In my head today: Panic

Today's theme: panic

I've just pulled random videos about panic. I mean I guess this is my thing right - I talk about shit going on in my head, or in my life, and I pair it with videos that somehow work with the theme. It's been months now since I've come over here to dither on about something. There are two very distinct reasons for this. First, I am quite simply too busy. Life exploded over the summer, and I can't seem to catch up. I know it was the right thing to do to bring my mother up from her little apartment on the coast. I know this. But I'm a planner. I prepare, I project manage. This hasn't been well planned, and so there's a lot of chaos going on.

Chaos - there's a theme to explore.

I don't think well with clutter around me. I'm one of those people. I always feel just a little gnawing at my soul when things are cluttered and I need to think. It's all just an illusion of course, because truly my best brainstorming turns into chaos. That's kind of the fun of it. A dogpile of thoughts and good creative energy.

This isn't that kind of chaos. Good chaos = creativity. Bad chaos = danger.

I decided to be a "yes" person at work this quarter as well. Sure, of course I can do your project. Yes, I would love to present for your conference. I can't think of anything more fun than designing this two day meeting. Oh and please let me write that book chapter. Now that one was important to me. I mean all of my projects mean something and I enjoy just about everything I work on. But this piece for the book. A book being put together in honor of a man that I truly cared for and admired. Outside of my normal scope of work, it fell outside of what I could realistically work on.

So, the first reason I've been scarce has just been a matter of time.

But I'm being vague, aren't I? And that leads to reason #2. I am a pressure cooker, you see. The lid is clamped on tight so that nothing escapes. Inside the pot, things are whirling around, getting hotter and hotter. But on the outside, everything must remain calm.

To cut the shit a little bit on this one - inside me I'm just a mess. But I can't lose my grip. I can't get upset or let myself feel anything too deeply, because I just don't have time for the mess that would ensue. I know how many things I have not been doing. I know how many visits I have missed with my mother. I know how much of her move there is yet to sort out. I know that I need to take care of her life to the same extent I should take care of my own. My lists grow longer and longer and I am slower and slower to cross things off.

But this isn't about lists, or finances, or appointments. It's about grief and loss and fear. It is about the image I have in my head EVERY SINGLE night - and often during the day if I don't keep myself distracted - of what my mother is doing. Of HOW she is doing. Of what happens when she is all alone. Because I know that I am not taking care of her to the extent that she needs it. I know I am failing at this task. I can feel her fear from six blocks away.

I hear it in the reports from my brother and husband. Asking for me. Mad that I am "never there." I do not think I am making things up when I say that what my mother wants (needs?) is me, there, all the time. But I can't do that. That cannot happen for a laundry list of reasons.

I remember my father's sad voice near the end of his life. "I miss you. I wish you did not have to work so hard, so that I could see you more."

Ha! So here's the appropriate video for that:


So there you go. Except that child that's growing up? That is my mother sinking deeper into her illness, and she's never going to be independent and not need me anymore. She just isn't going to know me at all.

And so there is panic. The sheer agony of knowing that I am hurting another person.... not just any person, but my mother, whom I have loved and admired (though not always respected... I mean I was a teenager at some point) my whole life. It is my fault. You can logic me out of that argument all you want, and I will still know it is true. Her Alzheimer's is not my fault. No, I don't blame myself for her genetic mutations.

Whatever. I'm tired now so it's time to wrap up another super-cheery version of my little blog. But look, when I say my "inner siren," I mean two things, right? I mean the beautiful woman inside me that sings and is stirred by beautiful music. But I also mean the horrible wailing noise that deafens me on occasions like tonight.

I do my best. I do my best.

So anyway, here are a few songs about panic.

In my head today - silence

I started this post at 7:13 pm. Hm... that's my birthday. 7/13. Nice synchronicity there.
Oh! Now I have a video to add:




I am in a place that only strikes when I'm truly stressed. There is no music in my head (except for some gawdawful deedle-dee from an ice cream truck). So here I am wanting to write, and this is my little blog, and I've got no music in my head.

But, having put the Police in above, now I'm on a roll. I'm here in my little hometown. I don't visit often - I don't really like the place all that much. I've got one old friend here, a few newer friends, and there are the beaches (which are stunning). Other than that, I've got no use for this place. But I'm here in my mother's apartment, which is high on a hill and faces my high school. It's been a loooooong time since I was there, and yet even as recently at last night it haunted my dreams.

So here is another very specific video from my high school days. I believe this was the theme of my Junior Prom:



Okay, now this is fun! Let's do another....



So here I am, with open arms.... excuse me while I verp a little. Sorry Journey - great, great song. Too many memories.

So we have musical memories, we have me in my mother's apartment, and I'm looking at my high school. I'm packing up my mother's things, preparing to leave this place for good as we move her 200 miles away so she's closer to her kids. So in theory, I won't need to come back. But perhaps I will anyway. This week I am alone in the house, save three very sweet kitties wondering what the hell is going on. Three days in, they finally gave up and decided that, since I was feeding them and all, I guess I'm sorta all right.

It is a sad time. Still watching my mother slip away into the Alzheimer's fog. It's been a bad couple of weeks - but as bad as it is for me and my family, I know it is much, much worse for her. Not much of a consolation, but it does help me show compassion and kindness.

So here is one just for my mama:



Kiri Te Kanawa is an amazing woman, someone that my mother loves. My mother herself is a fantastic soprano, even well into her senior years. If I had a video of her, I'd add it here. But her voice is merely a memory in my head, her music in my heart.

In my head today: David Bowie

The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell



A lot could be said about this song, and the video itself seems to speak volumes. I've tried for a while now to describe it but can't put words around my thoughts. Phrases come to mind.

You've forgotten the beauty
You've killed the beauty in me
What I once thought was beautiful I now see is actually ugly and cursed - did you do that to me, was the "truth" revealed, or is it a pack of shit?

"I'm reaching the very edge, you know.... I'm reaching the very edge..."

The next car in my unusual train of thought was The Elephant Man. Huh? For those that don't remember here's just a brief review, courtesy of the 1980 movie:




David Bowie performed this role on Broadway. With no make-up. David Bowie is physically a beautiful man. (I have no idea but I suspect he's pretty awesome on the inside as well - but leave that for now)

I have found very few clips of this to share, but here's one:



On the surface, The Elephant Man was about the plight of a horribly disfigured man. At a deeper level, The Elephant Man was about a beautiful soul that few people bothered to see. They could not look beyond the physical appearance of this man to see that he was an intelligent, artistic and kind man.

The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell.

First-impressions make all the difference, right? How much do we miss because we spend 3 seconds sizing someone up? How many kind, beautiful souls get passed by? I wonder sometimes what the world would be like if we had no eyes.

On that note, a couple of Bowie songs that I just like.



Some that have disabled the embedding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VrqCBsbeuc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA27aQZCQMk

In my head today - Benjamin Orr

I've finally moved off of my all-BJM playlist for a while (mostly so I don't totally overdose before the show next week). So I went to an old mix and up came The Cars. Well, mostly it's Benjamin Orr that's in my head. This tells you how old I am: in high school my best friend and I sent him a fan letter. It's the only fan letter I've ever written. Here's just a sample of why I sent him the letter. I give you Candy-O:



Still trying to figure out an extra lyric in this version. Should "you" see this video and know what the hell he says, please for the love of god tell me. Is it "it appears you know" or "may I pierce you now?" Very different meanings. Veeerrrrryyyy different.

But back to Benjamin Orr. I think he's my favorite lead singer ever. Ever. Why? His voice. There's this sensual huskiness about his voice. Like they say, he could sing the phone book and I'd have loved it. And visually.... well, he was my type for a long time. He was very much pop-rock of the period (meaning it looks dated and dorky now). He definitely had a swagger, but he never looked dangerous. Yes, bad boys are always sexy, but at that time I needed a whole lot less danger in my life. A whole lot less. The Cars were weird and surreal and ironic. But they weren't dangerous.

I came back around to The Cars a couple of years ago - but only the songs that Benjamin Orr sang. Just not interested in the rest anymore. Apparently I abandoned The Cars sometime before this song came out:



It's got that late-80's boppy sort of tone that annoys me, and yet I LOVE this song. It's this lyric, this part of the song that I truly love. There's a (probably very high) beautific look he gets when he sings it, like a man truly in love. I hope he was. It certainly makes me feel kind of sparkly about my own love.

everything you say
leaves me full of shine
everything you say
crosses up my mind

And then.... there's this. Warning: it might be slightly shocking. It is from 2000 I think, just a few months before Benjamin Orr died of Pancreatic Cancer. I'm not sure why I include it - I guess it is the morbid  part of me. That part of me that is frightened by and drawn to the same things.



Seems like I should end on a more positive note - another video. I spent a long time trying to choose. In the end, I chose two. The first is "Think It Over" from their album Shake It Up.  What's going on all around Benjamin Orr (clearly a Star Wars fan :-p) is just crazy bad. The background vocals  - yikes - but he's in rare form.



The second one is a song called "Cruiser," also from Shake It Up. I just like it, that's all. It's a good driving song... which sorta makes sense.

In my head today - Happier Times

I've been listening to a certain type of music lately. You can sort of see it based on my previous posts, but also if you were to peer into my iPod you'd see a playlist called "Psycho-delia." I'm sure very smart people have put this music into very important categories. I hate categories, so I will just call it, "my current genre."

I have been (and continue to be) especially interested in The Brian Jonestown Massacre, of course. There's a long list of reasons for that. I don't feel like getting into it. Suffice to say that it has to do with being in awe of brilliance, and having a need to tap into the artist in me that doesn't play by someone else's rules, that comes from within rather than giving a flying turd about what others think.

I went back to the High Violets the other day.


And also Imogen Heap



Why? There are some sounds, some musical progressions, or vocals, or lyrics that energize me. Some secret sauce that hits me emotionally and unlock a teeny bit of joy each time I hear the song.

There's a lot of shit going on out there. The world is going down in flames - quite literally if you think about all of the volcanoes and the catastrophic damage in the Gulf of Mexico. War, poverty, death, destruction. I see images of this all the time in the music I've listened to lately (ironic since I initially got into it for the peace-love-understanding aspect). Add to that the really painful shit going on in my own life, and there's a spiral I can very easily fall into.

But in the end, I'm an optimist. In the end, I love people. I love animals, I love the spirits that surround me. I love love and joy and tender-heartedness. I want to see the good around me while I can. Here is just a short little vid that sums up where I'm coming from today:



And finally a completely dorky video that just makes me happy.



So hey, go ahead and be fascinated by the images of death, the super-cool drawings of skulls with snakes coming out of the eyes 'n shit. It has its own beauty, but I need a break from it. I guess I'm just not "cool" like all you kids.

In my head today - June Beach Music and BJM

There are two things I am looking forward to in June. The first is seeing the Brian Jonestown Massacre on June 17. Here's a little taste of what I look forward to:



The other thing I'm looking forward to is the family trip to Hawaii. Yes, it is totally selfish to go to Hawaii when there are so many other things going on. I consider this a little bit of a recharge/pre-charge for the big changes I'm facing in my life. The beach - Hawaii in particular - has always had a magical effect on me. The sultry salty air combined with the soothing sound of the waves and the un-earthly color of the water... it is enough to lull my fears and concerns into submission. In fact, it has a hypnotic effect on me. Nice.

The first time I knew this I was listening to this song while walking on a deserted beach in Mexico:



I recently fount this song by a group I've only barely heard of. I think this is my beach sound for this trip:

In my head today: Iggy Pop, and Anton Newcombe on a Rooftop

I was never really into punk. I lived in a small town with one (crappy) record store and one radio station.... and eventually MTV. That was my musical buffet. So I didn't get a lot of Iggy Pop, except through my one actually cool friend who had some musical taste and brought records back from the city once in a while.

Truth is, I think appreciating Iggy Pop takes a lot more emotional sophistication than I probably had at the time anyway.

This vid is in my head for a sort of tangential reason. The song is awesome, but the performer..... the description on YouTube is that it's an "incendiary" performance. I don't think that quite captures it - is there something beyond incendiary? This is a man that fully commits - body, soul, and psyche - to the music. He lets the music channel through him. If you hate the song, at least do this - skip forward to about 3:55, and watch until about 5:00.

Intensity, commitment. Something greater is happening between the performer, the song, the band, and the audience.

This is what any real artist wants, isn't it? I don't know if I'm a GOOD artist by any stretch of the imagination. Though I am apparently (by some accounts) PFG (pretty fucking good), I know that I am not a genius. Whether I am PFG or not, I can tell you that Iggy Pop captures the way I feel when I step on stage. Iggy Pop from 5:00 on is Lady Macbeth. It takes some way of emptying yourself out for a period of time and letting someone or something else in.

Speaking of which.... this next vid is an apparently infamous interview with Anton Newcombe. If you don't know who he is.... well for God's sake look up The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Or look at two or three of my previous posts. Right now BJM is opening something up in me that I can't quite explain, but I think it is good.

People say a lot about this interview, and usually in any description of any interview someone has to spout off with some version of "he's crazy" - it happens especially often when people talk about this one. I think that is just a bunch of shallow-minded horseshit. I don't know the guy except through music and the occasional interview I read so really what the fuck do I know? But think for a moment about art, about artists, about being a vessel for the creative spirit.



If Anton is "crazy" then I want some too. He's not crazy, he's just got the balls enough to talk about what it feels like to have artistic vision and enough courage to BE the art.

So today, I want to be Iggy Pop, and I want to experience the artistic vision/genius of Anton Newcombe.

I aspire to so little, right?