At the time I wrote this song I had a pink snake named Little Bun. She looked like a very long and thin hot dog bun. I thought having one animal from each of the animal kingdoms would bring me good luck in life. It is hard to say if it worked. I loved Little Bun but never got over the fear of her biting me. Sometimes, when entering a public situation where I felt nervous or awkward, I would take her with me and let her discreetly twine around my arm. My fear of her biting me caused my social anxieties to fade somewhat.
I painted this when Little Bun died. I like to think it is a picture of her crossing the river that leads to the next world. Goodbye Little Bun!
Carlos Castaneda (my hero, although I reluctantly admit that he appears to have been a manipulative psycho rather than a true sorcerer) wrote that when people sleep together the female sends her energy to the male for the next seven years. In an ideal situation, though, the man will return the energy he receives through his genitals back to the woman through his heart.
This seems reasonable, although I tend to think either gender could set up a cord through sex which siphons off their partner’s red energy for an extended period of time. I guess you could call them sex predators.
How do you know if you’ve been attacked by a sex predator? If you start to share the sentiments expressed in this song and become too detached from life, too unconcerned and selfless, too passive and unmotivated.
For some reason, I love confederate soldiers and they pop up frequently into my imagination.* Obviously, the south was in the wrong, but still I tend to think that the soldiers did not fight alone, but had fairies fighting with them side by side. Why would fairies fight for the Confederate army? I don’t know. My best guess is that they wanted the south to remain agricultural and undeveloped, so that they would have a place to live and their societies and cultures would not be destroyed. But in the end, they were. It is strange how even in the most black and white circumstances, there will always be more to the picture than we can see.
It is nearly impossible for me to sing this song all the way through without screaming “NOOOoooo!!!!” and throwing down my guitar to hide my head in a pillow. It just embarrasses me to no end. It makes me feel like a cheesy, greasy guy driving around in a convertible and tank top, whistling at the ladies. Not that I dislike oily men, btw, I just don’t feel comfortable BEING one myself.
But James thinks I should include All my songs on this blog- The Complete Set- and I try to do as I’m told. Anyway, you can’t go through life just slashing out all the things you don’t know how to appreciate. I used to live that way, and now I really wish I could get my tie-dyed Iron Maiden t-shirt back. It was beautiful.
This song is more or less a true story, except that my husband never passed out from moonshine, it was a blend of vodka and wormwood extract. He did fall face first onto his plate of turkey, but the joke was on me and the other guests who must have been out of our minds as well, since it took us a while to realize that the turkey we were eating was still frosty and raw.
A song from Brooklyn where everything was black, black, black.
In retrospect, I can see that the mental torture I experienced there was magnified by growing up in a culture that valued money, status, fun, and popularity above all else. These values motivate people to work hard and achieve, but make it harder to find meaning and peace of mind in undesirable circumstances.
My husband, on the other hand, was raised to abhor money and status, and to seek only Eternal Salvation. This hasn’t always made him the life of the party, but it does give him patience and a sense of himself that isn’t dependent on “worldly” approval.
He was taught that God’s chosen people will be reviled and persecuted while I was taught that the “cream of humanity” can be recognized by their wealth and success…
I saw a tv show about an olympic skier who had been injured in a traumatic accident. Although he had recovered physically and was in better shape than ever before, his coach feared he could never be a champion again, because there would always be a slight hesitation, an underlying fear, that would keep him from making the bold and risky moves of his past as freely as he once had.
I wonder a lot if it is possible in life to go back to the beginning… to be truly optimistic, soft, and unscarred after traumatic experiences. Can a person coax their spirit back into their body once it has flown away?
I wrote this song on the day I finally moved into my own apartment after separating from my husband… what a happy day… free at last…
It would have been better if I had sworn off men altogether and become a sister-is-doing-it-for-herself type of lady, but I had no plans to stay single for even a week- I had my heart set on falling in love, as soon as possible, with the most boring and normal man in the world… I wanted someone dry, dull and left-brained, someone who drank coffee and read the paper with breakfast, preferably while wearing spectacles, someone who discussed subjects so uninteresting I would fall asleep listening to him.
And that was a good idea, I think. I still love boring, factual coffee-drinkers of all genders. They are comforting and remind me of my favorite breakfast food, toast. But in a city of illusions, appearances can be deceptive. You never know whose glasses are prescription, and whose are just plain glass. And a week is really not enough time to separate the dullards from the perverts in disguise.
