Awkwardness entails discomfort/ineptitude with social
scripts alongside a razor-sharp awareness that this absent aptitude is visible
to others. For this reason, it is fitting that I should spend most of my
workday in front of a computer, which, to my knowledge, is unaware of my
feverish self-consciousness.
For the better of self-growth, or for the worse of self-embarrassment,
there are times when I am required to interact with people. I approach my
colleagues kindly and politely, with a soft voice, good humor and bad posture.
Part of my health care-centered job entails conducting
audits and ensuring that our contracted agencies are following Department of
Health regulations. Put another way: I must invite myself over someone else’s
office – always someone older and more experienced than I am – and evaluate
their performance. More than any other of my responsibilities, during this part of my job, awkwardness weighs down like an elephant
in heels.
Speaking of heels, while auditing one such health care agency,
I noticed that the heel on one of my dress shoes was, figuratively
speaking, on its last leg. It began flopping against my foot months ago when I
was trying to catch the G-train. Back then, I crazy-glued it together when I
arrived at the office; astonishingly that held it for months.
I asked the receptionist if she, or anyone else in the
agency, had crazy glue.
“Why do you need that?” Her expression had been humorless; now, it had taken on
a look of a hostile, defensive confusion, as though I had asked if I could take
her mother out on a date.
“My shoe is falling apart,” I explained, smiling in acknowledgement
of the situation’s hilarity.
Her expression relaxed but retained its stolidity. “We have
packaging tape,” she offered.
The receptionist returned with a roll of clear packaging
tape after my contact had returned. I fumbled clumsily with it as my contact
and I debated compliance, tugging at the crinkly plastic like an apprehensive skydiver at the cord of a stubborn parachute, and trying to stick the wads between the heel and sole. Eventually, my contact, a registered nurse, could no longer stand the ridiculous
sight of an auditor trying to tape his shoe together: she knelt down and began
taping it herself, tape on the outside. I felt like a nine year old getting his shoe tied by a dubious adult.
At the audit's welcome conclusion, I thanked her and left the building, grinning cynically to myself as I
walked back to the train station, my shoe crunching noisily along.
Ah, the office: a place more awkward than a class reunion at Introvert High School. Prior to actually wearing the white collar, all I knew about offices
was borrowed from Kids in the Hall, which, I daresay, was a grand introduction:
Because politics is off-limits, I fill my conversation with mock-shocked statements about the
weather ("can you believe it's raining again?") or reminding my coworkers of the day("ugh, Monday!"). If I'm
feeling particularly adventurous, I’ll allude to some weekend debauchery, but as far as my coworkers are concerned, my Saturday consists of laundry, laundry, laundry.
During my first week, my coworkers took a marked interest in me: the youngest, newest inhabitant sharing
their corridors and copy machines. They would constantly ask:
"What's your background?"
Which translates into a question about whether or not you're qualified for your position. For other tyros to the office habitat, and for those likewise lacking in actual job experience, ranting about academic accomplishments seems to
have a neutralizing effect, thank the high holy heavens.
Determining the intonations of everyday office language could be paradise to the paranoid. Is "you're so nice" office lingo for "you're such a naive little boy"? Does "get home safely" suggest an inability to take care of oneself?
In addition to language, there's the whole, dire matter of politics, both the interpersonal and macro-level kind. How can we be honest with one another if we are advised not to speak about politics when "the personal is political"?
Veganism is a case in-point. At first, whenever a staff member
offered a pastry, a fruitcake or somethings' leg, I'd turn-down the food without explanation. Human Resources identified that I was refusing every food offer. I was told that this could be taken as offensive - not accepting the gifts of others - and so I confessed to my deviant lifestyle. Admittedly, the whole point of veganism is to make a political or
philosophical statement, so my initial reluctance to declare my morality sounds less logical than a spray-tan salon in the middle of Oompa-Loompa-land.
Then again, given my apathy towards isinglass and my wardrobe of more than few wool garments, any attempt to share my “reduce harm” mindset seems superficial. I’m not
a particularly good vegan; why, I’m worse at veganism than Hitler was at
making Jewish friends.
A greater sense of shame resulted from my not challenging the political discourse of others in my office. One coworker (“A ‘liberal,’ but not a “blame-America-first
liberal’”) recently claimed that imperialism was a “mixed
bag." I'm genuinely embarrassed for not shutting him down; yet, considering my
newbie status, I wouldn't want any argument to explode and leave me
scraping coins from the subway again. Thus the binds of capitalism.
Finally, being a man in a mostly-female office leads to its share of awkwardness, especially around the damned water cooler, which, I've discovered, forces us to retreat into medieval gender roles. Once I was asked to replace the water tank by an
unsmiling, bird-like woman who communicates using automobile sounds. “Beep
Beep,” she says, meaning “hi” or “excuse me” or “I am censoring a series of two
swear words.” Intending to parody her stereotype of male
strength, I said something along the lines of “let me know if you need help
with anything else He-Man related,” which I followed quickly with, “I’M SORRY THAT SOUNDED
INCREDIBLY SEXIST.” I shouted it across the hall. She didn’t care either way; she simply beeped along like a fussy Fiat
in a jubilee traffic jam.
Another female co-worker “needed a man” for the same job,
and when I happened to overhear her, I stepped-up to the proverbial,
masculinized plate. She thanked me a little too profusely for “acting like
a man,” "being a real gentleman" and emphasizing my general manliness in general. Did I offend
her? Or were my chest hairs a little too visible? I approached her later on and asked whether she was insulted by my
help. She was not; as it turns out, she was emphasizing manliness to emasculate the other male coworker in
the room who did not help.
Thank goodness for this one person with whom I work - the other fellow leftist in my office. Whenever
we talk, she launches a shameless rant about the importance of feminism, her
hatred for her daughter’s hipster boyfriend (whom she impersonates with a hilarious,
lackadaisical Californian accent) or her love of Ian MacKaye. I knew we were cut from the same cloth when she looked at my Doc Martens and said that, in her days on the New
York City punk circuit, they used to call them “shitkickers."
I was sitting on the M train immediately after a job interview,
ruminating over my triumphs (including when I advocated reflexive social sciences
research and the interviewers glanced at each other approvingly) and my epic
fails (I misheard the name of one of my prospective employers and, throughout
the entirety of the interview, of all possible names, I addressed her as
“Toker.” Her name was Jan). Amid the
usual post-interview uncertainty, I attempted to calculate the chances of my
actually being hired, and although disappointment is about as novel to the underemployed
as corn-clotted braces are to Justin Bieber concerts, on the whole, I felt sanguine.
Across from me, a stylish man – the kind whose boots match
his bag – let a few coins drop from his pocket to the floor. He noticed these fallen
coins, but chose to leave them there. Presumably, picking them up would clash
with his super stylish image, as complimented – ironically of course – by the free
copy of Am New York that so engrossed
him. Indeed, a stylish man must never condescend to pick-up petty change from
the filthy floor, even if it is his own. He probably prefers his coinage
uncirculated. Perhaps he prefers his oxygen un-breathed as well. A mild,
proletarian contempt rose within me before the prude alighted at the next
Midtown stop.
I looked around. A young, tired-looking woman next to me had
spotted the money, but turned her attention away. A few cents weren’t worth the
price of contemplation. An older woman then boarded the train. She wore one of
those shapeless, synthetic, black bubble coats that characterize winter fashion
in deprived neighborhoods. She sat in front of the coins, noticed them, and
with dignity and grace, left them alone.
I wanted the coins, but given this weird, new social
convention, I wondered what the other passengers would think of me. This could
reflect poorly on my Jewish heritage; everyone knows the joke about how Jews
created the Grand Canyon after a penny was dropped into a rabbit hole, probably
absentmindedly by a stylish man. Then I remembered that, physically, I more
strongly resemble an Arab Muslim than I do any Ashkenazi Jewish person (judging by the amount of Muslim men who wish me "as-salam alaykum" as we pass each other by), leading
me to wonder if a stereotype of the “cheap Arab” also persisted in the Western
imagination. The “funny” thing about Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism is that
they frequently cross paths and end up affecting the same people; let us
remember that Palestinians, Syrians and others originating from the Arabian
Peninsula are Semites too.
The coins were yet another example of waste, and I’ve always found waste
offensive; it irks me, for instance, when people don’t eat their pizza crusts,
or when they fail to finish their beers, and don’t even get me started on the dainty, lily-livered fusspots who
cut their sandwich bread into exact, white squares, binning those savory end bits that,
personally, I could survive upon.
Of course, those examples of waste pale in comparison to the amount of waste in
our economic system at-large. It infuriates me that the unemployed must be kept
unemployed to keep inflation low (if we approached full employment, job-seekers
and low-wage employees could demand more money). Furthermore, on the production-side, unsold goods are trashed
to keep supply low and thus revenue high, and who’s to say that the general
structure of “productive” units actually produce efficiently? Autocratic management
structures are in themselves wasteful: why not have workplaces in which
producers, all with a stake in a company, delegate tasks democratically? As a
global system, capitalism is heavily prone to mismanaging resources.
The train stopped at West 4th Street, where I meant to transfer to
the D. The coins were still lying there. Trying only to focus on the task ahead
of me, not letting my facial expression give away any thought at all, I knelt
down and picked up the coins one-by-one: first the quarter, second the nickel,
third the penny.
After leaving the subway car, an obvious thought finally occurred to me. All
this cognitive effort resulted in an entirely insignificant act: what the heck can
I buy with 31 cents?
By odd coincidence (or maybe because he read the book), much like Charlie in The Perks of Being a
Wallflower, I was introduced to The
Smiths when a junior high school teacher made me a mix tape of their works.“In order to be an eighties
fan,” said my teacher, for lamentably, I once claimed that title, “you’ve got to like The
Smiths.”
Hesitantly, I put the tape in my portable tape player, pressed play, and at “There is a Light that
Never Goes Out,” I felt some switch deep within me click. Thus, at age twelve, with my interest in music piqued (having lain dormant with the worsening state of popular music at the start of the millennium), a lifelong adventure
ensued.
All of my indie flames taken into account, my lengthiest musical love affair
has been with Morrissey and The Smiths (the band he once led). The iconic singer has long provided the theme music to my life. In High School, Viva
Hate and Strangeways, Here We Come
spun round and round on my turntable. In College, I mourned to “I Know it’s
Over,” celebrated with “A Swallow on my Neck” and wandered around Boston to “Late
Night, Maudlin Street,” wondering about the whereabouts of loved ones lost. More
recently, I spent my 24th birthday – still shell-shocked from losing
Glasgow – ambling around Manhattan to “Why Don’t You Find Out for Yourself?”
In addition to all of his erudite lyricism, often tailored to empathize with his listeners, Morrissey made
me feel less lonely about my decision to abstain from meat. I became vegetarian
at age nine. When I discovered that Morrissey had similar anti-meat
reservations – enough to write a song about it and even entitle an album “Meat is
Murder” – I felt infinitely grateful.
***
While browsing his songs on YouTube, I discovered that
Morrissey would soon be performing at the very place in which I ushered. I yelped around my apartment. This
was simply surreal: I had the opportunity to watch my musical amore perform, and
I would get paid for doing so.
Immediately, I sent an e-mail to the head usher, wondering how long in advance
I should request that shift. I was told to wait a month. These things take time. When it became time to sign-up, I mistakenly sent my request to the wrong e-mail address. I did not discover that I had done this until a week before the
gig. Fortunately, remembering how I felt about the man (she knows I’d love to see
him), my manager added my name to the shift. Cue Natalie Merchant:
On the day of the gig, I felt an unbearable mixture of
excitement and anxiety, as if my shift were some mixture between a hot date and the interview for the perfect job. I spent hours preparing: showering, grooming, making
sure I smelled alright, double-checking that my black ushering clothes did not magically disappear, etc. Once aboard the subway, my muscles and viscera started seizing-up: taut as steel
knots. “Panic” indeed.
I arrived fifty minutes before call, so I decided to pass the time by talking distractedly to fellow ushers. Eventually, the sign-in sheet was brought out, naming our stations. Mine was far up in the balcony: our theater's nosebleed section. What difference does that make? It makes none.
During our pre-show usher meeting, I found myself grinning in blithe disbelief throughout the head usher's introduction to the show.
No attempts at composure would hide my happiness as she ran-down the details. She was presumably unfamiliar with Morrissey and bemused by the unusual protocols surrounding the show:
In case we weren't aware, Morrissey has a highly-devoted fan base. Despite being a ticketed event, and
despite being sold-out, some of the people in the lobby had been there for over
three hours, just happy to be in the same building as their musical hero. On a related note, this would be a high-security gig and extra measures would be taken to keep order.
Morrissey is a vegan (has he gone vegan?) who is "into PETA,"
hence the PETA stall in the lobby and the absence of meat on the first floor.
However, should a patron ask for meat, there were turkey sandwiches available in
the mezzanine café.
It is not unusual for people to leap on stage and try to
hug Morrissey. Four guards would patrol the stage to keep people
from doing this.
The water bottle incident was mentioned. Patrons would be
discouraged from bringing capped bottled into the theatre. However, as the ushers
reasoned, this was a difficult rule to enforce, and damage could be done with an
uncapped water bottle if thrown correctly. The head usher agreed, adding that slips from water spillage were more of
a priority anyway.
Kristeen Young was the opening act. She would perform for
the first thirty minutes. There would be a thirty minute intermission in which an
anti-meat film would be screened (this did not actually happen: music videos –
including those starring Nico, the New York Dolls, The Sparks, David Bowie and a couple of sixties/seventies European pop musicians – were instead shown during the break).
Morrissey would come on stage at around nine and play until ten thirty, “but
Kelsey, the devoted fan in our midst, would probably like to see him play until midnight." You guessed it, Ms. Manager!
The first hour was chaotic. People entered and exited at
their will during the opening act, which meant that I had to guide rushes of people to their seats, in darkness, on the steep inclines of the
balcony level. I also had to remind people to keep their tickets with them as they
left for concessions.
Soon, the intermission ended, and the screen on which the aforementioned music videos were projected went dark. A disembodied voice had started reading from a list
(was it a list of 20th century new events?) and a light show commenced. People were still trickling in. I was
momentarily worried that I wouldn’t find a position from which to enjoy the
show before it started, but the announcer's bizarre list droned on. Thankfully, with the trickle quickly slowing, I took my place, and as I rested on a post between two
emergency doors, Morrissey and his band emerged from stage left. Even that far up, I recognized him: the stage lights caught the contours of his face.
My job during the show was reduced to shining my flashlight at the floor, helping patrons see whenever they ascended/descended the stairs. That, in addition to keeping an eye out for the special instructions of floor managers (which I did by glancing over my shoulder every few minutes), I was able to enjoy the performance.
Morrissey began the show with “Action is My
Middle Name,” a newer song that he's been performing a lot lately. He
followed with “Everyday is Like Sunday,” which resonated through my bones like
a religious affirmation. I shouted the lyrics along with my comrades in the
audience in spite of myself. I was only singing.
At first, I tried to keep a mental playlist, but my memory
has not held up. Instead, I’ll run through some highlights:
“How Soon is Now?” finished with killer drumming from a most splendid drum set.
There was one apparel casualty: a pink shirt was sacrificed following a
magical performance of “Let Me Kiss You.” Morrissey tore it off and threw it to the ravenously crowd. Three shirts were worn
overall.
I regard Vauxhall and
I as a flawless album – his best solo work, even if Viva Hate has personal significance tome – and so I was thrilled by his stunning performance of “Speedway.”
In between songs, Morrissey brought out a sealed envelope. "...And 'the best musician award' goes to..." This was how he introduced his band: "Boz Boorer on guitar..." etc. "...And the winner is," said the singer, opening the envelope to the sound of the audience chanting his name, "Taylor Swift?" He flicked the envelope into the audience. Trash.
During “November Spawned a Monster,” the first person
to successfully jump up on stage embraced Morrissey at the lyric when the Mozzer
requested to be hugged. I found this incredibly touching (much more so than the
couple next to whom I was standing, who seem to have found romance in this song about a disabled child).
A female audience member was able to climb
up on stage and hug Morrissey. I get the impression that this is rather rare. Usually the men do the
hugging.
“Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” was performed like a prayer, answered in the end.
The show finished with “Meat is Murder,” in which Morrissey
gesticulated to graphic factory farm footage, asking “Do you care? Do you care? Do
you care?” Some of the lines were changed, most memorably: "K. F. C. ...MURDER." The song concluded with Moz kneeling in front of the screen as the guitars shrieked like screaming knives.
At the end of "Meat is Murder," Morrissey bowed with his band members and left the stage. The audience and I applauded wildly until they agreed
to perform an
encore. He chose “Still Ill,” a favorite of mine. Here the audience went wild. Several who got on stage
were thrown violently back into the crowd by
the security guards, who were now lurking behind Morrissey like failed back-up
dancers.
Then Morrissey and his band left the stage permanently, and no amount of applause would bring them back.
***
With our love-drenched feelings mutual, I enjoyed my interactions with Morrissey fans. Noting my status as an usher – an enforcer of theatre house rules – a bearded gent jovially grabbed my arm, albeit unexpectedly, and informed me that he wouldn't stop dancing even if I told him to do so. After all, this was a concert. Smiling, I told him that
I wouldn’t stop him unless my superior said I should. He wasn’t in the aisle, so this wouldn't have been a problem.
After the show, a different fellow shook my hand, noting that he had seen me clearly enjoying myself in the corner. He expressed happiness that I did, being that there were probably
several shows that I had to see and didn’t like (this isn’t really the case; my venue puts on amazing gigs). I awkwardly shook his hand for the second time and thanked him for his positive regard.
As the crowd emptied, a woman who had enjoyed the show asked me whether I knew much about Morrissey. I confessed
my enthusiasm, which I hope paralleled her own.
I would have liked to talk to other patrons about Morrissey, but alas, I had to hop a subway and head back to the old house. A fellow usher was seated next to me on the subway. I found myself speaking loudly to her about the show (which wasn't her thing), hoping to catch the attention of a rather attractive concert attendee
seated across from me. It didn't work. The said concert-goer had earphones in and alighted only a few stops down.
Regardless, after finally witnessing the splendor of Morrissey
in concert, Now My Heart is Full.
I hold the multi-talented Kate Bush in high esteem. Her penchant for experimentation, both musically and lyrically, is one of the reasons I like her as much as I do. Because her lyrical subject matter is quite varied and difficult to keep track of, I have assembled the following list, which I hope will help the next time you wonder whether "Kate Bush wrote a song about that."
***
A panic-drenched bank heist? Yes, Kate Bush wrote
a song about that:
"There Goes a Tenner"
Scooby and Shaggy would have been less paranoid than these villainous characters...
Psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, his rain-making machine and
his problems with the Feds... all told from the perspective of Wilhelm's son? Yes, Kate Bush wrote a
song about that:
"Cloudbusting"
Epic music video.
The effects of nuclear fallout... on a fetus? Yes, Kate
Bush wrote a song about that:
Ghosts from 19th century romantic novels? Yes,
Kate Bush wrote a song about that:
"Wuthering Heights"
Recent discovery: I can be wooed by those rare souls capable of seamlessly-performing Kate's famous Wuthering Heights dance. Red Dress version? White Dress version? I'm not picky.
London politician Ken Livingstone? Yes,
Kate Bush wrote a song about that:
"Ken"
In all fairness, this one was for a satirical television program that, for one episode, depicted Livingstone as an American-style left-wing super-hero, pitted against Tory party baddies.
