the holocaust/music issue

From TORONTO,

October 20th, 2009

Here I am, long suffering reader, your even more, even longer suffering Skeptical Tourist, writing to you at considerable risk to myself, my little tourist hands and my little tourist feet. Not to mention the usual emotional trauma of opening my heart to you.

My hand, oh my hand! (Sniff.) I suffer for my art. I acquired a slightly gimpy, maybe broken hand ("Oh, who cares?", says the orthopedic surgeon at St. Joe's, "Call me if it falls off") while performing The Diary of Anne Frank at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. It hurts a little to type for too long. The mezcal helps.

"What happened", you shriek, tearing at your hair and eyes?

It was during our final student matinee....or as I like to call them, Birth Control Wednesdays. (Trust me, share an afternoon at the theatre with seven hundred of today's heartless little heathens and you'll never want one of your own.) Those pesky Nazis were throwing us out of the secret annex and I tripped, taking a nice little tumble and hitting my face and hand quite hard on the wooden floor. What can I say, the children were screaming for actor blood and I tried to oblige.

Don't blame the Nazis. Our Nazis were perfect gentlemen; Stephen Cullen, the one who gave me the fake shove that sent me tumbling, felt so bad about not having performed some superhuman (and dramatically nonsensical) feat to catch me before I hit the deck, that he followed me around for the next two days with an icepack and a woebegone look on his face, weeping. This after weeks of the director telling them to stop being so fucking Canadian and release their inner Nazis. (I was all like, "I've got a wicked case of PMS - can I play Gestapo today? Just before I go on tell me that the Jews called me fat or made moves on my boyfriend.")

Not to be outdone, Natasha Greenblatt, playing Anne, whacked her round little head on the doorway the next day, nearly concussing herself; the day after that, at our final performance, our Mister Frank, the wonderful Tim Koetting, tripped and flew across the stage while holding a crash box and shouting "Look at ME everyone, look at me!"

Luckily we closed before Catherine McNally, as Mrs Frank, could fall out of the attic or be eaten alive by deadly fire ants.

The guy at emergency (he may have been a doctor) wanted to put a cast on me right away ("right away" being after I'd waited from one am until 4:30) but I spat at him and ran, opting for a splint I could take on and off until the show had closed. But as I said, on going back to get a cast AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING THE DAY AFTER CLOSING the orthopedic dude was unimpressed by my xrays and said I may or may not have something broken and I could or could not get a cast or a splint and could or could not go fuck myself. Never one to pass up an opportunity to go fuck myself, I went home. It's a challenge though, with only one healthy hand.

I have no idea how many -or how few- of you are aware of how entirely terrible a typist I am, even at the best of times. Of how painstaking, slow and mistake-riddled an undertaking this continually continues to be. (For example, before proofreading, the previous sentence read as follows: Of how paindtaking, slow and mistake-riddled an undertaking this continually fontinues to be. I'd like to pretend I'm joking.)

My beau, who was born in the eighties and can type in his sleep and text with his nostrils, caught me two-finger typing the other day and I had to pretend it was because my hand was hurting.

Do you know, effortlessly (efoortlessly) tech-savvy, coordinated young reader, that last year I spent good grownup money on a "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" CD-ROM in a sad contribution to the old dog vs. new tricks struggle? (I lost. Congratulations, old tricks. You reign supreme.)
I was progressing well for a while, but then it kept wanting me to use more than three letters. There was this game with a bunch of frogs on a log, each with a letter on its stomach: you type the letters and as you get each frog's letter right, it jumps off the log and swims away. Not only could I not get past level two, but those bastardy little frogs started to laugh at me and give me the finger. I couldn't take it anymore.



But to the point: THE MUSIC ISSUE!

I recently lost my tunepod on an airplane and if my new phone didn't have music on it I surely would have killed myself. Especially considering the (usually bus-riding) commute to and from Hamilton each day, the needing to decompress after the show and to drown out the unwashed masses. I've replaced it now with a little ipod ninny, and am struggling to adjust to the mere 4500 song capacity. Yes, this from a person who's just been helping tell the story of eight people who spent two years in hiding with inadequate food and a really bad internet connection.

YES, THIS PHOTO'S REAL. YES, SOMEONE ELSE HAS TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS.

Bear in mind, please, that I grew up in one of those households where there was music on in every room, at all times. We had a little pink tape player in the bathroom and often had shaving accidents due to getting our groove on. My parents had an impressive collection of vinyl, including a lot of Motown on 45. Nancy and I both had those groovy little plastic portable record players in our rooms as well as ghetto blasters with which to blast our respective ghettos; I was the proud owner of a cheap little Casio keyboard used mainly for the deliberate plunking out of Salt n' Pepa's "Push It" and the making of original songs featuring my recorded voice played back high and chipmunk-style to a canned beat.

As a kid I hated, dreaded and feared having to do a project each year for the annual school science fair. One year, while on my customary desperate search for an easy way out, I heard the intriguing news that plants were possibly responsive to the human voice and/or music.

I had my out! I would sit around talking and playing records to the household plants, then measure them and compare. Laziest science project ever! (Perhaps even better than the one where Anita Yoon and I - as a pair, no less - compared the effectiveness of Tide and new UltraTide by smearing a bunch of socks with ketchup, washing them and sticking them on a piece of bristol board.)

The plant project did feature lovely handdrawn pictures of me, my pink stirrup pants, and the two test plants, which were named, for some reason, Chico and Magnum (after Magnum P.I.). My scientific conclusion: plants like being talked to, like music even more, and markedly prefer Bryan Adams to Tina Turner. This was a questionable time for the young Tourist's musical tastes; somewhere in here was my Huey Lewis and The News period and my Lionel Richie year. But at least I was done waking up my family with my morning top-of-my-lungs rendition of "Tomorrow" from Annie. And Kimberly Moonlight's and my lip-syncing to the Minipops.

In grade four I fell deeply, secretly in love with Philip Curtin, the cutest little Philipino in the schoolyard. At the time, Madonna's "Crazy For You" was big, big, big. It was featured in some movie at the time that I was too young to see because people did it, or swore, or did it while swearing. Philip Curtin never knew it, but "Crazy For You" was our song. I had elaborate daydreams about the end of year dance, about it coming on as the very last song, just as Philip and I locked little nine year old eyes across the gym. He'd walk toward me, through the smoky air (I don't know why the air would be smoky, but it's in the lyrics), and without a word we would begin to dance. In that steamy, grade four, barely-touching, rocking awkwardly in circles way.... And oh, but it would be the best day of my life. Of anybody's. Ever.

Top Three Heartbreakers:

Nina Simone - "My Man's Gone Now"

Stevie Wonder - "I Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer"
Tom Waits - "Martha", from the masterpiece album Closing Time
http://www.vbox7.com/play:e62cb077




This last one actually makes me weep, almost every tme. A lonely middle of the night phone call to an ex-lover; a sad aging man full of lost dreams and regret. The final line: "I remember, quiet evenings, trembling close to you..." kills me. Absolutely kills me.

Also in the sad club: I just heard a Tegan and Sara song in which they sing "I feel like I wouldn't like me if I met me." Poor little self-loathing lesbians. I love you and your sad haircuts.

In grade nine, Prince's Diamonds and Pearls came out. The whole album was shockingly, deliciously filthy, beginning to end, but "Gett Off" topped them all. I remember sitting in the living room of the house my mom and I were sharing with two hip friends in their twenties. I was listening to Jen's copy on her walkman and it felt as if I was sitting there with a copy of Penthouse in plain view. There everyone was, walking around, making dinner, chatting, while Prince moaned in my ear about "A little box with a mirror and a tongue inside". I could hardly believe I was getting away with it.


Does anyone else get just a little creeped out by the song "Let's Get It On?" I mean, it's basically four minutes and fifty seconds of Marvin Gaye (the rohypnol of soul) pressuring a woman to have sex with him. And he tries everything! He follows up saying "I ain't gonna push" with "C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon"! And "If you believe in love let's get it on"? Around the two minute mark I'm yelling "For God's sake, just hit her over the head with something already!" Or, "Surely there's someone else who wants to have sex with you! You're Marvin Gaye!!!!"


Solomon Burke worked along the same lines but seemed a little less forceful - and less successful. He was always ad libbing things like "Come on, Baby, where you goin? Sit back down here. No really, what is it? Do I smell, baby? Aw shit....I do."

And has anybody noticed that Al Green always has to go and ruin things? I have a version of him singing "You Are So Beautiful". It's sweet; it's romantic......and then he goes and throws in, "You are so beautiful to nobody but me." WHAAAAAT?

In his version of "I Can't Get Next To You" he actually sings, "I been trying to call you all day long, but I don't have your phone number, baby". Pretty flimsy there, Reverend.

I've always thought I'd like to have Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" (from Black Brown and Beige) as my funeral song. Maybe performed by a string quartet as the whole world sobs uncontrollably (family and close friends inside the service, acquaintances lined up for blocks, fans watching by simulcast, former lovers too distraught to use their arms and legs....). But then I read an interview with Kid Koala in which he named Kermit & Fozzie singing "Movin' Right Along" as his choice of funeral song. And then I felt like a precious, dweeby knob. And wished I'd thought of it first.

I love Neil Diamond. No bones about it. I do not love him ironically or with a wink. He is fantastic. I'll beat you up if you say otherwise.

Back in college, I briefly dated a strange young Swiss boy who had a huge Neil Diamond crush about which I would tease him all day long, except when he would actually pull out the guitar and serenade me with "Play Me" ("You are the sun, I am the moon, you are the words, I am the tune...play me" - I know, I know). Urs gave me one of the greatest hits CDs he had doubles of (they'd come out with a better version that came with one of Neil's real-life eyelashes or something), which I promptly threw away when we stopped dating. One month later, I had an uncontrollable hankering to hear Neil Diamond again, and went out and bought the very CD I'd so callously thrown out. I never looked back. And now I've seen him live. (Thanks, Gregg.) Thanks, Urs Rusterholz.


"Ode To Billy Joe" by Bobbie Gentry (though I must say I have the softest spot for the Ike & Tina version): Most mysterious, intriguing song I know. What the hell were she and Billy Joe throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge that day? And why did Billy Joe off himself? Miss Marple? Anybody????? AAAAAAAARGH!!!!! Here's Bobbie doing a weird version on The Smothers Brothers Show, complete with creepy mannequin props (and amazing hair).




DIRTY SONG OR DIRTY MIND:
#1. "I Won't Dance": Irving Berlin's sweet old-fashioned ditty about a man who's nervous about his two left feet....or Irving Berlin's song about a guy who doesn't want to dance because he has a massive hard-on?

#2. Here's an excerpt from the Mamas & Papas' tune "Words of Love":
Words of Love, so soft and tender,
Won't win a girl's heart anymore.
If you love her, then you must send her
Somewhere where she's never been before.
Worn out phrases and longing gazes
Won't get you where you want to go. (No!)

Okay, if this is not a song about cunnilingus, I don't know what is. "Send her somewhere that she's never been before? I mean, is this just me, or what? The more innocent option is that it's about hooking your lady up with drugs, but still..... Bad Mamas! Dirty Papas!

Tres Romantique: Simon & G's To Emily Wherever I May Find Her...the song that makes me want to tie up that naughty little Garfunkel and Garfunkel him all night long. (See video in the "timewasters" sidebar.)


I'm sensing a bit of a theme here. For the record, I do not think "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree" is a euphemism for anal.

Finally, as I draw to a close, I will address the glaring ommission you've no doubt noticed, sharp, observant reader. (Other than the sad near-dearth of Can Con.) I have not spoken of my man MJ. He gets his own edition. I'm just not ready yet. I loved him so. Even more passionately than Philip Curtin, that little Philipino firecracker. More than Beyonce or my boyfriend Mos Def or that sexy slut Xtina. More than Stevie. More than Simon and Garfunkel put together and embracing, wearing ladies underwear. (Nothing. Ahem.) I loved him. I love him still. And the world shall know. Oh sigh.

For now, my funky chickens, I dare you, next time you're standing on that street corner waiting for that light to change and that song comes through your headphones that always makes you want to dance....just do it. I found myself in this position the other night, drunkenly resisting, somehow, the opening bars of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition". I don't know what awful thing I thought would happen if I did dance out loud at King and University....but I wish I had. A little more spontaneous boogie would not be such a bad thing in this crazy crazy world of yours and mine.

Yours in joyful stompy dancing, all the way to CAMH, maybe,



The Tourist