Blogjammin'

2009-08-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

Being home has done everything I expected it to do for me; I feel refreshed, motivated, social, and, best of all, inspired. It has been a number of years since I have experienced this level of creative productivity and longing, that has me stopping to touch and smell everything in my path. Every surface, every material, every person, and every photograph is inciting other creative urges. Normally, if I can't identify such an impetus, I force it and kill it before it has time to really get going. But I have been graced with many mysterious surprises from the ethos that I am daily becoming more aware of how to coddle and nurture these creative sprouts. For the first time in years, I'm refusing to be overly cerebral and I'm letting myself get caught up in awe of new things. Sound vague? I'm sure it does and I can't help that.

However, an example: I went to catch a solo matinee the other week, a date with myself that I really should participate in more often. There is very little better in this world than being able to play hooky at a time when most people are working, sitting in a theater by yourself, drinking cappuccino and watching an independent movie. This may sound like a gag-worthy, elitist Portland 'thing' but you know what? I don't care what it sounds like. It was fun. I saw a beautiful Japanese movie called Departures, about a cellist whose orchestra gets dissolved due to lack of funding, has to move back up north to his mother's old house (with his adorable wife), and finds a job ceremoniously preparing dead bodies for their casket and subsequent immolation. While I won't get into all the details and heretofore spoil the movie for everyone, the point is that it created a huge interest in Japan that had been lying dormant in me for years - and it was not for lack of exposure.

I have always loved Japanese food of all sorts and been equally perplexed by their complicated, picturesque language; I love the chances Japanese directors take with respect to blood and gore as well as low-brow subject matter; I love the balance of elements, seasons, colors, and elegance inherent in design and art; I love the harajuku kids and all forms of the eyebrow-raising-this-country-is-so-weird pop culture. I love Japan and have loved Japan as much as someone can without actually having been there - always at arms length and from a "safe" Anglo perspective.

For some reason, the movie kicked something loose in me that now has me craving all things Japanese in the hopes of experiencing something authentic and tactile and, well, real. I want to KNOW and not just enjoy from a safe distance. I want to go and I want to learn and I want Japan to kick the shit out of me. And I have NO explanation for this desire. But it feels very much like how I used to feel when I discovered punk rock 7"s - that sense of awe, of being in over my head, and willfully drowning in something dangerous and age-old.

So to begin that quest, I decided to experience Japanese culture through a channel that I'm not at all familiar with: film. The fact is, I like movies but I don't study them, I don't work in them, and I don't understand the first thing about them. And that is what keeps me liking movies, for better or for worse. So I opted to rent a bunch of movies by famous Japanese directors, viewing them from a pair of very untrained eyes (which I find to be the key to most romance). My 45-minute foray into the video store produced the following: Good Morning (Yasujiro Ozu), Jigoku (Nobuo Nakagawa), and Café Lumiere (Taiwanese director, Hou Hsiao-Hsien). Café Lumiere may seem like a strange choice but it was lauded as an "homage" to Ozu, so how could I say no?

What I know about Japan are the vague but overarching themes pertaining to "honor" and "shame". This might explain all of the social niceties and seedy underbellies of Japanese culture - and this is what most people talk about after coming back from Japan. I kept it in mind while watching this movie, about a 20-something girl who finds out she's pregnant by her Taiwanese boyfriend that she has no intention of marrying. Now, even in my inexperience in the customs of Japan, this is a provocative plot line. Her parents are dealing with the pregnancy the best way they know how - mother wants to talk, father wants to ignore. And all the while, Yoko is unapologetic. There are numerous shots of her on public transportation, deep in thought, in what appears to be some profound reverie on progress/movement. I didn't pursue these themes further but instead filed them away for future reference. The fact is, I'm not sure in what way this was an homage to Ozu but that might have something to do with the fact that I know nothing about Ozu and Hsiao-Hsien as directors.

Which brings me to Good Morning. Intended to be a satire of technology-obsessed Japanese culture and unlike any of Ozu's other films, Good Morning was equally perplexing and enjoyable. It seems to go without saying that in order to enjoy the subtle humor of satire, one must know something about the subject matter being satirized. Again, I'm at a deficit but it did not get in the way of my enjoyment of the movie. The palate is a beautiful technicolor and the plot is based on small-town-suburban-Tokyo "antics". Neighborhood gossip, reputations, and the emergence of entrepreneurship in post-bomb Japan. It's silly - two bratty-but-adorable kids give their parents the silent treatment until their parents by them a TV. They would continuously get in trouble for going over to the neighbors' house to watch Sumo instead of English lessons - and the logical argument is "If you don't want us to go over there, let us do it here" - an argument that is still relevant today when people claim they can't be responsible for their actions, that they are victims of the circumstances. Totally appalling in modern adults, this behavior is pretty endearing amongst a pair of Japanese kids, whose dedication extends to going without lunch money, cakes, and other childlike joys because it requires speaking to their parents to enjoy them. You have to admire their diligence.

What struck me as most interesting about Good Morning are the B-list characters that you know only one thing about: the kid who continually shits his pants, the old guy at the sake bar who is unemployed, the neighbors who wear their pajamas all day ("They used to be in the cabaret," a neighbor is overheard saying, which is supposed to offer some means of explanation). And these characters never evolve. They show up, they do what is expected of them (Oh man, that kid shit himself AGAIN - get him some new pants!), like the funny animatronic stereotypes in It's A Small World. I'm sure the satire runs rampant but from my perspective, it's an inside joke I am not capable of understanding without further study.

With that in mind, the most accessible movie was Jigoku. It's a dramatic and gory interpretation of hell with images and sentiment we can all relate to. What I noticed right off is the obvious interpretation of hell as "after-life" rather than fire-and-brimstone (though there was a LOT of that). There were 8 circles of hell and it seemed like every character in the movie ended up in one of them. Either the Japanese are unrelenting and indiscriminate in their qualifications for who ends up in hell, or there is no other option. One of the circles was dedicated to children who died before their parents. Not exactly a Judeo-Christian interpretation of hell as I know it, but certainly very Dante's Inferno. Purgatorial. To me, the movie had no real shining moments until the last 1/3 which is the hell scene. And this is where everyone gets disemboweled, sliced, diced, and tormented. It's pretty excellent. What's worse (or maybe better) is the lack of resolve. There is no happy ending. Sorry to ruin it but it's true. I liked this one best for all its simplicity.

It seems likely that I will be renting more movies tonight but this is not to say I will become a film writer. I'm more like "whatever interests me" writer who doesn't claim expertise on the matter. And I prefer to keep it that way. I do encourage getting caught up in some creative sensory overload today - it's time to get inspired.

Home, Redux...

2009-07-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

After many years of improvements and contractors, my boyfriend and I are finally enjoying the fruits of other-people's-paid labor. Our yard is done. We have a fire pit and now a beautiful table to sit at, amongst the bamboo and bumblebees. It feels too good to be true, sitting in our yard in my favorite city during my favorite season. There really is not enough one can say about loving your home, your space, your stuff, and how grounding those loves are. Suffice to say, I'm home and I don't want to leave.

My haven

A view from my haven...

Welcome Home

2009-06-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

A letter from our house guest, Beau Sorenson, typed on one of the vintage typewriters we have here. Received upon arrival at the house and so good, I felt it necessary to transcribe here:

Hello there. How was your trip?
It's nice to have you back.

OBSERVATIONS

Sometimes it smells nice when you sit on the big couch. I think it has something to do with the fireplace. Maybe the trees? (referring to the 5 fake pine trees we acquired from the last Tegan & Sara record)

It is hard to justify turning down a $30 one-time donation to the ACLU while standing in front of a grand piano.

Zilla Sake is perfect for Date Night. HOWEVER: the first website Google returns (www.zillasake.com) is NOT the correct page (www.zillasakehouse.com). Visiting the former will melt your eyeballs, murder your kitten, and get your name put on a list somewhere. You have been warned. (Absolutely true. This really should be pulled.)

Extracto beats espresso machine, every time.

KITCHEN REPORT

Upon finding food in the cupboards, I attempted to eat it and replace with similar. Therefore, the almonds are fresh.

Why does the salt have sand in it?

DAMAGE REPORT

No animals were harmed in this sitting of the house. (We had a casualty last time with our beloved Butch, the truck stop bear.)

However, two wine glasses did not make the journey. Sorry about that. I was unable to locate similar in local stores. To help compensate you for your loss, a 'Computerland' mug has been left in your cupboard. Please forward an invoice for damages to:

Beau Sorenson
(address withheld for privacy)
Madison, WI (zip code withheld for the same reason)

Sometimes the upstairs stereo develops a loud buzzing noise in the left channel after 30 minutes of use. Not always a problem, just sometimes.

The structural integrity of the downstairs bathroom tissue dispenser is dubious. Do not attempt to stand on it.

STUDIO REPORT

Almost everything pretty much worked for me mostly all of the time. Andrew and I tracked 2 songs, Sarah and I did 9, and I mixed 4 of my own songs.

I started making a list of the things I had trouble with, but upon returning to them, most of my problems could not reliably be repeated.

I like that green sparkle guitar.

The 'Beau' folder on the Archive drive is all the stuff I recorded. I am fairly confident I have redundant digital copies of all of it, but if you could sit on it for a week or two before deleting it, that would be swell.

ETC REPORT

I tried to clean the stuff I made dirty. In doing this, I may have moved some stuff about. This applies especially to the studio: smaller collections of flotsam were kept together, but possibly moved to a safe, out-of-the-way spot. I tried not to hide anything.

I think Molly took a bath. She doesn't usually get to do that sort of thing.

I listened to lots of records and discs and made a sincere effort to return them to exact shelf locations. I probably failed with a few of them. They all got close, though.

......................................

I would like to thank you once again for the opportunity to live in your house for a month. I had a wonderful time, accomplished a good amount of work, and explored the surrounding area. It was really, really great. This is truly a wonderful place and I hope I find myself here in the future.

Warm regards,
Beau

......................................

Beau, you're welcome back any time as long as you keep writing letters like this. Thank you for the Grizzly Bear LP.

2009-06-16T13:19:00.001-07:00

Who am I kidding? There is not going to be a Grammys Update Part II. Had I been feeling up to it, I was going to write a whole spiel on the heart-wrenching, tear-jerking performance by Jennifer Hudson but I just don't have the strength. I let a few tears fall, a few months pass, and so many other things have happened since then. (But she was awesome, courageous, and a great example of human adaptability - there it is.)

99.9% of writing is mental (the other .1% being the actual physicality of it) and therefore subject to mental blocks and psychoses. Ideally, one of those is supposed to give you a good voice and the other a sense of overcoming. For me, it often leads to a to-do list of writing projects that becomes more monolithic with each day that passes. I have to remind myself constantly that the more I write, the more words there are, the more it all makes sense. My mom always said you can't steer a bike that isn't moving. And here is where I'm left, with an albatross of a blog overgrown with weeds and cobwebs.

I admire you all who update daily about whatever is on your mind, ie. what a blog is actually supposed to be for. I inflate the value of these entries to a size that is immeasurable and unconquerable, forgetting that there is so much to read on the internet that the chances of anyone stumbling upon these words are slim to none (unless of a few of you devoted friends check in periodically - I thank you). So, here. I give you (whoever you are) this little blurb about the tour I just finished.

I finished a 16-day tour with the wonderful Jens Lekman. Here is a bullet list of what went down. But first, role call:

Rachel Demy (Self & Tour Manager)
Ben Swanson (Manager & Label Boss-Man)
Mickey Walker (Co-pilot & FoH)
Jens Lekman (The Man Himself)
Charlie Hall (Drummer & Morale, involved in many projects including my favorite)
Viktor Sjöberg (Samples & Token Swede)
Julia Rydholm (Bass & Documentess)
Ysanne Spevack (Strings)
Tig Notaro (Comedic Support)
Darth Vader (our trusty sidekick)

May 25, 2009
• Picked up the van and drove to San Diego from Los Angeles.
• Memorial Day is a terrible day to start a tour.
• Espresso-drinking with Mickey and Ben.
• Hugs for all at the rehearsal space, before heading out to The Linkery for dinner (beer and links - perfect).

May 26, 2009
• The Loft - La Jolla, CA.
• Stupid double-standard about alcohol consumption on the premises. "So let me get this straight. We can drink alcohol in our green room but not the stage. And you won't provide it. But you'll sell it to us in the venue? But we can't buy a bottle to bring to our green room? Wait... What?"

May 27, 2009
• The Echo - Los Angeles, CA.
• 30 minutes late for load in, thanks to the tow-truck blocking the entrance to the back alley.
• Sold out, sweaty, and crowded. No one allowed in the green room before the set after this.
• 35 minutes to maneuver out of the alley - tight spaces and 12-point turns.
• Dirty hotel rooms. Tig found a disembodied appendage in her bed. Okay, it was a fingernail. But it might as well have been an appendage...

May 28, 2009
• The Echo - Los Angeles, CA.
• Group breakfast at the Waffle in Hollywood, followed by some record shopping.
• 4 hours of being in the car (Tarzana, to Hollywood, to LAX, to Hollywood, to Silver Lake). Tears.
• Sold out, sweaty, and crowded again. Slam dunk of a show.
• Darth is making weird noises.

May 29, 2009
• Velvet Jones - Santa Barbara, CA.
• Mistakenly started to load into the wrong club - did a dance of joy after realizing this was not the club we were stuck in for the next 8 hours (the back doors all looked the same).
• Stormy times at the local pub before load in - the tempest abated after discussions.
• Met up with friend and local talent, Simone Rubi.
• High douche bag quotient at the show.
• Barrett Clark fills in for Mickey while he flies to the east coast for a wedding.

May 30, 2009
• Downtown Brewing Co. - San Luis Obispo, CA.
• Woke up to strange gurgling sound that made my urge to pee that much more urgent. Found puddle from toilet/tub extending into the room. Had to pee elsewhere.
• Stopped for photo ops in sunny farm-y hills outside of SLO. Cows.
• Gum wall in the alley by the van. Hippie sing-a-long after the show in said alley.
• Late-night pizza party.
• Uncontrollable giggle party at 2:00 AM. Attendees: Rachel & Julia.

May 31, 2009
• Day off - San Francisco, CA.
• The Good Hotel - "Puppy Party" in the lobby.
• The credit card company that issues the tour credit cards went bankrupt last night and deactivated all the credit cards. Didn't discover this until trying to check into the hotel. Sadness. Personal funds on the line.
• Tacos at Pancho Villa.
• Dog watching in Dolores Park (me, Viktor, and Jens). Watched a man get chastised by an entire group of people for letting his German Shepard drink out of the PEOPLE drinking fountain. Laughed to ourselves.
• Drinks at Dominic East's with Charlie. Good conversation, good buddies.
• Margaritas at the Latin American Club.
• Drunk taxi cab.

June 1, 2009
• Bottom Of The Hill - San Francisco, CA.
• Breakfast with Jens.
• Trip to Golden Gate Park (Mickey, Charlie, Viktor, Rachel, and Jens). Cold and wet. Like being in a cloud. We actually were in a cloud.
• Sold out show with a little extra serenade at the end.
• Get to see Barrett again. Happy 1-day reunion.

June 2, 2009
• Bottom Of The Hill - San Francisco, CA.
• Serious Rachel Demy time: coffee, computering, knitting. 4 hours.
• New birthday skirt. It is orange.
• Chinese food with friend, Jordan Kurland.
• Another rad show, thanks to Ramona and all the BOTH gang.

June 3, 2009
• WOW Hall - Eugene, OR.
• It's my birthday. I had to drive 400 of the 550-mile drive to Eugene.
• Tig bought me a breakfast sandwich and tea at the Starbucks. The barista gave us her employee discount.
• Tig bought me a free beer at lunch.
• There is a very funny game of "Don't let Rachel see the birthday cake we got her." I thought we were playing, "Don't look the tour manager in the eye so she feels weird on her birthday..."
• Exhausted tears in the hotel room, interrupted by the most beautiful birthday song ever sung to me. Lots of cake and champagne.
• Fake party photos.

June 4, 2009
• Crocodile Cafe - Seattle, WA.
• The boys were late for lobby call. It's cool though.
• Darth is making more weird noises.
• Arctic Club Hotel lobby bar before load in. Viktor, the Latvian bartender (not our Viktor), drank the rest of all of our drinks as we had to rush off...
• The Croc is an oven. A/C was not in the budget.
• Sad debacle involving a very drunk underage girl. Throws a wrench in the whole evening.
• Made it through the show by a thread.
• 1:00 AM drinks at the Redwood with The Wooden Birds, Metric, members of Arthur & Yu, and Grand Archives. My little German girlfriend was there. Big Broken Social Scene family reunion. There were ponchos also.

June 5, 2009
• Crocodile Cafe - Seattle, WA.
• Group field trip to view the iconic sights of Twin Peaks (the entire band except for me, Ysanne, and Tig).
• Tig and I have croque madames for lunch. I cultured her.
• The band got resurrected after the night before - excellent show.
• Party in the boys room - wine-drinking and vision quest.
• Stifling giggles in the bathroom.
• Nudity sightings at this point in the tour - too many for comfort.

June 6, 2009
• Wonder Ballroom - Portland, OR.
• Laundry at my house in the afternoon.
• Almost wrecked the van. Explanation: a woman in a Toyota Tercel is going 65 in the fast lane of a 70-zone. Rather than move over to let me pass, she hits the breaks when she thinks I'm getting to close to her car. I speed up to pass on the right hand side after seeing my breakaway moment. She hits the breaks, sending us into a fishtail that I was able to get under control. Proceeds to flip us off. Let me tell you something, lady. When you almost kill a van full of 9 people, I think you deserve the bigger fuck you.
• Moving on.
• Cigarette on my porch to calm the nerves.
• Late lunch at the Concordia Ale House where there are hundreds of beers. Viktor is in heaven.
• Portland show not that great in attendance but still a fun crowd.
• Birthday greetings from a few Portland friends that involve some Marc Jacobs fingerless gloves and a bottle of bubbly.
• Late-night eats and drinks at the Clyde Common - staying at the Ace.
• Dance party in the Sprinter at 2:00 AM.
• Later dance party in the boys room.
• The night ends for Julia and I in the hallway with a pile of clean mens underwear.
• The night ends for the boys by almost getting kicked out of the hotel.
• Tig discovers she doesn't have her passport to get into Canada the next day. There is sadness...

June 7, 2009
• Richards on Richards - Vancouver, BC.
• Last show of the tour. Sold out.
• Pick up Gary Olson at Sea-Tac Airport. Drop Tig off (bye bye, Tig!).
• Drop merch off at a practice space - brief hi to the boyfriend.
• 1.5 hour border crossing. A bit late for load in, but no matter.
• Thai food stripes.
• Fun show.
• Viktor is an empty shell of a man after last night.
• Tearful goodbyes at the hotel that night. There was just too much love. It hurt.

June 8, 2009
• Jens, Viktor and Tig fly to Alaska.
• Ysanne and Charlie fly home.
• Me, Julia, Mickey, and Gary drive to Seattle but not before a delicious breakfast in Bellingham.
• Attempt to return the bass amp to Guitar Center. Was asked by head douche if I had "romped on it for two weeks and am now trying to return it." What does that even mean?
• Patience waning. Got out of Seattle to drop off gear to freight company.
• Portland by 7:00 PM. Picked up a piece of art for deliver to Los Angeles by the wonderfully talented, Amy Ruppel.
• Eugene by 9:30 PM.
• So much sleep...

June 9, 2009
• Drove from Eugene to Los Angeles in one day. 900 miles. Alone. Well, me, Darth, and the deer.

Not long after, a first-class ticket back home on Virgin America. Champagne and cheese plates. The cherry on the sundae.

THE 2009 GRAMMY AWARDS: THE SCOOP AS SEEN BY ME (Part I)

2009-02-11T17:54:00.000-08:00

I have had a number of requests from friends and folks who were following my Facebook updates to elaborate on my experience at the Grammys this year. I have been 2 other times and they have all been really fun/not fun, but being that this one was 95% fun, I choose to write about this one. Also, it's been awhile since I updated this blog thinger and it's getting a little moldy in here.

So, where to start... This year, Death Cab was up for 2 Grammys, which is how I am allowed to attend the event in the first place. Some of you may think that I am fully capable of getting in there on my own but this simply is not the case for one reason: this weird corner of the music industry, the "major" and/or "popular" side, simply isn't my universe. The Grammys are a place where gods come to converse with goddesses, goddesses to award other goddesses, and random demi-gods get to act god-like; while peons like me get to be a fly on the wall (if "the wall" is defined as 11th row, center aisle seats). I tour manage indie rock bands for a living. No one in this other universe cares and I really like that aspect of the awards. It's a caricature of all of the reasons we started listening to punk rock 7"s when we were 12 ("we" being me).

It's a total treat to be able to dress up for a completely bizarre ceremony, where the President of the Grammy Foundation insists that it's all about the music and "Thank you so much for coming to support the artists who work so hard (to make millions of dollars for us tonight)." When you boil it down, it probably is about the music sometimes - many of the performers are really good. The Grammys have become my excuse to wear a dress I only get to wear once a year and see all the musicians I would never pay to see and/or care to see and/or have the privilege of seeing. For instance, how often do you get to see Justin Timberlake and The Reverend Al Green sing "Let's Stay Together"? Seriously. Never do you get to see that. And for how much shit they got, I really pretty much enjoyed the Stevie Wonder/Jonas Brothers thing (however you classify it). Some call it sacrilege and Disney-empire meddling, but like it or not, the Jonas Brothers sell MILLIONS of records in an age where no one buys records. So is it really wrong that THEY perform with a tour-de-force of his own time, Stevie Wonder, or are we just pouting because we don't see more bands like Broken Social Scene (for instance) performing at the Grammys? It's not a BSS world there and that's fine by me. The less the Grammys meddle in that world, the better.

However, on that note, seeing one very pregnant, polka-dotted M.I.A. perform with Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and T.I. was pretty entertaining. And for whatever reason M.I.A. was nominated for a Grammy goes to show that someone around there is paying attention. She didn't win, of course, but we didn't expect that, did we? I was happy to see Robert Plant & Alison Krauss win everything they were up for - more or less, I was just happy to see Robert Plant, in person, talking to a bunch of people at the end of our row. Because he was in Led Zeppelin and that is pretty awesome and it doesn't seem like he should exist, but he does. I saw him.

And then Radiohead was sitting two rows away from us. I really loved the performance but was a little perplexed as to why Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood were the only two people on stage, besides a college marching band full of indie rockers who were probably shitting themselves to be playing on the same stage as 2/5 of Radiohead. I have never wished to know how to play the tuba until that night. And Thom was a reminder that as politically-incorrect as it may sound, I really need to own a leather jacket. I'm sorry, vegan and vegetarian friends, but those things make you look damn good. It was a nice contrast for Thom who was looking a bit, well, fluffy with all of his hair. Sheepy, even. Like a Fraggle, really.

Other close encounters of the night: Missy Elliot was sitting in front of me and when I bent over to grab my purse, she accidentally elbowed me in the head and was really sorry. She put her hand on the place where she hit me in a loving manner I didn't know her capable. At one point, Jay-Z was sitting right behind us (getting ready to perform with Coldplay). I have seen him in person one other time and not being a massive fan (my love for Jay-Z goes as far as any 20-something white indie rocker's could), that guy really has a "thing." An aura of power. The epitome of bling, dare I say. He's fantastic. And to answer the number of questions I received on Facebook, his lips are big and I didn't get an opportunity to compare them to the size of his nuts. His legs were crossed and if that is any indication, his nuts can't possibly be THAT big. So take note. I will investigate further.

Other star sightings include: Solomon Burke, Coldplay, Samuel L. Jackson, LL Cool J, Mario Lopez, and meeting eyes momentarily with Sir Paul McCartney (which is uncomfortable because it was during the Miley Cyrus/Taylor Swift performance about the woes of being 15 - how could we possibly have shared a moment when that was going on around us?). The Surprisingly Enjoyable award goes to Sugarland, though I hate that sewn-up, canned pop, masquerading as country. They sold me on it, though. Worst Performance goes to Katy Perry - her song is neither provocative, nor is she. I fell in love with Adele - not necessarily her songs but her lack of belief that she could possibly win a Grammy for Best New Artist, letting us know that she hasn't, as of yet, been consumed by the entitlement of that world. Keep fighting it, Adele. Keep fighting!

THE MAGICAL INTERWEB

2008-11-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

Hey kids, my website is finally up after all these months. I have yet to figure out how to get this site recognized by Google but whatever. Maybe mentioning WWW.RACHELDEMY.COM in combination with GOOGLE will help those little web spider bastards I keep reading about. Hey spiders, check this shit out! www.racheldemy.com

PRIDE

2008-11-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

It really happened last night.
I was really there.
I felt it.
So awesome.
I am so proud of us. We made this happen.
We did it.

Deliberation

2008-09-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in awhile for so many reasons, none of them containing apologies, shame, or guilt for my break from blogging. I have been contemplative, busy, also sadly on auto-pilot for the past few months, enabling me to survive in my chaotic world but not allowing for much contact. I feel confident I have not burned any bridges, save for one that is to remain nameless, and I feel empowered to re-enter the blogosphere (which is a word that is marked as misspelled - why has Google overlooked this?) as a result. Distance and perspective are beautiful motivators.

I have been touring extensively for the past 6 months which has, needless to say, improved my monetary situation drastically. I am currently a positive contributor to society if you can ignore for a second the basic negative fundamentals of my job - I mean, I'm not curing cancer but I'm also not spreading it. I feel pretty even-steven, really. It has left me with little time to write - a practice that, to be honest, I've never been terribly disciplined to do even with all the time in the world. But I have been able to contemplate a lot about the world of real-life documentation. Blogs. Twitters or whatever they're called.

For me, writing necessitates a certain distance from the event and a certain desire to be able to re-tell something that is normally kind of mundane, infusing the event with a romance that may or may not have been there to begin with. The fact is that I am not really good at this - or at least I don't feel like it. I'll let you be the judge. I admire the people who can blog on tour. The nature of my job does not allow much time for showers, let alone time to take in my day, contemplate it, and then transcribe it to the outside world in a way that feels authentic and entertaining. I mean, isn't this why we do this? To entertain, to make our lives appear more interesting to others, to feel understood? If it isn't, then why do we put so many personal feelings and secrets in such a public forum? I'll admit it. It is fun to think that people read about my life and feel connected to it or are maybe even envious or whatever. It's validating and I think there is a real level of connectedness when we feel like we can share and others in our lives glean something from that experience. It is not entirely selfish but there are selfish aspects to any exchange and any relationship.

Now I don't want to make you feel like a chump for reading this - that is not the idea at all. I am sort of rambling on because (1) I haven't rambled in awhile and (2) I want to flesh out some thoughts that I have about how it is that everyone finds time to maintain a Facebook page or a blog on a consistent basis. I can barely find time to call my mom. Is it because I'm not making this a priority (I hear you can do anything if you put your mind to it or make the time for it) or is there really actually not enough time to stay as connected as we would like? I would love to be able to inundate you all with photos all the time, email blasts about what I've been up to, and still remember to send you a Christmas/Anniversary/Birthday card with a little well-thought-out handmade gift inside that happens to be exactly what you have been missing all these years! But the fact is I like taking quiet baths, reading an enormous amount of fiction, and cooking.

I am a Gemini which, if you believe in this sort of thing, basically states that I will spend my whole life feeling like I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do. I feel as though I spend a lot of my time trying to stay afloat with all the stuff (cleaning the house, organizing my photos and books, oh yeah, shaving my legs - all of it) and all of my friends. I seem to have only 2 weeks left of being at home before my next tour and I can't figure out how to fit it all in. I exert a lot of brain power guilting myself about this and subsequently making myself anxious about not keeping up.

It makes me want to get rid of it all and keep the friends, of course. While I was on this last tour, my computer crashed and I lost everything, including most of the documents from the tour I was on as well as the notes from the tour I was advancing that was to start in 2 days. At that point, I was working 16 hours a day in front of my computer for an extra $1200... What do you ultimately pay once you factor in the stress of that kind of lifestyle and the realization that you're missing the lightness and great experiences of the world right in front of you? Was that $1200 worth it? The world has a funny way of making you press the reset button when you're too far in it to save yourself. In my case, it was my computer dying. Before that, it was my computer getting stolen. Some might think that I just have bad luck with technology but I don't think so. I think the universe is trying to remind me to get outside while there is still summer and to live my life while I still have it - it just does it in particularly violent ways (my computer being the ultimate victim). The truth is, I probably would not listen if the universe spoke to me in any other way.

I feel a hole in the place where deliberate action and positivity used to reside. I have been surveying myself through the eyes of my relationships with others as well as my relationship with myself. I see a person who is compulsive in action, kind of lazy, and has a reflex for negativity and acid before being convinced to the positive side. Why am I sharing all of this? I need to vent and I need to be honest, despite if no one or everyone reads this. I had a great discussion with my friend Natasha over lunch today and she really helped me see how negativity does more destruction personally than it does protect. And I can't help but appreciate her honesty, no matter how easy it is to be defensive about these traits in my personality that I dislike - and then again when someone actually recognizes it and calls me on it. I want to be more positive, more deliberate, and maybe a little sunnier as a reflex rather than a trained behavior. I want a little more sugar in my personality. I am not quite sure how to do this but the seed is planted. Oh, and just because I recently finished a tour with Jack Johnson for a month and had a great time, this does not mean that I am a hippie by proxy. This has been a long time coming and Super Mellow August Tour 2008 has helped this along but is by no means the catalyst. And I'm not wearing flip flops right now so you can just forget it.

Anyway, I want less compulsion and more strategy. I want to be able to make a promise to myself and keep it. I want to be less of a talker and more of a doer. I really want to take more pictures and have a way to share them all with the few people that care to see them. In short, I want to make more time to be connected to this funny internet community, though it isn't my first choice in the many ways you can connect with people. I would love to have you all over for dinner because I can cook you up something real nice-like and we can play Trivial Pursuit. But until you come to Portland (at a time when I am actually there), this will have to do.

Good to see you all again.
Rachel

A Little Health For Your Reproductives

2008-02-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

I had this strange revelation the other day as I am now past Week 2 of my new lease on health. I spent all this time and money on this undertaking only to realize one glaringly obvious hitch: why in the world am I eliminating alcohol, caffeine, wheat, etc. etc. and I'm still flooding my system with synthetic hormones, known commonly and less-caustically as birth control? Why did I never think for a second to eliminate the most toxic element of my daily life?

I'm going to take a quick foray into the very uncomfortable realm of women's health because though many feminists bark about it all the time, very few of us more moderate people think about it from day to day. Now, let there be no question: I am a feminist. And I think if many people knew the real definition of feminism, many more people would claim they are such. Feminist or not, many people cannot argue that in the realm of "not having babies before we're ready to commit to being parents" the onus is on us women to make sure that happens. Yes, there are condoms and men have to wear those. But in the case of a few women such as myself, an allergy to latex and all the shit that they are coated in knocks that option out. The only options left, besides diaphragms (latex), are invasive surgery (for men and women), an IUD (the most invasive sort as it's a piece of metal inserted into your uterus), or the pill. I'm sure many of us have experimented with the ol' quick pull-out method and truth be told, if you're good at it, you can get by. But it is not recommended and therefore, we are back to the pill.

Some women are capable of dealing from day-to-day pretty well by taking a standard estrogen/progesterone pill. I have discovered that I am not. They make me bat-shit crazy on top of a whole slew of other ailments (blood clots, anyone? Yes, the things that cause strokes...). So when I finally realized the first time that they were problematic, and feeling a bit duped because it should have been obvious, I quit taking them. And all my physical ailments went away - this was after spending hundreds of dollars to see doctors that kept saying they didn't know what was wrong with me, testing me for the same things time and time again, none of them ever telling me, "Maybe it's your pill. You know, that stuff isn't really good for you..." That's the thing, no one ever says "the pill isn't good for you." And it is crazy how many women suffer from many discomforts because this is something we MUST take; it's the best birth control for independent women on the go. No babies, no fear!

A few years later, I discovered POPs, which contain a synthetic version of progesterone ("progestin" - called Progestin-Only Pills), sans estrogen and its crazy-making ways, and my system seemed to do okay with them. Or so I thought. I mean, I wasn't crying for no reason and my boobs weren't extraordinarily large for my body type (unlike the "normal" birth control pills). The only catch is that you have to take them the same time every day. The margin for error is smaller than the other pills. But since I'm a bit OCD, taking pills promptly has never really been a problem. In this instance, I had to pick the lesser of many evils. And here I have sat, popping these babies at 8:00 pm daily for the last 2.5 years, wondering why on earth I feel so imbalanced and toxic physically. Why is it that, though I am 25 years of age and of relatively normal weight, I still cannot manage to have a regular period?

If this sounds like too much information just understand that I have not even scratched the surface about the intricacies and problems you deal with when you take these hormones. And if any of you men are reading this, maybe you could take a few notes for your girlfriends' sake.

The point is, I can eliminate all the alcohol, caffeine, dairy and wheat that I want and I will never truly clean out my insides until I stop taking these hormones. Once again, I feel like I fell for another really bad joke brought to me by the pharmaceutical industry, aimed at keeping the pressure on us girls to control something that it takes two to create anyway. After having a talk with my very wonderful and understanding boyfriend, I told him that I didn't want to take these anymore. And let it be known, we are not pulling the goalie, so to speak. We have just agreed that though this is the most convenient route, it is not the best and we need to put our heads together to figure something else out. For our sake and for my body's sake.

So as of this Saturday (when CW is out of town and there is little chance of a physical relationship), I am no longer taking these pills. And I am actually so excited that I may have a glass of wine in celebration (because, let's face it, I am still trying not to drink as much). I feel so much lighter having made this decision and I am making a vow to myself to never fall for this prank again. I implore other ladies to do the same. Safeguard your ovaries and your pituitary glands and whatever else you can - no one else is looking out for them but you.

Hurra Sverige!

2008-02-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

I am keenly aware that though music is intrinsic to most facets of my life, I really don't write about it much. I have many reasons for this, mainly based on an inability to quantify emotional attachments. Try to measure how much you love someone or find the right words to talk about god or eternity and you will understand (though I cannot pretend my struggle with music is THAT epic). It is not impossible to dance around these ideas given our arsenal of linguistic tools but often it amounts to just that. Dancing around. People have been talking about this very thing for eons and these Platonic ideals are nothing new. But I find comfort in my inability to talk about music and I find pride in my ability to navigate through music and pick the relationships I've made with records over the years. I've said before that I do not ever propose to know more about music or lambaste someone for not having heard of some band or another - in fact, I tend to value more the opinions of people who are peripherally listening to music, if only because they have the distance and perspective that my friends and I have not had since we were 13 (when we only owned 10 records and knew every lyric and riff by heart). Not to be too completely a hippy, but the music that is special to you finds you, not the other way around. Though sometimes you're lucky. It is a path you choose, building off of what you already love and know, in whatever segues and connections you happen to create. With this in mind, I would like to write a bit about what I have been gorging my ears on lately. It will no doubt be a bit inarticulate and clunky but I made peace with that long ago...

I have been through enough sad-bastard, angry and creepy music phases in my life to know when I am craving a little happiness and a little, well, pop. For some reason, my coordinates have been set to Sweden ever since it has been dark and shitty outside. Maybe because they are allies in winter weather... Who knows? It is interesting how so much happy music comes from this part of the world. You could argue, "What in the hell do they have to be sad about?" I know from personal experience the country is beautiful, resource-laden, somewhat wealthy, and fairly open-minded (at least they were to an American such as myself). Have I mentioned everyone is beautiful and doesn't expect you to know their language when you visit? That is not a good argument for NOT learning the language but they understand that in terms of functionality and accessibility, Swedish is not exactly high on the list. Which might explain why they all sing in English.

I love logic.

At any rate, a friend of mine, Mr. Andrew J. Morgan of Aero Booking fame, gave me a CD of one adorable little faun of a girl, Sally Shapiro. At first glance, I was like, "Oh. More saccharine indie pop." Not an insult! I love that stuff! I was so dead wrong, I am elated. I suppose I never mentioned that there has always been a part of me (about 42%) that believes I should have been (or was in a past life) a gay teenage boy.

The proof:
˚ABBA Gold is one of my Top 5 Desert Island records.
˚I dusted off my Erasure CD (The Innocents), put it on repeat, and sang at the top of my lungs from Everett to the Canadian border (about 1.5 hours).
˚I own the BeeGees Greatest in 2 formats (CD and triple gate-fold LP).
˚I got super excited when Feist covered "Inside and Out" - I'm not sure if this is originally a BeeGees song but all I can hear is a trio of Aussie discomen when I sing along to it.
˚I got really sad when my walkmen died because how was I going to play by Best of Chic tape?
˚3 words: PET SHOP BOYS.
Point taken? Great.

Back to Sally. So, do you ever have that experience when you listen to a CD that you just got and you REALLY like it but you don't know if you're SUPPOSED TO like it (because you have no context and you still kind of care if people think you're cool)? That's how I feel when I listen to her record (the appropriately titled, Disco Romance). I'm about to be in a van with 4 Swedes this March and I know I'm going to want to put on the record while we're driving but may have second thoughts because what if she's the Swedish equivalent of many experiences and conversations I find myself stuck in all the time: "Oh you're from Portland?! Coooool. I really love that last Everclear record..." And you don't want to be rude so you nod your head and let them expound upon the nuances of one or another of their crappy records, silently wishing for a segue or the balls to just walk off. I do not want this to happen with this record. It is too good for that. So why am I deliberating about whether or not to play it in the van? Well, it kind of has something to do with the fact that though it is dance-y, some of the melodies and beats kind of remind you of the super 80's movie workout scene. Like that montage of Rocky Balboa training in Siberia, pulling logs through snow, doing sit-ups from a barn ledge, all the while his not-so-esteemed opponent, the grisly and HUGE Dolph Lundgren playing "Captain Ivan Drago", is hooked up to super Soviet Bowflexes.

OMG! I FOUND A YOUTUBE LINK FOR THAT!!! WHAT FORTUNE!! I LOVE THE INTERNET!!

I love when Rocky outruns the car finally (though that's in the longer movie cut) and I love that super crappy drum fill. And the way everyone looks on, takes notes, and does that quick or slo-mo look at or beyond the camera! So goooood.

Okay, so Sally's music isn't THAT cheesy, but it does mix bits of that with the best of ABBA and Erasure. And I love that she is a super sweet-looking girl who, in my mind, is going to be making the cut for a lot of Euro Disco DJ Dance Parties. Yay. Moving on.

Um, how do I top that? I think I blew my wad on the first attempt to nudge any one of you (probably only one because who reads this? Mom? Oh my mom will love her record!) towards some new music. Incidentally, it was this desire to have happy Swedish music in my life that got me connected with Jens Lekman and turned onto other Swedish happies like Taken By Trees (Victoria Bergsman of The Concretes), Frida Hyvönen, and El Perro Del Mar (recommended to me by Mr. Andrew Kenny for her sweet simplicity and I think she's real pretty). Could the list go on? Yes. But it doesn't get any better for me than a YouTube video of Rocky IV to illustrate my point and therefore I should not attempt to outdo myself.

Day One and Two

2008-02-06T21:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to sound any sort of celebratory horns or alarms or anything, but I might be willing to admit that I survived my first two days of a cleanse. I'm not quite sure if the funny ups-and-downs are supposed to even out but I can only assume that if I'm feeling as good as I am by today - Day 2 - I might actually make it to see the springtime.

First and foremost, yesterday - Day 1 - sucked. Empirically. We had committed to a house photo shoot with one of my dearest friends (and incidentally the nice lady who makes our house look good). A good idea at the time (and still in hindsight) - I didn't however think about that particular combination of events on that particular day. If you combine not having eaten your typical wheat-y breakfast with moving a bunch of your stuff around ("staging" they call it) and slugging back a bunch of weird tasting tea that makes your stomach feel emptier, well, you've got a cocktail that is going to send you straight off a precipice. I should have read the paper a little more closely when it told me that certain side effects of a detox might include sluggishness, withdrawals, and resurgence of old emotions (wha?) (i.e. anger, grief, anxiety) (Oh, those... yes). I think I was able to run down that checklist rather quickly in the last hour of the shoot - nothing makes me more angry, grief-stricken, or anxious then moving chotchkies all day for no reason. My desire to detach and nap got stronger than I expected and this was only 6 hours into it. A menial amount of panic began to set in.

After I took a shower (2:30 pm), the sun came out and I opted to go for a walk. One of the stranger side effects of this whole thing is this mental block I have that I can't or maybe shouldn't be out socializing in "my condition." And what is stranger still is that since I've made the decision to say NO to a bunch of things, I forget there is a lot I can say yes to. Leaving the house is a good one, for instance. Simply put, my diet isn't actually changing that much and I've managed to have good meals, etc. But what is a bit trickier is realizing how much of my life revolves around food and going out for drinks. Namely, my life outside of the house. I drove around for 15 minutes today figuring out how to reconcile my desire to not go home after the lunch I had but also figure out what to do with myself if I wasn't going to sit and drink coffee or wine. Ultimately, I opted to drink tea for two hours and finish my book. What I find considerably strange is that I had to systematically run down a mental list, prioritized by habits and urges, scratch off the first tier of preferred activities and then figure out what on the second tier was a healthier approach (and fit within the bounds of my fragile asceticism). Why was tea so far down the list?

I marvel at the level of engagement this cleanse requires and I'm a bit ashamed by the level of auto-pilot I have been on. I like to see myself as a conscious, thoughtful person (and I have my moments for sure) but when it comes to my body and what I put in it, I have just quit thinking. More and more it has become obvious that I am absolutely ready to reprogram myself and not just lose some love-handles or whatever. I am actually craving discipline, the kind I had when I was at university that would keep me from drinking on a week night because of class or the idealism that kept me seeking new vegan recipes instead of gorging on a plate of jalapeno poppers (not a regular occurrence but get me a pint and I might ask for a side of Velveeta). The way I write about this one would think I weigh 200 pounds or that I actually eat REALLY bad food. I am keenly aware that my "bad" is much better than most of the population's "good" and I think that is part of the reason I want to improve. When you really know your potential, no matter what the common denominator is, you want to live up to it. I am world-famous in my family for being hard on myself and this might sound ridiculous to those of you who know me, but I derive a lot of energy and motivation from the carrot at the end of the stick: there's always room for improvement.

Being that I used to be a pretty good athlete and recuperate from sickness quickly (if I get sick at all), I can say with some confidence that I have solid, healthy genes. Not everyone has been graced with as healthy a lineage as I am privileged to have (though we have our other problems, believe me) - so do I not owe it to myself, if not my history, to take care of these genes and make sure I pass them off in as good a condition as I received them? It only seems fair as I do that with the books and movies I borrow.

These are the things you think about when you're drinking gallons of tea by yourself in your house between the 3 movies you rented (and will probably watch, return tomorrow, and get 3 more) while crazy amounts of toxins are floating around in your bloodstream, looking for a way out. Because what the hell else is there to do?

Flying the Flannel for HEALTH

2008-02-04T17:13:00.000-08:00

I have made what I feel (in 12 hours) will be a decision that I'll come to regret for the next week or two. Watching my diet spin out of control (and worse, watching the distinction between my butt and thighs start to disappear), I decided that this is my month... to... start a temporary elimination diet and cleanse. Meaning: no wheat, no cheese, no soy, no alcohol, no coffee, no fun. Part of the decision is based on weird food sensitivities I've had lately and trying to eliminate all the variables, hopefully identifying the culprit(s). Nonetheless, I'm being smart about it. I saw my naturopath today, gleaning knowledge and protein supplements to get me through. I have pretty much imbibed all the alcohol in the house, save for a few bottles of liquor (my two real vices, red wine and champagne, were finished up last night), to avoid the inevitable cravings and moments of weakness that will no doubt occur while I'm in the house alone, STARVING AND BORED TO DEATH.

I am celebrating my decision currently by eating a HUGE bowl of macaroni and cheese, while drinking a beer (the last one in the house), before I go to a nice big Italian dinner tonight. And you know what? I'm not going to yoga today or tomorrow. Fuck it. Wave bye-bye to what fleeting sanity I possess for a few weeks and give my love-handles a great big "peace out, jerks..."

Here's to better fitting pants, rejuvenating brain cells, and clean guts.
- R

1, 2, 3, Breathe...

2008-02-02T18:01:00.000-08:00

I have spent the better part of the afternoon severely decompressing after my small touring stint with The Decemberists. It has been a double-Duraflame, green-curry-with-tofu kind of day. I haven't updated this blog in months (except for my random blurb from yesterday - an attempt at overcoming the mental hurdle of writing by committing to writing nothing of any value at all), as you know. This dark, dark month of January was slated to be uneventful. Maybe as a testament to subconscious determination to NOT be depressed this winter, a slew of little projects came through and more or less saved me from the doldrums. One of these being a couple of dates tour-managing The Decemberists - a band I have known throughout the years at Bigshot Touring and had commonly joked (with their old tour manager) about how I'd leave the booking world behind and be an assistant tour manager for them. Funny how things turn out when we're all drinking at a Kevin French soirée. Having offered myself for merchandise, they offered me more. And it seems to have gone over well. Maybe they'd hire me back?

It gets difficult to do these big tours (especially if there is a bus involved) and then to go back to doing small tours (i.e. getting back in the van). There's a bunch of romance that surrounds a van tour in the way that you really FEEL the road and are way closer (emotionally and physically) to everyone you're traveling with. However, the bus allows for a lot more free time, physical exercise, and peace of mind and that's a bit hard to walk away from. Incidentally, I will be tour managing a spring tour with Jens Lekman, which I pursued in a very straightforward email to Jens (and then a similar email to my friends at Secretly Canadian) and somehow it worked out. Though I have to drive the length of this country at a time when I'm recommitting myself to good physical activity and good food (neither run in great abundance on the interstate highway system). Isn't it always like this?

I spent a great weekend with my friend, Casey Dienel, making food, attempting to hold my own body weight through a yoga class (I received a C- in yoga that day), and drinking lots of wine and champagne. Her best friend is a pretty amazing jazz singer and was performing with the Portland Symphony at one very beautiful theater in Portland. It was more or less a blast from my past as we sat in the balcony where I had sat through many orchestra field trips, watching my orchestra teacher's husband play 3rd chair from the Concert Master. He's still there, bless his heart. After the performance, we ate at a great happy hour in the bar next door (french fries, seared tuna, and a Bellini), watching coverage of the presidential State Of The Union address. I'm glad the TV was on mute and there was no close-captioning. I might have lost a perfectly good drink to a blur of emotion and an inaccurately-aimed trajectory. Things changed pretty quickly when I looked up and saw a split-screen of Barack Obama and Anderson Cooper. When did politics get so handsome?

Oh, there's this fun little music video that we were all in. Maybe you should watch it. It is a particularly vivid snapshot of our music scene, much like "16 Military Wives" for The Decemberists. I won't compare the two at all. But the sentiment, the desire to see it succeed, and the fun were the same.

I've finished my jaunt through the Leonard Cohen novels - thank you for those, Jesse. I understand Montreal that much more, though my fondest memories are eating food with you and Ang in your kitchen (and playing Guess Who? over Hoegaarden pints with Joan Hiller years ago). Does it ever not snow there?

Snapshots and Lists

2008-02-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

Office supplies on the table, hearing voices through the floorboards, excessive appetite among other things, jeans a little tighter, a little colder outside. 59 messages on my phone that I have yet to respond to, 37 emails sitting in my inbox, 1 returned package staring at me, 2 piles of t-shirts that need to be sent on their merry way.
Taking my vitamins, keeping things moving, making books, advancing a tour, moving back into a computer, package of pepper mills from my late grandmother spilling salt on the floor, new haircut, Kim's back in town, indie rock sushi dinner.
Missing the summer, front row seats to an apocalyptic winter storm, tossing and turning in a king-sized bed on the 22nd floor overlooking the Space Needle, it's all coming together, no time to write, I miss you all desperately, but I'm letting go of the guilt.
First post of 2008 and we're already a month in. A lot is happening, all for the good, I'm happier than I've been in a long time (except for those pesky love handles). There is more yet but Leonard Cohen is beckoning to me, "Finish my book."
I must abide.
Rachel

Where in the hell am I?

2007-11-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

Hi all - I'm still alive! I have been borrowing a computer that necessitates being plugged into the wall at all times or it dies. Often, it's not always possible to find an electrical outlet that produces electricity at the merch table of a venue. Otherwise, I'd write more. I also have the worst tour-lethargy ever. Like, I don't want to do ANYTHING but read books and hang out with whoever happens to be nearest my chair (which is still more ambitious than the last tour I was on). So! I'm working on getting to all those emails and maybe another blog post in the near future (one less full of apologies, preferrably). I will also include the tour dates so those who care may pity me when we hit those tertiary markets (Buffalo, anyone? Anybody? Hello?).

Here are some pictures of the sing-along in Seattle: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshc/sets/72157602750270307/
Thanks, Josh C, whoever you are!

Makin' money and moving units since '00,
Rachel

My Computer

2007-10-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

Hi all - greetings from the road! I am in Cologne right now and I don't have much time to write. This is going to be the last post for quite awhile as I got my computer stolen in Berlin and don't have much access to the Electronic Interweb. Computer time has been limited to checking my bank balance and playing damage control to my inbox. Hopefully, this is only a small bump in the road. It's hard when you put faith in a machine to take care of your life and it lets you down.

A moment of silence for the computer once known as BEARCAT.

Tour is really fun. We had 4 days off in Paris and I ate one too many pain du chocolat but I guess that's how it goes. When in Rome, you know? Tour highlight: seeing DJ Jazzy Jeff spin in Heidelberg. And yes, he played Summertime. Look out!

Much love to you all -
XO.
Russia

Safe and Sound

2007-10-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Frankfurt - known for being a boring German city, though I disagree, having seen nothing but the venue and the venue is a rather nice place to be. As is the bus, believe it or not. This is my first post of the tour and I want to do it justice but I have no time, as they've just opened doors and I am sitting at a merch table.

I want you all to know that I am safe and sound and there are details to come! And believe me, the details are good...

Ich bin ausgezeichnet!
-Russia

Countdown

2007-09-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

Holy hell, my head is in a million places at once. In 24 hours I will be driving myself to the airport (if I don't drive myself crazy first... Yuk yuk.) to throw myself on the LITTLE AIRPLANE (read: tiny tube of hate) that will take me to Vancouver, where my lounge with wings awaits me. From there, I fly to Frankfurt and then take a short jump to Berlin. Hopefully I will sleep (read: take enough Valium to knock me out) and get caught up on the bad Hollywood movies. Though, to be honest, I could use a little The Devil Wears Prada for the 27th time...

Nadin has big plans for me this weekend. She mentioned not allowing me to sleep when I got in on Friday because we'll be walking around Berlin. I will say one thing: That is well and good. But if I happen upon one more naked German in Berlin on too little sleep, I might lose it. **Sidenote: the one and only time I was in Berlin was on an overnight train from Stockholm and we were waiting to catch our bus to Prague. My boyfriend at the time was cranky and hungover so I went walking. Beautiful sunny morning in Berlin and I walk past a park where some dude is not only suntanning naked but ADVERTISING the goods as he has chosen to face them towards the busy road rather than the trees behind him. A stranger's balls before coffee is just too much. That's my only memory of Berlin.** BUT! Should all go as planned, we'll be hanging out in the spa all weekend (steam room, steam room!) and then hopefully catching The Decemberists that Sunday night. If I can fit in a haircut with Nads' roommate and a little wine, I'd say that's a perfectly acceptable weekend... Okay, I believe that actually qualifies as an EXTRAORDINARY weekend, but whatever...

I will be posting tour/travel updates periodically (under the label: The BS Scene. Ha ha... ha... ugh) and sending off the millions of postcards that have been requested of me. I'll be in touch as much as I can!

Wish me luck on the Air Canada Jazz Tiny Tube of Hate!

XO.
Russia

On a lighter note...

2007-09-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

I was at the store the other day and I was in the homeopathic section looking for some supplement or another when I stumbled upon three rows of Liddell's brand homeopathic treatment sprays. Yes, SPRAYS! As in, rather than take a tablet, you're squirting in your supplements like Binaca. Okay, sure. I was skeptical for a second but only a second because the packaging was REALLY GOOD (like the periodic table of elements in pretty colors!!!!!) and my vitamins/supplements in pill-form are bulky, excessive, and uncomfortable (they give me the hiccups and I never manage to swallow them all the way).

So I decided to buy a few (for PMS, Jet Lag, Liver Detox, B12 + Folic Acid, and my daily Multi-Vitamin SPRAY!) and I love the shit out of these things. They're in 1-oz. glass or plastic spray bottles (which means you can take them on the plane without too much hassle, fingers crossed) and for some reason I can always remember to spray my vitamins more often than swallowing them. It's vitamin fun! It's fun in a spray bottle! You can get so many different kinds: alcohol detox, vericose veins, male sexual energy (HELLO!), cold + flu, asthma, etc. They're kind of spendy (about $10-$15 a pop) but so worth it. Oh, and the PMS one actually helps. Just putting that out there.

http://www.liddell.net ---------> Link over here!

Check this out!

SPRAAAAAAY!
-Rachel

HOLY SHIT! I think it's fall...

2007-09-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

It has been a strange turn of the weather lately, giving me that sense of urgency that I have to get in all the sunshine I can before it disappears until June. The strange thing is that usually by September, I am so OVER the hot weather that I'm ready for the leaves to turn and the rain to start. It's partially a desire to not feel obligated to be outside and also a pending excitement for the holidays.

The weird thing is that 1.5 weeks ago, it was 90 degrees and counting. All of a sudden, a switch got flicked off and it's been cloudy, rainy, and tumultuous the last few days. The immediate lack of light gave way to a sudden foreboding and I thought, "Oh no... Not yet, please, not yet..." But then the weirdest thing happened: it got sunny again today but it was the strange wintery light, almost as though you could see the Earth turning on its axis. It got crisper, bluer, and the sun made its way to the left, instead of directly up ahead, where it has been for months. Since Chris and I went to Alaska in May, we've been used to at least 18 hours of daylight before the solstice even hit. And now that we're on the other side of the bell curve, well, it feels strange and sad. I've seen at least one squirrel a day, with a huge nut in its mouth, looking at me sideways as if I was going to give away its hiding place. "Don't worry, little squirrel," I think, as I ride past on my bike, "I won't tell a soul..." But they don't know that. They assume I'm after the same harvest and in a way, I am. If I could package up and hide the little bits of sunlight, nutrition, and the energy I feel right now, I would. But I'm scared more than anything to go back into a winter when I feel like, metaphorically and emotionally, I've FINALLY gotten out of the last one. I'm not ready yet.

It's this thing that happens when it gets dark early. The human equivalent of hibernation, where you cease activity by sundown and spend the rest of the night making food, drinking warm whiskey drinks, and falling asleep to a movie by the fire. It sounds nice in theory but I'm still in the mood for heat, bike rides, productivity and an umbrella-less world. My nose was running all day today - and it was 60 degrees. FREEZING. Lamenting the natural way of things is my modus operandi so why should I stop here?

I've been thinking a lot about my grandmother lately. She died a month ago (my first grandparent to pass) and I can see her vividly and hear her more vividly in my head. I even have an email from her, an email address that I could never erase though there is no one on the other end. It's one of those mass-email forwards that meant absolutely ZERO to me when she sent it, but that I will probably save forever because I'm attached to her name sitting there like a little ghost in my inbox. I miss her. I really fucking miss her. She's one of the remaining connections I still have to my father and I'm not ready to let that go yet. The way she called me "love" and the way she spoke, got excited about her volunteer work, the way she nagged at me every time I went perusing her fridge. All the times I wondered what she was going to do with all of the food and soda from the 80's in the garage. I swear she had 30 tubes of toothpaste. When I'd ask her why she bought more, it was a simple explanation. "It was on sale!" I think she might have had the only remaining stash of New York Seltzer in the entire United States. And I mourn her more every day that passes rather than the other way around. I remember the last time I saw her she told me about how she was going to Hawaii on a timeshare for Thanksgiving, only to have her plans thwarted by lung cancer. We all have plans and it becomes extremely real sometimes when I have to remind myself that our plans are not going to save us. Our plans could be irrelevent and obsolete at any moment. So why do we spend so much time planning?

The "good fight" is made up of different manifestations of hope, because without hope, we wouldn't find the courage to keep going. There's the funny balance you have to find between thinking too far in advance (about all the pain you may some day go through) and not thinking about the future at all (the c'est la vie that is usually indicative of recklessness and hopelessness). Investing yourself in the future and your friends/relationships/belongings/career, but not TOO MUCH, because what if it all ends tomorrow and we've thought nothing about the ephemera, the meta, the spiritual? Where do we find balance and where do we find our faith? I've been battling this conundrum for years (and I know it's an historical human search), this darkness that only the dark weather can bring. Everything seems bigger in the wintertime, especially when the rest of the world is colder and quieter by comparison. But that is the way of things, ready or not. And I am not ready, as per usual.

Birthday - A Visual

2007-09-17T01:14:00.000-07:00

These are the two photos I have from my 25th birthday celebration(s) this year. The first is from Alaska, where (as you may remember) I spent all day in my birthday suit, drinking champagne, watching the democratic debates, and taking personal inventory. The second is from my belated birthday party (after I returned from my trip) and it included many friends and bottles of bubbles (and then a little limoncello-induced sadness later that night). 25 has been a little bit of magic...

Tegan and Sara

2007-09-17T01:07:00.000-07:00

I've had a few shots of these lovely ladies sitting around in the photo bin. I figured there would be enough of an audience who wants to see them, so here they are. Chris' hair is its own animal and the matching shirts are still as genius as the day they were worn. These are from the interview on the last day of the record that made it to the DVD. We were all sitting around drinking champagne and watching the comedy unfold...

Design-y

2007-09-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

I changed my fonts. I had no idea I could do that - Blogger never ceases to amaze me. They had a small selection of san-serif fonts, but contained in that group was Verdana (one of my favorites). Please enjoy the lack of curly-cues...

I am being held hostage by a bar band in the lot next to the store I'm filling in at. This is thanks to the street fair that is happening on our street at this very moment. I dislike 2 things very keenly: street fairs with copious numbers of hippies and strollers and parades. And wouldn't you know, the agenda is to include both today and I, a captive audience. I will be going to the sake bar after work tonight with Dawn to give my soul, heart, and body a good scrubbing. What showers can't wash away, alcohol can generally take care of, especially when it comes to the unsavory remnants of one's day. Combine that with a good sit in front of the record player and you're fit for God's eyes.

Cleanin' up...
Rachel

Richard Swift Tour: April 2007

2007-09-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

This has been my favorite tour to date. It's also my first roll of cross-processed film, shot on a little point-and-shoot, nothing fancy. I love these photos with every ounce of heart I have. I think the shots of our meal at the Cheesecake Factory in a suburb of Columbus, OH are particularly telling. It was the first meal I've ever had at a CF and I think it might be my last. As much as I hate to admit it, the food was really good but our plates were as big as our faces (and then some) - they were so big, in fact, that we couldn't fit them all on the table, forcing us to shuffle things around and finally opt to place leftovers on the top of the back of our booth (to risk them falling on the patrons in the next booth over). What I didn't know as well is that Columbus is the most average of all American cities, demographically, meaning that all new product tests start there. They have all these weird establishments that I've never heard of and they are able to boast the First Chipotle In America, or something like that. Columbus is a hell-hole and so much more could be said on that (the hotel that looked like one of Baghdad's finest, the 6-foot-5 transexual prostitute, the mysterious camera crew at 3 am, etc.) but God, that was fun...

A few other notes:

*That bottle of tequila was the size of a small baby and I decided it needed Byron's seat more than Byron did. I think we all agreed, if only silently.

*The ghost cat belongs to Chris Swanson and it's one of my favorite animal pictures I have ever taken. I had to bribe it by letting it chew my finger so I could get the shot.

*West Texas still looks like Mars.

*The Spaceland, in LA, is a perfectly wonderful venue but they desperately need new marquee letters...

*The Secretly Canadian crew is absolutely amazing. We had a fun get-together after freezing our asses off in an outdoor festival in Bloomington in which sleet/snow patches were present.

*Thanks to Richard Swift, Shealynn, Casey Foubert, James McAllister, Byron Hagan, Eli Thomson, and Chris Colbert for letting me photograph them and not doing those things people do when they DON'T want to be photographed.

As always, thanks for tuning in.
Signing off,
Russia

Affirmative

2007-09-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

I cannot tell the number of times I've wanted to scrawl something across a mirror in lipstick or eyeliner (or clear lipgloss in my case) just so I would remember when things get crazy. Like, "You are a good person"; shit like that. As silly and hug-yourself as that sounds, it's kind of important. Stress can put you in a crazy fog and last night it got a little foggy. But I was out riding my bike after dark to go feed Black and it made me happy and yet simultaneously sad that I forget how much I love riding my bike after dark. It's the only time during the day that I truly remember to breathe, if only because summer nights in Portland smell so good. You've got all the trees, the flowers, the one random who has decided to build a fire in his fireplace, which adds a nice woodsy smell on top of everything. And it's warm. I found myself zipping along down streets last night, crouching low, going so fast with a bit of reckless abandon. I mean, I stopped for stop signs, but I was free beyond that. I almost wanted to yell, but that's a little too free for me.

Another thing that really makes me feel good about my situation is paying bills and balancing my checkbook. Cue the sirens - nerd on the loose... But seriously, I feel so organized and accomplished when I've paid the bills for the month. Like I can see the little pebbles that I've just chiseled off the mountain but they're all shiny and pretty and make me forget the mountain for a second. Is it weird to feel like a good citizen after I pay my bills? I certainly don't feel this way when I pay taxes, but bills, yes, they make me a good person.

I added "9/27: Leave For Berlin" into my iCal and it made me smile to myself. As scared shitless as I can be at the thought of getting into an airplane for 12 hours, I love traveling and am especially excited for this trip. I could write entry upon entry about my aerophobia (and I probably will eventually) but I'd rather not make myself anxious about a trip I'm really excited about. It's like feeding a flame that, lately, has been a small smoulder. But there's nothing anxiety-producing about adding it to your iCal, especially when you can romanticize the cushy Lufthansa seats and free transatlantic wine. YUM. Nothing like nursing a hangover in a foreign country...

I feel like there are so many sad bastard entries on this blog from earlier days and I'm hoping to unpaint that picture of myself. All my friends who read this know that I'm not a sad person, but I also wanted to let all my friends know what a huge happy nerd I am right now. A nerd who takes paying bills as her civic duty and wants to scream like a banshee on her bike at 11 pm (not that THAT would be anything out of the ordinary in our neighborhood). It's a great exercise to make lists like this and I implore my happy and sad bastard friends alike to do so.

Love,
A Sappy Sack of Crap