Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

martha

Trio Season 6 – Suite #2: Transparency

by

Trio: Season Six, Suite #2: Transparency
Deadweight, Save Your Day, Secret Queen

A sample of what I had to say in this Trio…

Re: Transparency
All three of these songs are about the same thing: a person that wouldn’t ordinarily impact me so much that I would write a song about them, and having one moment of unusual insight into that person – where I really saw through all of their opacity and outside intentions to what they were really about at their core.

Deadweight
At the time, actually, I thought it was just a throw-away. I had written another lyric on a page in my notebook … and I wrote [“Deadweight”] on the upside down of that page. … Now I have to turn the poetry notebook upside down every time I go back to check something.

Save Your Day
One of my readers sent me an email [to say that] she listened to it and just cried … because it was describing her. … You don’t think I’m going to write a song describing somebody’s life. Those songs suck. But, if you are just writing something true people find themselves in that.

Secret Queen
Oh, that secret queen. I’ve got some opinions about her. One day I just thought to myself, With all of that negative energy, you could just be the biggest black hole in my galaxy. And then “Secret Queen” arrived.


Trio – the original singer-songwriter web session – returns for its sixth season featuring my original music, recorded live and DIY in my bedroom. You can download this Trio, or listen to a previous Trio:

by

Aim refused to get drunk before our interminable night class on Monday, so instead we stuffed ourselves silly with bubble tea and made a list of think I could do in June.

1. Graduate; get a job in Philly. Pros include staying in the same physical area with the same social network, which incurs lower cost and promotes mental stability. Cons include feeling as though i’m starring in my own personal version of The Truman Show or, alternately, reminding myself how pathetic my life is on a weekly basis. (Note: Cons do not apply if employed by the University of Pennsylvania or Philadelphia Magazine)

2)Graduate; get a job away from Philly. Includes the major benefit of living independently somewhere other than here. Detractions include lack of startup capital, moving all of my stuff, having to buy a car, and the fact that I don’t think my dozen closest friends are going to set-up a schedule where at least one of them is crashing on my couch at all times. At least, not without some prompting.

3)Graduate; attend grad school. Combines academic challenge with possible relocation. My already-existing student loans and the fact that the letters G, R, & E often induce a panic attack are definite detractions, as is the fact that i’d rather gnaw my arm off than go to class lately. (Note: Detraction #2 is waved if I pull a Martha).

4)Graduate; go abroad to do something worthwhile. Pros include buying a backpack guitar and getting a new passport photo. Oh, and changing the rest of thr world a little bit while potentially padding my resume. Cons include putting the rest of my life on hold for a year, airfare, immunizations, the fact that I barely speak anything other than English, and paying hiked-up import prices for new records.

5)Graduate; become a Rock Star. I know that almost everyone wants to be famous but, lets face it, most people have no particular reason to get famous no matter how much they want to be. I used to be most people; in high school i had a recurring fantasy invoked while singing in the shower. It involved me singing in the shower (wait for it…) only to be interrupted by an astute questions posed by my interviewer from Rolling Stone, who i had permitted to join me in the bathroom to facilitate his interview but promptly forgotten once faced with my audience/shower-fixtures. I could conceivably make this a reality. Pros to this include the fact that there’s really no reason for me not to be famous – i’ve got decent songs, a decent voice, and am decently cute (which is more than i can say of any new band i’ve heard/seen within the last month). Cons include that since becoming a rock star is not a definable career choice, and i can’t obtain job security or a future through attempting it, i have relegated it to a back burner for over half a decade so that it’s never really close to reality. Also, it’s a lot of hard work, and schlepping around with my guitar, and believing in myself.

This is what i do while i’m supposed to be blogging, if there is such a time of day. Feel free to share your opinions, additional pros and cons, or alternate options.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/11/106866494839649888/

by

I am not a car guy, but this weekend i found myself catching my breath when I was first introduced to Ross’s gold 1967 Camaro in full daylight, its top just finishing its retreat to the back hood. We rode in the Camaro almost exclusively the entire time we were in New Hampshire. My favorite part was the looks… at gas stations and stop lights, wide eyed, covetous, keenly appraising the four of us in the car (five, after we were joined by Martha).

I had never been to New Hampshire before. The names and numbers of the highways that got us there were meaningless to me, made all the more alien by the day-early fireworks that exploded in the night all around us. The state itself was equally as foreign; different slang, different prices, a different way of driving. Vehicles on the Maine beach’s parking lot all open and empty, the Philadelphian in me feeling almost compelled to vandalize them for being so trusting.

It felt more real than Philadelphia, though, as if the commonality of an experience makes it less like reality. Like I was a trendy kid eschewing the new pop album to embrace indy critical darling, only with New Hampshire instead of something off of Barksuk records and irreverent, heathenish, treasonous wit rather than any kind of nationalistic spirit. I still wondering the same wonder: is it good because I like it, or because no one else I know does?

Friday morning I woke up at eight twenty seven, so that by the time I rubbed my eyes, stretched, and walked to the kitchen it was eight thirty. Time for work; not even alien surroundings can convince my brain that it is not time to communicate efficiently at half past eight. Saturday saw me rise at the same time, again unprovoked and exactly.

I resolved that over ninety percent of my liquid intake would be alcohol. I was that guy, the guy from the big city turning a peaceful sub-urban vacation into a bender. I was that guy, drink in hand at all times, but even while i went through the motions i knew that it wasn’t me; it felt exactly the same as playing a snooty New York writer trapped on a Pacific Island for my acting class: i knew the paces to go through, but I never felt connected to the character.

On Sunday morning, hung over and ready to head home at eight thirty on the nose, I finally felt like I understood the both of us; we were using a change in location to attempt to focus our image, but without any normal references to work from we were skewed, suddenly out of control and unlike the selves that we had grown accustomed to.

If New England can at once transform and fascinate me to such a degree, how would I react to Alabama or California, England or Denmark, India or Australia? How frightening to think that all of my weakness and confidence might stem from a place outside instead of a place inside, and that a simple change of scenery could alter or even invert it.

Not the sort of independence I had intending to be commemorating, but fitting nonetheless.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/07/105760143610820933/

by

I read a lot of blogs every day. That’s what my sidebar is for, really: to remind me of what i’m supposed to be reading on any given day. Lately i haven’t been doing such a good job, as i’ve obviously barely got my head screwed on tight enough to write convincing posts about my own life, so i’ve been trying to catch up today. It’s been hard… digesting four days of thoughts and feelings and words from each person and trying to discern exactly What it was that i missed. It’s harder with some than others — four days for some is an entire universe, for others just some scattered commentary. But, anyway, i miss all of them and i’m happy to be caught up on their lives.


Point being, i find Martha to be completely amazing and felt the overwhelming need to link her individually despite her omnipresence on my sidebar. She makes life sound as vivid as it is.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/10167013/

by

So, i’m in Florida. Hi.


Florida is entirely queer is basically what i’ve decided. I feel like an endless cliche saying things like “well, in Philly…” every other sentence, but it’s honestly a entirely different culture than what i’m used to. Case and point: cars. Most of the peope i know at Drexel have their licenses, because where they live they basically need a car to get from anywear to anywhere. However, these people mostly don’t bring their cars to Philly … there’s just no point in it.


Here if you don’t have a car you’re stranded. Going to the movies last night was utterly unaccomplishable via bus. Getting to the airport would involve a pricey cab ride or a ride to an out of the way rail-station and then a pricey cab ride. Today was like the Greatest-Hits of lacking public transportation: getting to see Martha involved a lengthy car ride to the out of the way train-station, followed up by a doubly pricey cab ride down the highway. And then i got lost in Jupiter.

Well, really, this tiny development inside of Jupiter that gives one the impression that there was a Disney race in Starcraft who came to Earth to colonize our territory. It’s not exactly the town of Celebration, but’s it’s got that pastel-and-stucco, pre-fab, homogeonized-milk sortof feeling to it. Which, was even creepier when i thought the entire thing was Martha’s college, but then she informed me that it was really just one big creepy pre-fabricated expensive housing development — where you can pretend that you live in an amalgamated every-state of the USA minus anything with a population density higher than… oh, shit, what the hell do i know about population density.


But, anyway, now playtime is over and i have to do the pricey two-hours journey back to the geriatric imprisonment that is my grandmother’s condominium.

On the bright side, Martha is as obsessed with Buffy as i am, and tomorrow i’m having lunch with JillMatrix!!! Rock on!

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/8085417/