Showing posts with label Hard to be a Girl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hard to be a Girl. Show all posts

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Starting All Over Again - Again

I’m working on my jetlag and still haven’t come down from my high : ), and I just had such a craving to stand on a table and cheer or something, and I thought of this blog. I really didn't think it was a year since the last time I did this, but then I looked and wow! it’s really even a little more!

You know, I really liked writing this blog. It just got to be too much work and for most of the year it's been all I can do to think of getting up in the morning and cutting a grapefruit in half. In the old days I would have gone to Dr. W_______ and gotten a prescription for Zoloft or something, but now with the bargain basement health insurance I'm not-really-affording, I'd be lucky to get seen in an ER if I was spurting blood. That is if there are any ERs any more. How scary was that, St. Vincents closing? I mean, it’s been ages since I lived down there, but I can’t imagine downtown without it. When I think of all the times I had to throw Robby or somebody into a cab …Ah, good times. Seriously, they were. Mostly.

Anyway, nothing good was happening. We couldn’t even get hold of old Wilber before he died of a major coronary down in Boca, so we never got to open “Hard to Be a Girl.” I mean, I couldn’t even get something going for charity, for God’s sake! That was a serious downer. Until it got too cold for the wine tours, Ed & Leonie had me helping out at their place on weekends, pouring for tastings and writing up orders and stuff. Which at least got me out of the house, and since I had to act all sociable kind of held off the worst. After that was done, I guess I basically hibernated. It was all I could do to just get through one day at a time with Jeff and Ed & Leonie checking in on me if I disappeared for too long.

Then all of a sudden, in March, it was like my stars shifted or something. First I get a call from Don, saying he wanted me to know they’d just closed on the place in Tahoe. Someone from BP, which shows how much timing counts, right? Anyway, if whoever it was is in the firing line now it’s not my problem – it’s his bank’s. Point is, between that and some of Gary’s portfolio turning around, it’s made a big dent in the estate debt pile. When we finally sell Bridgehampton I’ll actually end up with some cash in my pocket.

And meanwhile on that front, btw, that life coach friend of Ken and Maggs who rented it for two weeks last July decided it’s a great place to run retreats and took it for the whole season for an obscene amount money. Did I mention Maggs and Ken reconciled? After jfkdjfkdfj turned into a money machine, Ken decided it would be too expensive to get a divorce and anyway the MTA decided she was gay and moved in with….hey, I’m not here to gossip. I’ll just say it WASN’T Lindsay Lohan. So they made up, went to Budapest for his-and-hers tune-ups and are back on the red carpet like lovebirds or whatever people say these days.

Anyway, the Tahoe thing was cheering me up and I was starting to come out of my groundhog den, when I swear not two weeks later I get this email from Pozzo! If you’re a fan of mine, you probably also used to listen to Godot, so you’ll remember Pozzo. The bald bass player, with the waxed moustache? Turns out he’s been looking for me for ages and his kid (how scary is that?!) found me online thanks to my blog! Which is making me a major blog fan, let me tell you. Pozzo’s a music producer now, of course, and he was putting together a roster of events in Reykjavik for this summer. He asked if I would maybe want to come over for a week and hang with some old friends, his treat. Well, with all the volcanic ash thing, I was afraid to get too excited but of course I said yes. I mean, I haven’t been out of Armpit for more than a year, and Iceland is soooo great! Plus I’d get to see him and Vlad, and like a dozen others from the old club circuit. It was like having a fairy godfather or something. Troll? Is that more Icelandic? Don’t know, I’m embarrassed to say.

I just got back yesterday, and I am still buzzing from how great it was. 20 hour days (I’m too old to go without any sleep at all!), so much wonderful music, a few long theraputic soaks in the Blue Lagoon, all the hotdogs I could eat (no, that is not a double entendre; they have terrific hotdogs in Reykjavik!). I got to see so many faces that I didn’t even realize I missed. And I met some amazing people. Yes, I even got to meet Bjork, who was so welcoming and really great. Then to top it off, as you may have read on other people’s blogs (she said so not modestly!), there was this all day marathon event for Midsommer Night – music and bonfires – and suddenly there was Stu with a guitar! Stu Ball, of all people! Pozzo hadn’t told me, cause he wanted me to be surprised and believe me I was. If I hadn’t been drinking Brennivin all afternoon, I’d have have freaked! But instead I thought it was totally the coolest thing. And when Stu dragged me up on the stage and started playing “Hard to Be a Girl”, well, I just wailed it out! Then we did “You Say and You Do”, which was one that Stu and I wrote together. And finally, because we looked at each other and it just seemed right, “Greenland Isn’t Green.” They loved it! We had cheers and stomps and everything. It felt like a major transfusion, I can’t tell you.

Oh, it’s not going to last, I know that. It was a Cinderella night, and those kind of things are one shot. But so special. All that love out there – friends, fans -- under that beautiful blue grey purple sky. Thanks, Pozzo! I kiss you a million times!!!

And now I’m going to take a nap before I pass out :)

Friday, May 22, 2009

Hard to Be a Girl

So instead of “Have a Heart II,” which was our first thought, Gene decided we should call the new shop “Hard to be a Girl,” which was so sweet of him! But he says it’s not sweet at all, only good business, because people will see the name and immediately think of me, and that connection is going to pull them in. Gene thinks I’m still famous, which is massively touching.

Still, if there’s anything that would qualify me for one of those reality shows for former-celebrities, it would be that song. It was our only #1 hit. Our only gold record too. “Toto, Too” was also on that album; it made it to #11 which was always frustrating, to come that close to the top ten and never get in. “Drink the Koolaid” never made it past #27. We never really got that. Obviously we thought it was great or we wouldn’t have made it the title song. Timing, I guess.

A lot of people think that was the Raisin’s only album but not so. We had one more, only no one bought it. The critics were pretty brutal, too. Totally uncalled for. There was some good stuff on that second album. I’ll always remember Chris Stein telling Robbie how much he liked “Greenland Isn’t Green.” That meant the world to Robbie. It made him determined to keep going. We were working on songs for a third album when Robbie died. That’s what we were doing in Amsterdam. People don’t know that. They think he was a has-been, but he wasn’t. They were great songs; Robbie was really inspired by Anne Frank. I have them in my bank vault. I bet I could sell them on eBay or maybe at Christies. But I won’t. So if you’re reading this and get any bright ideas, forget about it.

Wow, that took me completely off the track. “Hard to be a Girl.” That’s where I started. I’m getting a little carried away. Gene is so excited, and its fun to have something to get carried away with. Especially with it being Memorial Day weekend. Summer season opening at the beach and I’m in Arahmpett.