1. I’m getting to that point where I have to force myself to blog because I feel boring and idiotic and like I have nothing to say. Pity Parties are not constructive and you have to run screaming from anything that makes you feel that kind of negativity about yourself.
2. I have ruined myself with nasty self-talk before and it is debilitating and will throw you right into a depression that you have to claw your way out of. it’s not pretty.
3. I made a broody, enigmatic picture of myself being reflective and serious. It fed my moody need to be Dramatic and Cool and now I’m over myself and can make art.
4. Unfortunately, I had a big fat fail today, which I already complained (sort of) about on Twitter.I was going to record Invisible Girl which is a song I wrote for Spintunes 1 Round 1; in honor of Spintunes 7.
I didn’t get to do this because of battery failure. That’s my own fault. I felt really awful and like the universe was conspiring against me. It was then that I really had to sit down and take a look at where I’d come from and where I planned to go. It’s really time to sit down with a list of things to do and do the things on it. It’s not supposed to be this big a deal, but I suppose the more I brow beat the less loved I feel so I am going to have a cookie or something.
5. I think it’s gonna be okay though, because my brother and my niece and nephew and sister in law are coming and if anything can put a little perspective back in your life it’s family time and birthdays. And cookies or pie or something Nice.
7. By the way, I kick ass because that’s my free Theremin shirt.
8. Number Seven is dedicated to classiness and restraint. In honor of my personal diary, which is red, black, bleedy, and covered in Large Words that Say Big Things of Great Import and will be let out in Appropriate Form in Due Time.
Next will be a poem.
Have a nice day
ps. I don’t know why this published a previous version of the blog. I forgot half the editty-bits. Yeep!
1. I have been selected to participotato in a not really all that secret Thing. It’s like a compilation album. I am sure that my friend Brigitte London, a musician of the Outlaw Country persuasion, selected me because of my cleverness and ninja abilities, and not because of my glittering resume (even though I’m kinda-shiny-sometimes-aly). Nonetheless, I will endeavor to send them a somewhat bitchin’ track (this will be easy because I have been in song contests and especially songfighting – and My New Peers have been growling and insulting my work on a weekly basis so I am not worried about crumbling under professional scrutiny). It has just been a matter of which track. I have asked a few people, not too many, and have narrowed it down and (most likely) chosen one.
2. I am a little worried about my bio, although I sent it to my bud Jules and she said I look fine and gave me helpful hints. I will probably not tell dirty jokes in the bio, for example or mention @suspiciousden’s Dailybooth … so Jules is a good person to ask about these things because she knows how to bottle the creepy factor when need be (I’m sure she is enjoying this blog) … As far as where on earth these extremely well organized and professional people are going to be able to find me on the interwebs, since I am all over it like a bad rash, I may whine a little more:
3. Go to http://www.denisehudson.com. Go ahead. There’s nothing there, is there? Well, that’s pretty sad, isn’t it. This is because I have the internet aptitude of a three year old. This is why you are currently reading this poorly designed wordpress content here and not in a zippier, sexy location of my choosing – with mood lighting and incense and dancing boys and chocolate and internet squirrels bringing you virtual Courvoisier.
my website will be this smooth and fly. like Griffpig. The World’s Coolest Sunglasses.
But I am going to attempt to rectify this situation like RIGHT NOW since I own the place, meaning my name. I refused to Sell to Worthier Denise-s, no indeed – not at Any Price. But sadly, I know NADA-NADA-Enchaladda about such things.
4. But I can do it because I have many, many brain cells. Together they make AN ENTIRE BRAIN. So guess what goblins… I’m going to USE that brain to MAKE WEB HISTORY. And just LOOK OUT!!! Blogathon is NEXT MONTH! You know it!
5. However, I will probably be whining a LOT because we are also MOVING houses during this time when I suddenly have to make it seem like I have been an active member of the music community and not like I have just been sitting on my tuckus producing content.
6. Yes, I know I can use a Psychotics track for this compilation. Duh…..I should have gone as a Psychotic for Nur Ein, and for Halloween. We all know this. Flarg. This is HIGH on my list of consideration, seeing as this is my most Awesomeist of material and will Blend Best. Stay Tuna-ed.
I can’t even think anymore and there is pizza to be had. I will probably make and exciting google plus list later, and stalk the rest of the Honeys maniacally across the internet, becoming ever more intimidated with each passing click. I know that this is not The Point of camaraderie and fellowship and internet collaboration and that living in a tiny cave practicing my scales should come to an end. This will be good for me. I am an Upwardly Mobile Producer of Content and Country Musicians everywhere want me to go to their Barn Dances even though I came from the planet of Xondor. Yee-haw, y’all.
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.
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 don’t have much time, so here’s my little sumthin-sumthin …
STORY of a SONG, part one …
for now!!!
FLEX TIME
1. This song is about flirting with rule breaking.
2. I use two very “good citizens.” They are different from one another, but find each other very alluring. They are attracted to each other, because they both have the use of triplets in common, 6/8 and 4/4 … but Common and Compound handle that sexy little roll of notes differently. A 4/4 will contain it and hold it back, a 6/8 will be ruled by it in both its beats and if it splits the measure into duplets the whole character changes. It requires so much DISCIPLINE.
3. We are not specifically TOLD that we have to use TWO time signatures. We are told that nowhere in the rules. So I throw in an odd shift every now and again on the eighth note every now and again you will find a 5/8, or a 3/8.
4. Now I KNOW I got kinda frisky with this! Well..
5. Maybe it’s about time travel, maybe it’s about time signatures. Maybe it’s about other stuff.
6. And if it is, that’s okay!
It’s PERFECTLY OKAY … to write about recipes and lemonade.
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.
There’s a new contest. You’ll hear more about this because I’m really excited.
There’s been some talk lately, in my life. I was thinking about stopping contests. Like maybe they weren’t good for me. I went through this a while ago, with piano practicing.
I practice a lot. A LOT of superfluous piano. I do a LOT of “superfluous” things that don’t really “do me any good.” I do a lot of “time wasting” things. And I kind of cast about, adrift.
This has been about a year of that.
And yet, I’ve had more growth and more happiness in the last year or so that I ever would have believed possible.
I’ve also been more ALONE than I would have believed possible – even in community.
And by alone, I don’t mean lonely. I mean alone as in, get it together, girl. I mean alone as in pushed to the front of the stage out of costume. Naked, sometimes. Totally in the wrong kind of show. I’m not that sort of performer.
And I do need to get it together. Make some hard realizations.
Arrested Development).
… 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.
