(no subject)
Sometimes I wonder.I am always making a past behind me.That sounds retarded,but understand me.I wonder if I am doing enough to make stories for later in life.I know that a little calmdown happens in the thirties..but I feel like that is something that happens to people who have babies and get shackled to a mortgage.I don't see any reason that I should not be out making my history.I cannot handle alcohol the way that I used to,but I am considering that a good thing since I also now have a way lower tolerance to alcohol,I am a cheap date.I guess I am just feeling hemmed in because it's all cloudy for the 4th fucking day in a row!!!feh!!!
It did not,however,keep me from going to Nashville with Angy to see Amanda fucking Palmer.It was nasty and raining hard as hell when we were driving out Wednesday.After Jackson it cleared up for most of the drive there. We were so happy to see Patrik when we finally made it thru the city to his house (after getting considerably lost and heading to a rather finky looking part of town)that we fell on him with hugs and kisses on his absolutely intoxicating and ivy covered porch.We met his sweetheart of a roommate,Steve,and they gave a tour of their wonderful little home.It's kinda cocked back and to the side,and on an mindbendingly large lot of land,so that when you sit on the porch,or the back terrace,It looks like you are in the country.....but you are actually all up in the city.We were sooo happy to be out of Angy's truck.Patrik and Steve showed us this amazing little cuban place(that had the most savory greens I have ever tasted) AND the name of the place completely escapes me.
I am going to insert at this time that Patrick is possibly the best gay-boyfriend ever.We love eachother intensely, and it will never get fucked up because it is unconditional.If you have even one friend like this,then consider yourself the luckiest person ever.HE WROTE OUT THE DIRECTIONS TO THE VENUE AND THEN ANOTHER SET FROM THE VENUE TO THE HIGHWAY HOME!!!!!!!!!This one little gesture has been earmarked for a shoe in on for "sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me....really"
I am also going to insert that they would have worked marvelously if the CMA's had not been going on that selfsame night,so that there was actually a road block and a cop where out course took us.I direct angy to ignore the roadblock,because I am that kind of girl.We get stopped.I roll down the window to plead with the officer to give us directions to the mercy lounge.That officer then gave us the information about the CMA's being "about to let out" which we found out actually means "this place is about to explode with sequins and terribly ugly men in cowboy hats,and traffic that will actually cut off your oxygen supply" THEN proceeded to give us the most direct route to the place we needed to be,so that we didn't experience the brunt of the explosion of country music fan traffic hell.
We get to venue and there is no parking to be had,so we climbed this hill behind cannery row.On the way up the hill I get this mighty whiff of patchouli.This turned out to be a omen of things to come.We climb the stairs and walk into this really interesting bar.Great stage,wonderful lighting and possibly the best opening band ever.
They are called Builders to Butchers.They are one jug short of being a nu-jugband.They sing something akin to old spirituals and old mtn folk,and smacks somewhat of the ever elusive "terror folk" genre.Their drummer makes me think of Animal,from the Muppets.They had a mandolin player.I was so terribly impressed,a funereal band that was not brass....though the percussion/whatever-else-was-at-hand-guy busted out a trumpet for one of their songs.I had to get the CD they were selling.
Then out comes Amanda fucking Palmer.She comes out dead in the arms of the Danger Ensemble (this troupe of Australian performance artists)and is carried out her keyboard.Then she proceeds to play with motherfucking gusto.That woman beats the everloving fuck out of her keyboard.I hadn't seen her live before,I am awed by her showmanship as much as I am knocked out by her generosity of spirit.She really loves her fans.You can tell from her performance.Some performers are out there doing it for money,or for the lifestyle,or for the ego trip. I don't see that in her at all.She is doing it because she loves to do it.Those performers are the ones who give you a hundred million percent onstage.I now admire the shit out of this woman.She commits to music the way that never did.She was also playing with this fantastic violinist,also from Australia and his name fucking escapes me.
The crowd in that place was a whole other story.It inspired Angy and I to come up with a new tagline for Memphis,almost like that whole "come to the darkside,we have cookies"....it's "come to Memphis,We use soap!"
The funk of the hippies in that place....it nearly floored me.I was actually kinda happy with the permeating aroma of patchouli,because apparently it could have been much much worse.They seem to have a real different kind of style up there.I had some dude with a beard big enough to hide a possum in,leather pants,a red and black velvet zebra print jacket and a hounds-tooth trilby hat....he comes over and sits beside me on the wall and starts nodding.right in the middle of all this loud ass concert.At one point I was kinda propping him up against the wall,since if he fell off his barstool,he would swipe mine out from under me.I was not goin down like that.He actually woke up halfway for a moment,and fucking thanked me.He would applaud between songs though.It was the strangest thing.
Angy was not pleased with the crowd,I think that they might have been crowding her.I was just holding up the junkie next to me.There was one song that Amanda played and it made me nearly cry.I also almost cried for a minute when I was propping up the nodding guy.I thought about the years that I spent nodding.I still think about heroin sometimes.But watching that....I was not crying because it was a shame to see someone that far gone...I was crying because I was grateful that it was not me.I was there in that place,I was there in the moment,feeling so alive.I wasn't nodded out,listening to it as if it were an old dream.I was crying because I was grateful that I have my full range of emotions back.
Anyways...we had to leave because of time constraints.Getting back onto the highway was a beautiful thing.The drive back was not.There was pea soup fog most of the way.Angy was in a damnatory mood toward all diesel trucks,people that emit foul odors,and several varieties of small mammals.It was a really long drive back.On the way there we had been leapfrogging with some person who had BINAGIRL on vanity plated....and this elicited our interest....exactly what was it NOW????Was it a full grown by god Woman now??/was it a man now???
Due to darkness on the higway,and tinted windows,the answer to this question will remain shrouded in mystery.But on the way back,we couldn't have even read a vanity plate in that fog.Pure evil that stuff.We made in back by and by and I eventually just dropped everything into the floor in my dark apartment,walked out of my boot and fell into the bed.....exhausted.But I braved the funknasty weather to do it.I had some realizations.
I hope to god that it is sunny for the drive to New Orleans next after week.I am ready to be on the road again.
It did not,however,keep me from going to Nashville with Angy to see Amanda fucking Palmer.It was nasty and raining hard as hell when we were driving out Wednesday.After Jackson it cleared up for most of the drive there. We were so happy to see Patrik when we finally made it thru the city to his house (after getting considerably lost and heading to a rather finky looking part of town)that we fell on him with hugs and kisses on his absolutely intoxicating and ivy covered porch.We met his sweetheart of a roommate,Steve,and they gave a tour of their wonderful little home.It's kinda cocked back and to the side,and on an mindbendingly large lot of land,so that when you sit on the porch,or the back terrace,It looks like you are in the country.....but you are actually all up in the city.We were sooo happy to be out of Angy's truck.Patrik and Steve showed us this amazing little cuban place(that had the most savory greens I have ever tasted) AND the name of the place completely escapes me.
I am going to insert at this time that Patrick is possibly the best gay-boyfriend ever.We love eachother intensely, and it will never get fucked up because it is unconditional.If you have even one friend like this,then consider yourself the luckiest person ever.HE WROTE OUT THE DIRECTIONS TO THE VENUE AND THEN ANOTHER SET FROM THE VENUE TO THE HIGHWAY HOME!!!!!!!!!This one little gesture has been earmarked for a shoe in on for "sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me....really"
I am also going to insert that they would have worked marvelously if the CMA's had not been going on that selfsame night,so that there was actually a road block and a cop where out course took us.I direct angy to ignore the roadblock,because I am that kind of girl.We get stopped.I roll down the window to plead with the officer to give us directions to the mercy lounge.That officer then gave us the information about the CMA's being "about to let out" which we found out actually means "this place is about to explode with sequins and terribly ugly men in cowboy hats,and traffic that will actually cut off your oxygen supply" THEN proceeded to give us the most direct route to the place we needed to be,so that we didn't experience the brunt of the explosion of country music fan traffic hell.
We get to venue and there is no parking to be had,so we climbed this hill behind cannery row.On the way up the hill I get this mighty whiff of patchouli.This turned out to be a omen of things to come.We climb the stairs and walk into this really interesting bar.Great stage,wonderful lighting and possibly the best opening band ever.
They are called Builders to Butchers.They are one jug short of being a nu-jugband.They sing something akin to old spirituals and old mtn folk,and smacks somewhat of the ever elusive "terror folk" genre.Their drummer makes me think of Animal,from the Muppets.They had a mandolin player.I was so terribly impressed,a funereal band that was not brass....though the percussion/whatever-else-was-at-hand-guy busted out a trumpet for one of their songs.I had to get the CD they were selling.
Then out comes Amanda fucking Palmer.She comes out dead in the arms of the Danger Ensemble (this troupe of Australian performance artists)and is carried out her keyboard.Then she proceeds to play with motherfucking gusto.That woman beats the everloving fuck out of her keyboard.I hadn't seen her live before,I am awed by her showmanship as much as I am knocked out by her generosity of spirit.She really loves her fans.You can tell from her performance.Some performers are out there doing it for money,or for the lifestyle,or for the ego trip. I don't see that in her at all.She is doing it because she loves to do it.Those performers are the ones who give you a hundred million percent onstage.I now admire the shit out of this woman.She commits to music the way that never did.She was also playing with this fantastic violinist,also from Australia and his name fucking escapes me.
The crowd in that place was a whole other story.It inspired Angy and I to come up with a new tagline for Memphis,almost like that whole "come to the darkside,we have cookies"....it's "come to Memphis,We use soap!"
The funk of the hippies in that place....it nearly floored me.I was actually kinda happy with the permeating aroma of patchouli,because apparently it could have been much much worse.They seem to have a real different kind of style up there.I had some dude with a beard big enough to hide a possum in,leather pants,a red and black velvet zebra print jacket and a hounds-tooth trilby hat....he comes over and sits beside me on the wall and starts nodding.right in the middle of all this loud ass concert.At one point I was kinda propping him up against the wall,since if he fell off his barstool,he would swipe mine out from under me.I was not goin down like that.He actually woke up halfway for a moment,and fucking thanked me.He would applaud between songs though.It was the strangest thing.
Angy was not pleased with the crowd,I think that they might have been crowding her.I was just holding up the junkie next to me.There was one song that Amanda played and it made me nearly cry.I also almost cried for a minute when I was propping up the nodding guy.I thought about the years that I spent nodding.I still think about heroin sometimes.But watching that....I was not crying because it was a shame to see someone that far gone...I was crying because I was grateful that it was not me.I was there in that place,I was there in the moment,feeling so alive.I wasn't nodded out,listening to it as if it were an old dream.I was crying because I was grateful that I have my full range of emotions back.
Anyways...we had to leave because of time constraints.Getting back onto the highway was a beautiful thing.The drive back was not.There was pea soup fog most of the way.Angy was in a damnatory mood toward all diesel trucks,people that emit foul odors,and several varieties of small mammals.It was a really long drive back.On the way there we had been leapfrogging with some person who had BINAGIRL on vanity plated....and this elicited our interest....exactly what was it NOW????Was it a full grown by god Woman now??/was it a man now???
Due to darkness on the higway,and tinted windows,the answer to this question will remain shrouded in mystery.But on the way back,we couldn't have even read a vanity plate in that fog.Pure evil that stuff.We made in back by and by and I eventually just dropped everything into the floor in my dark apartment,walked out of my boot and fell into the bed.....exhausted.But I braved the funknasty weather to do it.I had some realizations.
I hope to god that it is sunny for the drive to New Orleans next after week.I am ready to be on the road again.