1. A man once studied some paintings I’d hung on the walls of my sad, little house and cheerfully declared them, “earrings on a pig.” A super commie, he is all about classy vs. classless. Classy being the fail. And then there is the truly beautiful image of a pig wearing earrings. I was still holding my hammer when he said this and had to spit out a nail I held in my teeth to laugh. Laughing for a buncha reasons. And my pig house still wears its earrings very sweetly. Really, I was just given some paintings on tour and I had some nails in the drawer, so there they hang. Sometimes the paintings fall off because the walls are not sound and we play drums in the practice space downstairs, which shakes them. Just in case we were starting to feel classy at all.
2. My engineer, Rizzo, calls me “Princess Grace.” Meaning Princess Graceless, meaning you lack a princess’s grace, and usually phrased: “Princess Grace, wipe the snot off yer face and git yer ass behind that drum kit.” Meaning that I have not developed the social graces/assets/marketing techniques which might convince others that I’m more important than they are. Rizzo and I don’t like princesses? Or high/low, big/small thinkers. But we don’t dislike them, either; missing the point is just boring.
3. A bitter child on playground politics: “Dummies are dumb, ya dummies…doesn’t make you smart.”
The more grasping among us are transparent, in other words.
We prefer pigs to princesses cuz you can’t be a pretend thing, but pigs are cool. Pigs shine in nuance cuz they’re so wicked alive; a glinting tiara or a pair of earrings can’t blur real light. I’ve met people who think they’re princesses and I’ve met some who know we’re all pigs. A princess is pretty, a pig is beautiful. A princess is ephemeral, a pig timeless. A princess is nice, a pig is kind. Princesses are boring, pigs are enchanting. Princesses are “fun,” pigs are fun. Princesses are clean, pigs are dirty. Way better.
We all have facing us a circuitous route to wiping off the snot and gitting our asses behind drum kits, until we learn with our bodies never to bullshit again. And then we hope we play a beast which can’t be blurred. Superficial shine is a waste of time. And time is what you’re doing here. You are an animal. A real song is a dirty thing, rich with animal. A suck song is a shallow puddle, shining with oil slick rainbow. You don’t have to listen to anyone else’s music. Play your own and refuse to lie or be lied to.
Switch one eye to a shadow, wear your dirty, live half a day stuck in that morning’s dream, be a creature: a little quieter, listening to the stream. The noise/un-noisening/how lucky are we stream, seeing past shine or a lack thereof. What you’re looking for is the animal in your shaky house, in the child, in the woman, in the drum kit and in the song.