September 29, 2019 – Yesterday I was sick. I felt a sniffle coming on on Friday, but yesterday was full-on awful. I didn’t have any appropriate sick person food, and I’m really not sure what that is, but as I decided to sit down to watch my show Heartland on Netflix (no I’m not recommending this young adult horse show to you all), I kept noticing so many characters were eating sandwiches. Sandwiches are not really my thing; normally, they’re not at all my thing, but from watching the characters eat sandwiches, I was so craving a sandwich, one with the works – lettuce (the normal kind, not the spinach/kale mix I use for my real salads) and tomato, plus my beloved real Swiss cheese. And fruit. I wanted fruit. Oh and orange Gatorade. So, to the grocery store, I went.
I set out to the Von’s in Studio City, where I know where everything is. I was dizzy, so I need to shop quickly. Plus on the way there is my mailbox, and I could stop by and get my mail. I parked in my usual spot, and it was raining, so I put up the hood on my fleecy white jacket, the fleece mostly blocking my face.
While walking through the parking lot, I saw a young man, probably a high school senior. He had very good hair styled in a preppy way, but reminiscent of a 1940s movie star, but without the slickness. He had on a t-shirt that said Princeton Basketball; that seemed to match the preppy hair. He was tall, even taller than his friends who got into a small SUV together. Oh and he was white. There was a familiarity about him, not that I knew him personally, just that many decades ago I could have. I never see kids who look like him. They all look so different now, so … urban, if that’s thing, like his friends looked. He was such a time warp for me that I just kept starring. I couldn’t even stop. He was probably thinking what’s wrong with that lady? Actually, I assumed he didn’t notice at all. After all, my face was mostly blocked by white fuzz. And honestly, no high school senior is going to look at an old lady like me, so I just get the privilege of starring.
I grabbed a cart at the front door of the store, and then set out to various aisles to get the things I had come for. Bread. Eggs, I always need those, and I’ll feel like eating them in a few days; saves a trip. I passed the Fritos, my favorite; they were on sale, so I got a package. The next aisle was the one with Gatorade on it. I saw the package I wanted, but there was a woman directly in front of the small bottles of orange Gatorade. She was older, nicely dressed, nice demeanor. People here can be so rude in the grocery store that I go out of my way not to be. So I just waited. But her studying of the Gatorade went on way too long, so I reached around her cart to grab the small bottles of orange. She said to me that she could move, and said it was okay. Then she pointed out the large bottles were on sale. She was getting one of every color; she said she wanted them with low sugar. I said I didn’t care about the sugar. Her response shocked me in my tracks. She said, “you’re young; you don’t have to worry about it, but when you get older, you need to cut back”. Honestly, I’m really trying to have no processed sugar. Trying is the operative word. I think it’s a terrible thing for one’s brain, and honestly, I am very much trying to remake myself. I see an article every day about the ills of sugar. The sugar part hit me first. I wanted to go back and get one that was low sugar; heck, I didn’t even know there was low sugar Gatorade. Next time. But as I rounded the next corner, she was continuing to talk to me. Her husband, the intended recipient of the Gatorade, is 92. She didn’t say how old she is, but I told her my dad is 91. I then said we’re all living longer now, so we all have to worry about sugar. I wondered how old she thought I was, you know, since she said I was young. Is it possible that young to a 90 year old is a person of my age?
Then there was the guitar lesson of this week. That was when my sniffle came on. Thankfully, the teacher had a paper towel, or my usual level of embarrassment (because I’m a dork like that) would have been more so. And it was more so this week than normal. Last lesson, two weeks before, I had had a particularly hard week with that person I do my contract work for. I told the teacher about the notary thing, not sure he understands, but whatever; it’s someone to tell. This week, I had seen a job and told him I applied, pretty much as a joke, not the conversation, the job application. I saw a temp job where they wanted a lawyer with business experience in oil and gas, probably for a case involving an oil company. I didn’t tell him the details, but I wrote a cover letter listing my qualifications: all the credits for a degree in geology, except that I chose my degree in Finance, for which I also had all the credits; worked for oil producer handling all aspects of 200 wells (listing the things I did); buying and selling oil field equipment since 2010, and running a small producer’s three wells (that’s my dad, something I do with my brother now). This part I did say; I decided if I didn’t get that job, there would never be a job I would ever get. My business is ridiculous. Having experience, meaning age, is a terrible thing; they all want no more than a five-year experienced person. Of course I didn’t get even a call; I’m too old, experience be damned. He was kind, said I look 20 years younger than I am. I said those people don’t know that because nobody sends a picture with their resume. He said the obvious, that I should work from home. Funny how someone with absolutely no connection to your life can sometimes be the person who says the most accurate thing.
And back to the lesson, because yes, I wasted about five minutes of my time making fun of this job application I knew I wouldn’t get even though I doubt there’s anyone in Los Angeles with more industry-specific experience who also does temporary lawyer work. I was warming up; then I just started playing my song, no words though, only the chords in the strumming pattern. It wasn’t my homework, so he was watching, asked what I was playing. I was a bit afraid to tell ten-thousand tattoo dude how much I had worked on this, but whatever, I did. I asked him to pull up the video “Taylor Swift Delicate acoustic”. I told him every tutorial is wrong, and that I figured it out, myself, from Taylor’s playing. I said there’s a part I couldn’t figure out, but I wanted to show him what I had figured out, which was the majority of the song. I learned by slowing down the song and studying it. Even he slowed it down, and he too figured it out. It took about ten minutes for him, contrasted to the many, many sittings for me, but I was still quite proud of myself. And then another ten minutes for the part I had not figured out.
The Taylor Swift thing is a bit scary because there’s no way he knows her music, but as he pulled up the video I asked for, I was making all kinds of excuses. In one of those attempts to be cooperative, he said he liked early Taylor, before they made her into Britney Spears. I watched his face when the video started. The fans scream at a level that’s super intense. He stopped the recording there. He said, listen to the fans. I nodded. I told him I have been to a Taylor Swift concert, and it was one of the most fun times I’ve ever had because of the audience; it’s just plain fun to be in that excitement. By the end, he seemed impressed that Taylor was playing the entire song, carrying it, with nobody else. He seemed a bit disappointed in the lyrics, said they were corny, said the song was simple. I told him that girls like this music, that for some reason, it hits a lot of us in the way in which we think. Makes me wonder if girls are corny, but I don’t think so. I think we are just into simple love. At the end of him working out the strumming pattern, he said this is a lesson for him, that song can be simple and still good. Another example of, isn’t it funny what we learn from strangers?
Last night before I went to bed and checked the news of the people I like, something I do almost every day, something I definitely do before article-day. David Lee Roth was filmed doing a rehearsal, and there was a short video on Blabbermouth. The comments are nothing short of brutal. Perhaps they are deserved. Many of the snippets of David’s voice and singing are not good, but they are super short little clips, so to be fair, it’s hard to tell. Many, many, many of the comments are about age. From reading this about Dave, from everything else in my life this week, I wondered. Does age matter? Is it like getting a job as a lawyer, where if you’re older than about 35, it’s impossible? And who knew being a rock star and being a lawyer were so much the same? Couldn’t have told me that in 1982! Anyways, my point. And this is from my guitar teacher too. Indirectly.
I’m not sure I’ve said this, but he’s in his mid-40s. We established each other’s age, thankfully, because for some reason, that’s a relevant thing in everything these days. But there he was learning a lesson from Taylor Swift of all people, or maybe he was learning it from me, about how a simple song can still be a good song. And he always, always says age doesn’t matter. I don’t think it’s so he can get money from an old middle-aged person wishing she was better at the guitar. Literally, he believes you can always write a song, no matter your age. Again, I don’t think it’s because he’s getting money from an older person. I think it’s because if he didn’t believe it, then even he wouldn’t have a future, himself. He still thinks he’ll write one of those songs.
And the truth is perhaps we can. Perhaps we can’t… write a song… perform a song. But age. Let’s stop. We are not old if we are not 90. The woman in the Gatorade aisle said so. And even then, she said we just have to not drink sugar. My guitar teacher is still fighting for that song. That kid with the Princeton Basketball shirt, sure he’s young, but that’s what I looked like long ago. It still exists. Not everyone looks like what the world has become. My God that makes me happy! And yet, not everything has to be the same as it was. Even a dude with ten-thousand tattoos, when he really sits and listens to a good Taylor Swift song, can find the song to be … good.
So to David Lee Roth. Don’t think of your age. You can kick past your head. That’s amazing. So do it! But listen to the critiques. You’re a legend, but you cannot, cannot, cannot live just for that. If you’re going out there, you have to be good, really good. And good means the vocals must be good. I have different critiques on that video from what’s on Blabbermouth. The guitar players are being guitar players. They are loud. That’s what they do, but it’s disjointed, and loud and disjointed is messy. The bass is almost not there. I hear an almost-race to, an extreme over-emphasis on, the upper notes, by the guitars and by David. He’s even higher in register than the guitars, and these notes are high on the guitars. What made the high notes of the guitars good in the Van Halen heyday was David’s low voice. They balanced: high and low. David, if you sing high, you will lose people. Just don’t. It’s that simple. Now movement. People talk about David being old now. Whatever. He is, but he doesn’t have to look it. And it’s easy not to. All you have to do, and I mean all, is adjust your movements and adjust your posture. Move slowly, with fluidity. And posture. Old people have curved backs. So just don’t. Again, it’s that simple. Hold your back and shoulders without a curve, and to do so, take your shoulders and round them back and down, basically stick out your boobs, seriously, even if you don’t have them, stick out that spot. And when you think your shoulders are low, go ever lower; pinch your shoulder blades in, and when you think they are pinched, pinch even more; then straighten your back in and up. Shoulders down, neck long. It’s basic ballet. Lay down on the floor to feel it. All of that will take the “old” out. Nobody will care about the age. It’s three things: sing in the low register; get the curve out of your back, and move with fluidity.
Yes, my mind is all over the place right now. But that’s not age either. That’s how I was when I was young — really, really all over the place. Perhaps I needed the lessons of the last two days, the lessons I learned while being sick. But I swear to you, I’m going to put my preppy shirt on, and not care how old I am while I play my Taylor Swift. After all, I figured out 90% of Delicate, myself. Sure it took about three days to get one song that the teacher got in ten minutes, but then again, it took me four hours to read my first law assignments, something I could do now in about ten minutes. And no, I’m still not sure why my business loves the young, especially because it’s the experience that turns a four-hour task into a ten minute task; they truly don’t get it, but I will find what’s next, something where age doesn’t matter. Heck, perhaps I could write a song. The ten-thousand tattoo guy says it’s possible!