Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Nashville The Odyssey Videos

Run Rabbit Run (Video)

I have two problematic states I can be in. One is frozen, like a block of ice that can’t speak or move, and the second is evaporated like steam that will say or do anything. These videos make me feel self-conscious because they capture me in my icy state due to the presence of all the technology and lights. Technology is useful, but may be kryptonite to females.

I wrote this song in Nashville, as part of an album called “The Odyssey” which expressed my feelings of endless journeying through a dark world. As I’ve said before, Nashville struck me as a dark city, but that may be because I only went out at night. Having no money and little food can make the world feel darker as well. I lived on my own, but had zero practicality. When the electricity was turned off I had no idea why. I thought I was witnessing a supernatural event. Once- as if by magic- a person left cans of food at my door but I didn’t know how to open them. So I smashed them with a hammer and ate the pieces that didn’t have metal in them. I was an animal, I guess. How far I have come. Plus there was the darkness of the music industry which hung over the musicians like a shadow.

Many of the songs I wrote at that time can no longer be sung because they are so sexual that it would be embarrassing to someone with my current level of dignity. Sexuality is a language for desperate times, I guess, but not the language to use when you want to seem like a good neighbor. Or your husband wants to run for city council. Now dignity must always be first and foremost on my mind. “Stiff as a board” is my new motto.

Me, in Nashville. Then I was truly crazy, now I am practically President of the United States.

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs The Odyssey Uncategorized

Black Black Hell

 

Cheetah mom with baby cheetahs at sunset.Another song from the Odyssey… Odysseus travels to Hades to seek guidance for his journey. Hell is a place we all visit at some point. Perhaps by visiting Hell while still alive we don’t have to go there when we die.

What is Hell? Hell is a place so black we can only look backwards.

A place where the light of the future has been extinguished by the shadows of the past. Suddenly we are engulfed by everything we had forgotten- lost opportunities, suppressed humiliations, mistakes we can never erase. We realize that what we thought was behind us- our past- was actually closer to us than our present- standing between us and the present like an atmosphere, a cover of clouds, and in Hell these clouds thicken and swallow us up. We are confronted with the ways we have hurt others and the ways we have hurt ourselves. We come face to face with the dark sides of those we loved, the ways they betrayed us, the love that existed only in words but not deeds. We see the ways we were overpowered by life and shaped by forces beyond our control. We realize we cannot change the past- not because it is behind us (it is not behind us at all!)-but because we never could have changed it. We did our best, but it was not enough. Our will was just a tiny candle in the big wide world, barely illuminating our own hand and bound for extinction.

Some dreams were fulfilled, but still they were hollow. Some goals were achieved, but still they led nowhere. Best friends slipped away, one by one, like sunsets. Ideals that seemed so tangible turned out to only be concepts. Right and wrong, success and failure, struggles and surrenders… in the end it all led to the same place… nowhere.

Welcome to Hell.

Download MP3: Black Black Hell