On Mick Jagger and Screeching

I really enjoyed the Wolfmother concert.

'Nuff said on that. Judge me if you want.

Side notes on that concert:

Dude from the Icarus Line: You're pretty good, and you'll only get better. But there's only one Mick Jagger, and you're not it. David Johansen, AKA Buster Poindexter, tried to act like Mick when he was in the New York Dolls & when he was solo, and he looked silly. Just imagine what you look like. Find your own thing. And no, the crotch grabbing wasn't it. That's Michael Jackson.

Dudes in Wolfmother: Experimental is definitely good. It's cool to hear that you want to go in new directions. A band I love very much, Spoon, is constantly experimenting. And guess what? Their songs are pretty short. And good... Which brings me to my point...

You guys had a lot of fun treating us to some long-form jams. But experimental doesn't have to be long-form. Don't get the two confused. This ain't the 60's or 70's any more. I didn't find "The Sultans of Swing" to be all that experimental, yet it was damn long. In fact, it was quite plain... You see? Long can be boring. Boring. Boring... and screeching can be annoying.

Despite all the criticism, I had a f'n blast. I loved it, and it was lovely. The music was tight, loud, and entertaining. I just need to be all artsy and critic-y to make me feel better about my own non-existent music career.

Oooo. Burn. On myself.

See? I can go from self-righteous to self-loathing in 5.5 seconds. That should be my superpower.

Bigger Than Love

February 14, 2007.

Valentine's day for many, but something entirely different for me.

That was the day I made the music stop on Sonic 102.9... for those not familiar, Sonic has a contest called "Make it Stop", where a particularly bad song that we'd all like to forget is played until a caller can end the madness by naming the song and artist.

Me winning a name-that-tune-style contest? Didn't see that coming...

The song was "Love's Theme" by the Love Unlimited Orchestra. Let's just say I love Barry White, the conductor of said Orchestra.

Anyway, I get a Departed DVD. Meh. I could've done worse.

You can all come over and watch it with me.

Changing My Life. Day after Day. Hoo-ray.

So.

I got a job as a DJ.

I quit before it started.

I haven't wrote any more play monologues... Oh wait, I have:

"Vacation time.

The mountains. It was summer, and I hoped having her out of the house would help her feel better. I just wanted her to feel better.

But really, there wasn’t much difference. She seemed the same.
That was, until we got to the lake.

It was late in the evening, and the sun was glistening gold on the surface. And then they started. The fish were leaping out of the water, flipping in midair, and falling back, almost gracefully. And she smiled.

And she watched.

And I could have sat there forever.

The next morning, she was back to the way she was before. Back to normal, I guess.

So I gave her a hug. And then I realized there was a desperation in my hold on her. I was squeezing too tight, and I probably shook her…

I said, “Come on, Mom. Cheer up. We’re on vacation.”

“I just can’t, Shawn. I can’t.”

And I didn’t understand. And that’s the problem. I was trying to decode her, demystify her behaviour in my head. But that was the problem.

It was too simple. No amount of fixing and solving and thought and time and energy and faith could change it.

She just couldn’t. She just couldn’t."

And then, I did 4200 square feet of insulation. Not after the vacation, today at the store. I know, the monologue is kind of written funny, but it is a rough draft. I probably shouldn't have shared it before it was done. Meh. I'm a sharing kind of guy.

The end.

A Scrap of Paper and a Title

I've heard this question a couple of times: How's the play coming along?

Well, it's now got a title. "With You".

And here's a snippet of a monologue:

"... I went downstairs in my dad's house... our house. The one that we all lived in together, but we hadn't for a few years...

I had no logical response yet for what had happened. I had yet to, other than the exact moment I heard the news, react at all. So I forced myself. I pushed myself to be normal, to be human... and respond.

I went downstairs into the shower, clothes on. Shower off. Lights off.

And I called to her.

Mom. Mom?

And I got louder and louder. I was sure she would respond. And when she didn't...

I remember hearing about John Lennon, something about shouting therapy... and there was a song where he shouted, like a release, so I released.

Why did you do that? Can't you see? I was just about to make it! You would have been here to see that and be proud. So why? Why?"

And that's a little taste of it. It's been good, trying to write this. I put a lot of pressure on myself to come out with a masterpiece right away, and I'm afraid to write anything that isn't good. So I'm confronting that fear, but now I have to learn how to keep the shitty things I write instead of throwing them away. Because I'll never learn from them if they keep going in the trash.

Also, as you can imagine, writing about something deeply personal is quite cathartic, so don't worry about the intenseness of the above monologue having a negative impact on my mental state. I'm good.

And don't worry if that whole above monologue didn't make much sense, I'm sure it will with the right amount of surrounding context.

So that's that for now. Wish me some sort of writer's good fortune, eh?