writing

Now that we’ve played these 50Foot/TM shows and I know that Throwing Muses can actually still play Throwing Muses songs (honestly, it’s really hard!), I’d like to share this brilliantly written e-mail David Narcizo sent me while we were trying to come up with a workable set list.

Dave sent Bernie & me a buttload of wild song ideas — all intriguing, yet seemingly impossible to play (so many chords…so many time changes…so many lyrics). Dave was excited, I was bewildered and Bernie was pretty much in panic mode (“There is no autopilot for me! I didn’t play on that record, remember?”).

After I let Dave know that I hated him, he laughed, apologized and added more difficult songs to the list, telling me that once I listened to the songs, I’d feel better. I didn’t. In fact, I wasn’t sure I had written any of that material, it sounded so strange. I told Dave that he must be thinking of a different girl in a different band and that maybe he should call her and leave me out of the whole thing. He laughed again and suggested “Mexican Women”, a song that has become a Throwing Muses in-joke and code for Songs We Will Never Play. I laughed. Dave said, “No, really.”

Dave won, of course. Throwing Muses seems to have a life of its own. Some songs did fall by the wayside, of course, but we played Mexican Women, we played Soul Soldier, Fear, Colder, Hate My Way…it went from awful to wonderful. Even rehearsals were a serious blast. As Dave said after the New York show, “We are honored.”

Here is his awesome e-mail:

—

Subject: the coleman stove
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006
From: Dave
To: Kristin

did i ever tell you my winter camping story?
before i was In My Forties i went winter camping in vermont w/ john &
steve.
we packed a picnic lunch for the drive of tequila, narragansett talls
and selected herbs and spices. (steve chaperoned).
throughout the drive, as john and i emptied the picnic basket, he kept
repeating: ‘do you realize that the hike into the site is almost a
mile?’.
i remember thinking..’walking. so we walk. i can walk. how hard could
that be?’ i could tell that j. was more worried about it because he
never dropped the subject.

well, by the time we reached the camping area it was snowing. in fact,
by the looks of things it had been snowing for days. we parked the car
at the foot of the mountain logging road that led UP to our site. when
we started to unpack the car, that’s when i noticed that john and steve
had all kinds of ‘real deal’ hiking stuff like backpacks and bungee
cords. i had a duffle bag and a boom box. steve went right to work (cuz
he didn’t eat the picnic basket), he rigged some kind of suit for me
where i had the duffle bag tied around my chest, the boom box in my
hand and a coleman stove bungee’d to my back. i took my first step up
the steep slope but my foot didn’t hit ground until the snow was nearly
up to my waist. that’s when i fell down. face first into the snow. the
scale of my hiking adventure had suddenly hit me full force like a
snowball in the face. this is what j. was trying to warn me about.

being not sober had both advantages and disadvantages. on the upside it
was hysterically funny to me and i laughed into the snow. the downside
was that i would have laughed into the air but truth was i couldn’t
move, roll over or nothing cuz i was drunk and i had a coleman camp
stove bungee’d to my back which was much lighter than the (now wet)
duffle bag strapped to my chest.

my stronger and half more sober friends stood me up and we started the
climb. there was much resting along the way but eventually i hit a
(virtual) wall. i was averaging about 3 steps between rests at this
point. something had to give or go. it was the coleman stove. i left it
there on the side of the trail and moved the duffle bag to my bag.
piece of cake. the hike was over.

i know that i’ve been sending you lists of songs to play for the
upcoming shows and sometimes while i’m working at my desk others pop
into my head like ‘finished! ooh. finished. that’s a fun song. i’ll
email kristin and have her add that to the list. and mexican women!
that’ll be great! i’m pretty sure she likes that song.’

well, yesterday i sat down to practice for the first time since we
decided to play these shows. the triple sow cow has been replaced by
the coleman stove and right now ‘call me’ is my coleman stove. ‘call
me’ is like the fuckin’ suv of coleman stoves. i might rewrite some of
it (don’t tell the purists) and see how that goes. i think that drum
part was written by a meerkat! or an octopus.

i’ve fallen but i can get up.
d.

p.s. ‘mexican women’ turned out to be the duffle bag but one that can
double as a backpack!

My son, Ryder, turned 15 yesterday. Baby Bo gave him a song for his birthday, his brother, Wyatt, gave him advice (“Stay away from gophers”) and Billy and I drew various pictures of presents we’d planned on getting him. I don’t know when our family began to subscribe to the hippie-ish Make It Or Find It ethic, but Ry seems cool with his invisible gifts. Billy’s chocolate inside-out cake was real, anyway. Real caffeinated, too — we were all up past midnight watching Father Ted in the kids’ room, laughing hysterically. Only Bo could sleep.

I doubt it was the caffeine, though, that kept us up. I think it was the just plain weirdness of a baby you know turning into a man you know and not wanting the day to end before we figured out how to feel about it. It’s been said before, by other wimpy-ass parents, that children grow up and it’s confusing, but people usually claim it happens quickly. If you asked me how many years Ryder’d been alive and I wasn’t allowed to say “forever”, I would’ve guessed about 50. But I also would have to admit that I think he’s a 50 year old toddler.

I met a toddler named Ryder in the airport last night, of all things. Then I came home to a six foot man named Ryder that I call my son. Crazy how the past keeps walking out the door and not even saying goodbye. It colors our present images to an extent that allows us to believe it’s real, but it isn’t. It’s gone. Pioneertown is burning. Today is the anniversary of my stepfather, Wayne’s, death. How can Baby Ry, Pioneertown and Wayne be nowhere?

But 50FootWave had another stupefyingly fun show this weekend in beautiful Seattle; Bernie and Rob are still my heart’s brothers (they left a hole in our household when they drove back to LA); Ryder may be “Man Ry”, but he still has his father’s unholy green eyes; my mother lost the love of her life, but she’s happy to see the rosehips appear by the ocean every spring; Billy’s still in the kitchen making chocolate inside-out cake whenever a boy has a birthday.

And I still have a baby in my arms. A different baby, one with blue eyes and an affinity for motorcycles and sugar. And while I dread missing this person I know better than anyone else, I can’t wait to see him throw away the past and jump into the now, whether he’s 15 or 50. They’re just so good at it, those babies– they’re always shoving that goofy old past out the door and not looking back.

Some things never change.

Love,
Kristin

We came home a few weeks ago to a house full of ants. Ants were eating our food, drinking our beer, wearing our clothes. Ants do this. They invite themselves over and refuse to leave. They make pests of themselves. Also? They bite. They bite me, anyway. Billy says that’s because I’m not patient. His theory is that ants only pester impatient people as a little reminder to them to be patient.

I guess. But the only thing I’m really impatient about right now is getting these ants out of my house. They bit Wyatt, too, our 9 year old, and he’s pretty goddamn patient. He’s our Charles Wallace. He can catch any animal (“Can I keep him, Mom? I already named him–I call him Angry ’cause that’s what he is!”) and grow any plant. Right now, we have no real yard to speak of, yet he’s growing lentils, sunflowers, blackberries, dill, roses, a cactus, beets, cantaloupes, irises, basil, blueberries, aloe and a Venus fly trap.

But ants can get to anyone. They’re really annoying. When the ant bit Wyatt, he yelled, “If Nature was a guy, he’d be crazy!”. This from the kid who said, “Instinct is biological education”. I tried telling him that the ant bit him instinctively and he answered, “Yeah, I know. I hate him.”

Well, I have to say, I hate him too and I hate all his friends. I’ve gotten very good with my squirtgun full of Trader Zen (a Trader Joe’s cleaning product that contains grain alcohol or something else I might drink, so it kills them instantly). And still they send wave after wave of little soldiers onto the battlefield of the kitchen counter — why? Hardly anybody ever returns from these missions. Idiots.

Ryder, our 14 year old, says they must think it’s some sort of insect Valhalla. That no one ever bothers to come back because it’s so great there. Maybe. Idiots. At least Vikings understood that you had to die first.

And don’t tell me not to hate ants. Whenever I say I hate ants, somebody tells me not to. They usually quote T.V. — “I saw a nature special on ants once; they’re very advanced. They have war…and…slavery…”

Idiots.

By the way, I heard the completed solo album for the first time last night. Nine months in the making, like a big, fat, angry baby. Joe’s finished mastering it (again!) and it is brutal–in a good way. I gotta call everyone who worked on it and thank them. It’s a real gift to be completely happy with a record; it almost never happens. I owe them all “five bucks and a candy bar”, as Martin says.

Love,
Kristin

What a beautiful southwestern mini tour. The Mojave desert is a golden place — truly gold — and the Sonoran desert is violet. Nothing like a hot wind in the middle of the night to free up the senses.

We’ve been missing our old desert life terribly lately and were worried that going back would hurt our feelings, but our motel in Palm Springs was upliftingly cheap and such a happy place. They play Hawaiian luau music around the clock (an addictive soundtrack — we’re still playing it in our house) and we got to hang with all the other “winners” who summer in Palm Springs (107 degrees!). Fun fact: the owners of the motel are presently doing time for murder.

We had no CD’s to sell for gas money on this tour, so Billy went to a pinata store and filled party bags with little plastic doo dads, bubble gum and paper money and I signed “Hello, My Name Is …” blank name tags. We threw all this and a KH sticker into each gift bag and sold them for $5. It was funny AND sad, but also very sweet. People really rose to the pathetic occasion, waving their pity dollars at Billy: “One ‘bag of crap’, please!”, “I’ll take two ‘gas bags’ for a ten!”.

At one point after the LA show, Billy was on stage wrestling a tall, beautiful, blond woman who was trying to shove money into his shirt (I know her, so I was cool with it). This woman did a comprehensive photo shoot for us, free of charge, then she had to buy a ticket to the show because we forgot to put her on the guest list, THEN she tried to give us money! She wouldn’t even take a bag of crap for it. I think she won the wrestling match, too, because her money sat crumpled up on the stage as she walked out the front door of the club. Now that’s a classy broad.

Bernie and Rob were at the LA show, as well (Bernie brought his future mother-in-law, of all things). I miss them so much. We had an impromptu 50Foot meeting about the next recording. There was some whispered encouragement all around and as much as I hate to say it, I’m pretty sure there was a group hug. We’re all three of us, a little needy these days.

Time to make dinner…

X’s and O’s

Love,
Kristin

Whenever I type my name in an email, the Robot God inside the computer (Billy: “Some people call it a spell checker”) tells me I’m a cretin. And I don’t argue. Like if somebody yells, “Hey, idiot!”, you look up because you know it’s true and you’re only bummed because somebody else realized it.

The Robot God, of course, knows all. I think I mentioned to you that the new record was mixed, right? Wrong. (cretin!)

Last week, I made Trina climb up into her attic studio in Tennessee and stay up half the night to “bring the narrative back to life” in a chorus vocal — I had split the vocal into 3 parts: lead, double and harmony, which made it sound clumsy to me and like I had friends (clearly such was not the case).

I had to send her an MP3 of a demo from way back whenever so she’d know what I was talking about. Then we whispered through wee-hour cell phone calls and listened on headphones while our babies slept. Needless to say, Trina pulled it off and made it perfect.

Off the record went to LA, to be mastered by Joe Gastwirt, the master masterer. Done, done and done! Except…something wasn’t sitting right (cretin!) The end of a really nice, buzz guitar line was being swamped under a string swell in two different sections of the first song. Not a big deal to anyone in the whole entire world, I guess, except for me and possibly Billy. But we had it so close to perfect…

So now Trina goes back into the attic to make the song buzzier and then Joe’ll have to do it again. They probably don’t even like me any more (cretin!). But they’ll have to like this record, ’cause it’s gonna be perfect!

Also? I’m another aunt!!!

Two days ago, Hazel Parker Hersh joined the family fold, all 8 lbs., 5 oz. of her. Born here in Portland to my brother, Dave, and his lovely wife, April. Welcome, baby!

And special thanks to Strange Angel Erin McCown for turning me on to the magical Tuin, of Rose City Reptiles — now I’m back in the snake medicine saddle. Tuin has these wildly cool Miami corn snakes that filled a gap Forest Park couldn’t. Two hours of cuddling these beauties while Tuin filled my sons’ hands with all kinds of frogs, lizards and spiders was all it took.

Now if I could just find some snails and puppy dog tails…

Love,
Kristin