Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

my music

Yes Said

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I’ve been having a very inside day. I’ve been inside with my thoughts and for a while I went out walking with flip flops on, but i’m not sure that that was the best idea.

I’ve been reading about Tori. She sent us all this darling little Christmas email in our inboxes where she is obviously being prodded by her website people into saying her little script thing, but she’s obviously having a bit of fun with them at the same time. There’s this very excellent little Tori covers site i just found, but i can’t really see it right in Firefox. You should go download Firefox. But, anyhow, I’m – I’m living Tori’s life in this little two hour microcosm on YesSaid, i don’t think i’ve ever realized what a wonderful little site it is.

It’s just so amazing that you can be so much a public figure that someone is cannibalizing your yearbook, you know, and posting pictures online. That’s the internet. And, reading all these quotes from her, you see this wonderful little progression, from this girl playing piano bars to this astounding woman…

My dear roommate totally lost my train of thought. It’s off the tracks. We’ve sent in the sniffing dogs to go look for it. Sometimes i picture what i would be like if i lived alone; i don’t think it would be very entertaining. As much as i am, um, obviously obsessed with myself, my inspiration comes very much from outside myself. Even if that inspiration is, you know, thinking oh my god would you please shut up or what is that shitty music you keep listening to, go find some taste. Not that those are reactions i need to typically have to any of my roommates. I mean, they’ve all had decent CD collections.

I digress. ‘cuz, i remember where i was: What’s funny is that you can read Tori talking about the same thing so many times in so many different places. And, in a lot of cases, her quote is almost verbatim. But then, others, other stories come out a little different every time. I think i’ve heard maybe two or three distinct versions of the “Playboy Mommy” story, where she falls down the stairs and she thinks of the first line of the song. But, “Space Dog,” i feel like the few times she’s spoken about that she’s said it verbatim. Those same words. (it reminds me a lot of this page, actually)

“Space Dog” is very nearly my least favorite Tori song, though it has its moments, but i can definitely appreciate those emotions. She is… she is calling something in, you know? She has tuned in on something, and is reverberating. I try for that, but a lot of the time when i get there i don’t know where to go. It’s a very… getting there is very holistic experience. Just now i was almost there – you have to engage your attention very steadily, and you into this state – reading without realizing, and just lipping along to the words to the music and running my hand through my hair over and over, and i go into this sort of trance.

I, i get there and I know i’m there and that, you know, just about anything can come out of that. I’m thrumming, i am a pitchfork or something, just buzzing violently. I could just sing, or think of this perfect guitar lick, or write some perfect post.

And then Elise starts fussing around the house and making these little mouse noises and asking why the lights are on. She is, like, foraging in my thoughts, she is just chewing right through my creativity, there it goes, as if it’s some little bolt-hole she’s working on. But, at the same time, it belongs to her in a way, because if i lived alone i wouldn’t have anything to start from at all. Like, striking a pitchfork in the vacuum of space. Would it even vibrate? There would be no sound, so does it even matter if it was even vibrating?

And poof, i get this jumble, mess aborted trance. Some perfect moment interrupted, and all just spilling out at once.

Dear To Me

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I don’t write a lot of open letters.

I remember when I lived on 64th street in that grand, old, dilapidated house. It seemed so vivid at the time, but in retrospect my life there seems so one-dimensional – as if I didn’t begin to be the person I am now until I left.

We used to talk all night on instant messenger. My computer was in the dining room, far away from any comfort at all. It didn’t matter, though. I could sit forever and talk to you. Idle chatter. Guess that Tori lyric. Whatever.

I used to send you songs, especially that one summer when I really started writing them. I’d dash one off and email it right to you. I trusted you so much with them – I don’t think I’ve ever let anyone that close to them before or since. I let you in on these little secrets of mine, and wove some of yours in too, and you always accepted them so graciously, sometimes even replying with another snippet your oblique novella (never finished).

It all got so different when I moved just around the corner from you. I don’t know why. On one hand, it let us be close friends instead of just remote acquaintances. On the other, I was near you so much, being constantly reminded that I was just idle entertainment; I was no main act. I’m always cautious to say that I fell in love with anyone, because it’s hard to love in only one direction, but in my way I know that at the time I was in love with you.

You knew. I know you knew, and knew it then, and would remind you occasionally in case you had changed your mind. You were always quite kind about it, really, because you let me into so much of your life (I’ve never been sure why).

I still hold some of those memories – stupid memories – so close to my heart. The stupid movies we would go to see, the time we put an old shoe into Andrea’s Christmas gift so she wouldn’t know what it was, the time you took that perfect self-portrait of your hair and your bangs and I decided that it had to be the cover of my album. And the music; you made me listen to Rufus Wainwright, and told me how the song was about how his lover had died of AIDS, or the first time you made me listen to Elliott Smith and Built To Spill, or the first time I made you listen to Dilate. So much good music in your room.

I’m really sorry for whatever I did to you. I think I talked about your life too much, as if somehow a tiny piece of it was owed to me. Or, maybe was a little too mean to you in my songs; both are crimes I’ve gone on to repeat. I don’t know; sometime that Winter I did something to erode the closeness, and you just went on living.

I’ve gotten over lots of girls – you’ve seen me do it once or twice. But, you know, I’ve never really gotten over you. I don’t think it’s because I never got to kiss you because, let’s face it, how many of these girls have I gotten to kiss, really? I just think it’s because you always let me feel so safe, and so cool, and I just don’t have that anymore. I guess I’ve never really had to lose anyone else that I’ve loved.

I’m sorry, you probably didn’t need to read any of this. I was just singing one of those songs and I realized that I really do miss you.

I’m sorry.

A Picture Share!

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Fini
During my (awesome) adobe seminar, i finally finished transcribing lyrics into my book… i can’t believe it’s really full. Life, i suppose, really does move on

Emptiness vs the Slim Grey Book

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For those of you who are slightly new to this whole shebang, you should know that Trio has effectively become my get-out-of-blog free card. How it works is, basically, I lay my artistic soul bare for you in a 10-12 minute concert that, despite its sound of carefree ease, involves hours of sweat, profanity, and occasional blood to produce. Flush from my artistic efforts an enamored with my new tuneage, I typically let Trio sit at the top of the page for a week (or more) so that my barely-existant fanbase has no trouble locating and clicking upon the special feature repeatedly to satiate their listening desires.

Right.

In related news, I’m having trouble writing about anything lately, because I don’t know what to write about. I am happy. I am sedate. I am routine. These are the makings of a dull, repetetive folk record, not my next rock opus.

Last week I finished my book of lyrics.

I feel just as odd reading that sentence as I did shutting the book last week. The book, my book, that slim grey volume I bought my first week of college, and furiously jotted into that week after I had my first drink, is finally finished. It’s over. Done. Complete.

What’s funny is that I didn’t even know it was full. I knew I had about a dozen blank pages left, and I had been scribbling songs out elsewhere, on other pads, so as not to put any irrelevant junk-lyrics in my book. When I finally piled all of my scribblings up for transcription I realized I had more than enough to complete the book. Enough, in fact, to make a decent start on a new book.

Not only is it full, but the last song that would fit was “A Little Bit,” the (bouncy, self-depricatingly optimistic) song I wrote the day before I moved out of my college apartment – the perfect bookend to “Crashing,” the (plodding, drearily pessimistic) song I wrote after my first college party.

Paging back through favorite songs and discarded lyrics, I realized that I can’t really claim that all my good work came from conflict or tension. “A Little Bit” came from an almost perfect zen, “So Hard” came from a poetic IM conversation, and “Punk” came from out of nowhere. Lately I have mistaken a reluctance to write something for an inability to write anything, but maybe it’s for the best – I have songs I’ve never really finished, or never really learned – why am I in such a rush to add any more?

Anyhow, I need to decide what my new book (my third) will be, so I can move on with my life and writing.