Musician's Widow

My parents took me tonight to pick out my birthday present — new clothes! YAY! However, while shopping, it was impossible to ignore all the Christmas music coming through the speakers. It was off-putting to say the least. A friend of mine that works in retail reported last night that in her store, every other song is now Christmas music. By the time December 25th arrives, I fear she might find a way to short-out the sound system in her store.

I can’t say I blame her.

See, I like Thanksgiving. A lot. But with everyone (read: retail) in such a hurry to get to Christmas, it feels like the holiday gets lost. Halloween is huge, then Christmas is huge, but Thanksgiving… well, it’s practically ignored. It’s such an important holiday — it’s a time to take a moment and count your blessings — yet instead, the focus is on buying stuff. Buy, buy, buy! Spend! Spend! spend! Yes, its all about giving gifts to our loved ones, which is not a BAD thing, but I don’t think burying the importance of Thanksgiving is good either.

It wasn’t even Halloween yet, and Target already had half their seasonal section selling Christmas decorations. I wasn’t happy about that, but it was also all to the back of the store and it wasn’t the focus. Tonight, every store we went into had Christmas decorations up, and Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas.”

The sad thing is that I found myself singing along! I felt I should be shot myself for being dragged into that. Grrrr… Evil retail mind washing. I love Christmas music, but not in early November. Let me enjoy Fall and Thanksgiving, please, first.

Thank you.

Every business has its hours of operation, and they exist for a reason. In the service industry, the hours of operation are not necessarily the “work hours” of employees.

I work occasionally at a bar in downtown Nashville. Sometimes, I am serving food. Other times, I bartend. Occasionally, I bar back. Our hours are generally 8 pm to 2:30 am… ish. However, we arrive by 7:30 pm to set up and leave sometimes as late as 5 am.

It baffles me when I work serving food how often people show up around 7:45 and are shocked to find that there isn’t any food cooked. My frier is cold, water to make hot dogs cold, and chili… you guessed it… cold. My cash drawer is being set up. My sign isn’t even out yet. But they want food right now.

It always takes a lot for me to not snap, “Its not ready because we aren’t open yet! Do you go home, open your refrigerator and miraculously a meal appears on your table fully cooked? If it does, I want your house! But my guess is it doesn’t work that way, nor does it work that way here.”

No, instead I smile and ask that they wait. Occasionally, I’ve opted to ignore them until 8 pm and I’m open. Either way, I bite my tongue and keep my rant in my brain.

Okay, and it might make its way to Twitter.

And this blog.

But I don’t name names.

This time.

Nonetheless, people need to realize that for restaurants, stores, etc. to operate, they have a period of prep time and clean-up. This allows them the best chance to serve you properly. It’s important… respect that.

This morning, as my husband and I were on a nice drive through the country, a car started to tailgate us. My husband commented that they needed to back off, and we were frustrated at how they were driving. It’s not like we could do anything on a two lane road with a car in front of us, but still the girl stayed right on our back bumper.

We turned; she turned. We stopped at a stop sign, then went when it was clear. She, however, cruised right through it behind us. We finally opened up to a four-lane and were glad she’d be passing. She didn’t get in any hurry to pass, though. We were slowing down to enter a parking lot when she finally cruised past.

That was when I saw it. Right there in the middle of her back window. A Longhorn sticker.

I have a Former Student sticker for Texas A&M on my back window.

*sigh*

This is not the first time I’ve had a Longhorn tailgate me (which is amusing considering that I’ve never been known to be “slow.”) I’ve had a Longhorn heckle me in bumper to bumper traffic through an open window. When in college, I even had someone try to run me off the road, flashing a horns symbol at me as I tried not to go into the ditch and hit a road sign.

At the heart of it all, these events scare me even more than they anger me.

Seriously, I am the first to say Texas is a good school. I respect the school and the education people get there. The rivalry, for me, generally exists on the field. And as I said in a previous entry, I’ve always viewed that particular rivalry as one that has an undertone of respect (unlike other rivalries).

Sadly, you do have those on both sides that fail to remember that, and therein lies my fear. Its to those people, I plead… no matter what, keep it off the highway. A school rivalry is NOT worth someone’s life — be it you, your rival or an innocent bystander. We all put stickers on our vehicles to personalize them, to show allegiance to our schools, organizations, businesses, politics, etc. They are not there to be used as a target. Don’t tailgate, heckle, cut-off, or try to sideswipe someone because of their school allegiance. That’s dangerous and has potential consequences that are bigger than any rivalry.

So to the young woman who chose to tailgate us on the way home… grow up. We’re not even in Texas. We’re not playing today. I have nothing against you personally. I actually respect your school (just not the actions of people like, well, you.) And, at the end of it all, my vehicle is over twice as big as yours. If you had rear ended us in a sudden stop situation, I would have gotten out of my truck and run over to see if you were okay.

Then (assuming you were) I’d slap you upside the head for hurting my truck. Because, really, that would piss me off. A lot. A lot more than any rivalry. Because seriously… this crap does not belong on the highway. Leave it on the football field. ‘Kay?

Kay.

Thanks.

I was maybe around 10 years old when I was first presented with the following “riddle:”

C D E D B D ducks?
M R not ducks!
O S A R!
C D E D B D wings?
Y I B! M R ducks!

For anyone as confused as I was, the conversation above says:  “See the itty-bitty ducks?” “Them are not ducks!” “Oh yes they are! See the itty-bitty wings?”  “Why, I be! Them are ducks!”

In this day and age, more and more I feel like I did when I was first presented with that riddle. I get text messages or I see Facebook status updates that will take me ten minutes to decipher, because they are filled with short hand.  When I was younger, this type of spelling appeared only in the comic pages or perhaps as a bonus question on a test.

4ward. gr8. u2. 2morrow. 2day.

I have actually reached a point of frustration in which I will ignore some text messages that use too much shorthand. Text me when you remember how to spell correctly.

I know that part of the problem is lack of space to say all you want to say. Twitter limits you to 140 characters. Text messages (generally) limit you to 160 characters. When your message is too long, I recognize the need to fudge words here and there. But when I get a message that says, “R U there?” I get filled with a deep annoyance. Spell out the words. Don’t make me say it out loud to understand what you are trying to say. In the time it takes me to translate the text, I could have responded twice.

I found a wonderful blog post entitled “The decline and corruption of the English language” on Helium.com.

Today, the world’s literacy seems to be taking reverse leaps. Where children were once trained to appreciate language and the diversity of syntax, grammar, consistency and clarity, today’s youth see the push toward speed and stylized text.

Not only have we moved away from standing true to the language and grammatical rules we were taught growing up, many of our youth no longer learn to neatly and clearly write their own names. Where I learned “keyboarding” as a freshman in high school (though I did have some classes in it as early as fifth grade), most children learn typing techniques as early as kindergarten and first grade.

I have at times said that computers and the internet are the most wonderful and the most horrible things to ever happen to our world. Everything we do, we do at lightening speed. It’s resulted in our doing more work in less time, and its also resulted in our no longer having the need to retain anything we learn. We can find what we want in a moments notice, all with a few clicks of a mouse.

We are all tethered to our computers in one way or another. Unfortunately, instead of it elevating our English language, that fact has dumbed it down. I am sure we are a long way from newspapers and books going to full short hand text (though I have seen greeting cards written in it!). And professors still demand research papers be written properly and edited. But every day, I see our short hand of letters joined with numbers showing up in a new location. Often times, its coming from people I would have never expected to use it. Perhaps its simply become habit. Perhaps its an attempt to “fit in.” Whatever the reason, though, it bothers me.  A lot.

Language is obviously one of the first cultures to suffer, art and music are following in kind, and eventually we’ll return to stick figure cave paintings left for the generations to uncover and scratch their heads over, attempting to discern what happened to the renaissance and the so-called intelligent lives we once led. (From The decline and corruption of the English language)

I just saw a news article that had me fired up. My husband just stared at me, perhaps with a little fear over how mad it made me.

The article was about a young boy who has hair that does not conform to his school’s dress code, and as such has been placed in detention until he gets a hair cut. His mother is threatening a lawsuit because they are causing him mental harm my keeping him apart from his classmates. [article]

My response: GET A HAIR CUT!

I got just as fired up at the beginning of the school year, when a group of students decided they would all wear flip-flops to school on the first day of school to protest the fact that their dress code said flip flops were not allowed. [article on the dress code]

Dress codes exist for a reason: for the well being of the students. There is a concern for their safety, but also for their ability to focus on their school work. As an adult, I know how I dress not only affects my ability to focus on my job, but it also affects how others react to me. But that is something school-age kids have rarely figured out.

When I was in high school, we had a stringent dress code. The length of shorts, skirts and tops were watched closely. No males had facial hair, nor did their hair get long enough to be below their shirt collars. There were no open toed shoes, nor any shoes without backs.

We might have grumbled about it… I know I did, because my height made finding shorts and skirts long enough impossible and, as such, I lived in jeans every day… but in the end, we all followed the rules. Oh sure, we had those who tried to buck the system, but there was never any big drama within that that I can recall.

We knew that high school was more than just book studies; it was getting us ready for “the real world” where jobs have dress codes and you’re expected to confirm to those rules. You “found yourself” or “expressed your individuality” in ways within those rules. You also knew you would be awarded the freedom to dress as you wished when/if you attended college.

Our dress code was less strict than it was for our older siblings and our parents. I know many dress codes today aren’t as strict as ours was. Some schools have since gone on to impose a school uniform to avoid the dress code issue completely.

You don’t have to agree with a dress code, but you do have to follow it. As I already said, it does get you ready for the rules you’ll follow in the workforce. Plus, you’ll get to have your way when you get out of school. When you look at the span of an average life, your junior high and high school years are just a small portion of that life.

It can be argued that by fighting a dress code, you’re learning to stand up for yourself. You are learning to be an individual. But it can also be argued that sometimes you need the lesson that its not so bad to follow the rules.

I wonder sometimes if we haven’t bent the rules so much that they no longer are respected; if that’s not why many of our youth have a lack of respect in general. Have we not promoted individuality and “bucking the system” to the point that many believe rules don’t apply to them?

No matter where you are in your life, there are rules/laws to follow. Isn’t it easier to learn that when the consequence is detention and not life in prison?

(Note: I know this can open a whole can of worms, which makes me hesitant to post this. But let it be known that in general, I prefer a hands-off approach. Guide through respect and solid examples, less by hard-rules. But I also believe there are rules in place for a reason, and those rules should be followed.)

groupie \ˈgrü-pē\ noun 1. a fan of a rock group who usually follows the group around on concert tours; 2. an admirer of a celebrity who attends as many of his or her public appearances as possible; 3. enthusiast, aficionado

A couple years ago, my husband played his hometown fair. It was a dream come true for him. Being a smaller town, I thought perhaps the local newspaper would want to do a feature news article on “local boy doing big things” as part of their promotions of the show. I mean, what would be a bigger draw than seeing someone in the national artist’s band who grew up in the town that the fair is being held?

FANS pack a show

As part of the article, the reporter for the newspaper did a phone interview with me. It felt a little weird to be the one being asked the questions as opposed to asking them myself! It was a neat experience, though, until she asked THE question. The one that I admit, I snapped over.

“So… were you a groupie?”

I’d been asked that question before, and I’ve been asked that question countless times since then. It’s an innocent enough question, I suppose, but the word “groupie” in the music-sense has just this negative connotation. It doesn’t help when that question is asked with a snicker.

Groupie… *snicker*

UGH! Talk about being offended!

I can’t remember now what I told the reporter, but I remember that I snapped and quickly set her straight. I made it clear the question was actually offensive in nature. Being a groupie implies that you follow a band around and you spend all your energy attempting to insert yourself into that band’s world. Oftentimes, its implied you’re actively trying to get close to the artist via the band… doing absolutely ANYTHING in takes to get “in the inner circle.”

Being a groupie is not the same as truly being a friend of a band member. Being a groupie is not even the same as being a FAN of an artist. Being a groupie CERTAINLY could not be further from being the spouse of a band member.

I was not, nor will I ever be, “a groupie.” It’s pretty much a dirty word within the music industry; it’s insulting to imply that of someone. As I said, I’ve been asked the question a million times, and I know I’ll be asked a million more times in the years. I accept that fact. However, I will never “like” that question. Never.