Who Said It Was Simple

My memory is sketchy to say the least and trainwrecked to say the most. So when I want to look back and see where these crazy tracks have led me looking back over the vague coffeedates had and plans made, notes jotted and meetings had, this is how I can remember and reconstruct the times of my life. It's why I almost never throw away old planners. In a couple of days my moleskine expires. It was an 18 month calendar so 18 months of notes, scribbles and scraps of paper are what comprise all of what was and help inform and inspire me for what comes.

July 2008
The notes are full of plans for opening my own cafe / performance space and for the Hobo Love Tour. Vagabondage got invited to play the Cotati Accordion Festival and over 30 places in at least six towns were contacted and either crossed off or confirmed for my big trip out on the road with rustysteelwings . My sweet friends got married at the Madonna Inn and I felt more in love and inspired and soaking wet in my dress up clothes than I had since I was a teenager swimming in the lake at winter. Vagabondage also had a mini tour up to Santa Rosa to perform with Mark Growden - a new friend that was so supportive and inspirational.


August 2008
The month started with fancy VIP seating at an Amanda Palmer show with some amazing friends that I had so much fun with and am excited (still now 17 months later) to be getting closer with. Vagabondage performs at Accordion Apocalypse with the Bad Mitten Orchestre and Mark Growden and I successfully stick my foot firmly in my mouth unintentionally. We recover from that and give recording some of our songs a shot. The middle of the month marks boylamayka and I hitting the Monsters of Accordion show in Oakland and I learn parts of a punk rock song at the accordion masters class earlier in the day. It is a night of wine and stumble that makes it firmly into our friendship mythology and about a year and a half later shows up in a Rhubarb Whiskey song. Driving home from a Rhubarb Whiskey practice I write the first parts of a song that later becomes the Vagabondage tune Lowdown Friends while I try to get rustysteelwings  on the phone at 4am her time to talk about the tour.

September 2008
I start the week playing Rock Band over at justin42 's house and watching rooster showcase some of her short films at K'vetsch. Get to hang out at Sadies with postmaudlin , wolf and sarah and feel like life is generally a pretty great place. Then Vagabondage plays the Queer Open Mic the day before I leave for tour and damn do folks give me a good send off. I raise my glass to some crazy adventures and fly away to Wisconsin to smoke, drink and squeeze my accordion with abandon for a solid week. Walking out of the airport I can smell the thick wet humid green of midwestern late summer and all I can do is smile. We roll into Milwaukee, get some greasy food at a street festival, I get to meet some incredible fuckin people (Waza and Sam I am lookin at you) and then we get gussied up to go perform the first show of the tour. A crazy old coot tells me that I need to work on my song lyrics but I play good and we drink and trade hats all night long. Next stop is St Louis with great bluegrass guys on the bill with us but a horrible crowd. Then to New Orleans and salty jazz sweat love and good shows and guys offering me bathroom cocaine and an old blues guy who wants to kidnap my ass but it's all good as we dance and perform and drink and keep ourselves out of the trouble that sticks around. The drive to Louisville beats us up a bit and spawns the Rhubarb Whiskey tune Last Day on the Road while Chicago is a family homecoming at a speakeasy and punk rock dancing in a dark kitchen with a bottle of whiskey and sleeping while standing. The month ends back in the Bay Area with an eight hour road trip to Sacramento (traffic) to see Heart and Journey only to arrive as the show was ending and Rooster and I raised cups of diner coffee and breathed the California farmland air and made it an adventure.


October 2008
The month starts with a benefit for goodbadgirl  at the Center for Sex & Culture and people break my heart with beautiful words and sentiments. A couple of days later Rooster and I head to Slim's for a Dogville benefit where Gogol Bordello are playing and my feet barely touch the ground all night. I go to some Obama fundraisers, take some accordion lessons and have good dinners with friends and one of my closest friends moves away to New Mexico.


November 2008
I perform solo accordion shows at K'vetsch and the Dark Room while Rooster heads to LA for film goodness. I start taking accordion lessons again as part of a trade and become a fixture at Mark Growden's show as his official videographer. Other than this my time is taken over by the stress and needs of a job where I love the people but am increasingly frustrated by goals that we don't have the resources to meet.


December 2008
I dress up for and go the Dickens Faire for the first time ever. Rooster and I meet up with whittles , raychoo , elusis , fightingwords , heliocide  and many other folks and I have what can only be called a smashing time. I get amazing coffee time with postmaudlin  and see Laurie and gordonzola  for holiday goodness.  Rooster and I take holiday dinner over to her folks house and there is tree trimming and holiday smiling for all.



January 2009
Rooster and I start the year at a vacation rental with the dog up in Mendocino that is made from an old wine barrel. It's maybe the coolest thing ever, except for the dustiness of it. We take the dog to beaches, run around on trestles and fight off sand critters. When we get back to the Bay Area I start taking a singing workshop that Mark Growden is running and feel worlds of voice open up to me. I keep on videographing adding some Hubba Hubba filming to the mix and try to start tracking my nutrition to fight off the nagging tired / stressed feelings that are wearing me down. Work continues to have its dramas and I start to seriously look into other options. Meanwhile I build a Vagabondage and Rhubarb Whiskey websites to start making the band information more sexy and fun for people to find. We go to my brother in laws at six am for Obama's inauguration and spend about ten hours in Marin watching the pageantry and fighting back tears of 'yay maybe it could get better.'  Everyday of this month has notes on it and checklists for band action plans. I want to take over the world.


February 2009
Starts with buying tickets for and missing the Devotchka show due to health stuff.  I decide that work isn't worth my health and make some calls. Within a couple of days I have a 9 month contract lined up and some freelance work and with that I walk away from the best paying job I have ever had. I am sad to leave but hopeful that my health will improve. Vagabondage plays a superfun show at Hotel Utah with Donny Vomit from Coney Island and Victoria & the Vaudevillains. It's by far our best show to date and there is electricity in the air. My good friend loses her grandmother and we spend Valentines Day in Oakland with her and at the White Horse and later fall in love with Zza's at Lake Merrit and start talking more about how Oakland feels like home. I film the Mardi Gras Hubba and fightingwords  brings me to tears with her song for New Orleans. A couple of days later Rooster and I board a plane for the city itself and land in New Orleans seduced by the swampy winter air and our most charming pal Nick.


March 2009
Rhubarb Whiskey gets invited to be on a bluegrass compilation and decides to go for it. Phonecalls are made, photoshoots arranged and the month is hectic with excitement. The contract at Frameline goes incredibly well and I am broke but happy to be back in the big queer film family. I try to keep all of the balls in the air and mostly succeed. The middle of the month sees the John Zorn residency at Yoshi's start and I spend five days having my mind and heart filled with jazz and wonder.  I meet Greg Cohen and feel like my head might explode from the OMG MEETING THE BEST BASS PLAYER EVER excitement. I have a meeting to talk about the foot in mouth I had back in August and driving away from the meeting the song We All Come to the Same Place is born while I drive through San Francisco railyards and piers.  Vagabondage gets all dressed up for the Zombie Walk after party and plays the Sunshine Artisan Factory and I videotape for like a million Hubba shows.


April 2009
This month I figure out that I can meet Laurie for coffee after work and before practice and so for about two months we get to see each other every week. This makes me incredibly happy. Rhubarb Whiskey and Vagabondage are practicing weekly and working on songs, while I have enough downtime to go to Bolinas a lot with Rooster and Lucky and things feel more relaxed, my health feels better and I feel pretty dang happy. Start planning for the Big Gay Cabaret show for June and trying to see if rustysteelwings  can fly out from Wisconsin to perform at it. I also get to try my hand at doing sound effects in a Foley Room for Rooster's Chicken film. I turn out to not be so great at the effects, but good at running the board. Huzzah!


May 2009
Vagabondage performs at the first Skeleton Key: A Steampunk Cabaret at Sunshine Artisan Factory and it's FUN.  Vagabondage also does a fancy photoshoot in the Marin Headlands with Steve and we start scheming about a music video. Vagabondage performs again at Hubba a couple of days later, I have my last trade accordion lesson and try to focus on being home a little more since I'm hella missing just hanging out with Rooster as the band stuff got more active. Vagabondage starts recording our album at the Dark Room, and I leave my sweater at a pals Bridal Shower of Win (still working to get it back - looking at you Zak :) )



June 2009
rustysteelwings  gets into town and we celebrate her arrival with a trip to boylamayka's and a trip to Hubba. Within a couple of days the three of us have formed a band The Oakland Wine Drinkers Union, and the two of them are hella crushed out. Hooray for the love! Rhubarb Whiskey gets invited to play our first show ever, Boylamayka works the door for the Big Gay Cabaret and Vagabondage successfully hosts our first curated show. I start practicing for my first Hubba number - playing Lydia the Tattooed Lady on accordion with elusis  singing. Rooster and I celebrate our ten year anniversary and get all squee and yay with the love still making dorky hearts flutter around our eyeballs. Rhubarb Whiskey gets asked to do another show, a benefit for the Rathskellar Bar at Burning Man, so we throw a set list together and find out what we're made of onstage - the crowd reports back that we're made of happy things. Vagabondage keeps recording more songs and we decide it's an album not an EP. I survive and enjoy the film festival and cross my fingers that the job gets extended past the contract. Also wrote and recorded Lilacs from Canada in between June 1 - 17th as an anniversary gift for Rooster.  Oh and Rooster and I ran up to Whiskeytown for some romantic camping. I love lakes OMG. I also got a spider bite that is joining me in welcoming 2010.
 

July 2009
I try to go to more dance classes and seriously injure my hip flexor. Rhubarb Whiskey plays a queer benefit at El Rio, while Vagabondage plays a Junkstock benefit in the Richmond and falls in with the right crowd full of Five Cent Coffee, Just Henry, Liquor Cake and others and gets squirrelly excited about performing at Junkstock in Golden Gate Park. Start babysitting for pantryslut 's incredibly cute twins now and then and learning the healing powers of babies on stress. Realize this month that I haven't written a poem in a long time, I bend postmaudlin 's ear about it and am reassured that the words that I need will come when I need them. Rhubarb Whiskey starts selling our first EP.


August 2009
I help out at a Frameline event and get to meet Ang Lee. One of my oldest friends gets married and her joy just makes me smile for days. Rhubarb Whiskey postpones practices while Boylamayka visits rustysteelwings  out in Wisconsin and we start location scouting for the Vagabondage music video shoot. Rooster and I go see Inglorious Basterds and I am so so thrilled. Tarantino does an extended Q&A after the screening and I am in film geek heaven. Another close friend has her heart smashed and I try to show and be there for her in the ways that I can. My job ends according to schedule and I apply for unemployment and start hustling for other work. I try being an office manager for a dance studio that I adore and discover I am not cut out for admin anymore.


September 2009
Vagabondage helps usher in a performance series at The Dark Room and Rhubarb Whiskey plays Skeleton Key at Sunshine Artisan Factory. Vagabondage takes over a West Oakland pier and makes a kick ass music video directed by the awesome Steve Doll. Just before my birthday Vagabondage plays a vampire show up in North Beath and the promoters mom baked me blood filled cupcakes that they carry out to me at midnight with the candles lit. awwww I fellt super loved by an intimate music family. Boylamayka and I get serious about planning a murder ballads show for Halloween and start asking bands and figuring out what weapons can be used as instruments. Rooster and I go up to Russian River for my birthday and we consider moving there instead of Oakland. The San Francisco apartment starts making my asthma worse and worse. rustysteelwings  officially moves to Oakland and there is much celebrating. Rooster and I meet up with Will to go see Fame and have drinks at the straightest bar in San Francisco and then then next day we meet up with rustysteelwings  and boylamayka for the Handcar Regatta in Santa Rosa where we listen to Les Claypool announce the race and rustysteelwings  sees Tom Waits. I do not see Tom Waits. :( The next week I have a bday bbq and there is a lot of revelry where I am glad to see black_pearl_10 , iamnotandrei, postmaudlin , whypnk , fightingwords , rykaryka, cheekytubemouse  and so many other folks - rustysteelwings  makes an amazing bday cake and we all have sugar highs and food comas.

 

October 2009
I start the month going to the bday party for the cutest twins ever, working the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, meeting Billy Bragg and seeing Hazel Dickens, the Knitters, Marianne Faithful, Jolie Holland and a million other amazing people in about a 72 hour span. I meet Greg Cohen again and he remembers who I am. Rooster got stabbed by a rogue kitchen knife and I get sick from dehydration. Meanwhile I am onto the second interview for a job that is exciting and Vagabondage plays shows at Cafe Royale and the night show for the Martinex Jug Band Festival. I pick a short term contract job curating videos and get to connect with gordonzola and Laurie at their housewarming party.gordonzola . Vagabondage and Rhubarb Whiskey play a benefit together on the roof of the LGBT community center and get a little too crazy at Martuni's celebrating post show. Rooster and I find a place in Oakland that we love and try to start packing while I rehearse a set of all new songs for the Murder Ballads show on Halloween. I also grab Rooster and hop in the car so rustysteelwings  and I can play SteamCon up in Seattle. We drive, we play we drive back and I move only a few hours later and proceed to freak out that my contract job hasn't paid me yet and have some friends save my ass around it with short term loans.


November 2009
Starts off the month with Vagabondage playing El Rio and meeting the awesome folks of T&A. Angelique is totally a new BFF. Start up having Oakland Wine Drinkers Union practices again and they are as fun as the first one back in June. My health and stress start to slide back into bad places and I find myself cancelling plans more than I am making them. Rhubarb Whiskey plays at Kinky Salon and I double book, filming Hubba later that night and the next day Vagabondage does Lilycat's Radio Show of Win. Vagabondage plays that Monday at the Oakland Hubba and then it's Thanksgiving and the holidays loom large.


December 2009
Bring rough news around close relatives. There is illness, there is a death in the family, I lose my Grandma Fox to senility and there is a lot of sadness and escalating stress. My hip flexor continues to flare up from the overstressing it back in the summer months and Vagabondage plays a crazy fun sold out show at the Climate Theater with Shadow Circus and we continue to crush out on some new musical pals. doriankatz  talks me into going with her to see Golem! and Rube Waddell and it's one of my favorite shows of the year - both for the music and the sense of family with the folks i see there including postmaudlin , rykaryka, bronicablue  and more. I start walking Lake Merritt with black_pearl_10  about once a week and try to figure out how to start doing it with Sasha too and maybe even by myself sometimes for the headspace. It's the end of the year and Vagabondage gets invited to perform at the Tim Burton Ball in early Feb while Rhubarb Whiskey plans for their Hubba debut in late January.


The roundup of ephemera
The notes this year are all about record labels and out of town mix cd buddies. Xmas lists and newfound bands like Curtis Eller's American Circus, Those Darlin's and Carolyn Mark dominate my end of year brain. The scraps of paper are all about album artwork, notes for lyrics and chords and job interview notes. It was the year of instability and hunting for bliss For taking art more seriously than day jobs and for seeing still that the art needs more time still. For seeing the cracks in the foundation and looking honestly at what is needed to repair them.

 
 

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/12/sunday-secrets_26.html

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/12/holiday-secrets.html