The more I think about it, or don't think about it, the more I am convinced that we are all dragged down our particular paths, one way or another.

Back in the days of my youth, I lived in a place called St. Petersburg, Florida for a spell. Nearby in Tampa, Florida, USA there was a water park called Adventure Island. In this water park, there was a waterway that went round the whole thingamajig. All you had to do was get in, at any of the many available entry points, with or without a flotation device, and the current created by the multiple water jets would take you round the whole park. Swimming in the opposite direction was possible, albeit a pain in the arse. Especially for one so small as I was then.

Unlike the Adventure Island waterway, I don't know if it is actually possible to swim opposite the drag of life, as sometimes I think that even the supposed opposition we often feel, when willing our lives opposite the supposed flow, is part of the almighty drag. I doubt it is possible to know. I don't think I'm talking about destiny. I think I am talking about the amazing human ability of interpretation.

I know a guy who attributes meaning to everything. Every single goddamn thing. Every gesture, breath, hesitation, movement, occurrence, speck, fly, happening, newscast, event, non-event, plan, potentiality, and stain. MEANING.

Fascinating? Perhaps. Entertaining/engaging/mind occupying? Perhaps.

Useful? Lord only knows.

Me, I'm growing dumber everyday, I fear. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing. Not really thinking about it. Dumbness? Perhaps. Zen? Buddha only knows.

I had a friend once who called Gandhi "nigga Gandhi". I thought that was funny as hell. That guy got hooked on crystal meth and joined the army after his mom died to help him kick, spurred on by 9-11. He was one of the best musicians and funniest kids I knew. Now he has developed a real love of killing people and carrying a weapon, and refuses to take any job in which he doesn't get to carry a loaded pistol. Destiny? Perhaps. Interesting docu-biopic? To be sure.

In the end, my friend, all good things come round the bend.

The weather is getting me down.

I have a friend who loves this dreary, cold, gray weather. It makes her depressed, just like everybody else, and yet she claims to love this dreary, bland, blah, gray, poop, spittle, dribble, crappola weather. Does she truly love the weather? Perhaps. Does she love all sorts of things that make her sad and miserable? Perhaps. Is this destiny? Only nigga Gandhi knows.

Yesterday was our dear left handed genital Brett P. Lydacus Extremicus' Birthday, day of the natal passing into the reverse-void known as the material world. Welcome, Brett. Welcome some more.

Word on the streets was that he had a fine little joint-b-day shindig in a park in Pasadena, California, USA. EvanJunkie Alan also had a birthing round bout the same day-o-the-month as Brett, so they jointly celebrated and were celebrated, in that delightful reciprocity that comes with all kinds of parties focused around people and their achievements, be they living or doing.

So, I didn't go to the party. This was do to a working agreement that I have with my significant other, in which I record Saturday afternoon College Football whilst he works hard for his money. I then give him no indication of how the games went, and he watches them at night when he gets home. At first I thought this obsession with College Football was simply ridiculous, however, after watching yesterday's USC/Notre Dame game, my conversion to USC football enthusiasm is complete.

Having imbibed two Rockstar Energy Drinks during the game and consumed some spicy chicken wings, I was in a terrible state by the end. On the verge of crying, in shock, overly excited, heart racing, sick to my stomach, and screaming like a frightened monkey. Complete insanity.

If you saw the game, you know what I'm talking on. Whatever side you were rooting for, that was the single-most exciting and insane ending of any football game ever (I put that out there with my incredibly limited knowledge of football games past, of course, but holy crappants... That was intense!)

So here I am today. Feeling emotionally spent (I watched the game AGAIN with the SO when he got home, engaging myself emotionally once more, as if I'd never seen it), feeling kind of like an ass for not going to Brett's party (he did make the day at my Chuck E Cheese birthday celebration by bringing the THING crusher hands), and getting ready to go off to some meetings about all things theatrical, and then reporting to the rehearsal studio at 8 for the Evangenitals practice extra-ordinare.

I paid a guy $100 to take care of my lawn today. He's my neighbor, and has the single most cute and wondrous lawn care skills I have ever seen. Our lawn, on the other hand, was overgrown and hideous, with trash in the yard (from construction, etc) and some strange corn-like plants starting to sprout. Weeds were overtaking the front door. Madness. Though I know there are cheaper ways to conquer the mess, I was willing to pay the price of convenience (split the price of convenience, I should say, with Senor SO).

My dog is sleeping on the bed, and I'm going to leave him in the house even though nobody is home because it is raining and it's too cold and rainy to put him outside. He fell in the pool last night while we were watching the game. 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter, and David's sister starts screaming that the dog is in the pool. There he was, clinging to the side, splashing in the freezing water. Goddamn. What if he falls in when we're not here? Goddamn.

Time to fly. There's my jibba jabba. Mumbo jumbo.

Keep the faith, yo.
julio

i was just instant messaging with a friend of mine who is living in the basement of a house in Missouri, working on his graphic novel that we hope to make a feature film out of some day. he hasn't been getting out in the sunlight too much, and has been celibate for the past 16 months.

from where he's sitting, my life sounds like a shining shining success. what's funny is, a lot of folks think that, and on good days, i myself think that as well. what's also funny, is that i don't have enough money to put gas in my car or buy any food. tomorrow, however, is a new day. everything is going to be different tomorrow. why? because tomorrow is pay day.

i made brownies for my man this evening. i though it would be cool if he came home to brownies. unfortunately, i didn't really know what time he was coming home, and now they've been sitting in the oven "cooling" for almost two hours. i'm afraid they may be kind of hard. hard brownies, still, are better than no brownies, methinks.

i'm very excited about some upcoming theatrical ventures. it looks like i'm going to be collaborating with christine from smartgals.org on her christmas project, and in turn she's going to be the furies in my upcoming orpheus and eurydice piece at the 24th street theater.

i'm very excited about a lot of things, these days.

these days.

sometimes it feels like every other blog is an apology for not blogging enough. what a vicious circle!

how is life today? life is good. i am tired and broke and have a slight cough, however, my dog sleeps soundly by my feet, so how bad could it be?

i have a dog. doggie dog dog dog. i think i could pass most of the day at the dog park if there weren't the needs/desires to make money, eat, create. it is highly entertaining, very satisfying stuff.

my dog has a good temperament, which was a score, considering we rescued him from the Baldwin Park animal control, and he had been there for quite some time. he is big and energetic and super playful, which could irritate a lot of folks. fortunately, i am big and energetic and super playful as well.

he has not yet tried to hump me whilst playing, and for that i am grateful. for i have a pretty well known phobia about dogs with penises and their sexual advances. it's a long story, which i summarized in a series of very short stories that i will try to locate. they deserve another run of publication.

as far as the band goes, our rhythm seems to be kinda off lately. ever since i got back from school, things have been going at an awkward tempo. first brett left the sex emporium, then lisa, then brett started school, now lisa is in school. sean sullivan died, jeff jones broke his hand... and now we're playing a show without him. weird. just odd.

i was thinking this morning that if the band weren't so magical and special and meant to be, it could really just drift into memory. luckily, brett, lisa, jones, and myself have the philosophy of keeping coming back. back to the source. return. yes yes yes. sometimes a week goes by and we don't get together. sometimes somebody is not in the mood. our rhythm is off. we don't feel the magic. yet, we abide. we come back and try it again. we accept each others oddness and awkwardness. and somehow, we play.

it's important that it's called PLAYING in a band. that should always be the case.

my house is a mess. well, hell... it's not really my house. my boyfriend's sisters house is a mess. there's been renovations going on since June... white chalk dust everywhere, no kitchen, the fridge is in the living room, and the pool is green because the pump got turned off for over a week. it's finally back on, and today is cleaning day. i cleaned the pool and put chemicals in it, but the magic hasn't happened yet and it's still green. i stepped in dog poop taking out the garbage. it wasn't my dog's poop. my shoes are drying outside. i need to clean... REALLY clean, yet it's hard to get it up to do it, considering that everything will be dirty again, with a thick layer of chalky dust, by tomorrow morning. but still, i need to clean. i promised david i would do it.

i got a promotion at work, but no word of a raise yet. can it really be called a "promotion" if there is no raise? wouldn't that just be a lateral move if the pay is the same? when oh when will the capitalist regime end?

i want a hybrid car. my inner hippie is about to leap out of my bowels with a tommy gun. the world is freaking me out. apathy makes me furious. all the people who think it's too late to save the world and stop the madness can eat my ass. better yet, they can eat the dog poo out of my front yard.

i wish noam chomsky and the dude that wrote "cradle-to-cradle" would get together and make a to-do list. which reminds me, i gotta buy that book "plan b". david promised me he'd read it.

wow. that was a ramble.
ramble on ramble on.

Haiku for Mindi Chiu

what in the shitfuck
is going on with the world?
(that is the question)

Our good friend Sean Michael Sullivan, man-about-town and sunshine spirit, creator of Ben the Canary (www.benthecanary.com) and other amazing spectacles, was taken from this earth by a couple of really beautiful angels on August 20th 2005, while playing with friends on the Kern River in Kern County, California.

Before he left us, we wrote a song for him.
It's called "The Sun is Shining in My Eyes"

It goes:

I can't tell left from right
I can't find the same place twice
I don't hear what they say
But I know it doesn't matter anyway

Because the Sun is Shining in My Eyes...

I don't know what's in front of me
I open up my eyes but all that I can see
Everything is light
And anything that happens, baby, it's alright

Because the Sun is Shining in My Eyes...

Sean will be greatly missed, many more songs shall surely be inspired by his smile and singular gait, and The Evangenitals have decided to release an EP of all of the songs we were writing for Sean's Ben the Canary project, that we had the honor of playing for him before he was sublimated into 100% pure golden soul.

Thank you, Sean.

We
Fall
Down

alright i admit it. i want to be rich.

perhaps what i really mean is that i want to be famous, or a rockstar, or something along those lines.

i want to be willie nelson without the beard and the bankruptcy.

i want to buy a van, travel the nation, play shows with my band, and have enough people come to the shows that we continue to get gigs and travel and eat food and have places to stay and sell albums and we can support ourselves with muzak, sweet muzak.

i want to have a kid at some point, and be able to take it with me on the road. i want my hubby to be able to chill in the tour RV with the kid whilst i play. that's teamwork, man.

i want to take guitar lessons, buy more guitars, have more time to practice.

christ, this is a bad way to blog, because i want a lot of things.

i want to play a show with tenacious d. i want to play the drums. i want tenacious d to make another friggin' album. when does the next ween album come out?

i want the renovations of the new house to be finished. i want 2 dogs from the pound that do not have terrible psychological problems.

i want a pony.

hehe.

man... this weekend was dope. housewarming madness. and let me tell ya, the houses are WARM, my friends!

the genitals played two housewarming parties, for our producer-friend Blair (who is responsible for the quality tracks Gasoline, Never Again, and QueeQueg on the WE ARE THE EVANGENITALS album) and an extra special house was warmed for our dear left-handed genital BRETTSKY BRETT P. LYDIUS LYDA (so fresh and so clean) cool breeze, esq, the third. i love the guy. i love how he's growing and changing and spreading his wings and flapping like a hairless chicken. it's gorgeous.

now it's monday morning and i'm tired. all this rain, or all the dust from renovations at both home and work, or something, has given me allergies for the first time in my life. sneezing is fun, but the itchy, dribbly nose and scratchy throat action isn't so grand. nope.

i joined netflix not too long ago, after my boyfriend bought a plasma screen wall-mount television, and i've been catching up on all the films that I should have seen but didn't, for one reason or another. in the past few weeks i've seen spellbound, napoleon dynamite, memento, rashamon, DIG!, donnie brasco, garden state, the office (the british one, season 1), arrested development (season 1), dogtown and z-boys, apocalypse now, i heart huckabees, and some more stuff that i can't remember right now. it's been good, cause i love movies, and it's a miracle that i'm actually able to sit down and watch 'em.

i have this panic disorder thingy (not really, but kinda) wherein i find it hard to commit to sitting down to a movie. i think it's fear of death, with a hint of commitment phobia. though i love movies so, i can't help but feeling that there's something else i should be doing. like reading a book, practicing the guitar, writing a play, exercising, something.

more heinous is that i've recently gotten into playing video games. i blame psychonauts. it's just too friggin' cool. and now i'm tweaking on katamari damaci. rolling a gravity thing-collecting ball around is fun. i never knew. the good news is that the evangenitals are absolutely going to cover the theme song to this game. it is bad ass. with a capital b... but i'm trying to lay off the capitals today. i used 'em all up on brett's name game.

so that's the news from my tired ass. i'm excited as all hell about the Derby show on Wednesday. we're breaking out a bunch of new tunes, and the set is pretty well balanced, old and new, rocking and mellow.... i'm stoked. we're playing with amazing people (pink mochi, ukefink's eddie french, natural disasters) so, what more could a girl ask for?

Today marks the 30 year anniversary of me, Juli Crockett.

Some feel it to be a most heinous egoism to celebrate the day of birth, (such as the Witnesses of Jehovah) a relic of ancient false religions. False idols. Perhaps, perhaps. Today, however, I will celebrate the Miracle of Miracles: I am still alive.

There is a great absurdity surrounding this particular age-leap. Thirty is already 3 years past my life-expectancy.* Never did I think I would BE this person. I woke up this morning in a suburb of Los Angeles, made coffee at home (in order to “beat the system” and bypass Starbucks), and I carpooled to work with my boyfriend in a white Toyota Camry. Just the other day I was called by a local college to interview for a teaching position. What happened?

It is horrifying, yet exciting; a threshold/crossroads/turning point marking the transition to another dimension; the day after yesterday, the day before tomorrow, just another day in the life. No big deal, yet something special. Good lord I wish I could say something profound and poetic about this whole thing. Unfortunately, I’m feeling a lot simpler than that about it. Like a kid at Christmas, I’m giddy with the knowledge that at least one of my friends has reported that they have gotten me an actual present. How cool is that? PRESENTS!!! Simply for not dying, yet.

For the first time in a great, great many years I am having a birthday party. Returning to the last joint where it felt right. The party will go down at Chuck E Cheese's, that glorious hole in which a kid can still be a kid. At my dear friend Steve Diet Goedde's 40th Birthday Bash I maxed out the scoring capabilities of Whack-a-Mole. I am hoping not to disappoint tonight, for in the intoxicating grip of Hubris I have challenged many a pal to a contest. Skee-Ball has never been one of my strengths; however, I do plan to roll those wooden balls. My fingers are crossed that they have air-hockey & the photo ride with the Chuck E. replica is working. It is only a quarter for a digital picture with the infamous rat. What a deal!

It is always easy to see the things that I don’t have. Every birthday brings a pang of remorse that I wasn’t born a child prodigy, that I have not yet created a recognized masterpiece, and that I do not possess the perfect body. Ah, well. Fortunately, today, I don’t want to BE that person, either, whoever that mentally projected ideal of me may be. I am content with there here/now me. My life is a candy store, and I’m in it, eating up the sweet life three years after I thought it’d be over. I’m grateful for all the possibilities, all the progress, all the unknowns.

In other news, on Friday my band I’m blessed to be in, The Evangenitals, has been hired to play for the local Leisure Club organization. As far as we’re concerned, this is the coolest gig a band could be asked to perform, and we’re giving it the mad photo/film coverage. With any luck, we’ll be able to salvage a music video from the event. Who knows when on earth will we ever have the opportunity to play for a room full of senior citizens? Hells bells, if this goes well, we hope to get recommended to Leisure Clubs nationwide so we can do a tour of banquet halls, chapels, and bingo joints.

*I always said I would drink myself to death by 27 years of age.
Miraculously, at 26, I stopped drinking, and thusly I live on today.
Glory be.

Did you know that I have a brother? It's true!

He's my older brother. 4 years older to be exact. And today is his birthday.

He's one of the most talented people I've ever met in my life. An amazing visual artist: painting, drawing, photography, whatever. And he's funny. He can get you rolling for hours.

His photography has taken him up to Parson's in New York City for Graduate School. We Alabama Crockett's have come a long, long way, my friends.

For his birthday... I thought I'd share his art with you. As a gift, I'd like you guys to barrage this site's message board and tell them what you think of his work.

Here's the linky: http://www.sixfingerrecords.com/art/crockett/

So, Happy Birthday to Big J the Monkey Foot Hustler.

I love you, bro.

Hot Coffee.

Gad dang it I want that patch!

GTASA... Julio's dirty little secret. ;-)

NEW PLAN FOR THE B DAY!

My 30th birthday is starting to feel alot like my high school prom... regarding which my mother claimed if I didn't attend I may regret it forever.

And because I'd rather regret something that I did, rather than something I did not do...

I have decided to officially celebrate the actual day of my birthing 30 years ago in the old fashioned way... at Chuck E Cheese's pizza parlor and party town in Pasadena!

If you live anywhere near there, your presence is humbly requested.

(Formal attire is optional)

PLEASE COME AND WHACK-A-MOLE FOR MY BIRTHDAY!

It will be short and relatively painless. If you could make it, that would be cool. Feel free to bring a friend and the spirit of skee-ball.

When:
Monday Aug 1st 2005
at 7:30 PM

Where:
Chuck E Cheese's
3737 E Foothill
Pasadena, CA 91107

Last years birthday pic:
Waffle House. 4am. Somewhere in Ohio, I think.

My birthday is coming.

Strange as it may sound, I'm turning 30.

On August 1st I will be as old as Jesus -- 3 1/2 years before he died.

It feels weird. Just another day, but not really, because I have WAY outlived my life expectancy. Never did I really think that I would some day be 30. It feels like a big deal, and it doesn't. It feels like I should do something to "honor" this day, this self, in some way... but I just want to sleep in and hide.

Luckily I have some friends on the other side. Folks who I see coming into their self-ness and walking with the strut of confident becoming. It looks lovely. I hear good news about the 30's. My mom insists that the 40's are even better than that. With every decade shedding the gawky adolescence of the previous becoming. Thank God for process oriented living.

August 1st is a popular day for birthdays. Myself, Lisa's boyfriend, Addi the Balloon Guy, Herman Melville, Jerry Garcia, Francis Scott Key, uh... Dom DeLuise... fucking Tom Leykis of all people.

My boyfriend's mother also shares the August 1st birthday. Weird, eh? Same day, 40 years later, her potential daughter-in-law (if she has her way!) was born. She's turning 70, I'm turning 30. Nemecia. Her dream house is finally finished -- atop a hill out in Fallbrook, on a 5 acre ranch filled with avocado trees and honey bees. She's having a housewarming party on the 30th, which she intends to serve as a joint birthday party for the two of us as well. She wants me to invite my friends.

Now, I'm not feeling too enthusiastic about trying to get my friends to come down to Fallbrook. Maybe it's low self esteem and not wanting to be too much trouble. Maybe I'm just not the birthday type. Hell, I love presents as much as anybody and possibly more, however, receiving them makes me feel weird and embarrassed. Conflict. There's a permanent kid at Christmas inside of me, always excited on each new day for the potential bounty that it could bring... always seeking buried treasure.... always looking at the ass-end of rainbows for something shiny. I have rubbed genie-lamp lookin' teapots. I have tried to make contact with the spirit and alien worlds. I did a lot of drugs. I think it's all the same impulse for me. There search for something else. Something amazing, I guess. I'm happy as heck that I'm still alive, but the self promotion that goes into birthday parties makes me feel like an asshole.

So here's the birthday pitch: The good news is, in Fallbrook it's beautiful and there's gonna be really good food. Mexican style. Bad news is that gas is expensive and it's far. Like Temecula far.
If you feel like a mini-vacation, let me know and I'll give you directions. We can even make carpools happen. Caravans.

You're all invited, and you're all excused.
How's that for low pressure?

The Toilets of Venice

A couple weeks ago, I was in Venice, Italy at the Biennale art fest extravaganza. Attending the Biennale was the last “class” of my 2^nd term of PhD studies in the Philosophy of Media and Communication. The only reporting that we had to do on our art-filled day in Venice was to write a paper on some piece of art that evoked “death” in a “surprising” way. Jesus penis.

Luckily, when one goes looking for death, it is not hard to find.

My first idea was to write about the cat. I saw it in the bushes, next to Uruguay’s exhibition house; a skinny little thing with murder in its eyes. It was pouncing on something in the brush, teeth showing, hair on end, with fierce concentration. At any moment, I expected it to pull its head out of the shrubbery with some bloody carcass in its mouth. There would be my death. Paper finished and my day free for thoughtlessness. Alas, there was no carnage. Whatever the cat was after either got away or the miniscule tiger simply lost its interest in hunting. The cat came over and rubbed on my leg. I picked it up for a while and pet it, sucker that I am for any animal’s affection (an old Snow White fantasy from childhood, my special relationship with wildlife). Failing to deliver me death, I left the cat and went on searching. Thoughts of the always already “death of art” lazily swirled in my mind, as I noted the disproportionate amount of Video Art that dominated the Biennale, and how unmoved I was by most of the work.

An art-goers rule of thumb: Installation art is always good for a cheap thrill. If I can touch it or be touched by it, contribute to it, move it, mess it up or kick it around some childish part of me is engaged. Play ensues. I howled and intoned with the noise of a wind tunnel, compliments of the Russians, I think. I kicked little metal balls around in a huge stone room, creating disruptive echoes in the traditionally silent gallery environment. I was scolded for touching a toy tethered to a wall. What perversion is this, to display a TOY that cannot be TOUCHED?

I had to use the bathroom. A portable toilet provided an odd entertainment. Unlike the “pits of despair” of the United State’s port-o-potty’s (wherein the human refuse falls from the anus to a pile beneath, with nothing to obstruct the view) the Portable Toilets of Venice had an additional bit of technology added: a sheet of metal on a “conveyor belt” of sorts, with a bowl-side handle that one pulled like the arm of a slot machine to dispose of the waste. To speak plainly, when a rectal load is dumped on the conveyor belt, the “dumper” then pulls on the lever and the “deposit” slowly makes its way to the underside (the pit of despair, obstructed from view by the metal slab) whilst a cleaning fluid is sprayed on the conveyor belt. Ingenious portable toilet design! Interactive and fun! Never a more satisfying dump! Shit! The death cast forth from my bowels!

In the French Pavilion I experienced some art. I sat for over 30 minutes, watching the full cycle of the second room of Annette Messager’s 3 room installation, based on the story of Pinocchio. Her installation took me to that place of child-like wonderment to which I love being taken. Slack-jawed awe and eye-candy delight.

Picture an entire room full of red silk pouring in from an open doorway located far away, in the center of the back wall. A fan blows air, with differing force and rhythm, into the silk, causing it to billow and vibrate, oscillations and waveforms, rivers and oceans of blood, uterus walls, heartbeats, desert landscapes, alien lands, chiasmic unity, surges of chaos, primordial ooze, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end of all things. Lights shone from above, orbs glowed below, pulses and patterns of light.

My favorite part was in the dark. All the lights were out. The eye adjusted to the darkness, and the blowing of the fans was quite low. A room full of liquid silk shivered and rippled. I sat on a bench with my silent companions watching an ocean of blood, pouring out of a doorway to oblivion, to more oceans of blood. I wanted to swim. It was cool and quiet. I heard the fans get stronger. A huge billow of silk built up behind the door and surged into the space. The lights rose, the face of a clock projected in the doorway. Time returned. No swimming in the bloody seas of death today.

My next bathroom adventure came on over at the Armory. James Hussier, my companion for the day, followed the man stick figure and I followed the woman, both the stick figure, and an actual woman in front of me. She and I found ourselves in a HUGE room with one toilet and one sink. After some moments of confusion, she asked me to leave so that she may relieve herself. I waited outside the door. When it was my turn, I entered the giant room. An enormous brick room had been divided by a thin partition, separating the men’s room from the women’s. The partition did not reach all the way to the ceiling, and the acoustics in the room made it so one could hear EVERYTHING happening on the other side. This meant that as I sat on my tiny toilet in this most beautiful yet awkward room, I could hear poor James having a time of it with his irritated bowels. We both took to infectious giggling, as James held his business until I had departed from my side.

Everything in the bathroom was contrary to expectation, and slightly inconvenient. The toilet paper was around the corner and just out of reach of the toilet. The water knob for the sink was out of reach of the sink. People would follow each other into the restroom, expecting stalls, confusion and embarrassment resulting. The experience was humorous and humiliating. I feared that I was being videotaped, and that later in the day I would see myself projecting. To top it all off, neither James nor myself could get the toilets to flush, and we feared that perhaps we weren’t actually supposed to shit in this particular installation.

More art, a couple more trips to the toilets, and then I went home to Los Angeles. The End. To be continued.

I'm back.

Hello. How time hath flown, eh? One month of absence, rectified with a 12 hour flight. What magic there is in this world.

The trip was overwhelming, chock-full of busy-ness, mentally exhausting and stimulating. I was up in the Alps, studying with some of the greatest artists and minds alive, at the European Graduate School.

Incredible connections were made. New projects being developed. I saw a lot of great movies. Elia Suleiman, Claire Denis, and Atom Egoyan showed their latest works.

I got to study with Jean Luc Nancy (just before I left for school I became nervous that perhaps he would die). He did not die.

School is located in a tiny Swiss ski village located high in the Alps, right by the tallest mountain in Switzerland. The town is called "Saas-Fee" and it is surrounded by 13 mountains, so every direction that one looks, there is snow-capped goodness. It is mostly populated by cows and sheep.

I sat with a brown cow on a hillside for half and hour, petting it whilst it chewed its cud. It burped in my face.

I wasn't feeling extremely social or energetic this trip, with all of my energies going into the studies and some quick rigorous hikes thrown in here and there. Most of the folks at school like to drink all night and cheat on their significant others, it seems. I liked to read, write letters (actual letters!) to my boyfriend, play my guitar, and sleep. I woke up early every morning and never missed a class.

The air is amazing and clear, the water is freezing cold and wondrously drinkable... It comes straight off of a glacier up in the mountains.

On the last day of class, after the final lecture concluded at 10:30pm, we had to grab our bags and board a bus that took us to a night train to Venice, Italy. On the train we "slept" 6 to a cabin, stacked up on either side. It was crazy small. And short. Me and 5 gents bunked like stowaways on a midnight train.

The train ride was about 7 hours. When the sun came out, most of us lined up at the windows in the aisle-way, watching the fields pass by. We arrived in Venice around 8am and went to the Biennale Art Show. The Arsenale was one of the most amazing SPACES that I've ever seen. It is now my dream location for directing a piece of theater. My favorite piece of the exhibition was a room by Annette Messager, filled with red silk, and a big fan. Simple, and awe-inspiringly beautiful.

Venice was beautiful. Streets of water, it's really true. Little boats everywhere. Great food! Espresso that feels like a horse kicked you in the face. And the light.... the LIGHT! As the sun was going down, and I was heading to the train station on a boat, and I saw the light. I SAW THE LIGHT. The light which explained to me WHY so many painters and photographers and artists in general would go to such a place. The light was beautiful.

I spent the night at this bizarre hostel, which was actually a campsite, with a pool and a disco and a bar and RV's and hundreds of teenagers and 20-somethings backpacking through Europe. The "room" was actually a tent. A tent, with 2 small cots inside, and a small padlock for the zipper. It wasn't bad at night, but once the sun came up it was like sleeping in a plastic garbage bag in the sun. Hot.

The whole next day I did nothing but sleep and swim and suntan (in my underwear!) and plot ways to get home sooner. How much would it be to change my flight? Should I take the train to Frankfurt instead of flying, just so I could start moving? I was ready to GO! I didn't WANT to do any more exploring of Venice. I made a decision that I will return. I will return with my boyfriend and my band. Venice is one of those places that I want to SHARE with someone. It's too hard to try to explain it, so I'd rather everyone just go see it for themselves.

The food, man. The coffee. The light. So good.

So, after 24 hours of transit (taxi to the Marco Polo Airport, flight to Frankfurt, 6 hour layover, most of it spent in really long lines, 12 hour flight to LA, 1 hour of customs and baggage claim, 1/2 hour of hari krishna) I got home. I spent my first night in my new house, in my new "living-together" relationship. It was good. So good.

Yesterday I went swimming in my pool. Now I'm back in the office. Ain't life sweet?

That's the factual account, more or less. In a bit I'll start feeeeeeeeling stuff and tell you all about it. My head is still spinning, and I'm tired as hell. I've been *sighing* all day. Deep sighs. Good for the soul.

[enter net]

(part one)

In order to prepare to edit a documentary I shot last summer (and was too emotionally frazzled and/or biased in the aftermath to edit at that time) my editor has asked me to explain the genesis of the project. How it came to be. Which, I realize, requires me to explain the genesis of my relation to that wonderful thing allowing me to communicate this to all of you right now: The Internet.

As late as 1995, I still had no real experience with the net. My use of computers was limited to word processing and some really lo-tech games. I preferred pinball & shooting games (where there's a "real" hand-held "gun") to any video game, save for an arcade version of Mrs Pac Man, which holds a special place in my heart, surely having to do with the fact it is one of the only games that I'm actually "good" at. (High Score at the late Pac Man Arcade, Pasadena (RIP) circa 2001)

My first insight into the wonders and possibilities of the web came in 1996 when my boyfriend at the time told me that he had seen the most awful thing of his life online. What he had seen was a series of photos taken by a girl and her lover... after they had murdered her husband, they proceeded to cut off his head, hands, feet, and genitals, and pose the parts in different humorous tableaus, smiling and posing with the various pieces. The guy posting the pics was a right-wing Christian, militant about the first amendment, and believing it to be important to show the hideousness of this sinful world in all its ghastly glory. My boyfriend told me that I did NOT want to see these images, no matter how much I may think I did. I believed him, and by the time I changed my mind, the pics had been taken down, and replaced with the autopsy report for Nicole Brown Simpson. No pics. I was disappointed.

In '97 I moved to Los Angeles and got a job working for an internet sex toy company, JT's Stockroom. It was actually the first adult toy store on the web, starting as an all-text e-catalog around 1988. At this time the shop was run out of the apartment of the owner, and everybody did all the jobs. I worked in shipping, leather manufacturing, and customer service. Part of my job was linking the site to other sites, so this enabled me to spend a good amount of time searching the porno-web.

It was at this time that I first discovered the Stile Project, a busy hive of all things porno and gore, with some flash-animated games and random jokes thrown in for good measure. It was there I encountered the Random Image Generator. It was there I discovered a most strange masochism in myself.

I'm a sensitive girl who has always played tough, in an effort to flex the much-needed muscle of toughness that sensitive people, such as myself, seem to need to develop in order to not be annihilated by the breeze of this world. Or, perhaps I'm an incredibly insensitive girl, who, still able to experience a shred of feeling, seeks to obliterate it from myself by force.

10 minutes a day on the Random Image generator was my formula. There was no way of knowing what I was going to get. Sometimes a beautiful woman, sometimes a close up of a healthy vagina, sometimes a close up of a diseased and festering vagina, sometimes a man with a metal post rammed through his skull, sometimes a man with his face blown half off, sometimes a joke, sometimes a cute kitten. Thank god for the kittens.

Everything that I do in my life has to fulfill a certain criteria of interestingness, and there are always multiple motives, conscious and unconscious, for everything. For example, my working at the Stockroom was, quite simply, a way to make money, however, it was also borne from a desire to work in the sex industry, and working in the sex industry was a way for me to explore things within myself. It gave me a certain access, and it also went over well in storytelling. Really, what I did was work an office job, however, an office job at a sex toy company is immediately more interesting than an office job at an insurance agency. And mine is a life that has been extremely preoccupied with making the "most interesting" choice in any given situation. Both for my own experience of living, and for the sake of others. Who are these others? The audience. Those that may see or hear the stories of my life.

The working at the sex toy company lost its "interesting" status when I started graduate school for Theater direction and amateur boxing, simultaneously. With these new, and most physically active, developments in my life, the Internet job, and the Internet itself, was almost completely deserted. Maybe I was occasionally using email at this time, but not often. Occasionally researching or image searching. Word processing.

Following an injury which took me out of boxing and made me realize the value of health insurance, I returned to the Stockroom full-time after 3 years of absence. 3 years of internet abstinence.

Full time. Working on a computer. Paying bills. Working on a computer. Sitting there. Working on a computer. Same spot, all day long. Working on a computer.

Again, I was responsible for linking the Stockroom to other sites and generating traffic by any means necessary. Again, I had a free pass for searching the porno-web. Exploring and exploiting its now vast reaches and resources. This time I would fully enter the net. I would get caught in the web. Obviously, I haven't' gotten out yet.

i had written something long, and then it was lost.
now i have to go to class.

in the lost document, i describe the town, my whereabouts, my bed, and the noise (or lack of noise) in this region.

i spoke of a coming tide of revolution. a beautiful one.

the last line was something like this:

here, in switzerland, you can drink the water.

that is all i can relate right now. i must go up the hill to class. i'm the TA for this one. Victor Burgin is the teacher. Author of "The Remembered Film" and In/Different spaces.
it is a hike to the school. high atop a mountain it sits. next to some sheep. one sheep has a bell on its neck. rind a ding ding all day long. how can that not make a sheep go mad?

Yodel-eh-hee-hoooo....

Hey everybody. Greeting from the mountains. It is cold and sunny here at the top of the Alps. It is quiet and there are lots of sheep.

Sheep, and philosophy students.... what a pair!

I am Nomad

Yesterday I turned in the keys to my apartment and got my security deposit back, in full, from my lovely and fatherly landlord who was sorry to see me go. I'm moving away from my sweet, sweet solo abode where I shared a wall with my best friend/bandmate lisa dee and a courtyard with gentle brett lyda of the evangenitals. 5 people from my workplace lived in that building. 5 people that I actually liked. Out of 21 units, I called 7 of them friends. That's 1/3 of the building!

I have moved all of my belongings into a house in Duarte that is under renovation. Everything will be dusty upon my return. The garage is being rebuilt, the pool is being sandblasted, the backyard will be dug up and planted with grass, the kitchen will be gutted and re-done, a wall moved, a bathroom added. It will be a new house upon my return.

At 7:10pm this evening, god willing, a plane will be leaving LAX with me on it. That plane is headed for Milan, Italy, where I will find my hotel, spend a night, and take a train the next day to Saas-Fee, Switzerland to spend a wee bit shy of a month tucked away in the Alps studying Philosophy.

This term I'm supposed to pitch my definitive dissertation topic. I'm seriously stumped on this at the moment, as there's about 5 billion things I'd like to research/think about/write about and at the same time I'm plagued by this feeling of the unimportance of all things, excepting faith and love and health and cleanliness and happiness and wellbeing and taking care of each other and the world. There is some shame that comes with being such a bleepin' hippie at heart.

There is a book. It is called "Cradle to Cradle". I'm recommending it to everyone I know. It has brought me such a sense of excitement and hope it is wonderful wonderful. It is the future. It contains a solution. How to grow, thrive, consume, experience, build, expand, explore, create, and do no harm. It is something I've been struggling with for a long, long time. Brett turned me on to an interview in Newsweek with the guy and I just about crapped my pants with glee at the vision for a mo' better future that he has.

Limitless expansion. A broad road of happy destiny to trudge. That's what I got from his words. We don't have to "cut back" and "conserve"... we need to make better, kinder, more care-full any loving decisions, and run wild and free with the happy joyous and free energy of children. Do no harm. That's the mantra that's been rolling through my head and heart. Do no harm. Can I write a dissertation on that? Been thinking about Gandhi. Do no harm. It's hard not to step on ants and other people's toes sometimes. Do no harm. Progress not perfection.

I am off. I will miss my boyfriend. I will miss my band. I have my small guitar in hand, and I will be working hard to make myself a better everything for everyone. Especially me. I'm a selfish turkey.

holy moly.

it seems in my financial desperation i pulled the
ultimate boner...

i put the wrong address on my $5 plea.

anyone who sent a check, you can be expecting it back,
because i am a whimsical retard who didn't proofread
my writing.

sorry bout that.

if anyone wants to try again, you may grace the
mailbox of my new home at this exceptionally accurate
and proofread'ed address....

Juli Crockett
1303 Fairlee Ave
Duarte, CA 91010

sometimes i amuse myself.
other times, i annoy myself.
either way, i am, unavoidably, myself.

yours truly,
juli crockett

I'm back to the old piracy impulse again....

Trying to make money makes me sad. When my focus is on finance, I'm just an irritated girl. It sucks. I always start to try to make money, and quickly burn out. It sucks, having that be the drive behind my action. I can't handle it. I just ain't motivated enough by the money, property, prestige. I'd rather take a walk and scrape change together for food. I wouldn't cut it in wall street.

I watched a documentary about Enron last night. It made me feel all claustrophobic and suspicious. People do some really shitty things sometimes. Listening to the assholes joke about turning California's power off, and all the money they cost us, and how they got Gray Davis booted out of office.... And then the extention of it all.... The unmentionable intentional nine to the eleventh. Scary poop.

There are many options. Staying small. Living large. Trusting god. Fighting the power. There have been many songs written about these options. Many books written. Many a pamphlet, pamphletted.

someday I'm going to have children (if the creek don't rise and the sun don't fall and my ovaries aren't bunk) how to deliver a world that doesn't blow ass? I don't know.

All's I know is that it has something to do with NOT being the guy who's willing to do evil.

My new neighbor's are Buddhists. I'm excited about that. For the first time ever if my neighbor's ask me if I want to go to church with them, I may say yes. That's exciting.

There is some dark shit going on in this world of ours. Darker than we can imagine. I was thinking about the fucking holocaust last night. How when it was happening, no one believed it. Nobody could imagine that people could be so evil. Guess what?

They can and they will. That are and they do.

I'm feeling all bunk and hopeful.
I love that wacky mix.

Okay. Here we go.

The latest idea is that I'm going to start telling you guys about books that have the ability to rip my heart out of my ass, and you guys hopefully go buy that book by following the little linky that I'll provide, and then the Evangenitals get a percentage of the sale and we get to go on tour and live the dream of doing what makes one happy and making money doing it.

In the meantime, you'll get to hear about a lot of great books, and we can discuss them too, because this friggin' thing has a comments box, ya know. Oh yes it does.

So, first up: The Light That Failed by Rudyard Kipling

My friend Michael Blackman lent me a copy of this book. The cover had been torn off, as he had throw it across the room several times whilst reading it and kicked it down some European street in a fit of anger after finishing it. This book is totally and utterly unfair. It is as unfair as life often seems to be. Yet it is beautiful. It made me shake my fists at the heavens in rage. It did not make me cry. It is not a sappy, emotional book. It is harsh. And it's about art, so if you are into harsh and/or art, you will appreciate this book.

It's fucking great. Read it. Let me know what you think.

For just $5 you can change the world...

That's right. I'm broke. It's a terrible pickle.

I've got to buy a plane ticket on April 29th (yes, that very day) so that I can fly across the ocean to continue work on my PhD, which will enable me to eventually get a job teaching, at which time I will be given access to young and sponge-like minds, and I will fill them with the best thought-soul-spirit-revolution-food that I can channel... thereby potentially changing the world, see?

So, here was my thought. I'm broke. I need cash. And to ask any ONE person for the amount of cash I need would be just... weird. I don't know anybody who's sitting on a stack like that. HOWEVER, just about EVERYONE that I know has $5. So, I figured I'd ask everyone I know for $5 (it worked for Henry Miller, man) and if even a handful of ALL the folks I know gave me just $5.... I'd be able to do the seemingly impossible.

In return, you will of course have my eternal gratitude, and I would also like to initiate the $5 money tree for all of us... as a collective means of survival and thrival with which we can all collaborate on pursuing our hopes and dreams, for a mere $5.

So... if you're down for the $5 revolutionary intra-personal help tree, please send cash, checks, or bags of change to:

Juli Crockett
4629 Echo Street
Apt #4
Los Angeles, CA 90042

Or if you see me, give it the pass and a wink, and I'll probably smile real big and give you a hug.

I hope this works. If you've got a better idea, I'm open to suggestions and searching for solutions.

- juli

mitch hedberg is dead. :-(

i love that funny motherfucker. if you've never heard him, i suggest you take a listen right here: http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/03/mitch-hedberg-rest-in-peace

he makes me giggle like a stoner. he saved my life whilst driving cross country with a car-load of folks who didn't understand the concept of entertaining the driver so's they don't fall asleep. the guy who brought the hedberg cd is forgiven, of course. they are all forgiven, actually. i hope they all have forgiven me for being such a psycho. it was one of those rights-of-passage things, methinks. the kind of thing that you don't understand WHY you're doing it in the moment, just that you must.

the trip is far enough away that it has undergone that amazing transformation into something truly wonderful... and it is no longer the painfully excrutiating thingamajig that i thought it was, during the experience. it was dope. those folks are fly by me. alright.

it's too bad mitch had to go the way of the inspired comic... john belushi, chris farley, mitch hedberg... to the limit.

a new unedited from the heart post, compliments of juli crockett.

hello everyone. i'm broke. this is my own fault. the situation of brokeness tends to arise, i hear, when one refuses to "live by the rules" and do the things that "everybody else does" like "go to work" for a significant number of hours each day. i don't like to do this. i like to watch my turtles and hang out with my boyfriend.

that's right, my boyfriend. my boyfriend whom i can't stop fighting with. my boyfriend who broke up with me, bought a house, and asked me to move in with him in the same day. in between we got accupuncture. accupuncture ain't something he'd normally do. accupuncture is for fags, that's what he'd say. but with the help of a rental car and his birthday, i tricked him into accupuncture in Gardena and he loved it. we went back the next day. the day that he bought a house, dumped me, then asked me to move in with him. that's my boyfriend.

and then there's me. feeling me. free spirit me. crazy me. weirdo me. normal/abnormal/subnormal me. me me me. call me what you like, but call me. that's me.

my turtles have had two days of real, direct sunlight after a long, long winter of no real sunshine that has blanched their shells a weirdo white color. if anyone knows anything about turtles, please let me know what's wrong with them.

i love weezer. midnight confession #1.

some dear friends of mine who help me stay on level bought me an electric guitar. my boyfriend bought a house in Duarte. i am horrified. everything will change. change is fun. i am broke. broke is fun, so long is there is nothing that you feel you NEED to HAVE or DO that requires MONEY. such as, a plane ticket to switzerland so that you can go to school, that has already been paid for (the school) but you need a plane ticket to get there.

plane tickets cost money.

i think i most certainly need to start writing in my little blog more with abandoned and word-spitting glee. i'm sure i will do it, too... because i'm going to have to put in 40+ hour weeks on the computator from now until i set flight for the Swiss Alps... and during those long weary hours on the computator, staring into the pixelated hell which is cyberland, i will assuredly grow lonely... and in this pit of loneliness, i shall want to cry out for help, solace, understanding, and love.

see you then.

I'M ON THE FLIPPIN' COVER OF MUSIC CONNECTION MAGAZINE!!!!!!!!!!

You can see it online on the 14th at www.musicconnection.com

OR... You can buy it right now at your local news-shack.

OR.... You can check out these links:

http://www.evangenitals.com/musicconnection.jpg (cover)

http://www.evangenitals.com/musicconnection2.jpg (feature article on THE EVANGENITALS!!!!!)

OR you can check out OUR copy TONIGHT at FREE SHOW at Mudpuppy's in Highland Park!

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

ick ick ick....

well, it's finally happened.

after years of working with pornographic images. after a life-time of being a jolly consumer of smut. after frequently sharing my porno-happy bliss and strip-club adventures with my significant other. after all this time... its finally gotten to me.

the envious affliction of "less than" and "not enough" has somehow dug its way into my guts and is gnawing at my insides.

thoughts of eating disorders and excessive exercising, the insatiable need for attention, the desire to be an hollow object, judged solely on exteriors, utter shallowness and purely superficial considerations overwhelm me.

this is not healthy.

what the fuck is going on? have i fallen victim to the power of the male gaze? is it time for my latent feminism to rise up and counter the vicious molestations of advertising and commerce upon my delicate psyche? is it just that summer is coming?

it may be time for a new job.

Here's a link to the Sports Illustrated article... http://www.evangenitals.com/blog/juli-si.jpg

We did a scan of the page/pic/bit about me. Check the cover if you want to pick up a copy for yer'self.

Things are getting wacky around here. Did the photo shoot with Sports Illustrated yesterday. Entertainment television shows calling me at work, checking out the "rumors" of my relationship to Million Dollar Baby. All this is gonna blow over soon as the movie takes it's prizes.

I found this old interview I did for a magazine called "With it Girl" back in the day. Thought I'd share it. click on the picture of me, on the scale, giving it the hard-eye.

Stepping back in the gym for a minute certainly brought the bug back. Got to see alot of old friends and familiar faces. Even got to hit the double-end bag for a bit. Dub Huntley, my black daddy and hall-of-fame trainer predicted, "she'll be back."

If my shoulder stopped hurting so bad, that could be true.

In the meantime, the Evangenitals are spreading the sunshine all over and I'm loving the way it feels. I love being in a band. I love staying up late, eating cookies, having a boyfriend, sleeping in, being a student, a writer, a playwright, a director, a friend... and pretty much it's either all that OR being a boxer, for me.

Believe it or not, both sides of life are mighty tempting.

million dollar baby.

alright... here's the story. short form.

Back when Juli was a boxer, she had a trainer. His name is Dub Huntley. Dub had a best friend, who was an old white guy named Jerry Boyd. Jerry Boyd was a writer, it turns out, and he wrote under the pen-name FX Toole.

FX Toole (aka Jerry Boyd) published a book of short stories called "Rope Burns" which contained a story called "Million Dollar Baby" about a poor lady from the Ozarks who gets a late start in boxing and becomes a world-class contender in the fight game.

When Jerry Boyd (and/or FX Toole... whichever you like) met Juli, he believed her to be the human incarnation of this character he created (except for the fact that Juli is not a woman of limited prospect who's only hope is the fight game) however, Juli WAS a country girl, a latecomer to the fight game, and definitely had champion potential (in her trainers professional opinion).

When the short story was optioned for film rights, Jerry sent all of Juli's fight tapes, along with info about her, to the producers of the film. They saw it, they liked it, they wanted a meeting.

Due to a series of dubious universal signals, Juli didn't go to the meeting with the producer, and gladly passed up the opportunity to get sucked into the Hollywood Shuffle. Jerry died of a heart attack (which he had a LOT of in his final years) about a month later.

2 years later... Juli is retired with sore legs and a bum shoulder, and Hillary Swank is doing a damn disturbing Juli impersonation (according to everyone that knows Juli's fights and has seen the movie) in a film that will probably win an Academy Award. Weird.

Juli just got interviewed by Sports Illustrated. Turns out that Dub Huntley spilled the beans about the character being based on Juli.

The good news is... Juli got out of the fight game undefeated, with sore legs and a bum shoulder. Anyone who's read the book or seen the movie can tell you that it could've been a lot worse.

Neither Dub or Juli have actually seeeeeeeeeeeeen the film yet, for a variety of reasons. Namely, Juli finds it depressing that she can't box anymore, and disturbing that the girl looks so much like her, and Dub misses his friend, Jerry Boyd.

i'm at rehearsal. i'm not rehearsing at the moment. i'm in the kitchen, talkin' to salad, waiting my turn. we're rehearsing for brett's solo-with-band front-man escapade at the derby on thursday night. tomorrow night, the genitals have a show. brett's been rather focused on his show, yet managing to take care of business all the same. growth and change. new opportunities. branching out.

evangina's gonna do it again in long beach, first wednesday of the new year. my mom's in town. she just met my boyfriend's mom. it went alright. the mom's chatted and the boyfriend tried to locate his cousin who was just arrested for assault. he didn't do it.

holy shit. i just got called in to play tamborine.

i'm not kidding.

when "other than" really isn't an option... i'm left with just being myself.
poop. woot. hooray.

i've been feeling kinda blue lately. perhaps it's the season. perhaps its the perils of finding myself in a relationship after many, many years of unwillingness to be in a relationship. as soon as i find myself *in* one, i remember why i was unwilling. it is scary and at times painful. it strikes me as almost completely unneccessary. i do not understand the purpose and function of romantic relationships, other than for breeding and rearing children.

i'm reading this book about love. it's not a self-help book or anything, it's a study on the nature and chemistry of romantic love. lots of research about brain chemistry, neural networks, animal behavior. it pretty much verified for me that the reason for the evolution of romantic love *is* in fact for the purpose of breeding and rearing children. mystery solved. we get duped into it for the sake of humanity. it's totally natural, all of it. the agony and the ecstacy. anthony de mello can suck my teat, today. the zen-masters may try to free us from the pain of desire, but that shit seems to be hard-wired in there... the attachment, the desire, the longing.

it appears that *my* mode and manner of loving is more like that of a praire vole, and *his* manner of love and affection is more like that of a male grizzly bear. interesting.

i like milton's version of the adam and eve myth in paradise lost (if i remember it correctly). instead of the common biblical interpretation that SHE gave HIM the fruit and got them expelled (hateful source of a chasm of distrust, suspicion, and animosity) milton tells it as a love story. after discovering that eve has eaten of the tree of knowledge, adam eats as well, out of love. he would rather be expelled from paradise and trudge the road of difficultly with his eve than remain, alone, in paradise.

i'm such a dork.

read lisa's blog. we're gonna lay it on the line tonight. no holds barred, bleeding heart bingo. good times.

Praire Vole: (yes, it's vole)

i'm exhausted. just worn out. it's so peaceful.

last nights show was wonderful. a great turn-out for a thursday night, and so much love. it's the love that floors me every time. so many hugs and smiles and excited people. our limited pressing of the first album sold out. my mirror-image reverse screw-up unicron shirts sold out. folks are feeling it and it left me sitting at home, wearing nothin' but my socks, wrapped up in blankets, just sittin' there for a minute and feeeeeeeeeeeling it.

peace.

holy shitballs.

how do i thank you all? how do i thank the people who play with me, the people who listen to us, the people who give us places to play, my employer who lets me have a ridiculous schedule and run my band site off the work server, my boyfriend who delights in my schizophrenia, his folks who dig me, my mom who supports every jack-ass adventure I invent, my siblings who think I'm cool, my landlord who took a chance on me, then let me move my closest friends and bandmates into the building, my best friend who defends me from the peepers, all the boys I loved before, whether they know it or not, John Maus, who gave me my first guitar, John Brandt, who gave me bass lessons in New York, Tim Emmons, who taught me the Sergio line, Gordon Torncello, for keeping me safe all those years, Alana and Alice, for making the world so lovely, Lisa and Brett and Jones and Dub and Claire and Irina and Melissa and Goodson and Shaughn and Travis and everyone that's put their energies into me. the list goes on and on.

can you tell I'm feeling it today?

i see an ad campaign coming on.....

Gratitude. Feel it. Live it. Dissolve in it.
You won't regret it.

Are you feeling it?

11/5/04

Dear Friends,

Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in
the words of Monty Python, 'always look on the bright side of life!' There
IS some good news from Tuesday's election.

Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:

1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.

2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since
Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults
(Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always
wrong and you should never listen to them.

4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of Americans still think the
country is headed in the wrong direction (56%), think the war wasn't worth fighting (51%), and don't approve of the job George W. Bush is doing (52%). (Note to foreigners: Don't try to figure this one out. It's an American thing, like Pop Tarts.)

5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the
Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the
Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do
their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one.

6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of
our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West
Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water,
all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in
lava. And no more show tunes!

7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any
old nut -- a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut.
May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan.

8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will
no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If
you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly
golden and you will be well cared for in your old age.

9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married
in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't
have to buy now.

10. Five more African Americans were elected as members of Congress,
including the return of Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It's always good to
have more blacks in there fighting for us and doing the job our candidates
can't.

11. The CEO of Coors was defeated for Senate in Colorado. Drink up!

12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away.

13. At the state legislative level, Democrats picked up a net of at least 3
chambers in Tuesday's elections. Of the 98 partisan-controlled state
legislative chambers (house/assembly and senate), Democrats went into the
2004 elections in control of 44 chambers, Republicans controlled 53
chambers, and 1 chamber was tied. After Tuesday, Democrats now control 47
chambers, Republicans control 49 chambers, 1 chamber is tied and 1 chamber
(Montana House) is still undecided.

14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than
the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out --
and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work
that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th
grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the
next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the
ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his
point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.

15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very
dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two
scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the
Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear
that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that
history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for
too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and
arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such
major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from
office.

16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting
age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it
means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards
to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of
those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go
home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three
yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are
coming!!!

17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the
candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total
number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore.
Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for
a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time
since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has
always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is
that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact,
that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones
who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November
2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of
surprise in 2008.

Feeling better? I hope so. As my friend Mort wrote me yesterday, "My
Romanian grandfather used to say to me, 'Remember, Morton, this is such a
wonderful country -- it doesn't even need a president!'"

But it needs us. Rest up, I'll write you again tomorrow.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

Friends.

At the stroke of Midnight (more or less) under a full moon (more or less) The Red Demon breathed what might just be its last breath at the mouth of the 110 freeway in Pasadena, California, USA.

I offer up this epitaph, which was one of the first bits of prose ever to grace the Genitals site, back in the Borrego Days of Yesteryear.

It fared with her as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land.

Know ye, now, the Red Demon?

Glimpses do ye seem to see fo that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God -- so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be gloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!

For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! Is all this agony so vain?

Take heart, take heart, O Demon! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray fo thy ocean-perishing -- straight up, leaps thy apotheosis.

The land seemed scorching to its feet; Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable, deep memories yield no epitaphs .

Aye me....

So it goes, the cycle of life, the inspiration and expiration and life and death of it all.

Shall I repair her?

Would it be nothing more than sentimental foolishness to hang on?

As I said before, and I'm sure to say again:

I've been know

to hold on

to the bones

long after

the meat

has gone.

it's a crazy little posse we've got forming. growing in numbers. united in a feeling that can't even be put into words but we signify it by pointing to the banner flying with the L-O-V-E in biggun letters made of that gooey stuff that is pumpin' through your guts just after you hang up the phone with the one you're really feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelin' it with, at the moment. whomever they may be, on that day, at that time, in that instant.

i once fell in love with a man riding a bike up a hill on a hot day, simply for the effort he was exerting. i love effort. i love the effortless, too. but shit on a sandwich, do i ever love effort. right effort. right thought. right practice. in a world without right and wrong. how completely audacious!

it is hard for me to make a sentence go in any one direction. luckily... when reading (in the english language, and a few others) we move our eyes from left to right, top to bottom, and follow the phrase withersoever it goes. (e e cummings had some other ideas) however, the instinct of the masses remains. the hoi polloi, in general, reads LEFT to RIGHT.

when listening to another speak -- save for flights of fancy, blank spots, possible drug interference and intentional or unintentional ignoring -- we listen as we live, in real time, experiencing linearity, following the narrative, abstract though the subject matter may be, withersoever it leads.

all i ask on this night like any other night is the courage to follow, withersoever thou leadest my aching frame, to heed the call of adventure, wheneversoever it heralds, and to love. dear god, to love. to cultivate the unconditional giving of self to thy chillin's and plebs. thy hoodlums and wackos. thy dejected, rejected, snotty and shitfaced. oh lord, sweet lord, daddy of the sugars, momma of the chickens, sister of the lovesick, brother of the bigness, cousin of the unconscious, uncle of the uglynasties, friend of the faithless, lover of all things just as they are and however they may want to be... give it up. give it up to us like a 5am jackpot after a long night of pullin' dry on the one armed bandit.

i can see it. it's already happening. it's as ridiculous and pathetic and gorgeous as it can be. the love is raining down, everywhere i'm looking. the sky is fucking falling and it's about time. the rain is helping it all soak in.

today is one of those days.

an entire day has been wasted. or, rather, i spent a lovely day with my boyfriend. it rained. or, more specifically, it rained on my car. my car that has no roof. my boyfriend let me drive his car home, so i wouldn't get rained on. i cried in the car on the way home... i'm not sure why. it had something to do with the temporary sensation of the unfairness of all things and the fact that i can't seem to ever be sufficiently "honest" for my own rigorous quality standards. time. money. space. perception. the haves and have nots. the hard and the easy. the simple and the complicated. the simple hard and the easy complicated. the utter unknowability of anyone. diseases and treatments and treatments that are worse than the diseases themselves. i am tired. soooo tired.

i've been having one of those fish-bone jammed in the throat feelings every night lately, or at least on the nights when the boyfriend is in the bed with me. i find myself wanting to tell him that i love him, and the wanting to tell him that i love him makes me feel like i'm choking on a fish bone. (understand, he already knows, see... it is not the big "reveal" that i am speaking of here, but simply the g'night & g'bye chattering relish and repetition of the sentiment)

so, what exactly is it about the saying and repeating and assuring and vocalizing of the love pledge that i seem to think is so necessary and/or important? (not necessary enough to actually say it, though, just wanting to want to enough to choke on the bone and NOT saying it, thereby, one would hope, relieving myself of the affliction of both the bone AND the desire to say it in one simple utterance) who am i trying to convince? who is in need of these vocal cues and assurances?

simple? hard? easy? complicated?

where choking is involved, fear tain't far behind. i think confusius said that.

fear of the fear of the fear of the fear.

I live in a world of pain. I ain't talkin' about the ills of the world and mass psychic human suffering, neither. i mean straight up, in my body, aching burning crippling fucking PAIN on the 24/7 and it just don't stop for nothin'. Save for a hump. In the midst of a hump, it's a pain-free zone. Or at least something powerful enough is happening that I am not tuned into the constant hurting. At work... it hurts. Even when I sleep... it hurts. Sometimes when I'm driving, the frosty bites of my topless vehicle hurling down the freeway and the lack of safety and guarantees on the freeways of Los Angeles are sufficient to over-ride the ache. Sometimes when I'm deep in thought or laughing really hard, it spares me from the act of feeeeeeeeeeeeeeling. For a bit. But then it comes back. The hot coals in the shoulder. The baseball-bat cross the upper-back. The chronic migrane. The calf-muscle ever-threatening to seizure in a full-blown Charley-horse. This is the frame I live in. This is the body that I beat senseless for 29 years. I am neither surprised nor resentful. More than anything, I am amazed that it has held together so well. A sigh of gratitude and a stretch. Bones crack and the neverending flame burns on. I hurt.

live music

photo by: livemusic

Evangenitals on Phone Cam...photo by Steve Diet Goedde

Well... That party last night was something special. Alana (aka Rev Mindy Chiu) did it up right at the Hotel Cafe and laid down a spread of good eats on which even my pre-show jitters couldn't deny me some good-time chewin' and grubbin'. I ate. I wore a dress. I was wrapped in silver with a tiara on top. Lisa tried to put fake eyelashes on me, but glued my eyelids together and one of 'em kept curling up on the edges, so no falsey bat-bats for me. Don't fret... I was still wearing the flippity flops. Ya don't stop.

Douglas Kearney hosed us all down with fire and brimstone from his flapping hip-happening lips of action. The man is a poet. Fascinoma tore it up. The addition of a bassist has catapulted them into some seriously rockin' terrain.

I'm digging the little big family we've got growing up around us. Everywhere we go, it gets more and more home-like. That's the trick with having a posse. Rather than rely on Fast Food Restaurants and Strip Malls to make us feel at home, wherever we roam, we just keep doin' shows with familiar folks. And the family is growing and growing, good vibes a'flowin'.

Please forgive the mad rhyming. Doug Kearney put the music in me.

Next up The Derby, Greatest Hits Show. 11pm on a Friday Night. That's a hot ticket. There ain't no buddy bands on this card, neither... so we're depending on the friends and family to show up, fill the rug, sing along, and help up warm our newest home away from home away from home... the world famous, movie-magic, built by Cecil B Demille (you can thank brett for that trivia-bit) DERBY. We're taking requests for this one... so bring 'em on. Tell us the show you'd like to see. Let it be. Set yourself free. Give it to me. What up, g?

so... i'm a bad web writer. i admit it. i don't have the flow. the consistency. there was a time in my life, not too long ago, that every little thing that happened was immediately filtered into cyber-space. the reach, scope, readership, interactivity excited me. i had cyber-friends, cyber-chats, cyber-love affairs, cyber-plots and counter plots. it was exciting. and what happened? the well ran dry. it stopped working. the "reality" (as opposed to the virtual-reality) of it all hit me. whilst my mind and fingertips were engaging in all sorts of relations, my body... this shell, this vessel of fleshy meaty goodness that "I" lives in was just sitting around getting headaches and backaches, staring into the glowing void. it depressed me. my inner hippie started its lonesome revolt, attempting to rouse the support of my legs and arm, lungs and eyes, demanding a return to some sort of "nature"... demanding fresh air, exercise, liberation.

it's a slow process, recovery. i get out sometimes. it's still necessary to put in some time with the beast. to make some money, pay some bills, answer some emails, check some links, spread some news.

i wonder if my back and shoulder and head and legs didn't hurt so bad.... would I stay in more or go out more?

i got love for the beast. no doubt. welcome to high tech. reach per millions. the world wide web.

i have a headcold. that's the name for it. my sinuses are clogged. i feeeeeeeeel like my nose is running constantly, but it's not, cause it's stuffed up. the taste of the sickness is hanging dank in my throat. feels like there's something in there that if i only pushed hard enough i could make it come out. i'm tired and the hot-coal in my shoulder is burning like hell.

my mom is coming to town for the derby show. i had to reserve her an airport shuttle, cause we're gonna be practicing when she arrives. i hate being sick. the simplest things get hard when i'm sick. and singing ain't no breeze, neither. no sir. luckily my vocals can be a little raspy and squeaky and still fly. evan-tastic. wee-haw.

i like raccoons. those suckas are freaky rat-monkey hybrid creatures with the mysterious eyes and picky fingers. walkin' with the hind legs a little bit higher than the front. runnin' with the stiffness AND grace. trippy little thieves. kinda big little creatures. i wanna find a baby runt and bring it home. raise it with love and kindness and let it sit on my shoulder. vaccinate the beast for rabies so when it bites the hand that feeds it, a bitch-slap will suffice. no choppin' off heads or rabid juli's and shit. i got love for the 'coons.

---

yeah yeah yeah.... so i'm a hippy. so what. everybody needs to read this....

On Love
(An excerpt from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran)


Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.
And he raised his head and looked upon the people,
and there fell a stillness upon them.
And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest
branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them
in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant:
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread for God`s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you
that you may know the secrets of your heart,
and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life`s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only
love`s peace and love`s pleasure,
Then it is better for you
that you cover your nakedness and
pass out of love`s threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you
shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself,
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed:
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say,
"God is in my heart," but rather,
"I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course
of love, for love, if it finds you worthy,
directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart
and give thanks for another day of loving:
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love`s ecstasy:
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in you heart
and a song of praise upon you lips.

---

You are a neurotransmitter. You believe in the
good-naturedness of man's biology and soul.
You're happy, everyone's happy, and no one will
ever take that away from you. Or else you'll
make them go insane.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

things get confused. i don't really know which blog is for what. i got a livejournal. i got my own column. i got a web forum. i got a job. i got the band site to tweak. i got the calendar and news to update. i got emails to which i haven't responded. i got plays to direct. i got a mother i don't call enough. i got a boxing trainer who misses me. i got a sick boyfriend. i got myspace and friendsters. i got a car and an apartment. i think i got shit. i think i got something. i got a band i believe in. i got friends i love. i got a smile on my face and a taco salad. all is well. all is well.