Songs for My One Woman Show

Have I told you about this? My one woman show where I sing country songs and put my standup in some order that builds to some kind of conclusion about love/sex/happiness? I've been 'developing' this show since August, and that's really too long to go without making some decisions.

I'd like the songs to be:
1) about love or sex
2) songs people don't get to hear very often
3) not very challenging to sing

I'd also like to get other people singing. I was thinking karaoke before and after the show.

I like country songs from the fifties and sixties because there isn't any holding back in them. There aren't any defense mechanisms. When you're in love you're ecstatic and it's because of that person, when they leave you are almost dead in your misery and it's also that person's fault.



It's a Lovely, Lovely World- Carl Smith (That's not Carl Smith playing in the laundry room, but what talent!)



A Heart Full of Love- Eddy Arnold


More and More- Webb Pierce


Am I That Easy to Forget- Jim Reeves

It's the reverence for the emotions that are weaved into sexual relationships that gets me. Pop and country songs seem so business-like to me nowadays. It feels like a consumer model of relationships-get the best person you can get, trade-up, get rid of the deadweight. It is not a model that makes for a good heartbreak song.

But can you square reverence for emotions, and reverence for the uniqueness of each person and relationship, with sexual freedom? Back when these songs were coming out most rape survivors couldn't even call what happened to them rape, going to a ga bar would get you thrown in jail, millions of people were stuck in marriages they didn't want to be in, and unwed teen mothers were sent away to be sequestered for their pregnancy and to have their children snatched away from them forever. The reverence in these songs for the uniqueness of each person and relationship was not reflected in day to day life. Not that we have it all wrapped up nowadays, but I'm happy to be living now and not then.

My favorite songs are still breakup songs. A good heartbreak song can transform misery into not happiness, but something a little bit like it. An ecstatic embrace of misery. What's happiness besides being right here in the moment, and a heartbreak song will get you there.

We can have both. We can have freedom from coercion and violence surrounding our sex lives, and reverence for our emotions. If the old model of sexuality was based on longer term ownership, like land ownership, and our new model of sexuality is based on something shorter, like car ownership, we can opt out of both.

Oh Gosh.

The show is coming DOWN. It couldn't be more winter. What am I saying; it can always be more winter in Chicago. An igloo could crash into your windshield. Santa Claus' sleigh could barrel down the street, spraying you head to toe with street slush. The lake could eat you. There is a limitless amount of winter which could attack us.

What is the point of winter? There is no point. It is the geometry of the planet that gave rise to us. It is much older and bigger than us. When we are all dead and mushrooms take over the planet winter will happen every year.

When mushrooms take over the planet I wonder if they will fight somehow, or make art, or will they just sit there like they do now? Did you know mushrooms are a good way to get the heavy metals out of your city soil? I can't ell you anymore about that, but go ahead, look that up.

Stay warm if you can! If you can't, have fun being cold!

A Missing Car and Complex Women

I read a quote by some author which was advice for how to motivate yourself to write everyday. She said to treat writing as a meditative practice. The point of it would be to notice the present moment, to notice how you are ok in the present moment, even though your house is being foreclosed on and is on fire and in fact, you probably are too. Being on fire is probably the one moment when you are not actually ok in the moment. But we are rarely on fire. Thank goodness for this universe in which we are almost never on fire.

I just got ok in the moment. It took two cups of coffee. It is snowing a lot here, and I lost my car this morning. Two days ago I had to park it two blocks away from my house, and I forgot where I had left it. Then all the cars were covered in snow. I searched for 15 minutes. That maybe doesn't strike you as awful, but it was 15 minutes starting at 4:45 in the morning. Losing your car so early in the morning is awful, just terrible, and no one, not even war criminals should have to endure such hardships. Ok, MAYBE war criminals.

Then I went to work, which you can imagine is another unendurable hardship, despite the free coffee and internet time.

I have a hard time sticking to a topic on this blog. I was going to really try to concentrate on sex-positive politics. But I get angry about a lot of that stuff, and I don't like throwing all my anger out on the internet. I know I have, a lot, but I don't like it.

Ok, just a little bit of anger. In this new book about women's sexuality, it bugs the bejesus out of me that the authors are very willing to make big generalizations without mentioning obvious, glaring differences between men and women's sexual experiences. That they are willing to say "women's sexuality is more complex than men's" but they aren't willing to say, "hey, lots of boys start masturbating to orgasm daily when they hit puberty, and girls don't, so maybe that has an affect on this orgasm gap." Talking about women's sexuality without talking about the reality that we are coming off of a long period of human history where women were punished in grisly ways, both big and small (being burned to death, having their genitals mutilated, being raped, beaten, told they were going to hell), if they were sexually autonomous, is dumb as hell.

Women's sexuality is more complex in that we have all this oppressive baggage to work through while we are trying to be sexual beings. But I hate being made into a strange, complex, mysterious creature, who is so very different from those straightforward men, when men would be the same way if they had the same incentives and punishments working on them.

Ok, but, I didn't have to deal with any of that this morning. I didn't get beaten, raped, and no one said anything about hell to me. I lost my car, found it, drank three cups of coffee and wrote this blog post. My foremothers would not recognize any part of my daily experience.

Fever-ish.

I had a fever last night. I never took a temperature, but I had that ultra-sensitive feeling- where all your muscles hurt, but then if they get touched they feel great, or where you are so cold but then warmth feels better than it ever could if you didn't have a fever. I think fevers are my favorite form of being sick, because you get to be in an altered state. So I'm usually in a good mood when I have a fever, unlike when I have my period, or when I'm throwing up, and it's definitely way better than a headache. I took some Advil and slept a lot. Then it went away. Pretty awesome, right?

There was a community meeting I had planned to go to today. But then I got sick. That honestly happens a lot with me and community meetings, which makes me think I don't actually want to go to them, and my body does the dirty work for me.

I don't feel that bad about skipping it. I will two days from now, when I get the notice about the next meeting and then think "Oh gosh, I really gotta make it to that one now, since I've skipped two." Or I'll skip all the ones from here on out, and I'll get notice of their big action, then feel really guilty. I hope when I die they present a list of events I skipped to me. A friend of mine posted about it on facebook, and then I got a surge of guilt, followed almost instantaneously by resentment, sort of like when vegetarians assert their presence. That resentment that is pure defense mechanism, and yet, feels so good to indulge in and let yourself and the whole world off the hook.

How many meetings can I skip before I need to take 'activist' out of the blog description? Honestly, it's pretentious in the extreme to have it in there. I'm not really an activist- activists don't think about Beyonce as much as I do. And truly, activist and comedian are two poles on the spectrum of activities. Activists take the material conditions of the world seriously and write letters about it, comedians encourage everyone to get drunk. Getting drunk has been consistently proven to not change the material conditions of the world. I guess it makes babies, that's something.

If you went to a community meeting today, be proud of yourself for it. You could've stayed home and written this blog post instead. And that would've been silly as what.

God Thy Will is Hard and You Hold Every Card

I saw Jesus Christ Superstar last night at the Music Box, courtesy of the generosity of my bf. Thank god for that generosity, because I needed something thrilling and all the easy ways to get thrills are linked to currency.

How much do I love JC Superstar? Is it enough to tell you I know all the words? Is it enough to tell you I often shed tears? Is it enough to tell you it turns me christian every time?

Jesus does not come off very well in JC Superstar, and yet I want to be his follower more from this movie than any other source (certainly more than after a Catholic mass). He's really confused, tired, freaked out, passive aggressive, and pretty hung up on fame. Which is like WHAT I AM. And he's really self-destructive. But his flaws get him to the whole point of being JC, which is you die in a grotesque, painful way and then people worship you for two thousand years plus. I like the idea of people being given their flaws according to a plan. That my self-centeredness will propel me towards my purpose as much if not more than my empathy. I guess I hate the idea of waste, even in our personalities- I want everything wrapped up with a neat little bow. And in JC Superstar all of these mistakes and stupid arguments lead to what you know is inevitable anyway, wrapped up neat and pretty.



Also, the dancing! My favorite dancing in a musical! Everyone is so muscular and sweaty and ecstatic. None of the women are wearing bras, or need them. I want a workout class which is just learning routines from this movie.



And you know, it was good for me to think about the crucifixion right now. I am broke as a joke right now. But it's not as bad as having your hands and feet nailed to a cross and being left to suffocate on your own weight, while people laugh at how ridiculous you look. (Especially if those people are hippies.)Broke is actually pretty manageable in comparison.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the film is NOT COOL racially. The evil pharisees are played by the most stereotypically jewish looking guys ever- which would be fine if other people in the movie looked like that since EVERYONE IS JEWISH. Oh, and Pontius Pilate looks particularly jewish, despite being the one non-jewish character. Judas is black. Jesus is blonde. And that's too bad, except Carl Anderson is a POWERHOUSE who maybe should be playing every role in the film. He could do it in a full body cast and it would still be amazing. So I wouldn't want anyone else to play Judas, which is by far the best interesting and demanding role.



The solution would be to make Jesus black. Usually a good start to any problem, start by making Jesus black.

BF asked, before he saw it, "Are there any parts to the movie where people aren't screaming?" Very few. It's at a fever pitch the whole time. Which is the very best pitch to be screaming in. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah-men.

Let's Indulge the Temptation to Laugh at the Devout



It is generally not an ethical act to laugh at older, delusional folks. Since I expect to be an older, delusional folk one day, I do try to look away when they perform a verbal equivalent of a 5 semi pileup. But, oh! This man is so good! He's the third eagle of the apocalypse. And so he has those qualities I admire so much, a massive ego and the cojones to be open about it.

Oh gosh. Ok, now as a penance let's be nice to our local oldies.

Comedy Tonight

There's lots of sun out today. Sunny and cold, which is it's own kind of sunny. Much brighter. I started reading "The Power of Now" yesterday. That should tell you something about how calm and centered I feel. Not even a little. I only need reminders to live in the moment when I would really rather not, because the moments are unpleasant. What is the big problem? The big problem is not enough sleep. Screw not enough sleep.Or exercise. Or money. Or comedy. That is the BIG PROBLEM. ARGH.

How many times have you heard this from me? A lot! I am always saying that once I change my current circumstance to accomodate my sleep, exercise, and creative needs I will be fine. But no. It's been years and years. I haven't figured out this problem, and I don't think I'm going to. I'm just always going to be tired and frustrated and scared. Oh, and jealous. That's what my brain, when turned on and left running, comes up with. I wish I had a different brain that came up with gratitude and sunniness and confidence. I do not have that brain.

Screw this brain.

Luckily, I will get to do comedy tonight, at ChUC. That's very exciting. It's "Ricky Carmona Unlimited" at 9:00 pm,free, at the Beat Kitchen. Which means Ricky will do 45 minutes, and that will be fantastic. He's one of my very favorites to watch in Chicago, so I expect to be uplifted.