POST HASTE.

Thanks to an infomercial...

I was reminded of this song.

More Love - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

Auld Lang Syne

It's May 16th, nowhere near new years, not at all close to the holidays. Imeem recommended Auld Lang Syne by El Perro Del Mar probably because I loved the song God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get) I must have told them at some point.

The end of the year is a culmination, in New Year's conversations most people will explain their hopes for the coming year while lamenting on how many unfortunate things can happen in one 12 month period. Anyway they pass. I generally have no comment. 

The funny thing about writing is I am too connected with it, to the point where I feel that every word is a mistake, a waste an embarrassment to what I think a writer would create. 

So I stop.

Take a break. 

Don't stress myself out with the thought of writing anymore.

Focus on work and looking my best in photos. 

My mom was recently waiting for lab results from the doctor. She assumed he would tell her that she's dying or at the very least in need of high blood pressure medication and diabetes treatment.

But that's the thing about waiting. Creating your own outcome, various scenarios, past experiences and future images. All one block of continuous thought. 

There is a terrible song playing at this coffee shop I am sitting at.  I cannot think until it is over.

She watched my grandma die at 59.  How could she not worry? I watched her worry at 37, I was 20, too sad to look nice and oblivious. 

Her results came in, I listened along to her doctors muffled message on the answering machine, his tagalog accent saying everything was fine through my iPhone headphones as I drove home from work. Everything is fine. 

Have a post-work beer, eggs and potatoes with Pico Pica for weekend breakfast.  Onto the next thought...

A new Nothing Serious CD project. Limited edition. Hologram of my face and a Jaguar. Change my name to something indigenous that starts with an X.  Move to San Francisco.  Start writing again.  Revisit El Perro Del Mar or something else that has been recommended based on past experience. 

Starting Over, Again.

It's hard to start over again. Especially in these times and I can see that it is only getting worse with all of the things on the interweb.

The photos, the immature blog posts, all that ego with no real goal. Floating around, little symbols. Everything you thought people wanted to know about you right at that time.

So here it is.

I pay $4.95 a month for this so I am going to use it and when I pressed "ok" to delete the remnants of my past life, I hesitated, but barely.

I used to love Bratmobile and Soundgarden. I used to like Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. I used to hate Billy Corgan out loud but secretly owned the two disc Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness, it was an anthem to my life for a good week, maybe two and it no doubt cost a weeks worth of lunch money.

My mom says now that I used to look like a cancer patient back when most of my hair was shaved off but I think it was more my weight than the hair. I agree now but there was a lot going on back then compounded by my youthful inability to see the future of any kind.

I write just like I did when I was 15, messy with embellished arrows pointing to new paragraphs, afterthoughts (remember that store) and diagonal lines. I used to think this was a brilliant technique because people looking over my shoulder at school or coffee shops could not decipher it. Since you are reading this on the screen you cannot know, but take my word, it is an art. And the culmination of all these years of repetition is comforting, like Fiona Apple in big Sony headphones and a good cry or a long drive by yourself with OK Computer.

I am lying in bed looking at a good luck cat from Chinatown with its battery operated hand moving back and forth like a silent metronome. I wonder if it is bad luck to buy a good luck item for yourself or if it just brings no luck at all.

I will listen to The Smiths today because like any self-respecting Mexican-American wannabe artist I like to wallow. If only for short periods of time. I will likely snap out of it around Unhappy Birthday and I will watch Oprah because when you rarely get the opportunity to watch Oprah you have to take it and it's been an unspoken sick-day ritual for me for years now. The only way this perfect day can be ruined is if Dr. Oz is on or if they interrupt the show with a swine flu panicked reporter. How many times can one person say pandemic in one 1:30 minute piece?

I tried to make a 90's rock playlist but the metal got in the way and I wasn't sure where to draw the pop/rock line. It just got so complicated like all things do. So the list went the way of my 5th grade piano lessons and I gave up.

When Clueless first came out I didn't see the appeal of Paul Rudd but I do now, his consistency is admirable even if his iTunes celebrity playlist is shit.

I got really ambitious right now and rolled out of bed. Now I am sitting at my desk typing leaving my notebook with one more unfinished idea. I opened up iTunes and tried to put on Radiohead for sentimental melancholic effect and then a window popped up saying "The song 'The Tourist' could not be used because the original file could not be found." I grab my external hard drive and bring it up to my ear and hear the worst sound I have ever heard, I believe what I am hearing is the death click. A slow and sharp click , like a person on a breathing machine or a car that won't start. All along my computer and people have been telling me back up your music, back up your music, Veronica, back, up, your, music, my 10,000 songs, my whole life, and apparently it was not safe there either.

I might be starting over for real. With just half-full iPods, snippets, catchy choruses and burned CDs.

I have never been so scared in my life. Erasure is playing in the background mocking me, one of the hundred songs that seems to have survived is A Little Respect and I take little solace.

When I Think of You | The Pleasure Principle

I've been in Janet mode lately, full circle I guess.

Free

After having indulged in the most fancy dinner of my life the night before I get up out of sorts, guilty and uncertain and thinking of McDonalds. I go by my parents' and talk about work and politics in an unusually short visit and then leave. I feel fidgety, alone. I have no plans today no obligations, just freedom, free time and choices. There are signs outside the De Frank Gay and Lesbian Center celebrating yesterdays victory and I wonder how it will play out in the upcoming election. The day is hot, my sunroof is open I have virtually zero credit card debt. What could be better? What could make me happy?

I drive without thinking sometimes, flipping through my ipod or nano looking for the best song, for definition. I pull into McDonalds this time and cut someone off in the process. I'm hungry but I don't care what I'll eat, I'll eat anything possibly three of them the cheese and grease all the better. It's 7.21 I think that is a high price for brunch at McDonalds. I am embarrassed by this splurge my boyfriend must think I'm disgusting, maybe I'll go for a run or take a nap or buy some beer and nap later. I don't care.

As I pull into my driveway an SUV is blocking me just enough so I have to make a crazy wide turn, I am cussing, WTF is your problem? What is my problem? I just want to get home and eat and in five minutes it will be gone and I will feel sick and I will turn the fitness magazine over so that the bikini cover is facing down because they should always be facing down because why would I want to subject myself to such a ridiculous comparison.

I look to my left there is a man sitting on the small ledge of cement in our parking lot next to a big plywood sign painted "free." I think that's funny in an odd way but I cant stop thinking about him. In three minutes I have 15 thoughts. He looks like one of the little people in the yucatan selling faux reminders of a past life, when the gods controlled the earth and the land was the livelihood and soul of the community. I wonder if the sign has anything to do with him at all. Free. I see he has two bottles of Coca Cola one half gone and one full. The sun is hot and he is resting. He can't be waiting for the bus because the stop is down the block. He is dark like I was when I was seven and would go swimming when I was free. When time meant nothing. When the maximum amount of daylight hours were all that mattered. I get home and my bike is gone meaning my boyfriend is gone on my bike and I am glad because I can eat a cheeseburger guilt free and he wont know I ordered way too much food for one person and am planning to eat it all. I scarf down a cheeseburger and wonder where the nearest ATM is. I get in my car and go to Longs and buy an energy drink and get the maximum amount of cash back, 50 bucks. The man ahead of me is buying Just for Men Hair Color and with the coupon he has provided he ends up paying nothing, it is free. He doesn't take a bag.

I take my 50 bucks and get in my car and drive. The man is no longer sitting where he was, next to the sign so I have to be fast. I park right there and he is walking and I am holding the fifty bucks which is 2 20's wrapped in 2 5's. I try to hand it to him. At first he wont take it and then he does and I get in my car and he looks back at me and I'm not there.

Coachella

I am a purist, a solitary being and a stickler for personal space. I like a certain radius around me clear and I like my toilets free of turds and my tequila free of water. That being said, I had a good time at Coachella though most all of these rules were violated.

It's 1:30am on Friday night, we're driving in a Lincoln LS and like the geriatric people who love these cars I have just woken up from a nap. It was ten maybe twenty minutes but for the safety of myself and the driver I stay awake because I worry the driver may be as tired as I am. We've gone through our limited music selection, even listened to the Ming and FS album twice and now we are so close that we can see the craggy dessert mountains jutting out in the distance. We are going to La Quinta, we might go to the water park tomorrow or maybe just hang by the pool and tan however, this happens to be the same weekend as Coachella. A childhood dream of mine to one day make it here and we are here with no tickets. We are not going to Coachella.

As we drive by the palm lined cement walled communities on a straightaway that seems to go on forever we see signs directing traffic and cops pulling people over and Fischer Spooner is playing on the radio, the station is playing all Coachella artists from previous years and current and at this point I realize I will definitely regret it if I do not go to Coachella while being in such close proximity. I have to go.

First thing Saturday morning we go straight to the box office, it's 9:00am and already 100 degrees.

Tickets are 100 dollars each and still available.

We are going to see Kraftwerk, Portishead and Prince, back to back and on the same stage.

I'm wearing jean shorts, the sun is beating down, I am sitting in the trunk drinking a tall can Modelo, I feel young again. Like I did pre-partying for all those concerts I went to where the was built so high because in my planner I had written a daily countdown three months in advance to a show. My hair is black instead of purple and I can buy any merch I want although, I choose not to, still I feel young not far from the person who sat for hours at the front of the stage just to ensure a seat as close as possible.

Coachella isn't just a concert, it's an art and music festival so beyond the five stages of music there are installation pieces of random things and people who appear to be walking a very fine line between self expression and neo-raver. 120 Days is playing and all their songs sound the same. Two kids are sniffing coke off of a car key in front of us. I wipe the sweat from under my sunglasses and hope for a beer. At least I hope to god my temporary drivers license works. The Heineken band around my right wrist proves it does and 88 bucks and some straight tequilas later I have arrived. I am here. I am at Coachella. I am young again. The grass doesn't bother my legs and my jean shorts from Target are a perfect alternative to anything American Apparel of which I see so much.

In the misty, raver area people dance to house music, or techno there's a guy on stills who walks over my head, subsequently kicking me. There are people with water hoses who I avoid because unlike years prior I have makeup on and I would like it to remain somewhat in tact.

By the time Prince arrives on the stage I am tired of being sandwiched in the crowd, I have to get out into open air. Sheila E. is with him and they perform Glamorous Life and the day seems pretty much surreal. Prince rocks the stage like a modern day James Brown and he knows it.

The walk from the concert area to the car feels like miles, my feet are black with dust and I realize I haven't eaten anything since noon and I have consumed a lot of cheap tequila. I keep thinking to myself we just saw Portishead, Kraftwerk and Prince!

Coachella

Junot Diaz Wins Pulitzer

Diaz wins 2008 Fiction Pulitzer for his highly anticipated book The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  If you dont read, you should.

...and in the midst of life we are in death etcetera

Junot Diaz' Recent Novel "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" Slips Under My Radar

Junot Diaz' highly anticipated follow up to his 1996 book of short stories "Drown" came out in September 0f 2007 and somehow it got past me. He didn't call me up and say, "Hey Veronica, you wanna check out my fucking next masterpiece before it goes to print?" There were no articles that signaled his foray into the novel, not a peep.

Like many reviewers have stated Dominican born Diaz, like it or not, has become a spokesperson for the latino population. When I first picked up "Drown" I had no idea what I was getting into. The guy who loaned it to me was just like me, a fledgling writer with a strong belief in possibility. At that time I had read nothing even remotely similar.
He gave a face to the now, the poverty, sex, shame and various intricacies that we all lived through growing up American first but with a deep rooted concern for our respective cultures. To this day I read books with a critical eye and am always looking for the future in writing and so far I have only seen it in anecdotes and Junot Diaz.

Other writers have said he has become a bit of an oxymoron living the life of a writing professor at MIT while speaking about the Dominican diaspora and how it has affected the Dominican population. If that is the case than so be it, we need more honest voices for the millions of us that are searching but with no understanding of why.

So you can imagine my excitement when I saw the book in its hard covered glory at Border's today. A review/my thoughts on Oscar Wao to follow.

I Can Die Now | Radiohead Covers The Smiths The Headmasters Ritual