Review retrospective: Bands 401 - 500, 2017

2017 was a year of finding musicians, yes, but also songs that I loved. 

It was not completely confined to that year. I had "Local Roses" by Dear Boy be the last song of the 2016's week, because I associate it strongly with four other songs, all of which were encountered in 2017.

(I reviewed Dear Boy the last week of October 2016, so it wasn't that far from them.)

Of course, "Local Roses" did not play right before one of its associated 2017 songs, because then I did a post and week focusing on punk rock. It made sense to put that week there.

I also am not putting three of the other four songs in this next week, because it turns out that I do have enough songs I want to share from Asian American artists, and two of them will go there, and one came from the Emo listening and will belong with that post.

Also, I forgot that the event that tied those five songs together happened in 2018, and two additional songs had been added to the conversation (which will definitely come up). When the conversation was only two weeks old I remembered; but until finding the old post I had forgotten about the other two songs. They still mean a lot to me; they just aren't part of the group.

One night Colleen mentioned not having fallen in love with a song for a while and asked for suggestions. I had to mention seven. Really had to. Desperately.

At the time, I thought of it as just loving these songs so much, but also it being a good question. It was more interesting, in a way, than asking for band recommendations. Being able to recommend bands for people was one of the nice realizations that came with doing reviews, right around the time I had reviewed 300. This was something different.

Looking back, I suppose it was also a sign of becoming more isolated as I was focusing on caring for Mom. There were fewer conversations where I was likely to get a chance to tell people how I had just found this great song, and they should listen!

At this point, I am just happy and amazed to have found so many songs that I can listen to over and over again, still feeling them, still loving them.

Sadly, I must admit that after having listened to all of Anti-Flag, I don't like "Brandenburg Gate" as much. I don't dislike it, but I was so sure I was going to love everything about them. Instead, I just think they are okay.

They will still be represented in the Emo listening post. (I know they are not Emo, but about half of those bands won't be.)

But in a way it is good separating out the songs, because that means more other bands from 2017 get play.

So while in my heart Dear Boy's "Local Roses" will always be associated with Kyosuke Himuro's "Kiss Me", the Slants' "From The Heart", Marshall Crenshaw's "Whenever You're On My Mind", and Anti-Flag's "Brandenburg Gate", they shall be scattered throughout the many weeks of this retrospective.

Only Marshall Crenshaw shall play this week, but he will go first.

Otherwise, concerts were Trombone Shorty and Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Rose Garden; Lily Pryor, Chris Margolin, Matt Pryor, and Dan Andriano in The Emergency Room at Doug Fir Lounge; Tesla, Poison, and Def Leppard at Rose Garden; Angélique Kidjo at the Schnitz; and I went with my brother to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in Seattle. 

The heartbreak was that Marshall Crenshaw did come to Portland, but I couldn't go.

Songs for the week:

"Whenever You're On My Mind" by Marshall Crenshaw -- This song is from 1983, and I like "Some Day, Some Way", but it just makes no sense that I needed to wait 34 years to find it. There was an official video, but I have only seen poor quality copies, so I am going with the remastered audio version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsvWl0Q96vw

"You And Me" by A New Nowhere -- I don't think this is even my favorite song of theirs, which is probably "Scream", but this video is so fun and weird. Them making it is more impressive because they didn't have a lot of material, and their review combined them with two other bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3BSroncsqY

“At Sunset” by Seasonal -- Seasonal haunts me because I like them while reviewing, but I did not figure out until after posting and they confirmed with me that the other album by a band called Seasonal was not them. I have been keeping them on the review list to make it up to them. Fortunately, they finally say new music is on the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMnxz9oOONM

“Streetlight Street Life” by Moovalya -- Just kind of deliciously punk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBJXcRZN8k

“Julia” by NewLondon Fire -- This is the only song I have ever recommended to a stranger on an airplane. I think part of that is that usually I travel with my sisters, so maybe if I sat next to strangers more often it would happen more, but the song still deserves recommendation. Weirdly, I was going to put it in with 2015, but Spotify says it came out in 2017. My review was in 2015. Still going to use it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxmUKU7C-Sg

“Stay” by NoDevotion -- I found this one pretty haunting, and I was glad to find that the reconstituted band was great. I hope that meant a lot to the previous band's fans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S1O3D8Q7_A

“This Is Me” sung by Keala Settle, from The Greatest Showman -- Not from a review, but I have done at least four songs of the day from this movie. I might do some more, but this is the best musically and emotionally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjxugyZCfuw

 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/05/beloved-songs.html

 

Play day

 

Caring for my family, and myself

One thing that changed during the 2008 to 2010 period of unemployment was that I started cooking. 

I had gradually taken over holiday meals after I got back from my mission (I had learned something about cooking turkey, and I wanted to try it). I also cooked about once a month for potlucks, but I had never taken on the daily grind of it. 

Since I was home and everyone else was working, it only seemed right to take over. Mom had lost her enjoyment of cooking a long time ago (picky kids didn't help, but the critical husband was worse). That became a thing, where even on the days where I was working, I would plan something that could fit into the time constraints. 

I kept that up when I started the new job, and when I started telecommuting it was even easier. I was working, but also able to help supervise Mom, who was still pretty functional at first.

Being laid off and deciding to focus on caring for Mom felt abrupt, but really this transition had been happening for several years. I was switching over to caring for her more, and her needing it more.

Previously so much of caring for my family had been about the money that I made and what it could buy; when the money stopped, the caring didn't.

Care giving is my nature. That is something that I have learned over this time period.

As much as money helps -- I cannot stress how much of a difference it makes -- it is not the only factor in the care you give.

Accepting my overinflated sense of responsibility was not easy. Recognizing it took taking in another relative and trying to accommodate him. It also took getting into shouting matches to affirm the value of what I was doing. 

It was good that it became a choice, and a calling, rather than a way of compensating for all that I perceived to be wrong for me, but that change was inward.

During my time caring for my mother, I could never doubt that doing so was the most needful thing. 

That we have survived it -- against all logic -- was a huge faith builder. 

There is one thing lacking yet; I have never been good at caring for myself.

Just taking that time and making that effort... it is much easier to do it for other people. 

I have a bad tendency to give myself a lot of assignments anyway. Adding things to do just makes me feel tired; them being for my benefit has never been a big enough motivator in the past. 

However, it is clearly something that I need to do.

So I am going to be working on that for a while.

I do have other things to write about, as well as what I learn from this next phase. Right now I need to go in hard on the School Board Elections, deadline May 18th. This is not a switch to fully political yet, but maybe it will be the case of another gradual transition.

However, there is one thing that I appear to have figured out last night. 

I think one reason I drive myself is this idea that I will be able to stop and rest after I finish these projects or reading lists or tasks, even when I have seen a fairly well defined set expand in process over and over again.

Even seeing the value in the journey -- which I have and do -- I still want that completion and destination and finality.

It appears that I have to accept that as a myth.

This means that pushing to get done doesn't even make sense.

Tomorrow I am taking the day off, even though I without a regular job or caring for Mom, it might be hard to define what I am taking the day off from.

I am taking a day off from being me, I guess.

I am still bringing a book.

Work and identity

There was probably another thing that helped with my 2008 job loss. Before it happened, I had been to visit my Italian family twice. 

Previously I had only met the aunt who had come to visit us, but there were other aunts and uncles and cousins. You can hear things about people, but it is not the same as knowing them.

I had studied some Italian, but not a lot, and not recently. I wanted to be able to talk, so I memorized two questions: asking about their work, and for couples, asking how they met.

Given how many of them worked together, it should be surprising that they were all so uninterested in their jobs. In another way, it does make sense.

The job market in Italy -- even before the crash -- was tough. Getting jobs tended to involve knowing someone. (This also has a lot to do with why so many of the spouses worked at the same company.)

It's not that there wasn't pride of work or a commitment to doing a good job, especially with my family; our legacy is being good workers. But a lot of where you end up is luck, and because it is done through government programs, retirement and health care tend to be okay regardless. (This is especially miraculous given how often the government changes, but some of the systems function very well.)

The point is, people don't define themselves by their jobs. Their job is something they do, but their life is their family and their friends and their hobbies.

I do have one cousin who has beaten a different path, carving out an interesting career for himself. His siblings are really worried about it ruining his retirement. I don't think they need to worry, but I get why they do.

That is not a perfect system, but there are things that are very healthy about it.

It may have made a greater impression on me, because after getting back I was talking about it with one of the cafeteria workers. We had a flirtation going on, kind of, and even though we were both merely contractors, there could be ways in which I would be considered to outrank him because of the kind of work that we each did. That could be true even though I had run a cash register in previous jobs, and even though he had been doing something else before and would change to something else shortly after that. 

Without getting specifically into that, we talked about how much better that was, whereas here when you meet someone it is the first question, and the one given the most weight.

The thing that I would have said was better about the States then was that it was easier to start over. If you wanted to go back to college and change careers at 45, you could do it. 

But that was before the crash. The cost of tuition was rising, and the cost of living was going up, but we had not come quite so far in devaluing everyone. 

So back on the job market again, when everything was so much tighter, I felt devalued. Again, by the time I was working again, it was at a significant pay cut. In terms of work, I was very literally valued less.

If there was a part of me that understood that my value was not exclusively how much I earned, there was also still a part that was used to having more and being able to do more for my family and friends and random charities, and I felt that.

I felt that need to do things that I couldn't do, and there were limits to how much it got me down then, but it had a lingering effect all of the years of having that job, and then into what happened next, where depression did happen again.

Joblessness

I considered myself unemployed from October 2008 to August 2010.

I worked a fair amount during that time with different temporary jobs, but they varied in reliability and pay so nothing felt very stable. Not a single one of the jobs was expected to last.

It was very hard emotionally, but I didn't go into an actual depression again. Looking back, I think that was because I was still working a lot, and because my church was being very supportive. It did strike at my identity in a way similar to the 2003 depression.

I had always been a pretty cheerful person, facing things that brought me down, but bouncing back pretty quickly. To have such a long unmitigated gloom made me feel that I was not even myself anymore; who was I without my cheerfulness?

Prior to 2008, I had always been able to get the job I wanted: I had something in mind, I applied, and I got it.

There were little blips. I remember some panic in 1990 when the job I was sure was going to hire me delayed calling but still did call. When a different job ended in 1996, I decided to take a few days to paint the bathroom, and I answered a phone call offering me work while I was painting. 

In general, I had always been able to do work I was interested in and make enough money to meet my needs.

Well, maybe it was more about meeting other people's wants than my needs. I also tended to be pretty generous, and especially to make sure that my family had nice things.

2008 really messed with that.

2010 did not fix it, because I had lost ground financially and I never made it back up. 

I had sort of noticed that the cost of living was going up before I was unemployed, but it happened gradually and it wasn't too big of a concern. 

Once I was unemployed, that was a lot more noticeable. Once I was employed again, but at only about 80% of what I was making, and with some debt exacerbated over the past two years, well, the increased cost of living was much more in my face.

I felt it for myself, but also, relatives who were used to me paying for more things and not charging rent had a really hard time adjusting to it. There were some stormy battles, and they only get worse six years later when I found myself unemployed again.

I remember that I had been working so hard to catch up. It wasn't just money but also time, where I let myself get behind on medical appointments and things that were taking care of me.

I had just successfully made it to the regular doctor, eye doctor, and dentist, and had an appointment with my hairdresser that I hadn't been to yet when I got the news.

That next round of unemployment was associated with some depression. It was more complicated than that, but isn't it always?

And it required some fundamental rethinking.

Review retrospective: Punk rocks!

I had realized at one point that -- while reviewing new bands -- I should also revisit my punk roots. It was only proper that there be a Ramones review, and one for The Clash. I did that in January 2017.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/01/band-review-ramones.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/01/band-review-clash.html

There is a big part of my punk rock journey that happened before I reviewed bands or even blogged. Another large part of it lies in the future, so this post is going to be a little different.

Part of that means that I am going to integrate the songs for the week into the body of the text, rather than a section at the end. 

Separately, I have also realized that something that has been missing during the retrospective is links for the songs, in case people who read the blog and are interested are not seeing the daily song posts. This will be the first post to include links, but I will go back and retroactively add them to previous posts.

First of all, those first two bands (who still hold a dear place in my heart), their significance to punk history kind of matches their significance to me. I can tell you which songs turned the switch from thinking "Yeah, this is a punk band but they have some crossover songs that I like" to "Wait! I think I love this band!" 

Therefore, those must be the first two songs.

“I Wanna Be Sedated” by Ramones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm51ihfi1p4

“Train In Vain” by The Clash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUzBgeI5dpc

I knew their songs that got MTV play or pop radio play, but those two songs had moments where I knew I needed to listen more. 

There was so much more, and I found that I adored them.

I didn't really think of myself as a punk rocker though. I mean, I didn't see any safety pins or orange mohawks; maybe they weren't that punk (I know). It didn't mean that I had to like Sex Pistols.

However, when I saw a video for "Fall Back Down" by Rancid and liked it, they were definitely punk. I borrowed their CD from my sister, and I liked it a lot. Okay, fine, Gina is a punk rocker. But "Fall Back Down" was just the introduction; I surrendered on "Ruby Soho".

“Ruby Soho” by Rancid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P9QMkm9Eew

Ultimately, accepting my punk nature was freeing, and led me to consider other bands more seriously. That may have been a key step to becoming someone who reviewed bands, though many of the more punk adjacent ones will be showing up when I get to Emo.

This next song isn't actually anyone punk, but he is sometimes called proto-punk, and punk owes him a debt. And also, I totally got to see him live.

“Cry For Love” by Iggy Pop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI9vzh7CZIw

This is not his most punk song, but it was one that I had no idea existed until I specifically reviewed him, so that was a nice find. 

He does not roll around barely dressed in broken glass, which he also did not do at the concert I saw. However, look at the way he dances about in urban waste and desolation... Iggy Pop is still himself.

When I had the post on Native American artists, I mentioned concerns that I have not found as many Asian American and Pacific Islander and LatinX artists yet. However, things happen. For one thing, I think I do have enough AAPI artists for their own post and week. 

For LatinX artists, a good starting point was The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez. Many musicians come up in the text and in an after section. They are not all punk, but there are some good suggestions. 

I have only reviewed The Zeros so far, but I will get to Alice Bag, and I know enough to give her a song this time anyway.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2019/09/band-review-zeros.html

“Beat Your Heart Out” by The Zeros
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojXhH0AP5x4

“Gate Crasher” by Alice Bag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRtYJOuw-0w

I have also recently learned of the existence of Bam Bam, featuring Tina Bell. I thought about including a song of theirs, but that is a little more grungy. I will get there.

It is nonetheless a reminder that there is more, and that as you start looking you will find it. That is why I look forward to where the following two articles are going to take me:

https://www.okayafrica.com/black-punk-bands-need-listen-to/

https://medium.com/@AestheticDistance/meet-the-asian-americans-of-a-new-inclusive-punk-scene-at-break-free-fest-8cd5cc65e1c0

But I should still include a song from a punk band that I reviewed. It came down to a choice between Direct Hit! or Pears:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/07/band-review-direct-hit.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/10/band-review-pears.html 

The most interesting thing about that to me is that they both came from recommendations by other musicians. (Mike Kennerty for Direct Hit! and Dave Hause for Pears.) Most of my punk reviews do not come from new bands following me, but in other ways.

Why don't punk bands follow me? Is it me?

Possibly. Even after choosing Direct Hit!, the song I should have really chosen was "Paid In Brains", but I hate that video. Maybe I am not punk enough. Maybe that is why I still don't like Sex Pistols.

Alas; I can only be me.

“Was It The Acid?” by Direct Hit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO5SsmIBUo0

Upon finishing viewing of another season of Queen Sugar

The Season 5 finale of Queen Sugar aired Tuesday, and I am all caught up now.

I know there have been production challenges specific to COVID-19, but I am glad they found a way around them. I am grateful that they found a way to reflect the hellscape of a year that was 2020.

The first eight episodes of the ten-episode season were all titled after dates, starting with late February 2020. I had almost forgotten what "before" felt like. It all came back as characters started seeing and hearing news: that growing sense of dread.

Then they started talking about the vulnerability of the elderly. Fear for Mister Prosper clenched my heart. No, that's why we met Hollywood's mother, dammit. But then, the risk of contraction was not the only risk for the elderly. Prosper had to deal with loneliness, and repetitive watching of the news, and feelings of uselessness and helplessness.

Thank Heaven there are people who love him.

I have seen some of that. We try and keep tabs on people, but this has all been a lot.

There has been relief in watching something so emotionally true and looking at it with fresh eyes.

It has been helpful that there are still so many scenes of joy.

I have been especially impressed with the cycles that characters have gone through. That is in reference to their relationships, but not exclusively. 

Darla and Ralph Angel have been torn apart painfully, and reunited, twice. Between those reunions there was growth. Now they are growing together, getting better all the time.

I have complained about other shows rushing breakups and makeups, resulting in none of it really mattering. I am amazed at how much Queen Sugar covers in such short seasons. 

It is not impossible to believe that Davis can be better now, and that it could make sense for Charley to consider trusting him, even though he blew up her life so thoroughly before. After all, she had to work through that with Nova too.

In thinking about this post, I reviewed other times when I have written about the show. Not every single mention is down below, but there are a few. What struck me most was noting Nova's tendency to skip asking for permission, probably to avoid hearing "No". When I wrote that it was just about Too Sweet's bail; that was nothing compared to her book!

The book was intended for healing, and healing did happen. Could everyone have healed in a better way that respected boundaries? That sure seems likely, but the most overwhelming feeling is gratitude that the healing did come anyway, and that the ruptures that have happened have been healed.

Therefore, as we faced one final bomb dropping in this last episode of the most recent season (Is that 5 for 5 now? I think that's 5 for 5.), I find it completely possible to believe that there is a path forward. 

Even thinking that on the penultimate episode -- that there had to be a way forward for Nova and Calvin, and how that might look -- I did not picture it going in that direction. I thought there might be a step, but if we are looking at that level of reconciliation, that is going to cover a whole season, and there can only be a hint.

But that particular hint?

And yet there is still hope.

And that, of course, is the point. The characters of Queen Sugar are fictional, but they are gloriously human: flawed and beautiful, capable of good and evil, deserving of growth and love, sometimes finding grace, but having to work for it all the same.

 So as humans, that all applies to us too. There are prices to pay, but there are wonderful possibilities. 

And as much as we need to make it through this, just clenching and gritting until it is over will never get it over with. 

Make room for other people, and love, and beauty, and whether you have a chance to create joy or just grab on to some that is already there, take it.

For all of the things that may not be possible, love and healing still are.

Previous posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-men-and-future-men-of-queen-sugar.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-death-in-family-via-queen-sugar.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/08/queen-sugar-nova-and-charley.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/12/queen-sugar-making-amends.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2019/06/juneteenth-black-music-month-and-queen.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/08/director-spotlight-ava-duvernay.html

About Jeopardy!

The other night on Jeopardy! a contestant (who won), got his chance to say "Make it a true daily double Alex." 

He said it to Anderson Cooper, but Anderson understood, and I did too.

Back when I was writing about my appearance, I think I mentioned it, but in the practice games I hit the daily double three times. Each time I said "Make it a true daily double", because there were no stakes.

That wasn't to Alex either, but I did finish one of those practice games with $60000. That would have been something.

I just got a notice of the last few guest hosts to round out this year, so I have been thinking about that.

I have not blogged about this a lot (except a little about Ken Jennings on the Sunday blog), but there have been a lot of opinions about the various guest hosts. I have had some individual exchanges, and the main thing I have said -- which has not satisfied anyone when their point was whom they wanted or did not want to see -- is that I did not anticipate a permanent replacement being announced until after the regular season end.

That is still the most important thing to me. My strongest sense of how things would feel for the crew there is the profound sense of loss and grief; they loved him so much. I mean, I still can't write about it without crying. So, without anyone saying it, but observing what they have done and extrapolating from that, I believe there is a strong sense that this, the 37th season, belongs to Alex. Even if someone must come after him, it won't be until after his last season is done.

When you have that limbo, it can be awkward, but it can also be a chance to celebrate friendships, by bringing in people who were friends with Alex and friends of the show.

So I get that if it is someone whom you don't like, there can be that reaction. Dr. Oz? Mayim Bialik? Ew! But so far no one has done a terrible job. Some have been surprising. I don't remember when Aaron Rodgers won Jeopardy!, but he was delightful, if possibly a bit too quiet. Cooper has a good voice for it, but the banter is lacking. Hosting is hard; but you don't know that when you are watching the good hosts because part of what makes them good is how easy they make it look.

My favorite has been executive producer Mike Richards, who did very well, but I don't know that he would want the job; maybe he prefers executive producing.

I am glad that LeVar Burton is getting a turn, because I know a lot of people want to see him hosting. In terms of the regular gig, I had wondered if they would want someone younger than Burton -- someone who could reasonably go another 35 years -- but then, you don't know. There's no guarantee about how long you will have with a 28 year old; this past year or so has taught us some things the hard way.

I would be curious to know if they reached out to the people Alex mentioned specifically: Alex Faust, Ben Mankiewicz, and Laura Coates. Those are also all people who have jobs. Did that also maybe become an idea of what qualities to look for?

For whatever decisions the show makes, I imagine they will be thinking about not only how well that person can do the job, and how much the audience will like them, but also how much they will like working with that person; would they want 35 years? Not as a replacement, but as someone they could respect and admire and love again. 

They do make a product that we consume, but they are people too, and they are a tight unit. I know.

I'll trust them to make their decision and announce it when they are ready. Now my prediction is out there too.

And, just to get it out of my system, I am going to be snarky about two hosts:

I believe most of the guest hosts were approached by the show, but my "ew" was Buzzy Cohen, and I would not be surprised if he were hanging around the studio pestering them: "I get a turn right?" "When do you want me?" "Remember, Alex and I talked about it."

Also, my objections to Ken Jennings are his mean streak and comfort with casual racism, but I also thought he would do a better job. He lacked the gravitas. It felt like he was a kid dressed up in a suit, and nervous someone was going to notice.

However, there was never a reason to think that being a good contestant would make you a good host. From a job experience perspective, Bob Harris would probably be the most natural fit, though I am a Brad Rutter fan.

Related posts:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-company-you-keep.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2011/12/and-alex.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2011/12/best-set-in-hollywood.html

Travel bug

At this point, I am not blogging ahead, and I don't know what the next few posts will be.

Today I am taking a moment to post about one of the things I mentioned yesterday, with starting to travel.

I was a child in a family of seven, and we were not rich. Vacations when I was young meant piling in the car and driving North to Canada or South to California; if I-5 could go there, so could we. (East and West was for day trips.)

I liked that, but I always dreamed of other places too. One of my fantasies when I still thought I would be getting scholarships for college was that I would work for the summer then skip fall term to explore Europe via a railway pass and youth hostels. 

I did skip fall term, but that was just more working at Burlington Coat Factory, trying to save enough money for college.

Given that, convincing my mother and sisters that we needed to go to Disneyland for spring break when I was almost done with college is kind of amazing, but there was also a logic to it. 

Three of those childhood trips in the car did make it to Anaheim. There were some poor financial choices in there, where the ways in which my father funded those trips were not completely sound, but Disneyland was also a magical place. 

After my father left, we needed some magic, and I don't know that we could have managed something completely unfamiliar. There are no regrets about going. 

That started a tradition of my sisters and I going to Disneyland together, with Mom (who was not as into it) taking care of the pets. That was great, but there were all of these other places I wanted to go too. Getting there ended up requiring friends, at least at first.

Maybe it took a little while to feel like I had a grown-up income, and could do grown-up things. It took about four years after graduating college until I was determined to go somewhere! I was debating between Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Washington DC, or New York City. 

I told that to a friend from church. She told me, "I just sat through this sales pitch and have free airfare and hotel for Las Vegas." 

Well that was fortuitous.

So we went and we did almost everything that two non-partying people could do. Well, I did some things she didn't do, like the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay and the New York, New York roller coaster. We did not see the Fremont Street thing, but we did do the Star Trek thing, which does not even exist anymore. Also, we never ate $5 prime rib, even though we could see a sign for it out of our hotel window.

It was a good experience, and cheaper than I had any right to expect. (We did upgrade to some extra nights at the hotel, and there were meals and entertainment, but it was still very reasonable.)

In retrospect, I am glad that Tammy didn't want to do everything I wanted to do. Going out into a strange (but easily navigable) city was probably good for me.

A year later there was a terribly busy work season. I remember seeing an ad for Mexico, and fantasizing about getting away. I still didn't go anywhere new until another friend, Tara, called me and asked me to go with her to visit a mutual friend who had relocated to Washington DC. 

That was one of my other cities!

And I overdid the walking, and got sick on my last day, which was not ideal, but I still had a great time. I asked her to cruise to Mexico with me, and I got to go through that underground river in Xcaret. 

After that it became easier to be okay with travel, and going somewhere new and not worrying.

Before we went to Vegas, Tammy had this guidebook, and I pored over it, trying to plan the exact best itinerary, something that is actually a bit illusory, at least for the "exact best" part. 

I have nonetheless planned some pretty good trips for Hawaii, Mexico, Chicago, Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto, Australia and New Zealand, and even Dublin -- a city I have never visited -- for other people.

I have done most of those with my sisters, but I can travel with other people, and I did Toronto completely alone. I have navigated an elderly woman with a failing memory and bad knees through some terrible airports.

Those are some good memories, but there is also a confidence in knowing some of the things I can handle, and help other people feel good about.

My first time on an airplane was when I was heading to the Missionary Training Center at 21 years old. My determination to do something before Tammy came along for Vegas may mean that I would have gotten somewhere anyway. Having half of my extended family in Europe probably would have gotten me there eventually.

It is also easy to get stuck in what you know.

We knew Disneyland, once, so that was a good starting place. There was a free ticket. There was a friend in DC. Now I don't mind if something is completely unfamiliar. (I will still do a lot of research.)

I don't doubt my ability to go anywhere.

Sometimes there still needs to be that little boost.

So thank you Dad, Mom, Julie, Maria, Tammy, Tara, and Heather. 

I don't know what happens next, but I will take it.

The awkwardness of progress

As wonderful as it was to cast off some old fears, that quickly led to a phase where I felt higher than normal frustration about the things that I still don't have down.

In addition, as I go over other prime events, declaring them resolved gets trickier.

For example, the next crisis chronologically -- after the depression over Reed (even though it was not really about Reed) -- is the job loss that occurred in 2008, right around the time the world economy crashed.

I did not go into a full depression, but I was not happy. There was some definite growth and understanding that had come out of it, by the time I was gainfully employed again. However, here I am jobless again.

Did I really learn everything I needed to?

Is there something I'm still not getting right?

Also, at the end of that one depression I did understand that my belief was wrong, and it was not impossible for someone to love me. However, I am still not in a relationship; it does feel like some additional progress should be possible.

I'm just saying, things are messier now, a result so typical of life.

The life phases that I think are significant are the unemployment from September 2008 to August 2010, getting onto Twitter and starting to look out for depressed teenagers in late 2012, getting laid off at the same time my mother required more care in 2016 (the other depression comes in here), and some mutual but fraught declarations of love in 2018. There is a lot in there.

As I think about them, I start to wonder about the times in between. In 2000, but more between 2005 and 2008, I started getting to some places I had always wanted to go. After my novel kept getting rejected I gave writing a break, but in 2008 I started writing sceenplays.

Are there some lessons in getting to things you want to do?

After I got hired in 2010, that cleared up one source of stress, but another tsunami of stress came forward. By the time that was all resolved, I was pretty burned out. I had to have one dream come true (going on Jeopardy!), and then be disappointing (I lost), and then go on another trip before reawakening kicked in, but when reawakening did kick in, it was glorious.

Twitter was a huge part of that reawakening, and then it brought on more stress. Worrying about so many people with eating disorders and self-harming and suicidal ideation... I took that to heart and there was some aching with that. It was also a part of my understanding my own value, and a part of building friendships, and a part of seeing the good I could do.

Even though that job in 2010 was a relief and did help, I had still lost ground financially; there were a lot of things where it was very hard to keep up. I had just gotten that under control when they laid me off. I had one month of feeling pretty stable.

There is all the psychology I have read since becoming a caregiver.

And, there is this time here, now, where my responsibility seems to be just to me -- which would be fine if it paid -- but somehow we are still surviving, even if it is always just by the skin of our teeth.

It does feel like it is winding down. Maybe there will be another resting period, where I can travel more and write creative things. 

Maybe I can go on a date again; the last time I did was 2011.

At least I am feeling optimistic.

Review Retrospective: Bands 301 - 400, 2016

I reviewed some music I really liked in 2016. I also reviewed music I hated.

What I realize now -- though I did not then -- is that a lot of the hated music came from rich kids goofing off because they could. ("Kids" may be used kind of loosely.)

There were two things that helped me realize it. One was reading about Mumford & Sons, including discussions on their shockingly wealthy backgrounds, and how it allowed them to persevere until people started listening to them.

The other factor relates strongly to doing this retrospective, in that I have been going through and checking links for old bands.

I can't say quite when the change occurred, but there was a time when it was pretty common to buy a web domain just for your band, if you could. Not only does that require someone with some basic skills designing it, but there is expense in hosting the page as well.

A lot of those old band sites don't exist anymore. Sometimes the bands don't either, but sometimes they do. Instead of the old site, they are using a Facebook page (less commonly Instagram or Twitter) as the main point of information. There are often other sites for obtaining the music, like Soundcloud, Bandcamp, or Youtube, but some social media site will have taken the place of the original site.

Some of the bigger bands -- that came out at times before free streaming and did well -- still do maintain the personal sites. I don't deny there are a lot of factors.

However, when you released an EP five years ago, and you haven't done anything since then, but you still pay for a home page? (Which often promises new music coming soon, or has new cute photos.) That indicates money to burn.

Then you see that they say Beverly Hills instead of Los Angeles, or notice other subtle indicators that this is not someone desperate for success. 

I recognize the signs better now. I also think it makes sense. 

I didn't know back in the day when I reviewed them and hated their music. I always tried to point out good things when I could, or advise who might like it, but they tended to be negative reviews.

It is probably not a coincidence, but this was the first section where in checking links I found someone who blocked me.

That was a sad case, actually. She came across as so tortured in the time where I was just following her, before I got to the review, and then there was no emotional depth. You're not tortured; you're self-pitying and bored. This might mean that when you were looking into trying an activity that appropriates the Sun Dance ceremony of the Plains Indians, that you are really just sensation seeking.

(I am sorry your father was a jerk, but understand that a lot of other people have that same problem.)

I also recently realized that with someone from the first 100 -- who is a great musician but that I just can't like -- it's because he is not really a kind person. He has suffered and I feel compassion for that, and he has depth, but he is also kind of a jerk.

This is not saying that jerks can't make good music; lots of examples disprove that. 

I am also not saying that rich people can't make good music, though fewer examples come to mind.

I do feel comfortable saying that coming from wealth makes it much easier to be shallow and superficial. It makes it much easier to be satisfied with middling efforts instead of really digging deep. That would be an obstacle to making great music.

That makes it more chilling how hard it is getting for anyone who is not already wealthy to pursue the arts. 

I should probably go back and re-read Scott Timberg's Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, but I did just read this essay in Sarah Kendzior's Flyover Country that you can read here:

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/12/17/expensive-cities-are-killing-creativity

It relates.

For now, let me once again plug universal health care and basic income, for so many reasons.

But the songs for the week don't include anyone I hated. That was the most obvious theme for the blog, but it wasn't the whole story of the year, for which I am grateful

Daily songs:

“Salvation” by Blinking Underdogs -- For a week in which I was writing about Star Wars stuff, I reviewed Oscar Isaac's old ska band, which takes some digging. Because some of the files are hard to get at, I almost didn't include them, but someone posted a performance clip, therefore I had to. It appears he was in yet another band as well. I suspect I will check that out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAHBbLDqoRI

“Shotgun” by Heroes Like Villains -- I am anticipating this being a beautiful Saturday, and that goes with this sweet video from a pretty sweet band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU01I6bLBA4

“Relatively” by Faded Paper Figures -- Also a good video for a sunny day, this had a sweet sound and is the song I remembered most from this band, though they have a lot to check out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIKjw-Tb2MQ

“Breathe Me In” by Consider Me Dead -- This one got stuck in my head back in the day. I think it holds up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYP6-k4Sb2E

“Don't Drown” by Sighs -- Usually I pick songs that I still remembered years later. I had kind of forgotten this one, and it was a pleasant surprise. That is why mentioning specific songs in the reviews is helpful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9voKhn94ti4

“Flightless Bird” by Scott Barkan -- Scott Barkan comes off as such a curmudgeon, and I am fond of him for that. My favorite song of his is "Crank Radio", but this is a pretty close second.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA_C5HyvLJY

“Local Roses” by Dear Boy -- This one had to be last because I associate it more with a group of songs in 401 - 500. It was a song that I loved instantly, and still do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1-NAfH2ukE

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/03/deconstructing-music-writing-mumford.html

Saintly Anger

What I am going to write about today extends beyond my capacity. I want to mention it anyway, because I know there is more there.

It has been a week now since the exchange where the uninformed incoherent guy told me not to bother answering. It made me mad, and at the end of that I had overcome my fear of being annoying.

A little over two years ago, getting angry freed me from my belief that there was perpetually something fundamentally wrong with me. 

Those both go so far back; even when we take into consideration other experiences had and lessons learned along that way, it is miraculous that a brief flash of anger can be so illuminating, burning up an old poison.

That makes it sadder that anger is so frequently seen as something to push away and deny and choke down.

I understand the reasons. People can do great harm while angry. It doesn't necessarily facilitate logical thinking. 

It can also be tempting to use anger as a mask for grief or fear, but if avoiding those feelings is harmful, then surely avoiding anger can be harmful too. 

We need to listen to what our emotions are telling us. 

Anger is the voice that tells me "This is wrong." 

When I believe something false, seeped into me from before I can remember, anger shouting that this is wrong is liberating. 

If anger tells me something is wrong, but once facing that I see that it is not that important and I can let it go, that is also liberating.

Anger can also be a call to the work of liberation, something harder but necessary.

This is where I get beyond my scope.

I had been thinking about anger anyway. In December I read I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown. I highly recommend it anyway, for multiple reasons, but what she wrote about anger struck me. She wrote about fighting it at first, for reasons I relate to, but then realizing that it could be creative. 

We often conflate creativity with innovation, but building something is also creative, even if it follows a pattern, or has happened before.

Brown did not expound on that a lot, but she did mention learning from Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider, which I just finished on March 28th.  I knew at the time I that I was not done with it, so I have held on to the copy, re-reading passages. 

Lorde's specific essays on anger deal with racism, in different facets. 

I also just finished the September Vanity Fair with Breonna Taylor on the cover, and her inside, but much about George Floyd as well. 

Through sheer procrastination and too much to do, I read it at the time of the trial of his killer, and the death of Daunte Wright, and news about the police harassment of Caron Nazario (support our troops!), and all of this at a time when the police are under increased scrutiny, but still not even trying.

I think of the James Baldwin quote "To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time."

Then I think of that thing that I periodically read, where people react badly to unfairness, but if they feel like they can't change it they will react badly to their impotence, so try and justify the unfairness (e.g. they need to quit resisting arrest).

Let me go back a bit. An ignorant white man telling a woman that her disagreeing answer was not welcome is small, but it is a part of that same patriarchy that enfolds racism and misogyny and all other bigotries.

My raised poor but smart father, with some good intentions but a lot of selfishness and an unwillingness to ever take the blame -- from whom my insecurities sprung -- folds into patriarchy as well.

Resolving the inner vulnerabilities of one pretty self-aware (and awesome) woman is relatively easy, especially compared to solving systemic, structural racism. It will take a lot of anger. 

It will take feeling that anger, and not being consumed by it, and not given into despair followed by acceptance instead.

It has to be possible, and there is liberation on the other side, and it is euphoric.

Even for the white guys who fight it hardest, equality will be better. Inclusion, freedom, integration, acceptance, expansion... it will be better for everyone.

Individual healing will be happening all along the way.

Let's get moving.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-power-of-hate.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/02/if-youre-angry-and-you-know-it.html

 

Write on!

Despite yesterday's post being a good length, and having required a whole separate post the day before to keep it on track, and having been reliant on a post from the previous week, it was not the whole story.

There were two other elements that were important, and that I want to get to now. 

Man-I-don't-know writes dismissive thing and it leads to amazing insight about myself did happen, and that there was a foundation it was built on was made pretty clear, but also, there was a process there that involved two key things.

I saw his response and I had feelings about that. (That will be more tomorrow's post.)

Then I wrote about it three times. It wasn't until the third time that I realized I am no longer afraid of being annoying, but I had been approaching it the whole time.

(That is not counting my response to him, which may have been part of the process but also could have just been fun.)

I wrote in my journal first. That was the shortest one. I wrote a brief description of what happened and then this:

How male. Wrong, thinks he's smart, and sees no need to listen or learn.

It ties together, because the people who don't have much other than their patriarchal rank over you sure don't want you to like yourself, or be happy as you are, or know that you are enough.

That did not feel like enough. I thought it was that I needed to share it. That led to both Twitter and Facebook.

The interesting thing is that I was initially reluctant to post on Facebook. The first poster (whose friend made the dismissive remark) and I have mutual friends (though that guy isn't one of them). I didn't want it to become a whole thing.

It is possible that considering not doing something in deference to men who do not show any similar consideration was related to the breakthrough.

It is definite that as we go over and interpret and try to explain something, it gives us a chance to realize more.

The funny thing is that the next day I was talking to a friend (about learning, appropriately) and as he was explaining something to me he said "Though I hadn't realized that I thought of it that way until now..."

Yes, of course. That is how it works.

It was easier for me to have a breakthrough on my fear of being annoying because I had been engaging with it actively. Then, getting to annoy someone showed me that it wasn't that bad.

There can be things that we feel, and almost know, but that require articulation before we get there. In fact, they may require articulation in a specific way that we grope toward over multiple interactions. Perhaps that is why expressive writing is generally done as a series of three sessions.

There is one more thing about that.

In February I wrote about three early experiences that worked together to convince me that no one wanted to hear about my problems. 

It seems logical that some of my motivation for writing comes from there; so much to say, but who wants to hear it?

As nice as it would be to explore having someone who listens (and I admit I would be a lot), I do like having the blog. I like putting it out there as a record that I have thought this and learned that, and that if the timing is not right for you now, the post will still be there later.

The thing with the guy happened Thursday. Saturday someone tweeted a veiled reference to dissociative identity disorder. It wasn't exactly an ask, but this was a mutual, so I could send a private message and say -- stressing that I don't know if this is needed -- this is here and if you want to talk we can. "This" being a link to my post on dissociation, which is a relatively soothing one, so not a bad starting point.

I could receive a message of gratitude then, because it had been on their mind.

I was attuned to that (and I had something to offer) because I had written about it.

That's what writing can do.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/01/expressive-writing.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/02/failure-to-communicate.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/03/lets-hear-it-for-dissociation.html

Unafraid

Just as I get over my fear that I might not be a good mother, I also lose my fear of being annoying!

This is how it happened.

I have been trying to write posts at least the night before. Proofreading tends to be more effective with a rest period in between, and it gives me more time to refine the thoughts. Therefore, the post on tonglen went up Thursday, but I had written it Wednesday night. Regardless of the details, I believe that it was helpful that my mind had been focusing on my sudden epiphany about being enough.

Someone I know posted about the 2nd Amendment. 

I don't really love conflict, but I will fight to the death for what I think is right. In the past that has meant that while I posted frequently and would argue someone disagreeing with my posts into the ground, I rarely took issue with what people posted on their own pages. 

Ignorance has been running amuck so badly, and violence has been increasing, so it is more frequent for me to feel that I have to say something. In this case, I just pointed out that overthrowing a tyrannical government was not the purpose of the 2nd Amendment, and we had a not horrible exchange about that.

But he has other friends.

One of them replied with a poorly thought out string of sentences. It was full of non sequitur and (false) conservative talking points, but sadly lacking in coherence and originality. It was also pretty spotty on punctuation and grammar. This is your person who has been formed by Fox News for years but switched to OAN because Fox was too liberal, though maybe he still checks in with Tucker Carlson.

It wouldn't even have made an impression except for the last sentence.

"Please dont respond because it will just be bullshit." 

How male.

Seriously? I reference articles of the Constitution and historical occurrences and you vomit up a mix of conspiracy theory and sentence fragments that you couldn't tie together if you tried, and you tell me not to respond?

I did write back congratulating him for being an ass. (I used more words, but that was the gist.)

What was important was that he joined a long line of men being irritated when I disagree with them, or say something that threatens their view of things. I get that it's patriarchy, but perhaps it was also more obvious in that moment that they have not earned their position. At all.

If the conclusion to Thursday's post was that I am enough, the other thing that had been coming up a lot in the preceding posts is this fear that I have carried with me that I would annoy someone or take up too much space or be a problem.

In this moment, I knew I was annoying this man, but it was not a problem with me. Not only was I not mortified, annoying him was deliciously pleasing.

There's not this unknown wrongness lurking in me anymore; I know that was one of the steps on the path. Also, I understand a lot more about how societal conditioning and patriarchy works. None of this happened in a vacuum.

But I am not afraid of annoying people anymore. I will not go out of my way to annoy anyone (with the possible exception of puns), but the fear is gone.

Amazing.

A brief diversion into gun control

When I posted about tonglen on Thursday, I wrote (and believed) that the next logical topic would be my 2008 job loss and the emotional turmoil that followed that. 

Shortly after I posted, I had an interaction that led to some interesting realization and contacts. That was followed by a few days of very interesting thoughts coming via social media interactions. It has been a wonderful few days, and I intend to write about them.

As it is, that first interaction was about gun control. If I don't write about it now, I will keep wanting to elaborate on things with the telling of the story, which will really detract from the story.

Therefore, today we talk about guns so I can get it out of my system.

President Biden announced some new efforts toward gun control. The White House fact sheet is dated April 7th, but all of the conversation was on April 8th. Well, there may still be conversation going on.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-initial-actions-to-address-the-gun-violence-public-health-epidemic/

In a nutshell, these particular issues focus on things that make guns deadlier or harder to trace, allowing family members and law enforcement to flag individuals in crisis, and doing more to collect data, which has previously had a lot in place preventing it. There is also some funding for intervention, and the announcement of a new ATF director.

I did not see anything in there about seizing already purchased guns, or even banning assault weapons themselves, but in general with the most devoted fans of guns, anything will be viewed as a slippery slope to leaving them disarmed and vulnerable to being herded into government camps.

They don't always go straight to the camps in the arguments; usually there is something about how none of these will work. Chicago is frequently cited as a place of strict gun laws and frequent gun violence, but when your area of strict gun laws is surrounded by many areas of lax gun laws, and free travel is allowed, maybe what that means is a need for stricter laws all around. Perhaps stronger federal laws are the answer.

Another common refrain is that gun violence is a mental health issue. That is more complicated, in that being antisocial and violent would probably fall more into sociology, or at least more into personality disorders than what we normally think of as mental illness. For example, if a kid shows up to school with a gun after his girlfriend breaks up with him, because his ego demands that he does not let a woman humiliate him, maybe a psychiatrist could help with that, but the cultural aspects of masculinity are a bigger problem.

Also, if an argument breaks out at a family gathering where people are drinking, and someone gets shot because the guns were as readily available as the liquor, again, maybe family counseling could have helped them resolve the reasons they keep fighting, but it isn't that anyone is mentally ill. Maybe they are kind of jerks, and have emotional damage, but it's not a mental health issue in the typical sense.

To be fair, I have not noticed that the people who claim that the gun problem is a mental health problem have shown a strong interest in funding mental health care, so there's that.

And none of that was even how the issue came about, because the other big argument is that you can't ban anything because the 2nd amendment was put in place so that we could rise up against a tyrannical government if we needed to.

This is false. 

Let's check with the Constitution.

First, the 2nd Amendment says...

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

That does seem to tie it in pretty strongly with the militia, at least based on the order in which it is phrased. What else do we know about the militia?

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15, under things that the Congress shall have the power to do:

"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;"

The militia is under the control of Congress, not for overthrowing them.

The Constitutional Convention did not include a standing army, though the Continental Army did exist. 

Washington himself was pretty keen on having a regular army. With his military experience, that made sense. He pushed Congress for that, and the United States military was created officially via bill on September 29th, 1789, over a year after the Constitution was ratified. Washington still called on militia for help during the Whiskey Rebellion (1791 - 1794). Technically with the National Guard we still have military forces under state governors whom we keep well-organized and bearing arms.

The occasional quote from Thomas Jefferson (who was often a hypocrite) aside, the founding fathers did not picture themselves becoming the tyrants they had deposed. If they had, while it might have seemed possible then, with current technology no amount of Bushmasters is going to successfully take over the government unless they have the help of the military, making it a coup, and not a reliable path to a better democracy.

That doesn't even mean that there is no room for semi-automatic weapons under private ownership, but just saying "2nd Amendment!" is not an effective legal argument. It is also not effective as a moral argument. 

"Possession is 9/10ths of the law" might be a better argument, because there are certainly a lot of guns out there, but I would appreciate some deeper thought, with less parroting.

I would love to see some consensus that there is too much violence, and some acknowledgment of how it supports existing power structures, where a woman is much more likely to be killed by a man, and people of color are much more likely to be killed by cops (even when the people of color are unarmed and the white people are armed). I would appreciate some acknowledgment that the lack of willingness to address those disparities may indicate that you are okay with the imbalance if it is in your favor, which is evil.

It should now be easier for me to avoid tangents in the next post. 

Should.

I mean, I was also tempted to go into something on the intentions of the founding fathers that was going to reference two books, but that was more on general intentions than on guns specifically, and then I didn't. I think I am okay for now.

However, I think if there is another point to be made, it is that I do not say things lightly. I really try and research and think a lot, and that doesn't mean anyone else has to agree, but there is a respect and commitment included with my preparedness that I would like to see respected.

Which is precisely how we get to tomorrow's post.

Review retrospective: Native American Heritage Music

Twitter and the people on it were teaching me a lot about the importance of representation, where people of different races, genders, orientations and abilities are seen and heard. 

That became an influence on the music I listened to fairly early, though with varying results.

Not all of them will make it obviously into this retrospective. There were the posts on women rocking and Black women rocking, and there will be another post on Stevie Wonder (one man, but a man with an enormous catalog). 

There will not be specific posts on my attempts to listen to artists of Asian and Latinx descent (both terribly inefficient terms), but they will show some presence in the section on bands 401 - 500 and the segment on punk. (I have pretty much worked out which topics will be covered now, even though I am still going over old reviews.) My attempts there have not been coherent enough to create separate topics from them, and the same is true as I start to seek out more disabled artists and queer artists.

A lot of what I have found is good, but after a while of searching, there often comes a point where they start finding you. You know enough people making recommendations, or you are reading enough material, or listening to enough similar artists, that the connections start being made more easily.

I am much further ahead with Black and Native American musicians. That makes sense, I started sooner with regular reading, even before I was on Twitter. I started observing both history months in 2010.

At the time I was focusing on reading history, but then you find that there are still people here (should be obvious, sometimes isn't), and they are writing books about now, and they are making music now.

If I go back and forth between Indian, Indigenous, First Nations, and Native American, don't mind me. Different people prefer different words, and that is even more so because I have a lot of Canadians on the list.

My first review of a Native American artist was Bunky Echo-Hawk, who is also a visual artist. In fact I can't find any of his music links anymore, because he is focusing more on the canvas art. However, that I knew of him at all happened because my sisters and I saw an exhibit of his work at the Field Museum in Chicago.

I reviewed him in April 2014, but then I started making a point of finding more Indigenous artists to review in November. I found artists I liked a lot, and artists whose work was personally meaningful, and artists who made me think, often all in the same person.

If Bunky Echo-Hawk's art was not limited to music, he was not unique there. I have read books and poetry by some of the musicians, and others have done beading and carving.

As I started having more reviews under my belt, it occurred to me that I could have a November where not only all of the reviews but also all of the daily songs were by Native American artists. I started looking to see if anyone previously reviewed had new music out, and found almost everyone was at Standing Rock. I had cared before, but then it felt that much more personal.

This year, I am going to do the full month in November. I will also make a playlist bringing in may songs and artists. It is about the only way that I can handle limiting it to seven songs now.

I know there is more to come, and I am excited for that.

Songs for the week:

“You've Got To Run (Spirit Of The Wind) by Buffy Sainte-Marie and Tanya Tagaq -- A big reason to choose this one was that with so many choices and only seven songs, I have to appreciate the two-fer. But also, it's Buffy! Some of my earliest memories are of her on Sesame Street, and her mouthbow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zb0WTSLsY

“Clash Of The Clans” by Snotty Nose Rez Kids -- I like Snotty Nose Rez Kids for their humor and theatricality. It feels more like early rap to me, before it got all gangster (maybe with some overlap), including skits on the albums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4UersvGsIs

“Mehcinut” by Jeremy Dutcher -- He has a lot of beautiful music, imbued with a spirit of holiness. This one, though, captivates me so much, that I probably do not take in his other music enough. Some songs do that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pDRpDjrBZE

"Walk Alone" by LightningCloud -- RedCloud was one of my favorite reviews, but by the time I did it, he and his girlfriend, Crystle Lightning, and he had teamed up to form LightningCloud. I love all their iterations, but chose this one because the pandemic has made poverty and homelessness worse, and we need to work on that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxrfna843jY

“Anti-Social” by Frank Waln -- Waln was one of my earlier reviews, but this video is brand new, uploaded on March 11th. I think it fits with the times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ27V2CbP70

“Lonely With You” by Tracy Bone -- There is so little country that I like, that I am impressed with Bone that she makes me like her so much. This is probably my favorite of her songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GajkiYW8Bqc

“Don't Forget About Me” by Michael Bucher -- Just a reminder that we can and need to do a lot better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dldfHWso2Q

Tonglen

Tonglen is a form of meditation that was mentioned in Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression by James S Gordon. I thought his other book, The Transformation, was better over all, but it didn't mention tonglen and it was a good experience for me.

Here is a general article on the topic:

https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-tonglen/

This is from January. I finished reading the book early in October, and two months later (in early December), I tried it. The article came out a month after that, so it was not a part of my experience. However, it is good to have another explanation of it, from someone more experienced, because once again I am pretty sure I did it wrong.

This is how I understood it: you focus on someone in pain, and you try and do a trade, taking their pain away, and sending good feeling. Gordon recounted spending time with an ill friend, but noted that you did not have to be physically present. Its purpose is to cultivate unselfishness, but also seemed like it could relate to connection, with the individual and with the greater world. 

There was another meditation I had tried earlier, going back and forth focusing on people who have harmed you and people you have harmed, focusing on forgiveness. I'd had a good experience with that, which I am sure I will write about eventually. Tonglen felt like a similar activity but with a different focus. It felt important to do.

I was also scared to do it. Ready for another mission story?

I don't think this is common knowledge, but my family and I are furnaces. We run hot, which can include functioning well as a source of heat for others. This is why we prefer cooler weather.

Fresno does have hot summers, but there are still seasons. Also this might have happened in Modesto, which would often get a damp fog in winter. I just remember that Sister S was cold. 

I was not. We were sitting next to each other anyway, so I put my arm next to hers so she would feel that heat. That was just arms, though, and I kind of mentally pictured this transfer of heat to her. 

It worked! She felt better, but then I was feeling cold and a little queasy, which was weird. I guess I overdid it, but I hadn't really thought I was doing anything.

Certainly, it is possible to give too much, though it normally wouldn't happen that way. Maybe the issue was not that I gave her my warmth but that I took her coldness, which I had not visualized or intended. Maybe I didn't have enough warmth for both of us.

It was an experience that stuck with me, without me ever having derived a full meaning from it. It worried me in the context of trying this. I was not ruling out a mystical connection where his pain would be lessened and transferred to me, but I was not really expecting it either. However, sometimes you can fall into things. A memory can pull up deep sadness, or anger, or fear, and I was a little worried about that, but it still felt important to do.

I did not feel a mystical connection. I did feel light. 

As my breath went in and out and I tried to visualize, what I felt was tremendous peace. The source of that peace was the assurance that I was enough. I could absorb his pain, or help him with it... whatever it was right to do, I could do. 

The path from undefined knowledge that I was disappointing and lacking to clarity that I was not had a lot of stops along the way, so there had been groundwork laid for it. Even so, this was a profound shift.

I am enough. How was it possible? Yet clearly it was.

And amazingly, I was enough while still unemployed, and broke, and fat, and single, and everything else that had ever seemed like proof that clearly there was something wrong with me.

Still enough.

Which must mean that next week we will get into the unemployment crisis that started in 2008.

A fear allayed

No, not the fear of never finding love; that one is still a work in progress.

However, that other family fear -- that maybe I couldn't be a good mother -- has been put to rest.

There was a general fear that with my family experience and as messed up as I have been, that I would mess up my kids too. When I have worried about that, never having kids seems better. 

More specific fears have included a concern that in my effort to compensate for never feeling understood, I would end up being really annoying in my efforts to understand them. Given that my fear of marriage was that my inability to accept love and feel secure in it would be annoying for my husband, let us just note that the general fear of being a nuisance is strong with me.

There was also a fear that I would not know what to do with rebellious kids. Yes, developing my own personality and sense of sovereignty did annoy my father, but overall I was a pretty good kid. I have no idea what you do with a destructive child. I hoped that if it came up I would figure something out, but I wasn't sure.

I have also had two people suggest that I was too selfish with my own time and would hate motherhood, but I am pretty sure that was projection. I have handled having my time taken over and over again.

That's the thing: I have had experiences where it is possible to believe that I could have done okay.

It started in late 2012, when I inadvertently adopted a bunch of depressed teenagers on Twitter. 

That was the one that made me feel like a hypocrite when I couldn't conceive of deserving happiness for myself. 

It was also the one that really brought home the significance of Adverse Childhood Experiences, and rape culture, and a lot of other problems with the world. 

It was often stressful and scary. There was deep depression, mental illness, eating disorders, and suicidal ideation. There was talking someone through hallucinations, for which I was surely not qualified but suddenly I was in the middle of it, and fleeing didn't feel right.

Of course, that was the genesis of the Long Reading list, but then, that is my answer for issues where I don't feel like I know enough: research and pray, and love a lot. 

That is probably what I would have done with a rebellious child. 

Later with tutoring and teaching youth Sunday school, I got to see other, perhaps easier aspects of adolescence. Before that I got to teach nursery, and explore the world of toddlers. 

That was mostly joy. I get that having my time with them being limited helped, and I am not saying there were no issues. There was a runner once who got farther than was comfortable, and one pair of broken glasses... yeah, things happened. Still, they were cute and fun, and then their parents picked them up. If some were harder to work with than others, I just rolled with it. 

Observing them also really helped me understand my kitten.

If any mothers wish to be offended by the comparison, you may do so. I know there are differences. 

I also saw with the toddlers how a sense of safety allowed greater freedom and calm, and I saw that with Lilly. 

For the kitten we got so young, and for whom I was the main early source of food and affection, she sees me as her mother. We have three other cats and a dog now, and have had many other pets over the course of many years. As much as I have loved them, and they have loved me back, this relationship is different. 

It has also been a source of great joy, even if this source of joy regularly chews up my hands. Oxytocin is real, and is not limited to humans.

The last thing has been the most painful, but it has also been the one that has most shown my mettle. Caring for my mother has tested me more than anything else, but I have passed that test.

There were ways in which she became more childlike. That could be endearing as she slipped her hand into mine, and when simple pleasures worked.

Even more, there were many ways in which she required more patience. There were many times when she was upset or scared, and when I needed to understand her perspective, even if it did not reflect reality. 

There were many times where I had to get up earlier, or stay with her until she fell asleep. 

Keeping her bathed and dressed and feed and stimulated... I did all of that.

Maybe in some ways it was like having that argumentative, angry child. She said some horrible things, and they weren't right, but she believed that she meant them.

Through all of that, I did pretty well.

I wasn't as good as I wanted to be. I had these ideas of what a more energetic person might come up with, but there are whole books about the "good enough" mother. If it were something that applied at the time, I would have read them all.

I did read a lot about dementia, and senior health, and whatever else seemed relevant.

Of course, those were all things that were happening when I was older. Under my original life plan when I was going to get married at 20 and then have a child every two years, until I was 40, I might not have done so well. That plan had lots of problems.

There is a limit to how much you can ever know about what would have happened, but once again it seems possible that I was never as hopeless as I feared. That has been encouraging overall. 

It also means that it is time to talk about tonglen.

That time I lied to my therapist

No, I have never regularly attended therapy, but I did do two sessions a few months apart with the friend of a friend when she visited from out of town.

She was a member of my church, so we shared a belief system. I was very interested in the methods. She used muscle testing to focus on key ages as a way of guiding the issues. If you think that sounds hokey, I get it, but I had seen some things done with muscle testing for physical health that had impressed me, and I was at least open to it.

In fact, when I talk about things that happened when I was 6 and 14 and 17, it was those sessions with Lisa where it started to make sense to me why some memories were so sharp for me, and the significance they'd had. 

That was over two sessions. One of the most important ages was 31, and Reed, because in fact I had turned 32 by the time the session happened. I still don't think it lasted for more than a year, but the time passed was significant.

As we got to the heart of my problem -- not merely feeling unloved but that love wasn't possible -- she took me through some things and asked me if I could know that I could be loved.

I could not, but I was also sure that if I said that she would want to talk about it more. I did not want to talk about it more. I believed she would try and convince me and I was not ready to be convinced.

So I told her "yes", but I did not mean it.

There are a few different issues here, so it does get messy, but I want to try and touch on them.

First of all, unwillingness to heal is a problem. With patients suffering from combat-related PTSD, there is often a sense that healing would betray the unit members that they lost. Survivor's guilt can be an issue. 

It might be worth thinking about how an overemphasis on the value of the purity of a woman and analogies about chewed up gum might be damaging for people whose trauma stems from rape. That's not my issue, but it seems worth thinking about.

For me, I was used to knowing that something was wrong with me, and that was not tied to any specific event, but predated memory. Furthermore, it had been made quite clear through advertising and entertainment and other sources that beauty was a debt that women owe to men, and that beauty is incompatible with fat. 

It was a lot of conditioning to get over in two sessions.

I think it was reasonable that I did not get past it then, but it does bother me that I lied. Honesty is important to me, and it is certainly important to healing.

There is another thing here, though, in that most of the times that I have lied, it has been because someone asked me something that they didn't have a right to know. There are certainly cases where refusing to answer is a very clear answer, but there is a lot to be said for being able to say, "That is none of your business. I do not owe you that information."

Though it is probably not the most productive way of answering your therapist.

It was my assumption that she would not let me stop there, not ready to move on, but I don't really know that. Not pushing people past where they are able to go is actually a thing that comes up a lot in therapy, and there is probably training about that. I probably could have been honest in that respect, though maybe admitting it would have its own pain.

I believe it can also be good to keep in mind that not being ready for something at one time does not rules out future readiness. Of course, that might have felt like hope, and hope was what got me into that mess in the first place.

At the root there was an unwillingness to be loved as I was; I wanted to get better and earn love instead. 

Getting past that was going to require discovering my anger, and understanding my body better, and even before that finding many people who did not think they were worthy of love either. I knew they were wrong, but knowing it gave me this vague sense of being a hypocrite.

It has been a long path.