BEST.LYRICS.EVER.

...well, that I've heard lately, that is.

John Vanderslice, "You Were My Fiji":

oh we kissed only once
in your stripped-down apartment
you sold all your furniture
so we kissed on the floor
it's like a whaling ship being on tour
you know next day you gotta set sail
in your 350 Ford
oh but you.
You were my Fiji.
Believe me.
Those hours with you, they
only expand.
but I fell in love with somebody else's sand,
somebody else's dry land...
and you're a stripper now in New Orleans
fucking whale sank my van and
took my shipmates into the sea...

Travis at the Wiltern.

ROCKED.

Wow. Now that was the arena-rock show I never got to see---and in a theatre on Wilshire!!!

The only way to get ahead in this town...

I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. I've been sending resume after resume out, and gotten only one response back after weeks of doing this.

I am retarded. WHY did I never think to put my "Interests" on my resume? And WHY did I never think to include in those interests:

Interests
· Special guest member of Gigsville's Unsafe Burlesque Troupe; former chorus girl for Velvet Hammer.
· Booking and promotions for online LA-based radio station collective, killradio.org.
· Two years intensive study Northern Long-fist kung fu and tai chi sword.
· Featured artist, Brewery Artwalk, Spring 2003 and Fall 2003.

References furnished upon request.


Hmm. This will be interesting, to see if I get more bites.

It will also be vaguely sad.

hot cheesy goodness

The 2004 Grilled Cheese Invitational was a sizzling success.

Yum! :)

After I witnessed Van's win for "Missionary Position" Grilled Cheese Sammich (a win, I suspect, as reliant on her sammich-grilling technique as on her extraordinary powers of persuasion) and the awards ceremony, I toodled on over to Paul's place, where Jaylinn, Paul, and several others were carousing to say Goodbye to Cheney--it was his last night in LA.

Safe travels, kiddo.





Gallagher's a good cook AND an excellent writer; Dave used goat cheese and olive tapenade; Tanman, Van and Brian eagerly await the outcomes; this guy's real nice but I forgot his name. Sorry.




Another winner is called; Bobtoberfest, Dougie, Van and the incomparable K'mo wait anxiously; Eno and Shady, mad geniuses, explain it all. And then.....




Exultation!!! Vanessa WINS!!! The nation is safe! It is necessary, however, for her to explain her shirt, above. Also, the Spaz award winners accept their prize for the wack-est sammiches in the contest: Blue. Everything blue. AND they have an accordion.





The winner's circle (note Van's wheelchair); the winners again, standing around a few seconds later; Vanessa is very very happy with her trophy (figure, seated in wheelchair, with huge grilled cheese on lap).




Then off to Paul's, where I gave Jaylinn a paper hat from the GCI. She'd really wanted to go (she attended culinary school), but had a conflict. Note that bitchen' tattoo on her back.
Cheney and his pal Cliff mug for the camera; and finally me, with another one of my perennial self-portraits that I'm sure point to a hopeless case of narcissism. Or, as Gary writes, I could just be feeling unloved.

coming, going, and...staying

Life feels really weird lately, as tho I'm at the beach, in the water facing my friends on the shore, and there's that sucking-backwards sensation around my ankles suggesting a big wave is about to crash against my back.

Don't think tsunami, but maybe just a bit of a surprise. I feel like life is about to leap on me, and it's not a bad feeling--just this suspended sense of waiting. The universe holding its breath.

I'd ask someone to read my horoscope, but the only person who could with authority has left the city.

That's one of the weird things, lately. Seems like everyone I know is moving in or moving out.

Joe told me he has to move soon--his building, downtown, is doing renovations.

Normal moved last week into a beautiful new stand-alone apartment, with an upstairs, balconies, wooden floors and a spirally starcase. It's located in a wonderful neighborhood within walking distance of everything. Bitch. ;)

Paul moved a while ago. He's settling in now. The art on his walls is breeding.

Cheney left the city like a whirlwind just two nights ago, chasing love and hope and dreams. I hope he finds every one.

Jaylinn moved into a fantastic new place about two weeks ago, the very place I drove past months ago and thought, "What a nice place. I wish it were for rent." I couldn't afford it anyway. Her home already feels magical and safe.

Ben is planning on leaving in three months. I expect I'll wake one day to find he's left before dawn, racing away from the sunrise, leaving a carefully printed card behind that says "Ben Simpson--Traveling"--and then all I'll be able to be sure of is that someone somewhere, possibly trekking across the Himalayas, knows me so very very well.

It appears that Kelsey's move to Orange County has occurred seamlessly. She lives in a condo complex with her boyfriend and a dog. I don't think I could do that if I tried.

And me?

I'm going nowhere.

Every morning on the way to work I follow the curving ramps of the freeways like ribbons, the dotted lines strafing the ways out of this city. Every morning I see the mountains and something deep and low in my stomach lurches, hungry to gun the engine north, or east, across deserts and mountains. Lavender skies and silent diners at five a.m. Trains. The huge Etruscan stones of Italian hill towns.

I'm trapped by money. By the things I owe money to--my apartment, my car, my bills. By my job. And by the fact that traveling costs money. Moving, changing, it all costs. But I still feel life about to pounce.

When will the wave break?

you say go slow
i fall behind
the second hand unwinds
if you're lost you can look and you will find me
time after time
if you fall i will catch you--i'll be waiting
time after time
-ms. lauper tells it like it is.

guess who loves her new gadget


Yay, new photo-phone!
If any of these pics come up "x"ed-out, try refreshing; I've got a lotta pictures up on the site these days and it's a bit much for lil' Blogger to handle.

The First Annual Hunter S. Thompson Rampage and Normal's Birthday:

Date (Brian), Little Bit, and Gary; beautiful Jenna; me getting arty with a martini glass; Normal as Hunter.




Normal raisin' da roof; Vanessa as Hunter; her again; Normal tormenting a waffle.




Jaylinn's Fabulous Thirtieth Birthday:

The JBird exhaling; our class picture; Jaylinn and the awesome Torrey.





The night of Meat Loaf at the WeHo Party Haus (also known as Scooter's Pad)

Patrick by lavalamp; Keith looking spookily like Iggy Pop; Patrick again; Ben and I (this photo taken by Patrick, nice work!)




And randomity:

Vanessa being a tard, having a "drinking problem"; COOLEST.STATE.MOTTO.EVER.



and now, the reason why I'm in a better mood today than I was in the post below:

Normal mentioned a cross country road trip to me.

dysphoria

I have been really fucking depressed the last month or so, honestly.

I don't know quite why--I know of a number of factors I am unhappy about, and maybe they've all come together in some sort of critical mass--but there is no one precise thing to trace it back to. Which is shitty, 'cos when you're depressed people always say, "Why?" as tho there's a clear answer, and for me there never really is. This scares me, because my father has battled clinical depression for many years. I really don't want to have to go through what I've seen him endure. It was truly terrible for him.

He's stable these days--even happy--but it was a long slog through years of serious unhappiness. He was suicidal at points. Voluntarily institutionalized at other points.

It was hell.

I certainly am not anywhere near that place (no worries, kids! especially those of you who always get alarmed over my more serious posts! I love you all and everything is just hunky dory!), but still, I feel really fucking shitty lately.

I also really need a new job. This is one of the elements feeding into my depression. I have basically been working for the same people (in different capacities and positions over the years, but still the same people all this time) for THIRTEEN FUCKING YEARS. I've been in one place so long I don't even know how to identify how it feels to need a change. All I know is I feel like crying every morning as I drive to work.

Which sucks, 'cos it's a pretty drive.

Anyone got any leads? I'm really smart, too smart for my own good, actually, and I can do just about anything.

Bleah.

Here are Sam's photos from Vegas. Watch us put the "TARD" back in "Stardust!"

http://www.blindingdarkness.com/vegas

Wish me luck.

I'm going to Vegas.



Also, a very merry birthday to Jake, Jaylinn, and Normal.

Gots anudder poem fer ya.
(this one's old, but people keep digging it, so...cool.)
:)





the value of zero

if nothing is
the quietly growing vacancy of space
interstellar and complete, vast
and broad, whale-wide leagues for millennia,
stars expanding,
old worlds collapsing,
oceans and seas empty and cooling,
if nothing is
at barren altitudes flung so high to the canopy of the stars that the
sun would come down,
where wind claws torqued stones to spiraled perfection and makes of
plants
silver spikes erected heavenwards at dawn to catch acute-angled light;
if nothing is
the peace we sink to like dry leaves
when all things desert us and we are bereft of
old loves and meanings,
and are instead gravid with lives not yet followed to logical
conclusions,
narrations not yet written;
if nothing is
the inestimable value of that Mesopotamian digit,
where our primeval rivers flood over and over to
drown walled gardens, submerge valleys of shadows
and leave behind
nothing
to grow rich and wide with time again and again,
unfurling new worlds like nilotic sails,

then I have nothing to give you, love.
Nothing at all.

http://www.straybulletins.com/LMB/weblog/index.html

Life can be unholily short.

Fill yours with exuberance and magic and peace and joy and wonder and, above all, love.

Hug someone you love today.

And then do it again every day after that.

Jake, if I had a thousand rivers, I'd send them all rushing to you.

I am a ham

So the short stop, a hipster bar in echo park, has this new black-n-white photo booth. I've discovered it roughly contemporaneously with my small epiphany that I actually enjoy having pictures taken of me. This means all hell has broken loose.

See, I used to think it was narcissistic or self-aggrandizing to dare to enjoy pictures of oneself. Heaven forbid you be able to ever sit there and say, Hey, I look good! So I shrank from all cameras, screeching "NotmeNotmeNotme" whenever someone tried to take my picture. And the pictures that did get taken blew big time.

But as soon as I began loosening up and hamming it up, the pics got good. Great, even. I think I look better in photos, now, than I do in real life.

And I *love* photo booths. They're great because it's this frozen moment in time with you and your friends. Here's a few, below:



Normal and I with Guy, some very tolerant random...guy; Cheney and I; and Normal and I again.

Who's the next victim...er, I mean, subject?

for jake
...written a while ago, but still true.


my dearest friend--
we are bereft of
any pulling or tugging at the corners of language,
any way I could tie it up for you, kindly and reassuringly,
the way, the way the way I'd like to,
the way you deserve,
the way the way we go around,
strutting and fretting,
and so instead I send you every bargaining prayer I guiltily uttered,
every gusting wave of rage I've ever railed against heaven,
every upward thrust from the earth that stood me stronger under it all,
every maddened and raging moment,
I send you this and more,
a silent warm wind on your nighttime drive south,
ten million stars to guide you home.

all the sudden I've slipped into this horrible miserable crying-into-your-pillow-depressed mood. I kinda wanna throw stuff and break things.

I need some meaning I can memorize
the kind I have always seems to slip my mind
but you, but you
write such pretty words
but life's no story book
and love's an excuse to get hurt
-bright eyes.

I'd just like to take a brief break to acknowledge our sponsors.

I have the BEST FUCKING FRIENDS IN THE WORLD.

obsoletism

I went to the market today and the new Campbell's soup cans have pull-off lids now--you know, the kind with the tab. You don't need a can opener. I realized that more than 50% of the canned items in my pantry now have said pull-tab. It will be interesting to see if can openers become a historical oddity, obsolete within my lifetime. Weird. I wonder what else will become extinct...

And as a postscript to the earlier post, Underground Voices emailed me to say they were sorry to have "insulted" me. That's so funny, and now I feel like a dick. I'm sorry, Underground Voices.

they must read my site quite regularly, or how else would they know about that post?

Who ARE you people? I don't think I've met you...

I'm cheap, but I'm not THAT cheap

From : uveditor@undergroundvoices.com
Sent : Thursday, January 1, 2004 2:30 PM
To : lucinda_michele@hotmail.com
Subject : submission request

Dear Michele:

We stumbled across your blogspot some time back and like the journal
entries. Currently, we are putting together a literary e-zine called
Underground Voices (www.undergroundvoices.com). The style is hard, edgy
and focuses on work that is both autobiographical and realistic.
The webpage is up. You can glance at it and get a feel for what we're
looking for and the kind of work we're interested in. Note that no
contributor's work is up yet as we are still sifting through submissions
and such.

We would welcome your contributions: prose, a journal entry say...

For features and articles we pay $5 (I know, not much) and articles over
3000 words, we pay $10.00. Please let us know if you are interested.

Sincerely,
Underground Voices



Dear Underground Voices,

Your interest is real sweet. Really. Thank you.

I'm currently getting a hundred dollars for every thousand words, though, at the Los Angeles Alternative Press and Coagula Art Journal. So I really feel you should offer more that ten dollars.

I really can't go lower than, say, twenty.

Broke and sincerely yours,
-michele.