June Cleaver and the Assisted Living Liquor Cart
Or, WTH did I let June Cleaver tell me what to do?
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June Cleaver used to sit on my shoulder. Triangular tits, high heels, and that apron cinched around a pencil stick waist. Like a stiff-spined fairy godmother, June’s primary goal was managing my manners and propriety, suggesting my wrinkles were getting worse, commenting on my weight and whether I had applied lipstick. Where was she in the 90s, I wonder?
During the years of sex positivity that I seemed naturally inclined toward.
While I became untethered by the amount of adventure I pursued.
On filthy stages where I danced barefoot, breaking my teeth on microphones.
When I pranced around Malibu in mini skirts without underwear, experimenting with drugs without knowing what drugs I was experimenting with.
With people I thought I loved, who never even liked me.
After all that, why did I allow June Cleaver to become a consistent influence in my daily interactions?
A few years ago, I had an experience that got me thinking it was time to shut June down. It all started with a liquor cart:
When I saw the heavily laden liquor cart rolling into my first happy hour performance at the Elk Run Assisted Living my jaw dropped.
I was setting up my PA in their sunny little recreation room when the staff arrived rolling in what could only be described as a hospital food service cart, rattling loudly with bottles of booze. The room had windows on both the east and west, a kitchenette, a pool table, and a fireplace, all decorated with the theme of…beige. Nothing to hint at the amount and quality of liquor on the cart they rolled in at 5 PM.
The cart itself was beige of course - an ugly plastic thing on wheels. But it had two wide shelves simply stuffed with bottles. They offered me a drink right off, and I can assure you this is the only gig that ever offered me top-shelf liquor before I opened my mouth to sing. Venues, in fact, never offer the performers top-shelf liquor. Most of the time they never even paid me, expecting top shelf entertainment for food and drink (bottom shelf, obviously).
Contemplating my drink choices, I surveyed the contents of the cart.
“Oh, goodness! Maker’s Mark. That’s bourbon, isn’t it? Ladies don’t drink bourbon,” June Cleaver said.
I hesitated to ask for the Maker’s. June reminded me to consider the expense of the liquor and the likely budget constraints of the facility since of course, it is my responsibility to decide whether they can afford to offer me such expensive liquor. Then my eyes flitted around the periphery of the dripping red wax on the Maker’s Mark bottle. There were two other choices that I saw in a millisecond: Basil Hayden and Bookers – top of the top shelf bourbon. The kind of booze aging movie stars would order at Trader Vic’s in LA when I was lurking around there in the 90s. I went ahead and ordered Makers with an ice cube.
“Oh goodness,” June said.
“Make it a double please,” I said.
I think June was the voice of ‘cultural brainwashing’, as I like to call it. In the 1950s, after World War II, didn’t the idealization of what an American family and home should look like really set in? What with TV and all. It left a mark on following generations that might take second place only to the Puritans. This is a real pity because June freaking Cleaver as the voice of a generation whitewashes tons of important history with a smothering coat. She doesn’t deserve a place on my shoulder. June never mentions racism, classism, Jim Crow, fear of nuclear bombardment, and many other problems from the 1950s. June Cleaver is a pretty liar.
She had not been consulted about my Elk Run setlist. But she did enjoy the first song. “Love Me Tender”. I followed that with “Across the Universe” arriving at “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” while people were getting their drinks, chitchatting, and settling in. The adorable oldsters moved furniture around along with help from the staff, so they could be closer to me, and sit in groups that they preferred. One couple was holding hands. Both June and I were charmed.
By the time I got to “Dead Flowers” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, I was enjoying the warmth from my whiskey, and several in the audience were similarly disposed! I heard my first hoots and whoops when I flipped my hair, digging into “There goes my baby….she knows how to rock and roll…she drives me crazy…..” base-line-hair-flip, “ She gives me hot and cold fever…she leaves me in a cold, cold sweat.”
The crowd whooped it up! They raised their voices ordering drinks, danced awkwardly in the rectangle of their walkers, and one gal struggled to keep her skirt straight after some shimmies. June Cleaver tutted in disapproval. By the end of the song June had me convinced that I was causing a ruckus and ought not be encouraging this kind of untoward behavior from people the same age as my parents.
“Be respectful, dear,” she started, but luckily her voice was erased by the arrival of a new cart covered in Ritz crackers, cornichon, and cheese. June decided we all just needed some snacks.
I brought the mood down a few notches with “Heart of Gold” and “Hotel California” before taking a break. The crowd was maybe thirty in size, plus staff, and the mood had become elevated to include playful cat calls, jests between residents and staff, and congenial hollered comments on my performance mid-song.
“Shake it up, honey!” for example. “Right on!”
During the break, I was positively mobbed with enthusiastic retirees, telling me stories about when they saw the Eagles live or when they got backstage with the Stones. One woman even bragged about smoking a joint with Bob Dylan! Or maybe it was in the vicinity of. Either way, I toasted her. June Cleaver was simmering with disapproval which had anxiety bubbling up under my skin.
By now, an adult student of mine had shown up with her guitar to sit in and was having a drink - or three. Leslie. She had a curtain of wavy brown hair curled around her spaghetti straps, fawn-like brown eyes, and the quintessential 50s housewife figure, but in jeans and a tank top.
“That woman got herself fixed up prettier than the cheese plate,” June said. It didn’t sound like a compliment.
I was tempted to shake my finger right back in June’s face, “Don’t objectify her, geeze,” but kept my mouth shut both because it would have looked like I was talking to myself and I’d been taught to respect my elders.
During the break, one of the few male residents dropped his pool cue with a loud THWACK! and then nearly fell over picking it up, much to the delight of himself and his cackling friends. The staff were not amused and began to ask them to quiet down. I remembered the many “Falls are preventable!” and “Call, don’t fall!” signs posted in the entryway and elevators. June commented that I would not be invited back if some old gentleman broke his hip trying to impersonate Elvis. I stifled a giggle.
The mood was building toward third-drink boisterous. There was one woman in particular who seemed to require extra management of her merriment by the staff. She was drinking red wine with frequent demands about refills. She joined a gaggle of residents gathered around Leslie asking questions about her colorful inlaid guitar.
There was another prime troublemaker – Alistair. He and Rose the red wine drinker were the gang leaders. Rose liked to sing along at the top of her voice and Alistair was reveling in his role of spokesperson for the rabble-rousers of the Elk Run.
“We like it loud, you know!” he said.
“What?!!!” Rose hollered, “What, now?” gesturing toward her ear.
or
“Next time you should bring an electric guitar lady,”
or
“Y’all stop singing along if you don’t know the words!”
I noticed Leslie flirting right back with some of the politely frisky golden agers standing in a semi-circle around her. And I judged her. Or June did. At this point, who could know? Leslie was clearly tipsy, and some invisible line of propriety had been crossed, causing me to dive into a paranoia of worry about my reputation and professionalism as a volunteer performer at the Elk Run Assisted Living. Plus, Leslie and Rose had become fast friends, comrades in extra loud laughter and refills.
100% of the time, I have some hook or song phrase repeating in my head, usually related to something going on around me. It sticks until something triggers a new song. As I write this, it’s “My Funny Valentine” written by Rogers and Hart for a pre-1940 musical. The lyrics I keep hearing in a loop are:
“Is your figure less than Greek?
Is your mouth a little weak?
When you open it to speak,
Are you smart?”
Madonna quoted it in her song “What it Feels Like for a Girl”:
“When you open your mouth to speak,
Could you be a little weak,”
Which apparently, Madonna could not. Which Leslie could not. She was right there with the it-crowd of the Elk Run, joshing them, egging them on. Refilling Rose’s wine glass like it was water.
Thinking back on this (in my slight divergence from the mounting tension with our liquor cart happy hour) Madonna was also a strong influence on me. Pushing her love to the borderline. Then there were more deep influences - Bikini Kill, Courtney Love, Kim Gordon, and Aimee Mann - all of whom whisper in my ear regularly. If not with direct advice, at the very least with song lyrics. Why did June Cleaver win out?
Fortunately, the rrrriot girls did manage to interrupt Mrs. Cleaver at Happy Hour - probably egged on by the Maker’s Mark. A chorus began to bawl for my attention, starting with Kim’s dry whisper.
“Camille, these are all grown-ass people, what the hell is wrong with you? Pipe down and do your job.”
Then with Courtney’s drowsy LA accent: “These gray hairs have damn well earned their liquor cart.”
After the break, Leslie played “Tennessee Whiskey”, with me singing backup for her. Her voice was burnt sugar – very rough and sexy. They loved her. There was a row of blue-haired ladies in front who were fast becoming super-fans. Leslie then played “Shallow” from A Star is Born, and everyone knew the song! When she was finished and putting her guitar away, I was tuning up to play four or five more songs. The front row blue hairs, along with Rose, were like “Hey Leslie, are you all done for the day? Let’s go out and grab a smoke!”
June Cleaver kicked me with her little blue pumps and gasped in disgust. Fortunately, my student couldn’t see or hear her, so she went on outside to smoke cigarettes with Rose and her other new friends.
I went through Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, then “Southern Cross”, and “Sea of Love” without the front-row women. But the crowd was still happily spurring me on, clinking their glasses, singing, hooting, and hollering. The staff had given in at this point. The party was going on, with or without them.
Then I started in on “Folsom Prison Blues” which brought Leslie and the Blue Hairs (they should start a band!) wafting back in from the patio in a cloud of smoke. Happy Hour at the Elk Run now smelled like midnight in the green room at the Troubadour on the Sunset Strip. I began to feel quite at home.
There was a man playing drums with his palms on the pool table, and everybody else was clapping along to the beat. Rose could whistle like a football referee. Finally, I was caught up in the jubilance too - singing as intensely as I would in any midnight bar.
I had planned on “Folsom Prison Blues” being my last song, but they weren’t having it! Privately, I lamented the exhaustion of my list of oldies when it dawned on me that, although I had never performed it, “Three Little Birds” only had three little chords, and I had taught it to many ukulele students. I was sure I could pull it off.
“Three Little Birds” was the best on-the-fly gig decision I’ve ever made. Almost everyone in the room knew all the words. Some of them were holding hands, swaying back and forth, and harmonies were being sung! My student got her guitar back out because they wouldn’t let us stop playing - we had to play it again. This audience of brazen boomers was one of the best crowds I’ve ever had. I nearly cried from joy. I’ve been back many times since and it’s always the same, although Rose and several others have passed on to rock and roll heaven.
Happy Hour was over. I loaded my guitars, ukulele, and PA system into a wagon they provided while the Elk Runners wandered out to go to dinner. Just like that – the party was over. One of the staff members picked up Rose’s empty wine bottle and said to her co-worker, “We’ve got to order Rose more of this non-alcoholic wine,”.
I guess some people just carry the party within.
As I loaded my gear, still bathed in the smell of nicotine and whiskey, I had memories of making out with fan boys or fan girls in LA’s dark alleys after a show. Laughing with the hobos when they cheered our passion on. No shame. So, why was I lending my ear to Mrs. Cleaver? All those Elk Run retirees had outlived her by decades and were certainly older and wiser than I.
After birthing my twins in 2006, I had peeled away my rocker chick persona, in the name of money and health insurance, and then somehow arrived at a zenith of self-shaming during the Elk Run Assisted Living happy hour. Peak prudery! Which was jolted by a crowd of partying elders. Were they just done with the whole idea of what's 'proper'? Too experienced to bother? It was a very appealing thought.
That night, at 7 pm during maybe the easiest and earliest load-out of my life, I made up my mind to grow older and wilder while I grew older and wiser.
“June,” I said, “Wanna go get a tattoo?”
-------
“June?”
I drove home with Florence and the Machine’s “Shake it Out” blasting.
And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat
'Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me (oh whoa)
Looking for heaven, for the devil in me (oh whoa)
But what the hell, I'm gonna let it happen to me, yeah
Shake it out, shake it out
Shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out
Shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa
And I never heard from June again.
Just kidding. She is still riding around on my shoulder, and I suspect she is riding, in some form, on yours. If you know how to properly remove similar demons whose advice is either outdated or purely untrue, please let me know.
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