dramas / musics

it's one thing to be at a crossroads, but what if there are 6 different potential paths? i am so indecisive that i can't trust myself to make decisions anymore.

regarding a career, i am constantly pulled between doing something that satisfies me intellectually and creatively, and doing something that actually benefits other people. when you pare existence down to the essential elements, it is obvious that not a single thing matters in this world other than helping those weaker than yourself, those who can't help themselves. all else is vanity and distraction. and that's not to downplay vanity and distraction - they're important too, but they don't stack up. so when i focus on the fun only, i begin to feel guilty, irrelevant, like dead weight, part of the problem.

i think i may have to save my self-indulgent playtimes for afterhours.

in other news, i hate watching live music because it is boring. even bands i like have me checking my watch on the 5th song in, wishing they'd wrap it the hell up already, but this was my favorite band from day 2 (i missed day 1) of sundown showdown:

the kabbs. i think they sounded better live than in these recordings. the vocalist has a bit of a morrison-in-70 thing, live. roadhouse blues sort of vibe.

speaking of myspace, the only reason i keep that horseshit around is for the couple of bands i've discovered there that i can't seem to get ahold of anywhere else, or last time i checked.

my absolute favorite is BIG NED. incredible australians. they remind me of the birthday party. big fan.

josh t. pearson. he's got a good schtick going, particularly since he seems to parlay it europe where being from west texas and recovering from jesus is probably ~exotic~. also i think his whole, "deserter confederate soldier, been dead a week" style is just adorable. no really. call me.

benji hughes is enjoyable and i like his voice and thor style.

and of course thomas nola. a very prolific artist who does most things well, or at least interestingly. perhaps an eccentric artiste, i don't know him well, but he is one of my biffles' ex-husbands, more or less.

phone pixxx

from around.

last week was rough. tried to counteract this by doing lunch at the brass rail for entertainment purposes. not sure if i would recommend. i ordered a blue moon, but what came was a bud light with an orange in it. they insisted it was blue moon. maroons!

how i love that salvation army. they are so stupid and they have the best stuff! my local store seems to get a lot of 30s and 40s furniture in. they offer these items at extremely low prices, but then charge insane prices for the nasty 80s/90s garbage furniture filling the rest of the place, ugly old leather couches, particle board dressers, etc. this dresser is made of cedar. 40 bucksssss. i don't have any more room, unfortunately.

40s clawfoot dining table. not my style anymore (i live in 1966 now), but still classic. walnut? i bought one a little nicer than this a few years ago from lizabel's and hauled it home myself. in the summer. approximate weight, 8000 lbs. may have taken years from my life.

not from the salvation army, but still a deal. it's old - are there vintage eames knockoffs? there was no stamp or label on the shell.

just pointing out that aj's sells ramen. AT A PREMIUM!

I was digging around in some old scans and found this photo of the flag in my prior post, at a much younger age.

That's my great-grandmother and two of her boys. She only lost one son, not pictured. He was shot down somewhere over the Pacific. When I was in middle school, I would raid my grandmother's closets and pore through all of the boxed-up items and artifacts...one of which was a military-issue datebook that belonged to the boy who died. He was 19. It was full of girls' phone numbers.

nineteen hundred and eighty-one is over

An irish flu day spent watching comfort videos on youtube.

About, oh, twelve years ago, I bought a documentary called Girls Bite Back online (I'm like Al Gore) which contained a bunch of random live footage of Siouxsie Sioux, Nina Hagen, the Slits, and I can't remember who else. The video below was on the tape.

Nina Hagen was my favorite at this time. Outrageous German interplanetary disco queen with a command of I don't remember how many octaves - many - yet who seemed to enjoy singing in a growl much of the time. I joined a CC list that translated and serialized her autobiography, contemplated her crazy handwritten liner notes, and listened to her constantly. The reaction of the people around me was always the same: "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"

Nina is not for everyone, I guess.

The first time I watched this, I felt like 1:40 changed my life.

speaking of,

A day off. Hating work as much as I do does have one benefit: the simple act of not being there makes me nearly giddy. Last Monday I picked fruit, cooked, wandered around outside at midmorning - a time that I had forgotten existed (weekends don't count) due to being shackled to a desk at all times, freezing from artificial air-conditioning and being forced to listen to goddamn fucking Lady Gaga all day - and later visted my dad. I enjoy taking surreptitious photos in the house and of his things. I think the way he keeps house is amusing, weird. And I feel some need to document items and pictures that seem to be part of the makeup of my brain.

Those photos didn't turn out, though.

This flag hung in my great-grandmother's front room window all through WWII. It is supposed to be red, but the sun bleached it to pink. She had 6 children overseas at once and this as well as the fact that they had German POW's working their farm got her into Ripley's Believe it or Not. I have yet to take the time to track the article down.

It was kept for a lot of years in a ziploc freezer bag, shoved in a box in my grandma's spare room. I framed it a few years ago, carefully sewing it to the velveteen matboard & placing it under ~uv glass~ ... I miss this job. Sort of.

Can't be that tough with a name like Pinky.

Here he is showing off his police-issue bulletproof vest. I think it is probably illegal for him to have it. Unfortunately, he had actual use for it in recent years.

& this was my present for the day.

The weather is incredible. I walked to the store for supplies for non-dairy chocolate chip cookies, threw open all the windows in the house, made said cookies (awful) painted my nails (awful) and am watching Carrington & wishing I was an old gay writer too.

News like this scares the hell out of me. I just heard about this and am now waiting impatiently for my dad to call me back.

Three dead in north Phoenix motorcycle wreck.

Right in his neighborhood and he rides all the time now. He has way too many dead friends and heinous stories involving bike wrecks. Some of the stories seem too grisly to be real, but they are.

i love this photo of rita hayworth playing the toreador and orson welles playing the bull. taken during their 5 year marriage. there is something very compelling about (the young) orson welles.

the first time i really noticed him was at the end of the third man. the scene so late towards the end of the movie when you finally see his character again after thinking he is dead (sry, spoilerz) - then his face in the shadowy street and a swelling of the strangely cool zither theme. it's been a while since i watched.

i read something about their divorce in which rita was asked why the split, and she said nearly verbatim, i couldn't take any more genius. demasiado genius.

in other news, there are fruit flies all over my house, and that's what i cannot take any more of. insufferable little flies.

i finished a stitchery which i am going to frame and send east to one of my bros. pictures to come, but i will probably wait until she has it to avoid further spoilage. later i made a little necklace out of natural turquoise chunks bleached and dyed coral pink, red glass beads, and gold chain. i'm doing anything i can to focus on pro-me creative things and forget i have a job, forget summer is coming, forget car payments, friend-fights, fruit flies, laundry, tired eyes and any other antagonist i can come up with. replacing it all with beads, stones, pink embroidery floss, avocados, re-watchings of gilda, and, of course, photos of orson welles 1950 and prior. oh and grapefruit juice. CHALLAH

all of this instead of xanax.

all photos by freakovsky on flickr.

Randomly found on flickr. The beauty of mid-century modern in abstract sexy detail.

Checking in.

9 months ago I posted the following to-do list. I will add my results in bold. Conclusion: I either suck at follow-through, or my goals are...unusual. Answer: both.

visit a state park, something especially woodsy with water - didn't do this.

learn to tat, crotchet and knit. and do a french knot - i can do a french knot now.

visit anita in san diego, go to beach, beforehand buy precious vintage suit with matching skirt or shorts to shield fat ass from onlookers - i didn't do this and now i bitterly regret it because she doesn't live there anymore!!! like, fuck!

roll that old 401k into a roth - i cashed it. close enough.

get a new camera - done: canon powershot sx110is. i like it.

find a great big box to make a ring box out of - done.

get ahold of jamie - done.

casual sex? - done.

figure out when mad men, true blood and flipping out seasons begin again - nah, forgot about tv. i do miss my jeff though.

become this woman or at least incorporate her as my spirit animal:

not yet. definitely getting closer.

time to make a new list.

Incantation

"I'd feel real trapped in my life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time." HST

This gives me comfort, too, but figuratively. I'm not going to kill myself, but I am going to murder the current incarnation of my life, set it on fire and walk out of it.

Ready to assume my newold life as the black baby bitch witch of the west. August 2010: it's all happening.

Caw!