My music taste is extremely eclectic but I also – as evidenced by the all-Humphrey-Bogart-all-the-time energy in other aspects of my life – have a one-track mind when I’m into something. Like … watching a movie right now that doesn’t star Humphrey Bogart strikes as me JUST PLAIN WRONG.<\/p>\n
It’s a phase. It’ll pass.<\/p>\n
But I’m like that with music too. The same 5 CDs are in constant rotation.<\/p>\n
It’s like my passions are actually VIRUSES. Like: just sweat it out, it’ll pass, the fever will pass.<\/p>\n
This morning, I thought: Huh. Perhaps a constant diet of Foo Fighters and Eminem is getting a bit old. What else have I got going on…<\/p>\n
Anyway, saw a random CD that I bought years ago while I was in Ireland. Robbie Williams – the bad boy of British pop – who is … just … the man cracks me up. Not wildly talented, no. But hot, in a very bad boy way. He is completely living it up, while his 15 minutes of fame last. And there is this campy ridiculous energy in his music – it just strikes me as hysterical. He plays stadium shows in Europe. He’s HUGE over there.<\/p>\n
When I was in Ireland, you literally could not get away from Robbie Williams. It was 24\/7 Robbie Williams, Cher, and boy bands galore. That was IT. I remember my sister Jean murmuring to me, “Damn, I yearn<\/i> for something acoustic!!”<\/p>\n
But by the end of our trip, I had fallen deeply deeply<\/i> in love with Robbie Williams. I couldn’t get enough, frankly.<\/p>\n
So I bought his first solo album (he had broken free of his boy band … oooh, he’s such a rebel). It’s hysterical.<\/p>\n
The best thing about Robbie Williams is he doesn’t take himself seriously. AT ALL.<\/p>\n
Two Robbie Williams anecdotes <\/b>– He’s always showing up at press junkets wasted and saying wildly inappropriate things. It’s so refreshing.<\/p>\n
1. Robbie Williams has an enormous shrieking female following. He’s a classic bad boy. Er … my type, exactly. A reporter asked Robbie, “So Robbie – what is the most interesting thing a female fan has ever given you?”<\/p>\n
Robbie replied, “Herpes.”<\/p>\n
2. The second story is this: Robbie Williams told it himself in some interview I read. He was high on ecstasy (see? I just … I think it’s hilarious that he would blatantly admit that at some press junket.), and he went to a party. He was high as a kite. Completely out of it. He walked over and stared at an enormous and gorgeous painting on the wall – he was entranced. He stared and stared and stared and stared.<\/p>\n
Bono finally walked over to him and said, “Hey there, Robbie, what are you lookin’ at, mate?”<\/p>\n
Robbie raved, “This painting! God, it’s amazing, isn’t it?”<\/p>\n
And Bono replied, “That’s a window<\/i>.”<\/p>\n
Dysfunctional? Oh yes.<\/p>\n
Devastatingly <\/b>charming? Uhm … YEAH.<\/p>\n
At least for a girl like myself.<\/p>\n
Anyway, where was I. Oh right. Robbie Williams.<\/p>\n
I haven’t listened to this CD in years.<\/p>\n
So I had one of those weird time-travel moments when I heard the first chords of the first song. I was catapulted immediately back to the exact time and the exact place in my life when I regularly listened to this album. The entire picture unfolded before me, fully-formed, in 2 seconds.<\/p>\n
Everything was there. What I saw, the smells, the sounds … the FEEL of the time …<\/p>\n
You know how songs can do that? Uncanny, right?<\/p>\n
In the fall of … I don’t even remember the year … it was a couple of years ago … I was involved with a semi-homeless alcoholic bipolar gorgeous WACKO man who also happened to capture my heart for a brief season. You may remember him as Rimbaud’s Son<\/a>.<\/p>\n He lived at the YMCA in Bayonne, New Jersey. He worked at the A&P. He had written a novel. He loved Rimbaud. He is now living on the streets in New York City.<\/p>\n I was living in Hoboken at the time in a great apartment, just the BEST – with Jen, my roommate of many years<\/a>. And suddenly I started bringing this man around … Oh, words cannot describe how … insane and indiVIDual and … unforgettable Rimbaud’s son was.<\/p>\n At the time – the autumn that I dated this guy – I had a car. My sister was in Ireland, and gave it to me while she was over there. It was little Camry. Grey.<\/p>\n And I would drive down Kennedy Boulevard to get to Bayonne, to pick up my bipolar boyfriend. It was always like a prison-break for him. I was his savior.<\/p>\n And every single time I made this drive, I listened to Robbie Williams.<\/p>\n To me, Robbie Williams was as much a part of that drive down to Bayonne as my car keys, my key chain.<\/p>\n So I heard the first chords of the first song today and – like magic – that entire world manifested in front of me.<\/p>\n — the sun on the windshield<\/p>\n — the leaves turning red, purple, falling<\/p>\n — the institutional white brick of the YMCA on a nice old street in Bayonne<\/p>\n — my crazy green-eyed boyfriend sitting on the steps, waiting for me, smoking<\/p>\n — the slightly uneven slant to the floor in my apartment’s foyer – Jen and I used to place a ball at one end and watch it roll across the room on its own<\/p>\n — the way Jen and I painted the walls of our kitchen a deep baroque red<\/p>\n — the gleaming World Trade Center out our kitchen window, the sunrise on the red walls<\/p>\n — our amazing fire escape, facing the Manhattan skyline – she and I would sit out there in our tank tops and boxer shorts, drinking beer at night<\/p>\n — I would buy coffee at Dunkin Donuts – one for me and one for Rimbaud’s son – A month later, after I broke up with him, he called me, randomly, all suffused with melancholy: “Member how you used to bring me coffee???” The smell of coffee on a sunny Saturday morning.<\/p>\n — I also remembered Rimbaud’s son sitting next to me in that little Camry, as we careened down the sun-blasted Kennedy Boulevard, drinking coffee – and he was as happy as a little kid to be with me … and Robbie Williams blared … there’s one line in one song, “and that’s a good line to take us to the bridge…” (Robbie is commenting on his own song-writing skills – or lack thereof) – and Rimbaud’s Son always thought that was a very clever line. Every time we heard it, he would crack a smile. “I like that.”<\/p>\n This entire time in my life began to run in my head. Like a movie. A newsreel.<\/p>\n Strange. How memories, how life, is contained in something like as simple as a song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My music taste is extremely eclectic but I also – as evidenced by the all-Humphrey-Bogart-all-the-time energy in other aspects of my life – have a one-track mind when I’m into something. Like … watching a movie right now that doesn’t … Continue reading