i chased evan dando down a dark city street

it’s true. i’m fairly ashamed. but more about that in a minute.

saw the lemonheads last night at this little place in downtown abq. i’ve been listening to the lemonheads for close to 17 years now, and maintain that "it’s a shame about ray" is one of the best albums of the ’90s. as much as i bitch and moan about the lack of concerts in abq, i can’t complain about this one. granted, it was a tuesday night, and the show didn’t start until 10:30. . . but i’m still giddy.









the concert was fun. they played almost all the songs from ray and a bunch from "come on feel..." so i spent a good part of the night bouncing around like a little kid.

my fan girl moment comes after the show. i had brought my cd cover from "lick" in hopes of an autograph, but it was getting late so we left. as i am pulling out of my parking spot, i see evan dando walking down the street with his guitar cases. i pull over, illegally park, grab my camera, sharpie, and cd case and start running down the road after him. i finally catch up to him an entire block later and wheeze something about listening to him for years. or something. i was on the verge of oxygen deprivation so i don’t remember much besides him asking me my name and being really cool about taking the picture since his arms are much longer than mine.

yeah, i’m a dork. and i’m okay with that.

calculating the worth of happiness

We all have that "thing" in our lives that soothes our soul, invigorates us, awakens our senses, ties together the experiences in our lives, and just generally brings us joy. It's different for everyone. For some that thing is art, film, hiking, cooking, playing sports, gardening. Mine is music.

My favorite singers tend to be indie singer-songwriters that only a select few people have even heard of. They work their tails off touring across the country, playing in tiny venues to their core group of fans, and a few curious newcomers. They rely on merch sales for their income and drive themselves around in rented cars from gig to gig.

My favorite singer posted a link to this article, on the brilliant blog BoingBoing, that speculates whether an artist could survive with just 1,000 true fans. The author states:

"The gist of 1,000 True Fans can be stated simply:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day's wages per year in support of what you do. That "one-day-wage" is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let's peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks."

I try to do my part. I buy every album. I have drawers full of T-shirts that I honestly never wear. I take ridiculously long road trips and spend my leisure budget just to attend shows. I even buy CD's for other people, just to get the music to someone new, and to try to put one more penny in the artist's pocket. I always wondered if there was maybe something more I could do.

The aforementioned favorite singer set up a donation site, so fans could become "patrons of the arts". I've often said that I wouldn't know what to do with myself if that person stopped making music, so I clicked on the donate button and stared at the screen for several minutes trying to think of a number that accurately reflected how much the music meant to me, but for which I wouldn't have to deplete the college funds of my own children. I would type in numbers, click partway through the process, and then close the browser window. Nothing seemed appropriate. Plus, there wasn't an option for an anonymous donation, so I was also left with this dilemma: At what point do you stop being a devoted fan and start being creepy obsessive? (Dear friends, if you ever consider my behavior creepy obsessive, please promptly give me a swift kick hard in the ass to knock me back to reality. Thanks.)

This all led me to wonder - what is your "thing" worth to you? When all is said and done, how much dough do you spend to keep your thing going, and how much would you give if asked?

new favorite song

unless you live in scandinavia somewhere, you probably can't buy this album yet, but once it's available you should get it. it's so good it makes my brain tingle.

maternal duty vs. civic duty

i signed up a few weeks ago to chaperone my daughter's field trip this morning. which is always fun, but it's at the same time that barack obama is speaking down at the university. i really would have loved to have been able to hear him speak. damn.

p.s. for those following the saga with my brother - he's doing much better. thank you for asking.

on the importance of assertiveness

First off, thanks to everyone who has expressed concern about my brother. Here's the story.

Day one: Monday 6 AM he goes to the E.R. because he had been diagnosed with pneumonia a week before, but is now coughing up blood. They run some tests and say, well it looks like your pneumonia is gone, but you're in congestive heart failure. Apparently he had approx. 20 pounds of fluid around his heart and lungs. I go in to visit him at 8 PM, and he's still sitting in the E.R. On a gurney. Peeing into disposable urinals. And a doctor hadn't been in to see him for nearly nine hours.

I take it upon myself to start harrassing the hospital staff. I have to harrass the nurse twice before she comes in. Then, finally after I was there for two hours, a doctor came in. I start grilling her about him coughing up blood. I'm not dumb. I know that coughing up blood is one of the first signs of TB. She doesn't think that it's an issue. She looked at his chart, poked at him a little, and left. Frustrating.

Day two: Still sitting on a gurney in the E.R. Tiny room. No television, no telephone, still not allowed to leave the room to use the toilet. Around noon, they tell him that he finally has been assigned a room, they're just getting it ready for him. Then another doctor comes in and he has to give his entire history again. This doctor hears "coughing up blood" and decides that now (after 36 hours in the E.R.) that my brother should be tested for TB before he is moved. So, he is taken off the list for a room, and put on a new list for a negative pressure room (of which there are only four rooms in the entire hospital) just in case he has TB.

Day three: Yup. Still sitting on a gurney in the E.R. but in a new fancy isolated room. I show up at 9:30 AM, and a doctor hasn't seen my brother since 8 PM the night before. I crack my knuckles and go into attack mode. I tell the nurses that we need to see the doctor. Then I call the patient advocacy office. I do this in rotation for a couple hours before a charge nurse finally comes in and says the TB precaution has been removed so he's back on the list for a regular room, but that the doctor assigned to see my brother "is too busy to come see him" and another doctor will be on after 2 PM that will come check on him. I flip my shit just a little and call the patient advocacy office again and give the girl on the other end a very calm ass ripping. A few minutes later, his nurse comes in, they have a room for him and he should be transferred some time that evening.

I don't know if my constant harrassment had anything to do with them finally taking care of him, but I'd like to think that maybe it did. Apparently, since my brother hadn't chosen a primary care physician on his insurance plan, there wasn't anyone to push his labs through and get things done. What a pile of horse shit.

Day four: I go to visit my brother in his brand-spanking new hospital room. He was transferred about an hour after I left the E.R. the day before. Since arriving at the new hospital, he had an ultrasound of his heart, saw five different doctors, nurses checked on him all the time, he had a flat screen television and access to a telephone. It was like being released from prison and checking into the Ritz-Carlton.

So, they think he probably got a viral infection in his heart, exacerbated by the pneumonia and other health issues (weight and smoking) which basically made his heart start to fail. When they did the ultrasound, it was pumping at only about 20% efficiency, and the entire heart was enlarged. They have him on all sorts of meds to try to get the heart strong again.

Day five: A pulmonologist looked at his CAT scan because there were some abnormalities in the lung. There's some fluid in his left lung and some swelling in his lymph nodes, so now they are deciding whether to do a biopsy to rule out lymphoma or sarcoidosis.


I swear, this is like an episode of House. But without the grumpy (yet strangely attractive) gimpy doc.

2007, in review

2007 is mere hours from being done, so I am contractually obligated to make a year ending post about music.

It's tough to top 2006 as far as music related activity goes, so I'll just let 2007 stand on its own. I moved to a new town this year, which means I moved away from my favorite concert buddies. You know who you are. I've had to travel more for shows. Well, I actually haven't traveled more for shows, but the necessity was greater. Oh! And I got an iPod this year, finally. His name is DJ Reggie, he's a silver 80GB Classic, and I've only managed to get 15 GB in him thus far. I add stuff every day. It's exhausting.

total new cds: 55. (33 new releases, 22 back catalogue)
total shows: 15 shows in 6 states

And because no year end wrap-up is complete without lists....my top 6 of 2007!!!!

Favorite songs:
1. If the Brakeman Turns My Way - Bright Eyes.
2. Long Play - Dick Prall
3. You Are My Face - Wilco
4. The Temptation of Adam - Josh Ritter
5. The Sun Also Sets - Ryan Adams
6. Australia - The Shins

Favorite lyrics:
1. "We passed the time with crosswords that she thought to bring inside. 'What five letters spell apocalypse' she asked me. I won her over saying 'W.W.I.I.I' She smiled and we both knew that she'd misjudged me." Josh Ritter, The Temptation of Adam.
2. "Trying to be thankful our stories fit into phones. And our voices lift so easily A gift given accidentally When we're not sure we're not alone" Wilco, I Am Your Face
3. "Without the numbness all the pain is so intense to feel." Ryan Adams, I Taught Myself How to Grow Old
4. "I tried to pass for nothing but my dreams gave me away." Bright Eyes, If the Brakeman Turns My Way.
5. "Honesty like hanging trees don't get used anymore" Dick Prall, Long Play
6. "Yesterday it hit me that I do All the little things That you do Except those same little things That you do Are annoying. They're annoying as hell in fact." White Stripes, I'm Slowly Turning Into You

Favorite concerts:
1. Toad the Wet Sprocket, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago. Did I mention this was the best birthday ever?
2. Ryan Adams, HOB Chicago. I think there are still parts of my face melted on the floor of the HOB.
3. Josh Ritter, Park West Chicago. Josh Ritter, solo acoustic, with Renee, James and Asshead as my concert buddies? Plus, the first sighting of the Jack Bauer of concert security. Awesome.
4. Teitur/Jenny Owen Youngs, Beat Kitchen Chicago.
5. Josh Rouse, Golden West Saloon, Albuquerque.
6. Ryan Adams, Red Rocks Denver.

Favorite new finds (artists I started listening to this year):
1. Wilco. Yeah, I'm late to the boat. Get over it. Besides, could I continue my love of Sansone without finally listening to Wilco? I think not.
2. Jenny Owen Youngs
3. The Shins
4. Rocky Votolato
5. Fionn Regan
6. Travis
(Josh Rouse should be in this category, but I bought one of his cd's last year. I didn't really get Josh Rouse until this year. Now? L-O-V-E.)

Favorite back catalogue pick-ups. (Okay. I admit it. I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes. But these are the cds I picked up this year that came out pre-2007 that I'm kicking myself for not buying sooner.)
1. Wilco's entire catalog (except the Billy Bragg stuff). Now James and George can get off my case.
2. Josh Rouse - Subtitulo.
3. Rocky Votolato - Makers
4. Elliott Smith - Either/Or
5. Brett Dennen - So Much More
6. Griffin House - Lost and Found

Favorite New Releases:
1. Bright Eyes - Cassadaga. This was a tough year to pick a favorite. Cassadaga won by a hair over Sky Blue Sky. I just think this was such a fantastic cd, start to finish. Ok, I will admit, the beginning of every Bright Eyes cd annoys me with his self-indulgent little oddities. The packaging makes up for it though. So cool.
2. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky. I hear a lot of people who have listened to Wilco for years complaining about this album. That's when I realize that I'm lucky that I just started listening to them, because I can hear this cd with fresh ears. I bought it with no expectations, and I love it without comparing it to anything else they have done.
3. Dick Prall - Weightless
4. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
5. Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of...
6. Travis - The Boy With No Name

Music highlights:
1. Being asked to be webmistress of Teitur's website. It feels so good to be so trusted. And it never would have happened without one really damn good reference. There are no words for my appreciation of that person.
2. Toad wishing me a happy birthday from on stage. Even the thunder-stealer couldn't take away the glow from that day.
3. Traveling to L.A. to finally see Glen play at Largo. Pilgrimage complete. Plus I got to see DJ Jazzy Night Court.
4. Getting George to finally accept Josh Ritter into his life. You cannot resist The Animal Years.
5. Shawn Mullins in Colorado. Dancing on the streets with my kids. Joy.
6. Jenny Owen Youngs grabbing James' ass. Genius.

And if James has special categories, damnit, I should too.

* Worst song by an artist I love: Halloweenhead - Ryan Adams
* Everyone tells me I should love it, but I don't: Boxer - The National
* Best cd autograph: Jenny Owen Youngs - "Adobe Sneak Attack Motherfucker! NICER ASS!!"
* Best cd that I can't understand a word of: Teitur - Kata Hornid
* CD I still haven't bought, but I will in 2008: Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha


Looking forward to 2008. Hopefully I'll see you on the road.

gonna trade the weather for the western coast

This past weekend, I took a trip out to California. In my head, song lyrics were rattling around, building up for my trip...

"Going out to California. Gonna let the water warm my clothes..."

"Halfway to Hollywood, I'm selling songs, you're selling your good book..."

"Are you still beautiful in Los Angeles, 'cause it's been so long I can't handle it..."

The trip was a semi-spur of the moment decision. The end of finals week somehow wound up corresponding with a Glen Phillips concert at Largo in L.A. If you're not a big Glen fan, that probably doesn't mean much, so I'll try to explain. Ever since Glen went solo, Largo has become something of his home base, and he has been known to play songs there that haven't been heard other places. And, if you know me, you know there's nothing that makes me happier musically than a Glen show. So, the timing of the show seemed somewhat serendipitous. My traveling companion was my friend Sara, who flew in from Philly for the show.

Flying into L.A., my impressions were as follows: 1) there really are palm trees all over the place. And 2) the air is brown. (In my head, I thought, "Free radicals! Free radicals! I need antioxidants, quick!") From where we stayed in Hollywood, we could have been in almost any city during the summer. The palm trees were really the only distinguishing feature. It was amusing to see people walking around in winter coats in 72 degree weather. I also accosted Dave Navarro in the airport to get his picture with James' famous Asshead shirt.



I got to meet a few people with whom I have had email correspondence. It's always interesting to finally meet someone in person to see if they match up with the person you have created in your head.

The show itself was good, but short. Glen was joined by Sean and Sara Watkins, Greg Leisz, and Pete Thomas. Also, Randy Guss made a surprise appearance on drums during "Windmills". I had actually seen him outside before the show, but didn't realize I would be seeing him onstage. I was kinda hoping for more Glen. Just Glen. But it's hard to complain when the songs sounded so good.

I had a lot of fun on the trip, but I'm coming off it feeling strangely out of sorts. You know how sometimes you build something up so big in your head that there is no way it could ever live up to your expectations? So many things about the trip were great, the show, the inimitable duo that are Cliff and Ian, my think-alike Sara, too many black & tans, Pink Berry frozen yogurt, the staff at our ultra-funky hotel... But there was something remotely toxic about L.A. for me. I don't know if it was the air, or the traffic, or the surliness of the people bustling about oblivious to the people around them. Or maybe it was the delayed plane that left me stranded in Phoenix until almost 2 a.m. Whatever it was, I'm feeling a little drained.

I did come out of the weekend with a realization about people. I've met a lot of people while traveling around and moving across the country. There are people that pass into and out of your life without affecting it much. There are incredibly positive, fun people, who enrich your life regardless of how long they are in it. And there are the negative people who drain your energy in one way or another. It always seems that the negative ones make the bigger impact. I need to work harder at appreciating the positive ones and forgetting about the negative.

" So goodnight Hollywood Blvd, goodnight,
See ya soon
Goodnight Hollywood Blvd, see you sometime
Yeah, right
Yeah, right"