Roy Orbison - Indian Wedding

(note: minimal linkage in this post as it is a little too intense and i don't want distractions)




Most of my childhood memories until the age of, well, until I wasn’t technically a child anymore, are centered on my father. I am a daddy’s girl, this is well known. My dad is without a doubt my best friend. When shit goes down, when I have a funny story or something amazing happens, I call Pop first. This, however, isn’t intended to say I have no memories of my mother during my childhood or that her love or presence in my life is diminished in any way. It’s complicated. It took a lot of therapy for me to work it all out. Sometimes I think I have it all figured out, Sometimes I don’t, most times I assume it doesn’t really matter too much at this point. We are all who we’re going to be now.

When I think back on the things that stick out the most to me as child, the largest memories; vacations, Saturday errand runs, playing in the woods, etc… there is a large unexplainable gap where I always thought my mother should be. (NOTE: There is a part of me that hesitates to explain my mother in this light, because words cannot fully express how much I love and truly admire her now, but I am comforted in the fact that there is literally no actual connection between this blog, my true identity, and therefore her identity. Best thing about mom, really, and best trait I got from her is that she literally wouldn’t give a shit if you knew anyway. She knows who she is and doesn’t care what you think of her. My mom is life’s biggest mystery to me. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully understand her.)

My mother slept through the majority of my childhood, as I can recall. I may be wrong. My memory may be skewed. I am entirely open to the possibility that I have over-exaggerated this fact. But to my best recollection my mom was not present. She only worked at the shop Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Somehow, even having the majority of the week with her and then having a year or two of just me and her together while my brother had started school still eludes me. I know now that she was suffering from a deep depression. Mom was severely overweight until the early 2000s. Now she is thin and gorgeous, after much work, a hysterectomy, and a lot of self actualization. I am extremely proud of her, but back then I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t play with us and got so angry when we were loud or destructive.

I spent a lot of time in my early teens and 20s acting out against my mom. She was “against” me. Everything I seemed to say and do was somehow the exact opposite of what she wanted from me and what she expected. I still am not sure if I was simply rebelling against her or if that’s just the way things turned out. I know that it doesn’t matter now, the past is the past, but I think about some of the things we would argue about back then (and sometimes even now) and try to piece together who she is. There are aspects of her personality that I know I have so clearly adopted. One of the biggest jokes in my family is that I spent the first 30 years of my life looking just like my dad and suddenly now my mother and I could be sisters.

My father and my mother are so complete opposites from each other I wonder sometimes how they even spoke to one another after their first date. Quickest explanation: dad is very extroverted and needs a lot of attention and reassurance (he was an only child); mom couldn’t care less if she didn’t speak to another human being that she wasn’t related to for the rest of her life (she is the youngest of 8.) I spent the majority of my life trying to be the opposite of everything that my mom was; misanthropic, quiet, a loner, and quick to anger (I now know I misread anger for her passion and intensity.) Now in the past few years I feel her coming out in me. That fierce dedication and love for family, the passion for creativity and beauty, the revelry in quietness, the irritation at interruption, and the need for solitude; I am honored to have this part of her.

In my teens we would fight incessantly. My hair, my room, the choices I made for my future, the way I dressed, my grades; I thought she was just being impossible back then, now I know that need for the ones you love to do better than they are doing. I know that on a very deep familial and personal level. I can remember when I was first learning to drive and we were riding in her white Volvo back from church and we were being vicious with each other. I said something spiteful and teenager-y like “you don’t care about me, you just want me to be as miserable as you.” or something. God knows. She stuck her finger in my face and screamed at me to never say something like that again. That there was no one on this earth she loved more and that she would fight the devil himself for me. I’ve never forgotten it. I literally think about that moment all the time as being one of the first moments I truly felt what love was, beyond the normal every day shit you take for granted from your family…

Digression (because I’m a very rambly/long winded mood today): I often think that this moment defined a lot of who I am and what I believe now. Perhaps so much of my belief in love as a living breathing thing is tied to my faith and devotion to my family. I know I have this deeply compulsory need inside me for reassurance and feedback. I need to know I am not fucking up at every turn. Sometimes I need to know that mom still feels that way. Or dad, even though he’s never said it and I know he feels it. Also, even, from my brother. Mom taught me about the ferocity of true love; willing to fight through hell for someone because you can and you will. Mom and Jesus both taught me that for the sake of the truest love, there is no greater gift than to die fighting for someone you love. I (luckily?) somehow learned to translate this ferocity outside of my family. This moment with my mother in the car is what taught me that for true love to exist, you need someone who will face hell for you without the promise of ever turning back. So far I’ve only found this through a very select set of people. And I know in my heart, when I say I am looking for “the one” or the man I will marry, I am looking for the man who will lay down everything and defend me; always have my back, loyalty beyond all my stupid mistakes and poor decisions; just like family. This is why I want to be married. I want someone who has CHOSEN to be my family, someone who has chosen to face the devil for me. That is a love *almost* more powerful than blood to me. Sometimes I think about how close I was once to being married and I wonder if I let that chance for that kind of love slip through my fingers. Then I think about friends that have been through divorce; to tie yourself to someone to that level of intensity to be betrayed by circumstance or your own heart. How do you survive it? How do you divorce your own mom? (It’s almost the same level to me.) Sometimes I think I am so ready for it, for that kind of love and loyalty to someone. Sometimes I can’t imagine why anyone would ever be that crazy or vulnerable as to tie themselves to my level of love. Sometimes I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.

…end of digression, back to memory:

…Not to say there are no memories of my mom at all in my early childhood. They are there, but for some reason I mostly remember being ignored until I was irritating enough to be punished. I do not want to paint my mother in any sort of negative light, but I am only speaking the truth. She knows all this. She was there. I can remember strange beautiful moments with her in the old house… lying in bed in the dark while she drew circles and infinity symbols in the air with the lit end of her cigarette (she quit smoking when I was still young.) I remember her driving me to piano lessons, taking care of me when I was sick, climbing out of the pool and running to her for change for the snack stand. This song brings up one of my very favorite memories of my mother.

In the living room of the old house, the ceilings were white with large oak beams leading to an A-line point in the center. Along the wall behind the laundry room was the entertainment center, which I spent many an hour lying in front of the Kenwood with my father’s records and headphones. Across from the TV were two corduroy, cornflower blue lay-z-boy recliners. I can’t remember a time when these twin recliners weren’t worn on the arms and I’ll never forget the springy pop and click-click-click they would make when you opened the footrest and tilted them back. They sat in front a large bay window that looked out of the front yard. The bay window had a small window seat, large enough for tchotkes, one of which was a conch shell as large as my, then, head.

Mom always sang. Both of my parents taught me a deep and reverent respect and love for music. They both sang all the time. Dad sang along with the radio, mom dad not. Mom would specifically turn off the radio at home or in the car to sing to us. Mostly old honky-tonk like Hank Williams or Ernest Tubb, but sometimes and more often than not, she would sing Roy. There is rarely a time I hear a Roy Orbison song and don’t think of my mother singing me to sleep with it. This song specifically was one of her favorites.

I can remember very vividly being around 4 years old, having been sick (I had thrown up I think,) and mom was holding me in her lap in the recliner to the right of the window, rocking us back and forth. I was wearing a cotton nightgown and clutching my favorite blankie. No TV or radio was on; it was a bright sunny day. Mom sang this song. Mom doesn’t have the best voice but she is always in tune. There is a weight and throaty-ness to it that makes it one of my very favorite voices to hear. I wonder one day if she would let me record her singing this song.

Unfortunately I know there will come a day I will need it very badly.


PS - here is another quick story about Roy.

Christopher Cross - Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)

I am 4 years old. My grandparents (my dad’s mom and dad) have made a rare trip from Mount Airy to Raleigh to visit us. All 6 of us are packed into my mom’s burgundy Cutlass. I decide the logical place for me to be is lying behind the back seat, on the ledge smashed between the backseat headrests and the window. I am lying face down, on my arms, staring out the window. It is night time; we are on Tryon Road heading east, about to turn right onto Yates Mill Pond Road. This song is on the radio and i can feel the music vibrate my knees. My Grandfather reaches back and tousles my hair. I am happy and i feel loved. I fall asleep before we get home.

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.

The White Stripes - Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn

For as long as I can remember, we have taken family vacations. We have never flown, we always drive. Mom and dad have taken solo trips where they have flown, but as a group, we never fly. The group is me, my mom and dad, my brother and my now 9 year old niece. As we live in central NC, this usually means no trips further than a day’s drive away. The furthest we’ve gone is Orlando twice; once when I was a kid and once as an adult to take my niece.

The usual trip we take is to Myrtle Beach; cheap, easy, 2 hours away, comfortable. In past years, as it’s turned out, I’ve only been able to take half-vacations. As I have planned my own solo-vacations without the family and I only get a certain number of vacation hours a year, I sometimes show up halfway through the week or leave halfway through. It’s not usually a big deal because 7 days in a 2 bedroom condo with the 4 people who know you best and can rile your anger more than anyone, can be rough sometimes. 9 out of 10 trips in the past few years have lead us to South Carolina.

Once, randomly, in a fit of spontaneity and randomness, my dad decided we would go to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. This is a trip I’ve taken many, many times in my life, as my parents are both from the mountains, and Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge is a standard mountain people trip. Specifically this was June 2007. I only know this as the mad and drug addled treasure hunt I lead my brother through downtown Gatlinburg with me to find a store selling a copy of the new release “Icky Thump.”

First off, I most remember it being the hottest June of my life. I have no idea why it would be so hot in the Appalachian Mountains in mid June. We took my niece to Dollywood and Dixie stampede. Total white trash fest, but it was fun(ish). Lots of outlet shopping and overpriced meals, as per usual. At the time I was driving my 98 civic, which was teetering on the edge. I decided to rent a car to make the 5 hour drive from Raleigh to Gatlinburg. I rented a Dodge Avenger, which after driving the dying civic for so long, seemed like a luxury car to me. One problem, I forgot to bring any sort of music along with me. My brother had his PSP with him and I was forced to endure his scant and bizarre music collection for the trip up. I complain, but it wasn’t too bad. I have taught him well. But I knew there was going to be a problem getting home. I had to find something to listen to on the way back, as I was leaving mid-week and wouldn’t have this distraction. All I knew was Icky Thump was coming out that week, if I could find a target or something, I could buy it. I forgot one tiny bit of information. This was freaking Gatlinburg Tennessee. No targets, no nothings. I literally had to break out the phone book to find a “record store”. Apparently there was one on the strip downtown.

Later on evening, after everyone had settled down, Kyle and I decided to have an adventure.

I’m not proud to admit it in a public forum (sure I am) but copious amounts of marijuana was involved. We smoked and weaved our way downtown. We walked for hours the wrong way down the street to later find the store was one block over in the opposite direction from which we parked. The story that happened after we found the record store (and I bought the cd) is family legend. Mostly between my brother, my niece and I. (drug edit for the niece, of course.) it’s one of those stories that get brought up randomly that result in more and more details popping out that make the story that much more ridiculous.

To the best of my current recollection, here is what happened.

We decided we were hungry (read: munchies). We found a Wendy’s. We ordered our food and sat down. One would assume most Wendy’s would be non-secular. This Wendy’s, however, was covered entirely on one wall with huge paper cutouts of Jesus propaganda. My brother and I notice this at the same time. We were high. I turn to Kyle and give him one of these:



We then proceeded to laugh to the point of tears. Kyle, at this point either as a result of or very soon after proceeded to rise up on one leg and cut an epic muffin. One of the loudest public farts I’ve ever heard in my life. We were, somehow and irrelevantly, surrounded by Mexican families. They gave us one of these:



At this point we laugh so hard Kyle falls out of a chair, decides to just stand up and walk out. I just sat there and finished my burger as calmly as I could. The next thing I remember is a full grown man riding by on a miniature motorcycle. It all goes blank after that.

I left a day or so later to head back to Raleigh and get back to work while the rest of the family stayed on. when I hear this song (whole album really) I think about this trip, but when I hear this song specifically I think about driving I40 through the mountains and feeling vaguely nostalgic and proud of my weird mountain family.

Three Dog Night - Eli's Coming

The a-typical gender roles and overall dynamic in my family is weird. Most families are weird. I consider mine the weirdest, but probably because I’m in it.

A little overview before the story.

My dad is more like my mom. My mom is very dude-like. My dad is the homemaker. Despite the fact that up until he retired a month or two ago and made 4 times what mom makes, he was still the housewife. He cooks, cleans, does laundry, etc. still finds time to build porches and paint the house, all that good stuff. Mom, still works whatever hours she wants (she owns her own business) is very misanthropic. Has no friends, doesn’t want any friends. Growing up in such a large family, mom would now rather spend the rest of her life alone and quiet. Dad was an only child and craves love and attention at all times.

Growing up mom worked Saturday mornings. I can remember times before I started going to school (pre-kindergarten) where mom would do things with us (movies, swimming, etc), but what I most remember about growing up is my Saturdays with dad. Throughout the 80s, my dad drove a little Toyota truck and every Saturday morning my brother and I would pile up in the truck and fight over who got stuck in the middle while dad ran errands.

In the house I spent the early 80s in off Lake Wheeler road, (the house my engineer dad and his buddies actually built,) dad was forever building and home-improving. One of the biggest projects I can remember is the stand alone garage and workshop he and a friend built over one summer. The majority of our Saturday errands were trips to lumberyards and home improvement stores. Back in these days there was about 2 different home improvement stores in Raleigh and neither were big chains. One I remember very clearly was off capital blvd and is now a u-store-it kinda place. The day would always lead us to one fast food establishment or the other, sitting on the tailgate of the truck eating lunch. certain places will always stick out to me; the Hardee’s off Walnut Street in Cary. Arby’s on Hillsborough Street. Char-grill on Hillsborough. Although I have probably eaten at these same crap shops 1000 times since, I still think of dad, Kyle and I and being little and the grey Toyota truck.

There are 2 consistencies about these Saturday morning errands. A) Fighting over who got stuck sitting in the middle and the consequential ‘punch-bug’ fights that would ensue and B) my dad’s cassettes. Dad was always a music/vinyl junky. I owe my entire musical obsession to him. I owe to those Saturdays the fact that I can harmonize with the Beatles. It was on these errands dad would teach us all about his music. Tell us stories about each song (sound familiar?) some of my aural memories are recollections of my fathers’ memories (Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and Viet Nam flashbacks, for example.) These Saturdays are when I remember my brother and I fighting over who could name that tune in the shortest amount of time. Couldn’t have been older than 6 or 7, we moved from the Lake Wheeler house to Apex in 1985.

One particular errand I can remember was pitching granite rocks that dad found via a rogue pile of off Beryl Road near the arboretum. I’m sure he was driving along and saw this big pile of scrap granite and hatched a plot. He was forever stopping to pick stuff off the side of the road. Pocket knives, hard hats, paint buckets, forever having a use for them somewhere. So one Saturday we drove out to the rock pile and spent the day loading the truck and driving back to the Lake Wheeler house and filling in our old sand box (which ran the entire length and breadth of the back porch of this house) with these rocks. It took a few trips. I remember complaining a lot.

I can’t tell you whether this song ever played on that particular day or not. But it’s one of dad’s favorites. I can’t hear this song without hearing my dad singing along. There are a million songs like this, for some reason this one sticks out. Most Three Dog Night, Beatles, Steppenwolf, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, etc… songs are the same way. It was hard to pick just one, but I chose this one. Ironically my best friend had a son 4 years ago and named him Eli. I have meant to tell her specifically why that name meant something to me so many times and it has somehow slipped my mind until now. Every time I hear his name I think about Saturday mornings with my dad and brother and that little grey truck.

Vampire Weekend - Giving Up The Gun

a typical friday's email exchange between my best friend and I.



-------------------------------------
From: Karla
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 9:14 AM
To: Jeannine
Subject: today's theme song

For many many reasons

ALSO JAKE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bccKotFwzoY
-------------------------------------

From: Jeannine
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 10:18 AM
To: Karla
Subject: RE: today's theme song

I don't know why it's your theme song but I love Jake so I am happpy
yes, with an extra p
-------------------------------------

From: Karla
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 10:21 AM
To: Jeannine
Subject: RE: today's theme song

I can break it down for you if you want, I am out of work to do and am kinda bored.
-------------------------------------

From: Jeannine
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 10:34 AM
To: Karla
Subject: RE: today's theme song

that would please me
-------------------------------------


From: Karla
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 10:52 AM
To: Jeannine
Subject: RE: today's theme song


This is quite literally how my brain works when I hear a song I so totally connect with, such as this one.

First; Precious tune. Love the drums in this one. My toes never stop tapping, no matter how many times I’ve heard it, which at this point has been many, many times. It’s totally happy, as most VW songs are, but looking at it on a deeper level, it’s a super bittersweet song of hope and all that. To me anyway. Obvs.

Next, this is what Ezra Koenig had to say about it, “I got the idea for the song from a book my Dad gave me called Giving Up The Gun. It’s a history book about the time when Japan expelled all the foreigners from the country, closed off all trade, and stopped using guns and reverted back to the sword. It seems unimaginable now that humanity could willingly go back to an older technology. It got me thinking about whether you could give up the things that you have and go back to a simpler way of life.” (From here: NME)

This song make me think about not necessarily giving up THINGS but ideals, irrational hopes and fears or expectations, giving up on a pointless fight or struggle. Specifically, and the reason it is today’s theme song, this song makes me think about Giving up/letting go of my dreams for Jim, but yet just because I am giving up on him, it doesn’t mean I’m giving up on love.

Ready for the breakdown, this may make it make more sense.



When I was 17 I had wrists like steel and I felt complete
And now my body fades behind my brass charade and I'm obsolete
- This makes me think about all the blind hope I had for true love when I was that young. No matter how funny I looked or how many times I fucked up, I still felt hopeful and complete. And here I am, 15 years later and I still think like that 17 year old and sometimes I feel like I should be ashamed of how I still believe so ardently. Beliefs like mine, as every experience thus far has taught me, are basically obsolete. Except in movies and pop songs. Also, I am obsolete to him. As of today I have not seen his face in two weeks. He has made no attempt to contact me. I don’t exist for him anymore and yet he has eclipsed the world for me... delicious irony!

But if the chance remains to see those better days, I'd cut the cannons down
My ears are blown to bits from all the rifle hits and still I crave that sound
- If I knew how to stop fighting so hard for the love I want, I would. My heart has been beaten to hell, but I still crave it. The fullness and joy and pain and anxiety and torture of falling in love. If I knew for a second that letting go and stopping the fight... (mental? Emotional? Facebook? Haha!) ...for Jim would result in the situation I want, I would stop fighting in a minute. And I’m beat to hell over him. I’m sore and tortured, but I still want him. Crave him.

Your sword’s grown old and rusty, burnt beneath the rising sun
It’s locked up like a trophy, forgetting all the things it’s done
And though it’s been a long time you're right back where you started from
I see it in your eyes, now you're giving up the gun
- My techniques are getting sloppy. I’ve trained myself for so long that ‘love works this way’ and ‘this is the progression of relationships’ that I’ve forgotten that, obviously, I am not in a working, loving relationship, so there is the possibility that i am wrong. I am so proud of my capability to love and my epically passionate beliefs and yet I keep letting myself forget how much it has hurt me over the years. I always walk so blindly right back into it. Every time I start, even with sweetjim, I start right back from the beginning, like it’s the first time I ever loved. Today, this song is inspiring me to try something new next time, to ‘give up the gun’ and stop doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results. definition of insanity, anyone?

I see you shine in your way; Go on, go on, go on!
- This makes me think of you and everyone who knows me best and loves me most; Encouraging me to never give up; recognizing the things in me that sometimes I let myself believe are faults and then reminding me they are perhaps my best qualities.

The B52's - Love Shack

I am a gypsy. Although I have spent the majority of my life living inside the Beltline, I have moved every year for the past oh…. 6 or 7 years to a new apartment. A break back to my folks’ house once after a break-in at a house I once lived in off of Gorman Street.

This Gorman street house, although I didn’t make it there a full year, holds some of the deepest, darkest, most insane memories for me. Mostly these memories are centered on parties that reached epic proportions. This song, while played to death on most pop radio stations and holds a special place in the heart of everyone on earth for some reason or the other, makes me think of drag queens and Goths raging at 4 in the morning in that little green house.

What had happened was: I was living in Cary with my ex. We split up a year or two after we probably should have, and I decided to purge myself out of that apartment. (I basically pulled a Peaches.) I put out some feelers and much like every random hook-up I’ve ever received in my life; my mom’s mastery of word-of-mouth at her hair salon came through. I cannot tell you how many jobs, piano teachers, boys, apartments, cars, etc. I have gotten through my mom’s shop. A client of my mom’s, Ms. Hazel, had a house for rent. It was 3 bedrooms, old and busted, and only $500 a month. It took my dad and I a few Saturdays to paint, clean and fix it up to a livable condition (leveling the toilet, lying carpet, lining cabinets, you name it.) We finally got it move-in ready and filled that house with a bunch of adopted furniture and salvage from the NCSU lot.

I wasn’t there long before I realized I needed to have a housewarming party. I did. Not much longer, in the midst of a horrific depression, I realized I was broke, so I got a part time job. I wasn’t working the part time job long before I realized I needed to have yet another party, a New Year’s Eve party. Yes friends it’s THAT New Year’s Eve party. There are some people who have been in the scene long enough that *still* talk about this party. I used every connection in every scene and clique, getting the word spread, even handing out flyers at the store. 3 bands played. Every scrap of furniture or anything that wasn’t nailed down got shoved into a locked back room. I got a keg. I even bought chips and a veggie tray.
This is an excerpt from my long-lived and still kicking livejournal (began in 2000! Keepin’ it oldschool!) about the evening:

“…so alot of sh*t got f*cked up. one of my nicest turtles got broken. my coat rack got ripped off the wall. tons and tons and tons of beer spilt on the floor. assholes outside kept dropping their cigs on the ground on my front porch so theres like a million scorch marks in the outdoor carpet. im still not done cleaning up... not anywhere near done. im too tired.”

So many things happened that night. I met my first drag queen. Liquid acid was rampant, people still come up and tell me new stories about that night involving acid that I didn’t know anything about. (Talking to azalea bushes?) Lots of sexual deviances. Troops of hippies, Goths, punks, rock stars, frat guys, supermodels and pre-hipster-hipsters came through there. I managed to stay sober the entire night and the cops only came once to tell people to move their cars to the other side of the road. It went on until dawn and at one point there was a count of about 300 people inside and around the house.

My crowning achievement… my glory and hopefully my legacy in Raleigh will be this party and what happened after the bands played and the CD player got turned over to the PAs set up in the living room. The microphones were still on and ready for the loudest most ridiculous 3am karaoke jam in existence. After much Olive, Vengaboys and the like, the real “party” music started. I very vividly remember a goth friend of mine, one of what I would have at the time considered queen of the Über-goths, took the mic and sang this song at top volume while Babs, the S&M drag queen, danced with the hippies.

When I hear this song I think of New Year’s 2001.


Then I think about what happened after on Jan 21, 2001. (Made public for posterity. Please note I was 23 at the time. My head is hung in shame.) Needless to say, it wasn’t very much longer after that I moved out of that house.

(note: livejournal is now basically hidden to anyone not on my flist, so all you'll get to stalk of me there is a bunch of random youtube videos and other vague such things. enjoy!)

Claude Debussy - Suite Bergamasque, m.III, Clair de Lune

I have mentioned before in this blog that I was not a very active kid. While my brother spent the majority of his free time chasing his friends around playing “war” and climbing trees, I was hiding out in a corner with a book. I do remember playing outside and learning to ride a bike and all that typical stuff. What I think of most when I think of the old house and the life I lived there until the age of 7 is reading, the turntable, being scared of the dark and my piano.

I don’t remember asking or being asked if I wanted to take lessons, I just remember one day that my mom said I was going to start taking lessons. I’m sure I replied with the 5 year old equivalent of “oh. ok, cool,” which probably involved me flipping off couches and asking a million questions. I don’t clearly remember my first lesson, just bits of it. My first teacher was the wife of our preacher at the time, my lessons for the first few months were held at the parsonage. I didn’t stay with her long until my mom met the woman who would become the person I came to admire the most and despise the most for the next 11 years. Her name was Mrs. Hamme (pronounced hammy) and she and her husband lived off western blvd in a 60s ranch house with a car port that had a long sloping driveway, surrounded by trees. The driveway was at a sharp incline and had a bridge over a creek in the front yard. This was my favorite thing about her house. My second favorite thing was the pink and black tiled deco bathroom.

Playing the piano over the years, became the thing that defined me. It was the thing I was most proud of myself for being able to do but it became an obligation for me. My parents would request certain songs and I would pull my hair and overreact. I grew to resent it. I quit as soon as I could, it only took oh… 13 years? I was never one of those Ben Folds type people who could sit down and just make something up. I was trained so strictly by Mrs. Hamme in the classical style. I can remember maybe… 3 songs total that I ever practiced that weren’t some sort of etude, sonata, or fugue. I never chose my own pieces. In the last few years of study my parents would literally sit an egg timer on top of the piano and I wasn’t allowed to move for an hour, minimum. I never wrote my own songs, I never improvised. I never learned how. I met a man at the Landmark once who told me that since I couldn’t improvise that I only had ‘ability’ and since he could, he had talent. I laughed it off, but it crushed me. Because it was true.

Because of all this training and practicing and effort put into this thing, this instrument throughout my life, I was on a much more musically mature level than most of my peers. I had a deep and abiding love for classical music. Amadeus was and still is one of my most favorite and cherished movies. At any time I can be found listening to a mix of crappy eurohouse and opera. When my friends were raving about cockrock and hairmetal, and I was trying to branch out into some deeper roots, there was always Beethoven, Bach and Brahms on my playlist. It’s just been a part of who I am for so long. I am deeply attracted to classical music. That is the point of this.

One of the things I regret most in my life is not taking my piano playing to a further level. It became such a just… pain in my ass, towards the end that I closed the lid on the piano and didn’t open it again for years. However when I hear any song, pop or not, that features a piano, I imagine myself learning to play this song. I have lots of fantasies of performing like this. There are mix cds that I have made for myself in the past that were full of songs I wished I had learned when I had the chance. You would imagine that playing the piano is something akin to riding a bike, you don’t forget. I took a music theory class 2 semesters ago and I panicked the first few days of class because I was so mad at myself for forgetting as much as I did. By the end of the class, I was probably about halfway where I was when I left. It solidified in me the fact that I really, really need to get my own house so I can move my piano over and practice. Not because I have to, but because I want to.

This song; Debussy’s Suite Bergamesque, specifically the 3rd movement, the Clair De Lune, is a very well known piece, and is one of my absolute favorite pieces of piano music. I look at the sheet music and I know I can learn it, but I haven’t. (D-flat major! Christ!) I try to explain to people… my favorite thing in the world is “Bittersweet”… the feeling, the memory, the taste, the definition. My favorite feelings and memories are bittersweet. This little 5 minute piano tune is the truest and closest piece of music that I have ever heard that resonates who I feel that I truly am - the things that I really love in this life. When I die, it is the piece of music I know for sure I want played at my funeral. It is hopeful, it is sad. It has the smallest hint of drama and a deeper sense of peace than any song I have ever heard. And I've heard a lot of songs. It is everything beautiful in my heart that I can’t and won't ever let go of. It is the sound of every memory I thought would kill me but won’t allow myself to regret because these things made me who I am, and who I am has to be a beautiful person, right? This song is me saying "Life will not bring me down. No matter how much shit gets thrown at me, I will never stop believing in beauty, truth and love."

.... I may have tricked you a little with this post. You may have thought I was done there. This song makes me think about playing the piano, right? Makes me think about "life" ...Yes. But something else happened recently that has made my connection infinitely stronger to it, for the time being.

A few months ago, without forethought or hesitation I let myself fall madly in love with a beautiful boy. I was feeling pretty good about myself, the timing seemed right and he seemed to be crazy about me, so i didn't hold back. I rarely do. Things went really well for a while; we took a trip to the beach. Saturday morning, I woke up early, around 7:30am and couldn’t sleep anymore, so I rolled up my jeans, stuck on my headphones and took a walk on the sand, down to the pier. I sat on the pier and I stared out at the water and I let my iPod shuffle itself silly, and then suddenly this song came up.

I asked my best friend earlier today if she had any suggestions for what I should write my next post about, because I wasn’t really inspired. I was sitting at my desk earlier and this song came back up again and I knew this was it. This was something beyond inspirational and bittersweet and raw, how could I not do it?

Listening to this song today, after the boy and I are no longer together, has been an altogether different experience. After a messy end, including a lot of tears and denial from me, today it takes on a different level of bittersweetness, but that morning on the pier I was in another place. I remember sitting there and praying, thanking God that I found him. That when I went back into that room, that amazing person would be there waiting for me and he would be happy to see me. And he was. The bittersweetness on that pier was all the trials and pain it took for me to get there. The reward I received in the form of him. The justification and happiness and acceptance of my journey.

That morning, I very specifically remember praying: “Even if it only lasts a minute and there’s hell to pay, I am happy right now. Thank you.” The bittersweetness I feel when I hear it today is the acceptance of that prayer. It was only a minute. There was hell to pay, but god damn it was worth it. The pain subsides, the memories that remain are gorgeous.

Elton John & Kiki Dee - Don't Go Breaking My Heart

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.” - John Lennon



An over-active imagination for a child can be either a blessing or a curse. If a child was to never learn to control this imagination, to distinguish reality from the fantasy land in their heads - this would be a curse; this would be me. When the fantasy that a person makes up in their own mind becomes literally painful to let go of, this is bad. most kids learn how to let this go. I held on voraciously. It is one of the things I like most and least about myself. when I think of where it all started, this black and white perception of reality that I seem to have, my all or nothing personality, I have no one but Elton John to blame.

To explain:

Growing up in the little ranch house near Lake Wheeler, It was me and my brother surrounded by kids I had trouble connecting with because I couldn’t play regular kid games. I wanted to play “house” or “stories”, wherein I would create some elaborate set-up, epic love story or something involving shipwrecks or space shuttle launches. When my friends would get tired of me being so bossy and trying to direct the action of the story, they all wandered off to climb trees or ride bikes and I retreated back inside to my real friends; my 7” vinyl collection and fisher price portable turntable.

I don’t remember who bought all these vinyls for me, if I adopted them or they were picked up at flea markets, they were just there. I do remember buying a few with my allowance, but the rest of these singles, of which there were and still are stacks of them, I hoarded and multiplied. Titles I would have never thought to have picked out for myself but played over and over again because I could control them. Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night” and The Beatles “Revolution” are a couple of the ones I remember playing the most.

I remember sitting on the floor of my living room with my headphones on, listening intently with my hand on the dial of the receiver of that huge Kenwood stereo my dad had back then. I couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6, so this is 1982-ish. I can very clearly remember formulating this theory that seemed completely rational to me at the time, which was that for every song on the radio, the Band or Musician had to be in the studio set up and ready to play each song. For the same song to play on two different stations meant the band had to move very fast and hopefully the radio stations weren’t very far away from each other. This is why musicians were paid so much for what they did and had such big fancy houses like Graceland; so much work! This is when a child’s overactive imagination is a blessing because it’s adorable to look back and laugh at myself for this.

Around this same time, I very vividly remember dragging the portable turntable into my brother’s room and playing Elton John and Kiki Dee’s “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” on 7” vinyl over and over; dancing/spinning in circles. (I had a constant habit of spinning in circles to music as a kid. This lasted way into my early teens. I apparently was a whirling dervish in my past life.) I very suddenly had a very vivid realization of the true meaning of the song… The man was singing, quite literally about his heart breaking. This singer was having a heart attack. This somehow translated into some sort of Frankenstein situation whereupon the Man singings’ heart has been broken and the woman sings “I’ll give you my heart” and therefore some sort of post-modern promethean heart transplant takes place. I then spent the remainder of the afternoon staging and perfecting the stage production or perhaps music video of this song, acting out both parts on my own. I can’t tell you how many times I picked up and dropped that needle that day. I played both the donor and the donee, there was dancing, props, the works. I can still quite literally remember dance moves to certain parts of this song. This was the first time I ever did this to a song. Now this all I do to songs. Damn your lyrical prowess, Bernie Taupin!

Here is the curse of the overactive imagination. One would assume as a child, such daydreams with any activity, musical or otherwise, are normal or encouraged. However, it became a type of compulsion and expectation for me that remains to this day. My favorite songs all have choreography or a story/music video in my head. The best songs are the ones that have me starring as the lead singer, perhaps on stage. This entitlement I seem to have to these songs, the trigger in my head that won’t allow me to listen to a really good song without spacing out and creating the story in my head that best fits it, causes me to sometimes become what others would perceive as abnormally attached to certain songs. Or even certain bands. There are songs that border on absolute obsession for me because the story is so emotionally and personally strong in my mind that I have laid claim to them.

My overactive imagination married me to this ideal of only songs that are worthy of a story are worthy of a place in my heart. There are many, many songs with many, many stories. Some of them are true, some of them are what I wish were true. I created this blog to keep up with the true ones. The rest are stored in reserve on my external hard drive and in my noodle.

This is the song that started it all. Thank Elton.

Daft Punk - TEACHERS

One October, many years ago after working by day as an accounting clerk for a local university for several months and finding the transition to a once-a-month pay schedule a bit of a purse stretcher, I decided to seek out a part time job. I knew I didn’t want to do anything that required a nametag or a training video. I casually applied to several locally owned independent books, video and music stores, one of which was a now non-defunct indie store called “the record exchange” at mission valley shopping center. I wasn’t expecting much of a response. Applying for “cool” jobs so close to a major university is a total crap shoot. It shocked me when I got a call for an interview a few weeks later. It was, in fact, my favorite interview of all time. All my soon-to-be-boss and I did was sit and talk about music for over an hour; favorites and shows we’ve seen. I got the job.

For the next 4 years or so I worked 20 hours or more a week, but I use the term “work” loosely. It was your standard retail store for all intents and purposes. We had daily checklists (pull old flyers from the windows, empty trash cans, etc…) but the majority of our time there was spent talking shit with customers and ourselves, going to shows with free tickets, hoarding vinyl, and scoping out promos. Some of the friendships born from the people to whom I sold music we mutually liked are still going very strong to this day, 10 years later.

When I left the store, it wasn’t pretty and isn’t relevant to the story. It wasn’t long after I left that the store sold out to a chain in Virginia and closed up and turned into a comic store, which failed after a year. The store sits empty to this day.

Over the years that I worked at the Record Exchange, a number of coworkers came and went, and there were about 3 of us that remained the entire time I was there myself, my boss and another part timer included. One of these gentle music obsessed souls that floated in and out of my life was a kid named Jade. He was Pilipino and a local house DJ. I can’t remember why he worked there for so short a time, I think he was one of those that just randomly didn’t show up one day. I don’t hold this against him, he was a cool kid. He was the one that told me about the edit of Phantom Menace that had JarJar Binks completely eliminated. This kid still has to be around town here somewhere, but it’s been so long, I wouldn’t probably know him if I saw him.

There was an order to the way things worked at TREX. We had a wall behind us that had a “now playing” rack. The rules were that we were supposed to pick 5 very different cds and put them on shuffle. If Jeff, the boss, was in store, then this is what you did. If he wasn’t, then the rules changed. They became, "whoever came on shift first had dibs." So say I come in at 4 and you came in at 5, I had enough time to scour the used cds and find every U2 and Erasure cd or something and you were screwed until close. I got stuck with a lot of crappy music that I eventually came to really like in this way. I would have never given Dave Matthews or Mindless Self Indulgence a chance before they were forced on me. Now I know to give any band 2 minutes to impress me.

However, when working with Jade (we called him Jader, as in Darth,) as he was a DJ, he was one of the few, if not only coworkers with whom I had a total rapport with musically. We spent a lot of time playing house music and bopping around the store, flashing the lights off and on, faking raves.

Daft Punk’s homework came out in January of 1997. We got an advanced copy a few months eariler that Jader and I literally fought over. We compromised by not shuffling the disc-changer at all and playing this album back to front, over and over for our next few shifts together. Jader was the only other kid I knew who knew the DJs/Artists listed in this song.

For example:
Jammin Gerald
Little Louie Vega
Green Velvet
Joey Beltram
Derrick Carter
Armand Van Helden


When I listen to “Teachers”, I think of the first person I knew who knew what I knew: Daft Punk is king and Homework is perhaps one of the best albums EVER.

I also think about this weird/awesome dance Jade did to this song across the store once, no idea how to describe it, so I’ll just say what I said and leave it at that.