Thrilling Thirties

Yup! I'm thirty. 30. Tengo treinta añitos. I'm now in the decade of grown-ups, but still young grown-ups, where I'm old enough but not yet old. Clearly I'm actually 12. Or 14. Alas. Regardless, my twenties were tumultuous, to say the least. I turned 21 while living in Spain, lost my mom at 22, went to Bali at 22, went to Ghana at 23, started grad school in Texas at 23, started going to Peru at 24, got my heart broken (really broken) at 24, got my master's at 25, took doctoral comps at 27, lived in Peru from 27 to 28, celebrated 29 in Austin, got a new boyfriend at 29, went to India at 29, and moved to Cleveland to start a new job at 29. There have been some serious ups and some serious downs in that decade, as with any decade, and I'm assuming that my 30s will bring more of the same. The difference is that I know myself a lot better now than I did then. I'm much more comfortable with me, myself, and I. I have grown and changed tremendously in these past few years, and I don't expect the growing or changing or learning to stop, I just expect it to come with bigger grains of salt and maybe some warm weather, if Cleveland would please oblige.

So I'm calling this decade The Thrilling Thirties. I will be graduating with my Ph.D. in this decade. Aside from that, who knows what this decade will bring? Hopefully another stint in Spain or maybe in India. Hopefully warmer weather. Maybe less anxiety about my professional future. Maybe a little dent in school loans, or even a car. I guess we'll see...

In the meantime, I had a wonderful birthday week complete with a visit from Nik, a lovely party with Cory, and snow. The snow was less welcome than the other two things, but it added a bit of adventure regardless.

And of course I still am ga-ga over Lenny Kaye. That may fade. It may not, but who cares? It's rock n roll, right?

Lenny & Les

Yup. After several 15+ hour days, we finally pulled it off. The 13th annual American Music Masters has come to a close. Lotta work? Yes. Exhausted? Yes. Hungover? A little. Starry-eyed? Just over Lenny Kaye. For those of you who don't know the punk pioneer Patti Smith, you should go buy her album "Horses" right now. She is known as the punk poet - bringing elegant lyrics to the aggressive style of punk tinted with gorgeous guitar solos by Lenny Kaye, her now ex-husband and still friend and collaborator. I have loved Patti Smith and Her Band since about the 8th grade when I was doing research on female punk musicians. (I had also discovered Siouxie, X, the Slits, and others, but Patti - perhaps because she was the most melodic and artsy - was my fave. And who doesn't love Lenny's fantastic solos that were just on the brink of being Something Else Other Than Punk? He is just too talented to play just I-IV-V chords.) Anyway, Lenny Kaye is on my list of people that I Go GaGa For Because They're Great. The list includes Prince, David Bowie, and Patti Smith. And of course, by extension, Wendy & Lisa (Prince's songwriting twin guitarists) and Lenny Kaye. And he totally lived up to my insanely high expectations. He is sweet, kind, funny, intelligent, and attentive. He thinks it's hilarious that I go so GaGa and he agreed with my list: he said he nearly fell over when he first met Prince. We hung out, we danced, he sang me happy birthday. And he said if ever Patti and I are in NYC at the same time, he'll have us both over for dinner. He loved the tecno-cumbia I played him AND my Halloween costume I showed him. He fully expects a draft of my latest chapter. And he was serious. I'm still reeling.

Although I am not a guitarist, I recognize good guitar playing. We had Slash, Richie Sambora, Dennis Coffey, Skunk Baxter, James Burton, Duane Eddy, Steve Lukather, the Ventures, and others at this show. They're great. But Les Paul? He's 93 and STILL playing like a maniac. He is hilarious and entertaining and sweet and a hell of a player. And I listened to Les Paul and Mary Ford growing up because my mom and nana liked them really well. And then all of the sudden I'm sitting next to him keeping him company while he waits to go on stage? How did I get this gig? Seriously. It doesn't seem real. It was hard, hard work. But it was exciting, and I learned a LOT.

And then Les kissed me on the cheek. Wow.

61 years young...

Today would have been my mom's 61st birthday. She would have griped about getting old and then she would have asked for me to take her to a dessert buffet somewhere where she could load up on chocolate and cream puffs and tapioca and ice cream. She had quite the sweet tooth. She also would have found it highly entertaining that I work at the Rock Hall. She would have asked to take a look at my drafts of chapters (even if they blow) and she would have edited the hell out of them. And even though I'm a good 6 inches taller, she would have pulled me into her lap and said, "Ka-honey, tell me about your day."

I wish I had a better picture of her, but she died before digital cameras got popular, and I haven't scanned anything lately. So this is my mom in about 1975, three years before I was born.

Love you, Mom.

*sigh*

I miss Austin and all the people in it.

Catch-up

It's been nutty lately. But quick catch-up:
Halloween was great. I went as
a) Zombie Pippi Longstocking
b) Andy Warhol / The Velvet Underground album cover
c) Sporty Spice
d) Chucky















Cory (my roommate) is such a zombie fan that she convinced me to really do it up. It was fun to be something gross and scary, although fake blood, liquid latex, and zombie rot get annoying after being on your face for hours on end. We (Cory, Reena from work, and I) went to a party on Thursday night and then there was the costume contest at work (for my part as one of the Spice Girls that was complete with choreography, we won "most creative" category.), and then there was a show somewhere in the flats (I can't navigate through Cleveland to save my life) and then there was a house party here in Lakewood. It was no Genevieve party, but it was good fun.

Fall was beautiful. It's kind of fading, it's getting cooler out, and generally crummy, but it was beautiful while it lasted.

This coming week I will be meeting Les Paul, Ace Frehley (Kiss), Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), the Ventures, Slash, Richie Sambora, Steve Lukather, and others during our American Music Masters series. Les Paul is the focus this year and yes, he's still alive (he's 93) and yes, he will be playing. It's going to be a nutty week full of 12 hour days but it should be fun. I don't know that I've ever "wrangled" rockstars before, but I'm sure I'll learn. And for the pop music scholars among you, Steve Waksman will be here too. :)

After that, it's my birthday! And my boyfriend will be coming all the way up to frigid Cleveland to celebrate it with me. I'm throwing a cocktail party at my house on the 22nd and kind of half throwing it with Cory, whose birthday is the 24th. Fun fun fun!!!!

I ran 8 miles today and it was perfect running weather: 45 and sunny. While normally I balk at anything under 60, it was good for the run. I still can't remember or picture what real cold is like, but I'm sure it will be upon me soon enough.

And of course, the obvious: President Barack Obama. It just sounds good.

Proud proud proud proud PROUD!

The fourth of July has always been my favorite holiday, mostly because red is my favorite color, I love LOVE fireworks, and I like to eat summery foods. Rarely did my love of the holiday have anything to do with the actual holiday, our independence day. Perhaps because my Dad always brought people from around the world to our house (Sri Lankans, Kuwaitis, Japanese, Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, Spaniards, Thais) and I learned quickly about other countries perceptions of the US. (My Dad was the XO of many a Navy base, and ironically, I was always hesitant to be patriotic.) Then I lived abroad (1999-2000) when the Bush campaign was underway and it was nerve-wracking to watch another Bush come in and we had no idea the kind of havoc he would wreak. I continued to travel elsewhere, and lied about my nationality. (I'm Canadian, I'm Spanish, I'm Blah Blahian.) As many of you know, being American has its curses abroad - you are clearly loaded, snobby, love war, easy, back-stabbing, etc. As one of the least whorish, wealthy, snobby Americans out there, it was (is) sometimes awkward to confront those stereotypes. And then there's Bush, making it harder by the day to even want to live within the confines of this country. And along comes Barack Obama, who I must admit I did not take seriously at first. He was too young, too idealistic, too inexperienced, too intellectual. I doubted him for the first few weeks. I assumed that Hillary, a known-entity, would be able to handle it. The more I listened, however, and the more I researched, the more I learned. And the more I began to believe in Obama as a person, as a man, as a leader. He may not be able to change the world much in these coming years, and who knows how he's going to be able to keep his wits about him with the deficit, war(s), failing educational system, hatred, intolerance, and crap economy sneering in his face. But his pragmatisim, his sincerity, his normalcy give me great hope and excitement: maybe things can change. Maybe our government can serve our needs. Maybe our kids can have good teachers in good schools, maybe we can have health care, all these things that seem so basic and yet our literacy rates slide monthly and children die of the flu while their hard-working parents go bankrupt for the medical bills. I DO believe in OUR power to CHANGE.

And thusly, today, I am proud to be an American. Michael Moore, for all his silly antics, summed it up quite nicely here. And the world (India, Pakistan, France, Japan, etc.), documented here, celebrated the end of a bitter regime. Italy notes the change here. My friends from Spain emailed me congratulations and my friend Ivan even called me (I was in Spain during the Christmas holidays immediately following both the 2000 and the 2004 elections and the afermath wrath in Europe was palpable) to congratulate me and my fellow Americans on "not deceiving the rest of the world with stupidity and pranks. Again." (Gracias por no decepcionarnos en el mundo con estupidez y trucos. Otra vez.) For cheapo Ivan to actually make the call is pretty amazing.

While I miss the intellectual safehouse of university life, I am fortunate to work in one of the more liberal non-academic jobs out there. The Rock Hall is chock full of Obama-supporters. But what surprised me more than that was Cleveland - and more broadly Cuyahoga County - as a whole: 68% of one of the largest, most populated counties in the state went to Obama. The poor, impoverished, disenfranchised Ohioans of sad little economically-depreseed Cleveland decided that they have had enough. That it's time for CHANGE.

Yes we can. And in case you didn't see Will.I.Am's version, Yes we can.