Melissa's Place

Music Appreciation

Mark and I car-sat my mother's Honda Civic while she was on vacation for five weeks this summer. And during one particular trip, Mark stock-piled the pocket in the driver's side door with burned musical gems that suited his taste. Music by Jay Reatard and No Bunny and the Homosexuals and Fuck Me Stupid (or something like that). Some of this music, despite its purposefully crass album and band names, can be quite good. Some of it displays incredible talent (I particularly like BBQ and King Khan and their one-man bands). Most of it is very unique. All of it is loud and raw.

My mother drove her car home after her trip and she phoned us that night to tell us that she'd discovered Mark's CDs in the car. No problem. We'd get them from her next time we saw her. Surely Mark has enough music in the basement to tide him over for a month or two.

As a teacher, Mom is the head of a carpooling group. And as teachers, they've been heading out to school this week to prepare their classrooms. Karen is one of the teachers Mom carpools with. Mythlie is the other. Both of them are middle-aged and parents. Mythlie has a fairly traditional Indian family. The three ladies love to chit chat in the car to pass the time; sometimes they have heated discussions, sometimes they gossip and sometimes they argue.

Apparently today, on their way home from school, my mother suddenly had a fun idea, "Mythlie! Let's listen to some of Melissa's husband's music." (I guess Karen wasn't with them). Mythlie agreed. So Mom put in a CD and they were both fairly taken aback. Mom proceeded to put four more CDs in, a full sampling. And the ladies' surprise gave way to amusement. They began to laugh. They found the subject matter intriguing, if not to their tastes exactly. And they promptly labelled the tunes "heavy metal". Mom protested mildly, "...but Mark is so quiet."

Mark's only comment, upon hearing the story, "Oh dear. I wonder which ones they listened to."