Schedule

Sun 30: 2-cl
Mon 1: 3-cl
Wed 3: 11-7:30
Thur 4: 10-4:30
Sat 6: 4-cl

My Roses Are Blooming

First 20 tracks on my iPod this cool misty morning:

1. "Daiya Re Daiya" - Asha Bhosle
2. "The New Soft Shoe" - Gram Parsons
3. "Don't Advertise Your Man" - Mamie Smith
4. "Contact" - SPK
5. "Sleep To Dream" - Fiona Apple
6. "The Jones Laughing Record" - Spike Jones
7. "Act Like You Know" - Pete Rock & CL Smooth
8. "Since I Met You Baby" - Avons
9. "Don't Dance Her Down" - The Fiery Furnaces
10. "Sunshowers" - M.I.A.
11. "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" - The Pogues
12. "This Fire" - Franz Ferdinand
13. "Extra Lovable" - Prince
14. "Manakin Moon" - Waxing Poetics
15. "Just One Look" - Doris Troy
16. "Riot In Cell Block #9" - Wanda Jackson
17. "Infect" - Ruins
18. "Let Them Talk" - Little Willie John
19. "You Can't Sit Down (Part 1 & 2)" - Phil Upchurch Combo
20. "An Architect's Dream" - Kate Bush

Season Cycle

Good things do come in cycles, and I know it must sound mondo hokey of me but I honestly do believe in things like that. Cycles and whatnot.

Like I just learned a few days ago that my best friend is getting married. And I gotta say that after having a pretty shit-tastic last couple a years she really deserves to have something this positive coming her way. Again, cycles. We're already tits deep in Bachelorette Party negotiations, seeming unable to sway one of her fellow co-workers away of the tired out traditional beer-and-male-strippers routine. For one, the bride (as well as myself) are not big drinkers. Plus we both think male strippers are hella cheesy. It may wind up coming down to me kidnapping the bride on some random unspecific day, fill the back seat of my car with coffee and donuts, and hit every comic book store from here to Richmond until the trunk of my car is so stuffed full 'o funny books they'll be sparks a-flyin' off my bumper as it drags the interstate to bring our happy asses home again. Hey, as far as we're concerned we're still maintaining tradition. Albeit ours, naturally.

Then I got a firm thwak in the fanny from my Good Luck Fairy this afternoon as well.

Drum roll, please...

Ahem. {{taps microphone}}

I have just been made a full time employee at my record store. With a 13% raise, and all the benefits that come with.

Bloody hell, people. Do you know how loooong...? {{shakes head}} Okay, okay. Two... two and a half years I've been trying to move up in that company. And my boss came through for me today. Apparently she pitched me to the regional manager, who suddenly remembered me from the Fall Out Boy show we worked together and said something probably like "Oh, that girl. Yeah okay. Put her on." And that's it. That's probably all it took. Well no, I'm sure the boss had to pitch me harder than that, but she really does seem to believe in me, and from everything she told me about myself this afternoon I can't help but be absurdly flattered. Now I just hope I can live up to her expectations.

Oh yes, and health insurance. There's $700 a month don't have to fork over to Anthem any longer. Oh, I can't tell you what a strain that won't be for me from here on out. Now they'll just take it straight out of my paycheck. {{gulp}}

Speaking of work, a fellow associate gave me a gift bag. With soap.

A few weeks ago the same associate brought in a bottle of this weird foamy hand soap called Tone and put it in the women's bathroom at work, and one day I asked her where she bought the stuff because whatever the heck it was, the Water Lily & Sugar Cane scented gook, smelled so good that I was washing my hands all the way up to my armpits and walking around work inhaling myself, comically shoving my paws up into my face and snorting loudly to the amusement of my co-workers. Welp, she surprised me with two bottles of it, and a big bottle of Tone Water Lily & Sugar Cane body wash as well. The reason? She had secretly heard about my current grieving state and just wanted to do something nice for me.

Cycles, mes amis. Your turn is coming next.

Toads of The Short Forest

Exhibit A

Benefits of moving: The finding of things that you thought were once lost forever.

Namely, the George Clinton Parliament-Funkadelic record The Mothership Connection Live From Houston that I had thought I misplaced years ago and have been searching for ever since.

And according to the words stamped right on the cover "Original Video Soundtrack", although on the back it only mentions "choice excerpts" on Side One, listing as:

1. Let's Take It To The Stage/Do That Stuff
2. Mothership Connection/Doctor Funkenstein
3. Get Off Your Ass And Jam/Night Of The Thumpasorus People

Side Two consists of three studio tracks from two George Clinton albums, Computer Games and Some Of My Best Jokes Are Friends:

1. Atomic Dog
2. Double Oh-Oh
3. Bullet Proof

So I suppose this album is basically no longer in print if it's really just excerpts from the already available full-length Live In Houston CD (Or is the Live In Houston CD actually available? Must investigate) but since I haven't heard the full-length except for once almost 20 years ago I couldn't quite make the connection between the two. But yeah, I really don't think you can find this record on any format anywhere any longer, which is why I'm damn stoked to be holding my sweet baby lovingly in my arms once again. Amazing, and downright ridonkulous, to have so much bleedin' vinyl in my house that one can go MIA like that for years. And here I've told everyone that I've searched positively everywhere that could be searched before I set loose my minions friends scouting the globe for any sign of proof of its existence. What a revolting development. But it's a relief to know that I didn't actually fabricate the entire thing in my head. See, people? I'm not a loon. I can prove it. See "Exhibit A".

I may try and put some files of this up on the blog in the upcoming week, once I burn the tracks individually for faster downloading. That is anyone's interested. Anyone? Aaaaanyone? It's pretty damn funky!

Bear Porn

ABBA-Dabba-Doo

Alright, call me callous, but I'd be lying if I said that this didn't put a big stoopid smile on my face this morning.

SURGEON GENERAL WARNING: Any white people attempting to achieve the "Soul Train Line" concept may lead to disastrous results.

Eulogy For George Bailey

And so Tom's funeral was yesterday. An absolutely astonishing experience to see a church overflowing into the aisles with such a variety of people: Buttoned-down businessman and ladies from his professional career. Long-haired dreadlocked musicians that he's played with over the years. Leather-clad biker friends that he made when DC3 regularly performed at the biker bar down by the beach. Courageous recovering drug addicts in which Tom helped sponsor (himself a former addict), the members of his church community, and all the people and friends whom he helped to find homes. Including Joe and me. The ones that took him over 4 years to help. And not once, never once did he come close to losing his patience with us.

That's how Tom was. The only thing that was ever on that man's mind was helping people. That, and music. The sheer volume and variety of people who loved him in this town... it truly blew me away. Sometimes you really don't see a person that you think you know completely until you've seen all the people that they've touched over the years all together in one room like that. Their physical presence are like the building blocks to the essence of an intangible man.

And yesterday was the first time I finally cried. I cried for Tom, and even more so for my grandmother. I don't think my body was going to let me get away with keeping it all in another day longer. I let that first single tear slip down my cheek, around my chin, down my throat and over my collarbone, trickle softly between my bosom, across my belly and then down deep into my naval. What a strange sensation. What an incredible relief.

This body, this mind. It's just so tired. I'm so tired right now.

Schedule

Mon 24: 3-cl
Wed 26: 11-6:30
Thur 27: 12:30-7
Fri 28: 10-4:40
Sat 29: 4-cl

Hallelujah By And By

Grandmother's funeral was yesterday. It was nice. Nice as in, no family fighting. Or at least none in front of people, it would appear. The woman who sang at the service did the... uh, how should I put this? Above and beyond the most uninspired version of "I'll Fly Away" I've ever heard in my entire life. And no, that's still not accurate I'm afraid. I mean I have heard bluegrass versions of this old gospel standard that sound like their fiddles are trying to outfly the hellfires of damnation. I've heard gospel choirs perform it with the kind of passion and energy that would put the James Brown church scene in The Blues Brothers woefully to shame. But this. Wow. Picture a soccer mom chirping flatly along to a cassette that sounded suspiciously like calliope music. But you know, my aunt really liked it, and it made her stop crying for a few minutes and happily sing along. And I tend to think that ultimately in the end this is what really matters the most.

Oh yes, and like my Uncle Biscoe's funeral a few years back, the memorial service was conducted by Chesapeake mayor emeritus Sid Oman, who at one point was also one of the rotating members of the Nairobi Trio. Still one of my favorite bands to this day.


And no, he didn't wear the monkey suit this time, I'm afraid.

It's funny, or actually maybe not so funny, how much of my childhood memory I've failed to retain over the years because when Joe asked me what my strongest memory of my grandmother was I was a little alarmed to discover that I couldn't remember anything really specific about my childhood with her. Despite her living next door to us when I was a small child. Despite many vacations and sleepovers with her. Despite how close we've always been.

I have vague recollections of Christmas at her townhouse in Kempsville as a little girl, because she always had the coolest Christmas tree with little electric trains looping around the trunk and those big fat colored lights from the 70's, the kind that could burn down your whole house from the dangerous levels of heat they gave off. They just don't seem to make that kind of oblivious kitsch anymore these days.

For some reason the most enduring memory I have of her took place on May 23rd, 1987 (I know because I looked it up) when I spent the night at her place and we were both lying in her bed watching Saturday Night Live when Dennis Hopper was hosting. I think that he was performing in a skit about a game show called "What's That Smell?" and he was breathing heavily into an oxygen mask and and freaking out during the entire scene. Now at this point neither my grandmother nor I had seen the movie Blue Velvet so we had no idea what Hopper was doing, or that he was even referencing the movie ("What the hell is he breathing in that thing?") so the entire skit was not only lost on us completely but became one of the strangest "WTF" moments the two of us ever shared together (the other being the time we both watched k.d. lang make her debut performance on Hee Haw and my gran was convinced that it was actor Sean Penn in a dress). Ironically the music guest on SNL that night was also Roy Orbison, whom my grandmother loved, and as the generation divide closed neatly between us we both got to enjoy his performances together, and it was pretty swell.

R.I.P. Grandma. Like my last words to you before you passed; I love you.

Breakfast On Pluto

I said I'd do it yesterday, and by crikey I did; my whole damn hold bin came home with me after all. Please join me in welcoming the newest additions to my craptastic family 'o crap that I still don't have any room for despite my big honkin' new house:

Let's meet our first used CD! :::"Spanish Flea" plays:::



Ghostface Killah, Fishscale is his latest release which features guests like Raekwon, Capadonna, and current R&B crooner Ne-Yo, among others. Only heard snips of this on the LVS at work as well as having "Back Like That" played in regular rotation in the store and I'm really liking what I hear. Some righteous funk potential in these beat snips. And the line "Rippin' out your guts like a hysterectomy" definitely needs to be crocheted on my next tea cozy.


I know it's been out forever now (and in my mindset these days a year IS forever) but I've been waiting for a used copy of Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall to float in, and then thank Tracy profusely for pouncing on it as soon as she saw it and stashed it for me. This of course is the long-lost 1957 benefit concert recording discovered in an unmarked box in the Library of Congress last year, and since Monk and Coltrane supposedly never recorded a live album together (I think they did do one or two studio tracks with each other) this got bumped to the top of nearly every jazz hound's wish list in 2005. And boy, looking at the promo poster for this benefit gig (performances by Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Ray Charles, and Chet Baker with the Zoot Sims Quartet) I think we need to go digging around in those unmarked boxes again and find this whole gosh-darn show!

Now on to the used DVDs. Got the first season of Wonder Showzen...


I don't get MTV2 so I've never actually seen this program, but damn if I haven't been reading enough about it as of late. A twisted parody of Sesame Street with puppets interacting with live children, ripping both into the current sorry state of children's programming as well as satirizing what we today are really teaching our kids out there. In between the "educational" matter are other strange skits and amazingly Dadaist moments (I hear the Easter eggs on this disk are full of them) and funny interactions with children doing their own live reporting on the streets. I think I may have bought this alone for the article I read in a recent EW about a little boy dressed as Hitler interviewing a man in a cowboy hat and asking "Whose hat is more repressive? Yours or mine?" Only a child could get away with asking something like that these days (or, er, can they?).


Next up I nabbed Crazy Love, the 1987 cult classic based on two of Charles Bukowski's short stories, and like many of Bukowski's work more than just a little autobiographical. Also the debut film of Everybody's Famous director Dominique Deruddere, this film apparently just sorta came and went during it's initial release, even though filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, actor Sean Penn, and pop singer Madonna have been talking about this film for years and trying to stir up more mainstream buzz. Though I suppose like everything else about Bukowski subject matter such as this will never catch on with the unwashed masses, although personally it's those very unwashed masses I think it should relate to. Since when did Bukowski get co-oped by the intellectually pretentious gallery-opening cheese-eating types? Would somebody like Bukowski even be invited to their Hamptons home soiree in his own honor? Okay I'm veering off track here... what else did I get again.... shitshitshit...


Ah yes, Satan Was A Lady. Hells yeah. Doris Wishman. Double H-E-double-hockey-sticks yeah. Not much else to say about that, except that the girl in this movie is bound to have some pretty impressive ta-tas. Such is the standard that the formidable Ms. Wishman meets, and oftentimes exceeds.

Let Us Compare Mythologies

Mike's been over the past few nights. It's been nice having his company. Of course all three of us are sort of going through the grieving process together, concerning Tom and all. Mike is always a riot, as anyone who knows Mike knows, and going out to dinner always involves our usual music-geek games of guessing which 90's era bland-rock artist will pop up on the satellite radio station playing in the Ruby Tuesday's dining room during our meal; Black Crowes? Counting Crows? (and why do they both spell "crows" differently?) Sheryl Crow? Anything with the name Crow in it? Mike keeps swearing that the day he hears a Heavy D & the Boyz song in one of these places he's buying my entire dinner. But I am an infinitely patient woman. I can wait.

Most of my grieving for Grandma however has been in private, alone in my room, quietly reading old comic books until I fall asleep in bed. Not quite how I dealt with the grief of losing my Nana back in 1991 where I stayed in my room blasting Sonic Youth albums as loud as I could. I think it's just the double-whammy deaths over the past week that I guess have sort of rendered me numb, maybe. I mean I hate to say it, but I didn't think Tom's prognosis ever looked promising. Not optimistic, no, but realistic -- and being realistic helped me brace myself for what I was prepared for as the sadly inevitable.

But my grandmother was a surprise. Well, mostly. She had just gone into the hospital for some fairly routine checks on some breathing problems that she had shortly after her birthday a few weeks ago and they had scheduled to release her the next day until she suddenly became very nauseous and they rushed her back in for more tests. They had thinned her blood during the tests and as they began to inject the plasma back into her she started having a bad reaction to it and they whisked her in ICU for a period.

Then everything becomes sketchy. She contacts pneumonia. She can't breathe. Her lifesigns are faint. One doctor calls and advises us to gather the family for the possible passing, while another doctor insists that it's too early to tell -- that she could pull through in the next 24 hours. There were even discussions of detecting shadows in the X-rays of her liver, indicating possible cancerous growth. But in a few hours she was gone. Passed in her sleep, they say. But then again all doctors tell families that their loved ones pass peaceably in their sleep, don't they?

I was actually planning on visiting her this week on my next day off. I couldn't make it to her birthday but I talked to her on the phone, and I remember in our conversation how she was wailing, "Oh Melissa... I'm soooo oooold!" and I kept jibing her, "Naaah, Grandma. You're not old yet. I'll tell you when you'll start gettin' old." Funny how these would wind up being the last words I ever said to her.

Meanwhile I've been knuckling down in housework to keep my hands busy, but I've been deeply distracted at the record store for about two weeks. I've been stress-eating like a weight-lifter and my damn period can't decide whether it's coming or going. And it's two weeks early as it is.

I'm sorry, if anybody actually still reads this, for the erratic posts and everything. Once this week is over and Tom's and Grandma's funerals are over I hope to get back on the stick again and return as another semi-productive member of society. Today I may go out to my store and buy a few things I have stashed away, because I am in serious need of some comfort purchases. And maybe go on a gynormous power-walk around da hood and and get some fruit from the salad bar across the street. I've nearly gone up one pants size in the last few weeks. Shit. I hope I can still fit into my suit for the funerals this week.

Oh, and do me a big fav, you guys? Don't die on me right now, 'k? Really. Cuz I like you all too much to see you go so soon.

On Second Thought...

So I just called my parents. And my grandmother died last night.

Fuck.

Anyway, Onward

First 20 tracks on my iPod shuffle today while cleaning windows on an indescribably beautiful Easter morning...

1. "Pregnant Pussy" - UGK
2. "Shapes Of Things" - The Yardbirds
3. "Arabesque Cookie" - Duke Ellington
4. "Get Him Back" - Fiona Apple
5. "Cicatriz E.S.P." - The Mars Volta
6. "Long White Cadillac" - The Blasters
7. "Hombre" - M.I.A.
8. "The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica)" - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
9. "Punk Rock Records" - Zeke
10. "Glad All Over" - The Rezillos
11. "It's Right Here For You" - Mamie Smith
12. "Brother's Gonna Work It Out" - Willie Hutch
13. "Beat Surrender" - The Jam
14. "The James Bond Theme" - John Zorn
15. "Monica" - The Kinks
16. "Friday On My Mind" - Easybeats
17. "Seems Like Forever" - The Cold
18. "The Book Of Love" - The Magnetic Fields
19. "Holy Ghost" - The Bar-Kays
20. "Inca Roads" - Frank Zappa

Locals, concerning Tom's memorial service, the obit from yesterday's paper was incorrect. It's next Sunday at 2pm. Not today.

His viewing was indeed yesterday, though. Joe went, but I couldn't get out of work.

If anybody's interested, here the website for Tom band, DC3. Just a local blues/jazz cover band in which Tom played bass, but he truly thoroughly enjoyed every moment that he got to play with them. Oh, and that's our mutual good friend Mike there on the drums in those photos. They've been playing in bands together for years.

Joe wrote a little something about Tom in his blog the other day.

I keep picturing Tom back at the closing of my new house. The man nearly did a victory lap around the boardroom table after everything was done, he was so overjoyed. You gotta understand, this man's been trying to find me a house for over 4 years. Just to put that into perspective, he's been working with me since I worked at Ticketmaster. Anyways, he embraced me hard and whispered how happy he was for me. That was the last time I ever saw him.

But I think for me my most favored memory of Tom will be this one day in particular.

God, how I miss him already.

Schedule

Sun 16: 11-5:30
Mon 17: 11-5:30
Wed 19: 12-6:30
Thur 20: 2-8:30
Fri 21: 11-7:30

Sirens

Tom came out of his coma today. A short time later he passed away.

I think I may need to take some time off away from this place. I don't know yet. I probably won't really have anything worthwhile to say for awhile anyway.

Stay Awake

Aside from turning my home into a meth lab, does anybody know of any other caffeine-like substitutes I can take that can keep me alert during the day? I feel like I have to have a big bucket 'o coffee right before work in order to keep me scurrying through that habitrail of a record store for 8 hours every day, but caffeine being an appetite stimulant makes me famished throughout the day and that's a big of part of what's wrecking my diet. I don't drink sodas, and I love tea but it tends to make me more sleepy than wired. And again, still makes me so blessed hungry.

I'm kinda hoping for something that's a bit more organic than popping No-Doz. But I suppose if such a coffee-substitute already existed then there'd be millions of yuppie Starbuck-y stands on every street corner/Barnes & Noble right now injecting it straight into the capillaries under our eyelids. And fifty cent for extra soy, I'm sure.

Hold Me While I'm Naked

Now that I've achieved my moving goal for 2006 (and bloody damn glad I knocked it out of the way early in the year) I need to start focusing again on getting my life back the way it was, regaining some lost control and knuckling down on all the little so-called life improvement projects I had drawn up back in January before everything went to heck. Not to say that it hasn't been a right pleasurable month or so of acclimating to my new space by not stressing out more than necessary and just taking a minor mental and physical sabbatical from my typical routine. But things must return to proper order sooner or later, and I prefer to get the jump on it Sooner because if there is one thing I can't stand it's having to worry about Later. Plus I need to find a way to get my mind off of Tom in the hospital, whose prognosis hasn't changed from last I heard.

I think my next step is to get back to working on the body once more, as my diet has been in the proverbial toilet since I moved having not had the time to count points nor the dinero to shell out for decent meals. It's been both a blessing and a curse to have a grocery store directly across the street for me to walk to every day, but I'm sad to say that as a result I've been eating willy-nilly and haven't been to WW in three weeks, mostly because I'm horrified to get weighed in and see just how much I've packed on over the last month since I moved. The thing about losing weight for so long is that when you put on anything, even a mere 5 pounds, you can feel it on every square inch of your body, and I'm more than certain I've packed on considerably more than 5 pounds as I am sitting here right now with the waistline of my blue jeans cutting a nice red equator into my gut. And these babies used to absolutely haaaang offa my fat ass. Makes me a little sad, because less than two months ago I was a mere 15 pounds away from my goal and now Jeebus knows where I am now and I'm too chickenshit to find out. I just need to get past the initial hurdle of the dreaded First Week where I need to put myself back in the mindframe and structure that I had been in to get the ball rolling again. It helps that I'm getting Joe to come walking with me every morning, and we're both pretty excited about our community pool (just over the fence of our back yard) opening up this summer. Joe wants to get back in shape to play basketball again but he has a tricky knee that he needs to work out first and I think walking followed by some swimming exercises will strengthen him up to regain some of that agility without putting too much pressure on the joint.

On top of all this I need to make another appointment with my doc to get the wheels in motion for my breast reduction surgery, something else I'd like to accomplish this year if at all possible. It's been almost a year since I consulted with the surgeon and technically that's about what it requires for me to qualify to get my insurance to agree. Not to mention me having lost 140 pounds over the last 3 years. Cripes, what else do they want me to do? I'm running out of flaming hoops to jump through here.

But you know, over the past year or so I've come to the startling realization that, despite my obvious flaws, I'm pretty happy with my self image these days. No, I'm certainly not the most beautiful creature, but I've come to terms with that ages ago and like any of us I just try to make the best with what I have. And although shedding weight over the years has vastly improved my health its taken its toll on me aesthetically, with my entire body from the neck down a wretched bag of loose skin, stretch marks, and boobs down to the ankles. But you know, I'm actually fine with that. Boobs, feh. All I care about is taking weight off my chest so I can sleep a full night without having to toss them over my shoulder ever time I roll over. Believe me sisters, when you've been a D+ cup since you were 13 years old the novelty wears off pretty darn fast. And as for the rest of my body in this stage of my life I'll take function over form whenever I can get it. I may not turn gentlemen's heads, but I betcha I can outrun them with my admittedly impressive new thigh muscles most days o' the week. And can I get a holla for going from 18mgs of Avandia a day to a puny 4 in less than 2 years? I think I haven't done myself too shabby.

The reason why I'm posting all this unnecessary and, er, rather graphic information is because I need a tangible marking point to get started again, as well as more than a little self-encouragement. Getting back on track may be an ounce of prevention, but anyone who's tried to do it knows it takes more than an ounce of determination. Wish me luck.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think my steamed broccoli breakfast is about ready.

Grand Gestures

How can it be that realizing how good you have it can be one of the worst feelings in the world?

Yesterday I learned that my friend and long-time realtor Tom is in the hospital in a coma after choking and collapsing in his office. Today at work I wait for another friend of mine to arrive so I can give her the news about Tom, only to find myself comforting her as soon as she walked through the door because two minutes before she just found out that her sister is dying of cancer.

Every single one of my friends is going through some of the hardest situations in their lives at this moment. Some of it is financial. Many are going through devastating relationship problems. Others, it's their health. And several of my family these days have seen sunnier days in that department as well.

Is it revolting of me to say that I feel horribly guilty for having so many positive things in my life right at this moment? That despite some of my own financial issues and some general stress-related issues following my new move, my life isn't all that bad in comparison?

If it is, don't be bashful about telling me. I've been trying to sort out these feelings for months and I can really use the refreshingly bracing slap in the face of truth right about now.

The guilt comes from feeling helpless. Wishing so hard to possess the ability to just wave my hands over my friends and make their pains and heartaches go away. I mentioned some time ago that I have developed a hypersensitivily to suffering on television and film. But that sensitivity stems mostly from the pain I feel witnessing the suffering of real people in their everyday lives. Sometimes I am just so overwhelmed with the heady desire to soak up and absorb all the pain and unhappiness and suffering of all these people just so that they wouldn't have to suffer another minute more. Shit. Not like there aren't enough annoyingly Christlike wannabees out there martyring themselves really just to alleviate their own suffering. Is there really such a thing as true altruism, when you're giving yourself selflessly to others only because it really makes you feel better, more so than anyone else?

Does that make me appallingly selfish?

Right this minute all I want to do is gather all my friends and hold them as close as possible. I want to kiss every last one of their faces and crush them to me tightly and tell them how much I wish I could be so much more help to them. Blast my fucking shyness. If I wasn't such a social wallflower I could do so much more. Tell them how much I care. Make so much more of a difference than just crying at my keyboard while blogging. Fucking blogging. What good has that ever done anyone?

I'm just so sorry, you guys. Every last one of you out there.

I just love you.

Follow The Sun

Gene Pitney
1941-2006

Funny How I had never even heard of you until around the mid 80's after seeing Cyndi Lauper live during her She's So Unusual tour and she mentioned on stage that she was heavily influenced by your voice. My father was sitting next to me at the time and he leaned over and bubbled enthusiastically over his own love for Pitney at the mention of his name, and the next day he drove me out to a tiny local record store that I had never heard of but was a secret hot-spot for audiophiles in the area (Frankie's Got It, R.I.P.) and bought me one of your greatest hits LPs. Dad couldn't stop singing "(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance " happily all the way home at day.

If anything, you remind me of those long ago days as a child when record shopping with my father was a regular Saturday afternoon standing order, and how much he helped to encourage my passions at such an early age (which he probably somewhat regrets to this day). Just hearing "Town Without Pity" in my head right now swings me right back to the memory of being a teenage girl sitting on my bedroom floor tracing my finger around the outline of your freaky-weird perfectly lacquered haircut.

At least you passed with some apparent peace after an exhilarating live performance.

May you be more than half in Heaven...

Schedule

Thur 6: 10-5:30
Fri 7: 12-7:30
Sat 8: 11-7:30
Mon 10: 4-cl
Tue 11: 12-7:30
Wed 12: 12-7:30
Thur 13: 12-7:30
Sat 15: 2-10

Joe is in the other room watching our favorite romantic movie, Map Of The Human Heart, which I haven't watched in years only because I bawl like baby every damn time I see it. So I'm in the next room typing out my schedule here in the bloggy and right at the end of the movie I can hear that familiar Gabriel Yared score swell, that music which has actually scored itself into my soul all these years of knowing that movie by heart, and picturing Avik's frozen body beneath the glacier...

And here come the waterworks. Dadblastit.

Every damn time.

Little Stabs At Happiness

As of last month's issue, Terry Moore's Strangers In Paradise will be counting down the final 10 issues on the cover art of each issue being released within the next ten months.

Damn, y'all. Remember in the old blog when I used to write monthly updates with each issue as they came out? I have no idea why I did that with just this one comic book as opposed to any of the other titles that I regularly follow. Maybe it was its intrinsic soapy style of the storytelling that that made me hunger for it like crack on toast, and although I gradually grew a little (no make that extremely) frustrated with the series over time I still felt compelled to pick it up every month year after year ever since I first read a review for the first issue back in an issue of Subliminal Tattoos around 1993 or so. In fact I have nearly 90% of the first edition comic issues as well as every compilation available.

It's been almost 13 years, hasn't it? Sure he's no Dave Sim (and for the record, Sim actually enjoys SIP) but 13 years drawing and writing and living the same characters over and over takes the kind of stamina that I always admired in cartoonists and strove to achieve in my own serials as a teenager passing my stories around the schoolyard. You grow to believe in your creations, and to treat them like real living human beings. Not to mention a certain godlike empowerment to conjure and manipulate lives, like forming man out of clay, has an intoxicating appeal that's hard to deny.

Should be interesting to see how this all ends.

Who's Chopped & Screwed My Nasty Groove?

Now that I finally have my stereo component CD burner hooked up to my stereo via jerry-rigged into the back of my mixing board into the television and tape deck, I can now burn all sorta weirdness onto CD-R like I pretty much always dreamed I'd do once I moved and got all my shit together again. And that's what the man and I did all afternoon -- going through our old mix cassettes from the 80's, specifically back when we were in college during our 1987-88 freshman year when we first met and started making mixes for one another. I might have some rather... er, creative little chunks 'o hilarity to post over the next few days, since a good deal of what we found or could afford on our starving student budget music-wise came from random flea markets up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, sold by people who probably had no idea what they had laid out on their tables but were only happy to have two rubes like us pack it all in the trunk of my neon green Opel and haul it back to the campus and see just what exactly our hard-earned money divvied out to us by our parents brought us that week. What they don't know, right kids?

And yes, as I pointed out, we were two bored 18-years-old stuck up in the Blue Ridge Mountains with a lot of cash that was no doubt originally meant for such trifles as school books and the occasional groceries. But honestly, who needs Psych 101 and Pop Tarts when you have the Janet Jackson "Nasty" remix single to futz with on the turntable for hours on end? Especially when there is an acapella version on the B-side which, when played at 33 rpms, kept us endlessly entertained in the way of a gut-bustin', knee-slappin', shootin'-Jolt-Cola-outcha-nosies good time. I won't give too much of it away beforehand, but lemme just say that the ladies chorus of "Nas-TEEEEE boys!" at the very end is probably... no, make that most definitely my favorite part of the song.

Please forgive the sound quality. It is a burn of a cassette, which in turn was taped off of a record, that I've had sitting in a box of dust since 1987.

"Nasty" (acapella "sludge" mix 45 rpm played at 33 rpm) - Janet Jackson
(M4a file -- up for 7 days)

This, people, is why I still keep vinyl.

Schedule

Tue 4: 4-cl
Thur 6: 10-5:30
Fri 7: 12-7:30
Sat 8: 11-7:30

April's Fool

Well don't I feel like a total forehead. The jazz number from this week's episode of Lost was "Compared to What" by Les McCann, and I already have that bleedin' song on my Swiss Movement CD with Les McCann and Eddie Harris. No wonder it sounded vaguely familiar.

My ass is ripe for kickin'.