Tag: Dusty Stables

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Dusty Stables Music & Songs

Town Widow

 

Woman in coat in front of cityscape. Charcoal.Ok, I had to take a break for a few days, because it was becoming too painful to revisit my earliest songs… sometimes they bring up memories that are too much to bear. Anyway, this is another one of my first songs which were all about my love for Dusty Stables. How could I have been in love with someone who had the same hair color as me? How could I have been in love with a tall skinny guy*? Looking back, none of it makes sense.

 

Download MP3: Town Widow

 

*No offense… it is just that I perceive tall skinny men as being dreamers** and less likely to enjoy moving heavy crates from place to place. I may be wrong.

**Not that there is anything wrong with being a dreamer, but when you’ve spent the last six months trying to grow wings (literally), a dreamer shouldn’t be what you’re looking for.

 

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Dusty Stables Los Angeles Music & Songs

Tween Times

 

Justin Levine, Black on Black, Los AngelesYet another song of unrequited love for Dusty Stables. Unrequited love used to the dominant feature of my internal life. I would always be madly in love with someone I had never met, and my passion would grow and grow until one day fate would arrange for me to meet my true love and then bam! a split end on one of his hairs, or a crumb stuck to the side of his shoe would cause my love to vanish in an instant.

In high school I was madly in love with Bono, for example, until one day some girls brought a big book of U2 pictures to school. I opened the book to see a big close-up picture of my dream man, so close up I could see the whiskers growing out of his pores and a whisp of smoke curling around a skin flake on his lips. I shut the book quickly, but it was too late, the love bubble had popped. While Bono remained a potential candidate for husband, I now realized I should probably consider other people as well.

With Dusty Stables, I don’t think I ever got close enough to see his pores. Instead, I moved to a new apartment which would have required me to walk two extra blocks to see him at the coffee shop. I guess that was when my enthusiasm started to dampen and I decided I needed to find a new meaning for my life.

Download MP3: Tween Times

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Dusty Stables Los Angeles Music & Songs

Dusty Stables

 

self-portrait in overalls

This is the first song I ever wrote. Well, actually, it is the second song, but the first song is called The Mailman and possibly too perverted to share.

I was a painter living in Los Angeles when I got the feeling it was time for me to do something new, although I wasn’t entirely sure what. The best way to figure out, I decided, would be to spend 5 whole days being drunk. Which was a little bit challenging since the combination of alcohol and sunshine has always made me queasy and L.A. is a very sunny place. It also meant I would have to navigate the city on drunk feet for a few days.

But luckily, it only took a couple of days for the answer to arrive in a flash of certainty- I was going to be a musician! I had always known I was going to become a musician SOMEDAY. In fact, I had already bought myself a little $30 guitar so I would be ready when the time came.

 

Download MP3: Dusty Stables

Categories
Dusty Stables Los Angeles Music & Songs

Black Hearted Life

 

self-portrait in charcoal with blinds and mysterious figure

The first dozen or so songs I wrote were all about my unrequited love for the sophisticated & urbane Dusty Stables. I was living in L.A. and had just been evicted, divorced, and forced to give Pablito and Eekeleedee (my parakeets) up for adoption. I was moving into a 100 square foot apartment with no means of support other than selling paintings. I had no car and all in all my survival skills were iffy.

But Dusty Stables was (in my mind) a true city slicker. He wore sunglasses (I have always admired people who wear sunglasses), and black clothes, something that men in Kentucky never do. The omnipresence of his laptop and phone combined with his height and sharp features to give him a comforting, robotic quality.  I felt he would have an easier time navigating the complexities of city life than your average meat ball. And on top of it all, he seemed nice.

Download MP3: Black Hearted Life

Categories
Dusty Stables Los Angeles Music & Songs

Shy


Julien in blue studio with bandana, mirror, and paintings. Self-portrait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the first song I performed publicly. I had just started playing guitar and writing songs a week earlier, so even under ideal circumstances it was a struggle to get through a song. Still, I was under so much pressure regarding what I was doing with my life, that I didn’t feel I could afford to wait any longer before beginning my new career. But I had no idea how nerve-wracking performing before an audience could be. I especially didn’t realize that nerves could cause my arms and legs to jerk around in large spastic movements completely beyond my control.

So, my “performance” was pretty much a  complete disaster, and when you throw in my painter’s overalls, gigantic pink checkered shirt, and tiny half-sized child’s guitar, the whole scene must have looked strangely pathetic. Still, people loved me, because there is nothing better than watching someone convulse uncontrollably on stage. No amount of skill and professionalism can match the thrill of watching nature have it’s way with a person despite their best attempts to stop it.

 

Download MP3: Shy