The Cure - Disintegration Turns 30

Anyone who has known me for a while has heard me talk about the band The Cure (sometimes ad nauseam #sorry #notsorry).  The Cure has been a soundtrack to my life and today I'm feeling a whole lot of nostalgia. The band was recently inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and this week their album Disintegration (which I'm currently listening to as I type this) turned 30 years old.

This morning the minions didn't want to get out of the car at school drop off because The Essentials with The Cure were on CBC Radio 2.  Today on a rainy Friday I felt a need to re-explore my love for the band and share a few stories about the kids, The Cure, and the time I was on BBC Radio 4 talking about Jack being scared of a Cure poster as a toddler.

To listen to my story on BBC Radio 4 click here (Jack and my story starts just after 19 minutes).

To read about Jack and how our Robert Smith nursery décor gave him nightmares click here.

To read about where the poster ended up click here.

Happy Friday Everyone.

Boys Don't Cry - From Poster to Radio, Past to Present

What feels like a million years ago and yesterday all at the same time, Chris and I made the decision to keep a Cure, Boy's Don't Cry poster on a wall where it was affixed directly above Jack's crib.  We thought it was fun, after all, he was a baby, he wouldn't complain about the nursery decor - that is until he did.  When Jack was a toddler he began to have trouble sleeping thanks to "the shadow man" which we soon figured out was the profile of The Cure lead singer Robert Smith.  So I wrote about it, (you can check out the post here).  We eventually took it down, and then it ended up in another nursery for another little boy named Wolfgang whose mom and dad met at a Cure concert (you can read that story here).

Fast forward years.  Jack is no longer afraid of Robert Smith.  In fact I'd argue he's a fan.  This six year old loves music: he can tell the difference between whether or not an ACDC song is sung by Bon Scott or Brian Johnson. A year or two ago when I asked him if he was interested in checking out a Monster Truck show he told me, in complete seriousness, that he'd rather watch The Cure video where Robert Smith falls down a cliff in a wardrobe instead, so we did, about eight times in a row.  He is a sensitive boy who knows what he likes.  He isn't afraid to show his emotions. He loves to dance and he's much more likely to cry from hurt feelings than he is from a bump or a bruise - which to us is more than okay -and pretty much summarizes the importance of the song.

Last summer I was approached for BBC Radio 4 for their Soul Music series to talk about Jack and Boy's Don't Cry.  As a huge Cure fan, my wedding song was Just Like Heaven, I was over the moon when I heard that founding Cure drummer Lol Tolhurst was also being featured in this series.  I was excited when the program aired, and my jaw dropped when the BBC relayed a message that Lol enjoyed our story and would share it with Robert to give him a chuckle.

As the 40th anniversary of the band is here, I'm hoping that they come to Toronto and that maybe I can take Jackie to the show.

Here is a link to the series if you want to check it out.   It is totally worth a listen in its entirety or if you just want to hear my (and Jack's) story, start at 19:07. The story shortly after mine is also connected to where our old Cure poster ended up.

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Ever Ever After

Just over a month ago I posted about some changes we had to make in the nursery, namely the removal of a The Cure - Boy's Don't Cry poster because it turns out, Robert Smith was no longer a suitable roommate for wee Jack.  Essentially he was terrified of the poster, so we moved it down the hall to my office.  Things calmed down for a few days, but then he wanted to visit the man, obsessively touching the poster to make sure that it wasn't real.  He started doing an impression of the man's laugh, which apparently is an evil villainous cackle -  poor Robert.

We took Robert down from the wall and moved him into storage in our basement.

The Poster

Once upon a time there was a young man who considered himself an alternative music junky.  One night, while at a Cure concert he met a girl.  They spent the entire evening dancing and talking with a candidness that he had never had with anyone else before.  They even talked about having kids and boy names that they both liked.  Before she left, she bought him a Boy's Don't Cry poster as a token of the evening.  She wrote her phone number down on the back of the poster, which made her seem even cooler. He was supposed to call her the following week to arrange their first date.

In an unfortunate and debaucherous turn of events, our hero had a little too much fun at said concert and misplaced the poster.  He had no way to contact his maiden fair, so he did what many young bachelors would, he tried to chalk it off to the fact that it was only a girl and that it didn't matter.  Later he tried to re-trace his steps but came back without his glass slipper.

In the three months that followed, he karmically attributed every piece of bad luck he encountered to the loss of the poster.  His mind kept drifting back towards the girl.  He was taken aback at how easily he fell into conversation with this girl, pushing down the this could be the one thoughts that kept crossing his mind.  He eventually came across the poster in his basement storage which in his stewed state the night of the show he'd cleverly "put somewhere safe" so he wouldn't lose it.

He picked up the phone and called the girl immediately.  She wasn't buying it.  Eventually he persuaded her to give him a second chance.  His hunch was correct and they dated for seven years, then got married. Their first baby is due to arrive July 4th.

Prince Charming is in charge of designing the nursery and he wants to incorporate the Boy's Don't Cry poster into the decor.  Unfortunately after, 15 years and several moves it has gone missing,  AGAIN.

That's how Prince Charming (aka Jeff) found me, Jack and Robert Smith.  He wanted the exact same poster to complete the design of the nursery which is apparently quite difficult to procure in the specific size of the original poster and as a part of his Google searching stumbled on my post.

They don't know the gender of the baby yet, but are determined, either way, the poster will adorn the baby's room with a remarkable story behind it. Jeff's wife plans on jotting her old phone number on the back just like the original.  And, they have just begun the process of picking a girls' name...just in case.

The phrase Boys Don't Cry is a part of their history that they want to commemorate in their nursery.

The Cure means a lot to Chris and I: Chris proposed to me while the album Disintegration played on a boom box when we were camping and our wedding song was Just Like Heaven, but the absence of the poster wouldn't take that away.  The poster has limited sentimental value for Chris and I.  We inherited the poster, along with a box of records and some amazing Sid Vicious pictures that are framed on our wall in the music room from an old co-worker/friend of mine.  This was Chris' second Boys Don't Cry poster: the first one was destroyed by a bottle of mustard (a long story involving a former roommate of Chris' which I am glad was long before we ever met).

 I think this is the best possible home for Robert.  After all, otherwise he may just get lost in our basement storage and that would be tragic.  In Jack's words, "Man is happy now, Man all gone.  Bye bye man."

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Boys Don't Cry

When we bought our house we mentally went over the future floor plan.  The middle upstairs bedroom was ear marked as a nursery/bedroom for the ONLY child we would have in a few years.*  When I found out I was expecting twins, the nursery automatically moved from the cute middle bedroom with the perfect nook for a single bed/crib to the larger room at the back of the house.  I knew right then and there that down the road I would eventually either lose my office to one of the minions or that we would have to move or renovate.

When we found out we were having girl/boy twins, we designed a gender neutral nursery with the theme: Nursery Rhymes and Storybooks.  We decorated it with artwork inspired by Jack and the Bean Stalk, The Princess and the Pea, Alice in Wonderland and The Princess Bride.  Since the nursery doesn't have a closet we opted for a series of dressers alongside an old IKEA armoire that previously encased a television that we converted into a children's wardrobe.  Only three items remain from the conversion of this room from spare room to nursery: the off white linen curtains**, the PEZ themed light switch cover and a giant "The Cure" poster situated behind the armoire promoting their 1979 Album Boys Don't Cry.  We debated moving it, but I was keen on the idea of  having a picture in a nursery that had the Motto - Boys Don't Cry embossed on it.

Not necessarily the most traditional nursery decoration

Two nights ago Jack woke up in the middle of the night freaking out and absolutely inconsolable.  It was Chris's night on-call, so after three attempts to get Jack back to sleep he ended up crashing out on the couch downstairs with Jack in his arms.  The only person who managed to sleep through the 90 minute ordeal was Molly.

The next morning Chris and I were talking about why Jack was up and what was bothering him.  Chris mentioned that he kept on talking about the closet and that he explained to Jack that there was no closet in his room.  As the day progressed I thought more and more about Jack's issue - I was convinced that it had to be the poster.  I called Chris and asked him if Jack had mentioned anything about the poster.  "Yes, he kept on asking about the man" and explained to him that the man was Robert Smith and he is a singer from England.  Chris had previously told me that he was terrified of some movie posters (ET and Star Wars) he had in his room at night (during the day they were fine) as a child, so we really should have clued in sooner, but didn't and I'm going to blame it on being sleep deprived.

When we returned from work that evening I asked Jack about the poster.  He informed me that he did not like it.  So when I asked him if he wanted us to take it down, he said yes. We removed Robert from the wall that evening.  Jackie was happy that "the bad man*** with the eyes is gone."   Molly was indifferent and couldn't care less and even asked to visit the man in his new home.  The next day Jack told me that, "The man that lives in the picture is happy now."

I am now sharing my office with Robert Smith.  It was bound to happen sooner or later.

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*Guess that was never in the cards, not that I'd change a thing.
**I am currently looking for new, darker curtains in hope that it will make for a more suitable nap environment and am welcoming suggestions.
***Or Batman, he doesn't always enunciate is words.