Powered on Dreams

Stuck in a Dress, Green Glasses Powered on Dreams

When my sister and I hit our early teens, we formed an underground band. You probably haven't heard of us because we were that cool. Or that obscure, but you get it. We dubbed ourselves Licorice Snap, an electronica-infused, spoken word phenomenon that was bound to blow the minds of our then emo, pre-hipster audiences.

Every spare afternoon, we headed into the recording studio to lay down some sweet tracks. It was the start of a new millennium, hot on the heels of Ricky Martin and MTV Total Request Live. YouTube and widespread recreational music programs were a mere sparkle in the eyes of their future creators.

At the time, Licorice Snap had a new sound. Eva cranked out sweet electronica beats and I rocked the spoken word. We even had a handheld dictionary called Franklin (which, incidentally, you could play hangman on too) that would talk in a Stephen Hawking-like voice. We programmed (fine, manually typed in; this was before smart phones!) our background vocalist to say "Lambs Love School" for our house remix of Mary Had a Little Lamb.

Our songs were about loving yourself like the fabulous queen you were or aspired to be. Miss America (I Wanna Be) should have been a number 1 hit. We should have been on the cover of "Rolling Stone" playfully giving everyone the finger or using said finger to rage on a keytar. 

Alas, our unabashed ode to peace, love, and fierceness was too ahead of its time.

No one heard our music because we didn't know where to play it or who would listen to it. How would we even lug our sweet sound machine, a desktop computer in our parents' house, to a gig? Our studio was our parents' house. Pretty soon, we unceremoniously lost the music-making program when the computer went out of commission. The dream seemed to die. I clutched our EP, emblazoned with Eva's color pencil cover art, to my chest like my Christina Aguilera drag queen cookie held her sugar dough baby.


 With the looming Amendment One vote to ban gay marriage and benefits for unmarried or domestic partners in North Carolina, up for vote on May 8, we can't afford to keep our fabulous soundtrack of hope locked in the archives.

Licorice Snap's opus, Powered on Dreams, says that anything and everything is possible. The imagery of a flying car that puffs purple exhaust describes a utopia that will overcome bigotry, homophobia, and racism if we just believe in ourselves. And yes the song is kitschy, because it's our right to be tongue-in-cheek with a message. Politician Harvey Milk understood that balance of theatrics and politics. When he was running as the first openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in the late 1970s, he said, "You gotta give 'em hope."

If Powered on Dreams inspires you to go out and be fabulous, or more fabulous than you already are, then Licorice Snap's ten-year hiatus was well worth the wait.

Licorice Snap Track of the Week: Powered on Dreams

My Tote Bag, Myself

Actual Photo of Wonder Woman and me
at the 25 Most Stylish - Charlotte Style Magazine

The golden lassoed lady always has my back. When I’m on the bus, she holds my memoirs, worn notebook, and gel pens in her turquoise, star-dotted lap. I can give her a business card or research print-out and she’ll gladly file them for later in her red shellacked boot. We don’t take an Invisible Plane to work, at least not everyday. We'll take the city bus in, where we (OK, she watches me) annoy Jeff with questions about what fortune cookies mean for my life. When my coffee clutch of bus friends ask if that’s really her, I say yes, it’s really Wonder Woman. 

On my book bag.

Let Lynda Carter brighten your day like she does on my canvas tote. Watch as her boomerang tiara pierces that evil doer's flotation device. You're welcome.

 

Happy Beginning of the Work Week!

Easter "Candy"

Sigh...Photo by Ginnerobot

Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Christmas form a holy trinity of holidays where I gorge myself on candy. Whether it’s Dove chocolates that predict my future (as seen in my Valentine’s Day with Christina Aguilera) or the jaunty candy cane filled with Hershey kisses (time better-off undocumented), I am guaranteed to be sugared out and ready to party before 10am.

But since age 11, Easter has been a cautionary tale. That’s when I became the Drew Barrymore of Cadbury Creme Eggs. The cream, with its orange-food-dye-as-yolk center, flowed from the cracked chocolate shell down my throat faster than booger sugar up a supermodel’s nose.

Even my mom, a lifelong purveyor of the Hershey’s assortment packs, was worried. She tried to cut me back to one a day, but the only thing that stopped my rampage was an unflattering picture. Under a canopy of trees, I stood in an enormous polo shirt, clutching my Jack Russell Terrier against my giant pink-swathed belly. He looked like my afternoon snack. After that, I went cold turkey. By next year, I had the wherewithal to pop just one a day.

While I’ll eat two cream eggs for the Easter Bunny’s birthday, I always remember the slippery slope of having one before bed for the entire month.

Q: What's your Easter chocolate vice?