Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

I did the weekend family thing. I came back with my eyes red, brain fried, back strained and I would do it again in a second. I got to do the female thing which I don’t get to do too much, being a socially inept loner with a gender unspecific brain.

I went to Villa Moda for the first time this week. Me mater got me there under false pretenses, and let me tell you all the funny stories you hear about women going at it over a bag during sales are all dirty lies. I was unimpressed, probably because I’m not into the designer label thing. Not against it, but I can take it or leave it. Didn’t think Dubai was that hot either. Also probable is that it was because most of their clothes were made for anorexic 12 year olds.

I love music. I love it in many forms. I was going through my old CDs and I found a couple of Pearl Jam Live Concert ones. I like Pearl Jam a lot. I don’t really keep up with any kind of ‘scene’ so I don’t really know what they’re up to, but man, they used to rock. Last Kiss? The apex of pathos when you’re a high school student trying to pose as independent, and not bad these days either. Wishlist, because hey tis the season. Black, see Pathos.

I found American Gods last Wednesday at Virgin. I tried to stretch it out, but I am not a junkie for nothing. Wound up sitting down with it on the ride back and resurfacing sometime before dawn with it lying decimated in my hands. So much for that. I liked it for a lot of reasons that I may or may not get into later.

Meanwhile, these were my favorite two lines.

Chicago happened slowly, like a migrane. -Page 79, First Sentence.

It says so much. How the city blends into the surrounding area, sure, but also exactly how you’re supposed to feel about it, the moment you set eyes on it. That line hits you right between the eyes.

I effin forgot the second line. I remember that it grabbed me, and I looked around in vain forsomething to use as a book mark. I almost regretted that I have too much respect for books to dog-ear and underline. I remember it hit me somewhere below my solar plexus. Ah well, it’s be something to find next time I read the book.

Maybe I Didn’t Know Him At All

Nine years ago, when Jeff Buckley met his death in a river in Memphis, I was still a child. Years later I was in Paris and bought Live at L’Olympia, for a friend. When I gave it to her I listened and smiled and nodded my head, but walked away unaffected. In my defense, at the time I was somewhat a fool. Not quite as smart as my friend, it took me a while to develop discerning taste. I did however eventually, one could say inevitably, fall in love with that heart wrenching expressive crazy-ass voice. And just like Bowie’s immortalized Ziggy… ‘boy could he play guitar’. And while Hallelujah is good and well, it’s songs like Lover You Should Have Come Over that really tear me to pieces.

So I post this, in tribute, in memorandum, for love, of the beautiful Jeff. I shed a tear for all of the fucking potential lost in that river. Whether by accident or his own design, the entertainment industry is missing something I believe could have been truly worthwhile. My heart truly aches as I bid him a sincere if not last goodbye.

By the way, I’d like to upload a few mp3s for anyone who’s interested, but I’m not going to go through the hassle and then have it be for naught. If I see any expression of interest I will, otherwise, there isn’t a point.

To match the melancholy, I give you this.

Beloved temptress
Your sweet seductions
Give rise to my bile
You are my breath
And the blade by which I die
My devotion to you
Is equaled only
By my revulsion
Love and loathing live
In a land with no lines

We Sang Dirges in the Dark

Aren’t we all glad music isn’t dead? There is nothing quite like rock music for digging at your soul and burying itself inside you. Haunting guitar riffs that wrap themselves around you and lyrics that tease out every bit of pain you have until all you know is melancholy. Show me a person who listens to music, especially rock, and I’ll show you a person who caries with them at least half a dozen phrases and melodies at any given moment. You know what I’m talking about, as you’re reading this how many words, how much music has floated to the surface of your consciousness? So what’s playing on your internal mp3 player right this instant?

For me it’s Nirvana’s cover of Bowie’s Man Who Sold the World. The riff in the beginning just about slays me, and then the lyrics are just… sigh.

We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when
Although I wasn’t there, he said I was his friend
Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone, a long long time ago

Oh no, not me
I never lost control
You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world

I laughed and shook his hand, and made my way back home
I searched for form and land, for years and years I roamed
I gazed a gazely stare at all the millions here
We must have died along, a long long time ago

Who knows? not me
We never lost control
You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world

Who knows? not me
We never lost control
You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world

And now I’m in the mood to live Bowie’s glam rock era, which is odd since that isn’t about that in my mind. I don’t know why but for me Bowie will always be about Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. So much for his whole musical chameleon thing.

Insert appropriate song title...

Are you ever driving and turn on the radio to fill the silence and/or drown out the noise in your head, and some song comes on the hits the nail right on the head? I hate that. Odd, since usually the irony is the only thing that keeps me going. Then again I find irony where other people don't so maybe that explains it. My life is a work of satire, full of dramatic irony, odd sad little situations, shoes, and me.

My day started out with trauma that was resolved but I'm still feeling off off off. Then again it may be that I'm a drama queen. Meh, trauma, drama, what's the diff. I envy goths sometimes I need black for my eyes, I need something to make me look fierce. Problem is, in Kuwait that's not the statement black makes. People, when I'm feeling goth it in no way means that I've turned into those girls that use a trowel to slather their make up on. So I don't. Maybe I will later tonight. Gah, I need release.

Dark images in my head and I can't shake them off. Inside this skull ain't pretty, don't be fooled by the lights. In other news I can't keep going over things pick pick picking at them, pulling at the threads until they're even more frayed. If I pick the right one maybe the whole thing will come unraveled. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Song, not the one on the radio, this is one that been on repeat in the iPod of my head for the last couple of days. Pardon me, Incubus. The lyrics in case you're not familiar with them go something like:

Pardon me while I burst
Pardon me while I burst
A decade ago, I never thought I would be.
At twenty three on the verge of spontaneous combustion woe is me
But I guess that it comes with the territory.
An ominous landscape of never-ending calamity.
I need you to hear.
I need you to see.
That I have had all I can take
And exploding seems like a definite possibility
To me
So Pardon me while I burst into flames.
I've had enough of the world, and its people's mindless games
So Pardon me while I burn, and rise above the flame
Pardon me, pardon me.
I'll never be the same.
Not, two days ago I was having a look in a book
And I saw a picture of a guy fried up above his knees
I said I can relate
Cause lately I've been thinking of combustication as a welcome vacation from.
The burdens of the planet earth, like gravity, hypocrisy, and the perils of being in 3-D...
And thinking so much differently.
Pardon me while I burst into flames.
I've had enough of the world, and its people's mindless games
Pardon me while I burn, and rise above the flame
Pardon me, pardon me.
I'll never be the same.
Never be the same...yeah.
Pardon me while I burst into flames.
Pardon me, pardon me, pardon me.
So pardon me while I burst into flames.
I've had enough of the world, and its people's mindless games
So pardon me while I burn, and rise above the flame
Pardon me, pardon me. I'll never be the same.
Pardon me, never be the same. Yeah

If it comes across as corny or stupid, it doesn't when you're listening to it. I remember first time I heard it, on the radio. I was in 11th grade and depressed, actually when I make a reference to anything that takes place during high school assume I was depressed unless told otherwise. So some guy calls in and request this song by then unheard of band (in Kuwait anyway). It hit me like no song had before. So... yeah. Definitely contemplating combustication, implosion, explosion, something. One day my dears, all they'll find of me is the shard. Remind me to put up the doggrel I had written when I was in high school. Pathetic emo shite, but it was good for a laugh. I know this can be defined as the same but, well, I need to let off steam somehow, right?