最後

After nearly a year with no new posts, I think it's safe to call this blog "retired" ...or at least resigned to the sad delegation of "feed dump." Though I continue to keep a "taste blog" (seriously, that's what they're called?) at skyscrapersoup.tumblr.com and music writing at www.oregonmusicnews.com

In fact, this is the last blog in which I will be doing anything like a "public journal" as blogging used to be, before the ease and ubiquity of video, audio and other media, before re-blogging, re-tweeting, "liking" and tumblr. This blog is too "old school" to remain relevant, and I'm now far too busy (that's likely a good thing.)

I doubt anyone (other than perhaps a family member, or old friend maybe?) will stumble across this thing anyway, but I've found that when killing a blog, it's best to leave a note.

R.I.P.
Danse Russe
2007-2009

And to commemorate its passing, here's the first post I made on this blog...
so uninteresting... so telling... so... boring.

始め

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Now playing: Nick Drake - Way to Blue
via FoxyTunes Le Sigh. Livejournal is SO, like, 3 years ago...Honestly, I'm not sure why I'm starting a new blog. Wait, why am I starting a new blog? ...'Cos Franklin did it first and everyone knows I just do whatever the Franklin does. Maybe there's a vague hope that it will inspire me to get back to blogging away, but the fact is I just don't have all that mindless, empty time sitting in front of a screen at that horrific little hellhole JHS down south. Life here slips away almost unnoticed it's so smooth. Like a river current, it sweeps me up with hardly a sound and carries me on effortlessly...why fight it? I have rhythms. I'm left to my own devices. I play my guitar and go running and play silly computer games and sleep well. I get drunk sometimes and constantly fail at quitting cigarettes...and who's to care? For some reason, going back to the LJ just feels...anachronistic, or something. It feels finished, or at least, for some other purpose than I need at the moment. I'm almost unable to post on it lately. The most I manage is a link or video every few weeks. The real answer is that I'm just generally lazy, but also it's very connected with a skin that I'm just now finally shedding. Praise Jesus. It's taken a helluva long time, but finally.
Dad says I should make a book out of my JET journaling...it's actually a fairly enticing idea. Never have I found such a bitch-worthy subject as the time in Guadallama. There are days when I think I should set sights on doing something with writing...then it unravels in my hands as I while away hours doing seemingly nothing in front of a screen. I haven't written a story since Portland. I read those stories sometimes though, and think "Hey, yeah. That's not so bad. I like it in fact...if it were a magazine, I wouldn't put it down just yet." Dad strokes my ample ego a bit and tells me my j-blog had "fans" back home, random strangers who were more up with my haps than he was. I like this idea...obviously. But lookie now, I got my life all straightened out n all and I'm plum out of things to complain about it...ain't it always be like that.

WH @ Portland Makes Music

Coming Up for Air

image: wlt

Those of you who know me probably already understand why the blog has gathered dust lately. Those who don't know me probably aren't reading this. So, I'll spare you all a redundant account of the trials and tribulations of my life to date, and just say that surviving July was nothing short of a miracle.

PDX Pop Now! Was a roaring success. I ran to-and-fro, I managed stages, I hauled heavy stuff. I finally understood Explode Into Colors. I saw what was certainly one of the best performances I have ever seen in my life from AU. I saw Menomena play a brand new song from backstage. The festival, in its entirety, can be found at the Portland Radio Authority.

Moving out of 705 was decidedly not a roaring success. It is finally finished, at least. I had an image in my brain, of the four brothers sitting on the bare hardwood in the empty house, sharing a sixpack and some reminiscences... but S left a day early, I had more stuff to load then I thought, M, got upset at us, or the situation, or both, and left abruptly in a huff. P was extremely drunk, following us around making racial slurs. B and I ended up spending the whole time bickering about what we could and couldn't throw away or stuff in my car. All this in the middle of a heat wave. It was too fast and frustrating to be sad. Certainly no time for nostalgic hardwood pow-wows.

It was afterward, driving off in the dusk with a car full of junk I didn't want, listening to Andrew Bird sing, "If you've come to burn an effigy, it should be of a man who's lost his way..." It was then that I finally felt the shape and breadth of our loss. It was then I realized why most peoples' sympathies the past few weeks seem so hollow or disingenuous. Simply put, when it comes to houses, most of them have never had anything this nice to lose. When you say "I'm moving" they just nod and say, "what a pain, man, I hate moving." How can they know? They are blameless, but subject to my bitterness anyway.

Last night I locked myself out of my car with the engine on, 5 minutes before my gig start time. I paid $65 to have a guy stick a glorified coathanger in my window and roll the window down. There are last straws, and there are last straws. This one broke the back of whatever poor, misbegotten animal that had thus-far dragged July lurchingly forward. The set was mediocre, understandably. It was old, unrehearsed stuff. I wasn't really upset. I didn't want to scream and pound things with my fist. I didn't feel like breaking down and giving up. It felt like an exorcism, a final demon to be cast out. July is over. OVER. My back may never forgive me, but for all I care a piano could fall from the sky and crush the fucking car and all my gear into a million pieces and I'd walk home whistling dixie.

It is August 1st, and I slept in late. It's the first time I've slept past 8 in I don't remember. I woke in my new room, to the soft breeze of the fan and the new, unfamiliar sounds of new neighborhood dogs and lawnmowers. My head crested the surface of the dark waters and I threw my head back, opened my mouth and gulped a huge, grateful lung-full of air.