And the nominees for tomorrow’s protest signs are:
No one on the mayflower immigrated here legally
MAGA HATES OUR FREEDOM
Flint Michigan Still doesn’t Have Clean Water But We have the $$$$ For 4 Thousand Marines to Stand Around Downtown LA
Garret says “The first one is a mouthfull, the second one is good but kinda basic, and the third one is too long.” Pause. Back to baseball game. Takes a bite of apple. “But they are all good”
I’m partial to the first one, feels original and fresh. Like the apple Garret is munching on. Recently he went to the doctor, and get this, he was literally prescribed an apple a day. It’s bc he is a little anemic, and apples I guess help with this? It’s really funny though because he’s such a hypochondriac that he just let that sit there. I mean the doctor didn’t actually say ‘an apple a day,’ he said, “You need to eat more apples.” And if it were me, by gods I would say “You mean, like, one every…so often? Or…” Come on, SAY IT.
While researching protest signs I exposed myself to a higher than normal amount of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace talking, and if I were at the doctor right this minute they would probably want me to go on heart medication. So I have to take a rain check on writing about politics except to say: Everyone protesting tomorrow is part of a historical moment in our country. Each time you take action in your community and speak out, you are making history just a little bit. Be really nice to yourselves, guys. You matter and are important.
My Feyoncé, as many of you know, is currently on tour with Matt Berninger, but he’s home now between legs of said tour so he has work in town. This means he’s mostly at the studio he manages running sessions with bands, sometimes playing with them, and sometimes playing at other studios with bands who hire him to play with them. That’s what he’s doing now, and I don’t know the name of the band he is currently playing with but you do not know of them. They sound like Kings of Leon on a shoestring budget. I call them “the born in a bucket guys” or, alternately “Oh Brother Why Art Thou.” Needless to say, in my seven years of dating this fine man, I have become incredibly spoiled by the fact that he mostly plays music that I mostly enjoy. I remember the days of listening over and over to the one song that my boyfriend du jour played on that was vaguely passable, so starved was I for quality tunes from a love interest. I dated or slept with so many musicians that I could fill an album just with the one song from each of them that was semi-good. To be fair some of the songs were quite good, but mostly they were bad. I feel like I have to caution Fchase from getting too excited that I dated Adam Stonehouse from The Hospitals, because I can feel him freaking out at this admission. I did date him, but I didn’t get to experience any musical glory, because the “Album” that he was recording the entire time I knew him (and reportedly for many years before) was made under extreme duress, and the duress was mine.
The thing about dating musicians is that I get to be with someone who understands performance and being an artist without having to actually fully engage with their work. I have always been a whatever-the-opposite-of a-music-snob is. I am not an aficionado, I don’t collect records, I don’t have bands I follow around and getting excited about seeing live music is a thing I have to make myself do. I care about music, I think it’s important, but it’s not something I am ever fully plugged into and I love that for me. One time I was on the subway in NY and I overheard a conversation where a guy was asking this other guy what kind of music he likes and the first guy said “I don’t really like music.” Hey, obvious alien, that is not a human response. Years later when I was well out of my 20’s I realized that was not an earnest statement but rather the response of someone who just really didn’t want to be talking to that person.
Garret is a music snob, and I allow that and I love it for him. His love of and understanding of music is something I respect about him, and the fact that I cannot tell why he’s a sought after bassist endears that part of him all the more to me. He cries when he goes to see certain classical music performed well. He plays actual jazz music, and it really seems like he knows what all is going on. Fascinating. One of my favorite places to see him play is with one of his bands, the Hi-Fi Honeydrops. I have gleaned that jazz standards are played with some improv inserted formulaically throughout each song, with musicians taking turns soloing. I love watching the musicians decide who is going next without looking at each other. It’s like they have access to an unseen central control panel like jazz neuralink. Jazz cyborgs. It’s great.
The whole process is always a little opaque to me, gut level decisions being made based on an education both formal and informal in music that is foreign to me. Some of that is deliberate. I grew up in music stores, not record shops but stores with musical instruments, mostly guitars, and mostly full of musicians. I should have a vast knowledge of octaves and harmonies and time signatures. But the reason my childhood is full of music is because my dad owned a music store, and many OG Mostlyfans readers will know my relationship with my dad is No Bueno. He pushed music on me in a way that set off alarm bells because I knew he was a dangerous narcissistic alcoholic before I could talk, and I knew there was something nefarious in his insistence that I learn to play. In grade school orchestra, they were out of violin positions so I picked up the viola, but I played for three years without ever learning to read music. Either I was sick the day they taught us that, or they did teach us that, and I resisted dyslexically learning yet another written language / the spectre of having something in common with my father. Attention George Bush! Child left behind! Child! Left! Behind!
My dad also loved The Beatles in the way that Peter Jackson loved The Beatles: Oppressively. To me, a real appreciation of the discography of The Beatles must include the context in which they making music and who they were “inspired” by. In no way do I mean to diminish the immense songwriting accomplishments of Lennon-McCartney but there is a reason Beatles music is a boilerplate soundtrack to two decades of American history. “It wasn’t a rip-off; it was a love-in.” Said Lennon when he was accused of ripping off other artists’ music. Like how Taco Bell is a love-in of Mexican food. Still, I love The Beatles, but releasing seven hours of uncut footage of them sitting around does not a documentary make, and we should all probably check in on Peter Jackson.
I just found out from Garret that our favorite deep dish place closed, and I might have pink eye. I didn’t learn the second thing from Garret, in fact the lights haven’t turned on all the way yet so he doesn’t even know so there’s still time for me to hang out with him without him thinking I am gross. I am going to go do that now, even though the pizza I want isn’t going to be a part of it. Because sometimes love means ordering something that’s not what you really want and hiding pink eye till the food gets here. As the saying goes.
