Grammy. (The Award, Not the Relative.)

Music makes me breathe.

Good music, bad music, popular music, unpopular music, exterior music, interior music, the soundtrack-to-my-memory music... it's all there, all the time. It's all there, in my head - painting a kind of picture for me. Be it good or bad... certain chords, certain voices, they make me remember the past. They make me not forget the present. They make me believe in a future.

I think in music. It's weird.

Oh, and for the record, I am currently watching The Grammy's, and can I just say... Quentin Tarantino looks like an overly-botoxed sixty-something-year-old woman, and his stylist should have told him not to wear that polka dot shirt. Are you kidding me, QT? Yikes.

Anyway.

Music.

I don't discriminate.

I especially don't discriminate against live music.

(Dear Grammy's, I don't appreciate the one-minute censorship because of one word that probably lasted 3 seconds. Thanks.)

There's something about watching people perform, create, establish, inspire, react, express - all before they've had time to be critiqued, reigned in, contacted. Just watch the faces of the people who watch live music, the faces of the people who perform live music; it's like nothing else. It's like watching an idea spark, slumber, glow and ignite. It's passion, in sight.

The first band I ever saw live: The Wallflowers. Yep. I know. The Wallflowers. "One Headlight" Wallflowers. Ha. It was at Lupo's, and it was amazing. Because it was the first. The first time I saw people play music I had previously associated with radio speakers. The first time. I stood in the center of the floor, with the band in sight. I watched it all happen, and I was hooked.

Second band I ever saw live: The Cardigans. Also at Lupo's. "Kiss Me" was really big at the time. It was a great show. It cost me like, twelve dollars, and I had the time of my life.

Those were the days...

The rest of my live music education is a blur. One band after the other... the closer, the better; the louder, the better; the more, the merrier. Records, tapes, bands, road trips, t-shirts, photographs... Yes. Yes. Yes.

I think part of the reason I became so obsessed with indie/emo/punk rock when I was younger - mere months after the two first shows - was because there were shows I could see without purchasing a ticket in advance, without having a plan, without even considering the possibility of a "sell out." They existed. And the music was fun. And the community felt like family. They were family.

I was inspired by local music because it was accessible, enjoyable, intriguing, and - above all - it gave me that sped-up heartbeat. It gave me that warmth in my palms; that skip in my step. It gave me happy. It gave me community. It gave me a heartbeat. It gave me a story to tell.

And now, more than ever before, I can feel myself longing for that; that community, that life, that inspiration.

But I don't think it's possible anymore. I feel like the girl who's seen it all, but seen nothing; the girl who's been everywhere, but who has been nowhere.

I want my music. I want to embrace it, cradle it, hold it, and think of nothing else.

Except maybe you.

The Reeling

Recently, I found myself at a Passion Pit show in Boston at the House of Blues. My friends and I managed to find a relatively close and uncrowded spot to the left of the stage, where we could see pretty clearly, sing loudly, and dance around like the idiots that we are. It was an awesome show.

What surprised me most was that a large part of the Passion Pit fan base was made up of - let me just put on my white wig, prepare yourself for judgment - jockish, meathead, fist-pumping, Ed Hardy wearing douches. Yeah. I said it.

And, anther large part of their fan base was made up of the kind of chicks one would assume jockish, meathead, fist-pumping, Ed Hardy wearing douches would be into.

Then there was the other third of the crowd that was made up of try-hard hipsters, with skinny jeans that undoubtedly cut off some circulation to someplace relatively vital (boys, I'm talkin' about you here... is that really comfortable?!) and lots and lots of hair and flannel.

This portion of the crowd I had anticipated. I did not anticipate the other two-thirds: The bros and hos.

So, from our location to the upper left-hand side of the stage, and up on a higher level than the floor itself, I could see a lot of the crowd. It was kind of surreal... watching a wave of people moving, singing, chanting... fist pumping.

Part of what I love about seeing a show is screaming every word to a song and feeling the energy of every single person singing that exact same song with the exact same force behind their voice. The force of believing, of near-worship, of adoration.

At one point during the show, during the song "The Reeling," I looked out over the crowd, moving, throbbing like a heart beat, and realized that every single person - Ed Hardy wearing douches, half-clothed hotties trying to make out with the Ed Hardy wearing douches, and skinny jeaned, flannel-clad androgynous hipsters - was singing along to the words with an emphasis that awed me. The sound of the crowd was louder than during any other song. Mouths moved in unison, hands waved, grabbed, pumped - reaching, begging for the stage. Together, we sang:

Look at me oh look at me is this the way I'll always be
Oh no, oh no
Now I pray that somebody will quickly come and kidnap me
Oh no, oh no
Everyday I lie awake and pray to god today's the day
Oh no, oh no Here I am oh here I am oh when will someone understand?
Oh no, oh no

In that moment, it was more than just singing along to a song; it was a lesson. We all feel misunderstood. All of us. Even the people who wear their confidence on their sleeves, literally. I'm not judging them on their attire by accident; they're asking me to.

But, at that moment, at that show, it became a little more clear to me that really it's just the clothes. We're all the same - confused, unsure, and trying to find our identities through whatever form of self-expression we can muster - music, clothes, and general camaraderie with people who understand exactly that.

Mix Me Another One and Say Goodbye

Music is foreplay.

At least, that's what my education as a mix tape maker/receiver tells me. Haven't you ever seen High Fidelity? (If not, do.) It's all about the tape. It's all about how you get someone else to melody, poeticize, lyricize your way into the receiver's listening heart. I mean, don't get me wrong, some mix tapes are purely platonic exemplifications of whatever awesome music you feel like sharing with another person who may also appreciate said music. But other mix tapes... other mix tapes are foreplay.

Those mix tapes are collections of jumbled up musical emotions, a playlist of well-chosen, well-spoken words set to well-timed, well-written music; they are wrought with emotion that the maker feels, has felt, or intends to feel with, for or about the person who is on the receiving end of the tape.

Mix tapes of that variety are foreplay.

I recently excommunicated someone very important from my life. I didn't see it coming, which made the decision simultaneously difficult and necessary. See, I have a general rule about people who I make time for in my life - be that emotional time, physical time, mental time, whatever - and that rule is: Don't hurt me.

This person broke the rule. So. I had to be ruthless. I had to eliminate the chance that this person would hurt me again in the future. And, it's not easy. It wasn't easy. It's not easy to extract someone you love from other things you love and know to be normal, comfortable, hopeful, and enjoyable. It's not easy to pretend like someone does not exist purely for one's own self-preservation. It's especially hard for me, because I tend to put others before myself. And, he needs a friend. I know that. I just can't be that friend to him anymore.

Christmas occurred prior to this friend departure, and he gifted me a very thoughtful, very generous gift: An iTouch. He also most graciously loaded a total of 112 albums onto the iTouch that he thought I would like. Some were familiar, and carried a lot of emotional weight between us. American Football's self-titled album, Jimmy Eat World's "Clarity," and The Promise Ring's "30 Degrees Everywhere," to name a few. Others, however, I hadn't ever heard.

It was an 8GB mix tape.

But, it turns out, it wasn't foreplay. It was an epilogue.

Recently, after a few weeks of listening to the music that I know I love on the now-called "Epilogue Mix," I began to explore the other, unfamiliar artists that he had uploaded.

Des Ark was the first one. (I'm moving in alphabetical order, see.)

Since the first chord, since the first twang of her voice, since the first second, I have been utterly obsessed. One song, in particular, on one album, in particular, has been on repeat so many times that if it were, in fact, a tape, this part would be worn through, sounding especially scratchy and well-loved.

At this moment, with these feelings about this one person, who took up ten years of my loving life, and who loves someone else now, I can honestly say that if there could only be one song on my mix tape, this might be it.

Lord Of The Ring

I never met a chase that I could not catch
Never fallen in love & not been bored with it.
I never asked a lover for their help
You learn better when you're always
Picking lovers who can't help themselves.

& I don't wanna try so hard anymore,
I don't want a fucking lover who makes me feel like a failure.
It ain't about the saints that we shoulda been
What is done is done, I'm heartbroken,
& I'm dealing with it.

Oh it feels good to be used when you're using.
Oh it feels good to be used when you're using.
Oh it feels good to be used when you're using.

It's a given that you love her
But what would you think
If you fucked her & she cried
"Your love is poisoning me"
Which is exactly what i meant when i said it
Say, the only way I know to say I Love You anymore,
Is to let you go.

So. There you have it.

The epilogue. Who knew it'd be sweeter than the decade it's meant to summarize? Not me.

PS I tried to find the track online so you could hear it, but I can't. Take my word for it, eh? It's fucking amazing. Acoustic. Recorded live.

Once In A Lifetime

Approximately fifteen years ago, after my parent's divorce, my dad lived in an apartment in Cambridge; it had a television, but no cable, so my sister and I typically chose to watch videos from the collection that my dad and his girlfriend had accumulated over the years. Amidst the collection was the Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" video - the one in which David Byrne prances around in an enormous suit.

I loved it. Loved.

And, before the words even meant anything to me, there I was, chanting along with the illustrious, talented Mr. Byrne:

You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground

You may ask yourself
How do I work this?
You may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
You may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
You may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

...

Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...

And, now, I do wonder often, "How did I get here?"

Other times, as I go through the motions of each day with the routine function of a screen door, I hear a little voice in the back of my head say, "Same as it ever was.."

Not much has changed, huh? I was once a twelve year old girl, legs crossed, sitting on the floor in front of a television cart, shoulders bouncing, singing along to "Once In A Lifetime." And, though I couldn't have known then what I know now - that things change when one considers the beauty of aging, progressing, making mistakes and learning from them - I didn't even question what the words meant. Not once. Not even once in the past fifteen years since Talking Heads became part of my listening rotation.

How did I get here?

Tonight, I'm wondering about a certain "here." Tonight, "here" is here: I'm in my bedroom, eating a mini box of Russell Stover's Valentine's Day chocolates, which I purchased for myself while buying carpet cleaner, crackers, and dog food at Target, and I'm watching my favorite quarter-life-crisis movie, Reality Bites.

Right now, it's reached my least favorite part of the movie - the part where Winona Ryder and Ben Stiller share a Big Gulp and sit on the back end of his convertible after their date.

I hate this part of the movie for two reasons.

First, Peter fucking Frampton is playing on the car stereo. "Oh baby I love your way..." (wretch) I hate Peter Frampton.

Secondly, the conversation between the two characters is painful. And it pisses me off because I think that's... forgive the overt parallelism... reality.

I'm sure I've sounded exactly that way before. You know... the way you sound you make when you're laughing way too hard at a joke that's not really that funny, just because it's the one way you can let go of that nervous ball of energy that's been building up in your chest the whole time you've been talking to the person you want to make out with. And when you laugh, you reach your hand out, touching the other person briefly to emphasize just how funny you think they are, and just how badly you want to touch them.

Or is that just me?

Anyway. It's nothing you want to see on screen. But, that could be what this movie is all about, and it might be why I love it. Because in this movie, people lose their jobs, people have jobs they hate and friends they love, people need, hurt, fight and fall in love. And they don't fall in love with the people who are "right," they fall in love with the people who might be wrong, but feel right... the people who might not have the perfect job, money in the bank, or any general success.

And for some reason, that's inspiring to me.

Someday, it won't be the same as it ever was. And, someday, I will be able to articulate how it was that I got somewhere.

And someday, someone else will buy the Valentine's Day chocolates.

Coconut M&M's Are All the Rage

So, today, Jesstie & I went to the nearby "Lucky Grocery" to purchase some breakfast accoutrement.

"Lucky Grocery" is the "grocery" store across the street from "Mark's Beverage" on County Street in New Bedford, both of which happen to be ridiculously close to my house - more so than any other grocery store or liquor store. Except, in all fairness,"Mark's Beverage" is really more of a "packie" and less of a liquor store and "Lucky Grocery" is really more of a convenience store with three baskets containing some emaciated produce (onions, potatoes, garlic).

I'll paint the packie picture for you: "Mark's Beverage" puts red wines in the cooler (and some on the shelf), has chilled white wine of one variety - Cook's sparkling. In general, "Mark's Beverage" has more malt beverages than anything else; their selection of forty ounce bottles cannot be rivaled, they put your purchases in black plastic bags, and their sign proclaims that they have the "coldest beer in town."

So, "Mark's Beverage" is owned by a nice Indian man who, after the second time I went in there, told me he never needed to see my ID again, that he'd remember me after seeing me once. Very nice. Pretty sure his name isn't Mark.

"Lucky Grocery," which is directly across the street, is also owned by a nice Indian man. Despite the plethora of discount food brands and the fact that the only bacon product they sold was labeled "Economy Grade!" as if it were something to be excited about, I was pretty satisfied with "Lucky Grocery."

I selected some Wonder "stoneground" wheat bread and some Gaspar's linguica (side note: my spell check really wants "linguica" to be "linguistic") and then, as I was waiting for the nice Indian man to ring me up, Coconut M&M's caught my eye. Intrigued, Jesstie & I decided to try 'em. No, not for breakfast. Breakfast was a ridiculously delicious linguica and cheese omelet with wheat toast and dark roast coffee. Coconut M&M's didn't make an appearance at all during the course of my day, actually.

But, in passing, I did mention the Coconut M&M's to a woman I work with. It started with a candy conversation, and ended with me saying, very nonchalantly, "You know what I saw today? Coconut M&M's. So weird, right?" to which she responded, mouth gaping, arms flailing, "What? You found them!? Did you buy any? Where'd you get 'em?!"

I was, needless to say, quite surprised by her reaction. First, I laughed pretty sincerely, imagining her storming "Lucky Grocery" and the nice, reserved Indian man behind the counter, her mouth wide and drooling, her arms outstretched, chanting "Coconut M&M's!" (Okay, so I totally pictured a Coconut M&M's eating zombie version of my friend.)

Anyway, after I rid myself of that visual, I asked why it was such a big deal. Well, apparently she's been dying to try them and can't find them anywhere... and she's been looking. A lot. (She is somewhat of a Coconut M&M's eating zombie after all.)

Now, really, the point of this post is not that you should or shouldn't try Coconut M&M's. The point of this post is this:

Sometimes you don't realize how valuable the things in your life are until you find out how badly someone else wants them. And, sometimes, it makes you appreciate them more. Other times - like this time - it makes you want to share what you've got, because you know someone else might appreciate it more.

I'll be bringing my friend the bag of Coconut M&M's tomorrow. Maybe I'll stop in to "Lucky Grocery" and buy her a few more before I do...

Finnegan Begin Again

When I was a kid, there was a song on some sing-along-song tape I had about "Michael Finnegan," and what I remember from this song is this: "There was a man named Michael Finnegan, he grew fat and then grew thin again, (something something something) poor old Micheal Finnegan, begin again," which then brought the song through another round of poor old Michael Finnegan's ups and downs, wishes and woes. (Of course, you have to say "again" as "a-ghin" not "a-gahn" so that it rhymes with Finnegan. Just so you know.)

Anyway. Here I am, about to write a post about beginning school again (ahem... a-ghin) and all I can think of is Michael Finnegan. So... I had to share.

This beginning that I'm embarking upon is the beginning of the end of my graduate school experience. My last semester. My thesis-writing semester. My semester of growing up. My semester pre-wicked-serious-overseas-internship. My semester of seriousness.

And what do I have to say about it? Finnegan begin again. That's what I have to say.

I don't know if this means that I'm awesome, or if it means my brain works in mysterious and completely arbitrary ways and will forever lead me to points of irrelevance instead of points of profound introspection. Like, the synapse maps in my brain go from, "I'm starting my last semester of grad school," to "Poor old Michael Finnegan," which I last sang while riding in the back seat of my dad's cranberry colored Volvo station wagon with tan leather interior.

The same Volvo station wagon that we got into an accident in on Christmas; my cousin Ethan got a bloody nose and the woman who's house we called the police from gave me a candy cane, which I promptly hid between her couch cushions because taking candy from strangers was wrong.

Wait - ask me what I learned during my Baroque class in undergrad. I don't fucking know. Ask me what year something was painted, or what artist painted what, or what movement came before what movement and where it originated. (All of which an art history major should know.) I have no memory of learning it. None.

But I remember the smell of the kiln in the basement of May Hall, where I had all my classes. I remember the sound of the printing press when we ran through a woodcut. I remember the smell of wood being carved, cut... metal being cast... paper mache drying. I remember the long days I spent masking slides on a light table, the warmth of the sun bleeding through the windows of the slide library, my eyes watering, my callous throbbing from gripping the X-acto knife. I remember the feeling of the wide wooden banister that my hand hugged as I flung myself down the stairs from third to first floor every day at 4:30, the hope of a mild-mannered evening commute making my feet move faster than they should have.

My brain is weird.

Been There, Scene That

Hey, let's make a scene!

Way back when, in the days when the Massachusetts/New England punk/indie/emo music scene wasn't concentrated in and around the city of Boston like it is now, there was a website called Just Another Scene. On this site, you could find every single VFW, Knights of Columbus, church basement, house, club, cafe, whatever/wherever show in the New England area, listed by date.

It was awesome.

At any moment, you could get on the JAS site and see who and what was where and then just go. Go to JAS, take six bucks and a brief car ride, arrive at a show, hear some music. It's not like that anymore... not even close. Now, in the city it's all about Ticketmaster, thirty bucks, and bunches of people who go to shows for hipster credit.

Locally, there is music, but bands always have to play in bars, so the scene becomes more about which bar has which band and which beer and which drink specials. And the schedules are set in stone, with certain bands on certain nights, because that's where bar business comes from: Consistency. And, don't get me wrong, I got love for the locals, but what about touring bands? What about new local bands? No Problemo might be the only place where "other" bands play, and bravo to the boys at NP for pullin' that off. And, Pour Farm will occasionally book different stuff, too.

I just...

I just I want my old scene back. (Pouts. Stamps feet. Crosses arms.)

New Bedford needs a legit show space. New Bedford needs a scene, 'cause it's got the makings of the old school NB music scene - bands and venues. But, they're not cohesive anymore. They don't co-exist anymore. Not since the competition of liquor sales began fueling our so-called scene, and it's a shame that that has to be the factor.

Viva la scene revolucion. Let's get it together, kids.

Bad, Bad Blogger

Well. I've slacked. Seriously slacked. And, in an effort to catch everyone up on what has happened during my blogging absence, I've decided to go visual. Here you are, readers. This is why I haven't blogged, what I've been doing instead of blogging, and what I would have blogged about had I actually done so. I'll write soon, I swear.