Sick Day

Did I miss a Monday?  Of course I did.  Well, I didn’t really miss it. It happened. I was here. I still paid my dues, just not as a blogger. I paid them as a husband.

Yah, the difference is far more labor intensive.

It appears last year I agreed to love honor and cherish. Somewhere around page 37, paragraph 3 of that agreement, there’s a servitude clause. 

“READ IT!” Says MyQueen handing me a snotty Kleenex.  She’s a little delirious. The wedding document is in her other hand. If she’ll only blow her nose on that, I’m a free man. That’s written in the fine print on the next page.

 I shouldn’t complain. I love her, and by all bio-virulent calculations, this cold is my cold she’s carrying.

“Mom! Dad! The Pirate Queen is having my virus!”

“Thanks son. It’s 3am.”

I feel a little guilty. Not about the call. My folks are used to that. I mean about passing on the cold. I’m also a little understanding. I’ve had this thing. It only had her down for four days. It took me over a week to pass it along.  She’s just proving her superiority. I let her.  That’s on page one of our contract.

It’s bad if I ignore page one before our first anniversary.  That’s coming up soon. Did you know?  I sure did.  According to Hallmark, the first anniversary is paper. Yah, I think they have a vested interest in that.

Well this first anniversary I have a little surprise for their marketers. This year I’m bucking their tradition and going vinyl.

“It’s a Cat Woman suit. How thoughtful…”

Shhh. Don’t spoil the surprise. 

Actually, no. I’m not going that vinyl. It turns out that my anniversary is also National Record Store Day. Whoo freakin’ Hoo! Record stores participating in my anniversary will give away Jimi Hendrix posters, and bands like Garbage are putting together special recordings to celebrate my love. Jack White is the official RSD ambassador. That makes him my anniversary ambassador!

That makes this the best marriage ever!

How many other couples can say they spent their first anniversary with Jimi Hendrix and Garbage?  Okay, so Jimi will only be there in spirit. We’re not digging him up, but the Garbage is there and they’re real.

“I thought you were special. I thought you should know…”

This is a big event. Go to your favorite record store, or the Record Store Day website and celebrate both my loves!

I can’t wait.

Until then, I’m handling the less glamorous side of love: the dirty Kleenex.

“READ IT!”

“Yes, my love…”

And the Winner Is?

Next week is the Grammy Awards.  You and your Water Cooler Club watching?

I might.  I’m undecided.  I haven’t watched for the last few years. Some say it’s because I’m bitter ever since I lost my music industry job. Some also say that Pete Rose was bitter after they kicked him out of hockey, and he was a lot closer to the puck than I ever was to a Grammy, or the music industry, really. Trust me.

No, my “music industry” gig was playing “name that tune” for the radio machine, and selling playlists to the highest bidder. I was a sort of a radio & record James Bond, without the Martinis, the guns, or the women. Still, a pretty good gig while it lasted. It lasted till the same technology that brought you Shazam (the song identifier, not the super hero.) started naming all the music for me.

“Shazam! Shazam! Shazam!”

Yah, still wrong Shazam, Gomer Pyle.

And I, like Charlie Bucket’s father and the toothpaste factory, was out of a job. In a way I was bitter, but more like, “wow, that was a waste of time,” and not like “I’m with you Pete Rose! I hate music!”

Still, over the last few years, I’ve have kinda hated music, but that had nothing to do with my old job, Pete Rose or Gomer Pyle.  Okay, maybe Jim Nabors did freak me out a bit, but that was different.

“Well Sergeant Carter, have the lambs stopped screaming?”

Don’t remember that one? It’s a lost episode. Just like my music. 

Music has been on the downbeat for a few years.  There’s nothing new. That’s not to say there’s nothing good. I do like all the artists up for album of the year. Jack White, Mumford & Sons, Black Keys, Frank Ocean, and Fun.? All great. I don’t care who wins. They deserve it, but are they new? Not really. Not even Frank & Fun., who are up for the Best New Artist Award, don’t sound that new.  They sound like every other song on every other radio stations.

Good, but not new, and now it’s good and stale.

The good news is music is cyclical. For every down, there’s an up, and with every beat, there’s hope that things will get funky again and meet on the one. I’ve seen it happen before. When I was a kid, I was lolled into a stupor by disco, but shaken awake by punk and funk. That was the late 70’s early 80’s. The new music came as a backbeat to the gas crunch, high inflation, unemployment, and hostages in Iran. It came as a way to cope, and voice of dissatisfaction.

Then life got softer, and so did the music. Yuppies ruled, and money flowed. By the end of the 80’s a faceless army of hair-bands partied and rappers lost street cred. Paychecks written by mall rats paid for music’s soul and every musician danced to the same lifeless tune.

We didn’t worry, we were happy.

Then we went to Iraq, and woke up next to Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. A new high jobless rate drew us out of the mall in an early morning walk of shame.

“I hope I can get home before anybody sees me wearing Lycra.”

That’s not to say we sobered up, we just needed a new drug, different from the one Huey Lewis had sold us. Some found it the industrial haven of Nine Inch Nails, who built up a sonic wall, and preached the evils of God money. We were all game, until Trent told us what he wanted to do to us like an animal. Then we were really into him.

Nirvana came out sounding like a noise we’d never heard before. Something harmonious and brash and wailing, but always new, even compared to the grunge-clones we tried tying them to.

“He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs…”

“Shazam! Shazam! Shazam!”

Tupac gave us California Love, and we only felt a little dirty for accepting it, and Oasis built us a Wonderwall. It was nice a gift.  Then life got better and the music suffered again, and it has been nothing but the same ever since.

Now, we’re enduring the worst recession, the mortgage industry has failed us, and jobs are harder to find than a long term Taylor Swift relationship.

“Shaza—“ It ain’t happening, Gomer. Give it up.

I’ve gone through the old pain and suffering, again. Now where the heck is my new music? Where’s my “Hell yah, that’s how I feel!”?  Where is my frackin’ consolation prize? Something is horribly wrong when so many American’s are unemployed for so long that we have to give them a name (the 99ers), and the only consolation that they get is Carly Rae Jepsen patting them gently on the back and saying, “Call Me, Maybe.” At least with Trent we got a reach around.

“I lost my home in 08 and all my banker got me was this Justin Bieber T-shirt.”

Now it’s Grammy time. I just don’t know if I have the heart to watch, because I don’t know if they’ve got the heart to make new music.