Schizophrenic Post #1

OK... permit me just one tiny rant about John Kerry and the stupid "backlash" against his remarks about how individuals who don't study hard and do their homework would likely "get stuck in Iraq."

According to one news story: "Aides said the senator had mistakenly dropped one word from his prepared remarks, which was originally written to say 'you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq.' In that context, they said, it was clear Kerry was referring to Bush, not to the troops."

You know what? The bottom line is that the armed forces actively recruit working-class people of color to enlist. No it does not mean these people are stupid, but a vast number of those servicemembers fighting in Iraq are individuals who, as American citizens, are not supported by any Republican policy here on our own soil. A large number of them are stuck in an educational system and class structure that never helps them rise above problems that are perpetuated by right-wingers and old rich white guys.

At least Kerry actually fought in a war. Instead, we get blowhards George W. Bush and Dick Cheney yammering on about what an ass he is. Yes, Kerry may be an ass--or at least arrogant and annoying--but he said something that at least starts to reveal what is so obvious right now about our all-volunteer army.

As Michael Moore already made clear once on film: Hey, Congress! Why aren't your well off, mostly white, kids helping fight the war in Iraq?

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I'd actually intended on posting an entire geek-out tonight, prompted by a question posed to me about when I first "got" Throwing Muses, which, as I have posted, is the band that inspired the name of my blog.

What's funny is that I was thinking of this at 8:30 a.m. today as I woozily left the doctor's office after watching them take what seemed like an insane amount of blood from my veins. Oh, how I love that.

But I remember it clearly: I was in high school and heard snippets of music from the band before, but always thought it was just too chaotic and, as I thought then, atonal. I have always been a fan of female singers who gave off a twin air of toughness and vulnerability--a somewhat mercurial duality. But I just didn't quite wrap my head around Kristin Hersh when I heard some of the Muses' early stuff.

I actually bought The Real Ramona through Columbia House, of all places, as one of my 12 CDs for a penny, based on the tiny little blurb that called it "folksy/moody." Who says I can't be marketed to?

At the time, I was waiting for college acceptance letters, furiously hating high school homework, and just as furiously writing a novel and journal entries late into the night that seemed to be like growing spirals of words that wouldn't resolve themselves.

When I get into writing--really get into it--I seem to create a fever dream for myself. I fixate intently on the words, working out their cadence, their rhythm, their structure. I am aware of putting the sentences and paragraphs together, but it seems to happen without too much conscious thought. The structure just seems to appear, and the idea I am trying to convey gets draped around the structure. I catch myself using a subtle form of repetition in a specific piece. Themes keep reappearing and I only see them later.

Putting on The Real Ramona, there was suddenly this rush of guitar noise that seemed to match the way I saw my own words, which is such a 17-year-old's kind of epiphany. The words, in particular, made me pause: "Counting backwards/I count you in/I don't remember him/I don't remember"; "This woman literally felt she had a hook in her head";"This day is brutal/It wants red/So I got red shoes/Because red becomes you/This red becomes you."

That's when I got it.

I was listening to The Real Ramona at 8:30 this morning, in fact--a bit bloodless and drifting along Sunset Boulevard with the sun rising in the hazy air behind me, feeling like I was 17 again, driving my orange Ford Maverick, trying to decipher a code. And yet I still felt very much 33, embarrassed at remembering what I used to write and how weird and bad it all seems now, yet happy that I can find someone else's own combination of elliptical poetry and odd structural elements so inspiring.

Looking back now, it's not my favorite album by the band. My writing has gotten better (I certainly hope so, at least). I still write a bit in the same fixated way. And there's a lot of music that inspires me, as well as a lot of other individuals' works--visual, sonic, and otherwise. But it's always nice to remember when you "got it."