LOVER

just don't talk about me when I'm gone

Packing last night came upon the writing I did after Tobey & Arun died, just the plain facts, a blow-by-blow account of what went down, what goes down when you find two boys dead within two months of eachother. Also the scribbled notes for the eulogy I gave for the memorial for Arun at Tulane. And just ... bawled. All I can tell people is "it gets better" at the same time saying "it never gets better." It just is. Can't help but feel sometimes that my life would be so much better now if he'd not died. But who'm I kidding? I find it impossible to subscribe to notions of "tragedy" ie: he "died before his time", etc etc. Especially with Tobey, as he committed suicide. It is what it is what it is. I've spared myself alot of confusion by accepting that these things happen as they should. I remember what Phoebe said after Arun's death, she said, "This story isn't about them anymore. They died. This story is about you." Meaning that we find meaning by coming to terms with death and with continuing to live and love in spite of it or next to it or because of it.

Mind you, I have also buried my father and my mother - when I was twenty no less, six months apart they died - so this whole death/grief thing is pretty standard stuff for me.

FYI: The Holga show that I am in ie: Art For Art's Sake opening is this weekend at Radici Gallery, 603 Julia Street. There's some really fantastic work in this show and I'm really psyched to be involved. Come see my Holga pix/lightboxes! Come see my homage to Vera Ginger Parsons! Come see Jenny Bagert's awesome Holga polaroid transfers, Zack Smith's shots, so on so forth. It's a TOY CAMERA, y'all! It's Julia Street! (that just makes me giggle.) Seriously, this is a great new gallery doing brave things & I for one am excited.

Also: This Sunday the Black Bonnets will be playing around 9 pm at the Mermaid Hayride/Pickin' Party -- Mike West, The Haunted Hearts, Gina Forsyth, etc. It's gonna be a swell pre-Halloweeny (hee hee) event --- what could be more Halloween than scary sad bands, hay, beer? (oooo, I can feel Halloween coming ... ooooooo I'm getting ramped already .... )

So I'm moving (rrrrrr), dealing with all that you deal with phew when you move, plus exhibiting plus gig plus cell phone died plus plus plus. I like the air today. I really do like to be alive.

Note: Though I work at acceptance ie: death happens "as it should" (as I wrote above) I do not mean in any way shape or form that I do not have a gigantic force of compassion for people, myself included, who live with the fog and pain and hell of depression. I do wish for each person to find and receive the relief that each one of us deserves. I do wish for people who are right on that edge that they can reach out and find a hand that pulls them back, find a way to pull themselves back to where life isn't hell, to where the day or night doesn't feel like a sentence to be lived through.

Death that seems a result of depression (any version of suicide ie: addiction, self-destructiveness, putting a gun to the temple, etc etc): there's just no understanding it, there's no "answer" to any of the questions, beyond the simple fact that the person who chooses to die like that just did not want to live. Death like that just remains a mystery. It can be daunting it can be consuming it can be the heaviest of weights. And I'm here to say there's days when you can accept that it's always gonna be a mystery and breathe and let go and live in a way that honors that any of us have ever lived at all.

How to get luscious, touchable skin.

He just flat out offered and then gave me money with no drama, no strings, just love, just support, helping like he does, down to earth, just gave it cuz he knows I'm scrambling right now (the move the move the move rawr). Didn't "just" give it, either, mind you, but went through some serious gymnastics to get it to me when I needed it. No fuss no muss. So here's to you, Andrew Donaldson. Don't anybody tell me men can't do this, men can't do that. You are what they will all be measured against from here on out. In other words, um, Andy? YOU. RULE. I can't wait to down a cold one with you at Bacchus in chilly Gentilly.

"I'm not sugar, I'm love looking for sugar!"

BECK: Cancelled Check
LIFE-BLOOD: Ginger candy, iced coffee, lists.
FORWARD: I do not accept empty apologies.

eulogy

Can't help but have Kelly on my mind, Kelly and her bar, our Circle Bar. She passed in her sleep and my heart goes out to her loved ones, my heart goes out to the man who woke to find her dead. The Circle has been really important to alot of us for a long long time and it was because of her. She created that space, that home-base. I only knew her peripherally but I have strong memories. And again, my heart goes out to her loved ones. I knew her bar intimately --- remember September 16th the year of 9/11 when I got held up at gunpoint right outside. Singing on that "stage". Remember Soupchain, remember two-stepping to that 10 year old xydeco drummer, flirtations, late night dancing, bloody mary's with Michelle after working at the Bluebird, every Tuesday with Meehan to laugh and laugh, that night of Ginger's panic attack, hilarity, sorrow, years and years and years of that. Riding the bike up to lock it on that loopy fence. All of the people you don't really know but since you've been sitting at the same bar enough times together you begin to feel familiar. Stephanie. Luke. Lefty. People who have never not treated me well. After work cocktails with Andy, cherry cokes with Christine. And the music. Yeah, the music --- it was always really about that. Even if the place stays open it will change, it will not be the same, like nothing ever is. Noone can hang onto a damn thing, it's futile. And noone can say that another person's pain isn't legit. Her death is a gigantic loss for the community, on many levels, and we are all affected. Grief is a pool, a wavy sky. All I can say, having survived such things many times over, is the best way to pay homage to someone magical who has passed is to work at compassion, to emulate their positive traits, be kind, be brave, keep an open heart even while knowing its pain.

CROSSING.

What are the relative minors in the key of "e"?

"There's a force, it can't be fucked with. Chinese girls who made their own language. And they wrote to eachother. It was specific. I don't think it's a question of where." FORK

I will have moved into my new shiny home when my birthday arrives. If I don't have rice-paper window treatments by then that's all I want. And to go to Rasputin and eat borscht and drink vodka is all. Then bowling and red velvet cake is all. Then sex with a big warm good man and then a hot mineral bath and sleep is all.

1. Ana Mendiata
2. Amazing blood and photos
3. You'd think I sent him to a massacre
4. Sings in a moving octave
5. Persecution complex
6. Oh. No.
7. Poetry salon
8. in the middle of her laughing
9. Nushu
10. Why don't you two talk?
11. Helter Skelter
12. Is he getting approval/validation? Then he won't change.
13. It indicts the alphabet
14. I got wet when I found that book
15. Vincent D'Onofrio
16. The Kinks
17. Red wine with a stick of butter in it.

every second counts

TOBEY HELVESTON, brother.

ARUN LELE, lover.

I have alot to say about the truth & ease of death, the mess of grief, possible & real grace, challenging compassion, the absurdity of competition, the instability of hysteria, the power of love. I know alot. But all I'm gonna say right now is:

Here are my two men that died here in New Orleans. We had deep history, I loved them, lived with them, confided, supported. I found their bodies, I told their parents, I dealt with the coroner, the cops, the cleanup. It was a larger-than-life experience. 26 years old those boys were when they died.

And I came out fine; I never wasn't kind. It's possible. Meehan says, "True colors come out when something like death happens." Lately Meehan ain't been nothing but right.

I hear Arun in my head all the time. "EB," he'd say. And then something simple, tough, sexy. Always sexy. Always patient. Hilarious. Wise. I'm not idealizing. It was that way. I know what I had, know what I lost, know what I gained.

And I laugh and laugh and laugh because I know what they'd say to me now, today, dealing with what I'm dealing with, hearing what I'm hearing & witnessing. I laugh! I. LAUGH. The crows swarmed around me when I parked my car. They're laughing too.

LIBBY, girl.

Follow Me To AH-HA

Usually I'm frustrated by drivers here going below the speed limit. This morning, a Saturday, I found traffic to be moving fantastically well: brisk, just at or just above the speed limit. Conclusion: I am a Saturday Driver.

Here's Stage Two. Eureka!

I love my bike, I live for the inspired moment, anybody up for some badminton?

OH OK.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It's just like me to decide that for my first Julia Street exhibit I have to learn and execute an entirely brand new process involving electricity, carpentry, acetate, glass, and digital prints of my Holga negs while my laptop is down. In a matter of days. Just like me. With zero to zip dollars. While working full-time and healing heart and having to move move pack move and rehersal and filming and gigs and phew. Just. Like. Me.

Not complaining though. My life rocks. Can't sleep. Still rocks.

James Taylor better high-tail it outta here, "Cheatin' Heart" better too.

Haunted Hearts @ Circle Bar a real pleasure esp. the 3rd set sitting with Jay & I heckling them while smiling smiling haha! And what amazing conversations I was privy to, what story-tellers walk around here, bike riding and driving. New people poke their heads in the door. October is mine, baby, October is gonna be fine. Despite the fact I got a new ick to shake. Despite the fact I don't like what he's doing to me or her. Despite the fact that men get away with it. Despite the man-handling, despite the violence. Despite the silence where there used to be hootin' & hollerin'. I might miss those sweet bananas but I gotta pineapple on the way ...

Meehan, Circle Bar, whisky/soda/bitters, pretzels, his cigs.

1. On the ceiling of a church.
2. The Interlopers
3. "I was gesticulating wildly next to a cactus and got my elbow full of thorns. Spines, actually."
4. Gravity pull the paper flat.
5. He took her idea.
6. A novelty.
7. The whole theatre of it.
8. Dead-end (go totally inert).
9. That'd be a lot prettier if it had a tip on it.
10. Buck naked in Markey's.
11. "I don't care if you're superficial if you entertain me."
12. Newark, New Jersey.
13. Drinks, cigarettes, pickled okra.
14. Pascal's, best mussels.
15. North 8th & Drakes, on the corner.
16. It has an aura and it's good not bad.
17. On a cold winter's night I'd have to say the Hasidic place in the middle of the Diamond District.
18. For pickles go around the corner, Gus'.
19. You're totally right about the best smoked fish in the city.
20. The Golden Unicorn.
21. For cheese, Murray's.
22. DiPaolo's
23. Best hamburger, Double Happiness the bar.
24. Best Mexican corn - corn is a snack - Café Habana.
25. Ya gotta watch out you don't get Quick Silver.
26. Best bim bap, superheated bowl, Dak Sumi.
27. The guys that eat on the 7th line.
28. Forget, forget, erase.
29. And she's not your friend either.
30. Baby steps, baby.
31. Puddin'
32. Promises promises.
33. Degrees