Is My Crush On Liz Phair Coming To An End?

June 24, 2008 by John Foster  Send to a Friend

15 years ago, a startling collection of music came seemingly out of nowhere to forever change how I perceived music. Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville” connected with me in a number of ways that it likely was never intended to. Blame it on being raised primarily by my mother, or from being a latch key kid in a dicey neighborhood for my early sexual developmental years: I have always gotten along better with women than with men.

By the time college rolled around, I found myself hiding from the fraternity-like nature of the soccer team in order to hit the bars with a clutch of whip-smart vixens. If you are ever in the situation of needing to get into a bar as an underage feller in a small town, the exact equation is four hot, and seemingly always single, girls to one lowly you. We went out every night for two years straight and I became an insider behind the cutthroat side of the mating ritual; Watching guys across the bar trying to gauge the interest of the women around me and then spending hours trying to figure out if girls this attractive would give them the time of day. The bold few would ultimately find out that girls this attractive in fact, do not want to give them the time of day. Once this time honored game had passed, the women would then quickly couple if they so chose, with men that were certain to treat them like shit – but they would do so on their terms and often beat them to the punch. One thing was for certain, no matter how fleeting the attraction on the female side, the men (boys really) never seemed to fully recover: Longing for the combination of sexy and smart with balls to the wall that is ever elusive.

A year into trading our studies for liquid salvation, I had the opportunity to see it from deep on the inside. I began secretly dating one of the girls off and on for a year, hidden from the rest of our group and even from our roommates. The danger of discovery made the already heightened attraction nearly unbearable. Of course it was all a game that soon came crumbling to pieces once revealed. The crumbling would in fact last for several years – such is the case when dealing with complicated women. With “Exile” arriving at the end of my stay in college, my torrid affair with Liz Phair would take even longer to extinguish.

Phair emerged as the very epitome of the women I had surrounded myself with. Naturally sexy but with a snarl and a warning that you can’t just have her body – not that she won’t do the opposite to you (and you thought that was what you wanted all along until she came and left silly rabbit…) Her dirty blonde hair falling over the pages of a book you can never seem to finish (or understand) and more cutting conversation than you can keep up with (but you will try my friend – oh how you will try.) She is the kind of woman you are with because you want to be kept on your toes and happiness is something you look for elsewhere in your life.

On Saturday I had an encounter with one of my earlier brushes with women like this. We went over to the home of my former girlfriend and junior prom date to do some catching up with high school friends, in town for a visit. At my age, this means having our kids play together while the “adults” make their way to the deck. Its hard to sit across from someone, even with these years between us, when they now look exactly like Amy Adams in Enchanted but with a better body, and not remember them begging for your virginity at 16 (the fool that I am I wouldn’t let her have it.) Even though she now looks like an even better version of the woman that had been kicking around in my memories, I am quickly reminded that things are not that simple. Her husband starts to grate on everyone at the get together by man-handling their dog and telling all of us how we should train our pets. They bring everyone over to their house and then only lay out chips and dip and they seem to have moved into a neighborhood that is exclusively white. When she begins rolling out her conservative views on education and politics, as hard as it is to imagine – I am glad that I never had sex with this woman.

Liz Phair proved to be just as complicated over the years, but in her own unique ways. She always stayed sexy god bless her, but there was nowhere to go after such a defining work introduced her to the world. She fleshed out her songs to varying degrees of success and as the clock seemed to be ticking on her sex appeal she made a brazen lunge for the brass ring of chart success. She played the Lilith Fair (not surprisingly one of the last words I had with my past college romance was telling her that I couldn’t take an extra ticket to this concert.) She eventually exhausted her recording budgets and her label’s patience, which resulted in collaborators like Michael Penn and hitcrafters The Matrix being brought in. Nearly unrecognizable from her “Exile” days, she put “Why Can’t I?” and “Extraordinary” into the charts and movie soundtracks, but it still didn’t reach the heights the label (and perhaps Phair) had assumed it would. During all this, she married, had a child, and divorced.

Through it all I still loved her. Crafting songs from so long ago that continued to touch me - although I hadn’t purchased her last two discs - there was a part of me that knew she would one day return to making music about her life. We were both adults now. She was still that girl inside but now a woman as well – one with loads of life experience – all she had to do was write about it and we would re-connect. I just knew it.

This all changed on Saturday. It came in an unexpected package. Like a letter with no return address, something in the mail alerted me to the fact that Liz was no longer who I thought she was. It was the current issue of Entertainment Weekly.

The focus of the issue is the “new” classics and it is typically list heavy. In the music section, there is my beloved Liz swinging a microphone while sporting tight jeans into her forties. Unfortunately, to her right is a list of top 10 “new classic lazy Sunday Cds” – whatever that means. Her list is Top 40 heavy to say the least and totally dismisses any notion that we could ever see eye-to-eye on anything. Number 10 stops me in my tracks. Jack Johnson’s “In Between Dreams.” What songwriter worth their salt would even own a Jack Johnson disc? His vapid strumming is the type of thing Phair should be wiping her milf heiney with. It’s the kind of “music” songwriters just make-up on the spot to entertain their four year-old nephews. I can barely read on – yet I must.

Number nine is Lyle Lovett’s “The Road to Ensenada.” I am actually a big fan of Lyle’s storytelling as long as he stays away from the honkytonk rave-ups. However – everyone should know from this moment forward that “Joshua Judges Ruth” is the only Lovett allowed on any top ten list! She then runs through D’Angelo, Dr. Dre and Lauryn Hill – all good and if one of them had slid in here I might not have batted an eye, but my girl would have traded in Public Enemy or De La Soul for their hip hop groundbreaker. At five, Paul Simon’s “Graceland” comes round with it’s middle-aged sing-a-longs: Again – not bad but hardly what you would expect from the sexiest art history major to ever strap on a six-string.

Recent works from Paolo Nutini and Butterfly Boucher are interrupted by Radiohead’s “Kid A,” which she describes as the “first abstract-rock album I loved.” FIRST!!!! How expected is this inclusion at this point. Based on the rest of the list, I am starting to wonder if this has been inserted strictly for suburban street cred. Ugh!!!!!

Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse comes the capper. The final kiss off. The notice in the paper that she married some fat, ugly guy strictly for the money. Seeing her pull up next to you at the upscale supermarket in a Hummer. Driving a dagger deep into your heart.

Number one is Third Eye Blind “s/t.”

Le Liz goes on to praise it as “a tumultuous breakup record from a man’s POV.”

Wha wha whaaaaa?????? I don’t have a deep hatred for Third Eye Blind (although this could be the water on the seed) but I am also quite certain that this record should never be mistaken for The Afghan Whigs “Gentleman.” I had always considered that record to be a dark and complex bookend to Phair’s “Exile” but now it seems as if Liz has never even heard the record. How could she have? Her list seems like it was compiled by listening to mix fm radio over the past year.

I know her life is radically different from the days that formed “Fuck and Run” and other classics, but music to carpool by? The soundtrack to the PTA meeting? How could she? And why does she have to look so good next to that awful list?

I don’t give a shit. I’m stronger now. We have NOTHING in common.

I mean it this time.

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