Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

lyndzapalooza

Bleed Like Me

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I am always more the rock star when I draw blood, and last night was excruciating. After a week of practice had thickened my skin to new levels of callousness i spent the day nervously picking at these foreign fingertips, leaving them as naked and vulnerable as a tiny baby’s for my rehearsal with Dante. Our first time through “Volcano Girls” I winced and dropped the tempo, eventually giving in and playing the chords as a sevenths to rest my battered pinky.

“Bucket Seat” solved the problem, though, so fun to play, and with drums! Real, live drums, doing what I’d imagine they’d do – propelling me into choruses and matching my crescendos. And, after, inevitably after my spirited performance, I found that I had drawn blood.

I think it was the turning point in the rehearsal, really. Everything rocked more after that. Saturday at the party I’ll have nearly half an hour of rehearsed(!) set, with drumming(!) throughout. For most of the guests it will just be background noise; for me, a little victory.

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I feel as though there’s something i have to tell you — i really owe it to you. It won’t be easy, but i have to. But, first you should know that when i got back home last night from Lyndzapalooza i felt as if i had bruised everything that i had: fingers, muscles, voice, brain, and heart. I was, as i put it so eloquently to Elise, “a piece of hurt.” Not that it’s any excuse for what i’m about to tell you, but i just feel as though you should have an idea of the state i’m in.

I cried at the end of Armageddon. There, i’ve said it. I cried, not only for the characters on screen, but for myself — for having so knowingly bought in to a written-by-committee tearjerker that barely aspires to B-movie status because of one thing: Bruce. Bruce Willis. The man doesn’t always make the best movies out there to be made, and he isn’t always the best actor that could be found, but you just don’t kill him. Do you understand? Don’t kill Bruce. Because, in killing him, you force him to let loose, to lose control, to unlease all of the pathos and weariness that he has built up during the shooting of countless Die Hard movies as well as the physical emotiveness he reserved while dubbing his voice into the Look Who’s Talking series. And when you let me know that for the entire population of the Earth, including those of us spending our waning hours watching this bland by-the-numbers Bay/Bruckheimer creation, the only thing that stands in the way of our imminent deaths is the noble self-sacrifice of Bruce Willis then by god maybe the end is nearer than we think, because i will be blown into a thousand pieces by errant space debris before i’ll watch Bruce sacrifice himself again to save a pansy talentless hack like Ben Affleck who draw the straw of death fair and fucking square! Do you hear me?!?! Straw of death.

Like i said, i’m not especially emotionally stable right now. Apologies. Hopefully you don’t think any less of me for it.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200308389/

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Victory! Sweet, sweet, blueberry victory!

In other news: last night i played guitar for what has become a routine four hours, breaking only for the penultimate episode of Buffy and white pizza courtesy of Ross’s new credit card. This morning the skin on my fingers is rind-like and impervious to pain.

You could say that i’ve become a little obsessed with my practice regimen, ostensibly because i’m playing at a backyard festival this weekend and have vowed in public earshot to blow away all of the other performers. Really, though, it’s because i don’t know if i actually can. The recently revealed running order of the event finds me sandwiched between a duo of golden-throated music majors and a terrific a cappella group that i arrange for, with the entire day both book-ended and dotted by talented multi-instrumentalists and Philly pub performers. And in the middle is little old me.

At this late stage drilling finger exercises until i feel as though i’m going to vomit if i have to stretch my pinky to the seventh fret again probably isn’t going to do me much good, which is why i typically leave that until just before bed. The regimen begins as soon as i have stripped out of my corporate skin of shirt and tie, sometimes finding me strumming the opening chords of “Tangling” in an undershirt and low rise briefs. The run through the current iteration of my set quickly (and seemingly inevitably) descends into seething about my inability to pick complex patterns or endless fiddling with my amp tone, and rarely features more than a single complete song. Alternately, i could probably just look in a mirror and scream “you are worthless” for thirty minutes to achieve a similar effect on moral.

After this inevitably crushing warm-up routine, i turn to my Bible, The Complete Beatles Scores. What better comfort could there be to my inability to play my own misbegotten songs than to learn how to play some of the best songs ever written? Last night was a medley of Let It Be‘s A-Side, none of which i can carry all on my own. Still, the practice is useful because i am trying to match a specifically scored and recorded sound rather than some elusive cipher of a rhythm that only plays inside of my head.

After a solid run at the Beatles (always including thirty minutes on the riffing of “Dig A Pony” and at least two renditions of “Blackbird“) I am ready to perform my own set, minus the sniffling and whining. Or, rather, the sniffling and whining is restrained only to lyrical appearances. This set is typically much more affirming, though as a rule “Apart” sounds like utter shit. “Under My Skin” is placed strategically dead in the middle to remind myself that, yes, i can actually (write / play / sing) with some modicum of professionalism on a consistent basis. This is necessary, as my shot at “Seams” typically breaks down shortly after the key change.

I end with “Little Love,” because for a month i had intended to start with it and so bootstrapped it up past all of the intermediate levels of (total shit / shit / lyrical Alzheimer’s / inability to cross bridge / endless descent into ad-lib and riffing / constant Simon-Cowell-ing of vocal performance) to the point where i spent an entire hour last week walking around Center City with a guitar strapped on over my shirt and tie playing it and being asked my name and if i could be heard at any local bars or pubs. It isn’t “Under My Skin,” but it allows me to ignore (or, at least atone for) the two dozen false starts of “Apart” from earlier in the evening. It allows me to believe for a second that the forty or so friends that will be enduring me for a precious half hour on Saturday will perhaps clap out of something other than obligation.

Only after that do i brutally work my pinky fingers until my stomach knots with each effort. And then, sometimes, i go to bed.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200290435/