Fourth Hour Dedicated to Boz!

One hour. 
Set the timer. 
Go. 
Write. 

I hope you don’t get sick of me. 

For a special, unique treat this time, hop on over to David’s Facebook page to listen to the B-Side of this post! (B-Side? It’s about music! What can I say?? Note: Clue to topic in that last sentence!)

Let us know what you think! Well, unless you hate it! LOL

*****
“Ugh! This letter C. It has stopped working.”

“Click… harder click… POUND.”

I think I read somewhere that the letter C is often the first letter that quits on a computer keyboard. 

Can that be true?? 

What is verifiable is that it’s hard to write on a computer without a working letter C. You would be surprised how often that QWERTY key is used - a hard or soft consonant in a remarkable number of words. All meaning can be lost with a jibberish non-message that doesn’t include that third spot in the alphabetic line-up.

Our cat, Boulpaep, scrambles as a frustrated C-less David suddenly blasts the now-capless space on his maimed keyboard with canned air. 

Boz Scaggs is quietly playing in the background this morning, a thoughtful touch from my husband of 29 years. He knows of my invite to see Boz tonight at the Capitol Theatre. Just a half-second into that faint-playing Lido Shuffle as I come down the stairs convinces me I need to be there. I HAVE TO BE THERE!

And strangely, it convinces David that he absolutely CANNOT be there! 

While Georgia immediately transports me to the hill at Pine Knob in 1979, David is driven down another path he tries to explain to me. But it’s like a foreign language. I don’t understand a word he is saying. And my mind is drifting, honestly, as I still hear in the background lyrics I haven’t heard since high school. I try to hide my smile as I remember when a crowd of friends crammed onto blankets and probably annoyed every single person around us as we stood and sang every single word. 

My friend Dawn, who invited me, told me that Boz is 79 years old now. I admit, his age stung a bit but not like finding out that Mick Jagger is 80 - he just had a birthday! Mick Jagger! Come on! My neighbor just went to see Willie Nelson perform at the Soaring Eagle. Well, at 90, she said he didn’t really perform. He sat and spoke the lyrics instead of sang them! Maybe that is still considered performance. Who am I to say? 

As I thought about the completely opposite feelings David was trying to describe, I encouraged him to write about where Boz takes him emotionally. Annoyed, he said his C is broke! How can he write?
But I see him over there now on a intact-C laptop. I hope he is click, click, pounding something out - maybe others will understand his thoughts far more than they understand my ramblings of these sweet memories.

It’s indisputable, right, that music is able to heal the body, mind and soul in ways that even the most powerful medicine cannot? It is able to remove barriers and transport us to different places, spaces and maybe even the heavenlies at a good Sunday morning service. Music helps us lose ourselves, the demands of self-consciousness, and releases our suffering in favor of pure, unadulterated honey-baked reverie. It can
PUMP
US
UP! 
Shoot, Dancing Queen can quickly change my mood, my night, my day, my week in its entirety. Music has that kind of power, a force, a way of unifying a body of believers whether they are gathered in a sanctuary or at a sold-out downtown Flint concert venue full of people looking for … hmmm

looking for … 

Well, I suppose I’m looking for stolen moments of sheer joy as Boz replays the past, awakens a forgotten world, and helps my soul travel to a heart-warming place without antagonists. After all, music is the language of the spirit. It opens a secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife and reminding us of all that is right with the world…  

I can’t wait! 

The music still drifting in from the kitchen speaker syncs with my heart today,
“Look, look what you’ve done to me.
Never thought I’d fall again so easily
Oh love, you wouldn’t lie to me,
Would you?
Leading me to feel this way?”
❤

Post-Show Note: WOW!! Absolutely the best concert of the summer!

Second Hour, Ramping Up Writing for Pee Wee - RIP

Bear with me as I start playing with words again, those musings flitting around my brain, my heart. 

Today, this is on my mind. I wonder if it is on yours as well…

I spend far too much time thinking about the lives of celebrities. I’m 62 for crying out loud! What is it about their lives on AND off screen that fascinates me??

Today, of course, it’s Pee Wee - or I guess, truthfully, it’s Paul Reubens, but I really only knew him as Pee Wee. And I feel like I knew Pee Wee. I spent countless hours - maybe formative years! - watching Saturday morning Pee Wee Herman in his crazy-creative, animated and highly kinetic playhouse. Most times, at the end of an episode, I was akinetic, somewhat stunned by the brilliance of whoever thought all that stuff up (Today I learned it was Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman, or Captain Carl as I knew him in those days! By the way, I have all five seasons on cd if you haven’t seen it!)

Many years that have passed since then as well as definitions of proper and right when it comes to the news. I remember, though, that something strangely mysterious happened to Reubens in the ‘90s. I only caught bits and pieces back then but it seemed sexual and I remember hearing that it had occurred in a sexual place. In my innocence, I wondered how many others might have done something sexual in a sexual place - No one? Ever? Just Pee Wee? 

Maybe I should be grateful today for the reprieve from my mentally-looped video of Cardie B throwing her microphone at the apparently malcontent fan who had just seconds before, thrown a drink at her. I don’t think that is the first time Cardie B has thrown something either. I’m not saying she is a grade-A player for the microphones team, but sister-friend was no stranger to a passion-filled windup pitch. I’m just saying. Was it warranted? 

Was that Will Smith slap warranted? I know someone who thinks so much of the “comedy” performed by “comedians” today is deserving of a slap of some kind. For the record, that line of not allowing the name of his wife, Jada, in offender Chris Rock’s mouth is the whip! Oh how I wish we had such power some days. 

And then there is the great prophetess Cher, who recently created her own brand of gelato. Ain’t that grand? We are going to soon be eating the same gelato that Cher eats! I can’t wait to buy it! Because, well, it’s Cher! I so clearly remember some of my earliest memories, sneaking down the stairs and sitting on the last step, straining to hear every joke and line of the televised Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. To this day, I really don’t understand my fascination with them - I named my pet Gerbils after them, for crying out loud again! (And did my mom really let me listen to those very provocative songs about tramps and thieves? I’m telling you I missed her edginess back then! Was I blind? Note: I also have the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour on cds.)

Btw, the latest headline says Cher leads the tributes for Paul Reubens today. She knew him. She loved him. Her and I share a special grief for someone who undoubtedly made us laugh, maybe at the same characters and maybe at the same lines. Could that even be? 

I think it could be, especially back then. It seems indisputable that we were more unified in the days before 62, finding levity and escape in the shared experience of Saturday’s episode of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Today, everyone watches any number of shows, all at once, at their own pace, sometimes pounding through a whole season in one sitting. There are so many different channels, apps, and websites that we rarely even watch the same shows any more. 

Add it to the reasons for our lonely lack of connection these days. Are we even laughing at the same things? 

While Pee Wee nearly always made us laugh, I felt a deep sadness when I read about him passing today - I also felt a melancholy for a shared experience I may never know again. How I long for only three choices on my tv (and Channel 50 on a good day!) We use to share universally experienced moments like “Na-nu, na-nu” from a rainbow-suspendered alien or a “pork chops and apple sauce” delivery from a smart-alecky teenager to his very Brady family. The next day every single person was talking about these moments in the halls as we passed from class to class.

Today I am fascinating on Paul Reubens, grateful for the way he made me laugh as his character Pee Wee awkwardly burst out laughing and swung his body wildly during the tequila dance. Did he enjoy it too? His last post on social media makes me think so: “Please accept my apology for not going public with what I have been going through the last six years. I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my fans, friends and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”

I felt that - did you??