Year Of The Pig

Ever get the feeling your luck's about to change?

That's how I felt when I filled out a raffle ticket in the local supermarket the other day. The cashier told me there were all kinds of prizes I might win: A flat screen TV, microwave,new computer - that kind of thing. Every time I've been in to shop lately I've filled out another ticket. There just aren't that many people living around here, so the chances are pretty good that when they draw the winning ticket on Sunday, they're going to be calling me to come down and collect my prize.

I mean, things have been going a lot more my way lately. The IRS knocked my tax bill down to $69,000 - it's only a matter of time before we get two zeroes taken off of that, and then I can pay up.

But I got a little worried when I went in the supermarche yesterday afternoon. There was a big commotion - a crowd of people gathered around a large cardboard box - so I went over to see what the fuss was about.

Down in the corner of the box, scoffing an apple, was an enormous live pig. It had a pink bow around its neck. Everyone was ooh'ing and aah'ing as the pig made some disgusting noises from the back of its throat.

There was a red-faced man in a cheap suit barking into a cordless microphone nearby, and from what I could gather anyone who has taken the time to fill out a ticket has a very good chance of winning - the pig.

I plan to be out of the house all day Sunday.

Although I did put our address on the tickets. So they know where I live. We may have to move.

But then again, maybe all that's missing from our act is a good gimmick.

Fingers crossed.

Basingstoke Saturday Night

What with spending a few days with Eric's mother, and then Duane passing away I've been thinking a lot about mortality. Getting older, death - fun topics. Some people find comfort in the idea of an afterlife - sort of like a great big South by Southwest in the sky where you schmooze with everyone you ever cared about - but that doesn't work for me. So where's it all leading? I get very down. Part of it's got to be the whole menopause thing. I wanted to face it with wit and aplomb but it's hell some of the time. But what's the alternative to aging?

I don't want mourning to become my new hobby! Friends, places, heroes, the past. But I seem to spend so much time revisiting what has already happened. I wonder how long this passageway to wisdom and understanding and acceptance takes? Thankfully there are still shows to play.

We do a lot of gigs in people's homes. I've been doing them for years and, as odd as it seems to set up and play a concert in the corner of someone's living room, house concerts are becoming more and more popular.

They can be awkward, stilted affairs, like the one we played in December where this guy's whole family sat glowering at us from a sofa because, although Dad was a fan, we were spoiling his wife's Sunday afternoon and the kids had been told they couldn't use the computer for a few hours, so they really hated us.

Or they can be...awkward, stilted affairs, where friends and neighbors are roped into being an audience but they don't particularly like music.

But for the most part they start off a little weird, with people hanging back, unsure what to expect, but in the end having a great time and begging to know when they can host one in their living room.

And then there was Saturday night in Basingstoke.

One of Eric's biggest fans was having a bunch of friends over with us as the entertainment. Some of them had seen us before and were already enthusiastic, and the rest had been assured they'd have a good time.

Things were off to a fine start, everyone with glass of wine or beer in hand. They were laughing at all our jokes and applauding loudly, so we knew it was going to be fun. Then the hostess mentioned that we could trash the carpeting, and all hell broke loose.

Teenage hooligans have nothing on a roomful of people over forty, with the problems that go with being middle-aged, in the middle of England, in the middle of the worst recession in any of our lifetimes. At the end of the first set, people were still lucid enough to say they were having a fantastic time. By a few songs into the second set they were out of their minds. The posh woman who'd been telling me about their horses and second home in France and how she wished she could play guitar was headbanging, thrashing along to Final Taxi. The sandaled men in the room had removed their offending footwear and were smacking sandals together over their heads, then hitting each other, then pelting us with them. Another (probably) menopausal woman kept yelling that she loved me.

People were singing, no - shouting along, pogoing, knocking over lamps and microphone stands, dumping red wine on the cream carpet, falling over chairs. They would have been stage diving but there was no stage. The host's teenage son and girlfriend fled the room, terrified.

Things took a while to die down after we finished playing. A fight almost broke out when someone said the Proclaimers were shite (Eric had to hold me back from hitting the guy). A woman celebrating her thirty sixth birthday, the youngest person in the room, said she'd been feeling really old, but looking at everyone else at the party she felt a lot younger now.

We packed up the equipment and ate hot cross buns at 3 AM. I felt younger too, but for a different reason.

D.J.

For three days, I've been walking around with a card in my purse. A note and a picture to send to my friend, Duane Jarvis, who's been fighting cancer and recently moved to an apartment at the beach near Los Angeles to wait things out.

Duane was one of the coolest people in Nashville when I moved down there almost ten years ago. He and Denise, his wife at the time, put me and my daughter up in their cute house on the east side of town. When our car died, Duane loaned me his snazzy late 70's cruiser, until I got the money together to buy something else.

I'd first seen him playing guitar with Lucinda Williams. He always dressed sharp but not showy, like his playing. A Ray Davies-style pinstripe jacket, or tailored Western shirt, black jeans and those sturdy Australian boots, the outback version of Beatle boots. Great hair! I don't know why I'm talking about something so superficial as appearance, because DJ was a deep guy. I say was, and I still can't believe it, as I write this. Whatever I write is not going to do him justice. How do you sum up a person in a few paragraphs? Duane passed away last night.

I feel lucky to have known him, to have rocked and written with him. We did lots of gigs together, talked about so many things. New Hope to New York, Knoxville to Nashville, San Francisco to Portland. Late night drives, I'd be ranting and raving - I don't think I ever heard him say a cross word. Maybe he knew it was all so temporary.

He had a spare, soulful style of playing that always complemented, underscored - never got in the way. And he was sweet, and kind. Class.

I wish I could've talked to him this past week. I wish I'd gotten the card to him. I left a voicemail for him, but before I did I got to hear his voice one more time, on the outgoing message. He sounded so calm, like always. Whatever battles he was fighting, he stayed positive.

Temporary? He's all over the place, on records he made and played on, forever. And the way that everybody who knew and loved him is connected to everyone else who knew and loved him. His family, his Nashville gang, L.A. friends, fans, Portland people, all the clubs in all the towns. Notes, tones, songs, memories - floating around out there.

But damn, it makes me sad.

The Good

What a drag I've been lately. I keep thinking back to when I'd write about the simple pleasures, like a yogurt maker (now gathering dust on a shelf, too much trouble) or a gig at a local bar (familiarity breeds not contempt but irritation) or a caramel eclair (fattening) or a rainbow (last seen eleven months ago). I don't blame anyone for averting their eyes from the sad posts here.

But while dealing with the detritus of a few years back, it hasn't all been bleak. There are two new restaurants nearby - a Chinese woman and her English husband have opened a good Chinese place just across the road from a nearby chateau and today we tried this really cute tearoom/pottery shop that an English/American couple have put so much work and inspiration into. There's a new system in France that makes it much easier for people to open new businesses, without all the steep charges and restrictions that have existed in the past. It might seem insane in this economic climate (I can't believe I'm using that phrase but I don't currently have the brain power to come up with any other way to describe the recession) to start a new small business. But my friends who run workshops for people interested in starting independent bookshops say the workshops are selling out - when it comes down to it people possess stores of resourcefulness and imagination that are only unleashed when they stop believing someone else is going to take care of everything for them. (I'm speaking out of hope here, for myself and others.)

I'm on a memoir kick: Carolyn See's Dreaming, Mary Cantwell's Manhattan, When I Was Young, anything by Dirk Bogarde. And Strunk & White's The Elements of Style - if only I could put it in practice. I'd go back to school if I could but in the meanwhile studying writing is as easy as picking up a well-written book.

Eric just played a great Kevin Ayers record. Also Mott the Hoople. He told me some funny story about...oh, I don't know. He's got so many. He can entertain me for hours. One time we were in a Bob Evans outside of Cleveland and he explained very carefully to the waiter how to make a proper cup of English tea. The poor man didn't know what hit him. He'd been suddenly whirled up out of Northeast Ohio into a Monty Python sketch.

We're on our way to England for some house concerts. We'll get to visit friends too, and Eric's daughter and his mum. And when we come back it'll be spring for real, I just know it.

So How Was Your Weekend?

I’m broke, and the IRS says I owe them $89,000. They end up sending me to prison. I’m depressed, menopausal, and my hair’s falling out. In the women’s penitentiary, I keep to myself.

I’m in the yard, all alone at a picnic table when someone hands me a guitar. It’s been a while since I played anything, but it feels as comfortable as sitting in one of those special massage chairs at the mall. I remember shopping, drinking wine and being free. And then I start to strum. I play “Fernando,” the old ABBA song, because that’s the first thing that pops into my head.

A few women come and stand around me to listen. When I reach the chorus, Margie, one of the meanest, toughest convicts in the joint, joins in on the harmony:

There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando.

Next thing I know, they’re all singing with me.

They were shining there for you and me, for liberty, Fernando.

Up on the wall, a few of the guards have been deep in discussion. One of them looks down at us and I can see tears in her eyes. She opens her mouth and starts to sing, in a lovely alto:

Though we never thought that we could lose, there’s no regret.

The warden has strolled out to see what the commotion is. She shouts out. “Hey! Amy Rigby!”

Everyone freezes, and I feel myself turning bright red. I wonder how she’s going to punish me for this. Peeling potatoes? Breaking up concrete? Cleaning the bathrooms, probably.

She walks over and stares me down. “Maybe you could use this,” she says, handing me a capo. “Your key’s a little low.” Then she winks.

If I had to do the same again, I would my friend, Fernando.

And in that moment, even though I’m in jail, I’m as happy as I could ever be.

Some of this is true.

She Bangs (Again)

I had a vision for how it would be. It seemed like a good time for such a bold step, what with starting a new decade and everything. I knew if I was strong, I could get...there. The other side. The land of the un-banged.

I held on for weeks, even when I desperately wanted to cut. I’d catch sight of myself in a mirror and say “I can do this.” I’d see women on buses, on the street, in restaurants. If they were doing it, so could I. I would show my forehead. I would grow out my bangs.

I was learning a new way of looking, and being looked at, that didn’t involve peeping and hiding, ducking and tossing. I felt clear-eyed. Exposed. Brave.

But this morning, I was weak. I saw the silver gleam of the barber shears, there in the shadows of the bathroom cabinet. And I caved.

Oh my God, I feel so much better. I feel like I can get on with my life.

My Work Here Is Done

Hazel found a job. I can't take any credit of course. All I did was buy the occasional meal, take her to a cheap afternoon movie, try to be supportive and when I couldn't take any more of Chicago in mid-February, headed off to NY for a fun-filled weekend with friends and family while she struggled along. It's not the perfect job:

Me: What's the uniform?

H: Visor and t-shirt.

Me: At least they don't make you wear a polo shirt!

H: (simultaneously) ...and when the training period's over they make you wear a polo shirt.

But it's something. She's happy and I feel better.

Conversations, from airports, trains and restaurants:

Girl in line at the airport. She's suntanned, with hair and nail extensions, Chanel sunglasses. "In Boca? This one family, they paid, like $500, they have to sell for, like, $207? We walk in, and they're there, with all the stuff they bought, packed up in boxes, and they're like, crying? But my dad's in a position to buy a bunch of stuff now so it's good for us..." She's like, twenty?

A Chicago bus. Woman, with a Dunkin Donuts bag, speaking loudly: "Yeah, I been on a fast for four days, I lost four pounds. Let's see, I was 252 and I'm 247 now, so that's five pounds, right? I gotta go for this test where they stick this rubber hose up, y'know, where you go to the bathroom? There could be some kind of obstruction up there, either a tumor and or impacted, ummm, y'know...poop. But you, you don't have to worry about that, til you're at least fifty."

The train, near Wicker Park. Guy, texting with one hand and talking on another phone at the same time. "Yeah, she flirts with everybody, so they all think she's available. (Pause, texting) Yeah, even like, on stage? She does it then, and that's different, cause she's performing. But then all these guys come up after cause they think that she meant it." (reads text, laughs silently, I don't blame the girl)

On the taxi shuttle to the LIRR (clearly marked Express Taxi Service to Train Station). Suntanned, white-teethed woman who's been shouting and herding three kids aged about 4, 6 & 8.

"Excuse me!? Excuse me, driver - where are you going?"

"Lady, where are YOU going?"

"I want to go to the parking lot! Where do you think you're taking us?"

Driver, patiently: "This is a shuttle to the train station."

"Shit. See what you kids made me do?"

Veselka restaurant on 2nd Avenue in New York. Two grandparents, their adult son and their grandson about 4 years old. Grandma is manically trying to keep kid occupied. The grandfather looks bored and the kid's father keeps checking his phone.

Grandma: Now if you eat everything, I have a big surprise for you! Max. Brenner's. Chocolate. Doesn't that sound gr-eat?

Little kid looks completely uninterested.

Dad: Hey buddy, I'm thinking maybe you might like the Belgian waffle, with whipped cream? Is that cool with you, pal?

The little prince doesn't answer, so they take that as a yes.

Grandma: Hey, Joshy, did you ever play 20 Questions? I'll tell you how you play...

She proceeds to go through the whole game, hypothetically. "I say I'm thinking of something - let's say it's the Statue of Liberty, but I don't tell you what it is, and so you start going through questions, like `is it bigger than a bread box, is it an animal, a vegetable, or a mineral, is it in this country, is it a person?'"

She illustrates, using up at least twenty questions.

Joshy, waiting until she's finished: I don't want to play.

He's really pretty well-behaved and makes it through the meal without incident. I get up to leave at the same time they do (maybe Grandma will take me to Max Brenner's too? I like chocolate) and Joshy proceeds to knock over a whole glass of water, on me. Grandma shrugs triumphantly.