Owning Up (or at least trying to)

I was recently reading an interview with one of my favorite artists, and when asked about her inspiration, she said that she had spent a lot of time thinking about self-sacrifice and accountability, which was something she didn't think that people thought about much these days.

That stuck with me.

In the Mormon Church (and all other Christian denominations pretty much) there's a concept (named several different things) that I'll refer to now as "Godly Sorrow." It's this ultra-heightened sense of tragedy that dawns on a sinner when he realizes that not only has he sinned, and therefore harmed someone else or himself, but that his sin has been paid for by the suffering of Christ (during the Passion) and that he, in his sin, was acting as a nail through the flesh of God. So, due to a sin committed today, you have the potential to inflict harm upon yourself, others, God, and therefore everyone on the planet (past and future), because in hurting God you hurt every spirit mad in the image of God, and you're part of this big retroactive circle of hurt! Yikes!

In the last couple of months, I've behaved and reacted to the things around me in a way that I'm not very proud of. I've said unfair things to people who were trying their best. I've made unfair conclusions about everyone. I've put off the people who have shown me the most kindess and love, and I've taken out a couple of bystanders in some wrath-filled moments of immaturity.

I want to be accountable for my shit, but what's the best way to go about it? Sometimes the contact required for an apology only rips open a healing wound. Is it ever best to just leave a mess alone for someone more qualified to clean up? How long is it appropriate to hold onto guilt? At what point is it ok to let go?

Turn on the radio at any given moment, and you can hear hundreds of anthems screeching the joys of independence and self-sufficiently. I pay my own bills. Buy my own cars. I don't need anyone to take care of me or love me. I'm perfect the way I am, and any attempt to change me is an afront to my unique spirit. But the fact of the matter is we're all just constantly crashing into each other and affecting each other's lives and it's impossible to make it to the front of the Starbucks line in the morning without having already made or ruined someone's day. In a way, we're accountable for every human being we pass throughout our day - and they're sort of accountable for us.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm really sorry if I've hurt anyone, and I'm ERNESTLY going to try to make more people's days.

Best Makeout Record of ALL TIME

As I sit here at work, perusing my ipod for forgotten treasures, I've realized that there is absolutely no reasonable explanation for why New Order's "Get Ready" (2001) is SO FUCKING GOOD. Listening to "Crystal" or "Slow Jam" can't help but bring lengthy hyper-realistic fantasies of making out with pale skinned Calvin Klien models in black&white oceanscapes or neverending undecorated hallways.

The first time I listened to this album, I was on my way to meet a couple of friends to do a bunch of drugs in honor of our loveless Valentine's Days. Good times, good times...

Yay Monday.

I'm not completely positive yet, but I'm pretty sure I hate my new haircut.

I felt so GOOD about it when I first walked out of the salon, but then I ran into FOUR different friends who all remarked on it with ABSOLUTELY no compliment attached. In fact, the more honest ones offered that I "looked like a little boy" or that it was "too army."

So, there goes my social life for February. I'll be spending long nights at home re-watching the DVD's for "Lost" and growing my hair into some semblance of normalcy.

In better news - I BOOKED A TRIP TO PARIS! I'm going with my friend Ryan, who I adore in every capacity - and it's going to be AMAZING (although it promises to put me in debt for the next 20 years at least). AND it's in 9 weeks! So I'll have time to grow my hair out! Yay!

I need coffee.

My New Calling

http://www.dancesport.com/

So, it would appear that you can actually take lessons to learn to "do the hustle."
Yes, I said it. THE HUSTLE.
I KNOW that someone out there wants to do this with me.

Amy Grant is my Salvation.

So, apparently, through my headphones, an old lady asking, “Where’s the train station?” sounds like an old lady asking “Spare Change?”

WOW – Let me tell you! Everything that ensued after that was embarrassing!

Je Suis Bien

Well, last night I attended a positively TRANSCENDENT Los Super Elegantes show at Home (which was actually a pretty cool venue - despite being the sort of place that's frequently brought up in Life & Style as a spot where celebs "canoodle.")

I, for one, think it's safe to say that I have never, nor do I ever intend to, canoodle. It kind of gives me the heebies just thinking about it.

So, I went with my new friend Andy, to see the band that I was introduced to by my ex-bf from California, Kyle, so I could talk to the lead singer, Martiniano, who also dated Kyle, and along the way ran into this guy I used to see named Joshua, and also Ethan Rose from WMA (who's running high on his t-shirt company and LOTS of alcohol)and Andy ran into like 7 friends from Oberlin, and by the end of the night I was frankly exhausted by the amount of personal connections one racks up by living in NYC and/or LA (or apparently, Ohio).

I remember the first time I hit up a dance club in Boston - I didn't know a SOUL. It was so liberating! I could dance however I wanted to! I could introduce myself as anyone or anything! I could make out indiscriminately!

Ahhh... but those days are gone...

They're getting ready for a big event at my job, so they're rolling God Knows WHAT over the top of my office right now, which makes it feel like there's some serious earthquakes going on - and in addition they keep testing the alarm systems and then coming over the loudspeakers to tell us to "ignore the alarms." Half the time, we don't even hear the alarms, which makes me nervous because what if there really IS an earthquake and I totally don't notice it and then they put on some alarm that I can't hear and the next thing you know, someone's taken a Pulitzer winning prize shot of my blackened foot sticking out of a pile of rubble from the great NYC Quake of 06.

Baby Steps

So, I come into work this morning, set for another day of perpetual zone-out, only to find that the dude in my neighboring office has recently developed some sort of balls-out obsession with a worse-than-average (and that's saying something PROFOUND) MIDI recording of Pachabel's "Canon in D."

For those of you who didn't spend your entire young lives locked up with musical instruments in liu of actually making friends, Canon in D is that terrible song that they always have string quartets playing at weddings on TV. It's played (badly) by beginning piano students EVERYWHERE - and (I always assumed) forgotten as soon as said kids are capable of playing something else and thereby alleviating their own self-induced torture.

Apparently, however, some people just... don't get over it? And they spend all of time and eternity WANTING to be stuck in a never-ending add for budget wedding gowns?

So this dude's playing this song... over and over again... and I realize - this is my moment. I'm going to start doing geeky musical things again. So, I transposed it. Yes, temp work requires so little of me, that I actually sat down and TRANSPOSED THIS GODDAMN MUSICAL MONSTROSITY for the sake of seeing if I still could. It's not a hard piece, but God - I'm out of practice! I could barely remember chord scales or common-sense composition theory! I actually had to play an imaginary piano on my desk to figure out some of the notes... *shudders*.

But I did it. And now I'm going to go home and play really sad really easy Patty Griffin songs on my guitar (mostly because lately, I'm REALLY FEELING sad Patty Griffin songs, but also partially because I know it will DEEPLY ANNOY the Dominican Bowling enthusiasts upstairs. Yeah, you hear that you pathological furniture movers! I'm singing my ass off! And it's blues inspired guitar picky FOLK MUSIC TOO! So I GET TO BE AS ANNOYING AND WHINEY AS I WANT!!!

Vengeance is Mine; I will repay.
Romans 12:19

God I loved that hat.

Remember that episode of Full House when it was discovered that Stephanie had a prodigal talent for la dance? And at first, Danny was hesitant to support her (because it meant lots of rehearsal and expensive classes) but Steph insisted it was what she really wanted to do? So then they went to all of the classes and, of course, Danny ended up WAY more excited than Stephanie, who, it turns out, just wanted to hang out on the couch with her chubby older sister and say "how rude" over and over and over and over again and the conflict suddenly came to a fever pitch when Steph was at a dance competition and got performance anxiety and Danny had to get over wanting her to be the BEST DANCER ever and once they patched things up, Steph did that AMAZING dance?

You know, with the too-short skirt and too-high boots and black crop top and silver sparkly page-boy cap (Somewhere a prepubescent Brit and X-tina were furiously scribbling notes down on Lisa Frank stationary)? GOD THAT WAS THE BEST DANCE EVER! I wanted to BE Stephanie Tanner!

And now, I can re-live that amazing feeling, everytime I hear the Pussycat Dolls' "Wait A Minute," a song which clearly would have moved la Tanner into the most frenzied gyrations her 10 year old body could accommodate. Seriously, I haven't wanted to do the gay-ass dance moves that song compells me to in years - think Janet circa the "Janet" tour and all of those little belly-dancing inspired hip pops and whatnot. Over the years, I've done some pretty faggy things in front of my bedroom mirror... but the things done to this song take the cake.

ONE LAST THING

I do not want my iced coffee from Starbucks shaken. Shaking the coffee is ridiculous. It does nothing for the coffee. It only serves to embarass me because some poor schmuck making 7.15 an hour has to shake coffee around in a goddamn mixer like a douchebag while I watch. Geez...

My office - 4 walls - no windows - not much to do.

So... I have this fantasy... about this Annie Lennox song...

See, it's like, 2012 or something, and it's the MTV music awards and I've spent the last 5 years or so completely conquering the media world - beginning as a producer, and then coming forward as an artist Diddy-style and OF COURSE starting up my own heavily-branded label that has since become the industry standard for excellence. All this, and I'm openly gay, which, for some odd reason, the public loves. I go out partying and US Weekly follows me. I say controversial things on late night network TV, and I'm considering what will inevitably be a poorly received cross-over into acting ("only if the script is REALLY good").

But there's a backlash.

Tabloid stories paint me as excessive and over-paid. My name becomes synonymous with the perils of capitalism and several ex-boyfriends are on the verge of publishing tell-all books about my selfish behavior, hysterical rants and unhealthy purging. Finally, my best friend (who I'm madly in love with, but don't realize it) tells me that I stand at a crossroads, and I need to choose what's really important. Celebrity or Reality. Art or Commerce. And if I choose wrong, he's walking.

Back at the awards: I've assembled an all-star troup of musicians, dancers and circus folk for a ground-breaking performance. Despite the controversy surrounding me, my tastes run conservative - Chick Corea (may he still be alive) on keys, Flea (or Me'Shell N'degeocello - they're both sponsored by Modulus and basically interchangeable anyway) on bass, Kravitz on guitar (yes, HE sucks - but he's still got wicked solo chops) and twin drumsets (I need a BIG sound!) with Questlove and Dave Grohl.

I'm doing a cover (gasp!) of Annie Lennox's underknown jewel, "Money Can't Buy It" - as an ambivalent sneer to the haters, and a knowing apology to the people who have stayed behind me for so long. The song opens up with me in the dark on the stage with only the other musicians, and we do the first two verses, just standing there... trying desperately to wring every ounce of meaning from the lyrics, and mounting a steady climb towards the bridge.

The Bridge: As my voice (which in my fantasy, can hit an A with no problem) soars up on the line "You can have it all and won't be satisfiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiied!" Quest and Grohl slam down on the drums as pyro explodes across the stage and four confetti canons erupt into the audience. The lights fly up to reveal legions of solid gold dancers, and upon closer inspection, the canons have actually launched THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS into the air! I detach my mike and jog to the center staircase where I scream the chorus while writhing around with my oiled up dancers in the cascades of cash. Not for too long though, because there's a rap!:

"Now, here this, pay attention to me
Cause I'm a rich white boy and it's plain to see
I've got every kind of thing that money can buy
Let me tell you all about it, let me amplify
I've got diamonds, you've heard about those,
I've got so many that I can't close my safe, at night, in the dark
Lying awake in this sick dream."

I spit every line while marching forward in choreography on a giant platform jutting into the audience. The fans are rabid. I look amazing (those extra hours with the yoga instructer have really been worth it!) and snapshots from this moment will be among the most iconic images in my career. But upon the rap's completion, everyone turns around, and receeds into the darkness of backstage. I'm left cooing the last bars alone, with my band - "money can't buy it... money can't buy it..."

Suffice it to say, I enter an artistic rennaissance in my career. I marry my best friend and we spend several months of each year in hiding in Greece. The performance itself is analyzed in college classes on pop culture (some which actually site me as an emphasis) and later in life, my charitable contributions bring about the end of several deadly diseases.

I'm going to stop caffienating as much at lunch.

Ahhh... the joys of temping.

Remember college? Remember how if, in the middle of class, you felt the need to go to the bathroom or make a quick phone call or re-shuffle your backpack or grab a snack or even try to squeeze in a discreet midway through a 2 hour Audio Tech class jerk-off break - you could? You just politely stood up, and left.

I, for one, assumed that this would be the norm for the rest of my life. I am an adult! I do generally whatever I want, whenever I want to!

My, how I was wrong.

I've had to go to the bathroom for two hours (not like, kidney failure had to go, but, you know... I do need to get there eventually...) and the one guy who can handle my phones for me doesn't seem to be picking up his... so I'm just chillin, checking Gawker, and hoping to God that maybe I'll get to take a break before 1:00.

THIS WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE MY LIFE.

I was supposed to graduate - get a job in a major studio, slave for 6 months and then impress everyone with my musical brilliance when Axl turned to me suddenly and said, "so what would you do with this track?" Yes. I was supposed to helm (AND FINALLY FINISH) Chinese Democracy. Instead, I have written like, 20 posts over the last year or so, most of which have to do with bowel movements, because frankly, they're the most interesting things that happen to me.

I try to go out more - but find that everyone I meet at hipster dives and dance parties actually has LESS going on in their lives than me (which is terrifying) and I can't keep up with the requisite crystal habit required to even GET INTO the gay places...

So clearly, if I want to save my sanity, I have to do something creative - which used to come SO EASILY to me. If I wanted to write a song, I wrote it. Then I arranged it, called some friends over and produced it, and finished it. But ever since leaving school I've barely touched a keyboard - it's like I'm afraid of the pressure that it entails now - it expects me to perform. It expects me to be as good as I once assumed I always would be. Yikes!

Wow - this post got out of hand... The gist is, I guess - I need to go to the bathroom, and maybe write a song. And neither seem to be happening to easily.