Would You Believe It?

Today, I have the honor of featuring another guest blogger! I am super excited. My friend Alison, whom I met through a mommy group, has been through a lot in the past year. She has been so candid and honest about her experience that I asked her if she could write about it as a guest blogger. Not only is she a wonderful mother, but she is also an incredible example of perseverance and faith.

Not only is she sharing a bit about her music, she's sharing her faith (Judaism) and how it helped her through the terrible loss of her sister. I hope you all enjoy.

In late May 2011, on a women's spiritual retreat I was encouraged to sing my song, “Adonai Tzuri V’Goali” As the music flowed, the group began to sing along and get excited. One of my fellow musicians, Robbi Sherwin, from the group Sababa, was recording it on her iPhone. After we were done, she sent it to Scott Leader (also from Sababa), whose response was "Who sang that and why isn't it recorded yet?"

Scott, Robbi, Larry Bach (head rabbi and incredible musician at Temple Mount Sinai) and I recorded my “baby” over the next two weeks and entered it in the New Voices young songwriter competition sponsored by NewCAJE. Imagine my surprise when an email arrived saying “YOU WON!”

Not only had it won but it was now included on a CD with nine other new up-and-coming talents. The email also included an invitation to perform in-person at the NewCAJE conference in North Carolina in August, 2011.

At the conference, after a performance of a new art form made up of live music and improvisational story-telling, the six performers decided to jump into unknown waters and we founded an artists' collective called NuRootz. I discovered my inner musician and began writing more songs on the plane home from the conference; enough for an album!

With new-found confidence and excitement, I began planning an album and a brand-new career. That's when tragedy struck my family. My sister, Lauren, committed suicide.

Lauren struggled with mental illness for years but I didn't know how difficult her struggle was. Laying there in the hospital, on life support, my parents and I struggled to sing Debbie Friedman’s "Mi Shebeirach." I sang her my song - the one that seemed to wake everyone up at the conference - praying that it would do the same for Lauren.

It wasn’t to be. After five days, we learned that she would never wake again and we decided to let her rest. She’s buried in Rhode Island among our family she loved so much.

Ever since then, as I've been putting the pieces of my life back together, I have found that music is helping me heal in so many ways. Healing starts when I write it down. It continues as I sing it to someone, and the greatest gift is when even one person says, "Your words helped me heal, too."

For a year, I’ve been fumbling through the grief and pain and sadness that her loss shook loose.  I’ve been following the traditional Jewish path of mourning, a week of shiva followed by a month of saying the Mourner’s prayer, followed by a year of less-intense mourning.  After 11 months, my sister’s tombstone was unveiled (in early August 2012) and on September 8, I’ll observe the first yarhzeit, or yearly commemoration of her death.  This involves lighting a special candle that will burn for 24 hours in her memory and going to synagogue to say the Mourner’s prayer.  After that, I’m only obligated to say the prayer at designated times throughout the year, on festivals and yearly on her yahrzeit for the rest of my life.

What I find most troubling are all the questions left behind for those of us still alive – why?  Couldn’t we have done more?  Hadn’t we done enough?  Why wasn’t I a better sister?  More intuitive?  But those are questions that lead down a dark path, and I’ve decided to leave them alone for a while.  Maybe I’ll be strong enough to face them someday, but that day isn’t today.

So now I have a CD.  The music I recorded has so much of my sister’s life embedded within, so much of her spirit and warmth, I had to name the album for her.  She is our Dragonfly – in Hebrew, Shapirit.  Every time I see one, it brings me peace.  I hope my music can bring you peace as well.

Love,

Alison

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

Time Warp Tuesday has arrived and again, I am drawing a blank on what I should write about. Having a designated day for memories past is more pressure than I thought it would be. So this post is going to go one of three ways. I can rant and rave about boyfriends that were less than deserving of me (and their are many). I can single out one of them, leaving other's for future blog material. Or, and this is my favorite for today, I can provide you an in-depth analysis of Taylor Swift and why I find her to be terrible and amazing at the same time. What's that? You want Taylor time? Yeah, me too.

For those of you who do not know, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" i the latest single by Miss Swift. It will be on her new album Red which will be released on October 22nd of this year. I, undoubtedly, will be buying the album, just like I bought the single.

Here's the thing, it's not great. It's not country. It sounds like a bitter teenage girl wrote it. And mostly, it's catchy as all get out. I've listened to it more than 5 times since yesterday's download, and while that is far from the thousands of times the devoted 13-year-old girls of the Taylor Nation have rocked out to it, it feels like too much for a woman in here late 20's. When I was forced to pay for it instead of stream it on Spotify, I should have taken it as a sign that my Taylor Swift enjoyment days had come to an end.

She isn't the best singer to begin with and her lyrics seem to forever be stuck at the pubescent love/heartbreak stage. She falls for dudes 30 seconds after dating them and then publicly slams them in interviews because they weren't as into her as she was into them. I mean, for a girl who claims to have been bullied, she sure dishes out her fair share of abuse. Have you heard "Better Than Revenge" on her last album? It's allegedly about the girl who stole Joe Jonas from her. Here's an excerpt:

She's not a saint and she's not what you think.

She's an actress.

But she's better known for the things that she does on a mattress.

So she's a whore because your boyfriend broke up with you for her? Seriously, women who blame the woman piss me off. From what I've read, the digs she takes at the girl, Camilla Belle, are hardly subtle. She references that she went to prep school but that won't give her dignity. She even uses lyrics from the song Jonas wrote about Belle. My favorite line is when she says "She thinks I'm psycho cause I like to rhyme her name with things." Well, maybe she's right. It's one thing to write "You Oughta Know" and leave everyone guessing, it's a whole other to blast the shit out of this girl. Smartly, Swift didn't release the song as a single. Something tells me she would have lost a few fans due to her cattiness.

And John Mayer? Surely she had to have known he was too much for her. Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson couldn't change him, what made her think she had a shot. She wrote 3 songs about him on her last album. THREE! "Dear John" was the worst of them. She paints him as this older man who just callously tossed her aside when he was through with her. And again, a song that wasn't close to subtle. Not that John Mayer deserves any sympathy from the females of the world, but way to kick a man when he's already down.

I recently read that she's dating 18-year-old Connor Kennedy of those Kennedy's. She's 21 or 22 right? Can we say dating a younger guy because he isn't experienced enough to know how crazy you are? She even bought a $4.9 million house across the street from, well, his parent's house. I've seen Fatal Attraction and Single White Female enough times to know that he needs to hide his bunny rabbits and change the locks. 

I know people who love T-Swizzle. They also read this blog and will probably lecture me about her greatness, but it matter not. I won't be deleting her albums from my iTunes library (they're stored in the cloud so it's pointless) and I will no doubt sing along the next time the "Shuffle All" button sends one my way. It doesn't make her less of a twat. And it doesn't make her less of an angsty Avrile Levigne wannabe. She can win Grammy upon Grammy and date ridiculously good-looking men to the cows come home. It doesn't mean she doesn't pander to the teenage girl market better than a boy band. 

Do I sound like a judgey bitch? I hope so, it' what I'm good at. I'll leave you with this gem of a song that will now replace "Call Me Maybe" in the "stuck in my head" slot.

When Will I Be Famous?

I know today is a time warp but I cannot shake the need to plug my new favorite rapper. Yeah, you know I talkin' 'bout my baby boy Bangs.

If you don't remember, he was the title inspiration for my Take U To Da Movies post. Why this Sudanese-Australian rapper is not a huge star in the hip-hop world is beyond me. His lyrics are relevant and really paint a picture of what it would be like if one would go to "da movies" with him.

"Let me pay the money so we can get in. Now hold my hand and take a step to the door. Don't fall. Lets sit on those two chairs alone, watching a movie so we can see whats going on."

And the beat? I mean, I thought I was listening to something Dr. Dre created in the lab. Fantastic. Hubby's favorite part would be the green-screened images that flash in the background. The sports car, stacks of cash, the map of Africa with the Sudan highlighted. 

But lo and behold, Bangs doesn't just want to "Take U To Da Movies," he wants to Take U 4 A Dinner." 

"I hope you liked dinner cause I did too. Anytime you want to go again, Bangs will take you."

I especially love how his female lead is careful not to get too close to him. You wouldn't want his millions of adoring female fans to get jealous. He must have taken that lesson from Justin Timberlake, who Bangs has said is his "Number one rap influence." I personally have never considered Justin Timberlake a rapper, but I also am nowhere near as musically awesome as Bangs. What do I know? 

But, just when you thought your dream date with Bangs was over, I discovered that Bangs is a very generous man. He wants to "Take U Shopping" after the movies and dinner. 

"Hey girl what's poppin'? Dressed up, let me take u shopping? Take your bag and leave it empty and anything u need just throw it in."

According to Bangs, he only learned to speak English in 2003 and this has me slightly worried. Bringing an empty bag to a store to fill with things sounds like shoplifting to me. But really, the more I think about it, he's probably just really green. I think we can all respect a man who wants his woman to bring a reusable shopping bag with her. 

Sadly, the dream date has to come to an end, because I discovered "Ur Boi Bangs" has been hitting up other ladies on Facebook.

"U can show me what u gat and I can give u what I have. We can make love through the Facebook and that's hot."

All these hoes have to do is give him their email address so he can add them on The Facebook. And to think, we went to the movies, dinner, and shopping and he just throws that all away for more bitches. I feel like he's used us. 

Don't let that bright smile and bling fool you, Bangs is a total playa. And the game is hard. He explains it here:

"I'm tryin to open da door for the next generation ... for the ones tryina be like Bangs."

I guess we can forgive him for pickin' up on new girls. After all, he has to "keep dem beats comin" and the game is hard, man. You "gotta have people that love you" and if that means that he has multiple ladies, who are we to judge? He is a world traveler and how disrespectful would it be to Ludacris if he didn't have hoes in different area codes? 

Also, I really respect that he doesn't need to carry knives and guns like everyone in America does. People show him too much love for him to hold all that craziness. I also appreciate that he does all this on his own because "da big studios want to own you to much." I am sure that with all the major labels pursuing him, it's probably best that he remains true to himself. 

Ladies and gentleman, if Kony could go viral as quickly as it did (and accomplish nothing except that guy whackin' it) we can make Ur Boi Bangs a huge star. I think everyone should hear his music and truly respect his desire to stimulate the economy, one movie/dinner/shopping trip at a time.

You can follow him on twitter @yourboibangs. @fatbgirl is following him. I will update later if I get a retweet or a shout out from him. I'll be linking this blog for him as well. Fingers crossed.

UPDATE:
Your Boi Bangs didn't just give me a retweet on Twitter, he shared it on his FB page. I choose to believe he understand the ironic tone in which I wrote this. If not, you have to love a guy with that much confidence.