Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #354

Guest Post by Alice Johnson Boher + "I'm a Tangerine" by Tommy James & The Shondells - 01/14/22

Jan 15, 2022

Today we have a guest post from one of my favorite people in the world!

Alice Johnson Boher and I met at USC film school here in LA and have been friends for 12 years now.

She was the subject of this post and this post and also this post and perhaps came up in a few more.

As a screenwriter, she co-adapted Gloria, the 2018 Julianne Moore movie. And she has written and performed a number of one-woman shows, all of which were the best one-person shows I have ever seen ;)

She and her husband, Sebastian Boher, run Miwak Junior, a ceramics boutique that I’ve mentioned in this post and this post.

Check out their Instagram for some of Alice’s idiosyncratic marketing delights.

I’m super excited to share her voice here!

Okay, take it away, Alice!!!

Christy Essien, Nigeria’s “First Lady of Song”

From her 1979 album One understanding

“Take Life Easy”

You gotta take life easy ea ea ea ea
Take life slowly slowly
I say take life slowly slowly
I say take life easy easy
Easy take it easy ea ea ea ea easy
Take life slowly slowly
I say take life slo o o o ow
Take life easy easy
It's Easy taking easy
Take life easy easy
Easy take it easy
I say take life slowly slowly
Take life easy easy
I say take life slowly slowly
You gotta take life easy easy
I say take life slowly slowly
You gotta take life easy ea ea ea ea
Take life slowly slowly
Easy taking easy
Take it slowly slowly
I say take it easy easy
Easy taking easy
Easy take it easy
Say take life slowly easy
Say take life slowly
Easy take it easy
I say take life slowly slowly
You gotta take life easy

I just moved from Los Angeles to St Augustine a few months ago, I moved to a house across the street from a cemetery. I moved here to take it easy, that’s step one, that’s the foundation before anything, and then once I’m nice and easy, the location will work a particular magic on me that will turn me into a serious artist of some kind in the tradition of the Southern Gothic.

The house next door was empty until today. These past few months I’ve been wondering and wondering who our neighbor will be. Whomever they are, they want a cemetery for a front yard, too. I bet we’re like-minded, I bet we’ll be laughing round the firepit every night and braving the wind and rains to rescue each other every hurricane.

But today the new neighbor arrived, she walked right up and rang the doorbell. I was slowly making my way over to the door when she rang the doorbell again. I saw her through the window, one hand making a visor over her eyes, the other on her hip. Long blonde hair flopping over a big clip, black longsleeve t-shirt with a tattoo heart design a là Ed Hardy. She pulled her shirt down over her hand to make a Covid-safe glove, and reached out

Rhonda –

I awkwardly shook her wrist with my bare hand.

Her pug was scratching its back on the grass.

You don’t mind if Stitch comes in, do ya?

I stepped out of the house and closed the door behind me.

She asked me what we do. I said ceramics.

She pumped her fist.

Yesssss, that’s what I want to do, I want to get into all kinds of artsy fartsy hippie dippie stuff...

She nodded at an old oak on the side of the house.

You know what? I’d just mow that right down. Get a pre-fab shed, they make big ones now.

I clutched my pearls. Some hippie.

She has one of those eye blinking-tics where people blink both eyes hard at the same time. She told me that there is this reality show of haunted air bnb's, a reality show following people staying at haunted places, and she's going to put her house on the show and it will be booked solid forever.

STITCH! She yells.

Stitch is shitting in the cemetery.

I go inside.

I didn’t get to take it easy or slow here even a little bit, and now with Rhonda chopping down trees and opening a reality ghost motel next door, I probably never will.

I’ll go easier and slower tomorrow, I’ll reserve judgment and let the reality of Rhonda be.

Yes, Alice!

I already feel like you are becoming, or have always been, a serious artist in some kind of tradition of the Southern Gothic!!!

Pretty soon you’ll be palling around with Floridians Padgett Powell and Karen Russell and the ghosts of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner in your cemetery circles ;)

I couldn’t help when I read your post but think of The Beach Boys song:

Help Me, Rhonda

Something about the way you said, “I bet we’re like-minded, I bet we’ll be laughing round the firepit every night and braving the wind and rains to rescue each other every hurricane.”

And then of course the twist of how potentially un-like-minded you seem to be with your new neighbor, Rhonda.

Made me imagine you, during a hurricane, crying/singing out:

Help me Rhonda
Help, help me Rhonda
Help me Rhonda
Help, help me Rhonda

While she’s cruelly not helping you or even worse siccing Stitch on you.

But, as you said, we should ‘go easier’ and ‘reserve judgment and let the reality of Rhonda be’.

Or at least tomorrow we will ;)

For my part today, I got the shuffled-to-song:

"I'm a Tangerine" by Tommy James & The Shondells

Which is psychedelic rock from 1968 from the album that had the classic song:

“Crimson & Clover” by Tommy James & The Shondells

Which feels like a synchronicity because I read about “I’m a Tangerine” on songfacts.com that Tommy James said about it:

“To be perfectly honest, we were all stoned when we wrote that. I shouldn't admit that, but we did have our moments back then. Our world was wiggling pretty good. So it was just one of those kind of nonsensical songs, and I wish I could be more profound than that. So much of the writing that you do when you're on a roll like that is stuff you don't even really think about. It just sort of comes out of your mouth, and that was one of those songs. We just had this little chord progression, I don't know if we were looking at a fruit bowl or what we were looking at. It was just one of those songs that just kind of falls out of your face. I don't know how else to say it. A lot of our songs are like that.”

Alice (and her husband)’s ceramics company, Miwak Junior, if you haven’t figured it out yet, sells ceramic pipes, many of which are used for cannabis.

“Sought out for their superb smokeability, minimalist form, and wabi-sabi finishes, Miwak Junior pipes are precious objects that celebrate ritual, inspire contemplation, and spark conversation.”

I don’t consume cannabis anymore.

But my now-ex-wife would always tell me that I didn’t need it because she had never seen anyone enjoy music sober as much as me.

I enjoyed it as much as someone on cannabis, probably more, she would say.

Hello banana, I am a tangerine
Is it a dream? Oh, no! I don't think so, but
My head is spinning, I am a carousel
Don't-cha hear the bells ringin' in my ear?
And I haven't any troubles
Cause the friendly, friendly bubbles wash them away

I am so mellow, I am a jello man
Yes I am and nothing touches me
Oh, no, I think it's over
For the fire's gettin' lower, I'm fallin' down

Hello banana, I am a tangerine.
Hello banana, I am a tangerine.
Hello banana, I am a tangerine.