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.