Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

lindsay

As a Matter of Record

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One 20 oz. Beer = Forgetting the first line to every song in my entire repetoire.

One and a half 20 oz. Beers = Note-perfect Kelly Clarkson songs with impromptu djembe.

By way of explanation, there is a standing Thursday night open mic in Philly at Buckets. It’s a small, comfortable room, organizer Josh knows how to mix, and the beers on tap are served in 20 oz. glasses, which slay me every time.

First I joined Lindsay to play an impromptu “Who Will Save You Soul,” followed by a barely memorized “Time After Time” that sorta rocked, and finally our bluesy “Oh, Darlin’.”

A few minutes later (after the euphonium solo) (no, really) (and it was awesome) I played one peculiar set of “Regrets,” “Rehab,” a little bit of “Not So Bad” until I realized that I had no idea what the first line was, “Icy Cold” (during which the first line of “Not So Bad” popped into my head out of nowhere, which was a little distracting to remember while singing “Icy Cold”), following by “Not So Bad.”

Later, after a Jim-Morrison-does-Johnny-Cash-playing-left-hand mindbending set by someone whose name I didn’t catch, we realized we had run out of people, so I went up again for an epic set of “Standing,” “Ziggy Stardust,” “Under My Skin,” “Love Me Not,” “Day 94” (!), and – by request – “Since U Been Gone.” And, being buzzed and agreeable at that point (enough that I was playing Kelly Clarkson by request in a bar), when I noticed Josh’s drummer tapping along on the bar I recruited him mid-verse into the tune.

And it fucking rocked. It’s nice to be out in the world playing in front of people again.

NaBloPoMo Round-Up #10b, or Possibly #11, but Most Definitely Last: A Splendiforous Surplus of S, and the Complete Abridged Works of the Fab Four

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Because i have a minuscule, highly-atomic OCD-Godzilla tramping around in my soul, crushing tiny mitochondria like so-many prop houses made out of cardboard, i almost couldn’t allow the Roundup series to extend to the hideously prime 11.

Then i realized that this is the eleventh month of the year so it would totally make sense.

I’m still not completely at peace with it, but Godzilla has retreated back to his radioactive hidey-hole so i can get down to business.

209 S blogs between here and recording more new music and writing real content. 209. 209. 209. I should record a whole song of me saying it over and over and over.

Seriously, my Beatles Complete Scores book actually has the score for Revolution #9. As if anyone has that at the top of their list of Beatles songs to play out of the 200ish in the book.

Okay, now i’m just stalling. Although, that book was possibly the most satisfying $50 i’ve ever spent on myself.

But, hey, that’s a great idea! I’ll listen to a tiny fraction of every Beatles song chronologically for every S blog i read! If a song ends my time is up, and the blogger gets an honorary link for wasting my time holding my attention.

Although, more likely is that I might hear 2 whole seconds of some of them while i frantically click away!

Just kidding. I actually average 46 seconds of attention per blog, which means this should take me about three hours, and plenty of catchy choruses.

Ready? [Read more…] about NaBloPoMo Round-Up #10b, or Possibly #11, but Most Definitely Last: A Splendiforous Surplus of S, and the Complete Abridged Works of the Fab Four

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We’re moving on Friday. I’m not sure how many times I’ve moved that I can remember.

Moving out of 64th Street was a novelty – having never moved before in my conscious life, the idea of categorizing and packing things seemed fun.

Moving from Reed Street to college was a move of efficiency – the dorm room was only oh-so-big, and the hurricane was oh-so-bad. Two carloads would certainly be all that we could manage. I reminisced at length about it previously.

Moving from Kelly Hall to Calhoun hall was my first introduction to desperate, anxious, nerve-rending, nail-biting moving. The orientation leaders hoarded carts and monopolized elevators for each other. Where were my belongings supposed to live, if i was to be out by noon and in at… four? Five? We sat in the piano lounge on our collective piles of stuff and waited.

Ahh, now we come to moves i’ve documented on blogger.

Moving out of the dorm to my first apartment (with a half-week stopover back at Reed Street) was pure misery – i was sick, my future roommate was being less than helpful, and at one point i didn’t even have a lease to prove the apartment was mine. It was also the only time I’ve technically lived with my mother since 1999. A wonderful example of our uneasy alliance can be found here.

Next comes the move of legend: me from Spring Garden Street, and Lindsay and Erika from Race Street. This recap makes it sound rather pedestrian, but it still inspires only-slightly-hyperbolic stories from the five of us whenever anyone moves.

(in here i help Elise move from dorm to Melon’s to 3216 to Baring to here)

Moving from The Grotto to here was disproportionately easy, considering it involved more possessions and stress than ever. How i managed to get all the stuff from there to here, i’ll never know. The day was honestly a sleepless blur.

Six moves in seven years, and also in twenty-three (if you don’t count when i was three).

https://crushingkrisis.com/2005/04/111404524386168409/

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My iPod, almost completely out of battery power, didn’t seem as if it would want to scroll very far to find an album for my morning commute on Wednesday. I obliged by only descending as far as Ani DiFranco.

As the trolley whisked through its underground tunnel, I marveled that an Ani Difranco album came out on Tuesday. It’s the first one that I haven’t bought on (or before) its day of release. In fact, I used to pride myself on being able to recite Ms. DiFranco’s release dates as if their were birthday’s of favorite cousins, or political revolutions.

As Ani releases an album nearly every year, it’s easy for me to associate every one with a certain bit of my life, as many people as there are songs strewn across her dozens of discs. Standing there on the trolley a line caught my ears, a line I’ve heard so many times before: I owe my life to the people that I love.

It’s a strange concept to me who, by any account, is at least halfway centered on myself. I measure my life in personal milestones and, in Ani’s case, in albums, but rarely by other people. But, as those songs passed by I thought of some of those other people. How Ayelet put an Ani song on a mix tape before I even know who Ani was. How freshman year I sat on Alison’s floor and traded Ani concert stories as we carefully cut out the tray-art of my demo cd. How sitting in Lindsay’s room (really Laurel’s) and singing “Falling is Like This” I realized that I had met someone of a completely like mind.

All of those people, just by invoking Ani DiFranco albums. If Ani’s music has partially made my life, then what about the people who brought me an appreciation for those songs? The people that are unavoidably invoked every time one of them is played.

I am happy to say that I’ve spoken to all of the people in that paragraph since Wednesday, but what about everyone else? What about the ones I associate with Tori, or with the Beatles? I am so eager to cloak myself in a fluency of all things musical that I seem to have forgotten the importance of what allows that music to be meaningful to me.

So, here’s a new initiative. Every time I hear a song for the next week, and it reminds me of someone, or someplace, I am writing their name down. At the end of the week, I’m starting at the top of the list, and talking to one of them every day. Will I have their phone number? Their email address? Will I even know where they live, or if they’re alive? Who knows. But, if an iPod can allow me to appreciate music in a whole new way, maybe it can help me appreciate people again, too.

Do you think I associate you with a song? Do you have one for me? Since my comments are currently irreparably broken, why don’t you drop me a line and tell me what it is.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2005/01/110702514846232122/