Friday, February 3rd, 2023: These Fucking Cats (Inaugural Missive) Greetings pals, As I might have told some of you, I live in a neighborhood in L.A. with a particularly high feral cat population. There’s that expression, “breeding like rabbits,” but I believe we should collectively update it to “breeding like cats.” As, apparently, with each litter female […]
THESE FUCKING CATS: a newsletter retrospective Read More »
I wrote Underwater: a home of her own as a way to digest my experience of being a first-time homeowner during the housing crisis. Or, perhaps I should say a housing crisis; one of many in an endless chain of housing insecurity. Amidst the pandemic we had a housing crisis of 2022, and 14 years
Surviving the Housing Crisis Read More »
Like most of us, the second I wake up in the morning, I reorient to who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing here as my mind charges into a stream of problem-solving, anxiety-based strategizing, and hope-infused planning. Such is the human condition. But music, the wise ones say, offers a spiritual break
Music is terrible and it will ruin you Read More »
Against my otherwise cautious nature, I was recently compelled to go to an indoor, early-omicron screening of 20,000 Days on Earth. I’m sure I could have found another way to watch this film, which came out in 2014, socially distanced and insulated from the rest of humanity. But I was willing to risk my life
RISKING MY LIFE TO SEE THE NICK CAVE FILM 20,000 Days on Earth Read More »
“We must decolonize our minds and re-name and re-define ourselves..in all respects: culturally, politically, socially. We must re-define ourselves and our lives, on our own terms.” -Max Roach, jazz drummer As quoted on Folukuke’s African Skies The decolonization of music is a new series I am starting based on many conversations, brainstorms, and ideas that
the decolonization of music post no. 1 Read More »
I’ve never seen a soul detached from its gender, but I’d like to. I’d like to see my own that way, free from its female tethers. Maybe it would be like riding a horse. The rider’s the human one, but everyone looks at the horse. -“Horse,” by Chase Twichell* It was around 2015 that I
She-Horse: Brand Politics & The Perennial ‘Women-in-Music’ Read More »
In addition to writing songs I also secretly write poetry (which you can find on my Patreon page if you have a hankering). But I also appreciate when folks regard song lyrics as their own type of poetry. Lyrics as Poetry puts together print-only collections contributed to by songwriters on a given theme. I was
If you have followed my blog at all over the past few years, you know that a) I own a magnificent 1912 Baldwin piano that I chanced upon for fairly cheap and shepherded into loving restoration by one of the Pacific Northwest’s top piano technicians, and b) when I moved to New York, I no
The Ongoing Saga of My Baldwin Piano Read More »
As part of the notoriously laborious process of moving to New York–which I brought upon myself voluntarily, with no job or major life reason other than to “try the New York thing,” as one of my NY veteran friends put it–I had to change my mailing address. This sounds like a fairly commonplace moving chore,
Space is the Place Read More »
I wrote “Song To My City” in the summer of 2015. Portland had been changing for a while, but 2015 was the year I felt like I no longer recognized it. Being both a long-time Portlander and originally a transplant from California, I had a lot of mixed feelings about the rapidity of Portland’s growth. On one hand, I’m
Outsiders In: “Song To My City” Read More »
