LOVER

better believe it

- We gotta find a better place to drink
- Got the disc
- She doesn't like him at all and that means alot to me.
- Birthdays
- Holidays
- Top 5 items you can't live without better be ITEMS or you're a pretentious ass!
- On a rooftop Uptown
- It keeps us human
- Why I can't go to bed
- Blood Meridian

Feeling Groovy

This yum-pop mood:
Barbara Manning "Talk All Night"
Folk Implosion "Wide Web"
Magnetic Fields "I Die"

Gotta go online and get a window regulator & crank handle so that I can roll my driver's window down. Do you need money to buy stuff in cyber-space? In cyber-space is there air-conditioning? Cuz there isn't in my car. Not any money either. Is money real? What is "is"?

I am a soft bunny

and if I might get shot I'll just snuggle down into my nest and patiently wait for the gun to pass.

I have a home

and it is The Black Bonnets.

hot ride, cool bath

7:30 a.m. the air a broom of burnt coffee and greasy meat sweeping off the river. Workers on bicycles with lunches tied to the handlebars swinging in plastic bags. Old men reeking of cheap soap and cologne walking with canes waving hello. Cats glaring and disappearing underneath houses. Those things exist in multiples. The dog in the road lowering her head. Me on the bike thinking my sweat was rain. I reel it in and go at it again. If you love me like you say you do you'll try a little tenderness. This day is it - an/other chance.

A Clean Goat Needs No Water

A big old flower opening up, a painting finally taking shape. I've been going out into it with the most interesting results. Here's the report:
One of my absolute best friends, (it's not who you think!) insists on calling them Big B.M. -- me & Gin went to see what the fuss is about. Some interesting song structures, a Sonic Youth influence I should stop being surprised to hear, and if the chick bass player is gonna wear tight shirts and short skirts I really think the guys should be required to "work it" a little harder as well. The drummer did some smart stuff. Dave Fera is committed to his songs. They delivered the songs. The crowd was absolutely nerdish (my friend said they'd be "goony"), just standing there, inhibited white people, no dancing, no hootin', no physical engagement. Which in my book says two things --um, I should go see honky tonk legend Dale Watson and --this town is desperate for "new" music cuz if this is the hottest thing we've got going we're pretty green on the terrorist alert chart. That's not to say that I'm not glad that they're out there doing their thing: more power to ya' BBM -- just cuz I'm not buying it doesn't necessarily mean a damn thing. Plus Luke made us some absolutely divine margaritas and when we motored over to the Mermaid with Nate in tow it was nice of Art to wait till noone was around to let us in for free.
I went back out to pay just in good conscience because wow. To see some real hard conviction, to see actual country musicians playing actual country music: Dale Watson Honky Tonk Hero! It was like our own private jukebox but better cuz it was live! I'd not thought about Charlie Pride in such a spell! And the dancing was, Ginger, as usual, sublime. We figured out why people, boys & girls, freak out when we dance, thinking & saying we are lesbians (cross my heart, happens to us all the time): when most girls dance they're doing it to get attention from boys/men, even if they're dancing together. Essentially they want boys/men to cut in and save them from having to dance with their best friend. Or at the very least stand there and stare at their tits. Ginger & I, on the other hand, news-flash, are way beyond that. We dance, we dance with eachother because we love to dance with eachother, we don't care, it's wild. In this regard I can say that we are truly American Women (that other shit is so Olde World). This is not to say it isn't a pleasure to pass a few songs with a man who really knows the pleasure of the dance (it was my pleasure, David Rhoden). That said, that last song we spun around to, Ginger, after the Indian war chants, after the stompin and splashin the beers, bringing those men back grinning for more, THAT was A #1 Grade A original country music dancing at its absolute finest.
Coming home was amazing too, arriving, this oasis, and my hours spent drawing. And then:
a Saturday of maundering: a sub-par breakfast with an above-average companion, playing that Tip-It game on the floor of Bargain Center while it poured the rains down outside, Barq's at Liuzza's, and "the rest of all that" was if I'm not mistaken the definition of our very own personal definition of friendship-nice.
Then FARENHEIT 9/11 ................... Everybody must see this film. It is the most gut-wrenching inspiring piece of propaganda I have ever seen. His treatment, filmically, of September 11 had me absolutely riveted, tears streaming down my face. The movie, yeah it's funny, but it is DEVASTATING. Devastating to finally see footage of Iraq, to be given personal stories of the trauma that the Bush Regime has WITHOUT CONSCIENCE doomed so many innocent people to. To see the whole trajectory from 9/11 to now. It reaches in and adroitly grabs the heart & pulls your heart out for you to do an inventory of. What am I really DOING? I don't know about you but I have to do more than just talk and cry. The whole horrible disenchanting experience of Bush "becoming President" really exhausted me and September 11th created a gigantic rift in all of our spirits. As a result I've not been able to do much more than stay abreast of what's going on, stay committed to thinking about it & seeking out the stories - which is very unlike the radical activist worker's daughter from the North that I used to be. I left this movie with a hunger for action and am beginning the preliminary gestures toward that. Registering voters, Move-On meetings, letters of protest, but for me most important is to begin sending books and letters to the soldiers who are trapped over there. So hooray to Michael Moore for creating what, artistically, I recognize as a flawed work but socially and emotionally I embrace whole-heartedly. If it can work on any level to balance the scales, to galvanize us to get that lying murderous pathological chump-ass punk out of office, then we may be returning to the best things about idealism in this country -- that it is a common, daily, participatory act requiring us all to be rigorously honest with ourselves.
alrighty then! The Black Bonnets recording session last night was as good as I knew it would be. All the work we have been doing paid off ten-fold. Listening to the playbacks not only got my imagination going but confirmed my belief that we are doing something (real singing, 3 part harmonies, 3 great voices doing great things) that nobody else is doing right now. It's a gift, we've got a real gift! I'm in awe of it - as a musician who has been around for a long long while, making records, touring, performing, and especially: listening . . . I am blessed to be able to sing with Andy & Gin & experience this. For three singers to be able to sit in a room and nail, live, three original vocal lines, to nail our parts and with real emotion, not onstage but in front of a very very hot mic . . . it's kindof like I'm not me, not in my body, when I listen back. I'm just this person with really great ears going "Fuck! Who the fuck is that? That's uncanny!" So cheers to The Black Bonnets for confirming my suspicions. I'm super committed and inspired and ready to do whatever it takes to keep this odd ball rolling.
On top of that: a great great solid night's sleep, some fab iced coffee, this day ahead and holiday ahead and yeah. Anybody want some hot homemade biscuits?

hovering

Out of coffee at the house so the kick is gonna be extra special here at work . . . oooo, it's just finished brewing I'm all a-quiver. Rain to come I want it be completely drenched, want to get out of this house, away from the computer, walk in wet sand, sleep in a tent. Just sold a book. This is the machine that makes something that has something to do with bubble tea. This is me the day after bubble tea. Tell me what you are listening to and reading! I must have something new! Yesterday I liked Built To Spill and this one song by Country Teasers that I am writing an entire album in reaction to. And I am reading this gorgeous smart book "Bush In Babylon" - history of Iraq and the Western wars waged upon it. Doesn't sound like fun to you? I read Reid Fleming comics till I fell asleep last night. I woke up with a beehive, an empty bottle on the pillow, and something white like milk on my lips ...

recovering

- Someone else who deals with depression gets it
- The 'fore day creep never killed me (so 'n so saw my car)
- Epsom salts/purification bath/a gallon of water down the hatch
- Beautiful intricate details of the Nikon Coolscan 9000 (props David L.)
- Talking without shame
- Burgers and coca cola
- What Herman said you just wouldn't believe it
- Surprise wine & truffles delivered from Martin's
- I sold a print yesterday and today
- Christine brought bubble tea and sat on the leather couch with me
- I got Mica a free ticket from Casablanca to London to New Orleans (I can do some great things)
- My Los Angeles connections
- A breezy commute (that dramatic landscape, wind throwing my hair 'round my head)
- Happy dog
- Affectionate cats
- Sexiest air/on my skin/wet drops on my skin
- Ginger and Andy D.
- What's on tap for the w'end lordy lord lord

cover me

So much is colliding off-kiltery and tense, I can barely poke m'lil head out the precious garden walls. What is going on in the world, what's happening inside these skins of mine? Feeling so Nervous Norvus going through burning through - and wanna be just held. Someone come over make me supper lay on the floor staring at the ceiling saying nothing for hours on end?
Constantines "Insectivora"
Trembling Blue Stars "Farewell To Forever"

C + E = GeniusPlaytimeFun!

We almost fell off the bikes laughing so hard:
- I like fire except when they put it on my body I did not know fire is hot until they put it on me.
- Looking for air/urine stinks
- The Treem
- Leaving a full tumbler of Jim Beam on the bench because I just don't care.
- That landscaping? You know they have sex in the ass cuz the pussy is too messy.
- Taking the basket into the photo booth.
- That we are long long gone & they don't even suspect.
And tonight? I'm just a lippy firecracker looking for a sexy place to blow. (That sounds lewder than I planned. Is "lewder" a word?)