Carly Simon – Page 2 – Sally Taylor

Boston, MA – “Good Morning America” – The House of Blues – May 16, 2000

The alarm went off at 6:30 and my eyes opened into a house of hanging plants and warm, honey-still sunshine. Rachael and Billy, a couple of friends of a friend, put us up last night, along with an assemblage of people who’d come from far and wide to see us play Boston. The couple’s 27-pound orange cat spread himself out like a slab of peanut butter across a sunny spot on the floor.

Still fully dressed from last night in Adidas sneakers and a sparkling champagne-colored tube top, I rolled over on my right to find Soucy, open-mouth snoring next to me. On my left, I discovered my pal Heidi from Martha’s Vineyard snuggling and gently prodding me to wake up. “Get up,” she whispered, “you’ve got Good Morning America with your mom in New York.” I rubbed my eyes and slid my hand along the wall towards the bathroom.

Scattered bodies, packed in colorful sleeping bags, littered the floor. Everywhere I stepped there was another sleeping form to navigate and I wondered how I’d gotten lucky enough to score the futon.

Delucchi too, had lucked out on bedding. I found him in a side enclave, curled up inside a red puddle of blanket, trapped in the quicksand of a slowly deflating blow-up matrice. “D., I gotta get to the airport,” I rolled him like pie dough but Delucchi wasn’t coming to the surface of the day anytime soon. Handsome Joel, a friend of mine who I may or may not have kissed during my Brown rowing days (honestly, I only recall wanting too, not whether I actually did or not), woke up and generously volunteered to take me to Logan to catch my Delta shuttle to New York City.
The show at Boston’s House of Blues the night before had been sold out and my dad showed up unannounced to play a song with me.

After the gig, we moved the party out of the green room and back to Rachel and Billy’s house. There, we drank (too much) wine, listened to Al Green sing “Let’s Stay Together,” and stayed up way past “When.” Now, I’m on a plane on my way to New York, on 2 hours of sleep in the same outfit I sang in last night, to be filmed for Good Morning America with my Mom, Dianne Sawyer, and my brother Ben.

Funny how dream-like everything becomes on a diet of 2 hours of sleep.

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Day 70 – “Returning to my Childhood Home” – March 23, 2000

I’m driving back to the studio when I pass my old address, 135 Central Park West, the one with the flat my new album’s named after (#Apt. 6S). The doorman outside is unfamiliar and though I’m seriously contemplating looking for a parking spot and trying to go in, I wonder how I’d explain myself to the austere new doorman. I imagine myself approaching under the iron-clad awning in overalls and green Patagonia fleece and saying something ridiculous like, “Hi, you don’t know me, but trust me, I used to live here and I’d like to go to the 6th floor and take a little look at my old childhood stomping grounds if that’s OK.” The idea seems absurd but before I know it, I’ve parked, slipped my little red camera into my pocket, and locked the door.

The gray-blue stairs of my childhood feel narrower underfoot than I remembered. The last time I walked them they’d hosted at least a dozen voracious paparazzi trying to wrestle my image from my face. My brother and I were adept at the camera dance and knew to take cover under hoods and collars to avoid them, as though they were a sudden rainstorm.

Today there are no cameras, nothing to fear or avoid. But I feel more uncomfortable than ever confronting the tall, Slavic doorman in the lobby. “I’m making an album named after an apartment here that I grew up in, #6S,” I gulp when my intro is met with a suspicious sideways glance. “I don’t know. Would be possible to let me up for just a second? I’d love to take a picture of my old door for my liner notes. Would that be OK?” I’m sure he thinks it is not OK. But, you can’t judge a book by its cover. The new Russian doorman not only believes my story but is delighted to know I’m naming my album something relating to the building. He calls the new tenants and sure enough, I’m invited up.

As I walk the mosaiced hallways down the red strip of carpet, memories flood back. I recall practicing cartwheels with my friend Lark Previn, one of Mia Farrow’s kids, after ballet lessons. Once we’d navigated the grippy hands of the paparazzi outside, we’d uncover our jacketed heads and in long braids and peach leotards, do round-offs and back handsprings down the broad red carpet to the elevator. Lark, second eldest after Soon Yi, always accompanied me to the 6th floor so we could practice our moves a little longer in the 12-foot floor-to-ceiling mirror outside our door.

Waiting for the elevator—the same elevator I once measured my growth by the numbered buttons I could reach—I look up at the crystal chandelier still awkwardly missing gems my brother and his friends used to jump to knock down for their shiny, clear teardrop collections.

The mirror on the 6th floor still warps in the center, making me appear slimmer and taller. I ring the back doorbell and it chims its familiar (still-broken) chime, “Ding, futz,” “ding, futz.”
A small, Latina house cleaner wearing distrust across her brow lets me in even though her boss is out and she wonders out loud about the consequences of her actions. She follows me closely in her head tilted, small-stepping way as I tour my old home in what I hope is the least threatening way possible. I don’t touch walls or handles and let the cleaner reveal what she thinks prudent to show me.

My old room has been converted into an office but still has the white shelves that once housed my dolls. The back alley view from my old window with its cast iron grate looks the same as usual as does the long white built-in closet but none of this is mine. I packed up my memories long ago and I realize I am only a ghost here. Most likely, a ghost that’s making the cleaner nervous.

The photo I took that day of Apt #6S front door

I thank her and leave Apt. #6S with its view of Central Park and slimming mirror and chandelier with its missing prisms and as I thank the doorman and descend the paparazziless steps I feel a little hollow but at peace.

At the studio, Mike and I work late (till after 3:00 am). Neither of us in any shape to drive back to the city, we set up an impromptu slumber party on Whitney’s white, leather couches. We use our jackets as blankets and elbows as pillows. Morning comes too soon but we open our eyes with determination and enthusiasm for This is it. The finish line. This is our last day in the studio!

…..Of course, there’s still more to do—mastering, artwork for the CD, The creation of a press kit and launching of a PR campaign, booking a new tour to promote the album (with our BRAND NEW BOOKING AGENT JONATHAN SHANK!!!!), Getting CDs pressed and getting our new drummer rehearsed. But the album, for all intents and purposes, is finished.

I am the proud mama of 13 new bouncing baby songs. And I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Something nobody yet knows. We’re gonna combine “How Can I” and “Bicycle” to make one long 12th track and throw in a hidden “sally as a little girl ‘pumpkin song’” in between, just to give people something fun to find if they leave the CD running too long. So now you’re in the know! Thanks for following along on this record-making journey. Enjoy…

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Day 67 – “Naming the Album 6S” – March 20, 2000

I grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City with a sprawling view of Central Park from apartment “Success.” At least that’s what I heard my parents say when they directed the local grocer for deliveries or their fabulous, bangle-wearing friends for parties. It made sense, after all — my famous parents lived in an apartment called “Success.” Of course, they did and, of course, my brother and I lived there with them; born into success, not owners as such, but entitled squatters. It was only when I started writing pen pals that my understanding was shattered.

“In the return address,” my mom dictated, “you’ll write Sally Taylor, 135 C.P.W Apt #6S NYC 10023.”

“How do you spell ‘Success'” I asked.

“A-P-T period. The number 6 and the letter S,” she directed, unaware she was shattering a belief I’d held since birth. Alas, apartment “Success” was only ever apartment #6S (Floor 6, Southern facing apartment). “Success” was as illusory as the great and powerful Wizard of OZ. #6S was The Man (woman and children who lived) Behind the Curtain; A real address with real lives and problems and joys and failures and, yes, successes too.

I’ve decided to name this second album after my birth address “Apt. #6S” to remind me where I come from; both a delicious, outrageous illusion, and a geographic address as real and permanent as its bricks and mortar.

This CD is a dedication to making success where you live.

APT #6S will be released in early May and will be available online from this website and at shows.

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Martha’s Vineyard, MA – “Gig with Mom” – February 27, 2000

I flew home to Martha’s Vineyard on Monday. The winter landscape was purple and honey and the water undulated in a metallic cerulean dress. We rehearsed all week, my mother my brother, and I, for a concert in New Orleans that’s scheduled for tomorrow. My mom doesn’t like to perform period, so rehearsals are mandatory not only to tighten up the band but to loosen up the mom.

While I’d hopped a United economy seat to Boston before a two-hour Peterpan Bus and a ferry to The Vineyard, I was leaving the island in style. Yes, indeed. I’m currently writing from the belly of a cush private plane en route to NOLA. There are platters of cheese & crackers, sushi, and mini omelets. There’s champagne and linen napkins and seats that, not only recline but pivot 180º. I feel VERY spoiled. There are pros and cons to having famous parents. This is a pro. The plane parts the sky like a comb through straight hair and the pilot addresses us personally when he tells us what we can expect from the flight.

But as clutch as my surroundings are, while I’m writing it doesn’t much matter where I am physically— I could be anywhere; in the back seat of Moby, the Alaskan outback or the waiting room of my dentist’s office because I’m not where my feet are. I’m in my own little world. I spend the majority of every day here; daydreaming, remembering, foreseeing, creating, conversing with my better angels, and conspiring with my little devils. The world I escape into is sort of like the “I Dream of Jeannie” bottle. It has velvet cushions and taffeta drapes and is built from a lifetime of amalgamated fragrances and fabrics and love scenes I once watched on TV. In my head, I’m always in luxury because I really love my life, even when it’s challenging, it’s always got cheese platters, 180º swivel chairs on demand, and duct tape to fix almost any situation. It does not, however, have sushi so I must admit, it’s a total plus to come out of my Jeannie bottle, grab a little California roll, and a smidge of wasabi before heading back into my bottle for the next paragraph.

What it feels like to go into my writing world

I’m excited about Mom’s gig but it couldn’t be coming at a worse time. The record is left unfinished back in Colorado. I feel it sitting inside me like an unmade bed. It’s hard to leave a project undone and unchaperoned, especially in that zoo of a home studio back in Boulder. But I’m crossing my fingers and toes that nothing bad will happen in my absence and that I’ll be refreshed and ready to dash to the finish line when I return.

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Day 28 – “Sometimes Hums Along” – February 10, 2000

There is a draft in my heart. I try to shutter the door against it but the cold gets in. I am pregnant with a sorrow that tosses in my belly, kicking to be born into song. I go through Kipp withdrawals 6-7 times a day. Sometimes they manifest when I’m feeling lonely and instinctively want to call him to tell him something funny or ask his advice about something I’m unsure of. I miss him at bedtime. I miss him in his kitchen at Timber Trails making breakfast and matte. I miss him at night, out on the town dancing his unique straight-arm dance. Most of all, I miss the man who was my best friend—the one I shared my time, secrets, fears, joys, body, dreams, and life with for the past two years. Now, he’s gone, and I hide in the studio, away from the ghost of Kipp who still lingers in my home. Ugg, my home with its unmade bed, unwatered plants, sleepless nights, and screaming phone. Ugg, my kitchen with its haunted faucet that drips, drips, drips into my subconscious, blending with an assortment of hums, mumbles, and sighs.

To make the situation more confusing, in the midst of losing Kipp as my boyfriend, my brother has decided to take him on as his manager. I have no idea how to navigate this situation.

Thank God for my mama. She’s been there for me through all of this. All my instability, regrets, fears, anger, and insecurities. Last night, she stayed on the phone with me until my tears sealed my eyes shut, then lullabied me into a stream of dreams. She managed to give minimal advice—just comfort, which is all I really wanted, not a cure. Definitely not a cure. A cure would require energy I just don’t have right now. This morning as the dull winter light haunted my room, she called just in time to distract me from my impending woes. She told me she’d found photos of herself in the studio from when she was pregnant with me. One of them had a speech bubble she’d written at the time that prophetically read, “Hey mom, let me out, I’ve gotta sing my song.” She read me old-school reports from when I was six as I drove north up Broadway, and stayed on the phone making me laugh until the mountains around the studio ate our cell reception.

In the newfound silence, I was consumed again by my grief. Boulder was white—like frozen breath, blank sheets on the bed, Clorox, sheep, sightless eyes that cannot sleep. There was nothing outside except white, as though someone in charge made a typo in the morning and ended up whiting out the entire day.

I grabbed my guitar from the trunk and walked, coffee in hand, through the narrow parking area towards the studio. I was looking down at my mug to make sure I didn’t spill when I walked straight into a 13-foot pole saw tied to the roof of Chris Wright’s midsize Mitsubishi. For anyone unfamiliar with this style of tree-trimming device, it’s a combination of a scythe and saw attached to a long pole used to reach high limbs. These tools are notoriously sharp in order to accommodate the user’s lack of leverage from the ground. The blade struck me right between the eyes and before I made it through the door I could feel blood pouring down the bridge of my nose, cascading down my chin and dripping into my mouth. Soucy put ice on it and some lavender oil. Chris Wright arrived as Soucy was patching me up. He was in striped pajama bottoms slurping milk from a bowl of Captain Crunch, and between bites mumbled something about “gotta watch where you’re going.” It’s official; I hate Chris Wright.

We’re working on vocals for “Without Me,” which seems appropriate. It’s a song about how lonely and hollow it feels to be loved when you’re disassociated and without yourself.

I know there is a day outside
A night or a starless dawn
I’ve seen her out there smiling
Just off the front porch lawn
She’s sitting up impatiently
In her best wedding gown
She’s waiting for the spring to come
And though she has no voice for song

I feel she enjoys listening
And sometimes hums along.

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Charlotte, NC – “The Blair Witch Project” – The Great Aunt Stella Center – September 17, 1999

The Great Aunt Stella Center is a church and a beautiful one at that, full of light, stained glass, pews, echoes, and a plush red carpet. I rushed to grab our video camera to record its magnificence but as I opened Moby’s trunk, Chris’s pastel blue coffee press flung itself out at me like an exuberant participant at a surprise party and crashed to its demise at my feet. I was in shock, filming the disaster, when I heard Delucchi shriek from behind me, “N O ! ! ! ! !”

I whipped around in time to catch his distressed, palms-to-cheeks expression. We held a quiet band memorial for the press over the bathroom trash can. I apologized to Chris for my part in the tragedy. He said it was all right, but I knew it would be a while before he got over the loss of his old friend.

Every day I’ve known him, Chris has followed the same morning ritual—first gas station of the day, while Moby guzzles fuel, Delucchi “borrows” hot H2O and 5 paper cups from the station’s coffee center. What follows is a 5-10 minute wait whereby the rest of us clear the van of yesterday’s chip wrappers and apple cores. When Chris reemerges through the swinging station doors, it’s with his signature bouncy step, the sky blue coffee press held aloft like a trophy, and an exuberant “Who wants black juice people?!?!” It was the end of an era and I felt terrible about causing it. I vowed to find him an even better press.

The venue couldn’t accommodate a full band so I’d agreed to do the opening act solo for David Wilcox. But I was nervous. I hadn’t played a gig on my own in a long time and didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of David Wilcox’s audience. Soucy, watching me pace backstage, knitting needles in hand, agreed to join me for a few songs near the end. Still, I bit my nails to the quick in hospitality, picking at trays of fruit and chicken salad.

I donned my mama’s vintage skirt, sewing the ripped seam with dental floss with it already on. The skirt, I knew would bring me comfort. It’s something she used to wear for luck throughout her early career. The boys wished me luck from behind the organ and pushed me out into the pool of light on the stage.

As nervous as I was, I was delighted by how easy it felt once I started playing— akin to the first time I rode my bike without training wheels. After the fifth song, I announced cheekily, “Is there anyone in the crowd who knows how to play guitar and coincidentally, also knows all the chords to my songs?” At my rhetorical question, the audience laughed and Soucy flung his arms in the air like a crazed muppet, screaming, “Pick me! Pick me!” and rushed down the aisle like a contestant on “The Price Is Right.”

It goes without saying, that David Wilcox put on a GREAT show. I studied him on stage like an art student trying to capture the lines of a nude. His act was a work of fine, artful storytelling and soul-bearing music. I was captivated.

Some college friends of Soucy’s approached after the show and asked if we wanted to spend the night at their camp. I was game to save a couple of bucks on a hotel room and we agreed to follow their car out into the middle of nowhere down some mile-long, god-forsaken, briar-lined, back road that scraped Moby’s paint like nails on a chalkboard.

Mike and LG’s camp was an actual camp! complete with tire swings, a pond, a pool, volleyball nets, and cabins with creaky slanted floors. We were so far off the grid that the stars were bright enough to navigate by, even without a moon in the sky.

Our hosts told us there were enough beds for everyone, “but two people will have to sleep in the cabins across the pond.” The rhythm section—Bri and Kenny—drew the short straws. “Are there any snakes around here?” asked Bri with a nervous giggle, staring at his dwarfed stick.
“Sure are,” said Mike, “Copperheads. Big ones.” Brian’s face went white, his lips hung limply under his nose like wet noodles. Brian and Kenny insisted on a second beer before agreeing to let us drive them across the pond over to their accommodations.

I’ll never forget the homesick look on their faces when they discovered there was no electricity out there. Mike handed them each a flashlight and told ‘um not to make any sudden moves if they heard a bear.
As we slowly pulled away on the flatbed of Mike’s truck, I called out to them “You guys didn’t see Blair Witch Project, did you?”
“Not funny, Sally. Not funny,” shouted Kenny as the night closed around them and a mysterious bird sang a sad two-note song.

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New York City – “You’re Sylvain” – The Mercury Lounge – September 9, 1999

I remembered the green room from our show 3 months ago at the Mercury Lounge. It was the worst backstage accommodation I’d ever been in and it remained largely unchanged now. Here is what I wrote about it from our June 11th gig:

The Mercury Lounge is a dark, black box of a venue so while on stage, I was unaware how large our crowd was. When the lights came up, I was delighted to find so many of my NYC friends who’d somehow heard about the show without my direct interference. I was glad my publicist Ariel Hyatt was in attendance so I could congratulate her on promoting the gig so successfully.

My best friend from kindergarten, Rachel Zabar, embraced me with golden glittering eyes and her huge smile which has always seemed to me, to escape the perimeters of her face. Jim Hart, my stepfather, had heard about the show from a colleague at work. A bunch of people from high school, Boulder and Brown were present, and a trickle of people who insisted we’d met before and ‘did I remember their names?’ were there.

This game of “Do you remember my name?” is always embarrassing and no one comes away from it looking good. I learned early on from my dad to lead with context when approaching an acquaintance.
Ex. “Hi, it’s Sally Taylor, from Martha’s Vineyard. We went to camp together, you might not remember, it was a long time ago.”
And to re-introduce people to each other leading with context as well.
Ex. “Hey Dad, you remember Kate, my freshman roommate.”

This way, even if there isn’t immediate recognition, the person can say something like “Of course, now what have you been doing since then?” and no one has to feel embarrassed.
My friend Adam (Yes, Adam Natusch from The Boogies) used to love to make prank phone calls (these were the days before people got caller ID boxes). I’d be at his house and, with his red phone already off the hook he’d say, “Give me a number.” One day I gave him my mom’s digits and when she answered the following, now infamous, conversation ensued:

Mom: “Hello?”
Adam: “Is this Carly?!?!”
Mom: “Yes.”
Adam: “You’re never going to guess who this is.”
Mom: “Who?”
Adam: “It’s Sylvain”
Silence.
Mom: “Who?”
Adam: “Sylvain Brown. Don’t tell me you don’t remember me. I’m already on the ferry on my way over to the Vineyard to see you. You wrote a song about me.”
Mom: (Sounding worried) “I did? What was the song?”
Adam: “You’re Sylvain!!!!”
Mom: “Hmmm…I’m not sure which song you might be—”
Adam: (Singing You’re so Vain) “You’re Sylvain, you probably think this song is about—”
Mom: (Click, dial tone).

Adam and I rolled around laughing on his floor for a few minutes before I tried to call her back to apologize for the prank (Side note—Do not feel sorry for my mom. She is the queen of pranks and practical jokes and can dish it out as good as she can take it). But she’d taken the phone off the hook, clearly to avoid another call from “Sylvain,” who definitely thought this song was about him. The next day when I went to call her, she’d already changed the number. Mom laughed hysterically when I told her later, that the caller had been Adam and to this day calls him ”Sylvain Brown.”

Midway through signing CDs at the Mercury Lounge, someone dropped a slice of paper on the table in front of me and disappeared into a blur of faces. Ariel and I squinted at the serrated square which read “I ENJOYED THE SHOW. YOU ARE ALL GROWN UP!” and was signed ‘Oren Segal (3rd grade).’ “WHICH WAY DID HE GO?” I shouted to Ariel. “THAT WAY,” she yelled back and pointed toward the front exit “HE HAD A WHITE T-SHIRT ON!” I didn’t have time to explain Oren had been my first crush. He’d bought me a porcelain doll for my 7th birthday and I was sure the gesture meant he wanted to marry me. The delusion of this early proposal dissolved over time but I kept that doll through adolescence displayed up on a shelf hoping someday Oren and I would meet again. It’s sort of disappeared since we left our apartment in New York, but I’m sure it’s somewhere, packed in mothballs and memories, somewhere between the center of the earth and the tips of my fingers.

Outside, the hot streets offered a miraged horizon of blurred red, yellow, and green lights. I marched myself up to the first white T-shirt I saw and said “Hi” just hoping it was Oren, but it ended up being one of those people who insisted we’d met before but whose name I did not know and ‘Did I remember their name?’ I never found him.

Dejected, I walked back to the venue. There, a very pretty woman named Ann Taylor (no relation) introduced herself. She’d come across our web page in the most unexpected, roundabout way. “I was looking on a search engine for Sally Taylor Orchids,” she said, “did you know there is a flower called The Brother Sally Taylor?” I said I hadn’t known but was delighted all the same. “Well,” she said tossing a blond lock behind an ear, “I was searching for this flower when the engine came up with your web page and I clicked on it. I’ve been following your Road Tails ever since and that’s why I’m here tonight.”

This internet thing is amazing!?!?! Until recently, I’d assumed I was shouting into the void. But maybe my words are actually making it through the abyss. Perhaps real people are reading this and enjoying it and what we have to offer. Maybe they’ll consider coming to a show or listening to our music in the future. I can’t believe it. My mind is legitimately blown. Now back to vocal rest and on to Rhode Island.

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Boston, MA – “H.O.B.” – The House Of Blues – September 9, 1999

I’ve become a paranoid flosser. I think it’s because, when I made an appointment with my dentist in Boulder for cleaning next month, the receptionist asked how long it had been since I’d last seen a dentist. When I told her she replied, “5 years!?!?” I winced and responded, “Wow, sorry, is that a long time?” She must’ve thought I was being facetious as she didn’t deign to respond to my frank and honest question.

How often am I supposed to see a doctor?!?! My parents always arranged such things when I was a kid and ever since I left for boarding school at 13, I’ve only ever seen the medical community in the case of an emergency. Are you supposed to go yearly? Monthly? On your birthday? Honestly, how would I know? I could hear the receptionist’s angry fingers typing over the phone line. “Do you floss regularly?” she asked. “Yeah,” I lied. “‘Cus if you don’t,” she warned, “THE DENTIST WILL KNOW.” She was obviously used to patients, like me, telling flossing fibs. But she scared me enough that ever since then, I’ve been carrying a roll of floss everywhere I go. Anxiously I floss at least 5 times a day just so that the dentist won’t bust me.

Flossing on the Ferry in my favorite Purple T-shirt (which I lost while on Nantucket!!!)

I floss anywhere and everywhere —in the van, in museums, on ferry boat rides. So it’s no surprise that I happened to be flossing when we pulled up to the H.O.B. (House of Blues) in Boston. The thread was still hanging haphazardly from the left side of my cheek as I stepped out of the van into the bright windy afternoon and examined the sign with my name painted on it. It was beautiful and it waved at me in the wind above the specials sign which offered tonight’s special: “Chicken in a cone.”

Sal at House of Blues next to Chicken on a Cone sign

It was 9/9/99 and wasn’t the world supposed to end today or something like that?

Load-in was a bitch. Hefting “Fat Amy” (Brian’s drum case) up the narrow blue, chipped, and warped back stairwell was backbreaking and heartbreaking when we remembered we’d need to take it out again at the end of the night.

The dressing room was like a glorious gypsy caravan. Green velvet couches plumed like pea pods from layered plush Moroccan rugs. Multiple multi-colored candles left drip marks on glass holders that looked like piles of fainting ladies. George Rodrigue’s blue dog paintings stared longingly from the walls. There were points of interest on every horizontal surface—sequined pillows, a voodoo doll, a belly dancer lamp, a rhinestone-covered skull.

The boys had a crush on our merch girl, Daniella, and fought over who got to go down and exchange the too-large H.O.B shirt Kenny’d bought for his wife. As we waited for our show, I did vocal warm-ups and picked apart an order of tortellini. Every few minutes, I was surprised by another old friend popping up to the dressing room to say “hi.” aI started getting excited to play knowing it was going to be a sold-out show with so many familiar faces in the audience. Thank you, God! And The Boston Globe who’d penned us “The hot ticket to have in Boston.”

It was a joyous, energizing, and monumental show. I didn’t know how much I needed big crowd energy to replenish my flagging spirit after so many under-attended gigs. I knelt off to stage left and sold freshly signed CDs to a bouquet of faces that offered kind words, delicate eyes, shaking hands, and generous hugs. I felt very loved. Thank you all for coming.

We drove Boston’s cobbled streets to my mom’s pad which she’d allowed us to stay in under the strict understanding we leave it in the condition we found it. But as we neared her apartment, I realized I’d lost my music journal (which besides housing all the songs I’ve written this year, also contained directions on how to turn off the alarm system in the house). Delucchi, hearing the panic in my voice, tucked Moby up on a curb on a dark, West Cedar street and we frantically searched for my zebra-striped book. Rats stole between gutters. The moon pointed sub-optimal light through Moby’s tinted windows. I tore all the clothes out of my over-stuffed bag and onto the urine-stinted streets of Beacon Hill but could find my book nowhere. I ended up having to call my poor mom at 3:00 a.m. for the alarm code, which I hated doing because she has insomnia. But of course, she was a heavenly angel on the phone even though she had to go downstairs to her computer for the information I needed and probably wouldn’t get back to sleep before morning. Oh, bless her heart.

P.S. Chris D. ended up finding my journal later, buried in my knitting bag. Oh, Sally!

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Martha’s Vineyard, MA – “Sharing Mom’s Spotlight” – Hot Tin Roof – August 28, 1999

This stage is where I had my first taste of the spotlight. Back then I knew, curled around my mom’s stems, shaking from head to toe with nerves, I never wanted to leave. I’d sung backup “Lalas” on a song called “Jesse” for my mom’s most recent album and she invited me to join her on stage for a live performance of it.

Sally on the “Lalas”

I was both terrified and enticed by the invitation. I thought “Maybe, if I’m good enough, I’ll get a record deal and go on the road and get to skip school and my friends will like me because I’m famous and not just because my parents are famous and then I’ll feel worthy of being my parent’s child and not have to feel ashamed of being unworthy of the life I was born into and try to make myself invisible or people please to make up for not being good enough, pretty enough or talented enough.” I probably didn’t have words to go with these last thoughts, the nuances of those would come to the surface only after years of excavation in therapy, but that was the spirit of them. I stood in the shadow, stage right waiting for Mom to say my name, and then finally…

“For this next song, I’d like to introduce my daughter Sarah Maria, or as we call her ‘Sally’ to the stage.” The Hot Tin Roof was packed to the gills. A roaring cheer erupted from the crowd as I stepped into the spotlight and took my first hit of off the stage light. It electrified me like cocaine. I knew immediately, the way a junkie knows the first time they taste their drug of choice, I’d need more. My eyes adjusted to the light as I approached my mom. She’d pulled her mic off the stand and held it to my mouth. I said something nervously like “hu-llo,” which lit up the crowd with laughter and more applause and made me wish I’d said more cause it felt so damn good to feel their attention and adoration.

Mom counted off and I stared up at her waiting for my cue. There were other performances, other “lalas” on other stages. But after the Hot Tin Roof, I was only ever chasing the dragon. That performance was the closest the stage has ever brought me to seeing God. It was an out of body experience. I felt my feet go numb, my breath caught in the butterfly netting between heartbeats, the room spun and all the smiles in the audience were pumped, like one big jucy hit of cold air into my tiny 4-year-old body.

Now, it was my turn to hold the spotlight at the Hot Tin Roof and invite my mom to the mic. It was one of those moonless, chilly, fall nights and trees whirled their leaves like pompoms in the dark. The venue was packed to the rafters with familiar faces and I joked between songs, “I think it’s fair to say I’ve either kissed most of you or that we’re related.”

When I introduced Carly Simon, the applause came in deafening waves. She sauntered out swinging a strut so familiar I almost forgot we weren’t back at home in our living room. I was so proud to have her on stage with me and imagined how she must have felt, 20 years ago, watching little Sally, wander into her spotlight. Mom was as shimmering—perfect, gorgeous, dazzling, and mesmerizing as ever. We sang in perfect harmony, hamming it up for the crowd and dancing in moves we rarely displayed outside of the privacy of our backyard. Being together on stage, on THIS stage in particular, was the most fun I’ve EVER had, and at the end of the night—after the stage lights were cut, and the doors had been kicked open and the scent of wood fires filled the air, and the August winds rushed around the club like a Tasmanian devil, I was still intoxicated from the buzz of the stage.

The leftovers from the crowd huddled around the bar, in patches of ferrydust-filled halo lighting. It was just like old times. As a summer job at 18, I used to take tickets at the Hot Tin Roof and I remember sitting slumped over, shoes off, throwing limes, and slinging beers down the bar to the other staff after the last encore had been sung. It was nice to see the post-show tradition lived on.

Footnote:
Jeremy Lichter—the guitar player who didn’t work out—was there. He said he was playing in a cover band called “Weed.” While we’d parted ways under not-so-good terms, there were no longer any hard feelings. Just goes to prove time does heal all wounds.

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Amagansett, NY – “Days off with Mama” – Stephen Talkhouse – June 9, 1999

My two days off with my mom on Martha’s Vineyard were delicious. She fed me on memories of her childhood, tucking them around me like feathers in a nest. Like a thirsty plant, I drank her history in gulps letting her sensory-rich imagery add new coats in scene-by-scene detail. She painted a picture of herself as a young girl, growing up in an apartment building in Greenwich Village which her father bought to house his entire extended family. There were grandmothers living together on the 3rd floor and naughty uncles in the basement. There were crewel aunts with voodoo dolls, cousins who organized family choral groups, and doormen who shuttled them between each other’s lives. She was a free-range child in this colorful building of characters, visiting different familiar portals whenever she got tired of her current settings.

She described how she used to steal jewelry from her mother, like Robin Hood, to give to her nanny Allie 2 floors down. It became a joke the grown-ups had as they watched Andrea Simon’s jewelry carted out in little Carly’s heavy pockets each morning to be returned by Allie before dinner as they all laughed behind their hands at young Carly’s early Socialist instincts. Mama described her sister Lucy’s love for bread inspiring her to hoard and, later for others, to discover molded glutenous stashes in the back of drawers and under beds. She gifted me visuals of her mother’s high pompadore hairstyle and shoulder pads which bolstered her 5’4” frame to what my mama considered Amazonian proportions. She described her mother’s wide toothy grin and charm bracelets that tinkled when she came to kiss her goodnight in mink stoles before the theater. She recognized her father’s charm, creativity, and depression. She remembered his last days huddled in a topcoat in an overheated room pulling down the shades on the windows and locking the doors as a means of shutting death out. We drank tea, our long legs tucked under us like deer hooves, laughing in bathrobes and leotards meant to inspire some form of fitness that never came to pass.

Despite the restful break at home, I found myself missing the road and my band even more. My pal Heidi, who’d already planned to attend our NYC show, offered me a ride and on a overcast morning, picked me up down my long, puckerbrush-lined, dirt driveway. In a reversal of roles, I kissed my mom fairwell and headed back on the road.

We were on track to meet the boys on Long Island well ahead of schedule, but just before exit 1 on I-495 N, Heidi’s check engine light illuminated. “Check Engine?” Heidi mused aloud before panic set in and smoke billowed from under her hood. Something metal inside the car screamed and green coolant splattered the windshield. This chaos was exacerbated by our convertible’s top being down. We pulled over, wet and coughing, and I called AAA.

Our rescuer, Dave, towed Heidi’s vintage Aston Martin and, charmed by Heidi’s beauty, repaired her car on the spot. We expressed our gratitude with a CD and a dime bag of weed and made it to the Long Island ferry just in time.

Stephen Talk House at first glance, looked like your run-o-the-mill Long Island bar, but inside, lining the walls, were photos of every famous musician you can think of. It was surreal to think I’d be playing on the same stage as legends such as – Jimmy Buffett, Paul Simon, Taj Mahal, Ronny Wood, Keb’ Moe, Luther Allison, Koko Taylor, and Kris Kristofferson just to name a few. Unfortunately, we hadn’t publicized our gig very well and The venue was quiet, save for a few delightful fans and sports enthusiasts there for the NBA playoffs, their occasional cheers reminding me of past gigs played under the shadow of televised sports.
Despite the mixed audience, we had a memorable night, hoping for a return – ideally, after the Knicks win an Eastern Championship.

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