Can We Talk For A Minute?

-

I'll never forget getting in a cab probably 15 years ago. The driver was in his 40s and had big curly headbanger hair, still frosted as if it was 1988. He was wearing an old RATT concert tee that blended in with his sleeves of tattoos. He was on the phone at first trying to figure out who was going to get the Motley Crue tickets for him and his friends once they went on sale the next day and I instantly liked him. He was like a fossil leftover from the 80s but the thing was, he was the real deal. He stayed true to the music that he was raised on and had no desire to change any of that. Or at least that was my first impression. I've since learned never to think for certain that I have someone all figured out in a quick glance or three.

As the cab finally started to move he asked if I minded the radio and of course, I didn't. I remember being intrigued by him but also worried that he wouldn't get me to the airport on time.  Then he told me he didn't like what was on so he was switching over to a CD. The CD was Tevin Campbell and my jaw hit the floor. As "Can We Talk" started to play I told him I never expected to hear that in any cab, because years later most people don't seem to remember him let alone play his stuff. 

The driver loved him as much as I always have and we totally bonded over about 5 songs while sitting in traffic. I don't usually remember details of drives with a stranger but that one, it stuck for so many reasons. I like him as I admittedly pre-judged him and then I liked him even more when I stopped pre-judging. Think about that, there's a lesson in there.

Popular posts from this blog

Vehicle.

-
Image
  I've written so much about music one way or another over the years that you'd think that I'd have nothing much left to say. It has all landed in some piece somewhere before, right? I mean it has to have. I remember interviewing for a newspaper job years ago and the managing editor saying to me, "So you've come to terms with the fact that you're a writer and that this is what you're supposed to do with your life?" and I thought before finally saying yes. His response, "It's devastating isn't it?" just completely leveled me in hysterical laughter (which then equally leveled him). I made a friend for life that day because it actually IS devastating. I've set myself up for a work-life filled with rejection- and that's if you actually make it! If you're established editors will take the time to reject you and if you're not... you'll pitch and submit pieces until your fingers fall off with absolutely no response.  It&#
Read more

Note To Self.

-
Image
 So, after spending the last year gathering stories, bits of wisdom, and cautionary tales from various women, it has really made me start to reflect on myself. I’ve been through the wringer, and also, quite obviously, I’ve lived to tell about it. What would I say to try and reassure my sixteen-year-old self? So many things that I feel as if my head could explode! First of all, just hold on. Seriously, dig your feet in and hold on, because absolutely everything passes. All of those things that you absolutely believe are the end of the world? They are not. Trust me. In a few short years, you won’t be able to call those things to mind, even if someone offers you a million in cold hard cash and is standing there holding the briefcase. Thankfully, the passage of time seems to bring a healing sort of amnesia, so just hold on another minute. Let that minute turn into an hour, into a day, into next week. Everything will pass. I have to caution you, though, because just as all of the bad t
Read more

Raised On Radio.

-
Image
  This past Saturday afternoon was spent, like so many others before it, in one of my very favorite places on earth: an old record shop. I left the car and walked down one of the most idyllic streets on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in what has been dubbed “The Coolest Small Town in America” thanks to a national contest a few summers ago. There was excitement bordering on anxiety running through my veins. I couldn’t quite reach the front door fast enough, yet once I was three steps from the shop, I instinctively slowed down because I didn’t want to seem too anxious. I opened the door, stepped inside, and immediately calmed down. I could smell musty old vinyl records and incense burning and  hear the old floorboards shifting beneath my feet. It could have been a hot summer day in 2017, or one back in 1987. Time was irrelevant because either way, I was home.   When I was a little girl way back in 1970-something, I would spend plenty of time hanging out with my dad while my mom worked ni
Read more