Monday, January 10, 2011

Teena Marie, 1956-2010


I'm sitting in the living room with my Poppa.  I'm on my computer,  he's watching The View.  Whoopi mentions the recent passing of R&B legend Teena Marie, so my ears perk up.   I'm a fan, and her death was a tragic loss, but I don’t expect my grandparents to know who she was, which is why I’m so confused when Poppa calls Nanny into the room...
Poppa: “Margaret, come here for a sec!”
Nanny: “What is it, what do you want?”
Poppa:  “What was the name of that singer you liked?  The one who had her own show? The one who was gay? With the raspy voice?”
Nanny: “Who?”
Poppa: “What was the name of that show.. Beyond, something?”
Nanny: “Beyond Reason?  Beyond...”
Me: “Do you mean Melissa Etheridge?  That wasn’t-”
Poppa: “Yeah, yeah. She looks like the woman who just died.”
Nanny: “Beyond Belief.”*
Me: “Wait, Melissa Etheridge had a TV show?”
Nanny: “Who died?”
Poppa: “That singer, Tina Louise.”
Me: “No, not-”
Nanny: “Oh, she was getting on...”
Poppa: “She was only 53.”
Me:“No, it was Teena Ma-”
Nanny: “No, she was older than that... she was on that old show...”
Poppa: “Gilligan’s...
Me: “No, Tina Louise didn’t die,  it was Teena Marie.”
Nanny: “ Gilligan’s Island.”
Poppa: “Oh? Who’s that, what did she do?
Nanny: “Who?”
Me: “She was a singer.”
Poppa: “Oh.”
Nanny: “Don’t call me in here again!”
Poppa: (to me) “You’ll be old one day too, you know.”


Yeah, so that's the kind of conversation that happens several times a day.  I've got dozens more where that came from...


But seriously, Teena Marie was an enormously talented singer, songwriter, and producer, and we lost her far too soon.  











































*The TV show in question, which I was not familiar with, was in fact called Beyond Chance.  It starred Melissa Etheridge and ran from 1999-2002 on Lifetime. Yeah, I had to do some Googling to find that out.



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