guilty pleasure monday: rescue me (fontella bass)

what’s a fontella bass?

a) a treasured instrument used by the likes of bassists like mccartney and sting

b) a fish found in the depths of the mississippi

c) an amazing soul singer who went without writing credits for her biggest hit for decades

well, duh.

fontella bass is still around and singing her heart out, especially in gospel circles. but the lady is best known for a song you’ve probably heard on commercials, movie soundtracks, and if you’re like me, in your head on days when your kids fight over who is breathing whose air. rescue me, released in 1965, is a fun song, with a thumping horn and drum section. for years, i thought it was aretha singing it — at the time, i didn’t know there were others with heart-stoppingly huge voices out there. but there are.

rescue me is also a song that gave bass a share of heartache for a long, long time. was it because she was a woman? was it because she was african-american? hard to prove, of course, but for a long time, no one was willing to give her credit as a co-author of the song, which resulted in financial losses for her, not to mention the fact that she notes (on her website) that she was known as a troublemaker for demanding her rights. (bet that made it hard to get work.) finally, in 1990, she started to get paid for the song, only to have to file suit against American Express (and Ogilvy & Mather, the ad agency) when she heard the song used on an Amex commercial without her permission.

i hope someone invents a typeface named after her. it would be bold, sans serif, that’s for certain.

1-2-3-4

you knew it was inevitable.

of course, it will never top my all-time favorite: furry happy monsters.

c’mon monsters — you don’t have to cry!

oh. if only mike mills would marry me. then again, we both have sons with the same name. could make step-parenting a challenge. (not to mention the pesky fact i’m already spoken for.)

letting go

i didn’t realize how easy i had it with one child until i had a second.

and i would never, ever trade either of them in for all the tea in china (though there are days when i might give them away, especially on days when they fight about the most picayune things. like who is taking up more space on the planet.)

but this week, while BC is at sleepaway camp with the Girl Scouts for the first time, i am feeling a little blue. i haven’t gotten any boohooey phone calls begging me to drive out to boofoo the middle of nowhere camp to come and pick her up. i’m pleasantly surprised by that fact, as i intentionally picked the camp closest to home in case i got the call at some ungodly hour and had to schlep my ass out, half-asleep, and collect the child. after all, when girlfriend found out that there was no electricity in the cabins, that they had to pee in latrines, that they would have to CLEAN aforementioned latrines, and that there were bugs in them there woods… well, we were not amused.

but she’s still there.

it is giving me the opportunity to really focus on jools, my little big man, who will be hitting elementary school soon (and probably hard.) we play toss the dog with his webkinz. we watch the magic schoolbus, especially the one where they all turn into bats. i want to be a bat, he tells me, because i want to eat bugs. (charmed, i’m sure.) but it’s leaps and bounds better than his current favorite, ben ten: alien force. (yep. the interest in aliens is completely BS’s contribution to the gene pool. but the fact that he rewinds it multiple times to hear the theme song, which he loves — all mine.)

i love the fact that it’s all about him, as it never really is on most days. that’s part of the fun of not being the first child; although when you’re the youngest, you eventually get your turn… of course, you get it as a teenager, when you really don’t want all that much one-on-one time with your folks. typically speaking, anyway.

still, the house is so quiet. i don’t miss people fighting.

but i miss my girl.

i don’t want to tell her, though. she’s the type who will never leave my side if she thinks i’m sad. and part of being a mom — maybe the toughest part about being a mom — is letting go.

if this is just a week, i can’t imagine what’s in store for me later.

this party sucks

okay, i really wanted to entitle this why six flags america sucks, but as i like to keep my titles thematically consistent (hey, you hadn’t noticed by now that in 2008, they’re all song titles?) AND, well, any excuse to mention the slickee boys…

anyway, for the past few years, we’ve bought annual passes to six flags. going once pretty much pays for it, and going more than once makes it more cost-effective… cost-effective until you buy items at the park, like food, water, and anything else. but that’s life in amusement park land, of course. i don’t mind when it’s a special day; and every summer, i take one day and take BC to the park alone, and i take jools to the park alone on another. we only go either on weekends early or late in the season or weekdays in the summer; this helps to combat massive crowds. this year, i have already taken both kids to the park, and i am more than underwhelmed. in fact, i can safely state that the park has gone to hell in a handcart. here’s why, in no particular order:

1. all those signs that tell people to keep it clean because employees’ families attend the park, too? how about some employees respecting MY family once in awhile? like not saying the word shit in front of my five year old? okay, so i’m a potty mouth, albeit a judicious one; i just don’t expect that sort of thing in regular conversation by a service employee who is in uniform and on the job.

2. gum. on my shoe. every time.

3. wave pool doesn’t open on time. ever. something to do with training lifeguards. hello? the pool is supposed to open at 11. it gives you a couple of hours to train them prior to park opening. oh, you mean it’s too cold to swim before then? you’re a lifeguard; get over yourself.

4. wave pool closes for 15 minutes every hour.

5. way too many unsupervised kids in wave pool, kids who don’t seem to care about whether they ride over someone on a raft. why do they even allow rafts in the wave pool?

6. way too many unsupervised kids in crocodile cal’s beach house. lifeguards circle the area, but i finally had to step in when my five year old was getting continually mowed down by other kids while waiting his turn for slides.

7. ditto for the baby pool area. there is an EXTREMELY thin yet high staircase to the top of the big slide there. it is covered in netting, which my son was able to move to a dangerous degree. and once on top, he was actually pushed around by boys and girls who were about 12. at least.

8. sylvester’s bounce and pounce? not open in the morning.

9. kiddy bumper cars? not open in the morning.

10. flume ride? not open at opening.

11. renegade rapids? not open til noon.

12. there’s one coaster that has never been open in the four or five years i have had season passes. looks like it would be fun, but i’ll never know.

13. why is the train only available to picnicking business groups? do you have any earthly idea how many little kids want to ride the choo choo?

14. 30 minutes to get two slices of cheese pizza. 30. minutes. with. a. hungry. five. year. old. boy. oh, and this wasn’t at peak time: this was at 2 pm on a monday afternoon.

15. witnessed female employee (princess was her name; and if she moved any slower, she would be moving backwards. the other lady, karouselle, lived up to her name, moving in circles) at papa johns (aforementioned pizza experience) actually give away another person’s whole pizza.

16. no manager present to discuss pizza situation.

17. at register, mentioned the issue to cashier. sorry, he said, we’re short-staffed. ultimately, he gave me a 20% discount on my two slices for my trouble. thus apparently, 30 minutes of my-special-day-with-my-boy-sucked-up-into-a-papajohns-vortex-of-doom = $2.60. whee.

18. no more pesky service staff at locker center near the front. sadly, when the computerized locker failed to work, there were no more pesky service staff to help us. nine year old daughter actually had to flag down passing employee, who radioed for help. help came 15 minutes later when daughter recognized the computer logo on a man passing by. daughter snagged said man and brought him over. (note to self: who needs assertiveness training classes for BC? send her to six flags and let her loose to find any employee who might actually help her in a situation.)

19. $1 off skill games coupon in six flags season pass coupon book apparently not applicable for the water-gun game this week. funny, it was applicable two weeks ago when BC played at the same booth, but now, water squirting is apparently no longer a skill, unlike what six flags itself says on its website:

Games

Ready for a little friendly competition? Come out to the park and show us what you’ve got. Step right up for long-range basketball, skee-ball, water gun races­­-real games of skill. Team up with your group or go head-to-head. You might just win a prize for someone special.

shooting basketballs and skeeball apparently is. who knew?

20. as BS pointed out, if the water gun race is not a game of skill, then it is a game of chance, which is illegal, if i am not mistaken, in prince georges county.

21. two people must play in order for someone to win a prize in aforementioned non-game-of-skill. thus, you are paying $6 for a stuffed item made in china.

22. aforementioned stuffed item made in china has a GAPING hole in it, much like the gaping hole in identical item BC won a few weeks ago. wondering whether there was a child laborer stowed away in item. hope he or she was able to find freedom here.

23. on summer weekdays, it appears that every elementary through high school aged child in the county is present without any parents, in full bling and pushing past other kids who might actually be in front of them in line for anything.

24. have the balls in the looney toons prop warehouse ever been cleaned? has the looney toons prop warehouse ever been cleaned? i had the pleasure of sitting next to an opened bottle of orange soda today, spillage and all, and we were among the first people in the place.

and, finally,

25. the bathrooms? i’ll refrain from TMI, but in a word, EWWW.

i’m not entirely sure whether this is the case in all six flags. i had thought about taking the kids to six flags great adventure next week, but after our experiences so far this year, i am wondering whether the entire corporation is going kerflooey. there are so many amusement parks that do things well — disney, of course, and hersheypark, for two — so i have to wonder whether six flags simply cannot handle things.

i think this may be our last year for season passes.

guilty pleasure monday: against all odds

when i was 19, i wanted nothing more than to look like rachel ward as she looked in the movie against all odds. i thought she was (and is!) incredibly gorgeous, with her dark swirls curving around her porcelain face. i got an ill-fated perm, a perm which haunts me to this day in family photos, a perm second only in ridiculousness to the horrific perm i had in 1988, when my then-boyfriend (now BS) announced: you look like a poodle.

(for the record, he has since learned to make criticisms comments more judiciously for fear of incurring the wrath of G-d a flood of tears.)

but in 1984, i cut my long straight hair and permed it, and i listened incessantly to phil collins’ title film track against all odds:

(ah yes. is that phil singing, or is it the aztec? or is it mayan? incan? south and central american history has never been my strength, though i’ll still take it on Jeopardy! long before i take Calculus for $200, Alex.)

ah, phil. (not to be confused with the group BS refers to as phil and the phils.) this was the point when phil went from being cool to being hot. and without calling up the spirit of Dr. Fahrenheit, there is a vast difference, musically, in being cool versus being hot. when phil was with genesis up until about 1981 or so, he was cool. he took musical chances. he wrote interesting, non-vapid songs. like this. i even liked his first two solo albums. no lie.

but then, he got very polished, and he had a musical midas touch that lasted for years. genesis got MTV-friendly. his songs became utterly obnoxious. (if i have to hear sussudio any more in my lifetime, i may spontaneously combust.) he produced everyone and their dog (Frida, Philip Bailey, Eric Clapton), showcasing his exceptional and unique gated reverb drum sound. i wanted to cheer him on; there’s something so likeable about him. but once you start writing disney soundtracks, you often become less musically interesting (though probably incredibly wealthy. old rockers never die: they either write cartoon soundtracks (billy joel, elton john), broadway musicals (billy joel, pete townshend), or go classical (billy joel, elvis costello, paul mccartney.) (note to self: what is UP with billy joel?)

the last song i can recall that he wrote that moved me to tears is against all odds. sure the movie, a remake of out of the past, is murky and convoluted, in spite of the saving grace that is rachel ward’s hair. but the song is powerful and showcases phil at his best: singing about lost love. i’d argue the best work he has ever done is when he is in searing emotional pain (see: Duke, Face Value, Hello, I Must Be Going). of course, i would never wish that on anyone, let alone someone as nice as phil; but i think once his life got in order, his music became less emotional and less gripping.

after divorce #3, phil has formally announced his retirement from music, at least from center stage. he’s going to sit back and collect memorabilia from the Alamo. i think that’s a nice euphemism, sort of like how politicians retire to spend more time with their families.

it’s against all odds that he might write another amazing classic. but i’ll never, ever count the bald guy out.

stuck in the middle with you

after our magical day on wednesday, i granted BC a day off from cheerleading camp for good behavior. we ran errands, we chatted, we laughed, we took a grownup friend (of both of ours!) out to lunch, and generally had a lovely day. i know there’s a school of thought that would say that BC needed to get back on the horse that threw her — and i often do make her do just that — but i felt strongly that girlfriend needed to see that i was in her corner. no matter what.

PHOTO REMOVED BECAUSE OF CREEPS ON THE INTERNET. YOU SUCK, PERVS.

how could anyone be mean to this face?

so this morning, we started our drive to camp, both of us feeling pretty sunny. today is the last day of cheerleader camp. i knew i would call the camp office later and explain girlfriend’s situation so that when she starts another camp there in two weeks, girlfriend already has peeps looking out for her. my beloved mentor/former boss/second dad down here in DC taught me a lesson back in the day which i’ve never forgotten — don’t stress about bad stuff — DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT — then move on. (i love that Cool Pops guy.) so i knew i would feel better later after i did what i could do for Dog, Country, and Beloved Child.

but back to the ride in. as usual, i have my mp3 player blaring, which usually prompts BC, AKA my grandmother reincarnated, to tell me to turn it down!!!! (how’s that for role reversal?) my mp3 player, as noted in other places, is somewhat eclectic. but one of my favorite guilty pleasures came on, and suddenly, little miss backseat driver yells, turn it up!

we begin to sing:

clowns to the left of me,

jokers to the right.

here i am, stuck in the middle with you.

i look at my rearview mirror at little girl bopping to the music. this is pretty much our song, isn’t it? i asked.

uh huh, she replied, grinning.

girls talk

there are some things you can’t cover up with lipstick and powder. – elvis costello

the shoe has officially dropped. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to puberty.

tonight, i am dealing with a teary, dreary young lady. she has been enduring cheerleading camp for nearly two weeks, and while at first it looked promising, i think it will knock any remaining desire to be a cheerleader out of her. not only do they make you do all sorts of exercises, but the young teen counselors have actually been rewarding girls who win different training competitions. rewarding them with pop rocks and other assorted candies, apparently.

BC has not won once.

all those years of experiences where everyone gets rewarded just for trying crashes down on your head at this age. i always wondered when that would happen, and here we are, odd girl out. its difficult to watch — girlfriend is just not terribly competitive – she really just wants to have fun. and the counselors are pitting the girls against each other.

sometimes, with disastrous results.

remember earlier in the week when BC said that one girl couldn’t be a flyer? well, BC is pretty much out of the flyer running, too. the girls can’t lift her now. one girl dropped the bomb to end all bombs: you’re really heavy, she proclaimed to my girl. you’re really heavy.

i could go fucking postal.

while i would never condone any sort of idiotic and lethal interactions, i can almost put myself into the shoes of that murderous TX cheerleader mother and see the sort of anger that could build up over time. no, i don’t give a shit whether my kid is EVER a cheerleader (i’m not a cheerleading fan, remember?) but hell yeah, i care whether my daughter starts to develop an obscenely-skewed view of herself because of what some pipsqueak twat said to her.

i know. it happened to me. not in cheerleading, but in gym class. i, too, had a curvy figure at a youngish age. most of the girls were blonde twigs with nearly non-existent boobage. if a stiff wind had blown, they would all have required nose jobs from the impact their faces would have made with the gym floor. somehow, the future stepford wives of america were accepted as the norm, and athletic, muscular me, was regarded as some sort of freak.

now, i look at pictures of myself from back then and think what the hell was this poor girl thinking? she’s gorgeous. sure, she’s not a twig. but she’s just right for who she is. she’s smart. she’s kind. she’s got a good heart. she’s even kinda cute. why did she try weight watchers when she was 9? why is she spending some days eating just fruit? why is she spending some days simply drinking water and nothing else? why is she running around the block all the time?

i spent time in college with someone very close to me who was bulimic. i wanted so very much to tell her parents, but i swore i wouldn’t. i did the very best i could at age 21: i took her to a weight management class that my college offered and tried to be her buddy, her support, her one-person builder-upper. i don’t know whether it helped her much, but eventually, it spurred her on to get professional help. (i’m glad to say that many years later, she is healthy and has conquered those devils.)

but i see the future. and that’s EXACTLY what’s afoot in this here household. mama, i’m FAT! she announced. the girls can’t lift me.

i said it before, and i’ll say it again: those girls need to get out, lift weights, and start doing something more athletic than twisting ribbons for their hair.

when i had a little girl, i vowed i would raise her without exposing her to my weight issues. in this house, i talk about exercise and eating right and striving to be healthy. not nicole richie-thin. not barbie-perfect. just be the best you and the best me that we can be, inside and out. it has been hard work, and i’m sure there are times i have not been perfect about it. but i must say that this has always been one of my parental lines in the sand: i disciplined my mouth and my behavior so as to not utter those immortal words in front of my child: do these jeans make my butt look big?

and all that hard work, all that painstaking process, is being undone by one snot-nosed little girl, a girl who has probably also gotten some weird message about herself and about bodies. where does it all end?

i was in tears, which is admittedly not a great place to be when you’re a mom and you’re trying to comfort your child as she hits a hard, brick wall of reality. honey, i pleaded, you ARE beautiful. you’re also kind, intelligent, and incredibly emotionally astute. you have no earthly idea how wonderful, how special you are. every parent i have ever encountered can’t say enough wonderful things about what a great kid you are. your brother worships you. and your father and i love you and are so very proud of the person you are.

please, please tell me you know how special you are!

blink, blink. a pause.

mommy, all those girls in high school with glasses, who are smart, they end up as dorks.

whoa, girlfriend. you’re getting personal now.

deep breath. sometimes as a parent, you have to pull strength from sources that come from seemingly out of nowhere. i called upon two: my oldest brother the doctor (BTD) and eleanor roosevelt.

honey, i said, when i went to camp, all the boys liked my friend. they didn’t like me like that; they thought i was too smart for them. it made me cry. that summer, uncle BTD had shingles, and he had to stay in bed most of the summer. i would come home from camp, and i would sit and talk with him. BTD, i cried one day after camp, i think i need to start acting dumb. none of the boys like me like they like [name deleted] because i’m too smart. they want dumb girls.

my brother, demonstrating amazing grace under probably annoying sibling pressure, looked my way. don’t you EVER start acting dumb to get liked. there will be boys one day who will appreciate you just as you are.

BC, i continued, you know i hate to admit it when either of your uncles is right, but in this case, i have to tell you: uncle BTD was right. what he said was that you shouldn’t change yourself to make someone like you, advice which has stood me in good stead even to this day. who wants to be liked by someone who doesn’t like the special things you have to offer?

she looked at me. and just cos i was smart doesn’t make me a dork, sister. she smiled, i think.

i continued, on my own personal mission. the quote i like to live by was said by eleanor roosevelt — you know, that lady who was married to a president we talked about that time? eleanor said something so wise, it still is something i think about as a grownup. her words:

no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

do you know what that means, BC?

she piped up: that no one can make you feel bad?

i augmented her thought: yes, that no one can make you feel bad about yourself unless you let them. don’t you let them, my girl. she calmed down enough to sleep.

i wonder what the morning will bring. eleanor, don’t fail me now.

ants marching

ARGH!

the heavy rains, probably combined with my stellar ability to keep up with the massive crumbs and spills that the kids (especially hellboy) rain down upon the floor have resulted in a ton of ants visiting us. to be fair, they started about a month ago, one or two intrepid souls (souls? do ants have souls? brains?) trotting around the table where we eat. easily smooshed and removed. (hey — don’t confuse me with sharon stone and her treatment of tarantulas.)

but last night at dinner, BS noticed a swarm (swarm? what is a group of ants called? a gaggle? a colony? a political party?) by the table, right where hellboy had spilled an entire cup of apple juice the night before. i had cleaned it up with a lot more than just soap, water and paper towels, but evidently, that was not enough; those ants picked up the trail of sweet stuff and off they ran. so off i ran to the store to buy ammonia; and with it in his possession, BS started his radical clean, followed by some ant bait he had on hand. (note to self: must figure out where he keeps this stuff.)

this morning, there are a bajillion ants swarming in and around this ant trap thingy he has set up. i’m afraid to let the kids eat at the table, though jools has no such fear.

i really like nature; i just don’t like nature when it shows up in my house looking for its next meal.

(warning to the raccoons who use my trash can as a diner: it won’t be long before i attach bungee cords to the can and you’ll have to dine elsewhere.)

guilty pleasure monday: all the time in the world (the subdudes)

summer in the southland especially makes me reach for two things: a cold drink (with or without an umbrella), and some nice rootsy, bluesy rock. and today’s guilty pleasure monday selection, while not well-known, is a special song for me.

all the time in the world, which you can also find on my muxtape as various (since it wouldn’t edit, for reasons i will never understand), is a song by the subdudes, a group from nawlins, looziana (i am learning to pronounce things properly). i cannot claim to have sought them out at first; i actually became acquainted with them, and this song in particular, thanks to a mixtape my best buddy murph made me in the mid ’90s. i never actually listened to the aforementioned mixtape until one fateful day.

i was in an untenable situation at work. i won’t go into details, but suffice to say, i was not in the right place, i was not being given any direction, and i had a lot of responsibility with very little authority. i knew things were wearing me down, and i knew this was probably not an optimal situation, but i didn’t quite know what to do.

one monday, i walked in, dressed in ratty jeans and t-shirt. i was going to pack up my office, as i was told i was going to be moving offices. precisely at 9, i was called into my boss’s office. he was seated there, along with the company’s VP of human resources. not a good sign. i sat down. my boss, who, i have to believe has a good heart in non-work situations, was a bit on the bombastic side, immediately barking at me: wreke: you’ve been terminated!

wha?????

then, the HR veep interjected, no, boss, wreke hasn’t been terminated. her job has been terminated and she has been restructured. wreke has not been terminated!

what????? i hadn’t even had coffee yet, and i was hit broadside with this one.

the HR Veep continued. you have an interview out at the new campus (about 15 miles away.) have you ever been there?

uh, no, i replied, still completely dumbfounded.

you have an interview there at 11. i’ll give you directions. you need to find a job within the company within 30 days or you really are terminated.

i’ll say it again: wha????

i put some stuff in jo-jo, my little-honda-that-could (theme song: jo-jo was a car who thought he was a honda, but he knew he couldn’t last), and looked down at myself. i wore my worst jeans and an old shirt today. i thought i was going to move boxes. and now i was going on an interview?

i was doomed.

in fact, i wasn’t. i later learned that i could have been terminated, like many other people that day, but my original boss at the company, whom i adore, knew my sorry situation and had arranged for me to have an interview over in the international division. lucky for me, my interview was with a person i knew, albeit only  virtually and not in real life, a person who had helped me with some tech work remotely while the person was in germany and i was in the US. i wrote to said person and indicated that i owed him a beer when he returned to the US.

little did i know that the person had returned during the year and that he was a she and in spite of the fact that i almost talked my way out of the job, she hired me. she ended up being a fantastic boss; a terrific and highly respected colleague; a person my kids call aunt; and a clutch, clutch friend i treasure to this very day. (also, no one sings hong kong phooey in german the way she can.)

but, back to the song, right? well. after i finished that fateful interview, figuring i had blown it, i went to make the long drive home and call BS. great news like this has to be shared, right? i put murphy’s mix for the first time into the tape deck (remember those, kids?), fast forwarded it to a random spot, and started to play. and d’ya know what song i was in the middle of?

yep. all the time in the world. and right out there, in scenic dulles, va, a place that doesn’t actually exist, i had an epiphany: i may be on the job hunt, but after two years of long hours, i had a break. i had breathing space.

and, for the first time in years, i had all the time in the world.

You know I’m hungry when I wake up

I’ll be damned if I’m not sleepy when I eat.

The only time I feel good,

is when I got a little dirt underneath my feet

I don t mind eating fast food,

as long as I can eat it real slow

I’m gonna have me some high times

but I might live them way down low

sunday papers

yay! a new badge for me, courtesy of the houston chronicle! thanks, ladies!