Wheee! 2018 has been pretty bananas so far. Here’s a quick recap of all the Wendigo Productions stuff that’s going on:
Wendy (Scripps, owner of Wendigo) and I went down to Nashville to see two of our bands–The Liza Colby Sound and The Tip play at the Hutton Hotel. We got some time with old friends Bebe Buell and Eerie Von and strong-armed Tip singer Benny Carl into BBQing for us.
The Liza Colby Sound went to Spain and played sold out shows and ate so much good food that Liza is still worried about it, unnecessarily of course.
Sam’s band The Sweet Things are recording a new album at Flux Studios with Matt Chiaravelle producing.
(Photo by Nat Koho)
The Threads are working on a new video and already have an album in the can that we will help them release soon.
Ten Ton Mojo are regrouping at the moment in order to rise like a badass, guitar driven phoenix. In the meantime their tees are showing up in some pretty fresh new places:
Wendy’s birthday party on July 18 was beyond awesome, with sets from The Shrine (featuring our good friend Corey Parks slaying the bass), The Liza Colby Sound, The Sweet Things, and The Tip. I’m especially proud of this because I put the whole thing together, complete with shrieking at everyone about everything and then getting super wrecked after to assuage the guilt over all the shrieking.
(Stage shots are courtesy of Johan Vipper, people shots and video below courtesy of Anjanette McGrath)
We filmed everything and will have a video out in a month or two.
Wendigo is helping produce this benefit for the Joe Strummer Foundation happening in September, so Wendy, Liza and I are headed across the pond once more.
And lastly, in December Liza Colby Sound is headed to Japan with Wendigo artist Reiko Lauper in tow to act as interpreter, fashion consultant, voice of reason, eye candy. I’ll have more on that later.
Right now I sit here happily in the woods of Michigan at my mother’s beautiful, fairyland home. Hours of time alone, the guest cottage to myself, with only the sound of wind in trees and squirrels scolding my dog. It feels like cool water running over my parched energetic field.
Usually there is a lot going on during these summer visits: my brother and his wife vacation at the same time and my sister lives down the road, so we cook and argue and eat and go to the beach and watch movies and drink too much wine on the porch or patio. For over a decade the-ex-who-is-a-total-dick-now-and-thus-shall-not-be-named came with me, and for the most part it was perfection. Storm is here with me sometimes, last year it was Sam too. He would have come this year but he is recording. So it worked out according to what was needed, just me and the dog. No loud music, no navigating through crowds on the street, just books and a bit of yoga and staring at green–a welcome refueling and reflection after months full of shows and travel.
My experiences and emotions of the last few years have been so raw, so deep. so buoyant, and at times so rife with sadness that I can’t help but assume that I still have much to learn. Why else would my soul insist upon thrusting me into so much at a time when most people are looking toward settling quietly into a life of comfort and peace?
I can see now that my spirit has always known exactly where it wanted to go. My brain and heart not so much. My intuition and some weird drive deep within have thrust me into difficult situations that test all sanity, and wonderful situations that other people only fantasize about experiencing. Highs impossibly high and lows well into the abyss. I am both incredibly lucky and simultaneously stuck in an accelerated math class that no one could possibly enjoy.
One of the NPC’s in one of my favorite video games occasionally shouts as he’s dying, after behaving quite badly, “I feel EVERYTHING!!!”
(last ten seconds)
Ayup.
Recently I found myself in the company of a physically gorgeous, carnally gifted, emotionally intelligent and decidedly cavalier young man. I didn’t seek the experience out, it sought me and I was taken by surprise. There is a homing device that some people have toward each other. There is a recognition of sorts; your drives and damages match one another’s in a way that you can operate comfortably, at least temporarily, within a personal parameter, like familiar dance steps.
Anyway, the experience, as pleasing as it was (which was very) held up a mirror for me to have to examine once again who I am and what I fear (aging, inferiority, being a fraud, blah, blah). In other words, it made me feel crazy. But it did set something in motion within me that while not exactly comfortable, feels necessary to come to the surface at this time.
My favorite dance is one of control, of taking care of. What do you need? I will provide. I am grounded, let me calm you. I love playing the great mother. So the people that seek me out desire my energy, my care. If they are attractive to me in some way–physically, emotionally, mentally, I will take over for them. And they will love and occasionally resent me for it.
I have always been unsure of my value, especially with men, if I am not the giving tree. But that can be draining and at some point I find myself depleted, fed up and rebellious, usually pulling it all back and leaving people feeling bereft and confused.
Half my people think I’m the sanest person they know, the other half thinks I’m completely bonkers. They’re both right. I have spent most of my adult life trying to prove sanity, always failing miserably in the end with too much emotion or a ramped-up-to drunken tirade. I’m finally willing to accept it–I’m fucking nuts. Not all the time, but often enough to be a source of exasperation to the men who love or have loved me and an even bigger source of frustration to myself. I want to be normal; but I never have been. Not when I was a little girl, not now.
But you probably aren’t either, are you?
So with that final, sighing acceptance comes this thought – maybe the nutty part isn’t what it appears on the surface. Maybe the “crazy” is actually my spirit’s sane reaction to the constant pressure that I put on myself to be admirable, to be loveable, to somehow be a holy badass, both chaste and solemn but also exciting and fun. In practical terms that means I should be more: a more thoughtful friend, a great partner to one person for the rest of my life, less dramatic, less emotional, more sexual, less sexual, more NORMAL.
It’s exhausting.
I am thoroughly enjoying this time alone and I wonder if I am one of those women that will live out her dotage without the usual one to one partnership. My mother is one of them. My closest female friends seem to be on that track as well. There are lovers and loves, but in the end we choose not to stay. We always blame ourselves, but what if there is no blame to be had? Maybe some people’s souls need to create a bit of chaos now and then. Maybe normal is different for every person and it’s okay for some of us to vibrate at a higher pitch. At the very least it gives the saner ones something to do.
When I landed in this peaceful place a week ago my mind was running, running, running. I couldn’t stop the obsessive thoughts. I can obsess over anything– people, the past, work, why I’m not exercising more, hair color, anything, everything, nothing. At first I tried to slap the thoughts down. For days I shouted in my head “Stop it!!” But to no avail.
Then it occurred to me–if this is happening and there’s no way to fight it, there must be information to be gleaned before gaining freedom. Maybe this default-mode chaos is trying to tell me something? I sat quietly and let the thoughts flood, working to observe impassively. letting lie the urge to pick up the phone for distraction. Until finally my higher, deeper self spoke over the chattering.
This what came to me; maybe it can help you too:
My rush of thoughts and obsessing is like any other addiction; it is noise designed to keep me from feeling everything. Everything which is often unpleasant: sadness, shame, regret, anger, confusion, fear. But knowing that still doesn’t immediately create silent space. What do we do with it, or how do we learn to live with this particular defense mechanism comfortably?
My inner voice said clearly and simply: “I love you.”
To which I responded, “Are you fucking kidding me? Really with this shit again?”
GROSS! So gross. It’s always the same stupid, Oprah book club answer. But I knew it was right. That’s it. There is no defense. Fighting only makes the demons more determined to be heard. There is only a slow, quiet shift one excruciating, mundane, non-immediately gratified moment at a time.
So I sucked it up and have started saying “I love you” at myself, or the spinning thoughts, or the brownies my mom made, maybe my dog, at whatever is handy, whenever I feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed by my bad, bad brain. Doesn’t really matter who or what is being addressed. It’s simply the act of allowing love to enter the energy field. And the chattering, while still there, has quieted. I am comfortable in my own skin right now; I can breathe fully in this moment.
For me, a loving acceptance seems to be the key to everything. It’s not enough to just say it’s okay any more. It has to be deeper and kinder than that–more forgiving, more heart-centered. We have to love the parts of ourselves that don’t gibe with that ideal and impossible version that we’re always hammering ourselves to attain. We love the weirdnesses of our lovers and friends; we must do the same for ourselves.
I wanted to stay in that relationship I thought was forever, but I couldn’t. My soul wouldn’t allow me to take the easy route and deny my own wild, weird, lonely nature. I would have missed all the amazing, sexy, gorgeous, terrible, devastating things I’ve been through since that implosion. I wouldn’t have Sam to lean on as partner-in-crime and confidant. I would have missed this beautiful time in the country with just me and my dog, and maybe only postponed the inevitable calculus class set to a Motorhead soundtrack that my life insists upon being, despite all efforts to tame it otherwise.
Namaste, bitches. ❤
MISS ANTHROPE'S HOUSE OF HIGH DRAMA 