A departure from the regularly scheduled programming, to bring you:

Blob tales from Ohio, pt. 1

Dear readers,

I am home, one a.m., stood up by my high school prom date and instead having watched Sideways with my mom. The clerk at the grocery store said, "like, everyone who returns this movie says that it's totally boring" after I had just said, "mom all my friends parents loved this movie." This is of course after getting shot down about Hotel Rwanda. It mentioned minority conflict, and the minority weren't (obviously) from outer space.

The movie sucked, of course. But I'm in Ohio, so I still consider the woman at the register to be a total birdbrain, which is a term I actually love. Birdbrain. Not very feminist, the term. I can use it because today I spent 2.5 hours floating in my neighbor's pool with my mom telling her why a) disco doesn't suck. and b) contemporary gender theory is really quite helpful when thinking about what it means to be an individual in society. These things are related in my mind, of course. Gay men, dancing, liberation, the end of monogamy, what lies beyond marraige as 'commitment.' trust, respect, truth. Ha! I got a sunburn, but only on the front.

Last night I said "I'm here for the party," to my cousin and her mom, who are in town for what can be called 'a hillbilly wedding' with some reservation. We met up at a roadhouse hidden from the highway by dozens of parked semis. My uncle, who most commonly resembles a prison in-take photo for his severe countanance, was also in attendance, as well as my mom, who refused to take the bacos off the cheese fries although even though they are apparently vegetarian, I still think they're gross. Didn't matter. A huge pack of huge Ohio dudes near us kept like, buddy wrestling and bumping in to our table. I fired one off about 'homosensual lust' and my not-aunt (said potential marriagables at table are long divorced) laughed. Love that, who doesn't believe in progess, you know? And then they started playing "Doin' the Butt," which put everyone in a great mood.

Yesterday I visited my aunt in the hospital. A doctor came in and gave her one of those monologues you only ever see in a movie. She's going to die, you see. But when? He weighed the options, gave statistics, reminded her that she was 'well beyond her years' and almost even said 'slash' when referring to god/nature taking her last breath. You couldn't want for more, really. All the family there. Me recounting what the PaceMaker specialist said about 'the dyes' that could 'put her into kidney failure,' because well "Daphne is the smart one," so she follows what the doctors say. Other people don't follow what the doctors say? Other people, let me tell you, do NOT follow what the doctors say. And from the past three years of losing three aged charmers, most of the time it's the people who need to know the most who hear or understand the least. "Listen loudly" is a song written aptly by a band called Love Life: a band I love, thought Loveless I love more but could do less with such sentiment. Said said, you should listen loudly, not only because you never know when it's them talking to you or when you need to really talk to someone else.

Enough with this 'you' and 'me' bullshit, aren't blobs about technology? "Daphne I have a question for you," my other aunt, mid-80s, asked today at lunch. "Whats an ipod? Is it a computer?" Well, I said. You know what a walkman is like? It's like that, but just it works a lot longer and with more songs. Oh. "I asked your mother what a blog was. They talk about all these things on the t.v. and then I ask your mother about them." Dear me.

My mother, doll that she is, just let me know that she discovered my 'blob' a few weeks ago. I was like, "mom, you can't SAY something like that about my career in music journalism, it totally has a shape. I've worked HARD for that shape." {bad joke, like writing such a long missive on my blob in general, which I'm merely carrying out like a bad writing exercise cause I just watched the laborious and stupid Sideways ferchristsakes and am in that kinda mind}. This would be a boring-er story if it weren't for the fact that my mother printed out the whole freaking blog (that's three years, folks) and put the thing in a three ring binder to like READ IN FULL LIKE A NOVEL. As pitchfork would say WTF?!? Does this mean I go through the blob and delete everything errant, freudian (my dad reads my blog, but he's like 'not into emotions' (hi dad!) so I don't think my drama or escapades would phase him), but my mom, she's all..all. looking for ammo? wanting to show interest? searching to see if i'm secretly gay or on drugs? I can't tell really. Typical Sideways response: Your writing has gotten better on the blob in the last three years. And here I am to blow it all with a long personal narrative about rednecks and death.

THE MUSIC ISSUE

Dudes, tonight I went to this freakin weird Russian folk concert in Warren Ohio with my mom. Five small girls calling themselves 'Golden Gates' sang while a Cleveland-based Russian trio called Moscow Nights backed them up. They wore costumes and played traditional folk music and talked about well-meaning ethnomusicologists going into villages and collecting songs, although they didn't mention the falling sky, one could tell clouds were gathering in that distance.
It was very charming, but most charming was that whenever the girls would hit a chorus, a very heavily synth-ed backing track would come on adding drums, tinkling bells and either a chorus of angelic women or a male harmony part with endless amounts of reverb. It was somehow triggered from the accordion player's mixer and well, it was not unlike the backing tracks in disco polo. Maybe I'm a city slicker ethno asshole, but I don't think many other people noticed they were sorta 'phoning it in,' and in the yet unwritten book I'd love to do about everyone's favorite logical fallacy "If my mom does it, everyone uncool in the world must too" said monolith of the home and hearth said, "now you've ruined the whole concert for me" when I started singing the angel part. She always wanted me to be in the chorus, you know. Anyway, I hope this was so boring that she didn't get to the end cause if so I'm going to have to answer for calling her a monolith. Then again, I just saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: the White Stripes years, so I have monolith on the mind, and if you've made it this far and think I'm going to write more on that subject, well buddy you're just going to have to keep reading.