The 200th Post: Happy B'day, Ezra

Guest appearances by Norah Jones, Sandra Boynton and others

Ezra on the hottest day of the year last month at the Sagamore Hotel at Bolton Landing on Lake George, NY

Greetings, fellow travelers. This is the 200th Critical Conditions post, so I thought we should take some inventory. And Saturday was the first birthday of my grandson Ezra.

When I started this endeavor around June 1, 2021, I only had a handful of subscribers. I asked friend Paul Weinstein, who has an annual "music letter" that he sends out via email the end of each year, to inform his list of the existence and his approval of "Critical Conditions by Wayne Robins" (at the beginning, I wanted to make sure my name was in the title for search-and-find purposes). For nearly 60 years I have refused to name any column "Rockin' Robins," and I was not about to start now. Nor “Wayne’s World,” duh! Anyway, Paul's email brought in a bunch of subscribers. At first I enlisted some Facebook followers; then used what was then Twitter for a handful more. I always found self-promotion distasteful (those who have worked with me may disagree), but I had to get over that reticence fast if I wanted to grow. And, in the words of Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, it “Jes’ Grew.”

Now we are well over 1,800 and growing at the rate of between 50 and 75 new subscribers a month. I write an average of 1,500 words about once a week, maybe five times a month. That is 300,000 words, easily enough for two or three books. I have written three books and in total they do not amount to 300,000 words. The first was my quickie bio of Boy George and Culture Club in 1984. (Click on the red link for the Substack story.)

The second, "VH-1's Behind the Music: 1968" (2000), was a work-made-for-hire (flat-fee, no royalties) that was meant to represent corporate synergy at the parent company, Viacom, which owned MTV and VH-1, CBS, and Simon & Schuster. Synergy: a buzzier buzzword never existed, until it didn't.

I'd rather not talk about the third book, A Brief History of Rock...Off the Record (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2008), because it had a bedeviled birth; important chapters fell out of the final manuscript, and the publisher, being an academic house in the U.K., sent it to academic critics in the British Isles instead of anyone in the U.S. who might have leaned-in friendly. One fellow spent reams of paragraphs chastising it for my overbroad definition of rock and rock ‘n’ roll [for the purposes of my book] being the same thing...I am not one to split hairs over this, as opposed to rock 'n' roll and rock being entirely different entities. Reviewer Martin Cloonan, who noted that I had been a writer for Cream (wrong, it was Creem) parsed: "Thus, over 20 years since Simon Frith (1988) declared he was 'quite sure that the rock era is over,' we get a book whose title suggests a continuing story."

Who you gonna believe, Frith, the respected guru of British academic theorists who also could do readable rock journalism, or the still to come Nirvana? Others bemoaned my absence of theory, a low blow, perhaps, because I don't do, and have never done, theory very well. The only theory of pop music to which I subscribe is The Low End Theory of A Tribe Called Quest in 1991. Nevertheless, the one favorable review (except for the flattering one in U.S. book trade publisher Kirkus Reviews) from an academic journal found my theory exciting. I was delighted, and sent an email to the review author: "BTW, what is my theory?" Don't buy this book: It is overpriced, and you get more bang for your buck with a paid subscription to Critical Conditions.

But it was revealing to be on the receiving end of harsh and condescending reviews after a career initially fueled by snark. I was not one of those critics who delighted in being hated. I was thin-skinned and my brain would go to its own spin-repeat cycle of anger and self-loathing when I perceived criticism, which was another symptom of alcoholism.

Stopping drinking a little more than 14 years ago is above all other benefits, the only reason I have a near daily relationship with my grandson, that I am trusted with him at all times. What we do mostly is read: My wife, a poet, author, educator, curriculum developer, and retired NYC middle school administrator, believes in reading to children as they are born, or as shortly thereafter as possible. Ezra took to books immediately: Dante in the original colloquial Italian, Virgil in Latin...No, I'm kidding. But that's a little like the plot twist that Sandra Boynton places in her immortal Moo Bah La La La

Moo, Baa, etc., © Sandra Boynton

The book begins: "A cow says moo." (Next page) "A sheep says baa." (Next page) "Three singing pigs say La La La!"

Hold on, now. Is that true? Next pages: " 'No, no!' you say. 'That isn't right. The pigs say Oink all day and night." With Boynton's adorable yet slightly perplexed-looking animal drawings, Ezra is immediately made aware of the concept of humor as an aesthetic choice. At age one, he is extremely verbal, mostly of words that he has not been able to translate into English. So I imitate him, because I have always been able to "speak baby" they way I also speak Cat. (I'm also learning Dog, as signified by Napa, my daughter Jackie's Black Labrador, the mild-mannered but effective guardian of our tribe. Jackie’s expecting in October.)

But "La La La" is among the first syllables he has put together when we pause at that page. His first reaction after his first few dozen readings was to put his tongue through his lips and blow raspberries, which I followed. Now we're both maturing, and we spare the pigs the raspberries unless we are really in the mood.

It is assumed I have responsibility for his developing musical taste. He is still fixated on the celebrity version of the Sesame Street classic "Monster in the Mirror," Grover's showpiece. Written by Christopher Cerf and Norman Stiles, Ezra was first transfixed by Ray Charles spotlight verse singing "Wubba-wubba-wubba-woo-woo-woo." Liking Ray Charles at an early age is very promising, as my late friend Elliot Nipomnick and I did with his older brother's records when we were in junior high, especially Genius + Soul = Jazz, in 1961. Following his humor interests, though, Ezra now waits for the final scene of of "Monster in the Mirror," in which Bart Simpson ad libs "Wubba wubba, man!" and Homer utters a disapproving "Bart!" as the song ends.

Sesame Street classics are available on You Tube, on Max, and on PBS Kids. He has one favorite performance by Norah Jones, who I think counts as his first crush. These days, in real time, the "Letter of the Day," has a hyped up rhythm as we all chant together: "What's the letter? What's the letter?"

In a previous incarnation, the letter of the day happened to be "Y." The guest, Norah Jones, stars in a little skit as she sings and plays her hit, "Don't Know Why." Get it, don't know "Y"? “Y” did not show up for his job as letter of the day, and Jones is forlorn. Ezra is spellbound  by Norah Jones. His eyes nearly pop from his head: He stares and listens with total focus to her adaptation of of "Don't Know Y," sitting next to the empathetic Elmo, his favorite Sesame Street character. If he got close enough to the screen, he would kiss it. And if he was fortunate enough to go on a date with Norah Jones, he might do his eating-the-pickle trick, which has charmed waitresses at restaurants so much they sometimes hand him the check, their phone numbers no doubt attached, as it happened in the photo at the top of the page.