december 2003
i wish i had something exciting to report but there is just the usual holiday mayhem coupled with the usual life chaos, met by a dose of post-birthday awe. no yo ho ho and no bottle of rum. i am considering, for the first time, a manager. well, a management company. it makes me less in control and though money rarely occurs to me, it would probably be good economically. so what. anyway, i am admittedly a tad distracted by the two toddlers and adult sitting next to me and their ensuing conversation on the importance of hand washing. when that flu death hit a little too close to home last week, we all got scared and our first child paranoia escalated. so, i am here, in a whirlwind of holiday chaos (which really isn't all that bad and actually quite enjoyable much of the time) with unwashed child hands touching me and everything in site and i really do appreciate our good health and every bit of christmas cheer.
november 2003
saw some of my old compadres from nu at the lookingglass show this weekend. i am so amazed that they continue to do great work and keep the original spirit of their vision alive. chicago is a good town for theatre and this one has thrived over the past fourteen years. it's quite amazing. i leave those things, you know those "play" things, really dying to create a theatre piece of my own. i spend a day or two brimming with ideas and i write them down and at some point, i begin to freak out about it. i can't imagine anything i write being as good as a mary zimmerman work. she is so brilliant and i've addressed this before. we're not all brilliant, but we often do have something to say in spite of it. it's just frustrating. sometimes those who think they're insightful can't write and those who are really great at it feel paralyzed. i remember this girl in high school, p. she used to write the most ridiculous, sappy poetry but she did it with great conviction. she never knew she wasn't emily dickinson. i stand in the middle. i am thrilled with my own ideas, but also a little self-conscious about the possibility of their sucking. on the other hand, i see so much crap that i know i could do better than some. acting. singing. there's always someone who can kick your creative ass, but also a place where what you do may really mean something to someone.
October 2003
I've been doing the mom thing this fall, reading lots of good books, writing songs - or rather starting songs - and thinking about moving to New York and acting again. We just returned from the east coast, where the colors are already so vibrant and gorgeous. I guess I could get used to calling that place home, but I'm still warming up to it. It would be a huge change for this ultra-midwesterner. And so, I've been purposely slowing the pace of our lives down, turning down invitations, decreasing my playing schedule, trying to enjoy the days and moments and also I seem to, every fall, get the urge to bake shit. For some strange and possibly inborn reason, our home is filled with cookies, cakes, pies and mostly banana bread.
september 7th, 2003
i couldn't update the schedule for a bit since brian, unbeknownst to himself, was having his 40th celebration of life on this planet (sorry bri!) and his wife ree, who is incidentally much younger than he and yet one month older than i, told him my site was broken, therefore, she explains, i (meaning i) couldn't post the cancellation of the navy pier gig brian expected to attend. the gig went off without a hitch in spite of poor brian's misbelief, and yet this site remained unchanged for many days following. until now. so, although there isn't much in the way of public performances coming up, there are a few tidbits.
here's a basic rundown of what's going on around here... young charlie begins preschool tomorrow. his sewed-by-the-hands-of-mother name tags are in place, albeit some more sloppily than others. also, we come bearing gifts to his teachers, in hopes his lack of potty training will be overshadowed by his ability to select flowery scented candles. this means i'll have more time on my hands to listen to landscape-y songs by sigur ros, the new thing as delegated by michael of norway, and get a headstart on a third cd.
september 7th, 20003
for anyone who has ever told me i don't list enough personal facts, here are a few... my favorite season is fall. i am a lefty and if you look at the numbers, naturally blonde lefties in the midwest are very rare. before singing and acting professionally i had at least 36 jobs unrelated to music or acting in support of a career in music or acting; some of these jobs were: reader for a blind woman; preschool teacher; tennis instructor; waitress; photographer's assistant; receptionist; and b-movie telemarketer. i've had a series of strange nicknames, most notably: stuff and stephernepherdie. my sisters and i each married the second son of three sons. also, i collect pop music and pipe cleaners.
august 4th, 9am 2003
last night i did something interesting. i was invited to be a songwriter at a salon (in someone's home) in which we, the songsters, were asked to play one old song, then a song based on a news story in yesterday's paper; then collectively write a song together based on news headlines from all the papers. it was a juicey creatofest, with regular audience types who appreciated our efforts and also some interesting characters. i think i would like to do this often. it was fun, playful and not at all competitive. also, it just got the wheels in motion. the hard part was actually that day, before the party, when i was alone at the piano figuring out how to write a song in a small fixed timeframe, based on a news clipping. i choose an adoption plea by a couple in the classifieds of the sun-times. others selected such noteworthy items as: a question-and-answer piece on killing weeds and pesticide use; lindbergh's newly discovered illegitimate children; something about a transvestite and stolen art. i wish we could do it every month. our host selected the perfect combination of artsy intellectuals, pop stars and goofy eccentrics to perform, though i'm not entirely sure in which category i belonged.
july 7th 2003
hello earthlings. i see now that i am an over-hyphenating fiend, spattering on about internetnonsense and its corruption of our culture, but what i'm really saying is i'm a kook, i know it, i'm comfortable with it, and i'm putting it out there for ya! okay, since the 10th of last month, i've had some time to reflect and i've noticed a couple things. even though records don't really change lives really nor do they need to, there are still some defining musical moments in our lives. and i'll name some of mine, since i seem to have the time and the space and nothing is more interesting than a dialogue with one's self, eh? here goes: xtc's records - all of them, mostly skylarking and apple venus - andy partidge is truly amazing; steely dan - i lived on aja for about a year and i also love fagen's solo stuff and virtually everything else they've done though i've overplayed all the records by now and can hardly stand to hear a bloody note off of katy lied; pink floyd's the wall and dark side of the moon (which i discovered in college, along with peter gabriel's so...wow); patti griffin - amazing crafting of songs periods...her living with ghosts is a work of art; remember the indigo girls at the beginning?; stevie wonder's songs in the key of life was a doozy but what about innervisions? that's his best; billie holiday and sarah vaughn turn me on now, since singers don't do that anymore and they're like a how-to manual on the two most important themes in my life: singing and being real cool; have you heard this new band, evanescence? they're suffering the terrible fate of radio overplay and i hope that doesn't spoil them because they are amazing...i've been listening to that record and it's sort of stirred up the ol' youthful rebellion i've tucked away for many years; crosby, stills, nash and then young too...got me through a tough time; speaking of that era, joni's many albums hit home hard...but none as much as blue; i thought tori amos' under the pink was an all-new listening experience; the police zenyatta mondatta and ghosts in the machine..also sting's dream of the blue turtles..i'm such a pop tart at heart; but wait, there's more...laurie anderson! oh, superman! wow, she was deeply moving despite vocal frailty...the first time i heard her, i had to sit down and listen to the whole thing, at a party given by an irish buddhist friend of matt siegel...that was life-changing i dare say and i also realized you don't need drugs to get stoned; mozart is king; recently, you know i don't find popular music so moving these days, but beck's first record got me and so did ani difranco's not a pretty girl (especially after i saw both live), and i love chris whitley off and on - soul is so lost on many a young audience; and occasionally you can catch me checking out some hip hop but only under dire circumstances. ah, i almost forgot, and this is a weird choice for me: the talking heads. it was artsy and cold and the lyrics were sort of whack, but i was moved after seeing the documentary four or five times...it spoke to the counter-culture, whatever remained of it, of the 80's and that is what rock and roll really is about, man! so, in sum, yes, i like jazz a bit and i like cuban a bit but i find a good ol' american pop rock ditty most delightful though i could never lose my love for 60's B-movie film scores..and if there's anything you take away from this little diatribe, please remember: the carpenters rock!
June 10th, 2003
michael dorfman asked what's the last record that really changed my life. i don't think songwriters set out to accomplish that as a goal anymore. changing lives. the dehumanization of mtv culture, government, reality tv and high-speed internet connections reduce even backyard barbeque conversing to quick-cut, packaged sound bites of one human's philosphy-religious-stance- socio-economic-concerns-childrens'-latest accomplishments- gosh-work-is-tough- what's-happening-in-iraq-and-so-forth and with it, who is really out to make or even hear the epic album? have you noticed how fast people talk these days? remember cliff's notes? too much work. i'll read the new york times review or check out the internet buzz and only after i've finished multi-tasking my take-home work projects, making dinner and mop-glowing my beautiful gentrified urban home, and i've caught up on a little cnn. well, what about teenagers? they're downloading freebies one-shot-at-a-time for their ipods. do you feel the full-album medium is in jeopardy? the last recording that changed my life, michael from norway, i'd say was rickie lee jones' pirates.
May 14th, 2003
that lori carson again! this time i read through her site (in case you haven't seen the stuff below, lori carson ) and saw that my master mistress recommends a book called "tunesmith" by jimmy webb on the art of songwriting. my goodness i've been making so many missteps i don't know how i've managed to convey, like, stuff. what a brilliant book! i whole-heartedly recommend "tunesmith" to anyone who writes songs. it's perfect. it makes me not feel so bad for at least five minutes out of every day that i didn't go to music school.
in an effort to increase that five to ten, i'm taking a vocal swing harmony class which consists in part of one of these music genius types (who is a friend of a friend incidentally) singing 2-bar jazz phrases for us to sing back verbatim. yea, tell the rock chick to sing a twisty little jazz swoop! she-do-ba-BE-bop-ba-dop-bop-shoo-zoooowwwaaaa-yow! i'm sure i'll spend more time laughing than singing. i can tell this guy means business. i'm taking this class, like all the other music classes i attend, because i did not study officially.
(speaking of musically crazed. danny, my producer - who is also my guitarist - told me two days ago that his i.q. was 165 as a child but then it dropped to a mere 162 as an adult. just think how much better my cd could have been!)
april 7, 2003
i am going to do my gosh darndest (that's how we talk in the midwest) to avoid this cd getting onto any napster type site. i've never used one and i am totally against the hijacking of original music. it's uncool. we artists put a lot into our work. independant artists are even more screwed because we're on our own. i found out my entire first cd is available at a susbcription site. how did it get there? if you search your name at google, you can find the wildest stuff. like, i've discovered i have fans in france and russia. there are many sites where i'm listed or referred to and i've never heard of these people. i'm really pleased with the support, though. it's when i stumbled upon an orchard affiliate - who seems to believe they have every right to my songs - that i realized i am, like many indie kids, being taken advantage of. it won't happen with your new life. i poured two years into the making of it and it's a work i am deeply proud of. i'd give you a copy sooner that i'd like to see you downloading it.
march 6th, 2003, in the
midst of a frosty winter
my special music trivia calendar tells me that today is the day john lennon's american visa was revoked in 1972. i am not one of those john lennon followers; i'm secretly more of a paul gal, but i wonder why, by virtue of just being who he is, does sean lennon not get the kudos he deserves? i mean, hasn't the poor boy been through enough that we now completely render his music meaningless and devoid of any inkling of his own father's genius? i've actually never really heard a sean lennon song in any real way. i'm just defending the guy. he always looks so daunted and kicked about by life. i could be wrong and perhaps he's some euro party playboy living off of great beatle wealth, but still, does the man truly have the respect of his peers? i doubt it. can anyone actually name a sean lennon tune? which brings me to my latest endeavor. there is a label, a big label, who likes what i do and wants a hit song. that's funny because i remember when liz phair told me she had written like 26 songs for her last record and all bloody 26 were summarily rejected by her label as not being single-y enough. so if liz and the gals strive to summon hits to secure their righteous spots as femmes who rule, how is a non-known entity supposed to break into the circle? it's funny, though, when we remember (or forget) people like mr. lennon, jr., isn't it no surprise at all that the machine which makes hit songs is able to determine what, in fact, is a hit? i am just here, in a basement, a beautiful, dingy, toy-ridden, and i suspect, somewhat mold-infested arena of creativity, staring blankly at the barren music page upon which i have deemed shall contain the makings of a well-received pop ditty. let's see, will it be a love song? oh, yes, indeed, those always get 'em...or maybe a "screw you!" anthem a la alanis m., c. 1998. yes, maybe, maybe. or maybe an ode to weird - it will be so full of musical trickery, they'll feel just confused (or insecure) enough to deem it "phenomenal" or "innovative." you write what you write. if somebody likes it, ok then.
january 1, 2003
i just cannot believe it is 2003. i remember writing 1982 all over my notebooks in grade school. i remember 1980 well and even 1976, the year we moved. it's weird. to feel really young and yet be not 22 anymore. although i'm not old by any means - just, you know, all grown up. i'm wondering if anything i ever learned in school matters now. i have to press again upon the point that math matters. i hated math so much. i used to pray for algebra to end. those fifty minutes were torture. even with that smiley mr. anderson. this guy steve and i used to sit in the back of algebra and quiz each other on brady bunch trivia. i still boast a good score on any brady quiz. not in algebra, i'm sorry to say. i actually took algebra 2 three times. i got a l-o-w c the first time so i took it in summer school to change the grade. i brought it up to a high c. then when i went to boarding school as a junior, they noticed the low grades on my transcripts, so i was asked to take it yet another time. i guess i should have learned. i got a b that last time. skated through it really. not that i use any of my procured algebra wisdom today but when i'm on the treadmill, i'd really love more math agility to track calories burned and speed effectiveness (D=RxT, doncha know). of course, all of my struggles to figure out the quickest way to burn the most calories in a given time slot are probably what get me through the actual workout, so maybe it's best that i continue to spin the workout numbers in vain. my math is always guesswork. but i'm usually really close. i can calculate a decent tip at a restaurant based on years of intuition, whereas a more mathematical gal would probably have to do actual number crunching. that 's fine if you like to live by rote, but where did that ever get her? i mean, does this gal even use one portion of that 80% of unused brain space? i look at it like i'm in touch with some divine force. no superlative being would ever need a calorie counter.
