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Kristin Hersh

Kristin Hersh

Kristin Hersh • Throwing Muses • 50 Foot Wave

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writing

I Got My License To Sparkle

I got my license to sparkle this week.

Jet lag’s a bitch goddess. One of the minor deities that isn’t a drug, yet can still make you feel like a super hero at three in the morning (see: love, music, TV, etc.). I buzz around, getting “things” done. I think vivid, clear, big picture thoughts. I am efficient and sparkling. And I feel a vague sense of pity for the rest of humanity as they lie in bed, useless, unable to sparkle even the wee-est bit.

Of course, I made dinner at three o’clock yesterday afternoon (that’s the bitch part). The children squinted at me, then ate it politely. “I’m not as hungry as you’d think,” said Wyatt gently. “I ate lunch, um…a minute ago.”

By five o’clock, I start to seriously dumben. I wonder how people do what they do. “Wow, they just keep…walking around! It’s amazing. They’re all like, standing up and talking and stuff.” I have ceased to sparkle. The bulb is dim. I am no longer the sharpest can on the tree. My thoughts are extremely small picture: “My fingernails hurt. Can a fingernail hurt? No nerve endings. What the hell is a fingernail, anyway? That’s just weird. Armor for the back of your finger’s head. It’s messed up. And then they grow. Whadda they do that for? ‘Cause then you can’t dial a phone. Dial a phone? Dial? Holy shit, we don’t dial phones any more! Oh my god, that’s so sad. Or roll down windows. My children will never roll down a window. That’s heartbreaking. Do we really need high tech phones and windows? Who are we, anyway? Just buttons, everything’s gotta be goddamn buttons. My fingernails hurt. Remember that guy who grew his fingernails really, really, really, really long? I think somebody married him. Geez. Gross.”

So, basically, I got up at three a.m. to try and sparkle at you before the dumbening kicks in, though I’m not making myself look very smart.

I have a friend who works at Mattel who told me that there is a Barbie product called “license to sparkle,” which is a good name for what jet lag gives me. A few hours after my license is issued, though, jet lag reaches down and takes a firm hold of the rug my brain is standing on, then pulls hard. Before that happens, I’ll tell you about the tour I just did:

The west coast: a big, fat, barrel of motherluvin’ monkey fun. The “Muddy Circle” session at Mudrock’s studio in LA was a cozy, musical cocktail party in the sweet room where 50FOOTWAVE recorded the soon-to-be released “Power+Light”.

The next day, I recorded with the brilliant and beautiful Lauren Shera in Santa Cruz, her heartbreaking songs playing in my head for days (“I can’t sing,” I told her engineer and he laughed. “No, really. Like, can’t,” and he stopped laughing). Lauren put me up in a roadhouse by the ocean, near a lavender farm. Whoa.

Then we crashed with Bernie for the Seattle Shady Circle (ow ow ow I miss 50FOOTWAVE) and woke up to  the perfection of silver sun on Bodhi’s birthday. The next day, Portland wined and dined the birthday boy and hurt our feelings with gorgeous autumn weather and fancy friends.

Then we booked home (17 straight hours) to the desert for a homestyle Bo Birthday Party, then flew to Amsterdam, land of the great and powerful Dutch.

A tough, honest people, the Dutch. You might say honest to a fault; “dismayingly blunt” is maybe a better term. My self esteem is never boosted in Holland. And tough, my god…we call a massage in Holland a “Dutch Pounding.” Performed “Paradoxical Undressing” at a literary festival (“That was long,” commented the Dutch). Best signage in Holland: “Lambs Pizza” and “High Tech Internet Spui.”

Then I flew to London to play Shady Circle and greatest “hits” sets at the packed, teeny Borderline and saw this most wonderful thing on TV while I was there: a budgie circus. A budgie circus. I’m sorry, but your life sucks unless you have seen: a budgie circus. They ride ferris wheels, drive cars, pull carts in tiny harnesses and mess with their human overlord…er, ringmaster.

Budgie circus.

I really want a budgie now. A team of budgies to do my bidding, to be more precise. I can’t see buying ’em, so I’d have to catch them. They tend not to congregate in the Mojave, though. We only have that one parrot who thinks it’s a crow and I can’t seem to catch him. I could wrangle a few hummingbirds maybe, but they don’t seem inclined to do anyone’s bidding. Hummingbirds’re bitchy.

Best signage in London: “Warning: Handbag Snatchery About.”

Budgie circus.

Love,
Kristin

I’m Fighting More Robots

I’m fighting more robots than I used to, it seems. And robots fight dirty.

Both my cell phone and my computer insist that I am a cretin. Not a “christine” or a “kirsten”, which I could understand. At least those are names. The robots have taught me to avoid ever writing my name except on pieces of paper, but it does come up every now and then in robot world. “Kristin?” they ask snidely. “Are you sure? We’re thinking ‘cretin.’ Yeah, that’s definitely it. Try cretin.” And they snicker.

The phone robot also has a more insidious weapon it uses against me: predictive text. Like most introverts, I love the idea of texting, as there is no human voice or face attached to the communication and no tension associated with hanging up or not being able to. Texting is like passing notes in class, which is a terribly under-appreciated art form, in my opinion. My phone, however, doesn’t let me use some of the basic words that I have long considered it my right to use.

For instance, the word “back.” Instead of “I will get back to you…love, kristin” it makes me say, “I will get back baby bad balls to you…love cretin”. Once, it made me say, “merry merry meat meat on the phone phone”. I don’t even remember what I was trying to say. The word “television” is always followed by the word “gonads.” If I type the letter “A”, it is followed by “NOW chlorinated!” The letter “I” is followed by “Still SUCK.”

The self-checkout robot at the grocery store only speaks to me in Spanish. Which made me feel sexy at first (I’m rarely mistaken for swarthy), but…I don’t speak Spanish and I’m easily confused even in my own language. I’m working on my Spanish; after all, I live in California. I’m not advancing quickly enough for the self-checkout robot, though, who repeats herself over and over again, calmly but loudly enough for the other (smirking) grocery store patrons to hear. I never know what she wants me to do, so I just stand there, frowning, balancing bags of salad and cartons of eggs, waiting for rescue. I want the self-checkout robot to like me, but I don’t think she ever will.

My TV doesn’t even like me, and really, a TV is an ancient, “Lost in Space” version of a robot. Its thought patterns are still more complex than mine, however. It uses its army of remotes to mock me and my Luddite sensibilities. Together, the television and its remote minions have convinced Tivo to record documentaries on “a man eating animals” rather than “man-eating animals” and instead of “mammal babies,” “mammals making babies.” The latter made for a rather uncomfortable evening gathered around the television with my children, all of us avoiding eye contact with anything but the floor.

I’m seriously thinking about engaging in human contact, of all things, which is traditionally where my Luddite tendencies let me down. I’m an asocial Luddite which is a non-starter. It’s hard to raise a barn without talking to somebody about it first, you know? I really thought the robots could help me out with this problem of mine, but they don’t wanna hang out with me anymore. They’re too cool and they know it.

So the next time I’m at the grocery store, I’ll take a deep breath and then wait in line with the human beings, the walking, talking, meat meat robots and when they ask me a question, I’ll be ready to say something back baby bad balls. If I feel like texting someone, I’m gonna call them on the phone phone and I’ll be ready with a NOW chlorinated! way to end the conversation. I will not watch animal porn with my children unless it is absolutely necessary, because I am the boss of my television gonads. And I’m brushing up on my terrible Spanish, though I Still SUCK.

Love,
Cretin

Rubidoux

I’ve posted the last in my year-long series of CASH tracks. It’s called Rubidoux and it’s here. Another of my “songs from the backseat”.

Love,
Kristin

Find this song and all my recent work, in multiple formats – including lossless, free for download on my CASH Music pages. Information on how you can support the creation and distribution of this music by becoming a subscriber is here.

Art Therapy

The following is a Paradoxical Undressing “outtake” about an Art Therapy class. Like the rest of Paradoxical Undressing, it is an excerpt from my diary. It takes place in 1986 when I was trying to finish my college degree before Throwing Muses’ record came out and my baby was born.

I wanna go back to the ocean. The buzzing fluorescents are making me feel sick and the other students don’t look particularly promising.

The first thing the teacher asks us to do is lie on the floor and relax. I’m not me anymore, though, I’m pregnant, so I don’t relax, I just pass out and then wake up as the other students are shuffling around, grabbing art supplies and moving desks into groups. Oh, crap, I think. I slept through the assignment.

I follow a woman with blond pony tails and glasses over to the art supply cabinet and copy everything she does, taking a gigantic piece of paper, some colored pencils, charcoal and a drawing pen from the cabinet, then scoot my desk over to her group. Peeking over some shoulders to see what “art” we’re supposed to do, I see that the other students are all drawing animals. Okay…I can draw an animal.

The paper is enormous and difficult to manage. I try spreading it out on the desk, but it spills over the side, so I put it down on the carpeted floor. Then the pen I’m using tears a hole in it. Goddamn it. I grab a small book off a nearby shelf, place it underneath the paper and, stretching my arms out past my protruding stomach, draw a tiny blowfish in the middle of the paper. [Read more…] about Art Therapy

The Guitar That Love Built

The guitar that love built will be in my hands in a few days. It’s the end of the week as we know it and everything’s different now.

Last month, I did a mini-tour of the southwest with Robert Fisher from the Willard Grant Conspiracy, a normal tour: club dates, club promoters, club crowds. Fine, fine and fine again, nothing out of the ordinary, really. The only problem was that I was playing these old Shady Circle songs; songs written in houses for friends, family and interested onlookers. In clubs, hey come off as art pieces: interesting old paintings, but nothing a twenty-first century individual would ever think to crawl into.

Billy and I flew around the country, thinking, talking, then scooped up the kids and shoved ’em back into the truck, still thinking and talking, Shady Circle songs in our ears. We gazed off into the distance, wondering what the New Old World’ll be like, when songs written in houses for friends, family and interested onlookers can be played in houses for friends, family and interested onlookers.

Crackpot Theory meets Wild Hare: Billy books Shady Circle house shows with fan promoters on the drive back to California. Kids, dogs, snakes, guitars, amps, groceries, suitcases and schoolbooks tumbling out of the truck and into the loving embrace of smart people, backyards, laughter and potluck freakin’ dinners! Allow me to repeat: everything’s different now.

Here’s why:

  1. All real songs are written in houses (and garages and motels and the back seats of cars) for friends, family and interested onlookers. This is music to crawl into. Music played just for commerce is, in my snooty opinion, not real music. If we have to go back in musical time to before there was a music industry in order to learn this lesson, then that’s what we should do, ’cause it’s an important one.
  2. Normal people like music. Not just people who look like the rock bands they listen to; all kinds of people are moved by sound. They don’t need big corporations to tell them what music they like and they also don’t need to jeopardize tomorrow’s work day to drink expensive-cheap beer in the middle of the night in a rock club if that isn’t their thing. They still like music.
  3. People are giving. When they aren’t being taken advantage of, they know it. They deserve respect and when they get it, they share: ideas, jokes, opinions, money, food, stories, music and beer.

At Michelle’s house concert, like all the house concerts, I laughed and talked through my set and everyone else in the room laughed and talked with me. We were together in the room, not separated by a wall of performer vs. audience. Afterwards, I watched in envy as bandmates scheduled rehearsals with each other. It seemed like everyone there was in a band with everyone else who was there.

I told them I’d give anything to be able to play with one of my bands on a Tuesday night in a basement (or anywhere, for that matter). “Why can’t you play with your bands?” Michelle’s drummer asked.

“Well…because…of the music business,” I answered, well aware of how stupid that sounds.

I bought into the conventional music business a long time ago. Shame on me. Michelle’s world is the New Old World (bring it on!). Someday soon, there will be such a thing as a musician who does not suck and does not starve. Imagine: local bands again. Playing in one’s own city for friends, family and interested onlookers. No more begging, for tours, radio, publicity, T.V. and movie placement, etc. No more rich rock stars, just passing the hat and working hard to support your music habit. There is no shame in that, but there should be shame associated with playing lousy music just to make money and get famous. That’s failure.

I had given up on ever seeing the guitar I asked Collings to build for me almost 3 years ago, before money got really tight.  Collings builds their beautiful guitars to my specifications. Bill Collings watched me play and chose the wood, while I chose the bodyshape.  It was gonna be perfect. My old Collings C-10, the reason I ever had a solo acoustic career, was beaten to shit, barely playable any longer; I really needed a new guitar. But I simply couldn’t take food out of the kids’ mouths to buy a guitar, even if it was built for me.

The people at Collings sympathized and apologized for having to replace the “KH” headstock with a generic one in order to sell it to someone else. Billy was heartbroken, having spent the last few Christmases and birthdays struggling to find a way to surprise me with the guitar, but ultimately giving up.

Friday morning, out of desperation, we decided to share our frustration with this community. We were overwhelmed by the response we got. Billy received (and answered!) almost 600 emails from people wanting to help me buy the guitar. Hundreds of contributions came into “The Hat”, my online tip-jar, mostly small ones between one and five dollars, sometimes ridiculously generous ones. “The Hat” runneth over. By Friday afternoon, we had enough to buy the guitar. We laughed and cried, awe-struck, and begged people to stop contributing.

When the guys at Collings heard what happened, they shared our shock and glee, blown away that any musician could have such a loving following. “They’re buying it for you?” Today, they’re happily boxing up and shipping off my beautiful New Old Guitar.

You people continue to amaze me.

A special “Thank you” to the first Shady Circle house concert promoters: Echo (Brooklyn, NY), Tine (Franklin, MA), Michele (Buffalo, NY) and Tom (Lee’s Summit, MO)


Me, playing “Deep Wilson”, fireside, in Tom’s Backyard.

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Kristin Hersh

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