Alex Green is hard to define in a short paragraph. He’s here, there, and everywhere with music and writing in the Bay Area – teaching at St. Mary’s College, at the helm of the terrific (and newly redesigned) music website Caught in the Carousel (motto: “There will be music despite everything.”) He’s at shows, he’s at book readings, and he is always three steps ahead of everyone else musically speaking. And did I mention, he’s a helluva nice guy? Check out his thoughts on Carnival of Souls…

Still in Rotation: Flop (1989)

I’ve always thought that not being able to listen to albums you used to love is kind of like not being sexually attracted to someone anymore.

But it’s far worse than that.

It’s a dispiriting affirmation of a darkness seeping into your heart and ransacking something sacred that seemed safely tucked away in your soul. And from there, it poisons the well, it sets fire to the fields and it assures you that you will eventually be overtaken by the abyss.

It’s a terrible, terrible thing.

If throughout our lives certain albums had the ability to pick our psychological locks and provide all the necessary balms to reset us emotionally and remind us that there’s still exhilaration and love and hope for the world, the moment when the key no longer fits is truly the emptiest of adult feelings that I can think of.  If our record collections contain the genetic code of the ongoing narrative of our lives, then the ones we can no longer listen to contain the blueprints of cities we don’t live in anymore.  And that, my friends, is a bleak thing.

But thankfully, some albums survive.  And Carnival Of Souls’ 1989 debut Flop is one of them.  This D.C trio—drummer Chadwyk Jones, guitarist Tony White and singer Philip Stevenson—only put out one record in their career and in the eleven songs that make up the album, they get done in thirty-five minutes what most bands spend their entire careers only chasing.  For my money, “Holiday” is as strong of an album opener as “Begin The Begin” or “Hold My Life”—it’s raw and nervy and when Stevenson holds certain syllables so enticingly close to the edge of fury, the song sounds like patience right before it explodes, good sense before it dissolves and a pure heart before it goes black.

Later, “Better Known” is sheer post punk howl, “Mary Ann” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on The River and “Black and Blue” swings low and heavy with a dark, spectral muscle.  Stevenson’s voice is at once wounded and tough—it’s got a jagged, thrilling edge to it that contains as much sadness as it does fiery resolve.  It’s Springsteen, it’s Westerberg, and it’s unmistakably American.

And it’s unmistakably, almost implacably wounded. For example, on the punchy jangle of “8:15” he warns, “Love me or stay away from me,” and on the contemplative album closer, “Will You Just Go Home” he confesses, “I can look at you straight but you can’t look at me like that.”

But the album’s centerpiece, its landmark track, is the wrenching “Nothing To Say.”  An aching, bittersweet acoustic number that’s punctuated by a doleful accordion, it finds Stevenson at his most unguarded and poetic.  Unimpressed with the lies we tell each other when it comes to matters of the heart, and likening it to being nothing more than bedroom theatre, Stevenson warns, “Don’t say you love me if you get carried away/Don’t get drunk on my blood if it’s just for one day/And don’t say anything twice if you ain’t got nothin’ to say.”  It’s a punctured lullaby, stark and beautiful and unflinchingly honest. And the shift in the third verse to the first person is nothing short of revelatory; in that instant alone, Stevenson proves that he’s one of the finest songwriters on this planet, worthy of being spoken of in the same sentence as Dylan, Prine or Springsteen.

Flop is a record alive with truth and conviction and a self belief that by the end of it all, finds Stevenson growing weary of those who don’t possess any of these traits themselves.  One gets the feeling he doesn’t suffer fools or those who are foolish with their hearts. He’s got a good point.  Flop closed out the ‘80s with crunch, style and smarts and the fact that it’s not better known is a real shame.

In “St. Death And Shallow Water,” the ever self-effacing, Stevenson sings, “You write songs that lift your heart to the sky/I’ve always wanted songs like that.”

Those songs are here.

♪♪♪

Alex Green is the author of the book The Stone Roses (Continuum), which is a cultural and political examination of the legendary Manchester band’s debut album.  A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Alex’s interviews and essays have appeared in Magnet, CMJ New Music Monthly and HITS! His poems have appeared in RHINO, The Canary, The Mid-American Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review and Barrow Street.  A former DJ (KVHS, KSMC) he hosts the podcast “Don’t Go To Bed With Alex Green.” He recently collaborated with director Tom DiCillo (Living In Oblivion, When You’re Strange) on a screenplay called Years Of Summers. He currently teaches at St. Mary’s College of California. Find more of Alex Green’s musical musings at Caught in the Carousel.

Let’s start with the photos on everyone’s name badge, which featured their graduation picture from 1988.  I had a square coiffure of blonde hair in which my face was perfectly centered, like the cream filling on a yellow Tastykake. I’d blame my friends for not telling me this, but they were having their own issues with spiky bangs and home peroxide treatments. The university staffer whose job it was to print those badges for all the classes at reunion, stretching back to the Old Guard, assured me that the Class of 1988 photos were in a category by themselves. “That HAIR!” she said, shaking her head.

The campus was chock-a-block with new buildings and silver signs that were bigger than my freshman year roommate, each proclaiming the name of the donor to whom we owed thanks for yet another new pile of red bricks. Each represented an evolution in university life and an architect’s success in squeezing just one more building into a expanding footprint in West Philadelphia.

I got choked up once, when I was walking down Locust Walk, the main pedestrian thoroughfare that bisects campus. I noticed a white-haired older man—far too well-dressed to be straight—standing still, smiling widely as he watched something. I followed his line of sight to see two young male students strolling down Locust Walk, holding hands. An out gay couple was a rarity in my time; I can’t imagine what kind of unicorn it was during his era.

I mean, our fight song, circa 1901, includes the words, “So tonight, let’s all be gay,” and twenty-five years ago that line was always punctuated by an effeminate flop of the right wrist and an uncomfortable chuckle. But when we sang the fight song Saturday night and my hand reflexively shot out on that line, it seemed small-minded and embarrassing to flop my wrist. I had to do something with the hand that was dangling in the air so I waved it vaguely around, like I was conducting an invisible orchestra. The fact that a fraternity on Locust Walk, the kind of place where being called “gay” led to punch-throwing back in the Eighties, is now the campus’ LGBT student center, seems like karmic payback of the best kind.

But the starkest sign of change came on the dance floor.

I danced in college. A lot. I was often the first person onto a party dance floor and only left it because someone suggested that we hop into a cab and cruise into Center City Philly…to go dancing.

So at the Reunion party Saturday night, with the DJ off to a slow start, I felt compelled to make a few song requests that would appeal to my generation. Our class had unearthed a time capsule earlier in the day and pulled out the Mixtape, below; I just picked a few songs off the list. A small group of us hit the dance floor and, as happens, a few more people joined, and a few more. We did Da Butt, we made sure to Push It, And We Danced just like the Hooters sang.

All weekend I hung out with a classmate named Gerard, his charming husband Peter, and their sweet kids. Gerard insisted that we knew each other well back in the day, but I had a very hard time placing this successful, nice family man who kept saying, “Remember? I had a white Mohawk and wore a kilt?” He sounded like someone I would have been friends with. But with no photo on his name badge, I could not picture Younger Gerard for the life of me.

Until the DJ cued up the Violent Femmes. Gerard and I were dancing near each other, and we locked eyes, and in that moment I saw Gerard at twenty years old, and I was twenty years old. And I knew we were going to slam dance. Without hesitation, we flew towards each other’s right shoulders, full of the joyous fury that used to lessen the anxiety of being young and unsure of ourselves.

Note to self: slam dancing in your forties is different than doing it in your twenties.

Gerard emailed me the next day and said, “All I can remember is your black and white dress coming at my head at the speed of light.” We hit so hard that his expensive executive eyeglass frames skittered across the floor, barely missing the heels of the super drunk guy lurching around the dance floor all night. As for me, while Gerard dove onto the floor in search of his glasses, I massaged my bruised shoulder and wondered if I’d blown out my knee. I spent the rest of the night dancing in place, and all of the next day moved my right leg with both hands, like it was a prosthetic limb.

Even so, it wasn’t the slam dancing where the THEN and the NOW came together in the most meaningful way.

It was afterward, laughing with Gerard and his husband about our lame slam dance attempt and talking about our kids, when it sunk in. So simple, so profound. Every student on campus, gay and straight, can realistically hope to achieve the same things I wanted back in college: a meaningful career, a spouse, children.

And a much better yearbook photo.

photo credit: ZemyaPhotography.com

People say “Other Woman” like it’s a bad thing. But I yearn to be the Other Woman. Because by Other Woman, I mean Other Mother.

Other Mothers are those people in a child’s life to whom the kid can go for a fresh perspective, a hot snack, a reminder that things aren’t always better on the other side of the cul de sac. Other Mothers don’t have to be women, and they don’t have to be mothers. They must only possess a sympathetic ear, a stocked pantry, and objectivity that can be hard to come by in the emotional fog that sometimes clouds interaction between actual mother and child.

I’ve always been close to my mom. I was her third child, the kid who rode around on her hip for years and had a permanent berth in the back seat while we drove around in the station wagon to drop off my older siblings to baseball practice and bowling. We didn’t clash much, even when I was a teenager.

Yet as much as I love my mom, my Other Mothers were instrumental in helping me make it to adulthood intact. My aunt Noonie, for one. My mom’s oldest sister, Noonie was the aunt with whom we got to stay on the rare weekends when Mom and Dad went out of town together. Her main areas of expertise? Astrology, Star Trek, and pie baking. She owned my mom in all those categories, and even now if I am back east for a visit, I pray that Noonie has made me a pie and will give me some insight into how the year ahead is going to unfold for us Tauruses. She also made it possible for my parents to have a little romance in their busy lives, which made the lives of their children all the sweeter.

There was the indomitable Mrs. Fitzsimmons next door, whose daughter Bethie was my very best childhood friend. If you added up all the time I spent at the Fitz’ house versus my own during the first ten years of my life, I’d guess it would be a 50/50 split. We had cable first, but they had Beatles albums and a top-of-the-line dress-up bin. The merry chaos of their large Irish Catholic family was always entertaining, but sent me back home with a new appreciation for the relative calm of my own house.

In high school my primary Other Mother was Mrs. Moretti, mom of my best friend Lisa. My mom was put-together and stylish, but didn’t give a fig for capital “F” Fashion. Mrs. Moretti, on the other hand, had three teenage fashion plate daughters, shopped the fancy stores in town, and read Vogue magazine, all of which conferred her authority with which I refused to credit my own mother.

So when I came home one day at seventeen with a Flock of Seagulls-style haircut, and my mother’s reaction was, “Please don’t go to that butcher again,” I naturally vowed to wear it like that forever.

Mrs. Moretti, on the other hand, was effusive with praise when she first saw my troubling hairstyle. But a few days later, as Lisa and I sat drinking Tab and eating pretzels in the kitchen, Mrs. M slid a page from a fashion magazine across the table to me. It pictured a wholesome, pretty girl with a shoulder-grazing bob, the same shade of blonde as mine. Mrs. Moretti said, “That might look nice on you,” then turned away to wash some dishes.

And that was the day I started growing out the Shorty Longsides Haircut, circumventing a lifetime of public embarrassment.

My mother didn’t resent these Other Mothers. If anything, she actively encouraged my relationships with them. As a mother of daughters who are twelve and fifteen year old now, I can see exactly why. Some days lay waste to the focus and emotional energy you can muster for a child. Now divide that energy by the number of siblings, and again by the times we have no idea what we are doing. If it weren’t for Other Mothers, we Actual Moms couldn’t catch a break.

Other Mothers are genius at ferretting out information that might go unmentioned to the actual parent, like the arrival of a new boyfriend on the scene, or how a kid really feels about playing a sport. If you agree ahead of time to exchange key morsels judiciously, like spies from allied nations, this backchannel information gathering can prove extremely useful.

They can also do the heavy lifting in areas where the actual mom has her limits. In a bit of history repeating itself, I found my look and stopped subscribing to fashion magazines in 1995. So when there’s a clothing question to be refereed, I tell the girls to ask their überstylish Other Mother, Andrea. “She’ll know,” I say, trusting that Andrea is as anti-booty-short and jeggings as I am.

And it is often the Other Mother who gives us solid proof that our kids are maturing into the people we hope they will be. I remind my children to use good manners when they are out in the world without me. But it’s not until I get positive confirmation of a good manners sighting from their Other Mother Maria, when they’re all at dinner without me, that I can truly believe the lessons have sunk in.

I shamelessly court Other Mother status for the kids in my children’s lives. All through middle school my older daughter’s best friend would come over to do homework on Mondays because I served her pistachios, a favorite snack that is off limits at home due to nut allergies in the household. I’ll whip up hot cocoa and popcorn at the drop of a hat, and when the kids in my daughter’s 9th grade math class needed a place to work on a class project, I bought all the supplies and heated up a pizza.

In part it’s because I genuinely like my daughters’ friends. But all those conversations I’m hearing from the next room as I slowly, slowly slice the pizza and stack the dishwasher give me insight into the world in which my children live and the people who surround them there.

And it’s the least I can do to pay back the Noonies, the Mrs. Fitz’s, and the Mrs. Moretti’s in my life.

The Band: Bob Schneider, May 2 2013. Singer/songwriter Schneider is a mainstay of the Austin music scene but doesn’t stray to the Bay much. The first and only time I’d seen him perform before was on my home computer, which gave me a great taste of his music and his naughty-monkey stage patter. But I ended up being distracted by technology through the whole show. Schneider’s funk-and-Latin-tinged rock is habit-forming, and I’ve wanted to catch his REAL live show ever since.

The Opening Act: San Francisco’s own Megan Slankard, a lovely young singer/songwriter whose short but powerful set brought to mind another Austin resident, Shawn Colvin.

The Venue: The too-twee-for-words Swedish American Music Hall in San Francisco. I’m starting to think this is a cougar’s dream venue. Last time I was there for a concert, Teddy Thompson had the fifty year old ladies flipping out, and this time it was Bob’s brigade of blondes sitting in the folding chairs. One thing the Swedish American lacks: air conditioning. Because why would you ever need it in San Francisco, a city that is cold and foggy even when it is warm? Global warming, that’s why. It was 90 degrees that day, and that place was a sweatbox, especially once we all got up and salsa danced (see below.)

The Company: Four of my dear friends who capitulated right away when I said, “Hey, for my birthday, you’re going to take me to see Bob Schneider at the Swedish American Hall, and you’re gonna love him!” At one point Bob stopped playing during the Tarantula singalong to say, “Ok, there are four people here who don’t know the lyrics so I’m going to stop and teach them,” so it was nice of him to recognize my friends that way.

The Crowd: Over 35 and overheated. It’s so weird to see people wearing shorts in San Francisco who are not obviously tourists (signified by the presence of a hastily purchased Alcatraz fleece.) But people were taking advantage of the heat wave to show off their legs and, in the case of the drunk blonde who rushed the stage at the end of the show to request a song he’d already sung, her bare shoulders and high heeled white gogo boots.

Aside from the rapt audience experiencing the rare and uncomfortable experience of having their thighs stuck to their chairs with sweat, there was a big group in the back of the hall who mistakenly thought they were at a bar and didn’t shut up for the whole show. Hey, geniuses: Café Du Nord is right next door. Head there and blather all you want, then come back for some music when you’re ready to listen.

Age Humiliation Factor: Low.
Because Bob is an R-rated act, and you really need a certain amount of life experience to appreciate where he’s coming from. In fact, to whoever thought it was a good idea to bring along their young son to the show, thanks for nothing. Bob noticed the kid right away and said he’d try to tone down the smut talk. But why were we there if not for the double entendres? Luckily, he wasn’t very good to his word and my guess is those parents now have some ‘splainin to do, which may make them think twice next time.

Cool Factor: High

On the way out of the show a man overheard me say something to the effect that Schneider is criminally underappreciated in the music world, and he said, “SHHHHHH! We want to keep it that way! We don’t want the secret getting out!”  While I find that attitude really depressing, for the artists sake—hey, I love your music, you should totally stay broke!—there is a sense that it takes some inside knowledge to know about Bob.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Yes, but take protection.

I’m not sure how well this comes through if you only listen to his albums, but I’d been warned by my friends in Austin who first told me about Bob: Schneider wrote the book on Rumpled Sexy. He comes out on stage all hirsute and brooding, looking sort of like the bears who congregate a half block away in the Castro bars. My friend Maureen who works in fashion couldn’t figure out his pants:  “Are those sweatpants he’s wearing? Do you see a zipper anywhere? What are those?”

Then Bob starts his growly-singing, and his twinkly eyes seem to fasten upon you and only you, like a tractor beam, and he’s singing lyrics like “I’ll put the butter in your rum tonight, I’ll put the kingdom in your come tonight,” and every person in the room spontaneously ovulates, men included. We would have all been fanning ourselves with the promoter’s flyer even if it hadn’t been 90 degrees.

My four friends who had never heard anything by Bob before were doubled over laughing when they weren’t just sitting and beaming at him. We particularly enjoyed his un-PC stemwinder on the lack of musical prowess required to play the harmonica, which ended with “Deaf people can play the SHIT out of a harmonica!” He played a solid two hour set, wrapped up the main event with the salsa-tinged Tarantula  and commanded everyone to get up and dance. (To the lady in the blue print shirt who did a spotlight dance in the center aisle: so much respect. You put the moves in Bob’s movie tonight.) Then he dispensed with the pretense of leaving the stage before the encore and gave us three more songs.

Solid songwriting infused with humor and humility, a talented musician at a great live show, my dear friends, and the knowledge that I have a whole new year of concerts ahead? Doesn’t get better than that.

Listening is probably the most important diagnostic tool I have for my job as a mom.

From the very earliest days of motherhood, when I’d bend low over the side of the bassinet to check to my newborn’s bird-rapid breathing, or when I amazed myself by quickly learning the difference between a cry for hunger and a cry for tiredness, I’ve done a lot of concentrated listening.

That quiet that suddenly becomes ominous when you realize your toddler should be making more noise than she is, and that the last time you saw her she was carrying a bottle of paint. The sound of a pan clattering to the floor and then the hyper alertness as you anxiously wait to hear whether the next sound is going to be a scream of pain or a “Don’t worry, mom, just dropped the lid!” The coughing from behind the bedroom door as you sit in the next room and time intervals, deciding whether to call the doctor. The catch in a daughter’s voice that tells you she is trying very hard not to cry.

Moms listen all the time. We barely know we’re doing it. If we were cartoon characters, our ears would be twice the size of our heads.

Of course, my kids might beg to differ. When they come sit on my bed at 9:30 pm, finally ready to talk about their day at exactly the time my brain is in shut down mode, they get annoyed because they think I’m not listening. Did you even hear what I just said? I am the first to admit that at a certain point, the recounting of the ballet class drama or the exasperating discussion with the teacher starts to go a little white-noise on me, and I get fuzzy on the details. I can only imagine what my mother had to put up with from me, the kid who never once won the quarter her older brother and sister promised her if she could just shut up for five minutes.

But even when I’m zoning out, the discordant note comes through and snaps me to attention. WHAT did you just say happened after class? WHO did you say got in trouble? WHERE did your friends go without you? All those years of listening have made me efficient. I may not get every detail, and I’m sure that annoys my daughters. But I know the difference between listening and hearing. My goal is to pay attention to what they need me to hear.

Which bring me to Listen To Your Mother, the show that “Gives Mother’s Day a Microphone” and in which I’ll be performing a week from Sunday, at Kanbar Auditorium in the San Francisco JCC. At the first read-through last month, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the roomful of fourteen fellow cast members, near strangers who I mostly knew from Twitter avatars—they’re much taller in person. (And of course my friend Tarja from the Flying Chalupa, everyone’s favorite Fleetwood Mac fan.)

When I stumbled out two hours later, my mascara in tear tracks down my cheeks, the thing I couldn’t get over was the diverse range of stories, some poignant, some wildly funny, that all portrayed a single emotion: love. Messy, imperfect, all-encompassing maternal love. We walked into the room strangers, and walked out sisters-in-arms. All of us trying—sometimes failing, but always trying—to hear what our kids and our moms and our friends need from us.

photo credit: Yulia Patsay

The instant camaraderie was evident in last week’s second run through, when our directors could barely get us to shut up to start the rehearsal. This time around, we got through with fewer tears, more polished beats, better eye contact. And on Mother’s Day, May 12^th at 7 pm, we’re gathering one last time to tell our stories, clear and loud, quirky and proud. Besides the San Francisco show there are LTYM shows in 23 other cities this year; one of them is bound to be near you so check it out.

I hope you’ll come out to hear what we have to say.

Here’s the founder of the Listen To Your Mother phenomenon, my wonderful friend Ann Imig, telling what it’s all about…

2.) Own a bird dog, albeit one whose hunting instincts have always been confined to pine cones and Webkinz. Have him plead for his midday walk.

3.) It should be turkey nesting season.

4.) Rather than take the dog on his customary off-leash romp in the Oakland hills, decide to keep him on the leash and just walk around the block a few times. He will hate this, but part of the reason for your sleepless night was because you and your husband were tending the dog’s obvious stomach distress. You want the dog to have a  mellow day. (Foreshadowing alert! Foreshadowing alert!)

5.) Because you are just strolling on your residential street with nothing going on, decide it’s okay to make a quick call to your parents using your iPhone earbud speakers. While you and the dog walk down the street and he waters the lawns and plants, listen as your dad starts to talk about your mom’s recent routine medical appointment.

6.) Be so focused on your father’s words that you neglect to see the nesting wild turkey in the urban underbrush until it has emerged, enraged and squawking and flapping its wings, approximately one foot from your startled dog, who is at the end of the six foot leash that ends in your hand.

7.) Dulled by sleep deprivation and multi-tasking, your mind should use valuable “fight or flight” reaction time to instead puzzle through the following thought: That…is…a…turkey. Have the turkey hen use this five second delay to get even more pissed and start yelping at you in angry tones, while rushing you and the dog with wings outspread.

8.) This is a good time for the dog’s prey instinct to roar to life, causing him to charge TOWARD the angry turkey, the first time he has ever charged TOWARD anything in his life.

9.) Scream. Pull the leash in the opposite direction to try to evade the turkey charge. The dog should zig left, you should zag right, and the turkey should continue to yelp and charge at whatever angle is guaranteed to cut off your escape. Begin to wonder if this turkey, which is approximately the same size as your dog, is on steroids. Do this step for at least 60 seconds, trying all different directions but still being trapped by the Psycho Turkey.

10.) Remember your father is still on the line, listening to this encounter from the comfort of his recliner three thousand miles away. Regress to age eight. Yell, “Dad! I’m being chased by a turkey! Dad! A turkey is chasing me!” Keep pulling at dog and zig sagging throughout. The turkey’s yelping should really be peaking now.

11.) Your father should be laughing, very hard. He should yell to your mother in the other room, “Laura! Nancy’s being chased by a turkey! No, I said a turkey!”

12.) Manage to yank the dog once, so mightily that you almost knock him down, and pull him toward the street that runs perpendicular away from the turkey. Yell to your dad, “I’m gonna run up Carter Street!” like you are giving him your safe house location. Have the adrenaline rush make your teeth chatter so you say C-C-C-Carter.

13.) Take at least six hours to recover. When the kids come home from school, reenact the entire scene for them in the living room; your impersonation of the turkey’s darting and yelping will cause the dog to freak out and start jumping around and barking, so you only have to play the turkey and yourself while the dog reenacts his own part.

14.) Research how long turkey nesting season lasts and vow not to walk toward that end of the street, alone or with the dog, until that amount of time plus two weeks have passed.

When I asked my family to tell me the worst meal I’d ever prepared and served them, so I could write about it for this blog hop, they had the appropriate response: round-eyed terror. This question, coming from a woman who is known at the dinner table to have this discussion aloud with herself, followed by glaring at her dining companions?

“How is your dinner? My dinner is fine, delicious! Thank you so much for cooking it, Mom! It is so nice to sit down to a nutritious, delightful meal every night!”

They’re not stooges. They’re not going to answer a question like that and risk me never cooking for them again. Finally, after I begged, the youngest mentioned, tentatively, that I’d once put baking soda in for baking powder when I made them homemade waffles, but I told her that’s too quotidian. Anyone who’s baked more than three times has substituted baking soda for baking powder at least once, bitten down into what looks like a delicious cookie only to spit it out into the sink a minute later and then wipe off their tongue using a paper towel.

So I had to go back further. All the way back. To when I was preparing nutritious, delightful meals in my yellow Kenner Easy Bake Oven.

I wonder sometimes what it was like for my dad to make the transition every day at 5:30 pm from his office at Eastman Kodak, a methodical world of male engineers developing optics for use by the US government in spying, to the house on Branford Road where three kids, two rabbits, an iguana, a dog, and a wife who merited a serious break all awaited his arrival.

Once when he opened the back door from the garage, my sister, then in first or second grade, let loose with a string of invectives she’d learned at school. “Hi @%#)%&@&*!” she chirped, which earned her a trip straight into the powder room and a meal of Lifebuoy soap. Another time we greeted him with the exhilarating news that we had used his rubber galoshes as sailboats for my troll dolls in the three feet of water that had flooded the basement! There was a current, and everything!

But surely no night was worse for my dad than the one when I was six and said, “I baked you a cake in my Easy Bake!” For some reason we didn’t usually buy the mixes that were designed to actually bake over the heating element of the oven which, as anyone over age thirty will remember, is A LIGHT BULB. No, I made up my own recipes. I considered myself a pretty decent baker by first grade.

On the night in question I’d made a chocolate cake for the ages. It was round, the diameter of a pot holder, and approximately 1/3 of an inch thick. Dark brown liquid pooled around the edges of the cake where it sat on an earthen colored plate, but I’d counterbalanced that by coating the top in rainbow sprinkles. It looked, in fact, like a wet, oversized hockey puck that had fallen into a vat of glitter. And I was going to be sure that my dad appreciated every bit.

Dad ate slowly that night, slow enough that my brother and sister had asked to be excused and my mother had started washing the dishes. Not me: I was staying put right next to Dad, so excited for him to try his special dessert. Eventually, of course, the main course could be masticated no more and Dessert Was Served.

My dad smiled, tucked into that black cake in its brown water bath, and ate EVERY SINGLE BITE. He even managed to smile at the end.

I asked my dad last weekend if he remembered this incident, thinking maybe it had gotten bigger in my memory like so many aspects of childhood. Dad immediately said, “The hockey puck? Of course.” Then he added that, when dinner was over, he tried to dismantle my EZBake oven when I was otherwise engaged with Gilligan’s Island.

The truth is, I may have served worse meals than the Hockey Puck cake. But the people in my life are too sensitive to my feelings to let on.

It makes me wonder if the pilot light going out on the stove last week was truly an accident.

And this song, well, obviously.

The Flying Chalupa

Earth Mother Just Means I’m Dusty

Peace, Love, and Guacamole

Ann’s Rants

The Band: The Lumineers, April 19 2013. A folk rock band from Denver, CO, the Lumineers epitomize the roots revival movement that is bringing back acoustic instruments, unadorned harmonies, and Dust Bowl era outfits á la Dexy’s Midnight Runner’s in Come On, Eileen. You all know “Ho, Hey,” from their 2012 debut album, but their songwriting chops are strong enough to keep them from following Dexy and his coveralled- crew into the One Hit Wonder bin.

The Venue: The Greek Theatre, Berkeley. Built in 1903, this amphitheater on the UC Berkeley campus, there is simply no better place to see a show on a warm spring night. The Lumineers thought so too, repeatedly talking about how gorgeous it was and leaving the stage at one point to perform a couple songs from a platform in the back, right in the middle of the crowd.

The Company: It’s my birthday season, so my best friend and most constant concert companion Maria and her teen daughter treated my teen daughter and me to the show. Maria and I got verklempt to see our girls set off into the crowd to throw elbows and move to the front of the stage, like their moms have done together too many times to count. It’s moments like this that you really see yourself in your children.

Opening BandS: When we saw that there were two opening bands, Maria and I both had the “Dear god, why, I’m so tired and don’t want to be out too late,” reflex. Turns out with only one album to their name, the Lumineers’ set needed some filling out, so it was fine. First up was country folk trio Sawmill Joe, whose lead singer had a seriously country accent, which was weird considering he was from Maryland by way of Colorado. Lovely moment when the Lumineers came onstage to accompany them on their song, “Ain’t Nobody’s Problem.” What was a problem: Maria not being able to remember Sawmill Joe’s name, and repeatedly calling them Shoeless Joe, like the baseball player.

Directly in front of us were what I have to assume were two Cal football players: sitting shoulder to shoulder, they had the same dimensions and sturdiness as a queen sized headboard. These two jocks loved the Lumineers, knew every word and shook their booties and did the white-man’s crossed wrist air drumming move. Instead of being annoyed, we were charmed, because every time they got up and blotted out the view with their mega-backs, they’d first swivel and apologize profusely.  It was adorable.

Age Humiliation Factor: Self inflicted.
The seats at the Greek are concrete benches with no back support. Maria’s daughter was taking the train from the ‘burbs to meet us, and this is the series of messages that we exchanged with Maria’s husband after we reminded him to send along those camping cushions with backs.

Cool Factor: Coachella, without the dust.

The Lumineers’ eponymous 2012 album was one of my favorites from last year, so I was psyched to see them play live. Their next show on their concert tour was Coachella, so I got to enjoy a Coachella band without having to wear cutoffs and a floppy macrame sunhat.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Simply put, yes.

I loved how the show was pared down to the basics: piano, guitars, cello, drums, mandolin. Nothing fancy or electronic, certainly no dancing or fireworks, but the band still managed to fill up the whole amphitheater with song and draw the crowd in. It was also nice to hear the singer encourage the crowd to turn off their phones, and “Just be with us here, now.” Most of the audience complied, but even after he asked a second time, the fear of going screen-less for three minutes meant that some idiots kept filming.

Lead singer Wesley Keith Schultz has a rich and distinctive voice, but when they played a song so new that it’s yet to be named and the lone girl, Neyla Pekarek, carried half the vocals, Maria and I agreed we’d like to hear more of her on their next album.

The takeaway: nice, talented people genuinely thrilled to be doing what they’re doing and giving us all something to enjoy in the bargain. Not a bad way to spend a Friday night.

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By the way, I have a new gig as a contributor on NickMom.com – it’s a great site to stop by for a quick dash of midday humor. My two latest posts are in their Top 9 Lists category: Top 9 Teenage Laments That Sound Like Country Song Titles, and Top 9 Things I Have Said To My Son and My Dog. Yes, regular readers. you spotted the blooper: I don’t have a son. But I have actually said all those things to the dog.

The Band: Japandroids, April 16 2013. This Vancouver rock duo’s 2012 album, Celebration Rock, made all kinds of “Best of” lists last year, earning respect for its energetic, raw, and anthemic sound – pretty much every song on this excellent album has an interval designed for a crowd shout-along. But the thing I love most about Brian King and David Prowse’s band is that when the Vancouver Canucks needed theme music for when the hockey players take the ice, fans voted “The House That Heaven Built” by Japandroids over anything by Nickelback.

Opening Band: The Cloud Nothings, from Cleveland OH. The New Parish had two dates for Japandroids and Cloud Nothings, and I chose the show that listed Japandroids first. Nothing at all against the Cloud Nothings, who serve up some tasty grunge rock—I  particularly like “Fall In”—but with the husband traveling and the kids insisting on staying awake until I got home, I knew I had a hard stop of 10:30 pm. So when the Cloud Nothings took the stage first, I wasn’t groaning because I was disappointed to see them. It was because I knew I’d have to walk out of the club right in the middle of the Japandroids’ set. Which I did. Mother of the Year, amiright?

The Crowd: Duuuuuuudes. No, I’m not being Californian, I’m saying that if you are a single, straight woman and are looking for nice looking young dudes with beards, hit a Japandroids show. The boy/girl ratio was about 9:1, and it was a Hoody Hootenanny. Props to the three girls in the front row who survived the mosh pit, thank you for representing womanhood in the maelstrom. (Says the woman observing it safely from the balcony above.)

Age Humiliation Factor: There was a moment, but I kept it to myself.
Before the show started, the club piped in some fine hits from the disco era. I made the young bartender laugh when I stopped mid-order to make the high-pitched squeal along with Michael Jackson that punctuates “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.” I restrained myself from explaining to him that the song came out when I was in 7^th grade, so I can do a whole bar/bat mitzvah dance routine to it.

Cool Factor: Man T-Shirt Worthy.

I’ve been trying really hard to NOT expand my concert t-shirt inventory lately because honestly, that drawer only holds so much. So when we got there and saw that the only shirts were big, boxy man size shirts, I was actually relieved, since those look terrible on women and I make it a policy not to buy them.

Two hours later I was clutching my Japandroids size medium big boxy man t-shirt and happy about it. If I take it off at any point this week, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Especially this week.

First off, you know what is so great about small shows? When you see the musicians setting up their own instruments, doing their own soundchecks, making sure their Snapple bottle caps are loose before the set starts so they can rehydrate. When you see too many stadium shows (yes I’m still a little scarred from my Carrie Underwood experience,) watching a lead singer pack up cords and pedals and other things into his Jansport backpack that he himself carries offstage is a welcome reminder of the grunt work and sacrifice that goes into being a working musician.

The Cloud Nothings were a little too dissonant and blurry for my tastes – Mama needs some melody to really get on for the ride. Maybe their next album.

But the Japandroids were outstanding, just two guys playing their hearts out on drum and guitar. The audience shouted along, the mosh pit was raging, and everything that’s cathartic and good about garage rock music swirled around us. A day after the world went to hell in Boston, and in a week when Congressional cowardice reigned supreme, the Japandroids’ music overflowed with raw emotion, release and hope, and that felt comforting. Music can’t make problems disappear, but it can remind you that you’re not alone, that other people feel the same way you do. It stiffens your spine, dries your tears, taps into that wellspring of F-U courage that screams for justice.

As the boys from Vancouver sing in “The Nights of Wine and Roses”: We don’t cry for those nights to arrive, we yell like hell to the heavens…

On the nights my husband kindly offers to run to the grocery store to grab us something for dinner, I am often greeted with the following scenario:

Doorbell rings. Dog goes insane. I yell through the door “Who is it?” (We live in Oakland, yo, I’m not opening up for just anyone.)

Husband: “Me, quick, open up!”

I open the door to see my husband with his hands held at his waist, palms up and fingertips touching. Between his homemade arm shelf and his chin are all thirty-seven components of our dinner: rotisserie chicken, bread, maybe some sushi that the girls asked for, a pint of ice cream, salad.

Me: “Forgot the bags, huh?” just as he diverts the top half of this Leaning Tower of Groceries into my arms and sighs, “Remind me to put a bag in my car.”

As of January 1 2013, there are no single use plastic bags to be had in my county, or across the bay in San Francisco. Stores can sell you a paper bag for $0.10, but if you are cheap like us or just enjoy a good challenge, what you say to the clerk when you forget your bags is, “No problem, I can carry these myself,” as you stack them like a game of Jenga.

When the law was about to be enacted, people in the Editorial section and on blogs had a predictable freak-out, complaining about Big Brother and climate change hoaxes and grocery stories enriching themselves, one thin dime at a time.

But mostly? Nothing. You adjust, and wonder why you waited so long. I’ve had a stash of reusable grocery bags in the front hall for ages, but only since January 1 do I reliably put them back into the car. If I leave them in the car when I shop, I park my cart near a sympathetic clerk and run and grab them, adding maybe 45 seconds to the whole shopping trip. Sometimes I pay for paper bags, and then I recycle those (unlike the plastic bags which just piled up.) I’m forever throwing smaller items I’ve paid for into my cavernous purse, which can lead to delightful finds like the eye cream still in its box that surfaced after god knows how long the other day.

It’s just not a big deal to not use plastic bags. When I lived in Germany twenty five years ago, there were already no plastic bags, which is why everyone carried around those picturesque woven market baskets. More chic, in every way.

With Earth Day coming up on Saturday, I’m thinking about the billions of plastic bags used in the U.S. every year, with only a tiny fraction of them getting recycled. I’m thinking about all the petroleum used to make those bags and how, if we saved that and used it for automobiles, we probably wouldn’t need to worry about fracking. I’m thinking about how, since the first of the year, I don’t see sad lonely white bags flying down the street anymore, escapees from someone’s garbage bin that are making their determined way towards the creek that leads to the Bay that leads to the ocean, home to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Mainly I’m thinking that, by passing this law, Alameda County and San Francisco County made it routine to make a small change that has big, positive implications for the planet. So even if your county doesn’t demand it yet, maybe you could pretend it has, and put your reusable bags in the car.

Or challenge your partner to the Great Grocery-Carrying Balance Game. Whoever drops the pile first has to let everyone else have first dibs on the Ben and Jerry’s.