Beautiful Friday in Baltimore

For my birthday when I turned 16 my mom dropped off a carfull of me and my friends at some random pad on St. Pauls St in Bmore for a show featuring S.Q.U.I.D. They were formerly Mustard Seed Magic and truly, when I write that I still get a little magic tingle in me that reminds me of sandalwood and vintage stores and Eastern Ave. We got in trouble that night with mom and didn't open our mouths the rest of the drive home because we smelled like beer and weed, even though between the four or five of us there probably was only a six pack and a pinner or two that got finished. But o god that night, the punk rock Xerox's stapled all over the lightpoles, my purple doc martens, all that music that matched the city streets and I remember feeling so cool. But being tough about. It was Baltimore, anarchy dreams, riot grrrl zines, DIY. I mean c'mon, it's way not cool to talk about being cool.

This Friday I have a date with me. I am so stoked about it, Beautiful Friday. I used to do those back in college, my senior year, that first year I was getting clean. I lived upstairs from Amy in CHestertown and sometimes she wouldn't have heat, or electric, and her and her baby would come up and I would feed them on my then-vegetarian-diet of whole grain noodles apples and kale. And blue cheese cuz that's what Amy liked. And since that's what it was, me and Amy trying to stay clean and me and Amy helping each other with that, and also me trying to finish college, and work two jobs all at once, when I read the idea that year about dating me it made real good sense. So that's what I did, and I started calling it Beautiful Fridays and it was the day that was to me, for me, and only me. I guess because back then I didn't have have class on Friday and I remember that I didn't have to work at the coffee shop on Fridays, either. Just Pussers on Friday night, if they needed me/there was money to be made.

So everything superfreakincool that could possibly happen is happening this Friday and I am no longer too cool to talk about it or pretend like I dont care. I am so excited! Me and me, on a date doing way rad free stuff in the city which is my home. Making me not only on my way for a date with me, but with Baltimore, too:

The whole thing started with exhilarated cartwheels over learning about Puss Fust, an all girls exhibition at a gallery called Open Space. But I emailed them to get their hours and found out that they've already started to uninstall. Which would be, or actually still is, a serious bummer except for by the time I'd settled on Beautiful Friday this week I was so glittergoldenbowsin myhairexcited that I couldn't turn back, and so am equally stoked to go instead to the John Waters photo exhibit at C. Grimaldi's. If for some reason you are too un-kitschy or devoid of trashisness and therefor perhaps rather boring, and you dont know who John Waters is, please kindly go here. (Ehem, Sammy.) Then there is the tough choice between this screening at The Patterson, and this reading at Atomic Bookstore. Whaaaaaaa?

I can't even imagine what this beautiful date of mine will choose. What will she wear? I wonder if she'll like me?

I must say, I am looking wildly forward to finding out.

Shampoo My Planet & call me X

You know, it's late and I put in over 10 hours today and have to be back it at 8 tmrw. But I've been up blog rolling and living in the cyber dream of future days when I have my little shack & it's all tribe and art and self-education and off the books schooling of new generations of tribe and calling and new fearless ethics and Poetry as Real Work and so on and yea, it's late, and this little river, and, well you know...I could go on and on.

Anyway. Serendipity!? I got in to all this meat on Friday in my memoir, wrote for 5 and a half hours at the Panera, then took a break for dinner and convo for about an hour and a half, then got back to it, writing til well past midnite. I was writing a lot about the 90's, riot grl, coming up, tribes, death, the duende, imagnation and it's doomed demise.

Read this post! Yes! Not so much for the Pumpkins myself, but damned if Friday I didn't spend an hour in urging longing wistfullness over the first Lolla, & Janes Addiction, 1991....

MUSE-IC makes me feel good, like me

I saw this unreal show last week. Elizabeth and the Catapult. My friend Jeff invited me. It happened at a venue that I can walk to from work--the coffee shop where I love to do my writing! Jeff's wife Susan is the reason I am a writer and now Jeff is the reason that I am amped for live music again.

Nite Cat's been redone to fit about 40 to 50 people in it's back room and Mangold Entertainment who books for Peir Six and Rams Head is bringing in the music. They added a corner stage, heightened the ceiling so that the timber frame is now exposed and painted it black. I am not one to know about acoustics and the effect that building aesthetics have on sound, but if I were I'd figure that the reason for the change. That, and it looks cool.

So, the band. At one point I looked around the room and thought, this must be what it was like when people saw Jenny Lewis play for the first time. Elizabeth's vocals and presence are both that good and the band, musically, is just the right trippy blend of circusy sound and entertainment, and raw but cohesive beauty that vacates the center of my heart in a hot breathy way and makes my blood run funny and fast, so that the swell just makes me move or cry with joy. God-damn did I come back in to me that night, it was the end of a long day of intake, end of an even longer week--and I'd been trippin that day a little over having to make some big decisions and so almost backed out of our plans. Next thing I knew tho there I was listening to the opener this singer/songwriter guy with great long folky lyrics and funny stories about his granpaw and a voice that actually sounded better without the mic. That part of me, the poetry in the middle of the night the mamamoon star earth worshiper who speaks and believes in the ancient tongue, in live fires and barefeet, in six or seven people sleepy in my kitchen for pancakes still punchdrunk with wildeyes, that inner spiral me lit up in a way it hasn't all year, and seriously, like I said, my breath quickened.

The only other time that happened this summer was when Brooks played me his solo stuff on his Ipod.

By the time Elizabeth, whose head from behind the piano and under her fedora kept bobbing up and down like a muppet at the end of the show when the grand performance in the big hall came on, and who also had the widest sexiest smiling eyes that closed and opened just right the kind with a secret and laughter in there, started really singing that fabulous loud voice smooth as the curve of quiet night sky, the words came to me and the poetry was all bubbling up and I was, a couple times, so touched I was laughing out loud.

Ahhh, muse-ic. What you do to my soul.

The next night I wondered back in, just to see if anything was happening... And got to watch Charlotte Martin perform. She was good, a lot like Tori Amos which I admire the beauty and talent of but not enough to listen to multiple songs in one sitting cuz they just start to sound the same. I was happy I went tho, it was a great way to spend Friday night and at one point she asked the audience who there was from Easton or the general area and only me and two other guys raised our hands. It was packed house. I was impressed. The guy that opened for her, Matt Duke, was equally good in an intense I just pricked my finger on a stickerbush kinda way and it hurts and I dont want to look but have to...He disturbed me but made me laugh too, the best thing he did was cover you are my sunshine which makes me think he's tender and actually hasn't found his comfortability with this, yet? I'd see him again if he headlined.

I'm going on vacation tomorrow for 10 whole, sweet clean days!!!! I am seeing three shows, too, at least...! I'm thinking a lot about when I was little and used to dance in my tights in the driveway to the boombox Lisa Lisa or Prince or Miami Sound Machine, then in middle school at the sock hops on Friday afternoon god how good was Rob Base!? and then later still when I was teenagy and pissy and would throw myself brutally in to the middle of the pits at the old firehall shows. Fishkiss Mustard Seed Magic or S.Q.U.I.D VRKOLAKA (i looooved the drummer!) of course the PeeTanks, too. Sonic Youth at Michael's. The Beasties too many times to count. The HFStivle when it was only $6 for ten or 12 bands!? Getting Veruca Salt's autograph when they played the second stage. Stars in my eyes....Flannel shirts and Doc Martens.

What it's like in the winter to stay long up late, with poetry and paints and witching hour muse-ic all fluent and braided and what I have in common with the most eternal space.

It's Wednesday in October in Choptank, I've been up on and off since 2am. The fog is lifting, there is a great pale blue sky coming on the West horizon. I have 24 days left here. I am alive, shining.

Change's gonna come...!

Thank you life & of course holy amen.

I lay me down

I used to call them babyfaces. Not so they'd hear me, but in my head lived a slew of them: I could let their names drop out of my mouth easily and endlessly as falling rain. And with the girls I sometimes would. They all, punk rock or thugged out or beach hood, had one thing in common: a bright, boyish face and that light in their eyes.

I wanted to, want to, save every one of them. These boys, these sweet angelheaded boys I want to save and will by any means necessary. I will save them by taking them to my bed. I will save them by taking them to my mom's table, or late late in the night in through the back siding glass door.

I will save them loud and quiet, I will save them when they show up sweet and I will save them when they dont show up at all and forget to call. I will save them a million nights, and a million different mornings. I will save them best when they come with the weeds and so drunk that they're part crying but cant even tell.

When did this happen? When did I trade my purple boots and flannel shouts for dubsacs and dime bags, blunts and nickel hits a coke? When did I rush to trade me in to save nightmares posed as a dream?

Today there were three of them. I forgot, I'd long forgot, that they used to be my means. Why tonight, why tonight to come back to me? I had to doublelook at the birthdates, they looked SO young, the sparkling freshface, sweet skin and shiny eyes. One continues to put Miss before my name even though I tell them all, call me Kelly. How could two of them already a been locked up? Already done time? Sweet little babyfaces not one a day over 19.

They want to get their GED's. Two will by July, the other, if he sticks around and doesn't go back to jail, could by the end of the year. Why tonight?

Because one of them I know he doesn't get it, and I have to tell him, cuz if I dont no one else will. And then it's back, it's all back because the I inside that I kept tucked away deep has been blending in lately with the Me that I used to be, and together this dynasty of I's and Me's are surfacing and merging and growing out again not from how I used to be but comfortably as one now within the whole of Who I Am.

So I tell him. Look, maybe no one's ever told you this before but these scores you got tonight, it takes someone special to come in off the streets and do this well, I want you to know how much potential you've got, I want you to seriously think about what you've always secretly thought of doing in your life. I want you to think about it and meet with me again on Wednesday so we can talk more.

Then, to get his attention, I lean back and say you know why I think most young people drop out of high school?

And he stops looking at his shoes and looks up with a twinkle in his eye, why? Cuz their too smart for high school and they're bored. And also they think that it's a waste of time cuz their extracurricular life, you know the one out on the street, is way more real. And they want the real life. They're insulted by how fake school and that whole scene seems.

He smiles wide. Yeah, yeah.

I stop. Sometimes I go on and tell the story about me and my dean the one where three weeks before my high school graduation I chased him around the desk in his office threatening him but luckily Dean Perry liked me, which is exactly what he told me later, and had been telling me for years, and also why he decided to cut me a break. I had just been suspended for skipping a week before. He liked me because in the 9th grade I was making my own zine, or independant magazine, fashioned after the riot grrrl zines that were steady influencing me, my music choices and lifestyle opinions at that time and I was eagerly selling it at school. All the Queens Men was my zine and in addition to it I had several photocopies of Fantastic Fanzine and whatever latest copies of Riot Grrrl I had in my possession. As was the punk rock grass roots way I was giving these zines away to whoever showed mild interest in what they had to say. Some time after lunch one day I got called down to the Dean's Office and I was all quivery inside, flushed and redfaced and ready to launch a defensive attack, and sort of out of control with the frenzy of adrenaline same reaction like I get even to this day. But more, inside what I remember is a staunch and quiet strong feeling of injustice. A simple how can he stop me from distributing these, speech and expression about real life is my right.

The very same real life that can so insidiously make you lose your power. The real life that can without warning or seeming reason slowly shut you up.

Dean Perry condemned me for peddling smut: these were the first days of female musicians using their thrash heavy music to take political stands. Rape, incest, prostitution and freedom of sexuality was all over the pages of both Fantastic Fanzine and Riot Grrrl; by comparison my All the Queen's Men was tellingly more tame. But I stood up for it, I defended it, I stood calm as I could while unfalteringly standing my ground. In the end I was reprimanded for selling goods during school hours. And regardless the hell I would raise and raise from that point on in my good Catholic school, Dean Perry made it clear that he respected me from that day of our very first encounter for my little showing of my own self respect.

That, and he knew I was way too smart for my own good.

When did all that change? All that pride and stalwart conviction in what's right? All that self-respect and belief in me. The grl power and Revolution Grrrl Style Now when did it turn to the men, the men the men the babyboys all wrapped up in tangled meaning in my cusps.

Babyfaces. Babyfaced. With eyes of a fool.

Why tonight? Because why not? Because two years ago this week Kevin finally went to the drugs. My prince, sweet fucking Kevin babyface beachboy love with the sharp sharp jaw. Like my old buddy Konan said when he told me all about it, it was kinda good though, you know? At least his parents didn't have to wait anymore to get the call.

Too fucking smart for our own good.

Because here I am and I didn't even realize it? Still laying my body down. Convinced I can save them all...

Ocean City 1995

Pine trees and riot grrrrls (it's the little things sometimes)

Uuuuuuummmm, yea

So who I'm listening to: Forever

& how it came to be that I'm listening to them: Was perusing various blogs/sites I frequent, happened to be doing so on my work computer--yes, at work!! bc it was 9:30 pm and I still had students testing at the site furthest from my home!! (that's my second 10 hour day of all student intake all day long for whoever's counting i kno i kno cry me a river JT) And most of all I was perusing bc I couldn't dream of doing anymore paper work as the entire side of my face is/was numb with what is, I am only guessing, an ear infection. However said cauliflower of the inner ear did not a'tall disrupt the extra gushgushing of my bloodstream when, on the fine DIY site indiepages.com the most recent music review posted sent me directly to Forever, bc as the reviewer himself posted, he is "a huge fan of the '90s riot grrrl scene" and this band fits, if not the politics of that phenom than at least the sound. Which is super extra fine by me

Pine trees behind the Dunkin Donuts in Denton, where I took my break yesterday. And, where my grammy used to stop inthe middle of our regular icy-kneed drives in her air-conditioned Pontiac from Baltimore to Ocean Pines when I was a wee toehead. Cold knees and the dusty sounds of static and church music and the dusty smell of stale the whole ride. But it used to be the Tastee Freeze back then and all the blue coolant in the world couldn't keep me from ice cream under the pine trees with Gram when I was a girl.

Funny how everything comes back around...

thinkin of ya Gram

Remember the Oregon Dialogue? I Get Esoteric on that Ass...

(skip down to get the esoteric highlights for the next several days!!)
Ahhhh, my dear friends.

Here's where I wax nostalgic and take us a back a mere three years ago to when Brandon and I, freshfaced and PacWest-eyed, returned home from the West Coast and sought to empower the ideals we learned and lived on the road and out there right here on the Eastern Shore, Chestertown, USA.


We began with gathering in our living road at Truslow Road--remember that joyous spot--and eventually created a newsletter around our efforts. Our "efforts" were largely principal-based, concerned with lots of potluck-inspired meetings of the minds. We were educating people, and each other, on environmental stewardship and community building. For me the substance of this always was ethical responsibility first, thus self-knowledge and personal accountability--inner development--were integral to such a movement in my mind. Likewise, the importance of the arts, of self-expression, of inner-reflection through practice of submitting to the impulse itself and then further, sharing one's experience with each another, this all was equal to me in the foundation of community building. Eventually during that time I stumbled on to Starhawk and started reading her stuff--we have a lot of the same viewpoints--(you can read her thoughts on ethics and accountability and earth spirituality here) and also met Regina at LightPaths in Centreville around that time, too. She turned me on to nightlightnews.org, where the author, Risa, gave me permission to disseminate her great esoteric insights. Esoteria to me means the hands-on walking of self-development, in other words utilizing the symbolism in various myths and messagry to apply to your own inner growth. For me, further, it has to do with an autonomous understanding of all things being universal, or divine, of all energies rising and falling and influencing and blending one with the other with the other as the ultimate reality is we are all one energy, blending and surging in chaotic harmony.


The Oregon Dialogue, our short-ran newsletter, and the community gatherings around it evolved in to the oregondialogue emails, where by I would network, invite people to community events, keep people informed of issues, and most of all share my esoteric thoughts at certain opportune, or energetic, times of the year.


Dig it: for those of you first finding yourselves opening up to this tip, let me just tell you, this self-development esoteric trip has been, in a conscious way anyhow, going on about 10 years now for me. It's so common I don't even know any other way to live anymore--like as example I don't even get it anymore that people don't know about Imbolc coming up, or the influence--major!--of Mercury Retro right now. To me it's all so natural a part of my understanding of the oneness of things--of GOD if you will--that it puzzles me to have to remember that to most people this is new, or even not true! information.

So to those with their own wonderings: I Speak To You. It's there, it's real. The transformation, the new consciousness, all of it. It's tough though, it's a step by step you being the change from day to day process. There's no wizard with a magic wand who's gonna appear in your steps all a sudden and tap you on the shoulder and say Hey, It's On!! It's a gradual thing, and we are all here to wake up to it. So if this message is coming to you, good! Welcome! Say yes! Then begin to look, and listen, to within....

Important Esoteric Highlights:
1. Monday was New Moon with a solar eclipse. In terms of inner-development: our sun is our light, think daily awareness. Our moon is our night, think mystery or unconscious, as in sleep with dreams. They come together, the subconscious to block out the regular awareness for a brief, deep jolt. Each voids the other out, then begin again together, having merged, in a dancing and magical blend--starting for you and your soul a whole new spiral of energy and light. Think DNA double helix, vibrating with not yet formed thoughts through-out your whole soul. New moon is new beginning, solar eclipse is new beginning in the physical world--remember--it's "light of day" stuff. So actual real new thoughts, ideas, opportunities etc. What newness came to you? Think about it. Woohoo!

2. Mercury ends its retrograde this weekend. Thank gawd! Hope you made no major decisions the past three weeks (at work we are changing everything!! I've had to try so hard to keep my mouth closed about it, wanting to say ahhhh!!!just wait til were out of Mercury cuz all new information will surface and change everything!!) You've been in deep, almost unconscious soul review. Running over and over those double helixes. Anicha anicha, the nature of everything, changing changing. If your head's been loud that's why. Pay attention to the messages you got. For real.

3. Most important! To me bewitched as I am anyway--Imbolc is Monday. This is the old Druid or pagan holiday of first light, benefactor of the Goddess Brigid who is my patron. Later she was claimed as a St. so if you are more comfortable with Christian symbology this week coming is St. Brigid's day, Saint of the Hearth, of fire, midwifery, and poetry. Any way it's a celebration of the first light of life--of fire, of new idea or passion or spark or creativity. For old agricultural societies it was literally time of first seed when they celebrated with the last food of their Harvest and got ready for the growth of the year to come. Also known as Candlemas, this is really archaic Christian/ancient Judaic (with clear roots in the politics of misogyny evident) in application--where in old earth traditions Brigid venerated passion, arts, fire, life, all things symbolic of fertility and creativity and the natural cycles and gifts we each embody within; Candlemas, or Purification of the Virgin, was a time for new mother's to cleanse through various offerings, including that of sacrificial animals, in order to receive the blessing and cleansing of the priest after the dirtied experience of child-birthing. Ain't mythology a trip!?!? Anyhow,

Two Important things about Imbolc. One)I have, in my own life, learned that these old energies and archtypes behind holidays are real, and if you dig the earth as oneness thing, look back to the Full Moon of January 11. This is the traditional lunar celebration of Imbolc. What new energy, new thoughts, new ideas, new passions were sizzling around in you? I just realized myself that that important moon passed unattended by me. So, retrospective learning it is...consider what new passions your soul shined its first light on for you, what is it that your deep self wants for you to grow? Two) This message from the full moon will revisit you this coming week. Because merc is out of retrograde it will seem like ahhhh fresh air. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR CLARITY. If you experience anger or stuckness in the early week these are old archetypes (see the explanation just above) that you are meant, indeed you were sent here, to heal. Go within. Rebirth, reclaim yourself. Listen. Listen.

4. There is a stellar sooper cool alignment coming up on Valentines's Day. I'm gonna be with my sistas no doubt raising up the power. Read about it here. Or, go put on that cheesemonger song from the old show Hair, This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius...and listen to the words. You know, about the moon in the 7th sign and stuff. Yea. That's what's happening, literally.

5. That's all. No, it's not. One more thing from my soapbox. Ever ask your self just what the hell you're doing here? Like really looked in to your darkness, disheartened, afraid. Well this is the answer. Wake-up to your self. So we can all help all of us people do the same....

What I'm listening to (support independent music people!): The High and Low outta Cincinnati. They remind me a little of when I first realized my riotgrrrrrrl soul....

Now, that's it....enough outta me.