4 posts tagged “vox hunt”
Audio: Show us cover art or share a track from the first band or solo artist you flipped for.
Submitted by Red Pen.
First record (that's right, vinyl). I bought it with my own money.
First rock concert I ever went to (I had to buy three tickets - and I bought good seats, too! - because I was twelve or thirteen and my parents wouldn't let me go without taking them along to supervise) - 1975 or 1976, I think - at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. We were in the sixteenth row. My mom sniffed the air and whispered (loudly) to me: "Is that--marijuana?"
Now, there was a loaded question. I'm pretty damned sure my mother lived through the sixties and early seventies, and not in a bubble, either. So what was she really asking?
Next band I flipped for was...don't laugh...wait for it...
Oh, Lord. My college roommate and I used to dance around the dorm room and sing this to each other while we were getting dressed and ready for parties. Actually, we'd just crack up over this - she was in her early twenties before she got her first kiss, and there I was, a Junior in college at the age of sixteen, discovering boys for the first time and doing my level best to trash a two-year 4.0 GPA streak. We were such dorks. Nice dorks, though. The kind who liked ABBA and drank non-alcoholic sparkling cider from champagne glasses and felt "worldly" doing it.
Our favorite "party trick" was to get everyone else drunk, put ABBA on the stereo, and lip synch while doing dance moves like the ones in this video. We could be totally uninhibited in our dorkiness and rest assured our friends would not remember a thing to taunt us with the next day. Too bad so many girls, today, have that all bass-ackwards.
And now, I'll just leave you with this thought:
Link: Find someone on Vox who has the same name as yours. Any similarities?
I was surprised to see that there were ten or twenty other members of Vox who share my name. Or maybe it's just a search bug; I could not figure out how or why half of them came up when I searched for "Holly." Most of them have no public postings or profile info; a few appear to have started and abandoned blogs here; one of them is so much my opposite it's almost scary. Thank you, Vox, for not making this an exercise in "compare and contrast." It would be tactless. The only one I found any definite similiarities to is here:
We both appreciate courtesy and manners, books, and art. Though I've been blogging for a while now - and was once quoted in the Hindustan Times as "a veteran blogger," I do vaguely remember thinking I'd never keep a blog. I give this Holly six months, and they'll be quoting her in the Bangalore Blogger or the Mumbai Mumbler, or something. Beyond that... who knows? I only found two posts on her blog, but at least they're recent. I'd say that's a darned good start.
...until I assured him it was just an accident. Er, an accident that occurred somewhere between my imagination, my curiosity, and a dull afternoon spent experimenting with Paint Shop Pro and "features I do not fully understand." I still don't fully understand them (Gunderson Bee's compliments notwithstanding), but they yield amazing results. I'm no artist, but if someone would pay me to spend my days playing with and manipulating photos and art like this, I'd be all over that.
No houses, lawns, neighbors, cars, or pets were harmed during the making of this image. And yeah, it's humid in Houston - just not this humid! There's a part of me that sees this as "Wouldn't it be lovely to live under a waterfall like that?" That's the daydreaming, creative, unrealistic Piscean side, mind you. There's another part, heavily influenced by actual home ownership, motherhood, and allergies that screams a frenzied, "Oh my G-d, can't you just smell the mold and dry rot? How many tanker trucks of bleach and how many industrial sized fans would it take to clean that mess! Never mind, just total it and move on..." The pitiful sobbing inside my brain gets to me, every time, and keeps me from calling an innovative landscaping company to try it.
Image Copyright 2005 H. Jahangiri. Non-exclusive stock photo rights may be purchased at Shutterstock.
And aside from demonstrating why I'm a writer, not a graphic artist, I think my first personalized Vox banner says a lot about me.
The Background
The very faint background image is taken from an old postcard that shows the town where I grew up, back when it was growing up. At the turn of the century, Silver Lake, Ohio was an amusement park. I loved amusement parks when I was a kid. Unfortunately, by that time, Silver Lake wasn't one - but it was still a really nice place to live and raise a family. If you're interested in the history of the place, click here. My mom knew it was a good place for kids; it's where she spent her childhood. Not only did she and I go to the same elementary school, but her eighth grade teacher was my second grade teacher!
Can you find me in this photo? (Was I even there? I lived there then, and spent many hours ice-skating on that lake, but who knows - I might not have been at just that moment in 1971...) I can swim out to the island and back!" was a common boast. I'm not sure if anyone did, but I'll admit here and now - I didn't. Could have, though. The best amusement park? Anyone who's from Ohio knows the answer to that one.
Photos
That's me holding an armadillo. The Texas State Bird, you know. A real, live, kicking, scrabbling, viciously-clawed armadillo. Isn't that just the fakest smile you've ever seen? Mine, you nut - not the armadillo's - though I grant you he (she? who can tell? it's an armadillo!) isn't too happy about the whole thing, either. I'm thinking, "Hurry up and take the damned picture, already! And make sure it comes out, because I do not ever want to hold an armored rat again as long as I live..." The man who owned the armadillos wanted to make sure I got the perfect photo, so he quickly tucked the Texas flag into the crook of my arm and my friend Kathy snapped the photo. Twice, just to be really, really sure she got it.
I was relieved to learn that armadillos don't have teeth, nor have any Texas armadillos been found to carry leprosy. They do have some nasty-looking claws, though. If you hit one in the road...just keep going.
The photo on the far right shows me - aged five and slightly drunk - riding a sledge in Madeira. Our tour group had been to a wine cellar, where we were all allowed to taste samples. Apparently, the wine wasn't very good, and I ran around the table as the group moved on, finishing off what was left in everybody's cup. (When I say "everybody," I do not think that includes random strangers. No, I was traveling with my parents, my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle.) The cheap wine had probably worn off by this time, but the silliness was just getting started. We went to lunch - somewhere fancy. I don't know what the place was called (remember, I was five and drunk - it's a wonder I remember setting foot in Madeira at all). They served as a traditional sixteen-gazillion course meal - enough food that we had to wait five hours before boarding the ship, lest we sink the venerable old S.S. United States. It was good food, as I recall, but like any restless child, I'd have been content had they served it all at once and let us be on our way. The grown-ups were, no doubt, delighted to linger over the seventeen dessert courses.
Anyway, from there we moved on to the sledge ride. A sledge looks a little like a sleigh, only there's no snow and there are no horses - just those two guys on either side, running and pushing it down the cobblestoned hill. Straight into the ocean... I had reached the point where everything - absolutely everything - struck me funny. (If you have children, you probably know this point as, "Hmm, looks like somebody's going to need a nap soon.") The sledge runners had the audacity to start calling me "Boy" which was, apparently, the only word they knew for "small child." I tried to correct them, but that only made things worse. You see how I am howling, unabashedly, with laughter? We weren't communicating at all, but none of us knew that.
Those are my mom's parents sitting next to me. They adored me, and it was mutual. I'm pretty sure no one else wanted to admit to knowing me, by then.
Other Detritus
What could be more symbolic of a writer than a coffee-stained, blank journal? It's salmon-colored. I love salmon. (How's that for digression and confession? I love salmon. I can cook, too. Lord help us all if there's ever a quiz on this, fifty years after I'm dead.) I had to include The Red Pen of Death™, of course. That symbolizes my ruthlessly honest style of critique and editing; moreover, it is symbolic of my evil inner editor, also known as She Who Will Not Be Silenced. The postcard, of course, is just filler - but I am, in fact, having a marvelous time.
So glad you're here.
