A Body Is Made to Move

It is, isn't it?

That's what it feels like, at least, as I begin to re-motivate myself physically, since doing so mentally feels a bit too taxing right now. With my body in movement--at the gym, hanging from a trapeze bar, tumbling across a mat--I know exactly who I am in that moment. I feel the endorphins, the fear, the thrill of discovery, the awe that all of my joints, tendons, and muscles can coordinate and tell my brain not to stop, to try it, to just keep moving through the space and trust that I know how to spot the ground.

There are far too many metaphors that hover around this train of thought, and maybe I should pay more attention to them. There's simply something about the air, about the feel of shuddering from exertion, of inducing muscle memory in my nearly 37 year old body. My thoughts may drift to glucosamine now, but this is the closest to living in the past I've come in a long time.

When my parents enrolled me in gymnastics at the age of 8, their motivation was likely to get me out of the house and blow off some of the proverbial steam. I was already practicing my own form of tumbling in the neighbor's yard, after all--convinced somehow that the laws of physics did not have to apply to me. I was taken to Peninsula Park in North Portland to a gymnastics class...where I was the only boy in a rickety old gymnasium overrun by girls in leotards who could execute moves that I'd only seen on TV. Even in this rundown working-class neighborhood, there was an effortless grace and athleticism on display that I found alluring. Maybe this was a world I could live in that felt OK? Maybe this would be a bubble in which I could do what I wanted?

Because I was the only boy at the gym, however, it meant that I competed on "girls' apparatus," so I dutifully learned how to vault, how to maneuver on the uneven bars, how to keep my steadiness on the beam when I cartwheeled, and I quickly adapted. No one batted an eye or ever made a comment. I was simply encouraged to keep going, to keep trying, to push my body into the air, on to the ground, and over obstacles. All I knew is that I wanted to learn a double back somersault in the air and how to actually execute twisting motions while upside down.

I gave up the gymnastics bubble by the time I was 13. My body didn't seem to want it anymore. My mind certainly didn't (puberty can be so fun). The money also wasn't there to keep sending me to the Oregon Gymnastics Academy, which was so far away from home--and where I couldn't seem to learn all the men's apparatus; I was seen as a boy who could execute a perfect back handspring but had no concept of what the hell a pommel horse was. I didn't have the discipline and the right frame of mind. And the encouragement I had gotten from that rag-tag room of girls and my female coach in North Portland was gone.

Tumbling--what I always loved most--would still rear its head over the next few years, however: at friends' summer parties; in college on the lawn after I'd had a couple of drinks (always a good idea); every once in a while until my mid-20s, when I became too scared to do it--when I no longer trusted my body and became afraid of physics.

And yet here I am quickly approaching 37--two years into working out on the trapeze and silks and reacquainting myself with what it feel like to hurtle my body through the air in acrobatics classes.

Why? Why not?

I am not so lithe anymore. Nor as light. My body doesn't feel rubbery and unbreakable. I count my blessings that the only thing I've ever broken was a pinkie. And yet I stare down a mat once a week with a new teacher speaking to me, telling me how to launch myself into a no-handed cartwheel (or side aerial, if you will); how to achieve a bounce off a round-off back handspring; when to think about opening my body from a front pike off a mini trampoline. Only a month into this routine, my body remembers 1981. It sets me up exactly like it did when I was 8, whether I can now complete the motion or not. And it thrills me. Still. I once again don't want the laws of physics to apply to me. But I know now why I do it. Not because I used to and I have to prove I still can. It simply makes me happy. Or high. Or both. It hardly matters when you are above the ground looking to stick the landing.

OK, I Think I Am Ready to Have My Mind Blown

I have never been to Asia, but in 10 days I will be there, likely in awe, with a bit of exhilaration and confusion thrown into the mix. I am alternating between feeling totally ready to be surprised and the lingering thought that I'll just be overwhelmed.

The long haul flight starts in L.A. and lands me in Seoul, South Korea, for a few hours before I transfer to Shanghai (top photo above) for my friend Steve's 40th birthday celebration. After 5 days there, I fly back through Seoul to Tokyo (below photo) for a week, where I will see my friend Nate, who is now living there. I've been talking about this trip since last year. And suddenly it's the end of April and I need to pack and figure out last-minute details before heading to the airport.

I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to do this right now. I promised myself a few years ago that I would do one major trip a year as long as I had the money to make it happen. It's not every day that your friends celebrate 40th birthdays in distant cities or happen to live in one you have always wanted to see, so it's best to take advantage, right? Most definitely.

Contrary to some people's thoughts, I am not exactly the best traveler. Oh sure, I appreciate wherever I go. I am open to simply wandering and finding my way around and being surprised by what is shown to me and what I discover alone. Yet I have a tendency to get a bit stressed out about it all. I always relax once I get to where I need to be, but the transit part tends to make me feel a bit crazy. A control issue, to be sure.

Right now, however, it feels very much like I need to be kicked in the ass. I need the utter surprise of being somewhere almost completely alien. I likely need the shock of very different cultures. When it comes down to it--underneath the planning and the nervousness about the small "what if"s--I know that I need to be taken out of my head, my element, my routine.

To that end, I say "bring it." Show me something new. Show me something I may not be able to see again. There are many reasons to travel. And those are what I will keep in mind when figuring out subway maps or street names. Sometimes you just need to get lost.

Self-Discography #14 "Troy" by Sinead O'Connor

Places to listen to this song as a teenager:

--In your old, breaking-down car, driving as fast as possible in the middle of the night when you can't sleep, on a car stereo that crackles whenever the strings surge.

--On a darkened playground in the stifling heat of a summer night with no wind, with your Walkman's volume cranked so loud it may do permanent damage to your ears.

--Walking around downtown Portland after school in the rain, sun, or wind, feeling melodramatic and self-pitying.

Perhaps my first experience of musical catharsis, "Troy," ostensibly, shouldn't have had much to do with me. It's a song--built from quiet whispers to full-throttled screaming--about a relationship between a man and a woman (or a boy and a girl). Yet it is also a song about youth, memory, loss, and hatred (both projected outward and internalized). It made me wish I was truly brash, maybe even violent--that I could lash out and finally, physically, express everything that felt so crammed and twisted into my head.

To be aware of all of that at 16 going on 17 ... well, I suppose that's something to look back on and in which to take some pride. What's more difficult to feel is the memory of the pain I was obviously in and how it was brought to the surface when I heard this; it reminds me every single time I listen to it, even now when I can actually appreciate its musicality, vocal prowess, and emotional power.

At the time I discovered this song, I was in the midst of figuring out if I could legally emancipate myself from my mother. I was still mourning my father. I was working so hard that I was up til 2 a.m. or later every night to ensure I saved money and got the best grades to get as many scholarships as possible so I could get the hell out of Portland and go far away for college. I was anguished over the fact that one of my best friends in school was a girl whom I also called my girlfriend (and thus confused her and myself even more). I was bubbling with the fear of actually being gay (since you, know, in the late '80s, being gay meant you had sex and died soon thereafter). And what all added up to was that I was very, very angry--with no way to express it.

"I remember it. Every restless night. We were so young then we thought that everything we could possibly do was right...I wondered where you went to. Tell me, when did the light die?"

The words are whispered into the microphone in the beginning of the song, sounding like something that should be uttered only when you are in your 40s, not when you are this young. But wasn't "every restless night" right now? I was acutely aware that I was not acting my age. I was an old man already, looking back over only a few years of my life like decades had passed. Where was my childhood? Where was this time where I was supposed to, supposedly, feel carefree?

By the time the full orchestra kicks in and it ratchets up the drama, O'Connor's voice borders on unhinged. It's a transcendent moment of defiance and bitterness. It was also what I desperately wished I could do with everything sitting inside of me--scream it out and make it stab at someone else, as if to say "This is all YOUR fault."

"There is no other Troy for me to burn. You should have left a light on, then I wouldn't have tried and you'd never have known...Oh but I know you wanted me to be there, ohhh...Every look that you threw told me so. But you should've left a light on. And the flames burned away, but you're still spitting fire. Makes no difference what you say, you're still a liar."

In my listening, I was the liar. Me. No one else. No "partner." No guilty accomplice. I couldn't make anyone else hurt instead of me. I had only one choice: Say something.

It didn't happen that quickly. I was exceedingly hard on myself for many years, never thinking that I was actually expressing myself well or authentically, fearful of what someone else might say about who I was or the mistakes I made. Now, of course, it seems like a necessary part of being 16 going on 17. It's not unusual to feel like your head cannot handle all of the thoughts inside of it. It's certainly not rare for teenagers to struggle with their sexual orientation. Luckily, I had the tenacity to wait out my own melodrama (not to mention a handful of awesome friends who patiently waited for me to catch up with myself).

I've made jokes over the last 20 years with a few friends that "Troy" should be a song performed by an ice-skater. Can you imagine? I still secretly dream of someone choreographing all six and a half minutes and doing it--and acute adolescent angst--justice.

Change? I Got Your Change.

I had about, oh, 15 different ideas for a blog post. Something about current events, my eyes glossing over from watching the Olympics, the weird insanity of hosting a garage sale for the first time as an adult. But then I stumbled across an old journal of mine from 1993 as I was packing boxes and I found myself intoxicated by the sheer horror of reminding myself what it was like in my mind 17 years ago.

As time seems to speed up the older I get (my mother was right!), I actually don't take much time to look back anymore. I am not that nostalgic. I am more than happy that I am not that awkward, fey kid who was busy getting harassed and thinking that there was not much chance of being authentically happy. I am not even particularly nostalgic for pop culture moments from my youth, save some of the music.

Young adulthood, however, was somehow different in my mind. I would pine for it occasionally, remembering the feeling of freedom I would get at moments in college, the feeling of my mind opening up, the sense that I was searching for what mattered to me.

Re-reading parts of my life as I narrated them in this particular journal in my hands, I had to rethink that view of my life then. My life on these college-ruled, spiral-bound pages was small, intense, and, too often, sad. I didn't seem to record anything but that which freaked me out, made me self-hating, unsure, nervous, and despondent. Looking at this portrait of myself in 1993, I marveled at the fact that I was still alive. There was nothing positive in the way I told my own story. Nothing at all. I was sad for myself.

In a way, of course, it was all fiction. There were good people in my life--friends and teachers who wanted me to succeed. So why couldn't I believe it? Well, that, in itself, is a boring book I will not ask you to read (now). But in that moment of realization was the calming flood of thinking that everything happening right now, in 2010, was so far removed from what was scrawled across those notebooks.

I, and many people I know right now, are in the midst of a huge amount of change. I am up to seven friends who have, are, or will be leaving Los Angeles to move elsewhere. Some of us have new jobs. Some of us have lost them. We are moving, making plans, being forced to reassess our lives. In so many ways, it's exactly what we wanted. 2009 felt like a year of being held hostage, of hedging bets, of being afraid to do anything. It seems to make sense that now the energy would be propelled forward. The tangents its taken in all of our lives has been something to behold, even when I am not necessarily happy about where it takes some of us.

To be sure, it's not all "positive." I have just as often been confronted with friends who are losing loved ones, of my own family in flux, of uncertainty surrounding what comes next. I still find myself nervous and anxious here and there. But it's not 1993. I am so much more mentally equipped to deal with all of it. I am, simply, so much happier. With me. With everything. In fact, the challenge right now of figuring out what I will do next--of watching my friends do the same--is something I embrace. I shy away from it some weeks. I sidestep it some days. But then, when I roll up my sleeves to sit down and take action, I feel like it's good work. It's honest. It's meant to be.

I will remind myself of that in the coming weeks and months, as I pack up my current life in boxes to move it across town. As I learn how to garden in my new yard. As I say goodbye to more friends. As I help others figure out what's next for them. Perhaps instead of throwing away those painful slices of my past self, I should simply keep them in better eyesight.

What Can I Tell You?

A month goes by. A new year materializes. I apparently have very little to say or share. I think my brain shut off for a while.

And because my brain now compartmentalizes thoughts, here's my recap of everything that's happened over the last month

--Anxiously getting ready for xmas. Ran to the Paul Smith store to get socks for Ryan and argued with someone about the color schemes available in store vs. online.

--Decided I really have too much wrapping paper. Note to self: Moratorium on buying wrapping paper.

--Hide presents in my closet in a bag. Almost forget to dig them all out for everyone.

--Ooh and ah over Lissa and Tom's presents to us: new baking sheets, coffe, magazine subscriptions. Must bake something before it's 90 degrees again.

--Head to San Diego for 4 absolutely awesome days with Leslie, Nikki, Justin, and a great Xmas night of Chinese food and local gay bar with Steve and Rick, who were in town, too. Dance drunkenly before hitting Jack in the Box and giving a big tip to the awesome drive-thru woman.

--Ryan gets me a TV for xmas. Yay! I can FINALLY get rid of the Fry's electronics TV from 1998.

--Score incredible lamps and mirrors at a thrift store in Poway. Yes, Poway.

--Head home in a funk because it's all over.

--New Year's Eve at a gay piano bar with bad showtunes. Ryan and I drink our fill. I stop. He continues. Meet up with friends and their friends for more drinking and late night house parties. Sober at 3 am, I drive Ryan home, fearing he might be hungover Jan. 1.

--Watch Ryan be hung over Jan. 1. Poor guy.

--Back to work. Jessica is gone to NYC and I am in her office. Everything feels the same but different.

--Post New Year's funk. Now what? Get back on the trapeze. Try acrobatics class. Manage a no-handed cartwheel for first time in 15 years. Hurt neck on backward roll. Oh, right, I am 36, not 13.

--Start piling up things to sell in the dining room. We want this crap outta here. Theme for 2010 seems to be: get rid of what's really unnecessary. Keep what matters.

--Make Lesley watch "The Ice Pawn." Feel some regret. But she's seems entertained. Phew.

--Make plans to meet with L.A. Youth, a local nonprofit organization and newspaper written by teenagers. I'll talk with them about their social media plans. Excited to be doing something new and different.

--Download a slew of new music. Geek out over YACHT. Then have that immediately replaced by Kristin Hersh's new album. Fierce.

--It's been a year since I was in Mexico. I'd go back to Tulum in a heartbeat.

--Buy plane ticket for trip to Tokyo and Shanghai. What the...? YES.

--Watch it rain 5" in one week in L.A. and pine for the snow and the Pacific Northwest. I don't miss the sun too much yet. I miss real weather.

--Social plans. Drinks with friends. Birthdays. Outings. Enjoying the changes and challenges now that the new year funk is past.

--Finally nail the elusive Hip Circle maneuver on the trapeze. Spinning around and around the bar in the midst of a downpour I can hear outside. I feel like I could go forever, bruised forearms and all.

Self-Discography #13: Moments of 2009

Various Artists
"Dark Was the Night"
In 1990, when I was only 16, "Red Hot + Blue" floored me, properly introduced me to Cole Porter, and gave me some hope that people really did care about stopping HIV/AIDS. Nearly 20 years later, "Dark Was the Night" floored me and made me realize that people still care. The covers and originals that are contained here make up an indie-rock Who's Who, but for good reason.


50 Foot Wave
"Power + Light"
The fiercest 26 minutes of music to come out in 2009...and to be completely overlooked. Stitched together in seven movements, it plays out like a rock opera of the highest order. And it might be the best late-night freeway driving soundtrack I've heard in a decade.


Meshell Ndegeocello
"Devil's Halo"
She stops being funked and blissed out and pares down to 35 minutes of expertly crafted jazz-influenced R&B and rock. The best album she's done since "Bitter," and the best old-school R&B cover of the year ("Love You Down").


The Big Pink
"A Brief History of Love"
Britpop "died" a long time ago, right? Well someone forgot to tell these guys. A first album full of bombastic guitar hooks and keyboards that make the whole thing sound grimy and beautiful at the same time.


Annie
"Don't Stop"
Move over, Kylie. You've got some serious competition from Norway. Annie is never going to be as shiny and pretty as you, but she makes fantastic dance-pop that, if given half a chance, would pack dance floors just as well.


The Drums
"Summertime!" EP
Perhaps the cutest band to appear this year that was actually talented, the Drums make totally infectious lo-fi pop about surfing, sad summers, and love, love, love. Who wouldn't want to go drink on the beach with them?


Neko Case
"This Tornado Loves You" and "Red Tide"
Only Case would write a song that is *literally* about a tornado that loves a human and sing it from the tornado's perspective. The lead track from her great album is then expertly bookended with a song that's all about escaping from a place you might have loved once upon a time. Gorgeous.


St. Vincent
"Actor"
Disney melodies and harsh guitar riffs that burst into beauty at the last minute, coupled with vignettes of various women whose lives may or may not be falling apart. No one else this year pulled off that kind of emotional balancing act.


Tune-Yards
"Sunlight"
Looped percussion, bass, and ukulele coupled with a voice of exquisite power. Seemingly rudimentary but complex and beguiling. It's a love song that starts out timid and builds to a volcanic kiss off.


Cass McCombs
"You Saved My Life"
McCombs finally gets a little personal and in the process made the best song of his career. Heartbreaking and beautiful. To be played at sunsets all summer long as you think about someone who isn't next to you anymore.


Lady Gaga
"The Fame Monster"
If "The Fame" didn't make you a believer, this eight-song EP is proof that Lady Gaga is evolving into an expert pop songwriter who can capture the zeitgeist like a certain Madonna did in the '80s and '90s. Listen to "Teeth" and then declare otherwise.


Camera Obscura
"My Maudlin Career"
"Maudlin" is hardly the word for this gorgeous, sumptuous album that utilizes '60s European and American pop as a base influence, but Tracyanne Campbell takes her bittersweet love songs to a new level.


Tegan and Sara
"Sainthood"
A bit overlooked in a glut of year-end releases, the sister act from Canada is growing up and become even more self-assured, if that's possible. The skewered pop of songs like "Arrow," "Red Belt," and "Alligator" was immediately gratifying and the rest was equally arresting (and sometimes danceable, to boot).

A Long, Strange, Wonderful Trip

Yes, that's me in the photo above with one leg wrapped around a trapeze rope while the opposite foot grips the other rope between my toes.

Yes, I am performing eight feet off the ground.

No, I never saw myself doing any of this.

When Rick first said to me, "You might really enjoy this," I thought it was kind of funny: A Pilates-based workout where you use props from a real circus. Cute. Sure, why not? I hated conventional gym workouts anyway. And although I'd been a gymnast...oh...25 years ago, I didn't think any of that would really apply here--or even be in my muscle memory.

When I first started taking classes with Rick at Cirque School, not only was I a bit intimidated by these other men (I was taking a men's class) whose bodies were already ripped, but also totally discouraged by my lack of finesse, strength, and stamina. I had considered myself "in shape," as I did cardio, yoga, and swam. But this kicked my ass. I was asked to do a pull up as I was piked under the low trapeze and hanging from my hands. I could only do one. I came home that first night and my hands hurt so bad I couldn't even wash them without pain. Ryan asked me, "Are you sure you want to do this?" and smiled at me. He knew how I'd answer.

I was slightly discouraged. But I was also challenged and intrigued. How the hell did people do this? How on earth would I ever be able to learn these trick names? Why do I need to build up callouses on my hands. I wanted to find out.

The pictures I see now of that first summer of learning all the basic vocabulary, while also just building up some muscle in my core and my arms and shoulders, I begin to see how far I've come:





Looking at the picture of me trying to climb the tissu I can tell how much I still needed to learn. But what so many of my classmates taught me was that this wasn't about self-recrimination. It wasn't about beating myself up. It was about learning a whole new way of using my body and mind.

I was not always sure that I really wanted to learn, of course. When I developed muscle soreness or stiffness--or when I was having a bad self-esteem day--I was all too eager to look at the people around me and feel like there was no way to keep up. But then I would learn the mechanics of another new trick. I'd be asked what I wanted to learn. I'd find myself hanging upside down from my legs and feeling the blood rushing happily to my head.

By the time Cirque School had acquired a new space in the spring of 2009, I'd been taking a class every week or two for a year. My body was changing, though I couldn't see it. But, more importantly, I'd discovered an outlet for so many other things. A bad day at work or a day spent feeling listless had to disappear when I set foot on the mats at the school to warm up, stretch, and begin to do work on the apparatus. I had to be physically and mentally present. I also needed to use my creativity as we began prepping for a long-delayed student showcase.

When you begin to put together any kind of "routine" you necessarily become fixated on it, second guessing some things, wondering what you should do or not do, and wondering how the hell you will ever get through it. We had to choose music from a film, so I chose a song I'd always loved (and wrote about in my last blog post). I wanted to create a zombie horseman of sorts...a character who comes back to life for a few last moments before being able to move on.

In piecing together the moves and making them flow, I had developed a sequence of tricks that nailed my thigh every single time I performed it, leaving me with horrible bruises week after week. Is this really worth it? I wondered over and over. As I found out between November 15 and 22, the answer is a resounding yes.

I had been neurotic and nervous through the rehearsal process. I am no seasoned showman, after all. But by the time we could hear a large crowd buzzing around out on the floor and the lights dimmed, I was suddenly lit up with an electric urge to be out there, to get on with the show. By the time my cue was set to make my entrance to perform, the nerves were no longer there. Instead, I was secretly excited--the adrenaline was pumping, and I wanted it to look effortless and beautiful. I wanted to do justice to everything I'd told everyone for 18 months in the abstract.

I think I did.





And now I can't wait to get back on the bar.

Self-Discography #12: Soundtrack Singles

"Cry to Me" by Solomon Burke ("Dirty Dancing")

This might be the first time I've really noticed--listened--to old-school R&B. Oh sure, I know some of it already. You don't grow up in a racially mixed neighborhood in the '70s and '80s without at least some understanding. But as kids we gravitate toward hip-hop and pop; we don't often look backward.

I am already ashamed that I am being introduced to this by watching "Dirty Dancing," but I cannot deny the song's emotional impact. It manages to embody both alienation and seduction; it offers physical escape and emotional release with Burke's explosive voice asking over and over "Don't you feel like crying?" before imploring the listener to "cry to me."

It's not only this one line that hits its target. Even though I am only 13, I understand clearly that this line touches on some deep truth: "Nothing can be sadder than a glass of wine alone / Loneliness, loneliness, is such a waste of time."

By the time the song builds to its climax, with the seductive drum beat punctuated by piano--and even xylophone--and Burke's evangelistic wailing, I am a believer. I could care less about Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. What I want is my own darkened, smoky room--a place in which to move, to let go physically and emotionally. A place where there actually is no such thing as loneliness.

It's a tall order for a two-minute song from the 1960s. I know this. Yet from here on out, every time I listen, I get taken away. My mind drifts. And my hips sway.


"Regarding Mary" by Patty Griffin ("Niagara, Niagara")

It's 1999 and I've only recently been introduced to Patty Griffin by Wayne. We've been trading musical suggestions via CDs and mixtapes. I give him Kristin Hersh. He gives me Patty Griffin. It's a good trade. Patty is more traditional in her songwriting. Her acoustic music is sharp and soft at the same time. But she has a voice the power of which I can't deny. I like someone who can belt it, after all.

Her first album is just her and an acoustic guitar, however. I keep wanting to here these songs more fleshed out--with more meat on their bones. And when Wayne hands me the "Niagara, Niagara" soundtrack, he says "You'll probably like the first song the most." He's right.

"Regarding Mary" starts off as a jaunty little tune, bouncy in its mood until the first line: "She comes swingin' in with her tire iron."

Excuse me?

"She hates the morning, she hates the light/Hates the darkness of the night/She hates herself most of all...We try to lose her, but she remains/So maybe we will all go insane just like Mary."

I am pretty sure I know this woman already. To me, she's the relative you can't shake. She's the problem child next door. She is all the horrible people we somehow put up with because they happen to be "family." Maybe it's just that person you just haven't learned how to excise from your life. Maybe he or she really is sick. But is that your problem?

I know that I am ascribing way too much to a four-minute song, but it strikes like lightning, precise and fateful. Wayne knows already the somewhat tangled relationship (or lack thereof) I have with members of my own family. I know the same of him and his. Somehow, all of those stories are here in this one song. I take it as a good sign.


"Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus ("Married to the Mob")

It's lonely in the projectionist's booth. I already know this at 16. You are made to stand in a hot, box-like space, lining up film splices on separate projectors and make sure that the jump from one scene of a film to the next is executed perfectly. Most of the time it works. Sometimes you see celluloid melt across the giant screen out there and you wonder if the audience can hear your cursing, screaming, or moaning.

The perks of working at a movie theater, of course, are the freebies: free movies, free snacks, free movie paraphernalia. The downside: Watching and re-watching the same two minutes of all of the films for which you are a projectionist, day after day.

"Married to the Mob" is one of the movies on which I learn to battle that mind-numbing watching and rewatching. While I like it well enough, what I am really struck by is the music used in it. Curious about it, I hunt down the soundtrack on cassette one day after work. Buried deep on side two of the tape is a song called "Goodbye Horses" by the mysteriously named "Q Lazzarus." It's immediately arresting to me for reasons I don't understand. It makes no real lyrical sense; it's impressionistic, stripped down electronic pop that hovers in a dreamlike state:

"He told me,'I've seen it all before. I've been there. I've seen my hopes and dreams lying on the ground. I've seen the sky just begin to fall.' He said, 'All things pass into the night.'/And I said, 'Oh no, sir, I must say you're wrong. ... Won't you listen to me?'"

I don't know what to do with this song. It doesn't fit anywhere, and yet it's perfectly realized. It's about mood. It's about a kind of catharsis I have not yet experienced. It's emotion I am not even able to express. I wear the whole tape out by listening to this one song over and over.

The memories of the projectionist booth and the impact of this song endure. A few years ago, I rediscovered the "Married to the Mob" soundtrack on CD in the bottom of a box. When I mentioned "Goodbye Horses" to Ryan he looked at me with a funny expression, telling me how it's one of his favorite songs. I later relayed to a few friends about how oddly serendipitous that was, and each one told me the same thing: "I love that song."

Is this a cult? I wondered. Some kind of late-to-the-party Q Lazzarus fan club?

Then again, how many artists create a song that's supposed to be a one-off on an obscure soundtrack and see it blossom into something that endures--time, music company mergers that put their music out of print, the rise and fall of a film director's popularity, and oh so many more variables?

Almost none of them, that's how many.

But here's one. Over 20 years old and still beautiful in its mystery.

I'm Sure I Left Something in New York

I am fairly certain I did not leave my heart in New York. It had pretty much been deflated and left to gasp a few months before my departure. There was simply not enough to leave behind.

After I moved away in 1998, I swore off returning, despite the number of fabulous people I knew/know there. And then ... well, 2001 happened. And then ... well, I waited. I stalled. I stuttered. It was like I was trying to figure out how to see an old boyfriend who'd been emotionally abusive.

In 2005, I finally returned to New York, shocked to find the city transformed, not only in so many physical ways, but in less tangible emotional ways that left me confused. This wasn't the city that had always seemed ready for a fight. Now that we were both older, and at least one of us a bit better off financially, it felt more like an anti-climactic reunion where there simply wasn't too much to say. Not uncomfortable. Not bad. Just...not what I expected.

What shocked me most at the time was my longing for Brooklyn--specifically the area in and around Park Slope, where I lived for two of the years of my time in the city. When Megan and I had first moved there, we had friends tell us it was too far away and they would never come visit us there. Then, of course, several of them moved in only a stone's throw away from us. By 2005, the whole neighborhood was overrun with people I assume had once upon a time said they would never, ever live in Brooklyn. Normally, I think I would have blanched to see them all wandering around the leafy green, brownstone-dotted streets. But seeing them all as part of a long-delayed visit, it seemed appropriate. This was not my neighborhood anymore, after all.

When I made it to New York again in 2006 and 2007--both for work, both visits padded with extra personal days--I was once again in the zone. I still knew how to navigate the subways with barely a glance at the underground signs; I could easily weave in and out of the people on the sidewalks; I could bundle up in layers appropriate to the cold; and I was content in knowing this was not my day-to-day reality.

By the end of my last visit, nearly two years ago, it was clear to me that my enjoyment of New York depended solely on the amount of time I spent in Brooklyn. When work kept me cooped up in Midtown, Chelsea, and the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I stared to itch, antsy with the knowledge that I was stuck in this part of the city I never liked--that offered so little to me personally.

When I finally escaped back to Brooklyn and walked above ground I could actually exhale again. It was no longer that I simply missed Brooklyn. It was that, to me, it was New York. It didn't need to be the Slope. It could be Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene, Prospect Park, Windsor Terrace, or even a still-sketchy second-hand store on a weird part of Atlantic Avenue. Any of them felt...right.

As I get ready to return to New York once again, people keep asking me what I am going to do there. They ask about certain places in Manhattan--neighborhoods, stores, restaurants, and the like. I usually say that, of course, there's plenty of art I will see in Manhattan, but I am really looking forward to seeing my friends...and to being in Brooklyn. Some instantly understand. Some assume I mean only Williamsburg. Some look utterly baffled as to how I could gladly leave Manhattan alone my entire time there if not for the art housed on the island.

I don't tell them I simply want to walk around what once seemed like my own personal Sesame Street. I don't spin the story as to how I ended up living in an apartment over an international deli. I don't tell them that my deflated heart had actually still managed to beat there, nor do I explain why. It's simply not necessary. It's just Brooklyn. And it's just a little part of me, still.

23

Early September rolls around and I go in and out of an awkward stage of agitation. I can almost will myself out of it, but inevitably something happens to make me recall my father's passing.

This time around it was nothing more than the realization that I was getting angry at people who were only asking me for something simple, or that I was harboring resentment toward anyone who wanted me to respond to their questions.

It's been 23 years, god damn it.

And mostly it's easier and easier to skip the emotional welling up that comes with remembering anyone who's died. Simply thinking of them--after a while--doesn't so much set off any chain reaction of memories. More often, it becomes something like picking through a stack of half-finished sketches and trying to recall what you'd wanted to accomplish through them.

In the last several weeks, I have been trying to get up early at least one day and do nothing but write. Ostensibly, this means writing something I have not wanted to write. Which means I write about my father's death and what happened afterward. What's been driving me crazy at 7 am as the sun starts to peek into this room is that I can so crisply remember the moment my mother had to tell me that he was dead. I can recall the robotic motions of the immediate aftermath and the slow walk I had to take up the street to my friend Amy's house while my mother had to go to the hospital. I even remember not being able to sleep until 4 am and my insistence that I go to school the next day--anything to get out of the house of mourning. But then... it goes blank. And 23 years later, the blankness pervades my expression as my fingers hover over this keyboard.

What the hell happened next?

I know some of it. And I string those emotions and scenes together like a delicate paper-chain garland, wondering where the rip will appear in the sequence. I create a list of questions to ask my mom, my sister, my brother, even though he probably won't remember. And then I ... do nothing. Because it's early September again and I begin to question why I am even trying to record it all. As if there is some definitive way to prove to yourself that you are "cured." Or at least no longer prone to socially unacceptable displays of emotion.

The joy of these early mornings--at least those in August--is that I stumbled across other memories that had long been buried. Nothing horrible. Just necessary. My father's death, not surprisingly, led to my complete inability to retain the faith with which I was casually raised. I literally lost my religion.

And that is the story, isn't it?

It is no longer simply that he disappeared. It's about everything else that swirled into the nothingness with him--and the things that appeared, as well.

I know, deep down, that I cannot treat 23 years like a puzzle that needs to be completed. I can't construct the story and cover all the bases and have it all circle back to the beginning. I can't even try to make it past September 4 without a small catch in my throat, a moment of wondering "What would it have been like now?"

It's late now, and I know there's no way I'll make it back to this keyboard at 7 am. But I will soon. It won't solve the mysteries, but it will quiet the agitation. Imagine that. Even my father would not be surprised by this, I am sure.

Calling AT&T on Saturday (in Real Time)

August 15th, 2009
1:28 p.m.

I sigh and pick up the phone, prepared to do battle.

Automated guy robot voice answers my call and immediately short circuits:

"Thank you for calling AT &--"

"I'm sorry, I didn't..."

"I'm sorry I am having so much trou--"

"Please enter your phone number--"

"Please hold while I connect you with someone who can help--"

1:30 p.m.
Real person answers phone She is perfectly nice and tells me how we can go about disconnecting my land line, but with one caveat:

"We need to get you connected with the Disconnect Department. Please hold."

1:33-1:39 p.m.
Static-y hold music that sounds like it's being played underwater. The love theme from "St. Elmo's Fire" plays in its entirety and I find myself getting choked up.

1:40-1:53 p.m.
I become somewhat well acquainted with a very nice woman named Denise (name changed to protect her) in the Retention Dept.--maybe nicest person I've met at AT&T. I picture us grabbing a drink together after work and howling about stupid men. Then she drops the bomb on me: "It says here you are not eligible to upgrade your DSL to a high speed. In fact, if you do this the way we are planning, your DSL speed will *drop*." She sounds incredulous too.

But, wait, don't I have that middle speed? "Well, yes." Then how can I not have it suddenly if I ditch the land line? "Um, I am not sure."

Me: "So I am getting punished, essentially, for having been a good customer?"

Her: "Well... Sadly, yes... It kind of seems that way, but--"

"I see."

"I am just trying to be honest with you, sir."

"Really, I appreciate that. Seriously."

"Let's clarify: YOU are eligible for the higher speed, but your address is not."

i.e., I do not live in a rich enough neighborhood? Which makes no sense since I live 2 blocks from Hancock Park.

"Well, it's complicated," Denise says. "Our friend Verizon is also available in that area and we only have access to certain pockets, so some people are eligible for higher speeds and some are not. One of your neighbors might be using a really high speed from them or something..."

Note to self: Call Verizon.

2:04 p.m.
I am told how I can look online at the Measure Rate service re: my phone line. The wheeling and dealing begins, because Denise knows 2 things very well now:

1. I am mad.
2. I am not stupid.


The result? My land line bill cut 60%. My DSL bill cut 50% for at least 6 months.

2:09 p.m.
I still really, really want higher speed DSL, god damn it. But at least in the meantime I am paying much much less for what I am stuck with (and which was never explained to me in any way that doesn't sound vaguely illegal).

I suddenly miss the days when all I had was access to one rotary phone. Communication is hard.

Sound Assemblages: A Mix as Seen Through Thought Process

It's a work in progress as I stitch together styles, tones, and running times: A glimpse into my annoyingly nerdy process of making mixes for people and why it sometimes takes too long. First I find the intention (is it fun? a mix of up and down? flat out weird? Or should it all be pop?); the rest is almost like storyboarding. Eventually it takes shape or gets trashed and I start again:

1. Bar-B-Q - Wendy Rene (or "100 Days" from below)

2. Cherry Bomb - The Runaways

3. Velvet - The Big Pink (maybe replace with "Too Young to Love")

4. William's Blood - Grace Jones (old song instead?)

5. Jumping Jack - Tune-Yards (listen to flow of "Sunlight" and "News" instead/move?)
Incidental something

6. French Navy - Camera Obscura

7. You Saved My Life - Cass McCombs (too slow for here? makes block of slow songs later, maybe)

8. The Neighbors - St. Vincent vs. Actor Out of Work

9. Crooked - Kristin Hersh (outro/instrumental splits list here)
Incidental something (OMD's "ABC Auto Industry"?)

10.Sincerely, Jane - Janelle Monae(too awk. after KH?)

11. I Need You - Eurythmics (put before Janelle Monae?)

12. Oh Darlin' - Magentophone (maybe starting song instead)

13. 100 Days, 100 Nights - Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

14. Let Me Be the One - Expose

15. Perfect Beats selection (listen to Vol. 3 for the right song)

16. Young Hearts Run Free - Candi Stanton (more disco or pop? like "Bette Davis Eyes")

17. Random? "End of Freedom" by Wilderness or "4 Men" by Kitchens of Distinction vs. something like Dinah Washington or Joan Armatrading(circle back around with soul/R&B)

18. Fast Car - Tracy Chapman

End with something more slow or fast? New vs. old. Reverse order and listen to flow.
Brainstorm title ideas. Cut out images for cover.

That Moment You Don't Forget

We have these throughout our lives, don't we? They are periods of time where you feel suspended in another world and you think, "I will never forget this."

It sounds a tad melodramatic and cliche now because Hollywood movies and TV shows use it constantly as a crutch for characters to be "changed." But standing at the Hollywood Bowl last night watching Grace Jones on stage, I had nothing else to think but "I will never forget this."

Maybe it was because I never thought I'd see her perform live. Maybe it was seeing her sing "La Vie en Rose" like this:



Seriously, how many other performers do you know who could do this and succeed at it? I admit I had in the past thought that maybe Grace was more persona and cheekbones than anything else, but last night changed that perspective in a major way. Some people simply "have it." And she is one of them. Done.

From appearing under a drapery of silver lame to the red dress to dancing on stage with half a mannequin, there was no getting around her presence, and her voice was in just as phenomenal shape as her 60-year-old body:



By the time she donned a bustier and a cape with a headdress for closing the show with "Pull Up to the Bumper," everyone had already kind of lost their minds and was trying to pull it together again. How nice to see a woman perform who knows how to entertain, to be sweaty, ugly, funny, gorgeous, and genuine all at the same time. It was such an insane contrast to the pap that gets shoved down our throats by most music companies these days.

Not that she was any different 28 years ago:



It makes no difference. I and thousands of others got to see her last night and see proof that the word "icon" does, indeed, do her justice.

Greeting Card Hell

I made an innocent enough stop at the local Rite Aid this afternoon just for a chance to try Diet Dr Pepper for the first time (oh, and to keep Jessica company, as well). While there, we decided to peruse the large selection of greeting cards. This is a favorite pastime of mine, as I like buying cuddly cat cards for people's birthdays. Irony isn't even present anymore. People nearly expect it. But that's not the point.

No, the point is really how overcome with annoyance I was and how much vitriol was percolating inside me from a simple perusal of a sad-sack, linoleum-floored card aisle in a drug store in Hollywood.

To be honest, the magazine section started it. There, I was confronted by an array of mostly magazines aimed at women (since they, you know, do all the shopping) that included a baffling number of headlines that revolved around either why "he cheats"; recipes to make "your busy day easier"; and shocking confessions about women who "can't stop eating junk food." All the wedding and bridal publications are another matter. There, you have it pounded into your eyes and brain with a sledgehammer that, unless you desperately WANT to get married, are ABOUT to get married, or getting married AGAIN, then you cannot possibly be a "real woman."

So you see, the card aisle was a way for me to laugh and unwind... but I guess my brain just can't see it that way today. No, instead, I was stuck in a "Beautiful Mind" moment in which words and images popped out at me from all across the rows of cards, nauseating me, and, frankly, making me feel like there is no hope to get away from the flood of stereotypical gender roles that apparently sell like hotcakes:

Mom's birthday coming up? Buy her this card that features a rose or a sunset or some other soothing pastoral scene coupled with heartfelt sentiment so she both knows she's appreciated but is subtly told that it REALLY is her job to clean, cook, and raise a family.

Grandpa's getting older? This card shows a boat/workbench/park/tools/fishing poles that accurately convey that he's earned some R&R for doing nothing the last year or so. That's hilarious!

Niece who's having a baby? This baby shower card shows a cute girl in makeup surrounded by TONS of STUFF that is ALL about babies and domesticity and refers to how she is in HEAVEN now that she's breeding and surrounded by STUFF.

Dad's retiring? Well, here's a kicky card that sports an active older man who is running.... straight to his Corvette! It's so funny and true how we should spend useless money on cars like this when we have to use Viagra. (Don't worry, plenty of other cards will vouch for Viagra without me needing to.)

I guess because I am looking at my 36th birthday right now I am bit sensitive to cards at the moment. Or I am just a cranky homo who shouldn't be so attuned to a system that just relentlessly reinforces the worst, most inane, stupid, vile, and deplorable stereotypes in the name of being "funny." Thankfully, I have friends who'd rather find the smart, sardonic, ironic, and skewering cards that I have thus far received.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go to buy a fishing pole, a Corvette, and some miscellaneous sports equipment before I re-fill my Cialis prescription and then tell people about how it's funny I'm just like everyone else.

What Will You Remember?

Going back to Portland always makes me forget where I live. It shouldn't, since I haven't lived there in nearly 20 years, but it does. And in this beautiful place that is not where I live, but simply where I come from, I have to let the memories of the past mingle effortlessly with the present that is unfurling in front of me.

My nostalgia has very little to do with wanting to go back to a specific time because things were "easier." It is not about being coddled, taken care of, or feeling safe. It's not even about fond family memories. What my recent trip up to the Northwest made me realize is that my nostalgia is about color and light, taste and smell--very much the senses themselves.

This is not revelatory to many people, I am sure. But it struck me so hard at 10 pm gazing at the streaks of color in the sky over the coastal range of mountains. It's summer in the Northwest and I was surrounded by family and friends, laughing, drinking, and enjoying the time we had together. No pictures can really capture what makes a few days spent this way. But these things, among many others, remain in mind:

The papery "twinkle" of the wind rustling through plum tree leaves
The moan of fir branches in the wind, as well
The anise aftertaste of 12 Bridges Gin
The hysterical laugh coming from Belle's mouth and the way she says "Yeah" with an incredulous tone
The light at 4:30 a.m. as it turns from blue velvet to pink, orange, and red fingers through the clear sky
The smell of hot, dried out grass next to a wetland along the Willamette River
The hum of my sister's, Tom's, and Ryan's voices coming from inside the house at 1 a.m. as I approach the door, sprinkled liberally with laughter
The feel of the heat at 7 p.m. when the sun seems, still, to be so high in the sky
Freshly brewed coffee and the scent wafting halfway down the block from Stumptown
Jill's hands pounding at the flippers of Sopranos pinball in a darkening bar in North Portland
Amy's loud, generous laugh that sounds the same now as it did 25 years ago, with the same effect of making me laugh, too
The green expanse of my mother's backyard with the gurgle of a fountain punctuating the cool of the evening
The clinking of change into a small bowl as we play cards after a barbecue, still smelling of food and beer, my mom's cigarette smoke blowing in from the background
Susan's heels clicking on the pavement as we leave the club to head for a bar--a determined clicking that I know so very well
The green-blue-gray of the river through the bridge grate as I bike across it
Snowy mountains that look like mirages in the distance
The bookish smell of Powell's
Vegan pumpkin donuts and the gentle disintegration of sugar on my tongue
The view of the city coming back from Vancouver, seen across the Columbia River
The ease of conversation at dinner with only Mom and Jerry
The glare of the sun dipping behind the tallest skyscraper downtown, turning the roof brilliantly silver for just a moment
The forgotten pleasure of lying in the grass, reading, with three other people who don't need to talk.

Self-Discography #11: "Actor" by St. Vincent

"You're a supplement, you're a salve, you're a bandage--pull it off. ... You're a cast on a broken arm, you're an actor out of work, you're a liar and that's the truth. You're an extra lost in the scene."

I've been known to say, "I never said I wasn't a hypocrite." By extension, I like hypocrites intensely. I find them fascinating and somehow slimy and endearing. Annie Clark's world doesn't necessarily seem to be inhabited by hypocrites, but she certainly likes peeling back the layers of carefully applied paint. These songs on her second album arrive in the present, at a moment of flux--one of my trying to figure out how to strip away the superfluous to get to what really matters. They seem to have pointed a big finger at me, pinning my thoughts down and making them squirm. Maybe, I tell myself, I am not enjoying the ugly and the pretty together like I should be. Or am I just waiting for all this good stuff to be fucked up? By me?

There are no cartoon birds helping me get dressed in my sun-dappled boudoir as Clark's sugar-sweet melodies swirl around my head. If they were here, maybe they'd look like her, all wide-eyed and unassuming, before whisper-singing this lyric into my ears:

"Desperate don't look good on you, neither does your virtue. Paint the black hole blacker."

It's delivered like treacle, just before a buzz saw guitar line cuts through it all, fracturing the seemingly perfect picture. Or maybe it's more like the harsh sunlight of a hot Los Angeles morning melting through the celluloid displaying candy-coated colors of a verdant forest, rendering the beautiful ugly (and yet somehow still beautiful).

This is what I feel right now: a sense of displacement; a combination of desire mixed with desperation; panic that there is something burning just under the serene surface. I've always been drawn to these kinds of juxtaposition. I like imagining what kinds of unpleasant things are said by the people who live in a house that is picture-perfect. When I experience this in person--say, a bourgeois couple who can barely control their hatred for each other at a dinner party--I am often offended. But when it's painted, composed, or sung to me, or otherwise framed in some outlet of creative expression, I find myself rapt.

"Let's pour wine in coffee cups, ride around the neighborhood and shine the headlights on houses until all the news is good."

There's the desire of shaking the world out of its somnambulant state to reveal the dolorous. I know it's there, I tell myself. I want to see it. I imagine myself here, in this mostly quaint area dotted with overly expensive houses in which I now live, forcing these people to: not have their money, their religion, their sometimes-holier-than-thou expressions as they walk their children and dogs down my street and don't acknowledge me. Usually, it doesn't bother me, but lately there's this hovering sense of suffocation, like I was put here on accident and someone was waiting to see how long it would take to make me ill-at-ease.

It's one of the problems with Los Angeles, I realize. I can intensely love the train-wreck nature of it, but its beautiful neighborhoods and gorgeous apartments--which can be huge, sport French windows, hardwood floors, and Art Deco flourishes--can drug you and make you forget that where you are choosing to live has no center, no community, no store to walk to, no sense of closeness to anything but the building or car next door. You can stare at this beautiful street lined with grand magnolia trees, watching birds build nests, listening to the rustle of the breeze in palm fronds, and feel like you are missing out. And then you start to hate yourself for feeling that way.

"I'd pay anything to keep my conscience clean. I'm keeping my eye on the exit sign, steady now."

Is it a sign of living somewhere too long? I start to play this game with myself: What would I miss about this city? What can I do without? I do the dance in my head and convince myself, and sometimes others, that I could easily walk away. But it's been 11 years. Who do I know anywhere else I actually want to live? The things that have not been done here will still be undone somewhere else, after all. I listen to older people like my mother spin tales about tax brackets in states I would never want to live in, but I am also old enough now that I actually stop for a moment to debate if the tax codes would really affect me positively.

I still think I am destined to live somewhere more wide open. I miss seeing the land stretch in at least one direction without a house or mini-mall affixed atop it. Whenever that actually happens, I will be able to live with it; it will be to do something that helps affect the land itself. It won't be my dislike of not having a coffee shop to walk to down the street...

Only a few listens in and this album pricks me. It's a nosy friend, an acquaintance who suddenly decides he or she needs to know more, more, more about you. It's a velvet dagger. A friendly gutting. Yet I don't mind. It's been what feels like too long since I've surrendered to new music so quickly. Smart and beautiful. Pretty and ugly. Prodded and probed. I needed a new soundtrack. I also needed to hear someone say this:

"I think I love you. I think I'm mad."

They're both true. And you know who you are.

It's Like Rain on Your Wedding Day....

Oh, wait, that's not ironic.

Especially if you can't get married.

Once again, I am so enraged by the state of California and the entire political process here. I had just spent 4 days in Milwaukee celebrating a friend's great wedding only to come home to learn the CA Supreme Court upheld Prop. 8, which banned gay couples from marrying--even though 18,000 same-sex couples got married before it passed. So now, we have some gay couples legally married and the rest of us are not...? And since when do civil rights get put to a vote?

I am tired of fighting this process. I am tired of being angry. I am tired of bigotry. I am tired of supposed "Christian" groups demanding that other groups follow their philosophy of morality (which is often a lie). I am also, more specifically, tired of the state of California. I am tired of how it passes laws. I am tired of its short-sightedness. It has barely been progressive in the last 10 years. It is now an also-ran: a joke in the making.

I need to rethink why I live here beyond the climate and access to great food.

L.A,/CA Playlist(s)

Since I am about to board a plane to spend five days in Wisconsin, I am taking a little of CA with me. I'd actually thought of compiling songs about Los Angeles and California for some time. I actually had many more than this, but I will save them for another installment.

Tell me about others I should have and include! x-m

Songs About LA and CA Playlist:

Freeway -- Aimee Mann
Trouble In Shangri-La -- Stevie Nicks
Clay Feet -- Kristin Hersh
California -- Low
San Bernardino -- The Mountain Goats
The Californian -- Heidi Berry
Take California -- Propellerheads
California Love -- 2Pac featuring Dr. Dre
Hollywood -- Madonna
California -- Joni Mitchell
It Never Rains In Southern California -- Albert Hammond
I Remember California -- R.E.M.
Golden Ocean -- 50 Foot Wave
Still In Hollywood -- Concrete Blonde
California Dreamin' -- The Mamas and the Papas
California --Amy Correia
Hollywood People -- Judy Henske
In California -- Neko Case

You Mean I Have to Write Something?

Months ago, Barbie very graciously asked me to write a speech for her wedding.

Me being me, I humbly agreed and then twirled ideas around in my head almost like how someone would wind hair around their finger. I was gonna write this... no, that! Perfect! No, wait, what if I did this!? Even better! And so on, and so on, and so on.

Of course, now it's mid-May, Mercury is in retrograde, and I am still piecing together fragments of sentences--which are now like broken or split ends that have snapped off due to overaggressive twirling.

Note to self: Do not twirl ideas anymore.

It's not that I am afraid I'll have nothing to say. Everyone who knows me, knows that the only time I have nothing to say is when I am incredibly angry. It's just that there's this jumble of words in my head and it kinda feels like I have to push a wasps' nest through my fingers to get them out.

OK, fine, I kind of lied: The real issue is responsibility. People have to listen to me talk about Barbie and Chad for five minutes. They have to not yawn. Or hear cliches. Or listen to me do a walk down memory lane. Or wonder how I know some mythical Barbie and Chad they don't know. And--what matters most to me--it has to do both Barbie and Chad justice. This is their wedding, after all. The last thing I want them remembering when they are on the dance floor is that I gave some awkward speech about... say.... "trust," complete with an over-the-top performance art moment of me grasping my hands together, as if in desperation to connect with the audience. (For the record: I would never give a speech about trust. Or forgiveness. Or constancy.)

The ironic part of all of this is that I love the puzzle of it. How do these ideas connect or bond? How do they break apart? What doesn't belong here? Is this funny? Does this even make sense? There's a structure and a flow to the creative process that keeps me in awe. Even when I know the basic premise I am writing about (which I do in this case, thank you!), there are still so many directions it can travel.

With that twirling of ideas done, I can concentrate on making sure what I say matters to them--that it resonates beyond a simple declaration of sharing their happiness. I may not successfully avoid all of the cliches, but I am feeling more confident that what I have brewing on the page will not cause any awkward reflections on the dance floor. And if it does? Well, that's why there's alcohol.

Self-Discography #10: "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" by Sinéad O'Connor

I am driving the freeways in, out, and around Portland at 1 a.m. on a blissfully warm night in the spring of 1990. My hand is balanced on the window, cigarette burning like a beacon, me mentally willing it to attract someone, anyone who feels as utterly fucked up as I do at the moment.

I head north on the I-5 almost until I hit the Columbia River, exit and re-enter the freeway to head south, cross over the Fremont bridge, zoom past downtown and loop over the Willamette River, north again to I-84 to head east, out of the city. I will smoke more, and glance at the burning paper and tobacco, and I will let the tape of Sinéad O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" flip over in the Ford Maverick's car stereo--the music slightly distorted by hiss and static caused by a faulty speaker.

I am not even sure how I am staying in the lanes at 65 miles an hour. I feel like I want to take my hands off the wheel and let the car explode off the asphalt, sail past the railings of a high bridge, explode into flames. But I can't will myself to do it. I can only sing along to what I am hearing and mentally plan my escape to California for the summer to live with my sister and her friends--a move, I tell myself, that will at least temporarily end feeling as I do now.

Nothing Compares 2 U

It was a moment made possible by an event some three months prior. I'd gotten home late from work at the movie theater and was in the basement watching "120 minutes" on MTV when the station premiered the video for "Nothing Compares 2 U." So ubiquitous now, nearly 20 years later, it's hard to recall the gut punch of watching Sinéad O'Connor's face in extreme close up as she transformed a mediocre Prince song into a flat-out lovelorn dirge. What's not difficult to remember, however, is the mental connection I made at that moment to the song and the album, which I bought two weeks later.

It was March of 1990 and I was 16 years old. I was in a relationship with a girl who was undoubtedly one of my best friends and should have only been a friend. I knew what I wanted more than anything was to have a boyfriend instead, and hated myself for the lie I was perpetuating. I was stuck living at home, fighting with my mother. And I felt trapped in an endless cycle of being afraid to hurt anyone, while willingly hating myself for all that I seemed unable to say, let alone do. My father had only been dead for four years. I was barely past the stage of being suicidal. I had, in many ways, changed my life more completely than I thought was possible for my age.

And in sweeps a nearly bald young woman who may very well have a nervous breakdown on camera in front of me, simultaneously vulnerable and steely--angry, maybe a tad angsty, and, yeah, sad: the one thing I was terribly afraid to admit that I was.

Feel So Different

Putting the tape on for the first time after I bought it, however, I was a bit taken aback by the overall tone of the album. "Nothing Compares 2 U" had been nothing in comparison to some of these other songs. And for maybe the first time, I had the thrill of recognition ... the distinct feeling that there was a reason I was hearing these songs now.

"I started off with many friends. We spent a long time talking. I thought they meant every word they said. Like everyone else, they were stalling. And now they seem so different."

Delivered in the middle of "Feel So Different," these words formed the jumping off point for me. Shedding my upbringing by going to school across town, having to consciously shed everything I'd learned in order to become different--to escape.

"I should have hatred for you, but I do not have any. And I have always loved you. Oh, you have taught me plenty. The whole time, I'd never seen all you had spread before me. The whole time, I'd never seen all I need was inside me. Now I feel so different."

Only five minutes into this album and I heard only words about leaving my childhood behind and acknowledging that the death of a parent had irrevocably changed me--made me something that I felt was somehow more purposeful, more acutely aware of the world around me than so many others my age.

I Am Stretched on Your Grave

If that wasn't enough, then the simple words "I am stretched on your grave" would drive it home. But drive it home in an audacious manner--a James Brown beat married to an Irish poem, topped by a Gaelic fiddle swirling into the night. I would join Susan later in the year at The City nightclub, upstairs in the so-called "goth section" to perform a mock Irish jig to the outro of this song. If anything, though, it told me of what would be possible if I stopped listening to what people told me I should do. It also made it OK again to cry about this death that I still felt. I could turn it into some kind of modern noir. Really, it was grieving. But grieving could have its own audacity that I had not known was possible.

The Emperor's New Clothes

I could never know what it must have been like to be 22 years old with a baby to deal with while the world started to know who I was. But I knew the feeling of being unable to grasp exactly what I wanted while, at the same time, being convinced that there had to be a way to get through this on my own terms.

"How could I possibly know what I want when I was only 21? There's millions of people to offer advice and say how I should be. But they are twisted and they will never be any influence on me."

"I will live by my own policies. I will sleep with a clear conscience, I will sleep in peace. Maybe it sounds mean, but I really don't think so."

When can I finally say, "I am gay"? When will I know how to sleep through the night? When will I no longer feel like I am not doing enough? I want the clarity to say, "This is how it is. This is who I am." But it's funny how having almost no money of your own, an alcoholic mother, a dead father, and a year of high school left will make you keep your mouth closed, even when you dream of opening it every day.

You Cause as Much Sorrow

"I'm full of good intentions, like I never was before. It's too late for prevention, but I don't think it's too late for the cure."

This is the song I listened to so much during my late-night drives. The escapades that killed half my gas tank and made me run out of cigarettes, driving me home to have to face the mausoleum quality of my bedroom. Which left me too alone again with my thoughts. I hated what the song tried to impart to me--namely the entwined feeling of hating my father for dying and leaving me alone in this empty house with my mother, while also realizing that if it hadn't happened, maybe I would not be be turning into the person I was becoming:

"I never said I was tough. That was everyone else. So you're a fool to attack me, for the image that you built yourself. It just sounds more vicious than I actually mean. I really am soft--yes, tender and sweet. ... Why must you always be around? Why can't you just leave me be? You've done nothing so far but destroy my life. You cause as much sorrow dead as you did when you were alive."

This chorus would inevitably make me cry in my car. But I was never really sure if I was simply feeling sorry for myself or trying to make sense of too many things at once. And I am still not sure now. If I listen to it on the right night while driving the looping Los Angeles freeway system, it still brings tears to my eyes and I have to blast the song, roll down all the windows and scream it into the wind, letting it rob the words of any strength beyond this metal cocoon.

The Last Day of Our Acquaintance

Is this the end of a love relationship, a friendship, or is it simply the exodus of my sister and brother from the house we grew up in?

And how do I tell a girl who has been so amazing to me, who's been intimately aware of all the fucked up shit in my life and helped me wade through it, that there's something not right? How dare I do that to someone like her? It was all I could think. I was sometimes the protagonist in this song, and sometimes the object about whom it was written. The duality cut deeply. "I know you don't love me anymore. You used to hold my hand when the plane took off. Two years ago there just seemed so much more. And I don't know what happened to our love."

And yet, I did know.

Just like I had to admit that I was angry at a dead man for leaving me behind, I had to admit that I knew that the warmth of friendship and love I felt for this person had absolutely nothing to do with carnal desire and it was neither of our faults for the fact that I had no way of expressing it until now.

I would move to California in a matter of weeks and kiss my first boyfriend and understand the exquisite burn of stubble against my face. I would know that I had to figure out how to come to terms with this and how to talk about myself to others.
Right now, however, all I had was the feeling of loss, and the feeling that I was the bad guy, even though I didn't want to be.


I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

I didn't know it was possible to even utter these words.

And on the album, this song sounds like one big exhale... a breath and prayer released simultaneously. I rarely listened to it all the way through. But when I did, I saw myself on the road, still. It would be dark. I would be on the highway, driving fast enough to catch the coolness of the breeze in the summer darkness. I would be leaving all of this uncertainty, heartbreak, and anger behind. I would be sure of what I was doing.

Of course, it wouldn't exactly be true. But, a year later, I would, indeed, drive the highways across the country, leaving Portland--and one spent cassette of this album--behind me. I would still drive with a cigarette between my fingers like a glowing beacon of sorts. I would not be sure of what I was doing next. There would be deliberateness about it, though. I would feel like I had no choice; it would be purpose unto itself.

That was all that mattered.