I was supposed to be reading...

I've been trying to dry our laundry without a dryer lately. This is both easier and harder as a laundromat patron. It's easier because it saves me a LOT of quarters and time sitting at the cafe next to the laundromat. It's harder because it feels strange to cart wet laundry through the streets and up the stairs to my apartment.

This means that I only have 30 minutes or so to wait while my laundry washes. Unfortunately, my new laundromat (the one I recently started visiting, the one that has a hand lettered sign in the window that says "New Owner and He's CUTE!") plays daytime television very loudly. I actually have a hard time not getting mad in there just because of the fear/shame-based shows, so I started going next door, to the Robinwood cafe. Once, I got a spinach pie there and it was really delicious. I'd looked through their entire four page menu without finding much vegetarian, and not much that I was excited to eat (they have breakfast all day, but I try not to eat factory farmed eggs) when I spied (under desserts!) a spinach pie. Turns out the owners are Greek and the Spinach pie is fantastic!

Today, I started my wash (I added Cocacola to one of the washers to deal with some olive oil stains. My sister told me it would work. The clothes are still on the porch, so it remains to be seen.) then headed to the cafe. Since I'm broke, and I'd bought the coke there, I sat at a table with the half-full coke and asked for water to drink while I read.

I heard the young, enthusiastic waiter plugging a show he was playing tonight at Spontaneous Celebrations, a community center near my house. Then, I heard him talking with an older Greek woman who runs the show at the cafe, possibly an owner.

Woman: What will you wear?
Waiter: Jeans and a Tshirt. Normal stuff.
Woman: Do you play songs? Nice Songs? _______________

(Now,in that blank spot, I thought she said "like, musical?" But the kid (who knows her better and was actually in the conversation seemed to think she said "like disco". I'll never know which it was, but it works both ways.)

Waiter: Like disco? I tell you every time. It's hard core punk. It's fast and loud.

I returned to my reading about how school systems can build schools to teach higher order thinking skills for a moment until...

Waiter: When it's recorded, people say I sound Japanese. (guy is white)
Woman: Japanese?
Waiter: yeah.
Woman: What do you say? What are the words? Are there lyrics?

The waiter then very sincerely explained what the songs were about. But that was so sweet that I didn't write it down. He also explained that they had made their own posters, t shirts, cassettes (?) and cds and then given most of them away. The woman was not very impressed with this business plan and told him so.

The whole time, I must point out, "Your song" by Elton John was playing in the background.

The youth of my youth

Here are some blurry Iphone pictures of an all-ages show I attended yesterday. I brought a couple of pentagenarians along, so that I wasn't the oldest person in the room.

"But Kendra" you may well say. "This is not really your scene." You're right. Outside of some time at Babyhead and the Living Room as a teenager, and some fantastic Kled shows, people screaming as entertainment has not been largely my bag.
But this young man is not screaming into the microphone. He's singing! His diction is so clear, I could hear it through my ear plugs.

He's also the child I cared when I was a teenager in Providence... all grown and tattooed.

Climbing

I was sitting on a big cozy cushion on a barn floor a few blocks from my house tonight when the man on stage asked us to turn off our cell phones.  I had not yet committed to taking off my jacket or hat, but was encouraged by the space heaters gathered around.  I didn't have my phone with me.  I ALWAY have it but today I dropped it and shattered the screen and so my new one was at home attached to my computer, remembering all the things my old phone knew, in no danger of disturbing the show.

The people around me were wearing lots of wool, and big boots and I wasn't the only one who'd kept my hat on.  The girl in front of me had a sign pinned to her back with numbers of Palestinan and Isreali casualties, that had white out beneath the numbers where she'd white them out again tomorrow to change them.  I hated looking at it, but my eyes kept going there, and I checked them,  18 and 718, as though she might white them out and change them during the singing.  The stage was lit by some strings of lights and a central red bulb, and a humidifier sat on the stage occasionally appearing to be a pathetic smoke machine.  I'm generally very good about remembering to turn off my phone at concerts, and since I hadn't done it I started a few times during the first song or two, remembering and then remembering that I had none.  The music was gorgeous, two groups of singers; one men, one women, one Georgian, one Appalachian, one from JP, one (mostly) from California (now).  We sang together, and by the end I was hatless and breathless. 

Earlier today I made my first trip to an Apple store...

I was cranky because I'd shattered my phone.  The people who worked there were all wearing t-shirts, except for the person whose job it was to open the door for people and cheerfully greet us; that person was dressed wierdly with a t-shirt and a hat and scarf.  I was late for my "appointment" with the "genius bar" and couldn't FIND the "genius bar" and resented having to ask someone how to find it.  I thumped up this huge, central, curving, invisible,  glass staircase awkwardly in my snowboots (we all thumped up and down it awkwardly and treacherously because we were all wearing snowboots) sweating in my long underwear.  I submitted to saying "genius bar" to someone too busy to look at me, followed their pointing finger up the REST of the staircase, stripped off all my over-layers and dumped them on a bench nearbye.  I took stock.  I was cranky, nervous, and shy and I had to shop AND admit that I'd droipped and broken a little, expensive computer that I keep in my pocket mostly so I can end disputes with wikis, don't have to ask directions, and so that I can read my friends witty responses to my witticisms on Facebook.  Yuck.  

I finally had to walk down those damn steps, having paid for and obtained my new phone and hot pink case (don't ask), and then donned my sweater, down vest, wool cape, hat, scarf and gloves. I was sure I'd fall down them and crash into some comfortable, cheerfully entitled-looking people. I teetered in the middle, and then kept going.  At the bottom was a man with a bottle of windex and a swiffer, gazing up at me and the steps under me.  He had a long day ahead of him, because we all were wearing snowboots covered in skunky ice.  I sighed then and smiled and apologized to the universe.

So, really, it was great when I didn't have my phone in the barn.  

It was great, and warm, and beautiful.

I am a shining star!

Just got home from my guitar class and am ready to gloat! I practiced (nearly) every day last week and my teacher actually suggested that I am NOT a beginner (I am, I am just also a progressor!) AND asked if I needed something more challenging to practice. I DON'T... I can't wait to plink and plunk at "Oh Susanna" and "When the Saints Go Marching In". I am so happy and proud. Tra la la.

P.S. What move? Packing? Oh, I have a friend bringing boxes over next week, doesn't that count?

Brand new John Prine fan

I was listening to Pandora recently, on my favorite Amy Winehouse/Dan Bern/Ani Difranco/Woody Guthrie/Common De la Soul station, and this song by John Prine came on called "She is My Everything".

Of course songs just sort of come up randomly on Pandora, so the only way I've found to hear it online is some guy's Youtube tribute to his girlfriend that uses the Ken Burns effect (and this awesome song).

My favorite line is "She knows everybody. From Mohammed Ali to teaching Bruce Lee how to do karate." Awesome.

Autumn Leaves....

There is this heartbreakingly sad version of this song by Ricki Lee Jones, and that's what I'm hearing right now in my head. (Don't worry, it's in an indulgent "cold out there/warm tea in here" sort of way. There is no doubt that it is fall in the Pacific Northwest.

I just walked to the corner to buy a calling card so that I can talk to my sister overseas. Why has no one written a sad love song about the act of buying a calling card, yet!? It is such a pathetic and cynical and horrifying action. You walk to a gas station, which is ugly and smelly. The needs of everyone else there are immediate crucial and distracted. Only the worst food, toilet paper and light up Incredibles key chain LED pens are available because you are a captive, you cannot escape because the bars of your own business hold you in. There are posters in at least 10 languages (including at least one form of pidgin English) advertising calling cards. (We apparently believe that folks who speak Spanish, Korean and Arabic want to call home more than they want to find the ATM, pump their gas, use the bathroom etc.) Half of all of the calling cards I've purchased have screwed me over in some way and YET I still buy them, because I believe they are the cheapest and most convenient way to call long distance to Europe. So, I have this transaction with the guy behind the counter... like buying a lottery ticket or a tree air freshner, he asks me which one I want and I tell him, and we exchange money and card and it's over. This guy has enabled me to stay in contact with my family, like it's no big thing. Whew. Thanks.

Radio 8ball

Last night I went to see Radio 8ball... it's a live version of a radio show. On the radio show, the host, a guy name Andras, listens to a caller's questions and then picks a Cd and song at random to answer the question and then he and the caller interpret the answer. This process has also been called the "Ipod Tarot"... tonight though, it was a live show for an audience full of barefoot women, men with facial hair, mood lighting and a DJ and the songs all came from one Jim Page.

(Jim Page is a busker/folk musician here in Seattle who has played really revolutionary and musically solid songs for longer than he cares usually to talk about.)

Everyone submits a question, and then a person's question is picked out of a box and they are invited onstage to read their question, spin a dial that is marked with signs of the zodiac. There's this big sign with the signs next to names of Jim's songs, and then he plays that song to you. Everyone else's job is to hold their own interpretation, their own intention for each question. Jim Page's songs are sometimes political... tonight the owner creator of Fishtales Organic Beers in Olympia got up and asked when she should move to New Orleans, and if she does if she should open a floating brewery there. The wheel turned to jim's song "Petroleum Bonaparte" which is an angry/funny diatribe about Oil and George Bush. Afterwards there were different interpretations... clearly New Orleans is a part of "Big Oil" and the song was saying not to participate in what's happening there... or perhaps the song was saying to wait until George Bush is out of office, or that New Orleans desperately needs more beer right away. (Did I mention that after you ask your question, you're given raw chocolate and an "Herbal Brew" filled with kava kava and yohimbe and raw honey and other herbally stuff?)

One young man (17?) asked "How do I know if I am a good person or a bad person?" his answer was called "More than anything else in the world" and the rest of the chorus was "I'm never gonna let you down". Jim Page is probably in his sfifties or sixties, and his own interpretation of this answer is that one makes a decision to be a good person. I took it a different way, but enjoyed that idea. The young man's friend's question was also picked. His was "How do you go from surviving to thriving?" The dial landed on the special "Radio 8ball" song which was sung (and written) by this Andras fellow, and it was called "I fucked a pumpkin". It was painful to watch as this young man's serious question ( I hear the word "survive" and assume some heavy shit, though maybe he was just talking about how shitty it is to have curfew or something) answered by an obscene Halloween comedy bit. People took the guy with the lost cat and the woman doubting her path of yoga WAY more seriously than this person's youthful angst, which was hard for me personally to take, because I'm crazy about young people who share their angst. I guess the Pop Oracle decided that humor and pumpkin fucking is what he needed... who am I to argue?

Another woman asked if she had a guardian angel, and the song that answered here was "Jesus and the Laughing Deity" a song about a jester-god who jokes with Christ until he finds himself off his cross, leaving behind his suffering. The guy who's cat Fargel had wandered off three weeks before got a song about Julia Butterfly and Taoism and activisim which was confusing for some of us. All the pet owner heard were the words "Jack the Ripper" which didn't bode well for him.

It was such a fascinating evening... my good friend asked her question onstage. I'd told her when we arrived that I was certain one of us would get selected... she was the last one. She asked "In what direction is my vision going?" because sometimes it gets better, but for the last three years it's gotten steadily worse. The song that she spun was about Rachel Corrie, and about not ignoring the suffering in the world. The first four lines or so were about being a really decent, loving person who changes what needs to be changed which reminded me of her partner, a great guy who I think has been the difference between "surviving and thriving" for her. I cried through the whole thing.

Afterwards, there was a great party. Jim Page was wandering around with a huge piece of cake (his birthday was last week) and looking for a place to sit, so I invited him to join us. We had a great talk. I told him I thought it'd be had to play his own music without being in charge of the show. He said that ordinarily, he had to manufacture his conversation with the audience, but in this venue it was understood, impossible to avoid and that he liked that, said it was easier. It was a fantastic thing to behold, and I can't wait to go again.

Sad News And/But I love Ballard

The sad news is this: my beautiful and loveable young cat Trinity was hit by a car and killed last week. Zak dug a big ass hole, and we put in a beautiful and edible garden (although Z says that because her body is decomposing down there we shouldn't eat them... anyone want to weigh in on this?) We spent the day crying and digging (I did almost no digging, for the record). Some dear friends (the ones who really cared about Trinity AND with whom we felt comfortable crying) came over and helped us put her in the ground. The garden is really lovely, and since trinity was THE most social and friendly cat in the universe, it has torches and benches so that we could all sit there together and drink beer and eat pizza after/while we cried our eyes out.

Also, I got some very sweet cards/letters from the Big Kids since I took the day off work. Some girls were obviously working together because they each drew a round little black cat with wings and a halo. (They obviously never met my tricky, shameless, cat, but that's ok.)

In other news, today was so lovely that I'd like to tell you how it went.
I woke up late, got a lot of coffee (a party last night left me a little delicate) and then went downtown to see Lawrence of Arabia in dazzling 70mm at the Cinerama which was tremendous, and lovely and a whole different movie because of all the immensity and vastness that is not possible on a television.
Next I had Corn Beef Hash at the Five Point. I took a nap and got up with some daylight left for a bike ride (this is the cool part). As I cruised around Ballard, I saw so many happy people. There were folks who were waiting in line at the Tractor to see some Gaelic band, and folks who were eating ice cream cones outside of Ben and Jerry's (The make Stephen-Colbert flavored icecream now!) I felt really contented and hopeful just then, all the way to my toe clips, when I heard a *really* loud and funky bassline. There was a teenage jam band (a very good one, actually) playing on the sidewalk, and a whole bunch of local homeless guys were rocking out, having the best time! I sat down behind them and took it all in.

I used to frequent the Chaihouse more, ah, frequently than I do now, because now my heart belongs to Nervous Nellies. The Chai house, however is so tenderly tie-dyed, so openly open-mic, so unabashedly idealistic and wierd that it holds a warm place in my heart. They've got this new woman there, Reverend Betty, who is all about "community". I read some of her missives, and felt pretty cynicallly that her idea of "community" was about folks buying into her big ideas. She had this idea of "Chaistock" where they'd have live music all week to raise money to get a better sound system. I'd read the posters, and rolled my eyes when I saw the pinnacle event, which was "improvisational collaborative mayhem"; my inner adolescent poet shuddered with shame.

There I sat,today, watching these really young, talented kids being treated like rock gods by some homeless guys, and some homeless guys being treated to their first front row seat in a long while I imagine. This dad and his little kid came by and sat with us, and the toddler could NOT be restrained from gently resting his little sticky hand on the snare. More and more folks showed up with coffee and sandwiches, and curry in stryrofoam and, with astonished looks on their faces sat upwind from the rabble nodding their heads to the beat. One dude with a bedroll under his arm, walked up to the chubby, dorky-looking guitarist and got really close, and then closed his eyes and started singing with his mouth wide open... no words just screamy melody that perfectly completed the music. He went along for a minute or so without a single error... this was exactly as advertised "improvisational collaborative mayhem" but REALLY. Dudes were dancing that wierd ass hippie dance, and looking like they were at a Rush concert. Men I walk by every day, who have never smiled at me, never met my eye grinned and nodded with me, let me in, shared this with me. After awhile the guitarist and bassist went in for a pop (I assume, although, really they were funky enough for a beer in my esteem...) and another pair came on up to join the drummer.
The corner/park where they had set up is at a 5 or 6 way intersection with a really long and thorough light, so folks in cars and on motorcycles got a listen too. There was this woman in her 60's perhaps in a blue sedan all alone, stopped at the light about 15 yards away from the band. She peered and squinted so intently at them, that I imagined for a moment that she might be jealous. I imagined her seeing these homeless guys all dancing and bellowing cheers on the sidewalk, these kids just tickled pink to be adored, the rest of us thrilled to be allowed a place in this meeting, and wanting.... something. I'm not sure exactly what it could be, or where she went when the light turned, but she was thinking some thoughts, I could tell that much.

I was too. I was thinking "I love you, Ballard!"

k