Mixed Media
May 3
Well! Rockin' good! Sullydog, the editor of Neverworlds just wrote to me, asking if he could buy and reprint my story "53rd Annual Mantis Homecoming Dance." How cool! I've never had an editor ask me for a story before. I could get used to this.
Do y'all read Neverworlds? It's good stuff, a very nicely put-together e-zine with consistently high quality. They've rejected me a time or three, but after this, heh, I forgive them.
So. Rambliness ahead.
It's been a busy couple of days at work, which is sort of nice-- the work is comprehensible and do-able, so it's not unpleasant, and the days go quickly. Today my co-workers gave me a bon voyage lunch, with all manner of fine food. It made us groggy and worthless and inclined to nap all afternoon, but I managed to finish the things I needed to finish.
Last night, Scott and I watched "The Journey of Dr. Dre." We have a strange and strong affection for Dre, that genius of the studio, that gangsta who was never in a gang, that man who says he doesn't write music about things that matter to him, that he just wants to make people move (which is different, obviously, from moving people). Scott and I have watched several programs about Dre, and Snoop Dogg (and say what you will about Snoop, the man can perform-- and, despite Diana Ross's famous allegation that Snoop "can't even spell 'ho,'" Snoop is a spelling machine. He may not spell in a traditional fashion, but he can spell). So we listen to The Chronic with a sort of anthropological wonder, and we watch the documentaries with fascination. We laugh our heads off when Snoop says that he and Dre are going to be like "Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau" and grow old together. Because it's funny, but it's also sweet, and coming from such a consummate gangsta rapper, it's even funnier that it's so sweet.
We love Dre's existentialism-- "Motherfucker, I'm Dre," he proclaims. "Like Luther Vandross, I'm fucking up the West Coast," he says.
He's so odd. His wife seems incredibly classy, and when Dre drifted away from songs about hos and bitches and forties and nines, and his fans began to drift away, too, she encouraged him to "start saying that crazy stuff again." Dre claims to be all image, these days. Which is intriguing in itself-- because gangsta rap began, supposedly, as an expression of life on the hard streets of the projects. Yet the ones who expressed that life left that life behind, became millionaires, in many ways above the concerns of the street (and yet there are still all those murders, all those deaths)-- not like, say, a Russian novelist describing his grinding poverty and misery, who remains in his poverty and misery. And suburban kids embraced this music, which is also odd. All very odd. It fascinates us.
No conclusions drawn. Just letting you know the sort of thing me and Scott observe with particular fascination.
Tonight, sitting on the couch with Scott (he's laid up with a hurt knee from a volleyball accident, for those of you who don't know, which is why so much couch-time), we had the pleasure of seeing a half-hour of Weezer videos.
Yum. I defy anyone to listen to "El Scorcho" and not believe that life is good and love will triumph in the end.
The Old 97's are coming to the Catalyst, two blocks from my house, on June 2nd. I will probably be unable to attend the show, as I expect to be in North Carolina on June 2nd. Ah, well. Radiohead is playing in Mountain View later in June, and if it's in my power, I will get tickets to that.
Sweet Meg sent me a copy of Galilee! Because she's just that wonderful. So now I have my airplane book of choice, and tonight I've started recording music to which I want to listen on the plane.
Life is good. Tumultuous, but good.
Heather is coming to visit me tomorrow evening. Monday I'm going to visit fair Karen. Tuesday I'm going to dinner with Timprov and M'ris and (I hope) Heather. Then, Wednesday morning, I get on a plane, and fly back to North Carolina, the state I haven't seen for 9 months. I'll drink coffee at Espresso News. I'll eat steak fries and a banzai burger at Murphy's. I'll try to make time to see Brian, and Scott Nicholson, and my old poetry prof and friend Jay Wentworth. Mom, Dad, bro, sis. And, of course, the cherry on the sundae, the brightest bit, my sweet and much-missed Meg.
I'm excited. It's going to be busy here for a while, so don't despair if entries become sparse. I'm living life, and I'll tell you about it when I can.
Enjoy the last slivers of the night, my darlings, and wake to a beautiful day.
