Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

October 17, 2010

Does it make sense to actually maintain two blogs?  I’m still deciding, as I attempt to record daily chronicles here and my love of music on another site.

The current blog you gaze upon, For the Archives, has been getting more love ever since I pledged 40 consecutive days of posts.

photo by Pepe

But I do have another blog dedicated to all things musical in my life, particularly my radio show on Kauai Community Radio called Music as Medicine (I’m on the air tomorrow, by the way:  Monday 3-5 Hawaii time – tune in at www.kkcr.org).

So in conjunction with posting something here in the Archives once a day, I’m featuring some musical classics from the Top 40 realm of the 1980’s on my Music as Medicine blog.

If you want a trip down musical memory lane, circa 1980, check out the latest upload.  And if you’re so inspired, share a song from your youth that still rocks you today.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 3 Comments

Love and Woo Woo with INXS

Cover of "Kick"
Cover of Kick

It was a year ago that I got up the gumption, followed the instinct and booked that writing workshop at Esalen. Became a Friend and got the discount.  Bought the flight.  Arranged for child care for my 5 year old.

Winter on the central California coast.  I made the drive alone in the rental car.  Stopped in Cambria along the way and bought a “Big Sur bar” in the old fashioned gas station. On the radio INXS played “Never Tear Us Apart” as Hearst Castle loomed in the distance, the ever-winding road leading to the big tree forest.

“…I was standing, you were there, two worlds collided and they could never tear us apart…” Read more

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Memories of Yaz at Payless Shoe Source

photo by Jessica Dofflemyer

 

I’m in Payless Shoe Source with my 6 year old trying on his first pair of tie shoes.
He doesn’t know how to tie bows yet but I’m hoping these new Converse-style kicks will inspire him.

Jeb pulls the tongue of the shoe out and wrestles with the laces while Erasure’s “Chains of Love” bleeds out over the shoe store sound system.

“…come to me, cover me, hold me, together we’ll break these chains of love…”

The synthesized sounds take me back to 1986, when I was 15, wearing Keds and listening to Yaz. That summer my friend and I met Marcus, the older boy with the long ponytail who chewed Big Red and drove us around in his Audi listening to “Upstairs at Eric’s” at high volume.

Back at Payless Shoes I tie Jeb’s bright white laces and put a thumb to the toe to check for space.

“How do they feel? Do they feel like they fit?”

He nods and smiles.

“…they used to talk about the weather, making plans together, days would last forever…”

I’m 36 now, on my knees in the size 1 aisle listening to Vince Clarke’s keyboards in a whole new context.

“…don’t give up, don’t give up now, together with me and my baby break the chains of love…”

We buy the shoes.

And when we get home – I can’t believe it – Jeb ties them on his first try.