I had this amazing “Dance Music” pedal made for me, by Young Thousands Effects, and delivered to the venue yesterday. Decided it’s probably best to ship it home though rather than try to explain a home-built auto-wah with Mountain Goats lyrics on it to TSA.
(Source: youngthousandseffects)
Diana Ross - Billboard Magazine Single Advertise 1971
the list of things I wouldn’t do for Diana Ross to get into the studio with a kickass visionary producer and songwriting team again is a very, very short list
John, maybe if we combine the list of things you would do to make that happen with the list of things I would do to make it happen we could make it happen.
Miss Ross I know there’s no way you’re reading this but just in case, Kimya and me are no Ashford & Simpson and we know that but still we’ve done pretty good for ourselves and would work hard to write the best songs we’ve ever written in our lives if you wanted to sing them. Just FYI.
I am simply nodding and crying - tears of hope and love.
Diana Ross - Billboard Magazine Single Advertise 1971
the list of things I wouldn’t do for Diana Ross to get into the studio with a kickass visionary producer and songwriting team again is a very, very short list
John, maybe if we combine the list of things you would do to make that happen with the list of things I would do to make it happen we could make it happen.
I never ever dreamed that, in all my life, anyone would ever look at me like this. And I couldn’t possibly love her more.
Pat Castaldo just posted this old picture of me on Facebook.
“LEARN WHY EVERGREEN SUCKS” - I was a bold activist in 1993 fighting what is now referred to as “rape culture” because, even though my friends and I didn’t have a name for it, we knew it sucked. The way rape and sexual harassment and assault would happen on campus and get swept under the rug by the administration to keep their reputation clean was, AND IS, bullshit.
Fighting these crappy policies was worth getting kicked out of school over. I still don’t have a diploma, even though I had less than 2 quarters left.
Pat Maley let me table and speak at Yoyo A Gogo. He had me get up and read my “Open Letter To The Administration of The Evergreen State College” poem right before Beck played. This was the year before Adam and I wrote “Nothing Came Out” - my first song. And 6 years before the first Moldy Peaches show. The only time I had ever been onstage in front of that many people before had been at a PRIDE (Parents Resource Institute For Drug Education) Conference in 1990 doing an anti-alcohol interpretive dance that I made up to Total Eclipse of The Heart.
There is an excerpt from what I read at Yoyo A Gogo (and more info) HERE.
1993.
It’s been 20 years.
Keep fighting the power.
Please.
And.
Thank you.
Love always,
Grandma Kimya
Here we come!
The good old early 90s.
Oh how I love Kimya ^^
Wait! Where is the Sting shirt?
At this point I had already retired the Sting garb. I was all about The Rickets, Unwound, Mushmouth, Sunny Day Real Estate, Slint, Jawbreaker, etc. I rocked some serious Pat Benatar and Billy Idol though too. And Bon Jovi. I was still way into Lionel Richie and Neil Diamond too.
I was so totally “over” Sting, my first true musical love.
I guess I felt like I could still fuck shit up to Lionel Richie and Neil Diamond. There seemed to be something inherently very punk about them. I could do donuts on the Capitol lawn to the Say You Say Me breakdown. I could smash windows to Song Sung Blue.
I couldn’t fuck shit up to Fields Of Gold.
And during that time I was working some stuff out.
Destructively.
Also, it’s hard to be destructive when every time you look down there’s Sting’s sweet-ass face trying to remind you what a good girl you had always been.
The good old early 90s.
Ted makes some crucial connections between the circumstances of Mark Carson’s murder and the circumstances of CeCe McDonald’s unjust arrest. Pass this around - it’s important.
(Here are some thoughts I have been having since the death of Mark Carson)
Last Friday Mark Carson, a 32-year-old African American gay man was shot on the corner of west 8th street and 6th ave. Within a short time, police captured 33-year-old Elliot Morales, and he confessed to the murder. Earlier in the evening Elliot had been bragging about his gun, and was making homophobic comments to strangers.
One of the last things Elliot said to Mark before he shot him was, “Is that your boy?” referring to the man with Mark. “Yes,” Mark answered.
24 hours after the shooting there was a vigil for Mark. People mourned the young man’s passing and spoke about issues of safety, visibility and the need to watch out for each other.
Those who spoke also brought up the need to question hate crime legislation in an effort to work towards real ideas of justice, they brought up the closing of St. Vincent’s and wondered if there had been a hospital closer maybe Mark’s life could have been saved, and they made connections between Mark’s death, and the exceptional and everyday violence experienced by many in this city due to poverty, HIV/AIDS, and policies such as stop and frisk.
Learning more about Mark and Elliot I thought about another case where asserting one’s right to be ended in violence.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota on June 5th 2011 CeCe McDonald and her friends were walking to grocery story when they crossed paths with a group outside of a bar who began berating CeCe and her friends with homophobic, transphobic and racist slurs. Words escalated into physical violence and soon CeCe was bleeding and Dean Schmidt, one of the men who witnesses say was verbally and physically assaulting CeCe and her friends, was dead due to a fatal stab wound.
CeCe was the only arrested that night. She was charged with second-degree murder in Dean’s death. In a plea bargain she accepted a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter. As her supporters say, “in short, CeCe was prosecuted for surviving a violent, racist, transphobic attack.” She is serving 41 months in a men’s prison. The state will not recognize her as a woman.
While there cases are very different, like Mark, CeCe stood up for herself in the face of oppression. While it did not result in the loss of her life, her life chances have been severely reduced. As we hope for justice for Elliot, we need to pray for Dean’s soul. As we mourn Mark’s death we need to be also fighting for CeCe’s life.
—-
In the wake of CeCe’s case over the last two years, and over the last few days after Mark died I have been inspired to see how communities can come together. Vigils have been organized, tough conversations have been had, and people have opened up and been vulnerable with each other, in return others have come to support. I have heard people compare these last few days to early AIDS activism, or the marches after Harvey Milk died.
While I am not sure about that, I do wonder, can we care for each other everyday this way, not just when the violence we know is happening all the time hits the news?
Can we learn to make the love we have for ourselves and each other a practice of everyday freedom?
Can this love be our resistance in the face of death, misguided hate crime legislation, and prison?
Can we create a community of networked and systemic care that rivals the networked systemic violence practiced against us?
Can we love each other en masse on the regular?
