Archive for the ‘creative’ Category

Pet Monsters

Friday, December 11th, 2009

So. . .finals progress.  But not really, because I’ve only had one, and I have four more.   My schedule is sort of loaded toward the end.  Consequently, I’ve been dividing my time between manically studying and just as manically looking for something else to think about.  So I conducted an independent study; a social experiment, you might say.  On Facebook. I asked people what they’d do with a pet monster.  The answers I received led me to the following conclusions:

1. Monsters are no longer valued primarily for their scariness, but for their warm fuzziness.  I believe this conceptualization is a recent evolution, helped along by Pixar, Stephanie Meyer and Sesame Street. . . also, possibly, by my use of the phrase “pet monster”.  It might have been more scientific to say “monster under your control”, I suppose.  Or “monster loyal to you”.  Oh well.

Rowrr!

Rowrr!

2. Boys and girls have very different ideas of what monsters should be good for.  Boys seem to have a more textbook definition; pillage, destroy, stomp and generally make a big mess with.  Girls seem to want monsters to do things for them that we frequently wish our boys would do – but only when we want them to: cuddle, protect, offer back massages and generally be big, fuzzy, warm puppies (who can give massages).  Ludo comes to mind.  So, um. . .I could go into a long and tangled Freudian/Societal analysis that I am entirely unqualified to offer, but I won’t.  I’ll just leave it at a couple of juxtapositions:

monster/stomper.  monster/cuddler.  monster/man. . . let it not be said that women are the only ones battling unrealistic societal expectations. . .

If I had a pet monster

If I had a pet monster
Social research indicates
If I had a pet monster
We would be the very best mates
(girl part)
It would keep me warm with a fuzzy green hug
Play scrabble with me on the living room rug
Walk me to work and keep the rain off my bike
And I’d feed it all the people that I don’t like

If I had a pet monster
We’d be friends, it isn’t Freudian
But If I had a pet monster
It’s true, I might not need a man. . .

(boy part)
Mine would be a bearodactyl
Built to destroy, not as tactile
We’d rule the oceans from our island Ritz
Build Tokyo models and then smash ‘em all to bits

(bridge/both)
He’d give back massages and teach kids french
Make awesome margaritas with a thousand pound bench
Be my trick or treating buddy and my christmas tree
Because Monsters, they can be anything

If I had a pet monster
it would be the kind with dragon wings
If I had a pet monster
He’d also help me with budgeting
Because the greatest thing about monsters, yeah

greatest thing about monsters
Is that monsters, they can be anything

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Top 10 best and worst of Christmas

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

In order to channel my stress over finals, I’ve been thinking more and more about Christmas; facilitated, of course, by mainstream media and internet pop-ups.  This is actually a re-working of a list I made four years ago. . .in what feels like another lifetime (for one thing, the blog was on Myspace. I mean. . .myspace! ) Many changes have happened since then, but my general reactions to Christmas appear to have remained the same. I have updated a couple of them – having moved to the Bible Belt, I have a few additions to the first list in particular, and I have escaped Lars Larsen’s obnoxious, Portland-centered proclivities.

First, because I can’t be schlocky without qualifiers, we have the top ten most irritating things about the time between Thanksgiving (shit, Halloween, really, but I’m being generous) and January fifth when every one has finally recovered from the hangover and sugar overdose enough to take down their Christmas lights.

Top 10 most annoying things about Christmas

1. Those huge blow-up, lit-up Christmas. . . things. . .people put up in their yards.  You know what I mean?  Like the plastic statues weren’t tacky enough. Now we have fifteen foot high Frosty the Snowman glowing amiably from with in and moving with the breeze.  One of these nights the hick in me is going to do a drive through of North Bend with a beebee gun and take out every one of those mother-f#ckers.

2. The Music.  The same ten songs on every radio station, in every supermarket, department store, coffee shop and medicare office twenty four hours a day. MAKE IT STOP! I would like to point out that J&S has not sold out and written a holiday song, in spite of the fact that all the promotion “how-to’s” say it’s a good idea. You’re welcome.

3. The assumption that everyone is celebrating for the same reason. With my agreements and disagreements with the church, I still do celebrate Dec. 25th as the birthday of a revolutionary egalitarian charismatic leader who worked to change the world. However.  I get that not everybody else is in the same boat.

4. Four years ago, I followed the previous item with a little rant about Portland’s own frightening fundamentalist and his fifty foot cross erected in Pioneer Square. This year I will content myself with the fact that Atlanta doesn’t seem to have much controversy in this area; we have accepted that the Coca-Cola Santa is the reason for the season and left it at that.

5. Plastic greenery. Decorating mailboxes. Really? I mean. . .really?

6.  The cross country flight in the worst weather possible, full of delays, screaming babies, stressed out parents and horrifically overpriced peanuts.

7. Shopping.  I hate shopping.  I like getting cool things for people, but I don’t like the stores and the crowds.  Of course, I can’t be bothered to order on line because I prefer instant gratification, and I don’t go early because I have a problem with procrastination – so maybe I should just suck it up.

8. Ok, major Scrooge moment.  The constant group activities.  I get five days with my family.  During which we will cram as many events in as possible, making it very difficult to put in any quality personal time. It’s inevitable, if you only get to see each other once a year.  And just as that is inevitable, so is my resounding, hermitic, bah-humbug.

9. The crap I get from my family for my bah-humbugs.

10. Hangovers.christmas-card

Top Ten best things about Christmas.
1. Shore Acres.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, risk the drive and visit Coos Bay, OR between Thanksgiving and New Years. It’s like fairy land with an ocean, and it’s full of happy people, and there’s cider, and singing, and little kids in ridiculous christmas outfits, and nauseatingly cute couples making out on the cliffs and the bridge.  (They’re only nauseating because you’re jealous.  Suck it up.)  Recently made famous on Good Morning America!

2. Little kids in ridiculous Christmas outfits.  Love them.  A-freaking-dorable.

3. The Christmas pageant at church.  Possibly has something to do with #2, and my fascination with live sheep.  . . (I  am from North Bend)

4.  The Christmas tree.  Specifically, the smell of the Christmas tree.  I also like the origins and the idea of renewal and the memories attached to the decorations all that good stuff, but really, I like the smell.

5. North Bend in the rain.  Gorgeous, powerful, windy beach and dark, dark green that shines in the wet.  Quiet, slow moving and nearly unchanged since I left almost seven years ago.  Along with the people who are still here, or just back to visit.

6. The drive down with Kate.  The traffic sucks, but we talk the whole way, and stop at Tomaselli’s and get yummy pastries and gab with Marty and leave with a gift of a brandy fruit cake from Marty to Mom and Dad. “Don’t eat it on the way – not good for driving.”

7. The presents.  There it is. I like presents. No, I love presents.

8. My family.  All, or nearly all of them in one place.  Drinking, talking, mocking, eating, cooking, arguing, tackling, tickling, and trying to get as much of each other as we can against the long year in between.

9.  The shit I get from my family for my bah-humbugs.

10. The part before the hangover.

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Creative Blip!

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Hi all, sorry it’s been so quiet recently. There’s been lots doings. There’s a list somewhere if you scroll down. The important thing is that somewhere, in the midst of the madness, I got another song idea! Usual disclaimer: you may never hear about this again (though I suspect it will actually surface as a real song). . . etc. etc.  I will also freely admit that this is somewhat hypocritical – I’m definitely a fair weather biker.  When it rains, or if I have to go somewhere at night, I still puss out and drive.
This one’s for Laura and Anna. . . and everybody else who braves commuting without a car.

Riding in Atlanta

My favorite sign ever.

My favorite sign ever.

Please don’t shoot me, I am not a stop sign
Please don’t hit me, I am not a traffic cone
I swear I’m not a symbol of the
Radical Leftist Conspiracy
I’m just pedalin’, trying to get home

I’m riding in Atlanta
Daringly dodging death
I pray St. Christopher and my tail light
Will protect me
Till I reach the PATH

The phrase “speed hump” don’t refer to something dirty
And blinkers should be used; they’re for signalin’
The air I’m sucking in
Could be used to plug the ozone hole
But I love the rush, no traffic’s gonna keep me in

(Bridge)
There’s parts of this city too pretty for words
But the potholes could swallow up elephant herds
Marta is trying but nobody rides it
Each day to the gridlocked up freeway they hi it
Like addicts to needles, one driver, four empty seats
Then bitch about traffic and parking defeats.

I’m riding in Atlanta
Daringly dodging death
I pray St. Christopher and my tail light
Will protect me
Till I reach the PATH

Yes, I’m riding in Atlanta
Waving as you pass
And I might be a symbol of some
Radical Leftist Conspiracy
Tell me if you want to join, we save on gas.

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Open Mics

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

The first blog I made for this band was titled “The Life at the Open Mic - buying your own beer to play” or something like that;  in ancient times when Myspace was king and I had to spend half of my time on there weeding prostitutes and missionaries off of our friends list. (I don’t know why they love us so.   Must be the music. . . )  A more innocent time, when you didn’t have to upload a student I.D. with a horrific photo in order to put your music on line, but could feel free to plagiarize with impunity.  (is that redundant?   I just wanted to use the word “impunity”. )  Anyway.  Now days we play shows where we actually get a tab at the bar, and sometimes we even get paid. (subliminal message: Java Monkey this Friday!!)  But we still hit open mics  on occasion to try out new things and meet new people and be reminded of how much talent there is in the area.

So last night we played at Eddie’s Attic, which holds an open mic that has managed to become acclaimed across the country.  Serious – five years ago when I googled “open mic”  having never been to Decatur, and knowing Scott and Pogo only as dim  figures in the mist and mud of the dog park, the first ten or so hits were about Eddie’s Attic.  It’s so popular you usually have to sign up months in advance, and call in and confirm that you’re coming that day.  It’s still open – anybody can play, as long as they can do long term planning – but it always winds up being stacked with good musicians.  It’s also a competition, which I don’t love (probably because we never win, if I’m honest), but that seems to contribute to the level of talent that shows up there.  Plus there’s Eddie himself, who is extremely charismatic. . . anyway.  You can read all the fabulous things about the Attic on their webpage – this blog is actually meant to be about a comment a friend made last night.  He pointed out that Open Mics are really basically group therapy for musicians.

I will never attend another open mic without this concept filtering everything I see and hear, because he’s dead right.  The highlight for me yesterday was a song called “Rockstars Don’t Fall in Love”, a song that’s been waiting to be written for decades, I think, by a chick named Marina.  It was hard to hear the names of artists over the applause, but there was another guy channeling Bob Dylan – not so awesome voice, very passionate, good guitar player, really good harmonica, who stayed with you long after he stepped down, because he wrote and extremely disturbing song about shooting a president. There was the usual over abundance of “I love you, you left me, why oh why?” songs.  Therapy or not, I’ve become quite jaded about those. Usually there’s a reason, Sport.   It’s at the point now where now I try to figure it out.  I sit up in the audience and make up scenarios for what kind of a jackass that guy could be.  And yes, it’s always guys – not because I’m sexist (though I am, a little bit), but because the girls that sing that theme always know why, and they’re usually quite clear about it in the song.  It’s usually the guys who can’t possibly imagine that there could be a flaw in their character that would send their beloved away.  Analyze that, it you like.

Anyway.  Last night was great fun, and I thank Jeff for the insight.  Onward to Friday, July 3rd, at Java Monkey!

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Prayer (take this, Celine)

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Maybe this will be a song someday. Maybe this is all the light it will ever see. . .

Here I am in urban
where concrete meets the sky
Sweating standing still and
Wondering where the hell am I?
There’s product in my hair and
There are people everywhere
But it’s so hot that I don’t care
I need a Northwest lullabye

I miss trucks, and muddin’
The ocean in the rain
Stale popcorn and hotdogs
At the high school football game
I want the fog and the bonfires
I miss dressing how I please
Where I’m from you could go on date in a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans

Seem to fit in the city
I talk horseshit, and folks believe me
Hummous, tiny cars and too much money
Dear God, take me back to Coos County

. . .

I want to speed through some puddles
Eat fish fresh off the dock
Poke a sea anenome
and climb around on the rocks
Then on my way home, hit Roger’s for a snack
Oh, I never fit when I lived there
But now I want it back

Seem to fit in the city
I talk horseshit, an folks believe me
Hummous, tiny cars and too much money
Dear God, please take me back to Coos County

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Franny

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

Hi all -

Please feel free to explore the new site.  Scott’s been working hard on it, so no interesting corner should go unexplored.  In honor of new site goodness, I have a little splash of lyricism to put out there.  It’s not a song yet, just a possibility. I’m thinking a sort of 1950’s Buddy Holly kind of music.  Who knows?  Anyways. My other disclaimer is that my songs tend to be sort of narcissistic, so the storytelling attempt is new.  Any thoughts would be much appreciated (especially from the writers – things to tighten up?)

Franny
Franny was a go gettin’ girl from the start
She got what she wanted and played from the heart
Nippin’ ma’s homemade brew
She’d go out pick up the crew
Giving the finger to prohibition
They’d pile in the truck to go dance at the mission

Franny, there was nothing that daunted
Franny just went for what she wanted

She got a job as a nurse at the local clinic
Walked by a room with a sick woman in it
Walked by again for the man
Holding his mama’s hand
Bud never had a chance or a hope
His mother got better and Buddy eloped

Oh Franny, there was nothing that daunted
Franny just went for what she wanted

A lie about age is a petty thing
Compared to a man and a wedding ring
Bud went to war and Fran had a baby
He came home alive and they fought like crazy
But loved like hell and when cancer took him
Left a whole mess of grandkids and she kept goin’

Franny, there was nothing that daunted
Franny, she’d just go get what she wanted

I can’t imagine how hard it must be
A soul so strong in such a tired body
God, I know it must make you so angry
And while you beat at the side of the jar
I should tell you that I want to be, so far just like

Franny, cuz there was nothing that daunted
Franny, just went and got what she wanted

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