The Anti-Onerous

Along with Wickie and some friends, I am in the process of instituting a fixed time each day to work on "onerous tasks." For me, this particularly includes my creative work, which I'd rather chew my arm off than do when I don't have an external threat/impending deadline/whatevra. I especially rarely want to work on creative projects alone, without constraints, something most filmmakers I know dream of doing 24/7. Anyhow, I am getting together with one or more fellow sufferers for an hour each morning to get cracking on these human-company-required-or-it-ain't-gonna-happen types of tasks. Today I storyboarded the SHIT out of a music video I am working on. Did the whole thing! One hour is so much more productive than four.

The importance of accents over E's.

My apologies for the delay in getting this up. I got bogged down writing a blog on ergodic literature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodic_literature). Hope to get that to you later.

These are my recent radio meanders: since my iBook stopped accessing Pirate Cat Radio (http://www.piratecatradio.com/), I've been listening to Vegan Freak Radio (http://veganfreakradio.com/). Simultaneously, I been trying to find an anarchist podcast /radio show. I found Under the Pavement (http://www.underthepavement.org/) out of Manchester, England. But, so far, I've not heard any news from them, only some music some of which horrified me as it was bad almost American disco. In fact, I think it was both American and disco although they did have some good stuff in there too. No news or interviews yet. I can't say this is their fault as they are only every other week and 8 hours later than my time zone. Am currently listening to Radical Radio (http://radicalradio.org/). I can already feel my eyes (and my mind) glazing over. Even though I was once a member of Line of March, a Marxist-Leninist organization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Communist_Movement), even then (the 1980's), I was never really able to understand what the fuck people were talking about or keep my attention away from just wanting just slit my throat, get high, or just generally kill myself. Not that I have self-destructive tendencies. I just turned off Radical Radio and will turn back to Vegan Freak. I can listen to it (and do) for hours on end. I can actually do this since I am a latecomer to the podcast and have lots of back episodes to cycle through. Because of their podcast as well as some zine I seem to have recycled (FUCK!), I am aiming my brain towards the SHAC 7 (shac7.com/index.htm). What the hell is that mess all about?

On the book front, I have Thirteen Stories by Eudora Welty  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_Welty) on my chair (not that I've read them). "Why I Live at the P.O.," comes highly recommended. I have managed to eke my way through a few more pages of China Miéville's (http://wwwhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mieville) Perdido Station. That brings me up to page 313, leaving me only approximately 400 pages to go. At this rate, I'll finish it in about five years. ARGH!!!! But a greater accomplishment than completing Perdido is my ability to place an accent over the "e" in China's last name. This is no small feat, especially since I have now launched Monstre Sacré my "handyman to the damned" service. More will be revealed on this at a later date.

My recent music interests have veered into The Residents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Residents) then stumbled across Lou Reed's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Reed) newest release (I think) Hudson River Wind Meditations. This last one, a huge departure for Reed, is great to listen to late at night. It started to feel like the soundtrack to some crazed slasher movie, although I might be a rarity in making this connection to this "new age" effort of Reed's as I find most things menacing.

There are many more things I could dive into, as I suffer from obsessions, but I have to get this fucking up.
Wickie

OK, so I'm obsessed.

Fugue State update and Homemade Superheros

Jed and I have been madly (and I don't use the word loosely) producing Fugue State, my work-in-progress. A staged reading which Jed directed, this project just premiered to sold-out audiences here in San Francisco. Now, we're at it again, doing a two-night run at The Garage aka 975 Howard (ttp://www.975howard.com/) here in SF. The dates for our encore run are Weds. and Thurs. July 30 and 31st at 8 p.m. If you're in the 'hood check us out especially since the more people we get to show up the more we can pay everyone! Tix are cheap: $15 and $10 at the door. We'll also be showcasing parts of Fugue State at the SF Fringe Festival in September. So check out their website once we're closer to that date: http://www.sffringe.org/.

Jed was also busy working with Rocco a.k.a. Katastrophe (http://www.katastropherap.com/bio.html) on Homemade Superheroes (http://www.sfstation.com/home-made-super-hero-e346071). An amazing one-time show, according to SFStation.com Homemade Superheroes "draws a parallel between the double life of a super hero to the experience of a transperson." Jed did an incredible job on the animation for the project which was synced to Rocco's styling lyrics.

That'll do it for now.

The project

Last summer I applied for a grant through the Queer Cultural Center (http://queerculturalcenter.org). Per usual, I need money. My project was to bring to life some of my characters from Fugue State my novel-in-progress. The impetus behind my application was lack of funds, the usual artist/writers state of affairs. I hadn't really thought about the project much. Actually, I heard someone at the required grant meeting, say that's what they were going to do. Sounded good and fundable. So I submitted my grant thinking that if I got the money, I'd pull something together for Queer Fest which was the venue for the grant. Well, in lieu of a grant, I was offered AIRspace, an artist-in-residency. On that day, last November, when I said yes I had no idea I'd be entering the writer's fifth circle of hell...

Watching

Back in the dark and muffled sounds. Am practicing what was suggested: a period of stillness that has a length of about a half hour, then directly to writing. I am usually anchored in a tiredness that I am more familiar with than any other person, place of thing in my life. Oh well. It is as though I have to be plugged into because in there somewhere is the sourcing for my work. Speed in every machination you can apply here: methedrine, caffeine, excessive work, adrenalized relationships have merely postponed or rather suspended my return to...this. Perhaps I am just in a long, deep lifelong droop. Answer seems to be surrender into it which is like a giving way to quicksand. Perhaps this is why, as a kid, I was obsessed with and terrified by movie and TV scenes in which characters stumbled into quicksand. I'd study how they got out (not that they ever did or at least rarely). Holding onto branches, desperately grasping at ropes thrown to them. "Don't struggle, don't fight it," I heard someone or something tell me. So, except for two pots of black tea a day, I don't. I just sink. Into the still, heavy, thickness. Eyes barely open. I am half there in the dark. A pair of eyes, in a body. Staring out. Like all the other creatures in here. Some friendly, most not. Predatory, but still. Half dimmed. Until something or someone of interest enters into our range of vision. Then, we'll see.

Head Wound Podcast #4

A Good Anarchist Podcast is Hard to Find

Yo. To mention the hour is unnecessary as it is late, late, late. I'm downloading any podcast that is even close to being anarchist. Want to get Under the Pavement, a UK radio station with a podcast, but no luck with the download. I always get seduced into thinking that this time, things will be different, that I'll get ahead. Usually it is some grant or something that Ive applied for and didn't get, but really it is just that ridiculous and evil American myth of class mobility that I've looped into. My partner always says that it it such a big myth in this country, the idea of class mobility that in Europe people have a very different idea about it. Basically, most Europeans have a clearer understanding that whatever class you're in, that's the one you'll stay in. I am lucky because, so far, I've remain pretty broke which keeps me searching for radical podcasts at 3 a.m. so that I can listen to them and feel sane. My favorite podcast right now (other than Veganfreak Radio) is The Angry Hippie podcast. You can find him on iTunes. As I was downloading random radical political podcasts, ones I am new to, I suddenly noticed that little yellow ball spinning next to the Angry Hippie podcast. I was signaling that he has a new one out. Thank fucking god. Now I can lay in bed and listen to him rant-and drag my fevered brain out of some stupid American myth.

Head Wound Podcast #5

Well, we finally recorded and posted Head Wound #5. We hope you notice that we are getting more of a grip on what we're up to: crime, true and otherwise. In this podcast we discuss borderline personality disorders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder), the use of human hair in gifts to your exs, check-cashing corpses and milkshake-slurping snakes. We used Semi-Detached a Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode as an example of borderline personality disorder. We then chatted about the true crime story in Hell's Kitchen where two guys dragged around their pal's corpse in a wheelchair as they tried to cash his check. Gnarly even for Hell's Kitchen! Jed and I then wandered onto our creepy things section of our show. I was, per usual, a vat of misinformation about my thirsty snakes invading urban areas in such of sustenance. Turns out it wasn't in India, but Australia. Given how much rain we're having where we are, I wouldn't be surprised is I saw a few water moccasins moseying by. I am sure there are other things we rattled on about, but this will do for now.

What the Fuck

With this insomnia thing I can only say "What the fuck." Grisly, most grisly of grislies. It's like being on the Posiedon, the 1972 movie in which a ship turned completely upside down. But unlike the awesome actor Shelley Winters who, with her lungs of steel, swam an amazing distance, I have weak lungs for insomnia. Good God almighty, it wreaks havoc with my creative life. Rare as it is nowadays, my entire life still gets tipped upside down and I am dumped into that ocean of night known so well to us insomniacs. No pleasant warm swim, no nice drifting in friendly waters, insomnia nights are cold, shark-infested seas fraught with frustrations, remorse as well as the compulsion to get a "real" job (you can imagine how dafted I must be to even be considering that last one). Ms. Static (that pesky feline who loves to disrupt my life in the darkened closet) is thrilled at my insomnia as she, being a nocturnal thing, is happy for the company. At least, being up, I don't have to worry about what she is doing while I am sleeping. This later point always bothers me: that I live with a creature who has sharp teeth, long nails and well, questionable motives. Afterall, how do I know that she doesn't consider me meat? Did I mention that paranoia is my legacy and that insomnia is it's cure? I mean, if I'm always up, then I can be alert to whatever I need to be alert to. Not that I know what that is, but hay I'm prone to paranoia that fear of whatever the fuck might be going on without my knowledge.

Last night, the insomnia moved on to God only knows where. I will not curse it as I am, well, paranoid that is will come back and get me. And it always does. What the fuck.

Onward into the fray...

Broke-ass writer reporting in

Hay,

Since my last blog much has evolved. I've gotten out of the closet. I do not mean the metaphorical one as in coming out as oddly queer. That I did  LONG time ago. I'm talking about my actual darkened closet, the one I've been I was writing in. I don't know when I started writing in there again or when I stopped. I am sure that the relentless desperation, morose feelings and fear of failure that hound my creative impulses had something to do with going in there. Whether or not they were culpable in my falling out of there...well, let us assume until further notice, that they did. I take no responsibility for the ebbs and flows of my writing patterns. Well, actually I do, but I should know better. Because no matter how much I create writing schedules they all crash into me. We roll around on the floor, get swept into depression, slither into God only knows what rat-hole of my personality and...then here I am again. "Where have you been?," a queer-punk girl once asked me when I wandered into San Francisco's only girl punk cafe. "Have I been somewhere?" I asked. I looked at her through the fog of my brain. And that's the way it goes. I do my creative work with rigor and a discipline then I slip away into the void where we artists go. Sometimes I know I've fallen in or out, I never know which. When I know I'm gone, I don't like it in there. I even try to get out. But can't. And then. Bam. I'm back, might even know that I've been gone. And I get a little more work done. Right now, I'm sitting in our new office ("Our" is Heads Will Roll Films). There is more light in here, but fortunately, there are shades I can pull and a door I can close. So that the next time I slide into the void and am "gone missing" at least I won't have to answer anymore awkward questions about where was I because no one will hopefully notice I was here in the first place.

My external obsessions: at 3 a.m. they are peanut butter on bananas of right off the spoon, handfuls of raisins and anything else sweet which, in my place, is very little. I remain obsessed with the all things Needles and Pens (http://www.needles-pens.com). I want to get a copy of "My Penguin" Dracula (http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141033471,00.html) which has a blank cover, one that you can draw or paint on. Ryan Adams, the musician, did an awesome splotchy-type painting of Dracula's castle on his copy. I want that too. 

Murder on my Mind

I left Dr. Tieck's in good shape. He was pleased by my progress and my tolerance of the medications he thinks I'm on. 

It's not very hard to get doctor's to think you're doing what they say. No harder than anyone else I guess.