Shifting Places

There were 8 of them at one time.  4 girls and 4 boys.  One of them is my father, number 4 of 8.  The rest were aunts and uncles.  Only one time in my life can I remember all of them in the same room together.  My cousin and I talked about this once and realized that at their mother's funeral was the only time that everyone was gathered together in our lifetime (memory).  For some years now that has been the only time that they would be too.

The third oldest was my uncle Eric who was taken rather suddenly some years ago.  I say sudden in that it all happened within a few weeks, but at the same time; we were given a chance to say our goodbyes, which is a privilege that many people are not granted in this world.  Some of us chose to be in the room when they shut off the ventilator.  I was one of the few that wanted to be there for a number of reasons.  One was because I feel that as much as we can control, we should try to never let people die alone.  They are facing death, the scariest thing in the world alone; why not try to send them off amidst loved ones if you can? 

While we were not particularly close, many in the family did not want to be there, including his wife and children.  None of my cousins wanted to be in the room either, so another reason I went was to be the sole representative from my generation of the family.  While watching a proud man die with dignity is not something that we should feel "honored" to be a part of, it was an experience that I will forever remember and be glad that I made the decision that I did.  It is one of the few times in my life that I have seen my father cry.

Where 8 once were, 7 remained.

Not long after that, the 5th in line, my aunt Helen started losing her battle with cancer.  The final months were hard and she was in a lot of pain.  In the last couple weeks she stopped seeing all of the family except one sister which she allowed to come see her at the hospice home.  In those days she said she did not want anyone to see her as sick as she was at the time, but remember her for the cheerful person she used to be.  Open cancer sores are not something that anyone would want to see anyway.

Her battle was on and off for many years, but her body could no longer hold out.  She and I were never terribly close either, but she was an interesting character from what I remember.  I attended the funeral, not the burial though as the wake was at our house so I decided to go back to the house and help get things ready. 

We were now down to 6 of an original 8.

Since that time, the 7th in line, my aunt Christy, has fought and beat her battle with cancer, at least for now.  My father was diagnosed with terminal pulmonary fibrosis, which I have gone into in past blogs and will go into a bit more later, the 6th in line, my Uncle Fred, has been diagnosed with it as well, and the youngest, #8, has also fought with cancer.

We just learned that my aunt Ro, that little number 8, is losing her battle and losing it fast.  We all thought that my father would be next as he is not expected to last out the year, so this is a bit of a shock.  The two oldest, who happen to be the healthiest of them all, are going to fly out to see her next weekend, but we fear she may not make it that long.  She asked all of us to write letters to her two sons, telling them more about her as a person.  I feel horrible that since she moved away when I was rather young, I don't have too much to say to grant her wish.  I have never even met her two sons, my two cousins, but I do wish them well.

She was able to talk to my father a bit today over the internet.  It is too bad my parents can't make it out to see her one last time, but life is like that sometimes.  She is fading, deaf, and hooked up to all sorts of machines.  She was able to tell my Dad not to worry because she would see him in Heaven, which made all of them start crying.  It seems to me that she really implied a "soon" there due to his declining health, but did not say it.  I am glad that she didn't.  Nothing gets to me more than seeing people face death.  You see true human spirit at that time and while utterly frightening, there is something in it that I feel makes the rest of us stronger.

My father is in a state where his fibrosis is so severe that he is on constant oxygen and has had pneumonia 3 times already this year.  They say that the next time he has to go into the hospital; he is probably not making it out.  Any morning he could wake up and have to go in at this point.

We will soon be down to 4.

...

It is weird to me.  Not death as a whole, but until right now, this moment that I am typing this, I have come to this realization that for me the death of my family's elder statesmen seems like one of my last links to childhood.  Like I mentioned before, we were never really close, but we were together quite a bit when I was little.  I am now 31 and it seems that while I am a complete adult in many ways, those final strings to the tapestry of my childhood are fading away, leaving room for me to weave new ones with my son and my wife's family. 

I am now one of the elders, been around the block for quite a while, and there is an entirely new generation below me of nephews, nieces, and smaller cousins.  Their lives are so new and I hope that while some of us are not close, they still can have positive memories of me from their childhood.  I hope that I can continue to live a life to be proud of...

...and I hope that someday newer generations will look fondly of my generation as we looked fondly to the one before.

How Does a Crush Work?

To set up this story, you have to know a bit about where I am from.  I grew up in the Central Valley of California, between fields of corn, rice, and cotton with dairies and orchards all around.  When your nearest neighbors are old farmers that are still a couple of country blocks away, you learn to appreciate the social aspects of school, no matter how positive or negative they might be.  That being said, all I wanted to do was to make friends and be accepted.

We were rather isolated growing up.  My parents works hard to support us and my sister was always buried in the books, so I was left to my devices which normally revolved around music, movies, and video games.

Our elementary/jr. high school was placed smack dab in the middle of all those aforementioned farms and ranches, and while we only had around 80 kids in our 8th grade class total, most of them were either the offspring of the richer farm owners, or the poorer kids which included the migrant worker's children and a few others such as myself.

While I had started going to that school since 3rd grade and knew all the kids rather well, only a few of them I would have called my friends.  We were the geeky, video game playing, rock music listening, comic book collecting few.  While we sometimes mingled with the rich kids, it was mostly because they needed us to do their homework for them.  Once we were in 8th grade, I had gotten smart enough to make some extra pocket cash off of them from charging a couple of bucks to copy my work.  This at least gave me access to some snacks and soda or whatever.  What I lacked in money, I made up for in brains.

That was all well and good, but in the end all we really wanted was to belong to the group.  We wanted to be accepted by the rich and popular kids, no matter how much we acted as if we did not care about their opinions.  Now, what made this difficult was the fact that I was always a rather tall and chubby kid.  By this time I was already 6'1, somewhat overweight, not huge, but I did not flatter much because I wore sweat pants and baggy shirts everyday.  I could not find pants that were comfortable to my awkward size, so sweat pants were the way to go.  This made me a huge target for ridicule of course.

I mean, not only did I not have decent looking clothes, they were not name-brand, top of the line stuff.  We also could not afford to get my nice sneakers or the name-brand backpacks that most of the other kids had, so therefore I was even more of an outcast.  Like I stated before, I was overall a happy child, but I just wanted to belong.  Add that to the fact that my hormones has recently started raging out of control to that point where even the slightest touch from a girl could set you off, and I was not comfortable in my on skin.

To move on though, 8th grade started off as most years did, nothing special, just back to school stuff.  While we were trying to figure out all of the new comics and cards to trade with each other, we were also trying to gauge where we stood with everyone again.  About a month into the year, a new girl appeared at our school.  We will call her Annie for this story.

I was immediately drawn to Annie, not due to a sexual attraction even though she was cute, but due to the fact that she was wearing some kind of grunge band t-shirt.  I cannot remember for the life of me what band it was, but it was that signal, that flag that we wear on our chest.  Your t-shirt was a way to signal to others things you were into, hoping to get a response.  Add that to the fact that I knew how hard it was to be the new kid, I reached out to her within the first few days.

We immediately hit it off.  She was obviously one of us outsiders that was not into designer jeans and top-40 music.  She was someone that was into rock, movies, and Star Wars.  Up to that point I had never met a chick that was into Star Wars before like us geeks were.  This was an immediate point of convergence.

Needless to say Annie and I became good at-school friends rather quickly.  If you are not aware, an at-school friend is someone that you talk to and hang out with, but only at school.  Never outside of that.  We started writing each other Star Wars and other assorted film quizzes, always trying to stump the other with our facts and useless knowledge of the film industry.  We also started recording all of the band names and singers we could think of, writing them down in a notebook.  She would go for awhile, then pass it to me to think of more.  We held this fantasy that someday we would name everyone.  We thought we were so smart, but thinking back we really only had knowledge about a small subset of music.  Mind you, we were more informed than most of the people at the school, but still, it was small in the grand scheme of things.

Being in this group of outsiders, most of just wanted to be part of something, but Annie...she was different.  She came with this walk, this air, this attitude that strongly signaled that she did not care about what they thought.  She was happy with who she was, or at least she faked it rather well.  It did not take long for her to pair off with one of the other outsider guys.  Up to that point, I did not even think about things in terms of having a girlfriend, but I knew then that I had a crush on her.  Oh well, she was now taken.

Mind you, in my mind, I had no idea what having a girlfriend really meant, or hell, I was not even sure how to handle a crush.  I just knew that I liked this girl, but she was taken, so that took a lot of the stress away from those thoughts anyway.  Up until that point, the idea that a girl would actually like me back was so far removed that it was alien.  I held this belief that no girl would ever be interested in me enough to even hug me or hold my hand.  The idea of sex with a girl was something that I thought about, but never once actually considered it a possibility in my life.  Girls were like foreign creatures to me.  Like I stated before, until Annie, I had no idea that there were even girls that were into the same things as us guys were.  What a revelation!

To move on, even though I was in a small group of outsiders that even contained a couple of girls now, I still wanted to be accepted by the "cool" and "popular" kids.  I believe the others had similar feelings, but they would never admit it.  We all got picked on and shoved around some.  Rarely did anything escalate into anything more than words, but once in awhile a small shoving match would break out.  We would all make up stories about girls outside of school, or elaborate lies about thinking that X girl liked us.  It was just a way to try to help our self-esteem by feeling more connected to those "cool" kids.  Of course most of it was bullshit and while we were smart enough to know it, we all accepted it because our lies reflected each others lies.  If one tumbles, they all do.

One day I was rather ripped-apart for the awesome sweats that I was wearing.  Then during the next class period, Annie asked me "Why do you let them pick on you like that?  So what if you like wearing sweats.  They are comfortable, fuck 'em."

Now, I did not think much about that at the time, but in the years since, I came to realize that this was the first time that a girl showed any kind of concern for my personal well-being.  She cared for me, even if only on the most superficial level.  She hated that they picked on me and wanted to try to help me through this rough time that was adolescence.

Then, as 8th grade moved along, she broke up with that guy she had dated, started dating this older guy from another school.  I thought that was do weird.  I barely knew anyone that was not from our school, so first, how did she even meet someone different and then how did they hook up?  That was such a strange and confusing idea to me, being an isolated farm kid.

So I had a crush on a girl that I only saw at school and dated a guy from outside of the norm.  How cool was she?!  How could I compete?  Well, this was the age that I learned about the powerful tool known as the "mix tape."  If you are unaware of this brilliant, yet hard to wield device, the mix tape is where you record a bunch of song on a tape, from your own collection and/or off of the radio and give it to someone in an attempt to let the songs tell your feelings for you.  You give it to the person you have a crush on, silently screaming to them "Just listen to the words...it sums everything up!  Just listen!"  We would trade mix tapes back and forth, talk bands and songs, but mine were not so much to express my feelings as they were to try to get her to realize that we were so in tune with each other that we MUST be made for one another.  We are kindred spirits, so please, be with me.

I know it is silly.  Hell, I couldn't even muster up the courage to call her once in awhile just to chat.  I mean, what if I called and she was like "What the hell are you calling me for?"  I would have been mortified!

At the end of the school year, I decided that I wanted to give her a present.  Something to remember me by, but also as a gesture of affection.  While I did not really have much money or know what I could buy for her anyway, I found something in my room that was perfect.  We were both fans of Pink Floyd and I was given, sometime before, a huge poster for their album "The Division Bell."  That was it.  I would give it to her after our graduation dance.  She would finally know of my affections towards her.

The last week of school came.  We went on some field trips to the bay area and whatnot.  In a store on Pier 39 she wanted a shirt that had the "Fruit of the Loom" logo on it, but instead of saying the brand name it said "Freak in the Room."  She was short a few bucks, so my mom, who was one of the chaperones on this trip, gave her the couple extra bucks to get her shirt.  Alright mom, more bonus points for me!

The day was finally here.  The last period of the last day we were given an extended recess period to sit outside with our friends or do whatever and let it all sink in.  During this time, some people got together, signed year books, exchanged good byes, some tears flowed.  For the most part, I sat alone, away from everyone.  I wept a bit.  I was not mourning for this thing, this society that I loved, but for the loss of a certain step of childhood.  I was about to leave the only real group dynamic that I had known, even if it was a shitty one.  At least I knew my expectations here.  To top it all off, many of us were going to different schools, including Annie.  She and a few others were going to one high school, most of us were heading to another, just due to location.  I was about to lose the first girl that was truly nice to me, that showed some form of concern for me, that tried to teach me that I could be happy without being part of the exclusive club.  That was a big deal to this 14 year old boy.

Once we had our graduation ceremony we all shuffled into the auditorium for our final dance. We were not ones to enjoy the dances much as they were too poppy and all of the "cool" kids went to them, but as this was the last moments together, we all decided to go.  For the most part our small group of friends just sat alone, danced a bit, but tried to talk the DJ into playing something that was not hip-hop or top-40 garbage.  We did finally get him to play one Pearl Jam song.  That was enough because Pearl Jam was Annie's and my favorite band at the time.  For the most part though, I counted the seconds until we were forced into the world as separate people, no longer the friends that I hoped we would continue to be.

When the dance came to a close, I told Annie that I had a gift for her.  My mom brought it with her when she came to pick me up.  When I showed Annie the Pink Floyd poster she jumped for joy, said thank you, and gave me a hug.

A hug.  I know it does not mean much, but to me at the time, it was the greatest moment in my life.  This was my first real crush, the first girl to care about me as a human being outside of family, and we just crossed the threshold into the world physical contact.  No one but family had ever shown me affection before.  My heart jumped and a smile was on my face for the next two days.

My mother drove me home, and the entire way I felt new.  Finally I understood what Annie was trying to tell me many months ago when she told me to stop caring about what the "cool" kids say.  I looked forward to the future in a new school with a positive attitude.  Maybe I could reinvent myself?  Maybe I could finally be the person that I felt I truly was, and no longer this awkward guy that planned everyday around how to avoid ridicule.  Maybe, just maybe, life would hand me new friends and people, new adventures, and a I would find more girls out there like Annie.

That hug signified the first step into a world of manhood and I am happy that she was the one to give that to me.  Over the years she and I talked a bit, wrote a couple of letters, chatted over social networking sites, but really never had a friendship again.  While I reached out for her on multiple occasions, she rarely reached back.  I don't know much about her life since as she never really wanted to talk about it, but she always accepted friend requests and chatted a little bit.

I wish that I could find her today.  She still has an old myspace page out there, but no updates or contacts in years.  I hope that wherever she is, however she is doing, she knows that she made a difference in someone's life, no matter how insignificant that may seem, or how insignificant I may be.

They Might Be Amazing

This weekend was an outstanding one.  If you are unaware, since about the age of 14 I have been a huge fan of the band They Might Be Giants while maintaining a very respectable collection of their disks and records.  Back in 1999 I went with a group of friends and first saw them at the Warfield in San Francisco.  It was one of the most amazing shows in that the crowd was great, we were near the front, and they played a ton of great songs.  The opening band for that show was a small band called "You Were Spiraling" that played a brilliant set as well with some cool old covers and original work.  It was a good time.

While I still listened to them often, I did not get another chance to see them until 2007.  This show was also in SF, but this time we were at the Fillmore.  The opening band for this show was called "Oppenheimer."  They were a 2-person group that really did well for themselves.  That show, while it rocked as well, did not recreate the same feeling for me as the first show did some years earlier.  I enjoyed myself overall, but it was not the same as it was in my youth.  While I still purchased merch and would not say I was disappointed, I started to question if I had grown away from this band that I loved so dearly.

Did they change or did I change?  It took me awhile to realize that we both had, but that the change is not a bad thing at all.

Earlier this year TMBG sent out an email selling "Fan Club" memberships which included free t-shirts, free vinyls, and 2 free concert tickets to one of the shows on the upcoming tour.  I jumped at the chance for a few reason, but mostly for the records.  It is a good thing that I did jump at the chance as they only had 1000 spots open and they sold out in about 24-hours.  I was one of the lucky few and my name is listed with the other fan club members in the digital booklet to their newest full release "Join Us."

I now started to see what they were going for here.  Once the album came out my love for the band was rejuvinated in that they were playing smart adult rock tunes again.  For the first time in years I had to take out my dictionary to find out what a song was talking about.  The music was new, while still being TMBG, and the lyrics were spot-on with their quirkiness, while still maintaining dark themes hiding inside of beautiful pop melodies. 

The album title, the fan club, their website, and everything was changed from the previous few years to reflect a band who was once something, trying to get back to those roots that made them great and they succeeded wonderfully.

For my free tickets I got a pair for an SF show, again at the Fillmore.  This time they also booked a second show that same weekend at the venue.  I picked up a pair of tickets for that show as well.  Then, just a couple of days before the shows, they announced a free show at Amoeba Records in SF along with a signing.  Holy crap!  3 shows in 2 days!  Woot!

We booked a hotel for the weekend and we were off.  First show was Saturday night.  My uncle who lives in the area met us for the sold-out concert as I had an extra ticket.  The opening band for this tour was the great Jonathan Coulton.  I had never seen him before but was familiar with his nerdy songs, so that was fun.  We stood near the back of the venue, had a good view overall, and listened.  After Coulton preformed, then TMBG took the stage and right off the bat opened with a strange set list.  In the past they would open shows with harder, mostly upbeat songs.  This was different.  They opened with an old song from their second album called "Pencil Rain" which was one of my favorites like 15 years ago.  I was floored with a "Wow..."

The set followed along these these lines.  Overall it was a strange set that was kind of weird and choppy and did not flow that well.  That was my only complaint.  The show was fun and positive in the end.  I got the feeling that John Linell was really not that on-the-ball that night though.  I came to find out that the show the night before was a huge disappointment with a terrible crowd, so it was understandable that the band was a little off the ball for this one.

After Pencil Rain they followed with a few flowing songs in "Can't Keep Johnny Down," "Celebration," and "Why Does the Sun Shine," but followed with more chop in "Snail Shell" and "Fingertips."  They ended the main set with the rocking tune "The Mesopotamians."  This led to a series of encores with just the Johns singing "How Can I sing Like A Girl," then the whole band for "Don't Let's Start," "San Francisco," "The Guitar," and ending the night with the crowd singing the softer tune "Dead," a fan favorite since it first came out 20 years ago.  Like I said, my only complain was just the strange vibe that the set brought with it, but overall a great a show.

The next day was started with the in-store free show and signing at Amoeba Records in SF.  My wife and I got there early, which if you know me, taking me to a record store with money and time is one of the most dangerous combinations.  I had to really restrain myself from overspending, but in the end I was able to limit myself to just a few albums for purchase.  We bought a copy of the newest album to get signed after the set and got a spot right up front, just a few feet from where the Johns would be standing.

On and off we talked to other people in the crowd and before the show started Flansy came out and asked us to start chanting "Boring, boring, why are we waiting!" over and over while he shot a short video on his phone to upload under the title "Amoeba Records Show Not Going Very Well..."  It was fun.  The Johns, along with their drummer Marty Beller, came out a bit after that and started the short, but rocking set.  Flansy told an amusing anecdote about him dreaming about the prosaic aspect of being on tour, like blank crowds and tuning up.



After the 8-song set was done, which finished with the song "Pencil Rain" again, we were near the front of the line for signings.  They signed my album and I told them I was glad to see them playing a good mix of older stuff and wished them a good show that night.  John Linnell told me they were trying to mix it up a bit.  My wife was a bit star struck with the Johns, especially when Flansy asked her for her name and wrote it on one of the ticket stubs she had them sign.  Linnell said something like "Don't you need these for the show tonight?" and I replied with "Oh, they were from last night" and he smiled.


This led into that night's show.  As announced beforehand, the band was going to play the entire album, cover to cover, of their breakout record from 1990 called "Flood."  Knowing the length of that album coming in at around 40 minutes, I was curious as to how they would fit this into the show.  Would they do it first, then pad the end, of the other way around?  Would they play it in order or what?  Normally, when bands play entire albums they start from the beginning and end at the end. 

Well, when the show started they opened up again with a softer song in their lament of aging called "Older."  Well, that answered the question that they were not starting with the "Flood" album.  They followed up with another series of weird songs that I was not expecting such as "Subliminal," "XTC vs. Adam Ant," "Drink!" and "We're the Replacements," along with a few others.  This time the set flowed much better though than the night before.  After about 8 songs they busted into the "Flood" set but with a twist.  The album would be played in reverse order.  At first as was a bit disappointed, but then after I thought about it for a second and I realized that this was an amazing choice because of the strength of the first half of the album compared to the relative weakness of the latter half of the album.

After a wonderful set and the completion of the album, the band left the stage.  This then provoked a couple of encores including the songs "Can't Keep Johnny Down," "Fingertips," "How Can I Sing Like A Girl," and ending with "When Will You Die."  It was an overwhelming night in all.

This ended our weekend of rock shows with a band that we grew up with and still love.  After getting home I was checking into stuff on the band's website to which they updated with a new tag line stating "Independent Music for Independent People."  This, along with talking to them, the fan club, and set list, and the new album named "Join Us," I came to realize that the band was trying to reconnect with their core audience, the grassroots movement, and the joy of music.  They wanted us to join them in finding that spark that made them great songwriters and performers in the first place. 

Once I realized that, I was all-in.  I was inspired to listen again to the old stuff and create a new mix of older tunes and newer ones.  The band had gone full-circle and I had joined them on this journey and remembered something that I missed from years ago.

Thank you John and John of They Might Be Giants.  I still love you guys and always will.