Category: memories

It’s not okay.

You know, over the years I’ve heard many a grownup yell and throw things at the television when a commercial came on using a song that meant something to them “back in the day”.

Let’s be clear, advertisers are sluts. They’ll use any jingle, tune or icon imagery if they think it will sell.

Oh, yes, the howls over The Beatles “Revolution” being used to sell Nikes.

The Rolling Stones “Start me up” for Microsoft and “Satisfaction” for Snickers.

Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” used to sell ketchup.

And Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” used for Chevy Trucks. To name but a few.

Yup.

I always agreed and smiled mirthfully while my older friends lamented the demise of their meaningful music.

Until just a few days ago. Yes, a few days ago, I saw this commercial.

And suddenly I was yelling and throwing things at the television.

They have abducted The Fixx!

“Saved by Zero”, an iconic song (at least to ME), is now used to shill freaking Toyota cars and trucks at “amazing zero percent financing”.

It’s wrong.

I had to cleanse my senses by watching the original, sort of nonsensical video.

(YouTube says this one can’t be embedded, so here’s the link.)

Ok, I get it. I’m in that “key” 35-50 demographic where they *hope* we have jobs, responsibilities, and the wherewithal to finance a new Toyota automobile.

But come ON!

It is, for me, a loooooong leap from my New Wave cool “we’re not going to be like you” days in high school to tooling around town in a sensible Prius.

And. They. Won’t. Stop. Playing. That. Ad.

Especially during post-season baseball.

Ugh!

I have to wonder, in twenty years, which current modern pop songs will be used to shill products?

The one about the stripper? (Ray J’s “Sexy Can I”)?

The one about the stripper (Flo Rida’s “Low”)?

Or the one about the stripper (T-Pain’s “I’m in love with a stripper”)?

Ah well, I can rest easy knowing that in 2028, these young whippersnappers will be hollering and throwing things at the television.

“Hey you kids, get off my lawn!”

Sigh

Another one bites the dust.

After nearly 40 years, Rolling Stone magazine is whittling down its trademark size. It will now look like every other magazine on the stands.

Ugh.

When I was 15, I had a subscription to Rolling Stone (thanks to the kindness of my mom, thanks mom!). I read it cover to cover every month, drinking in the journalism, the hot, hot interviews and the hip quality of it all.

I stopped subscribing when they went from newspaper print style to glossy pages. It wasn’t the paper, it was the quality of the product. Rotten.

So to be fair I haven’t read Rolling Stone in a good long while. But now, this nail in the coffin.

The magazine that was so subversive, so out there, so of-the-now is, at its heart, just another corporate owned mass-produced media product.

*sigh*

We’ve come a long way since RS 1:

Photo source.

This one’s for the pet owners

Due to having a rather austere father, I am not one of those folks with deep, fond memories of the parade of pets I owned and raised as I grew up.

The Good Man is this way. Both of his parents are avid animal people and so he has a whole lifetime of pets he can speak about in loving tones. It makes me sort of jealous.

I have one childhood pet. A white cat obtained when I was about twelve.

She was a good pet, truly. Her name was Yoda and she was very tolerant of me (and that’s saying a lot for a cat). She had a fantastic personality, full of charm and easy to love. She would come when you called her name and was nutso over turkey meat.

Poor little feline breathed her last while I was away studying at NMSU.

In the span of my adult life, post-Yoda, I’d never owned another pet. Which is weird, because I’m a lover of fuzzies and usually form close bonds with the pets belonging to my friends.

My best friend is owner to my goddog and a finicky godcat and I love ’em like they are my own. But they aren’t my own. And they live in Las Cruces, so that doesn’t help!

So imagine my delight when I began dating The Good Man almost three years ago and he had not one but TWO felines to keep his life interesting.

One charming old man marmalade and one batty, toddler-esque black and white.

Sadly, the marmie gave over to kidney issues soon after TGM and I started seeing each other, but I at least had the chance to love that orange kitty. He was a good man.

Which leaves us now with the batty cat. She’s the one who charms our lives these days.

This is only the second pet I’ve ever personally owned. And I am here to confess:

I love that cat.

In fact, that’s the genesis of this post. I have one of those screensavers that plucks images from my photo library and displays them onscreen. As I was on the phone earlier today dealing with another cranky business client, this photo flashed on my screen and held there for a bit too long.

And I stared at that g’damn cat and felt so much love in my heart. Like…over love. Too much love. WAY too much love for such a cute furry obnoxious, middle of the night meowing cuz she’s hungry kind of animal.

Am I the only pet owner who has ever wondered…am I a little *too* attached to my pet?

Sunday with Frida

The Good Man and I had a chance to be up in San Francisco this weekend. The occasion was a visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Since June they have had an exhibition of Frida Kahlo‘s art.

I have been a fan of Frida for a while now. Her work so heavily influences any female artist, especially anyone interested in Latino art, and so for me, it was vital I attend this show.

I came in, as we all do, with one set of expectations, that I’m not sure for were met.

But I’ll be thinking about this exhibition for a while.

While at the library the day before we went to the show, I saw a book on the “new fiction” shelf called “Frida’s Bed.” It is one author’s fictional account of Frida’s last thoughts before she died.

So that’s also coloring my view, I suppose.

About the exhibit, however… First and foremost, it was CROWDED. We’re into the waning weeks of the show and I think I’d hoped it wouldn’t be so packed, but I was wrong.

At more than fifty years after her death, Frida is as popular as ever. Moreso, it would seem.

The people were stacked up to see her work, which was both heartening and annoying.

Heartening because many young women were there, and seeing that it’s ok to express your pain, your rage, your upset is important. It doesn’t make you less of a woman. Frida gave good pain, I’ll say that. Sometimes it’s hard to look at her work, it’s emotional and physical pain is so plainly laid OUT there. I admire that, to be honest.

The show was equally annoying because it was damn near impossible to spend any time with the paintings. The queues were insane, and the best you could do was a Chevy Chase “Vacation” style nod at the Grand Canyon, then move on.

This frustrated the heck out of me, because what’s fascinating about Frida’s paintings isn’t what’s apparently obvious, it’s what she’s hidden in the small spaces.

She has secret jokes, or darker images, that she places in her work. Sort of passive aggressive, actually. Both TGM and I had trouble spending the time we needed with each piece, instead shuttled through quickly as the crowd surged behind us.

Many of the paintings were much smaller than I’d imagined them to be. Then again, the famous “Two Fridas” was MUCH larger than I expected, taking up most of one wall.

I took all of it in, thinking I would come out massively inspired to go and paint and release my inner demons. Instead, the story told in all those frames reminded me of a difficult time in my life and a difficult relationship. To say I find parallels between the troubled relationship between Frida and Diego Rivera is to undersell it a bit, but that’s close enough for explanation’s sake, I suppose.

And being far less brave than Frida, I’m unwilling to dissect it here, publicly.

That said, as we came to the end of the exhibit, I ended up in a bit of a dark mood. That was from the remembering. Ultimately, I was also happier and held the hand of TGM a bit tighter. He is a life raft, a parachute, water wings and all other really good metaphors I can’t think of right now for someone who rescued me from the abyss, and gave my life meaning again.

With that in mind, I brought up the question to TGM over lunch…does “art” always have to be sad?

Can I paint a canvas that expresses my joy, the peace in my life now, the exquisite love I have and still be taken seriously as an artist?

I’ve never bought into the fact that misery was a pre-requisite.

Maybe art really is what you say it is…

Anyhow, one way or another, Frida’s work moved me greatly. It will be with me for a long time.

September 11th – A moment of reflection

The passing of seven years has maybe lessened the immediacy of the pain, the wrenching in the heart.

But it’s still there. The hurt. The memories.

I had a chance to visit ground zero a couple years ago. What was most amazing was the nothing. The huge empty space in a booming metropolitan town.

I remember that day seven years ago in vivid detail. I remember where I was, what I was doing.

I’m amazed at how far I’ve come since then. How much personal loss I had in the wake of the national loss. How much I’ve grown. How much stronger I’ve become.

And on today, I mourn not only for those who lost their loved ones on that historic day, I mourn for who I was then…and take strength in the enduring power of human spirit.