I love Amy Winehouse. We all saw it coming, but she was gone far to early. I’ve listened to this song a few times this week just because I love it so much (and for the question “what kind of fuckery is this?” And for mentioning missing a Slick Rick gig. Come on, Slick Rick!) . This song is my favorite. This one and “Tears Dry On Their Own.” Oh, and don’t play if you have sensitive ears or if children are around or if you’re in a public space. Actually, don’t play it. It will offend someone. 😉 Enjoy.

Today is World Poetry Day, which is odd because National Poetry Month is next month, which I can’t say for sure, but I believe is a tribute to T.S. Eliot for his poem “The Waste Land.”

April is the cruelest month, breeding

lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

memory and desire, stirring

dull roots with spring rain.

So, maybe it’s from Eliot. As some of you may remember, Eliot is one of my favorites for his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock. I’ll quote my favorite section, words that I hold to be some of the most beautiful ever written.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

I owe my love of Eliot to Mrs. O’Neal from my favorite high school English class.

Shakespeare has long been a love of mine. His plays — masterpieces. His sonnets — music to the ear. My favorite sonnet is number 130 (because it’s superfantastic) and because it was the first I’d read), introduced to me by Sting of all people, in the song “Sister Moon.” He said of the sonnet and his song,

“In Lyrics By Sting, the singer recounted when he used Shakespeare to appease a staggering drunk one night who kept demanding to know “How beautiful is the moon?” He answered with a line from Sonnet #130: “My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun.”

The inebriated man liked the answer and stumbled away into the night. Sting wrote: “Shakespeare is always useful, I’ve found, for calming down violent drunks, if only because it gives them the impression that you’re crazier than they are.”

Crazy is good.

The poem is great because he compares features of his mistress to things far more beautiful, but he loves her the way she is.

Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Lastly, my favorite modern poet, Lang Leav. I’ve shared several of her poems here. I thought this one perfect for today.

Superfantastic. Happy World Poetry Day.

I’m taking the night semi-off due to dental work and being at my son’s baseball together and I’m half asleep. See y’all tomorrow.

We live in a weird time at the moment. This song by 10,000 Maniacs is about just that. “Candy Everybody Wants” came out in 1992 — a very political year (the first year I could vote) and it was a very polarizing time. Today it’s even more polarizing. The song says “If lust and hate is the candy/if blood and love tastes so sweet/then give ’em what they want.”

I can’t think of a time when those lyrics were more à propos. The words are set against this beautiful music, full and rich, with horns and melody — total ear candy with satirical pointed vocals. It makes for one hell of a song. The original video is also eye candy — jewel tones and great imagery (Natalie Merchant’s green dress was also the inspiration for my prom dress). Enjoy.

I had a long drive today. Back home in the deep heart of Texas from my mother’s in the hometown. I actually love that drive. A little hilly, tiny towns — some that are nearly abandoned, funny road signs, passing Beauty Shop Road. The only thing I don’t like are the constantly changing speed limits, which you learn from making the drive a few times are only guidelines.

The drive is perfect for playing music loudly and singing. And I have the perfect playlists. Playlists are kind of my thing. Just like I was the mixed tape master. Today I played the songs that I love. This one is little different from usual ones you find here. It’s by Natalie Merchant, who is tied for my favorite female vocalist. “Ophelia” describes several very different women she refers to as Ophelia — a nun, a demigoddess, a suffragette, a circus queen, mafia girlfriend, an overnight America’s sweetheart — all slices of life. I think most women are a little of some of those.

As for me, I’m the female cannonball and cyclone, tempest, a god damned hurricane. Those are good things. In the video, those last things are depicted as Ophelia in a primitive mental hospital room, but I prefer to think of the cyclone part of Ophelia as bold. As brave. As daring and courageous. Every woman needs a little hurricane in her. Enjoy.

A few years ago, during the last half of season 10 on Grey’s Anatomy, they used beautiful covers of 80s songs. One day I’ll post a bunch (because they’re superfantastic), but tonight I’m posting the Cyndi Lauper hit “All Through the Night” covered by Sleeping at Last. Enjoy.

It’s been a long day. A long two days. So, I’m here to say goodnight tonight.

As always, there’s a song for that. “Goodnight Elizabeth,” a great one by my Counting Crows. Enjoy. And goodnight.

Hi Dear Readers,

My mom is having her second surgery this morning and I’ll be at the hospital until this evening and back tomorrow for a few hours until she’s released. I’m going to get preachy for a minute.

Women: do your self breast checks. Go to your yearly check ups. Tell your OB/GYN if something feels weird, lumpy, the breast skin feels different, if anything is sore or hurts — your doctor has heard EVERYTHING before and will not think you’re being silly or overreacting. Get your mammograms when your doctor tells you your the age to get them.

Men: ask the women in your life if they’ve had their mammograms. Just ask. It’s not embarrassing. Ask your mother. Ask your wife. It’s not something you probably talk about, but you should.

Don’t be afraid. Arm yourself with information.

My mother’s tumor was small. Too small for her doctor to feel, but the mammogram caught it. We were told she was fortunate the tumor was found early because after a biopsy, it turned out to be a cancer that spreads. She had a lumpectomy last month that went fine, but at her post-up her oncologist told her that the cancer had spread to nearby tissue. It was not the news we were expecting.

Today she’s having a mastectomy with reconstruction. Without having her mammogram, her cancer could have spread to other organs. The mammogram saved her life. Unfortunately, cancer runs rampant on that side of my family. My Mammaw Patsy was one of 5 sisters. Including her, four have died from cancer. There is only one left. She knows she has cancer, but is choosing to not to do anything about it. It makes me sad. It hurts my heart that she is choosing fear when she could choose what’s hard and be treated and in turn, have years left with her children and grandchildren.

Being brave and tackling anything is hard. Being brave is hard. Sticking your head in the sand is no way to live. Fear is a killer. About anything. Literally. But anything being brave for is worth it.

I joke a lot with my friends and in this weblog, but this is not a joke. And I care about all of my Dear Readers. Make that appointment. Get screened. Get the mammogram. Buying the pink scissors and the pink whisk and the cute pink eye masks with ribbons on it, it’s cute. Fine. Buy the stuff if you want to, but hell. See your doctor. Get the mammogram. Be brave.

Third in Badass Women in Rock and Roll Week on the Kerry Blog is One of my favorite people (not just musician), Ingrid Michaelson. She’s a singer-songwriter who has inspired me when I needed to feel. To feel anything when I thought I could no longer feel.

Ingrid was pretty much “found” by the music director of my other favorite Grey’s Anatomy. Two of her songs were used, the her songs were used in commercials and what’s next was more songs, albums, collaborations, tours, and inspiration. Here are a bunch of her songs. Go out and buy everything she’s recorded. Enjoy.