint. If I stink, you could suggest I use a bit more deodorant or an extra shot of perfume. Please do this for me, and I will do the same for you.
I’m not having an easy time dropping the added winter weight, and after a tooth broke off the zipper of my favorite size 10 Levi’s (having nothing to do with my pudge), I culled through my other old jeans and thought I would try the Classic Gap’s. Unfortunately, they proved that I am not totally a size 10 yet. I could zip them up, and they looked good from the waist down, but I chose breathing over looks, and besides, there was that belly mess that was pushed up over the waistband that needed to addressing. The pants are now a goal. Instead, I am wearing the size 10 boyfriend jeans, my very first pair of size 10s that used to hang so low I was constantly hiking them up. They now fit comfortably on my waist. They’re not nearly as cute as the Levi’s nor Gap’s, but hopefully soon they’ll drop down a bit. Too much of the heal of my boot is showing. Back in high school, it was practically mandatory that the back hem of one’s jeans be worn and frayed. A rule I still adhere to.
BTW – There’s a liquor store on Church Street that has one of those big black and white signs in the window that reads “Jack Lives Here,” which is a good thing because he can’t live with me anymore. When I passed yesterday, the easel in front carried the sentiment in the picture that accompanies this post, of which I just could not reduce the size. Sorry. Now, I don’t think of myself as fat, however, I wouldn’t mind having the same consistency I had when I realized I was no longer a size 8.
There are several CDs I picked up from Housing Works for a buck each that I will be donating back. Rather than pan them as I did with Madonna’s “Music” and MDNA, I will just list them, if you promise to keep in mind that these CDs may not be the particular artist’s finest work, or perhaps I found them dated, or they’re just not up my alley. I like that expression – right up my alley. Anyway, I did buy these CDs because I’ve liked other stuff by these folk and having none of them in my album collection, I gave them a try. In no particular order the CDs to be returned are: the two Madonnas, Pearl Jam, Carly Simon’s Hotcakes, and Ani DiFranco’s Not a Pretty Girl.
Saved from the chopping block is Dave Matthews’ double live CD Listener Supported. Gilda (remember Gilda?) is a HUGE Dave Matthews fan and doesn’t have this on CD, so it goes to her. Hey – I still have a tape and another CD of his, and most importantly, I have “Crush” which is not just my favorite Dave Matthews song, it is one of my top three guys gone totally mushy, they can’t even form a sentence, but put it to the most beautiful music and sing their hearts out, kind of song. There is no ranking of the songs, as that would be plain silly, and they each require everyone to shut up and listen and feel those lovey vibes when they come on the radio. The three are “Crush”, of course Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”, and Roxy Music’s “More Than This” that can only be sung by Bryan Ferry as his voice is such an integral component of the song.
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ Sinner can stay, though none of the songs on it are wowsome and do not motivate movement from me. But it’s good solid rock ‘n roll, and it is Joan Jett. I’ve put it on a couple of times and have gotten the dishes done. I think I’ll offer Queen’s Greatest Hits II to the ex.
I’ve written about Housing Works several times over the years, and for those of you who don’t know what it is, please, let me explain. There are several thrift stores located throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn with proceeds going to help people with AIDS and HIV with day to day living, like having a home and paying medical bills. My brother was very fortunate, in his misfortune, to have been well cared for and well-loved while living with his illness. He even got to take a trip to Hawaii before he died. He loved to travel, and had been all over Europe on business and for fun, but Hawaii was that bucket list thing. I found a great set of dishes at Housing Works when I moved to Brooklyn.
Getting back to music, I can’t remember the last time I got my hand stamped to enter a club, or had been in a club, for that matter, but the other night I met up with an old friend I’d not seen in 30 years to see a band play at The Delancey. The band, led by a friend of his, played some good old rock ‘n roll, loud, and we were thumping on the bar to “Psycho Killer” and “Pump it Up.” They played some Kinks and other older songs along with the stuff I didn’t recognize, but as Vicki had been a big fan of The Talking Heads and Elvis Costello, it was nice to hear someone else, who must be half our age, appreciate them too. Oh, and I was easily the oldest person in the basement venue, and probably throughout the entire three floors of the bar. But I have to keep reminding myself of how much fun there is to be had that belongs to all generations in this city.
BTW – As I have no BTW this evening, I will take this opportunity to be a bit preachy. Be kind and respectful of others. You can either help make this a better world or help make it worse.
Welcome Eleanor. I shall say no more.
Dear Cheryl Tiegs:
For my 11th birthday, or maybe it was the Christmas less than a month later, my father got me a year’s subscription to Teen Magazine. This, for a girl whose mother frequently reminded her that she was immature because a piano teacher, an amateur piano teacher told her so. But yeah, I guess as a child I was pretty immature. I’ve outgrown it some.
The first issue of the magazine I remember had a very pretty, fresh-faced blond girl, with very long perfectly straight hair and blue eyes. No, it wasn’t you Cheryl but you and the blond girl were pictured throughout the issue, and others, I recall, looking like what we were told the perfect teenage girls should look and behave like. There’d often be all these pictures of you with your perfect little nose and white teeth. And there was me, awkward in my own skin and in my own house, yet to have my first period, whatever that was. Oh wait, I think that’s what the meeting in the school’s auditorium/gym/lunchroom, where all the mothers brought their 6th grade daughters, was all about. We saw a film. My mother and I spoke about it neither before nor after. My mother often told me, and I heard her say it to others, that girls were much harder to raise than boys, so I think she didn’t really bother much. I had some nice clothes though, although some were age inappropriate. But that’s a whole ‘nuther story.
I went through the year with you Cheryl. You were also the face in the Bonne Bell ads. Your skin was flawless. Since it was his idea in the first place, I thought my father would renew the subscription for me. Shouldn’t he have asked me if I wanted to renew? He renewed my brother’s National Geographic every year, after all. But I never asked him to. I was kind of not allowed to ask for things. I got things, however I was not comfortable asking for anything. Oh but that is also a whole ‘nuther story.
I renewed the subscription myself for another year. I wanted my multi-cultural hair to be straight and frizz-free like yours. And as pimples started popping up on my skin, I envied your smooth poreless skin with not a blemish in sight. I looked up to you and the other young models, perfect in your bikinis that were more modest for the times, frolicking on the beach, getting all the attention from the cute guys. You were all so happy and pretty and fun. And you made me feel so much less about myself.
I can’t blame you because my parents were jerks, causing massive insecurities and making me susceptible to bad influences such as yourself, as you are trying to blame the media for making a big deal out of your comments about the meaty model on the cover of the men’s magazine that you yourself graced so many years ago. Now as a thinking adult, I dislike “models” and what they stand for, though I understand the need for a Beverly Johnson, or the “plus-sized models” crossing over from Lane Bryant to more “mainstream” magazines. But “models” are not a healthy influence on women and girls. They are often abnormally tall and abnormally skinny. Particularly in this age of obesity, the chubbier models set a much more realistic goal for all of us. I think if we had more realistic looking “models,” more girls would feel more confident about themselves and we’d have less eating disorders.
While I never had a weight problem until the last few years, and it’s not that serious, it’s only been over the last few years that I’ve begun to realize what an incredible person I am, as I’ve become a more confident, kinder and wiser woman (“I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do” – Joe Walsh Life’s Been Good). And though I don’t want to judge, I feel justified in pointing out that your comments about the unhealthiness of chunky models make you appear to be the melding of two unfortunate female clichés – the dumb model and the bitter old woman.
So, I close with another quote from a song that I have used before. Frank Zappa once asked us “What’s the ugliest part of your body?” The answer – “I think it’s your mind.”
BTW – Regarding last week’s post, if you have not yet seen The Producers parody Trumped performed by Mathew Broderick and Nathan Lane (with the wonderful Cloris Leachman), that was on Jimmy Kimmel’s post Oscar show (please note that my post was PRE-Oscars), you should take a look at https://youtu.be/OemqVWi_R0k. It is not only spot on as a Producers parody, it really explains the absurdity of the situation. Thanks J.
“Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!”
Mel Brooks, “Springtime for Hitler” from The Producers
Life could be a dream, Sh-Boom. And apparently in my world, so could death. (There’s tonight’s post’s musical connection)
While in bed the other night, still playing with my laptop, I took one of those quick nods. I dream a lot, and vividly, so it’s not unusual that I should have one of my dreams during the time it took for my eyes to close and open again moments later. I was very present in the dream, although I did not see me, only through my eyes as I watched three men, young men by my standards. They could have been in their 30s, but I only saw them from the back. I was yards behind the trio who were themselves yards apart from each other. They walked along a highway embankment, going down in a diagonal line towards the empty road. They were unknown to me, I felt no connection to them other than they seemed to be in my charge. They all wore light grey suits, I think, but definitely grey. As they reached the highway, I knew that they were now dead. They had gotten to that cross over point and continued walking down, or up the highway, still dressed quite nattily in their grey suits, I noticed. I woke from the nod-off thinking that when I die, I’d like to be dressed nicely as well. Nothing fancy or ostentatious, nothing too young for me, just so I start off the next round looking sharp.
I love my dreams. Have I told you about that before? Did I mention that my mother, in her interim years of sobriety, and when I still lived in her house, enjoyed my regaling her with my dream stories? Some were amusingly bizarre and some quite poignant. Even though she had once told me that if you told someone your nightmare, it could never reoccur, which works by the way, I was willing to risk not seeing those dreams again. Those were bonding times for us and after I would tell her my dreams, she would give her amateur interpretation. She was kind of into that. I wish I could remember my dreams like I used to. Now I have to grab hold of the last remnant as I wake up.
And while I am recounting a good mother story for you, here’s another. She was completely amused by the stream of horror films that were inspired by the success of The Exorcist in the mid-70s, and went to see them on a weekly basis. In fact, she saw The Exorcist three times, thinking it was funny. She had been raised Catholic, and as soon as she was old enough, disowned the church and seemed to have a real hatred for it. The nuns pulled her curls, she had told me, but it had to be much more than that. Though I was raised in a home without organized religion, I was allowed to attend churches, Sunday school and Hebrew school with my friends. I found the Catholic Sunday experience the most fascinating. I loved the rituals, the beads, the getting dressed up, the latter being my mother’s favorite part of it, except maybe then getting rid of me for a Sunday morning. I’ll tell you sometime what made me realize, at a very young age, that the pomp involved was not enough for me, as I would discover that in those days you could go to hell for the stupidest of reasons. I was fortunate, quite so, that my mother had discovered the Unitarian Fellowship in Huntington. Even my father liked it.
But the point is that I probably shouldn’t have been afraid of the devil, nor believed in possession, but when I went to see the movie of The Exorcist, it scared the bejeebers out of me. I was just 18, had seen it with a friend, who throughout the second half of the movie had her head in her lap and her hands over her ears, and her younger sister, who at 15 sat there smiling through the whole thing. I had my hands over my eyes, but my fingers were spread apart. During the ride home, in which the sister sat between my friend and I in the front seat of their parent’s car, the sister, as I could not throw her out of the car, got punched repeatedly for talking in that possessed voice provided by Academy Award winning actress Mercedes McCambridge.
When I was let out of the car, I ran into my house, into my room, turned on the lights, radio and television and huddled in the corner of my bed until I couldn’t take it anymore. I went into my mother’s bedroom, woke her up telling her that I had just seen The Exorcist and could I get into bed with her. She muttered okay, then asked if I had gotten the cat in. No, I replied, he’s been acting weird. Puffy, our wonderful big redhead, who came with that name as a kitten and for some reason we did not change it, had gotten into the habit of waiting for me in the bushes that separated the front of our house from the path that led from the front door to our driveway. As I passed by on the path he would jump out, go mrow, mrow, mrow, waving a paw at me then run off. It was funny at the time, but not that night. That night I had decided he wasn’t playing, he was possessed. My mother drifted back to sleep as I lay there with my eyes wide open in fear. Moments later she began to laugh. I nearly shit. She was possessed too. And in cahoots with the cat as it suddenly struck her funny that I thought Puffy was the devil. I was not amused.
However, like my watching the movie through splayed fingers, my curiosity and fascination prompted me to read the book, which contains even more disturbing images than in the movie. I thought my mother was nuts for her opinion of the movie, but still, when she would come home from seeing another scary movie like The Omen or Audrey Rose (also read that book), I would sit and listen to her tell me all about them. I think these were the times we actually liked each other.
BTW – I haven’t had Chinese food in a while, and therefore no fortune cookies, until this Friday. My fortune read: Feast upon life’s dumplings before they get tough to chew. Hmmm. If we believe that everything happens for a reason, should we not then believe in our fortune cookies? I’m torn.
Hi J!
I’m not writing tonight. Oh, except to say that I braved the cold (and it is mighty, mighty cold here in NYC) to go to the Abingdon Theatre in midtown to see a matinee of A Room of My Own. It was very funny, very sad, very loud and often disturbing, and as I explained to the ex when telling him about the wonderful movie Inside Out, some things are a little harder to take for Abby-Normals like us. But we’re tough and can appreciate a good play that is well-written, produced, directed and acted, even if it makes you cry as others laugh (I wasn’t the only one dabbing my eyes).
It runs through March 13th, if anyone is interested. Ralph Macchio plays the storyteller/playwright, so I was telling everyone that my valentine date was going to be the Karate Kid.
And Happy Valentine’s Day to all. Here’s my theory about Valentine’s Day. If you show your woman that you love her throughout the rest of the year, she’ll just think that Valentine’s Day is a big waste of money. Have your own special day. That’s for men, but you can easily make this gender neutral or all-inclusive.
BTW – Do it for Johnny!
Though we were three years apart, and my brother was of the Howdy Doody era and I was an unofficial member of the later Winchell Mahoney club, we shared the same tastes in music until I entered junior high school and veered off on my own. But during those earlier years of The Ed Sullivan Show, and then those shows geared toward the “be-bop” music that the kids were listening to, as it was referred to by my father, such as Shindig and Hullabaloo, we sat in the den together in front of the television and loved everything that was thrown at us.
I was again reminded of those days when someone posted a video of the Young Rascals on the WNEW-FM Fan Club performing “Good Lovin’” on Hullabaloo. Quite some time ago, I don’t remember when, maybe you do, I wrote about The Rascals after finding a “best of” CD in the discount racks, and the video of “Good Lovin’” on The Ed Sullivan Show. I took a look at the recent Rascals video, remembering that drummer Dino Danelli was the looker of the group, bearing a striking resemblance to Paul McCartney (as did the late, fabulous Mike Smith of The Dave Clark Five). The focus was mostly on Felix Cavaliere as he sang lead on the song. I waited for a shot of Dino, who was also an amazing drummer, and I noticed the dancers in the cages that flanked the group. There she was. The girl on the right. Dancing in an elevated cage. That crazy dancer that caught everyone’s attention back then. She danced wildly in her fringed dress and her untamed hair flew all over the place. Other dancers were a bit more subdued and their hair stayed put. My brother was enthralled with her, and was particularly impressed with her moniker, as you didn’t hear of many women back then, or now for that matter, with Jr. after their names.
What was her name? I fixated on her in the video and wanting to see more, tried pulling more than just Jr. from the recesses of my memory. Ada – Ada Ladman Jr. – is what I came up with and started the search. And there she was. Lada Edmund, Jr., the well-known dancer in the cage on Hullabaloo. I wanted to be her I recall, and at ten years old did have my very own pair of white go-go boots. Most of us little girls and big girls did too. Fact is, my brother, Davey, probably wanted to be her as well. Of course, growing up in my house, it was not uncommon for us to want to be anyone else than who we were, for different reason but with the same cause.
I can only assume that my brother suspected he was “different.” I don’t think many little boys constructed Barbie Town in their basements and made clothes for the apartment dwelling, world-traveling career girl Midge, who really set an example for me that women didn’t need to get married, have children and become suburban housewives. Neither of us became wild go-go dancers, but both of us shared Midge-like qualities later in life.
While it was the post of the Rascals that led me to think about Davey and his admiration for the unconventional woman, it is not the anniversary of his death or birth, which are practically the same day in September, except they’re three days and 33 years apart. It is however, the anniversary of the passing of my dearest and oldest friend Vicki, who died two years and two days ago.
Btw – Lada Edmund Jr., now in her late 60s, had a very successful career as a stuntwoman after her Hullabaloo days, and seems to be still going strong as a trainer. Most Hullabaloo videos are somewhat fuzzy, but available on YouTube, and I recommend the stalkerish “Look at That Girl” video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r60nCJVmdy4&feature=youtu.be.
In the photo, Lada Edmund Jr. is the dancer sitting on the B.
The Walrus Was Paul 