music machine

so. over the weekend i had an interview and have been invited to write for an LGTB publication as an entertainment contributor on a trial basis.

the bulk of the writing for now will be music centered, possibly expanding at a later time.

i am SUPER excited for this opportunity. i learned from the last magazine gig that i ADORE interviews. i love getting to sit down with people and get a peek into their life. i love asking questions, seeing people light up with excitement to tell you about a project or a memory. making a personal connection or finding common ground is always exhilarating and then being able to take that and share it to a group of readers is even better.

HOWEVER.

i'm a musical fake.

don't get me wrong- i LOVE music. i always have music playing at home or in the car. i have pandora on my phone, tv, and bluray so it's available wherever i am. i put on some bad. ass. concerts in my kitchen while i cook. i do not sing in the shower (never could figure that one out) but i will do a whole show with encores in my car.

but i don't KNOW about music. i can't tell you which drummer left which band in what year between which albums and joined the OTHER band and released the next album which had a sophomoric urban feel opposed to the angsty grunge feel he had before.

I AM NOT LANE KIM.

i have this idea stuck in my head that to be a true music journalist i need an encyclopedic knowledge of all music across all genres from ALL TIME.

i thought about this on the way home from the interview. will i be able to ask the "right" questions? will they know i'm a fake?

let's take a trip down musical memory lane:

i don't remember when my fascination with music began. i remember having a plastic record player that plinked out songs when you turned it on.

i remember a sesame street cassette with such classics like "If I Knew You Were Coming I'd Have Baked a Cake" and "C is for Cookie" (which a google search just told me was the name of the album).

other childhood albums included evie, the bill gaither trio, and agapeland music machine:

for better or worse my ability to do the alphabet backwards to this day is thanks to the bill gaither trio a-b-c- song: a-b-c-d-e-f-g jesus died for you and me OR z-y-x-w-v god is watching over me.

if i ever have to do a field sobriety test that officer is in for a real treat.

i can still tell you the sound the music machine makes- it goes whir, whir, chicka, chicka, bomp, bomp, psssst. even more humiliating? i SEARCHED for this album and bought it on CD less than a year ago because i loved it so much as a kid.

things were a little edgier at my dad's house- he bought me an ann murray cassette (a gift i'm sure he deeply regretted later that same summer after hearing teady bears picnic for the millionth time). oooo. a canadian singer. can you handle all my edge?

i remember my dad whistling/singing john denver songs on road trips and his deep baritone singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" on occasion.

i learned on my last trip to his house ever that he loved musicals which i'm 100% sure is where i get it from.

as a teenager i somehow managed to own a copy of  Hearts of Gold, The Pop Collection which i completely wore out listening to over and over and over again. OH MY GOD WILSON PHILLIPS. and janet jackson! sinead o'conner! she shaved her head. CAN YOU FEEL THE REBELLION?

good thing that album didn't have madonna- i would have never been allowed to have in the house. madonna was complete scandalous trash, don't you know (she was the whole reason i wasn't allowed to watch A League of Their Own, yes, the baseball movie).

i remember my brother having a beach boys tape that i was SO jealous of. somwhere there is a GLORIOUS picture of him in his chubby phase wearing spandex bike shorts, some horrible tank top, with a flat top hair cut listening to that tape on his walkman.

the beach boys- they sang about girls and cars and surfing. so hip. he even had the soundtrack to cocktail on cassette. lucky bastard.

i went to a DC Talk concert with my youth group in high school but i spent the whole concert being worried about people seeing how much i was sweating through my super awesome but hot as fuck silk shirt (seriously, why didn't any tell me what a bad choice silk was for a jam packed high school auditorium?). my only other concert of my youth was a vince gill concert also in high school. again with the edge.

outside my pathetic collection of cassette and concerts my personal experience in creating music was also sadly limited. i played clarinet in middle school and jr. high. i always managed to snag second or third chair, but never really enjoyed playing (i figured out how to tear the pads off my clarinet in 8th grade so mine always needed repair and i wouldn't have to play). i did a few years of piano as well. my mum figured out early on that i could play by ear and immediately signed me up for lessons (that managed to train that out of me). i played piano until my teacher started shoving me in competitions all over the place. it takes the fun out of music when all you're doing is learning a piece to play for a judge that is going to tell you all the ways you did it wrong. there's a small collection of WSMTA (washington state music teachers association) pins around my house somewhere along with all my participation certificates and judging sheets.

i always wanted to keep playing piano. i still really miss it around the holidays. just couldn't figure out a way to make them let me play music just to play music. there was a lady that tuned our piano twice way back in the day- Ruby Bartel (or something close to that). she was...i don't even know the words. she was what i wanted to be when i grew up. she had this beautiful long black and silver braid and the coolest red cat eye glasses. she was a reporter for the local newspaper at a time when computers were just starting to be used and i remember hearing about how she typed so fast that she would finish a piece, walk away to get a cup of coffee and the computer would still be putting words up on the screen.

and she played piano.

holy. fuck. do i remember her playing the piano. i remember her showing up at our house and tuning the piano with a simple tuning fork. after it was tuned she played old school honky tonk/ragtime that cartoons are based on- she played with so much energy and passion that you swore the piano was jumping. i remember staring in complete awe as she just railed the piano and didn't miss a single note and created this...music. this color, this sound that was bigger than life.

dude- to be her. this cool, single, independent journalist that could play music like that. that would have been the most awesome thing ever.

but that's it. the extent of my music experience. as a child of the 80's when MTV first aired and the 90's when Nirvana was just over the mountains and music was everywhere on walkmans on cassette or cd's (oh my god cd's!). i missed new kids on the block. i missed jenny when she was from the block. I MISSED ALL THE GOOD BLOCKS. i can't tell you any of the hanson brother's names. i can't readily name off any greenday albums or one song the red hot chili peppers were famous for. 
i never figured out what meatloaf wouldn't do for love. i have ZERO information on any of that devil noise music like AC/DC or Motley Cru or Alice in Chains. i DID learn to play bryan adams everything i do on the piano.

i'm not an audiophile. i don't know what new cutting edge bands are on the verge of making it big. i don't know what the next big sound will be. i don't know the music underground. i'm not the one to compare music catalogs with. i've never even listened to the dark side of the moon.

so. i'm not sure how i'll be as a music journalist. but i do love talking to people. i do love asking questions. and when it comes to if i like something or not, i'm pretty good at being able to dial in why or why not and at least having an appreciation for the effort and feeling behind it.

and so it begins.

typical wednesday night

you guys: i feel a SMALL twinge of guilt this morning. i think i broke someone’s heart a little last night. and not even someone i know- just some random guy in the concert house. i almost feel bad.

see. i went to a concert last night. alone. let’s not get started on how pathetic that was. at least i finally sucked it up and went.

so. i’m standing there, chatting with a few fellow concert goers and an adorable little redneck boy says to me:

“see that girl? mark my words, i’m going to marry her one day!”

me: “awwww…if i believed in marriage, that would be adorable!”

at which point his heart literally broke right in front of me. the look on his face- it was like he had just watched me kick a puppy at a newborn baby and then dunked them both in a vat of acid while punching a unicorn. he was SO UPSET.

even worse?

his girlfriend (or the girl he was referencing anyway) looks at me and goes: I KNOW, RIGHT? i like this girl, she says exactly what’s in my head!

ummm…ouch. let me know when that marriage is- i’ll make sure to keep the 4th of never open…

we continued to chat a little during which time i managed to completely freak out the adorable little redneck boy- to the point where he was saying: “yes ma’am” to everything i said. apparently he’s never met a female with an opinion or at least one willing to speak it before. i think it may have hurt his brain a little. for example, he was asking about why i didn’t believe in marriage to which i responded i wasn’t big on the idea of only sleeping with one person for the rest of my life. you’d swear he thought _I_ shot bambi’s mother after that.

here’s a few other enjoyable conversations i had last night:

in the girls bathroom- girl in stall is trying to “comfort” friend manning the door for her:

door girl: but i was flirting with him and he was flirting back, right?

stall girl: yeah, but flirting only gets you so far.

door girl: but he was totally into it, wasn’t he?

stall girl: no, he was pretending to be into it because you bought him a drink.

me: flirting and fucking are two completely different things. until you have a cock in you, none of it counts.

door girl: HEY

stall girl: oooo…say that again, she needs to hear that!

me: (repeat the previous statement) you can flirt all you want, until you either have a cock in your mouth or in you, it doesn’t really mean anything at all.

door girl: really? but he seemed so into it.

me: darling, you bought him alcohol, of course he was into it. for that moment at least.

stall girl: i like you. you say what i’m thinking but can’t say.

side note: GIRLS: if you can’t speak your mind to your friends (big assumption on my part…but one WAS holding the door for the other) then are you REALLY friends? grow a pair and speak your own damn minds already. i mean, i’m glad to be able to do it for you, but PLEASE, PLEASE learn to do it for yourselves.

so, there was a semi-cute guy in what appeared to be a snap front shirt (one of my favorite things on earth). i, of course, had to check it out.

me: sorry, not trying to grope you, just wanted to see if this is a snap front shirt.

*checking*

me: awww…they’re buttons. do you know how long those take to get off?

him: ummm…yeah, they kinda take a while.

me: and then by the time you get to the last one you’re bored and not really in the mood anymore and ready to move on to other things. you really should invest in snap front shirts.

him: what about his? (gesturing to his buddy standing across from him)

*checking*

me: nope. his are buttons too. and they’re even smaller buttons. those are REALLY hard to function in a hurry.

him: huh. good to know.

asshole buddy in a polo with his stick up the ass girlfriend: ummm, he’s single but NOT looking.

me: really? well, thanks for that tip. i wasn’t asking, just checking his shirt, but, you know, good to know.

asshole buddy: oh.

semi-cute guy: what do you mean by snap front shirts?

*demonstration of my own snap front shirt*

him: oh. that is handy.

me: by the way, nice pecs. those would be a good hand grip.

him: really?

me: yeah, the’re a little soft, but good edge to them. they’d work.

asshole buddy in a polo with his stick up the ask girlfriend: what? what about mine?

*checking with girlfriend before coping a feel*

me: umm…there’s nothing there. no pecs at all. couldn’t even pretend to get a grip.

semi-cute guy: *trying not to laugh*

stick up the ass girlfriend: *nodding along sadly*

polo asshole: *offended* what? you don’t need a hand grip anyway.

me: well, if that works for you, but these *coping a feel of the semi-cute guy again* are pretty good. these would work really well.

and then i walked away. thought it was funny how the asshole in the polo (really- who the fuck wears a damn polo to a country concert? bastard) was all trying to intervene for his buddy…then changed his tune a bit when i snapped back at him and then kept talking to his buddy. even funnier: semi-cute guy found me at the end of the concert, walked over and introduced himself and said it was fun talking to me. so. yeah, he was obviously really offended by my talking to him and needed intervened for. stupid asshole polo guy.

so. mildly interesting evening. GREAT music. way too many people that offended my eyes. the idiots at the venue decided to turn on the lights between the opening band and the main show- it was WAY too early in the evening/not enough alcohol in for THAT to happen in that crowd. seriously people: why must you offend my eyes so? there were more than a few coyote ugly people there- one girl was so offensive that i may or may not have said the following: “fuck, even if i woke up on the other side of the room from that, i would still chew my damn arm of just out of disappointment in myself for being anywhere near that!” to which several people agreed.

one girl there a group of us were placing bets on: she either had no nipples at all, or had piercings that were laced through her bra because that was the only way in hell something wasn’t flashing/falling out. seriously- those suckers were as far out as i’ve ever seen but still, oddly, against gravity, slightly contained. plus they were all covered in veins and WAY too vomitous. didn’t seems to bother the douchecaptain she was with though. they made quite the pair.

still trying to figure out how i didn’t gouge my eyes out before the evening ended. OH…and, in completely odd bar experiences: had three people smell my hair. one guy was approximately 900 feet tall and had to keep bending town to talk to me (and i’m not exactly short). during one of his excursions down from the north pole he stopped talking and just stood there for a minute. i’m all: umm…whatcha doin up there? he just kinda looked puzzled…and said: “your hair…” i laughed and said “skittles?” the hairspray i use totes smells like skittles. i may or may not have developed a bit of a huffing problem since switching to this brand. he kept smelling it while bending over to talk to me. i cracked up. then his buddies wondered what the hell he was doing so then they had to take a sniff too. i think one of them even bit me…wanted to taste the rainbow he said. so. you know. interesting experiences.

over all, not a bad wednesday.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

i have a REALLY REALLY big announcement today:

are you ready for this?

i don’t think you are…

you’d better sit down…

BIG BIG BIG NEWS ABOUT TO BREAK:

i

am

WHITE.

i know. shocker. right?

it turns out though, i am not just white. i am WHITE. as in W.H.I.T.E. as in only powder can beat me on color, and only a saltine can be me on crackerness.

*sigh* i don’t even know if that’s a word…crackerness. it is now…

so. how did i find out this earth changing information? i had a gentleman hit me up on plenty of fish last night. needless to say, his skin is darker than mine (which only rules out sean patrick flanery (sad panda)).

so. this gentleman chatted with me a bit and asked me a few questions:

#1: do you date brothas?

(the answer to the question is: it doesn’t matter to me what you look like as long as you have good teeth and you can hold a good conversation.)

i laughed. i about peed myself laughing. not because of the question. but because of the way i read the question in my head.

see: i’m a goober.

you know how we all have those little voices in our heads that read along with us...right? so, WHITE WHITE WHITE me read the question: do you date brothas? and then i had to read it again because it didn’t sound right in “my” voice…and i’m not even kidding…i tried it four different times before i could get a voice in my head that didn’t make me giggle. then came the challenge of responding to it…oh lordy…there is NO WAY ON EARTH i could ever even attempt to use the word “brotha” in a sentence without DYING laughing or ruining my new chair peeing myself. can you see _ME_ trying to use the word brotha? i mean…really…honestly…can you even begin to imagine the white gooberness of _ME_ trying to say “brotha”?? having flash backs to office space when michael bolton was listening to the rap music while stuck in traffic. only imagine that times a million and you’re starting to near my nerd level.

i’m not a club girl. i’m not a cool chick. i’m not a fist bumper or walk with a swagger girl or a booty popper (all these images are making me cackle in my head right now). i can’t grind, i’m not fly (laughing AGAIN), i’m not anything even on the fringes of anything non chlorox. i try to dance and it looks like a TRAIN WRECK. seriously…you’re wondering when the paramedics are going to arrive to make the seizure stop. now…imagine THAT hot mess trying to say brotha…

*sigh*

question #2 wasn’t so much of a question as a request…we had switched to yahoo chat by this point and somewhere in the last 2 years of me not using yahoo chat they added the ability to share music.

that’s right.

you can see where this train wreck is heading.

he wanted me to “throw down a mixx”

ummm…does that mean you want me to add a song? how the fuck do you even do that? i have no clue how to work the stupid program let alone add things to it.

so. i try to think of a song. and at this point he’s posted several new and old club songs so i generally have a feel for his taste in music…and all that comes to my mind is the soundtrack from whip it (which i have been religiously listening to the last week). and it’s not typical music, or music anywhere close to what he’s been “throwing down”. so…i try to think of other tracks i have on my computer…blue grass, country, irish drinking songs, top 20’s…FUCK. i’m going to look like a RETARD.

needless to say, he only asked me to do that once. the rest were his picks.

then there’s the whole conversation in general. I LIKE WORDS. i don’t understand slang. i have a degree in LITERATURE. REAL WORDS. REAL SENTENCES. REAL CONVERSATION. i’m always going over the limit on text messages because i HATE the “txt spk”. like i said, i’m not a club girl, i’m not cool. i’m not hip to the jive. i don’t know the cool lingo. my only source for new words are the kids on the disney channel shows. i say things like “what’s shakin bacon?” not “hey yo…wazzup homeskillet”. i say “cool beans” not “bombdiggity”.

so. half the conversation i’m missing or guessing badly at…but oddly, the conversation kept going.

then i notice something:

boo

did i scare you? seriously…what does boo mean? boo- that’s what he kept calling me…is this a phrase i should know? is it slang for white? as in so white i make casper step back and say “bitch PLEASE!” is it just something he decided to call me for whatever reason?

so. to sum up. i’m the whitest white girl you may ever run across. remember how awkward julia stiles was in that dance movie? i make THAT look normal and comfortable. tragic. seriously.

but…somehow…he thinks i’m cool. and wants to chat again…heaven help me…or probably more help HIM…i’m sure i hurt his head more than a little…

confession time:

“Something you've been keeping to yourself for quite some time needs to see the light of day -- but rather than being scared, you're actually grateful that it's finally coming out. In fact, you feel more lighthearted than you have in some time! It's great to discover that what you thought was such a big deal is actually not really a matter of life and death. The support of family and friends makes all the difference.” –yahoo horoscope: 7/6/2010

ok. the horoscope said i need to confess, so here we go. a list of confessions i’ve been holding in: not for the faint of heart:

i just ate half a pack of york peppermint flavored dark chocolate pieces. and i’m not sorry.

in jr high the pads did not fall off my clarinet. i tore the damn things off so it would be broken and i wouldn’t have to play anymore.

i never practiced piano as much as i wrote down on my charts.

when my brother’s bat-shit-crazy ex-girlfriend sent my mum pictures of them (my brother and his girlfriend…quit thinking weird) “wrestling” i didn’t tell my mum what they were really doing…and really…who wants to be the one explaining oral sex to their mother?

i sometimes forget to wear deodorant.

i never give bums change. and sometimes i want to be mean to them by purposefully splashing them when i drive by. but i don’t.

i SAY that i love older music, but really i find myself skipping over it more often than not when it comes up on my mp3 (sorry dino, andrews sisters, sinatra, and elvis…)

i sleep with my contacts in. ALL. THE. TIME. half of me does it just to prove that your contacts WON’T stick to the back of your head if you do it. the other half is just lazy.

i wait until i’m out of one type of dish before i’ll wash all them more often than not (why are there never enough spoons??)

my freshman year in high school i broke up with a guy because he had the SAME bat in the cave for three days.

i don’t really HATE people like my purse says. i just can’t stand to be around 98% of the general public for more than absolutely necessary. full on hate takes too much energy.

i STILL haven’t finished some of my assigned reading from college.

i’ve written other people’s college papers for them (and, once or twice purposefully written about hot button topics so they would get bad grades).

i have a ton of alcohol in my house but i rarely drink.

i HATE scrambled eggs.

maxi-tampons are NOT enough.

i slapped a guy in high school once for calling me “a frigid ice bitch that wouldn’t put out.” (if only he knew me now…ha ha ha ha)

~sigh~ had enough? i can’t think of any more. yahoo was right…i DO feel much better. so glad to finally get all those skeletons out of the closet! so…THIS is what lighthearted feels like…i don’t like it.