I'm trying my heart out!

Baby, I want to raise money for you.
We have a lot of work ahead of us.
This is what I'm listening to:
Chelsea Hotel # 2

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe...

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.
 
I think of you quite often. Every second is shared with your image. I refuse to let go of it whether I choose to or not. You are there, and I love you. I've been creating quite a commotion as I tackle this self employment thing head first.  I've been acting quite impulsively, as usual, but this time everything seems a bit more serious and weighted. It's quite exciting, and I find myself embracing uncertainty with familial ease. It's how I've been operating for over a year now, so I'm glad I'm getting better at it. Anxiety levels are at normal, and overall quality of life feels above average. The machine guns are lowered, and the guards are taking a well needed smoke break.

But not for long. They've got work to do. 
 

Another outburst from perhaps another life...

I'd like for the part of my brain that apparently has a rhythm and blues section in it to turn on more consistently. We could have a neo folk album just in time for the holiday rush. We'd make a fortune. 
I'm thinking millions of dollars.  


http://soundcloud.com/ciao-frau/you-go-gurl

It's September again.

You died over a year ago. You died. 
The other night I got my palm read by this older woman named Jackie. She is a fortune teller. She's the best I've ever encountered. She told me I was going to die young, and then the room fell silent- which was pretty impressive, as there was a party in full swing, and no one seemed to be paying attention to the two of us. Jackie broke the tension by continuing her train of thought, "and when I mean young, I mean late sixties, seventy..." I'm quite certain everyone exhaled at the same time, and that a few of us vocally released a variation of "phew." The party then picked right up where it left off.  40 years seems like a good amount of time. Manageable, but I should maybe pick up the pace in a couple of areas:
-money making
-art making
-home making
-friend making
-baby making

-language making

-book making

-cake baking

There is some definite overlap.

You died, and became something beyond me. I experience you in a different way now that is all at once familiar, disarming, sound, and crazy.  

All I know is that I love you. All I know is that I want to live a good life. All I know is that I like the sun, and sun tanning. I like my hair.  
And that it's nice to smile. Laughing's quite nice, and so is stretching. I like animals, and acquiring smallish, antique furniture. I love to work with my hands- with every part of me. I like to sing about the moon, and the June, and the Spring. Ah, yes all I know is what I like. 


And what I dislike.


Which we won't talk about just yet. 


  

A thought.

We will always be young together. Forever and ever, you and I will be young lovers.

No other memories will exist. We will always have supple bodies, active minds, the thrill of youth—

you and I.

I miss working with you.

God, you were so good!
You were lightening fast!
Open! A natural!
Wondeferously wonderful!
Of course, everyone only has good things to say about you!
You were excellent!
Thank you for loving me. 
It will always be an honor that I was your lady.
Thank you for working with me. How lucky was I!
I am honored that I was your partner. 
I will miss you for the rest of my life.
I will sing you praises for the rest of my life. 

July 2011

Kids love to play. 

It’s summertime in the neighborhood. School is officially out and the kids run around expressing their newfound freedom with an unrelenting display of fireworks, bicycling, and fire hydrant aquatics. There seems to be a surplus of boys. There are some girls running around too- riding bikes, or roller blades or sitting on porches yelling at their brothers to come back and play with them, but their is an obvious difference in the ratio of boys to girls. It sometimes feels like Lord of The Flies- especially when it gets to about 90 degrees and  a dozen boys between the ages of 5 and 15 have congregated on a porch looking bored to death, their brains honey glazed hams. It’s that time in the summer when things get like this. Hot, idle, a growth spurt on the horizon, someone might die, or maybe grow six inches.

At night the action keeps going. In Bangladesh, it’s normal for children to play at night- to run through the street at 1 am. I like it. It reminds me of my childhood.

Fireworks have been going off since last Tuesday and there are kids riding around on cool circus bikes. Somebody’s making double decker bikes around here! Upon further investigation, I discover the bikes where initially made by a local artist name Doyle, he made a few double decker bikes, and then showed this other artist named Andrew how to make them, who then showed a few neighborhood kids how to make them, who in turn showed some other kids how to make them thus spawning a neighborhood filled with people on double decker bicycles. It’s awesome! It’s great to watch because the bikes are so high- it’s one frame atop the other, and so the kids are about six feet off the ground- definitely higher than a car. I rode one the other night, and the height you gain is definitely impressive, if not a bit scary. 

There are a lot of kids in the neighborhood. It’s nice. It’s entertaining. They’ve been lighting fireworks off all week. It seems like everyone has. I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a place where fireworks go off all the time. They are legal here. 

Today it’s 91 degrees. It’s hot. I sit in Liza and Richard’s living room with boob sweat and thoughts. We had a pretty good rehearsal today, and discovered some fun stuff. We presented some character etudes. I created a sex menu, and had everyone read the menu items. We then partnered and tried them out. It was pretty ridiculous, and great. We need to get a bit for a show pony harness- one that won’t break any teeth. 

It’s fun playing a prostitute. It feels quite natural to find the play in it. Maybe I was a prostitute in a past life. Who knows...

Or maybe I’m just influenced by the vibes coming off my street. The house two doors from ours is a brothel and a literal cat house. The house feeds the neighborhood cats. Today, when I walked past the house, there were at least six cats just chilling on their front yard, and for added emphasis a giant stuffed tiger has been placed in the topmost window of the house- its regal body hanging halfway out the window, its glass eyes greeting me from a block away.  This is a cat house for reals.

So here I am playing a lady of the night, a hooker with a heart of gold, a first class madam, your whore about town, and I’m living two doors down from a brothel that’s such a far cry from the myth I’m playing in.  Here is one of the oldest professions, one that boasts an impressive past in histories, mythologies, and religions, where there is something in it to be said of the freedom it afforded many ladies. I find it fascinating, and I just want to read more and more about this countries notorious past, but when I see my neighbors working the corner, looking tired, and full of drugs, I realize I only have my belief in the a soiled doves of the American Wild West- Madame Pearl Starr, daughter of the ‘Bandit Queen’, Libby Thompson aka Squirrel Tooth Alice, Dora Dufran, and the like to keep me from falling off this pedestal of privilege and power (with sexy consequences) concocted by legends and Hollywood. 

Today is the 4th of July. It’s Independence Day! It’s the official day folks say Happy Birthday United States and we are doing a Psychedelic Wild West Show in Detroit! Birthplace of techno, Eminem, coney islands, the assembly line, MoTown,  and... 

portal to the Psychedelic Wild West??? 

You betcha. 

June didn't happen.