| CARVIEW |
Moving right along
- Dec. 3rd, 2021 at 9:00 AM
It’s amazing how different posting here is than onto those ‘other’ places online. No character limit. My relatives and high school friends aren’t here being confused or supportive. And while I’ve never made a secret of the ‘here’ most folks have moved on enough that - much like tumblr it feels like a hidden clubhouse of a platform - even more so really.
Things since my last - 2016! - post have been rollercoastery - as is my way - but also extra understandable in these times of rona. I got horrifically unemployed. And by unemployed I mean I lost the 60+ hours a week with health care day job and acquired 5+ hustler jobs that barely paid for the commute to get to them and did not offer health care - though the injuries, stress, and panic attacks they gave me required plenty of medical (eastern and western) attention. After a couple of untenable years with that - which thankfully also included a fair bit of self booked touring - I jumped back into musical curation as a day job which - while it was still ‘buy groceries on your credit card’ wages, and there was still no health care, it did at least give me the petty bourgeoisie illusions of office work respectability that my sad ego needed to believe in my worker bee talents and ladder up to my current ‘can pay for groceries’ / ‘have health care’ job that while it’s not working in the arts - actually feels healthy and like a good fit.
Music is still the crux of it all. I spent last night talking over wine with a Famous Musician Friend about art and fame and who deserves what - and also he loves my next record (coming out in 2022). I’m in full absorbing all the opinions / planning all of the things mode to get ready for the release and also hedging my bets and protecting my heart from the disappointments that rona or the universe may throw in my path.
There is more to come… I miss this space. It always freed me up to write more, even when I felt I had no time to write. Sometimes I miss being known as a writer. My little poet soul still keeps those home fires burning while the musician steals the spotlight - but it’s all a journey. The only path I can walk is my own.
I miss you.
Here we go!
- Jan. 4th, 2016 at 1:33 PM
Aug. 13th, 2015
- 3:37 PM
A special TWIN PEAKS announcement
- Oct. 6th, 2014 at 9:02 AM
FERAL: last night looked like this
- Jul. 21st, 2014 at 1:12 PM
May. 12th, 2014
- 8:30 AM
I was realizing the other day that i haven’t made a real and actual personal text post here in a while. and i think back to the days of livejournal and how the interface of a site can really change how you interact with it and what sort of content you make. ugh and that last sentence just made me hate myself a little for how techbro it sounded. but in all truth, as I’ve moved in my life further from writing and poetry and literature and more towards music, I miss the introspective 1500 word pieces I would write about the light hitting the leaves while I drank my coffee. self indulgent sure but they were a moment of peace and beauty in what is often a violent and chaotic world.
it’s always fascinating when people start to move away from being acquaintances and into being more true friends. the other night i left too many things over at a friends house when leaving at 2am because I was exhausted. texting him a few days later to ask if yet another thing was there (my necklace) he said that he had found my rings but I was wearing the necklace when I left. and I was so touched. because I’m not used to being seen. not in a long time. and that he had noticed and remembered that I was wearing my necklace, it might seem like such a small thing, but being seen like that made me feel taken care of, appreciated, like I mattered. and it was… it felt like old times in the best way. and i guess that’s part of it. finding new friends that feel like old times so that your ancient souls can reconnect in the now for new adventures to become memories. sometimes time is just a joke being played on all of us I think. more of a figure eight than a circle. giving us the illusion of always being new and moving forward but really just moving and intersecting with its own future and past now and then.
K brought me lilacs at work last week. deep purple and smelling of sunshine and that big yard where you could roll around in the fresh grass, pick wild rhubarb and eat it under the willow tree without a care in the world. sometimes I think my whole life is just trying to get back to those moments. but as time is the trickster, even if I went back to that same house, and that same yard… it would never be the same.
i live in the strangest place of analog and digital in my life these days. dayjob and band job times spent on the computer 8 or more hours a day. tied into my phone gadget. responding in 2 mins or less to fire drills and emergencies that matter for a bottom line but not for the world at large. and then I disconnect and go record music to tape with microphones that are 50 years old on guitars that haven’t changed in a century or more. singing words and learning chords from men that work with their hands and none of us care for a moment that we are anything but real and alive in the moment. it’s fire and life and sweat and music and nothing else matters.
a heat wave is coming. the second in just a few weeks. i’ll need to keep some extra water on hand for the new plants i put in the ground last week. this morning it’s 7am and already in the mid 70s. Oakland doesn’t have the crazy ocean wind that keeps San Francisco cooler on these days. I dream of lunch breaks at the lake and swimming for hours with nary an email in sight. i want to be sunburnt and tired from play and picnics.
on Saturday night after the Vagabondage show I went to the Cloyne Co Op farewell party for alumni. Technically I was a crasher - just like I had been when I hung out there and partied with my friends all of the time. 30 - 50 old punks and rabble rousers hung out with the current students trying to give the place a good send off before all the current kids are evicted to make the place a substance free academic housing sort of thing. I wandered the halls drunkenly and lost just like I did 20 years ago. Looked at the 30ft palm trees my friend had planted when they were tiny baby palms, and hugged so many old timers while meeting new amazing folks young and old and soaked in the feeling of being the right age to remember being in my 20s and to appreciate being older and knowing how to have fun smarter now. i kept having a small court of male students asking me about music and fire. why do my topics always go back to that? it was flattering in a hilarious way. my ego was happy and my boundaries were solid.
the air is already losing it’s morning salt smell of the bay and turning dusty. time for more coffee and a few more moments to dream.
Catching Up with Myself
- Feb. 19th, 2013 at 10:12 AM
I'm torn up and tired from last nights show up in Glen Ellen. Vagabondage played the Jack London Museum / House of Happy Walls up at Jack London State park. It was a fancy affair with beer provided by Lagunitas, tickets were $20, the Sonoma papers gave us a good amount of press, and we shredded ourselves to lovely moody raucous musical bits for over 90 minutes of passion. Completely acoustic and thus my throat is hamburger today. But oh those moments. One guy was so moved he bought a CD with plans to play it at his fathers wake. Another woman bought one saying it reminded her of all the good and hard parts of being in love. I was just moved, surrounded by so many old trees, moss, stone, and wood. Transported. And that's the best part of making music.
The day before Rhubarb Whiskey did a couple hours of interview and music on Lilycat's radio show. Oh that Sizzle makes me laugh. It is always interesting too to hear your music in other people's context. How they react, what they see. We shared a few trade secrets of our recording process, and got into a nice healthy argument about the use of strawberries in rhubarb pie. Oh I love my strange little quirks about food. Why do I care so much. and yet... there I am again arguing against the cloying sweet.
When I got home, or actually, on the way home from the radio show, while my eye began its allergic reaction and started swelling shut, I started getting inspired and full of the ideas. Phone recordings of four new songs happened while stuck in traffic and getting home and running to the music cave meant another song was born and constructed and I'm kind of in love with it. The other four, I'm hoping to dive into them tonight.
Oh there are so many more things to say. There always are. Meanwhile - here's a little pic of me that John Flaw took just before our show last night in the park.
Saint of Nothing from Rhubarb Whiskey
- Feb. 14th, 2013 at 10:40 AM
Once I wrote an anti-love song that broke my heart wide open. This is that song.
Saint of Nothing by Rhubarb Whiskey.
- Current Music:rhubarb whiskey - saint of nothing
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Mendocino from Rhubarb Whiskey
- Feb. 5th, 2013 at 9:15 AM
Mendocino is the newest song from Rhubarb Whiskey's album Same Sad End - featuring backing vocals from Carolyn Mark. Artwork by Natalie Robles.
https://rhubarbwhiskey.bandcamp.com/track/mendocino
and it's songs on the radio
and it's songs in my head
telling me things are so wrong
that they're better
left unsaid
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cindymonkey- feet in the dirt. head in the stars.
- Emchy
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