OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA All is quiet on New Year’s Day. The signs of the party include one last peanut butter cookie and an ilyAIMY thong on the coffee table. And yes, that’s a genuine ilyAIMY “i love you & I Miss You” thong that someone felt the need to expose to the world. I’m not proud. But then again, I wasn’t wearing it. Poor Sharif – this is one of the main reasons I like using my OWN equiment for my open mic! No fucker comes along and spaghettifies my cables. Now, I know that TECHNICALLY “spaghettify” is usually used in reference to what happens to matter approaching a black hole (i am NOT uneducated!!!), but here I’m using it with slightly different intent and relying on my clever, clever readers to deal with the change in usage.
What a powerful night tonight: the last two shows at Java Mammas in Reisterstown, MD have also served as benefits for the local high school which is raising money to help rebuild schools in Uganda. My friend Ana did a really good job of getting people to turn out for the events and we did a really good job (if I do say so myself) of amusing them.
Alison and Robbie playing an absolutely alarming version of a Christmas carol at the College Perk open mic in College Park, MD. Robbie’s been joining us on hands on tambourine. Also alarming, but somehow positively bad ASS. Maggie B does whatever it is that Maggie B is doing at the Perk on a Tuesday night.
Wednesday night was just the weekly open mic, but Ana and Missy got up in between every couple of performers and pushed their cause – I hear they made a good amount of cash, passing boxes around and selling hand-made scarves and DVDs filmed in Africa… that combined with tonight’s show with Aowtar apparently garnered them more money than they raised all of last year – though part of me wishes we could keep the money (the poor part of me!) what would probably only fill our gas tanks for a month or two here will go a LOT further overseas. We won’t even remember this money in a couple of weeks, but hopefully it’ll build something substantial over there.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA My friend Ana ran the Invisible Children / Schools for Schools event for us at Java Mammas this Saturday. She hosted with enthusiasm and fervour and asked for a lot of money! It seemed to work out alright. Little Russian chicks are apparently better at asking for cash than old Slovak guys. Aowtar crooning beautifully at Java Mammas in Reisterstown, MD. One of the high points of Saturday night was Ash and his percussionist joining up on the congas for a spectacular drum jam. Java Mammas gets all steamed up with ilyAIMY and Aowtar in the house!
I think people need to remember that – everything is proportional. I won’t remember $10 next week. When I was working as a teacher, that number could’ve been $20 and when I was working for Glovia that could’ve been $200 – but right now, for some of these charity cases in Africa $10 can be a really huge deal and $200 for ilyAIMY can pay most all of our bills for a month.
Twrr.
In any case, not all is beautiful: I’ve finally given up on the various brands of press-on fingernails and have “graduated” (?) evolved (?) started using these brass finger picks by Alaska Metal and though I’ve been getting the hang of them, there’s still a physical learning curve. This was the first gig I played with them – I’ve learned: don’t snap my fingers (ouch) and don’t clap a lot (ouch) and keep the sharp edges filed down (ouch) and keep them taped on tight so they don’t flip around and get the string caught between the metal and my fingernails (OUCH!!!!)
Whole new bruise patterns on my hands. Ouch.
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Memory is a funny thing – I think about how different my own head seems to be from other people’s heads and it confounds me – whether I’m injured or insane or just different – and whether or not it’s a better or worse way to be. I felt slow today, sluggish and now as I try and try and try to fall asleep, my internal monologue babbles at a million miles a minute, purposeless.
Heather’s amazing. Her brain retains facts and images and beauty and quotes and lyrics. She’s rarely wrong. I glory in her rare inconsistancies and imperfections though they are invariably inconvenient. There’s rarely a circumstance where she’s wrong and I’m right, only those times when we’re BOTH wrong. And that’s rare enough. Ususally I’m wrong and she’s right and there’s not much else to be said.
My friend Sandy is another sort of creature entirely. She seems completely of the NOW and yet – where for most people that would equate to something rather shallow, she seems simply completely and fully aware. It’s like… well, my memory is difficult to access. I have many paths to similar things – I can retell a story a thousand times and though the gist will be the same the details will always be a little off. I seem to be completely unable to memorize numbers but I can do the math and every song has a couple of variant versions that only settle into a temporary stability through constant repetition.
Heather’s more like a hard drive with a high spin rate – she can access things swiftly and with complete accuracy – though every once in a while something gets lost. Tonight during Gaze I blanked on a couple of lyrics and would’ve HAD them except Heather was whispering me first the wrong word and then later a whole wrong verse. I try excuse myself with the idea that there’s a lot in my head and a lot in my Life, but frankly, I really ought to be able to sing all my freakin’ songs.
And then Sandy’s another creature entirely – she’s like… like everything in her Life is in her RAM. It’s all up there and swirling and present. She’s liquid. I’m solid with warrens and tangled paths and Heather’s like a slow-building patina with overlays and overlays slowly changing the whole – but Sandy’s a homogenous creature – ever-changing but ever-swirling as well. She whirlwinds in and out of my Life and everytime she’s someone a bit different, accumulating bits of whole cities like some blonde storm.
My friend Sandy and I went to Savage Mills to hunt bunnies for my Rabbit Army. She is generally suspicious of them, however. And really, she SHOULD be suspicious of them – I can’t decide if this is general or a foot soldier or perhaps a special ops kind of bunny. He’s definitely dangerous and not a just a little bit scary. An amazing thing that actually made me tear up. Many years ago when I had a beautiful 81 VW Ladybus, some bastard decided to break into it – they stole my camera, my stereo and my entire photo portfolio. I didn’t realize that Sandy had kept some of the glass all these years… OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
So I’m lying awake and thinking about our brains and how different they must be and about how my soul is perhaps mired in the sticky and tangled web of my own and how Heather’s must sparkle in her crystal and how Sandy just IS. We’re amazing creatures, us humans. Crazy and imperfect.
I have to be at the House of Musical Traditions in about 6.5 hours. I have to be functional and alert, charming and knowledgable about banjos. Unfortunately, in order to get there I’ll have to be awake in about 5 hours. I don’t forsee sleep coming too easily anytime soon – and so sweet healing sleep will have to be replaced with bitter, harsh caffeine and I’ll think again on how I JUST read an article about how lack of sleep decreases one’s memory… Beyond prophecy, I’m a self-fulfilling problem.
Creepy rob-beestie.