HSBC Hold Music

I had to call HSBC last year because I thought that my identity had been stolen. Well, actually, I thought maybe someone had hacked into my computer to get my bank information. It's a long story and I'll leave it for another post. But, to get us back to my topic, the music, you must know that my beau and I are on our way soon to chaperone a trip to Europe with our students, and I had to call my bank to alert them that I would be using my card in Italy, France and Spain. As I called HSBC again I was subjected once again to their divine/disgusting hold music. It's the kind of music that when you begin to hold you can't believe a reputable bank like HSBC could possibly use it as their hold music. But, given it's unique and brain-wormy character, when you call the bank, having used the "internets" to find the phone number, and you are still wary as to whether or not you're actually calling the bank or some "identity-stealer", once you hear this "awesome short bass line and cymbals intro" (thanks "Audio Kio Productions" http://www.audiokio.com/2007/04/13/on-hold/) you know it could only be HSBC. When I called them last year I first heard it and marvelled. Then I called them again this year and now, the tune won't leave my brain. It plays over and over and over. I've called and made my beau listen to it, too. Being a poet, he wrote a poem about it:

HOLD MUSIC FANDOM

Annoyed awake in my three star hotel
By elevator muzak and wild kids,
I am reminded of Sivan Cotel,
Advocate of music for invalids,
The cheesy midi file instrumentals
Banks play to keep you on hold and happy,
Repetitive without incidentals
(A different kind of totally crappy).

Just dial 1-800-9
75-HSBC and press #
To hear cymbals after a short bass line;
Even days later the track will resound
For Sivan, customers, and people who,
Like Roxanne my wife, will dance on cue.

Next stop HSBC, ringtone!

My Sports Blog

My beau is not the typical guy. He is an English teacher, a poet, and not much of a "the game is on" type of man. But, there are certain events that he will watch: our local (horrible) football team, the Olympics (do they count?) and the NBA playoffs. He was a "sports guy" in high school, running track, cross country and playing lots of basket ball, so he knows sports and when we watch "the game" together I am glad because I can finally ask him all those questions that I didn't know the answer to. Like....why do those two guys run before the play starts in football. And...why are the NBA guys so jumpy near the basket? Just stay under the basket and they'll be sure to stop anyone from trying to get one.

From Jefe', I learned that all of those things have meaning. I understood the meaning of the "in the paint" rule for basketball, but I must admit, I still don't understand the "in motion" thing from football. Why do games have such arbitrary and seemingly incomprehensible rules. The names that go along with sports are also a bit impenetrable--why is it called a "down"? Why is a zero "love"? And for God's sake, please explain a "touchback" to me again. And...what is a "googly"? I'd better explain how I heard of the last one.

I teach creative writing and I have a cache of un-captioned and un-texted photographs that I've culled from my years of research. Well, I call it "research", but really it's just browsing magazines.

I love reading magazines. Every time I go to our local purveyor of fine groceries, I have a really hard time not buying all the magazines on the rack. Yes, even Readers Digest and Healthy Cooking. Nothing makes me happier than an afternoon spent perusing the pages of Real Simple or Cosmopolitan. I can wile away the hours just looking at beautifully designed pages and imagining myself in those layouts: cooking that meal, wearing that dress, designing that room, refinishing that boat. No, I don't really read the articles--they add no meaning to my life--but they could! And that's why I buy them. Every month, magazines present a new opportunity to change my life--in glossy color images.

Back to the topic at hand, so I buy magazines not only to escape into fantasy, but also to find inspiring photos for my students to write from. I paste cool photos on construction paper and give them some sort writing assignment or another. One of my old National Geographics had an article on the anglophile's favorite sport, Cricket. Now, let it be known that I teach in a little village in upstate New York: a place where Cricket would no sooner be played than professional croquet. in order to be a real man here, you have to play football, basketball or MAYBE soccer. So, when I saw the photos of cricket players and a cricket field, ahem, pitch, I thought, "AHA! Here's something to inspire some poetry. Let's see what strange literary brew they can make out of this."

Let me also add, that I specifically used those cricket pictures to appeal to my male students. While I spend lots of time buying Lady Magazines and Mom Magazines and even dorky Dad Magazines (home renovations, boating, technogeeks), I have never bought Sports Illustrated, so have no sports pictures in my files--and my cricket photos were a pathetic attempt to "branch out". Well, lo and behold, one of my finest athletes picked the photo of the cricket pitch and wrote a poem that was pithy, serviceable, and one of the few that actually had a line in it which has since been cemented in my brain. I must admit, I don't know what a "googly" means, and when I asked my beau for yet another sports explanation, and he came up empty-handed--but, we both agreed it didn't matter and that the best line yet to come out of that assignment was:

"Now, that was a wicked googly!"

Pure genius! Even if I don't know what it means!


...

Bong Rock vs. Kiddie Music

So, I’m all like, “Jefé, which Death Cab cd do you want to listen to?” and his riposte was, “I don’t want to listen to any of that kiddie music.” Let me preface this conversation with some insight. Jefe'and I have a 13 year gap between our birthdays. That means when I was singing “People in my Neighborhood”, Jefé was singing the latest from Led Zeppelin. He was approaching 7th grade puberty when I was approaching my mom’s Ob-gyn. So, our musical tastes tend toward the opposite extremes. He likes grown up music and something we like to call Bong Rock—yes, the Grateful Dead, the Allman brothers, etc.

I’m not suggesting that I listen to NSync and he listens to Lawrence Welk, because in many respects, our tastes are (no pun intended) in sync. We both love Simon and Garfunkel (who doesn’t), Donovan, Leonard Cohen, CSNY, Fleetwood Mac. But, Neko Case, Andrew Bird, and Feist would not be the first things to hit his ipod. Jefe' tends more toward the classic—from classy jazz, classical or classic rock. He might be listening to McCoy Tyner or Coltrane. Some days his study shakes with the strains of Debussy. Then I find a cache of recently purchased Robin Trower or Donna Fargo. I must admit I had never heard of the last two, even though I did recognize Donna’s “Happiest Girl in the Whole USA.” Jefé's tastes are eclectic. He knows most everything about music and when I ask him about The Fleet Foxes (someone I had only just heard of), he hands me their cd. He’s introduced me to some great music. I actually picked up Mazzy Star from him and he bought me my first Feist cd AND my Tina Dico, not that he’d ever put either in the player. Some days he surprises me, though. I walk by his study and hear New Order or even The Cure—two of my faves from growing up. A time when Jefé was already grown up.

Yesterday when I was leaving I asked him where BB King’s greatest hits were. He was pleasantly surprised—I can branch out—I’m a grown up, too.

Roxanne Revisited

In high school my friends and I all thought that we were outre' fashionistas. You know, the kind of students who thought they were too cool for the place they lived, which for us was South Louisiana. Instead of embracing the Creole and Cajun culture surrounding us, we were much more interested in what was happening on the pages of Vogue magazine and in the streets of New York City. We dressed differently, drank hot tea in the afternoon, shopped at thrift stores, befriended the foreign students at the local University and listened to decidedly "Not Top 40" Music. Everything we did had to have the requisite flair--even our writing. So it was that we all chose pen names: names like Sadie Midnight, Calista Kreegan (before Calista Flockhart was even a star), and my name--Roxanne Dubier.

I loved The Police, so Roxanne was a no-brainer and the last name sounded French and fancy. So, I signed all of my overly sentimental poetry and unended short stories with a flourished Roxanne Dubier. I even made a poster of my signature and hung it on the ceiling of my bedroom above my bed. My own name was a gutteral German moniker, one that no one had heard of--but Roxanne was simple, yet mysterious. I was able to shed my identity, one that included being Black and White, specifically German--not a known quantity in my hometown--and become someone else, someone cool and sophisticated.

Flash-forward to 1998 when I took my then fiance', now husband to visit my family in Louisiana. After all the hellos and nibbles of boudin (you simply must try it) and nips of liqueurs (my mom always has a nip) we dragged our plane-tired bodies to my childhood bedroom, laid us each down on a twin bed and breathed a harmonious sigh of relaxation. Well, Idid anyway, my beau instead started laughing and pointing up to the ceiling. While I had never told him the story of Roxanne, he knew me enough from my still-present need for flair and flourish, that this must have something to do with an imagined identity. Yes, Jefe', I gave myself a pen-name, and yes, it sounds fake-fancy and fake-French. Even better, Jefe', after 25 years of leaving Roxanne behind, I'm resurrecting her for this blog. So, if you like fashion, literature, motherhood, teaching, clashes of cultures and fancy flair, then SURPRISE! You've entered the realm of Roxanne Revisited!