The Way I Am

Another Fun List. Yay for Me.

1. things are getting better on Thursdays. They’re better on Thursdays, and they’re better locally – musically. I think that I’m finding my niche in Austin.
2. I still feel very nebulous and homeless and plan-less in general and I need to tighten up about my goals.
3. I’m really addicted to caffeine and I don’t know how I let this happen.
4. My sleep is all karked up.
5. I think I’m losing some of my memories.
6. I’m writing a LOT of songs, so that’s good.
7. I’m not really all that depressed anymore.
8. I think that I’m going to have to live with the fact that I’m sort of a sad, wistful person. Who’s a little off to the side …
9. Playing on Tuesday was a real treat, and the piano was really, really there for me. Everything just kicked in. It did what it was told. It became my instrument again. There was no-one else there and I didn’t care anymore.

I’ll leave it at that.

veryvery harrowing

I’ve had an INTENSE week.

I live inside my head. That means that objects seen from the OUTSIDE of my head are often LARGER than they appear (if I see an innuendo lain on that, I will scream – you know who y’all are! Yes, there are more than one of you. I keep some icky company ).

I am am ducking my head off from online JUST a little bit for a while. it’s gonna be temporary. I’ll hang a bit at the listening party tonight for final Fu, simply because I want to. But, after that – I think that after this week I’m going to need a good amount of time to just actually WORK on the music part of things in an isolated fashion. This week really kind of got to me. It reminded me of other weeks in other places with other conflicts and other feelings that … well…

They hurt. And I have that kind of brain where I need to just sit someplace and feed myself brain food until I feel better. Because I’ve always been in this game for the same reasons. And I can’t afford to get sidetracked. When you’re in this thing you have to put your eyes on the finish line and if you start thinking about things like pecking order or hierarchy and paying attention to that stuff you will fail. And it’s gotten me before. I can’t let it get me again. It’s a head game and I can’t be around it until I’ve redisciplined myself out of a SXSW-mindset. At least enough not to listen to how much more impressed-with-than-me I should be by famous people.

After all, I have a hard drive full of the most interesting drivel on the planet that, if I’d been in the right bathroom with the right agent at the right time – maybe I’d be geekeratti too and I would be having the Humility Conversation with myself right now; taking a break from TMA because I needed to stop being an asshole and complaining about non-organic hotel shampoos or some stupid Hippy-ass Austinite not telling me the appropriate directions to “So-Co.”

Acky-ack

I think I’m having an online Facebook fight with another musician who is:

1. most certainly in my “top 12″
2. annoying, but in a really wonderful way.
3. slightly more talented than me, which is sort of intimidating.
4. mysterious … OR IS HE … nah – it’s a put on … NO! WAIT! it’s not … maybe he needs a cape. Or a creepy organ. And a basement …
5. excruciatingly hot and looks like a heartbreaking model that one would accidentally run into at a cafe full of smart poets or revolutionaries who are cooler than Wal-mart-y Texan Housewives. Not that I like Wal-mart. At least, not since they screwed up my Wal-mart by putting that grocery store in it!
6. dissing people that I have NO BUSINESS feeling protective of, because in my past they’ve done nothing but hurt me real, real bad.

Why am I sticking my neck out? What am I doing? Why don’t I just shut up?

I think it’s the principle of the thing. I think it’s the way that the criticisms are falling out. It’s the way that the enviornment is getting made. I don’t know the answers to these questions.

I know that not just anyone should be allowed to play anywhere. Who gets to apply the standard of awesome though? I know a lot of people who would hate Medeski, Martin, and Wood – who are brilliant. There are people who are into hard core country music – the Nashville kind which I think is a bit cheesy and over-produced. NOT the kind that the people I know who are doing what they call “outlaw” music are doing.

Then there are these online people that I’ve been with – the TMA folk who are into people like Jonathan Coulton. They don’t know anything about the enviornment down here. They don’t know how … snooty the Austin people can get. And they don’t know how Austin people can host amazing musicans here that, ironically – they don’t seem to have the britches for.

I wrote some lyrics once. I don’t think I’m really “into it” with this fellow. I think we’re in agreement on many things. Plus he’s just a cutie anyway and fun as hell to film at large gatherings when I don’t want to be in the middle of large and gross crowds who annoy me!

Here they are:

LITTLE BRITCHES, TEXAS
[Disclaimer: I was REALLY annoyed, and it was a hot, hot day! In July ...]

I don’t want to waste another summer here
Sweating in the sweltering heat
Under the pressure of pretension
Of a place that wants to be like New York or LA
With out the late night sushi bars or Russian samovars
To back it up

Such pressure sure should not exist
In a town too small to catch a subway
Or the next train
Out of this

CH
Here in Little Britches, Texas
We preach our southern fried religion
Our warped purist vision
Hear the irony clink in our glass
Like the ice cubes in a glass of Chardonnay
And our pride makes us swell above our – hipster capris
In Little Britches, Texas
…

And as you sit there in your bobo liberal righteousness
Fresh from your trip to Whole Foods – judging me
For drinking tap water or buying gas or diesel fuel
Remember I’m not rich enough to change the rules
Just rich enough to point out I can’t buy a shirt that
Sherpas made that you are wearing casually
as you drive home to your house in Westlake

…

And that’s some irony in the Live Music Capitol …
Of nothing …
Just plug the robot in behind the Strat and hit the Jimmy preset
Can’t hit a rock without hitting a thousand bands who’ll play for free
apparently including me
So you can go out and help try to dig us out of this
Or you can stay home and watch some more reality …

Chop, chop

Okay, it’s time to blog now, because I actually have something non-whiny to blog about.

I’ve entered a song contest.  I never thought I’d do one of these.  I’m not posting the link yet.  I don’t do that.  I’m going to talk about it and that’s it.  I’m not going to publicize this or get into it with anyone.  I’m treating this like my diary, once again.  I’m going to go back into my lj, fix my tags, and then try to link up in there so that I can actually talk about things in there and use real names and talk about people.  But this can be where I get into it about work-stuff.  Now that I have that.  And man … that feels really good.

I’ve done a few  things that I’ve been dragging my feet on for … literally … years.  And if anyone is reading this (I know that my husband is), you know how I like to make lists:

1.  I finally did something to move on from my past hangups, that have been causing me to stagnate in the “past” a bit.  This is a big deal

2.  I have set up my studio!  That means that I have gotten the software working and I can basically go in and record all the things that I need to and that everything is going to be okay.  Yay me!

3.  I have entered that song contest, like I said.  It’s 4:05 now, and I’m going to bed – but I sent off the bio and the photo and I’ll be up on the site.  They send out the first assignment on Tuesday and I think that I should go to martial arts either tomorrow or Tuesday itself to commemorate the occasion.  I may try to hit open mics every time I stay in a round (if indeed I do) to see if I can perform them quickly and just get back into the groove of playing.  I’m going to keep writing through each round, even if I don’t stay in.  I don’t think I will – I think I’ll get eliminated early because it’s my first contest.  I’m also going to enter the ‘Austin’ one.  I’ll talk more about that later – it’s too new. I’ve got to get my ducks in a row in the studio because it’s going to be LOTS of recording.

4.  I’m out of doing the musical, which is a relief.  And I did it withouth completely alienating everyone (I think!), which is also good.  I think that they’re disappointed that I left, but I needed to do this or I am never going to get going on the things I need to do this year.  If I don’t do it, I won’t record myself this year at all.

EVENING: petty jealousies, blockages, reflections, a try at a restaurant review, and a bit of a “vagina monolouge”