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HOW MUCH CAN YOU GET DONE BEFORE NOON?

2010-06-14T11:58:00.007-04:00

"Girls in emo songs today do not have names. We are not identified. Our lives, our struggles, our day-to-day-to-day does not exist, we do not get colored in. We span from coquettish to damned and back again. We leave bruises on boy-hearts, but make no other mark. Our existences, our actions are portrayed SOLELY through the detailing of neurotic self-entanglements of the boy singer. Our region of personal power, simply, is our breadth of impact on his romantic life. We are on a short leash in a filthy yard. We are mysteries to be unlocked, bodies to be groped, minimum wage earners of fealty, harvesters of sorrow, repositories for scorn. Vessels redeemed in the light of boy-love. On a pedestal, on our backs. Muses at best. Cum rags or invisible at worst."
-JESSICA HOPPER

A life transcribed by serial daters, a life troubleshooted on a computer, "Single" but not single, the DMCA is after me, the FDA is wrong and my IRA sux. Don't worry about the semantics. It's a Girl's World if u want it to b.

IN BRIEF, 4 KOOL KIDS WHO RULE SKOOL

2010-05-05T14:36:00.002-04:00

This nice dude, a young director Mike Brune, asked KNAVES GRAVE to do a video. Knaves has only been together since about December 2009 and we are soon putting out our first release (7 inch single on Army of Bad Luck). A video seemed a bit premature considering those details but we like Mike Brune so much and felt our song lended to a bit of imagery that we decided to go for it! Film projects are always a noble way to spend one's time and Knaves loves creative collaboration fests with adorable, intelligent, wonderous peeps.

Since we have particular nostalgia for the 80s, especially 80s teen movies a la John Hughes, we conjured up this fun narrative that pays homage to the days gone by of high school and neon, a complimentary short film of sorts to a Peter Pan in Ray Bans manifesto, "I Don't Wanna Be Yr A.A.R.P.". We were particularly lucky to have lots of kids involved in the project, including four particular individuals who provided their time and energy to represent the high school heroes required for the story. AND they aren't actors (but they coulda fooled me easily); they are all musicians in our hometown. Three outta four are playing shows this week, so go out and see them!:

Josh Lyner sings for THE SUNGLASSES, label mates of ours. One of the best punk bands in ATL easily, thanks to their flairs of sludgy stoner riffs and atypical song structures. It's like you put Black Flag in a bucket and mix it up with some early 90s metal and you get something really brilliant and def amazing to watch live. The Sunglasses are playing TONIGHT, May 5th, at The Earl w/ The Jacuzzi Boys and The Coathangers. YES!!!

Emily Kempf writes, sings and plays banjo in THE BACK POCKETS. I adore this great gaggle of kids! They remind me of an eclectic gypsy caravan of pioneers exploring a cavern of silvery vibrations and tribal sounds, decorating their journey with t-shirt shreds, feathers, war paint, magick and candy. They are bringing their energy-raising art on tour w/ their newest release but before they skip town they'll be playing tomorrow May 6th for the Pine Magazine showcase and May 8th at Wonderroot w/ The Wild, Small Talk and Giant Lion. Check out these fabulous folk led by a most magnificent sound seamstress!!!

Woody Shortridge played our computer genius hero, appropriate as he is one of the four mastermind young geniuses in BALKANS. For such young dudes, they reel out infectiously great, rowdy pop pleasures like it were as easy as 1-2-3 (ATL indie-punk Jackson 5 style). Lots of action coming up for them this summer, deservingly so. Balkans will be playing May 8th as well for their 7" release at 529 with Baltimore's electro-make-out-makers Future Islands and Adam Bruneau's #Phonepunk#.

Measley Moon is not playing out yet, but she will be soon. She shares residence with our guitarist, Ian Deaton, and good friend, John Hannah, in a spazzy avant garde noise project called YOUNG DEAD CELEBRITIES. Measley is a highly driven fun young lady who likes to challenge boring standards and idealogies (especially in music), which is just one of many thousand reasons to wanna kidnap her for your own. I love, love, love myself some Measley!!

Time does not permit me to say more, but needless to say, I am really grateful to have had these four awesome kids in our film. Not only are they awesome people but they are also inspiring and valuable to our local scene and we are so happy to have had them participate in our project.

The video should be coming out shortly and much will be said later... Until then, go watch some awesome music in ATL this week if you can, boo.

WEST EGG ON THE WEST SIDE, WOO?

2010-02-02T14:30:00.016-05:00

One thing that rules about ATL is our large picking of breakfasts. In and around my area alone there's Ria's Bluebird Cafe, Java Jive, Sun In My Belly, Gato Bizco, Flying Biscuit, the Earl's dunch, Thumbs Up, Dakota Blue's weekend brunch, Radial Cafe, Eclipse di Sol's weekend brunch... even a trip to Ponce De Leon's J. Christopher's can satisfy my hobbitile eating habits. AND what also rules about breakfast in ATL is: this is the fuckin' SOUTH! This often means breakfast with an involvement of one of the best things about The South: Southern cookin'. Not to mention the South also has some awesome Mexican food. Delish? I think yes.

Faith and I went to West Egg Cafe thinking we were going to cure ourselves through the glory of a sinfully delicious breakfast... I had once had such a breakfast at the West Egg's old location some time ago and hoped to return to such a delicious state in my belly (I used to be a huge fan of their tofu scramble). Thought I'd try something new involving other fav food items of mine: black bean cakes and fried green tomatoes. I was overjoyed! And soon thereafter consumption, disappointed. Aw. I was partially motivated to revisit due to Creative Loafing giving the Howell Mill brunch/lunch hub their Best Breakfast award for the past two years. My last visit left me unable to understand why. Perhaps their weekend brunch menu is a significant difference from their weekday bfast menu? Or perhaps such an award was a reader's pick. You can't knock a critic all the time.

In review: Their black bean cakes are fairly decent, not too dry and well seasoned. This was the best part of the meal. The eggs were well cooked though could have been more flavorful, and unfortunately the black bean/egg combo was overloaded with a clammy overkill of sour cream. Less sour cream and more salsa could have made the West Egg's huevos-cousin rendition of black bean cakes work out quite well. They are not assembled and dressed the way a good serving of Flying Biscuit love cakes are though and it's hard to compete. Cest la vie. Neither a win nor lose, so moving on to the most important part...

Understand that fried green tomatoes are a super art in the South. You don't fuck around with a fried green tomato. This food item is sacred Southern stuff. I was raised on such Southern staples as fried okra, collard and turnip greens, black eyed peas, grits, cornbread, a variety of sweet potato concoctions, creamed corn, potlicker, biscuits and gravy, and cole slaw so fried green tomatoes are no exception. There's nothing I hate more than a fried green tomato that has no flavor, so even if the black bean cakes are pretty tasty, I was not a happy camper.

It's strange. How is it the West Egg has won two Best Breakfast awards from Creative Loafing for 2008 and 2009 even though their menu is uncannily similar to Flying Biscuits? Has Flying Biscuit reached a pinnacle that they are unable to keep receiving such an award? Especially now that they are a chain? Yet there are no extra fixins with their black bean cakes like the Biscuit's tomatilla, feta and red onions and though the description for West Egg's Fried Green Tomato Wrap look like an appealing next choice, I believe a good FGT should be delicious on its own. It sounds like this place is getting awards for birthing a well-marketed and fashionably designed & managed restaurant in an area being taken over by rich white people so Georgia Tech students can sit around and be bougie pretending to eat great food that has relatively stolen their menu's creativity from an already established ATL staple (Flying Biscuit). In theory this place is awesome. The new building is gorgeous and comfortable and all the servers are really sweet (they even have a photo booth). Supposedly they have great cupcakes and that is meritable for real. It's unfortunate though, to see a potentially great place, messing with items they know nothing about and not straying too far into their own style with a menu that can define them as their own. And, H.E.doublehockeystick!, it's better produce NO fried green tomatoes if your FGT's have no flava flav, no matter how successfully another popular restaurant has made such items. Perhaps I'm being too hard on the West Egg (and the food critics at Creative Loafing as well), but I was not impressed. I'll take a dive over a well kept establishment any day as long as the food feeds my spirits, or I'll just keep returning to my same old favs.

(P.S. - Ria's kicks every breakfast joint's ass in this town btw.)

WHAT I REALLY NEED TO DO IS FIND MYSELF A BRAND NEW LOVER.

2010-01-28T19:50:00.004-05:00

... and if the link doesn't work, here.

Cream in your panties, wild horses! Wild horses can not be tamed! This is the anthem for the wild horse in us all! And look at his hair (long locks, that perm!), and his lips (and lip gloss!), and his earrings (great choice!), and his hip shaking. I don't believe there are many men as beautiful as Peter Burns (pre-cosmetic surgery nightmare). "Brand New Lover" is Dead or Alive's late eighties new wave hit, still dressed up in New Romantic attire, and perhaps an early slice of the dance music to come in the early nineties. I love it a thousand times more than "You Spin Me Round", even though the song has helped to define the eighties sound dramatically through it's wide-reaching popularity. Dead or Alive, you little hyper sexual pop divas you!

Plus when you have a boy toy like Moz...

Pete: It's great to find a friend you can row with. I phone him up from Italy and everywhere, don't I? Even my own mother doesn't hear from me...
Morrissey: I think he means to phone his mother but he gets confused and dials my number instead. And he doesn't realise until we're half way through the conversation that I'm not actually his mother.
Pete: He's not my mother...
Morrissey: As long as I don't have to breast feed, I don't mind.
Pete: Oh, that was a sharp one, Joan Rivers!
Morrissey: He sends me flowers lots of times...
Pete: If I hear that he's down or depressed, I'll send him a bunch of flowers. Nothing brings him out like a bunch of flowers. Send him a bunch of daisies and he's anybody's. It's true, we have these little Interfiora men running between our flats, don't we, eh? He's anybody's for a lupin. When we were in Italy we had to have all these armed military police to guard us which was so stupid and it was freaking me out and so I phoned him up and he was making a piece of toast in Manchester. It really brought me back down to earth -- you know, 'What are you doing?', 'Oh, I've got a piece of toast on the stove and I'm watching Brookside'. It makes you realise it's still the same world. That's why our friendship is really important. I know it's more important to me than it is to him because he'd gladly go off and be a recluse.
Morrissey: No, that's not true. He sent me 26 roses when it was my birthday and I sent him 48 naked sailors.
- Smash Hits, October 22, 1985

It's been a month and my hosting is back, which means I am back on the blogging roll. Tonite in ATL, two newer electronic acts, Roman Photos and Kid Stuff, play the Star Bar FREE! Bands in the community that induce dance are rare and the lack of electronics in ATL is shocking, but here's two more for the tally board! Go team! All the while we are not going to have anyone as fabulous as Dead or Alive in our urban stratosphere, we at least have Roman Photos' ESG meets synth mystery-scapes (a la upbeat John Carpenter numbers/Italians Do It Better) and Kid Stuff's tongue-in-cheek pseudo-rave dance party (complete with Debbie Gibson panache) and the ever sassy funalicious Judi Chicago is headlining. HURRAH!

FUCK ME I"M BEAUTIFUL!

IT'S X-MAS AND I AIN'T GOT NOBODY

2009-12-25T14:29:00.001-05:00

Everyone from Billy Idol to Taylor Swift to Bon Jovi likes to deliver shitty, sappy Christmas songs, trying to one-up the olden classics of "Santa Baby" and "Sleigh Ride". Such pop annoyances can make a person who has already downed Maalox to keep from vomiting up an overkill of sweets and a few aspirins to ease family-induced headaches feel much, much worse. The sad Christmas song concept sells so much to the point that loneliness (in the romantic aspect) may be more induced by the marketing of being lonely on Christmas than anything else. If it weren't triggered by some line about how we "had" someone one Christmas ago and do not now, we may never know the difference! I'll stick to my Ronnettes holiday numbers, please, while dealing with post-holiday financial meltdown and sinus infections, thank you very much. There's a few mentionables that have slipped through the cracks though in which I would love to share with you.

THE POGUES "fairytale of new york"

Yes, that's Matt Dillon in the beginning of the video. This is the ultimate hopes and dreams between two lovers being totally smashed to pieces sort of holiday number. Kirsty MacColl plays the perfect role of the pissed girlfriend to Shane MacGowan's drunken regretful mourning.

ELVIS PRESLEY "blue christmas"

To please Southern grandmas. Campy but necessary.

WHAM "last x-mas"

"Once bitten and twice shy", George Michael is one of my favorites anyway, but when he whispers "Merry Christmas!" it's enough to make a girl shudder! An 80s Christmas classic that is dressed in pink and synth and bitterness with a touch of diva-dressed threat to rise above past Christmas romantic disappointment.

PRINCE "another lonely x-mas"
Prince - Another Lonely Christmas Mp3
Prince ain't allowed on YouTube or anywhere on the Internet really, so no surprise if this gets deleted - sorry for the weird player. Genius pop song on it's own, as Prince can only do, but about young lost love on Christmas. Better yet, this is the vinyl B-side to "I Would Die 4 U" - fuck yes!

Happy Holidays or what have you peeps!

WHERE ARE ALL THE PHILIP OAKEY BOYS?

2009-12-16T23:09:00.002-05:00

Phil Oakey has adamantly proposed that he is a straight man. I believe him, of course, I just can't believe there aren't more of him in existence, especially ones for me to date. It's 2009 and not the early Eighties, sure, but it's a girl's dream to date a boy who will put on make-up with her while getting ready to go out. It's a girl's dream to date a boy who will sing love songs in an amazing synthpop band while he's wearing sequins and black eyeliner. At least it's the dream of a girl like me. Three hurrahs for boys in make-up and 18 more hurrahs for boys in make-up who would maybe make-out with me (but please no Robert Smiths, okay?)!

Here's three hits by the League that aren't love songs.

HUMAN LEAGUE "empire state human"

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HUMAN LEAGUE "seconds"

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HUMAN LEAGUE "the lebanon"

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Here's three videos of the League that are love songs.

ENJOY!

JOHN CARPENTER'S 'ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK' IN MUSIC

2009-11-10T17:11:00.002-05:00

It's 1997 and it's the future, except the future is the past, and in the future-past the President's Airforce One has crashed into Manhattan, which is now(then) a large prison via anarchist unit (Freetown Christiania/Desperate Living's Mortville w/o the lipstick and sequins). Kurt Russell is the hardest ass ex-prisoner ever, and the govt. gets this dangerous dude to go save the president from a cult of prison peeps that look like either the dude from the Screamers logo or crazy World War vets with schizophrenic hallucinations. Kurt Russell's grunge-chic is the only thing that would have been properly predicted of 1997. It's even sort of post-grunge-chic if you wanna get more specific (meaning Creed, and Kurt Russell even talks low and rusky and very serious like I imagine Scott Stapp would). Boo ya, says the costume designer!

But all in all, I'm not here to talk about Isaac Hayes or his hoopty car w/ the chandeliers on 'em, or how The President looks like someone's fat, sweaty dad except terrified instead of grumpy and smug. Really I just wanna say that John Carpenter, directing aside, is a master composer. People talk lots about Philip Glass and Ennio Morricone and, yes, Halloween's theme is mentioned here and there, but Carpenter really has a goldmine of a discography that is not often enough noted. His music is often overshadowed by his directorial position and perhaps the kitsch of his films (and the fact that he often scores his own films and no one else's) has kept a few future listeners in the dark.

Carpenter is a huge fan of repetitious notes and beats that slowly layer to become crescendos, usually with the gradual addition of drum and/or synth parts. Typically using haunting melodies and chord progressions, Carpenter has stylized himself as a recognizable song writer through his heavy use of arpeggiating badassness, unchanging and persistent use of a string of the same note in different octaves, and often fully synth/electronic basis (usually w/ a splash of piano). His is a style that can be enjoyed w/ or w/o the context of his films.

My introduction to John Carpenter was more through his music than his films, but I recognize for many the films will have been more familiar foremost. Outside of the context of the films, you can draw all sorts of personal interpretation of the moods in the music. Escape From New York is no exception to this idea. One example is the short but brooding "Across the Roof", easily emotive enough to be mistaken for a Romeo and Juliet intertwined in a muted Victorian cascadence with a twinge of Gary Numan-esqe instrumental loveliness and a cloud of alien/human dilemma/doom to match. Another notably gorgeous is the still "Engulfed Cathedral", a looming number written by Debussy. How one throws in a Debussy song with an original soundtrack and makes it work seamlessly is one thing, but how to do a Debussy song like so for an action film is even more of an accomplishment. Carpenter's songs can resemble modern lovers meeting in the dark alleys or dew-covered backyards in a warm synth Renaissance era composition and yet totally work when Kurt Russell, armed with a machine gun, is stalking around abandoned buildings or heroically about to take off in a jet to save someone's life against his own will.

Outside of the quiet gems unexpected for the movie's genre, Escape From New York's soundtrack holds disco-terrific jams that are anything but classical in structure. "The Duke Arrives" and "The Bank Robbery" are upbeat waves of anxiety and adventure that Carpenter successfully portrays in the film, even capturing screams and screeches with high pitched saw tooth waves.

JOHN CARPENTER "main title"

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JOHN CARPENTER "engulfed cathedral"

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JOHN CARPENTER "across the roof"

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JOHN CARPENTER "the duke arrives"

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I'VE GOT TO BUILD A NEW MACHINE

2009-10-23T15:22:00.002-04:00

Try wrapping your head around promises that are make-believe, yet this idea is unknownst to you and you’ve been had, you’ve been living up to them all along, yet reality knew they didn’t exist, not REALLY, so you just spent a little too much effort on something entirely fictional. Little did you know that Santa Claus and aliens weren't REALLY real (and/or important) and you’re the butt end of the joke. Ha, ha, ha.

On brittle days, when switchblades seem most divine, you attempt to stop waiting for the always unresponsive to suddenly lift their comatose, busy and important heads and start speaking in a rhythm striking uncanny similarity to your brain waves. Wish fulfillment happens accidentally. Mishaps. Lonesomeness, on the other hand, is a sexuality you grow into & possibly then forever stay as.

When the schoolbooks can’t bind us, we’re left to our own resources, made up castles of life skill libraries, a market mess when our boots step out onto the cobblestone streets and the paupers and princes throw die in the name of competition and greed, and their handsome profiles charm, their graces haughty with whiskey and reeling words, but you’re much too awkward to even blend in, even if it were just a game… And yet where in Hades’ name is the courage to peel one’s face back, skin to skull, & let crimson blood drip out all over this stylish complimented rotting front porch? Where’s liberation? Would they laugh or call it bravery, or if not bravery, bravado, and if not bravado than just laughing… let’s say just laughing, choice one, would it be awkward (to break the silence type) or cruelty? What would they do? So much better to say it’s not important, to neither fit in or wear a heart bloody pulpified on one’s sleeve… just say it in a smoothen confident tone and what does it matter if you mean anything?

Therefore importance lacks. Nothing is important.
It’s not important that this cesspool’s so warm, produces slime and filth and squandering souls, but what do you got when you can’t even speak a word to a singular girl whose knees bled for them, too, somehow? If we were just the same… if she was just vacant… if you had learned to open your mouth & speak to her, would she have appreciated it? Would you redefine importance for Empathy’s sake? Cosmic connection? Opportunity, to see that somehow lonesomeness is not your sexual identity after all? And how well would you adjust?

Face it. Your mornings aren’t snuggled. You may not cry from your eyes, or really even hate your isolation, and you may not be helpless, but you're def. not ready to be the image of anyone with any agenda of any sorts (especially not an agenda of importance, which takes lion guts galore to even walk 1/2000th of), and really not ready to reach out and say yes to anyone else who may talk too much, stupidly, not funny, in circles maybe, but still also comes home at night to watch her pithy life flushing right down the drain. She thinks, just as you, that things don’t change, not when you’re hopeless. Hopelessness is a fate that came to stay with them all, an abandoned kitten in an alleyway of the apocalypse, right? It would make us meanies to leave such a defenseless creature in a creepy gutter like so. Freezing rain is not fun. It's not even ethical to give someone a home of freezing rain.

It’s not important that we need some slant of sorts, but we’re all gonna have to learn to take sides sometimes, hopefully it’ll be the team that knows honesty is the best policy. Go for the good gold. A real revolution. Is avoiding fright of baring it all out there, without destruction, without proving something in impressions or tactless turmoil worth the fucking saddies afterall?

"TO BE TRULY RADICAL IS TO MAKE HOPE POSSIBLE RATHER THAN DESPAIR CONVINCING" -RAYMOND WILLIAMS

TUXEDOMOON "new machine"

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CUZ I'VE BLOWN ALL THE STRAIGHT BOYS IN L.A.

2009-10-07T16:26:00.003-04:00

HUNX & HIS PUNX!
Originally uploaded by SUNNNI

Hunx, of Gravy Train!!!!, is a homo-glorious hybrid of a James Bidgood character and Rock N Roll High School (ie, if you don't love him, you are probably not much fun). Hunx with some Punx equals leather, sequins, sassy frass & boys, boys, boys!

Vacation managed to cram a bunch of cute-starved kids into their small store space last Sunday night to witness Hunx and his Punx do their thang. Some of the leftover stragglers from the zombie parade, fully blood splattered and corpse paint smeared, lurched around in the background while the rest of us bobbed our heads in total approval (if not glee!). Though a venue w/ a proper sound guy and PA would have been most beneficial for this Cali foursome rock N roll orgy (complete with enough space for a real dance party), they were good-natured and enthusiastic throughout. Hunx is truly an interactive performer with dancing feet that would shame the entirity of the city. I highly suggest you check out their tour dates and go see them if they happen to sashay into your hometown any time soon.

http://www.myspace.com/hunxsolo

At the end of their set, a baby wave of sadness splashed me. Maybe it's dreams of the West Coast, liberal politics meeting love and freedoms that the Southeast so gravely lacks. In a scene that is not obviously divided but disconnected either which way, we're harboring more "serious" musicians than Hunx types. It is not to say that Hunx isn't serious. It's just that Hunx loves to have fun. We are lucky to get any band here dress up for their own shows (with the exception of Falcon Lords). I think this says something about our city and our community, either which way.

For now, please feel free to have a dance party in your bedroom:

PLEASE PARDON THIS CONSTRUCTION.

2009-10-03T14:33:00.000-04:00

"Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps." -Abby Hoffman, Steal This Book

Fall has arrived, kids, the time of year that seems to be the consensus as having the best weather around these parts and with it our souls seem to be fed a sort of cozy loveliness. The leaves will begin to change. They will change and with these changes the citizens of ATLsville may say "oh, yes, perhaps this is a time that I, too, will change". Their wardrobes will most certainly change, surely, but perhaps they will want to take up knitting or quit their cocaine habits or buy a motorcycle or learn to speak Japanese.

With the harsh realization that, on both an individual and national scale, America consumes rather than produces and that the American dollar has meant less and less and less to other countries who have lived a more self-sustaining quaintness with their socialist health care and cash-based societies, the country has gone haywire over the past year. More and more people are being laid off in this country. It is probably not ironic that during the change of this here season that I, too, am finally a part of The Unemployed Club.

The English idiom "when it rains, it pours" has befallen the country, more recently my life and the city of Atlanta (literally, and worse yet for neighboring counties who are still dealing with some amount of suctioning soggy carpets from last week's floods).

After the rain there is the most beautiful weather you could have ever imagined.

And after L'Oreal's "Pink Lady" lipstick practices itself as a marker on a mirror of a rich boy whose parents could not buy him some decency or manners is the best words I must always remember (well, I did think to write them).

After practicing as an alcoholic is a moment of deconstructionism, and the recession could be wise to make us reevaluate the way we live and think, what we buy, and how we treat one another.

The AARP admires your stamina, I tell myself. Roll on engine, go? We spoke those words once before hitting the high hat 6 times and gangling our hands on instruments we didn't know how to play. But it was a start, and all things start someplace, and sometimes they must start again or be reminded to use an awareness divine that we had forgotten underneath what we buy and how the world sees ourselves and all these things we have done and are ready to undo or keep doing.

FRA LIPPO LIPPI "a moment like this"

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FRA LIPPO LIPPI "quiet"

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NEW ORDER "thieves like us"

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NEW ORDER "ceremony (7" version)"

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Cheers!

GIMME $$$.

2008-10-22T14:00:00.003-04:00

de-noted blog: writing/drawings on $$$.
gift box: out of $$$.
security glass: full of $$$.

Very little monies means many things. You have to eat cheap. You have to not buy beer (or in my case Bloody Marys). You scramble by trying to get odd jobs waiting for your current job to lay you off because you have quite a good feeling that they, too, are about to go under (or maybe yours already has). You take lots of Epsom salt diva-ridden baths using up all the rest of your rosemary oil and play your already purchased video games (especially We <3 Katamari for smiles galore). You hope that you and your roommates won't take all your money troubles out on each other. You invent weird meals out of fish sticks, black bean soup, sourdough bread and BBQ sauce.

Even though high fructose corn syrup is kind of a no-no, 75 cent Pop Tarts are okay for b-fast. They are colorful, pretending to be pastries, and also your insides probably look like this, waves of bright colors rumbling along in your tummy. Good thing I can also say "HURRAH!" to having purchased a Wii Fit not too long ago, too, right?

Just think about it for a second.

This all makes for a very cheap and okay good time.

It's not good to have no $$$ when Halloween is coming up. I can pretend to be a sailorette for the 80th year in a row but what happens when the party is $18 at the Variety Playhouse with Deerhunter, Jay Reatard & PYLON(!)?

We were on the Deerhunter guest list for the NIN show a long while ago - the night ended up being a school lesson in Georgia, one I've forgotten. Driving out to the Gwinnett Center, feeling halfway to Athens, my stomach got mysteriously grumpy during the show (Cafe Intermezzo's tiramisu cheesecake, white chocolate gelato and plum tea previously perhaps?). I had to go to the paramedics for Tums. Ha. JC ate a hot dog from the various concessions stands, each aesthetically designed to look like official food court joints, even though the sign above them all would just say "Pizza" or "Hot Dogs". Of course there was a dude holding a bible outside screaming about something at the entrance, though what he could get across to people in their cars driving by with the windows rolled up and/or their stereos blasting, I have no idea. It's been a long time since I've been to an event like that.

Needless to say, it would be rad to see Deerhunter in a more familiar and less weird suburban setting. Not to say the Variety Playhouse is homey, but it's at least in walking distance from my tiny treehouse. And there's no aging fatso Trent Reznor screaming about Catholic guilt afterward.

Deerhunter these days sounds quite precise even in their moments of free-flowing ambiance. I hadn't seen a show with Whitney until that night - I don't know how useful 3 guitars are in a band, but she's definitely got a nice presence next to the goofy and/or serious and/or grumpy boys - though Deerhunter, I believe, is one Whitney less already. I didn't think I'd like the new stuff, but it was surprisingly refreshing. Deerhunter seems to get sleepier even in the tornado of noise they were known for always... all tied in with a pop sensibility surely, it's an interesting direction. At least paying for them Nov. 1st in Asheville won't be a problem. We'll be playing with Times New Viking and the D-dogs, our first out of town date thus far. But still. It's Halloween?

There's always The Spooks at the Star Bar for $5. Coinstar here I come?

IN LIFE I ASPIRE TO BE A WATERED DOWN CLICHE CUTE GIRL MUSICIAN. YEP.

2008-10-08T17:06:00.002-04:00

Somehow there's not enough "I hate Jenny Lewis"s on the Internet. Here's another.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!

2008-09-18T14:14:00.002-04:00

What are irrational beliefs?

"Irrational beliefs are:

Messages about life we send to ourselves that keep us from growing emotionally.
Scripts we have in our head about how we believe life "should'' be for us and for others.
Unfounded attitudes, opinions, and values we hold to that are out of synchrony with the way the world really is.
Negative sets of habitual responses we hold to when faced with stressful events or situations.
Stereotypic ways of problem solving we fall into in order to deal with life's pressures.
Ideas, feelings, beliefs, ways of thinking, attitudes, opinions, biases, prejudices, or values with which we were raised. We have become accustomed to using them when faced with problems in our current life, even when they are not productive in helping us reach a positive, growth-enhancing solution.
Self-defeating ways of acting. On the surface they may look appropriate for the occasion, but actually they result in a neutral or negative consequence for us.
Habitual ways of thinking, feeling, or acting that we think are effective; however, in the long run they are ineffectual.
Counterproductive ways of thinking, which give comfort and security in the short run, but either do not resolve or actually exacerbate the problem in the long run.
Negative or pessimistic ways of looking at necessary life experiences such as loss, conflict, risk taking, rejection, or accepting change.
Overly optimistic or idealistic ways of looking at necessary life experiences such as loss, conflict, risk taking, rejection, or accepting change.
Emotional arguments for taking or not taking action in the face of a challenge. When followed they result in no personal gain, but rather in greater personal hardship or loss.
Patterns of thinking that make us appear to others as stubborn, bullheaded, intemperate, argumentative, or aloof.
Ways of thinking about ourselves that are out of context with the real facts, resulting in our either under-valuing or over-valuing ourselves.
Means by which we become confused about the intentions of others when we are enmeshed in interpersonal problems with them.
Lifelong messages sent to us either formally or informally by: society, culture, community, race, ethnic reference group, neighborhood, church, social networks, family, relatives, peer group, school, work, or parents. They are unproductive in solving our current problem or crisis, but we are either unwilling or unable to let go of them. These messages can be very clear to us or they can be hidden in our subconscious.
Conclusions about life that we have developed over time, living in an irrational environment not identified as being irrational (e.g., beliefs developed as a member of a high-stress family).
Standards by which we were reared and from which we learned how to act, what to believe, and how to express or experience feelings. When followed, however, these standards do not result in a satisfactory resolution of our current problems.
Ritualistic ways by which we pursue our relationships with others, resulting in nonproductive relationships and increased emotional stress.
Outmoded, unproductive, unrealistic expectations exacted on ourselves and/or others, guaranteed to be unattainable and to result in continuing negative self-concepts. "

ANOTHER NETFLIX NIGHT: THE BARFARAMA OF 'FAST FOOD NATION'

2008-06-04T10:21:00.007-04:00

Last eve, my pretty little head got upset-ish. I felt a lot of ways, but mostly kind of hopeless & kind of guilty & kind of gross, though, at the same time, found that my conciousness was coming up for air after a long few months of computer screens, drive-through windows, & boring evenings. All such strange feelings when finding oneself responsible for yourself once again, no longer on the stupor of autopilot, though with the overwhelming sense of "badness" in my small arena of the world, even more strange the feelings that come. Most of all, I found it surprising that any such emotions & awarenesses had anything to do with That 70's Show's Fez or Avril Lavigne.

Richard Linklater seems to work in narratives that are strung together on a loom, impressing indie movie fienders for a hot minute with Slacker and The Waking Life, though probably alienating that same audience with the base characters of Fast Food Nation: a run of the mill executive for a fast food chain called Mickey's, three typical teens trying to make a paycheck for college or car stereos as Mickey's employees, illegal immigrants from Mexico attempting to better their lives and families through the meat plant's meager paychecks, once-youthful/now-grown-and-tired-intellectualites who can only comment on the state of issues w/ little ability to do anything constructive (as the younger generation finds it also difficult to do).

I was told this movie got terrible reviews on Metacritic, and enough terrible reviews will dissuade many... critics have a huge foothold on our ticket stubs and rental fees whether we like it or not. Ironically, the terrible reviews on Metacritic (which averages reviews from "critics" and "users") just tends to speak largely about the society in which Linklater based Fast Food Nation on. So I feel if it is vital for people to base what they see on some reviews, something should be explained about why this movie got bad reviews in the 1st place:

A) It is "dark and depressing",
B) It is too educational (or on the flip-side is simply propaganda),
C) The different subsets of (boring) characters and their situations don't connect,
D) There is no happy ending and/or answers,
E) The style in which the movie was directed is "not seamless".

In response:

A) In accordance to The Christian Science Monitor (hahaha) movie guide: "Sex/Nudity: 14 scenes, including nudity and 4 sex scenes. Violence: 3 scenes, including graphic slaughter of cattle and a gory accident. Profanity: 114 harsh profanities. Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco: 8 scenes with drinking, 3 scenes with smoking, 1 scene with cocaine." How anyone cares to measure this, I'm unsure, BUT the sex scenes at first seem to play on the audience's craving for the atypical sex or violence excitement, then they get a bit disturbing. One example is the good-intended illegal immigrant trades sex with a total jerk for an ethically & emotionally challenging job at a meat packing plant in desperation to aid her husband, an ex-employee of the plant, who was injured while (unsucessfully) trying to save his friend/co-worker from getting his legs sliced off in an accident and in return the plant makes up lies to fire both injured workers, placing liability on the victims rather than themselves. As illegal immigrants are at risk of being deported, no real legal action can be taken. Yes, one part of the "dark and depressing" movie that sadly is based on a reality many of these movie goers probably don't want to think about.

B) My question is what do people seriously expect from a movie about the fast food industry? A movie about an industry but offers no information? And movies aren't allowed to be used to make a point, supposedly, or else it is propaganda! Woo hooo! Even as a work of fiction (loosely based on a book), the director has gotten so much shit for "inciting and spreading ideas" about the quality of beef you get at Burger King, industry's ability to get workers in from other countries to exploit them, that scientist might work on extra elements to make hamburgers more appealing, that beef plants can produce as much waste as an entire city in one day... as if any of that is unfathomable - well, maybe to the very sheltered individuals that make up a large population of our country, sure. Besides who wants to have to THINK or, worse yet, LEARN at the movies? Pssssh!

C) A story about the fast food industry does not hold much space for outfits that would shame Sofia's Marie Antoniette, old school Coen Bros. laughs, or personalities fit for SNL. Sorry. In real life, as this movie is trying to be as realistic as possible, why WOULD any of the characters really connect? (And who says they don't?: the executive character, who becomes disheartened while doing investigation accidentally through an inspection job, meets the young Amber, a Mickey's employee who eventually decides to quit her job through learning about the environmental impact of the plant and essentially tries to fight "the bad guys" by breaking a barrier for the cows to escape with a small group of like-minded youth.) In reality, Amber would not have any contact with the immigrants working in the plants or any contact with the plant itself (though, through her newborn interest in the issues, does visit the plant for vigilante purposes - how many eco-friendly kids know where a meat plant is truthfully?). I believe some of the reasons why a lot of the plot doesn't connect is because in reality, though everything is connected to some degree, our society essentially has many layers to it, which is included in the film: division of classes, age, lifestyle, occupation... even the way men and women relate to one another in the film varies (the women as objects, or women as pieces of meat, pardon the pun, has been subtly tucked into the direction of the film as well).

D) Another "I wonder why" statement.

E) This complaint may or may not be true, but I personally felt that the movie was engaging regardless of the sometimes sub par acting, that everything was relevant (including the cliche lifestyle choices, interactions, etc. of the characters that were tucked into the scenes). What a difficult subject matter to take on in itself! Maybe someone else will do it better later on, but indeed, considering there are not that many films that explore very common problems regarding LEGAL industries, the director gave it a good shot while giving it some thought.

But still, I guess these complaints are the voices of our communities who do not want you to see this film. They are convincing us that there's not enough positivity and glitz to the fast food industry as their should be (guess they agree w/ the film crew on that). Or they are convinced a film will brainwash you more than a multi-trillion dollar industry that spends millions on advertising trying to get your dollars. ??? Hrm.

And besides, who wants to be confronted about how much cow feces is in the quarter pounder with cheese that they're eating? Who wants to think about who is working in the meat plants and what they are subjected to? Who wants to wonder how gullible we are as people to marketing and how industry that offers automatic everything appeals to us in a base and sad way that would suggest we are practically the laziest god damn retards on the planet? We can watch Idiocracy all day, but when it comes to reality, we want nothing to do with it. Eat it up!

UNLESS WE ARE STANDING IN WHAT LOOKS LIKE THE 2078 OR A LEGO CASTLE...

2008-05-12T14:00:00.003-04:00

"MSS Mystery MAREI"
Originally uploaded by _ Krystian PHOTOSynthesis (wild-thriving) _

Dear Diary, the Dairy Duchess of Simpleton,

I saw a kite yesterday. Of course, the weather was wildly windy. From the border of North Carolina, a full car of family kin drove from a Manners Police Grandmother at the prime rib buffet for the 100th anniversary of Mother's Day, and there it was: a kite. One lone kite. I think about kites all the time, and yet I never fly them. The world I live in has been plagued w/ weak-minded ape energies, head throbbings, plunging bank accounts, dust bunnies, poor sleep. In another world, I would pick up the simplicity of flying kites, eating peaches, laying in the grass, jumping on the bed, building tent from sheets, and if I also had my way, I'd find secret notes slipped into my purse when I got to work, a backrub before bed, and offerings for Lady Grey tea. This is the ideal life of mine and it is right outside my apartment door.

Seems a little ridiculous to not scoop it up, right?

There must be a way to replace computer obsession with writing books (on paper), butternut squash w/ brown sugar and raisins instead of frozen black bean burgers, headaches with heart swoons, a cluttered floor for a clean one, insomnia with sleep? I'm never asking for much.

The weekend was also the 50th anniversary of birth control. Hm.

Reality sets in.

Willpower nudges me in the shoulder.

GO.

KATE BUSH: THE PHOENIX DEMOS

2008-05-08T17:28:00.002-04:00

http://www.sendspace.com/file/0l1iyg

There are a lot more on another site here: http://www.dongrays.com/kate-bush/mp3/

THIS IS THE PAST & IT'S TRYING TO LAUGH AT YOUR FUTURE.

2008-05-07T22:12:00.003-04:00

Many moons ago I concocted four mixes via the winter solstice season for a reject-a-tard hollow boy who didn't deserve the time of day from me. Oh deary, oh me, oh my! How they were worried upon!, they were to be the best of the best, a sharp lightning bolt, neons and 80s heels over hearts for ONE, blood red and black leather and tender talesings for TWO, soft doe fur, loveliest flowers, flora/fauna, earthy majesties for THREE, ripened rainbows with cupcake sprinkles and starlight sparkles for FOUR.

I found some mixed tapes, in which many I am trying to put into the dustbins that have been getting much traffic in my humble (if not disgusting) abode. Some are hard to part with, in that cliche way, it feels like you are parting with that time frame, those people, those feelings, and all of that. You only come to realize that the right now is very empty, that there are very few songs filling your attention, and that people are sparce, and you are resourceless. What's that all about?

ONE 1. crass = so what? 2. huggy bear = no sleep 3. circle jerks = in your eyes 4. m.i.a. = lady killer 5. antioch arrow = cosmos vs. chaos 6. crime = frustration 7. the slits = vindictive 8. adam and the ants = stand and deliver 9. viva la fete = attaque surprise 10. an albatross = lets get on with it! 11. The Phantom limbs = HOT KNIVES + HORNETS 12. dee dee ramone = hop around 13. blood on the wall = reunite on ice 14. james chance + the contortions = flip your face 15. au pairs = armagh 16. the chinese stars = sick machine 17. the nerves = hanging on the telephone 18. joan jett = do you wanna touch? 19. this moment in black history = pity the back seat 20. buzzcocks = ever fallen in love? 21. glass candy + the shattered theatre = Johnny, are you queer? 22. liars = they dont want your corn, they want your kids! 23. T rex = children of the revolution 24. the clash = career opportunities 25. bush tetras = too many creeps 26. capitols = cool jerk 27. the runaways = cherry bomb 28. rush = working man

TWO 1. glass candy & the shattered theatre: love love love 2. clinic: anne 3. led zeppelin: babe i'm gonna leave you 4. tubeway army: down in the park 5. gang of four: anthrax 6. fad gadget: the box 7. the cure: siamese twins 8. get hustle: lost lady 9. celebration: new skin 10. the birthday party: waving my arms 11. the audience: doctor huh 12. tracy & the plastics: what you still want 13. patti smith: pissing in the river 14. the arcade fire: no cars go 15. broadcast: pendumlum 16. the vanishing: lovesick 17. white magic: one-note 18. wire: heartbeat 19. ladytron: skools out

THREE 1. frank sinatra - nature boy 2. elliot smith - roman candle 3. bjork - unravel 4. chet baker - you don't know what love is 5. new order - ceremony 6. nine inch nails - la mer 7. m83 - on a white lake near a green mountain 8. june of 44 - of information & belief 9. calla - don't hold your breath 10. cat power - maybe not 11. hayden - starting over 12. the go team - hold your terror close 13. tori amos - smells like teen spirit 14. bjork - joga 15. the books - a little longing goes away 16. vashti bunyan - here before 17. seu jorge - life on mars 18. cocteau twins - cherry colored funk 19. the go team - the ice storm 20. the softies - you and only you 21. tom waits - i want you

FOUR 1. mew - the zookeeper's boy 2. all girl summer fun band - dreamy you 3. haircut 100 - love + one 4. nico - i'm not saying 5. they might be giants - no one knows my plan 6. OMD - electricity 7. the rondelles - i'll melt with you 8. saint etienne - la poupee qui fait non 9. april march - somewhere up above 10. stella - j'achete des disques americains 11. lightning seeds - pure 12. the shins - kissing the lipless 13. the go team - huddle formation 14. general public - tenderness 15. regina spektor - us 16. yes - your move 17. aphex twin - girl boy song 18. orange juice - blue boy 19. raveonettes - that great love sound 20. the futureheads - hounds of love 21. the concretes - you can't hurry love 22. big country - in a big country

Fosse is as Fosse does

2008-02-04T13:44:00.000-05:00

Greetings Senior Fosse,

In All That Jazz, which no one would dare pretend wasn't a big portion autobiography (if not to the bone), you conjured your own death across the big screen but I find it difficult to figure if the movie was a purposeful warning to yourself, as if you knew the speed consumed to create a lightning fire enthusiasm in the rehearsal studios, bedding the dancers, your wife and your daughter and your girlfriend dancing up a storm of support and responsibility around you that you were too apathetic to create for yourself, coinciding with their bitterness as it transforms into pity for the pathetic version of yourself that all great men can become, would one day catch up to you for good. (Phew, that was a mouthful!) The per-cinema could've been an apology for the ill treatment of loved ones and replaceables alike, too. Or a combination effort?

I don't mean to diss you, Fosse. You know I have enjoyed your films thus far.

I am grateful that no matter how Ego-soaked, apathy-sauteed or other delicious defenses many larger-than-life men require (& other miniscule men attempt) in their lives, the presence of that neglected cooler in the back of the truck can't forever be ignored (you know, the one with the bigger fish to fry inside). Morale, love, hate, regret, guilt, they are all there, those "bigger questions" about one self. But the most relevent to the talented but self-obsessed Man is: How does a man cope with his own genius w/o losing his mind?

The seemingly carefree rites of passage from harnessing greatness does sordidly turn on all such men, and these turns for the worst seem to be the sacrifices of being brilliant, fabulous, and badass in NYC's entertainment industry... at least according to Fosse who has lived, breathed and shat it. Let's not ignore the idealogy he frequently obsesses with. Life itself is an act. Remember that scene from Chicago? The jury is just another audience. The scene similarly shows up in All That Jazz and in a less glamourous way in Lenny.

It's easy for an entertainment industry darling to play for life, to see in terms of a stage, to make metaphors out of scripts. The Man himself becomes the mask, and then a joke, and his devious ways swallow him up like no blowjob could ever accomplish. His brilliance has to fight to exist. Thus introducing Lenny Bruce. Fosse, whose acted portrayal of himself in All That Jazz poured over tapes of a comedian which fascinated him in the film, felt he was an appropriate director for Lenny because...

Lenny is my third seen Fosse film. It started with a breif obsession with Cabaret's gender bending, sexually liberating, seedy underbelly of a nightclub in a Nazi-rising Germany. I went up to my mother's room when the VHS clicked STOP and grabbed the nearest pair of scissors. My hair attempted to reenact Sally Bowles; it in some way complimented my Audience and Crimson Curse records and the white belts we were so fond of wearing in those days. Maybe the film became some fashion accessory for me, I do not know. But Sally, like Lenny and Fosse, was the feminine representation of hedonism gone awry. She is surely a reflection of Fosse and the company he keeps - she is Fosse to the bone. It is Liza Manelli's best contribution to the panthenon of Hollywood's Goddesses.

One may be able to look at Sally Bowles and say, "yes, she is Fosse through and through". But Lenny Bruce? Through, yes, they are two compulsive & controversial entities in the lime light spinning unknowingly out of control...

Lenny, shot in black and white to reflect the times, jumps from stand-up spots to scenes relevent to the subject matter being spoken of, and onto "interviews" with Bruce's surviving friends and family. The story builds from bright beginnings to the inevitable end of the man's career, drowned by the obscenity trials, narcotics, love lost, etc., to the tragic end that Fosse often romanticizes. Fosse's own parallels with drug use, adultery, adversion to social norms, the entertainment industry are all there.

NPR's The Trials of Lenny Bruce: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=920569

Another more recent film shot in black and white to perhaps appropriate the times is Control. I shelved out $7.50 and do not have a terrible amount to say about the film. It was beautifully shot. I was not totally offended by the film's attempts at the Joy Division live shows. Maybe it showed Ian Curtis in a realistic light. That is always good. But, ugh. Gimme a break!

MAYA DEREN

2008-01-20T15:20:00.000-05:00

"I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick" - Maya Deren

Maya Deren is a volumptuous, ripe Alice in her Wonderland of films, a curious kitten floating, scraping and/or swimming through various dreamscapes, the pleasures and pains of the adventure of life, as it seems each encounter with a man in a suit and a record player and chess set and key seems to be seen through these fantastical glasses that is Deren's eyes. In "At Land", the Venus brew spits out a flesh and blood maiden, neither vulnerable or strong, who spends the next 15 minutes going through various portals (seamlessly edited), every step of her journey creating a solidity towards a deeper understanding. Even though the film, my favorite from the experimental selections, is presented in silence, the "journey" grips the viewer's curiosity, perhaps a mark of success for any avant-garde filmmaker.

Deren was one of the few in her day to help pave "experimental" film as a valid expression of art in a world of big budget fluff "pictures". Though her film credentials are tiny compared to the Fellini and Bergman over the sea, Deren was integral in education and support for film and wrote intensely about theory, integrating her hunger for mysticism and philosophy alike in what is the energy, the flame, of film and what makes any artist come alive.

It is too easy to say that Deren explored feminist themes or was a strong feminist role model, as any woman who integrates the personal and pioneers in any realm will be pointedly called. In the 1940's housewifery of it all, the way that everyday objects become part of a fantastical landscape, knives & chess pieces become metaphors, the self is divided by purpose and presence and peril, there may be a larger argument to say Deren was a feminist, and so be it. Deren was a feminist. I don't believe that the term reduces her but I do believe that saying she was a "feminist filmmaker" is a bit reductive. She seemed to surpass gender through harboring a true magickal energy, that may have been fairly derived from the nectar of Goddess-divine integrations certainly, but seemed to have moved many, regardless of her anatomy or subject matter. She did not seem determined to prove herself as a woman or to educate anyone on a social matter. She seemed mostly in want to express herself and her point of view. And what a magnificently delicious point of view it was!

Some Metaphors for the Creative Process by Maya Deren

BEST )F )7.

2007-12-24T20:07:00.002-05:00

As the calendar greets me daily with September 2007's "Wheat Field with Cypresses", brought to you by Van Gogh and the Alzheimer's Association, it is no wonder I never finished cleaning my room, an ex of mine today claiming that it is the "worst" he has seen it. I am behind. The New Year has gone on w/o me. This is partly why I have not posted the seemingly pointless Best Album/Movie/Book/Etx. list that follows the inevitable end-of-the-year questionaires. Yes, indeed, the December wave is full of reflective pondness, the mirror of our lives, & it is January. I can only admit that I am not one to seek out "new things"; in general it takes quite some time to for me to come around to these "things" or for the "things" to come around to me...

In December, I was bedazzled (much like the rhinestone embellishment gadget) by a record Jeff unwrapped for his solstice gifting, my Germs CD still untouched from the same gift-giver. So, rhinestoned up, the sparkle of the record awe-struck my body with the beats & the jive. So, even though there is a major lack of an idea about the other records that came out this year, a triple high five to the wonderful MIA for the Kala album... I suppose I'm only a few months late, instead of some however many years it sometimes takes me.

Other albums I enjoyed from 2007, uhhh hmmmm!, are:

Silver Daggers New High & Ord
anything put out by Blank Dogs, specifically

That's really not very many records?

Pitchfork's 50 top records of 2007 contained some 43 records I have not heard but the others I can agree are pretty decent. Caribou's Andorra, a really solid record, and Arcade Fire's Neon Bible which I think, as the time grows, I can certainly look back on that album and appreciate the production of such a beautiful record. I had not even heard the After Dark comp., regardless of my love for Glass Candy that once had me making a fan site for the band (I'm a bad fan, I guess). Yes, of course, Pitchfork will put Dan Deacon's record in there, it is "joyful" and he is an adorable character and a great live act, but have I listened to that record since the summer? No. And weren't there kids moshing at the Eyedrum show here in Atlanta last week? Yes. A bunch of White Stripes and Animal Collective fans we will never see at local shows, no doubt. Speaking of, Strawberry Jam - what can you do with hype but wear it out? (Not to mention the large percent of Pitchfork's listed records are by bands I've never heard of or already loathe, sans The Black Lips, who I love but do not own anything but two very old seven inches - I prefer them live I guess!!)

Why did I think Cryptograms came out last year? Can anyone from Atlanta say Deerhunter spun one of the best records of 2007 without claiming some bias, and I'm especially guilty with the obvious "Hazel St." that is going to sing on in my brains for the rest of time? So instead I will just use other things, like saying thank you, Bradford Cox, for somehow fixing Jeff's "technical difficulties" at our first show, hey, by the way you have one of the 50 greatest records of the year... I just can't dish that out genuinely, now can I?

Jens Lekman did put on one of the best shows I have seen this year! Record though? No.

Other best shows of the year:

- No Age (also on the Pitchfork list, though I have not heard the record, oops) - I am so grateful to have played with this amazingly energetic band!

- Bjork: the goddess doesn't stop at her amazing voice, golden instrumented Icelandic girl entourage, but also includes huge flames and spun silken strings that burst out from the sleeves of her dress, and neon green lights and metallic confetti over a crowd of hundreds - holy shit.

- Ariel Pink: a boy I didn't know grabbed me and kissed me during "Alissa". I felt it appropriate to kiss him back, which pretty much sums up the dude's eminent power over me, I suppose.

- Video Hippos and Sewn Leather (with ATL's Gold Painted Nails): this was a combination of awesome! Complete with a projector and a bottle of Jaeger, too bad kids in Atlanta don't dance!

Is that all that sticks out in my mind?

Good God!

INTRO_DUCE_Y

2007-12-16T17:40:00.001-05:00

You put the Past and the Present in a blender and press the button ON. What of the Future?

What you see may not make you able to see at all.

I used to have trouble sleeping... bruises would appear from thin air, the old familiar level of discomfort that bothered my daughter rest. The lack of answers to my sore ribcage, my blackened ankles brought swelling to my eyes. Today, settled into my skin, the concerns for my skeleton are minimal. The noise of construction & cars can pass me by. It's a gorgeous menagerie of thoughts entangled in my mind.

I used to choose not to decide. Now I can't sit still.

Toxic wastes, what we eat, cleanliness, godliness, gorgeousness... polished perfect, are these our kids? Somehow this is all related. Who has been polluted with expectations from the kids who only had brains enough to revise and rename a past static and taken a readily convenience to turn it into the automatic bliss of TV. I could be talking about kids of all calibers here. Their character can often be vile, not because of their blood or honesties. No, that's not what this is about. This is about counterfeited art and idealisms... huge efforts in length of emotions for small importance. Stolen goods, art that is made to affect and appeal. Carbon copies applied to ones' identity, slightly personalized to wrap neatly around the edges and thus I giggle.

I think of myself at 14 years old, a Peter Pan collared dress on, screeching, how really profound I thought myself to be! Even Kat and Courtney derived their art due to cross breeding literatures (Valley of the Dolls to Tennessee Williams' Babydoll) & confessionalist poets (Plath), a pinch of Nancy Spungen, snitching boiled in the vixen brew. It was the first tone of "art" I got my panties in a twist about as a preteen. I still find a certain sick fascination w/ Cindy Sherman's photos of mangled doll bodies and the complexities of Lolita, how Lolita exists in a reality, how art is really just an expression of someone's reality or someone's perception of reality.

Soon thereafter I grew up not wanting to be a girl or a woman or any other thing that defined me primarily by my cunt. And soon thereafter I grew up not wanting to be named at all. I didn't want to be simply singular but I felt that by giving myself a name, a description, some words for definition, I'd find individualism flew out the window and if it did it might set a standard. And all the kids complained during that time, "yada, yada, yada! blah, blah, blah!" about "standard this, standard that" in our "society" & our societies within in society and how everything is replica, so I started to yawn a bit and then weep. We were all ambitious with good ideas, even if jump-started by a flicker of the projection booth or the headphones that saved our lives, and we weren't applying ourselves to our visions. We want to set standards, we want to create outside of ourselves. We only are able to explain ourselves to each other through words. As collectives we created "Marxism", "screamo", "conservative", "teenie bopper", "de-realization"...

Then we get eaten by our created standards, and, with them, feasted upon are these personalized stamps of approval. I had mine like the rest. Could the markets get ahold of my comforts? Yes. Think sofas and "be yourself" Sprite commercials. Televised persuation has nothing to do with our standards. So with no rules and no definitions, I might have been safe.

Moan into your crossed arms. Good ideas are asking for cheapening. Marketing. Movementism.

Complain about art whores, intellects, perhaps because the thought of discussing meanings and theories in an "as a matter of fact" fashion bored us, not to mention the flashy name dropping and wordy useless dialog that coincides from one (art whore &/or intellectual) to another. Haha, wordy useless dialog. Then being well-read translated to being full of shit, enthusiastic to insecure. Talking means to a yearning to be admired for one's knowledge. This is a reoccurring purpose in all "kinds" of people where any art form, or formed thought even, is concerned. Good ideas ask for representatives, and most of us (if not all) are scratching & clawing our way for an outlet. Words are inspected, intentions analyzed, there is not a trace of indifference that we can glutton with confidence in being the one who can truly impress. (All Empresses and Leaders to the front desk, please - they all got up from their desks, thinking they were "it".)

Weren't we all insecure little shits? We never loved each other as we never loved ourselves. We pointed fingers and tried to ruin each others' reputations.

It took me a long time to realize that
YOUR HAPPINESS IS WORTH IT.

Those who force themselves into half-assed communications and projects, especially w/ people who disrespect and are constantly struggling to provide democratics (unless of course they already have the upper hand), are missing out on what it's all about. And what it's all about is what this is all about.

Dream savors. Welcome to my blog.