Trying to Get My Mansions Green

Wednesday night, I saw a musical production of "Grey Gardens" at the Northlight Theater in Skokie. If you are not familiar with this story, (even if you are familiar, honestly) you might not understand how it could be adapted into a musical. It makes perfect sense to me.

Grey Gardens is a documentary from the 70's that opened the doors on the elderly Edith "Big Edie" Bouvier Beale and her middle-aged daughter, Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale. They were cousins of Jackie Kennedy who lived the life of two deranged old maids in a once-magnificent, now dilapidated mansion, Grey Gardens. Of the 28 or so rooms, they only utilized a single bedroom with a dorm fridge and a hotplate, occasionally traveling to the deck to sun themselves. A gardener, 50 cats, and several raccoons also lived there. It's easy to forget you're watching a documentary, because the subjects are so colorful and lively for the camera. Big Edie sits in her bed and listens to records, mostly. She is constantly looking for missing cats, and warbles along with her music. After awhile, the audience is clued in that the singer on her records is actually her. She did some recording in the 40's, but it's tough to gauge if it's just a personal recording by some rich lady, or if she was truly regarded as a talent. Little Edie, the sole caretaker for her ailing mother, shines for the camera with political statements, personally designed outfits, and song and dance routines. Likewise, the audience soon understands that her every moment is as insane and meaningless as the next.

There is no beginning, and no conclusion. There is simply this moment in time that is Grey Gardens. It's fascinating and frightening to know that a family could shun their own so completely. However, the Beale gals were proud, and didn't seem to want anyone invading their routine. There is Jerry, the long-haired young man who inexplicably comes around and keeps things running. He tokes up now and again, eats some hotplate corn, and offers the women a washer and dryer, which they refuse. The women bicker, but seem to coexist happily. In a shocking climax of rebellion, Edie denounces her mother, packs her belongings in a trunk, wraps herself in a tattered mink coat, and gets about as far as the front porch before being sucked back into her prison.

With all the crooning, softshoe, and monologues, this story was begging to become a musical. The Northlight cast was perfect, the songs were funny, sad, and bizarre. The first act was set 20 years before the documentary, which was nice to get some backstory, however hypothesized. In that act, the two larger-than-life crazies are infinitely more relatable. So much so that the audience can't help but self-examine their own quirky tendencies that could potentially snowball later in life.

I'm a singer. I love to be onstage. I'm getting to the age where I have to decide, though. Is it a job? Or is it something I do to get attention? And when will I know to stop? When does a smoky torch song evolve into a howling session? And all those nights Marky and I enjoy holing up on the couch to fall asleep to the TV. Have we unwittingly become hermits? Is the purple couch our hotplate? We're not nuts (yet), but we certainly enjoy each other's company more than anyone else's. Sure our conversation is repetitive, and we talk to the cat. We talk to the cat a lot. Okay. Early New Year's Resolutions: 1. Have more people over. 2. Get out of the house. We had a friend over for Thanksgiving, and he washed the dishes. He also cleaned the stove. Resolution #3. Clean the kitchen better. Unless, of course, there's a documentary in it for us. No press is bad press.

These Are The Rejections I Know, I Know

Marky's two, now famous, rejections are at the top of the list. Then there's the person who bought my book, and decided to trade it for a scarf, instead. That's not a lose-lose situation, I know, but I count it as a rejection.

I've sent off countless query letters (for only a short amount of time, mind you--I'm being SUPER antsy and sensitive), and have gotten all rejections. At first I said to myself, "Well, as long as book agents are reading my queries, and it's getting out into the collective consciousness, it's okay if I get rejected. They gave me a chance." I'm here to admit, it's much better thinking a book agent didn't even look at the query, than having one ask for the first five pages and then turn it down. Utter heartbreak. At least I send SASE's in my favorite color, lime green. Getting cheery envelopes in the mail seems to soften the blow of the inevitable rejection letter lurking inside.

As fun as it is wallowing in my own goth girl self-pity, there is an unfortunate bright side to this subject. I've started rejecting things, too. I reject the notion that I should feel guilty for someone else's problem. I reject diving into paranoia and mental instability just because the person talking to me is going that route. I reject my former motto, "I can knit anything as long as it's a square or a rectangle." My new motto is, "I can knit anything!" Or perhaps, "I can do anything!"

Oscar the Grouch

Here's one of my life's contradictions: Salmon is my favorite food, but I get sick with anxiety when I enter the aquarium section of the pet store.

Fish scare the hell out of me. Has everyone heard about the new pedicures where fish nibble your feet? Disgusting. Dis-GUS-ting. While cruising along in a pontoon at Elephant Butte, my family heard a loud THUD. After circling back around to the site of impact, we found a dead fish. Not just any dead fish--a fish with rigor mortis. This fish had been dead for centuries. It stunk to high heaven, and I thought I would die from the yuckiness of the whole thing. And then there was my stepdad's Oscar.

Otherwise known as a Cichlid, the Oscar starts out about the size of a silver dollar. Sometime around my elementary school days, my stepdad bought one of those little octagonal cutesy fishtanks, and filled it with a small community of fish. The two I remember well were an Oscar, and a plecostomus (a crap sucker). We named them Oscar (obviously) and Felix (because the sucker cleaned up after the slovenly Cichlid). We took such good care of the fish that they soon outgrew their surroundings. A larger tank was in order. We upgraded to a 10-gallon tank, and outfitted the pair with some new plants and rocks. About a year went by, and we had to get yet another tank, because the beastly Oscar outgrew his home again. This time, per the suggestion of the pet store guy, we got the 55-gallon tank, and hoped Oscar would stop growing.

Not only was Oscar getting monstrously large, but Felix was getting big, too. Oscar had some serious crap to clean up, and Felix worked day and night. For years. I thought those sucker fish were cute at first, but when he grew to the size of a sweet potato, and I could see the gory detail in his sucker mouth and googly eyes, he went from funny to just plain freaky. Oscar mostly ate fish sticks that resembled Chinese crunchy noodles. He often ate to excess, and after a few too many, he would throw them up. It was funny the first few times, but after seeing his repeated bulimia, it just got gross. The pet store guy spoke up again. He suggested live goldfish for Oscar's diet. I should tell you now that I have a certain respect for Oscars. I think they're totally icky, but I feel that they are one of the most emotionally readable animals out there. When we dumped those poor live goldfish in the tank, he went for it. I was okay when he ate the first one. Then the second. The tough part was watching the third goldfish, only half-eaten, still gasping for water, his little mouth hanging out of Oscar's. I know. Horror story. And it was like a train wreck. I was in high school at this point, and had developed a horrible fear of fish. Oscar was more than hungry. He was a murderer. But so was I.

When Oscar and Felix got the deluxe condo upgrade, my stepdad thought he would do the nice thing and set up the small tank in my bedroom. He bought fish, food, aquarium plants, the whole nine yards. All I had to do was feed them. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I hated those fish. I wouldn't feed them. Their starvation became so advanced that they became cannibals. There were little fish carcasses, skeletons, lying on the pebble floor. And this became a vicious cycle, because I just got more freaked out. And then he'd buy me more fish, because the old ones were disappearing. I couldn't win.

Meanwhile, Oscar got to be so big and strong, that he could splash water out of his tank. I'm not talking about a spritz here and there. I'm saying he would rear back, do this quaky-shaky thing with his tail, and SPLASH! Eight, ten ounces of water, all over the living room floor. If you got too close to his glass barrier, he would turn from a lustrous shade of orange, into a smoky, black and brown, dull pallor. If you didn't relent, he would look you dead in the eye, open his mouth wide, and do what I can only imagine was screaming in fish-ese. You're probably wondering why I egged him on, but I stayed the hell away from him. I know he did the chameleon screaming thing because little kids would come to our house and run right up to the glass. And those little kids are probably scared of fish, now, too.

This fish got to be nine years old by the time I went to college. There were many reasons I was glad to leave for college, and one of the biggies was not worrying every morning that I might be the one to find Oscar floating belly up after his extraordinarily long life. He lived to see 11, if memory serves. Mom called me one day and told me that Oscar was gone. I didn't want details. She told me that my stepdad had a private ceremony for his fish, and I'm glad it was special for them. If he is in the ground somewhere, I know there is a tree nearby that is thankful for all that fertilizer.

A Diction Addiction

Since a friend recommended him, I've been listening to Citizen Cope's album, The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, a shitty title if I may say so.  I get turned off easily by titles, and I thought for some reason this would be a country album.  Hold up: I'm not one of the weenies that say, "I like any music except country," I simply wasn't in a country phase at the moment.  I needed something gritty and true and organic.  And I didn't know this was exactly what I wanted.  

Keenly aware that I am a fool for marketing and my opinion can be swayed on a dime, I tried to avoid reviews, and simply listen to the album.  This will be an uneducated look at the work of Citizen Cope.  I don't know anything about this guy, but I have made up a story in my mind.  Here goes. 

Clarence Greenwood was probably born in a town much like my college town.  Dusty, undereducated, access to crystal meth, three mega Wal-Marts.  His rural poetry depicts savvy street hustlers ("Bullet and a Target"), crazy vagrants defending street art ("Pablo Picasso"), and an emergency car ride to the delivery room ("Son's Gonna Rise").  Between the chaotic themes sit the sweet "Hurricane Waters," and the heartbreaking "Sideways," a perfect unrequited love ballad.  

Upon first listen, I was only drawn to a couple of songs, but I let a couple more in, then a couple more, and suddenly the entire album showed itself to soar along a beautifully crafted arc of emotion.  For a girl who is fanatical about pronunciation, I was initially annoyed by Citizen Cope's rhymes.  Pablo Picasso's "Mr. Officer, if you come to take her;  Then that means one of us gonna end up in a stretcher," is a particularly slanty example, but what female wouldn't love for her man to defend her so fervently?  His consistently mush-mouthed words are what I consider less an artistic expression, and more an honest, unaffected interpretation of his world. 

Beside the words, the music is undeniably groovy.  Each song has it's own sexy, hip-swinging undulation.  The simplicity in each arrangement is what's impressive.  This CD doesn't need to be loud or complicated.  Citizen Cope injects a thin piano riff, hands clapping, or a persistent high hat, and each song becomes infectious.  There's nothing new here.  Acoustic guitar, drums, Hammond organ.  It's the way he puts it all together.  

After getting to know his voice really well (I listened to this album non stop for about four weeks--par for the course with my musical obsessions), I was thrilled to hear him in the preview for the new Robert DeNiro movie, "What Just Happened?".  "Brother Lee" is my favorite song off his new album, Every Waking Moment.  I don't know this album as well, yet, but give me a few more weeks.