Sorry about the lack of blog lately, I just needed a break, at least that was the case on Thursday.... Friday and Saturday I blame completely on lack of sleep. One dismaying thing about after-hours clubs is that when they don't shoo you out at 2am like normal places, it's so very easy to lose track of time and not get home until the birds are singing (as on Friday) or the sky is a nice pale blue (as on Saturday... or do I mean this morning... see, I'm already confused XP).
Saturday got off to a REALLY strange start. Craig and I were outside having a smoke, I was reading and had my back to the street, Craig was facing the street but wasn't really paying attention to any one thing. Rather suddenly this strange SOUND filtered through the concentration on my book, and half my brain became dedicated to interpreting it; was that a laugh? a cough? a-- "Some lady is crying against the tree." Craig announced, and I looked up and around to see indeed a pair of hands on either side of the furthest tree of our section of sidewalk. Women's hands. And this awful, awful, heartbroken weeping.
Good lord, I thought, what in the hell...? "Damn, and I've just dialed up too," I told Craig. The woman kept weeping and grasping the sides of the tree. "Think we should call the cops?" He asked. I wasn't sure, it was hard to tell what was going on, and I found myself confused and wondering... an older guy from down the street came up to her, asked if she was alright, and she stopped crying for a moment to tell him she was. But as he turned to go she weeped even harder and came around the side of the tree where we could see that she was barefoot in jeans and a loose shirt. Could almost say she was hooker material, and yet she seemed pretty healthy and not slutted-out.
My cig finished I decided to run in and finish the e-mail message I had started on and get off the net in case we needed to use the phone. Moments later Craig rushed in and said she had just puked and had now dropped her pants... @_@ I went to go check on the situation, as Craig was saying maybe I should get off-line so we could call, and saw that she was squatting with her back to us and her pants around her ankles, looking like she was trying to take a dump @__@! I also saw that the apartment manager was in his car in the driveway and on his cell phone, so I knew he was already calling either the cops or an ambulance.
The paramedics arrived shortly thereafter and took control of the situation, and I overheard one of them explaining to their cheif that she claimed to have been assaulted by some man she had just met... which kind of explains the traumatized behavior... The cops then came to take her statement and she was driven off in an ambulance... and finally the neighborhood returned to normal. The apartment manager summed it up; "It was just too quiet today, something had to happen." Indeed, and THAT was just a very weird scene.
And now for some
Too Much Drama For Yo' Momma... Found out early on last night that the reason two sorta friends have been giving me the cold shoulder for the past several months was that appearently one had run across me in a drunken moment and I had supposedly momentarily forgotten who she was. Not an unlikely occurance, as I'm already bad with names, and her name is the type to get confused with multiple others of the same sound. And so, without bothering to check with me later as to what happened, they both just decided I was to be black-listed. The only reason I found out was through an intermediary; i.e. they STILL weren't brave enough to come talk to me about it. The intermediary insisted that I go talk to them and resolve the situation, but I made up my mind right then and there that I will not have friends who create such petty drama over silly mistakes. In other words... fuck 'em.
Okay, now onto old photo stuff.
I started my music career playing keyboards (as I emulated Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran), around 1987 or so I had one keyboard gig with a cover artist going by the name Nancy Blue. Even though I was pretty good the gig (my first ever) turned into a nightmare, and I discovered I'd much rather just stay home and mes with keyboards. Eventually though I tried again, applying for a band that practiced in a studio right in my neighborhood, the singer-guitarist (Matt) of which actually owned and managed the studio. Matt wasn't impressed with my keyboarding though and somehow or another convinced me to pick up the bass. I eventually aquired my own bass, a Haagstrom, a rather low quailty beaten up old thing with a lose neck, even looser tunning pegs and picks-ups that hummed... perfect for our little quasi-punk-rock get up. For a short while my mother even played the keyboards for us, mostly for recording sessions, which never went well. That's where these photos come from:
Matt was a pretty good song-writer, always coming up with catchy tunes, but he wanted to be a god-like solo guitarist and never had the chops or style for it, so he was a terrible live performer. One particular nightmare scenario occured at a legion hall show where he had a wireless set up and leaped off the stage into the crowd, playing like he was strangling a cat for far too long while the drummer and I just tried to keep the song going to cover his dumb ass. Needless to say though it was a good experience working with him for almost 4 years -- I learned a lot about what NOT to do, and really did come to enjoy playing bass (I eventually upgraded to a nice high-quality black Yamaha). We'll probably be seeing a few more gig photos and whatnot here, so bear with me XP
~Liriel
