Been listening to a CD my son gave me for my birthday. Have been listening to it on the new CD player my husband had installed in my car for my birthday as a sort of surprise. He had hinted ahead of time, but I forgot about it well enough that when I got in my truck after work one day, and turned the key, my favorite CD was playing and I was surprised.
The CD from my son was also a surprise because it had been many months since I mentioned the group
Gogol Bordello to my son as one that he might like. Learned of this group when I visited a website for a movie,
Everything is Illuminated, and found they had provided the soundtrack as well as one very interesting actor to play the part of the Ukrainian tour guide who had an all-things-American fixation. I thought my son might like them because they play "gypsy punk" music, and he likes all kinds of punk music, all kinds of music in general.
My son, on the other hand, thought it was cool that we "discovered" this group only about a week after he himself had already discovered them and found that he liked them. How great is it when a kid, who wears his hair in blue spikes sometimes and loves to go to punk shows where he can mosh, also happens to have parents who can occasionally recommend a very fine gypsy punk band to him and his friends?
So, I've been listening to this CD everyday now and just loving it. There is a line in one of the songs--
You are the only light there is, for yourself, my friend
The lead singer sings it in what some might call broken English. Just hollers it out. All the lyrics are sung with this strong Ukrainian/Russian/Eastern European accent. He sings "dere" for "there", "de" for "the", or leaves out "the" entirely. One line he sings "pick-ed it up," three syllables instead of two. He uses English words in combinations a native speaker wouldn't use. And just belts it out anyway.
How did he know it was okay to sing like this? Why does he choose to express himself anyway, imperfections and all? Almost emphasizing the imperfections.
Why do I like gypsies so much? I was remembering that gypsies have been a theme my whole life for me. I often have dressed up as a gypsy for Halloween. Even as an adult. It is so easy. Just take any ruffley, gaudy, skirts, shirts, stuff, and throw it together. You can't go wrong. A black wig for those with color-challenged hair, some exotic makeup and jewelry, and you're off.
When my sister and I were kids, we would have penny carnivals in our backyard. Spend a couple days with a couple friends setting up the typical games and putting up signs around the block. Kids actually came to these things! And spent their money to visit the haunted house and play bean bag toss and have their fortune told by me dressed as a gypsy. We did this probably three times altogether. My mother was probably thrilled that we were doing something outdoors that only required her to make some cold spaghetti worms and jello brains. We had to clean up afterwards ourselves.
I told the fortunes inside our green pup tent with a ball covered in foil as my crystal ball. I made them up of course, me not actually having any ESP. But I have always loved the idea of being able to tell the future. Maybe it appealed to my sense of safety at the same time as the crazy get-up appealed to my sense of freedom. It was also a very empowering activity. We did it all ourselves, the adults cooperated gratefully, we had happy kids in our backyard giving us money.
So, here I am, a little Irish/German gypsy, age 45, and listening to punk music in my car and having all these feelings. I want to tell all the adults I know--listen to Gogol Bordello!!!! Listen to punk music, it is so freeing, so emotional,
come to the gypsy part of town, like the song says. Have a voice, hear a voice, who cares if he mispronounces it, who cares if he throws in a little Spanish and a little Russian and you really can't translate it exactly, the feelings are right there to be heard. You are the only light there is, for yourself, my friend.
But.....I won't tell anybody about my gypsy punk CD. Well, except for the VESMB. I don't even show people pictures of my kids anymore. Someone always laughs at the spiked hair and says, oh, is your son a porcupine? Did he stick his finger in a light socket? Har, har, har. They don't even see the light shining out from his happy face. It's right there though.
What have I learned from the times when I try use my voice? That regular people don't really respect what they don't really understand. I have learned that lesson many, many times from childhood on. Life often goes better when other people are not impacted in ways that require extra effort on their part. Life goes better if I shut up! But shutting up doesn't really work either. Everything gets tangled up in that and not enough gets out there to connect with people who
are open to connection with someone like a little, red-haired gypsy.
That is what I learned as a little girl. Now my task is to learn what I want to say and how I want to say it and who I want to say it to. I have to be my own light. I have to empower myself like I sometimes was able to do as a little girl. Just by chance it seems, but, still, it did happen sometimes.
I don't think I asked any serious questions in this post. Perhaps some questions are implied, though. If anybody finds them--yay! Let me know! And share the answers!!
I have been reading the other threads this week but haven't posted much because I'm working overtime again and have been tired. But while I was napping a little while ago, I thought I better go with my thoughts on this particular idea before I forget what I wanted to say. And it's kind of related to Hops' thread on times when we've felt empowered. So, perhaps I'm not as out there as it may seem
from this post.
Pennyplant
