Meme me.
I was tagged by Lindstifa for the “7 things you don’t know about me” meme. Seeing as I’m one of those people that tweet about aroma gnomes “flavoring” my farts and knitting sweaters out of bellybutton lint, I’m pretty sure that everything is already out there. Oh well, here goes.
1. I had a phobia about tampons and all things hygienic (down there) until the age of 22. At 23 I shipped off to Kiribati with the Peace Corps, where many of my group’s female volunteers would regale us with tales of Giardiasis. The best cure for hygiene fears? Poop stories. Tampax and I are best buds now.
2. I’m a sucker for post-rock. Anything by GSYBE, Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Elbow, Ef, and others.
Actually, I hate the term post-rock (and if you say slowcore, cockpunch!). Before I learned of the term I would simply refer to my music as soundtrack music. It all started about 9 years ago. Right before I went overseas I took about 8 months to see college friends from all over the country. A hearty bartending salary left me without a lot of disposable income and plenty of days off, so I took a vacation every three-four weeks and crashed on couches from coast to coast. Before I would travel I would load up my player with something new. Now, every airport has its own soundtrack. I can’t walk through Midway without hearing Radiohead’s Kid A in my head, Honolulu sounds like Sigur Ros (_), Columbus sounds like GSYBE’s Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, Denver sounds like Red House Painters, Tampa sounds like Tom Waits, Phoenix sounds like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (we drank A LOT in Phoenix).
Hit me up at Last.fm and see if you can find anything you like.
3. I have a hard time finding ways to be romantic when I’m broke and it scares me that my creativity relies so heavily on money, but I’m trying to get better.
4. I think people that spend a lot of time scrap-booking are silly, boring people, even though I would spend days, sometimes even weeks, making my own backstage passes for concerts.
This was long before Photoshop. We had some local venues that are small and quaint, yet large enough to house some large-name bands just before they go big, so I would wait on a good band to announce their concert and roll into action. I would find their label, make business cards saying I worked for said label, call myself into the will call list (sometimes asking for additional passes for friends), and start cutting and pasting barcodes and high-res pictures onto card stock to be hard-laminated at my nearest Kinkos. So long as I had something official, it was never questioned. Even taking a label maker and adding PHOTO OK or PRESS would allow me camera access backstage.
Best Moment: Backstage for Live and Weezer. Friends from my high school were at the show and just about freaked when they saw me standing backstage.
Weirdest Moment: Hanging out with Josh Todd from Buckcherry. He saw the PRESS and his company’s logo on my lariat, in addition to my pad of paper, and immediately thought I was there to interview him. I took some pictures of him in front of the venue, hung out on the tour bus, and drank my face off backstage. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself as he was Jesus-posing in front of the Newport.
Worst Moment: Real bar codes on backstage stickers. The lariat pass is now dead, replaced by reflective stickers. Back in the day you could get away with anything so long as it looked official. Now, concerts have one official pass for each show and security is much, much tighter. For someone that once climbed into the lighting rafters for a Jesus & Mary Chain/Mazzy Star concert, this sucks.
5. When my son was first born I would blog almost once a day. The first year of his life has pretty much been archived on blogspot. It make me sad that my posts are now less creative AND sporadic. Writing is therapeutic, so it’s no wonder I’m so screwed up right now. I need to go back to that place.
Similarily, while I love to write, I hate grammar. I need to get better. Gooder. More better; ish)
6. I have a hard time finishing anything I start.
7.
