Anybody who knows me knows I’m a big Wilco fan. I’ve either forced you to listen to Wilco or I’ve gushed about Wilco or called you nasty names because you’re not a fan or you’ve never heard of them, or I’ve blown you off to go to a concert. Before Wilco, there was Uncle Tupelo. And when Uncle Tupelo split into pieces, there was Wilco (and Son Volt, and I liked them too, but Wilco had Jeff Tweedy).

That’s the common denominator here–Jeff Tweedy. I’m not going to sit here and write some lame-ass fan-girl history of Jeff Tweedy. I’m just here to talk about last Saturday night.

When I found out that I was going to be able to see Jeff Tweedy in what’s called a Living Room Show, I threw up on myself. I’m not making that up. I literally threw up on myself. The Living Room Shows are fundraisers. A bunch of people get together, pool their cash, and bid on a LRS. Then weeks and months of wrangling and figuring and schedule checking and all kinds of other bullshit happen. And then you find out that on July 24th, 2010, you’re going to be sitting in someone’s house on a folding chair, just a few feet away from Tweedy, listening to him play.

Plus, you get to request a song.

It took me forever to figure it out. My top pick was an Uncle Tupelo song called Flatness, off of No Depression. When I listen to that song now, it makes me kind of wistful and teary-eyed because I recall my youth, which happened sometime in the sixteenth century.

Flatness, Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy

Beer makes you weary
But you need something to get along
You stare at the flatness
Beside the dark home
They’ll not hear you whisper
This isn’t where it ends
Your hand holds the bottle
That has become your last and only friend
I’ve lost all hope
There’s hope for you
If not just in the possibility
Of a better next day
If not just in the simple fact
There’s no other way
You lie on that couch
And try to dream once more
But your only goal is to sleep
Until the news is over
And outside the leaves are all changing
But you drink to forget
Someone you once met
Stands blocking the bright orange sunset
I’ve lost all hope
There’s hope for you
If not just in the possibility
Of a better next day
If not just in the simple fact
There’s no other way
So open up those curtains
And drink up the daylight
Just by the brightness
Open your doors wide
‘Cause things don’t get better
But some people do
There’s darkness in this life
But the brighter side we also may view
There’s darkness in this life
But the brighter side we also may view

Hmm. No wonder I got all verklempt while he was playing it. It has even more resonance for me now than it did when I was young. Cripes.

I need a drink.

I didn’t really expect him to play it. It was a shot in the dark, throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, wishful thinking. Which he also played. But he did. And when he was done he looked at me and said something about it being much faster on the record than he played it (much faster) and that he hadn’t played it in 16 years, 20 years.

Thanks, Jeff. Way to make me feel really fucking old.

Anyway. So, he plays for a few hours. Some guy asks that his request be dedicated to his girlfriend, and when the song was over, he got down on one knee and proposed to her. What? Yep. Great memory for them, and my sister-and-law and I were all wiping tears and shit (the couple was sitting right in front of us) but once it was over, it was like it never happened. Very strange.

What did he play? I knew you were going to ask that. A huge variety. I’ll update with the playlist once I have it. But that’s not really the important thing here. I mean, no. Of course that’s important. But I’m really just trying to tell you all about the experience of it. Plus, I kinda like keeping that to myself.

When you think about how you become a fan of a particular band or musician, or a style of music, it’s not really something you can put words to. Well, maybe you can. But I can’t. It’s a feeling, a sense you get from the music that it feels right and it sounds good, and the lyrics resonate with you on some level–the music and the words combine and it’s like whoever wrote them and whoever is singing them and playing the music knows just exactly how you feel and they went ahead and made it into a song for you because you yourself didn’t know otherwise how to express it.

I read in an interview with Tweedy once that the song from A Ghost is Born called At Least That’s What You Said is hard for him to play because once the singing part is over, the rest of the song builds into this crazy crescendo that reminds him of a panic attack.

And that’s weird, because I feel the same way about that song. It makes me feel, internally, exactly the way I feel when a panic attack hits (or hit, because I don’t have them much anymore, thank goodness). The way it builds and builds and my mind gets more crowded and my heart starts pumping.

But I used that song as a way of training myself down out of a panic attack. Because it ends, and so do panic attacks (though it’s hard to remember that when you’re in the midst of one).

I wish I’d mentioned all that to him when I sat next to him and told him how I got the big vinyl poster of the cover of last July’s Spin that featured him on the cover. But I babbled about that and there were 30 other people who wanted a turn and he had this look on his face like “Get this crazy bitch off this couch!”

So, it’s not just that I get the music. It’s that the music gets me.

In the Spin interview that is behind the cover of which I have a 3′x4′ vinyl replica of, which now bears his signature, Tweedy says, about Wilco (the song) from last years Wilco (the album):

“I always think of the song as meaning not just Wilco,” Tweedy tells me [not ME, the guy writing the story] at the band’s rehearsal space, the Loft. “I always think that song is saying, ‘Your records will love you, baby.’ The overall message is to find consolation through music. I think it’s sincere, but at the same time, it’s meant to be a little bit funny.”

And yes, it’s funny. But yeah, my records love me. If they didn’t, I’d have to rely solely on books. Jesus. What a life that would be.

So thank you, Jeff Tweedy, for giving me and the other people in that basement last Saturday an amazing experience, and for sharing your time and energy with us. And for signing my poster and for listening to me babble about whatever it was I babbled about and for taking a picture with me.

just testing. nothing to see here. except maybe a pic of a kitty cat.

Yes, I know it has been nearly six months since I’ve posted to my blog. I am sorry. And this isn’t even so much a post as a test of a blogging app on my iPhone. If it works, you may well be hearing from me more often in the future.

Yeah, it’s been a while.

But when my son walked up behind me and uttered the above, I felt it absolutely necessary to take a trip to my dear old blog again.

‘Course, that’s all I got for the moment.  But I’ll be back.

I almost missed out on my interview with John Butler of the John Butler trio. I blame the chaos of the media tent, and the nearly total inability of cell phones to work properly. But then I spotted him talking with another outlet, and hovered until he was free.

John Butler is a wiry thing–there’s an energy about him that makes the air in his vicinity feel charged with electricity. We wandered a bit until we found an empty corner and stood, me madly scribbling in my notebook as he talked.

I saw you earlier this afternoon on the Kidzapalooza stage with your daughter–that’s my most favorite area of Lollapalooza. How old is she?

She’s five, her name is Banjo.

She was great!

She made it, didn’t she?

So much character! I’m curious, how did your music life change when you had children?

They gave me hope, and a lot less anger. I was a really angry person for a while there. It’s surprising that I even had kids with that attitude. But something happens, they come out, this little hot bundle of love, and you’re changed.

During your “adult” set this afternoon, you introduced “Satisfied” by saying, “This song is about the state of music television. Every time you turn on a channel that’s supposed to play music, all you see is shite reality television.” I was a pre-teen when MTV first hit, and it changed everything about music for me…

It’s a funny thing.

Some channels should change their name. If they want to put brain-numbing shit on, fine. I mean, I love them, they play my music, but if it’s not music they’re playing…

You know, I love hip hop music, but when you see what it’s representing to young people these days. They’re advertising the same rocks and minerals their ancestors were enslaved to get out of the ground…

There’s some…Jedi Mind Trick, The Roots, Jurassic 5…

When MTV first came out, you had your skater thrash…that’s now pop music.

Avid watchers of MTV are missing out on a lot of good music–maybe I’m getting old, but I find myself saying “Turn that shit off!” when my kids are watching MTV.

It’s ‘soul’ …it doesn’t matter if it’s Gillian Welch soul or Rage Against the Machine soul. The roots go so deep…you don’t see a lot of that soul in popular culture or music.

Feeling able or free to criticize the government, to say what you’re feeling or thinking…there’s not enough of that. That’s what’s so great about Eminem…he said what you were thinking…it was scary, but he was saying what you were thinking.

I think that’s what frightens people about Eminem–sometimes it’s scary to hear the thoughts you’ve learned to suppress said out loud.

When you introduced “Ocean,” you said “this is for everyone who wants to take this country back from all those motherfuckers…” It was a beautiful song. Inspiring, really.

Instrumental…

Yeah…what’s your take on US politics? The US’s standing in the eyes of the rest of the world? I think a lot of young people are so ethnocentric in a way…they don’t realize how the rest of the world sees this country.

You know, I think the best way to look at it is…capitalism is eating itself. Free enterprise has gone to the extreme. Democracy can be bought or sold to the highest bidder. That’s all happening in front of your listening audience. They don’t want to step out of line, but…

They need to, this country needs people who are going to step out of line, no?

The system is completely corrupt. People wonder why Hitler, or even my own country’s John Hawkins commanded such… I don’t like either one of them, don’t get me wrong, but there was that sense of leadership, Obama is capturing our imagination. You want a leader who gives you hope, who believes in something.

There’s such fear–mortgage, debt, the government–it’s a great tool and they’ve learned how to use it against people.

Obama represents some kind of hope of getting out from under that fear, I think.

What’s the difference, for you, between playing big festivals like this and playing ‘regular’ concerts?

The only thing that changes is the intention. You’re trying to touch people, inspire them, and be inspired by them.

There’s all that sonic competition and infinite open space.

You put in as much soul and truth as possible. It’s such a strong medium…it’s hard to ignore its power–it’s a tenuous responsibility. You can affect people.

My thanks to John for taking the time to speak with me.

and I still haven’t written anything new, at least not here.  I’ve been busy, damnit!  I have this life thing to deal with.  I’ve got eighteen frickin’ jobs, the total pay of which doesn’t really add up to a living wage.  I have kids, I have to make time for my required weekly alcohol consumption.

A couple small announcements:  I got a press pass for Lollapalooza again this year, so look forward to random drunken postings about musicians I’ve interviewed and after-shows I’ve gone to!

And the other thing?  Well, I can’t really announce it officially yet, but it does involve me traveling to another state round about the end of August to do something really goddamn exciting.  As soon as I can, I’ll tell all, but I’ll leave you to guess for now.

I’ve been helping host a podcast about Newsvine called VineCast.  Click to go to the VineCast site to listen to me talk while spilling wine into my surge protector and talk out of my ass about various subjects.  It’s a weekly deal, and you can subscribe to the feed there on the site.  Let me know what you think!

On that note, I have been toying with the idea of doing my own little BabbleCast, but that’s still on the lower end of the project list.

I screwed something up by messing with shit in my sidebar, and I don’t know how to fix it, nor do I feel like trying right now.  So, deal with this for now.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

feeling small and thinking big.

There’s been a lot going on in my life lately. So much going on, truly, that I’ve been kind of mucking my way through my days, trying to keep a smile on my face, trying to remember that every day is a moment of time that can be either gotten through or enjoyed for what if gives. Some days give crap, to be honest. But most days give, at the very least, one moment to be grateful for.
I have a class full of bilingual students (english-spanish, or should I say, spanish-english), 5th graders, and I am trying my little (hard, cold) heart out to teach them to write. Or, maybe, to give them the opportunity to write and to make that 2 hour opportunity the best goddamn 2 hour opportunity per week they’ve ever, or might ever, have. Had? How to properly write that sentence? I don’t know. I’m a writing teacher. But I’ve not got the fortitude to puzzle that sentence out right now. I trust you, dear readers, know what the hell I’m talking about.

Anyway, 23, 24, something like that, bilingual students. Two do not speak or write a word of English, but I know they’re getting some of what’s going on because they remain, after three weeks, enthusiastic and excited to be in my precious little semi-circle. They want to write, they want to learn. Right now? I’m having them write in spanish, participate in our word games and oral tellings in spanish, and the other kids translate for them and for me. I can’t even begin to take on the task of teaching them english. But I can set myself a goal to get them to the point where they can write a solid paragraph in english by the end of our 10 weeks together (with LOTS of help from their regular classroom teacher, bless her fantastic heart). Several are borderline. They can puzzle out reading aloud a story in English, but they have to be given permission to use spanish words in their writing if they don’t know the english. I don’t want the language barrier to block what they want to say. I’ll figure it all out in the end, if I have to beg my husband’s Mexican helper to help me translate their work. This is a challenge for me, because I can’t just go in and do my well-rehearsed thing with a bunch of states-born, english-speaking white kids and hope for the best, hope they’ve gotten their (or somebody else’s) money’s worth. I have to figure out ways to make what I do work for them. And every goddamn moment of it is sweetly gratifying.

Beginning next Wednesday, I will be doing this very same thing with a class of 13 special-ed kids. And this is the real special-ed. This is a class full of letter-designations. LD, ED, ADD, ADHD, ADD off meds, speech impediments (HUGE speech impediments), truly? There’s a bunch of letters assigned to these kids and I don’t know what the fuck they all mean. Two full-blown mentally retarded kids. They’re eighth-graders. I’ve not officially met them, but I’ve observed them while talking with their teacher, and I am so blown away by the opportunity I have been given to teach them, you have no idea. Their teacher ROCKS their world, and they don’t even know it. His last name’s Capone (we’re in Chicago, mind you), he’s got Soprano’s posters on the walls, he’s a big, portly Italian man with his SHIT in ORDER, and he takes no guff. He’s the man with the plan, and his plan is to teach these kids something before they leave his special room. I’m not sure I’ve got what it takes to do what he does. He has these kids every day, all day, all school-year, and when they leave him? They leave him. He has only the time he’s given to do what he can, and he loves every single one of them, that was apparent in the 45 minutes we sat in his room and talked, while he maintained control and somehow managed to continue to teach while we talked. I’m in fucking AWE of this man. I don’t know if I could handle the drain, honestly. I don’t know how I’ll handle the drain that will happen in the two hours I’ll have with these kids each week. But I take my cue from him, Mr. Capone, he of the pasta-red-wine-belly and the Soprano’s posters. Give them what you can, as much as you can, and pray for the best.

I think these kids will teach me a LOT more than I’ll end up teaching them. Bless every one of their labeled heads.

I never, in a million years, thought that this would be something I would WANT to do. If you’da told me that I’d HAVE to do this, I’da said, okay, sure, I’ll do that, if it means at the end I can make ONE MILLION DOLLARS teaching kids who were afforded a well-funded education to write better than they’ve already been taught to, so that it’s not too TAXING on my mental health, so that I can, at the end of the day, go home and write my own shit. But truthfully? I cannot fucking wait for next Wednesday.

I’ll be sure to let you know how that all flies, but I’ve got ideas coming out of my ears how to engage these kids, including giving them the chance to publish their work to the web (via a blog? Wouldn’t that be great?). I think that (and this may very well be my biggest strength, in this as well as in the rest of my life) my best bet is to be fucking honest with them. To lay it out there for them. This isn’t fair, that they’ve got these fucked-up disabilities and problems and issues and roadblocks-to-learning that “regular” kids don’t have. But that they can make the best of it. They can, at the very least, find a way to let the world know what’s in their heads every day. And maybe, they can make some kind of difference in the world. They might be able to knock somebody’s block off. They might find a way to express themselves in a way that their “regular” education doesn’t give them a chance to do.

I don’t know what will happen with this. I do know that I want to do my damnedest to give them SOMETHING. Like I said, I never in a million years, would have predicted that this would be something I wanted to do. I want to do this. Truthfully? For myself as much as for them.

I had a tutee (meaning, someone I tutored), who I couldn’t help. This broke my fucking heart. And really? That’s hard to fucking do. Most days, my heart is a million splinters puzzled together and held in place by a giant wad of duct tape. This girl managed to spread those splinters around on the ground again. Maybe I’m too easy. Maybe I’m really just a soft, unprotected wad of cotton balls. Maybe. Duct tape is fucking STRONG, people. That’s why we’re supposed to line our windows with it in case of some kind of terrorist attack. My heart is wrapped in so much fucking duct tape, it might as well be a fucking rock. But this? This was a razor blade. A super-sharp, just-sharpened razor blade. And now, I’m a bit raw. I keep telling myself not to be so damn raw, to let it roll off me like any other stupid thing. But it isn’t working.

Truthfully? I’m angry. I’m angry for many, many reasons. Some of them:

1. I’m angry that I don’t have the ability to help her. I wish I could. And this is why I chose to pursue a combined degree in Creative Writing and Teaching of Writing. Because my cold, hard, splintered, held-together-by-duct-tape heart can’t handle the once-thought-brilliant plan to be a psychologist-counselor-yadda-yadda. I can do it on an amateur basis, when I know the people I do my amateur-psychologist bit with aren’t going to go home and shower 12 times, wash their hands for 6 hours, and lay prostrate on the ground in prayer. They’ll just go out for a couple drinks. Or 10. Usually, with me.

2. I’m angry at the educational system of this country in general. I’m angry, yet heartened, by the open-admissions policy of Columbia College. I’m angry that not everybody can realize their dreams. I’m angry that I have the opportunity and intelligence and ability and talent to realize my own, but I might not, because I might have to do the laundry instead. I’m angry that I’m not, at this moment, fully grokking the lesson that was put in front of me with my interaction with this young woman.

3. I’m angry at myself for not taking advantage of the opportunities that have been laid (lain? lied? laid down?) at my feet. And there’s a lot of them. I should be grateful, and am, but there are a lot of people out there who would do anything to have what I’ve been given.

I can’t go on with all that right now.

I said I had a lot going on.  My kitchen and basement are being remodeled (yet another thing I should be, and am, incredibly grateful for), and it has thrown my regular routine into utter chaos.  Laundry?  Sure!  When I can get into the basement, and nobody is spraying trim-paint all over the fucking place, or sawing trim boards, or putting up drywall, whatever.  Washing dishes?  No problem!  Just let me get into the basement.  Cooking?  Sure!  What can I get you?  I’ll just go outside and stand in sub-30 degrees in the morning and microwave you some fucking Aunt Jemima frozen pancakes!

I am, seriously, outside every morning at 6:30, grinding coffee beans for my husband’s morning coffee.  I’m about done with this shit.  I’m out there in my jammies, some shoes, and a fucking winter coat.  This is ridiculous.  But almost over.  The granite guy is my new hero, and he’s installing early next week.  The floor guys are back on Thursday and Friday, and we’re going to be gone all weekend at a wedding, and when we return?  Counters installed, floors shiny, and then the remaining appliances get installed and we’re in fucking business.

And out of money.

I’m also teaching on Saturdays in a rather fantastic program called Teens Together that is funded, in part, by the Chicago Park District, in partnership with the Columbia College Fiction Writing Department and Music Theater Workshop (MTW), where we recruit awesome teens from all over the city to write, take part in theater games, and at the end, come up with a big-ole cohesive story from which we (they) will write a musical play, and spend next summer performing it, with help from still more teens.  It’s an awesome thing.   And on Sunday, I start a 5-week stint teaching SGI writing classes in Joliet.  I’m pretty sure that Thursday is my only day during which I have nothing to do for other people, although I guess that’ll be the day I need to spend doing laundry and taking care of other people, namely my family.  I hope my children forgive me for all of this one day.  Because right now?  I’m bordering on negligent.

Alright.  Enough of the self-serving whining crap.  How boring is this?  Blah, blah, yadda yadda! For Christ’s sake, VikiBabbles!  Make fun of somebody already!  Talk about drinking vodka!  Be funny!

Heh!

And, my CHILDREN and their FRIENDS (hello Doogie!) showed this to me:

Shoes

And here’s another, which may or may not be all that funny, but is totally hilarious when you’re sitting at your computer, surrounded by 9-11 year-olds, being told what to watch.:  Muffins!

I checked my email this morning and found that someone had left a comment on a brief post I wrote last year: Man in Diaper?  Huh?
Uh, don_dipe? Thanks for sharing. Really.