Mixtapes and other musings

Today I have to watch as one of my most favorite people in the entire world is laid to rest.  Yesterday afternoon, I had to go to the visitation, which was arguably harder for me to deal with than speaking at my own father’s memorial. I just wasn’t prepared in my head for the pictures, the memories…or seeing sorority sisters that I had long since left behind back in college.  In the lobby outside of the chapel, there were tripod easels set up with large photo displays. A few of them were of her college and sorority days, and there were a ton of photos  of the five of us. In fact, there were even pictures of my husband Walt up there. (we met while I was still in college). I pledged a sorority in 1989 and met Sheri, Janell, Michelle and Laurie on Bid Day – which is coming up on 23 years in just a couple of weeks.  Yesterday there were no tears for me, but I had to hold one of my best friends up as we made our way up to Laurie. I felt helpless as she nearly fell to her knees, but somehow, the four of us made our way up to the front of the chapel, leaning and holding onto one another the entire way. Laurie had been in a car accident…and I guess I just wasn’t expecting to actually see her. I just stood there, not quite being able to grasp what I was seeing, and I think I said “This is just not possible. It’s not”, before I walked to one of the pews to sit. I was the first to go sit down, and truthfully, even today I find myself more angry and defiant than anything else. Its how I deal with grief, I suppose.

As always when Laurie is present though – a joke is not far behind. As Michelle and I waited for Janell and Sheri to join us in the pew, you have to understand that all of us were in varying degrees of sadness. The other three were openly crying, while I sat there trying to wrap my head around what I’d just seen and what I knew had happened. As I sat on the hard bench, the side door to the chapel opens, and 4 Mariachi players come in. (Laurie’s father’s side is Mexican and is much prouder of their heritage than I’d ever realized!)  As Janell and Sheri turn from Laurie to come sit down, Janell flashes me a very wide-eyed incredulous look as the Mariachi’s come in. I look at her, and as is typical with me – I start giggling and I can’t stop. (Amanda is well-aware of this personality glitch of mine. I can’t listen to the first line of Leopard without laughing these days…. “Do you know where we are?  NO!”), and this gets the other three going. (I am a horrible influence, apparently!) So then Sheri turns towards me, leans across Janell and says “Is anybody else suddenly craving a margarita?”  Well, that did it. We had such a hard time not laughing as these mariachis begin to play. We had to get up and leave the chapel…although Laurie’s mom (who was standing outside of the door), stopped us to see what we were laughing about. Luckily, Laurie’s mom has as wickedly sick of a sense of humor as we do, and she laughed right along with us. She agreed that if Laurie had it her way, we WOULD be sitting down for chips, salsa and margaritas. So after the visitation, that’s exactly what we did…and chances are, we’ll be doing the same tonight after the funeral, with an empty chair at the table, because there will always be a seat for Laurie with us.

Several months back I was reading a book called Love is a Mixtape by Rob Sheffield. He is the same author who wrote Talking to Girls about Duran Duran.  I never did finish the book because my attention went elsewhere, but I think I should probably pick it back up again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about those mixtapes recently. I am pretty sure that most of our readers know what I’m referring to – I used to make these a lot when I was a pre-teen or teenager back in the 80’s.  Did you?? They were those wonderful cassette tapes we’d compile off of our own records – they were like our own personal playlists. I had a fairly decent record collection, but I’d take the time to record off of radio too (because I was super swanky and cool that way), so you know the recordings would sound like complete crap – but dang it, I’d have the song I wanted. I’m sure I broke some sort of law in doing that back then, but it’s funny how as a kid you don’t think about those things. I used to take such care in putting the tapes together. I would spend time considering who the tape was for, thinking of just the right bands, perfect songs, appropriate lyrics and themes…sometimes for the very very special people I would even compose and record a short message to include! I loved compiling them, and of course they were perfect for my car because A) I only had a tape deck B) I didn’t have to wade through commercials to hear all of the songs I wanted. I think most of my friends ended up with a specially-made mixtape from me at some point during my junior high, high school and even college days.

It wasn’t that long ago when I started thinking about those mixtapes again. I was messing around with iTunes one day and realized (I’m sometimes slow on the uptake I guess) that when I’m making playlists – I’m really sort of doing the whole mixtape thing again. Truthfully I don’t do playlists very often – I tend to hit “shuffle” and go on my merry way, mainly because I have trouble finding time to sit down and put something together. I take the quick yet lazy way out and end up skipping a lot of songs that I don’t want to listen to as I’m shuffling along.

Then at some point last week, I was on Spotify.  I was looking for Dom’s Blues playlist on Spotify, and for whatever reason it came to me that once again, those playlists are also the 2012 equivalent (probably 2011 or even earlier, but as I said – I’m slow to catch on these days) of a mixtape. I love that on Spotify you can put together a playlist and share it with friends, or anybody who takes the time to find you. (Can I just say here that I think their user platform is lame – it’s counterintuitive, at least to me. Either that or of course, it really is just me. ) in my case you actually have to take the moment to figure out how to make the lists public. (sorry to those who were trying desperately to get to my link last night. User error…as in ME… Again!)

I’ve been thinking of what I would put together as a playlist to commemorate Laurie. I have a ton of photos of us from college and even beyond, and I’ve been seriously thinking about scanning them all and putting together a little slideshow for the four of us in our little circle of friends. Just something to remind us all of the good times we had – and there were many. I can remember going camping with these girls (we went every single spring break) in San Diego, going down to Tijuana (we called it TJ) because that’s where we could go and drink at the age of 18…(my parents would have killed me if they knew), going to clubs (like Fashions, where I met my husband!), and of course all of our sorority functions. I thought about taking all of those memories and putting them to music.

I don’t have a complete playlist figured out yet (it’s harder than I thought!), but two songs I know I would use are Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield and Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran. You see, Laurie was easily as big of a Rick fan as I am of Duran Duran. (minus the blog – Laurie was completely supportive of our blog and the book, but as she put it – “There’s no effing way I’m getting into that, Rhonda Lynn”…that’s my full name, and my sorority sisters all use it because they think it’s funny. Joy.)  In fact, as I was standing in the GA line at 7am in Biloxi, Laurie texted me making sure I’d gotten a spot near the front of the line. She was so excited for me to finally have my shot at the rail. Out of all of my friends, at least the ones who were not Duran Duran fans, Laurie understood my madness. She never laughed at me (Well, she did laugh at me…but that’s another story), she never rolled her eyes in disgust, or asked me when I was going to start getting paid to blog or write. She was supportive because she understood me. I am really going to miss having her voice or her texts to remind me to keep going. Sometimes I need them. So the point of those songs: Jessie’s Girl of course is Rick’s most overplayed song, and as a diehard fan, Laurie was sick of it. So I figure that if I’m going to play Jessie’s Girl for her, Hungry Like the Wolf should probably get equal time…and she would laugh.

Before I forget, if you’re on Spotify, you should find me.  The way you do this is to go up to the search window on Spotify and type

 (all in lowercase)  With any kind of luck, my profile should come up. I hope.  I think there you can subscribe to my playlists, add me as a favorite or something equally exciting.  I see that you can even send me music – if you’ve got a great recommendation for a new band that you think I should listen to – send it!  Hopefully I’ll be adding to those lists soon…when I get time!

One more thing before I go. I mentioned that Laurie is easily as big of a Rick Springfield fan as I am of Duran Duran. It’s true – she had just gone to her 37th Rick Springfield concert this summer (I’m a bit behind in my DD gig numbers!), and she has more than a few front row rail experiences as well. When Laurie passed away last week, someone in her family contacted Rick. Laurie was fairly active in their fan community, although I really don’t know the details.  In any case, at the viewing yesterday, standing right next to Laurie’s casket was a huge heart of flowers that Rick Springfield had sent along with an absolutely stunning card and a heartfelt condolence. I have to say that although it’s fun to get a wink or otherwise at a show, I wouldn’t ever expect anyone would notice whether *I* personally am there or not. I don’t know the band, they really don’t know me – I’m just another face in the crowd. So, to see that someone like Rick Springfield takes his fans to heart enough to send something like that was truly special. Laurie would have been glowing with happiness.  Actually, I’m sure she was.

Do what I have only learned in hindsight – and that is to take the time to hug your friends and tell them you love them today. Do it. You never know when you won’t ever have the chance again. Learn from my mistake.

-R