It wouldn't be the holidays without a little...

Sometimes I wish I had one of those families that gets completely drunk at Christmas. And sometimes I wish I had one of those families that was so dysfunctional that I would have enough emotional trauma to write a book or be an edgy singer/songwriter. Alas, my family is pretty normal. Well, my immediate family is pretty normal. There isn't any drama. There aren't any knock down, drag out fights. We, for the most part, get along. What the hell kind of holiday season am I being subjected to?? Happiness? Joy? Peace on fucking earth??

I wish I had something good to write about. Like that my mom got so drunk and downed so many anti-depressants that she started a karaoke bar in our living room and sold tickets for her show to the people talking a holiday walk along the path that runs next the the picturesque creek by our cozy cookie cutter house in suburbia right across the way from the elementary school I attended for seven years and the park in which I played when I was young. Crap. My run-on sentence doesn't even work because it just segues into how picture-perfect my childhood was. Damn-it, I can't even make my mom a crazy drunk lounge lizard! It just doesn't work! I just don't have enough dysfunction to even pretend to have dysfunction. I hate to admit it, but I don't really have any major life-changing family crap or life crap to shape me into one of those people with "issues." And I ask you, where are my issues?? Everyone is supposed to have them, so where are mine?

Well, Ok, let's face it, my parents are still together AND they get along, my grandparents are all still together. My grandmother on my dad's side died when I was 12 but my grandfather has never remarried. With the exception of two aunts, all my aunts and uncles and cousins are still married to their first marriage partner. No one has committed suidide or attempted it. No one is "the drunk" at gatherings. We don't hate anyone in the family and we actually like hanging out with each other. Hmm I think this is abuse. How does my family expect me to doubt love and relationships, drink my insecurities away, and never have any self-esteem or ambition unless I get a little suppression in my life. For the love of God can't I get some true American normalcy?

The Shaggs Review

The Shaggs all girl band plays like it has twelve different sheets of music, everyone is playing, no one is leading, and everyone has started at a different time. They purposefully play their music a little bit off balance. It makes the listener unable to follow and unable to catch up.

They are playing as if they are running the race of the turtle and the hare. Half the band is the turtle and the other half is the hare. Their album is the entire race. The percussion stays on beat, they are the constant, ever persistent turtle and the vocalist and other instrumentalists are the hare. They start and stop without any constant rhythm.

The lyrics are so non-scensical that the band channels a 2-year old that is learning to walk and talk at the same time. You can’t do it all at once without stumbling.

Despite all the weird nuances of their music, they are doing something original. They are experimenting with sound and rhythm to produce an audience reaction. I would love to see them in concert at a Berkeley coffee shop.

The band Pastel Pasta was an experimental group that started at my high school. They also experimented with ridiculous lyrics and obscure instruments like the toy piano and a washboard. They entered the Battle of the Bands one year and got about last place. The next year they received second place because of their creativity in performance execution and lyrics that people could laugh at.

The Shaggs do the same thing. It is still entertainment, the listener just needs to go in with an open mind, laugh and have fun listening to something new.