Magic Jewball

Oscar night seems as good a night as any to tell you that I have a complicated relationship with famous people. When I was growing up, there were two famous people who went to my synagogue but they didn’t impress me as a tween. One is a sportscaster you have heard of if you lived in this area in the 70’s and 80’s and one is an actress who had a recurring role on Law & Order, although that isn’t really her claim to fame (although it is if you’re me). It didn’t really mean anything to me.

The first famous person I met who impressed me was Margot Kidder. She bought something at my store and that was the first appearance of my MO when I see a famous person to this day. I raise my eyebrow as if to say, “I know who you are!” and they smile back slyly as if to say, “yes, I am that person!” No words are exchanged other than the business ones. “That’ll be $12,95, Lois Lane.” It’s true that I’m shy of famous people but it’s really more that I have this feeling that they’d like to walk this earth unhounded by people like me. That is, strangers. Even when I was ten or eleven, I was pretty sure Sting didn’t have the same relationship to me as I did to him.

But this is not to say that seeing a famous person isn’t endlessly exciting. If I had to analyze it (and, well, I do, I have a blog!) I’d say that there is something almost awesome about seeing someone who seems fictional, who is always seen in a totally constructed way, living life as a real person right in front of you. David Bowie getting into a cab. Chris Noth crossing the street. Jerry Seinfeld on jury duty. Even when I went to work with famous people and got used to seeing them and having them be real human beings, there was still some excitement.

Lately, though, famous people and regular joes get to talk to each other a lot more through things like Twitter. I’ve actually written back and forth with a few tennis players, musicians, and newspeople and that’s been fun. Because I wonder, if I were famous, would I spend my day talking to my fans? But some people do and that’s very cool. But it never occurred to me that Facebook could rise to this level. You see, I have this friend. My friend is a publicist with whom I used to work (twice! we both got laid off and then ended up at the same place) and aside from her work, she just is a ridiculously great person who moves in circles with lots of cool music people. So while my feed usually contains things like “Liz Jones is now friends with Joe Blow,” items about her are more of this stripe: “Mary Music-Publicist is now friends with Your Childhood Idol” or “Mary Music-Publicist is now friends with That Guy in Your Poster and 5 Others” where the five others also appeared in concerts you attended and videos on 120 Minutes. I know I’ve discussed my favorite DJ’s of my youth and what they still mean to me and they’re her friends too. Sometimes when one of them posts on her wall, I have to bite my own hand to not post below, just for the sake of being in that conversation. Because that wouldn’t really be fair to her, would it?

Now, some of the famous people profiles on Facebook are just kept up by their management and will accept friend requests from anyone. But I wouldn’t friend them anyway. It feels somehow demeaning to friend Martin Gore. Sure, he was a great friend to me for someone whom I’ve never met, but not really in the normal sense we understand the word. Or even the Facebook sense. But there is a famous person with whom I once worked, the idol of my early twenties, and he’s on Facebook. I found him accidentally while looking for someone with whom I worked at my first label. I didn’t need to friend this workmate, I just wanted to know what happened to her. But then I saw she was friends with this artist and so were a couple of other people with whom I worked. Now, his profile is also maintained partially by management and says so. He probably accepts anyone who friends him, or his management does. But I think my former co-workers’ friendship with him is like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Friendship Approval. So I went for it, friended him, and added a note reminding him of who I was (it did not say “remember that time in ‘94 where I made you stay an hour to sign autographs at Jones Beach? Good times!”).

But even if we don’t end up Facebook friends, I’ll still relish being the friend of a friend of so many people I admire from afar. And not even Mary Music-Publicist will know how surreal it feels for the fan that lives eternally inside me to see them in my feed.

Yeah, some of you won’t know who those people are, but for those who do.
Love and Rockets – Mirror People

I actually wrote this a few days ago and then didn’t post it, mostly because of the holiday. A few days later it felt a little late. Then I watched tonight’s Simpsons, and Fox replayed the 1991 episode where Michael Jackson, er “John Jay Smith,” guest-voices (except for the singing, but the speaking voice is him and apparently he was actually very keen on doing it) and then I really wanted to post this.

I know, you are utterly exhausted by the glut of Michael Jackson “news” on TV and the Interweb and wish we could get back to serious coverage of Iran and Jon & Kate. You wonder to yourself, what sort of backwards, brainless yokel is still sopping this stuff up to such an extent that they have to concentrate on this one story? Who are these idiots they cater to?

The answer dear reader, is the person in that photo on the right in the striped pants, or, more precisely, who she grew up to be. Because I, personally, cannot look away. When they get past the Michael news, I pretty much turn the station unless they’ve teased a later story. It’s not so much that I am interested in the stuff that’s coming out (oooh, he couldn’t sleep! The ex “wife” might want the kids!), it’s simply that that keeps him in the news. Because I’m not done yet. There’s a Hebrew expression, “l’havdil” which literally means, “to differentiate” but when used in the beginning of a sentence means “I am totally not comparing these two things, please don’t think I am, but this example is so useful so indulge me.” I wish there were an expression like it in English but there isn’t so here we are. So I say here, l’havdil! But what this reminds me of is shiva, the Jewish mourning period where you sit for seven solid days receiving guests and all you really do is talk about the dead person. If that’s what you want to do; it’s up to the mourner, but if you’ve sat shiva, you know, that’s kind of all what you want to talk about. You’re in a sort of shock and you’re trying to process and if maybe we keep talking about it, something will get clarified and you can move on. You want to sort through all the facts and details of the person’s life and how you related to it so you can decide what it all meant to you. Maybe some new fact that you forgot or never knew will turn up. I don’t care what they say, I just want to talk about Michael Jackson. Please?

I can only speak for myself, but I don’t think I actually miss Michael Jackson, because, you know, I didn’t know him and hell, I couldn’t name you one song he put out in the last ten years. But back to the girl in the striped pants. It’s hard to get a handle on her, she lives way in the past. I guess she liked to play in mud puddles and not so much with the hair brushing. But this week, when I heard lots of songs she used to listen to, for just a few moments I was inside her head, sitting on the floor in her parents’ bedroom (the only room in her house with a TV) with the lights off watching variety shows. And I realized that when they replayed all those interviews of Michael saying he’d had no childhood that suddenly, I could remember mine, like some sort of time-travel serum. And I knew why he missed it, because it was really happy and carefree and sweet like nothing feels like when you’re an adult. That feeling. That’s what I can never seem to access. Being an adult is pretty kickass but when you can feel for a minute what it felt like as a child, you realize what’s changed and what you’ll never feel again. And it’s nothing I could possibly put into words but the music, well, the music… it transports you.

When I was growing up we didn’t have air-conditioning. My parents worked at a Summer camp so we were away during the hottest time of the year. And if it got hot before or after that, we’d turn on the attic fan and open all the windows and the breeze would come on in. Sometimes, if it’s hot and I just have the window fan on, I can feel it. But not as much as when I hear music like this (and title comes from).

Jackson 5 – The Love You Save

I’ve watched and read a lot about Michael Jackson this week; I think his story is really fascinating, the fantastically-talented kid who was forced to become an adult at eight and then never grew up and never wanted (literally) to be in his own skin. But if there’s one piece that really nailed why I want to remember him the way I do, it’s this one from Josh Tyrangiel at Time Magazine. They won’t let me embed it but here’s the link if you are something like me and want to see it.

Once upon a time, when I used to hold my transistor AM radio to my ear as I fell asleep at night, this was my favorite song. It sounded so good! It still does. It always will.

Edited to add the video. I remember seeing this on TV pre-MTV, I wish I could remember where. But it’s useful just to say that the joy you see in Michael’s face in the video is pretty much the same expression I have when I hear the song. I think this is the way I’ll remember him.

http://www.dailymotion.com/videox8q5z

OK, you know what? People on movie sets who tell you to move along because there’s nothing to see here are LIARS. L.I.A.R.S. I will now no longer believe them, even when I am prone to move along anyway. That’s what happened last week when I popped into Whole Foods to buy a Perfect Orange for the Failcake. I wanted something lovely and organic because the peel was going in too and I was willing to pay good money, which as you know, you’re totally going to when you go to Whole Foods.

But outside the Time Warner Center where the WF is housed, there was a giant crowd, even though it was like 9pm (I work and shop late) and huge lights, one of them in the shape of a tootsie roll, I kid you not, that was being raised and lowered from some sort of tractor-ish truck. If you have worked till 8:30 and are then going grocery shopping before going home to bake a cake, the last thing you want is to be caught in a crowd of tourists gawking at a movie set where apparently nothing is happening.

So I went down and got my orange and a few other things and came back up to leave and go home. As I was walking out, I did stop to look and try to see if at least there was someone famous so I could say I had seen someone famous. As if on cue, someone from behind the cordoned off area, many rows of crowd in front of me said authoritatively, “nothing to see here! No one famous!” Well that was a relief. Phew! Nothing to miss, and I went on home and made my cake. And then another cake the next day, but you knew that.

Then, the next day, I happened to be reading Gawker when I saw this picture and I knew knew knew that this was the set in front of the Time Warner Center, lit by a giant tubular light. Nobody famous! Why, this was the exactly the same famous person I blogged about in my first “I passed a movie set” post! Hugh Grant! That was from Music & Lyrics and actually, my block was cut out of that one, alas. This one is called Did You Hear About the Morgans? and has Sarah Jessica Parker (also pictured on Gawker) but I doubt I’ll be seeing it. They lied to me, sheesh.

***SPOILER ALERT***
By the way, I finally saw the Sex & the City movie and was relieved they rectified that whole “Samantha ends up with a man just like everybody else, completely going against her whole personality” plotline. Phew. But Stanford and Anthony was just not believable. Sorry!

Rollins Band – Liar

I seem to be getting lots of searches on one topic lately. The trouble with answering questions in this fashion is,

a. it does a disservice to my regular readers.
b. it will take a while to get indexed by Google and by then people will have moved on.

But I can’t help myself!

The Hebrew on Boy George’s shirt in early videos says, transliterated, “Tarbut Agudah,” which means Culture Club. But backwards, since in Hebrew the noun comes first. So it kind of says, “Club Culture,” but actually really means nothing. But it was a good try! I have been getting a lot of Boy George queries lately because he’s recently gone to jail for some kinky sex crime or something. I was too busy being fixated on how he’s let himself go to really read the article. Ouch! Could anyone have been more fastidious regarding his appearance than George? How the mighty have fallen! It also means he’ll probably never tour here again because he’s a felon and won’t be admitted. But I’ve already seen Culture Club play and once was enough, so I’m not disturbed personally.

And while we’re chatting, Googler, I should also reiterate that David Nalbandian is not Jewish. Those questions are once again becoming prevalent because he won the opening tournament of the year, the Medibank Open! Woo! The Australian Open is going on now but since only two of you are concerned about that (although I’m sure countless lurkers care very much), I’ll try not to go on and on about it.

But hey, my interaction with you could have been like this gem I unexpectedly found while I was searching out lyrics for that “That’s Not My Name” song by the Ting Tings. You see, I had to know if her name was really Jaleesa.

Meaningful, right?

Is it wrong that I keep ending Culture Club song titles with, “….in jail?” Do you really want to hurt me… in jail? I’ll tumble 4 ya….in jail. Boy Boy, I’m the boy…in jail.

Luckily, this one doesn’t work.
Culture Club – Church Of The Poison Mind