Gaia is annoyed.

Just as I am currently taking vitamin C megadoses in an attempt to fight off a cold, Gaia's immune system has kicked into high gear fighting off the oil industry and its threat to her well-being. Katrina, Rita, and the rest of her hurricanes are big, cleansing sneezes. Let's set up those solar panels, and brew that biodiesel, and not annoy the Lady any further!

The Katrina Commission

It seems likely that there will be a Katrina Commission of some type that will hold hearings on the debacle that we see unfolding right now. I sure hope there will be, and that they will be as thorough and meticulous as the 9/11 commission was, and that they will make their report public like the 9/11 commission did. I have a copy of the 9/11 Report. I would buy a Katrina Report too.

It also seems likely that such a Katrina Commission will stop short of assigning blame to the U.S. government, just as the 9/11 commission did. Or maybe they will have an inescapable conclusion to draw, by the time they're done investigating.

Or maybe we will have a partisan regime change in 2008 partly as a result of this disgrace? Or maybe those 50 million people who voted for the current administration will cover their eyes and plug their ears again and vote for the next Republican? Or maybe the Democrats will continue their incompetent messaging and/or continue their march toward the right. And then there will be no one to defend my right to choose or anyone's civil rights...

Everyone has to act, or Katrina-scale loss of life and degradation will continue. Those in power aren't going anywhere, and they will continue to be indifferent to our rights and safety, unless every one of us takes action.

I Dream of Ronnie

Last night I had a dream about Ronnie Cramer. This happens to me a lot. Dreaming about my new music colleagues I mean. I've had dreams about Matt Davignon and Ferrara Brain Pan too...those are just the ones that come to mind.

So anyway, in this dream, I found myself in a huge parking lot out back of a similarly huge warehouse store. The parking lot faded toward the road with tall weeds growing between the pavement cracks. In the parking lot were dozens of motorcycles and their people. This included Ronnie and his bike. I met up with him and he said he had been trying to get in touch with me, because he'd been appointed the director of the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, and he wanted me to come to Denver and work for him full-time.

I was stunned and excited but then I realized that this was the outcome from a tarot reading I'd done (while awake) quite some time back. I told Ronnie that I had read the cards to say that I was going to be offered something that was going to seem like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but that it was going to be something that would leave me destitute and alone. I told him I could tell that this was the opportunity the cards had foretold and that I had to turn it down. But if he wanted me to come out there for a week and play a gig, or do some contract work, I could do that. He was disappointed.

I don't know if the card reading is fulfilled or not. I tend to think not. I'll still pay close attention to any other once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that come my way while I'm awake.

How do we keep the experience?

There's a movie I really like called Six Degrees of Separation. It's based on the play by John Guare, and these are his words, spoken by Ouisa Kittredge, played by Stockard Channing (who was Oscar-nominated for the role):

"And we turn him into an anecdote, to dine out on, like we're doing right now. But it was an experience. I will not turn him into an anecdote. How do we keep what happens to us? How do we fit it into life without turning it into an anecdote, with no teeth, and a punch line you'll mouth over and over, years to come: 'Oh, that reminds me of the time that impostor came into our lives. Oh, tell the one about that boy.' And we become these human jukeboxes, spilling out these anecdotes. But it was an experience. How do we keep the experience?"

It occurs to me that whenever any of us suffers a loss, there's a process by which the experience, now over, has to be turned into an anecdote, in order for us to move on from it. Everything that was powerful about that which we've lost, we have to diffuse. We have to lock away the sights, sounds, smells, touches, tastes, laughter, and the charge that's on every place we've been while that experience was going on -- or else the absence of that which we've lost becomes unbearable, and we can't move on.

I've been reassured that "she who dies with the most stories wins." Are the stories experiences or anecdotes? I've certainly got stories to tell. But I don't want them to be anecdotes that I entertain my friends with. I want to be able to revisit them privately in my own soul and relive them...but if I don't put them away, the grief never ends.

I'm sane and happy and productive today because many of my past experiences are now anecdotes. I guess there really is no harvest without sacrifice.

Wednesday night at the Brink

I've got a stamp fading off the back of my hand because last night I heard some electronic music at the latest installment of the Other Minds Brink series. It was at the Hemlock Tavern on Polk Street between Post and Sutter in San Francisco.

Tarantism was the first artist to play. They put up Halloween spiderwebbing like a curtain in front of the stage, eliciting some puzzled comments from us who were waiting for the show to start. It turned out the webbing was a screen for a projected video.

There were two performers in Tarantism, and they each wore white gauzy coveralls so that the video projected on the webbing, on them as they played, and on the stage backdrop which made for a neat effect. The keyboardist also had red lights illuminating her hands so you could see her playing.The video was abstract and moved slowly and gracefully during the first half, then the colors turned red, white, and blue for a little bit coinciding with the sounds of electronic screams and bombardment. After that everything got louder and more agitated. The piece went on for about 20 minutes which was just the right length.

I overheard somebody behind me say that she had seen "the guy from Skinny Puppy" use the same webbing thing as a video screen.

Celeste went next. She played four new laptop pieces that I had not heard before. The first featured samples of Rush Limbaugh edited with electronic music, and the overall effect was ironic and comical. I enjoyed hearing him bark like a dog.Her next piece, "Lock Up Your Children", was not comical at all, and incorporated samples of various voices in the debate about the PBS show "Buster" and his visit to a family headed by a lesbian couple. There were some really offensive anti-gay samples in there, for satirical/political effect, the like of which I never hear and they were > really upsetting. That was doubtless the point. The third piece deconstructed and reconstructed a Goddess litany, and I thought it was really really good. It started out with the woman's voice fragmented and repressed, but gradually came together and became understandable, and ended with the woman's voice strong and completely audible. The last piece was instrumental only layering long notes that beat against one another.

I didn't stay for the final act 'cause it was getting a tiny bit late for me but I enjoyed the show a lot. Next time there is a Brink show you oughta go.

We listened to Celeste's CD in the car on the way home. Her piece "Coulter Shock" is on the CD, and after awhile some of us were vibrating, they were so agitated by Ann Coulter's nails-on-a-chalkboard ranting made even more pronounced by Celeste's deconstruction.

I love Tribe. I hate Tribe.

I've been on Tribe.net nearly a year now. I love it and I hate it. It's the ultimate time-sink. It's the best and most counterculture of the Friendster-type thangs. It can be frivolous and useless. It can be substantive and helpful. Why don't you log on, and see what you think after a year?

In other news Celeste is back in town for the summer! She has returned in triumph from Wesleyan as a Master of Arts. She has a gig coming up at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco on June 29th.

She is going to Paris in the fall to do the CCMIX program there. She and her girlfriend Cola are both going. Wouldn't you love to spend a year in Paris with your beloved? Envy all around.

And best of all she is going to sit in on bass in rehearsals of me and the Company. Jim Carr is moving away to Kentucky, which I'm very sad about, as he is a heck of a bass player and I really enjoyed working with him this past year and a half. Celeste is going to join me and Dan later on this month to work on "The Great Highway."