A quick story

Have you ever met someone famous? Was it a good meeting? I would love to hear stories of your encounters. Please use the comments to share.

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As a teenager I had a few odd jobs. Usually my job was 'be the cute white girl sitting at the front desk and answering the telephone'. For a few years though I did some office work at my father's store, bookkeeping and collections mostly. I loved helping out, and it gave me enough pocket money to buy tickets to some great summertime rock concerts. Good times.

My dad's place was in the village in New York City near Canal street, which was a half-hour walk from home.  Using my feet instead of taking the bus or the train gave me a chance to get some exercise, do some window shopping, and listen to some great tunes on my walkman.

One day I was zipping along my usual path; straight uptown on Broadway approaching the shoe stores that lined the avenue near St. Marks. A man was walking quickly toward me. He was crazy-pale white, wearing a grubby tee-shirt, a black jacket and tight black pants, which was fairly typical attire for 1988 in New York City.

He was walking so fast and I was going so fast that I only caught snippets of him, just tiny puzzle piece images. He was really skinny, I remember. I think I could have wrapped my hand around his ankles they were so small. As he passed me I caught a glimpse of long black hair draped sloppily over his face, a prominent nose, and a definite sway to his walk. It was more of a lope, actually, like his whole body went up and down as he took each long step; and he was moving along at a good clip on those teeny tiny legs.

Only after he passed me did the entire image of him come together in my mind, and I stopped. I know him. How do I know him? Who was that? Why do I know him? Was that...Joey Ramone?

I immediately started walking back downtown as fast as I could. "Was it really him?" I thought as I walked. Maybe it's not him. Maybe when I see him up close I'll see, it's definitely not him. He's moving fast, can I catch up to him? Should I be chasing him? All these thoughts came in a quick jumble as I tried to justify why I was now walking really fast away from home, trying to catch up to a guy who maybe, maybe was a member of the Ramones. "I have to know", I thought. I was literally running at this point and about to turn around, when all of a sudden there he was.

I scuttled up and said quickly (slightly out of breath), "Excuse me, are you Joey Ramone?", thinking again, "I have to know." He stopped. He looked at me, said, "Yeah" and I knew, I knew it when held his hand out, I knew it when I shook his hand, I knew it as I looked at his face behind his hair. I must have watched the movie Rock 'n Roll High School a dozen times in the past year, I was certain it was him. I shook his hand, he let go and slung himself away again. He was very quickly out of sight.

I stood there for a moment just letting the experience sit in my belly. Joey Ramone. He said "Yeah". Actually, the way he said "Yeah" was kind of like the rest of him, I reflected, long and drawn out with a bit of a twist in the middle.

I turned around and headed home, repeating the story in my mind so I could tell all my friends later; and now, I've told you. So I guess we're friends then. :)

Did you ever have one of those experiences that went exactly the way you wanted? Yeah, that was one of those times for me.

Janet

The band

In high school, I played drums in a rock band. We were three girls (me, D and A) with old instruments, taking our best shot at "Smoke on the Water" in a scummy practice studio. It was great fun.

The building with the practice studio was completely ridiculous. It was a run down building with loft size spaces up five flights of stairs. There may have been an elevator, I don't remember. There were walls of rusty exposed pipes, and everything was covered in black paint. The restroom I recall vividly - because it wasn't really a room. It was an open, dark hallway with a dirty seat-less toilet smack in the center. A bare bulb swung from a cord about 15 feet above my head while I did my business (and you can be sure I did it really, really fast in that place).

The practice rooms themselves were pretty good, although I wouldn't go so far as to call them 'nice'. Most of them had usable drum kits (again, not 'nice'), they all had amps and mic stands, and for $10 an hour I could make as much noise as I wanted. I could do paradiddles for half an hour, badly, and nobody would mind. I could pretend to be Larry Mullen, Jr., or Ringo Starr, and it felt real.

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We started meeting there for our practice sessions. After some of our sessions, we would all go back to A's place (she was our guitarist) and hang out. We could talk about our insecurities, dream about the bands (and guys) we liked, and revel in how amazing it felt to take off our bras at day's end and just be sweaty chicks.

One time, we were walking back to A's place when our bassist D cornered me. She wanted to tell me her story. I couldn't believe her at first, because her life was so different than any life I'd known.

Her family hated her, she said. "They want to kick me out. I don't do drugs, but they keep accusing me." I asked her why and she said she didn't know. Then she said, "Sometimes I feel like I'm not myself. It's like I blackout, and have these missing times where I don't know what's happened for hours."

I thought about how well I knew her. Did I think she did drugs? Did I think they were falsely accusing her? Should I be the supportive friend? She was clearly upset, and when I didn't immediately say anything she said, "Never mind, forget it." and skipped ahead to talk to A.

Back at A's place, after sitting on the floor and chatting for a bit I saw that some of A's left arm was covered in little marks. They looked like scars. She saw me looking and said, "Sometimes I cut myself, y'know? No big deal."

D rolled up her sleeve. "Yeah, me too." they looked at each other and laughed. It blew my tiny teenage mind. I was scared, and confused. Who does that? Who hurts themselves on purpose, and then laughs about it?

I must have had a crazy look on my face, or how I acted the rest of that night threw them off, because a week later they kicked me out of the band.

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Now I wonder what happened to them, and where their lives took them.

Janet

Personal post - A parking lot moment

I had one of those parking lot moments tonight. Head pressed firmly to my steering wheel I was late for an appointment and didn't care one bit. I was listening to my favorite song. How many of us love a song so much that we try to stop the world when we hear it? We may say to everyone around, "Everyone be quiet, I need to turn this up." For me, this is the one. Nothing gets to me like the song "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel. This is a song full of emotional power.

"How do you know you are in love? All the songs make sense." - Castle, TV Series

Listening, I feel my heart pound. I sweat. It's like I'm falling in love all over again hearing this song; feeling that moment when I want to believe with all of my being that

this person

standing in front of me

is the one person who will complete my world.

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It's been many years since I've listened to something new. Unless you count the kid's music or television shows, which I don't. However, I still have Peter Gabriel. He's stayed with me through failing exams, through falling out of love and then back in again, and through the birth of both of my children.

I can't imagine a time when I won't want to hear his music. 

Do you have a favorite song? How does it make you feel?

Janet