Good morning. Hello. How are you? #611
RIP Uncle Ed, Dandy's dream, revisiting Rockets, the Nin-Pole Residence, rethinking the No Fly Zone,
Good morning! Hello. How are you? I am okay. I just woke up from a dream where the Dandy Warhols were playing MSG and I had a great seat. It was a magic dream seat, in the stands, on the side, toward the top, but also I could see perfectly well. They were opening for someone, not sure who. But they were set up real small like in front of another band’s gear. But it was still awesome, they played “It’s a Fast Driving Rave Up by the Dandy Warhols Sixteen Minutes” and man, I really would like to see that live one more time. They did not play it the last time I saw them, six years ago, about which I wrote the seminal essay “A list of topics that went through my head last night while watching the Dandy Warhols” that almost landed me a gig writing the history of the Dandy Warhols. Anyway, Courtney was as funny as ever in the dream, mocking the corporate sponsor of the show, Volkswagen and disparaging them for their emissions scandal.
That was a good dream.
Look at this drawing Jane did yesterday isn’t this insane??
Rough day yesterday. I felt shit on, like, four different levels. The pretty deep slit on my finger I got from gardening saturday is taking a while to heal and is moderately terrifying to look at when I take off the bandage. It has one of those flaps of skin I can’t decide if I should cut off and regenerate the whole thing or batten down and hope it stitches back together. Ultimately I used copious amounts of liquid bandage, which is awesome stuff, to sort of glue it all back together. But that stuff is pungent, smells like super-strong nail polish remover, so it gave me a horrible headache, on top of the already very rough bout of headaches I was already experiencing yesterday, presumably from alleriges because I’m out of Azelastine and I can’t get my doctors to refill it. I am constantly low-level nauseus from the Wegovy. Just generally did not feel well.
Additionally, Emma’s uncle — and Janet’s brother — Ed passed away yesterday. That was sad. Ed was a loner and I only met him three times, and he was very eccentric, but I liked him. He lived alone in Rehoboth, MA, across from the old family land Emma and I tried to buy and move to before we moved to Chapel Hill. He had a big workshop in his basement (and so much wood) and he kept chickens. It did not seem a bad way to live and I secretly admired him. Janet says he was lonely, though, and of course, when one fantacizes about living alone with some chickens and a cool workshop, it’s because you’re dreaming of being alone, so you don’t really realize how lonesome it probably actually is.
Anyway there is probably, one would assume, going to be a funeral? We’re not really sure yet. But Emma and Janet might probably go, leaving me here with Jane for a few days, which will be nice. But it’s a bit of a chaotic week, with that maybe happening, Emma needing to do doctor stuff, me needing to do doctor stuff, Jane being generally four years old.
So to compensate I decided a totally healthy thing to do yesterday was to listen to a song I wrote (well, I co-wrote) 22 years ago about depression. Man, that is a good song. Man, I wrote a lot of songs about depression. But man, this one really might be the best.
Could be the look in your eye, the light in the sky
Could be the things that I’ve done, the place that I’m from
Could be the things that I’ve said, the fear in this bed
Could be the weight of my shame, the drugs in my brain
Could be the tears that I’ve shed, love that I’ve bled
It could be all of us, who we are
It could be what it means to be alive
I mean, if those aren’t A-Grade lyrics about depression, I’m a monkey’s uncle. Also we maybe mixed the vocals too low in that song, but that’s what you did when you were a mid-90’s space rock band, it wasn’t supposed to be about you, maaaaan.
I don’t often go into Rockets k-holes. Maybe once every two or three years. But I listened to all of the second album, and a lot of the first album. It was actually because of the first album I went into the Rokets K-Hole, cuz I was chatting with Rex about the absolutely insane news that the Kim’s Video Archive is returning to New York and will be permanantly housed in the new Alamo in Lower Manhattan, which is near Rex’s house, and Rex still has a VHS player, so he will be, like, their main customer, and he sent a photo of some of his VHS tapes and one of them was Kieślowski’s Red, which is sampled in the Rockets song “Krzysztof,” which I wanted to title “Tribute to Krzysztof Kieślowski” in the sort of monolithic, formal, austere manner of Ginestera’s “Tribute to Roberto Garcia Morillo,” which I used to play when I was a half-decent piano player, man it sucks that that skill has completely withered.
The street outside our house used to be a private drive and an HOA-owned street, but now it’s owned by the county, and so yesterday they did some maintenance on it, tarring up all of the cracks to, presumably, keep them from further deteriorating the street. This is probably good, but the cracks weren’t that bad and the street was kind of pretty and now it’s covered in dark black lines and against all will I am feeling an HOA-fascist well up inside me and I’m feeling annoyed about this maintenance and how things don’t look as nice now. It is irrational and I’m trying to surpress it, but, god, that beast is a wiley one it really does try and rear its head at the drop of a hat. Also I suspect the tar smell did not help my headaches. Street cracks! Jesus. What have I become my sweetest friend / everyone goes away in the end.
There was an amazing feature in the New York Times about Anaïs Nin’s Silverlake Residence, known as the Nin-Pole Residence, since she shared it with her second husband Rupert Pole. It is a lovely house, I’ve been obsessed with it forever since I have a 30-plus year intense obsession with Anaïs Nin and right now as I write this I am looking at a hand-written letter by Anaïs Nin that she wrote on a plane crossing the country, while in her bi-coastal bigamy phase. She wrote it to a childhood friend and it is noteworthy because this friend, Tana Da Gamez, was one of the few people aware of both of Nin’s husbands, and the letter talks about them both. I did dimly wonder what was to become of the hosue when Rupert passed away, but it didn’t seem to go on the market, so I forgot about it. Turns out Rupert’s family took it over for a while, but they sold it last October. Which makes me sad because I wanted it. But it did get landmarked, so it won’t change much, so I can keep dreaming of owning it. Also it went for $3 million so, you know, bit steep for my blood. But one can dream. Also, maybe I coudl have gotten a discount cuz the house came (apparently) with a collection of Anaïs first editions, but I alreadfy have them all. And I could have re-united the house with her editor Gunther Stahman’s perfect mimeograph of the entire journal, along with his edits to The Diary of Anaïs Nin and her hand-writen replies. Seems like they should be reunited someday.
I mean, look at this place:
Finally, I think I’m coming round on enforcing the no fly zone in Ukraine? Is that crazy? Several things keep gnawing away at the pat, simple answer that this would mean starting a war with Russia. I don’t think I believe that anymore. I don’t think Putin would do it, I think his whole thing is he was desperate to keep Ukraine out of NATO because he doesn’t want to fight NATO. I know he’s cornered, and you’d need to give him an off ramp in conjunction with the no fly zone. I also know that it wouldn’t do a ton of good because a no fly zone wouldn’t really do much to prevent the cruise missile attacks, though I bet we could help with that too. And, of course there’s the fact that the Ukrainians are consistent and vocal in their insistence it will help.
But really, more than anything, it’s just the fundamental truth that if you don’t stand up to bullies, they will keep bullying. What’s this planet going to do? Just let nuclear bullies be bullies forever? It feels untenable. I also have all these thoughts swirling around in my head that so many of the great politial theories of the 20th century turned out to be wrong. It turned out to be wrong that capitalism brought peace between trading nations. It turned out to be wrong that capitalism brought democracy. It turned out to be wrong that the wisdom of crowds was a good thing, wrong that the internet would bring peace and harmony. What if mutually assured destruction is also wrong? I mean, that does not help my theory, I suppose. That could be terrifying and awful. And I’m just an armchair pundit god knows if these stakes really were on my shoulders I doubt I’d be brave enough to test this theory. So let’s just say I am becoming more no-fly-zone-curious, or no-fly-zone sympathetic.
Okay we’re doing Justa Mix today because I want a mix with all the songs I’ve been thinking about in the last 24 hours like the Dandys and Pale Light and Treble Charger’s “Red” because I mention it in thast Dandy’s essay and the Mary Chain song “Everything’s Alright When You’re Down” which kept going through my head yesterday and yes I am putting all 21 minutes of “Fast Driving Rave Up” including the prelude and finale it’s at the end if you don’t want to listen to it.
Talk to you guys tomorrow, though it will probably be a little late, since I have an 8 AM doctor’s appointment.
RIP, Ed. I hope someone takes good care of your chickens. They seemed nice.