My recording machine broke & I don’t know what to do about that so at the moment I am just gonna record songs on my phone as videos cuz I don’t know what else to do.
Don’t be sad you’re never alone. Take my hand why would you say that now? Cause you could only love me when I was gone. Close my eyes I try to fight it but I Something inside me knows where you go
Daylight comes I wait for the change Wrap your golden arms around me why Could you only love me when I was strange? Laugh and smile I try to hide it but I Something inside me knows where you go
So I’ll try to run away It’s the hardest thing to do I want to cling to you tell you all the things That you don’t care about
But if I decide to stay Just to watch you slip away And all the while the orange Bleeding out.
You don’t come and then come the moon. So he fall like fire upon me but why Could you only love me when I was new? Drag myself towards the mirror help me Something inside me knows where you go
Sometimes I think men are about changing the outer world while women are about changing on the inside to find the magic in what is.
I feel art is a feminine activity…. it lets people transform by seeing beauty in new things. To step outside the judgments which cage their perceptions. Art that simply caters to current tastes dulls the senses like being hooked up to a masturbation machine. Artists have to follow their own muse oblivious to the taste of the people.
The point is not to please nor to shock. But to deliver a fresh stream of water that people can choose to align their psyche with should they need it. The fresh input allows inner things to reconfigure and helps flush out the gunk.
It’s the same with thoughts. Fresh perspectives have value, even if you don’t happen to need that perspective at the moment. At least it will be there offering you a mental alternative should you ever get stuck in the future.
Whether songs are good or bad and perspectives right or wrong seems besides the point. They are crayons you can add to your crayon box just in case. A color you dislike now may appeal in the future.
I’m saying all this because I want to write about hillbillies and am bracing myself for the backlash. I have yet to recover my nerve from when people attacked me for writing about poor people. It doesn’t matter that I was praising poor people & pointing out that they might be fairies in disguise. In fact people seemed angry that I wasn’t describing the poor as miserable beings leading a pointless existence.
I internalized these attacks to where I became afraid to see my own experience of poverty in a magical light. I wish I could return to that lens though. It made me feel safe and uplifted.
But when autumn came I went into panic mode…. I must figure out how to make a living now or I’m going to die! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! And the more I panic the more I can’t think at all.
So I may just have to accept the possibility that I will end up living under a bridge getting stabbed to death by a mugger because so far no better plan has come to mind.
Maybe if I had the confidence to stay on my own wavelength rather than trying to be Tarzan the Dentist I could think more clearly. Maybe a possibility for how to survive would come to mind, maybe something I could actually do.
Cause the more I try to be a lumberjack the more my brain seizes and my body freezes and I can’t function at all.
All my life I’ve felt this guilt about not being a lumberjack, a gladiator, a professional boxer. I’m never hearty, tough, dirty and hard scrabble enough to please the people around me.
James was the first person to accept me as I was and that caused a lot of my psychological problems to clear up. I stopped needing to match the color of my ice cream to the color of my shoes. I could tolerate a wider range of colors, sounds and smells which let me function more normally.
But none of this happened because he was trying to change me. Its because he accepted me as I was. If I needed white ice cream topped with white sauce and white sprinkles he would help me find it until eventually I didn’t need it anymore. He always told me to trust myself and no matter how far out my preferences were he never tried to force me into conventional ways of being. Paradoxically this made me feel more at peace with conventions until I could see them as sources of comfort. Because I’d become comfortable with myself.
But now that I’m facing annihilation the panic returns that I must become someone else to survive. A gladiator. A lesbian. A mailman. A criminal. I must shut the fuck up and find something heavy to lift at once. Then I’ll be safe.
A baby walrus I found at a flea market. I listed him for sale on eBay like a damn slave. I am wondering if I can become a stuffed animals dealer.
A quilted bear I also found and listed.
A mustard package from biscuit world…. something about this color scheme really blew me away… it looks so warm and grounded yet also inviting adventure…. maybe these are the colors of the future?
I ate a plate of poison mushrooms, projectile vomited them over my whole apartment & ended up in the ER. They were jack o lantern mushrooms & I can only hope I gained some special jack o lantern powers from them.
A stone a man gave me. Is he a keeper?Downtown Charleston WV. I like it. But I’m not certain if it likes me. I feel I don’t have any of the traits that are valued here, like being super tough and down to earth.
Everyone said leave James so you can have a life. What is a life? I thought I had one to begin with.
I don’t know what I think of my life so far. Right now I am delusional because I can’t sleep at night. I don’t know why. I don’t like shutting my eyes so I try sleeping with the lights on. I wake up a few hours later & want to see what is going on in the world.
Being single is fun. Because you can do what you want. People always said “Being single is fun because you can do what you want.” That always seemed dumb. I liked what I did when I was married. Writing songs, baking muffins. I didn’t feel I was suppressing a desire to suck two dicks at once.
But I can’t deny that something has changed because I am having a lot more fun even doing the same things I used to do. I feel less inhibited. I don’t mean in terms of men or flirting. I just feel more free to be a dumbass.
There have been so many moments of paradise. Performing music is paradise. Writing songs is paradise. Drinking an alcoholic beverage, talking to a person….
I was playing in an antiques store & there was this door that opened over and over making a chime sound. The chime sound mixing with the music was paradise. I’m playing with a bass player named Bill. The bass mixing with the melody is paradise.
I have a weekly gig at an Indian restaurant. The music mixing with images of Hindu gods is paradise. Getting paid in food and carrying my box of food home is paradise. I love playing for tips and I love playing for dinner.
I went to an open mic where someone was playing keyboard in the most elaborate fashion. The chorus was
We’re not dumb. We’re just as smart as you. We’re West Virginians. And we’re humans too.
The audience was singing this in unison. The keyboard was going wild. Someone threw a bottle through the air and it missed the trash. Bliss overtook me and I threw a bottle too hitting Bill in the head. Absolute paradise.
These paradise moments keep stacking up to where I almost feel I’ll lose control.
There is a flip side tho…. I am struggling more than expected to run a tight & crisp ship.
For starters I don’t know what to eat. I stocked up my pantry with boxes of macaroni and tuna fish, not foods I especially like. But even cooking macaroni is too much work when you don’t have a dishwasher. I don’t feel excessively grounded. I always felt it was James who kept me down to earth.
I was single once before for about 6 months & I really started to go off the deep end. I was nailing bath towels to my wall to use as telephones. If I managed to get 5 dollars, I’d buy a pool noodle. I wasn’t delusional… it’s hard to explain but I was very aware of whether or not contacting people via bathtowel actually worked. But imagination & magical thinking took over 90% of my brain. I was writing songs constantly. I performed all the time. I painted. Did nonstop magical experiments. Then for dinner I would smash a can of green beans open with a hammer.
So when I feel spaced out and start walking in circles, I worry a little what the future holds. I hope that staying connected to other people will keep my feet on the ground.
****
Now some pics…
A mermaid created by Vulgaris & a box of tea from Avulva who wants me to suck a bag of dicks this summer. Will I? Probably not because I am superstitious about men using their penises as straws to suck out the life force. Not to mention that I can’t afford STDS when my goal is to live off $2,400 a year.
People have been sending me things to hang on my wall which means so much to me. I can’t say I feel that alone. The problem is, many of the things require nails to hang and the landlord said no holes. I bought a pack of command strips but the instructions were so complex I gave up.
Tuna fish, macaroni, tuna fish, macaroni. Together for every meal. Food is mathematics. And handwashing dishes is worse than expected.
I’m not happy with this situation because food fills in the bass notes of our emotions and I want the full range. I like people who eat. I like people who cook. I don’t like people who spend years living off candy like I always do.
Washing clothes in a garbage can. There are no laundry machines where I live or even in the neighborhood so this is my best idea.
Fresh from the garbage can, clothes hang to dry. I hope they don’t get wrinkled. It’s my first time trying this.
The jungle creeps into my kitchen. Music is a source of bliss but it needs a counterforce to keep it in check. I don’t know if I’ll be able to supply that force for myself.
A candle. I always keep one candle burning somewhere with a secret wish attached.
The music industry has perverted the relationship between musicians and people with ears. Either the musician is a star and you must approach them as a grovelling fan or they are an ‘aspiring’ musician to whom you should drop a few coins as an act of charity. Both scenarios are false and repulsive.
I’ve known tragic cases where musicians died of loneliness despite having plenty of ‘fans’ because all these fans assumed the musician must be swimming in a sea of adulation & wouldn’t want to be bothered by them. Meanwhile the musician was actually living in isolation and abject poverty until they went insane and offed themselves. Unless a musician is super famous, odds are you have more money and friends than they do. So why be a fan when you could be a friend instead?
I know some people don’t want to know the people behind the songs because they feel it would ruin the songs for them. And yeah it probably would but isn’t that what life is about? Popping fantasy bubbles and replacing them with realities which you eventually decide are even tastier?
There are probably many men who would enjoy sex more if it could just be about the hole and they never had to meet the person behind the hole. But we train them to meet the person anyway because otherwise the thrill of the hole fades and they end up empty and bitter. In some cases they are even shot to death then hung upside down in the town square to be jeered at by their neighbors.* So just because it is simpler to see songs as divorced from their creators does not ultimately make it the way to go. If music is bread, musicians are the bread’s crust. Learning to eat your crust is a big part of life.
In fact I think the ultimate model for funding music would be an informal patronage system where music is free but those who like it fund the artist in some way big or small. But this can’t happen until musicians and listeners first become friends because I doubt many humans want to patronize a stranger or a star who is hovering above them.
It repulses me when artists are raising funds and say things like “If you donate 50 dollars you get to have lunch with me.” That is like paying for sex. Most humans aren’t into it. We don’t want to lunch with someone who considers it an honor for us to lunch with them. Once we reach maturity we don’t want to be no one’s fan no more.
So the first step in considering how musicians can earn a living is really to take money off the table altogether & heal the corrupted relationship between artist & listener. Place them on the same level and connect them.
And drop the “Support Local Artists” nonsense as well. Barf. It makes musicians sound like pathetic beggars with no inherent value who must be kept on life support out of the goodness of our hearts. If you don’t like a musician, please don’t support them. Would you take someone on a date because you felt sorry for them? It is cruel because it bonds them to someone who secretly finds them worthless. Set these losers free to find people who actually love them or else to find a new profession altogether. But prolong not their suffering through false friendom.
ON THE OTHER HAND…. if you believe the musicians you know suck, consider if this is really true or if you have actually become a brain dead zombie through watching too much American Idol. Did you know that if you use a vibrator on a regular basis you stop being able to enjoy sex? The same principle applies to music, food and everything really. When we become used to unnaturally stimulating products free of roughage that provide quick dopamine fixes we lose our taste for things which are more complex, fibrous & wholesome. Perhaps when you hear a local musician they miss chords, sing off key or use clunky lyrics. THE HORROR!!! But really, why does it matter?
Music is not a talent show. It’s about what touches the heart and something rough and awkward is as likely to do so as an overblown symphonic barf bag. Forget taste & critics & Shakespeare. It is just humans expressing feeling. Put yourself on the same level as the music and try to open up to it. Don’t hover above it like a disembodied brain trying to decide if it is worthy of you. Humble yourself and see if you get something from it. If you do, hit on the musician afterwards. Or at least say hi.
Cause one cool thing about being friends with a musician is that your spirit will certainly work its way into their music. Every song I’ve written was inspired by at least one person I know, although in some songs multiple souls overlap. I never tell the people cause this would seem super fucking creepy. Sometimes I don’t even realize who the song is for until later. It isn’t an intentional process, just an unavoidable organic reality. Pieces of other people enter your heart and come out as sounds.
So please. A Christmas Plea. Consider that music could be something other than an impersonal commodity to be purchased from our overlords. It is a living spirit and by befriending the musicians you become a part of it.
And in this way you shall enter the realm of the Immortals and through Paradise forever and ever shall your soul fly free.
The End.
* This is a reference to famous man ho Mussolini, not the figment of a sick imagination.
My practilife is going ok. An ongoing issue is transportation. I walk in the day (busses cost money without saving much time) but at night don’t know how to calculate the odds of danger. One friend sent me a taser which allows you to electrocute people if they get too close. Another said a crossbody bag keeps you safe from muggers so I bought one. I’ve never needed a purse before since I had no keys, phone or wallet. Now I mumble keys phone wallet… keys phone wallet….to myself one hundred times a day. You keep these three on you at all times.
I tried to select a crossbody bag that says Professional Crisp. The one that arrived looks more like Back to Preschool. This is a problem because people keep asking if I’m autistic. Pretty sure this is code for retarded. So Not Retarded is the main message I want my clothes to send.
I know it is bad to use the word retarded. And cool- almost trendy at the moment- to be autistic. Just one more reason I don’t want to be seen that way. Not to mention that it *won’t* be cool anymore once the wheel of the gods turn a bit further. I’m trying to prepare for the future by building a competent Can Do persona. You should too.
But back to the purse- not only does its shape seem dimwitted, its color is too noticeable. I thought it was light colored when I bought it. My goal for now is to blend in. There are too many holes in my skill set to completely avoid a retarded feeling. But I can avoid becoming a Famous Retarded Person. I don’t want people pointing me out as they drive by in their cars.
Maybe I shouldn’t care though because the other weak spot in my practivitization is that I don’t know anyone where I live. I have learned though that long distance friendships are very real. Not only did facebook friends send me enough money to make it through the initial crisis, they also patiently explained how everything in the practiworld works & even called 911 for me when I couldn’t figure out how to do it.
I couldn’t breath & thought I was going to lose consciousness. But when the cops and ambulance arrived a few minutes later then I could breath and felt so bad for wasting their time even though they were really kind. They asked me if I wanted to get into the ambulance just in case. But being laid out horizontally & placed in the back of a mini van is actually one of my worst nightmares. I associate it with being retarded.
So anyway, I am not sure how to meat people where I live. Friends have suggested open mics. But can me and musicians be friends? I feel like we’re oil & water. It’s a bro culture. You aren’t supposed to care about things smelling bad and being covered in goo. Worse than a bro culture, though, cause it specifically revolves around young, lazy men with no moral compass. Still, I’m trying to be open minded. I might have bad ideas about musicians that it’s time to release.. I’ll try to meet some just in case we get along. Maybe I’d like doing drugs. My facebook friends are always high.
Or maybe astrology readings would be better. Then I’d be dealing mostly with women. And you really get to know people when you read for them. I like the feeling of becoming no one & focusing on someone else’s problems. People’s lives are so much messier than anyone lets on. Realizing this has made me more socially comfortable.
And if you’re wondering how I’m currently able to survive, it’s mostly through my new identity as Arabian Merchant. Selling on ebay. It’s a decent fit for me because shopping is my one true vice. And I’m finding most things in my bulging vault of possessions have gone up in value since I bought them. I’m able to make a profit while clearing space for future shopping. I’m like a fat person who finally got a tapeworm. Now mama eats what she wants.
They say the rain will play that song again
You know the way it will go.
To feel his net within my mind again
I’ll lead the way even so.
If you’re gonna take a one time stand, then you’re a one time man
You don’t know the way
If you want to say that they were wrong when they were barely born
Save it for another day.
If you want to take the easy way and fly
First you’ll walk towards the window by my side
Water flowing through the drain and
Everything remains the same and
If you want to find the open road and go
First you’ll walk towards the window then you’ll know
Clouds are foaming in the blue and
Do you think that they’re reforming you man?
I feel the baker take her time again
Stir slow, stir slow all of the corn.
Green field appear within my mind again
Grow slow, grow slow, only born.
If you wanna take a one time stand, then you’re a one time man
You don’t know the way.
If you wanna say that they were wrong, when they were barely born
Save it for another day.
If you want to take the easy way and fly
First you’ll walk towards the window by my side
Water flowing through the drain and
Everything remains the same and
If you want to find the open road and go
First you’ll walk towards the window and you’ll know
Clouds are foaming in the blue and
Do you think that they’re reforming you man?
You know the way to pull that cold from me
Pull hard, pull hard, pull with your hand.
My hair was rope inside your hand, you see
Pull hard, pull hard see if you can.
If you wanna take a one time stand, then you’re a one time man
You don’t know the way.
If you wanna say that they were wrong, when they were barely born
Save it for another day.
If you want to take the easy way and fly
First you walk towards the window by my side
Water flowing through the drain and
Everything remains the same an
If you want to find the open road and go
First you’ll walk towards the window and you’ll know
Clouds are foaming in the blue and
Do you think that they’re reforming you man?
I am still in a mute phase where I have nothing to say, but am forcing myself to write one quick paragraph anyway. It is funny, because I can write endlessly on Facebook but that is because I am simply responding to a sea of people and not having to pull anything from within myself. Left to my own devices, I am clear and flavorless jelly, I think.
Drag me cross the floor Tell me that I’m dead Music fills my ears Lightning fills my head and it’s like ah….You’ve been there all along.
Push me on the ground Pick me up again Push me down and laugh at me You don’t know who I am and it’s like ah…. I’ve been here all along.
And now I’m standing in a night so clear The air so still The stars so near It’s like I’ve reached the gleaming atmosphere.
Staring at the wall Water in my hand No one there to hold me and I don’t know who I am And it’s like ah… I’ve been here all along
Dreams that slip away from you somehow when I didn’t know how To hold onto the bottle for myself. Dreams that lead the way for your somehow when I didn’t know how To follow down the glassy road myself.
Pull me to the stairs Hold me in your hands Who knows what you’ll do this time or where the dice will land And it’s like ah… we’ve been here all along.
And now I’m standing in a world so blue A sphere so far away from you
A stream that leads me down so low There is no me I flow and flow
A world so far away and clear The music plays, the stars are near It’s like I’ve reached the gleaming atmosphere.
Meeting the perfect, ultimate man at the mall… but this was from a few months ago when malls were still allowed to be open. 🙁
Drag me cross the floor
Tell me that I’m dead
Music fills my ears
Lightning fills my head and it’s like ah….You’ve been there all along.
Push me on the ground
Pick me up again
Push me down and laugh at me
You don’t know who I am and it’s like ah…. I’ve been here all along.
And now I’m standing in a night so clear
The air so still
The stars so near
It’s like I’ve reached the gleaming atmosphere.
Staring at the wall
Water in my hand
No one there to hold me and I don’t know who I am
And it’s like ah… I’ve been here all along
Dreams that slip away from you somehow when I didn’t know how
To hold onto the bottle for myself.
Dreams that lead the way for your somehow when I didn’t know how
To follow down the glassy road myself.
Pull me to the stairs
Hold me in your hands
Who knows what you’ll do this time or where the dice will land
And it’s like ah… we’ve been here all along.
And now I’m standing in a world so blue
A sphere so far away from you
A stream that leads me down so low
There is no me I flow and flow
A world so far away and clear
The music plays, the stars are near
It’s like I’ve reached the gleaming atmosphere.
I feel like something is off with my nerves. While walking down the sidewalk (in daylight), a jogger passed by saying “Excuse me” and I let a blood curdling scream rip into his ears. I didn’t mean to. He didn’t like it. Then a bicyclist rode by on the opposite side of the street, and I accidentally screamed at him as well.
Next, while standing alone with a candle in my hand, I suddenly smashed the candle as hard as I could against the ground. Glass flew everywhere & it broke a window too. (Oopsy!) I don’t know why I did it. My hand just moved faster than my brain could think. Now my recording room is filled with glass and James won’t let me in there since he is convinced I can’t clean it up without getting cut.
After that, I accidentally topped James’s pasta with a thick layer of salt rather than Parmesan cheese. And to make things more bizarre, I discovered I was wearing two pairs of shorts at the same time, one on top of the other. Somehow I hadn’t noticed.
Something is off. But what to do? I secretly tried cleaning the recording room and now my feet feel as though they are filled with glass though that is probably imagination. I have no paper left or else I would draw a picture of a man masturbating in a glass chamber, or maybe a picture of someone bleeding through the hands.
Many things have me unnerved at the moment. One is an incident from the other night. I was taking Slippers out & a car approached, slowing down as it came near me then parking. It gave me the creeps.
James came outside because he had gotten a bad feeling. He walked up to the car but they didn’t see him because they were looking towards me, with one man talking on the phone. He was telling someone that I had my dog with me. Once they saw James they zoomed off.
James thinks they were just random men up to no good and not looking for me specifically. But so many people have come looking for me in the past that I am a little paranoid. Just thinking about it makes my kidneys bubble.
I might be slightly disturbed by my little #metoo moment as well. The fact that none of the very liberal organizations, such as his record label, gave even a cursory response to my story (posted in reply to their tweets about his deep humanity) makes me realize the whole #metoo thing was completely fake. No one cares about sexual assault anymore than they ever have.
Not that I expect them to. Why should they care? This is their golden moment to sell records and selling records is their job- not social justice. But why do people have to fake care? I don’t think it is right to use social issues for personal elevation & branding, especially if you aren’t willing to put out when they land in your own backyard. It would be less confusing if people could just be honest about their true motivations. But why should they be? Wars were never won through transparency.
And what are values really, but the flags we wave to signal tribal affiliation? That is another thing that has been weighing on me- realizing the central role tribes play in human life while also realizing that I have no tribe and probably never will.
Tribes are everything though. Consider music. A musician’s value is judged by how much access they have to the tribes who run the music business. A performer at the Grammy’s is ‘talented’, even if you don’t personally like them. They have a recognized social value. They can trade on this value for resources & protection.
What makes the musical tribes- such as record labels- a little sinister is their efforts to convince people that they are a distillation of America’s best talent, and anything outside their glossy grip is not worth listening to. It is lower tier music that couldn’t make the cut. When in reality these record companies are just families- tribes- with the resources to buy lots of makeup for their members.
Once upon a time, when I thought getting a record contract was important, I submitted blank cds to them, because I had a suspicion the submission process was a sham (I already had experience with this sort of thing from my time in the art world.)
And of course, they all sent me back polite rejection letters, telling me that my music was not what they were looking for. So why lie? Because they need to pretend to be meritocracies in order to monopolize people’s musical imaginations. They need to pretend they have already searched out the “good” music so people won’t feel the need to search for themselves. This lie hurts music.
So, anyway, I guess feelings of mounting threats along with a growing awareness of my precarious position in society has me feeling on edge. Or maybe it is something else entirely. The problem is, when you are blogging with your actual name you are doomed to share only the most superficial aspects of your life. I wish I had thought of that from the beginning. I would have given myself the name Lacey Pendleton and she would do a complete Tell All. That would be paradise. But instead I am forever stuck in the gray zone, balancing an urge to express with a need to survive.
Oppossums have been showing up everywhere. Does that mean anything? This one is in the back yard. It is pregnant & you can see the curly little baby tails hanging beneath her stomach.
