Sometimes I think I’m only staying alive for TV shows to be released on DVD.

Today I received two great DVDs from Amazon. They are two of my favorite TV shows, Twin Peaks and My So Called Life. Of course they were both out of print, so this year I bought them both for a lot of money on Ebay and then like five minutes later it was announced that they were both being released on DVD again with all kinds of special features. Now if only “thirtysomething” would finally come out on DVD, I’d be so happy. Sometimes I think I’m only staying alive for TV shows to be released on DVD.

Today I am supposed to be working from home, so I’m at a café, writing. I’m glad the café I’m at is not crowded like usual. Every place you go in LA, no matter what time of day it is, is crowed, just like the freeways. What really bugs me is that even when a café is very crowded, people in LA will still take up two tables. One table for their laptops and one table for their belongings. People in LA are either clueless or just don’t care about other people or both.

Last night, as I was trying to sneak out from work, my new coworker (it was her second day) told me she had some questions and that she’d like to speak to me after work. I asked her if she wanted to go for coffee. When we were trying to leave, her car wasn’t starting up. She was very low on gas, so she took out a gas can from her backseat and proceeded to check if there was any gas left by opening it and turning it upside down. Gasoline spilled out onto her hands and my shoes. I thought that was a very odd way to check if there was any gas left.

Once we got her car filled and working we went to a cafe that was trying to close in Santa Monica. Every time we sat down, we were told to move. First we were inside the café,, but the café worker told us they were closing, so we moved outside and then he came outside and said he has to move the tables inside, so we sat on a bench and continued our conversation. After a little while, the guy from the café told us to move again because the sprinklers were about to go off. We almost got wet, but we got up in time. All in all, it was a weird evening.

I knew that this new coworker was wondering about the weird things at the job and primarily our weird and mean boss. I said to her, “I bet you want to know just how crazy he is.” She said she did want to know, so I told her all the crazy stories and how I think our boss is kind of bipolar and that he has narcissistic personality disorder (which he matched the criteria when I looked it up in the DMS-IV).

I told her that today had been a good day because he was actually wearing a shirt during the workday. (We work in his home so he likes to keep things casual). I told her not to go near the hammock in the backyard, not to sit in it and certainly not to sit in it with the boss. I told her that’s why the marketing director isn’t here anymore. (It’s a long story). I basically told her not to engage the boss in any chit chat and to try to look busy no matter what she was doing and to redirection him when he gets mad at her.

She told me she wasn’t sure if she was going to continue working for him. I told her that I felt the same, but I was happy to finally have someone to talk to at work. I told her how I fantasized about quitting and how I daydream all the time about the boss firing me so I can be free.

But all of that doesn’t matter right now. I am going to Austin tomorrow. I am going there to see if I might want to move there. I’ve planned some stuff to do and met some people online, but I don’t know a soul there yet. I will be there for six days. I will spend all my time there exploring the city and pretending to myself that I live there. I dream about leaving LA everyday. I think about it quite a lot. I’m not sure what I’ll do if I don’t like Austin. Maybe I’ll find some place else. There’s got to be more to life than waiting for TV shows to be released on DVD.

Today’s song is Sarah Brightman with “Deliver Me’. I picked this song because I need to be delivered to someplace else…FAST.

Sarah Brightman—Deliver Me
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4516572c5af93b

When my mother put her foot through the wall

When I was in 2nd grade I got pink eye three times. It was awful. Whenever one of my friends who has a kid with pink eye, I stay far away because I never want to go through that again.

Every night I my mother would put these eye drops in my eyes and they made my eyes sting. When I awoke in the morning, my eyes would be sealed shut with some horrible brown crusty stuff. Opening my eyes was very painful because my eyelashes would be pulled out as I was trying to open them.

Eventually I refused the eyedrops and my mother would have to pin me down with her knees and she’d try to get the eyedrops in my eyes, but I would move at the last minute or just close my eyes tightly. She became very frustrated because it was talking a long time and the eyedrop medicine was very expensive. She’d scream and yell at me to stay still and open my eyes, but she was never able to get the drops in my eyes. She got so mad that she got up and put her bare foot through the wall. After she did that, I stayed still and let her put the drops in my eyes.

We had to hide the hole in the wall from my father, which was easy to do because he was never very observant and the hole was behind my bedroom door. My father never beat us or anything like that, he just would get so angry and follow you around the house, yelling, so my mother and I were always trying to avoid having to go thorough that.

I have a problem with anger too. Someone once told me I should do “anger exercises”, but I don’t like to exercise. Sometimes anger is the only thing that wakes me up and the only time I’m in the moment.

Today’s song is by Eurythmics with “You Have Placed A Chill in my Heart” This is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. It fits the angry mood. It was released as a single in 1988. I used to have the 12” single. I love Annie Lennox’s voice. Is there anyone still singing like this? I mean, besides Annie.

I am posting three versions and the video.

Eurythmics- You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart (chill mix)
This is the hard to find single version.
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4478156bc23c8d


Eurythmics- You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart (dance mix)
This is the extended dance mix
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4478057cc9a3f2

Eurythmics- You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart (acoustic)
this is the acoustic and very passionate version.
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4478022c0d412d

Here’s the video, one of my favorites.

The time I killed my grandfather

My Grandfather was always quiet. He almost never spoke. The only time he really spoke to me was in the bathtub. I wrote a poem about it.

Leonard
“I see men who look like you.
They somehow have your pointy ears.
I can see them in your sailor clothing, 1943.

You'd be thrilled I neglected to tell
my father of your death.
You'd be consoled to know I kept your
memory intact by not going to your funeral.

My mother called you the silent man,
but you had plenty to say to me.
You conversed freely when you were in the tub
with your penis protruding through the clear water,
and your wet dark body hair covering everywhere
but the top of your head.

I was called into the bathroom by you.
I tried not to stare at your nudity
exhibited for me to view.
I always wondered why you would only talk to me
when you were in the tub.

I've heard that men inherit the body hair traits
of their maternal grandfathers
Will I also be inheriting
your little perversions as well?”


After I showed this poem to my mother, she said, “I didn’t think you were this deep.” and “He did that to you too?” Her reaction was kind of a double insult. If he did that to her (and she always implied that he did some worse things to her), why did she allow me to be alone with him? Why did he only talk when he was in the bathtub with an erection?

The first time I visited Las Vegas after my grandparents moved there, he took me for a ride down the Las Vegas strip. It was daytime, but all the Vegas lights were on. The whole time we drove, he pointed out all the palm trees by saying “There’s a tree. Oh, there’s a tree.” He never pointed out any of the casinos or the lights or any of the interesting things on the Las Vegas strip.

As we were driving, the front window started fogging up. He took a white t-shirt he had in the backseat and started clearing the foggy window and did this every time the window fogged up. I showed him that he could use the defogger on the car and he was amazed. He didn’t know that the defogger existed. He had just been using the shirt.

I killed my grandfather. Well, kind of. When I was working for a horrible home shopping company (the initials are similar to QVC; ok it was QVC) as an order entry person, I wanted a few days off. I told my supervisor (who was a grown woman with braces and a lot of barrettes in her hair) that my grandfather died and I had to go to the funeral. She told me that I would need to bring proof of the funeral from the minister.

This led to a whole other discussion where I explained I was Jewish and what a rabbi was. She seemed to have never heard of a one before. She told me in order to be excused from work, I’d need a rabbi’s signature. Since I didn’t know how’d I get a rabbi’s signature, I told her that it wasn’t that important and that I just wouldn’t go to his funeral.

I didn’t get the days off and a few weeks later my grandfather, who wasn’t that old and who wasn’t even sick, died. I can’t remember what he died of, other than me saying he died. This happens a lot when I pretend to be sick to get out of work. I always actually get sick when I pretend.

After “killing” grandpa, I never pretend that a real person died just to get out of work, unless I was really mad at someone. Grandpa’s the only person I’ve ever killed (yet).

After my grandfather’s funeral (which actually I didn’t go to), my grandma called me up and told me that since Grandpa died first, when she dies, she would be buried on top of him. She told me she had never been on top before.

Today’s song is “Grandma’s Hands” by Barbra Streisand. I know many hate Barbra, but in this forgotten song from 1974, she sings in a way I’ve never heard her sing, uncontrolled and very passionately. The album “Butterfly” which contains this song is really quite interesting and one of my favorite albums. I picked this song because if you read my entry and then listen to the song, it becomes kind of perverted, like my grandfather.

Barbra Streisand—Grandma’s Hands
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4430537e0072f5/

“What you want to spank him for?”

Last Night I slept on sheets the color of Fire

I’m a Scorpio. The sex sign. My birthday is coming up, but I’m not going to celebrate it this year. I am, however, going to take off work. I’ve never gone to school or work on my birthday.

I’m told constantly by my boyfriends that I have a high sex drive. I still like to come at least three times a day. I’m still on my eternal search for The One that can have sex with me all the time like I like it.

I love porn. I’ve always wanted to be in porn, but I never did it because I never thought I was good looking enough to be in porn. It used to be that I thought I was too skinny, now I’m too fat (at least in the waistline). I’ve decided to give up working out. It never “works out” for me (ha-ha). I don’t like exercising.

Today was a hot day and everything in California is burning up. No one here seems to care. Whether things are on fire or not, no one in LA has much of an opinion or reaction to anything. This is the like land of the walking dead, except in LA no one walks.

Back to sex now. When my parents first got a VCR, they used to rent porn a lot. When they got cable, they would sometimes order pay per view porn, but my father didn’t like it because they didn’t show everything.

I always wondered why my parents never went on vacation together. My father never took vacations and my mother always took her vacations with other people. Years later, I asked the cleaning lady, Kay, why my parents never took vacations together. She told me that they did once before I was born, but my mother said she’d never take another vacation with my father because all he wanted to do was stay in the hotel room and have sex. This shocked me. Not the sex part, but because it was Assembly of God, religious Kay who bluntly told me this. Even though she raised me, she and I had never talked about sex. The only thing I remember even close was when I was little and I would play with myself under the blanket, she’d slap away my hand.

When I asked my mother about what Kay had said, she told me that she wanted to have sex, just not with my father. She said she had to get stoned to have sex with him.

When my parents were watching porn, they’d either send me upstairs and I’d listen to the sound of the porn from the upstairs hallway or they’d send me to go play outside. I remember being 8 or 9 at the time and being told to go play outside and standing on a tall snow bank and looking though the window and watching the porn (I couldn’t hear it, just see it) and watching my parents watch the porn.

They never did pull the shades down when they watched porn, but I guess there really wasn’t much to watch (well, except the porn, of course). My father would sit against the wall in front of the TV with his left hand down his pants and my mother would lie down on the couch and read a book while glancing occasionally at the TV. She’d usually fall asleep at some point.

I was fascinated by the porn. The thing I wondered most about was if the cum shots were real. My thinking was since blood is not real in movies, why would cum be, but I also couldn’t figure out how they’d get the “fake” cum to shoot out like that.

My mother told me I could watch the porn later, if I wanted to, after they went to bed. (My favorite porn movie was called "Rick Quick: Private Dick".) My mother was one of those open moms (not really, but she thought she was). She was always too open about all the wrong things and not open at all about the things I would have liked to be open about.

This started my long love affair with porn. Now porn is everywhere. It’s a pornographic society we live in. Everyone seems to have that porno sheen about him or her. Everyone looks like they just got done shooting a porn and missed a few spots while cleaning up.

Today’s song is “Boys In The Trees” from 1978 by Carly Simon. This is a song filled with incredible imagery and captures sexual awakening quite well.

Carly Simon—Boys In The Trees

http://www.zshare.net/audio/443009541e7844

"Here I grew guilty
And no one was at fault
Frightened by the power
In every innocent thought

Last night I slept in sheets the color of fire
Tonight I lie alone again
And I curse my own desires
Sentenced first to burn and then to freeze"

It's time to let you go...

I moved to San Francisco for school in 1994. Actually, I didn’t want to go to school, but I had a trust fund and the only way I could gain access to the money is to go to college. At least this is what my father told me. The trust fund came from my super rich republican grandfather and my father is his accountant, which means he gave out the money.

On my moving day, August 16, 1994, my father took me to the airport. I remember having a small CD player with me, a backpack and an overstuffed suitcase. I shipped all my belongings including my television. I had no furniture that year at that apartment.

My father and I didn’t talk about much during the drive to the airport or while waiting for the plane to takeoff. When it was time to board the plane, I hugged my dad and said goodbye. I handed my ticket to the boarding gate attendant and turned back to wave a final goodbye to my father. I was shocked to see his head in his hands, sobbing.

I had the urge to run back and hug him, but I had already given my ticket to the gate attendant, so there was no turning back. Once I was on the plane and sitting down, I thought “Fuck You”. I was mad because my father waits until the very last minute to show me that he cares about me and now it’s too late because I have to get on a plane.

I wrote this poem on the plane on the way to San Francisco:

20 Years
“When he said goodbye to me at the airport
And I was in the line,
About to enter the plane,
About to move to San Francisco,
I turned back to wave a final goodbye
Before he was out of my view.
I was shocked to see his head in his hands,
Hunched over shaking.
He was crying.

My own father crying!
He was crying about me!
I had been ignored for twenty years
And finally, now he had acknowledged my existence.

When the plane rode around the take off strip
And the flight attendants pointed the way to the exits,
I knew then that I couldn't go back
Emotions weren't going to interfere with
My plans to get away.
I waited twenty years.
He can wait until he's dead.”

It seems that whenever someone gets emotional with me, I get angry. I have a history of that. I thought my father was the unemotional one, but really, it’s me. Emotions embarrass me. I love to write about feelings and express them in writing, but being emotional in the real world is not for me.

The song I picked for this entry is from 1994. It’s Bonnie Raitt with “Circle Dance”, a song about parents and relationships.

Bonnie Raitt--Circle Dance

http://www.zshare.net/audio/4409167bc6015d/

“Now that this has occurred to me
I just wanted you to know
I've been too faithful all my lifeIt's time to let you go.”

Piano Lessons with Mrs. Erickson

I took piano lessons from a lady up the street named Mrs. Erickson. She had a sing songy voice and she was patient and sweet. I didn’t really like her much. What I mean is I didn’t like piano lessons much. The thing that drove me crazy was that I was expected to play the music without the sheet music when they held the piano recital for all the students. I never understood why it had to be done this way and Mrs. Erickson never was willing to explain the reason to me.

My piano lessons were always on Wednesday evenings and they ended right when a new episode of Charlie’s Angels was on. My favorite part of Charlie’s Angels was the incredible opening theme song with the angels running around and those silhouettes. When my piano lesson was done, I would run home as fast as could to see the opening credits. This was before we had a VCR. Usually I’d make it home just as Tanya Roberts (this was the last season of Charlie’s Angels, 1980-1981) was riding on top of a car trying to hold on during the opening credits. She was always my least favorite angel.

I had spent a lot of time practicing for my first upcoming piano recital. When I say practicing, I mean going once a week for piano lessons and practicing there because I never practiced at home. I didn’t like going to piano lessons, so why should I bother practicing?

The piano recital was held at Mrs. Erickson’s home. My parents came to see me play. The piece I was playing was called “Fluffy The Puppy”. When it came time for me to play, I did ok for the first three notes and then I forgot the rest of the song and just kind of improvised. It sounded off key. I looked out at my parents and saw them sinking in their chairs. They avoided eye contact with me. I played through and finished the song in my own way. There was some slight applause.

I wasn’t embarrassed by my performance because I thought the rule about having no sheet music at the recital was stupid and I was going to show Mrs. Erickson that I thought so and show my parents that I didn’t want to have to go to piano lessons anymore.

After the recital was over, my parents pretended they didn’t know me and they walked home without me. I never had to go to piano lessons again.

Today’s song is Fake Empire by The National from their 2007 album Boxer. It’s a pretty good album. I picked this song because it’s one of my current favorites and it has a piano in it. Wow.

The National—Fake Empire
http://www.zshare.net/audio/43661884689b42/

Why I hate Halloween

I hate Halloween.

I’ve always hated Halloween. It’s in my least favorite month. Of course now that I live in Los Angeles, I guess I don’t have a least favorite month. October used to be my least favorite month when I lived in Minnesota because it’s the beginning of the end of nice weather. October in Minnesota is usually cold and grey and dark, with six more months of cold, grey and dreary weather to follow.

I hate Halloween for many reasons. One is it was almost always freezing when I was going trick or treating in Minnesota. You had to bundle up, so no one could see your costume anyway. I remember dressing up as the devil, Superman, a left over 70s person (using my dad’s old clothes), a hippie, a ghost, a vampire and some other things I’ve forgotten. I never got to go as my favorite choice Wonder Woman, although I did wear a schmata on my head for a long time as a little boy so that I could pretend I had long flowing hair like Kelly Garret (Jaclyn Smith) from my favorite show “Charlie’s Angels”. I wore a towel on my head with a belt on top to keep the “hair” from falling off my head. I don’t know which disturbed my parents more, me wanting to have long pretty hair or that fact that I also looked like I was trying to dress like an Arab.

I’ve always hated carnivals, amazement parks, the circus, fairs, and those sorts of things. I can remember my grandmother taking me to Valley Fair (an amusement park in Minnesota, not sure if it’s national) when I was maybe 6 or 7 and I didn’t want to ride on the rides and wanted to leave. She yelled at me, telling me that I was not a normal kid and why couldn’t she have a normal grandchild. I was her only grandchild, so she was constantly frustrated.

When I first went to Las Vegas to visit my Grandma, (this was the first time I had ever left Minnesota; I was 13) she took me to the Hoover Dam and to Circus Circus. I hated them both and told her so. We had a big fight that day. She and my mother always loved carnivals and events like that. They also both loved women in prison movies and cafeteria food.

On Halloween day you were supposed to come dressed to school in your costume. I refused to wear my costume because I didn’t like my classmates knowing who I wanted to be. I still don’t like to wear costumes. I always feel stupid in a costume. I was always the only kid who came to school not in a costume.

My mother had a Halloween tradition of scaring me and eating most of my candy. She would wait until I got home from school to scare me. Usually she wasn’t there when I got home from school. She’d hide and when I came home, she’d either jump out at me dressed as witch or I’d find her at the bottom of the stairs covered in fake blood, pretending to be dead. I never found any of that very amusing. I also didn’t like it when we’d play the blind game and I’d be the blind person and she’d walk me into things, but that’s not a Halloween story, that was the rest of the year.

After scaring me, she’d invite her mother over and we’d scare grandma. Mm mother would say she had to go downstairs to get something. She’d make a lot of noise like she fell down the stairs. Grandma would rush downstairs and discover my mother “dead”. Just when she would get close enough to touch my mother, my mother would rise up and laugh. It really made Grandma angry.

After I’d come in from a cold night of trick or treating, usually by myself or with some weird friend I found, my mother would take my bag of candy and tell me she had to "inspect it for razor blades and poison". I’d go to bed and in the morning, the crappy candy and only apples would be left. The good stuff would be already eaten by my mother or stashed away somewhere.

This year I will be on my way to Austin on Halloween day. I arrive that night. It will be the first time I’ve ever been to Austin or Texas. Texas scares me, but I’ve heard such great things about Austin. If I like it, I will move there and I will get on with my life.

I tried to find a Halloween type song, but hell, it’s not even Halloween so today the song is “Tomorrow, Wendy” by Concrete Blonde. This is an amazing live version from their 1994 “Still in Hollywood” CD. I’m still in Hollywood, so I know how that feels. The song was written by Andy Preiboy, the same person who wrote another one of my all time favorite songs “Loving the Highway Man” (posted on this blog in September). I love the vocals and the lyrics of this song.

Concrete Blonde—Tomorrow Wendy (live)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/43273994057dac

“I told the priest
don't count on any second coming
god got his ass kicked
the first time he came down here slumming
he had the balls to come
the gall to die and then forgive us
no, i don't wonder why
i wonder what he thought it would get us.”

The Evil Eye

When I did something wrong when I was a child, my mother would give me the evil eye. She would squint her eyes and stare me down. It didn’t scare me (other behaviors of hers did), it just made me know that whatever I did made her mad, or really, just annoyed with me.

Every morning when I would come upstairs from the basement, my mother had a look on her face that said “You’re still here?” I always felt like an inconvenience for her. I know I was planned six years in advance and conceived on a February evening in 1973 in front of the fireplace. My parents never liked children and neither do I.

It seems nowadays all the gays want kids. I told everyone that the reason my last important relationship ended is because he wanted kids and I did not. This is not true. I mean, the kid thing is true, but the relationship ended because he found out the truth about me, meaning that I have opinions and I am not his shadow.

I liked the old days when being gay was dirty and weird and fun. It’s of course gone mainstream now, years ago. Now the gays all want kids and now when I say I don’t want kids, people act like that is terrible. You see, I never wanted a “normal” life. The problem is that I never figured out what life I really wanted.

When I mouthed off to my mother, she put on the in between area on the stairs. I think it’s called a mezzanine. She told me I would have to stay on the stairs until I was ready to apologize for whatever it was I said to her. Since I am never bored, I would remain on the stairs for hours, sometimes a day or two. I would refuse to apologize because whatever I said to her I meant. Eventually, she would beg me to come down off the stairs. I would refuse until she apologized to me for putting me on the stairs. She’s a psychologist, yet she never seemed to have a clue how to deal with me. I think it’s that she has a really short attention span and I can stay stuck on something for weeks at a time, sometimes years. I don’t give up.

I have never apologized for something if I didn’t mean it. This means I’ve rarely apologized in my life. I’ve always thought apologies are only for those who get caught.

I came across a poem “The Judgmental Eye of Larry” I wrote a few years ago. Here it is:

The Judgmental Eye of Larry

“You’re missing, he told me
But, Dad, I’m right here
But truth can’t be seen through the judgmental eye of Larry

As a child, I was well behaved
Did everything the wall told
I believed in god and all that jazz
Now as I am older now
I see your eye, like a third eye for what it is
Cold, hard and judgmental,
Like the eye in the sky

Yes, I never loved you
And I don’t miss you now
Just turn your back on me now.”

Today’s song is The Maker from 1998 by Willie Nelson with Emmylou Harris. It’s a hello to Austin song because I am visiting Austin for the first time coming up in a couple weeks. I hope I like it so I can escape LA. If not, I don’t know where to go.

Willie Nelson & Emmylou Harris—
The Maker
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4311514525b201

“I can't work the fields of Abraham.”

How many gay Jewish Amy Grant fans are there?

I’ve been a secret Amy Grant fan since high school. Originally I started listening to Amy Grant as a way to piss off my father. Even though my family is Jewish, I’ve always been drawn to Christian things. Part of this is because the woman who raised me, Kay, (also known as the cleaning lady) is an Assembly of God church member. That’s a rather strict religion. Kay went to school in Minnesota with Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. Kay used to take me to church every Wednesday night.

Another reason I was always drawn to Christian things growing up is because I grew up in Minnesota. There were Jews there somewhere, but I never found any as a kid. I used to want to be Christian and have Christmas and be blonde and all the stuff the goyim have. I still feel that way, except I no longer want to be blonde.

I was drawn to Amy’s album “Lead Me On”. It’s still a great album and I think it’s the best selling Christian album of all time (or something close to that). It’s full of questioning and deep feeling. There’s a song called “Faithless Heart” where Amy thinks about having an affair. “Lead Me On” talks about slavery and the holocaust.
I also love her 1997 “Behind the Eyes” album. I come back to that album a lot. It’s an album about depression and difficult times. Amy is a very honest writer and never shies away from the darker themes.

I’m reading Amy’s new memoir “Mosaic”. It’s a pretty interesting read.

I wonder how many gay Jews are fans of Amy Grant? I’d love to know. I’ve googled “gay Jewish Amy Grant fans” but nothing ever comes up on the subject. What a surprise. I think I might start a gay Jewish Amy Grant fan group on Myspace.

I am posting one of my favorite Amy Grant songs “After The Fire” from her 2003 album “Simple Things”. It’s a song in which I find great comfort, as I do with many of Amy’s songs.

Amy Grant---After the Fire

http://www.zshare.net/audio/43077091cc3b93

“There will be many voices calling.

Mine will say welcome home.”

Shining as she reeled him in

I booked my trip to Austin. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard so many good things about it. I am keeping an open mind. I may move there, I may not. I won’t know until I visit. I arrive on Halloween.

One of my loyal readers who also knows me in the real world pointed out a story I had forgotten. It’s related to yesterday’s story about my stepmother Corinne.

The history is this: My mother met Corinne back in 1970. They were neighbors. Corinne’s kids were my best friends growing up and now they are my stepsisters. My father ended up marrying Corinne and my mother never forgave her, even though she didn’t want him. She didn’t care about my father, but she felt betrayed by Corinne for dating my father and then not telling her that she was dating him.

My mother was dropping off one day at my father’s house which is the house where she used to live. when she got to the driveway, she noticed Corinne’s car parked there. She dropped me off and then proceeded to drive all over my father’s lawn. I’ll never forget the look on Corinne’s face when she heard the screeching of the car and saw my mother driving all over the lawn. My mother is not someone you want to cross and Corinne has always been afraid of my mother.

Corinne’s youngest daughter, Caroline, was born two years after me and five years after Corinne and my father first met, back when my parents were still married to each other. Caroline bears a striking resemblance to me. If I were casting a part for my sister (I have no known siblings), I would definitely cast Caroline because she really does look like me. She also completely shares my father’s politics. They would often talk about issues and agree with each other on everything, meanwhile my stepmother and I would egg them on by talking about how much we like guns and how poor people should be forcibly sterilized. It’s always easy to bait my father because he takes things so seriously.

For a long time I have wondered if my stepsister is actually my half sister. One Sunday after family dinner, I stole a fork that Caroline had used and put it in a plastic baggie so that I could have her DNA tested and compared to my own.

I called a bunch of places that do DNA testing, but every place was either too expensive or told me they couldn’t do a DNA test without the person’s consent. I still have the fork with the DNA on it, so if any of you readers out there know how to do a DNA test, let me know and I will send you the fork and some of my DNA so you can test it to see if Caroline and I are biologically related. I’d really like to know.

Today’s song is the first Joni Mitchell song I have posted on this blog. It’s from 1975 and it’s called “Harry’s House/Centerpiece” from her “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” album. The reason I chose this song to go with this entry is because it’s about what the suburbs does to people and the petty things people do to each other when they are in a relationship. The song is full of incredible imagery, like:

“A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof
Like a dragonfly on a tomb
And business men in button downs
Press into conference rooms
Battalions of paper minded males
Talking commodities and sales
While at home their paper wives
And paper kids
Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid.”

Joni Mitchell- Harry's House/Centerpiece
http://www.zshare.net/audio/40787494ba060c

The song reminds me of the relationship between my father and my stepmother.

“Yellow checkers for the kitchen
Climbing ivy for the bath
She is lost in House and Gardens
He's caught up in Chief of Staff
He drifts off into the memory
Of the way she looked in school
With her body oiled and shining
At the public swimming pool ...”

Cancer of the Face

Today’s song is “Helpless” by k.d. lang. It’s a Neil Young cover from 2004. I first heard it on the show “Brothers & Sisters”, which is a piece of crap show, but for some reason I can’t stop watching the dvds. I’m an only child, so I don’t relate to this show. Big families are really weird to me, especially if they are TV families.

I love watching TV shows on dvd. I’ve always liked tv better than movies. Movies suck.

Today I came across an old email which had a memory in it that I had forgotten. It was early 1996. It was really cold. What I mean is it was Minnesota. My father took me for bagels like he usually did on Saturdays. We spent the time talking about whatever it is I used to talk about then, which are probably the same things I talk about now. My father usually doesn’t have much to say. When I ask him what’s new, he always says nothing.

After bagels, my father drove me back to my apartment. As I was about to get out of the car, he said he had something to tell me. He then told me that my stepmother, Corinne, had cancer. He was very vague and not descriptive, as usual, just telling me she had cancer. No other information was given. He didn’t seem to know much about the cancer. I said goodbye and went on with my day.

Corinne had cervical cancer, but she never died or whatever. That’s not the point. The point is my father always tells me stuff at the last minute and then doesn’t ever want to talk about it again.

When I told my mother about my stepmother’s cervical cancer, her exact words were “She’s a cunt and she got it from fucking my husband. I hope she gets cancer of the face next.” My mother, you see, used to be Corinne’s best friend. She left my dad for a woman, but she never forgave Corinne for ending up with her ex-husband. Even though my mother didn’t want to be with my father anymore, she felt very betrayed by Corinne since she had spent 20 years complaining about my father to her and she ends up with him.

Here is Helpless by k.d. lang: http://www.zshare.net/audio/406255436f6f77

Everyone's saying different things to me

Today I was thinking about the teacher of a class I once took called “Social Deviance”. She started the first class by sitting at the back of class and teaching facing the wall away from the students. This was the only creative thing a teacher in the community college I went to ever did. Something happened to her, something involving an accident, but I can’t remember what happened anymore.

My father banned two things in my house when I was child (well, he also banned anything Christmas related, but I’m saving those stories for Xmas week). Nestle products were banned because in the 60s or 70 they napalmed some babies or something. I don’t remember why anymore.

When I escaped from him and got my own place right after high school, I filled my new apartment with all the Nestle products I could find. It was wonderful to try all the forbidden, secret tastes of the world of Nestle. Today, I bought some more Nestle products when I stopped at the store.

The other thing that was banned from my house was the TV show “Little House on the Prairie”. This may seem strange to you, especially since no other TV shows were banned, but the reason Little was banned was because Michael Landon (aka Eugene Horowitz), Melissa Gilbert and those twins that played Carrie were all Jewish in real life. My father couldn’t stand the fact that they were praying to Jesus and all that christian stuff they did on that show.

As a result of this show being banned, I watched it every chance I could. It was a big deal, growing up in Minnesota, because Little House is set in Minnesota. Everyone from Minnesota watched Little House when he/she grew up (well, maybe not all the boys, at least openly).

I made sure every Monday night to be glued to the tv set to watch Little House and continued to watch it in reruns. My father always told me not to sit so close to the TV, so, of course I sat just inches from the tube and watched Little House that way. Laura and Mary always looked very red and green and pixilated, but I didn’t care. I guess that kind of behavior is why some doctor once told me I had Oppositional Defiant Disorder (O.D.D., of course), but I disagreed with that diagnosis. By the way, I own all the Little House DVDs. It’s still a great show.

My father always tells two stories. One is about the time he went to Chicago with his family as a teenager and how he was robbed. To this day, he will not go to Chicago because of that experience.

The other story, which comes up all the time, is a story about when my father was in gym class during swimming lessons in grade school. He always starts off by saying that in gym class the boys always had to swim naked. After he tells that fact, then he talks about a boy who drown during swimming lessons. No one noticed him until the class found him floating. My father still doesn’t know how to swim.

Today’s song is Zero 7 with “In The Waiting Line”. I relate to this song because of the line that says “There doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me.” Yeah, that’s me, all the time.

Zero 7- In the Waiting Line
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3985943fba99c0

Stealing a purple robe.

Years ago, my mother and I went to a friend’s church. Yes we’re Jews, but my mother loves church choirs, especially if some black people are going to sing, so we went to this church to see a choir sing. The choir was wearing very vibrant purple robes. My mother loved the robes so she decided she wanted to have one.

After the church service, my mother went upstairs and stole one of the purple robes. She told me we had to leave right now because she stole a robe and she couldn’t wait to get home and try it on.

She also once stole a pair of sunglasses from JC Penny’s and we always stole chicken from Old Country Buffet. She’d bring one of her old purses and we’d line the purse with napkins and steal as much chicken and desserts as we could. We weren’t poor (oh, please!) she just liked to get free things and plus she said I didn’t eat much at the buffet so she was making up the difference by taking the chicken and desserts.

The song for today is Jane Siberry with kd lang singing “Calling All Angels” from her 1993 album “When I Was a Boy”, which is a great album from start to finish. The song has also been sung at the end of an episode of one of my favorite shows “Six Feet Under”. You can view this scene at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUaXa--g900

I love this song and it always helps me in so many ways.

The wonderful Jane Siberry with kd lang—Calling All Angels
http://www.zshare.net/audio/39103127d05da3

In order to be optimistic, you have to be irrational.

Since I escaped Minnesota two years ago and spent some time in Vegas and LA, I’ve been thinking about why people are mean or heartless or careless or all of those things. I’ve been told my views on people are pessimistic, but I just call that realistic. Nothing makes people run away faster than when you tell them you think most people are mean spirited and stupid.

One of my father’s favorite quotes is when Anne Frank said in her diary “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.” The thing is, Anne Frank wrote this while she still had hope of being rescued. I’d like to hear her say that as she’s being gassed. My father and I talk about this all the time.

I’ve been thinking a lot in the last two years about why people are so mean and more specifically, I’ve been thinking about times when someone was mean for no reason all the while exhibiting weird behavior.

Here are some examples:

1. My friend and I were in line at a pancake restaurant in Vegas (I know, only high class for us) and this old man said to me that I was standing to close to him. I didn’t feel that I was standing too close to him so I didn’t move. He just wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept telling me to move away from him and then I told him what a line was and again told him I was not standing too close to him. I paid my bill and this guy was out in the parking lot waiting for me. I got into the car and drove away and he followed us. Years of watching “Charlie’s Angels” paid off since I was able to quickly lose him using some driving techniques the Angels used in the show.



2. Around the same time in Vegas I was in a line (what is it with the lines?) with my mother. We had won $200 in a video poker tournament (yes, more high class times; my mother doesn’t gamble anymore because a lady died next to her the last time she was playing, but that’s a story for another time). We were standing in line waiting to pick up our prize money. I was eating a piece of cake.

This old guy told me it was rude to eat cake in a line. I explained that the cake was made available for everyone and he could have some too if he wanted. he again told me to stop eating the cake in the line. I refused and for some reason he told me he was a veteran. I told him, “Then I salute you by eating this cake”. He persisted the whole time telling me not to eat the cake. My mother and I got our money and as we left we told him to go to hell and both gave him the finger. I’ve given the finger to many people with my mother. She’s fun that way. She’s not afraid of anyone.

3. A long time ago at a restaurant in Minnesota called Byerly’s, my mother and I were in a hurry to eat, so we sat at the counter. There were two spaces available, but there was a woman sitting in between the two open seats. We asked the woman to move down one, but she said, “No, that’s too hard.”

My mother and I sat on either side of this woman and proceeded to have a long, loud conversation in between her, going back and forth discussing things like surgery and other things that are unpleasant while one is eating. We also passed things to each other back and forth until the lady got mad and left. My mother and I are good at collectively punishing someone.

4. I went to this volunteer training for a homo film festival here in LA. They ran out of chairs so many people had to stand up. Sitting next to me was this obviously Jewish woman (a Jew can spot another Jew) who had put her purse on an empty chair next to her. One by one, people would come up to her and ask her to move her purse so they could sit down. Each time she refused to move her purse and let anyone sit down in the chair.

In a way I was impressed by her ability to not allow anyone to sit on the purse’s chair. I wanted to ask her why she why she felt her purse needed a chair more than a person, but I couldn’t think of a way to phrase it to her. I just wonder about her, what she is thinking, that sort of thing.

5. This one really pissed me off. At this coffeehouse I go to in Silver Lake, this guy, as he was leaving, put his dirty dishes on my table. His table was empty and the table between us was empty, but for some reason he deliberately put his dirty dishes on my table and then walked out the door. What does this mean? Is this some kind of weird mean LA thing? Why not just leave his dirty dishes at his table and leave? Why put them on my table?

6. As my mother and I were leaving a casino in Vegas, we got to the space where the car was parked in a handicapped spot (my mother has diabetes so her handicap permit is real; unlike before she got diabetes when she used her dead mother’s handicap permit), anyway, this guy in a wheelchair was screaming something to us and blocking the way. We couldn’t understand what he was screaming or what he wanted, but we couldn’t leave so we saw a security guard sitting outside in front of the casino. We went up to him and asked for his help. He told us he didn’t work there and refused to help us. My mother yelled at him and told him he shouldn’t be outside wearing the security uniform and giving everyone a false sense of safety.

We went back to the car and pushed the screaming man in the wheelchair out of the way. He was still screaming something as we drove off. My mother did her best not to hit him and I don’t think we did hit him.

I have so many more of these sorts of examples. Have you had similar experiences? If so, leave a comment or email me at theawfulrowing@gmail.com.

Today’s song is Bettye Lavette covering the Fiona Apple song “Sleep to Dream”. I love this song. It’s from her strong 2005 “I’ve got my own hell to raise” CD. This song really fits the theme today.

Bettye Lavette—Sleep to Dream
http://www.zshare.net/audio/391045404b4c9e

Extra Extra

I missed my chance to be on national television today (well, crappy television, but still).

I registered months ago as an extra with Central Casting just for fun. Yesterday they called me for a featured extra role on “Desperate Housewives”, a show that I have never liked (although all the homos seem to LOVE this show), but it would have been fun to go and be on a network set.

I was going to be a “friend” at a baby baptism. When I finally got through to their archaic phone line, after three hours of busy signals, I listened to all the info about the job. One thing I wasn’t expecting is that you have to provide your own clothes. They wanted all the men in suits, which created a problem for me because I don’t own a suit. I’ve never owned a suit.

I called the emergency hotline and told them that I didn’t have a suit via voicemail. Someone called back and took me off the job. This morning they called me wondering where I was. I missed the call, so I called them back, but I only got a message that said “goodbye” and then hung up on me. It must be the line for the rejects that don’t show up. I did leave a message for someone there and explained that they took me off the job so that they wouldn’t think I just bailed, but no one ever got back to me, so I guess I’m banned from Central Casting. No big deal, but it would have been fun even if it was for a piece of crap like “Desperate Housewives”.

Since, as it turns out, I had the day off, I had plenty of time sit and think. This led me to thinking about how I feel out of place both here in LA and in my life. Is it weird that an almost 34 year old doesn’t own a suit? I mean, I hate suits. I look like a junior version of my father in a suit. I'm just not a suit person, but it got me thinking, well, what kind of a person am I? Are there ever areas in life where you think you should be more grown up, but then you think well, fuck it, I am who I am. I'm not a suit person.

There was only one time I wore a suit and that was for a really stupid movie I was in. In fact, it was the worst movie I’ve ever seen. I had to borrow a suit from my father for the part. I looked really stupid like some kind of midget or 12 year-old in the suit (I was 30 at the time).

When my mother would take my father shopping for suits, they’d always have to look in the corner, and bend over down by the floor to find my father’s size since he’s very short. I always wanted to be taller than my father, but I am exactly his height. We are both 5’6”. I lie and tell people that I am 5’7”. You know how men tend to add inches to everything.

The only other thing close to a suit is the 4 times I wore a tux (all rented of course). They are:

1. Oct 1989. My friend’s sister’s wedding to some fireman. Her family is rich so everything had to be perfect. The stupid marriage only lasted a few months, so that was a waste.

2. April 1996. My stepsister’s wedding in Nebraska. This was the first time I got really, really drunk. My father and me were the only Jews for miles and he had his soon to be wife to talk to, but I had no one to talk to. There was a great champagne fountain at the reception and I drank and drank. The last thing I remember is turning over the tape of music I made for the wedding (I was in charge of the music) and then stumbling into the elevator and then passing out in the hotel room. When my father came to find me hours later, I thought I had missed the wedding. Unfortunately, I had not missed much.

3. August 1997. My father’s wedding to my stepmother. They had known each for almost 30 years by this point. My step mom, whom I’ve known all my life, used to be my mother’s best friend, but for obvious reasons they are not friends anymore. My stepmother is terrified of my mother and she should be!

I was dating my first Jewish guy, but he wasn’t invited to the wedding. My great aunt (I think she was my great aunt, she was some relative that I was related to in some vague way), because she had dementia (she’s finally dead now), she kept asking me where my mother was. She followed me around asking this question many times.

This was the most narcissistic wedding ever with my 50-year old step mother wearing white without any irony and acting like it’s her first wedding, all the while my father is checked out and irrelevant as usual. It was like my stepmother was marrying herself. I’ve seen so many weddings like this.

4. September 2002. My other stepsister’s wedding. She married some weirdo with a bad last name. He’s always talking about plumbing and roofs and beavers. My stepmother was just happy that he took out his dreadlocks before the wedding. This wedding was anything but joyous, with my stepsister telling me she didn’t really want to go through with it, but everything was already paid for, so…

I went with my friend Rochelle (not her real name; her real name is Raquel) as my date. We were the hottest couple there by far. We were the only ones dancing and having any kind of fun. My family, on the other hand, always looks like they’d like to be someplace else no matter where they are.

The last three family weddings proved successful. All three couples are still together, so who am I to judge considering I’ve never had a wedding, but if I do (I’m not a wedding type) my family better come to my stupid wedding, behave, smile and shut up!

Today’s song is Aimee Mann’s Wise Up. This song was featured in the movie “Magnolia”, not one of my favorite movies (actually, I fast forwarded through most of it), but the scene where the characters sing this song is quite stunning. You can see that clip on Youtube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsqCl2vO9xA

This is a great song to listen to when you are stuck, like me.

“It's not what you thought when you first began.”

Aimee Mann—Wise Up
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3888921b57dffb

Just an ordinary man slipping away…

My new boss, I’m sick of him already, he wears cut off jeans with holes in the back and no underwear so I see things I don’t want to see all day long.

Everyday I have to untangle my Ipod headphones. I try to keep them untangled, but it doesn’t work.

I’m still recovering my Friday night when it took me two and a half hours to get home in the rain.

A friend is coming back from some place far off and she will come back with all kinds of obnoxious revelations.

I spent today looking up info about Austin and planning my escape.

I was thinking today about the first job I ever had, which started this long hateful journey I have with employment. My mother calls jobs “adult daycare” and I have to agree. Most of my friends are amazed by my ability to avoid employment, but I’m not. It just comes natural to me.

I’ve hated every job I’ve ever had, so why would I be out searching for this?

I’ve gotten away with everything I could in jobs, almost as much as my mother, but I did not steal. I did once send a lava lamp to my friend and charge it to a mean customer’s account when I worked for a home shopping channel years ago.

My first job was at a place called Hal’s. It was a men’s clothing store located in Knollwood Mall in St. Louis Park (or was it Hopkins?). My father played ping pong—I mean table tennis, with the owner (he’s dead now just like everyone on my father’s team).

My father helped me make a hand written resume, but I can’t remember what was on it. What could have been on it since I’d never had a job before this point?

The job, like every job since, was not a good fit. First off, it was at a men’s clothing store. I knew and know nothing about clothes. When a customer came in with her son, she asked me if we had any sport coats. I asked her for what sport and she rolled her eyes at me and sighed heavily in that entitled suburban mom kind of way. It’s funny that I would ask her what sport since even if that was the correct question to ask, I would have had no idea about anything related to sports.

We had to stand the entire time and I found that unbearable. I was also horrified one day when the effeminate, fat, closeted gay guy I worked with was wearing the same cardigan sweater that I owned. When I got home, I threw that sweater away.

I remember that my mother and her non-lesbian “roommate” (that’s for another blog entry) came in and they purposely unfolded and messed up the sweaters that I had just folded “the Hal’s Way” (I still fold clothes this way). Then my mother’s “roommate” came back to the storeroom where I had gone to escape them and talked to me and I got in trouble with my boss. She said the rule was no non-employees in the storeroom. I pretended I didn’t understand her, which is my way of coping when a boss yells at me.

I lasted for a month and a half. I still don’t understand clothes. I have no idea how to dress. I look at old pictures of myself and I think I look like I escaped from the group home.

I think a lot about what I should be wearing now that I am almost 34. What does a 34 year old wear? Certainly it’s not “nice-nice” clothes. I mean I don’t own a suit or a tie or even a sport coat, so I don’t know what to wear.

I was thinking about the song “Ordinary Morning” by Sheryl Crow. I feel this way, the way she feels in the song, the part about slipping away. This is from her “Sheryl Crow album from 1996. I’m not a big fan of Sheryl’s hits, but some of her lesser known songs like this one are some of my favorites. No one writes in such detail about depression. I once saw Sheryl Crow on TV sing opera and I was amazed. She has an incredible voice.

This song is exactly how I am feeling today.

I'm just an ordinary man slipping away…

Sheryl Crow—Ordinary Morning
http://www.zshare.net/audio/381644578f9055

If we listen to every question that we ask

I bought my pillow. I also went to buy my favorite blue cheese chips, but the only store in LA that carries them did not have them as usual. I’ve contacted the makers of these chips and ordered from them before, but they have since stopped their online and phone ordering. I talked to many people from this company and told them how hard it was to get their chips which are my favorite and I told them I would never eat any other kind of chips again and still they refused to let me order. When the store does have them in stock, they are usually stale. So if you want to help me out, visit http://www.goodhealthnaturalfoods.com/ and tell them you want to order their chips online because you can’t get them anywhere else.

So I brought home my new pillow and also bought another foam mattress pad. I sleep on a couch/bed thing that is a twin size. It’s horrible. My apartment came with furniture, which I thought was a good idea at the time, but now I hate this place and I hate all this wicker. It looks like some mean Grandma’s house. Actually it looks like a restaurant I never liked in Minnesota called Pannekoeken. Actually it looks like a Pannekoeken threw up in my apartment. http://www.pannekoeken.com/ On a side note, my grandfather built all the Pannekoeken restaurants in Minnesota. He didn’t eat in them, just built them.

As I was changing my sheets and putting the new mattress pad on my horrid bedcouch, I was thinking about how much my life has slipped down/away. When I looked at the mattress I remembered that it is the same mattress as the one that Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character slept on in the movie “Sherrybaby”. In that movie she lives in a halfway house.

As I put the new mattress pad on top of the old one (the bed’s hard so I am trying to add some padding so I don’t have to feel the springs in my back), I looked at the huge Noah (that’s me) sized sweat stain on it. (I do sweat a lot, always have.) Then I looked around my apartment, which didn’t take long because it’s just a small room and I remembered how excited I was a few years back to get a full size bed and to live in a one bedroom apartment instead of a studio. This was Minnesota, where rent is cheaper than LA. I never thought I’d end up with a twin size bed in a one room apartment again. Of course this time, I don’t even really own a bed because this bed is part of the rented ugly couch.

What I am saying is that I have to change my life for good, for better or be done with it. I always lean to changing it for better, but I like to think (love to think) about being done, but no one really wants to talk about that with me. I think about it all the time and it fills me with peace and joy. To be done. To say no, I’m not here. I’m checked out so I am leaving.

I may do another kind of leaving. I might visit Austin. Do you know anything about Austin? I know, it’s Texas, but I’ve heard it’s a great place to live. I’ve never been, but I want to visit in the next couple months at some point. If you have any suggestions about Austin (where to live, what it’s like there, that sort of thing) email me at: theawfulrowing@gmail.com.

I’m not living the life of someone who’s going to turn 34. I’ve been stuck for almost three years now (three years starting November 21st). I need to get unstuck or be done.

Today I have for you a song that helps me a lot. It’s a song about choices, about paths and I find it amazing and heavenly. It’s Dolly Parton’s version of “Stairway to Heaven” from her 2002 Halos & Horns album (a great album by the way). You may think Dolly Parton? Why her? Because she’s an original and she has a sense of humor about herself (something that is missing here in smoggy LA).

I had heard that Dolly Parton did a cover of “Stairway to Heaven” and I listened to it out of curiosity and fell in love with it right away. Then I listened to the rest of the album and I was surprised how much I liked it.

Dolly was in the first movie I ever saw in a theatre, “9 to 5”. I remember going with my grandma and asking her what stoned meant. She told me the truth as she always did (unless the truth was about her), so ever since then I’ve had a special place for Dolly.

Take a listen to “Stairway to Heaven”. Open your mind and really listen to her and the choir and see if you don’t have an experience of lifting. Listen to this song when you need a pathway.

Dolly Parton: Stairway to Heaven
http://www.zshare.net/audio/37969098ea38c3

The Last Station Home

It took me over two hours to get home, driving in the LA traffic in the rain. I tried so many different ways to get home. I really wanted to buy a pillow, but by the time I got close to a store with pillows, it was closed, so now I will sleep on the hard pillow I have…until tomorrow.

I was feeling bad. I feel bad a lot. I think maybe I’m broken in a way I don’t yet understand.

After this long day, a day when work did not relate to anything and I was angry, I received in the mail a CD from Toni Childs. As I’ve mentioned before Toni Childs is one of my all time favorites. I donated to a cause she believes in and she sent me her new CD and a personalized note. My name is also in the liner notes of the CD.

I’m listening to the new CD right now. It’s called “Keep the Faith”. It’s not even in stores yet. I waited a long time for new music from Toni (13 years). It was worth the wait. She always helps me. I would post a song from her new album, but I don’t know it that well yet. I do like it though.

Her first album “Union” from 1988 is one of my favorite albums of all time. I love everything about it. A song from it “Let the Rain Come Down” came to mind today. It’s an old favorite uplifting song. It’s all about Toni’s voice for me. No one sings like her.

Let The Rain Come Down:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3782921bb66986

I’m also posting the song “Zimbabwae” also from her "Union" album. It's a beautiful song.
http://www.zshare.net/audio/37829577d337bf

Please visit Toni’s website at www.tonichilds.com and her myspace which is located at www.myspace.com/thetonichilds. You can listen to songs from her new album and send Toni a message.

Whatever happened to Soon-Yi?

When I was about 12 my mother decided that she wanted to adopt a 12 year-old Korean girl. She said that this girl would be a good companion for me (I’m an only child) and a great free housekeeper for her.

Even then I knew this was a bad idea, so I redirectioned her by suggesting that she get some miniature horses instead of the girl. She became very interested in miniature horses but I had to redirection her again because I realized it was not a good idea to have a bunch of miniature horses in our suburban backyard, not enough room for the horses.

I told her that instead of miniature horses she should get new carpet. I hated our brown carpeting in the house, so she got new white carpet. That kept her busy for a long time because she ended up having to replace the carpet with better carpet when the new carpet starting falling apart. I remember the first time my father came home after the carpet had been changed throughout the house from brown to white, it took him awhile to notice the change. My mother used to say that if she grew a pecker from her head, my father would never notice. Yeah, he's really not that observant.

Last weekend when I went to visit my mother I had to once again talk her out of getting an Iphone. She had already got one and returned it, but now she wanted one again. I didn’t want to have to be her Iphone support (I’m not Apple), so I redirected her by telling her to instead get an internet wifi card for her laptop. She seemed to like that and forgot all about the Iphone.

She and I will sometimes talk about that Korean girl and where she’d be if my mother adopted her. We refer to her as Soon-Yi. We figured that Soon-Yi would be super pissed since my parents divorced a few months after they got new carpet. I wonder where Soon-Yi is now.

Today’s song is from Tuck and Patti, one of my mother’s favorite groups and mine too. It’s a 1988 cover of the Cyndi Lauper song “Time After Time”. It’s a very uplifting song.

The song:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3691066149ab5e

The video:
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2791423

The video is a beautifully shot black and white video. I love the way Tuck looks at Patti. They make a sweet couple. I’ve always wanted a boyfriend who would collaborate with me like Tuck does with Patti instead of always trying to work against me and trying to kill me.

Tuck and Patti’s website:
http://www.tuckandpatti.com/

Gentiles, don’t go away.

Tonight I went to a gay Jew Rosh Hashanah dinner. It was ok. I was hoping I would fit in with the gay Jews, but like usual I don’t, but who does? It’s kind of high pressure.

There are two guys I like in this group, one that I moved here for the other I went with to the Hollywood Bowl. There’s a third guy, but if I have sex with him, I’d feel stupid afterwards so I have to stay away.

Going to this dinner sure beats have Rosh Hashanah dinner with my family. My uncle (by marriage) is some kind of severe rabbi so everything takes so long. The dinner goes on and on.

The memory…the thing I was thinking about today happened when I was 13. My girlfriend, Heidi (you remember her from a previous entry) wanted to have sex, so I went to the gas station to buy some condoms. This was 20 years ago during my favorite summer, the summer of 1987. The clerk refused to sell them to me because he said I was too young. I told him he’d have to pay for the baby or the abortion as I left.

Things have changed in the last 20 years. I think now they would sell condoms to a 13 year-old. Wouldn’t they?

Heidi and I did fool around, but without the condom. Then she thought she was pregnant, but she wasn’t, she was just dramatic.

Today’s song is “Makin’ Whoopie” by the Barry Sisters, known as the Yiddish Andrew Sisters. This song is partly in Yiddish, the most romantic language ever, especially when it’s sung. Please gentiles don’t go away just because I threw a Jew thing at you. Stay with me, goyim!

http://www.zshare.net/audio/3658673ad711d2

I cannot save you from yourself

There is someone I am worried about, but he won’t let me tell you who he is.

What do you do when you understand what someone is feeling and have felt those feelings before and feel them now, but you still don’t want him to go? What does it mean to ask someone to chose to live even when you can’t offer reasons to stay alive?

I’ve read some interesting posts today. I wonder what it all means.

We are all trapped. This is the truth.

I’ve wanted to talk about the truth for a long time now, but I’m not a very honest person. The only place to be honest is in writing.

I’ve had a long day filled with driving and laughter and my usual level of sadness.

I can’t rise above yet.

The song:

Wounded Heart by Bonnie Raitt. This is one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard. This is for him, this person who shall remain nameless. This is for you, Sean.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/4346640e467fe8/

Sometimes you want to throw a rose into the water, but then the dog brings it back to you.

Investigating anyone who thinks like you

In college I took a class called “American Individualism & You”. I never got into this class and I would leave early every time the class would take a break. The teacher once asked me if I was coming back after the break and I told him I was expressing my individualism by not coming back. He said I missed the point.

During the final test for this class a horrid, severe, short haired girl told me I was using my pencil too loudly, that I was pressing too hard and it was very distracting. Being the Minnesotan I am, I apologized and then pressed even harder during the test, so hard, in fact, the pencil tip broke off. Then I didn’t have a pencil to finish the test.

I didn’t get a very good grade (well, I don’t remember what grade I got, but I hated all types of schooling and rarely got good grades), but I know I didn’t fail, like how I failed the class relaxation techniques. You may be wondering how can someone fail relaxation techniques. Well, it’s simple. In community college you have to take two credits of physical education. Not being the least bit athletic, I decided to take walking and I passed that class, so I figured relaxation techniques would be an easy class to pass, but I had a misunderstanding with the teacher. She looked like a mean spirited Lily Tomlin and was not a relaxed person at all. I had told her I was going to go on vacation for two weeks and that I’d attend class when I got back.

When I got my grade, I noticed it was an F (the class was pass/fail). I asked the teacher why she failed me and she told me that I missed two weeks of classes. I told her that we had discussed this and she had said this was ok. She said she had no recollection of this at all.

She said I would have to take the class again and get a passing grade. I tried to reason with her by telling her that while I was on vacation, I was, in fact, relaxing. Therefore, I was working on the class when I missed the two weeks. This seemed logical to me, but she seemed mystified and angered by this reasoning. I ended up having to take the relaxation techniques class again, which sucked because I would have been done with the 2 year program except for the one gym credit, so I had to go back for a whole semester and take this one 2 credit class so I could get my crap degree in video production.

The song “God & The FBI” is a song to which I relate. It’s by Janis Ian from her 2000 album of the same name. It’s a great album and this track is funny and one of my favs. I feel like this song all the time. I’m always making trouble for myself by taking vacations and pressing too hard with my pencil.

“WELCOME TO THE FIFTIES
YOU LOOK A LITTLE SHIFTY”

God & The FBI by Janis Ian

http://www.zshare.net/audio/43466123fd5834/

Rendering My Lust

Today’s song is “Don’t Walk Away” by Toni Childs. It’s from a playlist on my Ipod called “The Anger is Good.” This is the first song I ever heard by Toni Childs. I saw the video playing on MTV in the fall of 1988. I had never heard anyone sing like that and I still haven’t. I love Toni. She hasn’t released an album for 13 years, but a new one is one the way next year. Check out her website at:

http://www.tonichilds.com/

I love this song because like me, it’s angry. I dedicated it to my first lover, Dave, who I met and had my first man on man sex with on my mother’s birthday in 1989. I was 15. He was 26. After some hot Google action, I was able to find out what he’s up to these days. Today he is married to some woman named Stephanie who’s some kind of city council woman or something. He’s a pianist and they both live in Roseville. I wonder if Stephanie knows about his interest in young boys. These days, Dateline would be at this door, or rather he’d be at their door.

I remember watching “Brady Bunch” reruns with Dave that day, the first sex day, and then we had sex and then Dave took me to Burger King and bought me a chicken sandwich and then I had sex with him again. That’s when I learned that men will buy you sandwiches if you have sex with them, of course that would never happen today because I’m a vegetarian.

I was in Vegas for the weekend. I had sex with four men in a 3 day period. Sex is what I need. It’s what I’ve been missing.

Something about these men…

Friday night:
This couple that I’ve known for two years from my days of living in Vegas. 3ways are fun. They weren’t my first 3way, but they are fun. The best is to be the single in the 3way. That way you get all the attention.

Saturday night:
Jew #1. Jewish men have big cocks. All of them. This guy, Seth (not his real name; his real name is Michael), is someone I’ve known for awhile now. He’s very quiet until he sticks his cock in my mouth, then he just talks and talks and talks.

Sunday afternoon:
Jew #2. Michael (not his real name; his real name is Seth) works as an executive chef at a Vegas hotel on the strip. I’ve been hot for him for a long time, but hadn’t seen him in two years. He’s certainly the second best lover I’ve ever had. He’s just my type. The only thing I don’t like is his use of the word pussy during sex. What’s that about?

Tonight I spent some time in the Vegas airport. There was an oblivious blonde girl who was in the men’s bathroom, bending over the sink and talking on her phone. She didn’t seem to know or care that she was in the men’s bathroom. It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. It’s one of those things where I’d like to ask her if she knows she is in the men’s bathroom, but when I’ve asked strangers why they behave the way they do, they always act like I’m the one who’s acting strangely.

Then on the plane flying back to Burbank, one of my least favorite celebrities was on the plane: Pauly Shore. Why can’t I meet any good celebrities? He was sitting one row ahead of me and to the left, like in coach. This is making the time I saw Melanie Griffith walking down the street in West Hollywood seem amazing compared to seeing Pauly Shore.

“do I stand here waiting
for the earth to turn to dust
give up my passion
rendering my lust.”

Toni Childs--Don't Walk Away (remix)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/35863659d0f35a

Sweet Little Mystery

My father is a ping-pong champion. He gets mad if you call it ping-pong, so I’ll call it table tennis. He used to play all the time, but now he doesn’t because of family obligations and the fact that the rest of his team died.

He called me up the other day to tell me about the new ping-pong, I mean table tennis themed movie, “Balls of Fury”. He even sent me the trailer. He’s not usually into this kind of humor, but he couldn’t believe they had made a movie about ping-pong. He was excited to see it, but told me he would have to go alone because no one he knew would want to go with him.

In his den, he has all of his table tennis trophies from all the times he came in first, second and third when he played table tennis competitively. Through the years the cleaning lady Berdine (not her real name; her real name is Kay), she bumped into most of the trophies with the vacuum causing them to fall onto the floor. Every trophy is missing something: an arm, a head, a racket, a leg, but they are still proudly displayed.

Today’s song is about another kind of missing. It’s about when someone is missing and the ambiguities that come along with that. My father has always seemed strange to me and I know he looks at me like I’m a stranger. He has something missing. It doesn’t matter what is missing. The point is something is missing.

Here is Julia Fordham singing “Sweet Little Mystery” from 1991.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/3517936ab9577b

The Secret Marriage or Why I Smacked Shaniqua Fontaine

Something came back to me today. I worked all day and by all day I mean from 11AM-2PM. I don’t know how I get through the day!

I was thinking about the time I hit Shaniqua Fontaine(not her real name; her real name is Prudence Johnston). She was my best little friend from across the street when I was growing up in the boring suburb of Minnetonka, Minnesota. She was my friend publicly until Kindergarten, when to my surprise, she pretended not to know me at school, but then she would be my friend secretly when we were in our neighborhood, behind closed doors. (Like a lot of lovers I’ve had.) Eventually I was semi-banned from seeing her because I always got her alone to play doctor, which her parents did not like. My parents, on the other hand didn’t seem to care if played doctor with Shaniqua or any of the neighbor kids.

One day Shaniqua wanted to have more orange juice, but she had finished the orange juice that was open and wanted to open a new carton of orange juice. I told her not to, that we’d have to ask my father if this was ok. I told her my father was in the bathroom, but we’d have to wait until he was out to ask him if we could open the orange juice.

Shaniqua decided she wanted to go and ask my father before he got out of the bathroom. I told her that the rule was not to speak to my father when he was in the bathroom, along with the rule of not opening anything new unless I asked him first. Shaniqua didn’t understand this rule, so she went up the stairs to my father’s bedroom with the intention to ask him about opening the orange juice. I tried to stop her, to tell her that she couldn’t go up there and talk to him while he was in the bathroom, but she wouldn’t listen. I pleaded with her to stop, but she didn’t, so I did the only thing I could do, I smacked her.

I remember that shocked look on her face once she regained her balance and got up off the floor. She ran away from me and out the door. This did prevent her from talking to my father in the bathroom so I figured I had done the right thing.

Later my mother told me that Shaniqua’s mother had talked to her about how I hit Shaniqua. My mother said I had to go over and apologize to Shaniqua. I went over to Shaniqua’s house all the way across the street in the rain and I apologized to her in front of her mother. I began to cry as I apologized, like I always do when I apologize. Shaniqua never really forgave me, which is the usual case when I apologize to someone. Minnesotans really like to rip your guts out by holding a grudge.

Years later, after her mother had died the day before her wedding (I was invited to her mother’s funeral, but not the wedding), Shaniqua would get drunk and call me from St. Michael, Minnesota where she lived with her husband. She would tell me how unhappy she was and how she longed for her childhood days with me on our street, Crown Drive. I tried to listen, but being the Minnesotan I am, I never really forgave her for not forgiving me, so I changed my phone number (not only because of Shaniqua, but also to stop the harassing phone calls from rude bill collectors).

Today’s song is “The Secret Marriage” by Sting. This short little song is from my favorite year 1987. I want to get married (or whatever it is the homos do at this point) but I think I’m too weird for anyone to stick around, so I’d rather get lost in songs like this one. Shaniqua and I had a secret marriage in a way, until I changed my phone number. I’ve been involved in a lot of secret marriages.

Secret Marriage by Sting:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/34985967bca1e8

Don't say where this ring came from, from whose shaking hand.

Today’s song “Loving the Highway Man” by Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris’ 1999 duet album “The Western Wall” has special meaning to me. It reminds me of my true love Sean (not his real name; his real name is Shane).

When this song first came out in 1999, I was living with Sean. He’s the only boyfriend I ever lived with and it wasn’t a success. It only lasted a few weeks, like many things in my life, but that’s not what this is about. This is about Sean.

I loved Sean because he was dangerous. I made him a tape (yes, back then they were audio tapes) and I called it “Where this Ring Came From” and put this song first. He had given me an engagement ring. I know what you’re saying, gays can’t get married, but I was as married as I ever probably will be (although secretly I know I will be married again). He inscribed the ring with the words “Love, Sean”, but the ring was too big so I took it to the jewelers in Calhoun Square to get it resized. When I got the ring back, it said “Love, Sea”. They had fucked up the engraving and they really didn’t care even as I cried in front of them in the store.

By this point, Sean and I had broken up. We got back together secretly a few times, but who knows? I still love him and still talk to him sometimes. I think he may kill himself, but I can’t save him either.


In other news, the guy I liked when I first moved to LA, I found more naked pictures of him online. This made me so excited. I really want to have sex with him, but we’re just friends. Oh, rats.

Here is “Loving the Highway Man”

http://www.zshare.net/audio/43465842df19ab/

I want to read your mind To know just what I've got in this new thing I've found

Today I went to a restaurant in Brentwood, a nice restaurant. I went there because I heard that my favorite singer in the whole world, Joni Mitchell, often eats there at 3:00. I did not find Joni there, but I did do something that I usually don’t like to do: eat alone at a restaurant. I always feel exposed when I am eating alone, but the place was peaceful and I brought a book, so I was ok.

I got a spot facing the door so I could see if Joni came in. Since it’s Labor Day, I wonder if she’s out of town or doing something special today. I hate Labor Day because I associate it with the end of summer and the beginning of school, even after all these years. Well, summer doesn’t seem to be letting up, which is fine with me. It’s 105 here in LA today. I don’t have a/c, but I don’t care. It sure beats it being cold and having it below zero.

I wasn’t going to talk to Joni if she was there. I might smile in her direction, but that’s it. It’s weird how when you meet someone famous that you are inspired by, you expect her to recognize you, but of course, she won’t. She doesn’t even know you. She’s never heard of you, but you know everything about her music at least. What would I say to her? I’d probably ask her questions about specific songs and also tell her our similarities: we are both Scorpios (she’s almost exactly 30 years older than me), we are both only children, our initials are JM and we both grew up in the cold and longed to get away from. We both did when we moved to LA.

You’d think the song I post today would be a Joni song, but not yet. Today I am going to post a song I rediscovered this year, even though it’s 20 years old. It’s the Bruce Springsteen song “Brilliant Disguise”, a song I never liked until this year. It’s the most beautifully paranoid love song ever.

This song became a favorite of mine from an experience I had with one of the first friends I made in LA. I kind of moved here for him, but he doesn’t know that. I think I waited too long and now we are just friends. I’d really like to have sex with him though. This preoccupies my mind quite a bit.

After months of wondering if he was interested in me and many awkward moments, I realized he didn’t really want me in that way. (although secretly I never give up hope). Brilliant Disguise is sort of about that, about not feeling worthy of love and wondering if the one you love is sincere in his love, that sort of thing.

This song came back to me yesterday when I went out with a new friend. I met this guy at a friend’s party and became interested in him. I went to the Hollywood Bowl with him yesterday. It was supposed to be three of us, but the other guy dropped out because of the weather, so it was just David (not his real name; His real name is Dave) and I.

I’m very attracted to him, but I have no idea if he is attracted to me. I think not, I guess. Ever since my breakup with Jefferson (not his real name; his real name is Jackson), I’ve wondered if anyone really is attracted to me. Actually that’s not true. I’ve wondered if anyone will ever like me once he gets to know me. I fear I may be too abnormal for Dave.

I’ve been told my sex drive is too high. There is only one lover I’ve ever had with whom I couldn’t keep up, the rest could never keep up with me. It takes so much to get sex, all the talking, all that looking for parking, all that crap. I’m looking for a man who wants to do it with me all the time. Most men change their locks on me, so it never does last.

A Chinese proverb says:
“When you don’t know where you are going, go by a way you don’t know.”

This is good advice since I am lost.

Here is Brilliant Disguise

http://www.zshare.net/audio/346298493e2213

“Now look at me baby
struggling to do everything right
And then it all falls apart

Tonight our bed is cold
I'm lost in the darkness of our love
God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he's sure of”

Brand New World, I can’t relate

The Cowboy Junkies 2007 album “At the end of Paths Taken” is my favorite album of the year and its been a long, long time since I’ve really loved an album like this. The state of contemporary music is terrible right now or I’m just getting old or both. I don’t know. This album is full of interesting songs about being at a place where one feels like there are no choices left. The first song on the album, Brand New World, sums this up perfectly. It came at time in my life (earlier this year) when I felt like I was at the end of my choices. I still feel that way, but care a little less these days.

“Brand new world. I can’t relate.”
This sums it up for me. Call me old or something, but this new world that we live in is not a world that I like nor do I really want to be a part of at this point. I don’t see things getting better. I wonder what kind of miracle is going to come around and fix this massive mess we’re in in the world. The thing is, people don’t like to talk about this, but I need to talk about this. This is part of the reason for this blog. I want to share songs that have meaning to me.

Just the other day my friend Erin (not her real name; her real name is Sandi) asked me if I needed meaning in everything and I told her yes, I do. This seems to bother people for reasons I’ve never understood. This is the sort of thing where if you become honest with people about how you really feel, they will change their locks on you.

This new world that I can’t relate to is sick and very whorey. When did everyone go from looking slutty to just looking like whores? When did that happen? Why does everyone seem to have that porno sheen about them, like they’ve just been shooting a porno movie and they didn’t have time to clean up. Maybe that’s what everyone is doing. I don’t know.

Let me choose to not participate.

Here’s the song:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/3444092b6dfcb6/

Mouths to feed. Shoes to buy.
Rent to pay. Tears to dry.
Brand new world.
I can’t relate.
Let us choose
to not participate.

Open up.
Let me wander in.
Your heart is not
such a tender thing.
Brand new world.
I contend,
only love
will stop the withering.

Oh, to lie in wait
as the shadows and the shapes
spill across the walls
like a river
deep
in spate.

4am.
Dark reality.
Brand new world
and my heart
is missing.

The mother, and the matador, the mystic, all were here before

Penitent:
Feeling or expressing remorse for misdeeds.

I started listening to Suzanne Vega 20 years ago this summer. The summer of 1987 was my favorite summer ever. It’s the time I had my first sort of sex with my girlfriend Heidi (not her real name; her real name is Maria) this was before I turned gay and Heidi turned into a prostitute and then a lesbian and then a lesbian prostitute. Now she’s married to a man who used to be a woman, but always looked like a man to me. Me, I’m not married.

Suzanne Vega only releases an album every once in awhile when she’s got something to say. I’m trying this new policy of being concise with my words instead of just talking talking talking. I’ve mastered this in my scripts years ago. I make the characters concise because what is meant is not always fully contained in words. People don’t usually say what they mean. I like Suzanne’s lyrics because there is a certain clarity and economy to them. She doesn’t waste time.

This track, “Penitent” is off her amazing 2001 album “Songs in Grey & Red”. This album is a divorce album, but it can apply to anything that seems lost or broken or stuck. It’s an album that for me I liked in the beginning in a casual way and over the years I’ve grown to love this album and refer to it all the time. Suzanne just released her latest album called “Beauty & Crime”. I like it, but I know in time I will grow to love it like I do with all Suzanne albums.

Suzanne Vega changed the kind of music I was listening to at the time when I was 13. Up to that point, I mostly was into what was on the radio, which was fun back then (Madonna, the 80s, the sort of thing when the pop music was fun and not just music that was sampled with someone talking all throughout it). I wanted to hear something deeper and Suzanne Vega was just what I needed. Listening to Suzanne Vega led to Tracy Chapman, Toni Childs and Joni Mitchell.

This song, Penitent, is how I’ve felt for a long time now.

Here is the song:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/4346549d693ffa

The lyrics:

1. once I stood alone so proud
held myself above the crowd
now i am low on the ground.

from here i look around to see
what avenues belong to me
I can't tell what I've found.

*now what would You have me do
i ask you please?
I wait to hear.

2. the mother, and the matador,
the mystic, all were here before,
like me, to stare You down.

you appear without a face,
disappear, but leave your trace,
i feel your unseen frown.

*now what would you have me do
I ask you please?
i wait to hear
your voice,
the word,
you say.
i wait to see your sign
would i
obey?

3. I look for you in heathered moor,
the desert, and the ocean floor
how low does one heart go.

looking for your fingerprints
i find them in coincidence,
and make my faith to grow.

4. forgive me all my blindnesses
my weakness and unkindnesses
as yet unbending still.

struggling so hard to see
my fist against eternity
and will you break my will?

*now what would you have me do
i ask you please?
i wait to hear
your voice,
the word
you say
i wait to see your sign could i obey?

The Awful Rowing Begins

Hello All-



My name is Josh, not my real name. My real name is Noah.



Welcome to my music blog. I've been wanting to share some tunes with all of you. I am usually drawn to sad music, but not all the songs I post will be sad. It really depends on my mood. I will try to post at least one song a day, so please check back often.



If you are wondering where the title of this music blog comes from, it comes not from music, but from my favorite book of poetry, "The Awful Rowing Toward God" by Anne Sexton. Any Anne fans out there? My favorite poem of all time is in that book. It's called "The Rowing Endeth". To read that poem, visit http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_23_120/ai_111114163.



Music helps me in so many ways and it's usually the lyrics I am drawn to since I love poetry and words. I will be posting songs that mean something to me and telling you about the personal history of the song in my life.



Many of my friends have blogs and they post just personal things about one another and then someone always gets mad. I am writer. I put all my personal feelings in my writing. I am a private person, so I will be telling you things about myself, but it will take some time for me to get into all of that. Writing and music is confessional for me. I like to hide behind the words of a song or a poem.



Here are some facts about me for you curious types:



I am left handed.

I am a Jew.

I live in LA, but wonder most of the time what the hell I am doing here.

I always long to be some place else.

I'm a homo.

I like men who are dark and hairy.

Until I was 23 (meaning until someone told me), I used to use spoons and forks wrong when eating.

I have a block with spelling and math.

For the past three years I have been stuck.



It's now September 1st. I used to hate September when I was younger because it meant going back to school and the end of the summer and the beginning of a long, cold winter. Where I am from, in Minnesota, there is one day in early September when the clouds come in and the temperature goes down and you know that is the day that summer is over. Nice weather won't be back for seven or more months. People from Minnesota are such sky oriented people, geared to changing weather. No matter where a Minnesotan ends up, he or she will always be talking about the weather.



My favorite musical artist is Joni Mitchell. (yeah, you can just tell I'm lots of fun at a party, right!) Today we do not begin with Joni. We begin with Tracy Chapman, who's been a favorite of mine since her first album (I had the tape) in 1988. I used to play her tape constantly. My best friend Elizabeth (not her real name; her real name is Lola) used to hate it when I played Tracy Chapman. She hated all my "depressing music", but I never found it depressing. I always found it helpful.



The song to start off my music blog and to start this new month is a song from Tracy Chapman's 2005 album "Where You Live" called "Change". I chose this song to start with because it sums up where I am right now. I didn't particularly like this song when it first came out, but that year, two years ago, I was checked out of my life. I'm still checked out in ways no one understands, but I'm used to that now.



I am trying to change.



The lyrics:



If you knew that you would die today,
Saw the face of God and love,
Would you change?
Would you change?

If you knew that love can break your heart
When you're down so low you cannot fall
Would you change?
Would you change?

How bad, how good does it need to get?
How many losses? How much regret?
What chain reaction would cause an effect?
Makes you turn around,
Makes you try to explain,
Makes you forgive and forget,
Makes you change?
Makes you change?

If you knew that you would be alone,
Knowing right, being wrong,
Would you change?
Would you change?

If you knew that you would find a truth
That brings up pain that can't be soothed
Would you change?
Would you change?

How bad, how good does it need to get?
How many losses? How much regret?
What chain reaction would cause an effect?
Makes you turn around,
Makes you try to explain,
Makes you forgive and forget,
Makes you change?
Makes you change?

Are you so upright you can't be bent?
If it comes to blows are you so sure you won't be crawling?
If not for the good, why risk falling?
Why risk falling?

If everything you think you know,
Makes your life unbearable,
Would you change?
Would you change?

If you'd broken every rule and vow,
And hard times come to bring you down,
Would you change?
Would you change?

If you knew that you would die today,
If you saw the face of God and love,
Would you change?
Would you change?
Would you change?
Would you change?

If you saw the face of God and love
If you saw the face of God and love
Would you change?
Would you change?



===================================================



I'm using zshare to share the file. It's a site where you can hear the song before downloading it. The song is at:




http://www.zshare.net/audio/341612325450b1/



You can see the music video if you like at:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s448Vvx2J7w



=======================================



Please let me know what you think of the songs I post. If you have songs you want to share, please send them my way. You can also email me:



mailto:theawfulrowing@google.com



NOAH