The truth is- no one can save a soul which does not want to be saved. We wait for salvation, but does it wait for us? Or does it move on to someone else, and do we miss our chance? I have never been a chorus girl so I refused to be immortalized as one. If I am just that to you, then wait outside. Tweet from there. Wait till you realize Dr. Seuss never rhymed with damaged. Break the rules, break the mold. Break your shoes, break the cold. I am no chorus girl.
Today I spent writing. And seeing if I wanted to heal. I did not. So I had a drink and played a game. Ohh! You all know how playing games is my favorite. So I asked a bunch of my readers, and another handful of friends, to text me a word -any word- so that I could write with it. Rules are I cannot stop writing until a page is filled and also that I cannot judge nor stop whatever comes to my mind. And so this is some of what you have given to me. To you. Don't expect to comprehend, don't expect it to make sense on first read, don't expect at all. Draw what you will, and then do come share it with me. Only, if you can stop tweeting that long.
ACHIEVEMENT- ashleigh
Achievement is in the eyes of the beholder. It is the will of the masquerader. What I do in life will not be measured in references or pounds, or dollars or damned relationships. No, what I do will be measured in faces and pages, conversations and moments. Achievement is on the shoulders of me, and therefore, you. What will you be measured in? Do you feel the need to be measured at all? Achievement seems to go hand in hand with judgement..by someone else. Yet I find my harshest critic cannot hurt me half as much as I do myself. Achievement is as big as a high award of esteem and honor, or as small as the point of this moving pen. It as medium as the lunch I have finally agreed to eat. Achievement is in the eye of the beholder. Hold me, and I will hold you.
INSANITY - melana
I find this predictable even in context. Especially in context. The word is void of creativity, of color, or correlation to anything but some dark and shallow past which is blamed for everything. I am clearly mad and not void of this word. Insanity can be cute; a coy reason for feeling or sounding out of place. Yet it can be ugly and boresome, because excuses are such. Insanity as an adjective doesn't interest me much, nor does it explain hardly anything much to me. It is not mysterious. Mysterious is interesting to me! Open-ended; a potentially colorful feast of my sole healthy habit for curiosity. Mystery is chanceful, glorious or impetuous of rot- the key word of course being 'or.' And shit, here I've gone and broken my rules of description and correlation for this game because I haven't written about the word but another word, and context. A context that quite clearly both bores and angers me with predicability. Yes, even anger bores me now. Shoo, context, or fly. At least flying would be worth my time. Insanity. Is just kind of old-fashioned. An disloyal faux fur covering the shoulders of a perfectly cute outfit.
BOTTLE - austin
A bottle is such of containment,
yet it makes me feel quite the opposite.
What say you, Bottle?
Art thou not hand nor foot? Nor keg nor twist-off?
That which we call a bottle by any other name would ring as sweet!
Oh- I so do like the word bottle,
how it rolls from my throat a mere word forth my day. Or your day.
How easily it can then be fandangled into a sort of funny British accent, and how my
lips smack before each recitation.
Oh sweetness, do contain me!
Do what you will, Bottle, to enwrap me in your glass, so strong but sheer-
transparent to the world my love for you with willing imprisonment by your realm.
Contain me, Bottle, else I shalt break you..
For every delicacy which cannot hold on must fall
from my shelf
in a glittery display of shard and surface.
Contain me, Bottle, else I consume you first.
DISAPPOINTMENT - LJ
Everywhere I tilt my head in this forsaken room is a picture of someone who has disappointed me. And they are, in fact, faces I love. So I think over to myself- is it really these people who have disappointed me, or is it the love. Is it I who has disappointed both? Could it be that we try so hard to be something worthy that we become nothing at all? Worthwhile is a small matter of someone else's comparisons, but worthy is a greater obstacle of our own. Because it is so often, isn't it?, that we feel disappointed in others when really, we are upset with ourselves for not making us worthy enough for them. What is good enough? There isn't anymore a published code of standards like there was in my adolescence, and I sense that maybe the intuition for perfection and the over-agility to please was not my idea in the first place. Perhaps I am more brainwashed than I think.
Disappointment promotes excuses often times, such as the following; I sent out the message for a bunch of you to participate in this game with me (because games, you know, are my favorite), and only less than half of you responded. If I am purposefully rational I say; he is probably driving, or sleeping, or working, or writing his Great Aunt Hans a thinking of you note. He's just- not thinking of me right now. Excuses freeze over disappointments to be heated up and dealt with another time. Now, what's your excuse for me?
These, just a few of what I drew from you. Some funny sort of sentences to make you think, and to make me loosen up. Mind you, these paragraphs are not addressed to the prescribed names, I just thought I might give credit to those vocab waiters who struck the most tangible words in my conscious tonight. The others to come. And of course, the night ends with Breakfast at Tiffany's, one of Ms. Soto's favorites, and a perhaps trite yet warmly lingering anecdote I scribbled initially in but a half-sleep this morning:
You will always owe somebody something,
but you will never owe anybody yourself.
Tera.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
be careful of falling parachutes.
I sit outside a venue with "the group"- the one-stop, badass, don't ask us our jobs but we'll tell you every band we've ever been in...Long Island scene kids. They are mature enough to call each other immature, but not mature enough to trust their own friends. Nearly everyone I could ask company for is present, yet tonight I am unamused by most of them. Where does the anti-complacency end, or even falter? I sit here in a bitterly cold wind, comfortable in my surroundings and feeling lucky to know them all, but suddenly I feel that perhaps I've been just a little too much part of it all. It was brought to my attention that in the past I have given off the initial impression of a backstabber, a gossip artist. The latter I'm sure I am, but as I sit amongst people who jump ship like they've been sworn into the U.S. Coast Guard...I realize I hardly want to be considered the first.
A few long moments later I am out of the wind and leaning against the bar with Travis McGee, Tom Angenbroich, Rob Fox, and Pat Brown. The confusing simplicity of this line up strikes me again to feel lucky and I decide I'm ready to clear the air: I may know all of your secrets, but I would never try to hurt you with them. I couldn't. To everyone I have hurt- I'm sorry. It's not that I want to make trouble, call you out or give you a bad review. It's that I swore I'd tell the truth how ever I experienced it, and without the truth..this blog..well it's nothing but a bunch of glorified boys and a girl stuck in their world. The fact that your stories are real is what makes these words worth the time.
Last night I took a few long moments with 6 lighted globes and someone who thinks that maybe it's just time for me to forget. A while later I was carried home in disillusion; not knowing what I wanted to say or think, but being okay with doing neither just yet.
Then I had a dream.
I had a fever, then I had a dream- that I couldn't get home. And that you said you wouldn't hold my hands on Mondays. When I woke up I thought you were there. But it was only last night's 6 colors in my eyes. And as my fever broke so did the dawn, and I remembered that it was Thursday. So I reached- and hoped that the wind had not taken you away.
Something has changed as of this morning. Something is over and I am not sad. At times I write with a pen as sharp as your stabbing knifes. Other times I try to dull your blades with a confusing paragraph or made-up word. At all times, I find, the truth is the hardest of sentences to post. I can't compete with anyone. I won't. And if that means losing pieces of some of you, then well- I am constantly moving on. Moving past. And it is time to forget. We are all quite difficult to love, this "group," and I probably the hardest of us all. Yet our long moments have yet to written, and our anxieties...nothing more than a couple crunchy leafs blown in by a bitter wind.
Be careful of falling parachutes, it's only a matter of time before someone changes your life.
...Terica.
A few long moments later I am out of the wind and leaning against the bar with Travis McGee, Tom Angenbroich, Rob Fox, and Pat Brown. The confusing simplicity of this line up strikes me again to feel lucky and I decide I'm ready to clear the air: I may know all of your secrets, but I would never try to hurt you with them. I couldn't. To everyone I have hurt- I'm sorry. It's not that I want to make trouble, call you out or give you a bad review. It's that I swore I'd tell the truth how ever I experienced it, and without the truth..this blog..well it's nothing but a bunch of glorified boys and a girl stuck in their world. The fact that your stories are real is what makes these words worth the time.
Last night I took a few long moments with 6 lighted globes and someone who thinks that maybe it's just time for me to forget. A while later I was carried home in disillusion; not knowing what I wanted to say or think, but being okay with doing neither just yet.
Then I had a dream.
I had a fever, then I had a dream- that I couldn't get home. And that you said you wouldn't hold my hands on Mondays. When I woke up I thought you were there. But it was only last night's 6 colors in my eyes. And as my fever broke so did the dawn, and I remembered that it was Thursday. So I reached- and hoped that the wind had not taken you away.
Something has changed as of this morning. Something is over and I am not sad. At times I write with a pen as sharp as your stabbing knifes. Other times I try to dull your blades with a confusing paragraph or made-up word. At all times, I find, the truth is the hardest of sentences to post. I can't compete with anyone. I won't. And if that means losing pieces of some of you, then well- I am constantly moving on. Moving past. And it is time to forget. We are all quite difficult to love, this "group," and I probably the hardest of us all. Yet our long moments have yet to written, and our anxieties...nothing more than a couple crunchy leafs blown in by a bitter wind.
Be careful of falling parachutes, it's only a matter of time before someone changes your life.
...Terica.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
further untitled.
The truth is, I've been taught a lot.
The truth is, I can't tell you the truth.
The truth is, he's not right. But he's a hell of a lot closer to being so than I am.
The truth is...my perception is often altered and I write my own stories because none of you are good enough at telling me ones you make up.
The truth is. There are no certain truths.
I'm sorry.
pl
The truth is, I can't tell you the truth.
The truth is, he's not right. But he's a hell of a lot closer to being so than I am.
The truth is...my perception is often altered and I write my own stories because none of you are good enough at telling me ones you make up.
The truth is. There are no certain truths.
I'm sorry.
pl
untitled.
I hate you.
You think I love you but I don't. I don't because you don't love me, and that ship has way sailed. You guys are backstabbers, and manipulators. And you'll all spend the rest of the afternoon telling me I'm crazy and mouthy, that this is simply not true. But it is. And you were all meant for each other. I wanted to belong. But to friends who don't want me? You want to be written about yet...you treat me like shit. You treat each other like shit. I can't write about that. You make my not-job so hard. I couldn't bear to write what the Book really says. I couldn't bear to lose the people I've never had. So what am I gonna do? What am I gonna say, what am I not gonna say. I can't trust any of you and worst of all, you could care less. You are liars, and addicts. Viruses and heroes. You think I don't hate you. But I'm not so sure.
Today I'm sick. I'm in need. If you know of what, gimme a text. Otherwise, just let me know when your shows and practices are. I'll write about them. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone the kind of people you really are.
pl
You think I love you but I don't. I don't because you don't love me, and that ship has way sailed. You guys are backstabbers, and manipulators. And you'll all spend the rest of the afternoon telling me I'm crazy and mouthy, that this is simply not true. But it is. And you were all meant for each other. I wanted to belong. But to friends who don't want me? You want to be written about yet...you treat me like shit. You treat each other like shit. I can't write about that. You make my not-job so hard. I couldn't bear to write what the Book really says. I couldn't bear to lose the people I've never had. So what am I gonna do? What am I gonna say, what am I not gonna say. I can't trust any of you and worst of all, you could care less. You are liars, and addicts. Viruses and heroes. You think I don't hate you. But I'm not so sure.
Today I'm sick. I'm in need. If you know of what, gimme a text. Otherwise, just let me know when your shows and practices are. I'll write about them. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone the kind of people you really are.
pl
Thursday, November 5, 2009
We're crashing up, I'm falling again. Well the summer came, and then it swept us away.
Once again- no kids at Vibe. The Club Loaded boys don't wanna be here, I don't even wanna be here. There is a crowd of people one person deep at the bar. I can't even roll my eyes when I turn away from the stage because there are parents video taping and relatives saving seats for a band 5 years older than I. "He's a lyrical genius" a mother says. I smile and nod and walk away as quickly as possible. I'm pissed off today, sick of the local drama and sleepy from taking the fall for it. A singer smiles and snags me for a cigarette outside. Finally someone making a little sense in my world.
I'm here to see Hollywood Lies. To me they are boys from Warped Tour, the good faces that steadied my tour-wind summer. Now I realize I've missed them. I miss seeing the same different people every morning. I realize I'm starting to go stir crazy on this island in an stubborn scene with unreliable band boys. But I'm standing here freezing in runned tights and bleached hair trying to pretend it's all fine and trying to get lost in the tour coming through tonight.
Have you ever heard a band and been able to see the future? Every next kiss, every last night. Maybe it's cuz they're all cute. Maybe because it's cuz they're all hungover. Kings of the power stance and advocates of the head bang, City Lights is sure to make your guilty conscious smile. They sure surged out all that Long Island scene frustration that's been building up in me since the end of summer tours. I love the way their frontman handles the small crowd, allowing inside jokes with his tourmates (no doubt inklings of the bottom of previous night's bottles), but not totally forfeiting the set from lack of fans. Secret Secret Dino Club could leanr something from them. Plus their drummer seems to be just the right amount of everything. I start to like something about this place tonight.
And then. A Shakira intro. Nothing like a little Shakira to shake your saddness away. I've never seen Hollywood Lies play. I've never seen them do anything but cheer me up. So when I lifted my chin to watch their set, I didn't know what I'd end up writing...
His fingers have all the assests I love in a singer. And though he has a serious battle with the microphone stand, I can't stop watching him. He's clumsy onstage; getting his wires tangled, stubbing his toe on the rock box, and having a similar battle with the drum mic. When I ask he says it was the small stage, still I wonder if there's outside circumstances affecting him. His babyface tries to assue me so I let him have his secret. After all, I still keep mine from him.
Johnny..looks like he's ready to jump into a pick up game of hoops. But damn. If I'd have known he played like this I would've stepped aside in those Warped selling wars that made us friends. He is such a fun drummer to watch. No predictability in his live movement, great hair flips, and oo...one little stick drop. He laughs it off. Johnny Fuckin Barbas is a drummer you go see. Good Form.
It's not totally unpredicatble but they swiftly play a cover song, and Marc switches with Matt to play "Low" by Flo'Rida. The second I see a singer duck under the guitar strap, I forget all about the idiots making a mess of Long Island. Not only do these boys of summer semi-surprise me, but they sound sick doing it. Oh snap, Hollywood Lies.
Fast forward to this morning.
The smell of cologne and clean boys trails out of the bathroom and into where I sleep. Everything about it comforts me. Perhaps it is a reflection of the gender ratio I grew up with. Or maybe it's a reminder of the ex-boyfriends who were able to hold me calm. Regardless, my bedroom smells like boys and I wish there were some physicality attatched to it. Yet every morning I have their text messages, not them. Every gift is a curse and every blessing a heartache. I woke up this morning with a heartache and knew just which kind it was. Today things would be different, again. Loss of appetite, loss of singers, loss of lucky blue pen. So I reached for my phone and began to face it all, missing that same kind of different.
My lifestyle is so fleeting, unstable. It's what I bargained for, I knew what I was getting into- mostly. Live fast, die young. The first part I'm doing well, the second I'm still waiting on. I feel like I'll get struck and run over by a tour bus...oo, I hope it's the Maine's. Until then, everything and everyone floats away too quickly and frankly, I'm afraid to get lost in the stratosphere. I feel like it'd resemble some sort of airy purgatory with helium balloons everywhere and Kevin Bard's voice playing constantly. Don't let me go there! What I really want is to be held still for just one hour. I want someone to witness my existence the way I do theirs. But between tours and band meetings, other girls and twitter updates, my chosen family doesn't really have time to sit still with me. And I know this- I knew what I was getting into. So I am left here with this blog as my witness, casting confessions in effort to anchor myself down to something. Anything. My secret.
I lied to you when I said I never listened to your ep. I listened to it every dusk in the van trying to drown out that desert heat.
...Terica.
"Secrets" by: Hollywood Lies
note: both Cerney and Mess submitted quotes to be included in this blog. One I can post, one I can't. It is my creative decision to let your mind wander...
I'm here to see Hollywood Lies. To me they are boys from Warped Tour, the good faces that steadied my tour-wind summer. Now I realize I've missed them. I miss seeing the same different people every morning. I realize I'm starting to go stir crazy on this island in an stubborn scene with unreliable band boys. But I'm standing here freezing in runned tights and bleached hair trying to pretend it's all fine and trying to get lost in the tour coming through tonight.
Have you ever heard a band and been able to see the future? Every next kiss, every last night. Maybe it's cuz they're all cute. Maybe because it's cuz they're all hungover. Kings of the power stance and advocates of the head bang, City Lights is sure to make your guilty conscious smile. They sure surged out all that Long Island scene frustration that's been building up in me since the end of summer tours. I love the way their frontman handles the small crowd, allowing inside jokes with his tourmates (no doubt inklings of the bottom of previous night's bottles), but not totally forfeiting the set from lack of fans. Secret Secret Dino Club could leanr something from them. Plus their drummer seems to be just the right amount of everything. I start to like something about this place tonight.
And then. A Shakira intro. Nothing like a little Shakira to shake your saddness away. I've never seen Hollywood Lies play. I've never seen them do anything but cheer me up. So when I lifted my chin to watch their set, I didn't know what I'd end up writing...
His fingers have all the assests I love in a singer. And though he has a serious battle with the microphone stand, I can't stop watching him. He's clumsy onstage; getting his wires tangled, stubbing his toe on the rock box, and having a similar battle with the drum mic. When I ask he says it was the small stage, still I wonder if there's outside circumstances affecting him. His babyface tries to assue me so I let him have his secret. After all, I still keep mine from him.
Johnny..looks like he's ready to jump into a pick up game of hoops. But damn. If I'd have known he played like this I would've stepped aside in those Warped selling wars that made us friends. He is such a fun drummer to watch. No predictability in his live movement, great hair flips, and oo...one little stick drop. He laughs it off. Johnny Fuckin Barbas is a drummer you go see. Good Form.
It's not totally unpredicatble but they swiftly play a cover song, and Marc switches with Matt to play "Low" by Flo'Rida. The second I see a singer duck under the guitar strap, I forget all about the idiots making a mess of Long Island. Not only do these boys of summer semi-surprise me, but they sound sick doing it. Oh snap, Hollywood Lies.
Fast forward to this morning.
The smell of cologne and clean boys trails out of the bathroom and into where I sleep. Everything about it comforts me. Perhaps it is a reflection of the gender ratio I grew up with. Or maybe it's a reminder of the ex-boyfriends who were able to hold me calm. Regardless, my bedroom smells like boys and I wish there were some physicality attatched to it. Yet every morning I have their text messages, not them. Every gift is a curse and every blessing a heartache. I woke up this morning with a heartache and knew just which kind it was. Today things would be different, again. Loss of appetite, loss of singers, loss of lucky blue pen. So I reached for my phone and began to face it all, missing that same kind of different.
My lifestyle is so fleeting, unstable. It's what I bargained for, I knew what I was getting into- mostly. Live fast, die young. The first part I'm doing well, the second I'm still waiting on. I feel like I'll get struck and run over by a tour bus...oo, I hope it's the Maine's. Until then, everything and everyone floats away too quickly and frankly, I'm afraid to get lost in the stratosphere. I feel like it'd resemble some sort of airy purgatory with helium balloons everywhere and Kevin Bard's voice playing constantly. Don't let me go there! What I really want is to be held still for just one hour. I want someone to witness my existence the way I do theirs. But between tours and band meetings, other girls and twitter updates, my chosen family doesn't really have time to sit still with me. And I know this- I knew what I was getting into. So I am left here with this blog as my witness, casting confessions in effort to anchor myself down to something. Anything. My secret.
I lied to you when I said I never listened to your ep. I listened to it every dusk in the van trying to drown out that desert heat.
...Terica.
"Secrets" by: Hollywood Lies
note: both Cerney and Mess submitted quotes to be included in this blog. One I can post, one I can't. It is my creative decision to let your mind wander...
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Sexy vs. Skanky; Battle of the Facebook acoustic videos...
A darling little spin off of Cosmopolitan magazine's ever-indulgent column.
Sexy: letting us into your bedroom.
Skanky: letting us into your cave.
Sexy: asking us to listen.
Skanky: telling us to listen.
Sexy: making us watch you smile before you play.
Skanky: making us watch you drink before you play.
Sexy: rhyming about girls.
Skanky: rhyming about clouds?
Sexy: dressing differently for every video.
Skanky: dressing in your pajamas for every video.
Sexy: writing a song about the moment.
Skanky: writing a song that I could have sworn was a George Michael cover.
Skanky: not shaving.
Skanky: not shampooing. Lose-Lose.
Sexy: posting links to your tumblr.
Skanky: treating your facebook status like it is your tumblr.
Skanky: trying to get outsiders on your side.
Skankier: letting outsiders fight your battles.
Sexy: moving on.
Sexier: moving me.
Please check out this past week's creative wave on facebook.com and let me know which songs youu give a sexy thumbs up to ;)
...Terica.
Sexy: letting us into your bedroom.
Skanky: letting us into your cave.
Sexy: asking us to listen.
Skanky: telling us to listen.
Sexy: making us watch you smile before you play.
Skanky: making us watch you drink before you play.
Sexy: rhyming about girls.
Skanky: rhyming about clouds?
Sexy: dressing differently for every video.
Skanky: dressing in your pajamas for every video.
Sexy: writing a song about the moment.
Skanky: writing a song that I could have sworn was a George Michael cover.
Skanky: not shaving.
Skanky: not shampooing. Lose-Lose.
Sexy: posting links to your tumblr.
Skanky: treating your facebook status like it is your tumblr.
Skanky: trying to get outsiders on your side.
Skankier: letting outsiders fight your battles.
Sexy: moving on.
Sexier: moving me.
Please check out this past week's creative wave on facebook.com and let me know which songs youu give a sexy thumbs up to ;)
...Terica.
Monday, November 2, 2009
enjoy the fall.
How did I get here? We are in Wlkes-Barre, PA and there is a weird feeling in everything about this instant. We are here for Justin's show, Justin as Big City Lights. We brought him on account of the Big City Dissolvement that went on this past week. So much fighting, so little resolved. It's sad. A death is always sad somehow but, I guess their lights just weren't big enough. So Mess and I brought the Singer here and here we are beside a Pennsylvanian sidewalk, waiting for another door to open and hoping for the best.
He sits in my backseat instinctively pulling his fingers over strings, an acoustic sound to fill the moments we are passing by. This is how we always want it. No matter what he plays- cover or original- he still sounds like Justin which tonight, is just what it is. I'm not sure if I think or feel anything of it. I'm not sure if I've ever heard an acoustic guitar sound so...easy. Gentile. I feel like he's not really playing it, that it's playing itself. His quote, "Guitar's so weird."
How did he get here? A boy who has been Permanently everywhere, who has probably been through too much. How did he end up in my backseat? As he plays I let him chose my inspiration. I'd ask for a song, but whatever he picks is far closer to what I need to hear than any request I could submit. Plus I believe he knows the role he is playing right now as I try to write. He chooses an evenly tempoed melody- a whisper that neither ear nor enemy can deny, and I realize I have run out of adjectives for all of this. I stare at his fingers and I can see into his soul, but when I meet his eyes they seem to be asking me not to tell anyone. The song brings us to the chorus again and I am suddenly quite sad. I think there is a broken heart in my backseat. Broken fingers, no. But broken trust, maybe. Whatever it is, he's trying to hide it. He takes all my questions with a deep sigh, like it's very hard for him to answer. He says there is no secret. But I kinda think there is. There must be. He says the secret is there is no secret. But he pops a string while tuning inside the venue and I think somehow it's a sign he's lying. We laugh at the broken wire because he just can't catch a break. The Singer isn't all bad luck though. I find a string envelope under the stage left monitor, present it to him, and by some stroke of meant-to-be, it contains the very string he needs. I don't say it but the coincidental fate blows my mind. Later in the car, I notice a shiny glare from under the drivers' seat. It's the ring my parents bought me for my 21st birthday that I thought I'd lost months ago. I would have never been in the backseat if we hadn't dragged the Singer out to nowheres land to pull those fingers over strings. He's not bad luck, he's just...luck. Keep it or give it.
I wonder what year we are in. With this pre-show playlist I really feel like I'm not sure. It's cold in this venue and in my memory- it's having such a hard time settling on anything. Things get..more active, but less real. If that makes any sense. We play board games with the kids who came out to see Big City Lights; Mess somehow confuses a tooth and an appendix in her logic. We dance. We try to make Justin jete from one end of the room to the other. He doesn't do that exactly, but he constantly obliges in his signature strut and hip pop. We don't know what we're all doing here together but we are laughing. Mess and I get onstage to open for BigCityJustin. Did a little stand up comedy, a little hardcore intro, but I think our main staple was Dakota by Rocket. We will be moving it to close our set in all future gigs. Later than sooner it is Justin's turn to play. He hops onstage, embodying his blog-given name, and those fingers make the Singer fall into his songs.
"And maybe it's too late to turn around-"
The thing is...I would have driven him to Maui to play this little acoustic set. It's okay if we are all the way from home, if we have no money, if he doesn't need me the way I could possibly need him. Because this is beyond us, this story we are living out. And each of us are replaceable characters; the boy with the guitar and the girl with the smile. Yet this is our turn, and this page is my favorite. I will dog-ear the part when his necklace shines in the spotlight. I will doodle the name of this song and underline his favorite lyric. I have a lot of questions all the time, except when he's playing. Then it doesn't matter. And I'm the one sighing. When he gets offstage he is a herb again, just an anxious boy with a secret. That he'll never tell me. Maybe he tells us while he plays.
This place is cold. So much colder than it should be. This place is real. This sound guy is creepy, and I like him. He's, well, I don't what's in his head but I think at least physically, he's real. These 3 kids who drove an hour to see Big City Lights are fucking real. Effing real. I drove him 2 1/2 hours for these kids. I am the "gratefulest. Most grateful." He thinks he's bad at talking onstage, but he's probably the smoothest I've seen at it. It's least awkward when he's doing the talking. He laughs, and lets us laugh at him. We smile, and he smiles for us. He's real. Hm - whaddya know.
I wonder who the Singer really is. I wonder what he'll become. These lights cast red and purple shadows on this page though, colors too beautiful to see past anything beyond right now. I don't need these questions answered yet.
No stage diving. Means no quitting. That's why he's here. There are pages and pages of Book filled before these, 11 to be exact, all with the harsh details of how a Long Island band imploded this week. But that is just one of the many stories that will stay in here...for now. The aftermath, in my words and his songs, now that is for you. There is no quitting. If you truly believe, then I truly believe you can't quit. No option. No bridge. No broken strings.
My hair is dirty and my feet are cold. All I have right now is this pen, his fingers, and the 12 people in this room. That's real.
...Terica.
"Human Toy" by: the Singer
"Bad" by: Michael Jackson
He sits in my backseat instinctively pulling his fingers over strings, an acoustic sound to fill the moments we are passing by. This is how we always want it. No matter what he plays- cover or original- he still sounds like Justin which tonight, is just what it is. I'm not sure if I think or feel anything of it. I'm not sure if I've ever heard an acoustic guitar sound so...easy. Gentile. I feel like he's not really playing it, that it's playing itself. His quote, "Guitar's so weird."
How did he get here? A boy who has been Permanently everywhere, who has probably been through too much. How did he end up in my backseat? As he plays I let him chose my inspiration. I'd ask for a song, but whatever he picks is far closer to what I need to hear than any request I could submit. Plus I believe he knows the role he is playing right now as I try to write. He chooses an evenly tempoed melody- a whisper that neither ear nor enemy can deny, and I realize I have run out of adjectives for all of this. I stare at his fingers and I can see into his soul, but when I meet his eyes they seem to be asking me not to tell anyone. The song brings us to the chorus again and I am suddenly quite sad. I think there is a broken heart in my backseat. Broken fingers, no. But broken trust, maybe. Whatever it is, he's trying to hide it. He takes all my questions with a deep sigh, like it's very hard for him to answer. He says there is no secret. But I kinda think there is. There must be. He says the secret is there is no secret. But he pops a string while tuning inside the venue and I think somehow it's a sign he's lying. We laugh at the broken wire because he just can't catch a break. The Singer isn't all bad luck though. I find a string envelope under the stage left monitor, present it to him, and by some stroke of meant-to-be, it contains the very string he needs. I don't say it but the coincidental fate blows my mind. Later in the car, I notice a shiny glare from under the drivers' seat. It's the ring my parents bought me for my 21st birthday that I thought I'd lost months ago. I would have never been in the backseat if we hadn't dragged the Singer out to nowheres land to pull those fingers over strings. He's not bad luck, he's just...luck. Keep it or give it.
I wonder what year we are in. With this pre-show playlist I really feel like I'm not sure. It's cold in this venue and in my memory- it's having such a hard time settling on anything. Things get..more active, but less real. If that makes any sense. We play board games with the kids who came out to see Big City Lights; Mess somehow confuses a tooth and an appendix in her logic. We dance. We try to make Justin jete from one end of the room to the other. He doesn't do that exactly, but he constantly obliges in his signature strut and hip pop. We don't know what we're all doing here together but we are laughing. Mess and I get onstage to open for BigCityJustin. Did a little stand up comedy, a little hardcore intro, but I think our main staple was Dakota by Rocket. We will be moving it to close our set in all future gigs. Later than sooner it is Justin's turn to play. He hops onstage, embodying his blog-given name, and those fingers make the Singer fall into his songs.
"And maybe it's too late to turn around-"
The thing is...I would have driven him to Maui to play this little acoustic set. It's okay if we are all the way from home, if we have no money, if he doesn't need me the way I could possibly need him. Because this is beyond us, this story we are living out. And each of us are replaceable characters; the boy with the guitar and the girl with the smile. Yet this is our turn, and this page is my favorite. I will dog-ear the part when his necklace shines in the spotlight. I will doodle the name of this song and underline his favorite lyric. I have a lot of questions all the time, except when he's playing. Then it doesn't matter. And I'm the one sighing. When he gets offstage he is a herb again, just an anxious boy with a secret. That he'll never tell me. Maybe he tells us while he plays.
This place is cold. So much colder than it should be. This place is real. This sound guy is creepy, and I like him. He's, well, I don't what's in his head but I think at least physically, he's real. These 3 kids who drove an hour to see Big City Lights are fucking real. Effing real. I drove him 2 1/2 hours for these kids. I am the "gratefulest. Most grateful." He thinks he's bad at talking onstage, but he's probably the smoothest I've seen at it. It's least awkward when he's doing the talking. He laughs, and lets us laugh at him. We smile, and he smiles for us. He's real. Hm - whaddya know.
I wonder who the Singer really is. I wonder what he'll become. These lights cast red and purple shadows on this page though, colors too beautiful to see past anything beyond right now. I don't need these questions answered yet.
No stage diving. Means no quitting. That's why he's here. There are pages and pages of Book filled before these, 11 to be exact, all with the harsh details of how a Long Island band imploded this week. But that is just one of the many stories that will stay in here...for now. The aftermath, in my words and his songs, now that is for you. There is no quitting. If you truly believe, then I truly believe you can't quit. No option. No bridge. No broken strings.
My hair is dirty and my feet are cold. All I have right now is this pen, his fingers, and the 12 people in this room. That's real.
...Terica.
"Human Toy" by: the Singer
"Bad" by: Michael Jackson
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