Happiness Is So Hard to Find

Here is a recycled photo of myself and one of my co-workers at Gussini Shoe store in Berkeley in 1986.

I'm sure you all know how weird I am about music. I'm not as likely to look at how it's played or what people are doing with their instruments. You could have all the best musicians in the world performing and playing really well, and if I'm bored with their song, I couldn't be bothered. For me, music has always been an emotional thing. I feel really strongly about songs one way or the other. They can be an awesome memory or the soundtrack to a really bad part of my life.

Some songs I know are cheese, but it doesn't matter, because they take me back to a time in my life that made me really happy. Of course the opposite is true. Whether a song is good or bad, hearing it can remind me of a particularly shitty stage in my life too.

Lately, my daughter has really been into this song called, "I Can't Wait" by a band called Nu Shooz. I think someone else might be sampling it, and that's where she heard it. You may or may not remember them, but trust me, they were really big in 1986. At that time I was working at my worst job ever. (and I've cleaned toilets for living) I had just moved to San Francisco and was living in my boyfriend's mom's house, my boyfriend wasn't sure if he still wanted to stay together, I had no money, nowhere else to go and my bosses totally sucked. For years, I couldn't hear that song without it bringing back all those horrible feelings.

The crazy thing about it, is that I'm totally okay with it now. It's actually turned into a more positive memory. I can laugh at how I had to cover all the high school girl's shifts on Friday nights so they could get home in time to watch Miami Vice, and how my two favorite high school guys used to wait for me to close up, so they could ride the BART with me through Oakland and protect me if need be. I can look back with some perspective and remember that it was one of the first times in my adult life that I actually took control of a situation.

With my orphan issues, I was always so terrified to actively change things in my life. In the past, change usually meant I was moving toward something worse. I wouldn't leave bad relationships or jobs no matter what, because they were an evil I knew, as opposed to an evil I didn't know but was sure to meet. I was one of those people who just let things happen to them. I finally left that situation. I quit my job, got a new one and found roomates to live with, instead of my fickle boyfriend and his crazy mom.

So, I guess my daughter can bring it. I'm ready to take on all the music from that time. "Manic Monday"? Who Cares. "West End Girls"? I'll kick all the Pet Shop Boys' asses. "Rock Me Amadeus"? No, let me rock you. "That's What Friends Are For"?...Uh, no. I still can't listen to that one. Sorry.

Wonderin' If We're Really Ever Gonna Get That Far

Here's me with my roommate and her friends and lots of Old Style, when I first moved to Iowa City and before I started wearing WAY too much black eyeliner.

So, thanks again for all of your kind comments the last two posts. I knocked all that shit loose from my craw and my cold is much better. I'm afraid I've been sounding a little too Lisa Bright and Dark on here lately, so I thought I'd do one of those "songs that took me back to a specific day and time" posts tonight.

Sometimes I have to go ask a co-worker for information on specific cases I'm working. When I go to her desk, she's always listening to one of those lite oldies internet stations. The other day, that Julian Lennon song came on. You know that one song? The one hit he had in 1985? It took me right back to the very first time I heard it. This is where I went:

"You wanna do it now?" My friend Marty asked me and my other friend Schmud, and of course we did, so he pulled the tabs out of his pocket and we each put one on our tongue. We were all sitting at the bar after our shifts drinking free beer. The plan was to go back to Marty's place, because he lived in a rooming house with some other guys we knew and their room was all set-up specifically for taking acid. They had all this weird shit in it to mess with and stuff to draw and paint. Marty used to steal street signs and make really cool drawings with permanent marker on the backs.

"You guys didn't take it already did you?" Pete came out of the dish room and was all pissed-off at us because he still had to work. "Then give me mine and wait here until I'm done."Since he found us out, and the owner of the Mill had gone to a party, we thought it would be okay to hang-out at the restaurant for a bit until Pete was off work.

Of course, the owner came back early and we were really taking off, right as he and his girlfriend walked in the door. The guys were smart and hid in the back room, but I wasn't paying attention and the owner came over and started talking to me about pate and how it was made of duck and chicken livers in his loud and whiny voice. My eyes were very wide, as I tried to pretend to pay attention and not freak-out. The guys had all come behind the bar to make faces at me behind the owner's back. It got to the point where I didn't think I could stand it anymore, and I told the owner that I had to go to the bathroom. I hid in a stall and giggled until I could go out and face people again.

"I gotta go. I can't take it here with Keith back from the party. It's starting to really freak me out," I said. Pete was getting off work anyway and so we all went over to Marty's house.

At first, the guys with the trippy acid pad weren't home, so we went to the communal refrigerator and put Tabasco sauce in all the food. There was a band called, 149 Dead Marines that also lived in the house and I knew some of them, because they were from Ottumwa and they were really tough. I got even more freaked-out, thinking what they'd do to us if they found out we even put hot sauce in their milk. The guys thought it was hilarious. My friend Marty who used to tease me for being from Southeast Iowa, kept talking like a hillbilly, and draining the hot sauce into anything he could find in the fridge. "It's okay, Churlita. They won't even know. Don't y'all put Tabasco in everything you eat down in Ottumwa, anyway?"

Our other friends came home and we went into their apartment to smoke some pot. This one guy named Steve, wouldn't smoke any, because he said he didn't want it to mess with the purity of his acid.

"Isn't there rat poison in acid, or does it just feel that way?" I asked, but no one seemed to hear me. Instead they got these plastic, collapsible cups and we were all entertained for at least an hour, smashing them down and setting them back up again. In what was supposed to be the walk-in closet, they had set-up a TV in a weird cage thing. I don't remember it ever being turned off. It must have been earlier than I thought, because Friday Night Videos was still on. When we were tripping, watching videos was even more fun than playing with collapsible cups.

At first, when Julian Lennon's video came on, I thought it was a joke. I loved John Lennon, and the guy on TV looked a lot like him and sounded similar too. "Hey, what is this?" I asked.

"It's John Lennon's son, " Schmud said.

"Nuh-uh. This guy sucks. Listen to the lyrics. It's like bad high school boy poetry. 'It fits so tight, closer than a glove'? That's so dumb. He can't be related to John Lennon." I was all indignant.

"Yes, he can. He looks and sounds just like him. He's just cashing in, " Marty said. And we all quietly watched the rest of the video, before we started getting hungry and regretting we had put hot sauce in all the food.