mylittlesistersays.com

the sidewinders….. andy paley……...

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:53:00 -0400

the sidewinders….. andy paley…… rendezvous

all roads lead back to lenny kaye today. i present for your approval two great records from the deepest darkest depths of my vinyl only collection. i’ve had them both for as long as i can remember and they’ve both been played, scratched, replayed until the grooves wore out. digital magic brings them to you, a little worse for the wear, but intact.

the sidewinders, rendezvous, speaks for itself. play it and be transported. this record was produced by none other than new york’s own lenny kaye. it’s girl group pop magic from boys, courtesy of our friend andy paley. due to the empty space where my turntable should be, i’ve been singing this song in my head for about ten years. i could see the record, hold it in my hands, even look at the cover art… and nothing.

i’m listening to it for the first time in a million years right now with you. and guess what? it’s even better than i remember.

i know you always say that you agree…

the amazing career of andy paley from wiki.

all roads lead back to lenny kaye…… part one two...

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:29:00 -0400

all roads lead back to lenny kaye…… part one two three

lenny kaye, aka link cromwell: crazy like a fox. digital goodness, scratches preserved. from terry ork to the wall of vinyl to the middleman to you….

i’ll assume you know who lenny kaye is. if you don’t, he’s the man who brought you so many things of wonder you’ll be amazed when you find out. pop historian, guitarist, writer, producer; lenny is a true renaissance man. i’m still in his debt for the Nuggets compilation.

find out all about lenny kaye aqui: http://www.lennykaye.com/

T&S Pirate Love

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:10:00 -0400

T&S Pirate Love

T&S video on tour dublin ireland, video by state

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:03:00 -0400

T&S video on tour dublin ireland, video by state

I Think I’m GoGo…. Squeeze...

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:16:00 -0400

I Think I’m GoGo…. Squeeze ……

yesterday, being father’s day and all, i was absentmindedly choosing songs about dads to listen to. eventually i came across up the junction, the squeeze song, a sad dad song, but a dad song still. it was perfect today and perfect the first time i heard it. it fills all my requirements for a perfect pop song: full of interesting twists and turns in the melody, lyrics i don’t understand, indecipherable british slang, heavy english accents…. if this song was a film, critics would call it a sprawling epic. and it is.

suffice to say, i was huge fan of squeeze. a most wonderful band with consistently great pop songs, they were high on the list of my favorite bands from the second, or was it the third? british invasion. no matter. when i listened to up the junction today i had this flashback of an old memory; one that hadn’t crossed my mind in years.

it gives me great pleasure to present people i like with interesting gifts. on two occasions, i have given friends hohner miniature harmonicas. they are very nice and both recipients were very pleased with them. i’ve also bought them for myself, but i don’t play them. i just like to have them around. i consider myself to be an expert on them because i know that one of them costs just $1.99 and another, the hohner little lady, costs $11.99. that’s the extent of my expertise. the little lady obviously wins and i could never present someone with the lo-fi version unless the little lady was unavailable. see for yourself:

the little lady is the one on the bottom and it really is a work of art. anyway, i’m sure it seems like i lost my train of thought long ago but i haven’t. so… way back whenever it was, squeeze, the band, rolled into lovely new york as most successful english bands will do. they played numerous venues in new york and were in the area for a short time, as i remember.

at some point, i gave a friend of mine the hohner little lady. quite proud and delighted she was with it and flashed it about everywhere. coincidentally, she became very friendly with john bentley, the bass player for squeeze. he too saw the little lady and fell in love.

can you get one of these tiny harmonicas for john, my friend asked me. well, yeah of course i can get one, it’s not like i have to smuggle them over the berlin wall…. why don’t you give him yours and i’ll get you another one.

(continued below for extra suspense)…

unacceptable said my friend. he can’t have...

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:15:00 -0400

unacceptable said my friend. he can’t have mine…….

by nightfall, i was told everyone in the band wanted one. squeeze were playing their last show in the NY area in this weird little disco in new jersey about 2 miles away from my house the following night. i agreed to obtain the harmonicas and meet my friend and the band at the show. by midday i had five hohner little lady’s in a small white envelope that fit in the palm of my hand. by mid evening, my friend called to say she wasn’t making the looong trip from manhattan to nj and i should give the harmonicas to john at the show. and just how will i do that, i asked with a huge attitude. he’ll be expecting you, just give them to him and enjoy the show. click.

this was, of course, just as ridiculous and annoying as it sounds. when i arrived at the venue with my friend jimmy, it became obvious that this one-horse disco was assuming that the beatles were playing and had really beefed up security. my attempt to deliver the harmonicas failed miserably. even worse was the fact that it left me feeling like some hanger on or groupie or some such something that felt bad… the show was awful in part because the venue was just so wrong and in part because i spent most of it trying to come up with a solution to the delivery problem.

i just wanted to deliver the harmonicas and leave with at least a shred of dignity intact.

all of sudden, the band finished a song and walked off the stage, like ducks in a row, or if you prefer, like the beatles. they walked right past my table. it was very dark, i stood up and as john bentley passed by, i shook his hand and passed the envelope holding the five little lady’s. i was amazed that although i had never tried a move like this, it was sooooo the spy who loved me… i was actually good at it…. from the palm of my hand right into his hand, no fumbling, no stumbling, not one wasted movement… who knew i could be so smooth? it was so dark, i’m sure he never saw me.

i returned home, called my friend and yelled at her for a while for talking me into this mega stupidity. she called me back in the wee small hours and confirmed that john was delighted with the little lady’s. case closed as far as i was concerned.

i don’t know if he shared them with the other fab four, but i do secretly hope that jools holland got one.

in retrospect, all i have to say about this whole sordid mess is:

on your bikes

oh yeah, and your anne frank books too.

xdd

A Message To You Rudy...

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:19:00 -0400

A Message To You Rudy …………………

of course, like any right thinking music loving person, i am a huge fan of jamaican music, reggae and all its variations. old school, modern, rocksteady, rudeboy, ska any, all, a lot.

if you’re listening to the audio, that would be a song called Deep Down by Hazel and the Jolly Boys…. or as i like to call it ‘i walk five miles every morning to get your love….” i remember the first time i heard this song, how humbled and awestruck and grateful i was to have unearthed this joyful thing. i spend a good part of my time and much of my life in the pursuit of pop music. 90% of the time, i’m thoroughly disappointed by the usual fare: the boring, the mediocre. so when i do happen to unearth a rare gem, not only is it a cause for celebration, it’s actually a life-changing experience. it becomes a part of me.

from Trojan records, who have brought me boxes and boxes of songs to treasure, Deep Down is part of the Trojan Rocksteady Rarities Box Set. The entire Trojan catalog is a huge and amazing collection of the best of the best. they include much historical and factual info for those of us who care about that sort of thing.

there are, i believe, 69 trojan box sets, all great. one day i will fully immerse myself in the complete trojan catalog and probably won’t surface for years all in the pursuit of the elusive and perfect pop song.

right here for Trojan Records

if you like the modern day reggae, look down and be happy.

kiss me neck, dd

evan dando & elizabeth moses: colin powell my new favorite...

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:22:00 -0400

evan dando & elizabeth moses: colin powell

my new favorite reggae song delivered to all of us using the magic that is this internet by evan dando and elizabeth moses, which is just brilliant. entitled ‘let us now praise famous men,’ try not to get so caught up in the rocksteady beat and miss the lyrics. that would be a shame. thanks for this evan xd

Little Conversations Are We

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:03:00 -0400

Me: Jodi, what are the chords in that song?
Jodi; I IV I III
Me: No, what key are you playing in?
Jodi: G!
Me: So what are the chords?
Jodi: (demonstrating with much annoyance) G D G C!!!!!
Me: Right. Of course…

jodi is my 8 year old niece. the song in question is an original composition that she wrote before my eyes in about 10 minutes called “Cinderella and Me” which was incredibly beautiful. rarely am i as humbled by musicianship as i am when this little girl i love dazzles me with these somewhat hidden gifts.

i speak about her often sometimes mostly out of sheer amazement. diagnosed with autism shortly after her second birthday, she had never spoken or made eye contact with anyone. she played only by herself, never pointed at anything, cried when she wanted something. she started ABA therapy soon after and fought it with everything she had in her. she’s tough and smart. it became apparent that although she didn’t speak, she knew how to read, she drew pictures of the qwerty keyboard even though she had only seen one once. she’d leave words made of refrigerator magnets all over the floor.

by the time she was three, she struggled with speaking but she could sing. not only could she sing, she had perfect pitch and a photographic memory. before long, she was listening to music and walking to the piano and playing the melody. like a tiny scientist she figures out something new every day and incorporates it into her playing. if i don’t see her for a week, it’s incomprehensible how much her playing has improved.

mostly, she’s an 8 year old girl who struggles with the deficits that autism brings. she does a lot of ordinary things that kids do. she rides her bike, she plays with dolls, she surfs the web, plays video games.

look down. she can also do this:

Video Cinderella and Me by Original Composition Jodi R....

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:06:00 -0400

Video Cinderella and Me by Original Composition Jodi R. DiPiazza

Cinderella and me are doing chores
Washing all the windows and opening doors
Mary and her friends are making you a dress
Cinderella you’re the best

Cinderella they tore your dress
Anastasia and Drizella made it a mess
Prince Charming will take you away
You’ll live happily ever after someday

The stepsisters really like to sing
But the prince is going to give you a ring
I saw you at the toontown hall of fame
My friend Sharra was there—— it started to rain

Cinderella they tore your dress
Anastasia and Drizella made it a mess
Prince Charming will take you away
You’ll live happily ever after someday

Cinderella & Me—- You are the best
Cinderella & Me—- You love me
Cinderella & Me— You are the best
Cinderella & Me— I saw you there

Cinderella they tore your dress
Anastasia and Drizella made it a mess
Prince Charming will take you away
You’ll live happily ever after someday

Cinderella & Me
Cinderella & Me— oooh oooh
Cinderella & Me
Cinderella & Me—oooh oooh oooh

The Art of The Cover Album

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:42:00 -0400

it takes a very very brave person to record an album of cover songs. it is not for the shy or the faint of heart. it’s quite possibly the most revealing sort of album one can send out into the world. more revealing than a record full of original compositions even. an artist will live or die on an album full of cover songs. it’s glaring, it’s naked, it’s unforgiving. personally, i’m a magnet for cover songs. i will usually buy any record, sight unseen, sound unheard if the artist has one particularly interesting choice of a cover song. never am i more excited to hear a new record as when i play that cover song for the first time. and i’m always hoping that that the artist will make it their own and that it will be more magical than the original recording. it doesn’t really have to be more magical… even if it’s just equal, it’s good and it’s still the best feeling. and there is always the possibility that it could be better than the original. and that’s the kind of hope that fuels the excitement.

of course that’s a pretty rare occurrence, but when it does happen it’s worth much more than its weight in all the discarded vinyl and tears of disappointment in the search. which is not to say that i believe it to be an impossible task or that it requires extreme talent. on the contrary it could be quite simple. i think a great cover song can be recorded with a toy piano and no microphone. or less. but it does require something rare. it requires that the artist take ownership of the material. marry it, so to speak. love it, honor it, and obey it and it will pay you back tenfold. perform it the way it sounds uniquely to you and with everything you love about it and it will translate.

i have a cover album in the can as they say in the biz. it’s actually a double album. it’s all somewhat obscure songs that i love and have loved for a long time. i recorded this album by myself in a very macgyver sort of way. it was all patch cords and nine volt batteries and effects pedals and bells… there weren’t enough bells in the world for me when i recorded it and also they weren’t up front enough in the mix. it’s a combination of organic sounding guitars and electronic accents and stuff…. it even has a brilliant title, a nod to roxy music, it’s called Last Year’s Fab Rave… unfortunately when it was finished, i set out to record the vocals, my favorite part of course. everytime i tried to sing i had a frog in my throat. every day. so i kept waiting for the right day. as luck would have it the everyday frog hung around for about six months. when it finally took its leave, circumstances in my life interfered with my desire to record the vocals. and so it sits, on the virtual shelf, sans vocals. it’s so finished, it’s even sequenced. the first song is sometimes, by the flamin’ groovies which is not coincidentally the first song i ever played on a guitar.

the last song is reconnez cherie by wreckless eric which was the hardest because deciphering the lyrics required a series of transatlantic phone calls and tutoring by high school french students. it didn’t help so i settled on lyrics i could live with even though they were so not right. who knew he was talking about sodium glare and bedsitland…. i thought they were places. i sat around for hours, days studying maps of the british isles for these imaginary places. i swear this is true. in retrospect, the everyday frog was a blessing in disguise that kept me from trashing my most beloved song.

Video Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, I Still Miss Someone the...

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:41:00 -0400

Video Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, I Still Miss Someone

the last two cover albums i really had high hopes for were bryan ferry’s dylanesque and patti smith’s twelve. i found both utterly disappointing and unnecessary.

wreckless eric and amy rigby released a brand new album of cover songs on june 1st, called two-way family favourites. i was so excited in the days before its release, i actually let the 16 year old version of myself come out and wait for it with me.

we were not disappointed. it’s a great great album and i have not stopped listening to it since i downloaded it from amazon almighty. you may ask yourself if you have not heard the album, why this album of cover songs delights when others fail? a ton of reasons really, but i’ll enumerate a few for you.

first and most obvious, eric and amy are full of joy and wonder; they just explode with it and it’s contagious
the choice of material is better than anyone could hope for; some obscure and amazing little pop gems that often go unnoticed
they respect the material and treat it with love and kindness
they seem to enjoy singing and playing together and complement each other so well that their brilliant harmonies sound effortless
most importantly, they accomplish the almost impossible feat of actually elevating the songs they cover. for most of the album, their version is not only newer, it’s sweeter, kinder, more loving, and better than the original.

i surely suggest anyone reading this should buy the record and have the pleasure of critiquing it yourself. or you could just do what i do, sing along. i was pleasantly surprised by the material they chose. on abba’s fernando, one of my favorite songs, they actually deliver the definitive version. plummet airline’s silver shirt is my first my favorite song on the record. i can’t stop listening to it. i try. i just can’t. a very close second is new world’s living next door to alice. in the hands of eric and amy, this is a few minutes of beautiful noise, bells, background vocals, whispers, and heaven.

this is not a review. i’m not a music critic. just a huge fan very happy today. last night i had the extreme pleasure of seeing Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby at Bowery Electric. they were, of course, the loveliest and most charming musicians i’ve seen perform. some very nice person has already posted some video from the show on youtube. i’m not able to embed the video from the show last night. the youtube link has a number of songs from the show, including eric and amy performing tom petty’s walls. quite a treat as you will see; eric’s bass playing on that particular song was far too enjoyable to describe. i was planning on hanging around to say hello, but i was feeling kind of shy and invisible or something…. no doubt i will be hounding them for autographs and things next time.

i hope they had as much fun as they made for us. i think so. xdd

http://www.wrecklesseric.com

find out when eric and amy will be performing near you, get two-way family favourites and other nice things, listen to wreckless eric’s radio show aka the ~~WERS which sounds like ‘worst’ when you say it~~ best thing on the internet….. all by clicking on the link above. you can thank me some other time.

Don’t Worry Baby keith moon’s solo album, two sides...

Tue, 25 May 2010 02:17:00 -0400

Don’t Worry Baby

keith moon’s solo album, two sides of the moon, according to me is filed under the rare, the wonderful, the unbelievable. upon its release it was actually considered a joke and was just destroyed by the critics… ~~the all important critics…~~ sorry, i have to take that back since i’ve eliminated sarcasm from my life. i’ll state the obvious: it was universally panned, which amazes me. no one could find anything redeeming about this record?

naysayers, says i…. keith moon, who was almost literally a human pyrotechnics display, charming, witty, explosive and full of wonder actually managed to make a record that is all of those things… everything that he was. true, he was not a good singer but surely his enthusiasm more than makes up for that. so naysayers, go way… i’m gonna love this record till the day and die and quite possibly longer.

no redemption in this record for anyone? not the complete hugeness of the sound, not the never-ending explosions of excitement, not the wide awake very great smile that it puts on your face, not the humor, not the joy, nor the sincerity, not even the sound of the fireworks that go off in your head when you listen to it?

that’s what i hear when i play this record. i can’t possibly be the only one. my sympathies to those who can’t just be swept away by the non-stop roller coaster ride that is two sides of the moon. something must be missing.

oh yeah, and ps…. he’s a better singer than ringo and much more fun. dd

"I told people I was a drummer before I even had a set, I was a mental drummer"

Mon, 24 May 2010 23:49:00 -0400

“I told people I was a drummer before I even had a set, I was a mental drummer”

- Keith Moon

Philip Shelley, The End of The World The Singer, Not The...

Tue, 18 May 2010 23:03:00 -0400

Philip Shelley, The End of The World

The Singer, Not The Song….

you probably shouldn’t listen the audio track above before you read the instructions and comments herein. if you do you will hear 3 minutes of pure pop magic, but you won’t know who, what, where, why or how. exercise restraint.

where to begin? that’s always the hardest part. this almost feels like a confession of sorts. ok. bless me father for i have sinned. on sunday, i walked in on my father, an elderly gentleman, watching a lawrence welk rerun on a 64 inch tv. it was huge and loud and i probably wouldn’t have been more embarrassed if i had walked in on him in the bathroom. the two idiots pictured below were singing ‘when i’m 64.’ granted, not the most soulful song ever written or performed, but this rendition wasn’t even human.

i suppose they are adequate singers. they even harmonized. their performance was devoid of any human emotion whatsoever. it was criminal. as i contemplated making a citizen’s arrest and confiscating my father’s tv, the male singer gets to the line that goes ‘every summer we could rent a cottage in the isle of wight’… except he said ‘hwite.’ you know what i mean? ‘hwite’ he said like some people from fargo and other places say ‘white.’ so this is now offensive in a number of ways.

at this point i just threw up my hands and walked outside, thinking about what makes lawrence welk tick exactly. the man claims to love music, his life revolved around music. and yet i’m left wondering if he actually ever heard music because while watching his show i know i didn’t hear any. what do i even know about larry? two things. 1. he’s totally baldman phobic. every man on his show is wearing a cheap toupee. all of them, including the guys he stole from the mousketeers. 2. when he waves his magic baton over a musician or singer, he sucks every bit of soul out of the room.

all of this, very curious indeed. i couldn’t help but wonder just how much influence he may have had over the young impressionable susan boyle. one can’t help but notice that she suffers from the same malady: complete total lack of soul, emotion; she may be able to sing a song but she certainly has no contact with it whatsoever. it never touches her.

there are probably lots and lots of people in the world who can sing. in and of itself, it’s not all that remarkable. so, susan boyle can sing. having said that, it’s just not enough. a singer, especially a singer who performs cover versions of great songs needs much much more. a singer would need a heart, a soul, passion, excitement, and a genuine love and respect for the material.

unfortunately for those in TVland, susan boyle is incapable of imbuing a song with any of those things at are, of course, mandatory. she doesn’t have them to give. what she has to offer is a lackluster reading of a number of cover songs that are all mor, aor, and ultimately doa.

i could have left susan alone, stoic and silent in my disdain if she just stayed off my turf. she came after me when she sucked the life out of perhaps my favorite song of all time, the end of the world. i know skeeter davis is equally as appalled as i am.

why is this important you might ask? it’s important to note that she is THE black hole of singers, who just by opening her mouth to sing, actually takes away from a song rather than contribute to it. it’s important to note because this godawful record made by the pet rock of reality tv holds numerous frightening distinctions:

fastest selling UK debut album of all time
the album sold 701,000 copies in its first week, the best opening week for a debut artist in over a decade in the US
topped the Billboard chart for six straight weeks
the first album of the month in the Italian #1 Account by a non-Italian artist ever
in its first week it sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, becoming the fastest selling global female debut album

so you see, it’s not for myself that i speak the truth here. it’s for all the time capsules and aliens and future generations who might, without the proper guidance, somehow be led to believe that humans once thought this was groundbreaking fantastic unbelievable music. it’s not and i don’t and i do wonder how and when our standards became so low that they now cease to exist. would it be too easy to blame it on hiphop?

this is a story with a ~~happy~~ joyous ending. way up above on top of this page before i started ~~venting~~ talking, there is a song. when you click it to play you will be hearing ‘the end of the world’ in all its glory, a precious gift from the amazing philip shelley. he who has all the ingredients to make a great, a truly joyful, majestic record, one that you must play six times in a row: heart, a soul, passion, excitement, and a genuine love and respect for the material.

for all those reasons and more, this song makes me just about as happy or more so than i’ve ever felt. i listen to it at least once a day and i’m happier to be alive because of it. i will be forever grateful for any and all of the circumstances that brought this record to me. to philip shelley for being him, to tex lyon for his beautiful guitar solo and to joe katz for his inimitable bass stylings.

above is my favorite photo of both philip shelley and joe katz from their days with the student teachers. listen to philip here on myspace and also at The Devastationalist Manifesto.

now that we’ve established just how ‘the end of the world’ is done, in closing, i might request that susan boyle and everyone else click on the video below to see and hear just how we like our horses.

yours sincerely wasting away,

diane dipiazza

Video, The Rolling Stones Wild Horses

Tue, 18 May 2010 22:21:00 -0400

Video, The Rolling Stones Wild Horses

"beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average"

Sun, 16 May 2010 01:57:00 -0400

“beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average
seeks average”

- Charles Bukowski

To Love And To Be Loved, Conor Oberst…… on january...

Sun, 16 May 2010 01:53:00 -0400

To Love And To Be Loved, Conor Oberst……

on january one 2010 i officially removed all sarcasm from my life. suddenly, on that day or maybe slowly over many days it started to sound ugly to me. i wanted all sincerity in the new year, not just wisecracks. after all, i can get that at any bodega or laundrette anytime.

it was easy to eliminate the sarcasm; cynicism not so much. i too am caught in the sad trap of gravity. this thing they call the human condition i guess. i grow up, i fall down, i get up, i do it again. sometimes i learn the right lessons, sometimes i don’t. thus, the cynicism. mostly i think though, love teaches us to be cynical.

i try not to confuse cynicism with anger although i believe they may be close relatives. cynicism is about caution and fear and so is anger; the former mostly inside. the latter, exploding everywhere. the first time i heard conor oberst sing to love and to be loved i thought for a minute that it was the angriest song i had ever heard.

of course i realized that was impossible because obviously there are at least 10 songs in bob dylan’s catalog seething with anger and vengeance with a pinpoint laser aimed at their target. this is true i think. bob dylan is not afraid to verbalize anger, to make it rhyme, to turn it into poetry and set it to a beautiful melody. then of course it came to me: the angriest song i’ve ever heard is without question diamonds and rust, where joan baez actually managed to out-anger the master, right back at him.

so then, bright eyes to love and to be loved must be the third most angry song ever written, yeah? after i spent a lot of hours with it, it didn’t sound so angry anymore. in fact, it sounded downright sincere. it’s the beautiful uncensored poetry of a very young man. it’s full of confusion and yes, anger. mostly though my old friend, cynicism…. but it’s so incredibly sincere, so wide eyed, so honest, the desperate urgent undercurrent of hope cancels out all evidence of cynicism by the song’s end.

where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility?
it came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody
how grateful I was then to be part of the mystery
to love and to be loved
let’s just hope that is enough

i actually think maybe we can hope for that. dd

Princess Cards She Sends Me

Sat, 08 May 2010 03:16:00 -0400

Mother’s Day. it’s very important to me. in direct proportion to how important my mother is to me. every year i try to gather as many trinkets and precious things to amass and present to my mother, like a child. except now i can buy them. i no longer pick dandelions and collect stones and things that look pretty and precious to a child, put them all in a box and proudly present them to my mother.

now i spend weeks collecting packets of seeds, flower pots, four leaf clovers, candy, vintage lucky charms, friendship bracelets, talismans, anything and everything that reminds me of her. it’s really not changed at all since i was a little girl. the trinkets are just more expensive, but not more valuable. and i’m no less proud or excited than i was the first time i performed what is now a ritual. perhaps, more so. more giddy, more excited, more aware of my heart about to burst while i watch the expression on her face and hope that i will see the love on her face and that in that moment we will both feel the same overflowing happiness transferred back and forth between us, multiplying itself in this rare moment of making love visible.

as joyful as i feel about creating this moment, i am most equally disturbed by the misery of buying a card. i try to be optimistic about it, but it really never works out. right from the start, i’ll lean into a rack of mother’s day cards and disappointment sets in. there’s so called humorous cards, which really lack any humor at all. there’s springy looking cards of no substance, there’s big giant huge cards, reserved only for the most smarmy kids, and then, of course the worst cards of all. you know what i’m talking about… the cards that say “to a Special mother…”

these are the cards that make my brain short circuit right in the card store. my senses full of the sickening smell of a hundred awful candles, bright white flourescent lights, and the confusion of this phrase in my mind. usually first i wince at the sight of such cards and then i try to contemplate what the fuck it means. i keep repeating it over and over “to a special mother’ and just marvel at the extreme stupidity of such a statement or is it a sentiment? what does this mean? as if we have 10 mothers and one of them is most special? is it saying, i wouldn’t spend 99 cents on my ordinary mothers, but rest assured, you’re the special one. the more i ponder the stupidity the more anxious i become and more disgusted by every card. if one could be this stupid, they all are. inevitably, i leave empty handed and return home to a pencil and a sheet of white paper and draw a card, a proper princess card for a very special mother indeed, mine.

Patti Smith, The Jackson Song……….. i cannot...

Sat, 08 May 2010 02:17:00 -0400

Patti Smith, The Jackson Song………..

i cannot possibly articulate the depth of the bond between a mother and child. many people, smarter than i, better writers than i, deeper than i have tried and don’t even come close.

patti smith can do it, and has done it. grab a box of tissues and listen to the jackson song. dd

Little blue dreamer go to sleep
Let’s close our eyes and call the deep
slumbering land that just begins
When day is done and little dreamers spin

First take my hand now let it go
Little blue boy you’re on your own
Little blue wings as those feet fly
Little blue shoes that walk across the sky

May your path be your own
But I’m with you
And each day you’ll grow
He’ll be there too
And someday you’ll go
We’ll follow you
As you go, as you go

Little blue star that offers light
Little blue bird that offers flight
Little blue path where those feet fall
Little blue dreamer won’t you dream it all

And in your travels you will see
Warrior wings remember Daddy
And if a mama bird you see
Folding her wings will you remember me
As you go, as you go
As you go, as you go