Macklemore performing with Ryan Lewis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was one of those surprise decisions, really. A ski mama friend, knowing I love Macklemore, looking for another mom adventurous enough to hang out at a music festival on a school night with our teenagers, called me. Of course, I was game-on. Not only could I see Macklemore live, but I’d get the Coolest-Mom-of-the-Year Award when I surprised my teenage son and daughter with the tickets. Win-win, I’d say – so I took my kids to Macklemore.

As so many well laid plans do, they became a bit complicated due to unexpected pole vault meets and a bit more driving than I thought, but finally we arrived in Napa for the Bottlerock Festival – the first night of what is widely hoped to be an annual three day music event. We had the timing down perfectly, and when the shuttle bus dropped us off in downtown Napa the kids were like racehorses at the starting gate, hardly pausing to take the customary photo for the Instagram post. They were going to see Macklemore, and they couldn’t wait.

At Bottlerock, pre-Macklemore

Being teens, the first thing they wanted, naturally, was food. Scanning the myriad of food trucks, we settled on two adjacent to each other and placed our order. Rookie move, mom. As the clock ticked down, the opening song thumped loudly throughout the fairgrounds and there he was-Macklemore in full glory. Food or Macklemore? I saw it in their eyes as they grabbed each other’s hands and sprinted to the stage area, leaving me alone with the food truck.

I started to wonder if I’d ever see them again, actually. Arms loaded with hot cheeseburgers and chicken sandwiches, I headed towards the stage, innocently believing their growling stomachs would find me . I was wrong. As I stood there, scanning the dark throng of tweens, teens, moms, and college kids, wafts of fragrant smoke filled the air, I realized they were nowhere to be found. I was standing there like a soccer mom with an armload of snacks and no children in sight, feeling just a bit foolish. After multiple unanswered texts (not easy to do with arms full of food), I shoved the uneaten dinners in my mom-purse (moms always have purses the size of shopping bags, right?), grabbed my ski mama bestie and threw my hands in the air. Macklemore was on stage, and the crowd was wrapped around his finger.

The collective energy of the young people, singing along with him about love and peace and equality and harmony, made me smile. I wasn’t worried that my teens were somewhere out there, lost in the throbbing mass of humanity. I watched Macklemore crowd surf, trusting that his people would hold him up, not let him fall, and realized that that’s really what was going on for them. It’s no wonder people love Macklemore; he’s really a voice for his generation, and more.It’s not about flash or fancy cars or lavish parties, or any of the stereotypical hip-hop images that might come to mind when you hear his music. Macklemore is something different. He is what our teens are looking for- a message of hope. Of acceptance. Of feeling loved for just being who you are, not who someone wants you to be.

When the final song ended, the lights came on and the dust settled, my teens emerged from the masses with huge grins on their faces and stories to tell. Yes, they saw some scuffles and overindulgence, but to me, that’s part of the deal. Life isn’t perfectly behaved, and it takes all kinds of experiences to learn how to navigate through it. But life was certainly in that fairground that night. Macklemore was singing about it. My kids were hearing it. We all were believing it, and hoping that we can make it come true. They survived. They knew how to handle themselves. They didn’t walk away talking about how they were going to start drinking or smoking or fighting-quite the opposite, in fact.

It was definitely a win-win, I’d say.

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Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Macklemore & Ryan Lewis performing at Sasquatch 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Macklemore. Have you heard of him?

If you’ve got a teenager in the house, chances are you have. Or if you’ve listened to the radio, surfed the internet, or watched Saturday Night Live.

And if you’re a mom, you should know about Macklemore and why teenagers love him.

Just in case you stilll have no idea who I’m talking about, here is Macklemore’s recent appearance on SNL:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/462771

You really should watch it.

Macklemore is a 29-year-old rapper from Seattle, Washington, who just happens to have a hit song, “Thrift Shop”,  topping the Billboard charts-and has sold over 3.9 million copies of it to date. He and his musical partner, Ryan Lewis, have achieved unlikely success in today’s music scene, starting with their rise to fame as artists not signed to a major label. But that’s not the reason moms should know about him.

And it’s not that your teenagers are suddenly turning to rap music instead of Taylor Swift (but I love her, too).

American country musician Taylor Swift performing live. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You should know about Macklemore because he’s different.

Yes, he’s a rapper. I’ll admit that I’m not a big rap fan, mainly because I object to much of the lyrical content and suggestive ideas many rappers base their music around.  But Macklemore, he’s not like them.

I first heard him through the walls of my 16-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Surprised to hear thumping bass and rhythm over melodic pop songs, I questioned her.  She tried to tell me he’s different, but I just walked away, puzzled.

Finally, after weeks of persuasion, we listened to his newest album start to finish on a long car trip.  I have to admit-I was impressed.

Macklemore has been called a ‘conscious rapper’-a label he doesn’t entirely love: “”Am I more or less conscious than everybody else? I’m a full spectrum of a human being. There’s songs that are deep and personal and might bring up some social issues, but that’s not the full side of me. I think it’s just a box, that’s just corny. It’s very outdated. It’s very underground and backpacker-ish and that’s not the music I make,” he stated.

But when I hear songs like “Thrift Shop”, and especially “Same Love”, I see how it fits; Macklemore writes about real life, real problems, and real people. He breaks the negative stereotypes of rap, and had the courage to break through trends and challenge his listeners to do the same. He writes about issues that I see teens struggle with every day, like wearing the ‘right’ clothes in “Thrift Shop”, and dealing with sexuality and discrimination, as in his hit “Same Love”:

We press play/Don’t press pause/Progress, march on!/With a veil over our eyes

We turn our back on the cause/’Till the day/That my uncles can be united by law

Kids are walkin’ around the hallway/Plagued by pain in their heart

A world so hateful/Some would rather die/Than be who they are

This is why moms need to know about Macklemore. At least read his lyrics.  Hear the issues he writes about, and ask your kids what they think. When I asked teens why they liked Macklemore, they responded with things like “he’s just so good” and “a lot of his music is spoken word, which I like. It’s not all hardcore rap-he has a lot of variety.”

Teens liking spoken word? Wow-that means they’re actually listening to what the artist is saying…and in my opinion, that’s a very good thing. Well, except for the foul language, but if they can look past that and focus on his messages, Macklemore is ok in my house. Teenagers love him because he writes what they’re living-bullies and styles and fitting in and love…and moms, if you want to understand your teenagers a little bit better, you might just take a listen to “Wings”:

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Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Reading Alex George’s novel A Great American was like climbing back into the pages of a family tree, uncovering historical secrets as I navigated through the story.  George begins his narrative in the early 1900s with main characters Jette Furst and Frederick Meisenheimer, two young misfits living in Germany.  As George says at the end of the first chapter, “It was Frederick’s capacity to dream that dazzled Jette the most. When she was with him, anything was possible,” establishing one of the themes of the novel: the capacity to dream the American dream was possible.

The novel continues in an operatic rhythm, as the reader discovers the dreams of not only Frederick and Jette, but subsequent children and grandchildren.  Alex George’s characterizations are so realistic and endearing that I often found myself wondering if these were real characters from his family tree, so fleshed out and vibrant were they.  Characters fall in and out of the course of the novel, their stories deftly woven together under the question of what a good American really is.

One of my favorite themes in the novel surrounds the power of food to nourish and transform a community.  Beginning with the lack of food on the ship as Frederick and Jette come to America, food not only represents the ability to nourish and care for a family and community, but also the desire to hold onto our cultures while assimilating into a new country.  As the novel progresses, the images of food change with the family’s deepening roots in the community, moving from traditional German fare to eventually a Mexican menu.

Music also plays a central role in the definition of what a good American means in the novel.  From opera, to jazz, soul music, and even rock and roll, the author weaves the development of American music throughout the generations.  Like food, music serves as another thread for the Meisenheimer family as they struggle to retain links to their old heritage while moving forward into the rapidly changing American landscape.

I enjoyed every page of A Good American. George’s writing was real, humorous, yet his research and knowledge of the evolution of our country through its immigrants was woven throughout. Questioning our understanding of what it means to be a good American, in the umbrella of race relations, religious views, gender expectations, food, music and the family structure allows Alex George to give the reader a deep look at the multifaceted history of our country.

If you’d like to read more about A Good American, join our BlogHer Book Club discussion by clicking here.

“This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.”

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Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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I spend huge amounts of time in the snow.  I mean HUGE.  More than normal people; well,  people who don’t actually LIVE in the snow.

Last weekend, my trip to the snow started like this: left work at lunch,  loaded the car, started up some Taylor Swift on the iPod, and drove off in the early afternoon.

Everything started off really well.  Driving up the hill, leaving the valley fog behind, we were making progress.  Only five hours to Mammoth-no problem before dark.

We even had time to pull off the road and load up on caffeine – it was BOGO Christmas drinks, after all!

This is what a trip to the snow should look like, right?

 As we drove uphill, things went downhill.  Fast.

Momentarily switching on the radio, we heard the news about Newtown.  Tears.  Shock.  Horror.

Then it started to rain.  Not good.  The Prius is a lot of things, but it is definitely not a snow car.

We checked the weather channel app – if we hurried, we’d make it over the pass and into Nevada.  It would be smooth sailing after that.

Looks pretty, right?  It was.  Lily quickly  grabbed the camera while Taylor boomed through the speakers.  So cheery.  A white Christmas?

Not so fast.  Chains ahead.

Highway 50 isn’t called the ‘loneliest highway in the US’ for nothing.  There were NO services, so I had to suck it up and bundle up.  My daughter was watching.  There was no one else who could do it.

Don’t be fooled by the smile on my face.  It was all for the camera.  Inside, I was starting to panic.  Prius in the snow is not my favorite mode of travel.

My spirits were elevated when the CalTrans chain inspectors, amazed that I did it all by myself, fist-bumped me and sent me over the pass.  It was only 12 miles-we could do it.  It was  only 4:00, and with a three-hour drive in front of us, I wasn’t too worried.

Forgoing our usual shortcut, we opted for the pass over into the Nevada desert.  I ditched the chains – again, all by myself, and as snow turned to rain, I thought we were clear.

Damn Weather Channel app.

What looked clear actually became snow.  Lots and lots of snow.  But it was flat, and as we passed through Bridgeport behind schedule, I felt nervous but confident we could make it.

Compared to 50, Highway 395 is desolate.  Flat and decorated with gorgeous rock formations and rivers, I usually enjoy the drive.  But at this point it was getting dark, I was tired, and there was snow hovering way too close to the six-inch clearance of the Prius.

Suddenly, we saw it: the one and only traffic alert sign, pronouncing our need for chains.  Now.

And like a beacon in the night, the Big Sky Motel appeared, equipped with a large floodlight.  It was the only light on the road besides mine, so I quickly pulled into the parking lot and prepared myself.

Like a scene from Psycho, the motel door opened and a grizzled, shaggy man sauntered out in his sweatpants, with an equally scraggly dog following behind him.

“Want a room?  Only $69,” he croaked.  I smelled something – he must have been enjoying himself in the motel lobby.

Although I desperately wanted to say yes, I declined, but when he offered to help with the chains I jumped on it.

Ten minutes later, we were off.  Until the chains broke.  In the dark.

At this point, I felt like Wonder Woman.  Faster than she could spin into her costume, I jumped out and pulled those suckers off.  I was muddy, exhausted, and determined to make it before dawn.

We did.

This is the next morning, enjoying coffee in our favorite funky coffee joint, Stellar Brew.

And this view…what a reward.

She didn’t even mind spending the afternoon in the motel room, studying for finals.

And despite the struggle, the frustrations, and the hours and hours of driving – not to mention the ski race that was canceled, we ended up with a white Christmas after all.  And a whole bunch of memories, too.

Mammoth Lakes on Dwellable

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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