I don't know why mother insists on staying in my studio apartment when she visits, when my more comfortably situated relatives have perfectly spacious homes with guest bedrooms. Guess she wants to be where the action is - a ten-minute walk from the 6 train and the Bronx River housing projects.
As an inside joke, my sisters and I address mom as "mother" like we're a family of Boston Brahmins. We're just as affectionate with each other, too.
When she isn't busy asking when I'm going to produce my first grandchild, mother punctuates her sentences with sighs and slow head-shaking.
"Your cousin Michelle has such lovely a house. Can't you afford to move?"
Of course she has a lovely house.
Michelle is 42 years old and lives with her mother.
She picks up a copy of Guitar Player with the tips of her fingers like she was picking up dog shit and stares at one particularly cluttered corner of the studio.
"What is that?"
"Laundry. I haven't had a chance to finish it before you came."
"And that?"
"A bass amp."
"A what?"
"A new toy, mother."
My guitar teacher John Berenzy said something interesting to me last week. He knows that I've been working on a new EP for the past year, and was wondering why it wasn't done yet. I was complaining about how I wasn't happy with the mix, and went to two different engineers before I found one that didn't over-produce the songs to death.
He said, Pascale, "with all the money you've spent on making your own cd, you could have made a down-payment on a house. I prefer your home-made 4 track demos, anyway. Your songs have a naive, sweet quality to them and I can't hear that with these over-produced mixes ."
The upshot is that I've traded any chance at middle-class respectability and a high FICO score for....
artistic fulfillment?
Dreams of having my own "Behind the Music" special
Getting on People's "Worst Dressed List?"
Have I lost my damn mind?
