kristin

So I was out walking my dog at about 11:30 at night, chatting with Bernard on my cell phone, watching fireflies and traffic and absentmindedly discussing production on the new songs, recording and touring schedules, whose couches we should sleep on, New Orleans vs. LA, vodka vs. tequila, kids vs. dogs, summer vs. fall etc….and he just as casually drops this particular bombshell:

He is engaged!

To be MARRIED!!

Yep. Bernie landed himself a woman (a bombshell!). So all you fine gals (and guys) with Bernie-on-the-Brain-itis have from now until the zany, madcap bachelor party we throw him, to sew him up some wild oats before it’s…

TOO LATE FOREVER!!!!

I’ve just read today that apparently, because he’s living in The Days of Jebus, Bernie now has the option of an “Intelligent Design” wedding ceremony (really – swear to you-know-who) as opposed to the standard – what? – Darwinian ceremony!? which mentions Evolution, ever-so frequently.

It should probably make me angry, hearing the word “intelligence” used to mean the lack of – and I feel for science teachers, school administrators and Christians who aren’t wacko, but I can’t help thinking that Intelligent Design as a theory is just a big, fat missed opportunity to synthesize solid science and spirituality.

How is there (relatively) so much space between our atoms? What’s the glue that holds them together – that keeps us from blowing apart? Will? A tendency to be? Intelligence? A guy on a cloud? Discuss.

I don’t understand why adaptation and intelligence are supposed to be mutually exclusive or, for that matter, why science and spirituality are. I’ve never understood how spirituality and religion ever got together in the first place. Seems like going to school for breathing: redundant and confusing.

Am I pontificating? About religion?! Oops. Sorry, Jebus.

Anyway, back on planet earth… We love you Bernie.

Congratu-ma-freakin’-lations. Happy forever, friend.

K

Billy left for New York very early this morning. I got up to see him off and we shared a cup of tea in the dark, quiet house. Being apart gives us a stomach ache, so we decided to feel lucky that he isn’t going to a hospital or a war. But, of course, the baby cried when B drove away and even the dog chased his car down the street. Sigh…pathetic.

Meanwhile, now that the “new Wave” material is in Bernie and Rob’s hands, I’ve fallen completely under the spell of Murder, Misery II. These amazing old folk songs will NOT stop playing in my head, something I’ve never experienced with songs that aren’t my own.

I think it’s that they’re so comfortable…moving without being emotionally manipulative. The southern accent I work so hard to hide slips out gently, without dropping my IQ a single point. And I’m not even drunk! I guess there’s a part of me that never left the little white house in Georgia where I was born.

Sigh…pathetic.

I have to go digging for the remainder of the material I need for Murder Misery II, so we’re deep in it these days. Billy and I sat up late last night listening to crazy old southern songs and alternately tearing up and laughing our asses off. I know all the verses to about 8 more Appalachian folk songs I heard as a child, but I need to find some “Sweet Roseanne” or “Fly Around My Blue Eyed Girl” kind of songs, because I don’t have anything ‘bouncy’ — in that way.

What time tripping though; it’s really cool. Some great titles; my favorites so far are “Pig Meat on the Line” and “Bad Outside Friends”.

But I have a toothache. Toothache?! Who gets a toothache? What is this, the middle ages? I must be getting a wisdom tooth — or else I’m being stabbed in the face…I gotta score me some clove oil. Ow, my skull. But toothache or no, this morning I’ve…

1. cleaned 4 bathrooms
2. changed 3 diapers
3. walked 2 dogs
4. made 25 pancakes
5. fed them to 3 children (the other one’s vegan)
6. vacuumed 7 rooms
7. did 3 loads of laundry
8. and 2 loads of dishes (machines actually did this)
9. made 4 beds

…and 10. filled 1 plastic kiddy pool — and kiddy pools ROCK! You should get one. Our neighbors used to call us “the quiet people”, but when we got our kiddy pool, they came over grinning and asked if the quiet people moved away.

I think we’ve become Bad Outside Friends, but it’s worth it.

Re: The title of this post. Really. In Swaziland. For more information go here.

Anywayzzzzz…I’ve been demo-ing the new 50 Foot songs with Billy this week. Never done that before. I usually keep stuff in my head or make demos for the band by myself in a lonely room. It’s much quicker and more fun having someone else run the machine but also much less comfortable. I won’t let him look at me while I put vocals down (because singing is such a stupid thing to do), so I go into the closet and Billy ‘swears’ that he can’t hear me, well, yelling in the closet.

He “proved” this to me by walking into the closet, shutting the door and then coming out again 20 seconds later. “See?” he asked. He must think I’m an idiot.

Some high points:

– a boiling hot but wickedly funny 50 Foot Wave tour…nice to see your shiny faces again

– Billy, Bodhi and I went to lovely London a whole mess o’ times…once to play with Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Marianne Faithful, Sinead O’Connor and Tori Amos…a whole mess o’ womens. Yoko looked at me for 3 whole seconds (I counted) before skittering away with her entourage.

– celebrated my birthday with Vicky and Slim Cessna…thank you for all of your kind birthday wishes

– 4 days in Spain (!!) with Vic and Tina Chesnutt…what an amazing band they are now, with their niece Liz on bass and Tina playing drums…like the Velvets with Vic songs. Really great. Also great was Tina and Billy in a Barcelona grocery store pantomiming smashing chick peas into hummus for a confused crowd of Spaniards.

– 5 new 50 Foot Wave songs we’ll try to work into the fall set. Here’s what they’re called:

“Hot Pink, Distorted”
“Vena Cava”
“Pretty Ugly”
“Animal”
“The Fuschia Wall”

Now you’re caught up…kinda. More soon.

Love,
Kristin