Category Archives: Make A Joyful Noise

Love You Save May Be Your Own

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The Jackson 5’s Greatest Hits was the first album I ever bought with my own saved pennies. These songs were so important to me as a little girl my parents took away my second record Ben. It wasn’t until the last year of his life that Dad told me what’d happened. It was a shameful business: my parents were afraid that because Black is beautiful I would think only Black was beautiful, and I would never see my own beauty. Fortunately, I grew into my undeniable EXTREME! BEAUTY! I can’t really explain any of that. No matter how strange things got for him, I always had a soft spot in my heart for Michael Jackson.

With the Scenery Flying By

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Saturday morning, Pete and I climbed the long flight of concrete stairs to the train platform and walked a long way to an empty space against the wall. I heard an accordian and took the camera out of my bookbag. “Pete,” I said, “it is totally crucial that you take a picture because nobody believes that everywhere I go there’s theme music. If we’re very lucky, you’ll also capture the back up dancers.” Of course, you may be inclined to say, “Ta darling, those are people having their own lives. Your presence is a coincidence. Stop being so Center Of the Universe about it.” Shaaaa. Have you met me?

This is the only picture Pete took all day of something that wasn’t moving so obviously that’s the one out of focus. But it is important! All hail the bowl of Veselka’s borscht, the bowl of soup so sublime it must be experienced to be believed, and no shimmering verbiage approaches its epic yumminess. The ordinary bowl cannot contain it! The challah must sop its brothy goodness. Behold the borscht – and know that when you stare into the borscht, it stares into you!

The coffee was also pretty good.

Please Don’t Stay In Touch

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Uh oh! California’s scorned pageant princess is p-p-pissed!

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Miss California Carrie Prejean, who declared her opposition to same-sex marriage during the Miss USA pageant, will star in a new $1.5 million ad campaign funded by the National Organization for Marriage.

The organization has scheduled a press conference with Prejean in Washington on Thursday to unveil the new ad, called “No Offense.”

Prejean was roasted by same-sex marriage advocates after she stood up for what she called “opposite marriage” (marriage between a man and a woman) when responding to a question from celebrity blogger and pageant judge Perez Hilton.

Prejean has also become a fresh-faced standard-bearer for the same-sex marriage opponents, who have rallied to her defense.

“She is attacked viciously for having the courage to speak up for her truth and her values,” the National Organization for Marriage said in a press release. “But Carrie’s courage inspired a whole nation and a whole generation of young people because she chose to risk the Miss USA crown rather than be silent about her deepest moral values.”

According to the group, the ad will call “gay marriage advocates to account for their unwillingness to debate the real issue: gay marriage has consequences.”

Indeed – gay marriage does have consequences. One day, you’re dancing in the lesbian bar, minding your own gay business. You knock back a few drinks, take home a hot chick, wake up and count how many fingers you’re holding up. Next thing you know, she’s like all, “Baby, baby, baby, we’re gonna have a baby,” and you’re all, “I’m smoke, I’m history, I’m Casper.” No wait, that’s those icky straight people. I can’t even think about them having sex! Ewww!

I’m an unabashed advocate of same-sex marriage rights. I won’t debate it because there’s nothing to debate. There is no compromise position. I should have the right to marry a man or a woman. I should have the right to enter into this contract with the person of my choosing, as long as that person chooses me too; the same rights, for everyone, without exception. But Carrie Prejean, the sum of whose life experience can be charitably described as more limited than a veal cow’s, thinks she knows better.

Huh. Take it away, Lily Allen –

Pass the Tanning Butter

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Last week, I ordered CD versions of the first two B-52s albums because how did I only have those in highly stationary vinyl? I can’t play that in my car! Every time I hear Rock Lobster turns out to out to be the happiest six minutes of my life. Shouting about red snappers snappin’ on my way to work practically constituted therapy because when I got there, my department expected a visit from Human Resources. My co-worker’s funeral is Saturday morning. I have regrets I don’t want to voice before we play that trust game that involves crowd surfing without a band. Yesterday, people around me swarmed her desk and cleaned it out, which I realized was too soon for me when I couldn’t breathe for an hour and a half. This may be startling, given my extreme beauty, but I don’t look great in just any shade of blue. This morning, building maintenance finally responded to an earlier complaint about ants along the cubicle wall ten feet from my desk, so at 10:30 this morning, my department hosted a grief counselor and an exterminator.

Teary hilarity did indeed ensue.

Next Time I’ll See You There

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Have you ever in your entire life seen an action photo of tulips? Sunday afternoon, I walked by this color combination, backed up a few steps and said, “Pete, get the camera.” Though the flowers appeared still they of course weren’t. Nothing is. We are all always in motion, faster than we know and not at all where we appear to be. When Darla was down from Canada for a visit, I opened a jar of Tang to amuse her. “We can pretend we’re in space!” she exclaimed. And, of course, we are.

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I remembered that our landlord for the house we lived in when I was five had a wooden leg, and I remembered his name, too. Things may be starting to drift out from behind the wall of my memory loss. An example: this obscure Australian song I had on a 1993 NACB sampler and never heard anywhere else. Until yesterday, I hadn’t seen this embarrassing video, but somehow that makes it better.
I love this happy, happy song and its drive and energy. I can’t figure out why the singer dances about a half a beat off the rhythm but there’s no accounting for counting. For all we know, she hears her own distant drummer, as we do at our house, and late at night we call the cops because we are old now, and resent the presence of a bad Portishead cover band next door. I mean, what?

Lovely Princess Drusy likes face-to-face interaction, so when Pete sat down to take pictures, Drusy leapt onto the table and licked his face. Pete grumbled, but he wasn’t really angry. How can you be angry when the tiny, beautiful pussycat openly adores you? You cannot. So Pete grumbled, took this one picture including Drusy and she scampered off to play. That stripe of pink skin under black fur looks like Topaz and not Drusy, whose face is all black. It was Drusy, disguised as Topaz, I think. Perhaps this photo provides proof for someone’s Unified Cat Theory, but space makes it hard to be certain.

That Borders My Back

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In the words of the great sages A Halo Called Fred, the finest band that ever let me play guitar without injuring myself on the strings, “Have you ever woken up in the morning, having had a little too much to drink the night before, and said to yourself these magic words?” I say, don’t limit yourself to hangovers. Sometimes, you just feel like –