Category Archives: Music

June 24, 2011 · 8:43 am

Everybody dance now

Life’s awkward moments come in many flavors.

One situation I often find awkward is a one-on-one conversation with the driver of an airport shuttle when, obviously, I am the only passenger. You wouldn’t think this would be the case, as I’m able to hold a conversation with just about anyone, whether the person wants to or not. But sometimes, after the first two or three pleasantries, it’s hard to keep it going. I don’t mind riding in silence, but when the driver makes an effort, I feel an obligation to connect.

Yesterday I took a shuttle bus ride on a steamy afternoon. I had waited a long time for the bus in the Miami heat and was physically and mentally wilted when I boarded. When the young driver tried to make conversation, I tried to offer more than a terse response.

“How was your flight?”
“Fine. I came in from Washington, D.C.”

“Was it sunny there?”
“Yes. And hot.”

[Banter about traffic, followed by awkward silence]

Just then, one of my favorite songs came on the radio. It was Madonna’s La Isla Bonita from 1987. I love that song. I know every word. I refrained from singing, though it took some effort. I tapped my foot instead. I noticed the driver banging out an impressive bongo solo on the steering wheel. I bopped my head a little. It was a nice moment, communicating with this young man without words.

The next song was another good one, Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), recorded by C.C. Music Factory in 1990. (Who remembers how it was used in the movie Man of the House?) I danced in my seat while my driver did another rocking drum solo. Another great moment.

Until I said, “Wow, they’re playing some great music here.” He replied, “Yes, this is our oldies station.”

Here, have a moment of your own. Whether the music is part of your adulthood, your childhood or your I-wasn’t-even-born-yet-hood, I dare you not to sing. Or dance. (For some Friday fun, if you’re in your office, crank that second one up really loud and see if you can get your colleagues on their feet.)

  

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June 21, 2011 · 9:05 am

Big dream

I read somewhere—I think  it was in a newspaper commentary a year or so ago—that dreams are interesting only to those who have them. For this reason, the commentator argued, we needn’t tell others about our dreams because they’ll only be bored. For the most part, I agree with that.

In the wee hours of this morning, I dreamt I was in a band with Clarence Clemons. This is far-fetched on so many levels, not the least of which pertains to my complete lack of any musical talent. There was an inverted sense of time, because everyone in the band and in the audience knew that Clarence had died, or was about to die–everyone but the Big Man himself. Therefore, he didn’t know why everyone was crying. He just played that saxophone like there was no tomorrow. Which, as we sadly know, there wasn’t.

Even as I type this, I realize how silly my dream was, and even more inane to tell you about it. At the same time, it allowed me to have my own private memorial. As so many fans were, I was profoundly saddened by Clarence’s passing this past Saturday. As I told you in an earlier post, I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for the first time when I was 15 and many, many times after that. Clarence’s wailing sax is a pronounced constant within the sound track to half of my life.

Last night, in the closing minutes of the NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams held back tears after having visited the hallowed ground of The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J.  I cried the tears he held back.

Here’s to Clarence, who has left a Big Man’s hole in our world, and to Brian Williams, who told those who didn’t know Clarence about this lovable legend as well and as personally as any newsman has. Brian, I wish you had been on stage with us last night.

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June 8, 2011 · 7:56 am

School’s out

In about a week, the schools in our area will close for the summer. Where you live, kids might already been out. Here, it’s always the latter half of June.

I no longer have a kid in school, so I don’t keep track any longer; yet, the fact that the last day of school is just around the corner is acutely evident, for two reasons. One, the ice cream truck is coming around in the afternoon. Two, Alice Cooper is on the radio. A lot.

It was the summer of 1972; I was in my final days of elementary school, when “School’s Out” hit the charts.

Don’t pretend you don’t know it. I bet you can tell me exactly where you were on your life’s road or where the song takes you when you hear it today.

For me it was Annandale, Virginia. I felt so grown up, saying good-bye to the school with the little chairs, and facing junior high with excitement and anxiety. Mostly, “School’s Out” meant spending seven days a week at the Wakefield Chapel pool and having sleepovers where we listened to music and called our requests in to WPGC radio.

By 1972, I had outgrown David Cassidy; Alice Cooper was a real rocker. He sang rebelliously about the fantasied obliteration of school (not such a realistically dangerous notion back then) and we could relate to it. I understand that, in 2004, Rolling Stone named “School’s Out” one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. I never owned an Alice Cooper record, but if I had it to do over, I would have snapped one up at Rainbow Tree.

I confess, when that song comes on the radio, I still crank it up and sing along. Belted it out it just yesterday, as I pulled out of the grocery store parking lot, after stopping for Activia.

To this day, while far from poetic, my favorite verse is:

Well we got no class
And we got no principles [play on words, perhaps?]
And we got no innocence
We can’t even think of a word that rhymes

Please don’t think less of me.

So, where were you when you first grooved to this song? And hearing it on American Idol doesn’t count.

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May 26, 2011 · 10:09 am

The Versies

I’ve never met Susan, writer of the Coming East blog, but she has graciously included me in a circle of bloggers to whom she’s conferring a Versatile Blogger Award. Being that, like Susan, this is the first blogging award I’ve received, I’ll accept it proudly, once I complete four requirements. I believe, once I do this, that I’ll receive 36 new dish towels in the mail and never get Sepsis.

1. Thank the blogger who gave the award and link to his or her blog. I’d like to thank Susan . . .

2. Share seven things about yourself. Okay, seven facts about the person behind Word Nymph, which I don’t believe I’ve previously shared in the blog:

  1. During the time I was in high school drama club, I was the only person to earn all my Thespian credits without having acted in a play. Auditioned for everything, but the only role I ever got was NARRATOR.
  2. I’ve met Bill Cosby, Tiny Tim, Bill Clinton (twice), Hillary Clinton, Ken Burns, Antonin Scalia and Sandra Day O’Connor. If you count people I’ve met without their knowledge, I’d add Bonnie Raitt, John Denver and Pope John Paul II, but that would be a stretch. Because I was a lobbyist, members of Congress and candidates don’t count.
  3. I am the daughter of two musicians and have not a shred of musical talent.
  4. I make good deviled eggs.
  5. My husband and I accidentally crashed a private Hollywood party in honor of Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman, enjoying drinks and hors d’oeuvres, before making a quick exit—and getting the last of the swag bags.
  6. I always have to look up the spelling of hors d’oeuvres.
  7. I keep resolving to start fewer sentences with “I.” I’m not doing very well at that.

Gosh, I didn’t realize there’s so much left about which to blog. Let me know which stories you’d like me to tell.

3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers and link to them.

In one of my blog posts, I did highlight some of my favorite bloggers, so please pardon any redundancy. And pardon me if I mentioned you then and not now. It’d be great to spotlight some I’ve come across more recently. So, resisting my tendency toward pathological compliance, I’m keeping my list short. See my Blogroll for more.

Bain Waves
Coming East (Thanks, Susan!)
The Digital Cuttlefish
Grasshopper Eyes the Potomac
Life in the Boomer Lane (a previous recipient, but I didn’t want to miss the chance to show her off)
The Naked Listener
Self Expression
The Sticky Egg
Uphill Writing

As most of these awardees are my friends, I won’t ask them to feel as though they need to pass on the award. You may remember my blog on chain letters. I wasn’t pressured to do this. I’m just so darned tickled to get a Versy. Does this mean I can add “award-winning blogger” to my CV and Twitter profile?

4. Comment on their blogs to tell them of the award. I’m working on that. Some bloggers make it easier than others.

See you at the after party?

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May 14, 2011 · 10:09 am

Monkee business

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Has it really been 45 years?

I just heard that tomorrow The Monkees will launch a reunion tour of the United Kingdom and the United States. Bickering among members of the foursome has abounded, over the years and recently, so only three-quarters of the quartet will be performing—sans Mike Nesmith (or as we used to know him, the one in the knit cap).

Seeing my childhood heart-throb and his buddies prompted a whirlwind of free association in my head this morning.

I won’t even try to connect the dots, but I will share my top memories and what The Monkees meant to me.

In 1967, a year after The Monkees made the scene, I was in second grade and living outside Cleveland. A good bit younger than their target base, I was a huge fan.

I remember watching their comedy TV show on our 13-inch black and white television every week, I think it was on Saturdays.

One bittersweet memory: Christmas 1967, it was a Monkees album that confirmed for me a certain truth about the existence of one S. Claus. I had come across an album hidden in our house days before it appeared under the tree. Today, whenever I hear “I’m a Believer,” I have flashbacks.

The following year, I joined The Monkees Fan Club and wrote a love letter to Davy, hoping to get one in return. I’m still waiting.

Six years after that, a girl moved into our Virginia neighborhood from California. We were hanging out in her basement one day and she told me she had Davy Jones’ ring. She said she had been in the front row at a concert and, as Davy bounced energetically about the stage, the ring slipped off his finger and she caught it. She said she tried several times to return it but never got a response.

I was skeptical.  She pulled out her copy of The Monkees album and showed me the ring on the cover. She also showed me other pictures in which the ring was visible in detail, revealing some sort of engraving. Then she reached into her jewelry box and pulled out the ring. I swear it was a perfect match. I’ve since lost touch with my friend Chris; maybe I’ll search for the ring on eBay.

Anyway, for better or for worse, they’ll be back on stage. In a TV news interview this morning, Davy said he was looking forward to getting back out there—because he just spent $14,000 on his teeth.

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April 9, 2011 · 1:34 pm

Metaphorically mis-speaking

Did you ever hear a string of words coming out of your mouth and then wish you could inhale them back in before they reached anyone else’s ears? Not because you want to savor them but because they didn’t come out the way they should have?

I’m not referring to rude or hurtful comments or words that come back to bite us; just words that inadvertently come out the wrong way—maybe the wrong metaphor or worse, an unsavory one.

I heard both within just a few seconds on this morning’s local news.

The local NBC news team was doing a segment on the DC101 Chili Cook-Off, coming up in Washington on May 21st. In advance of the annual event, WRC, the local NBC affiliate, held a promotional chili tasting in the NBC cafeteria.

Setting up the piece, WRC anchor Kimberly Suiters announced to viewers that seeing all the chili “will wet your whistle.”

I assume—I hope—she knew as soon as she uttered those words that what she meant to say was “whet your appetite.” I’ve never known chili to wet one’s whistle. Water wets a whistle or, metaphorically speaking, quenches one’s thirst. Honest mistake, but also an opportunity to point out here that it is whet one’s appetite, not wet one’s appetite. FYI, to whet is to sharpen or to stimulate.

Suiters then threw it to reporter Jim Handly, who surely cringed when he heard himself announce that the Cook-Off would feature “chili out the wazoo.” Not exactly a visual DC101 was aiming for, I suspect.

I vote for giving these two metaphorical mulligans.

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March 24, 2011 · 8:55 am

Jingle warfare

The last two days’ posts were all about phobias and crisis, so maybe it’s time to brighten things up.

Being that I’m one of the few people left on the planet who doesn’t DVR, I still see a fair number of television commercials, or at least hear the jingles in the background. Then I hear the jingles while I’m trying to fall asleep at night.

There was a time when jingles used to be clever and snappy. It didn’t matter if they got stuck in your head. Advertisers ensured the ditties equaled product appeal. We remember that Choo Choo Charlie was an engineer. Good & Plenty candies made his train run. I’m betting you can remember the intervening rhymes. We also knew that if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener, everyone would be in love with me.

In an 2010 interview for Forbes.com, Linda Kaplan Thaler, CEO and chief creative officer of advertising agency Kaplan Thaler Group, said, “A jingle is not successful if you listen to it once and like it. You have to listen to it and want to sing it. Essentially you become the advertiser for the brand.” She’s right.

Lately, though, it seems that ad jingles are spectacularly annoying. I’d bet they clank in the average consumer’s head more persistently than the clever ones. And the fact that the quality of the singing is so much worse makes us want to dig Melanie’s “Brand New Key” out of our record crypts, just so we can find a more grating song to replace the obnoxious jingles echoing in our brains. By the way, “Brand New Key” has always been my nomination for the song most likely to power a psychological warfare campaign to induce surrender by the most stubborn of enemies. But the U.S. military doesn’t consult me on such matters.

I’ll nominate four modern-day jingles for your consideration and you can decide for yourself which would win the Most-Worthy-of-Psycho-Warfare award.

Cast your vote today:

  1. Bisquick
  2. Xfinity
  3. Truvia
  4. NAPA
  5. Other; please specify.

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February 18, 2011 · 12:33 pm

A capital getaway

We just got in from a mini-getaway in our state capital of Annapolis, so close in distance from our home, yet so far away in atmosphere.

The occasion blended a rhythm and blues show, a friend’s birthday party and a gift certificate for a local bed and breakfast into a 16-hour vacation.

To sketch a picture of Annapolis for those who haven’t been there, it sits on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay and, in addition to being the state capital, it is home to the United States Naval Academy. Its narrow streets are lined with restaurants, crab houses, craft shops, taverns and trendy boutiques. It also hosts an impressive 500-seat music venue, the Ram’s Head Tavern, where we attended a superb performance by the Tom Principato Band.

Our base of operations for this 16-hour vacation was a local inn, sadly, the kind of place you want to stay for no longer than the time between putting your tired head on the pillow and going downstairs for breakfast. I don’t mean to be unkind, but camping might have been cleaner and more comfortable. There’s no lobby; you come in through the kitchen of the deli below, to the cash register, which serves as the front desk. If you come back after 11:30 p.m., which we did, you have to climb what is essentially their fire escape to the third floor.

The real treasure, however, was the deli, rather, delly, below the inn. It turns out that Chick & Ruth’s Delly is a well known, family-run Annapolis landmark that’s been in business 45 years. And, while it’s very much a local hangout, I now recall it was featured recently in The Washington Post magazine recently as a favorite for brunch.

“Here you go, sweetie pie,” was how my husband’s crab omelet was served. ‘Nuff said.

We bought fresh crab cakes to cook at home tonight, just to extend the delly experience. I just hope no one expects a side of “sweetie pie” with those.

Do take a minute to peruse their website. Who knows, you might be interested in one of their Colossal Challenges, involving a three-pound deli (er, delly) sandwich, a three-pound hamburger or a six-pound milkshake. Read about the family who started and still runs the place and how the kids got started serving behind the counter, standing on milk crates. And don’t miss the web page that highlights all the couples who got engaged at the Delly.

Best of all, go to Chick & Ruth’s at 8:30 a.m. on any weekday, 9:30 any weekend day, and join your fellow patrons in the Pledge of Allegiance.

God bless America, the great state of Maryland and Chick & Ruth’s Delly.

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February 14, 2011 · 7:55 am

Storyboard land

All right, I admit it, I am doing this Valentine’s Day thing to death. Just one more, I promise.

Trend Hunter, which had all those zany gift ideas I told you about on Saturday, is offering a dozen or so ideas—storyboards, actually—for proposing marriage to your sweetheart today.

I trust that, if you were going to pop the question on Valentine’s Day, you would have planned it by now. But perhaps you’re impulsive and need the right creative inspiration for how to do it. If that’s the case, you’ll find everything from a talking engagement ring to saying it with sneakers to creative deployment of social media.

One thing these ideas have in common is that it’s all about the storyboard, even if it’s illustrated in one’s mind rather than physically laid out on cardboard or in a graphic design program. How will you stage the ultimate ask (don’t you hate “ask” as a noun?), what effects will help you build up to the big moment and, most important, what steps will you take to ensure the desired response?

I was proposed to on Valentine’s Day. Allow me to share the storyboard.

First, you must know a couple of things about us. One, he was, is and always will be a big fan of the N.C. State Wolfpack (remember, it’s college basketball season). Two, he and I were big fans of the then-popular sitcom, Newhart, in which that week’s episode featured the exchange of Valentine’s gifts.

If I recall correctly (it’s been 26 years), loveable but slightly dimwitted handyman George Utley, played by the avuncular Tom Poston, was advising one of the characters on how to make sure his sweetheart liked her Valentine’s gift.

George suggested, “First give her a box of coconut candy,” to which the man responded, “But she hates coconut candy.” George said, “I know, but then, when you give her the real gift, she’ll be happy,” or something to that effect.

That’s how it played out. Guy gives gal coconut candy. Gal says, “Thanks, but I hate coconut candy.” Guy says, “I know, that’s why I got you this,” gives her the second gift and she loves it.

Back to the storyboard. On February 14, 1985, he invited me over for a Valentine dinner. Even though the Wolfpack was playing, when I got to his apartment, the television wasn’t even on. Instead a Linda Ronstadt album of love songs—might have been Lush Life—was spinning on the turntable.

We ate spiced shrimp and drank champagne. After dinner, we exchanged gifts. I gave him a coffee mug. He gave me a bag of Mounds bars.

I said, “Thanks, but you keep it. I don’t like coconut candy.”

He said, “I know, and that’s why I got you this.”

I unwrapped the box and found inside a diamond engagement ring.

Great storyboard, superb execution, happy ending. 

I wonder if the ’pack is playing tonight.

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January 28, 2011 · 8:52 am

Friends in power

Here in the Washington area, we are recovering from something called a thundersnow.

After escaping the monster storms that have ripped through the East Coast this winter, we got our due Wednesday and Thursday, with thunder, lightning and six inches of the wettest, heaviest snow and ice we’ve seen in recent times. Many, if not most, people—Democrats and Republicans alike—lost their power.

Our little town outside the city experienced added drama following the collapse of our power substation. For a time, around 8:00  p.m., we had total daylight with flashes of bright red sky. I wondered why I was the only person on my street out shoveling until the eight-year-old next door came out and begged me to go inside. “You’ll get struck by lightning,” he repeated until I obeyed.

I adapted reasonably well to loss of electricity, heat and hot water. Then, my trusty iPhone, and my lifeline to the outside world, lost about 90 percent of its functionality.

Once the thunder died down, I realized just how quiet life is without power. I don’t listen to television or music while I’m working; there’s usually enough noise in my head. Otherwise, my home is filled with the sounds of music, television, ringtones and appliance buzzers. In the absence of these devices, the quiet became uncomfortable.

From time to time I took refuge in my car, enjoying the heated seats and charging my phone in hopes that it might come back to life in time to entertain me. But when I found myself sitting in the car, alone in the driveway, singing Copacabana—loudly—along with Barry Manilow, I realized that maybe quiet isn’t so bad.

Everyone will have a memory from Thundersnow 2011. Mine is one simply of neighbors who care enough to tell you to come in out of the storm and help you clear your driveway when your spouse is away, and people with power who invite you to spend a warm night. And Barry Manilow.

P.S.  Stolen from the person who hosted me last night (and the first half of my life):  “The federal government put out an advisory that only those with essential jobs should report to work. Joe Biden built a snowman.”

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