*My Music

OK! Wake up! It's time for you to get turned on to some really good music. Put down that Christina Aguilera! Throw away Hilary Duff! Toss out Britney, Brandy and Justin! Fuck you, Jessica! Country music, you say? What?! You only listen to the radio? Get with it! I present to you My Music, part deux. So I last left off at around age 15, when I was a big-time lo(s)ner whose favorite activities included making out with posters, reading and pretending I was a professional dancer in my parents' garage. The radio was my best friend, and I often played games like Monopoly and Uno by myself. You wouldn't have fucked me, either, would you? Well, things change. My junior year in high school, I got a job and a boyfriend and became an even bigger outcast at school. But, wow!, I grew boobs (finally!) and the longest legs in the universe, got a good hairstyle, lost the glasses and became a Goth bombshell almost overnight. I started smoking and drinking, my grades went from 5 As and 2 Bs each grading period to something hovering around 3 As, a B, a couple Cs and, always, a D or an F. My downward spiral was greased with bands like Guns n' Roses (My dad gave me the Appetite for Destruction tape for Christmas when I was 15 after I begged for it for hours. We would sit on the patio playing backgammon and listening to it. I think he liked it!), the Beastie Boys, Depeche Mode, The Cult (Sonic Temple) and The Cure with, thanks to my new skater buddies, a little Dead Milkmen, Circle Jerks and Minor Threat thrown in. I introduced my high school to Jane's Addiction after I stumbled upon an interesting-looking album cover containing two mannequins with their heads on fire. I had no idea what a Jane's Addiction was at the time, but I learned quickly and ended up seeing the group in concert not long before it split up.

High School Love and Rockets

Jane's Addiction - My two favorite J's A albums

Sex Pistols

Violent Femmes - Spent most of my senior year listening to this one

Pixies - Way cool guitars. Frank Black is a genius!

Concrete Blonde - What was I thinking?

Just after high school I moved out of my parents' house about two weeks after I graduated from high school. My life was so chaotic at this point, I didn't really have time for new music. But, in addition to the above-mentioned bands, here were some of my favorites. I had them all on tape. the Stone Roses

Sugarcubes - The Icelandic band that eventually gave us Bjork. This album is my favorite of theirs.

Around this time or earlier, I started listening to Nine Inch Nails. Somewhere in here came Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam, a one-good-album wonder, in my opinion.

Bjork

Fugazi - I became a HUGE Fugazi fan around this time and had the group's first album on tape. The band, now defunct, hailed from Washington D.C. The lead singer owns the Dischord Records label. I saw the band in concert in Pinellas County and, for a while, became a pen pal with the bass player, Guy. Because of him and his acrobatics on stage (while playing!) I bought a bass guitar and started learning some of the band's songs. They sold concert tickets for $5 and refused to come out with so much as a T-shirt. Hated commercialism, ranted against the government and kicked people out of their concerts for being violent. I own all of Fugazi's albums on CD, but these are my favorites.

MC 900 Ft Jesus

Portishead - Moody girl stuff that will make you want to kill yourself

Massive Attack

Single Gun Theory

Mazzy Star

Coil - One of the most interesting albums I've ever heard. I believe they're German.

Rosewater Elizabeth - The lead singer in this now-defunct band was a friend of a friend from the old days. I saw the band play twice, once in an abandoned cigar factory in Ybor City and once at the on-campus bar/club at FSU. I wish I had a huge voice like this tiny woman. I normally don't like ethereal music, but this music is ethereal in a really good way. One of my favorite bands of all time. I'm not sure if you can find any of the band's albums. I own them all.

I was in college at FSU during the time I got turned on to the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy. It was like a dam broke in my brain, even though an ex's friend from Germany told me rather smugly, "All the music in Europe sounds like this. What's so great about it?"

Brainticket - Kraut rock from the 70s that will blow your mind. It's weird.

Talvin Singh

PJ Harvey - This feminist hard rocker knows how to make an album. I own everything she's ever come out with, but these are my favorites. Are you man-size?

Tricky - These are my favorite albums of his. I have seen him in concert twice (NYC and Portland). He needs to lay off the coke, but his music is fabulous.

Rage Against the Machine - All the albums are great

Lamb - Electronic girl music. These albums are great.

Kruder & Dorfmeister - Modern bossanova by the masters. Fabulous music for road trips.

While I lived in NYC, I discovered very few bands. I was too busy just trying to survive. Here is where I gained a love of jazz and began listening to John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra. What better place to do it? In Portland, I worked for Border's and got paid to stand around all day and listen to music and talk about music and books. My favorite job ever. I was introduced to a lot of great bands here, but I will mention only the big ones whose albums I own.

DJ Krush - Another band I listened to as I drove to and from work in Portland. This is my favorite album by the Krush. Japanese breakbeat.

Roni Size - This is the best Roni Size album. I listened to this album a lot when I would go for walks in Portland.

Radiohead - I know I don't need to say more about this band. These two are my favorite albums. I came to like Radiohead pretty late in the game. I would say I jumped on the Radiohead bandwagon, but I like Amnesiac far too much to say that.

Joe Henry

I'm back in Tallahassee now. Here are some bands to which I was introduced when I first moved back here. Photek

Amon Tobin - This is my all-time favorite band. I have everything made by Amon. These four are my absolute favorites. This is the jazz of the future. The music contains jazz influences with all different sounds mixed in. Many of the songs have their own individual, distinct feel. Good to dance to and go crazy with. Some songs have D&B mixed in as well. This band is a MUST!

Ohgr - Industrial. This is my favorite.

Pigface - Introduced to me by an ex as was Ohgr, Bonobo and Dieselboy (below). This band is mostly a revolving band with some central characters, but other musicians float in and out. It's mostly industrial, but each song has a distinctly different feel. I saw this group perform in Tallahassee.

Goldie - This is his best album by far. I think I had this album much earlier, though. Oops!

Dieselboy - Any of his albums will do. All his stuff sounds the same. For the hardest D&B around, come knocking on Dieselboy's door.

Polar - Good luck finding this one. It's an electronic band from the UK. Not available on Amazon.

Bonobo - Dial "M" for Monkey, baby! Electronic.

Coldcut

DJ Spooky - I'm not a fan of his other albums, but this one is to die for. Love the moody strings in the background.

Jeff Buckley Within the last two years

Goldfrapp - Electronic to the max

Jolie Holland - Old timey country sounds and a bunch of other influences. I love her voice.

Four Tet - Electronic music. One of my favorites. I listened to the first album below the whole time I was in North Carolina. Perfect music for driving through mountains.

Matmos - Experimental band that is one of my current favorites. There is a new album coming out May 9.

Celebration - One of my favorite new bands. Is the lead singer a male or a female? Read the liner notes.

Hooverphonic - Electronic

Bohren & der Club of Gore - Dark and moody German jazz. Would jazz from Germany be any other way?

Odd Nosdam - Experimental music. Cool sounds

Infusion

The Octopus Project - An experimental band that has some neat sounds

Bloc Party

Adult

Sigur Ros

Wilderness - A rock band that hails from Baltimore. I heard them play at Black Cat in D.C.

The Evens - A mild folky rock band featuring former lead singer of Fugazi, Ian MacKaye

*This post contains just a tiny sampling of the music I dig.

They're at it Again

Film: Anatomie de l'Enfer

Boy meets girl in a gay club. Boy, the well-endowed Rocco Siffredi, takes girl to the hospital after girl, played by Amira Casar, opens her wrist with a razor. Out of gratitude, girl gives boy a blowjob and makes boy an offer. In exchange for money, boy is to watch girl naked for four nights and tell her what he sees.

Directed by Catherine Breillat, Anatomie de L'Enfer (Anatomy of Hell) is a titillating little film that prompted me to straddle my pillow and brought me to orgasm in three minutes or less. Nudity and sex scenes included, this is a serious film that explores how women are oftentimes assessed based solely on the physical and analyzes female sexuality from the viewpoint of someone who ostensibly is impartial to it and immune to the traps women are said to set for heterosexual men using their breasts and birth canals as bait.

French with English subtitles

* My Music - The Early Years

Birth through age 16 or so

Growing up, my dad didn't introduce me to a lot of things. But I'll be forever grateful for what he DID introduce me to: a little game called backgammon and some damn fine music.

Since before I can remember, I was immersed in the words and sounds of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, The Mamas and The Papas, Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry, Elvis, James Brown and the rest of the big-time singers and groups from the 50s and 60s. On the weekends, my dad would turn on the oldies station and bop around to the songs he had held dear since his formative years. I loved dancing with my dad and watching him perform.

Growing up, we didn't have much money. By the time he was 30, my dad had married three women and had three children - all without a college degree and attempting to scrape by on low-wage jobs. My one full brother and I come from my dad's first wife - a mentally-unstable woman who left my father saddled with us two, my brother age 4 and me just 6 months old. I barely remember my half brother when he was born. He and his mother were gone when he was still just a baby. That divorce took him away and left my single father with not only two mouths to feed but child support checks to send.

Side effects: All meals were cooked at home. We rarely, if ever, ate out at a restaurant. My clothing consisted of hand-me-downs from my brother (how I cherished those courderoy pants) in addition to what was bought at K-Mart. I didn't own any books. Whatever books I read were gotten from the library. We didn't own many toys or games. Entertainment came in the form of trouble we brewed up with neighborhood kids outside. And I didn't own but a few records. The radio was my biggest source of music except for the two or so record albums I owned, including my most cherished album at the time that contained the song "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang.

Subsequently, the first musical fixations I developed without my father's influence (between ages 8 and 10) included a motley assortment of bands and singers such as Boston, Blondie, John Cougar Mellencamp, The Police and Rod Stewart. A mixed lot, I know, but I deciphered and memorized the words to all the songs of theirs that got frequent play on the radio.

I admit that my first big musical crush as I neared my delicate teen years was on Michael Jackson. I love his earlier Jackson 5 stuff, but nothing was hotter to me back then than MJ in his white suit and black shirt on the cover of the "Thriller" album, the last album I owned before I switched to cassette tapes. That was, of course, before he bought a removable nose and the world found out he likes to touch the private parts of little boys. Don't get me wrong. He was already considered weird by that point with his Neverland ranch that contained an amusement park and the bones of the Elephant Man. But the music, though, the music was gold. And Michael Jackson was going to be my husband when I grew up. I just knew it! I know this sounds like bragging, but I must've kissed the "Thriller" album cover hundreds and hundreds of times. Around this time, my brother introduced me to the "Who's Afraid Of?" album by Art of Noise, an aberration that likely laid the foundation for the music I mostly listen to now.

It all gets fuzzy here, but I know I went through some sort of Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Paula Abdul, Whitney Houston, Go-Go's period somewhere in here but landed on the other side with, on top of all the other music I liked, a fascination with Wham! and all things George Michael (first concert: Faith tour), Boy George, Prince, Adam Ant, Duran Duran, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and any other boys who looked like girls and girls who looked and acted like boys or girls or both. I spent most of my free time making out with my George Michael poster and creating my beloved mixed tapes and, clad in tights and Flashdancelike outfits I would construct, wildly and sexily dancing to them in my parents' garage before they got home from work.

If you haven't guessed by now, I was pretty much a freak myself, a strange breed of extremely introverted yet athletic geek who lived only in books, music and dance and who didn't have many friends or much contact with things outside my own imagination. Music helped take me out of my parents' home and away from the way others viewed me. It turned me, for a short while, into the person I knew was trapped inside me, into the person I wanted to be.

* This post contains only the names of some of the most prominent groups and singers to which I listened during this time.

(Not So) Funny Ha-Ha

Had a funny little run-in with Jeremy this morning over a March 29 post on his blog.

How I came to know of Jeremy's blog was through this comment he left on mine. Judging from the subtitle on my blog and the not-so-infrequent topic here, I thought he was poking fun at my blog, in general, and at me, in particular.

Without hesitation, I quickly fired off a harsh comment in defense of myself, my blog and victims of domestic violence everywhere. Then, more harsh words were exchanged between us via e-mail. The result? The consensus is that this whole ordeal sprang from little more than a very unfortunate coincidence.

My modified comment can be found on the offending post on Jeremy's blog along with Jeremy's response. While I agree with him about this world being "a clusterfuck of random indecency, senseless violence, and karmic injustice," I don't agree with his last thought:

"We can take control of it for a minute at a time by laughing about it."

I think we can attempt to mentally deal with atrocities through humor, but we can't take control of them through humor. Taking control of them comes only when we no longer sit down or keep quiet. Taking control of them comes only when we sacrifice and sweat, cry and bleed.

The Comment Police Cometh

Readers,

One bad apple can spoil the barrel. Because of this, I will be moderating comments for a while. Because I feel free to say anything I want to on this blog, I didn't mind if people wanted to say harsh things to me in response - which is why I have not deleted mean comments I may have received. But the bad apple is taking things too far and is, in my opinion, becoming a distraction.

My goal here isn't to silence valid criticism of me regarding the topics I choose to discuss, so feel free to write whatever you want in that regard. My goal is to weed out repetitious blathering and comments that have little or nothing to do with the subjects at hand.

Hopefully, I will be able to cease moderating comments sometime in the near future.

maarmie

Film: The Girl in the Cafe

Why were you in prison?

I hurt a man.

Why did you hurt a man?

I hurt a man because he hurt a child. He killed a child.

Was it your child?

Does it matter whose child it was?

These paraphrased memorable lines are from a 2005 film titled "The Girl in the Cafe," an unrated film directed by David Yates and featuring subtle performances by Bill Nighy (Lawrence) and Kelly Macdonald (Gina).

The film has got it all: comedy, romance, politics, Iceland (Bjork!), the discussion of social issues and a character that breaks from the norm and stands up for her beliefs while everyone else sits mute. I applaud that quality in a person, and I applaud it in Gina when she finds herself hobnobbing with dignitaries at a G8 Summit conference in Iceland after a chance conversation with Lawrence, a high-level bureaucrat, at a cafe in London.

Lawrence and Gina both prove to be socially inept. But that social ineptitude doesn't keep the desperately lonely and overworked Lawrence from sticking his neck out and asking the lovely (and younger) Gina on a series of dates. By the third or fourth date, they're off to Iceland with Lawrence's coworkers and their wives. While there, Lawrence finds out a whole lot more about quiet Gina - and himself.

French People Rock!

Americans love to hate the French. After all, the French are just pussies who eat way too much fruit, cheese and snails, think Jerry Lewis is a comedic genius, speak with an accent that can only be described as faggish, refuse to help our government kill thousands of innocent people for no reason and refuse to give a fuck what America thinks about them. That's probably what Americans hate the most.

More than six months ago, I was helping a friend of mine move from Tallahassee to Tampa. As our caravan neared Perry, a town filled with forest that frequently burns and toothless and semi-toothless mouth breathers, we decided to stop for lunch. We pulled off the road at a local diner. The parking lot was filled with pickup trucks, and the menu featured pulled pork, boiled hearts of palm and a buffet filled with assorted meat slathered in BBQ sauce and soggy veggies.

When we walked in, everyone stared. My friend, after all, is part Phillipina, and they were expecting someone who looks like her to come in only after the place had closed and only with a vacuum cleaner in hand. It didn't help that I had purple hair and was wearing a T-shirt that said "Pigface," the name of one of my favorite bands. They stared extra hard after we sat down and proceeded to have a lively political discussion that included plenty of GW bashing and the expression of fierce disdain over one of the menu items: freedom fries.

Freedom fries were something I had heard about before but had never seen. For my own sanity, I put those far-fetched yarns about freedom fries in the same category with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. But, now, Americans' clear rejection of all things French was staring me in the face. I wanted to walk out with loud indignation. But we stayed. The lunch wasn't too good, but the waitress was super nice and gave me a second bowl of palm hearts for free.

This diatribe is going somewhere. I swear. Oh, yeah. I remember now. The French. I love them. When I set foot in Europe for the first time, I want my feet to be planted in Paris. I studied the language for seven years, and I chose French as one of my minors in college. I don't really understand why Americans find the French offensive and laughable. Could it be because the French appear to be an easy target with their frou-frou language and culture that makes them look as wimpy as the kid eating cucumber sandwiches, no crust, and petits fours while everyone else chows down on bologna sandwiches and chips?

If so, the French have a good disguise going. In reality, it appears that the French have major balls.

Hundreds of thousands of French residents have banded together against a new labor law making it easier for French employers to fire workers younger than age 26 during their first two years of employment. Opponents say the law makes it more possible for employers to "use" young employees for a couple of years without having to provide the social benefits long-term contracts would provide, according to The New York Times. Proponents say the the new law makes hiring easier, supposedly their only intention behind the legislation.

Regardless of the law's intention, the people of France have spoken. They think their government can take that law and shove it, and they have made their feelings known through strikes, demonstrations, protests and a little itty bitty of violence. The result has meant the disruption of trains, planes, buses and the Paris Metro as workers went on strike. Teachers stayed home, newspapers weren't delivered, banks remained closed, universities shut down, major violence erupted in the city center and the Bastille Opera refused to sing. Demonstrations also occurred in several other cities throughout France.

What do Americans do when they don't like something their government imposes on them? Whine. And not to government officials or to a larger audience in an effort to band people together, either. They whine to a friend or uncle Clete. At least the French know how to make their feelings known on a global scale and take steps toward getting for themselves what they feel is fair. After all, the government is supposed to be there to serve its people. Not the other way around.

Dances with Nasty E-mails

Unfortunately, I have to send too many nasty e-mail messages to the men - er, boys - with whom I've had dealings recently. For those of you who are slow to catch on, "dealings" means "sex" or something resembling the onslaught - yes, I mean onslaught - of romance.

This is the latest nasty e-mail I've drafted for my latest fling. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he's got a girlfriend - if that's any indication of just what a selfish prick he can be. He refers to said girlfriend as "a girl he's seeing" but they have sex without using condoms. That's more serious than marriage in my book, and I don't think he's ready for anything more serious than his weekly Dungeons & Dragons games, his Star Wars figurines, his daily 12-pack of Diet Mountain Dew and his science fiction festivals in Atlanta - his cell phone constantly hooked to his belt buckle, of course. I know this gives you an indication of exactly what kind of loser I see fit to fuck, but he's physically attractive, and, damn!, it's true: Bad sex is better than no sex.

There comes a time, though, when a line must be drawn.

---------------------------------------

K****,

I apologize for not picking up the phone last night or for calling you back. I was home, but I don't want to speak to you, and I don't want to see you.

I have many, many problems with the way you've acted, the way you've treated me, and the person you are. If possible, you are more immature than you were the last time I knew you. I hate the way you constantly grope all over me as if you were a horny 14-year-old, and I only put up with it thus far because I figured it would quickly end. But it hasn't, and you don't listen to me when I tell you to stop. That's really annoying. What's worse is that you know it bothers me, but you don't care.

Sex. You are the worst lover I've ever had. It's pretty sad that you think the night of passion has been a successful encounter if you managed to last longer than 3.2 seconds. Every time we have sex, I am left unsatisfied. Most times, I don't even orgasm. Sex is better with myself than with you. Maybe you need to stop trying so hard to do every position known to man and concentrate more on who you are with and how you can please her.

I told you I'm tired of disappointments. Several times now you haven't called when you said you would, you leave when you promise to stay, and you are either unwilling or unable to fulfill me sexually. Those are disappointments. I have been doing the math. Three strikes, baby. You're out.

Hallmark Needs a New Line

Try as I might, I can't seem to find the right birthday card or Mother's Day card to suit the shrew of a step-mother I am forced to endure. I have hated this woman since I was 15 or 16 years old, and Hallmark doesn't have a line of cards to excoriate the one you detest on that special day.

So, each year, I am forced to scan the rows and rows of pretty cards bearing flowers and syrupy rhymes extolling the virtures of this mother or that. They're never talking about MY mother, I can assure you: one who looks like a cross between Droopy the dog and a female Grinch. She is shrewd. She is crafty. She is mean. She has no boobs and no sense of humor, and she retired in her early 50s to spend her time being a professional homemaker and banker's wife.

I don't necessarily have any problems with homemakers, but this one doesn't have any kids to raise, and how many times can a floor be cleaned in a day? I have a vague suspicion she's living off the sweat of my father's brow while sitting around the house all day. When she retired, she said she'd maybe get a job as a cashier at a grocery store ("I've always wanted to do that. It looks like a fun job!") or benefit her community through volunteer work. She has yet to do either, and it's been years. When asked what she's been up to, she always offers only one word: "Things." I say, "Like what things?"

"Oh. Things."

Whatever.

For her birthday on March 24, I found this perfectly benign card that can be taken any way she sees fit.

Exterior:

Blue flowers and the word "Mom"

Interior:

"Wishing you the kind of birthday you deserve so much."

Perrrrrfect!

ACLU SHMACLU

A long time ago, the ACLU targeted me to join the organization and send them some cash for the honor. While I am grateful to the ACLU for defending everyone's right to free speech, I can't help but dislike them for defending EVERYONE'S right to free speech, everyone including every hateful bigot that crawls around in this godforsaken world. I guess another way to say what I just said is that I would like them a whole lot better if they would defend only the people who say things I agree with and put tape over the mouths of those I don't. Makes me sound like a fascist dictator, doesn't it? I guess I am.

A couple of clods have recently been thinking it wise to express themselves here with comments against both me and my blog. I would take these criticisms a whole lot better if the one who is tired of my pity parties didn't choose to remain anonymous and if the one who HATES my choice in favorite movies and thinks Betty Frieden is being driven around in a limo by satan even as I type this wasn't some kind of inbred Nazi with an IQ of 12. In my opinion, nothing he could ever say should be allowed to be said. To take it one step further, his balls should be severed so he can't decide to procreate. When he dies, it would be nice if we could all heave a sigh of relief that his genes stop with him.

The ACLU TRIED to be great during the protests of the Republican National Convention in August 2004. While protestors by the hundreds were having their civil liberties ripped away by the thugs with machine guns who called themselves cops, the ACLU was handing out little white cards to protestors telling them what to do if ever a cop tried to rip away their civil liberties and handing out the phone number of a lawyer that could help you out if you got arrested. I wrote the phone number in red ink on my arm, where it stayed for the duration of my visit. But the little white card, which I carried in my back pocket, might as well have been shoved up my ass for all the good it would do against the cops. When they want to create chaos and violence, they certainly do a good job of it. While I was there, and I was there most of that week, I never saw one hint of violence from any protestor. As a matter of fact, we were so docile, the cops got to herd us like cattle, lie to and mock us, corral and arrest us and hold us captive for days without reason or a lawyer. Where was the ACLU? Where are they now? Where are the lawsuits?

Bullies suck.