Oh Holy-Crap!

Good friends of mine know that I have an irrational and angry response to the music of the Beach Boys. For some reason, the sound of their music grates on my nerves to the point of making me desire to commit acts of senseless violence. I am only sort of kidding.

This time of year, I have been subjected to the song “Little Saint Nick” more times than could be considered tolerable. My eyelid is twitching and I feel like breaking stuff.

I have had a limited range of interest in Christmas music in general this year. It is really annoying me for some reason, probably because I have been trying to avoid it since before Halloween. Some of the classics are great, but the newer stuff is adding nothing to the tradition in my opinion, and mostly just sounds thin and over produced.
I have a few Christmas records that I like, and that represent Christmas for me because I listened to them when I was little:

1. Johnny Mathis: Mom loves that one
2. Christmas Sing with Frank and Bing: lots of references to drinking too many hot toddies, kind of quaint in that “alcoholic uncle” sort of way.
3. Glenn Miller Christmas: Old radio show recording with many artists of the day, with references to WWII troops overseas
4. Luciano Pavarotti, O Holy Night: Beautiful and operatic, it includes a boys’ choir.
5. “All I want for Christmas is you”- as sung by that cute little girl in the movie “Love Actually”
6. “Do they know it’s Christmas?” Band Aid. Ah, the 80’s at its most Bono-riffic and Boy-George-tastic.
7. “Oh Holy Night” as sung by Josh Groban
8. “Little Drummer Boy” with Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Weird but lovely combo.

Some that have notably been less enjoyable this year for me:
1. Any Christmas song sung by Gloria Estefan. I am just not digging it.
2. The Beach Boys tune mentioned above. Shudder.
3. Any super country-music version. I just don’t like country music much. Plus the French and Latin words that some of them have sound funny with a southern drawl.
4. I have a new dislike for “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” for no specific reason.

What about you?

Planet Los Angeles

Got back a couple of days ago from a vacation to Southern California, where I was attending to a long overdue visit to my good friend Eliz. She's got a cute little apartment just a few blocks from the beach in Santa Monica.

I will admit that due to my aversion to thronging crowds I had avoided going anywhere near LA for a long time. While I seem well suited to the city rhythms of San Francisco and Quebec, something about the frenetic, jerky movements of Los Angeles never did sit well with me. I lived in a terrifying neighborhood in Tujunga (near Glendale) for a formative year when I was twenty, and I knew it just wasn't for me. Lots of great stories came out of it, but mostly the kind that are scary as hell in the moment but hilarious later.

I might not have left if I had lived in Santa Monica. It is much more chill. If I could hang out and walk along the beach in the mornings and go to the farmers' market and pick around at the Main Street shops and never set foot in LA proper, that would be okay. During my stay I did a ton of walking. And talking. It was like moving therapy. Eliz and I had a ton of catching up to do, and we sorted out a few things for ourselves along the way.

I wouldn't want to have to do the dating scene there, however. That hasn't changed. There is something fundamentally flaky about single people in Los Angeles in particular. I was at a cocktail event on Saturday night and, from the outside, watched people mingle. I am so much more used to being on a deep, sincere level with the people I know well. It was a lot more work to have conversations on the surface of things with strangers. Of course, with a drink or two to loosen my tongue I managed just fine, but I wasn't looking for love or anything else, so my social needs were pretty simple.

We went to see Depeche Mode on Monday night, and they were awesome. The visual effects were stunning, mesmerizing. Of course, we were lucky to have seen them at all since a rash of shows had been canceled the previous week due to singer David Gahan's illness. The set was clearly designed to give him several breaks, but that was fine. When we were on out way out of the Hollywood Bowl at the end of the show, we saw a couple in a heated argument, and the woman gave the man what looked like a bone-jarring left hook to the kisser. It was pretty messed up, but I will admit with no pride that I was gawking until Eliz grabbed my sleeve and pulled me along.

The next day it was time to go home, so I had to face down the horrors of LAX. I was doing my best to be relaxed and patient with the super-long lines. But holy hell. I am pretty sure that you see the worst in people when they travel. Everyone seemed hostile and pressed and there were just so MANY of them. Overwhelming.

I feel like I just got back from a strange planet. Planet Los Angeles. The people there look like the rest of us. Wait. No, they don't. They are certainly thinner and tanner and wear very expensive ripped jeans that under ordinary circumstances would look like they were fished out of a dumpster. Those clothes are casually, meticulously distressed by professionals and cost more than my car. I can't really criticize because I have nothing approximating a personal style. The whole affair made me want to cruise over to the Patagonia outlet and stock up on practical, semi-sporty clothes that only need to be accessorized with a ponytail and running shoes.

I can't complain, though. I had a good time and got to see LA from an adult perspective. In some ways it was just as I remembered it. In others it surprised me and gave me a glimpse of why people put up with so much traffic on the 405. There is fun to be had there, and if it isn't fun, there is always Dr. Kush.

I don't approve-Corporate Radio Edition

If I slip into a coma at my desk any time in the next seven weeks, blame the soft rock emanating from the radio in the next cubicle. Some of the songs are alright, but I wonder if it is turning my brain to mush to hear “Hotel California” every day. Not that there is anything wrong with that song in and of itself, but the radio station plays the same stuff over and over day after day. It is making my eyelid a little twitchy. If I have to hear Bette Midler’s “Wind beneath my wings” one more time, I can’t quite be responsible for the violence that is sure to ensue.

I have a lot of complaints about radio stations in Reno in general. I don’t know what it is, but we seem to be at a lower rung on the new music ladder. All I know is that when I visit my friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hear songs I never heard before on the radio. BETTER songs, too. Songs I am sure to just about never hear in Reno. What the hell? Who decided that I don’t get to hear that? Did some market-survey test group flunkie make the choice for me? I disapprove.

And while I am at it, allow me to complain about the talking. Who the hell made the brilliant choice to create the “morning show”? What was wrong with playing music in the morning? Why is it all yakkity-yak-yak when I haven’t had that much coffee yet? Ugh. And they are so never funny. I have a job that involves listening to people talk all day, so I don’t need to get a jump on the “listening to people bitching” action during my commute.

I wish I could listen to my ipod at work, but no dice. The earbud competes with the phone I have permanently affixed to my ear. Plus, listening to music I actually like might make me smile. You know that would just never do.

As it is, I rely heavily on my coastal-dwelling friends in SF or Seattle or Boston or LA to provide me with tasty treats for my ipod. Thank goodness for my friends. I would have absolutely no cool at all without them.

Pieta, Signore

Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA9Am35MxD0


Pietà, Signore,
di me dolente!
Signor, pietà,
se a te giunge
il mio pregar;
non mi punisca
il tuo rigor,
meno severi,
clementi ognora,
volgi i tuoi sguardi
sopra di me, ecc.

Non fia mai
che nell'inferno
sia dannato
nel fuoco eterno
dal tuo rigor.

Gran Dio, giammai
sia dannato
nel fuoco eterno
dal tuo rigor, ecc.
Pietà, Signore,
Signor, pietà
di me dolente,
se a te giunge
il mio pregare, ecc.
Meno severi,
clementi ognora,
volgi i tuoi sguardi,
deh! volgi squardi
su me, Signor, ecc.
Pietà, Signore,
di me dolente, ecc.

In English:

Have mercy, Lord,
 on me in my remorse!
 Lord, have mercy
 if my prayer
 rises to you;
 do not chastise
 me in your severity,
 less harshly,
 always mercifully,
 look down
 on me, etc.
 
 Never let me
 be condemned
 to hell
 in the eternal fire
 by your severity.
 
 Almighty God, never let me
 be condemned to hell
 in the eternal fire
 by your severity, etc.
 Have mercy, Lord,
 Lord, have mercy
 on me in my remorse,
 if my prayer
 rises to you, etc.
 Less harshly,
 always mercifully,
 look down,
 ah! look down
 on me, Lord, etc.
 Have mercy, Lord
 on me in my remorse, etc.

Dream-Syncopation

I got a little bit of extra sleep last night, so the dream machine was up and running.

I dreamed that I was learning to play the guitar and the piano, and I was getting a lesson about syncopation from Roger Taylor (the drummer from Duran Duran). The lesson was taking place backstage in the midst of a concert or music fest of some kind. We were behind the curtain and the lights were kinda low, but there I was, first strumming on the guitar and then setting it down and playing some chords on the piano. I lost a lot of the details of the dream after I woke up, but it was sorta fun to be getting a celebrity lesson.

I have always wanted to play a musical instrument, but my efforts in that regard have always been spotty and underfunded. I may take up some music lessons over the summer or after I graduate.

Owls and Bhangra-A Snapshot in the Life of Stacie

I was out having my walk this morning, and saw a HUGE owl similar to this one in a tree about ten feet over my head. He was eyeballing me something fierce. It stopped me right in my tracks. He was so beautiful and ferocious looking, a real WILD looking animal. I was overcome, and had to just stare at him and smile from ear to ear. I felt...honored in some way to have seen him.

Weirdly, I was listening to an Indian song on my iPod at the time. Varaaga Nathi . I had been doing Bhangra shoulder bounces and sorta dancing around on the sidewalk right before I saw that owl. So it was sort of a typical Stacie moment: surreal and incongruous, but unaccountably connected and meaningful.

Yes, I was dancing down the street in my neighborhood like a spaz. I choose to think that is one of the charming things about me. That whole free-spirit thing. It was a really unguarded moment, and I almost feel as though I was rewarded with an owl sighting.

Here's a little metaphysical perspective on owls. It is certainly about clairvoyance and magic. My life has contained a lot of both lately.

I am grateful for owls. And also for bouncy Bhangra music that puts me back in touch with my optimism.

Song from my MixTape #5

Queen & David Bowie- "Under Pressure"

Pressure pushing down on me

Pressing down on you no man ask for

Under pressure - that burns a building down

Splits a family in two

Puts people on streets

It's the terror of knowing

What this world is about

Watching some good friends

Screaming let me out

Pray tomorrow - gets me higher

Pressure on people - people on streets

She been around

Kicked my brains round the floor

These are the days it rains but it never pours

People on streets People on streets

It's the terror of knowing

What this world is about

Watching some good friends

Screaming let me out

Pray tomorrow - high higher

Turned away from it all like a blind man

Sat on a fence but it don't work

Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn

Why - Ooooh

Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking

Can't we give ourselves one more chance

Why can't we give love that one more chance

Why can't we give love Give love give love give love give love Give love give love give love

Love's such an old fashioned word

And love dares you to care for

The people on the edge of the night

And love dares you to change our way of

Caring about ourselves

This is our last dance

This is our last dance

This is ourselves

Under pressure

Under pressure

Pressure

What I want for when I grow up

It has been pointed out to me in recent weeks that I am an artist. Like, really an artist. Not just a dabbler with a day job. I think I really have been longing to hear that my whole life, and I am deeply grateful to the people who have taken the time to tell me. It is more rewarding and wonderful than being thought to be beautiful, or even smart, although it may encompass both of those things at times.

Now that I am really close to unbuckling myself from the daily grind that is my day job in favor of going to school for nursing for the next 2 years, I am starting to feel the surge of momentum that is bringing me closer to my goals, and that is a real rush.

Not that being a RN is my big goal. Far from it. The RN thing is merely a better, higher paying, and more flexible and portable "day job". What I really want to do is explore my horizons as an artist and how that relates to my interest in helping others make art.

I am not sure what shape that is going to take, or even if what I want to do will work in Reno. It all started with my "Writers' Dungeon" idea that I didn't have the time to really get off the ground. But I want to create a "creating studio" space for writers and artists from other media to work in a supportive and focused environment. Not a "support group" per se, because talking about making art is not the same as actually making art. I would want to have as part of that regular "salons" where the art can be shared with the collective and/or the public.

I got the idea in part from the San Francisco "Red Room" concept, (http://www.red-room.com/) but want to expand it to include the visual arts and music.

Like I said, I don't know if Reno is really the place for this. It would thrive more in a more cosmopolitan city like Seattle or San Francisco or some locales on the East Coast I can think of. I might even be able to launch a kind of virtual equivalent to start with, but I like the idea of being at the forefront of community building as much as I like creating my own art.

Writing is a largely solitary exercise, but promoting it from that place is really hard, and getting over creative blocks is hard without friends/peers to support you.

I have to spend a lot of time doing science for the next 2 years. But you need to know that this is where my heart is. Sometimes I feel like I am going to need to live forever to accomplish all that I want to do with my life.

I am open to suggestions, but mostly I just wanted to thank the people who believe in me. It matters to me, and I am grateful, and I love you.

Song From My Mixtape #4

Lonely in your Nightmare-Duran Duran

Even on the darkest night when empty promise means empty hand
And soldiers coming home like shadows turning red
When the lights of hope are fading quickly then look to me
I'll be your homing angel,I'll be in your head.

Because you're lonely in your nightmare let me in...
And there's heat beneath your winter let me in...

I see the delta traces living lonely out on the limb.
And a passing glimmer warm beneath your skin
Please tread gently on the ground when all around you earthturns to fire
Only get a second chance when danger's on the wind.

Because you're lonely in your nightmare let me in...
Because there's heat beneath your winter let me in...-

Must be lucky weather when you find the kind of wind that you need
C'mon show me all the light and shade that made your name
I know you've got it in your head, I've seen that look before
You've built your refuge turns you captive all the same

Because you're lonely in your nightmare let me in...
And it's barren in your garden let me in...
Because there's heat beneath your winter let me in..
Because you're so lonely in your nightmare let me in..
And it's cold out on your stone range let me in...
coz you've waited through your ice age let me in...
Because you're so lonely in your nightmare let me in..
And it's cold out on your stone range let me in...
Because there's heat beneath your winter let me in..

Do, do-do, do do do do
Do, do-do, do do do do

Song from my Mixtape # 3

I FOUND A PICTURE OF YOU, OH OH OH OH

WHAT HIJACKED MY WORLD THAT NIGHT

TO A PLACE IN THE PAST WE'VE BEEN CAST OUT OF? OH OH OH OH

NOW WE'RE BACK IN THE FIGHT

WE'RE BACK ON THE TRAIN OH,

BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG

A CIRCUMSTANCE BEYOND OUR CONTROL, OH OH OH OH

THE PHONE, THE TV AND THE NEWS OF THE WORLD

GOT IN THE HOUSE LIKE A PIGEON FROM HELL, OH OH OH OH

THREW SAND IN OUR EYES AND DESCENDED LIKE FLIES

PUT US BACK ON THE TRAIN OH,

BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG

THE POWERS THAT BE

THAT FORCE US TO LIVE LIKE WE DO

BRING ME TO MY KNEES

WHEN I SEE WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO YOU

BUT I'LL DIE AS I STAND HERE TODAY

KNOWING THAT DEEP IN MY HEART

THEY'LL FALL TO RUIN ONE DAY FOR MAKING US PART

I FOUND A PICTURE OF YOU, OH OH OH OH

THOSE WERE THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF MY LIFE

LIKE A BREAK IN THE BATTLE WAS YOUR PART, OH OH OH OH

IN THE WRETCHED LIFE OF A LONELY HEART

NOW WE'RE BACK ON THE TRAIN OH, BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG

Song from my Mixtape #2

This isn't my usual musical taste, but I dig this song, and it seems to fit my mood today. Sometimes I just wonder if love is enough to fix the things that feel amiss in my life. Sometimes I think it is, and sometimes I doubt it. I think that when I doubt it, it is because I forget how strong love is, even though it is seemingly so fragile.

Dixie Chicks

"More Love"

I'm so close to you baby

But I'm so far away

There's a silence between us

And there's so much to say

You're my strength,

you're my weakness

You're my faith, you're my doubt

We gotta meet in the middle

To work this thing out

More love,

I can hear our hearts cryin'

More love,

I know that's all we need

More love,

to flow in between us

To take us and hold us

and lift us above

If there's ever an answer

It's more love

We're afraid to be idle

So we fill up the days

We run on the treadmill

Keep slavin' away

'til there's no time for talkin'

About trouble in mind

And the doors are all closed

Between your heart and mine

More love,

I can hear our hearts cryin'

More love,

I know that's all we need

More love,

to flow in between us

To take us and hold us

and lift us above

If there's ever an answer

It's more love

Just look out around us

People fightin' their wars

They think they'll be happy

When they've settled their scores

Let's lay down our weapons

That hold us apart

Be still for just a minute

Try to open our hearts

More love,

I can hear our hearts cryin'

More love,

I know that's all we need

More love,

to flow in between us

To take us and hold us

and lift us above

If there's ever an answer

It's more loveI can hear our hearts cryin'

More love,

I know that's all we need

More love,

to flow in between us

To take us and hold us

and lift us above

If there's ever an answer

It's more love

More love

Amor Gitano (Gypsy Love)

I am loving this song right now. It is on the Gipsy Kings' record "Compass". It is so full of longing and sung so passionately. I looked up the lyrics this morning and now love it even more. If you can find it, give it a listen.

AMOR GITANO (GYPSY LOVE)TRANSLATION TO ENGLISH:

I want to fall in love

With the master of my life

I want her to fall in love with me

I prayed for you to come soon

Who, I know

That it's you who don't know where to go

That's why I will give you my hand

Today fulfill well

Your love I already know

Can arrive one day

And be put there

To truly suffer

As never before, and I ...

If the things of the night are good for me now

Swear that you will be thereI saw her in the past

Who, I know(phonetic - I don't know what it means)

Look what you are doing

I am a manTo fall in love

Again I saw you in the street

I'm going to look for you

The way, dark one

The gypsy woman whom I loved

I will give you a sign that there is no fear

To love the gypsy woman I have loved

And loveI have lost everything

I gave agony to your love

And a pure heart was found there

Tell me my love

Don't go away

It is my life

I am coming here

I, serene one, anguished and humble

Will give you my life

Ey----------------eyEy----------------ey

And the love

Where I have arrived

That I lost

Like a loved one

I let her flee

Yes, I have already known her

And lost her

And will give for her sake

The kisses that I have given you

I will give you

I want a future with you

One of the delights of lifeI spent there

A gypsy "love"

I will never forget

I will never forget

Lai lo lai lo lai lo, etc.