Post Giants-winning Super Bowl, Feb. 5, I'm folding laundry in my bedroom and The Voice reality TV show registers a little above the ceiling fan on my peripheral hearing. A pretty blond female country singer belts out. My interest is somewhat piqued, though I'm more excited about the pairing of my longtime-separated striped socks. I've got my own tune by Peaches and Herb playing in my head: "Reunited and it feels so good ..."
Before I lay the precious, reconciled socks in the pile, I hear the next contestant being introduced: "From Clearwater, Florida" and "Juliet Simms." I yell, "What!" and turn around in shock to my little color TV. There's 25-year-old Juliet from Automatic Loveletter, the lithe, baby-faced-beautiful, scruffy-dressing young rocker, whom I watched grow up in the local music scene starting as a teen in her own band and hanging out at older brother Tommy's Disco Nap and Win Win Winter shows. Her fierce vocal chops always belied her age.
On the show, Juliet starts singing, "Oh, Darling!" and I jump and cheer. I Facebook my friends and call my mom, reminding her that she met Simms when I interviewed Automatic Loveletter in her living room (she lives on Highland Avenue, down the street from Simms; I had also interviewed two of her brother's bands there). I repeat myself a few times because Mommy's at that hard-of-hearing age, I get a sketchy 10-4, and hang up to watch the rest of Juliet's smoking, drop-to-the-floor performance.
Juliet's absolutely killing it with her feminine gravel and soul-socking delivery of one of my favorite Beatles' tunes.