"Corporate Magazines Suck" --T-Shirt Kurt Cobain Wore for Nirvana's Rolling Stone Photo Shoot

When I was in high school Courtney Love saved my life and the Rolling Stones were a band a girl in my English class went to see with her dad and his boss. I love the Stones as much as the next girl, I really do, but what's true is true.

speaking of Self-love...

When I was 15 years old and going through adolescent hell, Courtney Love and her then most recent album, "Live Through This," were my shining stars and helped me, well, live through it. They still do. But now I've been going through midlife crisis hell... it seems, happily, to be reaching its end. At the height of my midlife crisis, I pined for the '90s. I got into things from the '90s that I didn't give a toss about in the actual '90s; like Pearl Jam... although I do like a lot of their music, and I love Eddie Vedder's solo stuff. Anyway.

Live Through This: "When you're going through Hell, keep going" --Winston Churchill

"If you live through this with me, I swear that I will die for you" --Hole, from "Asking For It" off of "Live Through This"

So, Clementine Cannibal's most recent post includes this link to things to do when you're feeling bummed. One of them is to scream along, or just listen to, an angry song. "Violet" by Hole is one of my songs of choice (I also like early Tori Amos and most anything by Diamanda Galas or The Kills.

But another important aspect of self-love that I'm trying to get better at is trusting myself. For awhile I was "confessing all my sins" or getting advice on every stupid thing I'd said or every mistake I'd made, but if I feel the need to remedy a mistake I've made or patch up something stupid I've said (which the person I've said it to probably doesn't remember anyway) It's best and easiest and do it my own way.

(Please see the post called "the self-love project" where I began this discussion of self-love.)

Hole - Violet

Music, Reading Material, and Movies for Door County

MOVIES
(this is the only time when my mom has time to sit down and watch movies)
I got my mom "clueless" to watch in Door County because it's cute and it's based on Jane Austen's Emma
Rosemary's Baby-- Roman Polanski is a genius. This movie is so eerie and so scary in a way that's built up with subtle layers and shifts in consciousness and reality without any cheesy special affects.  Mia Farrow is a genius, too... her performance was outstanding and really made the movie work.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (I thought my mom would appreciate the whole growing-up-ethnic-in-Chicago thing, even if she is 1/2 Italian instead of 100% Greek, plus my dad loves this movie)
Up! (my nephews think the old man in this movie looks like my dad)
I'm hoping one of my brothers will bring Rock'n'Roll Circus... I could use some good John Lennon/ Mick Jagger-flavored eye candy... but don't tell T! :)
my dad's bringing Kick-Ass and The Book of Eli. If I could be anything I wanted this Halloween, it would be Hit Girl
Finding Nemo... because we can't get enough of Disney/Pixar
Help!... it's a family classic. With Beatle eye candy. That's important.
Girl, Interrupted-- I love this book so much, and I was both really excited and a bit wary when I heard a movie was being made of it starring Winona Ryder. But she was great-- ever since I saw it I've had so much respect for her, and I appreciate her impulse to make a movie about mental illness (she produced it). I heard she wanted to make the movie because she'd been having panic attacks, and I know how awful those can be. Kind of makes you wonder what kind of a society we live in where so many people have panic attacks, huh?
My dad's also bringing Kill Bill 1 & 2 (my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie... or should I be pretentious and say film?) and Flight of the Valkyries, starring Hollywood's very own expert on psychiatry, Tom Cruise!


READING MATERIAL
The Bell Jar (I know, I know)
The Wisdom of Insecurity because I'm hoping it'll change my life. If it doesn't, I can't get my money back because it was a gift from Bugman, who is the one who told me it would change my life.
Last month's issue of Bust
This summer's issue of Bipolar Magazine

MUSIC
Lots of classical (Mozart's Requiem Mass, Bach, Beethoven, Scheherezade, Schubert), Johnny Cash, and Ray Charles for the car because it's the only music my dad and I can agree on and I DON'T  want to be listening to Jay and the Americans and Roy Orbison the whole way up
The White Album--  I used to listen to the Beatles pretty much all the time, especially the White Album (me and Charlie Manson, right? ;) and so therefore i listened to that album in Door County, and little bitty Bugman started calling "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" "The Door County Song," and now it's a family tradition to listen to it on the ride up to Door County
a mix CD a friend gave me that has the song "Map of the world" by "Monsters of Folk" --that song really means a lot to me right now and if I get the chance I want to play it for my brothers. It's pretty depressing... my favorite line is "the road that you paved over Indian graves and you wonder why your dreams are crazed"
--Wave by Patti Smith
I bought this album during Black Friday retail therapy with my sister last year, but just started getting into it now. Just in case I have a chance to listen to it...
PRETTY ON THE INSIDE BY HOLE
I first got into this album heavily, especially "Good Sister, Bad Sister," the summer of 1994, when I was 15, in Door County. (The hipster in me wishes to point out that this was BEFORE they got really popular with their fall of '94 album "Live Through This," although I'm sure I'm not the only person to have turned my interest to Courtney Love during the spring and summer after Kurt Cobain's suicide.) That was 17 years ago. It seems appropriate.
Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos... My all-time favorite album by anyone, whenever I go somewhere and bring music I bring this album. In fact, one time I couldn't find it and I freaked out so hardcore I went out and bought another copy. Well, I found my old copy, so now I have two! Also, my dad likes the song "Winter" and can appreciate that Tori is a masterful pianist. (By the way, I think I would have to say my all-time second-favorite album is Automatic For the People by REM. I know it doesn't make sense because REM isn't one of my top five favorite bands, but even though they're responsible for my 2nd favorite album, they don't fit the criteria for being one of my top five on facebook. For one thing, that's the only album by them that I ever listen to. For another, they don't fascinate me the way Tori, the Beatles and Hole do, and also I love pretty much everything Hole, Tori, the Beatles, the Kills (who also fascinate me), and Partners in Stars have ever done. Partners in Stars are my good friends, they haven't blown me off since they started getting successful, and in a manic fit I nastily called them a "goddam New York Electronica Band," but we were all able to laugh about it later to the point that they made the quote one of their posters. Go Partners in Stars, independent womyn and embodiment of feminism! Mad respect and I <3 you something fierce!
more music for Door County:
Otis Redding
Aretha Franklin
Diva by Annie Lennox (which I assume my dad will like since I "borrowed" it from him)
August by Rose Polenzani
Anonymous 4 singing Voices of Light: An Oratorio Inspired By the Film The Passion of Joan of Arc (this may be too goth for my dad, or he may really like it... I might already be pushing it by having Requiem Mass as my Mozart pick)


--this post was originally a note on facebook

It Stands For Knife For the Rest of My Life*

* the title of this post is a lyric from the song "Doll Parts" by Hole

Soundtrack to my life... so far

DJ Trish requested more playlists, and I am delivering! The following is the soundtrack to my life... so far.

Disc One: "They said you were something in those formative years..." --Tori Amos

Like a Prayer-- Madonna
A Day in the Life-- The Beatles
Sweet Child O' Mine-- Guns'n'Roses
Heart-Shaped Box-- Nirvana (to view the video for this song, click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page)
Man On the Moon-- REM
Mr. Jones-- Counting Crows
Longview-- Green Day
Good Sister, Bad Sister-- Hole
Crush With Eyeliner-- REM
Stars-- Lisa Germano
Saturday Afternoon (Won't You Try)-- Jefferson Airplane
Ice Cream Phoenix-- Jefferson Airplane
Two Heads-- Jefferson Airplane
Buildings and Bridges-- Ani Difranco
To Bring You My Love-- PJ Harvey
Through the Eyes of Ruby-- Smashing Pumpkins
Hyperballad-- Bjork
Pissing in a River-- Patti Smith
Mr. Gallo-- Cat Power
Plants and Rags--  PJ Harvey
In Liverpool-- Suzanne Vega
Bette Davis Eyes-- Kim Carnes
Famous Blue Raincoat-- Leonard Cohen
Spark-- Tori Amos


 Disc Two: "...help me in my weakness, for I've fallen out of grace... Jesus, Jesus..." --Velvet Underground

Keep On Living!-- Le Tigre
Strange Fire-- Indigo Girls
Jesus Loves Me Like a Bird-- Rose Polenzani
Little Earthquakes-- Tori Amos (click here to donate to Tori Amos' favorite charity, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, (RAINN) which she co-founded)
Otherside-- Red Hot Chili Peppers
Tomorrow, Wendy-- Concrete Blonde
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out-- The Smiths
Where the Streets Have No Name-- U2
Wayfaring Stranger-- Johnny Cash
The Swimmer-- Sleater-Kinney
Let My People Go-- Diamanda Galas
Fire Snakes-- Laura Veirs
Gimme Shelter-- Rolling stones
Suddenly I See-- KT Tunstall
Lightning is My Girl-- Melissa Auf der Maur
When Under Ether-- PJ Harvey
Black Balloon-- The Kills
Letter to God-- Hole
Jesus-- Velvet Underground

Never Break

long-limbed
big red mouth
you're no ballerina in a jewelry box
no, not you
tiara askew
smeared eyeliner
fake lashes falling off
you live to mock the candy-coated strait-jacket of womanhood
that you will gloriously never break your bones trying to fit into
I can hear your soul
in my car stereo
"I always wanted to die, but you kept me here alive..."

Why are we still here, Courtney?
Maybe we never really wanted to die after all
Maybe what we really want is for all the electricity
all over the world to shut off
all the haters on the internet
all the loud and pompous TV personalities
all the top 40 hits
if they could just shut the hell off and shut the hell up
you and I could have some peace

peace doesn't come easy for people like us

you know what it's like
to be made of fire
you know what it's like
to burn and scream
you know what it's like
to be a girl
coming of age sexually at a time when sex could kill you
you know what it's like
to feel ugly and betrayed
you know what it's like
when all the great legendary men of rock'n'roll don't

I find peace
when I hear your voice
because you are made of fire
because you know what it's like
because you remind me I am brave and strong
and that no one
can break me


--this poem is dedicated to Courtney Love

This is a self-portrait taken on Halloween of 2009 when I dressed up as Courtney Love.