I am a true Jersey Girl who earned my Asbury Park street cred working summers at the Palace. When the Ferris wheel shut down for the night we would head out to the circuit – Duckies for serious drinking, Mrs. Jays for food and the Fast Lane for music. In those years the Stone Pony was a disco emporium for bennies so we passed it by. I have no memory of ever seeing the Jukes in that nasty dive. Instead I was at every outdoor show in driving distance and would reunite with my summer pals at the New Year’s Eve shows at the Capitol Theater.

I have already told the story on the message board of, through no fault of my own, being reamed out by Mr. Lyon. Well the story continues…I spied him a few weeks later hanging out at Big Man’s West and though I desperately wanted an autograph there was no way I was going to go up to him and remind him of how we had met. So as the show ended and we were being hustled out to the street, I sent my little French cousin over to ask him to sign a photo. Of course after 20 minutes standing out in the cold waiting I had to send my big French cousin in to rescue her but I got my autograph – sort of. Since it was at the end of a long evening in which a good time had been had by all – some even more than others it would seem – the scrawled autograph was completely unreadable and unrecognizable. But I still have it!

Over the following decades I saw a few Jukes shows whenever I could, mostly in NYC where I was working and living the downtown life. When the sadness of the AIDS crisis and age took the fun out of that scene I moved back to NJ and started seeing the band more frequently – especially enjoying the shows in my new home of Hoboken - Jukes and cannoli – heaven!

Then job relocation brought me to Richmond, VA which is a lovely town with a lively local music scene but no good pizza, no friends and no Jukes! With no life to balance stress and annoyances of work I was getting seriously depressed until I got a special delivery from Blue Harp. You see, in the corporate world one is subjected to unending indignities in the name of “leadership development.” The worst of these is the contrived opportunities created for “open and honest communication.” One such campaign involved hanging pictures of green traffic lights outside the offices of grown up, highly-educated professionals including yours truly. This was to remind the individual within to be open to receiving any and all “gifts of feedback.”

Well people, while Miss Tasha greatly enjoys receiving gifts, she prefers them to come in small blue boxes or be returnable. Complaints and criticism, no matter how prettily wrapped ce ne sont pas des cadeaux.

When my copy of Into the Harbour arrived and I first heard “You’re My Girl” I laughed until tears were running down my face and I was gasping for air between sobs of laughter. For there in a throwaway line between verses was the phrase that has become my personal mantra: “The talking light is no longer lit baby.” I found a bobble head doll with a recording chip and programmed it so that it played that phrase whenever I set its little head to nodding. I kept that doll on my desk until it fell apart from overuse and Project Green Light bit the dust. Then I logged on to the website and planned a serious schedule of Jukes therapy. Regular doses of music and message board mischief do wonders for the soul.

I realize this has been an excessively long FOTM story but if you have a problem with it you can like keep it to yourself because my talking light is no longer lit baby and it has been unplugged and the bulb taken out and smashed. . .