The magical things we find with no destination in mind...

"Golden Glamour" by Vanessa Bley.



Inspired by the documentary film BEAUTIFUL DARLING: The Life & Times of Candy Darling.

Candy was an Andy Warhol Superstar. Chloe Sevigny plays her in the film. It's fascinating. From the web site:

Beautiful Darling, a documentary film, pays tribute to the short but influential life of an extraordinary person -- the actress Candy Darling, born James Slattery in a Long Island suburb in 1944. Drawn to the feminine from childhood, by the mid-Sixties James had become Candy, a gorgeous, blonde actress and well-known downtown New York figure. Candy's career took her through the raucous and revolutionary Off-off-Broadway theater scene and into Andy Warhol's legendary Factory. There she became close to Warhol and starred in two Factory movies that still shock and amuse today: Flesh and Women in Revolt. Candy used her Warhol fame to land further film roles, and her admirer Tennessee Williams cast her in his play Small Craft Warnings. She dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star, but tragically died of lymphoma in the early Seventies, at only twenty-nine.

A playlist for my shoes...

Boots, actually. I got my first pair of Doc Martens in high school (oxblood, laces half done) and wore the hell out of them until I was out of college. It was the 90s. We watched Singles and dreamed of moving to Seattle or New York. We loved Nirvana and Mudhoney and L7 and Soundgarden and Sleater-Kinney. We got our noses pierced. We dyed our hair Tori Amos red. We got tattoos. My Doc Marten boots took me all over campus, waded through standing room only crowds at the Music Farm (the old and new one), drank vodka cranberries at AC's (the old and new one), ground peanut shells to dust on the floor of that shitty little club off of market street where we first saw Billy Pilgrim, stood so close to the stage at a Ramones concert that we're still a little deaf in one ear, sat outside the door during hurricane season after hurricane season, fell in love, fell out of love, smoked cigars and sang the blues at that basement club in Savannah, fell in love again and again and one more time after that. And then we grew up. We lost track of our Docs. They ended up with a friend or at Goodwill or left behind in that great second floor apartment on Alexander Street with all of those windows and hardwood floors and a fireplace in the living room and one in the bedroom.

These new boots are not like my old boots, even though they're the classic 1460s. They're black, for one (oxblood is hard to come by these days). I'm not ready to wear them to work, but I wear them almost all the time when I'm not working. They feel like the old ones, but don't make me feel like the old ones. I know the 90s are long over and I'm not sure I could fall in love again, at least, not so hard again. I can feel them pulling, though. They want to go see We Are Augustines next month at Antone's. They whisper, "listen sister, you live in Austin now and there is so, so much you haven't seen and heard." So I made a 90s nostalgia playlist for both of us (links are to individual Youtube videos but you can get the whole thing here).

Mudhoney, "Touch Me I'm Sick"
L7, "Pretend We're Dead"
Concrete Blonde, "Joey"
Nirvana, "Lithium"
Violent Femmes, "Good Feeling"
Mazzy Star, "Fade Into You"
Mother Love Bone, "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns"
Tori Amos, "Crucify"
Nine Inch Nails, "Closer"
Hole, "Asking For It"
Porno for Pyros, "Meija"
Seven Mary Three, "Water's Edge"

There are things we can let go of and things that become ingrained. My hair isn't quite so red. I wear my nose stud when I remember to put it in. I'm still getting tattooed. My heart is healing. I know it's OK to admit it when I'm scared. I'm just as self-involved. I admit that now too. The 23-year-old me has been painted over so many times it feels like her windows will never open again. But she's there. She doesn't want to wear torn jeans and plaid flannel, but she loves the shit out of our new boots. We can hear the music.

"In one more hour I will be gone
In one more hour I'll leave this room
The dress you wore, the pretty shoes
Are things I left behind for you." (Sleater-Kinney, "One More Hour")

Music memories...

"Good Feeling" by the Violent Femmes brought high school back in a rush of Southern Comfort, Doc Martens, thrift store sweaters, dyeing black streaks into my hair, driving to Savannah for tattoos, crushes on boys who wore ripped jeans and plaid...I haven't thought of this song in years. Usually "Blister in the Sun" or "Add It Up" take up my frontal lobe recall.



Oddly, it was a syndicated episode of "How I Met Your Mother" during which Marshall and Lily crash a prom to find their wedding band that reminded me of this song. Lily asked the band to play "their song" (and cut to flashback about their song, etc. etc.).

More downloads to add to my iTunes...

This year's soundtrack....

Inspired my my friend Angie Mizzell's post, My Story: The Soundtrack, and because I have been working on and off on a memoir-style (sort of) essay collection myself, I came up with my own soundtrack should they make a movie from my memoir (a la Eat Pray Love). A more apt title for mine would be Love, Drink, Cry....but it isn't. I posted this on Angie's blog as well, but wanted to share here. Soundtrack for my memoir, possibly. Soundtrack for 2010, definitely.

The Weary Kind, Ryan Bingham (from the Crazy Heart soundtrack)
Beautiful World, Colin Hay
Hold on Hope, Guided by Voices
All in My Head, Shawn Mullins
Carolina in My Mind, James Taylor
Too Much Space, Lisa Germano
Who'd Have Known, Lily Allen
Bittersweet Symphony, The Verve
Thunder Road, Cowboy Junkies (Springsteen cover)
I am Alright, Madeleine Peyroux
All I Want, Susie Suh
Harvest Moon, Neil Young
You Are Not Alone, Patty Griffin
Don't Mind Me, Lucy Kaplansky

I have an actual iTunes playlist for this one called "Moving to Austin." I also have a playlist for 2009 called "The Shitshow," but I'd rather keep that one to myself for now. Even if you're not working on a memoir like the 10 billion of us who are, what is your soundtrack (or song) for this year? Did you have one for 2009? Is it mostly made up of The Cure? Should I have included "Deep in the Heart of Texas" on mine?

Share yours here...I'd love to add some new music to my own list.

We are two both weirdos...

My friend Michael and I often email each other back & forth about random things, such as what we are currently listening to, what we ate for lunch, and how many more days it is until Heroes comes back on. Usually, he's listening to some crappy Eurotrash pop (or Gwen Stefani) and I'm listening to some godawful heavy metal or obscure trip hop. I joke about his musical tastes; I've actually gotten some good music recommendations from him (Amy Winehouse! Corinne Bailey Rae!) and he's helped me have an open mind about The Eighties Music and The Disco Music. We both love the heck out of Cyndi Lauper, Jenny Lewis, any chanteuse with an album between 1940 and 1970, and New Order. He's mocked me in the past for my brief affair with James Blunt (lasted five minutes, I swear), Tori Amos, and of course, All Things Metal. I made fun of his disco mix of Dolly Parton-doing-Stairway to Heaven (but listened to it in secret).

Today I was randomly sampling from my iTunes playlist and still had "Sister Christian" stuck in my head from earlier in the afternoon when Michael emailed me a "now playing" email with the following:
Saw you walking out on Sentimental Street
What cha going out there
Who ya trying to be
I know what you're thinking
Cause I've been there myself...

What are the chances that our sometimes disparate musical tastes would converge and we'd find ourselves both listening to Night Ranger on the same afternoon? Something like one in 750,000, I think. I figured I'd ride that brainwave and try to send him vibes to come over and bring me dinner later, but unfortunately my good friend is attending a Reunite REO Speedwagon rally this evening. Otherwise he would.

The last CD I made for him, and why...

Reading Rob Sheffield's memoir, Love is a Mix Tape, brings back a lot of memories. Before CDs there were mix tapes, the pre-CD ones recorded from radio when I was in high school. I once made a tape of nothing but Metallica songs, simply titled "Metallica Rules and You Don't." I pressed "record" every time I heard the opening bars of "Enter Sandman," "Last Caress/Green Hell," or "And Justice for All." I think one whole side was "Last Caress" with different DJ intros. The other side featured five minutes of me talking about why Metallica is the best band EVER. Fascinating stuff. I also had a "make out" tape that was (embarrassingly) heavy with Journey and REO Speedwagon. Every time I gave someone a mix tape or CD, it was loaded with meaning. When my best friend in high school moved to Florida, I made him a tape called "I Will Not Carry On." It was very melodramatic and featured two versions (regular & dance) of "Angel of the Morning" by Juice Newton. I think half of the songs were by The Cure.

When I first discovered Napster it was like Mix CD Heaven. I made tons of "theme CDs," like "Saddest Songs in the World Wallow Mix" and "How Punk Rock Saved My Life in 1989." Then iTunes came along and I fell in love all over again with those 99-cent legal downloads.

When you make a mix CD for someone you love, it's usually loaded with meaning. Sometimes it was the only way I could communicate. Looking back on some of the song lists, I wonder if I was channeling spirits or tapping into psychic abilities; they're just so telling. Why didn't I see it before?

This is a list of songs from the last CD I made for him (the last him that I loved) with the not-so-subtle title "Ten Ways I Feel About You":

• "Wish You Were Here," Pink Floyd. Why: We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year...
• "Almost Blue," Elvis Costello. Why: Flirting with this disaster became me...It named me as the fool who only aimed to be...
• "Leather," Tori Amos. Why: Look, I'm standing naked before you; Don't you want more than my sex?
• "I Will Remember You," Sarah McLachlan. Why: I’m so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose; Clinging to a past that doesn’t let me choose...
• "In Your Eyes," Peter Gabriel. Why: Do I have to explain this one?
• "If You Were the Woman and I Was the Man," Cowboy Junkies. Why: Would I laugh if you came to me with your heart in your hand?
• "Sandwiches," Detroit Grand Pubahs. Why: (it was a joke he would get) You can be the bun and I can be the burger girl...I know you wanna do it and we can make sandwiches.
• "Dancing Barefoot," Patti Smith. Why: Could it be he´s taking over me?
• "Do You Feel Loved," U2. Why: It looks like the sun but feels like the rain.
• "La Vie En Rose," Edith Piaf. Why: Il me dit des mots d'amour, Des mots de tous les jours, Et ca me fait quelque chose. (He tells me words of love, words of everyday, and that made me something.)

See? I think my heart knew he was leaving before he did.