As you guys had better know by now, I have been a Zappa fan since the summer before 7th grade. My brother claims to be a Zappa fan. His definition of 'fan' is deciding that he likes about 5 or 6 random tracks, asking people where they got their ponchos and humming the opening riff for Muffin Man. Mind you, this is after a year and a half or so of me bugging him to listen to something, getting deterred after hearing him say that the style is too 'out there' for him and then leaving him alone for about 6 months before he suddenly decides to like Camarillo Brillo.
As you can imagine, being the feisty, outspoken, red-Converse-wearing, angsty Zappatista teenager that I am (and yes, that's how I describe myself to people!), I stood for none of this and deemed my brother (my own kin!) guilty of one of the worst sins achievable for mankind: being a poseur.
Oh, yes.
You think you're original? You think you're 'all that'? Take your hot pink feather boa and leave me alone, A. I need to balance this chemical equation and I can't do it with you shaking your butt to Muffin Man in my face, okay?
Anyway... Ahem, ahem. This story, ladies and gentlemen, takes place on the morn of the day in which The Broski was due to leave for the Holy Land. Someone apparently gave him the order to wake me up, and woken up I was—at the ungodly hour of 9AM....On a Sunday.
“Carm-ell...Wake up...”
I rolled over and buried my head in my pillow, hoping for another few minutes of bliss. “Ungh.” (For those of you not fluent in the language of Teenage Morning Speak, that was 'no'. Fortunately, The Broski was a teen only a few years ago, so he's still got it.)
“Oh, c'mon, Melli (not my real nickname, people!). Why not?”
I managed to find my voice, still somewhat hoarse and incoherent, but usable: “'Cause. You're a poseur.”
A sighed heavily. “This again?”
“Mm-hmm.” I shut my eyes tightly against the searing sun filtering in from the window that someone sadistically placed next to my bed.
“Fine. Okay, fine. You want to hear how big of a not-poseur I am?”
The Broski sounded fed up, which basically meant: listen or suffer the wrath (of my off-tune humming)! I conceded to my fate and pulled myself into an upright position, my eyes still not used to the light. A took this as his cue to continue.
“Okay, so I'm at work the other day, right (work=tech support at Staples)? It was a slow day, so I walk over to Rosie, who's manning the cashier and I wanted to mess with her a bit, so I go, 'Hey—is that a Sears poncho, or is that a real poncho?' (Let it be known the so-called Rosie was not wearing a poncho of any sort). And she just gives me this confused look, but the woman she's ringing up looks over at me, smiles, snaps her fingers and goes: 'Frank Zappa!' Now, I'm pretty surprised, but I'm still functional so I just say, 'Yeah.' She looks me over and asks sorta suspiciously ('cause The Broski doesn't fit the profile!), 'You listen to Zappa?' And what do I say?! 'No, my sister does!!!'” At this point, The Broski began waving his hands in the air and stomping on the hardwood floor.
I gestured for him to continue. “And...?”
“Well,” he went on, “She looked a little wary, I guess because I looked young compared to her, and asked me how old you were. I told her 14, and her eyes went wide and her eyebrows raised and she's just like, 'Uh...I only know Zappa because of my brother. And he's 48.'”
I waited for him to go on, but when he didn't, I gathered this was the end of the story. I realized A's face was expectant, so I gave him some sibling h**l by simply grinning and nodding. “Yup. That's how I roll.”
Needless to say, The Broski threw his arms in the air, let them flop down to his sides and stomped off, out of my room, irritated.
Ladies and gentlemen, the way I see it: why would he spend a good 7 minutes relaying this anecdote to prove his un-poseurish disposition, if he himself didn't know and agree that he is, indeed, a poseur?
Mwuahaha. Did I ever mention how ruthless teens can be?
A funny anecdote about guitars, my Padre and nano-millimeters. Also something I meant to post LAST Friday...
Yeesh.
As you all would know if you've been reading my blogs from the start (just picture me giving you a dirty look), every summer, El Madre and I attempt to visit Israel for the main purpose of helping out my grandparents. Last year I was forced to use a cousin's old acoustic guitar to goof around on (this was before I actually buckled down and started learning). It was a truly heartrending experience. The neck was warped, the body was scratched and banged and the poor thing was practically untunable due to disuse, misuse and the extreme temperatures we experinced last year (where my grandparents isn't usually humid...). So, as you can imagine, this year I put up a fight. I knew how to play now (cough, cough--exaggerated eye roll--cough, cough). They couldn't make me practice on that!
So, naturally, I confided in my wondeful Madre and she said exactly what was on my mind: "Why not take Roxanne?"
For those of you not in the loop, Roxanne is my baby and Hagstrom Ultralux Viking IIP. YES, I know the model.
When presented with this idea, however, The Father Figure balked. "Absolutely not! She'll get broken on the plane ride and the humidity will kill her. You'll ruin a perfect instrument. No."
"Well then, why not get one of those cheapo guitars that neither one of us will care about if I accidentally nick it or something? Y'know, one that's still passable, but that's, like, a hundred bucks. I'll pay if it's an issue."
"Yeah!" The Mother chimed in. "Carmel that's a great idea! That way you can get one that's lighter, too." (Roxanne weighs about 15 pounds...)
El Padre, however, turned beet red at the prospect. He began a tirade of the fact that a guitar is a precious, precision instrument and that the measurements have to be *exact* or else the whole instrument goes to s**t while (literally!) vibrating with rage.
"Real craftsmen measure it to the nano-millimeter!" He sputtered.
No they don't Pops. You know why? There is no such thing as a nano-millimeter. I took Honors Science. Trust me on this, Dad...
Yeah, okay, guys--I agreed with him. But both my brother *and* I needed something to practice on this year. I particularly needed it. See, the last three months of school were spent solely on homework (what a drag...) and making sure I stayed on the High Honor Roll. That left The Vow to Music (as I called it) in the dust. So I basically suffered a slight decrease in my newly acquired skills (I completely forgot how to tune it by ear, if that means anything to you). I knew that if I had this month to get back on track, it would all come back but without it, well...
..."Bye-Bye, Birdie".
The Broski, The Mother and I all basically ganged up on The Padre. He finally relented that I take Roxanne, but he had lost his chance. I didn't want anything happening to my baby (such as that thing called My Mother's Firstborn). So we kept it up until he finally relented to take a look at Guitar Center, despite the fact that he finds it to be the devil incarnate (sadly, I agree). Ladies and gentlemen, keep in mind that this was the day before Senor Brother was due to fly to the Holy Land.
We got there and after looking around for half an hour, The Broski found a Fender Squier Strat that was to his liking (and mine, 'cause it wasn't too heavy). Dad tested it and deemed it passable. After haggling with the store manager, he got the price down to $100. He is Chilean, after all...
Ladies and gentlemen, the time came to drop The Broski off a JFK. After expierencing what could only be described as a nightmare, we were off to Jersey!...And stuck in traffic in sweltering afternoon heat. With nothing else to do, I texted my brother and soon enough, we were stuck again--what to name the Strat? While I pushed for Izzy, The Broski wanted Asgardia.
(BROSKI: Cheryl. That's my final offer.
CARMEL: H**l no! That sounds like the name of a middle-aged $5 hooker from Indiana!)
And so the insanity went on, until the next day we called my grandma's house, making sure he was there safe and sound.
"So," I asked him curiously, knowing it really was his choice, "Have you named her yet?"
"Paz."
I smiled, delighted. In Hebrew, paz means 'golden' or sometimes 'light'. Finally! I thought. He gains some sensitivity!
Two weeks later, joined at last in Israel, I realized what he had named it after:
His friend's hot girlfriend...
As you all know, after the Boston trip and Six Flags stopover was done (thank god), it was time to get on the bus and get back to Jersey. My best friend and seat buddy (let’s call her Adriana—not her real name) and I climbed onto the bus and went to sit down in our seats. Our two other room buddies walked on a few minutes later and we watched in dread as the irritating popular girls (and a few of the annoying guys) filed in behind us. Suddenly, a girl sitting diagonally across from us called my name. I heaved a sigh and turned around to see what she wanted knowing one thing—this could not be good…
“So, Carmel,” she began in her abrading high-pitched voice, “Uhm, do you and your friend wanna switch seats with our friends up there, so we can talk to them?”
I looked at her incredulously. Was she serious?
“I mean, this way you wouldn’t have to yell at us to shut up.”
Ohmygod. She was serious!
Another girl who was sitting behind the high-pitched one leaned forward and said (in a normal voice), “Yeah, Carmel, c’mon. We can’t bother you if you’re sitting up there.”
Now, I had admittedly been yelling at them to shut their dirty trap-holes for the majority of the trip, but were they really expecting me and my friends to move for their convenience when they hadn’t accommodated us? Were they completely unaware that they were dealing with the most stubborn girl in the whole grade?
“Uh, there’re more than two of us.”
“There are extra seats up front! C’mon, please.”
I turned back to my group and relayed the message, letting them know how I felt about the whole affair. My best friend agreed with me, but the other two were less receptive. As a whole, we agreed to not move.
“Sorry, guys,” I told them. “We don’t really feel like it.”
So, being the almighty and frightening clan the populars knew they were, what did they do?
WHAT DID THEY DO?!
Oh, they only started chanting my name over and over, louder and louder in an attempt to get me to leave.
I turned over the girl who had spoken to me originally and was screaming right in my ear. I smiled broadly and said, sincerely, “Hey, can you scream louder? I can’t hear you.”
A few minutes later, our two room buddies who had sat in front of us simply got up and left. We stared at them indignantly, but they ignored us and we said nothing.
They then requested again, that we move, so their friends could be closer. We smiled, turned away, and I turned on my Zune and to watch an episode of Archer.
The chanting got louder.
A few minutes in, our VP marched in, screamed his head off and told them just where they could get off before stomping back to the front of the bus. All was quiet for a few blissful minutes before something landed in the brown halo surrounding my head that was my hair. I picked it up and inspected it closely.
Oh yes. They were throwing Goldfish at me?!
The abuse went on for a while(it only stopped because one of them screamed that they were hungry, and then demanded the golden fishy treats). When it finished, Adriana turned over towards the window so she could sleep and I turned to the only album that could match my mood while still relaxing me: Joe’s Garage. As I listened, I did my duty as best friend and kept watch, making sure that no one attempted to draw on her face while she was sleeping. Meanwhile, I eavesdropped on the people mocking and screaming at me.
Suddenly, I heard my name again. I didn’t dare look back, but I lowered the volume to hear what was going on and see if I could get a heads up on the flying-food-item front. Instead, I heard a guy who I didn’t particularly care for say in a loud, fake, jokey voice:
“CARMEL’S MY BEST FRIEND!”
I stifled the urge to smile, display my middle finger and say, “Yes and fuck you, too!”
A little while after that, I tuned back into the music and realized I was listening to On the Bus:
“Meanwhile, Joe hears about Mary's naughty exploits. He falls in with a fast crowd and gets seduced by a girl who works at the Jack-In-The-Box, named Lucille, who gives him an unpronounceable disease...”
How fitting, I thought with a grin, glancing back at the horde of girls sitting behind me, wearing booty shorts and tight tank tops.
Ladies and gentlemen, it was then that half a green Oreo landed on my head.
