A friend who I met online asked me today if I had the new Hole CD, Nobody’s Daughter. This brought back a really beautiful memory that I want to share.

Those who know me surely have a clear perspective of how important music is to me. It hasn’t always been that way. The first show I ever saw was Blondie in 1982, just after my high school graduation. It changed *everything* and as that band became a central part of my entire adult life, I came to realize that what I had been missing all my life was the emotion and meaning and insight that I derive from music now. It’s not entertainment for me, it’s life itself. That said (again), I’m also very sentimental and lucky enough to have received a few truly great gifts over the years, things with real meaning and a deep and irrevocable emotional connection. I keep these things near me all of the time and when I see them, I realize that these gifts are so great it made me actually integrate the person who gave it into my self, into what I am.

so just off the top of my head, here are a few…

a lovely and brilliantly insightful girl whose humor, wit, and inspiration is dearly missed, gave me a black refrigerator magnet with a Carl Jung quote printed in white but could just as easily have been printed in my own love and blood:
“the meeting of two personalities
is like the the contact of two chemical substances;
if there is any reaction,
both are transformed.”

Chris Stein, by putting me on the guest list for four shows on June 28, 1990, gave me a lifetime of Blondie experiences, and his personal insights about so many things started an avalanche of self-discovery and ambition and the realization that the only thing that was limiting what I could accomplish is me myself.

my friend of 26 years, REB, knowing how much I love Blondie, gave me free hosting of blondie.net and debbieharry.net since the mid 90’s, and a plane ticket to England in 2005 so I could go see them on tour.

someone I met in Debbie Harry’s front row in 1993 gave me a red silk rose because it was what I needed at that moment. (Twilight Zone: “What You Need”)

the lovely Apes gave me a Debbie Harry postage stamp from Mali and the inspiration to fly around the world chasing my dreams before I had realized that was the right thing to do every day.

Killola gave me the last fragment of what I needed to demarcate the end of the previous part of my life from the beginning of the next part. That one is going to gets its own article here when I figure out how I can express it. It is unreal what they gave me.

Now with that all in perspective, I want to talk about what my dear friends in the band Cilver (on the original date of this still known as Me Talk Pretty) gave me on May 2 when I went to see them play at the M-Room in Philadelphia (the same place that Killola played on TMI Day (March 28). Both Me Talk Pretty and Killola are two of the three bands that searched my music preferences on myspace (back when it used to be good… not like now, just a dumbed-down version of facebook that limits how much you can say at a time… one of the primary motivators of me doing this site, in fact) and afterward, when I listened to them, I loved them immediately and bought everything they had for sale. I have been into them for years and to watch them, all of them, make it, is fabulous. Why two of those three are from California isn’t clear since I hate California with a passion. But I digress, so back to the story, mostly quoted out of an email I wrote the next day:

first of all it is always supremely exciting to see Me Talk Pretty, and the fact they had advance copies of their new CD that won’t be out for months already was already sufficient to make me burst.

so I wanted to know what time the show was and brought up the bar’s website and fuck me! The Action Design is playing!! I like hem. They are also from California, and played with Killola the first time I ever saw them live, on my birthday in 2008… I didn’t know about them, but Killola Johnny said that day, “you should check out this next band, they’re good and you’d probably like them.” A hot grrrl was waiting for me at the beach in NJ so I figured, okay, I’ll check out a few songs and split, but she had to wait: I ended up staying for the whole set and buying their CD (and a second one that came out a year later). I love their songs “Pale Horizon” and “Landmines” (oh so relevant!) , plus they covered Hanging On The Telephone (had it on their site). Imagine the chances they’re actually playing the same night. WTF?!! they were good too, luscious. I got some stickers and got to tell them how happy I was to see them here! that is so crazy. but not so crazy as this….

so Me Talk Pretty (guitarist) Leon, my friend, says, “I have something for you. Don’t leave.” That was rather early and I’m like “I won’t leave until there are no more bands here.” Then they played, it was soooo good 🙂
they were hungry and I guess it’s the owner who was working the bar (and maybe cooking?) is Greek, and Me Talk Pretty (singer) Uliana’s sister lives in Greece and is married to a Greek man, so he made her a really nice salad for free and gave her some more drink tickets, one of which, to my delight, she placed in my hand. the others in the band ordered food as well; I think they were eating while I was watching The Action Design.

Afterward, we all had drinks together, and later, Leon had me follow him to the van and as we were walking there, I asked him what he thought he of the Hole show he’d said he went to on April 27, the day before I saw Hole at Terminal 5 in NYC with Steph “front row grrrl”, and Debbie Harry saw me there. Leon was describing how she did four songs acoustic and that everyone had to buy the CD to get in, then how there were 100 people waiting in line to get their CDs signed and when they got their turn, Uliana asked Courtney Love if she could give her a sticker from her band, and Courtney was like “sure” (really nice about it) and liked the name. Just at this moment, reaching across the front seat, Leon produces his signed copy of Nobody’s Daughter and handed it to me and said, “I want you to have this. It is a gift from us.” It was a complete surprise, so there I was standing next to him holding this disc with both hands and just looking at him, frozen. I think the word “Seriously?” was the only one I managed for like the next two minutes, maybe three. He asked me not to be speechless, but I couldn’t help it. Courtney Love lives in fucking California and never does anything where you can meet her, I would never be able to get an autographed disc, and these lovely people bought this disc and waited for a hundred people ahead of them to get it signed and give it to *me*. When I got home at almost 3am, I took a photo of myself with the Hole disc, my arm signed by Uliana (how lovely!), and holding their new album We Are Strangers. Their new video Wake Up came out that same day. Leon said it would be on MTV in about 3 weeks or a month from now. Looks like I’m not the only one who likes them heheheeeee.

This is one of those gifts.