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Diary
June 10, 2005
I considered taking the diary page down entirely a few weeks ago because I've
not been able to keep up with it as much as I might like. But I decided not to
since I do enjoy writing when a bit of time opens up, and a little bit of time
has just opened up so here I am. Things have been busy, as always they are. I've
been dealing with some major allergies plus a head cold this week. Tomorrow we
play Faneuil Hall for the first time this year and I really hope that my head
and ears clear out by then so that I sing ok. The problem with being a singer is
that it is so body-based. For the violin if I am not 100% well I can still play,
but as a singer it's more difficult because any little irritation of the throat
affects the voice... I guess I'll just have to see how tomorrow goes. We just
returned from a trip to Scotland, England and Ireland. It was really beautiful.
Edinburgh is a lovely city, though surprisingly cold in May, only with a high of
around 60 and lows that were freezing. The castle was amazing, though, but cold
up on the hill where it stands. We went to Mary King's Close, which was
fascinating - closes were tiny alleyways with rooms/apartment buildings off to
the side that people lived in during the 1600s and earlier. This particular one
had been buried under a series of buildings until it was rediscovered in the
90s, so going down into it is like going into some well-preserved history. It's
dusty down there, and you can still smell the scent of cows in the barn area
where they were held. It does give you a sense of how difficult life must've
been during that time period. The wealthiest people had a bench to sit on when
you walked into their room; the poorest lived 14 people to a room the size of
most people's bedrooms, and the plague hit there hard. We also went on a tour to
a crypt which is supposed to be the best-documented poltergeist site in the
world. It's inside of a prison area in a cemetery where people were kept outside
nearly naked in an Edinburgh winter, which you can imagine is pretty cold if
late-May is only 60 degrees at its warmest. Anyway, the ghost that haunts there
is supposed to be the ghost of the guy that tortured the prisoners, surprisingly
enough, and he's supposed to be pretty violent with people getting attacked and
all kinds of things like that. It was scary and the guide was good at keeping it
scary, and I have to admit I was somewhat nervous standing in that crypt in the
darkness while she told stories of people passing out, getting cuts &
bruises or sick in there. Nothing happened to me - ghosts never seem to attack
me, but one woman and her partner said they felt something brush against them
and when we went into the gift shop area she had a cut on her face and the area
around it was pretty red. Electronics are supposed to fail in there, and when I
tried to turn my digital camera on it kept closing down, but I was a little
shaky from being unsettled and the cold so I'm not sure if I wasn't accidentally
hitting the button twice... anyway, that's something that's really nice about
Edinburgh - the creepy, ghostly side of it - all the history, some of it fairly
well documented. We went to London from there, which was its lovely London self.
It was surprisingly hot there the second day we were there - in the 90s, or the
high-20s on their scale. We saw some theatre - "Death of a Salesman"
which was really great. In London you can go to the theatre in the morning and
get standby seats for 10 pounds (about $18 with today's terrible exchange rate)
and our seats were front row. It's not as great as it sounds, because the seats
are very close to the stage and the stage is up higher so you have to crane your
neck, but it's amazing to be that close to the actors. We also saw "Revenge
of the Sith" which I thought was quite good. I know that's not cool or
whatever, but Lucas's weakness is in dialogue, his strength is in reading myths
from around the world and incorporating those themes into his films. Of course
they touch us and move us - they are based on archetypes that we are all
familiar with, tried and true stories that have grown, that were never really
created. The Hero With a Thousand Faces, indeed. I don't mind Hayden
Christensen as much as everyone else does - he had some terrible lines to deal
with, and he does seem to embody DV pretty well. It's not a role that is fraught
with modern character depth. As more of an archetypal role, like a Jungian
anima, it's not meant to be played in a Shakespearean sort of Hamlet way.
Anyway, the short way of talking about that is to say that I really enjoyed it,
and was moved by it, particularly the last scenes. We also saw "As You Like
It" which I enjoyed, but it is not one of my top Shakespeare plays. A bus
mishap caused us to miss "A Midsummer Night's Dream" which I have not
yet seen staged but hope to someday. We had only a day in Dublin but it
was quite nice... we went to the Guinness storehouse which is very well put
together and enjoyed a pint of very fresh Guinness which comes with your ticket
to the storehouse. It was very good indeed. Dublin's pretty cold, though. London
seems to sit in a pocket of warmer, better weather, and Dublin and Edinburgh are
colder, but that could have just been the time we were there. Anyway, it was a
lovely trip and a much-needed vacation, and now we are back and ready to make
music again!
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April 12, 2005
We hit a little delay in the processing of Shapeshifter - there was a
snafu with the proofs but that has been resolved and it should arrive soon. I'm
psyched, I think the design is really beautiful and after all the work I'm
looking forward to having the finished product in my hands. Anyway, it is a bit
like "stasis" right now - not a lot going on while waiting. Sunday we
went for a long walk down to the North End and had pizza and gelato, then we
walked through the Boston Common and down through the city... it was so nice to
be outside in the warm weather, there is this sense of being set free... anyway,
I will keep you posted on the new arrival!
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February 22, 2005
Hello - it's been awhile since I wrote, I know. Things have gotten busy and with
everything going on I neglected the site. We've been working on the design for
the EP and soon hope to get that done along with a new, updated look for the web
site.... It is almost March & I can't wait - in March you get some warm days
and the crocuses are starting to come out -though they may be confused due to
the warm weather we had a couple of weeks ago. And I've seen two robins but I am
not sure if they are actual robins or the kind that stay all winter and fake us
out. Anyway, I wanted to write about my sister this time - she is in Indonesia,
working with the tsunami victims. We're all really proud of her as as she is
doing something pretty amazing. I wanted to post her experience in her own
words, so here it is, from an e-mail she sent from the Navy ship she's on:
| Hi everyone, how are you?
I am doing well- I actually had a day off, my first in awhile.
Yesterday, for the first time, I went to shore, in Banda Aceh,
Indonesia. It was an experience that I will never forget. I
went by helicopter (I have never been on a helicopter before). I
saw the destruction from above- I could not believe it.. for miles and
miles. It is difficult to put into words- in some areas, there is
absolutely nothing left- only the foundations on which houses and
buildings formerly stood. They left the door of the helicopter
open (I was sitting on the outside), and at one point, when it was
taking a turn, I was almost parallel to the ground above it. There
are vast areas of flooding, mud, and abandoned, wrecked homes.
Many of the victims have not been removed yet from these places.
It is as if a nuclear bomb hit, humanity wiped out. We then landed
outside the University Hospital in Banda Aceh. I got off the
helicopter, and went into the hospital. It is like an open air
hospital, with walkways that are covered. We took a tour of the
hospital, and they said when the Tsunami hit, a 60 foot wave covered the
hospital, killing the nurses, doctors, and patients that were there that
day. Then more waves hit, bringing in the vast amount of mud.
The hospital was still full of mud, and ruined equipment, and beds.
There are work crews that are constantly cleaning and shoveling out the
blackest, thickest mud I've ever seen. It is hot there, and full
of pools of stagnant water, and mosquitoes. The German and
Australian Army and volunteers are there all the time, and have set up
tents. I then went to the ER and helped to take care of the
patients coming in. We had to take off our shoes and wear socks, flip
flops, or different shoes inside. Everyone does that, because of
the mud. I saw a woman who came in with lockjaw (she couldn't open
her mouth) and they said she probably had tetanus. Most of the
patients who have tetanus have to be trached. She was crying. I
helped out in the ER a lot, the nurses and doctors there were really
great- there were nurses there from an organization called International
Medical Corps (an organization I'm going to look in to!) who showed me
around a lot. I felt really bad for the patients coming in-
everyone is so filthy because of lack of clean water. Indonesian people
really don't complain much- they are kind of stoic about everything-
however, many come in with vague complaints of bodily and stomach pain.
The ER nurses think it is because they are traumatized and depressed.
I wandered out onto the streets and took a walk- it is very muddy with
areas and vast pools of mud and sludge, and ruined buildings that no one
has yet cleared up. It smells strange there, I can't quite
describe it...there are tons of fires burning stuff that they don't know
what to do with. I felt a little strange because the nurse that
went with me and I were the only women without our heads covered- I
think I heard that it is a law there that women's heads must be covered.
It is sooo hot and humid here, I don't know how they can tolerate it-
they wear long dresses or long pants, long sleeves also. All of
them. However, they do wear bright colors! One of the Indonesian
nurses in the ER wore bright, hot pink with sequins all over her outfit
and headdress (or hajib as they call it)! I then went back
to the ER, and went inside. Suddenly, the earth started to rock
and move. Initially, I didn't think anything of it, because I'm
used to the ship rocking constantly. I guess I was blocking the
doorway, and the people inside started pushing me aside to get out,
yelling "Gempa!!" The patients that could walk ran
outside, and the nurses pushed the stretchers of the ones that couldn't
walk outside. One of the nurses there told me that "Gempa"
meant earthquake, and I finally got it! I went outside, and could feel
the earth rocking. Once it stopped, we went back inside. The
people get really scared when an earthquake hits, because prior to the
Tsunami, a big earthquake hit. Those poor people....earthquakes are
continuing to hit the area long after the Tsunami, still causing damage.
It was an interesting and very sad day yesterday. For most of my
day off today, I slept, maybe from being a bit depressed or a bit in a
trance. I don't know what it was. It is getting better
there, I think, but there is such a long way to go, and so much to clean
up. I know I am coming home soon, but feel like I need to help
more. On a more positive note, the little boy on the ship that I
took care of who was vented from aspiration pneumonia got extubated the
other day, and is now eating and walking!!! It is so exciting to
see that. There is another little boy who is 4 years old that I
took care of, who has severe burns to his legs because when his mother
was cooking on a gas stove, it exploded, burning him and her badly.
A burn surgeon here, Dr. Sheridan, has done extensive work on this kid's
legs to release the contractures and graft his burns. The kid may
come to the United States to Shriners to continue the work. I hope so.
He might even come to Boston. He is a cute little kid. The
merchant marines, who are tough guys who are covered with tattoos, have
discovered the kids on our unit and buy them candy and ice cream all the
time! It is cute, but I have to set limits, because the four year
old boy only wants M&Ms for breakfast now!! I make him eat healthy
food first, then he can have candy! :) Well, now I'm going
to go get some hot chocolate in the mess hall...and do laundry!
I'll talk to you later. Katie |
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January 3, 2005
Happy New Year! It's always amazing to me to see the next year come in, and it
always feels like a fresh start. I am pretty exhausted today after a long day of
mixing up in the studio in Vermont. Mixing, for those who do not work or deal
with audio, is the process of putting all of the different tracks that make up
the song together in a way that sounds the best. It may not seem like a daunting
task but it is - there are so many tracks, especially with the modern
computeristic methods of recording. When drums are recorded there are a lot of
microphones on them picking up different components of the kit, and each of
those mics is a different track that has to be treated and put at a good level.
Then there's all the mics on the acoustic guitar and so on and so forth. We
recorded violin with two microphones, and I believe bass had a couple. So it
makes for a daunting task. Brian mixed "Last Moving Shadow" first,
because it has a lot of different textures and sounds, and then its acoustic
re-mix and then "Fly Away." We are huge fans of the drum sounds on
Black Crowes CDs, so we brought them along for reference. We used "Wiser
Time" on Amorica for a reference snare sound... unfortunately I got
confused and had Brian put the snare on "Fly Away" pretty far down in
the mix, and when we took it to the car to listen to it (you always want to
listen to the mixes on different kinds of speakers) it sounded rather lifeless.
So we went back inside over the ice - there was an ice storm in Vermont with
hail yesterday - and fixed the snare and brightened up the violin and brought up
the backing vocals and went out and re-listened and it seemed quite nice so we
cut a copy to tape. I have not heard the mixes yet today because I want to
listen to them after a long break, but I feel good about them... see, you can
make or break a CD in the mixing process. I have mixed feelings about our first
CD - there are some moments on there that I wish I could redo, though there are
a lot of bright spots as well. It's hard in some ways, because a CD is an
exhausting and expensive thing, and you are somewhat responsible for it once
it's out there, and no matter how it sounds there is an element of pride in the
project because you burned yourself to the quick making it. But you lose a
certain objectivity sometimes, and I do feel that we mixed the first CD rather
thinly - there is all this great instrumentation and it's kind of lost. - ach,
what can you do, really... that project was really hard to make and took a lot
out of us to do, for many reasons, but ultimately I'm proud of what we did in a
"first real term paper" kind of way. It's much better now and more fun
to be in the studio... I love the people we work with, they all bring so much
great personality as well as talent and that is so important. No one gets
selfish, which I think is one of the great killers of productive studio time,
and it's just a really fun experience. I'm sad that Brian is moving to Seattle
this month, though, because he's been a great producer and I'd have liked to work
with him again on future projects, but what can you do... though given the
weather up in Vermont yesterday I was ready to pack my bags! Today is quite
lovely in a crisp January kind of way... Saturday was really nice. We played at
Peter's brother's wedding and had a lot of fun. The bride is a Irish-dance
teacher and three of the little girls she teaches came out and did this
wonderful Irish dance, and then she and her sisters danced. It was really
amazing and I wish I could do that... the whole thing was really lovely. I'm
horribly uncoordinated, though, and me dancing is more comedic than anything
else. Jason is actually quite good at dancing but he never wants to do it, I
don't think he really enjoys it. Hmm. There's a little independent bookstore in
Bellows Falls, right next door to the studio and I went in there for a bit while
resting my ears yesterday. It's weird, sometimes you can sense that you are to
go somewhere and find something. Anyway, I found this book called In the
Hands of the Great Spirit: The 20,000-year History of the American Indian.
It just came out and although I've just started it I'm finding it extremely
interesting. It does not generalize, romanticize or trivialize the different
cultures that made up what we think of as Native Americans... it's really a
great read. I know I've probably stated before that my strongest connection with
a Spirit falls in line with animism or the nature religions, and that is what
attracts me so much to NA cultures... with the caution of not boxing anything in
too tightly. One of the first things that this professor, Dr. Murphy, in my
college days told me - and I paraphrase - is to be careful about how I define my
categories. I think that is the first step on the road to wisdom... to not
define everything rigidly and keep space for things that fall outside of
expectation... I remember in the dorm this girl was once washing her dishes in
the laundry room and this other girl came in and started snapping at her for
washing dishes in the delicates sink. Well, that's the best anecdote I have that
describes how I feel about a bumper sticker that I saw yesterday in New
Hampshire on the way to Vermont. It showed a little stick figure man and a
little stick figure woman and a tiny little stick figure kid, all with their
arms raised above their heads and the line Marriage = Man + Woman = Family.
That, to me, is the idea that a sink can only do one thing...
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December 14, 2004
I've got nothing to say today except I'm totally high on T.Rex! I've not felt so
electrified by music in a long time. This is old music, but it's new to me.
"Ride A White Swan" makes me want to get up and dance, and when I
first heard "Cosmic Dancer" I asked Jason if the singer was dead. He
replied that yes, Marc Bolan is dead - and since then I've read up on them &
found out about the car accident. The thing is, his voice sounds like he's dead
and singing to you from beyond the grave... he's the only singer I've ever heard
who has this quality in his voice. And it's not creepy, it's magical... like
he's still singing. Next up, Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake. My friends Jason W.
and Jill lent me some CDs of artists
who I haven't really spent any time with and they are on that list, as well as
Elliot Smith and PJ Harvey. They are for tomorrow though. I swear this is like
my personal musical Renaissance...
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December 13, 2004
We tracked the violin at the Moontower on Saturday. There was a party there on
Friday that Jeff, Jason and I swung by... we couldn't stay long because I had to
be awake and alert on Saturday... the train ride home was a bit of a drag. See,
a couple of weeks ago during Jason's vocal session I went to Harvard Square to
get tea or coffee for everyone, and I ran into a LaRouche supporter chick. She
tried to give me a newspaper and I didn't want to take it - I've read his stuff
before and it doesn't exactly jive with what I think... and these days I have to
be careful where I put my time and energy... and then I put my time and energy
into arguing with her. I think I prevailed in the argument, mostly because her
method of arguing was to have a series of pre-conceived notions about what I was
saying, and then argue against those rather than against what I was actually
saying... anyway, on the way home, karma twisted things about when this group of
LaRouche supporters got on the T, and they were a chorus of all
things...I was exhausted and a little nauseated and we had to listen to them
sing hymns. Now, usually when we think of hymns we think of songs about Jesus,
which they definitely sang, but they specked them with hymns to LaRouche.
What is up with that! He gets hymns? How did he swing that, I want to
know!! Then some guy was sick all over the floor and by the time we got back I
was determined to take a taxi home the next day, cost or no cost, which we
did... the violin session itself was interesting. I tracked "Sleeping With
You" first, one muted track and one un-muted track. Then came "Don't
Want To Be There" ... I had practiced the hell out of that one since the
rhythm is syncopated and syncopation is not my strong suit, but I choked in the
studio á la Milhouse (spelling bee announcer: "Spell the word
'choke.'" Milhouse: "Ha! That's so easy. 'F - d'oh!'"). I don't
know what was up with it, but I think it had to do with counting the high
"G" note for six eighth notes rather than 3 beats, and the melody line
went by too fast to be able to count the eighths... sucky! I did it a million
times before we got a take, with Jason conducting me, and when I got home I
could do it perfectly. Figures, but at least it got done, albeit with a lot of
blood, sweat and tears... then we tracked the string pad for "Last Moving
Shadow" and then the solos for "Fly Away." The last two were
relatively easy and we finally finished, but I was exhausted. I spent yesterday
lying around... the first day in a long time that I've done that... took a nap,
how lovely - Jeff stopped by and I gave him a copy of the mixes for percussion,
and then I made low-sugar oatmeal raisin cookies which were quite good if I do
say so myself... it's nice every now and then to take a day to yourself and just
not do anything. I had calls to make and stuff to do, but I figured I'd feel
refreshed today if I took a day, and I do feel nice. We have to pick up our car
at the body shop today. Some asshole sideswiped us in the night and it had
something like $2,100 worth of damage, which our insurance covered most of,
luckily. What a joke... anyway! Now all we have left is the electric guitar and
mixing. I think it sounds really good, though. I'm proud of it - and I'm working
with the Modern Reading Text to get those syncopation skills down
solid!
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December 3, 2004
I'm listening to Goat's Head Soup today... I haven't sat down and
listened to this album since I was in college and I forgot how much I really
love this era of the Stones. It's totally true that they are all crappy and
commercial now, but this music is amazing and I can still believe, even after
seeing the industry's machinations and bones up close, that this art comes from
some magic place where you can wear flowers in your hair and play music in the
sun... and also mess with your mind at night and in general have a whole lot of
fun... after reading an article on Elliot Smith we decided to pull out a
cassette dub that a friend of Jason's made of either/or. And I really
liked it, though I don't feel that I know it, at least not the way I know Goat's
Head Soup. So I want to get to know it, and it has inspired me... I feel
right now the way I did when I was fifteen and first listening to music. I seem
to be attracted to wistful, slightly sad music with a fragment of dream in it...
I am up to "Winter" on GHS and that song has always resonated
with me, especially being from upstate NY... and now I wish I was in California
where the palm trees are, and now I know what that is... up til a month or so
ago a palm tree was just a mirage to me, or a postcard. I miss the summer...
there are times when I am unsure if I have been young since I was 15 - that is
the last time I can remember being truly young and careless - in love with a
boy, writing letters with a friend. We saw a symphony, Tina (my friend) and I,
on the orchestra trip to Pittsburgh or Montreal or wherever it was we went, and
we laughed and wrote notes through the whole thing. But the next year was
different. We went to see the New World Symphony - which was then and I
believe always will be, my absolute favorite, the most rock-n-roll, and the only
Native American-Czech symphony there is. And I was different. She wanted to
write notes about Jess, the boy we had a mutual crush on, but I wanted to
listen, especially to the sad, sweet part where the oboe keens over the
orchestra - the part known as "Going Home" - an abomination, really,
to put those words to it, when it shouldn't have to say that to everyone - to me
it is the parting of lovers in the early morning near some calla lilies...
anyway, it was all different and I was not young anymore. The next year we saw a
cellist play in a way that made my sad friend Wendy electric and I understood...
because the first time I listened to that oboe part on a cassette with
headphones I literally floated up and out of my bed. It was better than anything
any drug could do... but see, now it's "Star Star" and it's just dirty
fun and I do feel young listening to this song. It's just amazing what music can
do. So all of this is a rant to justify the fact that I want an iPod! They are
so fucking expensive and I'm so fucking broke with the CD, school and our trip
next year to Scotland and England to pay for... but there are artists out there
that I need to hear and I can't really afford to get all the CDs, either
financially, time-wise or space-wise, so it makes more sense to do this. I can buy
individual songs from iTunes. I think that iTunes is the wave of the future,
anyway, and I can certainly see why the music industry is trembling in its boots
right now. It's insanely easy to plug these devices into a computer and just
drag and drop files - two seconds - and you can share your whole music
collection with your friends... I have mixed feelings about that. About 6000
people have downloaded "When The Sun Goes Down" off of our site, and I
am overjoyed that they are listening to our music, but at the same time I can't
make more music if I don't make money off already-recorded stuff, and since
these people are so disparate we are not able to sell out venues and make a lot
of money that way - then a part of me is like, well fuck money, it's about that feeling,
anyway - on Wednesday I recorded my vocals for "Fly Away" and
"Sleeping With You" and for the first time in my life, I had so much
fun doing it. For the debut disc and Locust Years I was able to focus on
the process but I was pretty nervous so I never really had a ton of fun, but
this time I hit a groove and had a great time. Part of it is because Brian's
such a good psychologist, he's tactful and patient and somewhat unconcerned and
not over-directive, which really helps you bring out the best that you have in
you. All my life I've struggled with my mixed feelings about my voice - in fact,
until I heard Sam Cooke I absolutely hated it! What Sam did for me was he taught
me through his singing that having a smooth voice is ok... and I could sing
after that. I even smoked cigarettes in college in a futile attempt to get the
Janis sound, which I've discovered as I age that I'm only mildly fond of anyway.
I can't believe I ever smoked, it's pretty disgusting... anyway, I'm listening
to Jeff Buckley now and I should probably accomplish other things so off I
go...
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November 17, 2004
St. Louis was a lot of fun. On Friday we went to the Arch... didn't realize that
you could go up in it, but you can. You ride in these little cars that look like
spaceship-cartoon pods, and then you're at the top. It sways in the wind - that
was a little weird! But I should've expected that... and you can see all over
the city. Jason and I went to the Cardinals' stadium on Friday also, where I
became a Cardinals fan (sorry, Boston, but you beat the Cardinals so you've got
nothing to be pissed about)... Jason's been a Cardinals fan all his life so I
figured we can have a team together. I also really liked the shirt I bought! And
I like birds... anyway. The wedding we played at was our friends Doug and Anne's
- they met at one of our shows a couple of years ago and asked us to play at
their wedding. I remember the show, it was at the Middle East, but I don't
remember them meeting, but then again I was onstage and focused on our thing. Of
course, I'd just met them at the time myself and didn't even realize that they
didn't know each other! I thought they'd always been a couple. Anyway, their
wedding was at this crazy museum,
it's a interactive art museum. Outside there is a four-story high jungle
gym, where you can climb up a 2-story slinky (due to my skirt I passed on that)
and then when you get to the top you can go down a three-story slide (skirt or
no skirt I did that one). Inside is a maze of caves with water and more slides,
and a bar that was Jason's highlight since it had the fast version of Ms. Pac
Man, his favorite
game ever. There's an aquarium that we didn't have time to visit, though now I
wish we'd made the time because apparently there are more caves and tunnels in
there, you tunnel right through the aquarium all surrounded by fish, could
anything be more amazing? Anyway, we really enjoyed playing at the cocktail hour
and the ceremony was beautiful... the flight back was a little strange because
the plane we were supposed to take was taken out of service and we got rerouted
to Minneapolis instead of Detroit for the connection to Boston. I was running a
fever and the extra flight time did not appeal to me, but Advil and the food
coupon they gave us really helped... I enjoyed everything but like I always feel
when I fly, I felt guilty due to the fact that I know that jet fuel is one of
the biggest pollutants to the environment today... I have some work to do with
cleaning up around here to make up at least for the waste of the food that I ate
on the flight... I felt better, though, I saw the strangest thing. I was looking
out the window, and the shadow of the plane appeared against the clouds, and
around the shadow were two rainbows in a perfect circle. It was so beautiful -
these glowing white clouds, these brilliant rainbows, and in the middle the
tiny, dark shadow of the airplane. It felt like some suspended reality - up in
the air, away from the earth, no longer touching the ground, and this beautiful
sight outside my window. Jason couldn't see it all that well, you had to be
sitting where I was... and I'm not sure if I'm the only person who got to enjoy
it... it was amazing... the world is so amazing sometimes, and though I am in
some ways a science-oriented person who believes in empiricism, some things
can't be touched or explained in a way that takes away their mystery or that
which is intangible about them... I never did write about Los Angeles, but I
will tell you briefly that I didn't fall in love with the city, but I did fall
in love with Topanga Canyon. We
hiked up there, and it was amazing. The dusty ground beneath our feet, the
strange birds I'd never seen before, the lizards that darted away. I was a
little nervous on the hike - we picked a trail that led to "Eagle's
Peak" and I should've known that meant great heights! And the map was a
little ambiguous so it's lucky that Jason is pretty good with directions and
things like that. I found out when we got back that there was a trail that led
to a waterfall, I wish that I had gone on that one, too, but we didn't have
time. There were mountain lion warning signs around that made me somewhat leery,
but I found out later that mountain lions rarely or never attack people hiking
together. They rarely attack people, period... anyway, I tasted the Pacific
Ocean just as I tasted the Atlantic the first time I saw her, back when we came
to Boston in 1998. I've read that the human body has the same salinity as the
oceans, approximately... the Pacific Ocean tastes like sweat, while the Atlantic
tastes like blood... I am working on changing things in my life that are bad for
the environment. Jason and I bought a Brita water filter instead of buying
spring water, and when I go to the gym I fill a reusable container from that
instead of buying a bottle. Saves money, too! Other steps - I bring my own cup
to coffee shops, and I have reusable grocery bags. I guess the first step is to
reduce, then to recycle. We're doing ok with reduction, but we could be doing a
little better. I can't wait to be in a position where I can grow and produce
some of my own food and set my house up in an environmentally-friendly way.
Perhaps I will live in California someday, the warm climate and ocean, the
Mexican influence and the palm trees call to me in a voice I did not quite
expect...
|
November 8, 2004
We did the basic tracks all of last weekend. I'm really tired today - the
weekend was not about Jason or me, it was all about Jeff and Peter's parts, but
it is still mentally exhausting work. Peter and Jeff consistently amaze me with
their talents - Jeff's drum parts are so creative and perfect and Peter put some
bass and keys on that bring so much out in the songs. There was a B3 up there in
the studio and the parts that Peter put on "Last Moving Shadow" would
make you think that Richard Manuel himself was somewhere, spiritually, hanging
around... We recorded in an old hotel lobby. Brian told us some of the history
of the place - I guess it was a hopping party scene for a long time, in the
twenties and forties... a big gay scene was going on there, according to its
history. The upper floors of the hotel are gutted out because when the economy
crashed they ripped out all the pipes and sold them... so there's all these
gates up where you can't go. There's a history of suicides and deaths in the
building. One man apparently fell to his death down some stairs which are near
where the board and recording stuff and the Rhodes keyboard are set up. When
Peter recorded the Rhodes, Brian wanted to get the way it sounded echoing down
the stairs, which were gated off. So he took an old microphone and wrapped it in
bubble wrap and threw it over the top of the gate and recorded the sound of the
keyboard echoing around on the stairs. It was positively haunting and I wonder
if there will be anything "interesting" on the track! Jeff thinks it's
possible... I love buildings with history and wouldn't mind a little haunting if
the spirit was interested or friendly. Not sure I'd want to deal with an angry
or malevolent ghost... but the building does not seem to be haunted and we got a
lot done. Gary, who runs the studio, was so nice to let us stay in his house -
the same place where the cottage is where we recorded the violin parts for Locust
Years. It's amazing up there, so healing. He's got some sheep and a donkey
and so we got some animal interaction time! And the stars are incredible up
there, it's almost like you can see the Milky Way... it's so amazing. I am
accustomed to the city and to the wildlife that it offers, but I would like to
experience nature of a different kind very soon... there's just that connection
with the earth and the pulse of different kinds of life. I had a really good, if
tiring, time - and I'm so grateful to Brian, Peter, Jeff and Jason for being so
great. Studio time is so much about personalities, too - and keeping it together
and being good and they were all of that... I can't wait to get the disc done.
I'm already proud of it... just acoustic and electric guitars, vocals and violin
left to track... we are doing acoustic mixes of a few of the songs on this disc
too, to get the minimalist effect that reflects the way Jason and I sound when
we play as just the two of us. There is nothing quite so glorious as the feeling
that you are creating, and seeing something realized, almost like from mist,
from some shadowland that only you can see - I don't have a clear memory of even
writing "Fly Away" - I know I was at the computer, but I don't
remember where it came from... it's strange, like Psyche or something - a gull
just flew by my window and that's what writing is. I can't explain it better
than that, but it's like a gull flying by your window, untouchable but touched
all at the same time. I read today that Polar Bears are due for extinction by
2100 if pollution continues at the rate that it is going right now... That's
nothing short of a crime. I even looked into getting a degree in environmental
protection to do something about it, but science is not my forte - looked into
becoming a forest ranger but your vision has to be no worse than 20/40
uncorrected... mine is like 20/8 billion uncorrected... I just hope we wake up
before we destroy these amazing animals. We aren't going to get them back... the
only empirical immortality that we have.
|
November 5, 2004
The city seems to have a cloud hanging over it, though this day is glorious -
all the trees are gold and red, and you can see the sky... but it is hard. I am
afraid of the next four years. We are in horrible debt, and Social Security will
be privatized - what does that mean for those of us who have paid into the
system for years... what does it mean when we are old enough to retire... the
world seems like such a scary place right now. The most amazing thing is that we
are all talking, all holding dialogues, and we all want to get more involved. My
friends, people I don't know as well - all talking, all ready, all motivated -
see, when I was in college I went to the political meetings and there'd be like
five people there and nothing ever got done... but now there's so much energy,
and the internet fuels things... I was hoping that America would not let me
down, though. Here's a site about the environment for you all: http://www.bushgreenwatch.org.
I'm unsure of my path at this point. I contacted the Mass. Dems to see how to get
involved in local politics... all of the issues that matter the most to me are
on the line. We went up once to campaign for the Sierra Club with our friends
Dave Falk and Lisa Housman - and I would have felt like I should have done so
much more had Kerry lost NH - Dave and Lisa went up many times and I admire them
so much for what they did. The night before the election I walked around Copley
Square - saw Sheryl Crow doing her soundcheck, saw the energetic and happy
vibe... felt so energetic and happy myself. I went home and watched TV until
about midnight and had to go to sleep at that point... woke up at 3, put on the
news... not good... woke up at 7, put on the news... better... came to work...
went to CNN... bad, bad, bad... scary. People laugh at those who think that the
future could be bleak, but I am thinking about the financial trouble we are in -
if we double the deficit - what will that mean? And women's rights, and the
environment... the night of the election I switched the TV to PBS for awhile to
take a break, and I saw this special on bears, the Great
Bear Rainforest. There are these bears there - one out of every ten due to a
recessive gene - who are born with white fur - known as Spirit
Bears. They are very rare, and they are under threat from logging and other
environmental damage - and it breaks my heart to think that they might disappear
- to think that this empirical holiness might be destroyed for two years' worth
of oil... there is an energy to them, a vibe, a life spirit, the same thing that
runs in us, but at times we can't see it. That life energy is our only provable
immortality and it is the most important thing we have to protect.... anyway,
when I feel sad or scared I just look at this picture: http://www.vindicator.plus.com/images/bunchies/bunchies_av.gif.
For some reason it just makes me laugh and laugh and laugh... it's the odd
combination of ugly and funny and cute... we are
going to Vermont this weekend to record basic tracks - I am looking forward to
the mental break - it is beautiful up there! Although we will be inside most of
the time it will be nice to have a change of scene. I am looking forward to
creating Shapeshifter and seeing that realized.
|
September 28, 2004
This diary seems to be turning back into a monthly letter. Hmm. I'll have to
work on that... but there's just so much to do. I haven't sent out a mailing
list in ages and there are so many new people to add and update from Faneuil
Hall, etc... at least we got the web site updated. That's a good thing. Our
friends Neil and Pam came out and took photos again, they are so cool and they
take great pictures. Check the pictures out on the news
page when you get a chance, if you were there last Sunday they just might have
caught you in the lens! ...We are working very hard on the EP. It's an amazing
amount of work, getting the tempos right, getting the "feel", getting
the harmonies, etc. But it's coming along nicely and Jeff has been making these
excellent practice room CDs and overall they sound good. As expected,
"I Don't Want To Be There" and "Sleeping With You" are the
tightest, mostly because we've been playing them out for awhile now. "Fly
Away" and "Last Moving Shadow" are coming along, though. We
changed the key to both of them - made them a little higher - which doesn't
affect Jeff all that much but poor Peter has to relearn it all. I guess we can
call it instant transposition! Or something like that... I'm finishing up Daniel
Quinn's little library of books now. I am reading My Ishmael now, to
close out the list... his ideas are amazing and I agree with his outlining of
the problem - our belief that we are above or beyond the natural law, our belief
that our way of life is the way of life - I am just not sure of a
solution. I know that we are headed for an environmental catastrophe if we
continue on the road that we're on, and every time I see that damn Hummer limo
(I am certain there can be only one of these monstrosities out there!) I want to
tear my hair out! There are noisier issues in this upcoming election, but the
environment is hugely important... it is, after all, our home, and we have to
stop trashing it and trashing it for others... On to other topics - Jason and I
are going to Los Angeles this month for a short vacation after working pretty
hard all summer. I love travel so I can't wait. I've never seen that sort of
climate before so it's going to be an entirely new experience. I hope to see a
lot of palm trees since I've never seen one in the wild before, and the culture
out there I've heard is quite different than any culture that I'm used to. I've
got the East Coast in my blood, but who knows, maybe I'll "find
myself" among the Westerners. Or something like that... I've never seen the
Pacific Ocean so that will be something to see, and I'm torn between going to
Topanga Canyon or Joshua Tree National Park. We're not loaded with time so we'll
probably end up going to Topanga Canyon since it is closer to LA. My sister is
going to Iceland that same weekend - now that's wild. I'd love to go there
someday. Heck, I'd like to go everywhere someday - traveling is sort of like
taking a little vision quest. It gets you away from your context, and sometimes
the only way you can really see who you are is from a different angle, with a
different lens. It's a way of getting hindsight, I think, without having to go
through the question first...
|
August 31, 2004
I'm very tired today... I have been troubled lately and it's something in the
vibe of this year. Perhaps it's my re-reading of Ishmael - really, that
book is the Bible of my life and the Earth is my religion - and I had forgotten
how that was and how deeply the book affected me the first time I read it six or
so years ago. Has anybody out there read it? It's troubling, I think, to be
taken outside of your culture. If you can stay within it and think that its
survival and thrival (is that a word? - thrivation perhaps? flourishment?) is
the most important thing out there, then it's more bearable, but the more I
learn the more difficult it gets... it must be nice to think that God is on your
side... It must be nice to somehow be able to justify everything that way. I
learned some interesting stuff from Chris Stein's diary on the Blondie web page:
"human mass exceeds the body mass by 100 of any species that ever existed
including dinosaurs... world population expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050
(with) kids born now obviously still around... here's a good one: UN panel on
climate control says that business as usual 'economic growth' could cause a rise
of 6 degrees centigrade in global temperatures... a similar 6 degree rise 251
million years ago at the end of the Permian period is believed to have wiped out
95% of the world's species." People tend to put the environment down on the
list of important things to consider, but I think it's one of the most
important. How can we survive if we eat and change everything? - And I am
uncertain of the right course of action. I'd like to live closer to the earth
and start growing more of my own food, etc. and I'm not entirely sure how that
is possible... This is such a crazy time. When I go out among nature there is
this sense of something, not so much of something other as a sense of
returning, of atonement, of healing - of myself but far greater than that, like
I have found myself within a web of greater things - but even that is wrong - I
suppose it's the sense of interconnectedness that really is the only way not to
fear death, because you are returning back to something sacred and there's peace
in that... in the sacredness of the earth. Christian bought me a Joni Mitchell
collection, The Beginning of Survival. The
title is a quote from Chief Seattle and I am wondering if we are there or
not - Ishmael would say that the Leavers were living and the Takers are just
slowly starving themselves to death, surviving - but I am not sure if that is
simplistic or not. I am so tired today - not feeling a sense of humor, which is
the most vital thing these days - really, if evolution is the way, that must
have evolved as the antidote to despair... Maybe it's the rainy weather - I'm
thinking now of the REM song "Fall On Me:" "Buy the sky and sell
the sky and bleed the sky and tell the sky / Don’t fall on me." But it's
not the sky falling, it's us bringing it down to us and not even realizing it...
Anyway - thanks to everyone out in Faneuil Hall last weekend. It was so humid
but you were so receptive! It's a burst of energy... clean burning energy...
solar energy...
|
|
July 12, 2004
Yesterday night some wanker threw his cigarette in the back stairs of our
building and didn't put it out... by eleven o'clock there was a fire burning
back there. The alarm went off, and I didn't take it terribly seriously because
it has gone off before - for instance, if there is a leak in a water pipe, the
fire alarm will go off. They installed the system in our building right after we
moved in, and it is stellar. We all had to trek outside and stand there, and we
noticed everyone looking up toward the top of the building, and there was smoke
billowing up toward the sky... I can't describe to you how that feels, where
everything you have is inside your building - all your memories, your
livelihood, your life in so many ways - and there's nothing you can do to
protect it... we stood out there for a while and they sent four fire trucks and
a police car, and they knocked out the window and deployed that large ladder to
the top of the building and put it out... we went back inside and everything was
fine. But I was struck again by what heroes these people really are - we, I
think, are forgetting that again since the World Trade Center - you need them,
and they are there. If they hadn't come by the whole place would have burned -
and I wanted to thank them but they were so businesslike and matter-of-fact
about what they did that I felt that it almost would have embarrassed them. They
should be paid millions for what they do... it's really mind-blowing... We are
tired today. It's been a long weekend of playing, but that is a good thing.
Friday night was fun at Perks, and then Saturday and Sunday at Faneuil Hall were
great. People are so nice, really, they are - although there was a literal
wanker in the crowd last night (look up the definition, I don't wish to get too
graphic here) - and that threw me off. Right during "When The Sun Goes
Down." Jason told me to take it as a compliment, that we are that good in
the dude's eyes... ! But it threw me off a bit, and I thought I'd gotten pretty
impervious to this kind of stuff, distractions and all that. But those people
are more few and far between, I think, and of course he had to be mentally ill.
Everybody else was so nice and the kids are cute - even the one who wanted to
take my violin on Saturday - I think she's going to be a musician... kids are
amazing, they are so moved by music, they just feel it immediately and take to
it. Adults have grown little shields to things - I know I have - and they have
to be won over more. But kids just go for it, they just feel music in their
bones, I think. I bought Yarina's CDs,
finally. I thought I'd see them out there sooner. The last time we saw them was
at the audition where they blew me away. They are from Ecuador, and my sister
just went there on a medical mission last May. I wanted to get her their CD for
her birthday, but I kept not seeing them. Well, I was finally able to yesterday
- whoops, I hope my sister doesn't read this before I give it to her, I just
ruined the surprise! - and I got one for myself as well. Traded a copy of Locust
Years for one copy and bought the other. One is more traditional and the
other is more contemporary, but they are all original, which is what I like. I
haven't had a chance to listen to them, though, with the gigs and the car acting
up - it is in the shop today - and the the fire situation yesterday. I am able
to handle all the stress a bit better, although I didn't really expect adulthood
and responsibility to be this difficult. I have to keep reminding myself that
this is not so hard - "telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it
seems" - as Robert Plant and/or Jimmy Page wrote... people say that song is
about the annoying wives at home and looking for some ideal girl out there, but
I don't want to hear it that way, so I won't - I just want to sense the longing
in the song, that feeling of something big inside, that there is something
within that wants to grow and become with the earth and sky and spirit, but then
there are other things in life... the realities, the daytime, the hum of the
afternoon when it becomes like a humdrum... I am tired today, but it is not as
hard as it seems.
|
June 21, 2004
I am still on a high from last weekend's performances at
Faneuil Hall. Everyone was so amazing, so kind and so generous. It is what a
musician lives for - to have his/her music heard, to have it move and inspire
people. The experience and the generosity is making it more and more possible
for us to make the EP Shapeshifter which is taking a more definite shape
every day. The two new songs that are up and ready are getting a grand reaction
from audiences and that makes me deeply happy - they have made the transition
from being ours to have and protect to going out in the world where you can't
control how they act or how they are reacted to with others, and it is very
gratifying to see them picked up and held and cherished. I am proud of Jason's
new song "I Don't Want To Be There" and how well it is received... I
can't wait to get to hear it on CD. Yesterday Christian and I did yoga in the
morning; it was the first time that I've been able to do yoga in a while due to
to playing out in Faneuil Hall most weekends (not complaining, though).
Kimberly, the instructor, takes the idea of power yoga quite seriously and gives
us a solid workout, which I appreciate very much. I am sore today! I am trying
to get in touch with my animal totems, and the book I am reading, Animal
Speak, recommends that you do a meditation/visualization with rhythmic,
monotone music on your animal totem. During the yoga sleep part of the workout I
did the visualization and was very surprised to connect strongly with bear
energy. Who knew? I never really thought that I had a bear totem and was unsure
of what totem I might have outside of that context. So I've been reading up on
bear energy. It has to do with hibernation, with gestation and production in the
winter and fruition in the spring/summer, usually the second year. That's
interesting! I suppose I have to think about what fruition might mean. Locust
Years is on its second summer and it was a winter album... perhaps this is
its chance to bear fruit, to be heard and danced with... I also saw a bird in my
visualization but I am not sure what bird it was. It was perhaps something that
I have to build a relationship with... something to study and meditate on. So
Christian and I went to to the nature preserve near our apartment and talked
near the baby goose and the birds. It's a beautiful place, out in Brookline,
where I've seen many birds I'd not seen before - a great blue heron, an oriole
(very shy, and a privilege to see). We talked a lot about animals and nature and
our position with the environment and our duty to protect and cherish it. See,
I'm not vegan because I believe that eating meat, eggs or dairy is morally
wrong. It's not morally wrong for a lion to kill and eat, it's what the lion
does. It's what its prey does when it eats grass or whatever. We have to kill to
survive, whether it is plant or animal. What I object to is the robbery of the
animal's meat, eggs or dairy without the proper respect and treatment. It's just
not right, environmentally or morally, to pen animals up in factory farms and
take what they produce without repaying them with good treatment. It's just
robbery... and before it seems like I'm up on a self-righteous platform, I also
feel that way about plants. It's not right to treat plants without respect, dump
chemicals on them, fertilizers, disrespect the earth... I do my best to eat
organic when I can but I often can't fully afford it. I wish I could, or I wish
I was in a position where I could grow my own... plants do less damage to the
environment overall than animals do, so it's a better position for me to eat
vegan and try to adapt those choices into the rest of my life. Wow, when I look
at myself from a pure, outside perspective - a musician who does yoga and eats
vegan - I seem like I might be kind of annoying! I hope I am not - I believe I'm
not - it's okay to have beliefs even if they are not mainstream and they are not
pushed onto others. Ok. I better get back to focus and doing the stuff I have to
get done. I leave you with a line from the Forest Service's "Forests With A
Future" brochure: "Today's forests, dense with green, may seem
beautiful, but in fact are deadly (so log them)." I was telling Jason...
that logic is the same as tearing down your house because someday it might burn
down. Brilliant.
|
June 1, 2004
We played out in Faneuil Hall for the first time on Sunday
and it was fabulous - I don't think the weather could've been grander or have
come out better for us. We played on one side at first and then moved to another
side, we were just booked like that. I liked the second side better and that is
in fact where we will be playing for the rest of the times we're booked there in
June... it seems like mostly musicians on that side and the more variety-type
acts are on the other side, but I don't know if that's how it's officially set
up or not. Sadly, we were plagued by amp problems - Jason's Limo (for those of
you not in the self-powered amp world, a Limo is a type of Crate amp that runs
on a battery) crashed out toward the end of the second set... too bad, the
audience was fantastic and I was having a great time. I just bought a new
battery today and all should be fixed and better by the next time we play. But I
had a fabulous time, my friend Chrissa was visiting from New York and we went
all around the city. Saw Supersize Me - will write more about that when I
have a little more time... interesting film, anyway. I think I destroyed
Chrissa's hand, though - some of you who read this are also friends and you know
I have this huge vomiting phobia, and he throws up his first Supersized meal in
the film - but hell, if I can watch it on the big screen I should be able to
take it better in real life! Although I was nicely forewarned by Christian about
the scene. Anyway, enough of that.... not such a bright and cheery topic for a
dismal Tuesday following such a gorgeous weekend. Well, there are much worse
topics, I imagine. I am reading the Harry Potter series, and expletive
you to anyone who sniggers like the group of high school kids the other day on
the T! I've read my share of Dostoevsky and Joyce and O'Connor and Garcia
Marquez and so on and so forth, I wrote an honors thesis on Joyce - I love those
authors but I also really like the HP series. It's a engaging read and I don't
have to answer to anyone anymore... also, if there's anything I've learned in my
time on this earth it is this: take joy where you can find it. Some people never
get joy. If it's camping on your doorstep, eat it up, drink it in, roll in it,
make it your clothes and wear it - you never know when someone or something
might take it from you. So celebrate it and take it where it lies - leave
judgment at the door where it belongs.
|
May 3, 2004
...Well, it's been crazy! All of the balancing, finding
time for everything - and this crazy, insane urge that keeps coming up inside me
to record. Maybe we will... just an acoustic recording, something simple,
something straightforward... I like our new songs and would like to hear them
actualized... would like to hold onto them. It's kind of strange. We've been
getting thousands of downloads of our songs from the site lately, in particular
"When The Sun Goes Down." That song alone has gotten over 2000 downloads
in the last two months - and I'm kind of mixed in how I feel about it. The only
way for an independent musician to really make money is to sell CDs and make
make money from gigs. And of course that financial basis allows the musician to
make new CDs... but then again my main objective in this has been for our music
to be heard. Really, that's the most important thing, more important than
anything else we do, and I did put the songs up on the site for that very
reason, to get them heard. Oh well, it's a confusing thing, I guess... I'm happy
that we will be performing at Faneuil Hall this summer. I didn't really expect
to make it, a lot of people try out and it was not a very good day to be
performing - only forty-five degrees! But we passed the audition and will get
our times soon. It's supposed to be a very fun venue and you meet tons of
people. I think we'll still play out in Harvard Square some, though. It's hard
to just kind of walk out on that after the sort of history that we've built up
there. I love performing outside, it's such a great experience... something in
it reminds me of what it must've been like to be back in the days where music
was played for sheer joy and less for fame or financial gain. I'm probably
idealizing that, but when I walk through the Public Garden and I hear the guy
playing the hammered dulcimer I feel like it's the Renaissance and everything
has been washed clean! I'm reading a fantastic book, it's called The Sacred
Balance, Rediscovering our Place in Nature by David Suzuki. I think it's a
fantastic book because it talks about how we need to find our place within the
environment again, and it brings in spiritual aspects of connection with Gaia,
the living Earth, but it also talks firmly about what can be empirically seen
and what is tangible. That's important, that it's not just calling down some
spiritual vision that is imposed on others - that it is based on science and
evidence that can be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands...
|
April 20, 2004
I'm not sure anyone who doesn't live in the climate that
we do can fully understand how it feels when the weather turns in the spring.
It's just amazing... there are flowers on the trees and baby birds everywhere, I
feel alive. My skin exposed to the air, I feel youngest in the springtime,
hardly over fifteen years old.... just electrified, but in a good sense. My
allergies, of course, hit hardest just when the weather is wonderful - usually
in mid- to late-May. But it doesn't matter, I don't even care when it's like
this! I feel ready to compose - and we have so many songs to finish. I have to
focus on some lyrics for Jason's new song today. It's really excellent and I
can't wait to play it live. There's a period of time in February where I feel
like I have nothing to say and my songwriting just dies off, every year... not
sure why that is, but I seem to go into hibernation mode. Guess it's a survival
mechanism... I have Neil Young's "Transformer Man" in my head, of all
things - I do like it though. I am battling it with Lisa Housman's
"McDonalds" which I think is just brilliant - "I'll pick up your
fast-food wrappers, just keep reaching for the light" - how right on that
is.
|
April 13, 2004
It's one of those rainy days that seems very peaceful -
it's hard to wake up in the morning on a day like this, it seems made for
rest... but there is so much work to be done. I'm pretty scared, as many are, by
our government these days. The fact is, we don't hear about things the way they
do in Europe, which is why people here have to seek out the news. I've mentioned
before how wonderful the BBC is, how it shows images that we can't even dream of
here. We need something like that. I think it's amazing how people talk about
"sacrifice" when there's a war on, but they mostly seem to speak that
way when there's no chance in hell that they would have to go. This war started
on my birthday last year - March 19th. I was pretty unhappy about that! And it
"ended" on my sister's - May 1st. But it isn't over, and I am, quite
frankly, afraid... we've made so many enemies. Just looking over the world and
seeing the number of people who are so against this, so against the US... I'm
worried. There's a Johnny Cash song, or maybe it's a cover, where he sings about
being a "worried man." I relate... not so much about putting food on
the table yet, but perhaps someday - at this point there is no money for Social
Security and Medicare by the time people my age will need it and sooner than
that. And the environment is being damaged so badly. I don't think anyone can
really argue with global warming - that is, no one who doesn't have an agenda...
this is a scary time to be alive. I wish it were the 70s, honestly. I know
Christian will relate! We're watching the reissues of Charlie's Angels and
it's so much fun. It also seems like a different era. Really, everything before
9/11 seems to me like it was a different era, a fun time, busking, making music,
living life up. Now it seems scary, like we've headed out of what I guess was
"postmodernism" and into a whole new thing, not
"post-post-modernism" for God's sake, but something else for which I
can't come up with a name, don't want to come up with a name. I am not 100%
behind Kerry but you better believe I'll be out there voting for him when the
time comes. And I'm donating blood today. This is my fourth attempt. I tried in
high school but they said I was anemic, I tried once in college but I'd cut my
face and they said I couldn't donate, and I tried another time in college but
I'd just had a rubella shot and they said I couldn't. Then for a few years I was
under the weight requirement - but not now! So I am going to donate. I'm a
little nervous, to be honest. I know a lot of people have done this before so it
can't be that bad, but I'm a little nervous. I wonder where my blood will go? I
wonder if it will go to Iraq...
|
March 25, 2004
I was thinking today about London. It's been about six
months since we went there and I miss it. It's amazing, you can spend a week in
a place and miss it! In part I think it's the travel experience. The way things
are different, you are out of your context... in London the traffic lights
change from red to yellow to green as well as green to yellow to red and the
bathroom stalls for the most part go all the way down to the floor. It's those
little things that are the best about travel, the things that are just
different, the contextual change changes you. Oh, and the BBC. I still
miss that... objective, non-tabloidlike news... hmmm, let's see, what else - I
feel like this is a very empty entry but I am in a bit of a hurry so I must sign
off now.
|
March 10, 2004
Allen Ginsberg was a brilliant writer, although I think he
gets attention for the wrong reasons. People tend to get stuck on the idea of
him as this drug-wild, crazy poet and to read "Howl" and box him in.
I'm not saying he wasn't a drug-wild, crazy poet, but he was also a disciplined
writer who came up with some serious stuff... I don't fall into the camp of
people who are too cool for Allen, either - yes, he can be the poet for beat poseurs
- but others' reactions to him don't negate his talent. My favorite line of
"Howl" is the first: "I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" - before it gets into all
the drug talk and jazz and sex. Mostly because the rest of the poem feels like a
product of a different era, not quite my own, but that first line feels more
like today than anything. The best minds are smothering these days, underneath a
pile of vacuous celebrity and sound bites... things that are real are not real,
things that are true are deemed false and the world stops making sense in a
world of spin. My friend Christian sent me Bette Midler's letter to the
president regarding gay marriage... she said, to paraphrase, what better example
of love and commitment can we find to show our children than these couples who
wait out for hours in the pouring rain to get married - as opposed to
celebrities that get married every other day, shows like "My Big, Fat,
Obnoxious Fiancé." But all the loudest people seem to see is something
that they have deemed sinful, the form but not the content, the sex but not the
love... it makes me kind of sad. Anyway. Back to Allen Ginsberg. This
is my personal favorite poem by him. It's best if you say it aloud, the
sounds of the words are just as important as what he's saying... was looking for
Jeff's e-mail address in our archives (unsuccessfully - we usually talk by
phone) and it's weird how that is like a listing of your history with people.
There were names in there that I thought, hey, whatever happened to that person?
and hey, she was so nice, it's a shame we fell out of touch. and hey, thank God
I don't know that person anymore (only one of those, actually). It's strange how
we come in and out of each other's lives, touch each other lightly or heavily,
but no matter how hard or gently someone is in your life, ultimately it's all
you. You're your only first person... that thought is both a comfort for there
are many people out there who are not so nice, and a discomfort because there
are many more people who are.
|
January 26, 2004
I've once again been neglecting the diary... been so busy.
So here I am writing today as I always do, after a late-night gig. I've probably
given anyone who reads this the wrong impression completely. Just by writing
when I am so tired. But I'm having pumpkin spice chai, and it is wonderful. I
love pumpkins and squash. Really, they might be the best thing about living in
the Northeast. Certainly not this bone-chilling cold... this is the worst part
of living up here in this climate. I absolutely hate this weather. Getting
through January and February is the hardest part, I think. I eat a lot of
oranges, they taste like the sun absorbed through their skin... or so I imagine.
I am living on thinking about the summer and the glorious sun. It's really
amazing how the weather affects us, isn't it? I don't know that I believe in
Seasonal Affective Disorder as a result of not getting enough sun, but I can
believe that people get sad when they are constantly cold. I bet that most
marriages, etc. break up between January and March, when the winter has gone on
too long and patience is worn thin. I saw something on the news that there are a
lot of birds who aren't making it through this weather, which made me feel bad -
I had always imagined that they had some sort of special resource for survival
but perhaps they don't. But this constant cold is also unusual and many of the
animals from here aren't prepared to deal with it. I have heard that this sort
of thing is a result of global warming. Yeah, I know, we say 'but it's colder -
it should disprove global warming, right?' But they say it's actually a result
of the ice caps melting and the cold coming down in the water. I've also read
that the extreme seasons become blended into each other, that we lose the spring
and fall and pretty much go straight from winter to summer and then back to
winter. It's been like that lately and I wish that we'd wake up and smell the
coffee and protect the environment. Here's a tip: turn off your power strips
when you aren't using things like your stereo, TV, etc. It actually saves a lot
of pollution from entering the air... it's so small, compared to the fact that a
certain nuclear power company is sucking up entire rivers and killing millions
of fish in the Hudson in order to cool its turbines, but it's something, you
know? ... anyway. The show last night was a lot of fun and it was nice to have
my full voice back. The one thing that has really surprised me about music is
how organic it is - how based on your health it is. Passim was a lot of fun, but
I was really struggling. The dry air from forced air heat and the cold had
caused me to cough up blood from my throat and nose, and of course it was hard
to sing and I had to be very careful... so since then I've been running a
humidifier constantly, drinking a lot of water and tea, and keeping my face
wrapped in a scarf when outside. It has made a huge difference, and singing last
night was a lot of fun. Not to mention that Danielle
got wonderful sound last night. It's always so much easier to perform when the
sound is good! Our friends Dave and Lisa
came out too. They got an absolutely fantastic reception at Club Passim a couple
of weeks ago, it was great. They are such wonderful people. And Sarah
Woolf was there. She's featuring us on her internet radio program, Creative
Radio, which gets 10,000 hits a month. We talked about the possibility of doing
some shows out in San Diego - she has some connections out that way and Jason
and I have been wanting to head out there, especially now that our friends Jill
and Brian live out that way... it would be an honor to share the stage with her,
not to mention a little intimidating - her voice is of the sort that stops you
in your tracks... I fawn. But the huge amount of talent that I've come across
since moving here is really quite stunning. It's too bad the music industry is
the way way it is - people like Danielle, Sarah, Dave and Lisa are so healing
and so invigorating, they should be heard by everyone rather than Britney or
whoever. Well, what can you do... maybe it'll change, especially since I've been
reading a lot of articles on how sales are slumping for these girls who walk
around practically naked, lip-synching to a prerecorded track... at any rate.
I'm tired but feeling good! Writing is such a healing force. Just to let some
thoughts out, to float around in cyberspace, perhaps unread by anyone but their
writer, but it's good. It's very good, almost as good as pumpkin spice chai.
|
December 31, 2003
I was looking over last year's entry at this time and I
quoted John Lennon's song about the new year - "let's hope it's a good one,
without any fear." Well, it hasn't come true, but maybe 2004 will be the
year that we break out of this spiral of a bad economy, arts cuts, war - and
fear, fear, fear. I'm always optimistic when a new year is coming round; you can
feel it in the air that the winter will turn to warmth, that the sun will start
to shine later and earlier in the day. I know there are other New Year's Days
celebrated around the world and in other cultures, but I like New Year's Day the
way it is here, with the days just starting to change, etc... I want this year
to be lovely, but I think it's going to be a difficult one with the election and
all, and with the country so divided. I really hope we don't have four more
years of Bush. I don't think we can take it on so many levels. Morally,
emotionally, financially... anyway. We've been doing well, and we're still
working on our new songs. Of course, the cuts keep coming - the latest victim is
our practice room. The Music Complex is closing its doors at the end of January,
and we had to find a new place with our friends Reckless Daughter (who we shared
the room with). But Scott from RD found a space and all is better - but it
wasn't such a nice Christmas gift! I've been exercising a lot lately and my
heart rate has dropped, which is good. And the new vegan lifestyle is becoming
easier as I find new ways around eating animal products. Oh, I want to say this:
Hitler was not a vegetarian. So many people quote that to me as
"proof" that vegetarianism isn't ethical and I find so much wrong with
that. #1. It's completely false - he eliminated a lot of rich foods from his
diet due to stomach pain (everyone say, "Aw, poor Hitler") which just happened
to include a lot of meat as well as a lot of vegetables, and #2. Even if he was
a vegetarian, would that prove that it is wrong? Following that logic, we should
all stop wearing shoes because Hitler wore shoes. Ok, I got that off my
chest... but it's been a long time coming. I've been hearing the Hitler argument
since I stopped eating meat over ten years ago. Anyway. What else... not a whole
lot... we've got a few shows in January and I'm hoping to play the new songs at
the Burren or at least some of them. The Burren is one of the last good music
rooms left in the city. I hope busking is good next year because it's one of the
few resources the indie musician has left. Anyway, Happy New Year! Party hard
and safely and enjoy.
|
December 16, 2003
It's so hard to believe that 2003 is almost over... it's
pretty amazing. Last year I thought of the new baby New Year born on January 1st
and then suddenly he is an old man and we are heading into 2004. It still feels
like I'm living in my future, that even 2000 never could have happened. But it
did, and here we are. It's been so cold outside, hasn't it? I know it's a while
away but I'm looking forward to the first break in the season when the weather
gets warm and you wear short sleeves for the first time. We weathered the big
storm ok. But pretty much all of our plans got cancelled - a rehearsal on
Saturday, a visit with our friends Neil and Pam on Saturday night, a filming on
Sunday. But what can you do. Sometimes that breakup in plans is nice: to face
the unexpected, to have things flow a little differently than you planned. I
didn't feel so philosophical while we were digging out the car, but I guess even
that has its good points. I missed yoga all week so that was my exercise - and
my back and stomach feel much stronger. Last Friday's gig at Perks was really
good and the people there were so nice. It's great to have a show go really
well, even if we were struggling with severe throat colds... Mine has worsened
so I don't think I'd be able to sing now. Good thing it was on Friday.
|
November 21, 2003
It's really heartening that so many people are signing the
petitions and getting involved in the effort to save the subway music. It
makes me feel like we were really appreciated when we were playing down there -
that the music really makes a difference. I know it does to me as a rider of the
subway... I wrote to the head of the T council and he sent me a form letter in
return. How arrogant - they are taking away people's livelihoods. I'm not saying
that it's wrong to regulate the musicians a bit but it is wrong to impose
restrictions that won't allow them to make a living - and without holding a public hearing. The T is, after all,
public transit. Anyway... what else - Café Scat was fun and Rich gave me a
producer's credit! That made my night, I have production credits for BH
recordings but this is my first TV credit... we don't have heat or hot water in
our apartment. They are changing the boiler and unfortunately it wipes them both
out. Heat-wise it's not terribly uncomfortable since we have a space heater, but
the hot water thing is really a drag. It's hard to complain, though.... I'm
really very lucky to have what I have. I'm not meaning to sound like a Pollyanna
but my sister has told me about some nursing/medical missions she is considering
in places such as Ecuador where they literally have to scrape through trash
piles to find food... and when you hear about that not having hot water for four
days doesn't seem like such a huge social injustice.
|
November 12, 2003
I wanted to share that I'm having the most wonderful tea.
It's vanilla/almond with a touch of soy milk in it... so perfect for a rainy day
like this one. It's very cozy... and cozy is what I'm after these days, these
damp November days. I hope the winter is milder than last, although being from
upstate NY I think Bostonians are a bunch of wimps when it comes to snow. That's
right. Wimps! Boston's last winter would be a mild one for upstate NY... I
hate the cold but sometimes the extreme weather makes me feel the most alive. I
used to go down by the Lake Ontario during the coldest winter months - but it
was then that it seemed the most real and the most wild. And sometimes during
storms the water would come in 20-foot waves, crashing on the pack ice that built up
around the shore. I miss that. No one else would be down there... and my face
would get cold and frozen. The Band has a song, "Acadian Driftwood"
with the lines "They call my home the land of snow" and that's how I
feel. My home is the land of snow... I knew the lake in every mood and I think that's
the only way to really hear what nature says. You can't just go when it's nice
and easy to be out there or else she doesn't share her secrets. Why should she?
After all, you're only a "fair-weather friend" - ha ha.
|
November 4, 2003
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
Last Friday (Halloween) I got a flu shot over at Shaw's
supermarket. I've done this every year since 1995 and haven't gotten the flu
once in that time. It costs $20.
So last Friday I was in line behind a lady who looked to be in her early
eighties. When she got up in line to get her shot, she gave the nurse her health
insurance card. The nurse told her that they don't take MassHealth and the lady
didn't know what to do. The nurse told her to sit tight and they would try to
straighten this out, and I paid my $20 and got my flu shot, feeling sick. I
wanted to give the nurse $20 for the old lady, but I didn't want to do it in a
way that would make the lady uncomfortable so I ended up just taking my
information page and leaving. I feel horrible now. How is it that we can abandon
our elderly so that they can't even afford $20 for a flu shot? I read this
article from The Guardian today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1076591,00.html
about the poverty level in the US. It's mind-blowing, it really is. That coupled
with the fact that there's an almost total media blackout about what is
happening in Iraq - the soldiers aren't even interviewed. We just get their
death reports... how is this supporting them? It isn't! I was stunned to see the
ages of the dead - 20, 22, 23, 26, 29, 30. Only six of the twelve people killed
yesterday were older than me, and barely so. It's stunning, really. So my point
now is: vote. Jeb Bush may have set the last election up so that his darling
brother would win - which really makes me question the whole voting process -
but we can do the best we can. I recommend Felix
Arroyo - at least let's try to have some local politicians who aren't
corrupt and lining their pockets with our hard-earned money. VOTE TODAY!
|
October 21, 2003
It's strange to go away and then return - the ground
underneath your feet feels less stable, less certain. It is, I suppose, a
relativity thing. You know that it's not the earth around you that has
moved, but rather it's you - but that doesn't matter. It feels like it's
the earth that has moved, while you have remained constant. So everything is
touched ever so slightly with a sense of unreality and impermanence. It's a
little death and rebirth in its own way. Exactly what I desired. I'm not looking
at the world through different eyes, yet the world seems to have irrevocably
changed - and in those precious moments of unreality where you're dangling in
the clouds nothing feels fully real - and for me, oddly, everything feels
completely okay. Like I'm completely safe and no harm can come to me. The plane
is a womb and I'm to be reborn soon.
London was beautiful. I was a foreigner for the first time in my life - I was
the one with the accent. Oddly, there were a few people who were unable to place
us as Americans! I don't know, we're from upstate New York and maybe they don't
hear that accent that often. It is a wonderful city, full of life and with an
intense pulse. The Tube is a wonder - always on time, clean, with upholstered
seats. And I was impressed with the BBC. We had TVs on our seats and I had the
pleasure of watching the BBC news immediately after takeoff. I was so impressed
with its honesty in dealing with the Iraq situation. And it was so not
tabloid-like. The news here can be like a TV show, like entertainment. But there
it is open and frank without being sensational for sensationalism's sake. I
think my primary dislike of London was the fact that everyone smokes. You can't
duck into a pub for a quick drink without coming out reeking of tobacco.... I
love the smoking bans in Boston (sorry to my smoking friends). I'm kind of a
health nut and don't like to be around it. Unfortunately it was unavoidable in
London.
Leeds Castle was like a fairyland. It's this ancient castle that dates from
sometime in the 800s... with a maze with a deep underground grotto/cave with
shell art on the walls. It felt like another universe inhabited by magic. I miss
it already! More later.
|
October 7, 2003
I've been thinking today about the early 90s music
thing... remember that sudden breakout with Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Tori Amos, RHCP?
I was changing so fast then. Early summer 1991 I was crazy about Bryan Adams'
"Everything I Do" - end of the summer, I was wild about The Joshua
Tree. Then suddenly I was in high school and there was this shattering of
the hair metal bands of the late 80s, early 90s. I don't even think I really got
it that much but it was like everything changed. The climate moved from silly
and fluffy to something more serious and really very Buddhist in its philosophy.
There was so much acknowledgement in Pearl Jam and Nirvana. So much acceptance
and airing of pain, so much saying that it's okay to be hurt and okay to dance
about it! I think it's the energy of Native American dancing. It's not
good to let all this stuff just fester - like any other illness it just grows
under the skin. It's not like that now. That music saved my life, I swear it
did. I got into U2 and U2 led to the Velvet Underground. What's that VU lyric
about some chick being "saved by rock n' roll?" Yeah, it's the song
"Rock 'N' Roll." That's me (although I wasn't that smart at five).
There's an energy to great music that takes your depression and brings it out
into the open, makes your passion rise, your heart beat, your blood move... and
I wonder if we'll get that again. It's sad, I wonder what these kids do at
fifteen when all they have is Britney Spears.... do they go back to the older
stuff like Don Henley says? He says all music out in the mainstream these days
is shit. I'm inclined to agree...so how do these kids get to the underground? I
bet they do, somehow... but my experience with the music scene has been that
everyone is trying to be a rock star. Trying to see their faces on Rolling
Stone (or should I say Tiger Beat) and once it becomes about that
it's not about that energy, that frequency you can slip into and vibe to. I'd go
home from school at fifteen, do my work in the backyard or whatever, wash
dishes, do my schoolwork and if I had some time later I'd hunch down with that
tape player, quiet so not to disturb my parents - and let music save my life.
The music took me to places like New York City, London, Dublin, Rome, Tokyo, Los
Angeles, Seattle. I was telling Alan this the other day at our gig out in
Maynard. He's got this song, "Secret Messages From The Dog Star" with
this lyric: "You have got to live life / Live like no one is messing with
you... You have got to live like you never get hurt / even though you
will." That song is a song that fifteen-year-olds need to hear. You get
that song in your speakers while your father's yelling at you again and you're
lonely as hell and it makes everything okay or at the very least tolerable. And
then again when you're twenty-five and you've been betrayed by your friends and
people you've trusted, and you need something to hold onto in the middle of the
night - there's the song. Someone else feels this way, you know? But you don't
get that now... you just get Britney kissing Madonna in the most un-erotic,
homo-exploitative move since I don't know when.... nothing to hold onto in the
middle of the night, nothing that makes you feel like you're going to get out,
break out - be free from whatever it is that ties you. The thing is, when you
listen to a song with guts, whether it's Donna Summer, Lauryn Hill, Pearl Jam,
U2, Dvorak, Public Enemy - The Who! - it makes you feel your guts and your
heart. It makes you free for that instant in time. But all the artists are
cowed, all scared of the politics of the day, or marginalized out of existence
while we watch the latest from Britney broadcast everywhere... I hope we can
take it back. I think we want to - I think we want it to be ours again... we
just need someone who can draw a map.
|
October 3, 2003
So tired today - late night gig yesterday down at Mount
Blue. Such a weird night. We thought that the place would have mic stands, but
they didn't. So we were panicked - what the hell were we going to do? I thought
of holding the microphone under Jason's mouth, but how was I going to play the
violin? Throw it down and grab the violin? Luckily for us the club had some hook
screws that we could put in the ceiling, and our friends Frank and Nancy Mellen
had come out to the show. Nancy had a Swiss army knife. I'm telling you, I'm
getting one of those things. Anyway, we used the starter tool to get a hole
going in the beam and then we used arm power to get the screw in. Then we
dangled the mics from the hooks and sang into them. It was a little strange, we
had to hang them high so that the sound would pass underneath them but it was
hard to fight the desire to lift my neck and strain my throat. Oh, the
tribulations!! Anyway, we did the show and collected the cash and headed back up
to Boston. We actually found a fucking parking space right away. How's that for
luck? That never happens. So what else... London, London, London. I keep hearing
that London is so much more open to original music, that Europe isn't jaded the
way America is. But then I hear it's worse there from other people. Whatever.
The music industry is going down the toilet, frankly, with CD copying and no
artist development programs.. sorry kids, but it never works to make art
corporate. On the other hand, who says they were ever interested in art? Britney
Freakin' Spears is not 'art' - she's product. Not that anyone really seems to
care... I'm not sure which is worse, Britney or Ben and Jen. That one I just
can't figure out. Who cares if they're together or not? I read Chris Stein from
Blondie's online journal today and that really made me fired up. He was talking
about the rejects from American Idol (or its British counterpoint) and how they
were so much more interesting than the cookie-cutter winners... yeah... he's got
it going on. Rock on, Chris. Wish I'd gotten into music twenty years ago when
they hadn't yet learned how to make Creed from Pearl Jam. Ohhh how tired and
cranky I am! And tea never helps... I really shouldn't have caffeine, but it
tastes so good and keeps me up when we have a late night show... only one
week to London. How childishly excited I am for this!
|
September 22, 2003
Time is slipping through my fingertips... it's hard to
process right now that the trees are beginning to change. Just the slightest
touch of yellow is on the edges of the trees near my apartment, and slowly it
will spread down the rest of the tree. It's gorgeous, but we'll be in London for
the peak leaves this year I think. But that's ok because the climate there is
similar so I will be watching the trees in another part of the world light
themselves on fire leaf by leaf... I'm exhausted today. Late gigs on Friday and
Sunday - but both were a lot of fun. I haven't sung backup for another act live
before, so singing backup for Andy Olmsted's band was a new experience. The
crowd was great! And Sunday at the Burren is always so much fun. I'm glad I've
gotten to know Danielle over the years since we were both out on the open mic
circuit, and meeting Sarah Woolf was
wonderful too. Actually, we've met her before but last night we really got to
talk with her and listen to her music. It's really solid and we traded CDs at
the end of the night... I can't wait to listen to hers, she has an angelic voice
that digs in the dirt. She has connections with playing shows at nursing homes.
I'd really like to do that because I feel an affinity for it. My grandmother was
in a nursing home for 18 years and I know how hard the life can be there at
times... Anyway, things are progressing along and we've gotten involved in the
Howard Dean campaign. I think it's really important that we have a change in
administration in 2004. The economy is doing horribly just as it was in 1990
when there was another Bush in the White House... and there is too much to be
said about Bush's policies for me to get into here. I do think that it is
entirely plausible to not support a war but support the soldiers. In fact, I
think it is our job as civilians to question where our government puts
our army. (I'm quoting Alan here, credit is due.) It is a soldier's job to
follow orders without question, and it is a civilian's job to make damn sure
that those orders are just and fair. If we don't do it, who will? Everyone's
cowed into silence by the idea that not supporting a cause hurts the soldiers,
but I'd rather them feel unsupported than die for something unjust. That just
seems obvious to me. Anyway, we went down to a Howard Dean meet-up last week and
met a lot of really great people. I had my first Guinness ever and enjoyed it
although it seemed a little "flat." I think I'll like it better in
England where it'll be fresher. The BBC was at the Dean meet-up and we were
filmed for it! They zeroed in on Jason and took some shots of him with his
nametag, and then they filmed us discussing Dean with somebody more experienced.
They said it'll be playing in England this week, wish I could see it. They also
said it would be up on their web site but I can't find it. Oh well... I've been
addicted to the video game Spyro for the last week or so. I cannot
beat Tree Tops!!! Do any of you out there play this game and know how it
works?? If you do, please e-mail me, it's driving me nuts, literally. It's that
last stupid dragon so far away, where you have to supercharge three times, and I
do that but he runs out of steam halfway there. Ahhh!... BTW I am fully aware
that I'm revealing my inner nerd here, but I feel that honesty is the most
important quality an artist can project... perhaps honesty is the beginning of
wisdom, I'm unsure. I do feel that wisdom has been pushed off the radar in terms
of things to strive for in this world and it's scary. Wisdom is taking the back
seat to youth, peace to violence, quantity to quality... it's scary... we're
losing the elders and without them how are we going to know what to do? How to
handle life and, ultimately, death? Face-lifts don't change how old you really
are... I did yoga again yesterday and loved it as usual. Kim is tough instructor
and it really works out my muscles. I wrenched my back thigh doing a pose called
the "bow" - how painful! But today my leg feels great, like it has
gone to lengths it never had before. My strength is improving as well - I
actually picked Jason up yesterday night at the gig! He insists that he
"helped" but still, it's better than I have ever done before... Well,
I'll stop rambling on and leave now, wishing you the best of energy and health
and a wonderful Autumn as this is the last day of Summer... change is coming
soon.
|
September 12, 2003
How sad to hear about Johnny Cash today. I've been a fan
since my obsessed-with-U2 days, when he sang on "The Wanderer" from Zooropa.
He had a great and long life, though - and he made some freaking incredible
music.
Let's see... it's been crazily busy as usual these last few weeks. Rehearsals
have been going well and we're all looking forward to the Kendall. It's sad that
it's our last show there, we have so many memories tied to the place. When it
re-opens, even though it won't be a music club, I intend to go back just to
visit and see what the new owners do. The Kendall was one of the first places
Jason and I went when we first arrived here. We'd heard of it, so we walked down
and had a hot cup of tea there. Then we played the open mic. It was such a good
open mic - it lacked pretentiousness and Leanne was a great host. It was a big
loss when the open mic ended. So we've had a good three years there and I'm
grateful for them.
Otherwise, let's see. We've been working on some new songs and looking for a new
home for the band shows.... and it's coming into a beautiful time of the year. I
CAN"T WAIT to go to London - but I don't want to wish away these days. I
think September really is my favorite month!
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August 13, 2003
We played at the Pine
Street Inn women's common area yesterday night as part of the Peace Brigade.
The Peace Brigade is a series of shows at nursing homes, homeless shelters, etc.
that our friends Lisa Housman and Dave
Falk are putting together. I was pretty nervous - didn't know what to
expect. One of the women that works there took us aside in the beginning and
told us that it's a "wet shelter" - meaning that alcohol is allowed
and that sometimes things can get a little crazy. I'm a little gun-shy after
certain experiences in Harvard Square. But it was really great. The women were
so appreciative and came up afterwards and talked to us to tell us so. It was
refreshing. Sometimes playing the bars and clubs can get demoralizing -
sometimes you feel like no one is really listening to what you're doing and that
you're not reaching people, and yesterday made me feel a lot better. Otherwise,
things are pretty quiet - it's been so humid and rainy that we haven't been able
to go busking that much. Hopefully it will improve soon. We're still working on
our trip to London and organizing some shows over there... I've been reading a
lot of books about schizophrenia and mental illness. I find the whole idea of
how the mind works quite fascinating... theories of how the mind has changed
over the years - that back in Biblical times the mind was similar structurally
but it actually was quite different functionally... very interesting.
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August 7, 2003
I've gotten far behind in the diary - sorry about that.
Things have been, as usual, busy. There's so much planning and management-type
work that sometimes the more fun stuff (or more creative stuff) gets back-burnered.
Unfortunately. But yesterday's show at the Skellig was fun. It's funny, when I'm
onstage, to remember how paralyzing stage fright once was for me. Like in class
- even reading a paragraph out loud used to get my heart pumping. Guess it's
like anything else, the more you do it the more comfortable you get with it. In
a loud bar crowd a few really attentive audience members can make all the
difference. Last night there was a few tables of really great people and I so
appreciated them! "Table Two" - if you check out our Web site, drop us
a line to say hi. You rocked. Anyway, it was fun hanging out afterwards with
Danielle and Tom and just talking about what this whole musician trip is like. I
wore my new Copenhagen shirt that Christian brought me and it was great. I love
it. It's funny how clothes can make you feel better about things. When I was in
high school I thought two things were shallow/dismissible: money and clothes.
Now that I'm paying my own way in the world I realize that money is not
something to sneeze at, and that clothes can really affect your mood. I guess
Lord Byron used to slip into a fresh cotton shirt whenever he wanted to be
creative. When I was in college my philosophy professor chided me for thinking
that food was shallow - he told me that eating was one of life's great pleasures
and often the basis for great rituals. He was right. It's so easy to turn up
one's nose at things and so hard to truly appreciate them. I studied
deconstruction and found that you can pretty much tear the ground out from under
anything - what's hard is building. What's hard is replacing what you consider
to be bad with something that you think is really good. I guess that's part of
the problems I sometimes have with punk - you look cool thumbing your nose at
everything, but what good does it really do in the end? But punk-based music
like that of Patti Smith, REM and Blondie is another thing. They put something
in place of the things they were tearing down. Well, let's see - what else -
we're going to London! I'm so excited. I've never been out of the States or
Canada before. Just talking to British people on the phone is exciting for me.
They say stuff like "sterling" instead of "cash" and "zed"
instead of "zee" for the letter z. Anyway, I best get back to doing
some other things, but thanks for reading.
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July 17, 2003
We've been working hard lately with the press kits, etc...
I'm pretty tired. The car is in the shop. It has three problems: the
gearshift has been clunking into place rather than falling nicely into place,
the seal around the passenger side door is loose, and someone did something to
the hood that made two dents (I don't want to know what). We got the first two
problems fixed but the third is a body shop kind of thing. Because we have a
warranty, we only had to pay a $100 deductible to have the first problem fixed,
but the second problem wasn't covered, and believe it or not, they charge you
$130 to have the seal re-glued! Aargh. This isn't the best time to be hit with
financial woes, let me tell you... I've had a hard time shaking this exhaustion
that's dogging me. I'm reading And The Band Played On, about the AIDS
epidemic and how it was identified and dealt with (very poorly - most
institutions didn't want to deal with a 'gay disease" or they considered
gay men to be beneath contempt). It's a tough thing to read, both because it is
so crammed with facts and because it's emotionally hard to take. I remember a
lot from when AIDS was emerging. Deanna S. in seventh grade, taking a sip
from my chocolate milk saying "you don't have AIDS, do you?" - - and
all of the fear. It's kind of dropped off the landscape, hasn't it? You just
never really hear about it. Otherwise, we've got a gig on Friday and we'll be
out busking on Sunday. We just booked a show in Philadelphia and have stuff
lined up for Michigan and New Hampshire and hopefully some stuff in Austin soon.
I can't wait to start traveling. I want to see places, different ways of
thought, eat different kinds of food.
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July 9, 2003
I had intended to keep this diary up a bit better than
this - suddenly things have gotten so busy! But here I am. We've been doing a
lot of booking, trying to get closer to our goal of touring. But it's hard. The
problem with booking is that talent buyers get hundreds of packages every week,
and there's no special reason that they should listen to yours. So you have to
bug them... something I'm not very good at. But we've been doing it and have had
some success and I'm excited about a lot of the gigs. More info on that to come
as events proceed! I hung out with my friend Danielle
last night and we had a good evening of sangria and ice cream. If you want cheap
sangria, go to the Sunset on Brighton Ave. It's something like $2.95 for a big
glass, and it's not light on the alcohol. When my sister and I were kids, my
father used to make us cough syrup when we were sick. See, my grandfather was a
coal miner and he died of black lung from breathing in all of the coal dust...
he actually lost one his lungs in a mining accident and the one he had left
failed him at a relatively young age, before either of us was born. He coughed
all the time, and he made up this tonic out of gin, lemon and honey and taught
the recipe to my father. It actually used to work better than Robitussin or
whatever, and it was probably because it had a lot of alcohol! (we only used to
get a tablespoonful as kids) But to make a long story short, the sangria tasted
like the cough syrup, so I know it wasn't all water.
I hear a lot of folk songs about miners and I always feel a little strange about
them. They are always so romanticized - with the heroic miner, the evil boss,
etc. I grew up around it - we used to go down to Pennsylvania to the town.
Mining has become a tourist attraction probably for the same reason that it's
featured in folk songs. We did the tourist thing - went down in the mines.
There's a great town called Eckley in
Pennsylvania. It's a town that has been preserved just as it was during the
heyday of mining. The film The Molly Maguires was made there.
People still live there in some of the houses, but others are open for touring
and others were built specially for the movie. It's very moving and in some ways
hard to take. Breaker boys, for instance. But I haven't been able to write a
song about it, as much as I would like to - because of the mixed feelings I have
about mining songs and mine touring and all that. It's almost like it's
something holy - I'm not putting this into words very well - but the labor, the
blood, the way these men and their families lived, the way the pain they felt
passes from generation to generation even now. I don't know, somehow it seems
like if you haven't lived it, anything else is almost an exploitation, a
parody. Like me writing a song about being black in America... but then again I
don't want it to disappear, and at times I think it's done quite well, like in
Peggy Seeger's song "Spring Hill Mining Disaster." I had a CD of chain
gang songs from black workers in the south, and it was full of songs that grew
- they were never written - and it was incredible.
I'm heartened by the
writings that Barbra Streisand and Chris Stein are doing on their web sites. My
friend Christian sent me some this morning and I'm really happy to see it. We saw Neil Young last Tuesday
night on tour with Lucinda Williams and I really liked it, in and among my mixed
feelings. First off, Lucinda was great if nervous. She had it tough - a show in
broad daylight with half the audience milling in the aisles. She did some of the
songs I like the best: "Changed The Locks" comes to mind. Then Neil
came on. He did an environmental play with all new material for almost two
hours. That alone is pretty ballsy - most of the audience wanted to hear the
hits, like he's some nostalgia act or something. I thought the play was a little
hard to follow, but the message was clear. He had a backdrop with executives from Powerco, a thinly disguised Enron. An
activist girl singing "Hey Mr. Clean - you're dirty now too." Clear
Channel billboards - this inspired a mixed reaction from
the crowd. One person yelled "Neil Young you motherfucking socialist"
(someday I'll write a treatise
on the origin of the term 'motherfucker') and another person yelled "Clear
Channel sucks!" - and then there was just general confusion and tension. Of
course, he served up some crowd-pleasing hits at the end, but at least one of
them, "Rockin' In The Free World," couldn't have been more
appropriate to the tone of the evening and the play. My mixed feelings stemmed
from the fact that Neil works for Clear Channel and the fact that he uses big,
gas-guzzling tour buses. Not to mention the gas that we, the audience members,
were burning in our cars as they idled for hours in the after-show traffic jam.
Pearl Jam is planting enough trees to make up for their tour buses... how about
Neil? Jason points out that you can work for someone and disagree with them, and
I think he's right on that one. The only way for Neil to tour the venues that get his word and music
out is to use Clear Channel, but he doesn't have to
love it so I don't think there's a contradiction there.
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June
24, 2003
Well, instead of a monthly letter it seems like
it's going to make more sense to keep up a
'diary' of sorts... we can write more when we feel
the muse, or when something interesting happens, rather than once a
month after some of the interesting stuff has faded into memory. I've
kept the letter archive at the bottom of the page, so you can still read
the older stuff. Things have been going well. We've been really busy,
and we both have this cold thing that just won't quit. I'm not really a
sickly person, and this is the first time I've been sick in ages, and it
won't leave me! We busked yesterday and it went okay. I was a little
edgy at first because Alpha Omega came out en masse (four guys in fancy
suits) and asked us to move because we were blocking their display
window. It was less what they asked than the way that they asked it that
got me all edgy. About six months ago I went
to Alpha Omega to get my watch battery
changed. When I handed it over, the guy behind the counter kind of
twisted his mouth in this weird way and said to his co-worker:
"It's a Timex." Who says
classism is dead in this country?! It just
makes you feel so second-rate. Like a dirty street musician, but I know
that's not true. Anyway, after that busking
went okay. We met a lot of new and interesting people and saw
some old friends we hadn't seen in a while: Charlie from shiner.jones,
Ethan Mackler, Ethan from Lincoln Conspiracy... it was great. We've been
working on three new songs, tentatively called "Sand," "I
Don't Want To Be There" and "Sleeping With You." Other
than that, we've been sending out tons of press kits. The idea now is to
go to Austin in the fall and busk down there (it's still in the nineties
there in October) and play some shows. Also, I've been sending press
kits to clubs in areas where we got a lot of radio play. My plan right
now is to be touring full-time by September of 2004, and really making
our living doing this. We'll see. It's hard, when you're totally on your
own - booking agent, manager, musician - it's a lot of hats to wear.
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