A Sesame Street Birthday Party, the Monster Mash, getting stuck at the UK border, and Albert Hammond Jr.
It’s been several weeks since Deap Vally had our very last show (insert tears here) at the Thekla in Bristol, which was nothing short of a heaping serving of bliss. I still have visible battle wounds from the tour, almost a month later. The big scab on my shin, which my four year old daughter was fascinated by and described as feeling like bacon, only just fell off a few days ago. The bruises have faded, but there’s still a big red spot there to remind me of the negligent security guard in London who couldn’t be bothered to catch me at the end of my crowd surf, as I was hoisted over the big silver barricade. I have so much to catch you all up on, I don’t even know where to begin. My kids and my mom hopped on the last week of our farewell tour, the UK portion, and once they were with us there was no extra time or energy to keep the tour diary updated. Then I came home and was under the weather, and had to recover for a music job I had coming up, and then family obligations came up, life happens, trying to get back in the swing of things, etc. But here we finally are. So I’ll likely be sharing the juiciest bits with you as I remember them, probably over the next few posts, in no particular order. I at least want to start chipping away at it, getting you caught up on the final week of tour, before the memories fade into a blurry haze. Before the task is too daunting and it feels like moving a mountain. And catch you up on where I’m at now.
Let’s start with now. I’m back in the loving chaos of my home, which is littered with colorful toys and half deflated balloons. Everywhere you look is a tripping hazard that might start singing the ABCs if you stumble on it. If you have kids you know exactly what I’m talking about. The ceiling is covered in those gooey, sticky, stretchy hands that are weirdly satisfying to play with, even as an adult. I finally got the house looking pinterest-worthy, just in time for me and my one-year-old’s double birthday party over the weekend, just for it to explode into chaos all over again. But that’s just life I suppose, isn’t it? Rinse and repeat. Shiloh’s first birthday was actually May 12, but it was too close to when I was about to leave for our three-week-long tour. I didn’t have the bandwidth to throw him a proper party at that time, so I had decided I would throw it when we got back from tour, which happened to be close to my birthday, so a double birthday party seemed like the logical thing to do. Because how many birthday parties can you actually expect your family and friends to attend in one year, let’s be real. And it turns out June is a competitive month for a birthday.
But we had a good hang, a Sesame Street-themed-birthday party, which turned out to be an intimate mix of family, friends and neighbors. I went all out with Elmo and Big Bird party decorations, and John handled the grilling. He made the BBQ sauces himself the night before, and then woke up at 6am the day of the party to start smoking the ribs. The ribs were a hit and we all ate too much. I bought the smallest kiddie pool known to man for our deck, which my kids were still very excited about, especially because it looks like a watermelon.
As the sun was making its descent and the sky was darkening, my daughter, and her new friend, Willie, were screaming so loudly from our living room, that Willie’s mom, Elayna and I, couldn’t tell if what we were hearing were tears or glee. I popped my head into the living room to learn that the squeals were in fact joyful sounds. The girls were shrieking in ecstasy, hurling gooey stretchy hands through the air with all their might, all the way up to our very high ceilings. They were so thrilled at this discovery that they feverishly dug for every gooey hand from the leftover Sesame Street goody bags, and I sure wasn’t going to stop that much fun from happening. So I went back onto the deck and kept sipping and chatting. Then as it was officially dark, and the girls were drunk with laughter, a two-girl dance party started, to spooky music only. My daughter was fixated on some very abstract zombie dance moves that she kept repeating over and over, and I couldn’t pull my eyes away from long enough to film it. And that’s when the tipsy adults, huddled around the fire pit, started unanimously gushing over the genius of the Monster Mash, getting more and more worked up in our appreciation for it, until the moment finally hit its climax when someone declared that the Monster Mash was one of the greatest songs ever written.
Now let’s rewind back to the tour. I arrived in London, and Julie was at customs at Heathrow. She tour-managed this last tour, and so she was there to handle the logistics of my mother and children’s arrival into the UK, which turned out to be a bit hairier than we had hoped. Julie was first to speak with my mom on the phone, and shortly after I spoke to Julie on the phone and she said: “Your mom sounds like she’s been through hell.” Oh boy, I thought. What was I thinking having my mom, a seventy-year-old woman, make a Transatlantic flight with a one-year-old and a four-year-old. But it turns out, the flight went pretty smooth, actually, which is what I had been hoping for. Georgia was euphoric with the unlimited screen-time, which never really happens, and Shiloh was entertained by all the passengers, and then finally fell asleep, comfy on Grandma’s lap. They all ate, and got some rest, and made it safely onto English soil. But my mom had a super raspy voice, leftover from a nasty cold she was getting over, so Julie had thought she had lost her voice from a hellish flight. My children also arrived rich with boogers and snot, and we all started coming down with something shortly after that. But what I’m referring to, the “hairy” part of customs, well: we fucked up (John and I) and didn’t provide enough official documentation to put the border agent at ease. My mom had their passports, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more proof that these children had the permission of both parents to be leaving the US and entering the UK. I mean, fair enough, honestly. But my sweet, red-haired mom does seem like an unlikely candidate for trafficking small children into another country. But, we should have had a letter from both John and I granting permission for the kids to come to the UK. We had talked about writing this letter before, but with all the shuffling, it slipped through the cracks. And then, since my children have a different last name than me, which is really common in L.A., but apparently not in the UK) the border agent was suspicious. Julie was with my mom and children and the border agent, and she called me and handed the phone to the man. He asked me about my kids, and I explained the situation, but he wanted the children’s birth certificate and John’s passport photo, something to provide more evidence. I was calling John non-stop, but it was the middle of the night in Los Angeles and John wasn’t picking up the phone. The border guy said he wanted to question the child, so he came down to Georgia’s level and asked her what she was doing in the UK, and she was completely intimidated. She became hysterical with tears and ran away from him. Poor thing. I was frantically looking through my phone, trying to find documentation to put the border agent at ease. I sent my passport photo, and then pictures of Georgia’s social security card, and then forwarded along a family photo with John, me, the kids, and my mom in it. This was the thing that finally convinced him to let them through. Crisis averted.
So I waited at the silver railing for them to come through the door at Heathrow, and our friend Terry was there, filming the whole thing, as she was documenting the UK portion of our tour. She decided to be bold and move out past the silver railing, and squat down with her camera right in front of the door, so that she’d be able to catch them coming through. No guards seemed to mind that she crouched there for twenty minutes, as she waited for my family. The only person who seemed confused and thrown off by the whole thing was Albert Hammond Jr. from the Strokes, who must have been on the same flight as my mom. He came out the door holding his wife’s hand, and I immediately recognized him because I’m a big Strokes fan. He had a suspicious look on his face as he stared at Terry filming his entrance. Then, as he walked past her and she stood still, he turned around and was staring at her, making a comment to his wife. I could tell he was wondering whether she was paparazzi or not, but then she hadn’t turned around to film him as he passed her, so he was confused. I was amused by the whole situation.
My mom and children emerged through the door. Georgia had a huge grin on her face, Shiloh looked like a baby, taking it all in, and my mom looked exhausted. I ran and gave them giant hugs and kisses, and my children and I were elated to be reunited. If I had to sum up the next week in one word, it would be: schlepping.
More on that in the next post, coming shortly.
photo by Emma Petitt Aylett
The docs were my fault
Incredible family photo!