Tag: reviews

Do what you need to make you feel better

It was 1976 – the Bicentennial, which was a rather big deal: flags, parades, celebrations, fireworks*, limited edition coins. I was twelve and had just discovered marijuana and was listening to a local radio station on my clock radio and on comes “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether.”

“Do what you need to make you feel better, do what you need to make you feel!” 

 I loved it! Had to have it! 

So I waited for the break after the songs to hear the deejay say who it was and he didn’t! I was so pissed off. But I finally heard it again, got the name, went out to Hot Licks music store and head shop, bought it and I now owned The Alan Parsons Project  “Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Edgar Allen Poe”. It’s a great album. Somehow they always came off to me like a more family-friendly progressive rock band. Emerson Lake and Palmer made some great music but it’s not for kids. It’ll fuck with their minds. 

Just kidding. The Alan Parsons Project seemed to be making music for the smart kids (to wit: they do an amazing job of incorporating Poe’s poetry into this album), unlike say, Aerosmith. It’s all very theatrical with operatic and classical flourishes all around and side two is mostly a little rock opera. Big emotions and a little trippy. Maybe that’s why I associated the band with the theater kids in school. 

It was always a bit of a mystery to me who Alan Parsons was. The band seemed to consciously and purposefully not showcase Alan Parsons, who was one of two main members – hence the “project”.  Parsons was an engineer on Abbey Road, Let it Be and The Dark Side of the Moon, among many other great albums. The other guy, Eric Woolfson, was a songwriter and composer, according to Wikipedia, where I got all this information. This was their first album, which I did not know until today, and most of the musicians were from Pilot (Oh, ho ho, it’s Magic!) and Ambrosia (Baby, Come back). 

Sierra Exif JPEG

Tales of mystery and imagination. Makes sense.

*Back in those days we saw fireworks maybe twice a year if we were lucky and somehow geographically near where they were being blown off. I’ll be honest, I never have to see another firework in my life. Redundant redundant redundant. They also fuck with my mental health. But have you seen those huge drone shows all lit up and transmogrifying all over the sky? Totally cool!

Eddie Izzard

The first trans person I ever met was in about 1976 at Thomas Beach on Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. This was all very new to me at 13. I was sitting on the curb waiting for my friend, Ben, to come back from wherever the hell he was. Up walked this very tall woman in a bikini but covered with a beach jacket of sorts. She sat down on a picnic table and looked out over the lake. Then she looked over at me, staring right back at her. She smiled.

Lovely day, she said.

It’s hot.

One day you’ll grow up into something hot, son.

I’m sure I blushed, but it was summer in 1976 and I spent every waking hour outside, sans sunscreen, but soaked in Coppertone oil, so I was already some dark shade of reddish brown that probably hid said blushing. Someone shouted and she stood up and waved. Enjoy the beach, she said and ran toward the person. I’d heard about “cross dressing” and some talk of people transitioning through surgery and hormones. I believe they had to go to The Netherlands or somewhere to get it done. But now I saw one and talked to one. That blew my mind.

Somewhat related, I was reading an article yesterday about Eddie Izzard and remembering when Ms. Izzard was in the news for coming out as transgender way back in the mid-eighties. She’s been busy, real busy over the last 40+ years as a comedian, stage and screen actor, pilot, very active in LGBTQ issues, and is now again running for Parliament in the UK. She’s also a crack athlete and has run hundreds of marathons (more than a hundred for charities). Here’s what really blew me away:

“It’s not just the sheer number of marathons that Izzard has run that’s impressive: it’s that she runs them one after another. In 2009, she ran 43 marathons in 51 days. In 2016, she ran 27 in 27 days. And in 2021, she ran 32 in 31 days.”

Got that? She ran 32 marathons in 31 days. Damn.

#eddieizzard