Radiohead - Karma Police

Long ago, before I became this pinnacle of sanity you have now grown to know and love, I “dropped my basket.” I had succumbed completely to my then undiagnosed Panic disorder completely and turned my life and adrenal glands over to a drug called Effexor. This drug, while you are on it, seems to be a kind of miracle drug. Nothing switches, no wild uncontrollable thoughts about death, no racing heart and sweaty palms in otherwise safe situations; synthetic calm after years of self-torture and exhaustion. However, there was a downside or two to this “miracle drug”. My serotonin levels eventually became so evenly leveled that my brain tricked me into believing that I had no consequences what-so-ever; I was like a blank sheet of paper. I wasn’t high, I wasn’t low, and I wasn’t anything but a poor decision maker with no shoes on. I got laid off, I didn’t care. I lost my fiancé, I didn’t care. I had to move home with my parents… whatever. I didn’t wear shoes for a year or two… who cares?

Somewhere in the midst of this haze, as I found myself every day at the same damn coffee shop, doing puzzles and chain smoking, I met a girl who would become my anchor and partner in crime; Anne, who has affectionately become known as “N’abney” through a manipulated pronunciation of her first and last names. I had known her barely a heartbeat when she walked across the street and bought me a crossword puzzle dictionary from the used book store. It was love at first nerd. What followed was a then several month progression of Anne and me clinging to each other throughout our follies and downfalls. I was losing grip on life in general, Anne was lost and trying to finish school. All we knew to do was to smoke drugs and go wild and have earth shattering conversations while we bawled our eyes out in our cars.

Eventually, everything came to a head. My family was slowly cutting me off in every way. I had no money and my dad took away my cell phone first, and then my car. Anne saved the day by letting me borrow her early 80s beige town & country, affectionately known as the “Nazgul”, for the screeching death sounds it made due to its lack of power steering. My friends, one by one, took me aside and said “get your shit together or we can’t be friends anymore.” (This is a testament to how evil SSRI’s, especially Effexor, are when not properly administered or monitored.) My friends gave me an intervention over a medication my doctors intentionally put me on. Then the last straw… my health insurance granted me as a severance from my last job ran out. My parents refused to pay for the then $120/mo prescription, as there was no generic, and I literally went completely cold turkey off Effexor. You can do a quick Google search and see how dangerous and wrong and terrible this experience was for me.

Digression/point of post: one of the things I do the best and I know I do a lot is give people nicknames. Whether that nickname is something you did once that was silly or just a ridiculous mispronunciation of your name; everyone at one point or another gets a nickname from me. Some people have more than one. It’s an endearing thing I do; it means I care enough about you or something. I have only been the recipient of a nickname that stuck once, and that was from N’abney… One night in the midst of all this haze, Anne, while driving around with another of my long time best friends, Bart, called and sang the entirety of this song, all the while substituting my name in place of “Karma”. I had, at one point, had a few friends that would sing Culture Club’s “KARLA Chameleon” to me in the halls at school, but it never really caught on. Some people outside of the N’abney inner sanctum still call me “karla police” now. Piggybacking off the nickname, I once had a brilliant idea to start a cable access show where I would dress as a cop, walk around NCSU’s brickyard and stop kids listening to headphones and ask what they were listening to. If what they said did not please me, I would “arrest” them and make them listen to some Joy Division or the Buzzcocks or something. This idea, as all great ideas that rise from the haze of marijuana smoke, never came to fruition, not unlike the great “cheese as currency” debate of ’03.

I have never heard Karma Police without thinking of N’abs. I somehow have more “in jokes” with N’abney than just about anyone else in my whole life. That girl has saved my life so many times I can’t even count anymore….

N’abney & Karla Police = burning the 80s… 4ever! xoxox

Soul Coughing - Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago

1995. Stupid year. I was 17 going on 18. I had dropped out of college for the first time already (graduated HS at 16, btw) and was spending the majority of my barely employed, anxiety riddled, coffeeshop-supergenius days wandering aimlessly with my best friend Summer and lying around one of my newer closest friends, Josh Bradley’s, house. I’m not clear on exact dates and timelines of events around this time period of my life. I wish I could say it was because of some rockstar reason like I was so busy being wasted on drugs or doing sex to the world, when the truth is something closer to the fact that during those days my panic and anxiety was so bad, I was popping Ativans left and right and spent the majority of the ages 17 through 20 in a benzo haze. Some of you were there, some of you remember.

There are a few significant events which occurred during this time, although as previously stated, I am not entirely certain of the timeline.

- Had my first boyfriend. Frank. He is crazy (diagnosed schizophrenic at this point.) we dated about a year, I broke up with him because he was, obviously, crazy. This was about 15 years ago. He still follows me around, always finds my phone number and where I live. This is one of my Raleigh legacies of which I am the very most ashamed. I was the girl who dated frank. 15 years ago.
- Met Josh Bradley, who would become one of the most beautifully influential and greatest friends of my life, via this teenage relationship with Frank
- Spent the majority of my time with this new group of friends, who would eventually become my lifelong (so far) friends… the MLP (Meredith Lesbian Posse), hippies, punks and Goths. Josh Bradley’s, (also known as PX), house was pretty much known as the hub of all things ridiculous and awesome in the Raleigh misfit scene. Somehow we ‘freaks’ always wound up there. Me on the floor playing dj, people always wound up naked. I don’t know how to describe these days. My friends could do a better job. “Meatloaf parties” eventually somehow became the name of these gatherings.
- Met the girl who would become my truest and best friend in the whole world, my sister and duprass-mate, El Jeanniño, Queen of Casinos.
- Started working at the Courtyard, my favorite job ever. Got all my friends jobs there eventually.
- Met Rob Roy. Life came to a grinding halt as he became the center of my shit universe.

Somewhere in all of this, as stated, all social functionalities of my life revolved around Josh Bradley’s house. (Note: all of my friends have nicknames in one way or another. PX was a nickname given to Josh Bradley by himself or others, not sure. I don’t adopt other people’s nicknames; it feels like cheating, so I never called him this. Sometimes I am lazy and people’s “nicknames” become their entire names, i.e. – JennyWood, ChrisCarroll, NancyBrown [note: ironically, Nancy’s last name isn’t Brown] and JoshBradley. Just realized this group of fullname-nicknamers is all in the same circle of friends in my mind. Odd.) Every night when I would get off work at the hotel, or on free days, I would head straight to Josh Bradley’s and just… hang out with whoever was there. Even if it was just Josh and he was asleep (as he is impossible to wake up. Trust me.) One would still hang out. Many a “party” was held at Josh Bradley’s while he was sleeping.

Lots of the types of things that would happen at Josh Bradley’s were entirely dependent on who was there and how many of us there were. (Note: old timers. This at University Apts, off Avent Ferry when he lived with Rich through when he lived with Wes.) If there was a large group, there would just be lots of shit talking, chain smoking and me sitting on the floor in front of the CD player, forcing my music on others. If there was only a few there would be 12 hour monopoly marathons, French braiding of Wes’s hair, being treated to a lovely rendition of “Mike Seaver is Gay” by Josh Bradley on the bass, or basically sitting around listening to music and smoking lots of Tareytons. Back in these days, Josh Bradley was still a V-card carrier, basically as straight edge as you can get except for the Dr Pepper and Tareyton addictions, and none of us really drank or did drugs. We were lame. I think some people did. We didn’t.

These times are when I discovered a few bands that would become necessary staples in my musical diet. I don’t remember when it was, but I do know it was at Josh Bradley’s house the first time I heard Soul Coughing. (Side note, I remember exactly where I was sitting and where Josh Bradley, Summer and Evil Erich were sitting the first time I heard Ani DiFranco. Talk about a life changer!) Anywho, Soul Coughing. I hadn’t ever heard anything like them. I fell in love almost instantaneously. I got (made) a mix tape copy of Ruby Vroom, ASAP and played it to death. TO DEATH. Literally until the tape itself warped and snapped. I played them for anyone who would listen. I was a one-woman Soul Coughing PR machine.

Working at the Courtyard around this time, there was a kid named Matt. You know those people who, at the time, you think you’ll never forget or lose touch with? Yeah I’m barely sure this kid’s name was Matt. I say kid, but at the time he was probably 22 and I was maybe 18. I remember thinking he was so much older than me… ha! Matt was a show-goer. This is how we bonded. I’ve always been a “who is playing? Fuck it, let’s go” kinda show-goer. This guy taught me how. I was with this Matt guy the first time I met Beck. Also the first Lilith Fair when I met Juliana Hatfield, Emmylou Harris, Susanna Hoffs, Jill Sobule, etc. Matt wanted to road trip to Richmond to see Soul Coughing… did I want to go? Uhh, durr?

Reminder: this was around the peak of my, as of yet undiagnosed and life controlling, panic disorder. I always had this obstinate urge to push myself past whatever anxiety I was feeling. I let it control me, but I didn’t. It’s hard to explain if you’re not inside this head. I would intentionally put myself in risky or spontaneous situations because my anxiety forced me to face my own death on a near constant basis, so I had to carpe diem as hard as I could. I am a conundrum, or so it would seem. My first panic attack ever was when I was 15 in an auditorium type situation. Ironically, my biggest trigger for panic attacks has since always been theaters, clubs, auditoriums, or concerts. (To understand me best, please know I knew this about myself but decided to go to school for theater. Try and understand the type of person I am that I would do that to myself. On Purpose.) To spontaneously wander off 5 hours into Virginia to see a rock show at a crowded club was probably not the best decision for me at the time, but I did it. It was my first show road trip. It was my best.

The show was at a club called the Flood Zone. Being inside that hot crowded club, hearing these songs I had loved and played so much, seeing these guys right in front of me. I knew I was hooked. Not just on them, but on the idea of live music. I was going to do this again and again, at whatever the cost. And I just remember being there, my heart beating out of my chest and being so sure I was going to pass out and die and my hands and feet going numb and just thinking, “Fuck it! This is awesome!” As predicted, it was an incredible show, this song being one of my favorites off Ruby Vroom that they played. There are 14 songs on this album and I have 14 favorite songs on this album. Ruby Vroom is a Karla-staple, and holds a permanent residence on my iPod at all times.

Side note: upon returning to Raleigh, several months later, I discovered the internet to an extent more than I had before. Found the 'official' Soul Coughing website. Sent the band a short email about how I fought through my anxiety and made it through the whole show and thanked them for making it worth my while. I got a response from M.Doughty himself, from which a correspondence that lasted randomly off and on for several years was born. Last email I got from him was about 8 yrs ago, but still, a small claim to fame for me. I saw him do his solo show about a year ago at the Pour House, still just as excellent. Love that guy.