The Lisa Life

Britney

Tonight the MTV music awards are going on.

Somewhere, Lynne Spears is sobbing.

Overheard

While driving to the Harry Potter party in downtown Howell yesterday, Rod Stewart's song Hot Legs comes on Doug FM. 

ME:  Can you imagine how many pole dances that song has inspired?

MARTIN:  Yeah, but Rod is probably very proud of that.

Concert On The Courthouse Lawn

For any of my readers who are local, we will be at the Concert On The Courthouse Lawn in Howell this evening.  The band is Air Margaritaville, which is a Jimmy Buffett cover band.  It's free and starts at 7 p.m., although we will be there earlier to enjoy a picnic dinner on the lawn.  Stop by and say hi.

I'll be the one with the really loud Hawaiian shirt on.

UPDATE

Air Margaritaville was a great band.  We had a lot of fun.  The concerts are sponsored by the Livingston Arts Coucil (who don't seem to have a website I could find) to fund renovations on the historic Howell Opera House (which also doesn't seem to have a website I could find).  Although the concerts are free, sponsored by area merchants, donations are solicited twice during the evening. 

I have a suggestion.  It was estimated that 1800 to 2000 people were at the concert.  If each of those people paid a one or two dollar entry fee, think of the donations you could raise every week. Even in my precarious financial state, I would happily pay a buck or two for this very worthy cause.  Also, and I know this probably has something to do with the fact that it is held on the Courthouse Lawn, but SERVE BOOZE.  Don't think there weren't adult beverages smuggled in and I know we weren't the only ones. 

Strange Side Note That I Have Lived Here Too Long:  Brent Earl is the head of the Arts Council.  I went to high school with him.  I knew who he was in high school, we weren't friends or anything but at one point during the evening, I was sitting next to first his wife and then next to him.  So Brent, if you find this, I was the lady with the Birkenstocks who's foot you thought you were stepping on.  You have cute kids, by the way.  Oh, and get a blog going about the Opera House restoration with a Paypal button.   

Just a suggestion.

Little Known Musical Fact

I love music.  I am all across the board on it, but I love music.

I have no musical talent whatsoever.  None. 

A little known musical fact is that I took piano lessons from the time I was five or so until I was nearly 18. 

I couldn't play now if you stuck a gun to my head and told me if I didn't crank out Fur Elsie pretty damn fast I'd be voting  straight ticket Republican for the rest of my life.

My mom wanted me to learn to play the piano. 

My teacher was a very scary woman named Patricia Damyer.  She lived in a house that has since been demoed.  It was where Leppek Nursery is today.

This woman frightened the hell out of me every week.  I tried, I really did.  I just do not have a musical talent.  And really, I'm okay with being a fan.  I am a pretty good dancer.

Just don't plan on ever seeing me do Karaoke. 

Mrs. Damneder wasn't a screamer, she was just very intimidating.  And I think she was a pretty decent musician because teaching me was obviously a chore to her.  I butchered everything.  She was at a loss during recitals as to what to do with me.

Very embarrassing:  When I was six, I was so freaked out by her I was afraid to ask if I could use her bathroom and I wet on the piano bench.

Further Proof That I Am Regressing

Further proof that I am regressing rather than maturing:

I first heard/saw this song performed on Saturday Night Live.  I thought that although the singer looked like she just took a Xanax that was starting to kick in, I thought the song was cute and catchy.

I searched it out on YouTube, added it to my favorites and I've listened to it 200 times since then and watched the video.

I know it's shiteous.  I think it's cute.

I am becoming the 13 year old girl I never was.  Next think you know, I'll be hunting down some Love's Baby Soft, a bottle of Jhirmak shampoo and some Jordache jeans and looking for the perfect halter top to wear rollerskating.

Video

Yaz

For further evidence that my life has come full circle, Yaz is now a birth control pill.

No No NO!  So wrong.

Yaz is a mid-eighties dance sort of synth group that I used to dance to.  Don't Go, Situation,  Only You.  How many times did I dance to those songs?  And yes, I might have needed birth control a couple times while dancing to those but really?  I had that Upstairs At Eric cassette in rotation in my car stereo for at least a couple years. 

Naming a birth control pill after an 80s band? 

So wrong.  So very wrong.  The saddest part is that all the young 20 somethings who are taking it won't have a clue that Yaz was a pretty good band to dance to and not just a non baby pill that also might help your zits go away.

In the meantime, here is a link to Yaz and you can listen to Situation, which sort of can relate to birth control.

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Yaz/dp/B00000K3GI#moreAboutThisProduct

Note: I already know I have a kind of twisted sense of humor so really, you don't need to email me and tell me that.  Really.

Add It Up...To A Wendy's Fish Sandwich?

I just saw a commercial for a Wendy's fish sandwich and the background music, minus lyrics, was the Violent Femmes college angst anthem, Add It Up.

So wrong, on so many levels.

Transported

Listening to Doug, 93.1, We Play Everything, on my way home from work tonight, I heard the Adam Ant song, Goody Two Shoes, and I was transported back to the 80s. 

I was sporting one of my more extreme (and short-lived) hair-dos, including a tail dyed fuchsia, wearing a ruffly pirate shirt, leggings and Chuck Taylors, doing that 80s new wave dancing sort of thing.

Then the song was over and I was back in five o'clock traffic in Brighton, Michigan.

The ABBA Museum

Ed. Note: This is inspired by a conversation I had with Darr and Michelle online.

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=243269&GT1=7702

There is no shame in being an ABBA fan.  I may listen to the Ramones and the Femmes and The Cure and slide over into Janis and The Dead and Lucinda Williams and John Hiatt and Etta James and Cesoria Avora and Jimmy Buffett.  Being an ABBA fan should not be a surprise to anyone since I'm all over the board with music. (The 80s New Wave/Punk stuff remains my favorite, however.)

My mother-in-law is an ABBA fan.  So is my husband's friend Eric, who tried to convince us to go to see Mamma Mia when it was playing in Detroit but it was the dead of winter and the tickets were not only difficult to get but very pricey.

I'd so visit this museum.  It's like the ABBA Disco Hall Of Fame in Sweden.

The Bob!

In case you haven't been keeping up, if you live in Michigan, it's like an unwritten law that you are a Bob Segar fan.  Except of course for my husband, but he's a Brit so what can you expect?  The man still has a couple Gary Glitter cassette tapes around, I'm pretty sure.

Bob Segar hasn't toured in about ten years.  I know, because he did Pine Knob and The Palace and I went to both. 

He recently released a new album, also the first in a long time and damn, the man still sounds great and sings the songs of my life. 

He's touring, starting this winter.  My husband has no desire to go to this concert, so my friend Beth and I are going. Rumor has it that he's doing 8 shows in Detroit, which would make sense since I do believe he only lives like ten minutes from there.  Beth is a lot of fun and I know we are going to be dancing all night long.

As Bruce Springsteen to New Jersey, Bob Segar to Michigan.

Rock and roll never forgets, baby!