your wants make me nervous

The tiredness has kicked in, attempting to extricate oneself from plans, because it's Monday and I'm exhausted already. This weekend was diner food and helping a friend move, an amble through a hipster craft fair full of stuff that all looks mostly the same and artisan ethnic food where the dudes were walking around wearing giant vintage cameras around their necks like Flava Flav does clocks, and there was so much seeing and being seen and general overpriced tchotchkes that we left relatively quickly for sportsballing and snarking far from tiaras and way-too-expensive trust fund home furnishings.

I gave props to all the ladies of my life, am super-hyped about seeing Failure in Detroit in a couple of weeks, worked in the garden and had a laundry night with Neighbor up the street at the laundromat where we washed loads of work clothes and black band t-shirts, ate junk food and sang Dead Milkmen songs and made up blues songs and loitered in the parking lot as the machines spun around. Something about the laundromat makes you feel like you're not all that well off even if you're doing reasonably okay given the circumstances.

All the caffeination took awhile to wear off and I woke up sleepy this morning, thinking about how I'd rather be out in the garden than getting a stiff neck, wondering why I commit to things at all, and being all the more relieved that my life is not tied to some goofball even though I don't want to live alone in an apartment forever and the concept of solo homeownership is profoundly intimidating. I just need the brain to slow down, and to plant my peppers and eggplants, and read some more books and remember to slow down. 

of gyros, brawls, records, and resurrections

Things that happened this weekend.

driving around running errands, listening to Subrosa with a fellow lover of big riffs who's not so much a friend so much as an enjoyable occasional acquaintance because we only hang out when circumstantials bring us together but when they do we have a great time.

Worked Record Store Day again this year and marveled at the weirdness, got paid in vinyl and was introduced to this fine band.

Ate gyros and skipped stones at the metroparks with the Kentinistas, listened to Creedence, basked in the sun, plotted future summer adventures mostly involving baseball games and MST3K nights.

 Hung out with family.
Found out there was a pretty big melee up the street from me thanks to some crazy-ass hardcore youth crew kids, not, as the commentariat on the local media newsrag suggests, "death metal wannabe thugs and their groupies." Sad that Metalsucks has a better summary than the local news outlet. Somehow end up on an 80's hardcore kick anyway even though my days of those kinds of pits are far behind me.

Me and Neighbor heard about the incident via the cops at our favorite diner, decided to drive past the aftermath, being all nosy and making Warriors and Outsiders jokes because no one got killed as far as his Spacephone told us and there were a bunch of straightedge kids carrying on a scene that I came late to ten years ago but they still like all those bands with the breakdowns. The party antics of The Supersuckers opening for the Toadies promoted a more traditional rock and roll lifestyle and Eddie Spaghetti live comes across as Lemmy Via Texas and it was fantastic even if we were all the way in the back and the crowd was mostly there for the headliner and wasn't sure what this tongue-in-cheekness was all about.

Sunday morning I wished I was in a better mood playing songs but such is life. Came home and slept on the porch, went to the folks' and ate too much, came home and slept early. Monday doesn't feel so bad.

now it's over and I'm coming home

so I've been back almost a week from Californistan. It's amazing how fifteen years go by and yet there's some people that you reconnect with instantly. I haven't seen the girls since they were preschoolers and by the end of the five days I felt like I had younger cousins or somesuch because we got along so well.

They picked me up at the airport where the warmth felt almost unreal on my Decembered skin, and we got Mexican food and then drove to Los Angeles (how weird is it to have the girls you used to babysit driving you through one of the biggest cities in the country while rocking out to Bikini Kill?) where we had a heck of a time finding parking in Hollywood and watched their cousin's one-woman show that was really, really good and then stayed at her house in Santa Monica where I promptly fell asleep given my body being accustomed to a different time zone.

Her cousin cooked us amazing breakfast and then we walked down through Santa Monica, which I fell in love with, with its beautiful pastel buildings, palm trees, and flowers everywhere even though I know I couldn't afford to live there, and I finally got to dip my feet in the cold Pacific ocean and we walked around eating fresh mandarin oranges and pomegranates which were a whole new kind of delicious before driving back inland, making a stop at the Cabazon dinosaurs for giggling tourist trap purposes.

We went to Joshua Tree the next day, and while I would have loved to get up there earlier than we did, it was incredible to see, those iconic trees, the rocks everywhere that are a completely different landscape, the cactus garden beneath the sunset sky, with the moon rising over the mountains on the other side. We were only here about four hours but I could spend four days here. We drove back through the dark mountains with the luminous moon as jackrabbits darted across the road and I felt damn near euphoric surrounded by all this stark beauty. This was the soundtrack theme for pretty much the entire trip.

The next morning we took awhile to wake up but me and the oldest went out to Whitewater to hike around because I am a Kyuss fangirl and wanted to see the landscape documented in one of my favorite songs. Of course it was desolate and beautiful, with the mountains rising up on either side, the stream running through, the scrubby terrain and the dead century plants. Of course I could have spent longer here too. I don't know why this landscape has such a hold on me even though I could only live near lots of water.

The last day we spent in downtown Palm Springs before heading to the airport and I understand Coupland's generational rage so much more after seeing a town full of rich retirees spending their childrens' inheritance on $20 salads, golf courses in the desert, crystal healings, and cubic zirconia pins spelling out titles like "Queen Bitch" "Pageant Mom," and "Cosmetics Lady." Most of the women had obviously gone through Botox injections and various plastic surgeries and it's surreal to see this other part of America that's so different from your hometown where people eat lots of stick-to-yer-ribs food and it shows.

The plane ride back was full of golf guys coming from some convention, I was still happy to be home even though it was cold and icy, because the hearts in my city are still warm. My body still hasn't adjusted to the time change, my holidays went by in a blur, but now there's a week off and possible new musical opportunities on the horizon with some friends who dig Bad Brains and Faith No More, and the snow makes all things quiet and beautiful. 

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

The second night in a short while, of staying in another's house with another's pets, a neighborhood to the south of where I live, this holiday weekend is drawing to a close. I saw family and hung out with friends, talked about books and made faces with the nephew and laughed and for all that is wrong with the world, his smile is so beautiful and his baby dinosaur laughter so amazing that I can forget sometimes.

There were so many beautiful interactions, and I got so little sleep, with all the midnight dinner, the drinking of coffee and fitful tossing on the couch as the cats ran around, the 4am conversations verging on the beautiful incoherent, knowing that there are no obligations to wake up to for a change. Because there are new friendships being forged, that I hope will lead to future adventures, of more late nights and explorations.

I wonder if it's weird that I get such visceral pleasure out of these interactions, of hanging out and having it feel so simple, of meals shared and cups of coffee drank, of conversations of compassion rather than overcompensation, of not having to try too hard and just exist in these crystallized moments that now at least are so free from complication.

hibernatia

Family functions fun, too much good food, the perfect amount of snark and conversation, lack of sleep now attended to, scares of the hope-they're okay kind at 2 in the morning, a crashed computer at the station meant I probably pissed off my sludge loving listeners with ample medieval chantish spooky noochies Christmas music, playing the same Arvo Part and Anonymous 4 CDs in rotation with a dash of Lanegan and Kristin Hersh, no cars on the road, no one called in. My mom asks why I bother because it's so deserted, but it's always deserted at 5 in the morning there.

No regrets on jettisoning epic travels, I've spent the snowy days drinking tea with neighbors and old friends. I have no need to really go anywhere, the hibernating feels good after the masses of people. I come home, listen to tunes, drink more tea, read, repeat. This is a true vacation. There is peace, and it is good.

christmas music

 Over coffee and super-doomsters Cathedral, we were talking about Christmas music and how most of it sucks, and due to having a more austere approach to the holiday and having already been burned out on winter wonderlands and frosty snowmen and jingle bells and anything involving Santa acting like a CIA spook, especially after several weeks of retail hell in the punkass years.


So my show falls on Christmas morning next week, and while I've always skirted around trying to find holiday music I can stand, (in the past I've always done an annual Joe Strummer tribute show), but this year, I really have to do something a little more of the season. I also have to pick church music for the Sunday before and always debate whether or not I want to go all quasi-medieval and such or play it safe. I also know I'll get no sleep that night, usually opting to duck out of family functions early to get chill at midnight mass in a dark old Clevelandia church with ample amounts of candles.

I really love these songs and their rendition, being all choral and somber in a way that I find missing in the saccharinity of the season. Something about the excess makes me crave more austere sounds. Also, I really hate the Trans-Siberian Orchestra for ruining Carol of the Bells.

My dad had some John Fahey Christmas album that is curiously absent from the interwebs but here's a few clips.

and I've really been loving on this Mark Lanegan Christmas EP. No St. Robert of Dylan schmaltz, no lounge music snake-dance shtick (Scott Weiland you suck). Old-school obscure carols and that voice that Randal so accurately describes as menacing yet inviting. Seriously this is so good that even though I don't listen to much holiday music I've been listening to this obsessively.  Minimal and do I mention that voice again?

So yeah, kind of at a loss otherwise. We had that Harry Simeon Chorale record when I was a kid which I also loved and Catholic neo-troubadour John Michael Talbot's fabulous recordings of old songs with orchestra and boychoir.

And then there's these...

 And then the more absurd...

Randal of course suggested this. 

oh Mike Doughty you scamp

 My aunt had this on a Christmas compilation that also included a song about a dead cat. These chicks are kind of cornball goth, but it's polyphonic and simple so it meets the Duchess' approval.

and of course, because I like spaced out sonics and crushy drone

So my zuckerbookers have weighed in with some I'll definitely be doing (Kristin Hersh, Monster Magnet) and ones probably not so much (nothing affiliated with Colin Meloy or Zooey Deschanel). Your suggestions, of course, are much appreciated.

de-comaed

Filled in on a homie's metal show, despite aspersions cast upon yours trvely's hesher credentials, I got a lot of phone calls wanting to know more about said jams, some of which have graced the airwaves prior due to their general rockitude and since no one else plays this stuff and I love giving my fellow lady-doomsters airtime. Played requested Testament and St. Vitus, doomed it up for the most part. It's archived til Wednesday here. 

Spent Thanksgiving morning with some friends I haven't seen since matrimony, drinking coffee and walking beneath trees still yellow in this late November. A good amount of cousins and relatives came in, and feasting was done, everything else too delicious to bother with turkey. 

Black Friday consumerism involved acquiring a new (but used and very cheap) turntable at the Best Record Store Ever and then hanging out at the station for open house dispensing college radio swag and hanging out with good folk and indulgence in reminisces of the Parmastani kind, lunch with my aunt, and then downtown to meet up with the Queen of the Bondo for Nostalgia Today (whatever that means) holiday festivities courtesy of the City of Clevelandia. 

It was more crowded down there than I ever remember it being, and while one could say that downtown for at least one weekend night feels "alive" again, it felt more Potterville than It's a Wonderful Life to me. Everything felt so made-in-China and consumer rat race. The LED lights had no warmth, the music was free of any meaning besides Santa and presents and sugar-plum fairies and not even The Nutcracker,  just that business of synthesizers and panpipes. It reminded me of why every year I spiritual detox and go to midnight mass if only to sit somewhere dark and quiet so that I can ponder the spiritual significance lost in the maelstrom. 

Still, it was not without entertainment if only for the trashy absurdity that is 21st century America in a dying city. 

 Some of my older friends don't believe that Bronies exist. This, and the accompanying fitted baseball caps and plush blankets also sold at the record store (who the hell shops here anymore?) seem to prove otherwise. I also realized how out of touch I am with pop culture, videogame, and boyband references, such arcana is not so much in my interest I guess, and I'm around less teenagers and little kids than I once was. Also, the phrase "Cray Cray" to describe craaaazy needs to die right now. Other dregs from the pop culture morass below:

Seriously, the photo from the store above is simply called GLITTER and is full of general dollar bling tackiness.Came home, did some tea and reading, went to the art museum for my birthday, looked at cool ancient stuff, went out for dinner with the folks and returned here for the daily grind. There was some exhibit of Peruvian coastal ancient art that included these super heavy-looking plugs for one's lobes. 

Somehow all that well-restedness turns into the usual need for caffeine and lighthearted crankiness that we've grown so used to. 

sleep can wait

Overdosing on good hangingoutness... returning to the art studio on Friday night to attempt to throw pots less suckily, plans to watch falling stars scuttled by fatigue, reunion with Kentinistas involving much food and revelry and sitting next to the fire pit. Family functions, dinner with good people, travels provided for thanks to generous folk with frequent flyer miles to burn, travels pondered and my passport application on its way to some bureaucrat's desk, showing up late for movie night to chortle and pick out a new turntable.

  Filling in on la estacion tonight for a homie's metal show, which inevitably leads to she plays what? Shocking that one can indeed be eclectic in one's sonic palate without saying "I listen to everything" in the sense that music is background noise rather than something that moves you. It's funny when one digs into a genre and there are so many permutations and threads that technically fall under the same umbrella and sound completely different from each other.

And tomorrow... sleeping in, cooking, hanging out with cousins and the relatives whose company I enjoy, avoiding Black Friday like the plague, hopefully doing some adventuring of some kind.

sparkles and smoke

A cookout with sundry east-siders, driving out to pick up Tangerine because who wants to spend the 4th alone? I did a couple years ago and it was lonely to stand there in the parking lot watching the neighborhood pyrotechnics alone and then everything that went down after that, and then last year when I crashed a party that a couple friends were invited to at a mansion on the lake where no one talked to me at all, and I wanted to leave but cursed my born gender for not feeling okay with walking home in the dark alone.

So Tangerine, being of a similar mind, and my little sis, who had nothing else to do, came over and as the clouds swirled ominously and the lightning flashed, we walked up the street with some cigarette lighters and a bag of sparklers and smoke bombs and a misplaced fun missile almost set my hoodie on fire. Big clouds of colored smoke cause a certain glee still even though we're relatively too old to be doing this whole bit, and the lighters and the wind meant the butane flames came close to grazing our fingers, so then we gave up and walked down towards the park, thinking it would rain any minute, but it didn't, and there were parties with disco music and people in the street, this is the only time when everyone mingles, and I guess that more than nationalistic feelings is why I love this holiday, there's a bit of anarchy in the air, a cutting loose and a revelry that's rare at any other time.

On the cliffs, the masses gathered with their picnic blankets and glowsticks in the shadow of the houses of the rich, who were shooting off fireworks large and loud enough from the front yard to rival those of the city. All that money burning and exploding in sparks for seconds at a time. Some lady got angry at us for blocking the view of her kid but there was nothing to look at facing the lake and the fireworks hadn't even started yet so I don't know what her problem was, but we decided not to reason with people who seemed a little unhinged.

We kept walking closer to the park, where it looked like a rave for children with all the kids busting their jedi knight moves with glowing rainbow swords and dancing with swirling LED bands. Someonethreatened to come to the house of one of the vendors and kill him for selling her a dud, I wonder if she was the lady that took a contract out to kill one of the parking attendants where I work. While I was wandering through the darkness looking for a restroom, my companions helped a lost kid find his mom and sent him home with the rest of our sparklers except for a couple boxes that we lit together.

The fireworks over the lake were beautiful and since we walked it was easy to get home, and I drove Tangerine back to the east side down the more deserted routes far from the crowds, where massive pyrotechny was happening everywhere and if we weren't totally in the hood, we would have stopped to watch, but then we heard some bullets flying too, and saw things blowing up in the street, so we kept going, buzzed on the adrenaline alone. One of my fellow djs was playing Isis and it was the perfect background sounds to the burning smell and the incandescent flashes. We had plans for post-fireworks diner food and slap-happy absurd conversations, but I knew I'd be tired the next day (getting old sucks) so I apologized to the second shifters and knew I'd made the right decision driving back across town when the only thing keeping me awake was long stonerrific jams and the whirled ponderings of the brain, coming home to fall asleep with the cat sitting guardian, two more days until the celebrations begin again. It's nice to see things looking up for a change...

independence day

My last couple 4th of Julys haven't been much fun. Last year was a party at a mansion overlooking the lake where no one talked to me and I ended up dancing the merengue with the hired help and sitting back anthropologist style observing how the other half lives, and the year before was that year that my roommate and I stopped talking and I had my tangles with The Man, so I'm not sure what to expect this time around, but there's a cookout I've been invited to, or the option of retreating to the island for the day, other things maybe, all this depending on what the weather does. Being introverted doesn't sound like half bad of an idea either. Since this is a more demure hood than my last residence, I have a feeling there won't be massive pyrotechnic feats in the middle of the street.

I still remember that one night my dad and I were driving back across town through the wild streets of Clevelandia with Spacemen 3 on the college station, and the air was fuzzed with colored smoke, the profiles of children running through the yards, the sparkle of rockets red glared zooming over the car and I was euphoric on the element of danger and the smell.

I'm ambivalent about high-minded national ideals at this point, glad to live somewhere with relative freedom even if things are getting more messed up all the time, and we're the only country that's ever nuked anybody, and there's always one road to hell or another every few years paved with the best of intentions involving abstract ideals and ways to keep the war machine on turning.

But tonight, I'm cooking dinner, sundry folk will hopefully make their way over this way, and Elder is playing down the street, so I'll get to chill out to some fabulous stoner rock if not anything else.