"...and my
belief is: if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably Posh
Spice…." It was the voice of my mentally challenged niece Danielle "Duh"
Sinatra, and the words were spoken against a background of some heavenly choir
doing an a cappella rendition of "Somewhere" from West Side Story.
Reality
punched its time card and began its work once again. The music was coming from
my television, a concert presentation on KPBS. Danielle's voice was coming
through the earpiece of my telephone, which had slipped down toward my shoulder
when I'd fallen asleep some time before. Let's see…I'd picked up the phone when
she'd decided to call me at 2:30am; she thought it was the middle of the
afternoon. She wanted to complain to me about her most recent boyfriend. Pretty
much the same story as usual, which had put me back to sleep within a couple
minutes. She loves to talk and was on another of her marathons, obviously, as
my clock now read 3:25.
"Hey, Duh,"
I interrupted, the TV demanding my senses and soul, "I've gotta go. I'll call
you back tomorrow."
"But what
about Trevor? I mean, like, his parents are gonna ground him forever if they
find out. How are we supposed to have our relationship get to the next level if
we can't even party anymore? And don't say he's a jerk and I should dump him
like you always do. Trevor's different. He's intelligent. I let him get to
second base before he even was able to ask, ‘cause I always know what he's
thinking. I mean it's scary, but it's so cool. He says he's never felt like
this about anyone…"
"Dump him.
He's a total squid."
"You don't
know him!"
"Put him
out of his misery. Kill him before his parents do. Bye."
And now I
was hearing the angelic voices from the television undisturbed. I was gazing at
the gorgeous faces of five goddesses, and I began to cry. Perhaps because of
the natural awe at witnessing perfection of art, perhaps partially that these
untouchable divas from heaven's citadel would likely never be given the
opportunity to absorb my seed.
I learned
during the pledge break that I was giving my heart to a group called Celtic
Woman.
Superb
music by awesomely beautiful chicks is a rarity. Early Kate Bush, Mary Hopkin,
and Michael Jackson are hard to eclipse.
Before
calling Duh back the next afternoon, I went down to Borders and bought the DVD
of the Celtic Woman show that had so enraptured me on television hours before.
And again I was shaken and again the fountains flowed from my eyes.
"Are you
crying Uncle Hose?" It was Duh's voice on the phone again, a bit later.
"I won't
lie to you, darling. Yes, your Uncle Hose is not ashamed to weep on occasion."
"What a
pussy."
"Nothing
wrong with that. Hey, have you ever heard of a group called Celtic Woman?"
"Uh-uh."
"Five women
and a band and chorus that are able to rip your heart out, kiss it, clean it,
and give it back to you until you beg them to do it again."
"Oh, you
mean like the Spice Girls?"
I think she
got the shock of her young life when I didn't hang up.
The reason
I had loathed Trevor so intently was that he had been among the drunken fools
whose stupidity last year in Pacific Beach guaranteed the end of any adult's
right to drink alcohol on our city's beaches.
These are
the jerks who cost us another of our precious liberties. I remember a lengthy
debate with the young turd shortly after we had first been introduced. How I
was able to keep my composure while merely looking at this civil assassin was
due either to my maturity (that old generation gap again) or my keen awareness
of the prodigious diameter of his tattooed biceps.
So many sweet
memories, I told him, could never be relived or revised in the new reality that
you and your irresponsible, idiotic friends have forced on us. I've not
forgotten his last statement that ugly day: "Hey, man, everyone parties!"
Time has
moved on with its own selfish cackle, which I've continued to block from my
ears. I'd much rather hear the sweetness of Celtic Woman, which somehow calms
me even as it hurts. I took the DVD over to Duh and suggested that she watch it
with Trevor if she ever gets the chance. And I told her that I recently began
to understand that the blame for the beach booze ban simply can't be directed
at the rowdy group on that fateful day in P.B. Everyone who has ever had a
run-in with the law that involved alcohol at our beaches is equally
responsible. Those of us who never have, and who are angry or likely to become
angry once summer rolls around, could do a lot worse than finding enough heart
to forgive every one of the thousands of culprits.
And then
relax with some Celtic Woman.
Celtic Woman perform at the Coors Amphitheatre on May 9.
Jose Sinatra is becoming more and more of a wuss. Duh Sinatra is forming her
own all-female group Amazon Chick. Trevor has entered the priesthood.