Cords and Fleece

  This video makes me want to run out and get pregnant. Not only are these kids adorable, but they kick serious heavy metal ass: Notice the location? Yes, that’s a bunk bed -- perfect. All I can say is, this video makes me happy. In fact, I may start a list of “videos that make me happy” and this will be number 1 on the list. It makes me want to procreate like crazy and fill our house with electric guitars and drums. Rock on, gauchos!  

  I have a nemesis -- an archenemy, an antagonist in the story of my recent life. It is our car stereo. I hate it and I’m pretty sure it hates me, too. We bought a new radio from Best Buy a couple of months ago when our old one stopped working. Every radio at the store looked the same -- the same size, the same type of buttons, the same blue or orange digital displays. None of them looked like our old one. Which is fine. I can adapt. Except... What the stereo did not include (but should have) was a degree in How To Work This Stereo from Pull Out Your Freakin’ Hair University. Let me put it this way: I shouldn’t have to consult the manual to turn the stereo off . You’d think “off” would be one of those primary, easily accessible functions of a car stereo, right up there with turning it up or down (which, by the way, doesn’t work as you’d expect, either). But there is no Off button, and the volume knob is temperamental at best. To demonstrate, here’s an example of me trying to turn off t...

  They say Disney, we say The Jesus Lizard. They say Sesame Street, we say The Melvins. And on and on it goes -- the battle over music in the car. Like a couple of old women, the girls yell for us to “turn it down” and to “please play the Lonely Goat Herder song,” -- anything but the electric guitar-driven music we so, so enjoy. But every once in a while, they surprise us. For a while there, we convinced Elizabeth that the Cookie Monster was the lead singer of Mastadon. “Hey Lizzy -- who’s that?” we’d ask. “It’s the Cookie Monster!” she’d say. Her happiness only made us feel a teensy-bit guilty about our heavy metal lie. And now Samantha is demonstrating a fondness for AC/DC’s “The Girl’s Got Rhythm” from their album Highway to Hell ( yes! ). Specifically, the chorus that goes: The girl’s got rhythm (girl’s got rhythm) The girl’s got rhythm (girl’s got rhythm) She’s got the back seat rhythm (back seat rhythm) The girl’s got rhythm (click the play button, below, to listen -- or clic...

Desensitize/Appreciatize: verb [trans.] To make someone appreciate a thing (music, tv show, concept, etc.) when the person does not want to initially. Revealing a thing’s positive characteristics despite resistance in order to change someone's mind. Example: I’m going to desensitize/appreciatize you into liking Jethro Tull. What else do you call it when your husband makes you encourages you to listen to hours of Jethro Tull when initially you hate flutey music because it reminds you of all those creepy spaghetti westerns you used to watch at your Grandmother’s house in the 70’s, causing you to associate flutes with loneliness and dusty cowboy boots? Then, after several months of Tull overload, one day you hear Aqualung and find yourself humming along and snapping your fingers? Exactly -- Desensitize/Appreciatize. Michael has desensitized/appreciatized me to all sorts of wonderful music. The first step is to desensitize -- to play the music over and over and over again in order to ...

I don’t understand. I’m sitting in my car, relaxing and bucking up for the work day ahead. I am surrounded by Eucalyptus trees. It is warm and the sun is shining. A kid parks his car next to mine. His music is so loud that it vibrates my windows. I understand loud music. Love it. Indeed, I was listening to “ Ace of Spades ” (by Motorhead) quite loudly just a few minutes earlier. The music he likes is not my music, though. It is formulaic, soulless, angst-pop which passes for rock n’ roll on safe radio today. But I also understand soulless music. Love it. Indeed, I was listening to “ Let the Music Play ” (by Shannon) just yesterday, and having a great time, too. But why, why does he leave his car, walk all the way across the parking lot (with his windows rolled down) without turning down the radio which remains at full volume? Why? No one is waiting for him in his car. He can’t even hear it. Why?! If I have to listen to loud, soulless pop music, can it please be music I like? Young man...

I drove to work today all by myself -- like a big girl! My husband took the girls to daycare so I could take a class tonight. (Did I mention he's wonderful?) I didn’t even care that I had to drive the “Granny Car” (our ‘97 Civic), or listen to music on our broken-down radio that suddenly drops to nothing and then bursts to ear-crushing volumes. I listened to music. Sweet, uninterrupted (sometimes soft... sometimes LOUD) music. Ten minutes into the drive (with the heat warming my toes, a bagel sitting next to me, and a plastic Dora cup of Pepsi), Punkrocker came on the radio. It’s a new song by the Teddybears featuring Iggy Pop. Yes! So, not only do I get to drive alone and listen to music, I get to indulge in one of my domestic survival fantasies. A DSF, for those of you who don’t know, is something domestics do to survive domesticity. I fantasize about “whatever blows my skirt up” (as my neighbor Ida May used to say.) It’s like taking a long drag on a smooth cigarette. Or taking...