Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
by krisis
Sometimes i forget how excited i was last summer when Erika and Lindsay agreed to have me as their roommate, and sometimes i find myself squeezed onto the couch with them stuck on level 8-3 of Mario Brothers trying to get past those hammer tossing fuckers. I mean, who knew Lindsay had memorized where every secret block was in all of the first Mario game? It’s not like i interviewed her that extensively before moving in with her…
by krisis
I was singing at the time.
I am getting used to her “hold it” as she tightens the focus and adjusts her shutter speed. I am beginning to learn to breathe down through my chest so that its expansion doesn’t ruin my pose. At the time i was just on Walnut street, though, with my extra black dress shirts slung over my shoulder.
So far Elise has mostly taken my picture while i’ve been playing guitar, or reaching for my guitar, or relaxing after having played my guitar. Last night was just me and the shirts, and a single red tie. Somehow the thought of it was a little threatening, as if i’m not worth photographing while i’m not running through my rock-star routine – which comes through alright in photographs even if it doesn’t sound up to par in person.
I needed to feel worthy of her photographs, and so i had my demo playing on my headphones during my walk to her room. I was really listening hard – wrapping my mind not around the lyrics and the guitars that are so familiar to be but around the arrangements that sprung up in the studio… the subtle changes i made to the songs on the fly that created the solid front they produced on the record rather than the random chance that they might turn out well when i play them live. I was wrapping my mind around the concept that i am worth listening to beyond the immediacy of my rhyming and strumming.
Somewhere inside of that thought i began to sing… not singing along with my record, but singing with it; adding harmony where i was too naive to place it when it was recorded, adding subtle changes in lyrics to deepen the songs that weren’t fully realized at the time. Just singing… singing out, singing loud …to songs that no one else on the street knew at all.
I’ve learned to turn off my peripheral vision in moments like that so as to ignore the bemused glances i draw from passers by, but i could hardly ignore the rumpled man on his ten speed bike keeping pace beside me. I am a jaded Philadelphian at best, and a guardedly hostile one at worst, and so when he motioned for me to take off my headphones i was hardly expecting anything other than him asking for directions or money. Possibly both. I slowed down a little, almost maliciously, since he would have an even tougher time maintaining balance on two wheels at such a slow speed. I offered him my attention.
“You should be a singer.”
“I am.”
Headphones back on, speed increased, and by the time he was out of my peripheral vision again i had paused just long enough to realize that i had said what i said not to put him off, but because i meant it. I was listening to honest proof that i am a singer, and was singing along. I am a singer.
Half a block later he waved again for me to take off my headphones. “I didn’t mean to be smart with you or anything, i just think you have a nice voice. You should sing.”
I replied with just as much ease as the first time: “I know. It’s just… that i am. I do. But, thank you.”
I am miles away right now, but she’s got my essence on paper right in front of her face.
by krisis
On my lunch breaks i walk two blocks north of work to a corner store that has obscenely cheap deli sandwiches and 2-for-$1 packs of cookies. On Tuesday i was walking out with my sandwich and a quart of lemonade when two giggling Hispanic girls brushed by me to get into the store. I glanced back at them, perhaps to admonish them for their rudeness with a cross stare, and it was then that i noticed – round biceps connected to sturdy shoulders, lips widely enhanced with liner and gloss, and what was surely a painted-on Cindy Crawford mole. Neither of the two caught my glance as they moved deeper into the store, and i headed back to my daily grind of endless vinyl records.
It had just started to rain on Friday when the bus pulled up to the corner of eighteenth and Walnut streets, and clutching my brand new sheet music book underneath my decidedly non-waterproof jacket i stepped on to the crowded vehicle without taking much notice of what route it was. Only after i had dropped my last token into the machine and started moving up the aisle did the electronic announcement from the PA proclaiming the bus’s route number register with me: it wasn’t my bus, but it would get me to within two blocks of my apartment. A quick mental comparison of waiting in the rain for the next bus crowded with rush hour passengers or just sprinting two blocks after i got off left me resolved to stay on the alternate route.
The slight blonde girl in front of me smirked apologetically as the momentum of the bus forced her to lean back towards me; she was shorter than me, and pretty despite the dull red sheen of acne that followed her low cheekbones. She was too short to reach the over-head rail to steady herself, and so she gripped the back of the seat next to her for support. The bus was one of the new ones, with their strange dais of seats in the back, and i discovered that i was just barely tall enough for my hand to get a solid grip on the stainless steel bar that ran parallel to the ceiling. Sans my inhumanly large headphones and pressing the book against my chest with my left arm, i averted my gaze from the precariously balanced girl in front of me – letting it rest on the floor by my feet.
The shoes were wicker, like lawn furniture, with a chunky heel and an open front to reveal toes painted a shade somewhere directly between red and pink. My attention was drawn back up as the blonde girl excused herself again, this time to the woman whose seat she was standing next to, and when i swung my gaze back around i was confused. Confused, because it was the tired face of a man that stared back at me from the space approximately above the reddish hued toenails. His hair was a faded red and hung just below his ears, tucked back behind the left one. His shirt was tie-dye all in shades of blue and had a scooped neck that revealed skin once-fair but rendered ruddy from exposure to the sun. He was crammed into a pair of jeans that cinched him tightly at the waist, which created an illusion of the hips that he sorely lacked. My confusion was alleviated, for the most part, when at the tapered cuffs of his blue jeans i found the ankles that lead to those familiar toes sitting upon their wicker thrones.
They were the feet of a man, obviously, although i had chosen to ignore it when i examined them previous to give their owner the once over. My gaze swung back up to his face, sad and tired as he clung to the same overhead bar that i was using to steady myself. I imagined that my face looked not entirely different from his at that point, wearied from the day that had preceded it. That was all i had to be weary about, though – my slim frame and curly hair rarely draw any prolonged scrutiny from passers-by. His face, i suspected, could have been equally as weary of this as it was of the long week that was coming to a close.
With some amount of apology in my eyes i turned my face back towards the blonde, who was precariously advancing on a seat that had just been abandoned. I followed her towards a second empty seat across the aisle, forgetting for the moment about the painted toenails and their owner. When i finally took my seat i slid my cd player out of my bag and rested my giant headphones over my ears, and when i glanced up from my hands’ sure operation of the walkman i was encountered again my the man, this time with his back to me. His blue shirt had a similar scoop on its back, and it revealed a set of undisguisedly wide shoulder blades. His illusion was not as solid as the girls’ from the corner store… only as deep as his clothing, and his toenails.
As far as i’ve ever known, Philadelphia isn’t exactly renowned for its gender-bending community. Every so often i pass by a man with impossibly nice cheekbones or women with too-wide shoulders, but no so often that i’ve ever stopped to recollect it afterwards. I welcome the sight without any prejudice, but my reactions are inevitably bi-polar in nature. The girls left me grinning widely at their oblivious slide past me while glibly chatting and smiling; after all, i immediately pegged them as girls, and so they should be happy.
The man on the bus left me somber as i stepped off into the light rain, forgetting entirely about my planned sprint back to the apartment. There is something especially tragic about not being who you want to be to begin with, and not being able to turn yourself into that person even when you try. After all, i’m still mentioning him as “the man on the bus” when that was obviously not his intention. It was an inward sigh that greeted my smug thought that he might be happier with my malleable frame to work with rather than his own; just because i am not met with scrutiny doesn’t mean that people aren’t assuming i’d rather be in their place or shape if given the choice.
I’ve noticed that the ones that show you that they’re thinking it are usually the most wrong. My sprint began.
by krisis
I need to share this before my head explodes from the irony.
So, i’m in the record room, shelving records. It’s a big room, and i’m alone, so i have the new Sheryl Crow record blasting from the inventory computer. In walks one of my supervisory co-workers, who says hi and takes off his jacket. He fiddles with various records and gadgets for a minute, and then turns to me and proclaims, “I’m sorry, i have to turn this shit off before i go insane.”
I wasn’t particularly offended, as i know that my predilection for female singer-songwriters isn’t shared by all of my associates. However, this particular person is a big fan of “house” music, which can at times consist of a couple of thin vocals strung over repetitive dance beats for minutes on end. Good-naturedly i joked back that i, at least, enjoyed music with choruses and verses. He somewhat snidely replied that he enjoyed verses very much, but not performed by “whiny bitches who don’t have any soul.”
He ejected my cd and dropped a record onto the turntable. There were no sounds on it produced by acoustic or strung instruments, and the singer sounded as though she had been randomly selected from a pool of gospel choir drop outs. In other words, there wasn’t any soul – or, at least none outside of the canned and anonymous vocal.
I smirked; I’m sure Sheryl’s feelings weren’t hurt too badly.
by krisis
I’ve been very good this year about buying new records – for the most part, i haven’t. Sure, there was a purchase or two a few months ago, but when my music allowance for the first four months of a year is under $100 you know i’m acting with some amount of restraint. Part of what kept my wallet firmly in my pocket is the knowledge that the past two weeks would see the release of over a dozen records that i was definitely eying up for purchase, and on Monday i picked up a few between AKA and South Street. Here are first impressions, in ascending order of quality: