April 04, 2005
What the World Needs Now is Another Folk Singer...
I got off of work Saturday night, feeling completely exhausted and in no mood whatsoever to be around people, music, noise, excessive smoke, and especially young 20somethings doing shotaftershotaftershot while singing along to excessively loud garage music. So where did I go? THE CACTUS CLUB. My rationale was this: I rarely get to go out on nights when I don't have to get up at 6:30 the following morning. Even if I'm feeling a bit like gunning down the human race, I should go out. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or at least sit and sneer at them. Because if you don't, you're gonna regret it come Wednesday afternoon, at which point you probably will not have left your house in four days."
So I went. And I'm glad I did, because I had the honor of talking with our friend Paul, who will be moving to Poland soon. If there was any doubt in my mind about my choice for the Euro Holiday ( Eur'on Holiday? Yer On? Get it? Sorry...) - and the only one really was the cold - said doubt has been eliminated. If this trip does actually happen, we are going to Poland. Period. Paul's really excited for Greg to come, I'm really excited to be anywhere that's not America (okay, well maybe except Iraq, but only because I might actually get killed there, as opposed to being merely sneered at (sneer! the word of the day!)(end tangent now)), it's cheap, and will actually be a bit warmer than the single digits I had expected. Plus, it gives me another excuse to get in shape, because the Wawel Castle is, "Only a 45-minute walk from my house." !!! Let's race!
Our conversation turned into a comparative America vs. Europe, and I have to say, it's a tough call. Before you get all "I KNOW YOU DIDN'T..." on me, let me first EMPHASIZE that I don't consider myself anti-American at all. There are lots of things I love about this country, including my inalienable right to talk shit about it on the internet. But I also find it ironic that, for all the Bounty of the Homeland, people - especially city-dwellers - just don't seem to be enjoying it, generally speaking. We work too much. Let me rephrase that: We have to work too much. And all it takes is one look out my window to see the rows of SUVs lining the wide streets to know that we haven't exactly maximized the girth of this country, i.e., WE TAKE UP SO MUCH DAMN ROOM. Our "purple mountain's majesty" is covered in a yellow cloud of smog, and half of it is on fire half the time. When I hear "Wild Mountain Thyme", I know that I can go to Ireland and actually see the bloomin' heather. The highways are carved apologetically through the countryside, and in Clare, you can't walk ten feet without tripping over a wall created by someone's extreme effort to simply feed themselves and their family.
Maybe I'm just feeling (apologizing in advance for making up this word) Eurosick, but that's truly how I feel most of the time. I realize it's no more accurate or wise for me to imagine European life as a whole lot of siestas punctuated by brief periods of work at a place in which everyone treats their co-workers like family than it is for Europeans to construe all Americans as fat, capitalist whoremongers, but the truth is, I look around and... WE ARE A BUNCH OF FAT, CAPITALISTIC WHOREMONGERS. And by fat, I don't necessarily mean "obese." Nor do I mean "phat." I mean indulgent. And I'm aware that, if I were to investigate further, I would probably find lots of things to loathe about European countries. Like "allegiance to the Queen" in Britain. Sorry, can't do it. One too many Frank McCourt novels, I guess.
Truth be told, from my experience and through what I've been told by those who've been there, there are a lot of similarities between America and Western Europe, at least in terms of daily life. McDonald's. Lots of shopping. Anyway.
My point, if I have one for this post, is simply that it should be mandatory for all Americans to leave the country at some point in their lives, much like Muslims are required to go to Mecca. Speak Freely, Get Out the Vote, Thou Shalt Not Kill, and Get Thee to Europe to See What We Might Look Like if We Had Preserved Our Land, Not Because It Was Politically Correct, But Because WE DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE. Ever try growing potatoes out of a rock? TRY IT. IT LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF FUN.
I'm going to end this post before I get into the whole Our Culture Has No Culture Because We're All Too Busy Watching TV thing, because I'm aware of the hypocrisy of waxing romantic about heather and coffee breaks whilst sipping coffee and typing on the computer before heading out in my enormous Volvo station wagon to go consume consume consume (side note: I'm not even going to bother telling you where you should go if you think three bucks a gallon is bad...). And now that I think of it, let me strike the above "point," because this is actually the point of this post:
Last night, I had just finished playing Laundry Fairy at Greg's house, and when Maddie and I got out of the elevator in the lobby to go home, Maddie looked into the bar to see Barry Dodd and another gentleman playing guitar and accordion, respectively, and singing. She immediately grabbed me by the hand, yelling, "MOMMY! BARRY'S SINGING! HE HAS HIS GUITAR!" And we spent a few minutes sitting there, listening. A couple of 70something men at the bar were thrilled to see a 4-year-old, and quietly asked her about her baby, what her name is, and how she liked the music. Barry sang "Nowhere Man" by the Beatles, just for Maddie, and she smiled and batted her eyelashes at him whenever he looked her way. We left after that song, and when I got home and got into bed, I could only think one thing: we should have stayed. Bedtime can and should be negotiated for things like that. How often, in this country, does a young girl get to grow up around an intergenerational, multicultural group of people singing impromptu in a bar, laughing, dancing, joking as strangers and friends? There isn't enough of that around here, in this country. We need more Barry Dodds.
