Bollocks

"My work explores the relationship between the body and midlife subcultures. With influences as diverse as Kierkegaard and John Lennon, new synergies are created from both traditional and modern meanings.

"Ever since I was a student I have been fascinated by the theoretical limits of meaning. What starts out as vision soon becomes corroded into a hegemony of power, leaving only a sense of nihilism and the possibility of a new reality.

"As spatial phenomena become frozen through boundaried and critical practice, the viewer is left with an impression of the limits of our condition."

Artsy Bollocks Generator. Get your instant artistic statement with a mouse click. If you don't like it you can generate a new one.

Hat tip to Violins and Starships.

11 Days to Good Writing, Day 1: Don't Expect It to Be Easy

In my never ending quest to edumacate myself in what exactly makes a good writer, I found an About.com article, What Is the Difference Between a Good Writer and a Bad Writer? by Richard Nordquist. I found it so useful, in fact, that I've decided to post his compilation of quotes, followed by my own thoughts. I don't claim to be "a good writer", but I strive to be. I hope these posts will help you, too.
__________

Day 1: Don't Expect it to Be Easy

"You know what, it is so funny. A good writer will always find it very hard

to fill a single page. A bad writer will always find it easy."

Aubrey Kalitera (Why Father Why, 1983)

The act of polishing my craft, whatever the output, has always been the most important thing to me. Whether I'm writing a silly poem for a friend's birthday card, composing an opera, dashing off a blog entry, or writing a novel, I'm motivated by excellence and self-education. As Paul McCartney once said in an interview, "I vaguely mind someone knowing anything I don't."

There is a huge difference between getting a nice story in your mind and honing that story until it sparkles. Too often, an inexperienced writer will get an idea, set it down and call it a done deal. It's the excitement of the idea that motivates them rather than the love of writing itself. How many threads of scenes have I consigned to my "Cutting Room Floor" file because, although an idea held some promise, it just didn't hold water? Writing--good writing--isn't merely getting a story in mind and then getting it out of there. It takes a firm knowledge of the three basics: vocabulary, grammar, and the elements of style. If you don't have at least a working knowledge of these, you're a bad writer. Sorry if that hurts.You may have great ideas, but that doesn't make you a writer any more than being able to pick out Chopsticks or Blue Moon on the piano makes you a virtuoso.

One of the things I like to tell an inexperienced writer to do is get a book not of their usual genre and read it. In fact, select a genre you hate. If you're aiming to be a fantasy writer, for instance, read Henry Miller. And read him not for the story, but for study. Make margin notes and mark the punctuation, circling the rules you don't have a solid grasp of. If you don't know what a word means, stop and look it up in a dictionary, then copy it and the definition into a journal. Finally, read a book of your genre and do the same thing. Until you've done these exercises, don't you dare sit down to write and, if you do, don't even dream of sending your manuscript to an editor, an agent, or a publisher. Yeah, it's hard work. Don't expect it to be easy.

I remember, many years ago, I met a guy who told me he wanted to be a writer. Excited, I asked who his favorite authors were, to which he replied, "Oh, I don't read. I don't want to pollute my style." What style? None of us are created intact from Zeus' head. If you don't read, you can't write. It's like wanting to compose a symphony, but never stepping outside of popular music to experience classical.

Writing is a lot of fun, or at least it should be, but it's also damned hard work that entails more than clacking away at your computer keyboard to the amusement of your friends and family. It requires getting out into the world, observing people, understanding some human psychology, and seeing the world around you through a writer's eye and ear. It takes not only ideas and words to be a writer, it also takes integrity and dedication. It's going to be a lot of work and it's going to be hard. I'm not one of those who believe that we must suffer for our art (some do, I don't), but I do work hard at it. Add to all this a drive for personal excellence and you just may have what it takes to be a good writer.

Waiting It Out

It's not that I'm doing nothing. It's not that I'm writing nothing. It's not even that I'm shirking, slacking, or any of those other dreaded verbs of non-action. It's that while I'm putting my body through the motions, my mind is definitely in hibernation mode. My health has taken a curious turn and, while I can kind of keep up with minimum demands, I'd simply rather not. My recent blog entry here explains.

Actually, I have a mountain of things to do and write, so I'm going through the list, ticking off the items, but with no real sense of accomplishment or satisfaction. Get it done. Just get it done. This isn't like me. I've never been one of those who do something to get it out of the way. I invest myself wholly in everything I do. That's why I'm investing myself in this lethargy while it lasts. Seems like the thing to do.

On Lynette's Birthday

All This California Dreamin'...

Seems that my waxing nostalgic and homesick has been put into something productive that's really struck a nerve for a lot of people. Earlier this week I started thinking about the bands we listened to in my part of California--the counties of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo (wedged lovingly between the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas), also known as the Gold Coast. I started remembering all the fun we had back then going to clubs and dances in our Sixties frippery and finery and dancing to some of the best music coming out of the state. I decided to start a blog about it and, in less than a week it has exploded! Besides the gathering of research for the site, I've been corresponding with bands that I'd forgotten all about as they send me their info and pictures for the site. They want this! How exciting!

Here's a list of the pages:

• About This Blog - What the site is about.
• Gallery of Bands - Listing of bands with pictures, member line-ups, discographies, info.
• Lost Bands - I need the info!
• Where Are They Today? - Pictures.
• Clubs & Venues - The places where we hung out to hear our favorite bands.
• Videos - Relive your favorite songs.
• Rock & Roll Heaven - Obituaries of those who have trucked on to Heavenstock.
• Band Gigs - Calendar of dates places to go see our bands and musicians now.
• Special Thanks - Acknowledgments of everyone who helps.
• Contact Me - Yeah, I like hearing from you! Send me info, pictures, stories & comments.

Anyway, pay it a visit. Even if you're not from that area, it's a fun trek down Memory Lane for anyone of our generation. Just click the picture, or click here: California Gold Coast Dreamin'.

Message to Self

You just never know what'll be waiting for you in your email box each morning. Yesterday I awoke to find a letter from an old friend from my years hanging out with local bands in the Sixties. I've mentioned before that my first boyfriend Sammy was the lead guitarist of one of the most popular bands in our area. At some point around 1968 his friend (or maybe they're cousins, I can't remember) Ponce joined forces to create another very popular band. I sent Ponce a private message in Facebook asking for some information about their bands for an article I'm writing and I awoke to find an email from him containing this picture plus two others. (Pictures enlarge. Mouseover for captions.)

That's me on the beach at Malibu in 1971. Sammy, Ponce and I went there one afternoon to hangout in the sun a bit. Ponce always was a photographer, but I had no idea he'd taken these pictures of me. Or at least I don't remember him doing so.

In his email he explained that he'd recently found his old Nikon stashed away in storage. The film advance had broken right after that day at the beach, so he moved on to a new camera. When he found the old Nikon years later, there was some old and very delicate film in it, so he developed it and this is what he found. I'd show you the other two photos, but they look very much like this one. I just happen to like this one best because it more clearly shows the textures of surf and sand.

For me the photo is iconic. It captured a spring day in my life when so many confusing things were going on. I was 19, my son Joel was not yet a year old, and I'd been widowed for as long. Viet Nam was still raging, but fortunately both Sammy and Ponce had returned relatively unharmed (Sammy had taken some shrapnel, but his sweet and generous spirit was undaunted). When I wasn't working a split-shift at a factory in Oxnard and pulling myself out of a nervous breakdown, I was at the apartment that Sammy, Ponce, and their band shared in Santa Monica. They were invaluable where my recovery was concerned. We spent our time listening to music, jamming, grilling, drinking cheap wine and smoking weed, and having a good time. It was just what I needed. Fun.

It didn't last very long. Free spirit that I was, I soon felt the need to move on and try to get back to my music career. Ponce's photograph of me took me back to that place in my life where everything was a crossroads and every decision was monumental, involving not only myself, but my baby son as well.

There would be a whole lot of life stretching out before me. Harder challenges and even harder decisions were on their way. If I could turn that young girl around and speak to her, I'd tell her,

"Don't be afraid. Step out and do what you love. Don't succumb to the guilt that people will try to lay on you. Instead, turn from them, laughing, and walk away. Don't listen to the criticism of others. Be free but be wary, and believe in yourself."

The Fool's Errand

"Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining 'blog' is a fool's errand." Michael Conniff

When blogging was still new--say, about 60 million years ago--there were so few bloggers that it felt like a small community. A village, if you will, with the citizens meeting in each others' comment areas to discuss the different topics we were blogging about. It was a great way to gain inspiration for your next entry, to entice new readers, and to make new friends.

Well, that village has become a huge, sprawling metropolis. There are the high end properties, the slums, the working class neighborhoods and the suburbs, and visiting our favorite blogs can take up an entire weekend. Never mind getting absorbed in conversations in the comments. And then there's the various and sundry social networks to consider. Who has that kind of time?

Sometimes I seriously consider giving the internet a break for a year, as an experiment. No writing blogs, no reading blogs, no Facebook, no nothing. Just go back to how life was before the internet gluttonized itself on the world. I think about all I used to get accomplished. I composed an opera and many chamber pieces, I wrote letters and journals, I maintained an incredible garden, and I sculpted. To be honest though, I was much younger then and I still had a lot of physical energy. When I think about leaving now, I wonder what I could do these days. Thanks to illness, my energy level is pretty low, so I'd probably get bored and very lonely.

These musings used to come after I'd had a round of attacks from trolls and detractors, but I think I've finally grown that thick skin everyone talks about. They really don't get to me anymore. I just ignore them. Suppose they thought someone's supposed to give a rat's ass and nobody came. Mostly though, I get the urge to close up shop when I start running dry of things to write about.

Over on The Verdant Dude, Earl recently blogged about the rut we bloggers sometimes get into. I commented that after nine years I often feel like I've written about all there is to write. Besides having covered a lot of ground where my thoughts, ideas and feelings are concerned, I've also conquered a lot of personal issues and my angst level has become decidedly lower. And no one enjoys reading about the day-to-day every single day, do they? There was the old troll who provided some amusement over at Vienna for Dummies for a day or two, but even he became a honk-shoo very quickly. (Don't bother trying to find the blog entry, I think Badger took it down.) People just really don't care about trolls anymore. They have long since lost the scary masks and they've become pitiable laughing stocks.

 I doubt I'll ever stop blogging--as long as Blogger exists, this blog will be here. I just wish I was as inspired as I used to be. Maybe, like Earl, I feel I'm in a rut. I may have to start looking for things that will catapult me out of it.


Image courtesy of Data Mining.

Keef Relief

There's a lot to be said for boring, uneventful days. After the two weeks I've been through, being grossly underwhelmed by life is the perfect way to spend a day, or a weekend, if we're lucky.

I seriously hesitate to blame life's ups and downs on moon phases, energy vortexes, and all that. I tend to follow a simpler truth: Shit Happens. And as the loyal Keefist that I am, I keep repeating to myself, "It's all in G, man."

So here's to a quiet, boring, drama-free weekend.

Happiness is a Blank Dry-Erase Board

Like a lot people, we have a dry-erase board on our fridge. Through the past decade it has seen everything from chives to light bulbs written on it, and it has been an integral part of caring for our family where groceries are concerned. In the last year or so it has gained even more meaning as it became a board of expectation ("I really need..."), of fear ("I'm sorry, no $ for..."), and hope ("I promise..."). For me, it has become a symbol of what needs to be fixed not only in our pantry, but in the country's economy as well. What's cool is that about once a month I can wipe that board clean, go to bed and let out a huge sigh of relief.

But this entry isn't about us as much as it is about the country. It amazes me that anyone in the United States should go to bed hungry at all. Our country produces enough food in one year to feed all of Europe. That's fine, but we throw away enough edible food in that same  year to feed the entire world at least two times over. According to anthropologist Tim Jones, New York City alone has an annual surplus of about 50 million pounds of food. Our obsession with food, which reveals itself in both our gluttony and our waste, has created an idiotic situation where good, edible food lies rotting in dumpsters while families go to bed with their stomachs growling.

Our dry-erase board has been a catalyst for real change in our family. I throw nothing out that can be used. Those dibs and dabs of leftover veggies? Into the soup pot. Those heels of bread? Into the food processor for breadcrumbs. Years ago a friend who, after every meal threw all of the uneaten food in the garbage disposal, said to me, "Once it's on the table, it's garbage." That sounded as obscene to me then as it does now. I'd just come through a hungry spell during which I ate oatmeal for two weeks so that my kids could eat, and I just stood there, watching all that good food washing down the drain.

I may not have much, but no one in this house will go hungry on my watch. I've gotten over the pride issues. I've become a master chef when it comes to making something tasty out of nothing. And when I'm in the position to do so, I will donate to food pantries and food banks. I will buy groceries and give money gifts to friends who need help. I've done it before and I will be able to do it again.

Homesick

The fact of the matter is, I'm just plain, old-fashioned homesick. I'm homesick for my state of California, my county of Ventura, my clan, my music, my life. I'm homesick for ocean and mountains, fewer bugs, less humidity, broader-minded people, and fun. I'm homesick for my own kind. Say what you will about us Californians. I don't care.

I haven't been home since I left 12 years ago in 1999 and although I've been very happy, I still feel out of step with life here. I don't fit and, in an effort to try to make myself fit, I've become almost as serious and limited as nearly everyone else here. When I do finally meet like-minded people, they move someplace else.

If I could just go home for a visit once in a while! That's just not possible though. Hell, I can't even afford to drive the 56 miles to Tulsa much less fly to California. I'm now beginning to wonder if I'll ever see home again before I die. It's becoming an important goal for me.

Of course, my finances and my health don't make it any easier. To be completely truthful, my life has been reduced to me sitting here either in or on this bed, looking out the window at a world in which I feel like an alien and an exile. No diversion, no going anywhere, no going out, no nothing. Just sitting here writing and writing and writing because there's nothing else. I used to be vital! I used to go out! Do things! Meet people! Now I just sit here and act like the big old baby that I am when I get like this.

It's not that I don't like it here--it has its charm--but I miss the smell of the ocean air. I miss the particular light that California has. I miss looking around at my own stomping grounds and knowing every street, alley and back road because I've used them my entire life.

Crap. I'm just homesick. Here's a video I just made (you may need to be logged into Facebook to see it, I don't know).

Painting: Homesick-Taipei by Julie Yellow

Yes, Mum

My mother raised me on the words, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

In remaining obedient to the strong Irish guilt she still inspires in me, this is the extent of today's entry.

It Spread Like a Raging Social Disease!

It started out as most things like this do: innocent, private, sweet. I posted this status in Facebook last Thursday (click to embigiate).

The next thing I knew, our friend Debi (not Ville, another one) had made an Event of it and started inviting people she knew to join in. By Friday we had a ton of people playing along and having a great time. The profile pictures below are just of people on my friend list; I received a number of private messages telling me that their friends were doing it too. How fun! I'm thinking of holding this event every year, except on October 2nd,  Groucho's birthday. Click this picture, too:

My 6 Stages of Shite

I mean, really. WTF is up with life lately? Big shite, medium-sized shite, little shite, and all the shite that falls between the cracks...

I have a very definite pattern in how I deal with life's slings and arrows. First, I take care of business. I assess, analyze, seek solutions. Next, I become philosophical. Then I panic. After that I get hurt at whomever the person or circumstance was that brought the shite down onto my head in the first place. Then I get good and pissed off and, finally, I turn it into humor. A weary, wagging the head, WTF humor. That silly humor like when you haven't slept in two days and everything's funny. That's where I am now and you know what? This is my favorite stage. I've taken my power back and I'm laughing at just how absurd life can be at times.

Recently, Nettl told me that someone she knows said, "Look. Some people are just pricks." I'm starting to believe that. I'm beginning to think that it's my Pollyanna-glass-half-full-think-positive-thoughts naivete that brings all this shite to me. Maybe to teach me that I'm full of shite and need to learn that, yes, there really are pricks, dumb asses, and mean people in this world.

In a funny way that's really liberating. It brings me to a place that most people find when they're still young. I envy them. I never found it. One of my mother's favorite sayings was, "If you don't like my front porch, don't sit in my swing." I never got to that place. I've been too busy sweeping the porch and making sure the lemonade is cold. Here's a video about that place.

Ojai and Ventura View

Editor Joel Anderson has been so kind as to give me the feature article on the music page of The Ojai and Ventura View's May issue. The OVV is a local paper in my home of Ventura County, California. The article is about my memories of live music in the county from 1976 to 1986, an incredibly exciting decade in music in VC.

To read it, follow the link, then scroll to page 12 and mouse-over the bottom right corner to enlarge.

Thanks Joel!

Check out The Ojai andVentura View's Facebook page!

Put Your Head Between Your Knees and...

The recent tornado that sent us running for our closets has been classified as an EF-5, with 210mph winds. It is the highest possible rating there is. It was 3/4 of a mile wide, contained four vortexes, and traveled nearly 75 miles. Nine people died and many, many homes were destroyed. It has been named the Binger-Guthrie Tornado. If it hadn't receded back into the clouds about seven miles from here, Stillwater would have been leveled. Fortunately, before receding, it began to head north while a smaller tornado headed south. My son's dentist lost the entire top floor of his house to the smaller one.

I've been told that a century ago some Indian chiefs prayed a no-tornado blessing over what is now Stillwater, and that's why our sirens seldom go off. Nearly all inclement weather seems to go around us. Storms come toward us, part a few miles west of us, then re-merge a few miles east. It's crazy, but I'm damned glad those Pawnees loved this area so much. I'm also glad I didn't know how bad the monster was when I was sitting it out with my family. If that thing had come through here, I wouldn't be writing about it today. Unless you're in an underground storm cellar during an EF-5, you're not going to come out of it alive. But everything turned out fine for us. Other people were not so fortunate. A young mother lost two of her three children.

May isn't a great month around these parts, and we're done for this year. Well, except for Fall, but hopefully, it will be uneventful. Hopefully, We'll go back to the way it was before.

And now Massachusetts has been hit by a twister. Massachusetts? Is there any place on Earth that's natural disaster free? I may have to research this...