I think mine would sound like Cat Power. God, I just love her voice. Beautiful, wistful, hopeful, yearning, mature, girlish innocent, strong, vulnerable, all rough-edged around a smooth and gentle core...dark and light and dark and light, like a puddle of dirty water full of moon. All at once. Amazing.

She always sounds like I feel, like I move around in the world, like I daydream.

Please go see this post over at Coxon LeWoof's always brilliant mp3 blog To Die By Your Side and click on "Cat Power-dreams" at the bottom there. That's what I'll be using to drift off to sleep tonight. That's what it feels like when you come into knowing me (I'd imagine).

What band or singer would your blog sing like?

For no clear reason, I've been feeling this strange, light feeling of anxiousness over the past few days. Not crazy anxious, like a panic attack or anything. More like ADHD anxious. Feeling like I had just one cup of coffee too many--even though I don't drink caffeine. Lots of ideas and impulses flying around, but I can't settle on anything. I just want to keep pacing mentally rather than be all meticulous. I'm bodily tired, but brain awake. I want to sleep, but I don't want to. I want to go outside and I want to stay in. I want to write on the blog and I'm thinking about a billion topics and I can't settle on what to say.

So, because I at least want the good feeling of having gotten SOMETHING on "paper," I'm just grabbing two memes I saw on the always fantabulous Brooke's site. Enjoy or curse me, your choice. And I won't tag, but if you do 'em on your own blog, let me know. Or do 'em in the comments. Do something for me to settle my brain on, for god's sake!

MEME #1 (aka, stupid internet quiz):

Something I've aspired to since childhood, now confirmed. I'm verrrrrry pleased. Even purring.

You Are Catwoman

"Life's a bitch. Now so am I."

MEME #2: iPod shuffle soundtrack to life

Here's how it works...Put your iPod or whatever music player you have on shuffle. The first song that you hear will be the song for your Opening Scene. Skip to the next song, this is your next category. Keep doing this until the end.

Opening Scene: Made of Stone - The Stone Roses
Sometimes I fantasize
When the streets are cold and lonely
And the cars they burn below me...

Wake Up Scene: Slow and Low - The Beastie Boys
Just listen to the music first things first
First of all get off the wall
It's time to party so have a ball
We slowed it on down so get the hell up

Average Day: Motorway to Roswell - The Pixies
Looking for a place to stay
Near some friendly star
He found this mote
And now we wonder where we are

1st Date: Roadrunner - Thin White Rope
I'm a road runner honey
You can't keep up with me
I'm a road runner baby
You can't keep up with me

Falling in Love: Here and Now - Ride
I can dream myself away
Lose myself for days
And the train rushes past
Like a day gone too fast.
All I know is here and now.

Fight Scene: Mad Jack - The Chameleons
His frightened eyes
Can't disguise
Blatant lies
Blatant lies

Break Up Scene: Shilo - Neil Diamond
When children play,
Seems like you end up alone
Papa says he'd love to be with you
If he had the time
So you turn to the only friend you can find
There in your mind

Back together: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Motion Picture Soundtrack
You'll turn everybody's head today.
We'll glide on our motor trip
With pride in our ownership
The envy of all we survey.
Oh Chitty You Chitty
Pretty Chitty Bang Bang
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
We love you.

Secret Love: I'm Going To Go Back There Someday - The Muppet Movie Soundtrack
This looks familiar, vaguely familiar,
Almost unreal, yet, it's too soon to feel yet.
Close to my soul, and yet so far away.
I'm going to go back there someday.

Life's OK: Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’

Mental Breakdown: Visions of You - Jah Wobble and His Invaders of the Heart
It's a vision for me and for you
Hell can be a circle too
Repetition unbroken
The truth remains unspoken
A vision for me and for you
Visions of you endlessly

Driving: Perfect - Alanis Morissette
What's the problem...why are you crying?
Be a good boy
Push a little farther now
That wasn't fast enough

Learning a Lesson: Starship - Spacemen 3

Know I've done wrong, but I've heaven on earth
Know I've done wrong, but I could have done me worse

Deep Thought: Strangers In the Night - Frank Sinatra
Doo dee doo bee doo
Doo doo doo dee da
Da da da da da
Ya ya ya...

Flashback: Octopus' Garden - The Beatles
We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves
Resting our head on the sea bed
In an octopus' garden near a cave
We would sing and dance around
because we know we can't be found

Partying: When My Boy Walks Down the Street - Magnetic Fields
Grand pianos crash together when my boy walks down the street
There are whole new kinds of weather when he walks with his new beat
Everyone sings hallelujah when my boy walks down the street
Life just kind of dances through ya from your smile down to your feet

Happy Dance: First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes
This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Regretting: Loneliness - Annie Lennox
Like a cancelled flight
An empty train
Running through the night
An orphan child
A broken shoe
And I'm still down here
Lookin' out for you

Long Night Alone: Rocks Off - Def Leppard
She said it with her eyes
Just getcha rocks off
Whoah

Death Scene: Tempted - Squeeze
I said to my reflection
Lets get out of this place
Past the church and the steeple
The laundry on the hill
Billboards and the buildings
Memories of it still
Keep calling and calling
But forget it all
I know I will

Closing Credits: You Gotta Have Heart - Damn Yankees (Original Broadway Cast)
So what the heck's the use of cryin'?
Why should we curse?
We've got to get better......
...'Cause we can't get worse!
And to add to it-- we've got heart!

Have you ever watched a rough cut of a daily from a film, before they've done any editing? Now that DVDs allow movie companies to package tons of special features along with the film, most people have gotten a glimpse of these preliminary versions of a film being shot. And as you watch them, as the camera focuses in on whatever main character or characters are on the screen, it feels...odd. Strangely quiet, even IF people are talking. And then suddenly you notice...there's no ambient sound. No score.

Ever see a rough cut of a movie scene set at a nightclub or wild party, pre-scoring? It's weird. The main characters are talking, and everyone behind them is dancing...in complete silence. It's spooky and uncomfortable. You don't feel the vibe of the party that's supposedly going on. If anything, it seems fake and even creepy.

Ever see a clip of two people kissing without scoring underneath? It's uncomfortable. The actors are highly mic-ed. You hear strange sounds that aren't always altogether pleasant. It forces your focus away from the crackle of feeling being transmitted between the two people to analyzing the very unemotional technicalities of the act...saliva sounds, teeth clicking, unexpected snorts. It can make an intensely romantic, passionate, or angry and violent kiss just seem laughable.

--The shrieking violins in the shower scene in Psycho.

--The sound of the tolling bell and then the crescendo of increasingly, incongruously joyous marching band horns and cymbals as Rocky takes his final beating and then screams for Adrian until she is in his arms

--Leonard Bernstein's heart-pulsing hormonal "Mambo" in the gym scene in West Side Story

--The soft, slow, mournful orchestrated version of "As Time Goes By" as Rick and Ilsa look at each other for what they know will be the last time ever

What would these scenes be without the score that accompanies them?

And of course, the swell of joyous music under a thousand joyous film kisses, longed for and finally won.

Film scores are what move us to experience, rather than just see, what is in front of us. They make us an emotional participant, not just an impassive observer. They make the movie real to us. We feel it. We understand, we know. Our hearts beat with the hero's or heroine's heart. Our pulses race with theirs. Our tears well up when theirs do. We live, in that moment, in that story, because the score is there, connecting us.

And yet despite all this, for the most part, scores are completely ignored. If they are good, they become such an integral part of the film that we don't notice they're even there. There they are, changing us, making us feel and experience and know things we never dreamed we knew. And yet, even as this is happening, we don't see them, or think about them at all. We take it for granted that they're there, that they're part of the film. We focus on the dialogue or the action or the cinematography. Or the catchy pop single that plays once in the film and comes to "represent" it. We notice the shiny, dazzling things that jump in front of us and shake us and insist on attention. The scores, we just assume will be there, and we absorb them as we go, an integral part of our senses, so much so that they're entirely unnoticeable. Like touch, and sight, and hearing, and even breath, we just don't notice how important it is to the whole of us, until it's suddenly not there, and things just don't feel right.

Scores are wonderful. Magic, even, in what they are able to do so apparently effortlessly. But they do deserve notice. It ISN'T effortless. And it isn't easy. Writing an effective score, one that is so powerful that no one even realizes how much it is so, is a HERCULEAN task to accomplish.

I encourage you to notice and recognize the "scores" that are playing in your own life and how much they add to your everyday experience and well being. Of the care that went into them, and how well they accompany you. And I hope, once you see them, you'll give a little admiration and acknowledgment and magic of your own back in exchange. So that life will be always one of perfect musical synchrony.

---

photo credit: Musical Score by yorkers & hirosophy

If everything you think you know,
Makes your life unbearable,
Would you change?
Would you change?

I rented the first season of the HBO series Rome this weekend, and before the first DVD went to the main menu, a little promo clip for all of the HBO series played. It had images from various shows over a soundtrack of this hauntingly beautiful Tracy Chapman song:

The song brought me running right out of the kitchen, where I'd gone to do something while I waited for the disc to start up. It still mystifies me what kind of message, if any, the creators of the promo thought the song had to say about HBO programming, but it did remind me of how incredibly lovely and rich Tracy Chapman's voice is. I liked her very much in the late 1980s, but haven't listened to her in a long time.

But beyond that, the song affected me because it pretty much struck right at the core of something I've been thinking about a lot this a week and to some extent discussing with others.

You know, one of the frustrating things about going to therapy and getting healthy is that you change and become more functional--and the world and people around you do not. So here you are, full of better thoughts and healthier behaviors, expressing yourself better, setting boundaries, whatever it is that's appropriate. And you're surrounded by all you've gathered about you in your life, all of which is full of dysfunction.

And there it is. And there's nothing you can do about that except continue to act healthy, and not succumb to others' dysfunctional models, and hope they maybe get it at some point. That's it. And that can be SO frustrating. You see people struggling, you see how dark it is for them, and you remember being there. And you know what they don't, and you want to say to them: "This isn't as hard as you think it is right now...there's a way out, you just have to want to do it...and it's faster and easier than you think...it hurts less than you think it will...it hurts so much more where you are than taking that step out..."

I'm not saying I'm perfect here. That I'm the supreme example of light and healing. But I can see things now I couldn't, and some things are glaringly obvious. You see them saying and doing things you used to say and do. You see the traps. You see people you LOVE standing in traps. Traps they've walked into, or built around themselves, and the door isn't even LOCKED, and they WON'T LEAVE. And you're standing outside, saying, come out, come out, see, it's possible, and they...just look at you sadly and sit there. Some even get angry at you that you won't sit in your own little crate anymore and lash out at you from between the bars if you come too close or if you try to open the latch to the door.

It's hard. It seems I'm surrounded of late by people who are trapped and hurting and all they keep saying is "I can't...I can't just...I don't know how...If I do that, everyone will/no one will..." Or people who are so hurt that they are angry at me for being myself. Angry at me for refusing to act in ways that used to hurt me--AND them.

I know I was this "I can't" person myself. Sometimes I forget and still am. But not so much anymore. And If I find I need to to make an "I can't" statement these days, I always finish it with "...yet." Because then it's not an "I can't" statement anymore.

But from my own experience, having been there, I know that there's nothing I can say or do to help them. They have to be ready. I could scream it, I could wave it in front of them, but they won't be able to hear or see it...until they do. It's like Charles Allan Gilbert's All Is Vanity. You swear it's a photo of a woman at her dressing table...until it's not. And it's up to you whether you'll let yourself see it.

I couldn't change until I was ready to change. So I know they won't hear me until they are ready to change, themselves.

But what will it take? That's what is so hard. Sometimes it even gets you angry. You want to shake them, slap them out of their stupor.

In most cases I know it takes hitting a rock bottom moment, where there are only two alternatives, and one of them--the inertia one--is just too terrifying to contemplate. And then they know something must be done. And so I stand quietly and I try to just do what I have to do and let them sit still in their pain if they need to. I try to be gentle about it, like Chapman's voice in the song. But it's hard, and even in the midst of my trying to be the gentle observer, I can't help but join Chapman in wondering over and over:

How bad, how good does it need to get?
How many losses? How much regret?
What chain reaction would cause an effect?

These questions I want answers to, for the people I love, and the people I care about, and the people I know are hurting.

How low does your awful need to be to realize you're at rock bottom? Your depth capacity here is terrifying me. How many examples of goodness do you need to see before it sinks in that there's an alternative out there that is nothing like the unlocked cage you're sitting in? How long before you realize hurting yourself is not helping you or anyone around you? That it's not ME who is hurting you, it's you who are hurting?

The best I can do is keep singing Chapman's song to myself and hope that maybe it'll be someday soon.

There's a song stuck in my head. And you've been wondering where I've been.

Or maybe the second half isn't true. Maybe you weren't wondering at all. But the first part IS true...there's been a song stuck in my head all day.

So, first, in case anyone was wondering, the story of the second part. And then a story of the first part.

Part the second: Where I've been. Life got weird. There was an accident, and a major endeavor to be undertaken and resolved as a result of it, and a trip far away, and also on the heels of all this, a computer issue that has led me to be unable to blog about any of it. The computer issue continues...I've found a brief moment of stolen computer time in which to post this, but I'm not sure how long it will be before the next time I can do so. I've put out an SOS and help is on the way that, once received, will resolve it. But said assistance has been slower to arrive than expected, and so I must wait, as must you, unfortunately. (Oh, and regarding the accident, I am okay now, so don't worry. No major bodily damage to myself.)

And now part the first. Told as a fairy tale.

---

Once upon a time, there was a girl standing alone on the deck of a ferry, with wind blowing her dark hair all around her face. The sun was bright in the unusually blue sky, and the sky cascaded toward a shelf of distant white cliffs which in turn plunged down into the ocean.

She was coming home, after having travelled to many far-away cities.

It had been a very long journey, and it was extremely early in the morning, and the girl was tired. But she stood on the deck instead of going inside to sleep. She wanted to feel the air against her skin and watch the cliffs grow closer. It was the first time she'd ever seen them. And she knew it might be the last time. Because though in her head she was coming home, in truth, she had to leave only shortly after she got there, for the paper home she'd never really been cut out for.

She watched the cliffs get closer. She thought about the dark city she'd be returning to, only to leave two weeks later. The love affair still seethingly alive there, yet also already so far behind her. About how in only days, everything she'd come to know as hers, everything she'd given her heart to, would be gone. Far behind her, fading slowly away. And ahead of her...blankness. She couldn't say. There was nothing she knew she wanted there. She'd just have to wait and see.

And as she stood there in the wind and sunlight, the spray from the ocean touching its cold fingers against her face, the girl watched the cliffs approach, white and blank and treacherous as the future ahead of her. I need this moment, the girl thought. I need to feel it. Need to remember it, hold on to it, before it's all gone. And so she put her headphones on her ears, and she hit play. And this song filled her.

She felt it. The sadness, the loveliness of it. Of one moment and then leaving, yet not leaving. I'll remember this the rest of my life, she thought. She knew this. And then she thought...I wish this song was about me. I wish someone would feel like this about me. And she thought, I wish I felt like this about someone or something.

The girl is older now. Since that time, some of her wishes have come true. And some days she is glad that girl on the deck got what she hoped for. And some days she wishes she'd never heard that song.

And just when you thought the world was empty of joy, there's...

...Dylan Hears a Who.

---
Update: Forgot to give credit to the luscious Neil Gaiman for pointing me to the joy. Mr. Gaiman, I love you. In very nasty ways.

I've been doing some early spring cleaning this weekend and I've been dancing around the house to garage music a lot. It's all I can do to not throw things out the window, I'm so ready to just get rid of all my crap from miserable days past and just feel new and open and ready to start again fresh. It feels GREAT to purge all the old things I don't need anymore. And it feels even better to do it in a t-shirt and panties, with the window shades all the way up and sunlight coming in, screaming songs like this at the top of my lungs.

I wonder if my neighbors hate me now. But hey, I beat them, 'cause I'm awesome.

The song, by the way, is from the just-released CD from the Dollyrots, a band signed by one of the coolest women on earth, Joan Jett, on her Blackheart Records label. Go buy it, and stuff from all the bands on the label, because a dollar for Joan is a dollar well spent. I'm currently seething with jealousy because all of the Blackhearts Records bands did a showcase at SXSW this weekend. Hiromi, I hope you took full advantage, and maybe gave Joan Jett a kiss for me.

Scan of Heloise cover from Paula Wirth

I'm in love with the lead singer of the new band The Cliks. Come on, how amazing is this girl's voice? And how fucking adorable are these girls in general, with their hipster-tattooed-pierced-androgynous thang going on?

Their website says their CD doesn't come out until next month, but I suspect these women could rule the world if they wanted to. They can rule my world any day if they want to.

Many thanks to Margaret Cho for igniting my crush fire.

Update: I woke up this morning and already feel better, and I don't feel like relating to this post at all. I just want to push it out of my mind and pretend I never wrote it. Pathos embarrasses me--and even moreso now. I'm feeling angry and embarrassed I indulged in it. I have half a mind to erase the whole thing and pretend it never happened, but I won't because it's real--the path where I'm going isn't always perfectly paved, and I can't hold that against myself or pretend I'm perfect and that I never have moments of weakness--that's what I *used* to do, and that never worked. And it's important for me to realize I have some more work to do, and this will be a reminder. So I'm leaving the post up, but it's already mostly irrelevant.
-----

A few days ago I was going to write a post about the fact that I'd suddenly realized I was beginning to forget what it felt like to be me before I started getting better. I'd planned to describe how surprised I was that the memory of it all seemed to have faded, and how shocking it was to contemplate that I might only be feeling positive from now on. How odd that felt, and how strange to start losing something familiar I'd felt for years--to not remember how it felt to be that girl anymore. It seemed somewhat scary, although also probably positive. But I was thinking I ought to record some of the old feelings before they faded entirely and I could no longer write about them with any clarity or realism, which I want to be able to do, for myself and for others.

It's funny, though, how tiny triggers can bring back feelings that you thought weren't there anymore.

It seems those feelings I thought were entirely gone aren't completely eradicated yet, but were instead just sleeping in a distant corner of my mind, coiled up like a dark cobra inside a basket, just waiting for the right tune to lure it back out and strike, sending its poison into my blood stream.

So. I realize I haven't forgotten what it felt like. Not yet. Not totally.

And sensing the first edge of those feelings again brought me back, as it often has in the past, to this song and scene from the film Magnolia. The scene and those feelings are so inextricably bound for me, that experiencing either one will often bring a craving for the other, regardless of which is experienced first.

It has an emotional resonance I can't shake. When I watch this, I remember being the me I thought I was forgetting. I feel everything I did then.

I don't want to go back to the place this scene speaks to me of. But that's where I'm at today, sitting back with that girl in a darkened movie theater, seeing through her eyes, stunned by the grip recognition--this is me. Wanting to watch it over and over, a confirmation of that darkness. And since that's where I am today, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. And I'm not going to disallow myself my desire to watch this scene a few times and feel the dark and frightening and yet somehow still seductive grip of what I used to feel.

But I won't cater to it for too long. I'm not gonna let that win. This isn't me. Not anymore.

I'm not going to take it as a failure that I can still feel something I hoped I'd conquered.

I am completely and utterly in love with this song.

Make sure you listen to it loud on a stereo or on really good headphones. You won't get it if you just listen to it on tinny computer speakers. And listen to the lyrics. And oh, the delivery of the last few lines--so intense--all this hopefulness and perfect melody and angry spitting all layered on top of each other. It's just really stunningly gorgeous and spooky.

I know nothing yet of this band, Cloud Cult, but I'm fascinated just from having heard this song a couple of times driving back from a long road trip. I can't stop listening to it. According to their website, their new album Meaning of 8, which this song ("Take Your Medicine") is on, comes out in stores in only a few days, but they are actually selling it now in advance both digitally and on CD through their website, and hope to continue to do so. They've turned down a lot of major labels so they can sell it themselves and actually earn some money off of their own music. More explanation here. I'm going to buy it directly from them tonight. I'm all for all artists who try to forge ahead independently of the corporate recordlords, and this band in particular certainly deserves to be compensated for their efforts tenfold. If you like this song as much as I do, give them a hand and shell out a few bucks and buy their CD from their website.

You can also see a video of their first single, "Chemicals Collide," here. It's also good (this one reminds me a bit of the Polyphonic Spree, and that's not bad) but so far "Medicine" is my favorite.

My favorite song about good meetings and good memories and fond farewells.

A beautiful old song is playing in my soul jukebox tonight. Come inside and listen (click the title):

This is the Sea - The Waterboys

These things you keep
You'd better throw them away
You wanna turn your back
On your soulless days
Once you were tethered
And now you are free
Once you were tethered
Well now you are free
That was the river
This is the sea!

Now if you're feelin' weary
If you've been alone too long
Maybe you've been suffering from
A few too many
Plans that have gone wrong
And you're trying to remember
How fine your life used to be
Running around banging your drum
Like it's 1973
Well that was the river
This is the sea!

Now you say you've got trouble
You say you've got pain
You say you've got nothing left to believe in
Nothing to hold on to
Nothing to trust
Nothing but chains
You've been scouring your conscience
Raking through your memory
Scouring your conscience
Raking through your memory
But that was the river
This is the sea, yeah!

Now I can see you wavering
As you try to decide
You've got a war in your head
And it's tearing you up inside
You're trying to make sense
Of something that you just can't see
Trying to make sense now
And you know you once held the key
But that was the river
And this is the sea!
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!

Now I hear there's a train
It's coming on down the line
It's yours if you hurry
You've got still enough time
And you don't need no ticket
And you don't pay no fee
No you don't need no ticket
You don't pay no fee
Because that was the river
And this is the sea!

That was the river.
This is the sea!
That was the river.
This is the sea!
That was the river, the river, the river, the river, the river, the river, the river, the river...
And this is the sea!

The sea.

Behold the sea!

---
photo credit: This is the Sea... by Kancano

My parents loved music, though they were also both kind of square to mainstream in their tastes. My parents were teenagers in the '50s and were in their 20s in the '60s, but they didn't grab on to either the beatnik movement, or the hippie counterculture. By the time the swinging '70s came around, they had two kids and a massively June and Ward Cleaver family ethic. How they ended up with an indie-freak-child like me is a mystery I suspect they're still trying to figure out, though they've (mostly) finally grown to accept it and sometimes even admire it.

But anyway, squares or no, they DID love music, and they were GREAT dancers. My mother was a poodle-skirt wearing bobby-soxer in Philadelphia during the original Bandstand era. She played me Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, Eddie Fisher, and the Big Bopper and taught me to pony, twist, and jitterbug when I was just a teeny-tiny bit of a thing. My dad, who was a little older than my mom, was really into the big band stuff--Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Doris Day, Harry Bellafonte. He was the one who excitedly filled me in one day when I was in the family kitchen, singing what I thought was the They Might Be Giants song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" that the song was really originally performed by the group The Four Lads. And he was able to pull out the LP and play the orignal for me.

They both also loved Broadway musicals (and their movie counterparts) with a passion, and almost every night of my sister's and my early childhood, my parents would put an original Broadway cast recording album on the stereo while we ate dinner, and we'd all sing along throughout the meal. Just writing that sentence and remembering us doing that brings a smile to my face. It definitely ranks a 10 in my catalog of childhood memories. (And also, I can happily brag that by the time I was five or six, I was already the perfect gay male's theatre beard--I knew the songs to every big American musical ever made.)

My parents always took good care of their vinyl LP albums, but for some reason they ceded their 45s to me just as soon I was big enough to stick them on my totally cool Show 'N Tell record player (pictured above--mine looked EXACTLY like that). I remember their singles weren't in any sleeves--they were all just jammed into a fairly large metal 45-sized record case--aqua on the bottom with a cream-colored top. You'd flip open the metal clasp that held it shut, and the cream metal top would flip open and back, revealing the curved tops of hundreds of black vinyl 45 disks, packed one behind the other. For me as a child, opening this box was always like opening a treasure chest--you never knew what 45 you'd pull out next, what odd name was on the record, and what it would sound like when you put it on. It really ran the gamut, from cheesy novelty records to tacky Debby Reynolds ballads to classic Elvis.

Of course, over time, I developed my favorites, and those were always at the front of the box (or strewn on the floor--I was always a messy kid). And so now, I bring you one of those front-of-the-box singles. It's a song that's actually extremely rare and hard to find these days--it took me eons to find it on file-sharing sites before I was finally successful.

I re-discovered it earlier this week when I was sorting through old mp3s I'd downloaded ages ago. I clicked on this unlabeled mp3 and when I heard the song come up at me, I laughed and thought, "Well. This may explain a heck of a lot."

So, I now present to you a rare and hard-to-find musical gem, and one of my absolutely favorite songs to listen, sing, and dance along to when I was just a speck of a girl:

Engelbert Humperdinck - My Wife the Dancer

I know I've been quiet, but I just need to say:

My new haircut/color is so friggin' cool it comes with a soundtrack.

So, what song does your haircut shake its moneymaker to?

---
(Hair-riff-ic music credit: "In the Modern World" from Jesse Malin's latest--Glitter in the Gutter)

I think sometimes we higher primates get so tied up in our wondrous cognitive abilities that we forget the basics. When in truth, we'd do better to remember nothing else matters as much as the basics.

Relationships are complex. And in the complexity that can develop, one can lose oneself and what one really needs at the basic level. And when that happens, one's course gets lost, and one finds oneself on a path mired in sticky webs of diversion, until you're coated in them and can barely move. And then you're so busy trying to fight off your constrictions that you lose all sight of why you were making the journey in the first place.

Or in short, one loses one's basic needs.

I'm sorry I keep letting myself forget my basics. I'm sorry I keep letting myself accept being asked to forgo them, or to accept substitutes.

I don't want much. In relationships, there is really only one basic thing I'm looking for. Otis covered it a long time ago, and he got it right:

Tenderness. Openly expressed. This is and was all I've ever wanted from anyone, at any level, and most especially my lovers. To be held and valued and loved, and told I am so, daily. It ain't hard; it costs nothing to give. And yet, I've not been with many who gave it entirely freely and willingly.

I make a vow with myself from today forward not to forget this basic of mine ever again. From now on, if my basic need is not present or openly given, I will declare it not for me and I will move on. I won't beg or humiliate myself for it anymore. I won't stay, hoping it will change or that the person will suddenly, miraculously wake up and realize what they've got in me.

I deserve more than that. I won't punish myself like that anymore; and I won't let anyone else punish me like that anymore.

From now on, anyone who doesn't have Otis's credo in his heart doesn't get to have me.

Because, really, who doesn't deserve a little tenderness?

I've been waiting to see the new HBO show Flight of the Conchords ever since they started showing the teasers last month. It just looked random and funny in a bizarre, dry humor kind of way; and one of the guys looks like a Kiwi David Cross, and that's always a good thing...rrrawrrrr. (Yeah, I know, I have weird taste.)

Anyway, looks like MySpace is featuring the first episode before it actually airs next month. I watched it, and it met expectation. It's a great blend of deadpan humor and odd folk/rock music parody. Wanna watch the whole first episode free? Click play below. Or if that doesn't work for some reason, go here.

(Note: wait for the credits--the "solo" there left me cracking up (don't want to say more, or it'll spoil it).

Flight of the Conchords - Pilot

---
Edit: I accidentally said the one guy looked like David CHASE (Sopranos creator) when I meant David CROSS (comedic actor). Mistake fixed, but David Chase, if you're reading this, you're still hot, too, honey, never fret.

When you're feeling low, there's no cure like getting in your car, driving fast down a scenic highway with your windows wide open, your hair whipping around your face in the spring wind, and the Apples in Stereo blasting at highest stereo capacity, while you sing the songs from their amazing new CD at the top of your lungs. (You can hear all the songs from their CD at that second link, streamed. Play it LOUD, or you won't get the full, proper feel of how good they are.)

Plus, they're like a band of real, live human muppets:

I. Love. Them.

I want to have all their muppet babies.

I just found this low-fi gem on YouTube. Those who get it will appreciate me sharing the find, I think. (And what's with the weird vintage John Candy intro?)

Tom Waits. The one man I'd let scat all over me.

'Specially if he does it just like this:

I was going to use this photo to add context to a somewhat serious post I've been struggling to write for a week now. But you know what? I find it's Friday, and the sun is out, and I realize I just don't feel like being serious.

So I'll just put it out there in the spirit of playfulness and attitude with which it was taken.

Which is as it should be. Because all the joy in the world is all about play, ain't it, people?

You know, I just heard an old song on the radio that matched the photo's sentiment exactly. It lifted my heart right up, the singer's rough and ragged voice bragging to the world that hell, it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.

Too fucking right. I'm not ashamed to be glad. Don't you be, either.

Gladness. You can feel it. Take in as much as you fucking can, till you think you can't take in any more. And then take in more. Because you can.

Yes. I do believe in the hope, and that it may raise each and every one of us above the badlands.

Happy weekend, my darlings. And a big, lusty tongue kiss to each and every one of you.

---

And because I love encores, and because it's about to be the weekend, and because I wish you were here to play with me, and because you can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can't take the Jersey out of the girl:

Happy weekend song #2

Well let there be sunlight, let there be rain
Let the brokenhearted love again
We can run with our arms open wide before the tide

Happy weekend song #3:

Baby, out in the street I don't feel sad or blue
Baby, out in the street I'll be waiting for you

Meet me out in the street
Meet me out in the street

Don't lose sight of yourself
Don't let anyone change you back

You are the only light there is
For yourself my friend

Well, much has happened since I decided to take my break--some big and unpredicted disruptions (like unexpectedly getting laid off), and some small and encouraging glimpses of things I'd hoped to gain through taking a break. All in all, though, both the disruptive and the planned for will ultimately help life move forward to what I hope is a more positive place.

Because life does move on, and if it's going to, it might as well move on to a pleasant wood rather than a thorny forest.

I bring this up because what I'm doing tonight is reminding me quite strongly of how life does move on.

Tonight I decided to do something radical. I decided to throw out all my cassette tapes I'd collected from my childhood onward (until the time I went digital).

This may not seem like such a big deal to you. But for me, it is akin to throwing away old photographs of friends and old love letters from former lovers.

Music has always been a huge part of my life. I always knew this to some extent. But lately, I've begun to realize just how incredibly important it's been. Looking through these hundreds and hundreds of cassettes I have, I realize that it's literally been a means of survival for me during many, many parts of my life. And every single little box I pick up tonight documents in my memory a particular time in my life, a particular feeling, a particular person or situation. I've never been one to keep a regular diary of my daily comings and goings. It's these cassettes that have done it for me; and looking through them, I can remember the girl I was, and the woman I turned into, and how exactly that happened.

It's in everything:

Jewel case inserts I meticulously designed with cut-out scraps from colorful magazine photos and calendars, sitting by my roommate's stereo as I dubbed albums to cassette.

Tapes with song lists written in the hand of old boyfriends who have been long lost to me.

A live Duran Duran concert taped obsessively off the local top-40 radio station, the background thick with the wind-like sound of a hundred thousand teenage girls letting out a never-ending scream.

A tellingly transitional self-made tape with Wham! on one side and Fear on the other.

An entire Elvis Costello discography, with each case insert colored with a different shade of highlighter--still almost as bright now as the day I created them back in the 80s.

The Cocteau Twins. Hearing them for the first time, when I came over to have dinner in a candlelit apartment with two women who would soon become my college apartment-mates.

The Dear Johns. An obscure English band my best friend saw in a pub and sent to me from overseas, when I was missing her very much.

Husker Dü - Flip Your Wig. Staying up at college in the summer after the semester was over. Because I just didn't want to go home, and wishing I didn't have to at all. Sitting in a house with friends, realizing that I was finally able to be the kind of person I was, with the kind of people I wanted to be it with. A freak and an outsider. And very happy about it. Knowing (thinking, then, at least) it was the ultimate in cool.

Gang of Four. Driving insanely fast on a country road on a sunny new spring day, in a car full of boys and girls with hardcore haircuts, angry piercings, 12-hole steel-toe Doc Martens, and torn up army jackets and flannel shirts. The wind whipping through what was left of my shorn hair, the man coming through the speakers screaming, "Your kiss so sweet/your sweat so sour"...

And then. Coming across a homemade cassette with the House of Love on one side and the soundtrack to Something Wild on the other side. Not recognizing the handwriting on the insert. Opening the box and finding a simple yet incredibly touching note written on the inside from an old friend who I'm no longer in touch with. And suddenly remembering after all these intervening years the first time I'd read that note--when I opened the cassette for the first time on an airplane, flying away from a country and a life I couldn't bear to part with, flying toward one I suspected I couldn't bear. Seeing that note and knowing someone back there loved me.

I wasn't one to be sentimental back then. And yet, this note made me tear up, sitting there alone on that plane.

Now that I'm older, I find I am more affected by sentiment and nostalgia than my younger self was. My younger self would have rolled her eyes at my older self tonight.

But Colin, if you're out there somewhere, I read your note again. And you made me cry twice.

Throwing away these cassettes is turning out to be harder than I thought it was going to be. Touching each of them is like touching down into a moment of my past. It's hard to let these touchstones to my history go, tossed into the garbage like something worthless. And also, on some level, I know I'm afraid without the physical solidity of the tapes themselves--without seeing the varied handwritings of old friends, of or my own handwriting as I went from a child to an adult, or the cracks and scratches and markings on the boxes and tapes themselves that remind me of particular incidents--that I'll lose my ability to access all that history and the emotions attached to it, the way I'd forgotten that moment on the plane until I picked up the cassette again.

But it's okay. It's time. They're taking up space I've needed to free up for a long while now.

And, you know, even if they're gone, they're still walking in me...still talking in me...

Some things stay exactly the same, no matter how long ago they were new.

This song still has the ability to make me smile and start dancing like a little kid all around the house. It's so sweetly romantic in lyric and plinky-boppy in synth, it should be too tacky for words. But it's not. It's pure and simple every time.

Come over and dance with me? That would be even more perfect and happy.

I suspect that, at least here in America, people like me who don't celebrate Christmas are the only ones who truly get to appreciate the actual silence of this evening. No traffic on the road, able to walk around in peace, no more horrid, pulsing Holiday Machine with it's organ-grinder-monkey spew of endless mechanical holiday tunes piped into every orifice...

All gone. It's all quiet.

It's really quite lovely. I wish more nights could be quiet and contemplative like this. I wish the world could shut itself off more often and just breathe.

Tonight, I wish this gift for my Christmas-celebrating friends: that you, in the middle of the bustle of family obligations and parties and church music and gift-unwrapping-and-exclaiming and eggnog-obliteration, get to step oustide in the cold, dark night for just a few minutes and just...breathe. Close your eyes and breathe in how quiet it is. And know I'm thinking about you with love.

And here's a song that I think is better for the mood of this evening than any Christmas song. Given to you in a scene from the incredible, incredible, incredibly lovely* film Once--a scene which depicts that exact moment when people cease being strangers and recognize that together they can create something miraculous. Because isn't that what it's all about?

(Wait through the first minute or so of the scene to get to the full song; and watch the whole interaction from start to finish--both musically and emotionally it's more than worth it.)

So, to all those celebrating and not celebrating tonight:

You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice
You have a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along

With love,

Syl

*Yes, the film deserves three repetitions of the word "incredible." As well as the words "smart," "tender," "non-cliché," and "quietly perfect." But as the linked review says, words are unable to do it justice. Please go rent it.

It's 3:18 a.m. and I'm just home from a night of wild abandon. This was my favorite song of the night. Dance with me.

'Cos this could all go so wrong,
But we're just so happy.

I don't know how I missed this song when it came out, but I'm seriously digging it in every way. And the video, too.

(Sorry, I looked everywhere, but I can't find a video version that's doesn't block the swear words. If someone finds one, lemme know and I'll stick that one in.)

When I was younger
I lived in fear
That incarceration of some kind is near
I checked my head in tact with rules
I nearly became
A goddamn fool
But I heard voices--not in the head
Out in the air
They called ahead
Through ripped out speakers
Through thick and thin
They found a shelter
Under my skin

I was an...interesting...child. I initially wanted to say "unusual," but I'm not sure if what I'm about to say is unusual or not. Certainly I've never heard anyone talk about it except for, say, religious mystics and occasionally someone like Eugene Hütz up above in those lyrics there. It is possible, though, if these people have mentioned it, that this is a common experience but no one talks about it. Or it may be in fact somewhat unusual. Regardless, let me get there already.

I've told many of what used to be my secrets in this blog, but this is one I have rarely confided to another person, and of the very few I've mentioned it to, I don't think I've ever mentioned the full breadth of it. I used to keep it to myself for fear it would be misunderstood or ridiculed or attempted to be over analyzed and explained away with logic or psychology, but now, today, I find I just don't care.

So. When I was younger, I was an interesting child. Just walking around in the world--and especially when I was on my own--I could hear and converse with things things most people don't think talk. Trees, for instance. Or the ocean. Or voices of people who weren't there. And I could have entire conversations with these things, if I was in the mood and if conditions were right.

I'm not talking here about schizophrenia. These things didn't tell me what to do or try to control my psyche. They weren't scary, angry, or destructive. And they didn't in any way take over my personality. Just the opposite--they were quite separate from me; they had nothing to do with me, and yet, I was aware in some way they were also a part of me, in that I was a conduit for them. I knew only I could hear them, and I knew others couldn't. Like Hütz says, not voices in my head, but out in the air. I heard them "in my head" the same way you would hear voices "in your head" if I were standing next to you and speaking and you heard the sound of my voice in your head. I processed them like speech, so they were in my head, but they weren't OF me, exactly--though, I guess I understood that without me they wouldn't be heard, sort of like that tree falling in the forest Zen koan. And I guess, thinking about it more, I also understood on some natural level, just by the fact of the way these voices transmitted, that everything IS "of" everything else--so in this way, of course, these voices were me and "of" me, at the same time they were also not. This probably sounds confusing, but that's the best I can do to explain it.

They also weren't voices like normal voices, exactly; particularly not the nature-based ones. Trees and water don't speak with human voices. Which makes perfect sense if you think about it. (And by the way, I don't necessarily think this is a "special skill,"--I maintain anyone can hear and speak with these things, if they want to; and if they listen carefully enough. The only perhaps special part of my story is that I happened to be able to connect to it without trying much. Which I'd described more accurately as "lucky" than "special.")

The more "human"-like voices--the ones I can best describe as seeming like invisible individuals (although that's not entirely accurate--I didn't and don't think they were human) were always to me the voices of friendly companions. They just showed up sometimes; for instance, to keep me company when I was walking home from school, or when I was thinking through a particularly knotty problem, or when they wanted to point out and share something particularly cool that was worth absorbing that I might not have focused on on my own. But sometimes they just showed up for the hell of it, just to say hi and just hang out and joke around and chat and...be cheerful and encouraging, I guess.

And that's what they were at almost all points, whether the human voices, or the nature voices; they were calm, open, supportive, inclusive, familiar. Most spoke to me like they'd known me a long time already; sometimes the human-like voices in particular took on tones that felt as if they considered themselves like affectionate aunts, or friends, or even occasionally a former lover from another life (by that I don't mean sexual, just casually affectionate in the special somewhat-romantic-tinged way an old-lover-turned-friend tends to be). Actually, I suppose some of the nature voices weren't always quite as casual. Trees, for instance, tended to be somewhat formal initially, in a "pleased to make your acquaintance, small thing from another species" kind of way, but even they still had that sense of familiarity and connectedness--as if they recognized the ability to exchange and it was no real surprise to them. In any case, they were all positive and I was glad to communicate with them.

It didn't happen all the time, every minute, by the way. It's not like every time I walked by a tree I could hear it talking or that all of nature or invisible voices were randomly screaming out at me at all times. Not at all. But if I took the time to slow down and WANT to talk to it, or to just to listen or happen to be quieter, I could. And when it did happen, it was a very quiet, calm experience, like passing a neighbor or friend on the street. An exchange was had and recognized and then we both moved on to do whatever it was we were there to do in life.

As a little kid, this was quite natural to me and I never thought anything about it. I never mentioned it to anyone else, but I don't think this was because I thought I had to keep it secret; it just seemed beside the point, and not important to bring up. As I got older, though, I began to realize other people thought that kind of stuff was weird. Talking or showing respect to trees like they were neighbors (or even, in the case of forests, like they were inhabitants of their own special "kingdom" that I just got the privilege to visit)? Uh, no, other kids didn't do that. And as I got older and the voices moved from just natural-based things to more...what...spiritual?...I don't like that word, but whatever the human voices were...I realized this was something that--though again it felt fine and natural to me--other people were not going to get, and might be alarmed by. So I did become conscious that it was better not to mention it to others. But given I'd never felt any need to share these experiences with other people--it had never occurred to me before I realized other people didn't hear this stuff to care if they could, or to try to bring someone else into these conversations---I decided to be, as before, just happy to experience them whenever I did and then just move on with my life as normal the way I would if I met any old person or friend on the street.

So I went along just quietly enjoying the company of this special gift I had. And I did think of it as that sometimes, a gift--particularly when it came to the nature-based stuff, which I could tell most people didn't easily experience. But then, as I closed in on my teenange years, I started to get concerned. At that time, I tended to have one particular voice companion more often than the others, and I was used to him, and I somehow decided that having these conversations, or this connection to other worlds or whatever it was, was going to be problematic for me as I grew into an adult. I also remember worrying for some reason that it would be hard to have boyfriends as long as this one particular "companion" was hanging around. I don't even know why--there was no connection to real life dating or romance in the conversations. But I suppose I was concerned the affection I felt in that "relationship," which was sort of a Buddhist-type divine, universal, limitless love sort of thing, wouldn't ever allow real-life love to measure up. And so I reasoned that if I wanted to have real, human love in the corporeal world, I needed all of this go. Let go of both the feeling of "other worldly" beings following me, offering me love and support, and of the natural world talking to me, connecting with me. I felt I needed it all gone to become the kind of "normal" that was necessary to succeed in the somewhat dry, rules-bound adult world I was destined to have to live in. That world didn't have time or patience for adults who had "fairy-tale" conversations with rocks and streams.

How many darkest moments and traps
Still lay ahead of us
How many final frontiers
We gonna mount
And maybe no victory laps

So, I had one last conversation. And I told my current most frequent "companion" voice that I needed him to go. That I needed it all to go, that I needed to just be a normal girl now, like everyone else. And he was very compassionate about it, if a little sad, and then...he left. Poof, just like that. It all left. And though I felt the absence from time to time--it was WEIRD to look at the world and not hear it talking back--I convinced myself it was the best thing and I moved forward into teen and adult life like a normal girl. Because--from limited view of adulthood garnered in the suburbs--well, voices, they weren't part of the rules of growing up. Adults didn't talk to the ocean. And they definitely didn't hear disembodied voices (if they didn't want to end up in the nuthouse).

I guess I don't want to judge the choice I made back then. I don't want to say it wasn't all for the best. Because at the time, it was what I needed; so it's what was meant to be. But I do think in making that choice/request, I chose to cut off something that was a vital piece of who I was. And with it, other vital connections to myself and the world around me might have gotten lost for a good long time.

At some point in my late thirties, I thought better of my choice to tell it all to go away. And I tried to bring it all back and found I couldn't. I'd look at a tree and feel...nothing. Almost less than nothing. I felt blocked. And it felt like I'd blown it; like I'd had one special chance and I'd thrown it away. I'd been given a gift and I chose to return it, and now it wasn't up for offer anymore. But there was nothing to be done about it, so I became resigned to the fact it was gone.

But if you stepped on path of sacred art
and stuck it out through thick and thin
God knows you become one
With undestructable

Around that time is when the beginnings of a pretty deep depressive period began to set in (seemingly unrelated to me at that time). It started small, grew slowly and steadily bigger and lasted and worsened for many years, until I could no longer bear it and sought out help. And this resulted in my finally realizing that for these and many more years the self I thought defined who I was wasn't a self at all, but an amalgam of the selves I thought other people thought a self should be for a girl like me.

And it's been a slow journey towards first realizing that, and now it feels like a slow journey towards deconstructing the false selves and finding out the true core that's been buried underneath. But I think the voices may be part of what's underneath.

I say this because I stayed home from work today. And after an inexplicable episode of joyful laughter that took over me this morning from the moment I looked in the mirror and said good morning to myself, I went and took a walk along the river in the sunlight of almost-spring. And I turned off my iPod and just listened. And the trees and water started talking to me. For the first time in such a long time.

And I think...no, I feel...this is a very good sign.

And so no longer live I in fear
Them are too greedy to pay my asylum bills
This is my life
And freedom's my profession
This is my mission throughout all flight duration
There is a core
And it's hardcore
All is hardcore when made with love
The love is voice of savage soul
This savage love is
Undestructable

This band is just...

Jesus.

It's the sound of Sigur Rós making love to The Who--while orbiting the sun in an air-conditioned Great Glass Elevator, high on joy juice and surrounded by gravity-free floating gerbera blossoms.

Just listen: Lovely Allen (mp3 here, video below)

MUST be played at top volume until it's shaking your speakers (or vibrating your eardrums if you're wearing headphones) to fully appreciate the beautiful madness of what they're doing.

Whaddaya think?

Given that I've often been accused of being obsessive about music, it may come as a surprise that I've always been somewhat ambivalent about going to live shows.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy seeing a band I love in concert. And sometimes discovering a new band can be fun, too. But so often the shows are just...well, so-so. Factors conspire to make the experience less than transformative. Sometimes the sound sucks, or the band's not as good live as they are recorded, and I am disappointed and either left questioning my former belief in their talent or wondering why I didn't just stay home and listen to the CD. Or, on the opposite end of the scale, sometimes the sound is TOO perfect--SO perfect, in fact, that it sounds JUST like the CD, with no particular flair to make the performance feel live or interesting. And in those instances, too, I wonder why I didn't just stay home and listen to the CD.

Or sometimes the band seems to be going through the motions, and not caring much. I've seen some bands who make Disney animatrons look lively. Alternately, sometimes they're wasted and stumbling all over the place, which is amusing for a short while and then just gets really annoying when they can't remember how to play their instruments and nod off and end the show after 30 minutes. Sometimes it's the audience who's way too wasted and ruins an otherwise brilliant show by drunkenly shouting out stupid things at every opportunity or not knowing the difference between drunken brutality vs. actual moshing. And of course, seeing new bands I've never heard before is always a crap shoot and nine times out of ten I wonder if I might not have done better to have just stayed home and saved my money for, like...rent or something.

But sometimes, there are these incredible live music moments. Sometimes, everything comes together in this unspeakably perfect way. And then I remember why I don't entirely give up on going to shows.

I had one such experience a few days ago. A friend invited me to go see the band Elbow play live. I'd never heard of them before. Despite me being the music geek I am, and despite them having put out quite a few CDs already, they'd completely missed my radar. But after quickly checking out their website and MySpace page and listening to a few clips, I enthusiastically agreed to go. Something about their music grabbed me right away, and despite my wariness these days (based on the factors mentioned above) about paying to see bands I know nothing about, on hearing them I instantly thought "this is a band to see." I'm not even sure why, but that was the immediate gut response.

They always say you should follow your gut, and it turns out "they" are still damn well right. Because this show was easily one of the best and most remarkable live performances I've had the pleasure of seeing in a long while.

There were a number of factors that came together to make this so. First off, it turned out the show was being held in a historic synagogue right in the heart of the city I live in. A place I may have passed by dozens of times and yet have never noticed--and certainly didn't know showcased live bands. So that was the first surprise. We walked in, and were greeted with a completely gorgeous interior. A relatively intimate performance space, with beautiful antique wooden pews, carved with smooth, curved backs which were incredibly comfortable to sit in. Candelabras along the walls. Elaborate stained glass windows. And a stunning domed ceiling, painted with an intricate gold-leaf pattern and looking like a giant, semitic Fabergé egg. Just look at the photo to the right. That's what we sat under all night, evening light shimmering through the stained glass windows surrounding it, making it glow above us when the lights went low for the show. How can one not be moved to the expectancy of something great when sitting under a ceiling like that?

Even before the band started, it was clear the acoustics were going to be marvellous and that environs had an affect on the crowd. We could hear our voices amplified by the shape of the building in a way that foretold good things for a band being able to play. And have you ever noticed how when one walks into a beautiful place, one is naturally awed by it and wants to be beautiful IN it? Your behavior changes; you grow happier, more careful in how you treat yourself and others. You try to drink it all in and you look at your neighbors, both of you wide-eyed and say, "Isn't this amazing?" And then you smile and feel lucky. You don't want to let that feeling go. That's what it was like.

This, I believe, was amplified by the fact that there was no alcohol available. I didn't think of it until afterward, but I think it may possibly be the first show I've ever seen where no one was drinking and where I hadn't had at least one drink. I tend to associate shows with alcohol--whether I'm drinking or it's just the smell of it all around me. None of that here. Everyone was completely sober and AWAKE; and I think this lent to wanting to keep the respectful feeling of the beauty of the space going and the whole "love thy neighbor" vibe that was going on. Plus, it let all of us REALLY HEAR the music. It was such an unusual thing, experiencing a band with a crowd that was completely unaltered. People seemed far more riveted and connected to the performance and each other. It was truly spectacular. And all this time I thought alcohol contributed to a live experience--that it wasn't rock 'n' roll without the sex and drugs aspect. So much for that fallacy.

And yet, despite the more formal decorations around us, and the lack of a dive bar atmosphere, the crowd was incredibly charged. In fact, perhaps even more charged than normal, because everything was so different and special. You could feel how special everyone thought it was, just in the air. And the feeling certainly charged the band, too. From the moment the lights came down and they were able to walk THROUGH the waiting crowd, in between the pews and toward the stage, carrying horns in arms stretched high, and then stand in a line across the stage, blowing a huge cacophony of Wall-of-Jerhico sound over