Thursday, June 28, 2012

girlfriend metal


So I filled in for a friend's metal show last night for the first time (I've done fillins for the stoner rock slot and, given the inherently eclectic nature, I'm the go-to for the African music slot too) and while the tuneage is substantially heavier than what I play early in the morning because I'm actually awake, it's definitely not the usual bill of fare either.

I'm not so much into the blastbeats and growls as I am the melancholy infinite sadness with crushing power chords and such. In fairness, I got a few decent requests and no complaints and of course the "I didn't know you were into this stuff" because I got in under the trip-hop world umbrella and now that I'm established have moved back to more familiar territory, which is rooted in the flannel love I had as a teenager that led me down the rabbit holes of stoner rock, shoegaze, old punk, and big riffs of all kinds and then to even more weirdness further on. Someone requests Black Mountain and someone else asks for Porcupine Tree and someone else asks for some Finnish band that had a lot of chanting, and one drunk guy called at the last minute and wanted Karma To Burn, barring that, a booty call. Keep it classy.

 
 There's grindcore on tomorrow night and being a radio listener, I know it's easy to change the station or switch over to the CD player and I'm more interested in having a good flow of tunes than exerting the cred I don't have by playing bands I don't care about.


A few people call in or stop by while I'm surrounded by stacks of CDs and records and they say "oh it's way more mellow than what he plays" and I joke about it being two hours of "girlfriend metal" which I've heard bandied about but never quite realized was a 'a thing" or just assumed it was some kind of Hot Topic mallcore derision, rather than a description of a sound that has a bit more melodicism, the occasional hook, and maybe a bit of clean singing.

Somehow this is sissy because it doesn't involve ample amounts of Freaking Out Your Parents or sacrificing virgins to Satan or whatever. Being a fundie, that's not really my lyrical bent anyway. I'm probably somewhat guilty of the whole inevitable sexism thing here too, because I snark about this kind of thing all the time as to why Opeth no longer rocks as hard as they used to, because I'm self-deprecating by nature and it's hard to take this hairsplitting seriously as it is.  

Every so often, the other ladies who dig heavier tuneage get frustrated on the Internets with the occasional neanderthal tendencies of their male hesher counterparts who tend to deride them for only being into it to get dudes or to humor them or because they theoretically swing the other way or whatever. In conversation with Randal yesterday, I theorized that people tend to sound really dumb on the Internet and if that's how one gauges any subgroup, it tends to paint a bad and not very nuanced picture, because most of the time the only representation tends to be ignorant losers with big mouths and a lot of issues (oh snap, yours truly!), and it's easy to assume or assign monolithic tendencies to feminists and wingnuts and headbangers if one doesn't know such folks in real life.

Chicks, man. But hey, Mike Patton and Pete Steele were standard fare for weirdo Parmastani females of a certain age raised on our parents' Sabbath and Zeppelin records. Sue me, I like stuff I can sing along to in the car even if I sound a bit absurd. Listen to the tunes below that comprised last night's playlist and judge, kids.


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

liquidity

The waves were high the other night. I had no camera to capture the reflection of the sun upon the waves, the way the waves break over the rocks, the undulating blues and greens seemingly infinite and deep.I don't know how to capture this roiling motion on a camera lens no matter how hard I try, to capture that snap of the wind and the indescribable smell of life and death inherent.

To paint it seems to be a whole other difficulty, of composition and mood, to encapsulate those frozen moments, and hint at the elemental power.

I haven't seen the ocean in over ten years except from the plane over Boston, and the only ocean I've experienced is the New Jersey Atlantic as a kid, when it felt like a bigger Lake Erie, with the addition of salt and crabs, way cooler seashells, and the occasional salinated ten-dollar bill lost to the water, walking the beach at night. If I could live anywhere, it'd be this close to ocean, but being a block from the lake and having absurdly cheap rent more than makes up for the lack of means to do the other.

By the water is where I go to meditate, to ponder, to stargaze, to get out of the house, to meet up with friends, lay on the rocks, sit on the pier and stare out into the seeming endlessness, to bask in the summer sun and the breezes from the north, to marvel at the power of the coming storms and the advancing sheets of grey rain, as the water turns white, the sand blows wildly across the beach, and we take shelter beneath the pavilions at the last moment possible.

 It's an equalizer of a place where everyone gathers, the fishermen on the rocks feeding their families on perch, the fitness freaks jogging past the scenery like it doesn't exist, the hopeless romantics and the loners with the metal detectors, the grillers and kite flyers, the new agers with their drum circles and Buddhas on the sand and the punks building fires and drinking til the cops show up

Every permutation of age, economics, and religion, yachtsmen, cruisers, users. The facilities are grungy and dismal but the beauty is so intense that it's a minor inconvenience. When night falls, the darkness is enough that the stars can be seen, the sound of waves and transistor radios feels otherworldly, and we share this space together.

this must be the place

Some the people I know who play in bands aren't really friends, they're people I know by one association or another, who send me zuckerbook invites and give me CDs to play on the radio and want to know why I don't go to every single show and why I don't support my local scene as much as I theoretically should, or question my credibility to listen to certain strains of tuneage due in part to estrogen and for lack of sartorial lemmingism, being neither hip nor kvlt nor hot.

Somehow I've made friends who don't really care about that whole scene points thing, and thanks to the wonders of the Internets, some of us have even kept in touch post-college or reconnected, and the music all too often served as a springboard to other things, other discussions, because there is so much out there, so much life, so many places, so many sounds and words to digest and share. 


I love live music, but there's a lot of other things I love too, and so while I probably can't make it to my friends' show this weekend due to a date with John Steinbeck and sundry literary folk discussing Cannery Row, we still hung out yesterday, meeting up in Asiatown for heaping bowls of pho, meeting up with other good people at a hole-in-the-wall coffeeshop on the west side watching a bluegrass jam replete with ample mandolin and banjo runs and incredibly friendly people mostly older than my parents.  I'm glad places like this still exist, because it feels like something from another time and place, and no one looked at us askance.

We ended the evening hanging out by the lake, walking on the path and sitting on the pier as the night darkened and the half moon made the black waters glitter silver and the lights of Clevelandia sparkled in the distance. I live for these summer nights when it's cool enough for a hoodie and there's everything in the world to ponder and laugh about.


best of the blotter: gummy bears, parties of one, and the Phantom of the Opera

Drug bears: Mentor Police stopped a car for speeding Tuesday morning but found more than a man suspected of drunk driving.

The three men who were stopped, including driver Eric Kenny, were all from New York and were carrying ingredients to make drug-laced gummy bears.

After arresting Kenny on the suspicion of driving drunk, officers found 60 gummy bears, Ecstasy tablets, chemical powders, marijuana, scales, pipes and grinders.

All three suspects were arraigned Wednesday in Mentor Municipal Court. Judge John Trebets set Arkady Koroshikh and Michal Nemcok's bond at $100,000 and Kenny's at $105,500. None us the suspects posted bond. Their next court hearing is scheduled for June 28.

Not Much of a Party
An anonymous caller complained about a wild party on Dell Drive about 12:50 a.m. June 24, with people wandering around and playing loud music.
When police arrived, they couldn't find anyone in the area or hear any music.
They went to the Dell Drive house, where the resident said he had been playing music with the window open. He agreed to close the window.

 Police Blotter: Man in 'Phantom of the Opera' Mask Stops Traffic; Mischief; Inducing Panic

 Motorists reported a man wearing a 'Phantom of the Opera' mask standing at the I-71 exit ramp about 3:45 p.m. June 18.
Callers said he was panhandling. But when officers arrived, they found he wasn't asking for money -- he was protesting the government.
The man, who lives in Parma, was holding a sign that said, "Are we truly free."
He was not yelling at cars or causing a disturbance, a report said.

DRUG ABUSE, U.S. ROUTE 422: Acting on growing suspicions, Solon Police asked to see the Home Depot receipt that a Lakewood man was clutching throughout a June 24 traffic stop when they approached his Chevy Suburban and picked up a strong smell of marijuana. They asked him if he had any more and he handed over two bags containing suspected contraband. Upon closer inspection, the receipt indicated he had recently purchased about $120 worth of light bulbs, power outlets, breakers and electrical cords, prompting them to ask if he was running a ‘grow,’ or a clandestine marijuana greenhouse, somewhere. He initially denied this, although police found another receipt for nearly $1,000 from Wal-Mart for equipment such as hoses, thermometers, tape and waste bags, an $800 receipt from a business known as Hydroponics, LLC, along with a copy of High Times magazine with the cover story entitled “Best Grow Rooms of 2011.”

The man claimed he was in construction and just got done helping a friend, although there were no other tools in the car. In addition to seeds and two more bags of suspected marijuana, weighing in at a total of 22.3 grams (less than an ounce), the man was also carrying just under $2,100 in cash. Police said he finally admitted that he had recently rented a house in Bainbridge where he planned to set up a “grow room” to cultivate marijuana. He was charged with a fourth-degree misdemeanor, since the remaining evidence was purely circumstantial at this point. He was also cited for failure to drive within marked lanes while westbound on the highway.


SHOPLIFTING, RICHMOND ROAD: Twenty pairs of yoga shorts were stolen from Victoria’s Secret June 11. There are no security cameras in the store but one employee saw three men steal the shorts from a drawer at the front of the store. One of the men was about six foot three inches with lost skin pigmentation on the right side of his face. Another man had braided hair and the third was not described.

 GENERAL ASSISTANCE, RADFORD DRIVE: A woman went to the station June 23 to report unknown scratches on her windows. The “scratches” were dead bugs. 

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

the little things

A small victory against a little tentacle, the little things are meaningful sometimes.

There is the absurdity of the usual condescension and insinuation, but enough to keep laughing, to keep on keeping on, and who knows what adventures await, enough to sustain, enough beauty and love and camaraderie to keep it sweet even in the sour times.


Monday, June 25, 2012

lindisfarne

Because one can't think about the city falling apart all of the time, we can think about pilllaging of another kind instead.






buy a house for the price of a VCR...

Apologies for the spamtasticness format here, but if this isn't signs of the times, I don't know what is. Houses cheaper than cars, get-rich-quicks coming back to haunt. Everyone trying to get one over, realizing they can't, and now they're trying to get out...

 

$9900 / 8br - 5 suiter cheap!!!!!trade ??? (cleveland soulth east) (map)


Date: 2012-06-23, 1:40PM EDT
Reply to: fsnjg-3096424117@hous.craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]


cheap 5 suite, three 2 bd, one 1 bb. and one effincy, needs some re hab, ,updated plumbing, needs finished. 54th and fleet area.might trade for a big twin harly or street rod, have much more invested in this property, just have no time to finish,...calls only....listing for a friend...NO EMAILS....call or leave message... 54th (google map) (yahoo map)
  • Location: cleveland soulth east
  • it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 3096424117

$6500 / 5br - 2000ft² - my loss is your gain (westside cleveland) (map)


Date: 2012-06-05, 6:27PM EDT
Reply to: ddk6z-3003239413@hous.craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]


The house is mostly rehabbed.Everything is brand new.All the house needs is drywall a kitchen a bathroom & carpet.i updated the windows,sidingreframed the whole inside.I have over 30 grand invested in the house and i paid off all the property taxes & they were almost 8 thousand.I got in over my head in real estate & tried to take on to many projects at once.so now i dont have the time to fix all of the houses at one time.My name is erik you can contact me at .The house is still on the condemned list.Ive already brought most of the sites up to code.thank you for your time have a nice day!
92 (google map) (yahoo map)
  • Location: westside cleveland
  • it's ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 3003239413

 

Hello
I have a single family home and I'm willing to trade for a Truck or Generator either or will do. It is a Handyman special, feel free to contect me at 216- INVESTORS will be welcomed for anymore question.
Thank you for time, 

$2900 / 3br - 1200ft² - $$Cheap House $$ (Cleveland) (map)


Date: 2012-06-20, 2:13PM EDT
Reply to: 8dttj-3090018772@hous.craigslist.org
[Errors when replying to ads?]



Bye a house for the price of a used car. This home is a great investment that needs to be rehabbed. It sits between two newly renovated houses owned by city programs. Its a 3bd 1bth with a ARV of $40-50,000. The address of the property is...  First cash in hand offer takes it.


Call ASAP with cash if you want it


$1300 / 3br - $$$$$$PLEASE BUY MY UGLY HOUSE$$$$$


Date: 2012-06-20, 2:58PM EDT
Reply to: excelldynamic@gmail.com
[Errors when replying to ads?]


THE PROPERTY IS LOCATED AT  AM LOOKING TO SELL FOR 1300 OR BEST OFFER REAL UGLY HOUSE SOMEONE MIGHT SEE POTENTIAL IN I MIGHT EVEN HAVE ONE OR TWO MORE UGLY HOUSES FOR SALE



or make an offer and its yours

LOOK AT IT CHECK IT OUT DEED IN HAND CHECK TAX RECORDS NO LIENS JUST BUYYYYYY........
 

2br - LETS TRADE YOUR COUNRTY HOUSE FOR MY CITY HOUSE



(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((


So THIS IS MY DEAL I HAVE A 2 BEDROOM 1 BATH GOOD SIZED BACK YARD, THE HOME IS OLD AND WE HAVE OUTGROWN IT. ON A QUITE STREET WITH MANY WONDERFULL PEOPLE LIVING ON THE STREET FOR YEARS.



THE HOME NEEDS COMPLETE REDONE BUT IS LIVEABLE AS IS A NEWER FURNANCE HARDWOOD FLOORS LANDSCAPE THAT COMES BACK EVERY YEAR BACK OF YARD HAS LOTS OF GREEN THE HOME IS CLOSE TO DOCTORS SHOPPING SCHOOLS CASINO AND IS REALLY FOR SOMEONE ELDER OR COLLEGE KID ITS ON THE ORDER OF A LARGE APARTMENT EVERYTHING ON 1 FLOOR MAYBE YOUR TIRED OF WALKING UP AND DOWN STAIRS.OR CLEANING A LARGER HOME.



I WOULD LOVE TO TRADE FOR A LARGE OLD HOME ITS OK IF IT NEEDS WORK MINE DOES TO IF ITS LIVEABLE IM GOOD WITH IT AND I WOULD LIKE TO TRADE TO SUMONE WHO MAYBE IS THE COUNRTY SETTING LIKE DAYTON OHIO THAT WANTS A HOME IN THE CITY I WOULD LIKE TO GO TO COUNRTY SETTING MAYBE SUMONE DOSNT NEED THAT LARGE HOME ANYMORE AND IS LOOKING TO DOWNSIZE A BIT THAT WOULD BE GREAT WITH LOTS OF LAND MY KIDS NEED PLENTY OF SPACE IT HAS TO BE IN OHIO.


SO LETS TRADE JUST CAL  I WILL ALSO TRADE FOR BUSINESS


ONLY SERIOUS TRADERS ) NO EMAILS) TEXT AND CALLS ARE OK ) OPEN TO ALL OFFERS) 


8br - 3000ft² - Motivated Seller!! Awesome Handyman Duplex Deal~~~~~~ (St. Clair)


Date: 2012-05-20, 9:04PM EDT
Reply to: fbp5r-3027859509@hous.craigslist.org
[Errors when replying to ads?]


4/1 Each Side

Needs $2K
Last Tenant Trashed House & Yard
Current Tenant Has Pit Bull (Not Allowed)
And Is Being Evicted
Drive By & Follow Up
If Interested
758-60 Linn Dr.
Will Entertain ALL SERIOUS OFFERS
Land Contract Or Cash

$500 / 2br - 1000ft² - Cheap 2 family house for sale or rent


Date: 2012-06-21, 3:22PM EDT
Reply to:
[Errors when replying to ads?]



Rent to own a 2 family home. Please be advised that the downstairs is the most disgusting house I have ever been inside. The upstairs is slightly better. The owner wants to sell this property fast and is willing to allow someone to finance it for $1000 15 months, then you will have the house free and clear, less any unpaid taxes. If you have cash, we will let it go today for $12,000. The property gross rents are $1,000, $500 each unit. If you can keep both units rented and keep the taxes paid, in 2 years, you will be positivly cash flowing forever. I am not sure if I mentioned how disgusting the place is right now. I would love to tell you the smell is not that bad, but it really is. Other than the gross smell, all the garbage everywhere, it really is a terrble place. Oops, I mean great place. You may think you hate it now, just wait till you see it. If you want to rent it, we will give you free rent for 3 months if you will clean both units. Now that I think about it, it really isn't that disgusting. Oh, who am I kidding.


Please call Jamie 216-773-4312. Please know that I do not answer every call, I never answer restricted numbers, and I return all calls. My advice to you is go drive by, if you come out of the neghborhood alive, your doing good. I kid, it is quiet neighborhood, just disgusting house. Don't be afraid, make us an offer. We will be nuts not to take it, although you may be nuts to do the deal.




knot-tying

Despite the clouds and humidity, the wind that knocked over my houseplants in the living room and had me waking up to the ominous creaking of the sycamore tree in the front yard that sounded like it'd crash through the front window, it's been a long time since the insomnia hit this hard and the lack of rain bothered me when I woke up more tired than I've ever been this morning.

It was the first of what will be three friends of mine getting married this summer, and of course she was beautiful, they were both radiant and I'm extremely happy for them both, and it was nice not to have to worry about dancing at the reception, just a picnic in a park, paper plates and unstructured, and so I mingled among people that I know and like, hold crying babies and manage not to fall in wedged heels.

And while I know my way in and out of every hood in Clevelandia with no problem, I get completely disoriented on often-unmarked country roads and intimidated by horse and buggies because I have a hard enough time figuring out how to share the road with bicyclists, especially when I've got her two Ethiopian roommates behind me depending on my errant sense of direction in rural parts, who thankfully had a GPS for such things that spared me from going down roads turning from pavement into dust. Everything is so green underneath the sky, and I see signs tempting me towards homegrown tomatoes and hometapped maple syrup and I understand why people live out here even as I'm ready to come home.


Friday, June 22, 2012

no recess

So I'd thought about hitting up my high school reunion, in part because a former classmate and bandmate said he might be up for going and at least I'd have someone to sit with and reminisce about AP history videos of absurdity and weekends of driving around suburbia listening to the Misfits,debating the merits of various bands and ways of looking at the world, between him being all into Aleister Crowley and me being the token Jesushead and our other friend being all into some kind of Max Cavalera-back-to-the-primitive Star Wars pantheism, it was always entertaining, and no wonder that the band fell apart, but those were good times that fall that 9/11 happened and we were more abstractedly angry than anything coherent. As I've gotten older I feel like I know more what to be mad about but less of what to do.

So having transferred in after a traumatic freshman year elsewhere, I have no real emotional attachment either negative or positive to where my diploma came from. I never got really picked on, as the place was huge, I had no history, and fell enough in the middling crowd to not get messed with too much, I made some friends, other smart slacker geeks, who listened to the Dead Kennedys and Overkill and Slayer and loaned me books by Henry Rollins, who was more or less our patron saint. I didn't keep in touch with anyone really, because what would we talk about outside that framework. Some people went out and were successful and others ended up in jail, and part of me thought it'd be fun to go for kicks and giggles just to people-watch and observe because hey why not.

But it turns out that there are tickets, and said tickets, which include hors d'oeuvres but no booze, are about the price of seeing a good touring band come through Clevelandia, with no such guarantee of a good time, as it's at a yuppie wine bar and the people who I know are coming are people I either can't remember or never hung out with. I understand it costs something maybe to coordinate such a thing, but it also seems like a handy way to keep the riff-raff out. I'm curious enough about the world to put myself in awkward situations with a way out, but this doesn't seem to be worth the trouble.



Wednesday, June 20, 2012

best of the blotter: return of the Cleaning Fairies, Peanut Butter Cups, and Luciano.

SUSPICIOUS PERSON, ROYALTON ROAD: A woman reported about 10 a.m. June 2 that three or four women, ages 25-30, came to her house the day before to clean.
The problem was that they never left. In fact, they were coming and going to the house as if they lived there.
To make matters worse, the woman said, when she tried to touch the cleaning women, they would disappear.

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF, WILLOWBROOK COURT: A homeowner said June 5 that unknown persons had been coming into his yard and moving a statue around.

Dog Gone
A woman visiting someone at a Whitney Road apartment June 7 told police her chihuahua got out of the car -- and she thinks a family took it.
A report said the dog ran toward a group a people who were moving out. The owner asked if they'd seen the pup, and they said no.
The owner told police she thinks they actually had her dog.
The pup was wearing a pink collar and had blue painted toenails.
The animal warden later said the dog was sighted near the turnpike.

SUSPICION, MAGEE STREET: After watching a man with a ponytail drive slowly up and down the street for 30 minutes, a man called the police to report the suspicious activity.
Officers never found the driver.

SUSPICIOUS SITUATION, PINE LAKES DRIVE: A woman found an orange jumpsuit with the words “Cell Block Psycho” across the back hanging from a pole on a trail between Pine Lakes and Pin Oak drives around 7:30 a.m. June 9.
She said she was afraid to touch it, and thought it was inappropriate to be there. The jumpsuit is actually a Halloween costume, available for purchase on several websites.


LOUD YELLING, BIRCH HILL: Police were called to a Birch Hill Drive apartment at about 3 a.m. June 12 because loud noises were coming from the apartment. An officer spoke with a female resident and learned that she had been yelling while playing video games. Police told her to quiet down. 

Police were called to a Pearl Road apartment shortly after midnight June 13 about a man screaming from his balcony and barking like a dog.
Officers questioned the man, who denied doing either. He said he was singing along with his iPod

LORAIN A man described as the “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup bandit” has struck again.
A clerk at the Sunoco gas station on Oberlin Avenue said the repeat thief stole Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and a bag of chips at 1 a.m. yesterday, according to a Lorain police report. Employees said “this is a constant problem at Sunoco and it usually happens after midnight,” the report stated. They said the man always gets in and out of the store before they have a chance to call police. He has stolen four to six hundred dollars worth of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups over the past several months, employees said.

Yesterday, the bandit walked in the store with a hoodie pulled up over his head. He grabbed an unknown amount of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and chips. The clerk said he jumped over the counter and blocked the exit so the bandit couldn’t get away, police said. However, the bandit ran right into the clerk, spun him around and exited the store with the stolen snacks.

The thief ran north on Oberlin Avenue and east on West 30th Street. The police are seeking to obtain a security video.The Reese’s Cup Bandit is described as a 18-year-old black man wearing all black clothing who is approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and 140 pounds, police said.

 CRIMINAL MISCHIEF, ECHO DRIVE: Around 1 p.m. June 12, a resident called police when they learned someone had spray painted their garage door.
The vandal also left a note with a picture of the masked character from the movie “Scream” that said, “What is your favorite scary movie?”
The same thing also happened to a nearby house on Burnham Drive.

FALSIFICATION, WALNUT CREEK DRIVE: An officer stopped a juvenile just after midnight June 17, but finding out his identity wasn’t easy.
First, the juvenile said he was 17-year-old Jason, and the address he gave was listed to a 65-year-old man. Then, the juvenile confessed up to making up the first name and said his name was Luciano and he was actually 16.
That was false, too, and police finally figured out the teen’s real name, that he was 14-years-old and his real address

The day drags by like a wounded animal...

It's hot, who knew, on the first day of summer.


 
my dad has this on 45 and I'd listen to it on hot days like today.


on Orientalism and rust.

A fabled city, built on plunder, a crossroads of civilization and trade, a place of learning, a bridge between the east and west, until the wealthy and the powerful sought greener pastures elsewhere, the ignorant maintained a grip on power, the buildings torn down in the name of brutalism and progress and lack of history, now a cultural backwater and byword, of dictators and fundamentalists, strategic but not as important as other places. As a native of a land with a similar pattern of decay, albeit industrial rather than raiders and power struggles, it's hard not to have some kinship with these kinds of locales, to admire the beauty inherent, of times long gone.



 I came across Vasily Vereshchagin's paintings in an art book on Russian Orientalism, and it seems he spent some time here during the 19th century. I can't help but feel like this intriguedness of forgotten locales and decaying architecture is universal. Ruin porn for everyone I guess.




think about the things I said, read these pages cold and dead...

Attempts at highway driving foiled by accidents and sundry, somehow ended up traveling to Parmastan via the route of white flight down Broadway, past sokols and social halls and pawnshops, old churches with decaying facades, through the parts of Clevelandia I rarely traverse, the sun and the trees making even the lands of crack and foreclosed homes and things-falling-apart for decades still look strangely beautiful.

There are so many people at my parents' house, cousins and uncles and old friends who have taken on the status of cousins and uncles. I find I don't have much to say to anyone, not because of anyone's fault, but that's just how it is this time, so I play with the nephew and look through old photos culled from my great-uncles house and mingle my way through and try to keep in check my own weird opinions on things, because I know there's no point in debating when certain people are so ensconced in suburbia that it's obviously one's own fault if they can't find a good-paying job because they're lazy.

I don't even know what to say to this because I think of all my friends with degrees who did everything the way they were supposed to, and sure, the unemployment rate might not have changed all that much, but everyone, including yours truly is working, but underemployed by the standards of older generations who had jobs or prospects lined up within months of graduation. I was one of the lucky ones but I couldn't raise kids or buy a house on what I make, while my friends are living at home or with multiple roommates, paying down student loans stringing together part-time gigs in food service or second shift at the gas station or the group home, looking into beauty school or the Peace Corps because what else is there? There are slackers in every generation, but just because someone isn't able to afford two cars and a home in the exurbs doesn't mean they're failures either.

But the night is beautiful, and I listen to Jar of Flies, harmonizing to the vocal lines, howling along because no one can hear me except God, these streets are so empty, until I get back to my neighborhood where the punks are watching the police cars fly down the road blue and read. These songs are familiar and uncomplicated, comforting in their warmth and resignation and brilliant flashes of hope in the bleakness.Everything feels tired, it's just the beginning of summer...


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

creepshow


You know, Dag and Claire smile a lot, as do many people I know. But I have always wandered if there is something either mechanical or malignant to their smiles, for the way they keep their outer lips propped up seems a bit, not false, but protective. A minor realization hits me as I sit with the two of them. It is the realization that the smiles that they wear in their daily lives are the same as the smiles worn by people who have been good-naturedly fleeced, but fleeced nonetheless, in public and on a New York sidewalk by card sharks, and who are unable because of social convention to show their anger, who don't want to look like poor sports. the thought is fleeting.  - douglas coupland

That awkward moment when you're venting about someone you find creepy and then said person is right behind you, oh snap. When to take it, when to be assertive? I'm learning not to smile or laugh it away in part because I can't anymore. It was easier in a way before I had to get a Real Job and look professional, when the accoutrements of subculture were a kind of armor that often led to assumptions of swinging the other way, when there were shorter-skirted perky girls to chase instead. And now I'm older than a co-ed, younger than the khaki-and-polo-shirt crowd hitting the midlife crisis bump in need of a long-haired convertible companion. 


But despite my loud mouth and my occasional resorts to physical retort, there is a part of me that resides in passiveness and hesitancy, of delayed reaction, of not wanting to cause a scene, to be "the angry chick," because in the balance of power, as the female, as the person in the service industry, my word is worth less, and often worthless. The customer is always right, after all and while maybe the incident sailed over his head, maybe he felt a sense of embarrassment or shame, I still fear the reprimand and social shaming that I know comes from those moments of exuding too much feeling that's hard to hide.


 

ezio anichini

Can't find much Englished info about him on the Internets, but the pictures are fabulous.


pardon my rudeness

One of my near and dears from the Kent days has a brother who stopped up unexpectedly to visit me as he's doing research on Fair Clevelandia these days for a thesis so we hung out in the courtyard by the cathedral and talked such things as relate to cities.

And then I'm walking home and I hear my name called from an apartment window. It's a friend of my previous roommate, someone I barely knew as an acquaintance and haven't seen in a couple years, given that he's graduated and me and her no longer hang out. After the initial "hey we're neighbors" and how've you beens, it suddenly turns to can-I-make-you-dinner, let's drink some wine, my roommate's not home, and I'm caught completely off guard but I want to get to art class so I say later at first thinking well of course who wants to eat dinner alone, but as I'm dusting green enamel on the copper plates, I realize that the whole exchange of half an hour ago is completely weird, that the reason of his sudden moving to this side of town may or may not have to do with a relationship that ended, and that showing up after class later on in the night is probably a very bad idea and for lack of other options, I'm just going to pretend the whole interaction didn't happen.

So I kill time in Lakewood, walking around the park, sitting by the glassy lake watching the geese and the swallows, work in the garden til sunset, come home to let the phone ring, because I don't want to talk, I don't want to deal with this. We live three houses away, so I'll have to eventually, but there are other things to do, so I let it be, because this is not how I do things, this is not what I want. I don't want token gestures of chivalry and romance, from someone who barely knows me, if I want anything, it's camaraderie and naturalness and some kind of foundation other than hormones and loneliness. I don't know why this and other things kind of make me mad but they do.


Monday, June 18, 2012

lalalala I'm not listening!

I have neighbors who get testy on the whole politics thing, but talking to them individually, I find that they've got way more in common than either of them realize they do, once the ideologies and strawmen are stripped away, kind of the way that RonPaulites and Kucinichistas can agree on the overarching power of the state and imperalistic misadventuring and that maybe cannabis should be legal. I don't necessarily believe in the power of kum-by-yah, but it's amusing to me nonetheless.

We were drinking red wine on the porch last night talking politics and punk and history, buzzed enough that even contradictory opinions were glossed over and all ire was directed outwards at the abstractions of powers that be and the more immediate issue of the sketchy transactions occurring in front of the apartment building across the street.


I get to hear the usual tripe returning to the daily grind about people who happen to dissent from another's opinion and how they're therefore awful people and then bemusement at why I don't believe that Powers That Be care a lot about yours truly. I could rant more about kinder gentler machine gun hands but that gets old so you're stuck with tunes instead.

Speaking of tunes, I'll just let those do the talking.