Thu, May 8, 2003

This afternoon (as they do inexplicably often), NPR's All Things Considered was profiling an independent musician. As they began to introduce Jonatha Brooke I switched away, but KUSC (classical music, not Trojan booster news) is having pledge week so I was stuck. By the time I got back to NPR, Jonatha (I've heard of fathers disappointed by a female child when they wanted a male, but this is ridiculous!) was talking about a song she wrote during the first Bush's first war in Iraq, so that got my attention. (And answered the question of why NPR likes her so much.) She likened the war and its media coverage to a video game or other passive mass entertainment which is by no means groundbreaking creativity (and nothing new to NPR's airwaves) but good for her, so I listened to the song and it was about as bad as a song with a "message" can be.

I'm a tremendous fan of Roy Zimmerman, who is a local comedian-slash-actually-independent-musician here in Los Angeles. None of Jonatha's "I've got a label" or "I've opened for Warren Zevon" – this guy is actually out there financing his music himself. Anyway, he's hilarious and his songs are almost exclusively current events satire and social commentary. And he manages to make them very very catchy. These are songs that would be good even if they didn't have that cool ultra-liberal manifesto that I dig. So, anyway, Jonatha's song was dopey and it was a shame because she seems like a pretty neat lady. She sounds a lot like Ani DiFranco when she talks, but she actually looks a lot more like Joanna Cassidy circa Roger Rabbit, so shame on NPR for publishing a picture of her on their website and bursting my bubble. I certainly agree with her that the war was/is ridiculous (both of 'em) but I'm disappointed that she couldn't either vocalize that effectively or move on. It's like comedians who still do "Cheney is the real president" jokes. Come on! Sure Bush is an oaf, and sure he doesn't seem to have any idea of how to do anything, just base instincts ("Must... get... evildoers!") and advisers to prop him up. But, please! If you can't come up with something better than "President Cheney," then get out of comedy, or switch to your airplane food material. It's like the "why can't they make the whole plane out of the black box" joke – we've heard it.

Well, I've digressed. (Shock!) Which is actually fortunate, because I only have about a paragraph prepared on the actual subject I had in mind when I started, which you can see from the adorable rubric is "family."

KUSC had me trapped in a corner, so I continued to listen to Jonatha talk about her music. Again, she seemed interesting, the song was just bad. She talked about another song called "Your House" that was also a little heavy on the imagery but at least it was about something, and she worked some pleasant metaphors. Then she was asked to perform a song that she used to do in a duet called The Story, and so she did. The song was titled "So Much Mine" and it opened something like this (paraphrasing): "Where did you get your dress? Where did you learn to walk like that? You used to be so much mine, but now I reach for you and I can't find you."

I'm paraphrasing, her lyrics were actually more... well, lyrical. And very moving. It sounded to me, although I only listened to half the song so I could be wrong, like it was about a mother talking to her daughter. Just like ABBA's "Slipping Through My Fingers." What I got from it was the sorrow that the mother felt for losing touch with a child with whom she used to have such a strong relationship. The child grew up and changed into a different person and now they no longer have that connection. So, before I knew it, I was thinking about family and change.

My family never changed. I mean, obviously my sister and I grew up, and of course there were fights and (a few) moments of rebellion and that usual sort of thing. But there exists now the same relationship with our parents that ever has. Part of it is probably a result of spectacular parenting. The approach of treating children more or less like equals, not talking down to them, not lording over them but trying to relate to them as friends. And part of it is just luck. Because I know people who have great parents but don't have that same everlasting bond. But most of the people I know, and most of my favorite people, seem to fit into this category. They still relate very well to their parents, and there was no enormous change in their personality between their childhood and their early adulthood. This is not to say they're immature and childlike. I think it's more a matter of being mature at an early age. Not balance-my-checkbook mature, but understand-what's-important mature.

Maybe it's a reason I fear change. I don't understand it. I didn't change. (I learned things, and I developed, but I'm not radically different.) So I don't understand someone else doing it. Maybe it's a reason why I don't believe that a serial killer can be reformed, or a life-long druggie can suddenly turn things around. As I was thinking about "So Much Mine," I was reminded of another song, "He Thinks He'll Keep Her" by Mary Chapin Carpenter. It's a beautiful song, which is a shame because it terrifies me. I wish I didn't like it so much because then I could pretend it doesn't exist. It's about a family, and it's about change. The woman falls out of love with her husband and decides to leave him. Every time I hear it, I'm reminded that there are no guarantees in life and it makes me very afraid to fall in love. (I'll have to return to this, because it bears far more discussion, but I have a friend who actually believes the husband is completely to blame. I'm not saying he doesn't have his part, but to put it all on him is absolutely ludicrous. Like I said, I'll return to this in a future column.)

So that's it. I love my family and I'm very proud of anyone who can do what we did which is to be the same group all the way through. I wish I knew exactly how it was done, because if I did I'd write a book and make some kind of law where all parents have to read it. But, alas, I sense that most of it was luck.

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