Come Alive Come Alive

I bought many FooFighters albums, the last one was in 2007, seven years before I began working for Pandora, a place that made albums a distant memory as it generated made-for-you playlists from your favourite songs. Through my latest streaming app, I got introduced to a song off an album I own. Hilarious right. A song that turned out to be Taylor Hawkins' favourite and is now mine too. I didn't think 'The Pretender' could be toppled and have no idea how I missed this song the first time around, but 15 years later here we are. 

The song is Come Alive. 

There is a unique power to it that drags you from the present into a dreamlike overview of your existence. I've only flown twice in my dreams but this song gives me that feeling where I am above myself looking across my life from my childhood, to now and into the future of old age and ending. 

It is not for the fainthearted and if you are one that prefers to stay in the happy delusion of the everyday, it's a song to downright avoid. It is powerful stuff and it hurts. But for it's beauty I can't resist it. It draws me in, like a portal to an all-seeing dimension and it gets me as close to transcendental as I'll likely ever get. Of course the one thing we all don't want to see or face is our own ending, our own inability to imagine the day we no longer see the sky or those we love. It is unfathomable and more than distressing...but it is this life.

It is said that Dave Grohl wrote this about the birth of his daughter, which makes sense. But as I saw the pure frenetic and wild spirit of Taylor Hawkins stilled forever last year, I can't help but feel that it has transformed into a cry from Dave to bring Taylor back, who lost more than a drummer in that moment, but also his best friend. It reminds me of how I feel when I think of my friend Kim who died and I know I still think of why and how it could have happened that she was lost at such a young age. If only we could play God and make those we love come alive again. The repetition and the build only make the desperation for life over death to be true... please! 

If only. Instead my only comfort is we continue in a bizarro way in our children, parts of us turning up, surprisingly, in a mannerism or a turn of phrase, us but not really - like a riff stolen and placed in a new arrangement. A whole new unique human remixed from two others. 

Shane Hawkins performed with Foo Fighters soon after his Father's death

We are lucky we have Taylor's words, voice and music recorded for all to enjoy and for him to endure for us, but for him and for Kim I am broken that they can't hear our voices anymore, see our faces or wrap us in their arms. Come Alive Come Alive Come Alive!

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The Grandeur of Melissa McCarthy

Every now and then an actor comes along that is so exceptional she becomes the topic of a humble blog post. Upon first appearances Melissa McCarthy could be seen as an un-couth, potty-mouthed bogan, and these descriptions would be fair. I like to think of her as a genius of comedic timing, a master of facial expressions and an utter guru of knowing the exactly right and usually most damning response in every situation. I think the latter is why she has become my hero, she has written and performed the words that so often escape me when someone really needs a swift verbal kick up the arse.

She is such a master, my words here will unlikely do her justice, there is really only one thing you must do next time you are hunting around in Netflix et al and that is watch these scenes in the following movies:

 

Meeting the principal in ‘This is 40’ and the bloopers.

Any scene she graces in “Bridesmaids”

Every scene of “Spy” but in particular the scene where she is tied up to an italian spy 

Every scene in "The Heat" - I can't choose a favourite it is all too good. 

 

Worth watching out for are all the sneaky cameo appearances of her real-life husband Ben Falcone in most of her movies. The guy has laid his ego down to the god of comedy so we can laugh at some of the characters he plays, often a love interest, but always with a twist.

 

Warning though if you hate swearing you may not appreciate Melissa, she made peace with her inner swear bear many years ago and has gone on to make an artform of putting two words together in a way you have never heard before, well not in my neighbourhood anyway.

 

 

SPY can be purchased on Google and Amazon prime, but if you subscribe to Foxtel it is available to stream there.

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