The first cockroach I ever saw sauntered across the lunch counter at a Chock Full O’ Nuts the summer of 1972. A month later in a hotel room on West 112th Street, I was joined by another dictyoptera in the tub. My reaction was visceral in both instances: “yuck!”
Since both of these rendezvous occurred in New York City, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see jeweled versions of these insects in a recent issue of THE NEW YORKER – but I noticed that I couldn’t page through that issue fast enough, as every turn brought on more alarm. Bottom line; I just don’t like ’em! Even depicted as precious gems, they give me the heebie-jeebies!
I don’t like to think of how I’m becoming a fuddy-duddy, but my visceral revulsion to things I find repugnant is getting more pronounced as popular culture takes a turn toward more crass, violent content; a while ago I found I couldn’t handle watching RAY DONOVAN in spite of the excellent writing and production values, and now I have to turn away from LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, which elicits a similar reaction; the misogyny so rampant in the 1950s reminds me of how disparaged women still are today – after I’d assumed we would have made and retained progress in that arena.
“When did I become such a wuss?” I wonder!? I didn’t used to be such delicate flower! But it’s true. I feel exhausted by widespread fraud; the over-hype of the entertainment world, the shameless lies and chicanery in politics, the relentless complicity of the media compounding the damage to our sense of alright-ness.
What to do about it? I’m not sure, but I’m trying to edit at least some of the violence from my heart and choose gentler language. If I have to absent myself more from the current culture, that’ll have to be okay; FOMO will have to take a backseat to my sense of safety and wellbeing. In the interest of being seen as “hip”, I’ve done battle with my gut-level emotions in the past and it just doesn’t work long term.
I saw this week that Best Buy is ditching the sale of DVDs from their stores after this holiday season, and that saddened me. I predict more stores will follow suit, reasoning that streaming is the new paradigm and owning physical media is obsolete, like having landline phones and mp3 players. Many people no longer even own equipment to play CDs or DVDs already.
Okay – I’m ancient. I grew up with a hi-fi in the living room. It was a big deal for me to get my own record player and then my own tiny reel-to-reel tape recorder in my teens. I’m well aware of how “old school” it is now to prefer physical CDs, DVDs and even vinyl LPs and tapes in the current climate of streaming media. And having more “stuff” goes against my own preference for leaving a smaller footprint in this world (see my blogs here: https://marilyn801.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/baby-with-the-bathwater/AND here: https://marilyn801.wordpress.com/2021/04/02/thredup-pareddown/) But I think there are some good reasons for maintaining a private collection of favorite music and films.
Yes, it necessitates maintaining equipment to PLAY these “antiques” – but there’s freedom to choose what we’re listening to, WHEN we’re listening – and having access to a given title, without fear that it will be eliminated from our service provider; I can’t tell you how many YouTube videos I’ve “favorited” that have disappeared over the years! I’m glad to have a “hard copy” of media I truly love!
Do I trust “the Cloud” to safekeep my favorite recordings and stories? Um… no, I don’t. Too many instances of the old adage, “there are 2 types of people; those who havelost data and those who will lose data.” Plus, what do you do when the internet goes down? (as it has more than once this past month, where we live!) To me, it appears to be just one more place to get hacked.
I also don’t like the idea (or reality, for that matter!) of some algorithm choosing the next selection I should listen to – just as I don’t appreciate most of FaceBook’s suggestions of who I should befriend; I like to make those choices myself, and feel well-qualified to do so, as I’m educated and curious and usually wind up researching more info online regarding music and films I already treasure. Too much of what we’re exposed to is already predetermined by hype-happy publicists and greedy people with agendas. Not to mention how expensive streaming subscriptions might already be, let alone how the prices might rise in the future… !?
So I won’t be recycling my CDs, LPs or DVDs any time soon. And I hope you won’t, either… unless it’s a title I really want that’s missing from my collection!
A while ago, when I mused aloud about some of the choices I’d made in my music career, regretting the paths not taken and opportunities I’d rejected, my youngest sister kindly reminded me that I’d made many, many attempts in various directions and reassured me I’d had a lot of success at quite a few of them! She said, “you’ve left no stone unturned!”
Decluttering through some old papers lately, I saw that maybe she was right! Starting in the early 1970s I’ve kept journals of all the people I’d sent leadsheets of my songs to, reel-to-reel demo tapes of my first attempts at writing and producing advertising jingles, headshots and resumés to get piano bar work, invoices for music copying gigs for other composers and arrangers… plus performances at weddings and bars and cabarets, auditions for accompanist gigs and pretty much anything else that might open the door to more paid music work.
the first wedding I played
We kept it up through the 1980s; our jingle company bulk-mailed newsletters to ad agency folks, kept datebooks of who to follow up on and who not to pester, took out ads in Backstage, Ad Age, AdWeek and Screen magazine, scheduled lunches to “romance” potential clients…
Switching to the pursuit of composing for film scores, we met with every composer who would meet with us, attended industry dinners and took grad classes to befriend the powers-that-be in Hollywood… Submitted TV and film themes for every “open call” listing in The Hollywood Reporter… produced hundreds of cues for the music library of GENERAL HOSPITAL… learned how to “pitch” in Suzanne Lyons’ intensive Flash Forward course that promised YEARS of career growth and connections in only 30 days…
Moving on to making records, we figured out how to “work the release” within the limitations of our personalities, strengths and weaknesses. As someone who isn’t drawn to performing live, I’ve had to make adjustments; creating a life in the music biz is NOT one-size-fits-all and we’ve had to customize the paradigm to accommodate what was personally possible.
It’s given me some helpful perspective to sift through these old files and look back on some of our efforts:
My dad was not the only seeker in our family; my mother had a special book that SHE treasured for a while:
JOY by William C. Schutz
Unlike my dad, she didn’t purchase copies for each of us, but from the late 1960s on, she was on a mission to get happier. She wasn’t much of a joiner, and Esalen was 3,000 miles away and far too expensive, but there were other books that might hold the answers.
Mama would query the I-Ching, tossing the coins again and again when she didn’t get the answer she wanted.
When she lived in Connecticut and I lived in NYC, I ran into her by surprise in New Jersey, of all places, when we both consulted with macrobiotic healer Lino Stanchich on the same afternoon.
still alive and well after all these years!
At some point in the mid 1970s, she signed up for a couple weekends of EST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training taking place in a Manhattan hotel 2 blocks away from my apartment, so I invited her to stay with me instead of renting a room. She came back after each 12-hour day all pumped up, ready to talk into the wee hours – which made her drowse off during the next day’s classes. Oh, but we had fun together!!
For many years I watched her sift through the unfathomable stuff in her life, looking for answers and working at self-improvement. “Keep marching!” was her motto. Like the optimist kid stuck in a room full of horse manure, she just KNEW there was a pony in there somewhere!
Ultimately I saw her embrace the difficult knowledge that some incomprehensible stuff never gets resolved and some puzzles don’t have a clearcut solution. When I came across this image recently, I recognized my mama, not missing out on anything.
I had a thought this morning when I couldn’t get back to sleep after waking too early – about Mother Nature’s intentions for our home, planet earth. I think she’s programmed us all to “be fruitful and multiply”, i.e. for everything that grows, flora as well as fauna, to KEEP growing and REPRODUCE for the continuation of Life. I see this every morning in my backyard; the lemon tree enjoys monsoon rains, greening up more and more every day, while the mourning doves cuddle together in their nest, and spiders spin webs, geckos race across the side of the house… Mother Nature DIGS monsoon-time in a big way!
Fair enough.
And perhaps our patriarchal society conspires to compel that by attempting to control women and FORCE them to be mothers or at least baby incubators. I think this is the belief behind the recent SCOTUS decision to rescind Roe V. Wade and criminalize/outlaw choice.
Whether this is rationalized as “a divine mandate from God” or anything else, the bottom line is that Mother Nature is calling the shots. She decrees: Human beings are supposed to make babies, period. Everything else is nonsense and poppycock.
In grammar school I’d learned how the parasitic embryo took whatever it needed from the mother’s body; calcium from her bones and teeth, every other nutrient from her glands, muscle, blood… basically laying waste to the “host” for its own survival. I knew very young that I didn’t want any part of that! That was just yucky. Yet, in younger years, in spite of my conscious desire to remain barren, my hormones kept telling me to have sex, to get pregnant. I knew from an early age that giving birth was not something I ever wanted to do. Aside from the financial and emotional considerations, abortion was illegal so I chose to take every precaution to avoid popping out any “Mini Me”s.
Viewed in a certain light, using birth control appears to be an affront to Mother Nature’s insistent edict, and getting a tubal ligation or vasectomy is the ultimate insult; the biggest, loudest way to say “NO!” that exists. Both procedures involve surgery – cutting into the body, which is pretty drastic.
It might be different if society actually liked women. If collectively we supported and honored mothers truly – not just paying lip service on Mother’s Day, but holding them consistently in high regard. If women were genuinely accepted as essential to humanity. If women weren’t treated as 2nd-class, but true equals, with their own unquestioned autonomy universally respected and cherished.
It might be different if we treated Mother Earth with respect, instead of laying waste to her ecology, drilling for oil and mining for minerals; despoiling the landscape and the air and the water; polluting the food chain, creating toxic chemicals, climate changes… for what? So a few rich folks can get richer?
42 years ago I staged my own little “sit-in” with my lady parts. I’m still chewing on this, aware that I’m at odds with Mother Nature and disjunct in a way inside my own body = disembodied by my choice. The way I see it now is the same as how I saw it then; it was my only chance at survival.
It started out slowly and evolved as most torrid affairs do – into promises of everything you’ve ever dreamed of; connection, love, creative fulfillment, riches, recognition, inclusion and belonging.
“Beethoven” played synthesizer in a jazz band where I’d become the copyist in the mid-1970s and I soon became HIS copyist, as his reputation grew as a freelance arranger.
In the beginning, it was a pretty straightforward client-supplier relationship – he’d call, I’d go pick up the scores, run home to extract the parts and then deliver them to the studio – always last-minute. There was built in drama to the timing – will we be ready? can I get there on time? I always did, but there were some really close calls, when he’d still be writing the 2nd chart in the cab on the way to the studio while I was copying parts to the 1st chart so the musicians would have something to play at the start of the session.
He got plenty of work for pop and disco records as well as music for advertising. New to jingles, I was a little surprised and delighted to discover residual payments; after the initial TV and radio cycle, often ad agencies would continue the campaign using the same music, resulting in another payment for the musicians. When you’re self-employed, “money for nothing” gets your attention!
And then there were magic moments; when the musicians would yell out, “hey, Marilyn’s here! NOW we can get this party started!”, or the guitarist would hold my waist to steady me as I squeezed by the microphones to put parts on the music stands, or when the drummer and bassist would start dancing while listening to the playback. It was great to see pretty much the same fantastically musical guys pretty much every weekday, and watch them switch seamlessly from country tracks in the morning to funk grooves in the afternoon – their musical prowess was spectacular!
“Beethoven” was always the picture of casual elegance with his velvet blazer, tailored jeans, gold Dunhill cigarette lighter. He could “pass” in the business world but had bohemian proclivities; one time I came by to prepare music and found him preparing illegal substances and singing,🎶 “this is the way we chop our coke, chop our coke, chop our coke…” 🎶 Drugs added to the mystique, plus I think he grew to rely on them as much as his chain-smoking and alcohol consumption.
It seemed that he never turned down work, and got to a point where he needed help finishing scores; at first only horn parts, or a string voicing, or vocal harmonies, which I was more than happy to do. It was thrilling to hear what I’d written being brought to life by NYC’s best talent in the best studios. And he’d tell me to add $50 or $75 to my copying invoice. I could use the extra money and heck, we all want to be indispensable. Plus it was dramatic to see him “miraculously” save a session, to notice how impressed the clients were with the results, and to know that behind the scenes, I’d helped contribute to the magic.
What do you give the man who has everything? When his birthday came up, I wanted to get him a suitable gift – it was the only time I’ve ever shopped at Tiffany’s.
Over 4+ years, “Beethoven” was never my only client, but he was the most important one for quite a while. I’d check with him about what was on the schedule before accepting other gigs and I never left town if there was a chance he’d need my services. I was constantly reassured that I was an essential and irreplaceable “part of the team” that sustained his professional success. And that was easy to believe since I bailed him out time and again as he “bit off more than he could chew” work-wise.
Promises were made. While I knew I would never have the keyboard chops he had and I certainly never expected to be asked to play, I was a good sight-singer with choir and studio experience and the ability to blend in vocal groups, and I became frustrated that I was only rarely allowed to sing on sessions (potentially much more lucrative than copying or arranging music). It was confusing when what he’d promised didn’t match up with what went down, and I kept being disappointed when his actions didn’t match his words – much like the married man Carrie Fisher is hung up on at the start of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. “Will he ever leave his wife?” Umm… no. At a certain point, I realized I was living a cliché.
Fortunately the stars aligned and a few things happened to secure my freedom; I’d taken a film scoring summer course at Eastman, and in my absence, “Beethoven” had found someone else to ghostwrite for him. Simultaneously I had an epiphany where I realized that if I didn’t stop working for him, I would hurt myself so that I wouldn’t be able to work for anybody. I had no idea how this would happen – I might get hit by a bus, or fall down and break my arm. I just knew it viscerally, and unlike so many other messages from my gut, for once, I believed it.
The kicker was when he called me again for a last-minute gig after I’d returned from Rochester. I rushed over to his apartment, but it turned out to be a false alarm – his wife told me that the session had been cancelled. Then she added 5 words that totally broke the spell: “You’re married to him, too”.
Whatever else I may have been clueless about, I knew for sure that THAT was not the case!
I hadn’t thought about him in a very long time but recently learned that “Beethoven” died a couple years ago; one of the earliest victims of COVID. And it stirred up a lot of feelings. At first I thought, “oh, gee! What a shame he’s gone.” But after only a short while, as the memories flooded back… hmm. Maybe not such a loss after all.
In the late 1980s my dad had a friend he called “the rabbi” – a man at the track who provided counsel on which horse to bet on and why. And Maharishi Mahesh Yogi inspired a generation to embrace Transcendental Meditation when the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many others joined him in India 20 years earlier. While John Lennon later claimed that the Giggling Guru was a fraud, the impulse to Follow The Leader seems to be hardwired into human beings.
Giggling Guru & The Beatles
Anyone who visits my website meets my mentor Hale Smith; I could say that “he made me who I am today”, and while that’s not entirely accurate, he certainly had a profound influence for which I’m eternally grateful. 12-Step groups tell newcomers, “find someone who has what you want and ask how they got it” – and when I saw the career Hale had built for himself, I was in his face, demanding as much of his time and attention as I could get! Fortunately he had boundaries (and plenty of other students!), but I could see that Hale was the best, so being “like Mike” was my top priority!
I invested a lot in my relationship with Hale, but I didn’t feel entitled to his help and I never held him responsible when there were disappointments. I also didn’t go so far as to take up his habit of cigar smoking!
Which brings me to today’s subject: whose job is it to ensure employees are fulfilled in their jobs? When I read this article in today’s news, I started to wonder!?!
Former White House staff: Symone Sanders, Ashley Etienne, Tina Flournoy, Peter Velz, Jen Psaki, Cedric Richmond, Vincent Evans
As a rule, I’m not a fan of essentially-one-chord songs, so I didn’t pay much attention to THIS one when it first came out. But it came to mind when learning of staff leaving the White House in droves because “we’re doing a lot of work but we’re not decision-makers and there’s no real path towards becoming decision-makers”. Ummm…. excuse my ignorance, but since when did it become management’s job to provide advancement?
The Declaration of Independence promises “the pursuit of Happiness” – but no guarantees! In truth, none of us are actually entitled to much of anything and the sooner we learn that, the better. Like so much else in life, career progress is self-propelled. It has to be a priority to the extent that one keeps working at getting around, over, under and through every obstacle. In my experience this takes energy, focus and steely determination.
To paraphrase John Houseman’s iconic ad for Smith Barney, “Happiness doesn’t grow on trees or march up and bite you on the behind… you have to EARN it!”
I’m not much of a prize-winner – (one reason I don’t play the Lotto!) Ten years ago I won a couple Toastmasters ribbons for fairly coherent Table Talks. And I won a trophy for Safety Patrol service in the 6th grade – essentially for good attendance, not because I’d saved anyone’s life or anything like that. The next year my older sister took home practically every award and prize given by the school when she graduated from 8th grade. Meanwhile I slumped into ignominy in junior high, receiving my first of several troublesome report cards. My dad was very nice about it – he even defended me to the teachers, but it was obvious I’d never be the superstar student my older sister was.
Competition was a fact of life in the Harris household – for applause from the outside world and for attention within our family. But at the same time that the quest for the spotlight was expected, it was also sometimes shamed and ridiculed. I grew up feeling somewhat ambivalent about such recognition, as it could invite jealousy and sneering contempt.
Still, it’s gratifying to be acknowledged for our accomplishments; high school diplomas, college sheepskins, gold records, acknowledgement for one’s work being chosen in competition. Tokens of friendship, mementos of belonging.
When we got married, my husband had several boxes of awards he’d won on graduating from high school. The John Philip Sousa trophy. Outstanding Musician plaque. Awards for conducting, prizes for arranging, medals for performing, assisting, leading the section…. I honestly couldn’t believe how many there were – WAY more than the haul my older sis had!!
(And over the years I’ve learned how deserved they all were – how Mark had EARNED these awards and lived up to his potential – no, surpassed the expectations of his teachers.)
I was overwhelmed, and once again felt horribly inadequate. I told him they had to go, that our midtown Manhattan apartment was too small to keep them, even tucked away in a closet.
Truth is, I was envious. I had never had my talents publicly acknowledged like that. I wanted those trophies GONE.
So we took photos of them and threw them in the trash.
Not my proudest moment. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t make that demand today.
The John Phillip Sousa Award – doesn’t get much better than that!
I am confused. I know very little about global climate change, but… lemons in May?? Somehow that seems a bit off-the-charts. Granted, these lemons are still pretty small and far from ripe – but in the 17+ years we’ve lived here, they’ve never appeared before autumn!
I’ve been a bit overwhelmed of late; the world looks less inviting on a number of fronts, and even the bees in the backyard seem to be giving me the stink-eye. I want to stay out of everybody else’s way, including the bees.
But look – apparently there are TWO seasons for lemon harvesting in Arizona!
Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony came on the car radio while I was running errands a few days ago and I felt like when I first heard it as a teenager, as it crashed over me like a tidal wave. Even though I was a music major, in all this time I’ve never made the effort to study the score to analyze why and how it had that effect – I just let myself get carried along for the ride. Perhaps it’s time to examine that score now.
Last night I heard a lush, lovely recording on KJZZ by British singer Claire Martin; PURE IMAGINATION. Arranger Callum Au’s opening notes took my breath away, and though I haven’t been in communication with her for well over a decade, I visited Claire’s website and told her thru her portal how genuinely thrilled I was to hear her sounding so wonderful, and that even though her album SONGS & STORIES was released 2 years ago, it’s still getting radio airplay in the States.
Claire responded to me this morning: “You’ve made my day just when I was sure the world had gone mad.” And I agree; the world HAS gone mad, and I’ve felt overwhelmed and helpless in the face of the cruelty, hate, rage and violence of late. Long ago I marched in protest of wars, the attack on our earthly ecology, human rights, etc. but those days are long gone. Instead of believing that such efforts create change, I’ve learned from many attempts that my impact is limited to my own personal challenges, and I honestly don’t have that much of a handle on even those right now.
But my dad had a saying: “when I wink, I wanna see something winkin’ back” – and I know that I can do that, at least.
So I make an effort to let someone know that their music touches my heart, that their joke makes me laugh, that their writing resonates with me. I can wink back. It may not be much, but I believe it can make a difference.
Celebrations Of Failure 