March has been a terribly rough month, culminating with a death in my "friend family" today. I apologize to my readers for being MIA lately, but I assure you I've been coping through writing and a fertile spring is ahead for Just Eat The Cat and my other adventures in writing, rocking, and teaching. Until I return in a few days, I hope you're enjoying some wonderful books and the web sites I recommend here (scroll down and check out the righthand side of the page). Also, if you want to read about a hilarious, one-of-a-kind guy who must now live on in memories, go to weheartjoe.blogspot.com and read about Joe, gone way too soon at 33.
Much love from Chicago and Austin. Hug your loved ones tightly, my friends. ... Erin
Monday, March 26, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Mania in the Mountains (Pt. 1: Hellbound redheads, party of 2!)
TODAY'S QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: What was the last job you quit and why?
Estes Park, Colorado
July 2002
When I was 24, I quit my day job and announced to the world that it should look out, "Because I AM GOING TO CAMP!" The concept was a bit ridiculous -- dream newspaper reporting job: OUT! s'mores: IN! -- and my grandfather actually laughed in my face when I told him over breakfast at IHOP. But at least I was not alone. My sister and cousin were already Colorado-bound, and I convinced one of my best friends to join us, too. Quarter-life crisis? Let's do this!
Off we went for a summer adventure as camp counselors in the Rocky Mountains, where the four of us lived in cramped staff dorms, slept on creaky bunkbeds, ate frightening mess-hall slop three times a day, and took home paychecks with absurdly tiny dollar amounts on them -- especially considering I had just quit a cushy newspaper job and was, at 24 years old, a total Danny Glover ("too old for this shit").
But of course, we had the time of our lives. Kindergarteners with tourette's cursing on pony rides! Middle schoolers lost and found in the vicinity of mountain lions! Camp staff driving vans into an icy river and living to tell the tale! Plus the usual hiking hookups and late-night stargazing under the sparkling Colorado sky. It was heaven.
But there was one problem during that stolen summer -- the whole park was ON FIRE. For real. Ash rained from the sky, and calls came over the camp PA -- "a large bear, displaced from his den by the fire, is running through camp along the main road ... please end weenie roast promptly and bring campers into lodge for parachute games."
One July evening, word had spread through the staff quarters that we were to meet in the chapel for an emergency fire evacuation meeting that night. I didn’t want to go because the powers that be had chosen to hold the meeting at the beginning of a church service. (The "C" in YMCA stands for Christian, and they don't let the staff forget it.) My friends and I theorized, only half jokingly, that the fire meeting was all a ruse to brainwash us into attending chapel on a regular basis.
“If I don’t hear the words ‘fire evacuation’ in the first two minutes, I’m outta there,” I told Paul, a fellow redheaded counselor and a barely legal drinker (as opposed to many of my other new bestest friends, who were -- gasp! --still teenagers). “I’m not interested in saving my soul from some kind of eternal fire, just the one that’s creeping over the mountains right this minute!”
When we reached the chapel doors, church volunteers were handing out small black and white fliers for an upcoming service. The sermon topic must have had something to do with our carnal instincts, because the fliers read: “I invented sex. You’re welcome. –God.”
My friends and I tossed this idea around for a while, snickering like campers in the back of the church. “Come on! Did God really invent sex?” one guy asked. "Wasn't Mary supposed to be a virgin and shit?" Just a few months removed from the newsroom, I immediately went into Blasphemous, Fact-Checking Journalist Autopilot Mode: “Did God actually print these fliers? Are those really direct quotes? And who was He doing all this so-called inventing with, anyway?” I was going to hell.
Eventually, the director of the camp stepped to the microphone and greeted the staff. “Who here has never been to this weekly church service before?” he asked, as casually as one can ask a question that might as well be "Who here is Saved?" The mic wasn't very loud, so he cleared his throat and asked again.
“Who here has never been to this weekly church service before?”
Then, as if in a dream, I heard an exuberant, deafening holler of come from the seat next to me, where Paul was sitting. “WHOOOOOOOO!” Paul had responded as if Mick Jagger had just asked, “Who likes alcohol and loose women?” and for several very long seconds Paul's echoing "whoooo!" was the only sound in the entire, cavernous chapel. Everyone turned and stared in our direction, at the two redheads who were clearly going to hell. Specifically, I felt like Paul had just yelled, “Is anyone here trained in the occult? THIS ROW NEEDS AN EXORCISM!”
We clutched our stomachs, cupped our hands over our mouths to stifle the chokes of laughter, and ducked down in our chairs. The night was off to an auspicious start, and believe me, Paul and I were just getting started.
To be continued tomorrow . . .
Estes Park, Colorado
July 2002
When I was 24, I quit my day job and announced to the world that it should look out, "Because I AM GOING TO CAMP!" The concept was a bit ridiculous -- dream newspaper reporting job: OUT! s'mores: IN! -- and my grandfather actually laughed in my face when I told him over breakfast at IHOP. But at least I was not alone. My sister and cousin were already Colorado-bound, and I convinced one of my best friends to join us, too. Quarter-life crisis? Let's do this!
Off we went for a summer adventure as camp counselors in the Rocky Mountains, where the four of us lived in cramped staff dorms, slept on creaky bunkbeds, ate frightening mess-hall slop three times a day, and took home paychecks with absurdly tiny dollar amounts on them -- especially considering I had just quit a cushy newspaper job and was, at 24 years old, a total Danny Glover ("too old for this shit").
But of course, we had the time of our lives. Kindergarteners with tourette's cursing on pony rides! Middle schoolers lost and found in the vicinity of mountain lions! Camp staff driving vans into an icy river and living to tell the tale! Plus the usual hiking hookups and late-night stargazing under the sparkling Colorado sky. It was heaven.
But there was one problem during that stolen summer -- the whole park was ON FIRE. For real. Ash rained from the sky, and calls came over the camp PA -- "a large bear, displaced from his den by the fire, is running through camp along the main road ... please end weenie roast promptly and bring campers into lodge for parachute games."
One July evening, word had spread through the staff quarters that we were to meet in the chapel for an emergency fire evacuation meeting that night. I didn’t want to go because the powers that be had chosen to hold the meeting at the beginning of a church service. (The "C" in YMCA stands for Christian, and they don't let the staff forget it.) My friends and I theorized, only half jokingly, that the fire meeting was all a ruse to brainwash us into attending chapel on a regular basis.
“If I don’t hear the words ‘fire evacuation’ in the first two minutes, I’m outta there,” I told Paul, a fellow redheaded counselor and a barely legal drinker (as opposed to many of my other new bestest friends, who were -- gasp! --still teenagers). “I’m not interested in saving my soul from some kind of eternal fire, just the one that’s creeping over the mountains right this minute!”
When we reached the chapel doors, church volunteers were handing out small black and white fliers for an upcoming service. The sermon topic must have had something to do with our carnal instincts, because the fliers read: “I invented sex. You’re welcome. –God.”
My friends and I tossed this idea around for a while, snickering like campers in the back of the church. “Come on! Did God really invent sex?” one guy asked. "Wasn't Mary supposed to be a virgin and shit?" Just a few months removed from the newsroom, I immediately went into Blasphemous, Fact-Checking Journalist Autopilot Mode: “Did God actually print these fliers? Are those really direct quotes? And who was He doing all this so-called inventing with, anyway?” I was going to hell.
Eventually, the director of the camp stepped to the microphone and greeted the staff. “Who here has never been to this weekly church service before?” he asked, as casually as one can ask a question that might as well be "Who here is Saved?" The mic wasn't very loud, so he cleared his throat and asked again.
“Who here has never been to this weekly church service before?”
Then, as if in a dream, I heard an exuberant, deafening holler of come from the seat next to me, where Paul was sitting. “WHOOOOOOOO!” Paul had responded as if Mick Jagger had just asked, “Who likes alcohol and loose women?” and for several very long seconds Paul's echoing "whoooo!" was the only sound in the entire, cavernous chapel. Everyone turned and stared in our direction, at the two redheads who were clearly going to hell. Specifically, I felt like Paul had just yelled, “Is anyone here trained in the occult? THIS ROW NEEDS AN EXORCISM!”
We clutched our stomachs, cupped our hands over our mouths to stifle the chokes of laughter, and ducked down in our chairs. The night was off to an auspicious start, and believe me, Paul and I were just getting started.
To be continued tomorrow . . .
Goodnight, Wisconsin!
Due to extensive freelance commitments at the moment, I regret I'm forced to save the detailed conclusion of the Wisconsin saga for one of my books or my new zine. But I don't want to leave you totally high and dry. So to wrap it up for now, here's the short version:
I made it to Kenosha! Go me!
I was there long enough to pee, and then I turned around and came back to Chicago. It was that simple, and of course, it was so much more. I still owe my readers the tale of using Oliver North's rental van to spin doughnuts on a soccer field on the north shore. I won't forget, I promise.
-- Erin :)
I made it to Kenosha! Go me!
I was there long enough to pee, and then I turned around and came back to Chicago. It was that simple, and of course, it was so much more. I still owe my readers the tale of using Oliver North's rental van to spin doughnuts on a soccer field on the north shore. I won't forget, I promise.
-- Erin :)
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Detour: Houston, Texas
CHARLES, PUT SOME PANTS ON, THEY'RE HEEEEERE!
The brilliance above comes from my grandmother and was more or less the first thing my mom, sisters, and I heard upon arrival in Houston on Sunday. Words cannot express how genius I feel for the decision to go to Houston to see my grandparents and write unfettered by Austin things like friends and fun. Houston is a cesspool of sucky swampitude, but I have never been so focused in my life. Six medical articles written in a 24-hour period! (Do they give Pulitzers for raw productivity?) Plus, I continue to stomp on my former-picky-eater inner child, who never would have gone anywhere near my grandmother's corned beef and cabbage last night. Granted, the amount I ate would qualify as a drive-by at best, but I'm going to pat myself on the back anyway. As they say in Braincandy, it's the little things.
And speaking of the little things, I took a writing break yesterday to go to a neighborhood playground with Mom, Shannon, and Colleen -- and I ended up writing anyway. I couldn't help it. Our girls-only tetherball tournament was something to behold. And it is so awesome spending time with my sisters, who have been amazing people since day one, but are suddenly witty, beautiful teenage firecrackers. They were in diapers, faces caked in mushed plums and animal crackers just the other day, I swear!
SHANNON, 14, defacto tournament rule enforcer: "You can't touch the string, Colleen!"
COLLEEN, 12: "The string touched meeeee!"
SHANNON, three games later in the tournament: "You can't let the string touch you, Colleen!"
Colleen is my youngest sister, born when I was a senior in high school and statistically more likely to be my own daughter than my mother's, since Mom was 45 when she got pregnant for the fourth time (no drugs, just silly old nature!). Once at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar in Austin in about 1996, a fellow shopper noted "Aw, how sweet, three generations!" That was all the abstinence education I needed.
My faux-daughter is sensitive and brilliant, a quiet writer/thinker type. And as is often the case with such kids, Colleen's also got some challenges -- namely dyslexia and major trouble with the motor skills most of us take for granted (and around which elementary school sadistically revolves -- jumping rope is like brain surgery for her and she uses scissors like NO ONE you've ever seen, trust me).
This is all background for my favorite tether ball moments, which always happen when my mom tries to encourage Colleen without blatantly playing favorites or making it seem like she thinks her youngest daughter is physically challenged (which she isn't, at least no more than her oldest sister, who stubs her toe on a daily basis). More classic moments from yesterday ...
MOM, watching Shannon kick her little sister's butt in 3 seconds flat: "It's OK to move your feet, Colleen!"
MOM, to me, trying to be politically correct and sports-based at the same time (and failing spectacularly): "We should give her some kind of head start, you know like in golf -- what do they call it?"
ME: "A handicap."
MOM: "Oh."
The reality is that all the women in my family (including my other sister Meg, who was missed, as she lives in North Carolina) are probably about equally skilled at tether ball. When a rubber grapefruit comes hurtling at our noses, we will yelp and try to block it.
I think I like Shannon's comment to Colleen the best: "YOU'RE JUST LOSING TO BE CUTE!"
Hee. Aren't we all?
LOVE & GUITARS,
Erin
P.S. -- Parting quote from my mom, who I love more than even I can say in words: "I heard you, I just didn't know it was something I was supposed to understand."
The brilliance above comes from my grandmother and was more or less the first thing my mom, sisters, and I heard upon arrival in Houston on Sunday. Words cannot express how genius I feel for the decision to go to Houston to see my grandparents and write unfettered by Austin things like friends and fun. Houston is a cesspool of sucky swampitude, but I have never been so focused in my life. Six medical articles written in a 24-hour period! (Do they give Pulitzers for raw productivity?) Plus, I continue to stomp on my former-picky-eater inner child, who never would have gone anywhere near my grandmother's corned beef and cabbage last night. Granted, the amount I ate would qualify as a drive-by at best, but I'm going to pat myself on the back anyway. As they say in Braincandy, it's the little things.
And speaking of the little things, I took a writing break yesterday to go to a neighborhood playground with Mom, Shannon, and Colleen -- and I ended up writing anyway. I couldn't help it. Our girls-only tetherball tournament was something to behold. And it is so awesome spending time with my sisters, who have been amazing people since day one, but are suddenly witty, beautiful teenage firecrackers. They were in diapers, faces caked in mushed plums and animal crackers just the other day, I swear!
SHANNON, 14, defacto tournament rule enforcer: "You can't touch the string, Colleen!"
COLLEEN, 12: "The string touched meeeee!"
SHANNON, three games later in the tournament: "You can't let the string touch you, Colleen!"
Colleen is my youngest sister, born when I was a senior in high school and statistically more likely to be my own daughter than my mother's, since Mom was 45 when she got pregnant for the fourth time (no drugs, just silly old nature!). Once at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar in Austin in about 1996, a fellow shopper noted "Aw, how sweet, three generations!" That was all the abstinence education I needed.
My faux-daughter is sensitive and brilliant, a quiet writer/thinker type. And as is often the case with such kids, Colleen's also got some challenges -- namely dyslexia and major trouble with the motor skills most of us take for granted (and around which elementary school sadistically revolves -- jumping rope is like brain surgery for her and she uses scissors like NO ONE you've ever seen, trust me).
This is all background for my favorite tether ball moments, which always happen when my mom tries to encourage Colleen without blatantly playing favorites or making it seem like she thinks her youngest daughter is physically challenged (which she isn't, at least no more than her oldest sister, who stubs her toe on a daily basis). More classic moments from yesterday ...
MOM, watching Shannon kick her little sister's butt in 3 seconds flat: "It's OK to move your feet, Colleen!"
MOM, to me, trying to be politically correct and sports-based at the same time (and failing spectacularly): "We should give her some kind of head start, you know like in golf -- what do they call it?"
ME: "A handicap."
MOM: "Oh."
The reality is that all the women in my family (including my other sister Meg, who was missed, as she lives in North Carolina) are probably about equally skilled at tether ball. When a rubber grapefruit comes hurtling at our noses, we will yelp and try to block it.
I think I like Shannon's comment to Colleen the best: "YOU'RE JUST LOSING TO BE CUTE!"
Hee. Aren't we all?
LOVE & GUITARS,
Erin
P.S. -- Parting quote from my mom, who I love more than even I can say in words: "I heard you, I just didn't know it was something I was supposed to understand."
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Detour: Austin, Texas
This trip to Austin will be a working vacation -- writing all day, rocking all night -- and I really needed to get started on the plane this morning (cancer stories don't write themselves). However I blew it before we even took off, thanks to Love Is A Mix Tape, a book loaned to me by Mike from the Hidden Mitten. (Mike Mitten would be so much easier, but he already has a couple of cool last names just like me. Oh well.)
I decided to read a few pages of the book until it was OK to use electronic devices. Big mistake! It's not that Mix Tape is the best or worst book ever, but it's pretty good and, more importantly, it's about the two things almost every musician (certainly myself) cares about most -- songs and love (the third is probably drugs and alcohol, but I'll leave that to Alice in Chains and the Alkaline Trio, respectively). Each chapter of Love Is A Mix Tape starts with the contents of a cassette the author and his wife used to listen to before she died, completely out of nowhere, from an embolism at about age 30.
You know where this is going, maybe? Well, if you guessed I was weeping before the plane's wheels even left the ground, good guess.
Music and love are the most powerful gifts humanity has to offer. They often feel like one and the same to me. When I'm happy, every song sounds like church bells and a raucous gospel choir. When I'm heartbroken, music makes me feel better -- or lets me wallow and feel worse until I'm ready to feel better, which is a crucial step unto itself. Of course, the tough part is that sometimes my love of music takes me away from the love of my life, and SXSW is going to be a rough week for both Patrick and me, which bites. I'm not going to say, "when you love someone set them free." Screw that. It's more like, when you love someone, don't give them hell for going on tour with their band or being locked in a video game design studio for 12 hours a day. Ah, modern marriage.
Anyway, I'm at the part of the mix tape book (a true story) where the young wife has just died and the husband is suffering with how every song he hears reminds him of his wife or makes him wish his wife could have heard it. God, how I know that feeling. When friends and members of The Personals came with me to The Broken Spoke a couple weeks ago for Dad's birthday, I played my childhood favorite song ("I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver") by my dad's favorite singer (Merle Haggard). The lyric "Are the good times really over for good?" has gone to a whole other level in the past three years. Same goes for "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones, another favorite of mine from childhood and now a regular on Erin's Jukebox of Perpetual Mourning. (When you grow up the daughter of a honky tonk dad, a lot of your childhood soundtrack ends up being pretty sad or at least based on the "Think I'll Just Sit Here and Drink"/"Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" story arc. Thankfully, my wonderful mom also raised me on the Beatles, so I had silly songs about yellow submarines, eggmen, walruses, and fields of strawberries to keep me child-like, too.)
I've said this a million times, but I am so grateful my dad got to see The Personals play once before he died. And now I'm grateful to be playing the bass he gave me in my new band in Chicago. I hate that he'll never see me play with the Hidden Mitten, too, at least not in person, and that I can only imagine his gleeful reaction to the Wisconsin photos from last weekend. (Oh, how Captain Dave loved an adventure! And loved to take surprise, bad-hair pics of my sisters and me on roadtrips. Lovely.)
I look at the Estelle's photos from Saturday night, and I fucking hate that I have to dance with a stranger now instead of you, Dad. It was fun -- spontaneously swinging around the middle of the barroom with some random, benignly friendly guy -- and the look on my face in the Flickr photo is probably a lot like both of our faces were when we danced together at the Spoke. (I'm glad I can still smile like that. For a while, I wasn't sure I could.) Now I wish you could see how happy I am in Chicago. I wish you could come to the Hideout and see Devil in a Woodpile and dance with me while that one dude plays the washboard, like we did in Austin. We would show those Yankees how it's done, ya know.
If I were a character in a movie, maybe I would close my eyes and dance by myself, imagining you as an angel swaying to a slow song on the toes of my black ass-kicking boots, like you used to let me stand on your brown cowboy ones when we would play Hank Williams records in the den when I was little. (I would have to save that for the movies, or maybe one of my book characters someday -- 'cause when real people dance with ghosts, they look batshit crazy and frankly I don't need any help from you or anyone in that department. Heh.)
When Mike and I were at a bar in Wisconsin on Friday night, I played "Ramblin' Fever" on the jukebox. I was surprised to see it there, but playing that song is one of those things that cannot be helped. If "Ramblin' Fever" is available, it must be played -- I don't want you to look down and see me being "a rock and roller" when I could be singing along with the Hag.
My hat don't hang on the same nail too long / My ears can't stand to hear the same old song / If someone said I ever gave a damn / They damn sure told you wrong / I've had ramblin' fever all along.
Hey, Merle and Dad, that makes three of us.
So my new friends don't know, but my dad and his friend Gary famously used to go to SXSW together every year. They would make it a point only to see bands my dad would normally avoid like the plague -- Japanese keyboard pop, Brazilian punk, Swedish dudes in wigs hitting each other on stage with dildos (seriously!! you should have heard the phone call from Dad the day after that show!). A few years ago, Gary and Dad invited me to join them, and we got a new, Three Festkateers tradition going over the next couple years. The twentysomething, the fiftysomething, and the techie from California who was somewhere in between. I took the guys to see Cruiserweight and They Might Be Giants and Satan's Cheerleaders. We ate pizza in the street and I gave my dad a joking hard time for being extra nice to the waitress at a blues bar. One year we played tambourines in the crowd with a cajun band and got to keep the tambourine. (Last I checked, it was still in my dad's closet. My stepmom tried to give it to me after he died, but I wasn't ready. Maybe I'll try to get it on this trip.)
There's a lot of SXSW backlash this year from Austinites, myself included. But no matter how long the lines get and how hipster-mafia the band selection process seems, the festival will always be a special, bittersweet time for me because of my memories of being the punk rock daughter (as he thought of me, despite the fact that I don't know if I really qualify) on the town with her country and western dad. If you see me get a little teary during Birdmonster or Limbeck next week, it could be because I am sad Lucero cancelled their showcase. Or it could be because I miss being David Walter's SXSW sidekick.
The plane lands in an hour and I'm going to see if I can't finish Love Is A Mix Tape before we touch tarmac (without getting tears on your book, Mike, promise!). I hope you're ready for me, Texas. I will be rocking out for two -- myself and that unforgettable, unstoppable honky tonk angel stepping on my combat boots.
LOVE & GUITARS.
Erin
P.S.-- Well what do you know? The guy getting off the plane in front of me turned out to have a t-shirt with "ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO" on the back in big letters. Wow. That's where the Walters are from, and you never met a more devoted Roswell guy than my dad. I'm going to take that shirt as a good sign for this week. (And yes, the Roswell thing does likely make me at least part alien. I told y'all I didn't need any help in the crazy department. Hee.)
I decided to read a few pages of the book until it was OK to use electronic devices. Big mistake! It's not that Mix Tape is the best or worst book ever, but it's pretty good and, more importantly, it's about the two things almost every musician (certainly myself) cares about most -- songs and love (the third is probably drugs and alcohol, but I'll leave that to Alice in Chains and the Alkaline Trio, respectively). Each chapter of Love Is A Mix Tape starts with the contents of a cassette the author and his wife used to listen to before she died, completely out of nowhere, from an embolism at about age 30.
You know where this is going, maybe? Well, if you guessed I was weeping before the plane's wheels even left the ground, good guess.
Music and love are the most powerful gifts humanity has to offer. They often feel like one and the same to me. When I'm happy, every song sounds like church bells and a raucous gospel choir. When I'm heartbroken, music makes me feel better -- or lets me wallow and feel worse until I'm ready to feel better, which is a crucial step unto itself. Of course, the tough part is that sometimes my love of music takes me away from the love of my life, and SXSW is going to be a rough week for both Patrick and me, which bites. I'm not going to say, "when you love someone set them free." Screw that. It's more like, when you love someone, don't give them hell for going on tour with their band or being locked in a video game design studio for 12 hours a day. Ah, modern marriage.
Anyway, I'm at the part of the mix tape book (a true story) where the young wife has just died and the husband is suffering with how every song he hears reminds him of his wife or makes him wish his wife could have heard it. God, how I know that feeling. When friends and members of The Personals came with me to The Broken Spoke a couple weeks ago for Dad's birthday, I played my childhood favorite song ("I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver") by my dad's favorite singer (Merle Haggard). The lyric "Are the good times really over for good?" has gone to a whole other level in the past three years. Same goes for "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones, another favorite of mine from childhood and now a regular on Erin's Jukebox of Perpetual Mourning. (When you grow up the daughter of a honky tonk dad, a lot of your childhood soundtrack ends up being pretty sad or at least based on the "Think I'll Just Sit Here and Drink"/"Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" story arc. Thankfully, my wonderful mom also raised me on the Beatles, so I had silly songs about yellow submarines, eggmen, walruses, and fields of strawberries to keep me child-like, too.)
I've said this a million times, but I am so grateful my dad got to see The Personals play once before he died. And now I'm grateful to be playing the bass he gave me in my new band in Chicago. I hate that he'll never see me play with the Hidden Mitten, too, at least not in person, and that I can only imagine his gleeful reaction to the Wisconsin photos from last weekend. (Oh, how Captain Dave loved an adventure! And loved to take surprise, bad-hair pics of my sisters and me on roadtrips. Lovely.)
I look at the Estelle's photos from Saturday night, and I fucking hate that I have to dance with a stranger now instead of you, Dad. It was fun -- spontaneously swinging around the middle of the barroom with some random, benignly friendly guy -- and the look on my face in the Flickr photo is probably a lot like both of our faces were when we danced together at the Spoke. (I'm glad I can still smile like that. For a while, I wasn't sure I could.) Now I wish you could see how happy I am in Chicago. I wish you could come to the Hideout and see Devil in a Woodpile and dance with me while that one dude plays the washboard, like we did in Austin. We would show those Yankees how it's done, ya know.
If I were a character in a movie, maybe I would close my eyes and dance by myself, imagining you as an angel swaying to a slow song on the toes of my black ass-kicking boots, like you used to let me stand on your brown cowboy ones when we would play Hank Williams records in the den when I was little. (I would have to save that for the movies, or maybe one of my book characters someday -- 'cause when real people dance with ghosts, they look batshit crazy and frankly I don't need any help from you or anyone in that department. Heh.)
When Mike and I were at a bar in Wisconsin on Friday night, I played "Ramblin' Fever" on the jukebox. I was surprised to see it there, but playing that song is one of those things that cannot be helped. If "Ramblin' Fever" is available, it must be played -- I don't want you to look down and see me being "a rock and roller" when I could be singing along with the Hag.
My hat don't hang on the same nail too long / My ears can't stand to hear the same old song / If someone said I ever gave a damn / They damn sure told you wrong / I've had ramblin' fever all along.
Hey, Merle and Dad, that makes three of us.
So my new friends don't know, but my dad and his friend Gary famously used to go to SXSW together every year. They would make it a point only to see bands my dad would normally avoid like the plague -- Japanese keyboard pop, Brazilian punk, Swedish dudes in wigs hitting each other on stage with dildos (seriously!! you should have heard the phone call from Dad the day after that show!). A few years ago, Gary and Dad invited me to join them, and we got a new, Three Festkateers tradition going over the next couple years. The twentysomething, the fiftysomething, and the techie from California who was somewhere in between. I took the guys to see Cruiserweight and They Might Be Giants and Satan's Cheerleaders. We ate pizza in the street and I gave my dad a joking hard time for being extra nice to the waitress at a blues bar. One year we played tambourines in the crowd with a cajun band and got to keep the tambourine. (Last I checked, it was still in my dad's closet. My stepmom tried to give it to me after he died, but I wasn't ready. Maybe I'll try to get it on this trip.)
There's a lot of SXSW backlash this year from Austinites, myself included. But no matter how long the lines get and how hipster-mafia the band selection process seems, the festival will always be a special, bittersweet time for me because of my memories of being the punk rock daughter (as he thought of me, despite the fact that I don't know if I really qualify) on the town with her country and western dad. If you see me get a little teary during Birdmonster or Limbeck next week, it could be because I am sad Lucero cancelled their showcase. Or it could be because I miss being David Walter's SXSW sidekick.
The plane lands in an hour and I'm going to see if I can't finish Love Is A Mix Tape before we touch tarmac (without getting tears on your book, Mike, promise!). I hope you're ready for me, Texas. I will be rocking out for two -- myself and that unforgettable, unstoppable honky tonk angel stepping on my combat boots.
LOVE & GUITARS.
Erin
P.S.-- Well what do you know? The guy getting off the plane in front of me turned out to have a t-shirt with "ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO" on the back in big letters. Wow. That's where the Walters are from, and you never met a more devoted Roswell guy than my dad. I'm going to take that shirt as a good sign for this week. (And yes, the Roswell thing does likely make me at least part alien. I told y'all I didn't need any help in the crazy department. Hee.)
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Wisconsin, Do Not Push Me!
I apologize profusely to those who are waiting to hear about how the Wisconsin train journey ended. I am buried in a major freelance writing project right now -- you know, the kind where they actually pay you money -- so it will be another week or two, most likely, before we return to the scene of the Ollie North auto theft crime, as promised. However, just so you know I haven't forgotten my dear readers or the state of Wisconsin entirely (I would never!), here is a little taste of what happened this past weekend when I actually managed to get STRANDED IN WISCONSIN (as opposed to the train trip, wherein I can't seem to make it there in the first place). Here's the summary from my personal blog on Myspace, where you are welcome to keep up with me too, so long as you don't mind the updates being less essay-like:
I still love you, Wisconsin.
We have an interesting history, Wisconsin and me: Band tour. Train adventure. And now . . . car accident that leads to gig-missing, rural-stranding, and (of course!) total awesomeness. Props to Garrett, Melanie, and Steve for playing the show in Madison with two members of the Hidden Mitten actually hidden. And props to my Mitten bandmate Mike Flavor for not killing me/us (or the gear!) and for understanding that when one gets stuck in Janesville, Wisconsin, one grins, bears it, and gets out the guitars to learn new songs in the hotel room. That is, when one is not drinking at a bar with 12 letters and zero vowels (or lowercase letters) in its name. And not commandeering the jukebox in the name of Metallica and Led Zepplin. And, of course, not buying disposable cameras to take photos of cupcake trucks, ludicrous public signage, and one's triumphant, karaoke-soundtracked return to Chicago. These are not attractive photos of me -- I am tired and dazed and I really don't care. I was stuck in a snowstorm in Bumblefuck, people! And I persevered! Near-death by 18-wheeler has never been so tolerably fabulous.
LOVE & GUITARS,
Erin
I still love you, Wisconsin.
We have an interesting history, Wisconsin and me: Band tour. Train adventure. And now . . . car accident that leads to gig-missing, rural-stranding, and (of course!) total awesomeness. Props to Garrett, Melanie, and Steve for playing the show in Madison with two members of the Hidden Mitten actually hidden. And props to my Mitten bandmate Mike Flavor for not killing me/us (or the gear!) and for understanding that when one gets stuck in Janesville, Wisconsin, one grins, bears it, and gets out the guitars to learn new songs in the hotel room. That is, when one is not drinking at a bar with 12 letters and zero vowels (or lowercase letters) in its name. And not commandeering the jukebox in the name of Metallica and Led Zepplin. And, of course, not buying disposable cameras to take photos of cupcake trucks, ludicrous public signage, and one's triumphant, karaoke-soundtracked return to Chicago. These are not attractive photos of me -- I am tired and dazed and I really don't care. I was stuck in a snowstorm in Bumblefuck, people! And I persevered! Near-death by 18-wheeler has never been so tolerably fabulous.
LOVE & GUITARS,
Erin
Thursday, February 15, 2007
No Sleep 'Til Wisconsin (Pt. 9: Ted Nugent detour!)
TODAY'S QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: When I think Ted Nugent, I think [blank]!
OBSESSION OF THE DAY: Finding some clean snow for snow angels! AND THIS!!!
FAMETRACKER ARCHIVE OF THE DAY: Jonathan Rhys Meyers fame audit
(Continued from Tuesday's post.)
October 2006, Evanston, IL
I know what you're thinking: What in the name of hair metal and hunting rifles does Ted Nugent have to do with a train ride to Wisconsin? Oh, ye of little imagination. Don't you know by now? Ted Nugent is EVERYWHERE. Specifically, he is everywhere I go. I see him in the chip aisle at Jewel, but turns out it's just "some dude" with "cut-it" hair on the hunt for munchies. Lately I think it could be him getting on the train with me at Washington and Dearborn every afternoon, but I'm not tall enough to tell for sure through the crowd. Then even when I'm home safely, napping soundly in my bed, he haunts my dreams (usually by playing some wailing guitar riff on the neck of Bambi).
Much like I hope my Fametracker piece Juliette Lewis vs. The Music of Rush will get me to stop obsessing over those two topics, I hope that by taking a detour to Nugentville now, it can be the last time. It's gonna be tough, kinda like when I've tried to give up chips and salsa. But I think it's worth a try. Purge the Nuge with me, won't you?
So, with four hours to kill before the Kenosha train and an American Apparel store to avoid, I decided to head back to Dr. Wax for some music-dork browsing. I'd flipped through maybe two rows of records before, somehow, I managed to strike up what must have been my eight millionth Conversation With A Stranger Regarding The Mystery And The Majesty Of Ted Nugent. This is my favorite stranger conversation of all time (even better than the general "Tell me a story!" one I use on the unfortunate soul sitting next to me on an airplane during turbulance). I like to hear what other people have to say about the Nuge. You never know what they'll know. The Dr. Wax clerk provided an exciting new tidbit for my Ted collection: Did you know the Motor City Madman has a line of beef jerky? He does!
Otherwise our chat was nothing major, just the usual “Isn’t that guy a nut, but, like, a totally intriguing, hilarious nut?” conversation. If I need to, I can bust out memorized quotes from Nugent's autobiography/manifesto, God, Guns, and Rock'N'Roll, which introduced me to the phrase "full bluntal nugity" and which includes a letter to the children of world about living life, Ted-style. (Buy it now, people.) (Used, of course.)
I'm not sure if I'm ready yet for some of his other literary works, which include Blood Trails II: The Truth About Bowhunting and Kill It & Grill It. But I’m pretty sure I know why I've accidentally become obsessed with their "author." The reason is: Ted Nugent is news to me. New news.
Until college, I had never set foot in the Midwest. I probably could not have told you which city is the motor one (Detroit, right?). As a little kid, all I knew musically were my parents' faves: The Beatles, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Bob Wills, and Aretha Franklin. Then from third grade till high school, my musical taste ranged from Cyndi Lauper to Cinderella, Led Zepplin to the Dead Milkmen, and generally included a lot of Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, and (what the hell) Richard Marx. (If you want to hear the story about the time a radio station hosted a promotional event involving a bleary-eyed Marx signing autographs from 6-10 a.m. over breakfast at an Austin taco joint and my mom taking my sister and me before school, it’ll cost ya.)
The point is: I'd never heard of Ted Nugent. Not until college, when an Onion article came into my life. The headline was “Ted Nugent Talks That Way Even When Buying Socks” and after 10 years of fondling the newsprint, I have the story memorized:
According to JC Penney men’s-department sources, rocker Ted Nugent talks that way even when buying socks. “What color socks do I want? I want every damn color, plus a whole bunch that don’t even exist. Life is too short, man. Whether it’s socks or shoes or whatever, you gotta bite into life like it’s a big ol’ hunk of bison. Otherwise, you wake up and suddenly – poof – you’re fat and old, and you never had any friggin’ fun. And if you’re not having fun, you may as well move to Iraq or Cuba or some other hellhole where there ain’t no good times to be had.” Nugent added that that’s the way he sees it, and if you don’t like it, you can kiss his lily-white ass.
That article is lovingly stuck by magnet to my refrigerator as we speak. I treasure it like normal people do a pet. In fact, I want to meet it’s author and buy her a pony. That writer exposed me (so to speak) to this "Ted Nugent" person, a man clearly worth knowing about. The blurb indicated he was a “rocker.” And that he was crazy. Those are two qualities I look for in an obsession, or a life partner, for that matter. Still, otherwise, Ted-wise, I had nuthin. Who was this masked man?
Ever since then, I have been paying attention. When the Nuge opened for KISS in San Antonio in 2000 and told the crowd that Americans should be required to speak English, I cursed him (puta!) like everybody else. But then he started doing reality shows and there he was, back in my good graces again. I mean, did everyone see VH1’s Supergroup with Nugent and Sebastian Bach? The hair! The conflicting schedules for hunting and rocking! The drama over choosing FIST! as a band name! The declaration of "I still agree with me"! Oh, swoon. If that show is not out on DVD soon, I'm starting a petition.
Frankly, that was the problem with Northwestern University -- no insane hunter/rocker dudes with cat-scratch fever and a penchant for (one can only assume) wringing the necks of entire populations of woodland creatures with his bare hands, on the rare occasion a rifle or switchblade isn't handy. Ted Nugent is the TV show Deadwood come to life, but without wasting a scene here and there on a love story.
As I left Dr. Wax record store and headed for Northwestern's campus, I made myself a promise. No more conversations about Ted Nugent today! I figured I had about a 50-50 shot at it, maybe better as long as no one offered me any beef jerky or hollow bullets in the student union.
(Continued tomorrow.
OBSESSION OF THE DAY: Finding some clean snow for snow angels! AND THIS!!!
FAMETRACKER ARCHIVE OF THE DAY: Jonathan Rhys Meyers fame audit
(Continued from Tuesday's post.)
October 2006, Evanston, IL
I know what you're thinking: What in the name of hair metal and hunting rifles does Ted Nugent have to do with a train ride to Wisconsin? Oh, ye of little imagination. Don't you know by now? Ted Nugent is EVERYWHERE. Specifically, he is everywhere I go. I see him in the chip aisle at Jewel, but turns out it's just "some dude" with "cut-it" hair on the hunt for munchies. Lately I think it could be him getting on the train with me at Washington and Dearborn every afternoon, but I'm not tall enough to tell for sure through the crowd. Then even when I'm home safely, napping soundly in my bed, he haunts my dreams (usually by playing some wailing guitar riff on the neck of Bambi).
Much like I hope my Fametracker piece Juliette Lewis vs. The Music of Rush will get me to stop obsessing over those two topics, I hope that by taking a detour to Nugentville now, it can be the last time. It's gonna be tough, kinda like when I've tried to give up chips and salsa. But I think it's worth a try. Purge the Nuge with me, won't you?
So, with four hours to kill before the Kenosha train and an American Apparel store to avoid, I decided to head back to Dr. Wax for some music-dork browsing. I'd flipped through maybe two rows of records before, somehow, I managed to strike up what must have been my eight millionth Conversation With A Stranger Regarding The Mystery And The Majesty Of Ted Nugent. This is my favorite stranger conversation of all time (even better than the general "Tell me a story!" one I use on the unfortunate soul sitting next to me on an airplane during turbulance). I like to hear what other people have to say about the Nuge. You never know what they'll know. The Dr. Wax clerk provided an exciting new tidbit for my Ted collection: Did you know the Motor City Madman has a line of beef jerky? He does!
Otherwise our chat was nothing major, just the usual “Isn’t that guy a nut, but, like, a totally intriguing, hilarious nut?” conversation. If I need to, I can bust out memorized quotes from Nugent's autobiography/manifesto, God, Guns, and Rock'N'Roll, which introduced me to the phrase "full bluntal nugity" and which includes a letter to the children of world about living life, Ted-style. (Buy it now, people.) (Used, of course.)
I'm not sure if I'm ready yet for some of his other literary works, which include Blood Trails II: The Truth About Bowhunting and Kill It & Grill It. But I’m pretty sure I know why I've accidentally become obsessed with their "author." The reason is: Ted Nugent is news to me. New news.
Until college, I had never set foot in the Midwest. I probably could not have told you which city is the motor one (Detroit, right?). As a little kid, all I knew musically were my parents' faves: The Beatles, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Bob Wills, and Aretha Franklin. Then from third grade till high school, my musical taste ranged from Cyndi Lauper to Cinderella, Led Zepplin to the Dead Milkmen, and generally included a lot of Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, and (what the hell) Richard Marx. (If you want to hear the story about the time a radio station hosted a promotional event involving a bleary-eyed Marx signing autographs from 6-10 a.m. over breakfast at an Austin taco joint and my mom taking my sister and me before school, it’ll cost ya.)
The point is: I'd never heard of Ted Nugent. Not until college, when an Onion article came into my life. The headline was “Ted Nugent Talks That Way Even When Buying Socks” and after 10 years of fondling the newsprint, I have the story memorized:
According to JC Penney men’s-department sources, rocker Ted Nugent talks that way even when buying socks. “What color socks do I want? I want every damn color, plus a whole bunch that don’t even exist. Life is too short, man. Whether it’s socks or shoes or whatever, you gotta bite into life like it’s a big ol’ hunk of bison. Otherwise, you wake up and suddenly – poof – you’re fat and old, and you never had any friggin’ fun. And if you’re not having fun, you may as well move to Iraq or Cuba or some other hellhole where there ain’t no good times to be had.” Nugent added that that’s the way he sees it, and if you don’t like it, you can kiss his lily-white ass.
That article is lovingly stuck by magnet to my refrigerator as we speak. I treasure it like normal people do a pet. In fact, I want to meet it’s author and buy her a pony. That writer exposed me (so to speak) to this "Ted Nugent" person, a man clearly worth knowing about. The blurb indicated he was a “rocker.” And that he was crazy. Those are two qualities I look for in an obsession, or a life partner, for that matter. Still, otherwise, Ted-wise, I had nuthin. Who was this masked man?
Ever since then, I have been paying attention. When the Nuge opened for KISS in San Antonio in 2000 and told the crowd that Americans should be required to speak English, I cursed him (puta!) like everybody else. But then he started doing reality shows and there he was, back in my good graces again. I mean, did everyone see VH1’s Supergroup with Nugent and Sebastian Bach? The hair! The conflicting schedules for hunting and rocking! The drama over choosing FIST! as a band name! The declaration of "I still agree with me"! Oh, swoon. If that show is not out on DVD soon, I'm starting a petition.
Frankly, that was the problem with Northwestern University -- no insane hunter/rocker dudes with cat-scratch fever and a penchant for (one can only assume) wringing the necks of entire populations of woodland creatures with his bare hands, on the rare occasion a rifle or switchblade isn't handy. Ted Nugent is the TV show Deadwood come to life, but without wasting a scene here and there on a love story.
As I left Dr. Wax record store and headed for Northwestern's campus, I made myself a promise. No more conversations about Ted Nugent today! I figured I had about a 50-50 shot at it, maybe better as long as no one offered me any beef jerky or hollow bullets in the student union.
(Continued tomorrow.
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