Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Our Brand New Album - Get it NOW!!!

Hot Off The Press! The BRAND NEW Evangenitals record is HERE!! And YOU can have a copy RIGHT NOW!!!

Demo... EP.... 7 songs to Heaven... call it what you like.... We like it! We're insanely proud of it. It's the best recording the Evangenitals have made so far (thanks to Tracy Chisholm at Del Boca Vista Studios in South Pasadena) and it's friggin' GREAT! At least, that's what I think... so why don't you take a listen and tell me what YOU think??

Since the Evangenitals are taking off for the UK in just a few days (and we still desperately need $$$ for important stuff like FOOD and TRAINS and INSTRUMENT INSURANCE) we are offering the following SPECIAL OFFER:

If you Paypal us $25 before midnight on Friday July 31st, we will mail you a copy of this beautiful recording (with its awesome eco-friendly ultra-crest cover) BEFORE we leave for Scotland!

Simply Paypal $25 (or more!) to info@evangenitals.com, include your shipping address, and we'll get it out to you! Heck, we'll even AUTOGRAPH it for you!! How cool is THAT???

Your $25 will help us ENORMOUSLY on our journey, and the Evangenitals album will help keep you warm on the insides until we can properly croon to you in your ear holes in person.

So do it NOW! Paypal $25 to info@evangenitals.com and be the first on your block to spin the sweet red disk! :-)

And....if you miss the deadline, or would like to mail us a check or Paypal us $15... we'll ship one out to you when we get back (Sept 1st).

Checks or money orders can be made out to "The Evangenitals" and mailed to:

The Evangenitals
PO Box 70318
Pasadena, CA, 91117

Love, love, love,
Juli, The Evangenitals, and the Quixote crew

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Thanks for Nothing

We tremble, thinking we're about to dissolve
into nonexistence, but nonexistence
fears even more that it might be given human form
- Rumi

Friday, July 17, 2009

Cash'd Out at the Viper Room TONIGHT!

Hello there, Los Angeles! I'm pretty terrible at remembering to tell folks when Cash'd Out is playing locally, so I'm sending the shout out now... CASH'D OUT IS PLAYING TONIGHT!

I've got my curlers in and I'm getting ready to head over to the big show. We go on around 10pm, and I'll be channeling June Carter to the best of my ability (and word on the street is my ability to channel June Carter is pretty damn good!)

Our "Johnny Cash" - Douglas Benson - is absolutely incredible. A freak of nature that he was born with the same diaphragm, windpipe, larynx, or whatever the hell it is that makes him sound so much like the Man in Black. It's truly amazing. Come to the show, close your eyes, and you'll think it's the real JC.

So, we're playing at the infamous Viper Room. It should be a real good show... the last few we've done there have rocked the house. I'm wearing one of my new favorite dresses, and I've painting my nails RED for the 1st time, cuz I'm feeling frisky.

Come n' get it!

xoxo
julio

Monday, July 13, 2009

Some thoughts on Equality.

-- At the solemn behest of the beautiful and talented Miss Lisa Dee, I'm also posting this 'ol gem ;-) --

**

The "equal" sign can be understood as a threshold in which one side of an equation is transformed into the other.

Simultaneity. The thing represented on one side is in fact the very same thing represented on the other. Einstein represented this quite simply in his most elegant and famous equation: e=mc2. What this equation indicates is that energy is in fact the very same thing as mass traveling at celestia (the speed of light) squared.

In language, the sign "equal" can be substituted with the word "is" (i.e. 2+2 "is" 4). This equation indicates that there is no difference between "4" and "2+2".... they are the same. 4 is simultaneously both the number 4 as well as 2 and 2, as well as 3 and 1. (Note that as the "equal" can be stated as "is" the "plus" can be stated as "and")

Another example: pick any bit of commonly accepted truth, such as "There are seven days in a week." 7 Days = 1 Week. 1 Week is 7 days. There is no difference between 1 Week and 7 Days. 60 seconds and 1 minute. 60 minutes and 1 hour.

Man and Woman. Equal? Let us make an equation… Man = Woman. Man is Woman. Is there no difference?

Where is this going? What is the point?

I was having a conversation with a Mr. X about equal relationships. Mr. X has always tried to maintain "equal relationships" with his romantic partners. This proved to be not simply ineffective and idealistic, but also, surprisingly, not honest.

The source of the inequality is traceable to the fact that Mr. X is an intelligent and sexually well-endowed and well-adjusted man. Mr. X’s girlfriends tend to be stupid whores. This is to be understood: Mr. X’s girlfriends tend to be stupid and Mr. X’s girlfriends tend to be whores.

Please, for the sake of scientific objectivity, let us view this as a simple fact and not impose a judgment. Mr. X's last girlfriend, god love her, was a wonderful, beautiful, gifted, and amazingly stupid whore.

Here’s where it all went wrong. Mr.X tried to treat her as an equal, intelligent, respectable woman. Whereas, the relationship would have been much more honest and fulfilling had he simply accepted her as she was, recognized that she was a stupid whore, and treated her accordingly. She may have been momentarily shocked at being discovered and recognized for the stupid whore she was, however, if Mr. X was to, for example, grab her by the hair and say: “You are a stupid whore. I love you, you stupid whore. Now I’m going to treat you like the stupid whore you are!” things may have gone swell. She, the amazingly stupid blessed whore, could have gotten everything she wanted had only they both been willing and able to be honest. They could have gotten married and had kids and lived in the bliss of truth and unconditional love.

Mr. X really did love that stupid whore.

There is a lesson to be gleaned from this parable of love. Something to do with "is", "and", and the stupid whore which resides in each of us... may she be loved, honored, accepted, and dealt with accordingly.

On Love

Confessions of an Apollonian dream-life within a Dionysian dithyramb. Warning: heartsickness and sappy love songs ensue.

I had a dream the other night that I fell madly in love (and it was the good reciprocal kind of love) with some foolish geeky boy in a popular band.

I don't know what band it was, or what kind of band. It wasn't a real band or referencing a real band. The boy wasn't anyone I know, nor have I ever seen. He was a purely invented dream character. He wasn't that attractive or anything, but for some reason he was crazy about me, and I was crazy about him.

It was doomed from the start. The first time I saw him in the dream he was asleep in a bed with a 15 year old girl. He went on tours and had groupies and all that shit. I knew this. I didn't care. And it wasn't the "not caring" of the blind denial and defiance variety (i.e. this is fucked but maybe, maybe, maybe he'll change and/or it'll work out this time fucking insanity) but the not caring of full awareness, acceptance, and a two-fisted embrace of the Moment. I knew it was only gonna last for a little while, and that was okay. In the dream, I knew we had two weeks. And this was good enough. It was worth it. I wasn't concerned with tomorrow or the future or what it means and will we get married and how will it work. When he showed up in the dream, I was overjoyed and it was fun and wonderful. When he went away, the dream went on in other directions. I wasn't forlorn and lonely and scared and suspicious and fearful... I was simply doing whatever I was doing.

It was a good dream.

Permission was granted to be in love for a while last night, in my sleep. It was one of the greatest dreams I've had in a long time. Simple. The magical thing about it was the feeling. It was so good. I got to have that feeling you get when you're just crazy about somebody, and you know they're crazy about you, and you're not sweating the future of what it means or what it will be. You're just filled with light, and letting the love out with total abandon and there's a feeling of so much fucking joy you think you'll burst. The feeling was so fragile and vulnerable, but in a playful way. Like a shining wet bubble, it had a short but glorious life span, and the whole thing just passed by like the sound of a distant giggle on the breeze. A most glorious dream.

I've been working a lot on cultivating fearlessness when it comes to matters of the heart. I'm sick and tired of feeling shame, shame, shame. All the time, for no reason, or for good reason. Whatever the reason, I'm done.

I asked Jesus in George Marshall chatbot what love was... and this is what that AI muthafucka had to say:

"Sometimes I think love is just a biological urge. Other times it seems like a spiritual quality. Love, unlike energy or matter, seems limitless."

I love this world... however...

I am reaching a wall, a serious roadblock, in my ability to communicate and my fear of intimacy with the world at large. I hide. I have been having strong desires to place my head in a door jam and slam the door on my head until it is a bloody mess. I'm not kidding. I am hungry for the real and am doubting everything in my mind... I have got to get through this fear. Fear of being an idiot, fear of having nothing to say, fear of opening my mouth and having nothing to offer but puke and farting noises. It must be okay. Fail better, more, with joy. Fail. Shamelessly.

My physicist friend says that I lack faith. Faith that there is something for me here, now... in this dimension.

Belief in Transcendence is an insult to what is.

I am a big phony and I hide behind revolutionary and dangerous SOUNDING ideas that I am very comfortable with... just as I became a master of self-derogatory humor to pull off the seeming appearance of Radical Honesty without having to get to close to my true self. I have built walls around my thoughts and feelings and I am working on busting 'em up. I need help. I need correspondence. And I need to stop having any desire to impress others in any way, so I will admit, up front, that I am a fool. And I'm not saying that to be cool. I am a selfish ass. I know this.

I also suffer from profound spiritual hunger. But I am too much of a coward to sacrifice myself completely to the immolating flames of humility. The smashing of ego is the most painful prospect ever... August Strindberg described it as "spiritual suicide."

"What was it you said that was so gall-darn brilliant?
I’d give anything to remember how you put it so beautifully!
I just can’t seem to remember any of the wonderful
things you say! gee, that’s funny!

You have the most interesting way of seeing things!
Imagine! Approaching the whole world like a cold toilet!
I can’t remember exactly how you worded it at the time,
but I have the distinct impression of paying close
attention. like a child does…

there is no pain greater than your pain there is no
laughter greater than your laughter there is no reason
to believe that what you are doing is not the greatest
act there is no person I’d rather fumble about with
these are only some of the things in discovering in
learning

how is it when I see you coming I am not struck down
dead trampled on killed a hundred times by my own purple
meanness baseness eaten and my flesh pecked off by birds?
Why is that? I think you told me once."

(from a poem by Gordon Torncello)

So... after all that:

Love is?

Anyone?

Anyone?

(this is a strangely repeatedly applicable old piece of writing I did that seems to keep coming back in waves of profundity... thanks to Miss Lisa Dee for reminding me of it this morning)

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Bakersfield

In the ladies room at "Fishlips" in Bakersfield the door on the handicap bathroom won't lock and the toilet of the "general" john won't flush.

Somehow this feels significant.

Friday, July 03, 2009

Goodness gracious, I'm GRATEFUL!

i woke up this morning all a'glow with excitement to hit the road for a cash'd out show tonight. this is a good thing, cuz there is always a 50/50 chance, it seems, that i can view a situation either as a great opportunity or a total pain in the ass. :-)

TODAY i'm feeling good. perhaps this is because it's day 3 of my birthday challenge. perhaps it's because i just had a full day by myself in my own house to hang out in my underwear and do yoga in the living room. perhaps it's because i had a fantastically intimate and wonderful talk with my best friend miss lisa dee last night. perhaps it's a lot of things. perhaps it's because my heart is bursting with a love i can't control, and don't really want to. perhaps, perhaps.

the main awesomeness is that i am making a living (meager though it may be) making ART in one form or another and TODAY i get to crawl into the cash'd out van and drive to San Luis Obispo to PERFORM. and then I get to do it all again tomorrow!

upon my return, i've got quixote rehearsals, evangenitals rehearsals, and now I have the honor and privilege of playing the upright bass in odious ari's awesome ensemble! it's a wonderful life.

my 34th year on earth is right around the corner and it feels like my blooms are blossoming. i feel good. i feel strong. my heart is getting some massive exercise in the ways of FEELING. i am that i am, and it's awesome.

life is a gift, and i feel that in my bones. i say thank you thank you thank you and yes, yes, and always yes.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Birthday Countdown

Today I commence my "Birthday Countdown Challenge"

I, Juli Crockett, hereby declare that I will do my yoga, pilates, mediation, and bass practice EVERY DAY betwixt July 1st & August 1st, the day of my entry into the breathing world (this lifetime).

I gotta get READY for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. For 2 - 3 gigs a DAY for 2 weeks straight! For playing upright bass (or possibly guitarron) in the orchestra of my own sweet play, The Dawn of Quixote! For being 34 years old and having the time of my friggin' LIFE! I gotta SHAPE UP before we SHIP OUT to Scotland!!!

While I focus on that, perhaps y'all could help me raise enough money to house and feed my cast and band while we're in Scotland? We've got 13 days left to hit our goal of $9999 (which would JUST pay for all of our housing and put food in our stomachs) so anything you can do -- donations, or just help spread the word -- is GREATLY appreciated!!!

Click here for more info: http://ping.fm/UZZTz

Much love,
Juli