Coney Island Baby

Now that my father has been gone 3 years, Memorial Day is not the same.  Not that he spoke much about the war; it took him a good 50 years after his last medals were processed to begin meeting with other WWII veterans and survivors.  He never really considered his daughters as 'legacy', and one thing I respected about him most-- he considered it bad form to self-aggrandize and accept accolades of bravery when the real heroes had come back in boxes.

In my childhood, it was called 'Decoration Day' and it fell on May 30th.  No Monday euphemisms in the 50's and 60's.  Holidays were observed-- not shopped and marketed to death.  Yes, there was a cookout... even a trip to Washington DC where I experienced presidential and military Memorial monuments which were humbling and inspiring.  I was maybe 5-- the scale of these buildings was enormous... the lines of people waiting to enter were impressive; it was my first brush with 'America'.  What did I know? My father was a mystery-- a man with a hard shell who occasionally held my hand in crowds.

I've been tough on my father, as he was incredibly tough on me.  In the current culture, fathers are so hands-on... they are intimately involved in pregnancies, present at the birth, they change diapers and share parenting equally.  They are emotional and tender... this is accepted and acceptable... but maybe not so in my father's day.  After all, here was a tough military hero suddenly dropped in the big city with a young wife and domestic responsibility.  He left home a boy, lived with terror and violence and a daily task of staying alive against massive odds and challenges... then returned laden with medals and souvenir uniforms to join the city workforce-- to get an apartment, shop for groceries.  Every day on the subway and on street corners we are accosted by these displaced veterans who are struggling to adjust to regular life, and failing.  We are aware of this now.  Back then, there was little empathy built into the system-- they were expected to simply pick up the ball and continue.

The concept of a father, I suppose, was as important as the actuality.  Even though I had little communication with mine, it was assumed he paid bills, went to work, had the car fixed, etc.  Kind of the way we viewed our President as kids-- the Father of our country.  It was Eisenhower, during much of my childhood-- then Kennedy came and we all bonded.  He was the movie-star President-father-- our handsome hero  who was camera-ready and charming.  Brave and smart.  We didn't pick our heroes apart in those days;  Elvis was King.

By the same token, the concept of children was different.  No one bothered to ask me if I was happy or unhappy.  I was told where to go and what to do-- Scout wilderness camp, music, ballet... my parents placed their kids into the same slots all their neighbors kids were in.  There was no discussion, no question-and-answer.  I grew up and left home a teenager.  I had little desire to return.  As I studied and observed the world, I realized some things just look normal and pretty.  My independence, despite the ultra-dependent model of my Mom-- such a perfectly functional 50's style housewife-- was supreme.

Memorial Day now is a day of nostalgia for me.  Sure-- the sense of oncoming summer, and the absence of the excitement we felt as children about the end of school coalesces on the brink of June, but for me-- well, no parades, but memories.  As a single parent, it always brought the seasonal stress of how to amuse my son with no school and very little money.  There were camp options, sports options... but essentially we spent summers sweating it out in the city, me feeling guilty about lacking the means for a vacation... my own father judging me for my failure to do this, but never offering to help out; not his style, nor mine.  It is also the anniversary of the death of my baby daughter-- something I could not process for years.  It was a beautiful day... she held out until the post-Memorial Day Tuesday at lunchtime.

Coney Island was a frequent treat when I was very small.  Ditto for my own son.  It was something I could manage-- a subway ride, a day on the Boardwalk.. a few kiddie rides and a hotdog.  This year I kept remembering one incident... we took the D train to Brooklyn on the Friday after school.  My son had a full scholarship to a prestigious prep school which was great-- but all his friends would be whisked off to exotic weekend destinations and Fridays were kind of a finger pointing at me tattooed with 'Loser'.  So he was maybe 10--- had just reached the required height to ride the Cyclone.  I'd had my fill of that roller coaster as a child.  It was a rite of passage and I closed my eyes and made it through-- terror being the operative emotion.  Something about those old wooden rides... but my own son was determined-- it was like a test, a badge.  I'd put aside a little extra-- that was becoming tough for me-- to even afford a day at the amusement park.

So there we were, at maybe 4 PM-- we circled the park, watched a few games... finally approached the great ride, the King of the amusement park.   How he had grown in one year-- we'd measured him with his running sneakers...  even my heart was racing at the foot of the rollercoaster... we could hear screams every several second intervals and the unique rumbling noise of wheels on wooden tracks.  I'm really hungry, my son announced... there was a small stand across from the entrance that sold corncobs.  We ordered one... they were so good... he drank a coke... slowly... the cars stopped, dropped off their happy human passengers and reloaded...  watched another course.  Another.  He ordered another ear of corn... ate it with deliberation I'd never seen in a boy.  We watched.  It was loud... terrifying...  Five o'clock passed and lines were becoming longer.

8:15... the sun was going down... Four ears of corn, one pretzel for me... I finally announced I think I'd run out of cash...  there was barely enough for the Cyclone ticket-- we'd have to walk home.  So he scolded me, my son... damn you, Mom... let's go.  We rode quietly back, changed trains... he said not one word to me... I never brought it up; he never again asked to go back to Coney Island except to watch Marbury and Sebastian Telfair on the courts as a teenager... that was that.

I often thought-- if he'd had a father-- my father--  he would have been walked up to the ride, strapped in... done.  I had enough issues mothering a boy;  but I wasn't going to coerce him into anything.  I went to all his games, wildly cheered him on... God knows how I ended up with the star athlete, the girl-magnet in High School...  Maybe this was kind of a rebellion?  Anyway, it was his path.  He once commented, after some kid's Dad was coaching his basketball team-- you know, Mom... I'd rather have no father than that father.   There was a man downstairs who'd been a professional soccer star in South America.  He was rough and tough and his son was gay-at-birth.  The soccer star screamed and gave beatings and the kid often took refuge in my apartment; he'd sit and paint, wearing one of my hats; he had incredible talent.  Still, I wasn't sure.  The very word father made me emotional.

On Memorial Day Monday my son who is nearly thirty now buzzed my apartment unexpectedly.  He is rarely in my neighborhood and I am usually at home these days, holiday or not, obliviously working on music and poetry projects.  I was dressed in old clothes, unprepared for guests... and he was with a new girlfriend-- they'd been on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum-- one of my favorite places.  They came up.  She looked at his old room, the photos I have on my shelves and walls...  and I realized he was showing her the little monuments and souvenirs of his past-- no medals like in my childhood home-- but his old musician/writer mother in her cabinet of curiosities here... this boychild I had brought into the world with no skills or experience-- without a man to show him the ropes,  here he was-- no military honors, no Cyclone ticket stub, no cookouts and grilling contests or company picnics, but plenty of memories --not ashamed but proud of his roots and the  past we had somehow created in our own random uncharted family way.  Something to salute.

All the rest have 31.....

The cusp of August is the cruelest of all... after all those days of long, lingering heat and humidity-- of pink sunsets and procrastinations... September is staring me in the face like a damned balance sheet.  It's been a year now that my Mom is gone;  I stood over her grave last week-- listened for her shadow... praying that old family feuds would allow my stonecutter's dream to mark her peace... I sang her little song ... If ever I would leave you...it wouldn't be in summer... but it was.

The year I was born saw the hottest streak of the century.  We toughed it out in those pre-air-conditioned days at the beach at Belle Harbor, or the city river boardwalks... I swear I remember the heat of my stuffed crib-reindeer, his wilted felt lashes fluttering in the fan-wind, the buzz of flies and mosquitoes outside the apartment screens whining to come in and sample the sweet room-babies... Perry Como on the radio...  It set a bar for high temperatures; I've never really minded the heat since then-- well, maybe one year, with a cast on my leg, I struggled through, sitting under the apple tree, distracted by my new discovery of language and books; my mother made frozen lemonade and taught me to sing Que sera, sera...

In 1969 I spent the month in Mexico where it seemed a daily rainstorm relieved baking afternoons, and neighborhood boys brought guitars and played 'Yo sin ti'  over and over.  We hitchhiked to the city where I locked myself in a record-store booth with 'Tommy' and realized how homesick I was for rock and roll.  See Me... Feel Me... it was like a shiver.

Another summer I danced at a festival-- eight grueling hours of practice and technique in hot studios and gymnasiums..  I'd lean on the sill of my tiny Connecticut room at 2 AM and hear the same loon moaning.  Weekends I rode bone-tired on the back of a vintage BMW motorcycle between New London and the city, clinging to the hot leather back of a budding rock-God, hearing the young Van Morrison in my head and watching the road for a Dairy Queen.

A few years later, I had the first taste of The Dark Side of the Moon sitting outside a hunting lodge in the hills of Northern Italy with a bunch of British hippies and piles of drugs... thinking through a fog of smoke and Valpolicella how the word august meant celebrated and auspicious from the Latin... we were high and dry and often naked and the world spread beneath us like a vineyard... the days baked on, Money was a song... it seemed the summer never ended until one day we woke up happily back in our dormitory.

Lately the summer funerals have draped the dog days with mourning.  On 103rd Street there is a new shrine to another young neighborhood casualty.  Papi, the messages spell out in tears.. rows and rows of candle-glasses and stuffed animals for Di-Quai who was just 19.  This, too, shall pass.  Already in the 104th-Street playground there is a barbecue with yellow balloons.  Someone has brought a light... the boombox blasts No Tears Left to Cry and then Diamonds by the Boatload... they are done with Aretha-- that was last week's old-school.   And Saturday's perfect cupcake-top moon... the iced vanilla round,  pearl of my heart...   is now a lemon slice in the sky to these sun-baked eyes tonight.

No matter how rough it gets, we gonna go 31 this month.  It seems unfair that they are unequal, that September 'hath' 30,  and February we all pay for an extra two days of cable we don't get.  But August... it held out its hot breath until Aretha, John McCain, Di Quai and a host of others realized they would not see the changing of the leaves.  Where do they go, I wonder... sitting by my mother's burial site with my ear to the ground, feeling the afternoon warmth in the grass, trying to fight the terrible urge to dig through the soft earth and see what is left of her-- just once more... like an Edgar Allen Poe poem.  Forgive me, Mom.  For not cremating you, for failing, for your missing epitaph.

On the way back down Madison tonight, I passed that big black hospital; outside, a few men in wheelchairs were taking in the night air, smoking forbidden cigarettes and comparing bandaged legs in various phases of amputation, whistling at the young nurses.  Where are their mothers, wives, children?  I wonder if they miss the old summer songs the way I do.  They don't seem nearly as miserable as some of my neighbors here in the building-- with their renovations and their botox and their summer hair treatments.  My Van Morrison is old and heavy,  Elvis is long gone.... my lovely Mom who mourned Perry Como and Frank Sinatra with true grief barely had a voice when she lay down for the last time.  I wonder who she dreamed of, who she took with her that last trip... I hope Di Quai had time to make a wish.  Happy Birthday, Papi... whenever it will be... 31 candles I've blown out now... I don't know what song you'd like to hear, but I'm sure someone does... For now I'll just whistle like an old train and greet the September morning with courage.

Death Without Interruptions

I am trying to make friends with Death.  He has been flirting with way too many of my friends and his recent moves to consummate a few of these relationships have forced me to rethink my strategy.  While we are generally reassured that these incidents come in threes, there was yet a fourth last week.   Admittedly, my 'stepmother' the artist did take her own life.  She cheated Death, in her way, and he did not like that.  He expects to beat you at his game, not have you put yourself in checkmate and deprive him of his victory rush.  So he pulled another trick?  The fact is, he lost count, long ago.  He has way too many fingers.

If you've been reading my essays, you know that I've seen him in Chelsea.  Summer heat doesn't phase Death; under wraps his cold breath gives him away.  He likes the galleries; he's rather vain and is sure to see himself in a painting or two on any given day.  Andy liked to include him-- a shadow, a symbol or a doppelgänger; maybe it pissed him off.  He's in all the trendy fashion houses, in one form or another, and as we all know--- he has great taste in music.  He is a patient lover: he can be violent and cruel, or he can be gentle and invisible.  But he will eventually come to all of us, whether we embrace him or fear him, whether we court him or evade him; he will come.

Personally he fucks with my head.  I feel responsible; I feel guilty and inadequate.  He reminds me of my father who try as I might, does not love me as a daughter.  Okay… my cousin was old--- he was ill and had come to a boundary; his passing was a blessing.  My stepmother?  She feared her end.  She was an artist and she wanted an audience, she wanted recognition; she wanted a guaranteed choir of mourners.  Death taunted her-- held a cruel mirror before her vanity.  She'd once painted for her lovers and now she'd outlived every single one.  I was a lone voice for her; my love and admiration was not enough.  She was cranky and bitter in her last weeks, and the truth is, I was avoiding her.  She scolded me; I reminded her of failure.  Even at the end, she left a small pile of envelopes, and I waited in vain for mine.  No sentimentality; her only request, as always, is for me to disperse her art-- to find collectors, to enhance her legacy.  I am the designated 'sweeper' of her leavings.  Nothing more.  I could have pimped for her. Maybe she would have stuck it out.  Sometimes Death makes you a star; sometimes you don't even make the New York Times obituaries unless you pay.

My lovely drummer who passed…. he used to bring me small trinkets from his trips-- purses, tiny elephants from Thailand, cloth fans and memorabilia.  At some point last year I cleaned my closet and donated bags of these things.  So now I feel guilty.  I searched my closet for a souvenir--- nothing.  I somehow brought this on, with my callow attitude toward his sweetness and sentimentality.  After all, he was young-- who could anticipate I would outlive him?  I am guilty.

And that woman in Chelsea--- it was serendipitous that we had met through a mutual friend.  Who could have conceived that she would chase her dog into the arms of Death in the form of a garbage truck? Her dog?  I forgot to ask.  I doubt he feels guilty.  But I do.  I wish we'd never met.

At my cousin's funeral his children remembered poignant moments.  They were loved, had wonderful lives with and without him.  It was perfect.  I wept.  I thought of my own father-- -the one who can't bear the sound of my voice, the mention of my name-- -for Death knows what reason.  I can't think of a single tender moment.  My sister methodically stole my packet of M & Ms every day for years.  I willingly gave up my toys, my allowance-- I took the blame for every bit of family mischief.  She has the birthright-- whether it is fair or unfair, I am glad to stay out of the family spotlight.  My father owes me an apology.  Besides marrying rock musicians and turning down a Harvard Law scholarship… what did I do to him?  I offended his legacy.  I failed to enhance his family with suitable accomplishments.  I work in bars.  I was a single mother.  This is the 21st century.  But he is ashamed.  I did what I could; I paid him back.  I gave them the art I'd lovingly collected through my friends.  I paid my sister and her husband and put her kids through college while I took an oath of poverty and devotion to music.  I am a Goth nun.  You'd think I blackmailed them.  They have weddings and parties and exchange gifts.  My son got a check for $100 for his combined 21st birthday, Christmas and college graduation.  We have many nights gone hungry  Not even a card.  A folded check in a small envelope.

I have dedicated songs to my father; I post his military accolades on my Facebook page.  I honor him in the only way that I can.  None of this matters.  He will take his hatred to the grave and I will not have a seat at his funeral.  Whatever he thinks I did, I did not do.  Death-- tell him.  Whisper.  I go to funerals, I take care of my friends.  I'm guilty.  I give money to homeless people and split my last-dollar hotdog today with a hungry man in the street.  I never stole from him or lied to him or cheated.  I won all those awards.  I even bought him a computer once with money I won and he complained.  So I give up.  Death, compared to my father, is just.  He spared me a few times-- he's whispered in my ear and sat on my bed through a couple of nights…and mysteriously as he entered, in the morning he was gone.

I finally got the nerve to visit my stepmother's apartment; the very room where she put a plastic bag over her head and inhaled lethal quantities of helium several days ago.  Kind of a stagey exit, but painless and effective.  It looked exactly the same; the bed was made, the Saramago I loaned her on the nightstand, the smell of helium was nowhere.  Death had vanished-- no wagging fingers, no morbid reminders.  Just the art, like an albatross--- like guilt mirrors around the room.  But I'll rise to the challenge.  Death has no wish to participate.  It's too late for dying young, he coolly whispered to me as I lay awake the other night… and then, dressed like the 1961 Elvis, he left the room.

Say Graceland

Tonight I phoned one of my old downtown rocker friends.  He’d been having his share of small personal tragedies, and trouble finding work.  We’d spoken about putting our old band back together.  So it turns out, he’s actually in LA—renting a place in North Hollywood with a pool and a Jacuzzi for $600 a month, which for the uninitiated buys maybe an unfurnished week in an average cramped dumpy light-deprived roach and roodent-infested NYC apartment.  ‘There are people here,’ he tells me.  ‘There are Marshall stacks and a Goth scene.  You don’t have to take a 45 minute train ride to Canarsie to hear a goddamn band.  Manhattan is dead.’ 

Of course I am a born-and-bred New Yorker who has sacrificed everything to own my tiny piece of real estate.  I always maintained that anyone who disses my city is a sour-grapes loser.  But tomorrow is the annual coop meeting where I will have to sit with the outcasts and over-80 tenants  and vote in a bloc against the hedge-fund assholes and bankers who’d love to turn this classic pre-war into a resort.  Gut the whole damn thing--- out with the old.  I am getting to the age where the Starbucks baristas aren’t so cheery about pouring my free venti refill, the grocery boys don’t jump to open the door; they sit and watch while I struggle with my personal economics.

The corporatization of New York is an old story; the face-lift-- -the weed-like overgrowth of  21^st-century context-less buildings which have really altered the logic of the old plan.  It’s a little bit Hong-Kong-y--- maybe trending toward Dubai?  Whatever… maybe this city is becoming a hideousity--- like an architectural Donatella Versace.  I mean—20 years ago, I was incensed by Starbucks—now that’s the least of my worries. 

I’m not quite ready to jump my old ship—but that phone call tonight was sort of the first indication that maybe, just maybe, my dream has become my albatross… that whatever we are struggling for here in this center of the cultural universe--- maybe it has already left, or been chased away.  It’s true, there is no rock and roll in Manhattan.  There are only versions of original bands, and then the tribute shows.  Nothing is real. 

I always hated LA.  I tried to move there way back with my rockstar husband.  I had no drivers license and I couldn’t find a bookshop I liked.  I couldn’t understand why people wanted a star on Hollywood boulevard when everyone knows there are trillions more stars in the universe than people.  Everyone looked like a character in some play; I couldn’t find the Kerouac version and I couldn’t find any grit.  I spent a few nights at the Rainbow…just didn’t fit in.  I missed CBGB’s and the Mudd Club.  Now I’m in New York, ensconced—rooted—and I still miss them.  Maybe while we were all buried in our phones and facebook pages---everyone left… including the music scene. 

He also told me he was hanging out with one of my former bandmates, who left to marry some producer out there.  Apparently her happy posts on facebook said nothing about her domestic misery and failed affair.  Apparently in my little narcissistic world of  writing and desperately trying to ‘keep it real’ musically, I am missing the point of everything.  Maybe I have deceived myself.

I’m listening to Bloomberg now.. these new companies… they are all like a major convoluted explanation for someone to get paid… the concept is a variation on something else… an excuse for making money.. an excuse to get venture capital, hire people, move around like they’re doing something… sell stock, etc…  medical ideas are unaffordable… $140,000 for a pill…takeovers in the ‘medical device’ industry.  Something is wrong.  No one should be taking over.  They should be giving away.  Giving.

I’ve joked that Manhattan is now for the billionaires and those that serve them:  the sycophantic celebrity-sucking nouveau middle class.  So yes, the irony of stars being a dime a dozen---or less—but it seemed, 50 years ago, that people were distinct--  that they looked like who they were--- they were unique.  Even in fashion--- voiceless models were unique: there was Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, Lauren Hutton—Penelope Tree.   Now all these blonde vegan froth actresses maybe started out looking like something, but they get their noses shaved down, their skin scraped, their lips plumped, their hair processed.  Black people have straight blonde hair.  At least 10 actresses look exactly like Jennifer Lopez.  Or maybe I have cultural cataracts.  Whatever.  I didn’t mix people up back then.  Now I have to look at captions. 

This couple moved into my building.  They were not very good looking:  pudgy and awkward.  The wife had brown frizzy hair and squinty eyes.  Now they have grown thinner and thinner; the husband wears Gucci loafers and combs his hair straight back and has learned that Wall Street slow-strut.  The wife looks like a Pilates instructor.  All the lumps and bumps have disappeared.  Especially the ones on her nose.  Her skin is smooth and her eyes are wide open.  Her daughter’s nose is straight, too—like they had to destroy all genetic evidence of any flaws.  They have matching Balenciaga bags.  Yesterday she was blonde.  Beyonce-blonde.

This woman I know posted on facebook that she’s now homeless.  She came to see me last year with her daughter and granddaughter. People in my building—the staff-- -they questioned me about them.  They asked who they were.  They’re PEOPLE, I said.  People.  My doormen said they looked like trailer trash.  The doorman.  ‘They’re people from the Midwest who have had lives.’  How do I know them?  The real story? I bought something on ebay.  It came broken.  I wrote to the seller and she began writing to me.  She listens to my songs and reads my poems.  She comments.  She’s interested.  So she rented a car and drove here.  ‘They have bedbugs, these kind of people,’ my super said.  Fuck you, I didn’t say.  I own this place.  They would like it if I didn’t own, but we’re stuck.  The thing is--she looks like someone, this person.  She looks unique…the way I did, the way everyone did before they realized everything could be fixed.  What if someone decided to flatten the world?  To shave down the mountains and fill in the ditches and oceans…so it would be easier to ‘mow’?  Well that’s what’s happening here…people look generic.  Hair is generic.  You can change everything--- your face, your body, your age, your hair texture…you can put on 8-nch heels and look tall even if you’re stout and pudgy with short legs… so suddenly a piglet is a gazelle.  It’s messed up.  Like those toys where you put the dog head on the gorilla body.  We can do this now.  We can get an Alec Baldwin face on a popsicle body.  You can be 4 ‘2” and have Charlize Theron’s face… or at least her make-up.  I see about 50 people a day who look exactly like Tyra Banks.  Beyonce.  Who the f- is she? Show your ID.  Shake it.  Double shake it like you do.  That’s Beyonce Knowles.  Another fake name. 

Maybe Manhattan is just the fat-Elvis version of what used to be New York.  People like the fat Elvis.  Just not this person.  

My neighborhood poet today was wearing a down coat and sunglasses.  It was overcast and 80 degrees.  She was pre-occupied and shuffling.  Please, I wanted to say--- don’t leave me.  I look down--- my shoes are so out of style they could possibly be cool in LA.  My clothes are shabby and I’m a version of myself that might be my own fat Elvis.  

Another friend who moved to Nashville just called and asked me to overnight him  a pastrami sandwich.  Since the old Second Avenue deli has gone,  I looked on the internet to find out where to get the best pastrami, just in case he was serious.  Turns out it’s in Nashville.  Nothing is real.  Say Graceland.  

Tearful Earful

At the age of 2 you spend a significant amount of time crying.  Not infant need-based crying, but the kind with some budding emotional content. Of course I don’t accurately remember my own early childhood, and my own children were a little stoic; I think they sensed their mother suffered from melancholia and felt safe.  But from the ones I've observed, there seem to be 3 phases.

The first phase--- the trigger-- is frustration.  You simply don’t get what you want, or you want to get what you can’t have until you’re older--- your own proprietary extra-large ice cream cone, a ride on the roller coaster, a few minutes of independence on the sidewalk.  These things are no-negotiation impossible.  So it progresses into crying for its own sake, because let’s face it--- tears don’t really have punctuation.  Adults cry until someone tells us a joke or has to use the bathroom in which we have locked ourselves, or we are so congested that we have to blow our nose which startles us into a self-awareness-based mood shift.  So kids cry through the point at which they forget all about the dropped ice cream or whatever it was--- and pretty soon there just seems no dignified way out.  At a certain point, if they have cool educated parents, they begin to realize that their mother not only has no sympathy but she’s not even annoyed enough to whack them or scold… and like a future ex-boyfriend on one of the first bad dates, she is just turning off.  Then the crying revs into third gear because there is some vague awareness that they are actually causing the very emotional abandonment which is the archetypal root of crying in the first place… and the exact opposite of the desired result.  Phase 3 is unadulterated toddler misery. Wailing.    

From my son's recent relationships I notice the Drama queens can go through a parallel kind of process; first the precipitated crying, then the momentum- hysterics, then the horrific realization that their boyfriend or whoever has shut down and is looking at his phone.  So you can either cut your losses, or just draw it out because it is the end.  Maybe not tonight, but he is already considering the girl who gave him her number on line at Starbucks yesterday.  Whether it will be lunch or dinner, what he will wear.  What she will wear.  Drama queens also know serious hysteria burns calories.  So there is a silver lining, if they really want to go the distance.  But catharsis? Only if you are alone, and seriously guide your crying through a treacherous and fuel-guzzling psychological-emotional journey. 

 

Big Girls Don’t Cry… the song.. .I remember it so well… over and over, I played my sister’s 45.  Was it the lyrics? The heartbreaking harmonies? The cool rainbow on the label?  The title?

I already knew that.  Babies cry.  Little sisters can’t.  You get enormous contempt.  But all of my early record-purchases from Sam Goody were about crying.  ‘Rhythm of the Rain’ by the Cascades, ‘Go Now’, Skeeter Davis’ ‘End of the World’, Marianne Faithfull…”As Tears Go By’… Everyone was crying.  Elvis.  Buddy Holly.  The Beatles, the Stones, the Mamas and the Papas; Smoky Robinson, Otis.

So today I look at these 2 year olds without impatience or annoyance. ‘Knock yourself out’ I want to say,  'it gets you nowhere.' In about 10 minutes you will begin to fear that your mother will never again respect you or look at you in that way she used to.  You will regret this.  I watch them convulsing, moving from phase 1 into 2^nd gear, shuddering, a little drama…

Can you remember the first time you sabotaged a relationship?  When everything was perfect—the way he looked at you, the things you said… and then something dark wafted in--- a glimmer of jealousy, discontent--- whatever… and you let yourself down from the pedestal for just a minute… and you knew you’d blown it.. .and now what?  Walk out? Manipulate him by leaving first as though you’d planned it? Or hang in and bash the walls in--- ? Let him see your very worst, worst, nastiest side...? Cry?

Men don’t like crying.  Certainly that racist drunk asshole on the plane was not impressed.  Okay, he had issues.  But generally men don’t like crying babies or crying women and they certainly don’t tolerate other crying men well.  I can remember hearing 'Tears on my Pillow' blasting on the car-radio of the college student that drove us back and forth to nursery school.  It blew my 3-year old mind.  It had that minor key thing and I felt really, really bad for the singer.  He was a man.  

Onions, my Mom used to tell me on those nights I'd catch her alone at the kitchen table, my father shut in his den with the newspapers and the Scotch.  She was a Big Girl.  If I'd only peeled back that onion,  stood my ground, interrogated...it might not have taken 50 years for me to feel something for her.  She was singularly non-comforting when I was falling apart.  I got my teenage spiny solace from Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath.  Tears are just superficial.  There were deeper, darker, bloodier places to explore.  Sadness was something to dissect-- a dare, maybe.  

When I moved to England, I remember some Broadcast Psychologist urging the Brits to grieve after a massive tragic accident.  I found that ironic, until I realized my own husband, who was a bit of a crybaby,  only pretended to sympathize when I righteously and tearfully accused him of an affair with the fashion editor at his newspaper.  His denial was cold and complete.  She had water-proof mascara, and still looked perfect when she came weeping to me after he dumped her weeks later.  

'Save your tears; this is anybody's call' is an 'auto'- lyric from one of my songs.  I am, of course, speaking to myself, and it had little effect when I tried it out on the screaming 2-year old on the subway this morning.  His mother was brilliantly ignoring both of us and several trapped passengers who were  holding their ears.  Some were even laughing.  But most, I realized, including the child's mother, had their earbuds in and were listening to Rihanna or will.i.am with full frontal empathy.

I'm Bad, I'm Bad...I Know It...

Have you ever been so hungry you open a jar of mayonnaise and do a spoonful? Not like the slightly paranoid too-stoned-to-go-downstairs 4 AM hungry, but the gnawing 2009 version I am experiencing trying to stretch my dwindling New York dollars to cover inflated pricing. I mean, first there was the wheat shortage…or the corn oil pseudo fuel thing. Whatever. My Super-A Cornflakes are priced like last year’s Kelloggs. Then there is the petroleum product thing which makes jars and containers expensive despite the fact that oil futures dropped like 70%. Then there was the $5 gallon of milk, the $2 a dozen eggs, the toilet paper hike. You name it. They give us a reason, then we just buy it because we’re too worn out to fuss about yet another thing when our neighbors have cancer and our kids are committing suicide or being arrested. The only thing reasonable is peanut butter which has been marked down because it can like kill you, and trust me, I’d be spooning it in if my son wasn’t technically allergic. Am I going to feel guilty one day for all the cheap tasteless pasta and generic cereal? Because I was too broke to afford the butter and flour for apple pies except on Thanksgiving when we’re too full for dessert anyway? Maybe, maybe not.

And the damn metrocard increase which totally wrecks my $4-a-day thing. If there was any reasonable way for me to protest the bottomless money pit of the Second Avenue subway, I would. I’m just not up for biking. I’m too rock and roll. Besides, I just did my 9th cd photo shoot in the good old metro at 3 AM. Where else can you find fresh graffiti, vintage tiles, cavernous empty space and cooperative rats without hiring a set designer and signing off with the ASPCA?

On the bright side, I don’t have to feel guilty about not contributing for the Michael Jackson memorial because it won’t be in my town, no matter what the doorman down the block swears. And not to detract from the legend of MJ, but the whole media fest is not really about celebrating the guy, but digging just enough into the freakshow to pull out some gigantic mutant plum. Didn’t the guy already tip you off with the Thriller video? Yes, there is a dark side. You, too, will be dead and maybe dissected and autopsied and revealed as the fake or secret pervert you might be. It certainly distracts us from the Ponzi scheme which is America and if they spent 1/100th of the time investigating the CDAs and predatory lending scams, we might have a story worthy of 24/7 network coverage. The alternative tonight was an Ovation documentary on Jeff Koons where I swear this guy was saying’if art were religion, Jeff would be its pastor’. How about ‘if art was human, I’d invest in an enema-bag to flush the Koons down the toilet with speed and efficiency.’

I took Latin when I was a kid, and the word for ‘speed’ seemed dangerously close to the root for ‘celebrity’. Back then, famous people stuck around a little longer. I mean, there was Mickey Mouse and Mickey Mantle and the Kennedys, Marilyn Monroe… the Beatles… They showed A Hard Days Night tonight and it all feels so remote and non-nostalgic to me tonight I couldn’t even find George cute. In fact the Beatles seemed a bit watered-down and slow, and just so ‘pop’. I wonder if Paul McCartney misses the good old days. Maybe not… because let’s face it.. he’s no longer Paul McCartney. He’s some old guy that got swindled by a fake slut with a wooden leg. The thing is, Michael Jackson wasn’t Michael Jackson any more… no amount of surgeries and masks can change that. Personally I didn’t miss Elvis when he died. I never liked the guy, but certainly couldn’t stomach the ‘In the Ghetto’ Liberace version. That’s the thing about celebrity. It comes and it doesn’t always leave when it gets late. It stays the night even when you wake up all puffy and hung over.

This afternoon I met this old photographer from New Orleans who’d moved up here because, let’s face it, no matter how much they rebuild and advertise, the place is wrecked. The soul blew away with the goddamn hurricane. No matter what they do, It’s the fat Elvis New Orleans now. So this guy is a little bent over, wizened--a little dapper and washed out… but smart, with a good eye. He knew Herman Leonard, copped for Dr. John in the old days. He seemed like a good guy. His hat was battered but cool. We talked about jazz, Mingus, Miles…exchanged numbers.

Just now I took a walk down to Duane Reade where I hoped to cash in the $5 reward I finally got after $100 worth of inflated purchases because in my overpriced hood, nothing else is open at 4 AM. And I swear I saw the guy digging around in the trash. I tried to stay close to the buildings and walked real quiet…but there aren’t too many ex-punks on the streets here, and I’m worried he saw me. After all, there are times in life when you just don’t want to be an audience.