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Category Archives: Year 07

Highlights from 2006-2007

Happy Birthday To This

Sunday, August 26, 2007

I spent the majority of my day yesterday moving my best friend & bandmate Gina and her boyfriend Wes into their first house.

We were a small team of movers – just five, plus one in the truck – yet the move went as smoothly as it could possibly go… with the exception of one instance of Gina and I collapsing into giggles while trying to carry her futon around a bend in the stairs, and the fact that the laws of physics bar them from sleeping on a queen-sized box spring anywhere other than their living room.

Gina and I have now known each other for over half of our lives – through middle school, high school, college, post-college, and now whatever this is. It was amazing thing to be a part of her big move yesterday, just it continues to be amazing to be able to see so far into the past of someone, someone with whom silliness comes so easily, and with whom I am the epitome of comfortable, willing to speak my mind even when I know we disagree.

Crushing Krisis has now been alive seven years – since August 26th, 2000. That’s more than half as long as I’ve known Gina, and nearly as long as I’ve known the rest of my best friends.

To the best that I can discern, Crushing Krisis is the longest continuously running blog in Philadelphia, and has been since 2003. It’s an amazing thing to contemplate, especially considering that Philly was recently measured to be the second most bloggingest city in the United States. It also means that CK is increasingly one of the most established blogs on the face of the internet.

Just as significantly, since it’s inception Crushing Krisis has been a home to my original music, featuring the original (and, correspondingly, longest-running) singer-songwriter podcast, Trio.

Maybe more significantly than either of those distinguished roles, Crushing Krisis is a part of me – a persistent virtual reflection that helps me to see myself as I am, as I once was, and how I wish I would be.

This page is a lot of things, and a lot of me, and for each year that passes it gets a little more important, because I am getting older and starting to forget feelings from certain moments or stories from specific parties.

I long ago accepted that birthdays and new years days are not inherently transformative experiences – you don’t come out on the other side a new person more than you would emerge reborn from any other day of the year. Yet, they can mark your graduation into being a changed person.

As I wrote last year’s birthday post I felt as if I had finally reached a stable place in life, and if Year 6 of Crushing Krisis was about finding stability, then this past year has been converting stability into happiness.

Some of that conversion was literal. I went from writing and editing letters to managing publications and ad campaigns. I went from being a house-bound recluse of a songwriter to a semi-regular at area bars. and open mics. I transferred Crushing Krisis from Blogger to WordPress on November 12, in the midst of participating in the amazing National Blog Posting Month. I vowed to have a consumerless Christmas (and succeeded). And, Gina and I finally became the band we’ve always teased at being.

And now I am actually, unequivocally, at an equilibrium of happiness – which, if you read through as many hundreds of old posts as I have in the past few weeks, you will realize is a state I wasn’t sure I would reach. Not so soon, at least, and maybe never.

Year 7 of Crushing Krisis includes a slew of favorite posts. I cursed at the television. I had a headache so profound that I gave it a name. I reinvented myself for NaBloPoMo. I recounted my first heartbreak. During a single Trio I redefined one of my favorite songs, and debuted one that had been incubating for half a decade.

I almost burned down the house baking cookies in the microwave. I finally told the story of my life-altering nap at Bonnaroo. I recorded a perfect version of one of my favorite songs. I took my first trip to a casino. Septa carried out an act of terrorism against my favorite garment. And, I finally celebrated the 4th of July the way I’ve always meant to.

But, for every favorite post there’s another that’s just as essential. I offered the most succinct description of myself ever made. I retold the story of the Queen of Darkness, complete with soundtrack. I mercilessly deceived a toddler to get him to eat his vegetables. I contemplated six years of knowing (and reading) Rabi. I listened to the Beatles entire catalog while racing through my last letter of NaBloPoMo reading.

I examined my role as a narrator in my own songs, comparing it to that of an inanimate object. Elise and I found a new favorite restaurant, where we’ve since become regulars. I documented my seemingly endless struggle with organizing my home office. I started documenting my visual life. I reflected on how far my 2004 resolutions have got me.

I recorded my favorite Garbage song, as well as one of Madonna’s most obscure. I reflected on how feminism sometimes makes me cry. I drank a lot of limoncello. I helped present the fifth annual Lyndzapalooza with hardly a hitch. I recorded my catchiest song, ever. I nearly lost my mind in the middle of Broad Street.

After recapping my year in words or links I usually spend the penultimate paragraphs of these August 26th posts talking about what Crushing Krisis is to me and what I hope to make it in the future, but I don’t know if this iteration warrants the introspection.

After seven years of blogging Crushing Krisis is me or, more accurately, an integral, inextricable part of me that I hope will exist as long as I do and beyond. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how many posts I make in a year (105), or how many unique songs I feature (37), or how many times I tell you how I really feel (?). This is just what it is, and I wouldn’t want it to be anything else.

While the penultimate paragraph changes, the final sentiment never really does: thank you. Thank you, no matter how many posts you have read, or how many songs you have listened to.

Thank you, because each of our identities are half about our self-perception and half about others’ perception of us, and if this is a form of me it would only be half-alive without a you to complete it.

Thank you. And, happy birthday to this.

Also filed in Philly, adulthood, august 26th, betterment, gina, moving, rabi, self-aware, songwriting | | Comments (3)

Now With More Undergarments…

Monday, August 6, 2007

One of the reasons I love having a blog – especially a longstanding blog that is never revised or edited in retrospect – is the hindsight it offers.

For instance, longtime readers may recall that I used to have a webcam, and on said webcam I would routinely – even frequently – appeared in the nude. Never full frontal, mind you, but everything but. Because, apparently, that’s how I spent most of my time – nude, either pretending i was in a Playgirl spread or playing guitar.

If you are one of said longtime readers, you may also recall that I archived the highlights of said webcam in a conveniently accessible gallery, where they could be viewed by all future employers or pornographic film recruiters.

Well, you may recall it, but it certainly came as a shock to me when I clicked through an old link tonight to be met with very nearly my full monty circa 2001.

Even more shocking, in retrospect my 2001 almost-full-monty was some pretty hot stuff. Like, just now I sorta gawked at myself for a minute or two.

In case you aren’t one of said longtime readers (of which there approximately four that I can think of) I’d love for you to see the hotness that was me for yourself (as long as you are not an employer! or co-worker! or one of my hypothetical eventual children!).

Except… um… actually, I’d rather you not see it.

Let me rephrase: I’d love for you to be cognizant of the hotness that was me, but I don’t necessarily want to direct you towards a venue where you can see the hotness, especially not in a form that can be forwarded via email or posted on your favorite social networking site.

In any event, thank god for my blog, or I would have tottered into my middle age having completely forgotten that I used to lounge around the apartment in the buff, strategically placing bass guitars so that they would show only the tiniest wisp of pubic hair, and that I really ought to consider taking some of those pictures down if I ever decide to run for a political office.

Also filed in bloggish, self image, thoughts, vanity | | Comments (1)

2007 Song of the Day #6 – Independence Day (Ani DiFranco)

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

In some prior July, possibly as many as nine years ago, I resolved to record Ani DiFranco’s “Independence Day” and post it on my website on the Fourth of July. Not on any other day, mind you – then it wouldn’t count.

Think about that – I’ve been procrastinating on this since I was a teenager … maybe since I’ve been in high school!

I’m happy to finally present you with my cover of Ani DiFranco’s “Independence Day,” from Little Plastic Castle.

If you want chords, performance notes, and lyrics Read more…

 
 Independence Day [3:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Also filed in SongOfTheDay, ani difranco, high school | | Comments (4)

How To Stream Satisfaction

Monday, May 28, 2007

I have not left the house since Friday night – since dragging my sorry self in from the humidity with guitar and amp and bookbag after what maybe would have seemed like one of the longer days of my life had I not just helped to put on a music festival last weekend.

I unapologetically turned on the central air, flopped on the couch, and that was that.

Waking up the next morning – and, in fact, all the way through the weekend until earlier this evening – I couldn’t quite tell if I was sick, or just “under the weather,” or if my body was simply mounting all possible protests at once: sore from lugging amp and guitar around the city, voice fading after a week of talking and singing, stuffy from allergies (also: I need to change the filter on the central air).


I’m being paid to help an acquaintance write and record two songs.

It’s a peculiar arrangement – even beyond the peculiarity of being paid to do something that I spend the majority of my non-working life doing for free. She has words, and melody, and even some chords, but she needs help translating them into a coherent, performable, recorded song.

On her first song we completely clicked, suggesting the same exact chords to each other, minus our personal flourishes. The exception is a single, recurring section where she hears the accompaniment as happy and major, whereas I just feel it as minor and unresolved. She sees where I am coming from, but she doesn’t hear the song that way.

She’s the (paying) client, so I’m doing it her way, but it hurts a little – the song is losing a layer of nuance that only I will ever know. It’s a peculiar direction to head in, given I’ve spent the last year or two mercilessly deconstructing my own writing, trying to eliminate all of the nonsense whims to drill down to the perfect song underneath.


I’ve been reflecting on how my threshold for wasting money seems to be pushing in two opposite directions, leaving a vast middle ground of amounts to waste.

On one hand, I won’t even spend $.99 on a song I like on iTunes, whereas in the past I used to buy albums just based on cover art. On the other, a $400 piece of furniture or recording equipment is a necessary evil, whereas three years ago it took months of prodding to get me to buy my first brand-new electric guitar for that amount.

Is that normal? As we grow up are we all at once more willing to nickle and dime and more willing to throw money at seemingly inevitable larger purchases? It seems like the sort of thing I couldn’t understand as a child, but I feel like I live an entire life that I wouldn’t be able to understand as a child, so the finer points are getting harder to discern.


Last night I watched Battlestar Galactica on the floor of my room/office, head propped up by cardboard box because i was too sore/sick to wander downstairs to find a pillow. It was thing infinity-n on my list of things to do, but I did it anyway.

What is more modern-day than being able to download exactly the thing you have a whim to watch at 3am on Monday morning?


Do you remember when blogging was about recording that instant gratification? Now we have Facebook status and MySpace walls to record the instant – the offhand comment, the spurious wish – while our blogs sit in silence, waiting to catch a thought that is more fully formed.


Lying on my floor somewhere around 4:37 a.m. I thought, fuck that. If my modern adult life says I can stay up all night watching television on my floor because I am too impatient for the DVD to arrive in September, then I’m allowed to blog about whatever damn errata I want to.

It’s not the errata that is alluring and readable, in the same way that watching that one episode doesn’t mean that I am modern and adult. It’s that watching that episode was any of a thousand possibilities of things I could be doing at 4:37 a.m. – a range expanding from sleep to flying to Kansas City just to get drunk.


It’s that enough amassed errata is defining – maybe even arresting – but the only way to find that out is to collect it all in one place, instead of squandering it on everyone else’s internet page.

Also filed in adulthood, day in the life, thoughts | | Comments (1)

The Illusion Of Aging

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

I don’t think I actually age – I present an illusion of growing older and, eventually, my body mirrors my behavior with the simulacra of age.

I’m in decent shape, yet when I’m at work bend down to fetch a fallen paper clip below my desk I am in the habit of letting out a little groan. I never thought I needed the groan – it seemed like the thing to do when squatting half-sideways to reach under my desk.

Today as we walked in the door I reached down to pick up the mail and groaned, and I don’t even think I meant to. It just happened as I bent down.

Sometimes I feel like that’s the story of my life: acting old and then growing into it, blithely discarding youth without realizing its value.

When we traveled to Jamaica I refused to play with the other kids – I had packed a suitcase full of books, I informed the children’s director, and had no intent on nosing about, wasting my vacation meeting other children.

I was nine.

I feel the same way now, quick to invite myself into conversation with older co-workers, nodding along because I get all their jokes about old teevee shows, and going on about our Retro Party and all the Doo Wop music I grew up with.

In the eighties.

I’m worried that one night I will walk through the door and be fifty, suddenly wondering where all those lithe, childish years got off to.

Also filed in memories, thoughts | | Comments (0)

Acts of Terrorism Against My Fashion Regime

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Like most tragedies in life, today’s caught me completely unaware and unprepared.

For many years I have eschewed a heavy winter coat in favor of a layered winter ensemble consisting of perhaps a suit jacket, then a light warm-up jacket, then my trusty mod-squad brown leather jacket, topped with a scarf. It’s enough layers to keep me feeling insulated without the claustrophobic implications of a dowdy jacket.

This morning was cold enough to warrant the full layered ensemble, which I carefully arranged even as the clock crept towards making me late for work. The layers kept me from overheating as I nearly jogged from my house to the Orange Line, haplessly flinginging myself onto the second car as my lateness extended from seconds to minutes.

Fast forward past my triumphant entry to work sans five inches of curly hair and a highly efficient morning meeting. I sit down at my desk with a sigh and notice a smear of something on my right pant leg.

How in the world did I get this reddish paste – it looked like orange marmalade – on my dress pants? I carefully sloughed it away with a napkin, using a damp edge to pick up the remaining crumbs.

Must’ve bumped into someone’s bagel on the elevator, I thought.

I continued thinking that until I noticed more of the strange orange substance on the tail of my suit jacket, and all over the seat of my pants, and also strewn across the lower back panel of my treasured mod-squad jacket.

I wasn’t so worried about the jacket, which has suffered many indignities over the years, so much as I was concerned about the suit – my favorite one. Luckily, I had another suit waiting for me at the cleaners. I could walk to the cleaners, turn over my suit and leather jacket for cleaning, and come back wearing a clean suit.

Down the elevator I went, and across the street to the cleaners. When I arrived I helplessly flung my leather jacket onto the counter and breathlessly explained the problem.

“… and I know this jacket is a little beat up, but it’s my favorite, and I just want you to get this stuff off without it leaving a stain, and the same for my suit.”

The man behind the counter tilted his head and spoke to me in a slow, patronizing tone.

“Sir, I really can’t do anything for the coat now that you’ve let it wear through to the lining.”

Now, many of you have seen me digitally or physically wearing the mod-squad jacket, and though I might have let bits of it get slightly tatty, I’ve never literally worn it through. So, imagine my surprise when I looked down past his patronizing gesturing hand to discover that the strange orange marmalade was now encrusted around a quarter-sized hole in my jacket that – yes – showed through to the lining.

After a moment of consideration I decided that said hole definitely was not present when I examined my jacket in the office. The orange marmalade had eaten through my jacket.

How had my life gone from a typically busy morning of corporate communications to some oddball Jack Bauer subplot? What could I have possibly rubbed up against between my front door and my desk that would eat a hole through otherwise impervious 30-year-old leather?

Why was I still wearing a suit covered in the stuff?

I swiftly stripped down behind the cleaner’s changing curtain as they retrieved my on-hold suit, passing it into the booth in exchange for my soiled clothes. I came out of the store sans-coat, clutching my suit jacket closed with one arm and holding my mod-squad jacket (rejected by the cleaners) far away from my body with the other.

And that was all before lunch.

To the best that anyone has conjectured, at some point I leaned against some element of Septa that had recently been liberated-from or treated-for rust, and the mixture of the solvent involved and the leftover grit wound up pasted across my backside. Curiously, it didn’t seem to be harming my suit (nor my briefcase, which I noticed was slathered in the stuff hours later).

The upshot is that my beloved mod-squad jacket is now wrapped in airtight dry-cleaner’s plastic, probably on the way to an ignoble end in an industrial strength trash bag, and my best-fitting suit is at the cleaners being de-marmaladed (if such a thing is even possible) and I won’t know the outcome until the morning.

Frazzled, distraught, and facing a walk home in the cold without a jacket, at 5pm I decided that I could not let Septa’s passive act of terrorism against my fashionable layering cow me into inaction and dowdiness. I would fight back the only way I know how – with an ample credit limit and a trip to Kenneth Cole.

Now, if only I could figure out a way for this story to end with Septa picking up my K.C. credit card bill I could say I lived happily ever after with my new perfectly-fitted not-too-warm winter jacket (and accompanying splurge-shoes).

Also filed in corporate, day in the life, fashion, stories | | Comments (7)

The Belly of the Beast

Monday, January 15, 2007

The closest I had ever been to a casino prior to Saturday was my twice-yearly reading of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, so when we stepped onto the floor of the Tropicana I half expected a neon carousel full of lizard-people to greet me.

It would have been better than the real thing; shabby carpets whose patterns snaked from side to side as they stretched across a hazy room filled with a fleet of leggy middle-aged waitresses in weird black corsets and hundreds of chain-smoking, hollow-looking gamblers, with a few cigar-smoking rotund gamblers thrown in for good measure.

I suppose I could have inferred the haze and the zombie-like patrons from Hunter, but i had been hoping for something more psychedelic.

In Vegas, maybe, but the nine of us were in Atlantic City. Wes and Karen sat down for winning streaks at black jack while I milled back and forth, nearly having my legs broken when i mistakenly wandered into the service-space between two active craps tables.

It occurred to me that there was really no instruction for the beginning gambler; I couldn’t have even sat down at a black jack table, let alone craps or some poker variant. While the hollow-cheeked undead of Atlantic City elbowed their way past me to get a closer look at the craps game I wondered if they all just expected me to buy some chips and lose until I understood … until I realized that anyone who spent any amount of time wondering about that wasn’t fit for gambling in the first place.

Eventually the more serious boys headed to poker while the rest of us made a pass at the slot machines, where I spent my first (and perhaps only) $3.25 on gambling before declaring that the fleet of corseted grandmothers were not going to keep me inebriated enough to make my gambling cost-effective.

We retreated towards the sports bar and, as the whir and hum of the shabby casino room faded behind us and as the ceiling gave way to rows of wicker fans and then impossibly-bright false-clouds, I thought that perhaps I liked casinos very much so long as I didn’t have to go into the casino part.

Either that, or calculate just how much I had to gamble in total to have my drinks and roomage completely comped and spend exactly that hour-by-hour over the slow course of a day. Because I’d rather spend my money on a steady and sure flow of Southern Comfort than whip it away on the whims of an eight-deck shuffler.

Eight hours later and we were all thoroughly drunk (some of us already hung-over) and mourning our poor Eagles while singing karaoke, me and Gina and our entire table screaming back the pitches of Bohemian Rhapsody at the pitch-deaf lump who had the (intentional) misfortune of selecting the song, and then carrying our scream-singing into the cool night air and back to Philadelphia as i sang the pitches i still could with my husk of a voice.

It took me the better part of Sunday to recover from the experience – just sleep and water, no speech or food, until finally this morning I felt as though the rest of me had returned from AC, where it had somehow become entangled in the hazy air on the casino floor.

Also filed in adulthood, alchohol, books, day in the life, events, gina, stories | | Comments (5)

2007 Song of the Day #3 – Tangled

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Today’s song was supposed to be another Madonna song.

It would come complete with a funny anecdote about how I didn’t think the chorus sounded right but couldn’t quite figure it out, and then I happened to be watching Madonna on YouTube, and she was playing it on guitar, and I was like, “Oh, look, Madonna’s playing the right chords,” and then I thought to myself:

Wow, how strange and vaguely post-modern that 24 years after it was originally released I’m figuring out how to play one of my favorite pop songs by watching a video of Madonna performing it on guitar streaming via the internet.

True story.

However, no matter how many times I tried to record the song in question I couldn’t make it to the end of a single take. It was struggling against being captured. Eventually my voice was too blown to try it anymore.

Shit, I thought, I only have an hour to choose and record another song.

As it turns out, I only needed four minutes and ten seconds, during which I recorded one of the most crystalline versions of any of my original songs ever. And, the song in question happens to be one of my favorites, which I have never before successfully recorded in hi-fi through my mixer.

The Madonna song can wait – Tangled is clearly the song of the day.

 
 Tangled [4:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Philly, Obscured

Saturday, December 16, 2006

The last few days in Philadelphia have started and ended covered in mist. No, not fog, but mist – alive, creeping ever downward until its fingers brush against the asphalt and then sliding out in every direction.

If i liked Hamlet better i might recite something.

Instead i have marveled in my city, so much of it shrouded from view, a place where everything is usually so familiar made novel and mysterious. Each morning the windows behind my cube reveal nothing but white, the buildings just across the street rendered invisible by the opacity of the air that surrounds them. As I leave, the yellow clock of city hall welcomes me to the night, floating in the air like a low, full moon.

Every time I think that I have been here in one place for too long the city finds some way to excite me.

Also filed in Philly, walking, weather | | Comments (1)

…in bed

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Several years ago i acted in a show about morals (in both senses of the word), and at the end we handed out fortune cookies to audience members as they filed their way out of the theatre.

It was a lightly attended show, and we wound up with a huge box of uneaten cookies. The cast and crew took it upon themselves to dispose of said box at the cast party, resulting in each of us eating several dozen fortune cookies.

Of course, the most exciting part of eating fortune cookies is the fortune, which is why we were so disappointed to realize that our box of cookies had a finite amount – maybe ten or fifteen – of fortunes. Perhaps I had seen a duplicate fortune once or twice before in my life, but learning just how slim the fortune options were in a given crate of cookies was depressing.

Ever since then i have hated eating fortune cookies, but i have persevered in my hunt for unique and original fortunes. Or, at least ones that aren’t so general as to apply to anyone.

Idleness is the holiday of fools.

For a few years now that has been my favorite fortune. I got it one day when i was out to lunch with my old boss. We both appreciated it equally, so i brought it back with me to pin up at my desk.

Even after three subsequent desk (and boss) moves the fortune still sits pinned directly above my phone, where it frowns down upon me if am ever tempted to twiddle thumbs or sharpen pencils in order to put-off or altogether-avoid something i ought to be doing.

It is highly effective. I would say that approximately 30% of my productivity is the result of that tiny strip of paper. If i ever lost it I would print a new one.

The only downside of “Idleness is the holiday of fools,” is that it isn’t much of a fortune (unless, of course, it was assuming i am an idle fool). It’s really more of a proclamation.

However, last week out to lunch with co-worker Elib i received my new favorite fortune, because this one enforced something i often doubt. It read:

You will always get what you want through your charm and personality.

At first this might seem a little at odds with “Idleness” – it seems to be indicating i can be as idle as i want, so long as idle with charm.

I choose to see it more as a reminder that an absence of idleness alone does not equal success. To find true success i need to be engaged and happy, and that happiness needs to be an almost tangible force to each person i encounter.

As for “in bed,” i remain in favor of the first.

What’s the best fortune you ever received (in bed)?

Also filed in betterment, corporate, memories, theatre, thoughts | | Comments (5)

What I Found In the Shade

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

I’ve been saving this story all month, and editing it all night.

It’s time to live out in the world, little post. Be free.

This summer i went to a music festival and came back happy.

That’s the short of this story. The details are almost immaterial. I left a whiny grump and returned not. Sure, i’ve whined and grumped a little since then, but i can’t summon up the same intensity of either, or of meanness, as i’ve already mentioned.

I can’t say that I can pinpoint a single aspect of the experience that lead to this transformation, but there is at least one specific story emblematic enough to serve for the purposes of this post, and that also – maybe – fundamentally changed the way i think about people and life in general.

It was Friday afternoon at Bonnaroo, and it was hot.

Bonnaroo is a 80,000-person four-day music festive thrown each June in the middle of a dusty farm in Tennessee. When it gets hot at Bonnaroo your forms of recourse are (1) get soaking wet, (2) retreat to your air-conditioned vehicle, or (3) locate shade. There are few other viable options – waiting in line for the internet tent for twenty minutes of cool air and connectivity, for example – but nothing foolproof.

I was dead in the center of Centeroo, the sprawling music-venue and village-center to all Bonnaroo happenings. I was attempting to watch Ben Folds, but it was too hot and he was uncharacteristically terrible – i couldn’t hack it.

The Fountain was jammed with human flesh. The car was a deadly half-mile or more hike away, and i didn’t even have keys.

I had to find shade.

I started to wander around Centeroo, assessing my options. The edges of performance tents and out of the way trees were already monopolized by small cities of beach chairs and towels. The prime spots at my favorite café were snagged. I was starting to despair, and maybe inching towards heat-stroke.

Turning down a particularly wide avenue of vendors, i spotted a wizened old tree with a smattering of ‘Rooers relaxing underneath. It wasn’t superior real estate – it was more akin to sitting on the ground in front of a row of shops at a strip mall. But, at least it was shade.

I sat. I rehydrated and ate a granola bar. I reclined. I fanned myself with my floppy cowboy hat.

I woke up.

The waking up came as a surprise, as i had no recollection of going to sleep. I definitely recalled the reclining, and the the last thing i remembered was fanning myself with my hat.

I had fallen asleep in the middle of an outdoor hippy mall. This is exactly the thing my mother warned me about. I was probably robbed blind, stripped naked, and infected with syphilis.

I sat up with a shot, groping around me to see how many of my possessions had been stolen and sold for glass and chocolates on Shakedown street. Everything seemed to be intact (including my clothing and my dignity).

Somewhat assuaged, i reached into my pack to fish out a walkie talkie so i could re-establish communication with the team.

It was then i noticed them.

The nappers.

Around me, where before there had been a few scattered concert goers having a rest was now a gathering of ‘Rooers, alternately chatting and peacefully sleeping. Not just a handful, but an expanse, the limbs of those on the fringe practically inside some of the adjacent shopping stalls.

It was as if the wizened tree’s roots had suddenly blossomed into a gaggle of reclining hippies fending off heatstroke.

It was beautiful.

I gingerly picked myself up, careful not to disturb the woman napping next to me. Carefully tip-toeing my way out of the mass, i radioed the team.

“You would never believe what just happened….”

I’ve been raised my whole life to believe that if you leave a car unlocked a bum will pee in it, and if no bum is available someone else might do the deed just to teach you a lesson. Yet i went to a four-day music festival in the middle of a giant dusty farm and not only camped out, but took a nap in the middle of a busy thoroughfare only to awake unmolested to find that dozens of people had joined me.

Something fundamental about my outlook on life changed at Bonnaroo. No, it wasn’t just the napping. It was the sheer joy of arriving in one piece and pitching a tent, the sheer desperation of morning number three when i wanted to be airlifted back to the comfort of my own home, and the victory of Sunday night as we crossed back into Virginia. It was the resignation that, yes, i made it home improved by the experience.

My outlook was broken by Bonnaroo. I used to be No-centric, delighting in my ability to deny. Now i just want to say yes … to push myself a little farther each day, and to watch all of my friends do the same.

And that’s the story of Bonnaroo and my (so-far) never-ending positive outlook.

(I swear i really am going to write “The Complete Yuppies’ Guide To Bonnaroo” as soon as this NaBloPoMo dealy is over with. Seriously. Much wisdom will be dispensed.)

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, bonnaroo, self-aware, stories | | Comments (5)

Rabbit-Totems and Purple Dragons

Monday, November 27, 2006

Even before I had the internet I was always interested in connecting to people who I could understand on some intrinsic level.

In my pre-internet age, one of my favorite comics was Sam Kieth’s The Maxx. Many issues of The Maxx had a pen pals page tucked into the back. The idea of it thrilled me – some equal yet opposite alterna-comic fan flung far across the country could trade significant thoughts with a distant speck of me.

I whined and begged my mother for permission to write to some pen pals or, even better, to send in my information to be listed (because, surely each pen pal was reaping hundreds if not thousands of letters from eager writers such as myself).

I was flatly rejected. Repeatedly. Because, as far as my mother was concerned, it was the goal of the entire population of America to seduce me into acquiescing to a quiet, tidy kidnapping. Who knew what kind of lunatic was lying in wait for impressionable young comic fans such as myself to engage them in witty adolescent banter, only to suss out the likeliest kidnappees and stealthily infiltrate their homes in the night.

I shortly and unsuccessfully agitated for a P.O. Box, and that was that.

(Why didn’t I just send in the damn letter with telling her? Who knows. That is how good of a kid i was.)


When I first started Crushing Krisis one of my favorite things was to not only find and link to a new blog, but to get into a longterm habit of reciprocal linking – carrying on a sort of turn-based dialog in a series of blog posts meant not just for each other, but for our entire audience(s). In a way it was like a comic-book crossover.

Sadly, in most cases only my side of the chat still exists – six years of blogging yields quite an attrition rate. Of my virtual pen pals even the most venerable and permanent-seeming blogs I exchanged links with are gone. All but one.

Wockerjabby was a strange creature – six years ago just a clean layout emblazoned with a purple dragon, talking about college and exercise and veganism and astrophysics. Rabi, pronounced just like “Robby” (cotton on?) was… a girl? A girl named Rabi living just a few miles from my apartment? An awesome, intelligent, health-conscious, blogging girl name Rabi going to college around the corner from my favorite malll?

I was hooked from minute-one. And, just a few hours later, Rabi noticed my link and wrote me a nice email. And (nearly causing me to have a heart-attack in excitement) linked back.

Afterwards i started a (somewhat embarrassing, in retrospect) linking campaign professing my blog-love, and Rabi continued to reciprocate, carrying on merry conversations via email all the while.

If the story plateaued there – two bloggers trading links for six years – it wouldn’t be too remarkable.

It didn’t.

We decided to meet – Rabi was the first internet person i ever met. In the middle of a field, actually. Well, at a train station, and briefly in a grocery store, but predominantly in the middle of a field, where I sang songs and she read poetry.

We continued through Blogathonning and late night IM conversations discussing “Peter’s-Head Romantic Gravitational Units,” and a lengthy walk through night-time Philly, and somehow wound up flying together and then road-tripping together to Boston for concerts, followed by multiple iterations of walking the breadth of NYC and Philadelphia, eventually coming-of-age and enjoying martinis in both locations.

All of that from one link, six years ago yesterday. Not only a best internet friend, but a best friend.

Ever since Rabi’s link has always appeared on my link list. And, six years later, CK is still on hers.

It’s hard – still hard, even with blogs and MySpace – to thwart the natural tendency of our social circles towards homogeneity. Your friends will always have something in common with you, because if you have nothing in common the spark of friendship never catches, and a year later you’re left wondering why someone is still on your friends list. Because of the limits of the physical world, usually many of our friends wind up having the same things in common with us.

The allure of The Maxx pen pals and, later, the internet, is the offer of hundreds of different tangential contacts – small intersections of interest. The long tail of meeting people, the joy of which is following that connection to find even more connections.

In Rabi I have found the unique overlap of blogging, of loving music, of eating strange vegetarian foods, of remaining dedicated – even obsessed – with staying vibrant and real.

Probably way cooler than anyone i could have met from The Maxx.


(ps: Rabi, your Trio got usurped because i don’t know how to play two of the songs yet. Consider this your Trio IOU to be redeemed when i have more than a day to learn three songs.)

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, Philly, boston, comics, concerts, essays, linkylove, long tail, mom, nyc, only childness, rabi, walking | | Comments (3)

Trio: Season Five, Suite #7!

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Trio – the original singer-songwriter web session – typically features original songs, but for the third in a special trio of trios I am covering some of the songs that have influenced me and my songwriting. The first two influences Trios featured childhood and teenage influences.

You can download the entire Trio, or start from a past suite of original songs:

See the rest of this post for chords to all three songs. Continue reading ›

 
 Suite 7 [17:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, Season 5, kelly clarkson, radiohead | | Comments (12)

Trio: Season Five, Suite #5!

Sunday, November 19, 2006
Trio: Season Five, Suite #5:
Influences (Pt. 1 of 3): Childhood
Like a Virgin (Madonna)
In My Life (Beatles)
Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie)

Trio – the original singer-songwriter web session – typically features original songs, but for the first in a special trio of trios I am covering some of the songs that have influenced me and my songwriting.

You can download the entire Trio, or start from a past suite of original songs:

See the rest of this post for chords to all three songs. Continue reading ›

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, Season 5, beatles, bowie, madonna, mom | | Comments (8)

I Slept On Top of the Sheets…

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Having introduced the trinity of my love, my mother, and my best friend, my cast of characters now widens considerably (though it stays predominantly female).

There are former crushes, drinking buddies, and college roommates left to touch upon. However, there is one past character who – even if she doesn’t come up too often these days in blog or in life – had a major impact on your humble singer/songwriter.

She is known as the Queen of Darkness. QoD for short. Continue reading ›

 
 Hold On Me [3:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 
 Splinter [2:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 
 This Long (angry song): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, demos, gina, health, my music, q.o.d., resolve | | Comments (6)

And Then I Tried To Eat It

Friday, November 17, 2006

Note to self: You cannot transform pre-made cookie dough into cookies in the microwave.

This is especially important to consider if your cookie dough has Health Chips in it, because after 17 seconds the chips will briefly spark and go supernova in the microwave before turning into a molten black mass that will slowly shrivel back onto itself while emitting a smell akin two tons of overcooked popcorn garnished with singed human hair. Because, apparently, Health Chips include iron shavings as an ingredient.

Next time either take five minutes to preheat the toaster oven or just eat the dough raw with a spoon like you’ve been doing all week.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, food | | Comments (7)

Trio: Season Five, Suite #3!

Thursday, November 16, 2006
Trio: Season Five, Suite #3:
Songs on the Topic of Hindsight:
Other Plans, This Long (Angry Song), Couldn’t Keep It

Trio – the original singer-songwriter web session – returns for its fifth season featuring my own DIY music. This season each trio of songs will have a loose topic to connect them, which will often correspond to a recent post.

A sample of what I had to say in this Trio…

Re: Hindsight
The topic was actually going to be a specific person who I have a lot of hindsight on. … She’s somebody who occupies a lot of negative space in my life, and I couldn’t justify giving her a whole trio. … Even though I’m always going to have these songs about vortex of negative energy girl, I don’t need to group them together and celebrate how negative that time was.

Other Plans
A couple months ago I ran into the person that it’s about … and I came home and I was – of course – singing “Other Plans.” And I was thinking, wouldn’t it be funny if there was actually a tango when I talk about a tango?

This Long (Angry Song)
It’s all about looking back into a relationship and maybe recasting some of the things that happened in the light of – now – the new you that’s remembering.

You can download the entire Trio , or download the single of “This Long (Angry Song).” Or, start from Suite #1: Identity or Suite #2: Elise!

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, Season 5 | | Comments (7)

Leahla and the Longest Minute

Monday, November 13, 2006

This whole conversion thing has totally thrown me off my agenda of NaBloPoMo talking points. Here’s a story.

I’ve always had crushes. My second earliest memory involves some tiny glimmer of my pre-school, and my sneakily telling my mother i had a crush on a classmate. (My earliest memory being the time my mom locked me and her keys in the car when i was two, which is another story entirely.)

In grade school my life was defined by my crush on Leahla. Pretty, smart, funny, artistic, blonde – who else could my 2nd grade heart have possibly desired? My grade school classes were small, so we interacted every day, and whenever i could engineer it i sat next to her, or did group work with her. We became fast friends, and friends was enough. I didn’t want to be turned into the schoolyard spectacle that a pair of young kissers at my school had become.

My mother aided and abetted my crush as much as possible in her legendarily unsubtle way. When she was a chaperone my mother always made sure Leahla was my hand-holding buddy. And, somehow she once contrived to have me stay at Leahla’s house for the day.

This contrivance was a big deal, as i rarely had a playdate with classmates outside of school. I was breathless in anticipation of seeing the inside of Leahla’s house. Crush notwithstanding, her mother was some sort of artist, and i think i was under the impression that the inside of an artist’s house would look like the crazy masquerade ball at the end of Labyrinth, complete with David Bowie mincing around in too-tight pants. What wonders did her home hold in store? Would the artsy mom leave us alone? Would i see Leahla’s bedroom? Would i see Leahla without her shirt on?

I can only laugh at the bundle of nervous energy and embarrassed reticence i must have been on my big day. What could i have done for hours with this… this girl? I remember in my hyper-precocious nine-year-old mind i imagined that we would spend most of it furiously making out, possibly breaking to discuss our future together and when we hoped to get married. In reality i think we probably just talked and played a gender-neutral board game.

Despite my highest hopes (and, apparently, my mother’s most ardent desires), our romance remained unkindled. My longing continued, unrequited but for field-trip hand-holding, until finally a do-or-die moment arrived: with middle-school imminent my classmates would be scattered to the wind, and i had no assurance that Leahla and i would be seeing each other every day, if ever again.

When I expressed my impending emotional desolation to my mother she, in her boundless and notably infinite wisdom, recommended that i confess my feelings to Leahla. Because, girls like boys who are in-touch with their feelings.

Being a naive momma’s boy who wouldn’t go on to kiss anyone until i was twice that age, i took her advice. I called Leahla to chat and through our smalltalk began bracing myself for the announcement. I chose the kitchen for this endeavor, as it was far removed from my mother and had a phone with a long, twisty cord, so i could pace off my nervous energy.

I paced and working up my nerve until finally i had an opening, a brief conversational stutter and, in suavest most in-touch form i blurted out, “You know, Leahla, i really like you.”

“Peter, i like you to. You’re one of my best friends,” she answered casually. If i knew then what i know now i would have seen that my chances already looked grim.

“No, Leahla, i mean, i really like you.”

Silence. My words hung suspended in the air by miles of telephone wires. I stood frozen, mid-pace in front of the microwave, watching the colon between the hours and the minutes count off the seconds until her reply. One one-thousand. Two one-thousand. Three one-thousand.

I jabbed at the open button on the microwave, rendering the clock blank. I watched the door sketch a leisurely arc to my right before it bounded backwards. My entire life flashed before my eyes. I was bearded and eighty years old, crouched beneath the kitchen table, holding the receiver to my ear with a palsied hand.

“I… i don’t feel that way about you, Peter.”

The microwave door lost its momentum and slowly swung back to the right. The cart must have been on a slant.

“Oh. Okay.”

Leahla’s arc ended at the moment – I have no recollection of her past that point in time. I’m not sure if it was over a long, hot summer after school was already out of session, or if my heart was first shattered on some unsuspecting weeknight, and i just blocked out any further interactions.

I held it against mom ever since – that was the last time she heard a peep out of me about a crush – but i never did learn my lesson; i kept on blurting out unwelcome, unreciprocated feelings for years to come.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, memories, mom, stories | | Comments (4)

The Descent

Thursday, November 9, 2006

I used to delight in being mean.

The focus of my anger didn’t really matter – a bag boy at the supermarket, a friend in conversation, a bus driver – as long as I vented my spleen at just the right moment. It was infamous and much-lamentedtrait of mine for many years; even Gina would roll her eyes when she saw that i was headed for a blowout.

Over the past few years my capacity for nastiness has been on a steady decline. Even when I summon up a decent fit of rage I usually swallow it, or at least soften the blow. And, not just for the benefit of my friends.

Over the summer I went to see The Descent, and in the fairly packed theatre I sat next to a friendly, cow-eyed middle-aged woman and her companion. She seemed like a decent enough neighbor, though during the previews she occasionally talked back to the screen. But, so do I.

As the movie progressed the talking-back morphed into a non-stop commentary track punctuated with pleas to her companion, like “I don’t know why you brought me to see this,” and “oh my god, you can’t leave me alone to go to the bathroom, I can’t take it. I just can’t take it.” I threw a few sideways glances her way, but she was oblivious in rapt, babbling horror.

Finally, during the first truly grisly scene in the movie her babbling transformed into incoherent gibbering screams, either at the characters on screen or just for her own benefit. Either way, she was significantly louder than the theatre’s surround sound, and I was not missing part of the movie just to get an usher.

Calm and collected, i turned to face the incoherent beast.

“Could you be quieter than the fucking characters in the movie?”

I immediately regreted venting at this creature of an obviously lower personal fortitude than my own. She turned to face me with her horrified, watery cow-eyes, mouth working open and closed like a guppy. She had no verbal reaction, just the “blurp, blurp, blurp” of her jowls working.

Over time my peers have developed an immunity to my scathing remarks, but clearly I had destroyed this creature’s will to live. I had to do something to bring her back from the brink.

“I’m sorry, you’re just really loud.”

She kept guppying at me, accompanying the guppying with her watery wide-eyed stare. I tried to go back to watching the (excellent) movie, but her stare kept nudging me in the side of the head.

I had become more horrifically transfixing than the golum-monsters on screen. I had ruined her movie experience with my meanness. She just wanted to go out to the movies and yammer like a mental patient because she has no coping mechanism to deal with horror but would be the oldest kid in the theatre for The Ant Bully. Who was I to impose society’s artificial standards about being quiet at the movies on her
As the on-screen violence continued I calmly, sweetly, turned back to my (still-staring) neighbor. One of my professors was a fan of a communications theory where other people would agree with you more strongly if you aligned your bodily reactions (like rates of breathing and blinking) with theirs. It was time for a field test.

I carefully matched her cow-stare and her guppy-breathing until I felt that we had reached a state of true simpatico. Gulping down some air and willing my eyes into giant, mooning saucers, I whispered, “I know, it’s really scary.”

Borderline cow-woman bit her lip and nodded at me. I bit my own lip and nodded along. I had established a connection. Slowly, still maintaining eye contact, still in-character as a cow/guppy with borderline personality disorder, I turned back towards the screen.

As if by magic, or a complex system of gears and pulleys, she also turned back towards the screen. I completed my turn in slow motion, finally breaking eye contact when it felt as if my pupil was going to slide back into my head.

She didn’t make another noise or even remotely glance at me for the remainder of the movie, or afterwards when we filed out. Yet, it was a pyrrhic victory, because I felt the need to temper a successful flare-up at a stranger who was screaming incoherently at a movie screen with an apology. You know, so her feelings wouldn’t be too hurt.

Old-school me would have pressed my attack until she ran sobbing from the theatre.

Of course, I wouldn’t have accumulated any good karma that way.

I like to think that present-day me strives to at least break even on karma, which means i only get to be unapolgetically nasty to someone who really deserves it. And, much to my chagrin, talkers at the movies, along with litterers and people who smoke next to you at the bus stop, are just innocent bystanders minding their own lives.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, flicks, stories | | Comments (3)

My Secret Rock Star Life

Sunday, November 5, 2006

I suppose that last post bears some explanation of my secret rock star identity.

It is so secret that hardly anyone is aware of it. Hopefully that will soon change.

I started writing original music in high school as a hobby – not something I defined myself by. In college i was a part of a group of extremely talented actors, singers, and musicians. But, though i could rightfully identify myself in all three categories, i never felt as though what i was bringing to the stage was as valid as what other people did. After every audition or performance I was my own harshest critic, and as a result I slowly disappeared from performances, relegating myself to a off-stage role.

However, there was still one thing at which I was better – maybe best – than everyone I knew: writing songs.

It wasn’t a matter of pride or self-confidence – it was just something i knew. My best five or ten or twenty songs stood up against the songs of my friends, and even the songs on albums I bought every week. I could remain a performer as long as I had my songs, so I labeled myself a singer-songwriter. I played at parties. I recorded songs for my webpage. I walked from my apartment to campus, playing guitar and singing the whole way. As long as i had a song to stand behind i was fearless.

As college wore on, some of the more multi-talented friends in our extended group gained an amount of local notoriety as singer-songwriters fronting bands. I finally had people – peers – to compare myself to, and it was immediately clear that I didn’t sing as well, or play guitar as well, or record as well, or work the stage as well.

This was especially demoralizing because my songs were still great – it was just me that wasn’t good enough. I let it get to me – right down to the very core of me, and as a resultI graduated having not played an original front of people for over a year (with one exception – poorly received), and I had even stopped recording – frustrated that my voice never came out how I heard it in my head.

I decided that for my first year of professional life i was leaving my creative side behind – i had to focus on working hard, and on being a good boyfriend to Elise, because that’s what was important. Creativity, music especially, was a lark I could afford to ignore.

My resolve was strong, and even after the year was over and I starred in a successful bit of post-collegiate theatre i was still holding out on music. I still hadn’t performed anywhere, and even my once-prolific writing had ground to a halt.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when everything changed.

Last December I made my yearly appearance at the Shubin Theatre Holiday Revue. I appear not because of any great talent, but because I am friends of the Shubin family, which includes Gina, my sometimes co-writer. In 2005 I was performing on relatively short notice, and so instead of my typical cover or collaboration I decided to play an original – Seams – a song all about my imperfection, my lack of confidence, my reticence to perform anywhere outside of my own bedroom.

In that tiny theatre with forty or fifty people watching I rediscovered me as a musician. I was singing words I had written, words I still very much meant, and as they left my mouth I could feel – even see – them connecting with members of the audience. At the after party people asked where they could see or hear me perform and, slightly embarrassed, I told them that they couldn’t.

As I said it I realized the ridiculousness of it. I had these great songs – catchy songs, witty songs, meaningful songs – and here I was refusing to play them because I didn’t deem myself to be good enough. It seemed rational to me for years, but that night I realized how unfair it was to the songs.

I am no longer a part of that disproportionately talented college friends – I’m a part of the world at large. And, in that world I am unique in my ability to sing and play at all, let alone with some amount of skill, and I am unique in my ability and willingness to document my life through song.

In this much wider world I am done with hiding my songs in my bedroom, and with that newfound confidence i find that my singing, playing, and performing are suddenly not so bad as i thought they were. I can play in front of friends or strangers knowing i deserve their attention as much as anyone else, and sometimes i even win it.

Today, and tonight at The Sidecar Bar, I am a singer-songwriter. And, it’s not a secret anymore.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, college, memories, my music, self-critique, stories | | Comments (0)

Trio: Season Five, Suite #1!

Friday, November 3, 2006
Trio: Season Five, Suite #1:
Songs on the Topic of Identity:
Hyperbole, Apart, Seams

Trio – the original singer-songwriter web session – returns for its fifth season featuring my own DIY music. This season each trio of songs will have a loose topic to connect them, which will often correspond to a recent post.

A sample of what I had to say in this Trio…

Re: Trio
It started out with me in my bedroom with a shitty guitar and this tiny little pinprick of a microphone on the top of my computer monitor. … It’s still very do-it-yourself … it’s no science. The sounds that come out are the sounds that come out.

Hyperbole
What you can’t know from just hearing it is that song was written with and always performed with my often-times co-writer Gina Martinelli. It’s a song that holds a lot of meaning for me, and for a while I had given up doing it by myself. … I discovered in the same way that I can cover a song by The Supremes, I can do a song that’s a me-and-gina song and just own it, and fill in those spaces (or not fill in those spaces) with something that’s uniquely me.

Apart
It illustrates … that sometimes I just can’t help but let in the opinions of other people, and for a long time I didn’t really know what to do about that.

Seams
It’s very different from my other songs, and I feel like it really actually says something about me.

You can download the entire Trio , or download the single of “Seams.”

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, Season 5 | | Comments (2)

Endless Intake (or, Thoughts on Identity)

Friday, November 3, 2006

I often move through my life feeling as though I have no walls – no resistance to the personalities and pop culture surrounding me.

For years I absorbed the opinions and styles of everything and everything else so much so that I had trouble getting a handle on who I was underneath it all. My opinions and reactions were just a collection of easily identified demographic influences – everything to do with what I consumed or the image that others projected on me, and very little to do with me.

I often manifested this uncertainty of self by acting out – needing to grow out my hair, or to wear flashy clothes and makeup, or to be the loudest most-opinionated person in a room. I still like doing all three of those things from time to time, but now I see that – taken as a whole – they were just my way of trying to create a tangible, distinguishable identity. No one could ignore or forget the long-haired boy in body glitter and black vinyl arguing with you at the top of his lungs.

My outgrowth of that phase might be why explain why I have given up radio and television altogether. People often express shock and horror at the fact that I don’t watch television at all; it’s as if they cannot comprehend even the idea of it. Too many people define themselves by the television show they spend the most time watching, and as a minor-league obsessive-compulsive and a major-league fan I was primary amongst that demographic.

After over two years of media deprivation and gainful employment I feel like I have a better handle on “me” than ever. I’ve found enough of my own opinions, tastes, and stories that I no longer need them to be sublimated by the tightly written copy of others.

However, aside from locking myself in my room I still haven’t found a way to resist the influence of people, and how they make me feel so fuzzy around the edges as their traits osmose into me. I pick up other people’s handwriting as if I am made of silly putty, the curves and splines of my letters easily influenced. My manner and style of speech is just is easily swayed.

I like blogging because it is a way of taking back me. I’ve always been the most comfortable with the written word, and keeping a written archive of my experiences and feelings allows me to re-experience – re-absorb – the aspects of me that matter the most. It makes it easier to get back in character because it represents the most crystalline, most consistent version of me.

I might not ever have a defense against the barrage of media and opinions that greets me each day as I set foot on my front step, but I now also have something much more indelible at my center. And that’s a good feeling.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, identity, self-aware, teevee | | Comments (0)

A Picture Share!

Thursday, November 2, 2006

Your author commutes incognito to avoid neighbors, coworkers, fans, and roving coke dealers.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, phonecam | | Comments (0)

A Crisis on Crushing Krisis (or, Welcome to NaBloPoMo)

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

You go to Wikipedia to look up one thing and it turns into your entire night. Not a night about that one thing, but a night about all sorts of things you never knew about before.

For example, I never knew that there is a shrimp capable of producing shockwaves with its claws that can kill small fish or break glass. And I didn’t know that DC Comics’ hero Animal Man could manifest that power, or the power of any other animal, proportional to the size of his body.

I do know a bit about DC Comics in general, which came part and parcel with being a young boy in the eighties. I can rattle off the origins of all the major heroes as if reading straight from the origin cards that came with their Super Powers toys: Superman the sole survivor from Krypton, Batman an orphan, Wonder Woman an Amazon, et cetera.

The problem that DC Comics was having in the 1980s was that the origins weren’t really that simple, and neither was anything else. As a new influx of readers emerged from the simplified realm of cartoons and toys they discovered that Superman wasn’t exactly a sole survivor… Supergirl was his cousin, and Krypto the Superdog was his long lost pet. So much for being Krypton’s last son.

Other heroes had similarly puzzling paradoxes. The problems weren’t the fault of any single writer or editor so much as they was the fault of almost fifty years of accumulated comics continuity. Eventually the continuity became so splintered that some of the odder stories were explained away as occurring on alternate versions of Earth, but even this couldn’t solve all of the confusion.

The result was Crisis on Infinite Earths – a DC Comics event whose stage was the entire multiverse (and every comic title), and whose stakes were the very existence of life as we know it. Various Supermen and Wonder Women from other realities were knocked off over the course of the event, along with their confusing accomplices (like the aforementioned Supergirl).

When the dust settled the DC Universe was “rebooted” with a single Earth, containing heroes with discernable backstories that could be easily portrayed by cartoons and toys. Ever since, any continuity-impacting event is a “Crisis.” Last year had an Identity Crisis, this year an Infinite Crisis.

I swear, there was a point to all of that. Hang in there.

Crushing Krisis has been around for an extraordinary six years without interruption; it’s the longest running blog in Philadelphia.

Longrunning blogs are just as confusing as those pre-Crisis comic book stories. Blogs easily mix the present with the past, and the longer a blog exists the more and more of the present becomes the past in the form of archives. Past personal dramas continue to be referenced and – aside from the occasional backlink – a new reader is expected to keep up with the narrative without the benefit of comics standards like toys, or trading cards. Or stories set on alternate Earths.

In honor of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), here at Crushing Krisis we are having a DC Comics style Crisis. A Crushing Krisis Crisis. Krisis’s Crushing Crisis. Krisis of Infinite Crises. I don’t know, choose whatever you think is catchy.

The point is that – for the entirety of November – I’m rebooting.

Because of my participation in NaBloPoMo I’ll be posting at least once every day, and my posts will contain everything you need to know about my life. Every character and plot strand will be introduced anew. No assumptions, no backstory, no backlinks – not even to reference things that were really funny the first time around. And, to up the ante, if I want to link to one of my original songs in order to refer to it, I will need to provide a brand-new recording of the song, commissioned especially for NaBloPoMo.

I hope this novel idea piques your interest enough to stay tuned through NaBloPoMo and Beyond, whether you are a regular reader or a random surfer. Welcome to the all new Crushing Krisis!

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, comics, meta | | Comments (4)

Richard

Thursday, October 26, 2006

My headache began a few days ago as a pair of too-wide yawns. The first flexed the right side of my jaw a little too far, and with the second there was a slightly audible crackle of bones being uncooperative. “Stop trying to unhinge your Jaw,” Elise said, “you don’t have to eat those rabbits all in one piece.”

Yes, my girlfriend is amusing.

The ache persisted for a few days, and by last night it was on the move – the pain slithered in to my mouth, up to my temple, and down the side of my neck. The ache became the headache, which in turn became one of the top three worst headaches of my life. (Another is here).

The headache is so persistent and distinct that I feel as though it is some separate entity – a symbiote – inflicting its will on me. It is like Spidey’s black suit, attached to me at the jaw, trying to envelop my entire head so that it can control my brain.

For sanity’s sake, I have named it. Meet my headache, Richard. You can call it Rick for short.

This is an important distinction for me: I am not my pain, and visa versa. I refuse to walk into work defined by a headache, or anything else, for that matter. On the outside I am committed to being my same vivid self, no matter the interior conditions.

(I would compare this to stepping onto the stage, but that analogy has the negative connotation attached to it from the time I tried to sublimate my 103 fever for a dress rehearsal but wound up with Bronchitis and Pneumonia. Because, you see, a fever is not just a symptom, it’s a condition, and you are your conditions.)

I’ve been surrounded by lots of headache sufferers in my life – a certain ex convinced it could be a brain tumor, and two former bosses whose headaches increased sensitivity to light and destroyed appetites.

My thinking on the matter is that pain is just a perception – just another sense. And, in the same way you can tune out a droning noise or adapt to a familiar smell, you can work your perception around pain. Certainly, some pain is of a source and magnitude much too high to ignore; after all, you can’t exactly tune out a jackhammer.

Richard will not be reaching jackhammer significance in my life. Because, unless some part of my is cracked or broken or abcessed, Rick is just an illusion of my perception. I can tune out Richard just like screening a call. He could just be an itch, or a tickle, or a gnat.

Richard has no magnitude because, there is no Richard. He’s just a yawn that got too wide. As easily as he interrupted my sleep and made me late for work he is banished back into the ether from whence he came.

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