A Spintunes Poem and a Real Blog

Im going through the wreckage I made of Denise during 2010 and the ways I also rebuilt her and made her better. Im organizing myself and my book and some music I need to make. A lot of it is from old writing hanging around.

I had a hard time writing Song Biographies, so I rarely did ones that made sense. I want to say that this is because I am a very private person. Lately I haven’t been, but this is artificial and I have had a lot happen this year where I have slipped out of step and standard; forgotten to breathe. I remembered fight and forgot flight.

So the mystery of me is now covered in catsup and pickle relish, presented on an unappetizing sesame seed white bun. Yee-haw.

I found myself rushing to speak. To explain. I found myself craving attention. The more attention I crave, the less I am needed, wanted. My product sucks.

When I wrote some of my best material, it was with others in mind at times, but if they never knew, then I really didn’t care. Now I find myself explaining the puzzle frequently and often to many.

This can all be traced back to a few things, but no matter.

I DO know from personal experience, both in the past and quite recently, that if you do not speak others are more than happy to speak for you. But I find that I am protective of both me and mine and also afraid of akwardness and conflict. I like things to be polite and nice and so I sit. I used to be happy to do this.

Now as for song biographies; this tends to render them too revealing when I am a revealer of the self in songs; and it makes reviewing the songs of others neigh on impossible.

So sometimes I write poems about my characters. If they’d made different choices. Lately I’ve been thinking of silence alongside these types of structures.

I have missed my poetry, my actual writing-in-blogging and WRITING-writing .. and my piano. I am far from me.

This is my first offering.

*****
THE ONES WHO CHOOSE NOT TO FLOAT
I have a tiny little box of me
I’ve lied you see
I haven’t lied to everyone
There are others, some that see me

I’ve chosen to remain
aloof, for reasons that make sense
to me.
Actions have their consequence
Attacks, they have their defense

It’s common to sense that
there’s something wrong
around this time
it’s about the time I turn away,
about the time my eyes go blind
and arms go limp..
about the time my mind goes wild
and far away..
about the time the lies
accompany the sinking ship.

the treasure is already airtight
and the biggest lie of all is that
you’ve got me in the lifeboat
as you flee from all this wreckage.
You radio home to say that you’ve
acquired the package

And I settle down in depths of safety;
wet and cold and shaky -
but I’m quite alone,
and I can rebuild skeletons
from these forgotten shards
of splintered bone.

*****
in closing, I live someplace else now and have for months. I have plans to go nomad-ing somewhere in the next few months. Maybe close, maybe far away. For now there is a cafe nearby which I have not tried, and I will practice piano, write with a pen, and go out of doors once each day.

I will blog sometimes and make lists.

I have not used Twitter well, I’m afraid.

Drama Free and Lucky Charms

For me, the idea of “drama free” began in a poem which I wrote back in 2006. I discarded it because I grew out of the reasons for writing it.

Later on it came back up and combined with a new reason for writing it. It became a song then, about leaving and coming into my own. It was about something I went through religiously.

I may someday make a ‘story of a song’ over it. I feel like Graham gets it, because he covered it. I feel like Joe gets it, because he is talking about it and remembering it, and it sticks in his mind as something that belonged to me. I feel sometimes like other people get me. Oftentimes, I feel like people … don’t.

EX: raise your hand if you knew that I had never heard of Sue Storm until AFTER the Round One listening party?

This means I should write a Round One story of a song, and I probably will. There’s some golden eggs in there – some intended specifically for Travis Langworthy, but it’s a little silly joke that I was telling. It’s also a very STUPID joke and a pretentious joke that is very much MY sense of humor!!!

Anyway, some people get my little “off” sense of humor and what I’m trying to do. And it’s nice to have any audience among my peers. some people that know that I’m always trying to do something transformative which is about what the lyrics are attempting to reveal about me. And that I’m trying to do it in this particular way. And that when I listen to people too much and try to change what I’m doing into what they think I should be, that it will never work for me.

I can’t really sacrifice what I have to say for audience, for money … for anything. I’m just going to have to find another way.

As a songwriter, I am a diarist. I can only write what I know. I only know – me.

Part of me has learned from these competitions that I’m not really cut out for them. I’m not like Edric, who writes a song that he is told to write, and does it brilliantly. I go through painful transformative cataclysms until it is done. I am not the master of the song, it is the master of me. I invited who I THOUGHT the judges were into the bedroom this time, and then hit on them in a tawdry and clumsy way … then I got REJECTED. Like in an embarassing way. Like I staged this whole cheezy scene. Thinking I was all… beautiful or something and … well … shoulda known better.

It’s a horrible metaphor and doesn’t really fit. But I feel dirty and gross. Nothing worse that raping your own self. That’s just dumb. And I realize that for a piece of something awful, my tune is actually pretty skilled, compared to a lot of things. But this is why everyone is always feeling very sorry for Brittney Spears. She’s not a bad performer, but she keeps shaving her head and gaining and losing weight and flashing her yow-yow every which way.

So my tune was an abberation in a lot of ways. Albiet classier. It’s hard for me to embarass myself. It’s something slutty that I did. And I think that I hate it. I’m ashamed of it. I’m glad that it put me out. Just like I’m glad that my first song in Song Fu six, ‘Rain’ did enough damage to my total score to knock me out of a shot into the Final Round. Because in THAT case, I listened to what someone else told me to do. They told me that my instincts weren’t good enough – and that I had to start all over and please someone else.

I know that I’ll be told that I’m being too hard on myself. I don’t care. This is all just rehearsal for me. I’m doing this now so that I won’t have to do it more painfully later. I don’t think for a second this is it for me. I’ve been saying this since I was 16.

Anyway, with these thoughts, I’ll show you the poem I wrote so long ago. It’s called Lucky Charm

LUCKY CHARM

I said I love you and you said it back
You’re the only one
who’d complicate
so simple a clean fact

You’re my lucky charm
pulled from the lion’s mouth
with tiny little hands
You made me look so obvious
infants could understand
You were the one who babysat
me through the evening

So now you’ll stay
alone with you
Because I have to
Leave in company with me
the only way you’ll be okay is
Drama free and naturally
you’ll rue the day

And I don’t know
what on earth we’d do
In this flimsy house of cards
without you!

******

I did like the phrase enough to use ‘drama free’ for a hook later in a song.

I don’t know that you can copyright a phrase for a hook. I’m not popular enough to really be remembered enough for doing something cool or clever. But I was at least memorable enough to get covered, and brought up in the memory of a judge when a really cool phrase which I also discovered long ago once got brought up once again.

I wonder if anyone else has also discovered it.

We Don’t Need Another Hero, but gee, Donuts are Nice.

I’ve sprinted upstairs. I feel decadent, dirty … ashamed. I feel like a liar, and a cheat.

I’m having an affair with an online songwriting competition. Again.

I actually had stuff all planned out. I wasn’t even going to WORK on this until later tonight. I was even going to work on my List of Things To Do. THAT used to be an addiction. Making lists. I would be oozing all over THAT.

Maybe the trouble is that I have an addictive personality. Whatever I am into, I am stuck like jam to and it is impossible to pry me off. If I am interested in you, for the week, look out. You’ll be completely overpowered. You won’t know what hit you. You’ll be my new fad. Until I am distracted by a new Bright Shiny Object.

Am I really that person?

The song has mutated into something dark and angry; developed an unlikely antagonist. The lyrics getting too long – the secret lair developing caverns. It will all have to be trimmed. The clutter is starting to look like the piles of crap in the bedrooom, the laundry. The stuff that needs doing while I mix and move lyrics around making my next move – working my sixteen hour days … lies UNDONE. Orchestrating stuff that doesn’t get relased because it isn’t perfect yet. Honing piano parts. Making setlists that look like perfectly clear martinis with olives floating in the triangular glass.

I can’t even explain what I’m trying to say here. I haven’t blogged in a while. I get really into my skull. I have felt kind of alone, a bit lately, with the writing.

I am too shitty a housewife to also become a shitty songwriter. Me with my issues and all.

I feel manipulative. This blog is on Twitter. I feel like I’m covering my ass, because I have people who are pulling for me. But who’s pulling for the wife, and who’s pulling for the musician?  And then there’s the thing …

Do I have time to be putting out silly videos that are … well, silly?

I’ve been looking at the way that other people do their videos, and it’s time to up my game. The only problem is that I can’t tell if I’ve developed some kind of a low-fi style that I need to get better at, or what. I don’t know. If that’s the case then I really need to figure it out.

I’ve got some stuff cooking, regarding that. Stuff involving other people.

But that stuff really involves me ALSO becoming a much better Austinite, and a better housewife, and a better friend, and a better live musician. All of which …

I suck at. Becuase I would much rather have an affair with competition after competition, waiting for my husband to leave so I can stop folding underwear and sprint upstairs to butcher my third draft of lyrics and strum the same four chords and work on the eighth version of a piano.

This is Not Healthy.

My name is Denise, and I’m ………

Ack. I think I am just feeling really angsty, and I am maybe trying to work myself into a good organizational place. Maybe trying to use my audience (you know…. the VAST SEA of you ALL … … to motivate myself into HappyFunDenLand, which is a place that I have Just Made Up and which makes me use Inappropriate Capitals in my Sentences like a Freak.

Oh, isn’t it Joyous! #thisisn’tworking.

I do actually feel a little better. I shouldn’t complain about my husband. He is long suffering, and brings donuts.

Twenty Shiny DXets to the first person who ever tells me that sometimes, I have to suffer too, and that sometimes … OCCASIONALLY, it is SOMEWHAT feasible that even though yes, he is EXCELLENT and AMAZING and that SURE, his RIDICULOUS SIDEBURNS are filling out, I can sometimes suffer too, and Mike can be Tough to Take … and that I am not the only Problem Child in this Relationship.

I do not need saving today, and I do not even need to be a hero to save myself.

… we’ll be fine.

ack!

I am going to try to get more in touch with “The Austin Thing.”

That is what I call it. Randall talks about things that are going on all the time, as though I would just know them.

I do not, because I am a hermit. I am Out of The Loop. I do not think he realizes how much I rely on him for connectivity. I’m sure he would be fine with it though. He’s good like that. He likes to be helpful. I suppose this is why he is a good engineer. At his best, I think he is a scary engineer. This is why I need to be home-centric now. He’s probably the reason I got things done in SongFu, a couple of those close times. He’s EERILY talented.

I’m going to write about song contests though, and the “internet” thing (as I’ve also been calling it); soon, soon! Because I think that I’ve been doing the right thing with myself all along.

I don’t really know what “New Model Musician” means. Not totally. Not entirely. I could look it up in the dictionary or on the web. There’s already a label with the name, and DFTBA (the label whose forums are hosting the transplants from Too Much Awesome, the web community which my Song Fu co-competitors Mike Lombardo
(he’s got a CD out, folks… Kevin wants you to know … this …)

BY THE WAY. SAMMY MAKES THESE VIDEOS.

and Jeff MacDougall (by the way, nice slogan! ..) founded on ning (ack!) – they absorbed the TMA community after ning went kinda “corporate.” There’s different facets to that story, but it’s nice that the people continue.

I really am glad of the Spintown blog, because right now, that’s the contest that is piquing my interest. For a while I was doing Nur Ein (I made it into 4 (which really means 5 because of Round Zero (which I blew on so don’t listen without listening to the rest of me!) rounds before I got sick … That doesn’t mean that I won’t do Songfight ever, which is where they were forum-ing about nur ein.

I have lots of ideas, of course.

For now I will finish my list. You know … at the other place. And then do some other stuff. Yeah.

the YouTubes

I totally forgot I’ve been on the YouTubes lately. I’m even on other people’s blogs (thanks Travis at Spintown!) and not mine

Here’s an original

And a Nanci Griffith Cover

And some blooper takes of the Nanci cover.

So yeah … there we are … and I have NO idea why the videos go out of sync, so SEARCH ME!!

I’m having a BAD night. My head is spinning. I’m out of control.

I’m in a nightmare place and I feel like I have demons in my skull. I usually don’t blog at these times. I usually go it alone. Or, rather, I talk to one of the 4-5 people I have. Sometimes my husband. He’s one. Then I have about 3-4 people I go down a list. They’re there for good reasons. I picked them out for specific reasons. They have their roles. I talk to these people about how/why it’s all falling apart for me. They listen. Or tell me what to do, sometimes. It’s not an ACTIVE telling me what to do. Or maybe, sometimes it is.

I don’t know. These things fluctuate.

Today there is so much about this that is physical. It’s all been physical, so much leading up to this point. My body has not been cooperating with me. I don’t want to slow it down. I know I need to though. I wanted to stay up and make videos. I’m not going to. I’m going to force myself to go to sleep. Maybe. It’s still up in the air.

I need to figure out a way to take more CONSISTENT care of myself while still reaping the benefits of the good things that are happening to me right now. There are such positives to what is happening to me right now.

I wish I could figure out a way to explain that I SO want what is happening to me right now – want to keep it, want to embrace it, want to find a way to WORK with it and figure out how to fit it into my schedule and routine … but that I need to tweak things so that it works with my body a little better. I wish I could just turn the whole thing a little to the right or left so that it all gelled a little bit better. That way, it all would be like it was tailor made for me. Maybe like an exercise routine or something that I picked out. Or a diet that wasn’t a diet. Like something that is hard, yes, but very welcome and worth the difficulties and growing pains.

I guess life is not a buffet of our choosing.

It’s a shame, because I’ve been pretty accomadating thus far toward this process. I feel that it should accomodate me!

Nur Ein!

These are the lyrics to my Nur Ein song for Round Three, which features Alyssa Day who I know from DFTBA / TMA (tma is moving to the DFTBA forum-thingys). Nur Ein has it’s home on the Song Fight Forums

’97

Is it done / just a dream
Under moon, stars or sun
Could you be anything?
Could I be anyone … anything

You don’t know anything
I guard my dreams silently …
You don’t know what I’m going through
And I guard them jealously
You don’t know
What I’m going through

(You don’t know why …….. I try …. and why … I lie……)
And I can’t tell you why … I try / And why I lie

*Thirteen years
A long time to fall
in ’97
When you’re heaven bound
And you look around ….
At the long way down ….
All around
a long way down
*Sometimes I look around
You’re not there on the ground
And it’s so far to fall
so far down
so far down

*You don’t know anything
I guard my dreams silently
jealously …
Is it done
Could you be anyone?

Sanity. Because somebody has to do it.

1. I am considering a return to sanity. I was thinking about just letting it all go, and drooling on myself. But I’m not going to.
2. I’m going to spend the next hour doing something I want to do.
3. Then I’m going to do some list making.
4. I will then FINISH a project. This will be finished tonight.
5. I will then FINISH writing a song.
6. I will probably figure out what to do about that song at that point. I will implement that plan tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I’m going to deal with Nur Ein and what will maybe be loose ends of my project. I hope, no. I hope it will be done when I’m done. A decisive finish that is good and clean and acceptable. I can hear it in my head. I hope it is awesome. God, I hope it is awesome.

After that, I have some rehearsals to prepare for. I can’t afford to suck on these Monday rehearsals. I also have to forward a song that I co-wrote this week to the guy I co-wrote it with. I have to get those tracks down for that so that we can have a decent demo for it. I have to learn 6 songs for one rehearsal and I don’t know how many for the other one. But I know they have at least 13 on the set-list. I also need to nail down my set list for Tuesday, and figure out if I’m going to cast.

I feel like in all of this I’ve completely forgotten that I have a solo thing that *I* wanted to do. Eventually, I’d like to book some shows.

I feel like I’m making a list now. I feel like I need a vacation. Or a nap …..

I don’t even want to talk about the state my house is in!

Stranded 2

Now that I have established that I love myself, I’m going to go ahead and say that

I LOVE NUR EIN … and I LOVE THESE PEOPE and I think I’m going to have a REALLY good time if I can pull myself together enough to really participate. Most of this has been due to distractions and my schedule. This week I wrote what could be a really good song with some awesome angsty emotions behind it which I re-channeled into a fun little -fantasystoryconcept which was a great job. But I’m going to give a critique now. But first, a list.

1. The previous entry was written so that I could continue to insult myself in freedom and impunity like any other good american. (tongue-in-cheek)
2. The previous link I gave for my nur ein stuff wasn’t right. Here is the proper link for the blog entry
3. By the way … what I am hearing is that most of the folks REALLY know how to set up a mix. So I’m going to learn a LOT from this, which I am SUPER stoked about. There was a lot of really good song-training and deadline and networking stuff in Fu/TMA … but I think I’m going to get REALLY on the ball from these Song Fight/Nur Ein folks.
4. In closing of list 1, it is REALLY tough to FULLY enjoy these when some fool is cutting down trees with a power saw outside of the LOUDEST STUDIO IN AUSTIN and there is some weird-assed bird CAW-CAWing outside my window. *sheesh*

So, without further ado:

A LIST OF IMPROVEMENTS WHICH COULD AND MIGHT-SHOULD (later) BE MADE TO ‘STRANDED’ (my nur ein round 1 tune)
1. I need to recut the vocal track using a frickkin pop filter.
2. I need to take the time to design a REALLY good eq for myself for different situations
3. Same goes for different reverbs.
4. I could have spent more time on the pianos
5. I went a little over the top on the accessory keyboards
6. The lyrics were a bit all over the place. I think this would have been tightened up with another take. In the absence of that, I could have run the pitch things on the tips of some of the words and it woulda been fine – sounding more deliberate. This happened in my SongFu 6/Round 1 song ‘Rain‘ a little bit, which was a similar sort of song.
7. My piano chords were good though, so it would have benefitted from being played more smoothly. There were some jumpy transitions in the chorus, which I repeated thankfully from chorus-to-chorus. At least I sounded like I meant to do it that way.
8. The structure is a bit arbitrary, but I made it work.
9. I’m not really singing to the best of my ability, and am a bit warbly. I dunno. I wasn’t comfy with my voice that day. I haven’t been feeling the sexy lately … I’ll get it back sometime soon – you mark my words

QUOTES FROM FAVORITE LYRICS THUSLY FAR (the ones that spring to mind, from Billy’s Little Trip)
“Give me peace love and rock
sex love and BBQ …
I’m just a simple guy
….
I’m stranded
trying to swim back to shore while caught in the undertow”

Stranded

This is my LAST MINUTE Nur Ein entry. The challenge was ‘Whispering,’ which I did … plus I mentioned whispering as well. The title was Stranded. I wrote it about being left at a space station by some jerk.

*sheesh*

It’s at the Nur Ein, website and I’m DJ Ranger Den.

STRANDED

Slide over here
you look like not going anywhere for a while
It’s an understatement that it’s cold in space
Besides your smile reminds me of the way
he used to smile
at me

You know I stare at the stars to pass the time
I try to hitch rides
Maybe work my way back to earth to
divert the attention from the situation of mine
I bide my time, station-side
well I need a little distraction
From this heartbreak, plan my revenge games
let me whisper a little irony in your ear

CH

I’m stranded / you left me stranded
All alone at the edge of space and disaster
you severed the wormhole that tied us together
put so many lightyears between you and me and forever
Now I’m stranded … I’m stranded in time
… and space
and time

Remember I didn’t even wanna come here
I like the earth on my feet, I like the breeze whispering
I like the water rushing under me
It’s out here that I feel like I’m drowning
In a sea of uncertainty
and I’m not where I want to be

Remember that night, when you lied
were you just passing through while I planning our lives
what’s the hell’s the matter with you?

You know I’ve waited for you … for many triple moons
You don’t even remember what that means, do you?
I wish you could see how it’s been
here at the end of the universe waiting at some restaurant
staring at a check that’s never ever gonna get picked up
while you blast off,
by yourself … with who-knows-what
into oblivion!

CH …
While I’m stranded