Published on Lady in the Blue Box, December 14, 2018, after my last final exam at CCBC. Copyright 2021 Lady in the Blue Box Publishing written by Rachel Beth Ahrens, All Rights Reserved.
December 10, 2018, 9:08 p.m., New York/ Maryland time
Hello, Brendon,
Writing at 9 o clock at night after being awake since 6:35 in the morning after less than six hours of sleep, with eyes that have been hurting all day and a severe stress migraine without aura/ nausea that hits you in the middle of dinner… is a very hard thing to do.
It’s even harder when it’s the beginning of final exams at a community college, especially when it’s the new digital age and teachers are now obligated to pump their students full of too much knowledge between the first week of August to before the Christmas season actually starts. Midterms were actually in the first week of October, which I strongly felt was extremely unfair for, dare I say it, a 30 year old whom hasn’t been to college since she graduated from Towson University with a stupid and useless degree in journalism seven years ago.
And the hardest thing of all? Having a combination mental illness on top of all that. Try combining bipolar affective disorder with Ultradian rapid cycling (bouts of mania and depression within a 12-24 hour period almost five times a week—it’s fucking exhausting, believe me) and add an unknown personality disorder and panic attacks associated with a recent diagnosis of anxiety disorder.
That’s me in a nutshell. Oh yeah, and did I mention I’m a natural redhead? A lot of people say the mania and anxiety comes from my deep auburn hair, a somewhat dominant trait in my mother’s family, but recessive in my dad’s (my mother’s a redhead, and my grandfather used to be a redhead before it turned white).
But the one thing that keeps me going is music, specifically my number one band Fall Out Boy and my second favorite, a particular four person group that is now a fully functional and unbelievably talented one man show: YOU. I’m actually listening to my favorite selections from Pray for the Wicked right now; I downloaded eight out of eleven songs from your newest album and I love them all. I’m actually listening to “King of the Clouds” this moment, which is one of my favorites because it somehow reminds me of the poetic style of Lady Day, Billie Holiday, especially in the beginning where it’s just you singing and there are no instruments entering until later. I also love the reference to science writer Carl Sagan—my dad and I are huge science and science fiction dorks. The last sci fi movie I watched that I really enjoyed before the latest Avengers movies from this year (and Ready Player One) was Passengers, which starred Jennifer Lawrence, one of my favorite actresses who shares the same personality type as I do (ENFJ), though I’m considered an ambivert- 60% extrovert, 40% introverted.
Sorry if I’m rambling, I’m extremely neurotic, kind of like your boss, FOB bass player Pete Wentz. He kind of has my condition too, but in a different way.
Anyway, the first songs from your new album I didn’t even hear about until I found the CD already in stores and on Amazon. I pretty much don’t listen to the radio anymore because there’s way too much cheap hip hop, rap, and pop music noise that I just can’t stand. So I pretty much went online to check out your music videos on my own. “Say Amen” was fully awesome—Talk about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, only it’s you and the ‘girlfriend’ whom are both assassins and she kills you for the key! But the song I really want to talk about is “High Hopes”. The first time I heard about the music video was when you came on the radio and announced that it was officially live. I was in the car with a couple classmates from business class after a freezing cold day volunteering outside for a tree planting event to do a group project, when I heard the announcement. I fully expected the actual song to come on, because I was excited when I heard you say, “I’m Brendon Urie from Panic! At the Disco, and I want you to check out my new music video…” and instead, the dumbass pop radio did a bait-and-switch on me and played another disgusting song I was obligated to tolerate because someone else was driving! I was so pissed off at the dee jay.
Sometime the very next week, I found the music video while procrastinating on college work at lunch. Walking up the side of a skyscraper in Los Angeles? Takes a lot of stamina, especially for a skinny guy, but it shocked me when you went over the edge and met your band at the top. Did I end up loving the song? From a music critic’s standpoint, it sounded a little too much like the pop music I’m tired of hearing, until I heard the lyrics, and listened to it again for the drums and brass section… Did I ever tell you I’ve wanted to be in the marching band, particularly color guard, since I was a freshman in high school? Unfortunately, I never made the cut because I don’t have the coordination or the arms to twirl a flag or a plastic rifle without dropping it on the floor and making a fool of myself. Also, my tenth grade English teacher who led color guard was tough as nails and didn’t like me very much.
And the lyrics moved me the most: “Stay up on that rise.” “It’s uphill for oddities.” And my favorite lyric: “Don’t give up/ It’s a little complicated/ All tied up/ No more love/ and I hate to see you waiting.” What amazing, zen thoughts. But sometimes it’s hard for me to comprehend and apply to everyday life.
I was a victim of severe, daily bullying from K through 12, and all the bullies from every school and day care I went to were not very bright. My father still has a temper, even though he now has a chronic heart condition on top of his asthma. My mother, my friends, my boyfriend of two years, and my therapist are absolutely sick of my narcissistic behavior, for my rapid cycling works like this: Most people with bipolar issues are either grandiose when it comes to narcissism, or they’re completely vulnerable, begging to have attention because they feel neglected, and I go both ways.
I can be grandiose, entitled to forcing people to see reason and understand how my brain works and how they’re wrong… but when I get sad and depressed, especially now that I’m going back to church after not going since I was 15 and slowly becoming agnostic (my grandmother’s a crazy Born Again Pentecostal Christian who thinks it’s her job to be my mother and make me exorcised and ‘Saved’ from my agnostic views to worship Jesus), I’m incredibly vulnerable. And most of the time, because I am living proof that Ultradian rapid cycling does exist despite what some psychologists say is controversial, I’m grandiose at the exact same moment where I’m feeling the most vulnerable. There have been times where I’ve mentally and physically hurt myself while bumping back and forth between outraged mania and tearful depression. But I promise you, I have never been a cutter, thank Something. Scars are permanent on your arm when you cut yourself, and I’ve seen people with them up close, and they turn my stomach and make me sad. Cutting myself is beneath me. Years ago, I used to give myself bruises, for they were more temporary, and they normally healed in time, especially since I have a strong immune system despite all the mental drugs I take from my doctor.
I already know you have ADHD, and I actually know someone who also has that same condition, an underlying condition along with the big one he has- fetal alcohol syndrome. All my friends have some kind of invisible disability. Tiffany’s a diabetic and she’s blind. My best friend from college has stress induced gran mal seizures, social phobia, and a strong learning disability where she’ll have a seizure if she tries to do complex math problems like precalculus. My boyfriend has Asperger’s, an offshoot of the autism spectrum, but he’s the love of my life despite how much he frustrates me. We are all oddities in that song.
When I saw your music videos, I got the messages of every single song, especially “Hallelujah” from Death of a Bachelor. (By the way, you may be my second favorite artist next to Fall Out Boy, but it’s still so far up my list, far away from Cage the Elephant, whom stole that Grammy Award from you. I really believe you definitely deserved that award for that album, because that is YOU. Death of a Bachelor has jazz and punk influences, strong lyrics, and you really stretched yourself as a musician and a singer—The first time I heard the title track, my jaw fell at the first refrain where you hit that high note on ‘happily ever after’! I didn’t know how big your vocal range was, and you also play every instrument, including drums?! I didn’t even know you had the gift of rhythm, which I can’t even make a good drumbeat to save my life! I once tried to remember the rhythm section to “My Doorbell” from The White Stripes, and I stunk. My father is better at drums than me because he actually played drums in the high school band.) The overall message of “Hallelujah”—trust the people you love, take the jump, or ‘leap’ of faith. That song is near the top of my Top 25 Most Played list on my very outdated iPod Nano that Apple doesn’t make anymore. Biggest reason: my parents and I are huge Chicago/ Peter Cetera & Robert Lamm fans, and that song is the reason why I love the song “Questions 67 & 68” a lot more now. My mom and dad actually saw Chicago in concert many years ago after winning tickets from a radio station, and the show was right here in Baltimore around this time of year—they played “Let it Snow” for the finale of the concert, and it actually snowed in the front row seats where my parents were sitting.
I think I can probably say that I am one of your biggest fans now. Your band used to be lower on the list, but with your last two or three album successes, you’re now in a top three spot. Congratulations, I have you in my heart. And by the way, I still have the first album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, for I can’t get enough of the songs “But It’s Better if You Do” and the “Intermission” interlude in the middle of the record where either you or Ryan Ross is playing this gorgeous piano waltz. Like so many people have told me, I have a very delicate taste in music, as I hate Taylor Swift with a fuming passion, but I love Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Meghan Trainor, with the exceptions of “Just Dance” and “All About That Bass”, which I just can’t stand. But Katy- I loved her from her first single “I Kissed a Girl” because it’s hilarious, and I will have you know, I am a LGBTQ ally—I’m straight and I fully support the same sex rights and transgender rights for all, and I voted in approval of same sex marriage in 2012 when Obama was reelected. I’m a democrat, but I’m one of the nice ones.
After all that rambling, let me just get down to the real reason why I’m writing to you so very late at night when I should be sleeping off this damn headache. (To be honest with you, the migraine is gone now, thanks to the Imitrex, and thanks to this feature on my laptop called ‘night light’ where the screen emits a warm orangey glow instead of blue light after sundown, in order to promote your brain to produce more melatonin, the hormone that regulates your sleep cycle. I have a perfect A in my psychology class, ha ha.)
You inspired me to stop giving up.
When something doesn’t go my way, if someone slams a door in my face, I normally resort to extreme conclusions- “Oh I’ll just give up.” “Oh I’m fucked/ doomed/ screwed.” “Oh I’m such a failure.” On my 30th birthday, I realized that as a woman with no job, no income, no car, no independent living situation (still living with mom and dad), a useless Bachelor’s degree, a truly loving and sweet boyfriend whose parents hate me, and too many people telling me the same stupid thing—change your attitude and your childish behavior, because you’re immature and disgusting when you’re angry and/or sad and begging for love and attention—I am a total failure, the thing I’m most afraid of. I studied journalism because my first childhood ambition was to be a veterinarian (I love puppies, but I couldn’t even go into the field because my complex math grades sucked after high school, and also I’m terribly allergic to cats) until I discovered my love of the written word. Honestly, it was my college friends from more than 10 years ago where they noticed I had the gift of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. And yes, I have also written songs that will never be on the radio, for the melodies kind of suck and they’re more free verse poetry without any rhyme or rhythm. That’s an entirely different story for another time. Still, I remember one time where I left the CCBC Student Government Office for a moment (I was secretary at the time), and when I came back, some idiot was in there reading one of my poems/ song lyrics to a bunch of girls, and he had no idea how to read it, because he was mocking me to make these stupid girls laugh. That was one of the only times in the beginning of college where bullying was still prominent in my life. That’s part of the reason why I love singing karaoke, but I prefer to never audition for The Voice or AGT, and I wouldn’t be caught dead vying for a position as a professional songwriter for any musician or pop music celebrity like Beyonce.
A late friend of ours from the former karaoke bar The Charred Rib that went under years ago, he said before he died, “Rachel, you have GOT to get a record deal! You have the most beautiful singing voice in the world, and if you become a star, I swear to God, I will buy your album! I am your biggest fan! I’m serious, I need you to be a huge star! You need that record label to sign you!”
I’ve always thanked our dear 80 year old friend Howie, whom was one of the best karaoke regulars there (he was a wonderful performer who sang country and folk songs and could yodel, if you can believe it), but in the back of my mind, I wanted to say to him, “You are the best, and you are one of my favorite fans at karaoke, but I’m sorry. I’m too shy and too stubborn and competitive to go audition for a record label. I’m an ambivert- I get shy at first when I go up to sing, and the performing part, that’s where I have the most fun for that’s the extrovert in me… But when I get off the stage and I’m evaluated for even a tiny karaoke contest at a tiny crowded bar, and I don’t win, the award going to a trashy woman who sings Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” (Lord, I hate that song), I get jealous and angry at myself, thinking I could have done better—enter the grandiosity with vulnerability mixed together. Also, I suck at writing songs, because I end up ripping off other artists—look at what happened to Robin Thicke and Pharrell when they recorded “Blurred Lines”: they got sued by Marvin Gaye’s family for using one of his songs without copyright permission!!! (Yes, I know all about that story and a bunch of others; that’s the rock journalist in me. My post grad dream was to become a Rolling Stone Magazine reporter, writing about the biggest and best punk rock and blues rock musicians, from Green Day to The Black Keys. Look how that turned out.) So Howie, I love you, you’re so amazing as my number one fan. But I will never be a famous singer-songwriter.” Never said that.
Oh yeah, and I’ve never taken another music theory or music training class after high school, kind of like you, for you got discovered by Pete Wentz after high school. The honest truth, I tried becoming a music minor at Towson University shortly after I transferred from CCBC, until when I came into the office to apply for the minor and audition for voice lessons. The faculty head in the office disgraced me out of there, saying, “You have to be committed to the program. You won’t be allowed to even minor in the study unless you are serious in pursuing something in the music field.” He was basically telling me get lost unless you are fully serious in majoring in music, which offended me. So I left and killed my dream of learning more about music and perfecting my voice, and maybe learning how to play piano or just getting better at guitar (I have three guitars at home, one acoustic, which was a Christmas gift from dad, two are electric: one was a 19th birthday gift and the other one was a very lucky door prize -a Squier/ Fender Strat!-, and I have a very old and permanently damaged, tiny amp). Never had one professional, private voice lesson except for choir practice from K-third grade, seventh and eighth, and senior year of high school where I had a solo in my high school’s production of Carmina Burana.
That proves that I can sing, maybe a little like Queen of the Night from Mozart’s Magic Flute because of my high soprano range, but I am not Kelly Clarkson or my favorite female singer Sara Bareilles. I once tried to sing Adele on a sick throat in the beginning of summer at a music fest for a contest, and even though I did kind of well, I lost severely.
To summarize, I am not going to ever be where you are now. I am an incurable pessimist. But that line you wrote, “Stay up on that rise,” that gave me reason to be. This is part of a song I started to write, but is still not finished, that kind of continues that message, as well as the All Time Low song “Somewhere in Neverland”:
Another Reason
I need another reason to me
I need another reason to be
Can you help me out?
I need my mania to be more
Than just breathing nitrogen
Letting out carbon dioxide
I’m so dizzy
You’re dizzying up the girl
In me
Refrain
Give me honesty
Give me a reason to be
More than this
I don’t want to be
Just a zombie
Just another lemming
Falling off a cliff
I’d rather be just me
Instead of sleeping and waking
I’ll take your hand
But only if I trust you
To start over again
That’s pretty much all I’ve written of the song. The “dizzying up the girl” is my little 90s touch on the lyric, borrowing it from a Goo Goo Dolls album that bears the same name. Just like you, my childhood was also the 90s. You’re my boyfriend’s age. 
But as you can see, this is more non rhyming poetry than lyrics. I know what you’ll say and you’re right- “Lyrics and poetry are one and the same.” But this has neither a steady rhyme nor established rhythm, at least I don’t think so.
But your song “High Hopes” inspired me to keep writing. I am currently writing two novels, one of contemporary romcom fiction, and the other is science fiction. Both of them have very strong messages of inner beauty, confidence, learning to get rid of your demons, and being more accepting of self and people you love. And that’s the hardest lesson I’m still trying to learn for me: learn to love yourself. I am not just a pessimist; I hate myself more than anyone else because of how messed up my mind is. My mom is learning more about being more mindful, reading about Asian therapies and martial arts, Buddhism, and the practices of yoga and tai chi. I’m very close with my mother, who is the number one person I come to, especially when my therapist cancels on me at the very last minute… but there are times when mom is so fed up with trying to teach me how to handle stress and anger that she’s said, “I’m done helping you.” My friends are done saying this to me too. My amazing boyfriend of two years is already sick of me losing my cool and he’s constantly trying so hard to calm me down and make me happy again. Whenever I’m faced with a problem, all I want to do is escape, and when I can’t run, and people are trying to make light of the situation, all I can do is either one of four things: cry, scream my lungs out, complain over and over, or go into a panic attack.
That is what we’re dealing with here. Everyone wants me to change, especially now that I’m 30, and so you know, I’m an only child. I’ve never had that sibling rivalry. And what they don’t realize is, I’ve had symptoms of mental illness since I was five or six. I have been trying to get a diagnosis for 20 years, and I didn’t get one until I lost my health insurance when my parents’ plan at Cigna cut me off—at 26! 2015 was the worst year ever, my “Impossible Year”. I was stabbed in the back by a job recruiter when he gave me the opportunity of an interview at the pharmaceutical Beckton Dickinson, only to go there and find out they had never heard of the posting and they’d never heard of me. Earlier, my five year old dachshund puppy D’Artagnon (he looked like a little chocolate sausage, like a 3 Musketeers bar), he got terribly sick, and the same month of the backstabbing, the sweet vets at Falls Road Animal Hospital gave us the bad news he had total kidney failure on Valentine’s Day. He was laid to rest a day later. It gets worse: I made the bonehead mistake of taking a job immediately after President’s Day… with a lawyer old enough to be on pension, and he had me work so hard the second day of work that I completely missed my lunch break, and he never even gave me the mandatory legal documents I needed to sign- the I-9 proof of citizenship and W-2 tax waiver! And the following week, as if it couldn’t get better, my boyfriend at the time dumped me, because he just couldn’t deal with this long distance relationship anymore, especially since my mental health was getting worse. That was all in the span of one month- February. I was also hospitalized twice that year, for only one night until midnight both times after a lengthy psych evaluation, and later the next year, I caused a scene in the middle of a café with a training center for students with disabilities, where I was Tiffany’s roommate, to the point where she forced me out of her dorm. That was the day I had the biggest nervous breakdown of rapid cycling, starting in just 30 seconds (she timed me- that’s how long it takes for the mania to start) and lasting longer than four hours, going back and forth from rage, mania, and depression. Sometime in between all that, in June 2015, that was when I got an official diagnosis under the DSM-5.
After this semester, I am relapsing, because I’m having kind of a quarter life crisis at age 30, I’m a failure, and I’m back in college. I’ve realized college is not what it used to be. I thought college classes were so much easier than high school, because I have always hated those standardized tests and SAT classes. I felt like an outcast with the ‘stupid’ kids, the stoners, who didn’t care about school and didn’t want to ever get a job or make something of themselves- the slackers. There were a lot of slackers and hypocrites at Perry Hall High School in 2005. And senior year of high school, I had a final 3.2 GPA at graduation. I was a good student, but horrible on my PSATs. That’s why the school forced me to take those SAT classes.
I have relapsed in anxiety and mania at least once a year at school where I had to get involved with the principal or Student Conduct. It happened this year too, but instead of setting me up with an on campus counselor, they had me talk to someone to see if I was a threat, gave me a warning, and in case I was about to go manic, they wanted me to talk to a ‘Navigator’. CCBC doesn’t have counselors to help with therapy anymore, and it’s a gross offense to people like me because anytime my therapist cancels on me, which happened more than usual this semester, and I can’t see her for two or more weeks, depending on my rigid schedule and her tight availability (no one is in the office on Fridays, the day I’m most free), who can I go talk to? CCBC’s Navigator program has people whom are unqualified in helping students deal with stress: all they do is refer students to outside services, and there are just too many students at this school, which is why I think community colleges like this one need to be more selective of their students and start rejecting more students based on their academic performances, maybe even waitlist students, like Towson did to me both times I applied, and eventually got accepted. I was waitlisted after high school, and also prior to transferring from CCBC. I tried talking to the person I spoke to at Student Conduct, asking her to please do something to bring back the counselors, and she said flat out, “Never going to happen, for eternity.” I tried going to a Navigator only one time, and she didn’t help me once. She didn’t even understand my condition or the fact that I was a DSS student. (Disability Support Service- I am registered with them; my DSS counselor who gives me testing and assignment accommodations, she is awesome, and she’s also got disabilities- stress related, and she’s deaf! In the spring, I am taking her ASL night class Tuesdays/Thursdays and I’m excited. The only thing is, I wish she could hear me sing, and she could learn what some of my favorite music sounds like. She does like classical music, for she can hear a little of it and it’s not invasive, but she can’t hear any other type of music or understand it because of her extreme and permanent hearing loss.) This ‘Navigator’ didn’t get that Trileptal XR made me extremely sensitive to heat and sunlight, which is why I couldn’t go outside and study there, she didn’t understand that I’m agoraphobic (I hate crowds- that’s the introvert), and she also didn’t understand that there was no need to talk to a crisis hotline because I said, “I’m not suicidal! I’ve been through enough pain! Death is pain!”
Even after I said, “I’m sensitive to the sun,” she said, “Why don’t you go outside and study, and I’ll check in on you? It’s a gorgeous day!” What part of hypersensitivity and severe migraines did she not understand?
All that said, seven pages, I can’t believe it (I need an editor), I have started a new campaign/ movement for people with disabilities called Bubbles for Happiness. It pretty much happened around the time I was about to take another exam in the Testing Center (if there’s no exam for one class one week, there’s always a test in another class the same week—always expect that there’s a test every damned week, I hate this—never happened at CCBC or Towson from 2006-2011, the five years I completed my undergrad). It was when I was stressing out that I was going to fail the exam, and the proctor at the front desk said, “Have you ever tried pretending like you were blowing bubbles?”
Sidenote: I have a rare, but not uncommon, physical disability of the mouth called TMD, or TMJ disease. Your TMJ is that little groove inside your skull next to your ear that acts like a hinge for moving your jaw in and out of your skull freely, and well… My TMJ tends to click and cause pain for me. I used to get muscle aches in my face and tension headaches because of another common condition called ‘nocturnal bruxism’- because of an overbite that runs in my mother’s family, I grind my molars in my sleep because I sleep with my mouth closed, and that eventually leads to TMD if you don’t get a mouth guard soon. Now that I’m on two mental illness medicines, one to be taken twice a day, and an antianxiety to be taken as needed, my TMJ now causes migraines, because I’m even more sensitive to light, sound and smell, if I wasn’t already from being a redhead with extremely ivory skin.
I think you know where I’m going with this. Since I was diagnosed with TMD at age 23, I had to give up some of my favorite foods: raw celery and carrots, apples, granola, popcorn, and my favorite thing- bubblegum. I forgot to tell some of my friends that I’m good at multitasking—Can you chew bubblegum, write a school paper, and listen to music at the same time? That was my ritual from eighth grade to end of high school, without being distracted! I know that may be a little daunting for you… I know you can’t play guitar, bass, and drums all at once, and for a normal person, that’s impossible. But for me, I even have trouble playing guitar and singing effectively (I know the Cardinal rule of singing- use your diaphragm in your gut) to play just one song. I get distracted too, and my guitar teacher in high school said I had a horrible voice when playing in guitar class and singing at the same time in his class. Maybe it’s because it was in the morning, and you know your voice sucks when you just wake up at seven in the morning. You need ample time to warm up. This is why I do karaoke at night when my voice is more prepared, instead of singing any other time of day. And here’s another thing about TMD: with this disease, you’re not allowed to yell, scream, bite too hard or clench, and you’re not allowed to SING! But because I love singing, that’s not negotiable, I will be singing at Bill Bateman’s in Waltham Woods, Parkville, until I’m too old to carry a tune, or until our dear friend Mark Bishop retires from the karaoke business. Don’t think he will anytime soon.
Bubbles for Happiness was my campaign for #GivingTuesday, starting sometime after Thanksgiving, for I recorded a video blog post on Black Friday this year to help that campaign, part of a video series called Midnight Mania. (But because of my busy schedule, I’m thinking of calling it Morning Mania, since I’m kind of more alert on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the morning when I don’t have to be on campus- more well rested.) What I originally wanted to do was get some of my friends together and spread the word about the campaign for the 501 (c)(3) nonprofits Pathlight and National Alliance for Mental Illness, raising some money for them. What they do is they help people with mental illnesses and disabilities like autism, Down Syndrome and depression, by giving them services to train and find jobs, find a place to live, and build healthier relationships with people they know and new people, so life is worth living. Before I came to the NAMI support group on Saturdays in 2016, as per my DORS counselor’s request, I felt like I was just surviving. I also had an autism scare that year, but I eventually somehow tested negative, I’m not on the spectrum. My DORS counselor and job coaches told me I needed to volunteer somewhere and go to support group because, you guessed it, I am unqualified and too much of a nervous wreck to take any kind of job, even retail. I still need a behavior adjustment, and it’s hurting me that everyone is right and I’m always, always wrong. They don’t understand that my recovery is a slow process.
I want Pathlight to come to Maryland where I live and help out NAMI in pairing people with mental illnesses with mentors and better counselors in group counseling. So I did what a very eccentric music/ sci fi/ comic book/ fashion nerd would do, especially with a costume and arts/crafts specialty in crochet, 24 years experience—I put on my newly handcrafted Doctor Who costume (I dressed as Jodie Whittaker from the new series, where the new Doctor is now a woman for the first time in 55 years since the show’s inception in ’63), put on some kickass music (first song I chose was Fall Out Boy’s “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out”, the next song was yours, “This is Gospel”), and recorded myself on my camcorder, while going against my TMJ rules by chewing strawberry Bubblicious. And I challenged people, mostly my friends on Facebook and Twitter, mostly people I’ve met in person. And sadly, so far, no one’s donated or posted a video of them continuing the chain, in doing a video of yourself and/ or your friends using bubbles, or anything that has to do with air (balloons, musical instruments, science experiments, etc). Why this theme? Refer back to a few paragraphs above. The Testing Center proctor was trying to help me relax—breathing, slow deep breaths, is the most common way to fight off a panic attack.
And now you know my secret. It kills me that I’m really not supposed to chew bubblegum, but from being an old fashioned gum chewer—blowing bubbles is a stress killer! Rrrrr. Hate you, Dr. Yoon, DDS. (No, I’ve never had any problems with this dentist. He referred me to Dr. Krupp of his own private practice when I needed my first surgery ever, for my wisdom teeth. Best decision I ever made, to go to him instead of University of Maryland Medical. Love you, Dr. Yoon.)
Now I’ve resorted to listen to The Fratellis and it’s almost 2 a.m. Time for Latuda and bed, and I’ve been awake since after six in the morning. I just wanted to tell you, you did something amazing for you to move dramatically up my list of awesome rock bands, even though you’re technically a one man band at this point. I occasionally miss the other guys, like your best friend Spencer and the original songwriter of the group Ryan Ross. But from the previous three albums, I think you’re doing absolutely awesome. Just one thing, easy on the heavy production and songwriting team. Seems like you’re getting too much into something that doesn’t sound like you and sounds like a sequel to the pop music I’m tired of hearing. I’m not asking you to be like one of your former members, I’m asking you to write from the heart. Remember that song “The End of All Things” and how powerful that piano ballad was, with the vocoder effect? I instantly fell in love with that love song, and loved it even more when I found out you wrote that entire song yourself, and not only that, it was your wedding vows in song form to your wife Sarah that you wrote 48 hours before you got married! Clever, baby! Now that was wicked.
Now do that again, but this time, less input from other songwriters and less melody references from other artists. There were too many ‘interpolations’ in your last record. I don’t hate it, though. “Roaring 20s” is one of my favorite jams because of the immortal Maynard Ferguson, a white version of Dizzy Gillespie, for I learned about him from jazz history class. What a trumpet player. (Hence why trumpet players are my Kryptonite…)
Bottom line: Thank you. Thank you for being a freak in recording your version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the movie that features my favorite DC villain/ super woman, Harley Quinn. If Freddie Mercury was alive to see you do that song, he’d say, “Bloody brilliant, mate.” Thank you for faithfully sticking to your Las Vegas sound of rock music. Thank you for helping so many people with the Higher Hopes Foundation; that was a superhero move. And thank you for telling me through song that there is still time to be a success, even when you feel failure.
“Pleased to meet you, baby, I’m your fool…” -The Fratellis, “Desperate Guy”
I’m just as upset as you that you didn’t win Rock Album of the Year, but I’m so glad that you did get to go to that Red Carpet. Gorgeous job, sweetie.
Don’t let anyone hold you back. Write from the heart. I can’t wait for your next album, because I think you are so close to that little trophy. Fall Out Boy is getting there too, because Mania blew my mind. If you both go to the Grammys at the same time for the same nomination, it’s going to be hard for me to say which album will deserve the win, for you’re both incredibly talented. You both rock. Again, way ahead of Cage the Elephant, because I’m tired of the “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” song.
As I say when I toast, and I’m technically not allowed to drink because of my medicines’ drowsiness reaction warnings on all prescription packages, but I do drink Moscato…
Slainte, endeavors.
The first word is Irish (slahn-chuh), as I am of Irish descent, and it means ‘to good health’ or ‘good keeping’ of you. ‘Endeavors’ is what I say at the end, borrowed from Joss Whedon’s Serenity (from Fanti and Mingo, the cyberpunk gangster identical twins), meaning, here’s to the future; what we’ve won, what we’ve lost, and what opportunities will come to us.
May the road rise up.
With Love from your Baltimore fan,
Rachel Beth Ahrens
Nottingham, Maryland
2018
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