I’ve deeply drawn to the films of Lars Von Tier. There’s something about his worldview that validates the pessimism about human nature that I feel as a chronic depressive. Stephan Rylance’s review of Von Tier’s lastest movie, AntiChrist, really clarified this aspect of Von Tier’s work for me.

The Agonies of an Antichrist by Stephan Rylance

On the liter side is “Truly, Truly Outragous”, an article on Samantha Newark who was the speaking voice of Jem (Britta Phillips was her singing voice) on the 1980’s cartoon series Jem and the Holograms. Jem was a great show and the interview addresses it’s gay appeal and even mentions fan fiction.

Truly, Truly Outrageous by Noah Michelson

During August and September when I was still working at the supermarket I developed a daily after work ritual—I’d put on the soundtrack to Inglourios Basterds and polish off an entire bottle of wine while playing Farmville on Facebook. It’s only been a little more than a month but I already feel a combination of horror and deep nostalgia for that time in my life. The soundtrack however I have only enthusiasm for. It was recently posted on The American Nightmare, a music blog I sometimes follow and I would strongly recommend it.

Inglorious Basterds Soundtrack at The American Nightmare

I’m not sure if I feel like a different person these last couple of weeks or like I’m finally myself again. 

 

Everything isn’t happy happy joy joy all the time of course, I’ve had a couple bad days and I’m still trying to get my eating back on track my mood has been good and I have energy and ideas. 

 

I haven’t been doing much writing unfortunately, but I have been working on my art pretty steadily and I’m happy to say I sold three some items on etsy.com.  Also after months of isolation, I feel downright sociable. 

 

Over the last two months, we’ve been doing a fund-raising campaign for the Whole Planet foundation.  For at least the first half of this, I collected about $10 in donations because I couldn’t ask customers to give.  I was afraid they’d get angry, I just couldn’t do it.  However when I started feeling less depressed I started asking for contributions and yesterday I found out that of all the cashiers I’m ranked third for collecting donations. 

 

I should note that I work full time while several other cashiers are part-time and that there are a few cashers who are refusing to ask for donations at all.  Still, I’m really astounded that I’ve made such an improvement. 

 

I’ve also seen more of my sister and her family these past couple weeks and… I actually went out twice in the last couple of days. 

 

On Tuesday (which was Saint Patrick’s Day and a wonderful, unseasonable 70 degrees out) I went to see Tom Never’s Head, a sort of traditional/folk band that includes several people who work at the Market with me.  Then on Thursday I went to a dress rehearsal of a play called Blue Surge by Rebecca Gilman.  Another co-worker is a member of the Eclipse Theatre Company and was co-directing.  The play really made an impression on me and touched on some of my personal issues and experiences, I’ll write more on that later but now I really love that I’m able to support others in their creative endeavors again and take part in the world. 

St Patrick’s Day has been called Chicago’s Mardi Gras in the worst sense of the term. It’s basically a trashy, touristy drinking binge. While St Patrick’s Day isn’t actually until tomorrow, around here the party started a couple days early. On Saturday I was driving to work at 7:00 a.m. when I spotted my first reveler in gilded green plastic beads and an enormous leprechaun hat.

Not to be a pretentious killjoy (well, I am actually am a pretentious killjoy) but I can’t help but find it all a little crass. I’m of Irish extraction on my mother’s side and there’s more to Irish culture and heritage than an early morning pint or ten of Guinness.

Despite centuries of conflict and oppression (the Irish had been dealing with terrorism for decades before it became a hot button issue) Ireland has a rich history of poetry, music and storytelling. Ireland spawned quintessential wits like John Lennon and Oscar Wilde and great writers such as James Joyce and my own sweet baby William Butler Yeats.

There’s much more there than dying a river green and drinking till you puke.

In honor of my personal vision of St. Patrick’s I’m posting three of my especial favorite songs on Irish troubles and a favorite quote--

The Luck of the Irish by John Lennon and Yoko Ono

The Luck of the Irish by Shonen Knife

Famine by Sinead O’Connor


“Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud.”

Jimmy Rabbitte
The Commitments

This past week Blossom Dearie and Lux Interior, two very different musicians who’s work I very much enjoy, passed away. 

 

Lux Interior was the front man of the seminal punk band the Cramps.  In the music of the Cramps, sexuality lurking beneath the surface of early rockabilly and B horror movies exploded to the surface in a gyrating, hiccupping frenzy.  Their deliciously kinky songs walked the line between parody, homage and deconstruction. 

 

I got into the Cramps long ago when I was a college student (1990 to 1994).  After all, what sexually frustrated co-ed college student can resist a song titled “Can Your Pussy Do the Dog?”

 

Lux Interior was also featured in RE/Search’s Incredibly Strange Music Vol.1 an amazing book of interviews with passionate collectors driven to seek out obscure, eclectic, marginalized and forgotten music.  The interview with Lux Interior and his wife/bandmate Poison Ivy Rorschach is pretty fascinating.  Along with the expected sex, drugs and rock and roll there was some extremely though provoking discussion about the ways society is shaped more and more by consumers, how shopping is has squeezed out other hobbies and pastimes as a leisure activity and the philosophical and political ramifications of embracing “throw-away” culture, of salvaging and re-using old things instead of buying new things. 

 

I don’t have quite the history with Blossom Dearie that I do with Lux Interior.  My interest in her came several years later, around the turn of the millennium.  By that time my musical interests had expanded beyond my first loves—folk and punk—and I had become increasingly interested in jazz vocalists. 

 

I came across Blossom Dearie, who emerged in the late 50’s, on a compilation and liked her immediately.  Her voice was sweet yet her manner sophisticated, her versions of familiar standards always seemed fresh and original. 

 

Maybe it was the glasses but she always struck me as a smart cookie, more independent and self determining than her contemporaries.  Unlike the satin dolls who fronted orchestras, Dearie always seemed to me as being like Judy Garland in the after hours scene  in A Star Is Born, a singer who was down with the boys in the band, not a remote glamour girl but a fellow traveler.  She was not only a vocalist but also a pianist and songwriter, but in 1974 she formed her own label, Daffodil Records. 

 

As I mentioned, Lux Interior and Blossom Dearie were very different kinds of  musicians, but both of them spoke to me and enriched my life through their work and I wanted to make a note of their passins. 

Ten years ago, on October 12, 1998 a twenty one-year-old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard died after several days in a coma following a brutal attack.    An investigation was launched, arrests were made and it was revealed that the motivation for murder was Shepard’s homosexuality.  There was, of course, more to it than that.  There were other factors-- class, personality, opportunity, anger, and intoxication—but in the final analysis Matthew Shepard was killed primarily because he was gay.  His murder is classified as a hate crime, the ultimate violation of another person’s civil and human right. 

 

It was a shocking case.  The powerful image of a fragile young man tied to a fence in the freezing night found their way into the collective psyche, entered popular iconography like a modern day variation on a Saint’s suffering.  As with the 1993 death of transman Brandon Teena, Shepard’s death made a tremendous impact as far as making people aware of violence against gays, lesbians and trans-persons.   Unfortunately there have been many shocking cases since. 

 

To name just one, on earlier this year 15-year-old Eight grader Lawrence King was shot and killed in Oxnard, CA after he confused his feelings to a male classmate. 

 

This tragedy was widely publicized but there are many other that have received less attention.    

 

I recently read on Questioning Transphobia: 

“Trans people are 16 times more likely to be murdered than the general population, and 1-2 trans people are murdered every month. So far, the TDOR (Transgender day of Rememberance) website lists 18 names:

Kellie Telesford, Brian McGlothlin, Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz, Patrick Murphy, Adolphus Simmons, Phaedra, Ashley Sweeney, Sanesha Stewart, Lawrence King, Simmie Williams Jr., Luna, Lloyd Nixon, Felicia Melton-Smyth, Silvana Berisha, Ebony Whitaker, Rosa Pazos, Angie Zapata, and Jaylynn L. Namauu.

Names not yet added to the list include Ruby Molina and Nikki Williams.”

Ten years after Matthew Shepard’s death hate crime and tragedy continues.  Gay, straight, bi, inter, trans, cis, or other we all need to make ourselves aware of this reality.  Just as there are people who say that sexism and racism do not exist there are people who say that people of all sexual orientations are fully accepted and should just chill out.  Unfortunately, we haven’t reached that place yet and it’s still necessary to advocate for right of GLBT persons including the right to exist.  

If anyone is interested, I’ve uploaded an MP3 compilation I found of songs about and inspired by Matthew Shepard.  It’s a RAR file located at the link (change xx to tt): hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?mnmtlj1e2oo

Tracklisting
1.      Melissa Etheridge- Scarecrow
2.      Elton John- American Triangle
3.      Cyndi Laupter- Above The Clouds
4.      Randi Drisoll- What Matters
5.      The Ship Will Sink- Dear Matthew
6.      Good Riddance- Cheyenne
7.      Thursday- M. Shepard
8.      The Suicide File- Laramie
9.      Protest the Hero- Fear and Loathing in Laramie
10.  Trivium- And Sadness Will Sear
11.  Sage Francis- That Ain’t Right
12.  Peter, Paul and Mary- Jesus Is on the Wire
13.  Jessica Weiser- After the Rain
14.  Tori Amos- Merman
15.  Amy Ray- Laramie
Bonus track: Chumbawamba- Homophobia

I’ve been reading Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, which is essentially a biblical style mythology/history of Middle Earth.   It’s proving slow going on account of all the unfamiliar words—names of characters, races, and places.  Because of my learning disability I’ve never been able to “sound things out.”  Since I can’t do this my method of reading is based around recognizing common words and patterns of letters.  Words that I haven’t encounter before are pretty much lost on me so I have to repeatedly go back to figure out exactly what or who is being referred to. 

 

Not surprisingly I find myself being distracted by books that are, simply, easier to read. 

 

Last week I polished off A Ruby in the Smoke and A Shadow in the North, the first two (of four) Sally Lockhart Mysteries by notorious corruptor of children and enemy of the faithful Phillip Pullman (I’ll get into that in a later post).  While this series isn’t quite on the same level as Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy it was quite enjoyable.  They’re atmosphere heavy Victorian thrillers with plucky orphans, smart mouthed office boys, opium dens, illusionists, evil industrialists (Blake supposedly is a great influence of Pullman’s and I can tell when he describes the dark satanic mills of a factory  that makes weapons in A Shadow in the North) and murderers who go around cutting people’s throats.  They have well drawn characters and a bit of wry satire and social commentary thrown in as well. 

 

My holiday weekend reading was Laurie Lindeen’s memoir Petal Pusher, which recounts her days as a member of the early 1990’s all-girl indie band Zuzu’s Petals.  I was actually a fan of Zuzu’s Petals back in the day.  I still have a cassette of their first album “When No One’s Looking” kicking around somewhere and I’ll occasionally find myself quoting random snatches of their lyrics “God calls on the telephone, she has a temper…”  “Wish I may, wish I might find what I’m wishing for…” “Cinderella, you’re dreaming.  Wake up your conscience is screaming…” “Aye carrumba and I surrender and I guess it’s got something to do with my gender…”  So when I stumbled upon Petal Pusher at the Bucktown library I couldn’t believe my luck. 

 

Reading the cover blurb, I was rather shocked to learn that Lindeen has multiple sclerosis, a disease that I find especially baffling and frightening.  Also that she’s married to Westerberg from the Replacements which doesn’t mean a lot to me.  I was obsessive about indie and punk rock for many years but I only ever paid attention to the women.  As a result I’m intimately familiar with many obscure bands while there are Gods and giants I’ve never listened to.

 

Excited as I was to read Petal Pusher I ended up having pretty mixed feelings about the book.  It seemed sort of sloppily written, jumping between past, present and future through a sort of free-association that I couldn’t always follow.  Also it seemed like there were huge areas of her life Lindeen really didn’t want to go into.  Having MS was something she repeatedly states she didn’t want to think about and therefore seems to sort of side step the subject of living with her disease in favor of a lot of antidotes about life on the road and gossip about the Madison, WI and Minneapolis, MI rock scenes that seem sort of petty in comparison.  There were some good bits but overall I never got a sense that being a musician or a member of Zuzu’s Petals was something that was fulfilling to her and I honestly found myself wondering why she bothered.  I was kind of disappointed.

 

I found myself really disturbed by the section of the memoir where Lindeen describes having an abortion, particularly at the end of the scene where she writes about being picked up by her band mate who will be in the same situation in a few months.  Part of what bothers me is knowing that these are educated women in their late 20’s.  It seems like there are so many options available to them that they shouldn’t have to be having abortions.  Because as much as I support legalized abortion and the right to choice I’ve never been able to go along with the “it’s just a piece of tissue” argument.  I hate the idea of anyone having to go through something like that…  Maybe I’m just particularly sensitive about this issue right now because last week I gave a co-worker, a 20-year old girl, a ride and somehow she ended up telling me about how she’d had an abortion in June.  She works in a supermarket, lives with her parents, has taken a couple of college classes… It’s almost like Sophie’s Choice, you can have a child or you can have a future.  No one should have to make that kind of a decision.    

 

I never want to be in a position where I have to make that choice.  I’ve never been pregnant and if I can help it I’m never going to be. When I was with my ex-boyfriend I remember it was an area of contention between us that I used birth-control.  He was Catholic (though obviously selective in his morality as he was divorced and had two children by a woman he had never been married too, plus having non-marital sex with me plus being a liar) and considered it wrong that I was on the pill.  He was always telling me I was neurotic and that he’d never known any women who were as uptight about using birth control as I was.  He may have been partially right.  I have a lot of issues regarding bodily integrity and view becoming pregnant in a sort of David Cronenbergian manner.  Still, I don’t really see how it’s possible not to take something like birth control really seriously considering the consequences.  I know I can’t be a mother, I simply don’t have the resources emotionally or financially and the idea of having an abortion just seems very devastating to me. 

For someone who’s supposed to be watching their spending I’ve gone to way too many movies over the past couple days.  Eastern Promises on Thursday then on Sunday after I finished work on a whim I rode my bike to Landmark Century Cinema and caught a showing of Across the Universe.

 

Across the Universe is a musical about the 1960’s where the characters sing Beatles songs.  It’s gotten horrible reviews and the preview I saw several weeks ago kind of made me wince.  Still, I wanted to see it because I consider director Julie Taymor an audacious and original talent and I’ve really enjoyed her previous films Frida and Titus.  Plus I have a secret love of musicals. 

( Cut for spoilers )

I found this amazing, primitive video the Slits (one of my favorite early punk grrl groups) did for their song "Typical Girl".   Seeing this I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to listen to X-Ray Specs and early Siouxsie and the Banshees albums (Join Hands, Juju) as well.  The anarchic British punk movement of the late 70's was both sexually and racially integrated to an uncommon degree-- bands mixed straight and gay , male and female, black and white players.  Of course it wasn't a lefty utopia by any means.  Siouxsie Sioux  wore a swastika, the Sex Pistols sang "Belsen was a Gas", and there was ugliness and stupidity a plenty which really isn't surprising given that most of the participants were drunk, high, and under 20 years old.