 I’m telling you this for your own good: Don’t ever hand me a microphone and encourage me to burst into song. “If your singing was a meal,” someone once told a would-be crooner, “it would be a burnt, undercooked TV dinner.” That about sums up my skill level in this arena. Think I’m exaggerating? Many years ago in Kobe, Japan, I went to a small karaoke bar with Rich and his Navy buddy Phil. After everyone else had contributed a song, each better than the last, eventually the microphone came around to us. As a nod to our Western roots, somebody dug out the lyrics to “Danny Boy.” A tune began playing that sounded nothing like any version of “Danny Boy” I’ve ever heard. Gamely, the three of us attempted to sing along, but it was pretty grim. When the music (I almost typed “torture”) stopped, I looked around and realized there was nobody left in the room but us and the staff. We had cleared the bar.  Truer words... So you may be wondering why, last Thursday, I suggested to Rich that we attend karaoke night at our local dive bar. He blanched a little. “Promise me we don’t have to get up sing.” “That’s a given,” I said. “We can listen to others, drink beer, and make snarky remarks among ourselves. As totally unmusical people, we can make this a great Nutters’ foray into one of California’s subcultures.” Professional that I am, I did my in-depth research — which is to say I skimmed the karaoke page on Wikipedia. It explained that in the 1960s, advances in recording technology made it easy to provide background music and a microphone for public sing-alongs. Japan led the way, creating the name from kara 空 "empty" and ōkesutora オーケストラ "orchestra.” Hmmm, not a very exciting a backstory.  What's new in karaoke technology? The Silent Karaoke gadget lets you practice at home without annoying the neighbors. Maybe AI had more to offer. What songs, I asked Bard and ChatGPT, might I expect to hear? Encouragingly, they listed many familiar tunes: "Dancing Queen," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Sweet Caroline," "I Wanna Dance with Somebody," and other classic wedding DJ stuff. OK, great, familiar ground. I noticed "Danny Boy" wasn’t mentioned; they probably retired that one after the hatchet job we did on it in Kobe. Bard also produced some personal advice: “Of course, there are many other great karaoke songs out there. The best song to sing at karaoke is the one that you enjoy the most and that you think you'll have the most fun singing. So don't be afraid to try something different and step outside of your comfort zone. You might just surprise yourself with how well you do.” Yeah, right. Or how badly. Bard, you have no idea what you’re messing with here! The singing was supposed to start at 10:00 pm, so Rich and I arrived at 9:30 to find a handful of middle-aged and older patrons who had clearly been holding up the bar since early afternoon. They knew what was coming, pulled themselves upright, and staggered out into the night.  This photo was taken on another occasion at that same bar. I can't be sure, but these look like the same folks who were there when we arrived Thursday night. Then the younger crowd began trickling in. A smartly dressed young man in a snappy white fedora, who went by the moniker Mad Hatter, began setting up sound equipment. More young people arrived, many of whom greeted the Mad Hatter as an old friend. And when I say “old,” of course I mean “of long-standing,” not “advanced in years.” By now I’d realized I was at least four decades older than most of the new arrivals. One kid named Stella was there celebrating her twenty-first birthday with her first legal drink. To give them credit, the youngsters were unfailingly polite to me and didn’t treat me as a downer sucking all the cool out of the evening (as I’d once felt during a gruesome InterNations meetup in Stockholm). Mostly the twenty-something twenty-somethings in the room were far too busy sipping cocktails and flirting with one another to pay attention to me. Or, somewhat more surprisingly, to the singers. In the movies, whenever someone picks up a microphone, everyone’s attention is riveted; the crowd listens raptly, perhaps chiming in on the chorus, perfectly on key and in harmony. Here the singers were pretty much ignored, and it didn’t take me long to figure out why. A few — most notably Andre, the bar’s bouncer — were brilliant, but most, to put it kindly, were less so. Egged on by their new best friends, that third vodka tonic, and possibly Bard’s advice, they had clearly decided, “Hell, yeah. No fear. Tonight I am stepping outside my comfort zone. I’m going for it.”  A brave woman gets up to belt out her favorite song. Yes, I wrote down the title. No, I couldn't read my handwriting the next day. “This is incredible,” I told Rich, shouting over a particularly screechy soprano. “With standards like this, you and I could get up and perform.” “No, we couldn’t,” he said firmly. “Don’t even think about it.” I didn’t recognize the first half-dozen songs, but then Cory got up to croon Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” That’s when it happened: people all along the bar — including me — began singing along. It wasn’t like in the movies; nobody could hear us over the din, and we weren’t exactly in tune, on beat, or, in some cases, still in any condition to read the lyrics off the screen correctly. But none of that mattered. Because the very act of singing, especially in a group, is not only fun but has profound mental and physical health benefits that last long after the Mad Hatter puts away his microphone. What benefits? Singing is like yoga for our respiratory and circulatory systems. It changes our breathing in ways that can reduce stress, stimulate the immune response, release feel-good endorphins, enhance memory, build lung capacity, reduce snoring, and on top of all that, make us feel part of something wonderful. “When you sing together with others,” says Healthline, “you’re likely to feel the same kind of camaraderie and bonding that players on sports teams experience.” I’m not doing a lot of team sports these days, so for me, it’s more like being in a crowded stadium at that electrifying moment when your team scores, and you and 10,000 other people leap to your feet, roaring as one.  Raising our voices together enables us to feel the warmth of connection with those around us, however different they might seem at first glance. That’s why it’s so popular at church gatherings, political rallies, birthday parties, and ball parks. Looking at the kids in that bar Thursday night, I clearly recalled how it felt to have that kind of bright-eyed wonder at being grown up enough to drink legally, flirt freely, and sing out loud in public. These are the kind of feel-good moments that remind us why life is worth all the effort it requires of us. I hope every one of those kids left the bar with a song in their heart that would last a lifetime — or at least beyond the next morning’s hangover.  Words of wisdom posted in the old Croll's Bar, Alameda, CA ON THE ROAD AGAIN Rich and I are heading off to a family wedding and a round of visits to friends and relatives. so I will not be posting on this blog for a week or two. I'll return with all new stories about America's Nutter culture, dive bars, and modern travel. Stay tuned! JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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 Is Fairfax the land that time forgot? Did we all just time travel back to the 1960s? “Are the aliens on their way now or are they already among us?” I asked with interest, pulling out my notebook. It’s not often I get to consult a true expert on intergalactic invaders, and I wanted answers. “Oh, they’re here,” said Justin, a member of the watch group Allies for Humanity. He sounded intelligent, calm, and remarkably plausible for a man whose t-shirt read “Our Turf, Get Lost, NO to Alien Intervention.” His bicycle was festooned with inflatable little green men and pamphlets offering “Free Alien Info!!!” He added, “The aliens can’t survive in our atmosphere, so of course, they’re not here themselves.” He gave a little chuckle, as if to suggest thinking that would be totally loony. I had to agree. “What they do is take our DNA and mingle it with theirs to produce hybrids. And those hybrids are walking among us.” “Have you met any?” “Oh yes. Would you like to see a picture of one?” Yes! Yes I would! He opened his phone and began scrolling through his photos. Justin showed me a slightly blurry image of himself standing next to a wide-eyed, impossibly smooth- skinned, extremely full-lipped woman. Botox, collagen, and plastic surgery? Or a hybrid of human-ET DNA? Justin had no doubts. “You can tell she’s a hybrid because she never blinked. Not once.” So that’s the big tip-off. “And when I went to shake her hand, she grabbed my wrist, and I felt a surge of electricity shoot up my arm.” Tip-off number two! Folks, you might want to take notes. This enthralling conversation took place on Saturday at the Fairfax Festival, held every June in the village next to mine in northern California. Fairfax embraced the 1960s with such enthusiasm the residents never wanted to let it go, and they have kept the countercultural spirit alive for generations. A wild parade kicks off two days of music, street food, and arts in an atmosphere reminiscent of the Merry Pranksters of yore. I arrived to find an eye-popping throng sporting tie-dyed everything — t-shirts, pajama pants, banners, and one dog’s paws — and the glorious rainbow stripes of LGBTQIA+ Pride. Having attended this festival before, I knew the best place to start was the parade staging area. There participants were vibrating with excited anticipation as they made final adjustments to costumes, props, and decorations. No one was shy about posing for photos. I happily chatted with Sharon, an “inspirationist” artist, Elena the unicorn, and members of the Cirque de Fairfax, then watched recyclers rehearsing their dance with garbage bins. One nattily dressed gentleman displayed a red t-shirt saying “Marxist do it with class.” I asked why he was a Marxist. He eyed me as if this were a very odd question. “Because it makes sense,” he said. When I commented on the t-shirt he smiled ruefully. “These kids, they don’t get it.” But maybe they were hipper to his message than he realized. Although old-school Marxism is still viewed as being way out in far left field, polls show that Americans’ enthusiasm for capitalism is on the wane, and voters, especially Black Americans, women, and those under 35, are starting to harbor warmer thoughts about socialism. Today more than half of young Republicans are (gasp!) in favor of reducing the wealth gap. Is the class system starting to crumble?  Gil wants to show the world a more sophisticated, gentlemanly side of Marxist values. Eventually, and surprisingly close to the scheduled time, the parade got underway. Rich and I moved out to the street so we could cheer everyone on as they eased out onto the short parade route. A hundred-year-old woman waved merrily at me from a vintage car. The number of centenarians in the US has doubled in the last 20 years to about 90,000, and I think she could tell I’m hoping to be one of them someday. A small, distracted-looking contingent from the local cannabis dispensary wandered past. The climate activists were out, with sober messages and dull decorations constrained by worries about wasting precious resources. A gun control advocate pushed along a coffin draped with toy assault rifles on which was written “Can we shoot or consume our way to a future worth living in?” I called out something encouraging, and he stopped, ran over to me, and began rummaging around in his pocket. At last he pulled out a crisp $2 bill and handed it to me. “Use it for something worthwhile,” he said. I promised I would. There were kids everywhere, clustered in school groups and scout troops, waving diversity flags, carrying gay pride banners, petting dogs, strumming fake guitars, and (in the case of one baby) riding on the back of a hot pink gorilla with a bubble gun. As a child born in the buttoned-down fifties, I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a world where moms and dads — an entire village of them — could be so uninhibited. The mind reels. Nonconformists have a lot of fun but they don’t always lead easy lives. Places like Fairfax provide a relatively safe haven, but the world at large is difficult for all of us to navigate, and doubly so for those who feel like outliers. If we’re lucky we learn, as sixties icon Wavy Gravy put it, “Laughter is the valve on the pressure cooker of life.” Comedian and LGBTQIA+ activist Margaret Cho says, “Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think ... Our ability to laugh directly coincides with our ability to fight. If we make fun of it, we can transcend it.” Words to live by.  Now that's worth a nickel! By the time the last truck rolled out of the staging area, both my phone’s photo capacity and my energy level were drained. Rich and I made our way through the throng to a café for coffee and a restorative biscotti. When the caffeine and sugar had kicked my brain back into gear, I said to Rich, “These are my people. Absolute Nutters, one and all.” As my regular readers know, the original concept of our Nutters World Tour was to seek out goofy people, places, and events so I could have fun writing about them. However, the feedback we got from our friends, relatives, and bartenders soon made it clear that the Nutters in question were, in fact, Rich and myself. Our world tour was really all about the two of us stumbling into micro-communities we ordinarily wouldn’t inhabit and learning how to connect with people there. That was easy in Fairfax. I may not precisely share everyone’s viewpoint about saving the world or the galaxy, but it was great fun to revisit the California counterculture of my youth. And I deeply appreciated the sincerity, good humor, and kindness I found in every encounter. But one person left me with a responsibility I don’t know how to fulfill. What meaningful use can I find for that $2 bill? If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments section below!  So long, Fairfax Festival! I'm already looking forward to next year. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com. Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  I find special joy in reading banned books like these. Yes, they yanked Charlotte's Web from shelves because they "found the book’s talking animals to be disrespectful to God." A school district in Utah pulled the Bible due to "vulgarity and violence." I couldn't make this stuff up. “This is an outrage,” I said to Rich over breakfast on Sunday. “Books are being banned all over America, and nobody’s ever challenged a single one of mine. What am I doing wrong?” A few days earlier I’d noticed the sign below in a bookseller's window. Googling book banning in the land of the free, I was aghast at how widespread it has become.  If you ever doubt the power of words to inspire, just think about how you feel reading this poster. “Would you like me to go down to the local school board and lodge a complaint about your books?” Rich offered. “Thanks,” I said. “But as far as I know, the schools around here don’t actually own any of my books, so it doesn’t make much sense to demand they pull them off the shelves.” “When did sense and logic have anything to do with book banning?” He had a point. Since Pen America started tracking public school book bans in July 2021, the intellectual freedom advocacy group has recorded more than 4,000 instances, and often the reasons given are laughably thin. Racial themes got To Kill a Mockingbird yanked from school libraries in Virginia and Mississippi. (Because … why? They think race is no longer an issue? Or they believe 1930s Alabama got it right?) Of Mice and Men is challenged for naughty language and being “anti-business” (although it’s sold 7.5 million copies). The Catcher in the Rye was attacked for undermining moral codes and family values. (Because what teen boy thinks about sex?) Gay characters made Brideshead Revisited controversial. (Because what teen boy thinks about sex with his best friend?). Some object to The Handmaid’s Tale for portraying ultra-fundamentalist Christians becoming overzealous. (Good thing that never happens in real life!)  Remember when teachers were urging us to read those books? They weren’t trying to undermine our moral fiber or amplify our profanity vocabulary — they were trying to help us learn to grapple with complex relationships and uncomfortable truths. Take Maus 1: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman’s sensitive, Pulitzer-winning graphic novel about his father surviving Auschwitz, in which the Germans are presented as cats and the Jews are mice. “A Tennessee school board of trustees banned Maus from its 8th-grade curriculum. They cited “rough language”, the “unnecessary” profanity of 8 words like “damn,” mentions of violence, and a small drawing of a nude cat — of all things,” wrote J.J. Pryor in Medium. “It’s a good thing those 8th graders don’t have access to the internet and have never heard of the word ‘porn,’ right?” Read any good t-shirts lately? Could outlawing books possibly be politically motivated? It turns out 40% of book challenges are linked to legislation or political pressure exerted by elected officials, and 73% of the 50 groups pushing to get rid of “inappropriate material" are new, formed since 2021. Things are heating up. I Googled book burning and found Tennessee pastor Greg Locke. Remember him —the guy banished from Twitter for insisting Covid vaccines were sugar water? Well, he’s back in the limelight, making a bonfire of Harry Potter and Twilight books in the name of religious freedom. “Sadly not all nutters are harmless eccentrics like ourselves,” I said to Rich. “Some have really gone over to the dark side.” To cheer ourselves up, I suggested a visit to the Alameda branch of Books, Inc., the West’s oldest independent book store. There I spoke with Larry, the store’s buyer, about what’s being banned these days. “Mostly it’s about gender and racial issues,” he said. “The world has changed drastically in recent decades; kids who don't learn about it are really at a disadvantage. Cultural ignorance can be perpetuated through the generations.” The store puts up a Banned Book display every year, and I’m happy to report they’re not alone. “Banned Books Week,” say the organizers, “brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular. The next Banned Books Week will be held October 1 – 7, 2023. The theme of this year’s event is “Let Freedom Read!”  Banned Book Week inspires lively displays in stores, libraries, and schools around the country. You won't be surprised to hear some districts choose not to participate. “Why is it that people who were ready to attack sales clerks over their freedom not to mask up during Covid now want to constrain other people’s freedom to read books?” Rich asked. “Talk about the irony department!” Public libraries are caught in the crossfire. “Every day professional librarians sit down with parents to thoughtfully determine what reading material is best suited for their child’s needs,” said American Library Association President Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada. “Now, many library workers face threats to their employment, their personal safety, and in some cases, threats of prosecution for providing books to youth they and their parents want to read.” Many of those threats involve the works of Judy Blume, whose iconic, humorous, and sympathetic coming-of-age books caused Time to name her one of the world’s 100 most influential people of 2023. “I learned about menstruation from Judy Blume,” said Willow, a Books, Inc. staffer. “They didn’t tell us anything in school; apparently girls are not supposed to hear about it until after they’re twelve. Which is ridiculous; my niece got her period when she was eight. My mother sat me down and gave me Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. She told me to read it and come to her with any questions.”  Willow shares happy banned book memories in Books, Inc. Alameda. Wow. I thought about how different my life would have been if Blume’s book had come out a few years earlier. My generation had to flounder through teen angst, budding sexuality, self-doubt, and countless other issues without much guidance. The nuns at Sacred Heart didn’t explain anything. My mother abandoned the topic after a brief, clinical description of menstruation that included a cautionary tale about her own mother’s first time. “Nobody had ever told her anything about it, and she ran downstairs and burst into the dining room — where her mother was entertaining guests — and shouted, ‘I’m bleeding! I’m bleeding!’” Well, OK, at least I was spared that! Since its publication in 1970, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret has often been banned, including by the school Blume’s own kids attended. Today millions of preteens read it as a rite of passage, and it’s just been made into a movie earning rave reviews. Which tells me that maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. If we know anything about teenagers, it’s that they love forbidden fruit. So do lots of adults, come to think of it. Every time someone says a book is dangerous, I suspect people start thinking, “Say, maybe I should read that one!” Click here to discover your new favorite banned books: American Library Association’s Top 100 Essential LGBTQ+ Black Authors Children’s Books Let’s keep these great works alive. Check them out of the library, borrow them, buy them, pass them on, and above all, talk about them. If we know anything about the future, it’s that facing it is going to require plenty of wisdom, courage, and grace. You’ll find plenty among these pages. My only regret is that none of my own books are on these lists. Maybe someday.  JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com. Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. And be sure to check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here.
So far, not one has been banned, but they're still lively reading! |
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Karen McCann
I'm an American travel writer based in Seville, Spain and my home state of California. Right now I'm on a Nutters' World Tour seeking eccentric people, quirky places, and wacky food so I can have the fun of writing about them here.
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Winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Award for Travel
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