Muchness and Light

And if love is real, maybe I'm just too bad to remember how good it feels. My heart is still.

One of the things I like about the Internal Family Systems model is that it doesn’t pathologize any of the subpersonalities. Even when their behaviors are seemingly destructive, their dysfunction serves a greater purpose, at least in their minds. Their actions and reactions serve to protect the Exiles, to prevent further harm from coming to the already damaged parts of the psyche.

When I am hurt or sad, and usually in response to infliction of hurt by someone else (and usually a romantic partner), one of my subpersonalities will fling terrible thoughts and words at me.

You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re gross. You’re stupid. You are unlovable, and no one loves you. You aren’t worthy of love and don’t deserve good things. You are a waste.

Now, logically, I understand those things may not be true. But why the hell would part of me continually tell other parts of me that I’m a waste of human flesh?

For a while, I wasn’t even sure who she was. I thought it might be Stephie, but she’s more likely to inflict her anger on others, not on me. And this one’s voice is no one else’s. It’s not my mother’s or my father’s. It doesn’t belong to any number of exes. It is a strangely-pitched, younger, strange version of my own voice. She knows how to inflect dripping sarcasm, spitting hatefully at me when I’m in the worst of the throes of pain. And just when I can’t take more, she hits with a final sucker punch, spinning me deep into tears and frustration.

She’s Harley.

Yes, it’s an easy moniker. And if she does her job well, she can get Quinn to act out, to seek out comfort in dark places.

And all of this to protect some Exile.

But what’s her purpose? I’m already hurting like hell; what good does it to do to inflict more, albeit different, pain?

Well, my first reaction to hurt and sadness is to close it down, to wall it off where it can’t reach me. Rango complained more than once that I would turn icy when hurt and angry. I can become very mechanical and refuse to feel emotion, let alone express it.

And that’s what she does: Harley forces me to feel something, anything that keeps me from returning to a dissociative state of numbness.

I spent the first ten years of my sons’ lives in that space. Struggling to find value both within myself and reflected from my husband, I shut down. My anxiety after giving birth to Max was so great that I started a low-dose SSR. It stopped the anxiety and kept me in the center, so I stayed on it until I couldn’t bear not feeling anymore. While the wild swings from joy to sorrow were abated, I generally felt nothing. When I got nothing in return, I became frustrated, and Quinn stepped in to give me some semblance of meaning again.

But because I am drawn to emotionally-unavailable men, Harley does what she can to keep me from becoming an avoidant myself. Given the last few years and recent relationship troubles, I get the appeal of shutting everyone and everything out. I get how it can seem beneficial to artificially limit what you’re willing to feel for another person, who well might break your heart. There is safety in walling yourself off from the Great Outdoors.

But I’m also a firm believer that love matters. It matters when we feel deep, caring emotion for another person, no matter the context. I don’t mean infatuation or attraction or simple affection. I mean the kind of love in which we are willing to sacrifice to help them reach their next goal. The kind of love that is so simple and pure that it expects to be cared for in return, simply because that is its nature.

It is unimaginable to me to walk away from that. It makes no sense to me that the people who’ve said they loved me could then walk away, could turn their backs on the thing they need most, which I just happen to be willing to give in droves. It’s nonsensical to have what you want most, what is good and healthy and true, right in front of you and to drop it carelessly on the ground on your way out the door.

So, the hurt for me comes from both the act of abandonment, whether physical or emotional, and the injustice of the leaving. And emotional abandonment is a very large part of the hurt for me. Hiding deep inside is a little girl who felt abandoned. Every time she felt it was safe to come out, trust someone enough to hold their outstretched hand and hope for love, she was let down again, over and over. She continually learned that she wasn’t worth loving, because people who love you stay and support you and care for you. They sacrifice for you, and no one sacrificed for her. She was, at times, a sacrificial lamb of sorts.

So, when the same wounds are reopened, Harley steps in to keep me from shutting down entirely. She steels me for an onslaught of disappointment and confusion. If I can already feel badly about myself, the abandonment makes sense. If they leave, it is because I am unlovable, so it shouldn’t be so hurtful or saddening. Even if what I feel is disgustful pain, that’s still better than feeling nothing at all.

While I know the things she says to me aren’t always true, there is, of course a nugget of truth to everything she says. I regained weight. I became complacent about my health. I can see myself aging both in photographs and in the mirror. I am emotionally difficult, hence my return to therapy. And even when those faults seem natural and overblown in my mind, there are long stretches of time in which I’m unable to find more good than bad, unable to value myself as more than my faults.

Pandy and I had a wonderful Saturday recently. I took her to see my beloved Afghan Whigs for the first time. Even though I’d just seen them in Atlanta a few weeks before, I traveled to Birmingham for what turned out to be the best Whigs show I’ve ever seen.

 

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A few days later, she messaged me and asked me to look at the photographs she had taken of me that night. She asked me to see what she sees, what she was trying to capture, “joy, or strength, or tenacity reflected in you.”

You are exquisitely beautiful. I know you seldom feel the woman I see, but that doesn’t mean you are any less the one I see. Sometimes friends see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Those are the times we need to redirect our focus, and look with kinder eyes; look at yourself for a moment as I do. See yourself in my photographs of you, and imagine what I was trying to capture. I see beauty. I see sass. I see strength. I see might. In short I see a very real version of Wonder Woman. She is a woman I love, admire, and appreciate. She is you.

I looked at her photographs. I can see what it is that she sees, why those moments capture those qualities of the woman in the photographs. What I don’t see, is myself. I don’t connect to those women in those pictures. I don’t feel attached to or protective of them. I don’t feel that their beauty and strength and sass is my own. Because if I feel those things about myself, it will open the door to hurt. It will allow for the possibility of disappointment.

But no matter what I do, no matter how far I get from my own center, Pandy is there. She is with me through thick and thin, through skinny and fat, through aging and heartache and wonder. I love her, and she loves me. I know this. I feel it every day, even if I don’t talk to her. Even when I’ve been at my worst, she stayed and supported me and loved me anyway, even if it meant telling me truths I didn’t want to hear.

Sometimes Harley argues with Pandy. Sometimes she rolls her eyes and just lets her talk. But every so often, she stays still and lets me feel the love that comes from this woman who has no desire to ever abandon me.

Somehow, that is progress.

 

 

You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter....

It started a year or two ago, the Nicknaming of the Inner Circle. 

I received a message from a friend, Amanda, who relayed the tale of a dream she'd had the night before, in which I was some kind of superheroine, fighting some crazy criminal villain while wearing a witchy purple dress and kickass black boots.  She was my sidekick. 

"We need names," I said.

As I thought about it all day, I kept going back to something she'd been calling me for days: sassy. 

"Sassafras," I decided. 

But Sass needed a last name.  Something Irish.  Something poignant. 

One of the songs I constantly go back to—even though one friend (Pickle) will ridicule me ad infinitum for this—is "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes.  It's tied to my childhood and my later youth and even my adulthood.  I have a Bucket List goal to get different, incredibly varied musicians to record an album that's nothing but covers of that song.  Adam Taylor and Wesley Cook have both agreed, in principle.  I'd love to get Les Claypool, Greg Dulli, and maybe In This Moment to record it, too.  I'd even happily donate all the proceeds to charity, though I have no idea what charity would want money from a song about two people trying to cheat on their spouses.  (Again, I argue, it's not about adultery; it's about serendipity!)

The bar where the two meet to plan their escape is O'Malley's.  Perfect.

So now Sassafras O'Malley needed a sidekick. 

I wracked my brain but could think of nothing.  She became Mandypants for lack of a better option.  And it stuck for a long while.  Recently after posting about a surgical procedure in which she was effectively microwaving her lady parts, I deemed her Hot Pocket.  And it suits her beautifully.

So Sassafras O'Malley and Mandypants (now Hot Pocket) were the first two of the nicknamed.  That list has grown and grown and grown since this began.  It seems silly, yes, but these nicknames are like our true names.  These are the second names, the names that are particular, peculiar, and more dignified, to help us keep our tails perpendicular.

Growler – who is sweet like a little kitten but will turn beastly in a moment if you cross her

Hammer – the Hammer of Honesty who can tell the truth like no one else

Moonshine – blue and bright and glowing, can always make you a little drunk with her beauty

Queen Frostine – the coolest chick you'll ever meet

Cookie – never a Tagalong and never a Thin Mint, but sweet and crunchy nonetheless

Lady Hammer – a strange female reflection of the truths of Hammer, totally unexpected

Glee – gregarious and ebullient, she knows the words to any and every song

Roadkill – who will step out in front of a moving car, admonishing you that they'll stop

Cupid37 – who dressed up as Cupid (and sometimes worse) in public and appears in chapter 37

Pickle – because he's always drunk, but also because he's both sweet and sour but not a baby gherkin

Irish Coffee/Not Boy – the Irish-descended guy I like to drink coffee with, who's not my boyfriend

Absolem – the questioning caterpillar to my Alice, who can unhinge me by asking me who I am

DH – Dear Husband, as assigned in the infertility forums 14 years ago, soon possibly DX or DXH or DB

Minizon - daughter of Hot Pocket, my Glamazon-in-training

There are a couple of others, but I don't know if they know the origins of their internal nicknames, so I'm opting to keep them in the vault.  For now.

Sometimes we have learned of our super powers.  Some are still a secret. 

Sassafras O'Malley, who can utterly mesmerize you with her potty mouth, has a special disco ball ring that dazzles stupid people into submission, specifically to keep them from copulating when her muchness leaks into the water supply.  It's a tool to lower the chances of stupid people breeding.  (She also has sparkly boots.) 

Growler has the ability to create snow angels anywhere, out of thin air.  She can mesmerize animals instantly and cause them to do her bidding. 

Hot Pocket has the Broccoli Bomb.  When she unleashes it, it makes everyone around her snort broccoli up the back of their noses.  Painfully funny. 

The list is likely to go on and on as time progresses.  I haven't named all of these people.  In fact, maybe only half of them.  Hammer has had a hand in the naming, as has Hot Pocket.  But these names are so appropriate for each and every one of these friends.  It's like they just whispered themselves to us in an inexplicable moment of truth.  Mostly when we were sober. 

They're my incomparable cast and crew. 

And these are the names that will never belong to another (fragile) cat.  They are ours and ours alone. 

But somewhere, deep down, each of also has a third name, the one that no other human can ever discover.  Our deep inscrutable singular names that only we know and only we call ourselves, respectively.  I know mine, but I'm not sharing.  Only one other person knows it, and that's only because he knew it before I did.  That's Absolem.  And I know he's not telling. 

 

Well I know you will remember, 'cause the music is forever.

It's been a really busy year for me. 

• I finished losing 115 pounds.
• I had three surgeries to removed 120+ square inches of skin.
• I went to South by Southwest for the first time.
• I got to see both my beloved The Gracious Few and LIVE with their new lead singer on the same night.  (Plus some other band.  I forget.)
• I fell in love with the Mynabirds.  (Missing Patsy Cline song – "We Made a Mountain")
• I finally got to see the Afghan Whigs live and to meet Greg Dulli in a dark alley behind the Masquerade.  (And Ric McCollum and John Curley.)
• I filed for divorce.
• I released my first novel. 

Even with all of that, there's still something missing.

Wednesday night, I will finally get to see Concrete Blonde live. 

"What's the big deal?" you ask. 

Well, let me tell you. 

Sometime during my freshman year of high school, I went one weekend afternoon to the Southside Festival, which was a great little outdoor music and arts thing that used to take place in Five Points South in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.  Five Points is a funky little area, artsy and eclectic—and it was much less dirty then than it is now.  (At least it seemed that way.)  My friends and I hung out there on weekends and sometimes after school, sitting around the fountain, bullshitting and getting into far less trouble than we probably deserved. 

So this specific day when I was 14, some record label promo people were passing out albums to the crowd.  Yes, vinyl, in the 12x12 sleeve, and for free.  They handed me two: Pleased To Meet Me by the Replacements—who I saw play at Sloss Furnaces a couple of years later—and Concrete Blonde's self-titled debut.  I tromped up the rickety stairs to Charlemagne Records and also bought a Billie Holiday best-of collection, as well as Metal Circus by Hüsker Dü. 

(It was a very eclectic day.  For those in the know, I ran into Broderick Brakefield and Bryan Simmons, who'd missed their ride the night before and had been running around down there, barefoot, for a couple of days.)

I went home and locked myself away in my bedroom, planting myself on the floor in front my stereo.  I might even have stacked the records on the turntable.  I loved them all, each in their own way, but I adored Concrete Blonde. 

It was the first day of a now-26-year love affair from afar with the incomparable Johnette Napolitano. 

As I've discussed before, I'm an alto.  (Really, a contralto.)  I don't have a lot of patience for wimpy soprano voices.  And Johnette's voice was the farthest from wimpy I'd ever heard.  It was deeply female with the most amazing breath control ever.  Ever.  (Those booming notes aren't higher; they're simply bigger.) 

I was blown away.

So this goes on for years, but somehow I miss them live, over and over and over.  I was too young for the clubs they played.  My ex-boyfriend was an asshole who beat me up the night before we were supposed to go to Atlanta to see them.  I lived in Huntsville where they never played anymore.  They broke up. 

I was supposed to see them two summers ago during their Bloodletting anniversary tour.  I had ruptured two discs in my back and was in so much pain that I had to give the tickets away.  (I cried.  A lot.)

So when I went to Variety Playhouse with Growler and Mandypants a few weeks ago (for the Psychedelic Furs, thank you very much), I was thrilled to see that Concrete Blonde would be playing on December 19^th.  Finally, finally!, I get to do this shit after twenty-six years. 

It's the voice and the lyrics and the fact that she plays bass.  She does the most wonderful covers of Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, in part because her voice lends itself to that.  But my favorites, undoubtedly, are the ones with the complicated harmonies, where Johnette seems to wrap her own voice around itself. 

And, ultimately, I owe Johnette Napolitano my life. 

There are a couple of people who know this story.  If you're one of them and you're hearing (reading) it for the dozenth time, I apologize.  This anecdote was in the first draft of what would become Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture.  It was cut entirely when I fictionalized the book, though Concrete Blonde still made mention.  (page 81, at the end of chapter 6—you can search inside the book on Amazon, btw) 

NOTE:  This is still incredibly difficult for me to go back to, to put myself in the place where I felt the things I write about below.  I can deal with a lot of my shit, but this is one of the most personally-shameful moments of emotion in my forty years, and I'm not callous about this. 

The horrible ex-boyfriend (Damien) and I had broken up for what would be the last time.  After four tumultuous years with him, I was a mess.  I was devastated when we broke up.  For the third or fourth time since I'd known him, I decided that ending my life was the only way I would ever be able to deal with the pain. 

I had a plan.  I had the implements.  I was crying vicious tears while driving on I-65 north in Birmingham, determined to do it as soon as possible.  My little car had a cassette deck, and my very favorite tape was a home-recorded, 90-minute thing that had Concrete Blonde on one side and Bloodletting on the other—my two favorite Concrete Blonde records.  Bawling my head off, I intended to listen to "Bloodletting" and all of the subsequent tracks from that records, all so dark and somber.  It's an amazing record, but all I wanted was to let my own heart find its reprieve in that sadness. 

Instead, what I got was "True", the first track from the other side of the tape. 

Well when I've had enough

I'll get a pick-up truck and I'll drive away,

I'll take my last ten bucks just as far as it will go.

 

Well sometimes I'm easily fooled,

Take a painful step and I get knocked back two.

I do all I can and it's all I can do to be true.

And if I had the choice I'd take the voice I got

Cause it was hard to find.

You know I've come too far to wind up right back where I started.

And they tell me who I should be,

I'll never let those monkeys make a mess of me.

I am who I am and it's all I can do,

But I'm true.

One more sunrise

Open my eyes up – true

One more sunset

Lay my head down – true

They talk you up and then they talk you down

And you begin to doubt.

Sometimes the reasons seem so very far away.

But I'd stop breathing today,

Cause if I can't walk proud, I'd rather walk away.

I do all I am and it's all I can do,

But I'm true.

I'd give all I am and I'd give it to you.

So true.

That was what I heard, instead of a song of a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on the bed, about being turned into the walking dead. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" I screamed into the otherwise-empty car tearfully. 

I went home instead.

So every time I get really down, feel really lost and can't find my inner compass, that's where I go back, to that piece of time (still so fresh inside my mind) and remember that moment of pause that saved my life. 

Was it really Johnette Napolitano that saved my life?  Not directly.  But I don't know that I would've been listening to anything else, or that I could've heard anyone else quite so clearly that late afternoon.  But I did hear it, thankfully.

So now, twenty-six years into this love affair, her music is still so often the soundtrack of my life.  And of Tierney's.  Six Concrete Blonde songs were included in my playlists.  All of my friends know how much I love her.  Half of them love her, too, because I introduced them. 

Tickets for Concrete Blonde at Variety Playhouse are still available.  Wednesday, December 19^th, at 8:00 p.m.  I'll be the first show for me and Growler, as well as for Tierney.  Come say hi.  I'll be the glittery Amazon belting out every last song. 

I want it too, so see it through. @theafghanwhigs

I'm two nights away from checking Greg Dulli off my list.

No, not that list.  (Okay, he's on that one, too, but just don't even get me started.)  This is more of a Bucket List thing.

See, I have loved the Afghan Whigs for a very long time.  Since I first heard Gentlemen, in fact—sometime around 1994.  Loveloveloved it immediately.  That love didn't waiver, even when they broke up in 2001.  Somehow I never got to see them live, and then they were gone.

But Greg Dulli kept going.  He did multiple records with the Twilight Singers.  He did some stuff with Mark Lanegan as the Gutter Twins.  He did some fabulous solo stuff, too.  I finally got to see the Twilight Singers live last year at the Masquerade, front and center.  All I can say is... ungh.

"I don't get that whole Greg Dulli thing," Mandypants said to me.  "I just don't see it."

I know the Afghan Whigs (and Dulli and his music in general) tend to be something you get or something you don't.  There's no in-between when it comes to this; you love it or just... don't.

Yes, I know the Afghan Whigs are more than Greg Dulli.  Rick McCollum and John Curley are just as integral to that soul-punk sound that I adore, but I'm such a vocals and lyrics girl that I tend to focus on the singer.   

There is something about that voice and those words that I just can't get enough of.  Somehow there's all this simultaneous love and hate and sex and grudge and God and fear and sex and loathing and... did I mention the sex?  It's there, always.  No matter what the subject of the song is, no matter the inspiration, there's always this element of brutally honest, broken down carnality that's utterly mesmerizing to me.  Every record, from beginning to end, is a painfully poignant vocal fuck that just wears me out and makes me blissful in an aftermath of emotional obliteration.

So my friend, Adam, texted me early this year that the Afghan Whigs were doing All Tomorrow's Parties.  I seriously debated skipping South by Southwest to go to ATP instead.  My plans for surgery wouldn't allow it, and then it was announced that there would be other select tour dates. 

Then there was a download of a new track.  And then another. 

And then came the news that they would indeed be in Atlanta.     

I squealed and did a little dance of joy in my office when I got the presale email. 

So now I'm just two days away from seeing the band I've most missed being able to see for the last ten years.  I can hardly stand the anticipation.

I've spent the last couple of weeks listening to their entire catalog, over and over.  I've immersed myself in that base voice and those wrenching lyrics.  And, yes, even in the guitars.  Looking over the setlists from each show, I can't even begin to guess what they'll play.  I would love to hear "Let Me Lie to You" and "What Jail Is Like" and "Somethin' Hot".  Oh, and "Neglekted".  Always "Neglekted".  (And Tierney's favorite, "John the Baptist", which she says might be the most perfect song ever.  EVER.)

Don't look for me Saturday night.  Don't call me or text me.  Don't expect me to come up out of that Greg Dulli-induced fog of terrifyingly beautiful groupie-love exhaustion until sometime on Sunday.  Or Monday.  Or maybe next month. 

The Afghan Whigs will be at the Masquerade Music Park with Wussy on Saturday, October 20^th.  Limited tickets are still available. 

 

NOTE: AN hour after I posted this, The Afghan Whigs updated their Facebook to say that the show is now sold out.  Too bad, doodad.

On the way back home, we sang a song, but our throats were getting dry.

I'm having one of those days when I'm a little on edge.  It's been a bit of a stressful week, and I have a lot of nervous energy.  I'm not really compelled to do much but write right now, though I kind of have writer's blah.  Not writer's block—I can think of plenty to write about.  I just kind of don't feel like doing it.  I know what energy I'll have to tap into to really work, and I'm a little apprehensive of going there right now.  I'm not sure I trust myself to do it right.

Not writing, not working, not playing... what to do?  I could eat, but that would make me feel worse.  This 90+ pound (so far) journey has taught me not to eat when I feel anything but hungry.  I still have days when I want to stuff my belly with emotions.  I try really, really hard not to give into that. 

Walking, and later a good, hard free-weight workout, became a great alternative to food.  It wasn't until last fall that I really figured this out.  As usual, it took a good long while of my kicking and screaming before I learned my lesson, before I realized how much better and different I could feel if I didn't feed my anxieties.  I have no idea how many miles I've walked now, and I really don't care.  What I care about is the time it's given me to plug into my iPod, to plug into my own head, and work out my issues, even if I was not thinking and then thinking and then overthinking every damn step of the way.

So today I was feeling all antsy, and I kept thinking about food.  "Screw that!" I thought.  "I'm going for a walk."  I headed to the small, quiet park near home and plugged in. 

What I choose to listen to while I'm working out is often a reflection of where my psyche is at that given time.  I have certain playlists and artists that I prefer, usually because of their energy level.  Today I couldn't decide, so I hit SHUFFLE ALL SONGS.

It started okay.  Murray Head, "One Night in Bangkok".  Followed by Liz Phair's "Flower", which is not high energy but which I love inappropriately.  Afghan Whigs followed by the Twilight Singers—double teamed by Greg Dulli, SWEET!  Then some Led Zeppelin, then the Beatles, neither of which I would've chosen, but I agreed with myself that I wouldn't change the song, no matter what.

Then it happened.  This one, particular song came on.  It's one of the songs that helped propel me, day after day, when I started walking.  I can remember exactly where I was the first ten times I heard it.  A perfect fall breeze picked up and reminded me of exactly where I was standing at the other park the first day I did five miles, the day a very specific phone call and text (in the middle of that walk) sent me down a very different path that would eventually lead to Muchness and Light.    

It's a song I love, obviously.  But today there was a strange poignancy that snuck up on me and almost dropped me to my knees.  I wanted to stop in my tracks and cry.  I didn't.  I kept walking, one purple-Nike-clad foot in front of the other, until the song was over and the iPod shuffled on to Van Morrison. 

There will always be those songs, the ones that drop me back into some memory, unexpected and bittersweet.  There will always be the memorable places and conversations and whatever, but for me the strongest memories are distinctly tied to music.  I can't stop, though, just because something reminds me of a moment that used to be mine.  Those moments, those memories, are the path that brought me to Here, but they're from a place where I can never go back.  They're from a lifetime that doesn't even seem like mine anymore. 

Van Morrison was okay.  "And It Stoned Me".  The irony was palpable, but I pushed through it and waited for the next song, focusing on the rhythm of my stride.  I felt the strength of me, of my body and my mind, propelling me forward, one step at a time along my path.

 

Come what may, come what might. You'll see me there.

So tomorrow night is the Twilight Singers show at the Masquerade in Atlanta.  I'm soooo excited.  This will be my first Greg Dulli show, and I am beside myself with anticipatory excitement.  They made an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman last week.  I knew it was coming on, had the DVR set to record, but I wanted to stay up and watch it anyway.  I saw Dave's monologue and fell asleep.  My groupie brain woke me up moments before the performance aired, thankfully. 

It was spectacularly wonderful.

"On the Corner" is my favorite track from their most recent album, Dynamite Steps.  It's hot and steamy and delicious.  And only Greg Dulli could make a song about Jesus so damn sexy. 

Again, I'll put out the open invitation to Mr. Dulli, for me to buy him a refreshing beverage while he's in Atlanta tomorrow.  I'd love to hear first-hand all about his "virgin experience" playing tonight at Proud Larry's in Oxford, MS.  Though I'm not sure I wouldn't swoon and pass out as soon as he said 'hello'. 

The Twilight Singers play the Masquerade on Thursday, May 5th.  Doors open at 7:00 p.m.  Margot and the Nuclear So and So's open at 8:00 p.m.  

If you're there and see me and my purple hair, be sure to say 'hi'!

Say what you got to say 'til I feel it.

So I had about 300 fans on my Facebook page a few days ago.  It's down a few after I posted a couple of things that I knew might be a bit touchy.  (Yeah, Edmund's a real guy.  And he's really an asshat.)  I also know that my usage of the occasional f-bomb may turn a few people off, though I don't really give a damn about that.

But the piece on the Twilight Singers and why I love Greg Dulli (Hear that, Greg?  I love you.  We should totally hang when you're in Atlanta in May.  Somebody pass along that message, will ya?), and the Princess story about Vain Edmund generated a lot of traffic for me over the last few days.  All of that came on the heels of my having added new analytics to the blog, to get a better feel for who's reading my stuff. 

I've had visitors from twenty-two states and twelve countries in that time.  Georgia, Alabama, and California lead the pack.  Sometimes I can almost tell who a certain reader from an area was.  Hits from Lilburn, GA, or Lancaster, PA, for example--I can hazard a guess on who you are likely to be.  Lakeland, FL--hi, Kevin A!  (Are you coming for the Twilight Singers show?  Seriously!)  But you, New Orleans and Los Angeles and New York: I have no idea who you are.  I could guess on one or two of the hits, but there's no way for me to be 100% positive. 

So I'm asking you to de-lurk. 

Just for a day. 

Leave me a comment below, say hello and where you're from (if you'd like).  You can tell me something good.  You can tell me I suck, if you think it will make you feel better.  Tell me anything.  I want to know who you are. 

It's helpful to me to know who I'm reaching, and even better if I know why.  What is it about what I do that keeps you coming back?  Is it my boisterous personality and verbosity?  Is it my self-deprecating sarcasm?  Is it my purple hair? 

Speak up, lovelies!  Whether you're coming at me through Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Typepad, an RSS feed or some other way, I'd like to know. 

Maybe you'll inspire my next post.  Maybe not.  Either way, I'd like to know who I'm talking to when I write. 

Just for a day. 

Never seen no devil wear his heart upon his sleeve....

I have loved Greg Dulli since I first heard "Fountain and Fairfax" on the My So-Called Life soundtrack in 1994.  A friend of mine, who was also my co-worker at the indie record store, had a thing for the entire Afghan Whigs album Gentlemen, which was the original home of "Fountain and Fairfax".  I picked up a used copy of the CD from the store and took it home.

 

I was instantly in superlove.

I knew who the Afghan Whigs were, had seen Greg Dulli on 120 Minutes or something similar.  I'd just never really given him a listen.  I knew he had a massive cult following, and I became a believer after hearing Gentlemen all the way through. 

Years and life go on, I'm digging the Whigs, and then their last album, 1965, rolls into my world in 1998.  I distinctly remember buying it from Shawn Ryan at his store in Homewood, AL.  He told me that a lot of Whigs fans didn't like it, that it was maybe too polished.  My heart (and panties) melted.  It's perhaps the most sexually frank of the Whigs' albums, and it is breathtaking.  Like so much of Dulli's work, both then and now, it's about fucking, and he's likely to tell you so himself.  "John the Baptist", with his soulful, crooning admonishments of "anything for a lover", might be the most perfect song ever.  EVER. 

By 2000, he released the first of the Twilight Singers albums, Twilight.  It was hit or miss for me, but when he hits me, it's a full-on wallop to the heart.  "Annie Mae" kicks my ass with its compact, 2:20 pleading to be saved.  I can never just listen to it once.  <insert joke about lays>  I will sing to it over and over and over, nailing the melody and the harmony, and I honestly can't decide which one I love more. 

Gutter Twins.  More Twilight Singers.  Afghan Whigs retrospective.  Love and love and more superlove. 

So now it's 2011, and I've been in total groupie, musical lust with this guy for 17 years.  (We could theoretically have an almost-grown kid.)  The new Twilight Singers album Dynamite Steps hit stores a couple of weeks ago.  It's been on constant rotation for a few days now.  As probably goes without saying, I love it.

The first track I got my hands on was "Blackbird and the Fox", which was released several weeks before the CD was made available for online streaming.  It features Ani DiFranco on backing vocals.  I'm not usually a huge Ani fan, but it's a beautiful song.  Mellow and poetic and darkly sexual, as usual (Cold blooded, but some like it freezing/I keep my blood in the bone/Just when you've forsaken me/That's when I turn my blinders on).

The gems for me are "Get Lucky" and "On the Corner".  "Get Lucky" opens with a simple piano melody, legato and a little melancholy, like Dulli's haunting vocals.  (And I am not that strong to let you go/And tell me does it scare you/when I look the other way/And thru the walls into your very soul?)  Then it builds methodically with guitars and drums and strings in the signature Dulli way.  "On the Corner" is the very next track on the album.  It begins with a little drum machine timbre and keyboards, then guitar, some stringage.  It's up-tempo and seemingly a little basic.  Then here comes the brutally base voice that I love.  He's harsh and pleading (Spread your legs/insert your alibi/A handsome man he was/the situation turned) and fucking explodes all over the place. 

 

Sometimes I'll hear a track and it won't be working for me, whether on this album or any of the previous ones.   I won't be so impressed or in love.  But then something will pop, a sound or a deceptively random lyric, that pulls me right back into the music, and then I get it.  He's masterful at creating the thematic album, too, which is something a lot of musicians don't even attempt anymore.  Lyrically and melodically he'll build on a theme from song to song, self-referential in surprising ways.  Sometimes you'll even hear the same (or a very, very similar) guitar riff a couple of albums later, immediately bridging you from one part of the Twilight World to another.

Greg Dulli is the kind of guy, musically anyway, that you either love or you really just don't.  (I'm betting there are a few people who would say it's the same way personally, too.)  The Afghan Whigs were a great blend of punk and soul that eventually grew up and moved on to bigger and better things.  The Twilight Singers is really an artistic collective that lets Dulli work with whomever he chooses; he gets the band he needs to fit his creative mood at any given time.  The soul is there, without question, and sometimes the punk.  But there's also pop and folk and the occasional surprise that you just can't quite put your finger on.  It's collaborative and complicated and beautiful, much like Dulli himself. 

There's been a lot of public discussion and dissection of Dulli's bouts with drugs and sex and just about everything else.  To state the obvious, all of that is what makes him who is he.  But he's a fuck-or-be-fucked persona, never love, and it's dirty and gritty and transcendent in its honesty.  He often works best when he's at the bottom, wailing of the struggle and the wallow. 

The Twilight Singers are coming to Atlanta on May 5th, playing at the Masquerade, as part of their world tour.  I'm very, very excited, because this will be the first time I'll have seen them live.  I've missed the show a couple of times before, for various reasons.  I will be there, and be there early, this time. 

I would really, really love to hang with Greg Dulli for a night and watch him, to see what it is that makes him tick.  His lyrics and music are pretty open, and I can hazard a few guesses on what I might find.  I'm pretty shy in person, at least initially, and I would probably just stammer over myself and have trouble finding my voice.  But I would love the opportunity to get too close to that sun with my feathery wax, if for no other reason than I can imagine just how hot that burn would be.