Author: Kelley

Jukebox

Today is all about growly-voiced boys. There’s no particular lyrical deep-inner-meaning to the songs — no, I’m not planning to wander out with a gun and I don’t think that All Is Lost. Quite the contrary, in fact. These days I feel as though much is being found.

If you’ve seen The Sopranos then you’ve heard a heavily edited version of “Woke Up This Morning.” This original version is better: I enjoy the story-ness of it, and I really like the spoken word section towards the end:

When you woke up this morning everything was gone
By half past ten your head was going ding dong
Ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes
Like some voice trying to tell you there’s something you should know
Last night you were flying but today you’re so low
Ain’t it times like these makes you wonder if you’ll ever know
The meaning of things as they appear to the others
Wives husbands mothers fathers sisters and brothers
Don’t you wish you didn’t function, don’t you wish you didn’t think
Beyond the next paycheck and the next little drink
Well you do. So make up your mind to go on
‘Cause when you woke up this morning, everything you had was gone.

I think it would be awesome to see someone good do that with total commitment at Rockaroke (oh my, Rockaroke: a story for another post…).

“Corrosion” is a song I sometimes listen to obsessively when I’m writing. I have no explanation for this beyond the sheer drive of it. But I know the song wouldn’t work if he were one of those flute-toned tenors, you know?

I discovered Robbie Robertson’s solo work on the radio one afternoon back in the 80’s, when I was driving somewhere in the furnace known as Atlanta, miserable in the heat, and suddenly thought I was hearing a new U2 song — the guitar is unmistakable. But the voice wasn’t Bono (although he’s there too, an added bonus). I fell in love with this song, and in fact the whole album — if you know it and have also read Dangerous Space, you may recognize the origin of the title (although not the content) of “Somewhere Down the Diamondback Road.” Robbie Robertson’s music kept me going through some hard times alone in the late 80’s before Nicola moved to the US, and I will always have a soft spot for his gravelly voice.

And no growly-boy roster would be complete without Seattle’s own Eddie Vedder, a great musician and, by all accounts, a genuinely nice guy who patronizes his local coffeeshop and turns up at other people’s shows. That’s a very Seattle way to be an artist. I love this town.

Enjoy your Saturday. I hope the sun is bright, but not hard, wherever you are.

Edited to add: I’m sorry to say that I don’t have enough server space for all my audio, so most jukebox playlists become inactive after a few months. This is one. Very sorry. But the music is worth seeking out, it’s great!

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Nicola joins LLF

Nicola has joined the board of the Lambda Literary Foundation. I am hugely proud of her, and I think she will do many Good Things to help LLF grow and prosper.

The Foundation presents the annual Lambda Literary Awards and offers a variety of services and support to quiltbag (LGBT and otherwise queer) writers and readers. They have a committed and enthusiastic board. And I’m especially excited that Nicola has this opportunity to help queer writers grow and prosper and find their place at the literary table — there is no one in my experience who better combines clear-headed pragmatism about the business (and its bullshit) with absolute passion for writing, and the talent to help others make their work better.

My sweetie is made of awesome. I’m glad she’s sharing it with LLF!

Everything but the M word

This past Monday, Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law a bill that we here in Washington are calling the “Everything But Marriage” act. The full text is here. Here’s the digest version:

SB 5688 declares that for all purposes under state law, state registered domestic partners shall be treated the same as married spouses. Any privilege, immunity, right, benefit, or responsibility granted or imposed by statute, administrative or court rule, policy, common law or any other law to an individual because the individual is or was a spouse, or because the individual is or was an in-law in a specified way to another individual, is granted on equivalent terms, substantive and procedural, to an individual because the individual is or was in a state registered domestic partnership or because the individual is or was, based on a state registered domestic partnership, related in a specified way to another individual.
 
Provides that the act shall be liberally construed to achieve equal treatment, to the extent not in conflict with federal law, of state registered domestic partners and married spouses.
 
— Washington State Bill 5688

The bill won’t become law until July 26. This is because a bunch of civic-minded folks are busily trying to gather enough signatures (more than 120,000) to put a referendum on the November ballot to undo the passage of this bill. If they get the signatures, the bill won’t become law until the November vote. Or never, depending on how it goes.

Right now I don’t think the CMFs have enough clout to overturn it. And frankly, they aren’t doing their larger causes any favors by making such a fuss over it, but that’s their problem.

Nicola and I are among Washington’s more than 5,300 registered domestic partner couples. Since early in our relationship, we’ve been accumulating all the legal documents that people who can’t get married need to protect ourselves, our property, and our access/responsibilities to each other. But it’s good to have our rights not because we paid thousands of dollars in legal fees to secure them, but because we are adult citizens of the state sharing in a pool of rights accessible to any adults who want to make a commitment to each other.

At least that’s how I hope it’ll be come July 26.

Only human

I’m a big fan of the awesome Carolyn Hax, the only advice columnist I have ever given a damn about (I am way suspicious of people who make a living telling strangers how to make personal choices). I like her a lot. Based on her print/online presence, she’s friend material. Her advice is consistent and always focused on relationship, communication, connection, being human around other humans. The way that we all abrade each other sometimes. Common courtesy. Kindness. Having the back of people you love.

I’m sending you off to a column from a couple days ago. It’s a two-parter: you’ll find the link to part two at the bottom of part one (or at the end of this post). Part two is the payoff, but part one gives you the context.

And although I’ve started this post as a fangirly squee-out to Hax, really it’s all about the part-two story that Jersey Guy tells. It made me cry. Some of us are never lucky enough to have this moment of realization. And although I think all of us make big life-changing mistakes, some of us are never lucky enough to make them with people who will forgive us.

I’m one of the lucky ones: for all the countless thoughtless ways I have fucked up with my Most Important People, I have been forgiven, and for most of the ways that people have fucked up with me, I have forgiven them. Sometimes only after a long time, and sometimes with very little grace. But I am working on it.

I get so tired of my own defensiveness, my own special-babyness, my sometimes utter lack of kindness, my occasionally incredibly limited perspective. I need stories like Jersey Guy’s to remind me that if I’m special, then we’re all special, and that I’d better not forget that we’re all only human. Only is a funny word: it implies “merely” or even sometimes “unfortunately” — but I think the real lesson here is that only human is a vast, complicated and lifetime-project thing to be. It’s a thing worth being the best at that we can; because the best is so fucking beautiful it turns my heart inside-out.

Jersey Guy – part one.
Jersey Guy – part two.

Like a Song: Breathe

This essay is published today at @U2, the (yep, she’s going to say it again) best damn U2 fan website on the planet. The essay is part of our “Like a Song” series, in which @U2 staffers reflect on the personal meaning that specific songs have for us. It’s one of our most popular regular features. If you enjoy this one, I invite you to also read “Like a Song: Surrender” and “Like a Song: Elevation”, as well as the many other great essays from members of the @U2 writing team.

I’m posting the essay here in its entirety because I want to include the song itself, for those who don’t know it, as well as the lyrics (since the song moves rather fast). You’ll find both after the essay.

I really do love this song. I find it structurally fascinating. I love Bono’s voice, the urgency and precision of the rhythm section, the guitar… wow, listen to the guitar become positively ecstatic at about 3:40 as Bono proclaims We are people born of sound. I believe it. I cannot wait to see this song live.

Enjoy.

 
Like a Song: Breathe
 

It’s been hard to breathe.

As is true for many people, much of my life is suddenly at risk: my income, my mortgage, my career, my art, the life I love so much and have worked so hard to build. In what seemed like only a moment, only a breath, the world’s markets went down in flames and took my money with them: the business I started has not yet found its feet, and may never become sustainable in this shaky economy; and the writing project that has consumed me for three years was given to someone else.

Most of us have taken a punch in the gut sometime in our lives. Most of us know what it’s like when we suddenly can’t breathe.

Man at the door says if I want to stay alive a bit longer
There’s three things I need you to know.

I knew what those things were: squeeze down our budget, get a real job, and don’t whine. Millions of people are having a hard time. So I sent out a truckload of resumes and tailored cover letters. I had a hundred “coffee meetings” to network with strangers, both of us smiling hard and hoping desperately each other would have the answer. I went to one unbelievably surreal job fair where the tightly packed room smelled so strongly of fear — like something burning — that I had to leave.

The forest fire that is fear

All those hours at my desk, working on those letters and resumes, I listened constantly to No Line on the Horizon. It was clear to me right away that this album is Bono’s line in the sand: he is a musician first and a world-saver second. Maybe I heard it that way because I was missing my screenplay badly, and trying to come to terms with the idea of someone else doing the writing that I thought of as mine. This is standard practice in Hollywood, it happens to every writer, but it was the first time it had happened to me. I wanted to start another project, to keep working, to stay sane. But I’m not Bono; art doesn’t pay my mortgage right now, and so I told myself that art was not the priority.

But I went on listening to Bono throwing down, being so clear: Sing your heart out.

And then I had the chance to apply for a job that would involve working around writers. A tough job for not enough pay, but maybe I could still do some writing of my own, or at least be near people who were. I fought like a bear for it. So did the more than 100 other people who applied. And sometimes there are miracles, but not this time. I was their number three pick; they talked about bringing all three of us in to interview with the entire staff, but the staff fell stone in love with number one, and that was it.

And there I was, no job, no screenplay, and I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was run in mental circles inside my own head, like a frightened animal in a forest fire.

The forest fire that is fear

And then… I don’t know. Maybe I ran myself out and was finally exhausted enough that the only thing I could do was turn and face my fears. Really look at them. Losing my home, my security, my writing, my confidence, failing, being ashamed, wrecking my partner’s life.

Here is what I saw. I saw that breath is life. Oxygen keeps our hearts beating and gives our muscles strength, and feeds our brains so we can think. And fear is like fire: it takes the air away. It burns our hope and our will and leaves us only the ashes of grief that will choke us if we let them. No wonder I was feeling helpless and afraid: I had stopped breathing.

And I’m not the only one. Millions of us every day are frightened and grieving. Right this second, someone is losing their job, their home, their relationship. Their child is sick. Their beloved cat is dying in their arms. They are blinking at the “Closed” sign on their favorite coffee shop where the barista always knew exactly how they liked their latte.

And right this second, someone is finding their courage to start again. Right now, someone is trying to breathe.

So here it is: writing is my breath. It may not pay my mortgage, but it will save me so that I can save myself. Writing this will save me. I got my screenplay back, and in a 78-hour period last week I spent 42 hours working on it, and that will save me. I am going to start offering my services as an editor and looking for more freelance gigs, and even if I can’t get enough work, even if I end up again as some company’s director of whatever, what I am doing right now will save me. Because I feel like myself again. I can breathe.

So this song has become for me the roar on the other side of that horrible silence. Every day I will walk out into the street and sing my heart out for as long as I can.

We all have someone or something we love so much that it defines us. We all have things that make us who we are. When you’re frightened, when it feels too hard, that’s when you need your clear brain and your strength the most –€“ so run, run to the things that make you breathe. Whether you find them in art, family, religion, helping others, reading books, gardening, hiking, counting stars, no matter — stand in the space of those things and breathe the pure oxygen they give you. Breathe deep. I promise it will help.

Walk out into a sunburst street
Sing your heart out
Sing my heart out.
I’ve found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it’s all that I found.
And I can breathe.

To use the E-Phonic MP3 Player you will need Adobe Flash Player 9 or better and a Javascript enabled browser.

“Breathe” – U2

16th of June, nine-oh-five, doorbell rings
Man at the door says if I want to stay alive a bit longer
There’€™s three things I need you to know
Three.

Coming from a long line of traveling sales people on my mother’€™s side
I wasn’€™t gonna buy just anyone’€™s cockatoo
So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home?
Would you?

These days are better than that
These days are better than that

Every day I die again, and again I’€™m reborn
Every day I have to find the courage
To walk out into the street
With arms out
Got a love you can’t defeat
Neither down nor out
There’€™s nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now

16th of June, Chinese stocks are going up
And I’€™m coming down with some new Asian virus
Juju man, juju man
Doc says you’re fine, or dying
Please
Nine-oh-nine, St. John Divine on the line, my pulse is fine
But I’€™m running down the road like loose electricity
While the band in my head plays a striptease.

The roar that lies on the other side of silence
The forest fire that is fear so deny it.

Walk out into the street
Sing your heart out
The people we meet will not be drowned out
There’€™s nothing you have that I need
I can breathe
Breathe now

We are people born of sound
The songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown

Walk out into a sunburst street
Sing your heart out
Sing my heart out
I’€™ve found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it’s all that I found
And I can breathe
Breathe now.

Now you see it

Here’s something fun for a Sunday — the winners of The Year’s Best Illusion contest.

From that post, you have to follow additional links to see the examples of the illusions (or you can follow the links below, although the brief article is useful for setting context). Either way, the links are definitely worth checking out. The curve ball animation is just the sort of thing I love — very simple, very clear, and a wonderful reminder to me of the complexity of the brain, which I sometimes find marvelous, and sometimes seems exactly like the tangle of cables and electric cords under my computer/printer/monitor (as in, you call this organization?!).

And I’m fascinated by the biosex/contrast demonstration. I wonder if traditional gendering of women includes deliberate enhancement of contrast through cosmetics because our brains are all wired this way, or our brains respond this way now because women have spent so much time enhancing the contrast — thus demonstrating the power of socialization to influence the way the brain perceives the world. Chicken or egg?

Coming tomorrow, a new essay for @U2 that I will post in its entirety here, so I can include music with it. And besides, I’m sending you all away to other websites today, but really I like having you here. So tomorrow, no revolving door…

It is a remarkably beautiful day in Seattle. I hope that all is well wherever you are.

Cost

I’m busy lately, mostly in ways that I enjoy, with so many more things I want to do. And I’m finding it ironic that I’m better at doing things now — more skills, more focus, way more discipline — but the doing takes much more out of me.

The benefit of age for me so far has been expertise and confidence and a stronger sense of myself. And now I need to learn how to gracefully pay the price for all these gifts of age: the fact that I literally cannot read without glasses anymore; that if I get up early and throw myself into work and forget to eat, I will feel bad for hours; that intense work fuels my soul but makes my body tired and shaky for days; and that I can no longer sleep as deeply as I used to, no matter how tired I am. I’m not repairing myself back to my twenty-something baseline anymore. I am, to my surprise, destructible. I’m not talking about death now: I am doing pretty well with accepting that I’ll die. I just hadn’t spent much time thinking about the slowing down that has to be managed before the stopping.

I live with someone whose body has changed in some accelerated ways, whereas I’m pretty much on schedule, and I am not complaining. But my awareness of my own body has increased exponentially because Nicola is so in tune with hers, and because we have had to learn to pay attention to nuances; to learn to distinguish MS from whatever else might be going on. And so I’m noticing, and feeling… not angry, only occasionally sad (although I suspect there’s more of that to come), but mostly just really annoyed right now. There is so much I want to do.

HAW: More on ground rules

A long post at Humans At Work about ground rules for teams and managers. Yes, this is what I think about sometimes when I’m not thinking about writing (grin).

This may be it from me today… long conversation yesterday with Executive Producer regarding Screenplay Notes, and so I will be working this afternoon on revisions. Which is fun for me. So I’m here, I’m good, and I’m looking forward to resuming the conversation tomorrow.

Enjoy your day.