Its all about control

I'm normally more intrigued by a person when nothing is coming out of their mouth

Tori Amos

Pretty is never beautiful. The dark side is not something most people think is inside them. Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don’t fit into boxes. Every place you land in life has a reason and a lesson. There is value in everybody’s gift. No matter how hard it is to find or how strange it is. I love being a hermit. It’s about realizing, painfully, you’ve kept that voice inside yourself, locked away from even yourself. And you step back and see that your jailer has changed faces. You realize you’ve become your own jailer. You just get so tired of your work being rejected. It was about belonging. It was a time when my individuality wasn’t working for me—or so they said—so I cut it out. Then you realize that you’re not guaranteed anything else but your individuality. You know you can at least wake up with that and your self-respect. The truth is that anybody who exercises power, whether it is a partner, a government, or a religion, only wishes that the others remain fools. I was kind of in a place where I needed to find my own fire, because in truth I had been stealing a bit of fire from some of the men in my life. Wonderful things happen when your life falls apart, your personal life, when soul mates come and go. At the time I wanted to roast these boys over the fire, but now I see it quite differently; in a sense it’s given me freedom. There are only a few people who really, really know me. The friendship with them is almost holy. To be there when the other needs you, that’s what it is about. Most people would rather be sheep and have company than stand out on their own with antlers on. For many years, I shut down that place inside myself that needed to rage, cry, ask questions, and basically just express herself. I’m a winter girl; I like coming out when things are desolate and everybody’s ready to slit their wrists. For thousands of years women were not the creative forces, not the Da Vincis, not the Mozarts, just the muses. You really didn’t get a lot of lightning rods that were the women. You don’t hear about the great sonatas written by the great female composers. And of course, they were out there somewhere, but there wasn’t a place for acknowledgment. Now the dam is broken. It was pent up for so long and now there’s a deluge. Suddenly women are the creative forces that we wanted to be for thousands of years. One day you will open your eyes and see her. –from the sleeve of “Strange Little Girls” She forgets him utterly and forever. –ditto All your tomorrows start here. –ditto I’ll tell you something that I’m very aware of: my work doesn’t relate to the masses. My work is really for the elite. And when I say elite, I mean the mental elite. I can smell a rat real quick when someone tries to tell me their way is the way. And see, I don’t think my way is the way for everybody. You just can’t expect someone to see it your way. How are we going to be open if we’re not able to see different perspectives? You have to remember that I love the nerd. I have a really deep place in my heart because I was one. Not that I’m not one now, but I really understand people who excel in one area but might not feel good when they walk in a room. I’m the queen of the nerds. I love being in a skirt and boots. It goes back to the librarian-principal look. I like the idea of carrying books around in a skirt. The way I see it, the men that I’m with, whoever they are, it’s like, look, you have to accept that I like ice cream, and I know it shows up on my hips but if you can’t accept that, then leave. Go away. Toodles. It is non-negotiable. I’m a musician first, a food-lover second, a dirty mouth with feet, and a girl last time I checked. I believe in eating. I think women especially have this fear of eating, and I think there is a whole euphoric plane you can rise to when you have a good meal. You sit down and with every bite you honestly just say thank you. I played the percussion of Cruel in the shower on my excess fat. It sounded really good—it made me feel good when I’d have that next bag of potato chips. I’d say “Look, Cruel sounds great in the shower. You eat those chips, girl!” All creators go through a period where they’re dry and don’t know how to get that plane ticket back to the creative source. Where is that waterfall? At a certain point you say, “I’ll take a rivulet.” And you find a place. I don’t fall in love much; I mean, I fall in love every five seconds with something but I don’t go from boy to boy. I go from archetype to archetype. There is a level of the vampire in me—which is ok—and then there’s a part of me that’s a nerdy girl who watched her best friend get the guy she wanted over and over again. I really respect anybody who stands by their truth. A really important thing I always want to say to young people is that there’s a huge value in—I don’t want to call it failure—but in things not working out well. How’s that? It makes you ... recognize yourself and recognize your weaknesses ... I don’t think “negative emotions” is an accurate phrase. Emotions are emotions. We can’t look at them as positive or negative, they are what they are. And they are your reality. All you have on your plate is your reality. You decide whether you look at your reality or live pretending these feelings don’t exist. The problem is that eventually these feelings become like that alien coming out of [Sigourney Weaver’s] stomach. And you’re praying Sigourney will walk into the room. If you call me an airy-fairy new age hippy waif, I will cut your penis off. I feel like a work really has many sides to it when people have such extreme reactions. When a work is greeted with just, “Oh, you know, it’s nice,” then it’s not affecting people. So love it or hate it, that’s okay. That’s exciting to me. “Fresh start” is not something I use. It’s a cliché. I don’t want anything to do with it. Everything in my past is part of who I am. There are calluses on your hands. Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it. ... the idea that there’s a consciousness beyond us that can express us itself in a song seems weird to many people. I say, though, how can you not believe that? Especially if you’re an artist, it’s pretty egocentric not to give credit beyond your own talent and intellect—basically that means claiming that you are the sole source of your own inspiration. I don’t accept that. I know that my role as an artist is to provide an opening for voices and stories that go beyond my own small, private existence. ... I’ve always been reticent about the concept of “Happily Ever After.” The garden will have weeds and pests that may damage crops; it may even have pestilence to contend with once in a while. But with the right combination of elements, including bees and butterflies, the garden will pollinate and become a garden—not an emotional wasteland but a place of sensuality and balance. So it may need a good beekeeper; all complex gardens do. Somebody will come backstage and go, “You saved me.” And I will have to say, “Stop right there. You saved yourself.” I see the dream and I see the nightmare, and I believe you can’t have the dream without the nightmare. I’d like to think that my work has multidimensionality. That I can change a pair of shoes in the middle of the song and it’s OK. That there is no structure that says I have to wear the same pair all the way through. As long as I’ve got feet, it’s all right. Women must understand that simply attacking or hating all men is just another form of disempowerment. A woman has to realize that when she makes a man crawl it doesn’t give her power. All it will do is make her puke eventually. Rather than say all men are bastards, let’s say all men are infants, until they decide to be men. Calling them bastards is boring at this stage. I refuse to be a victim of not having a wonderful sexual experience again. And you are a victim when you can’t allow yourself to have sexual pleasure again. I refuse to put all men in the same category, as I was doing. When something like that happens you do want to punish men, punish the ones that crushed the flower. But no one should choose to hold onto that hatred. It choked me. Hatred for men, en masse, is as poisonous a feeling as shame. What I consider a powerful man now isn’t a guy who has power over somebody or who wants to have power over somebody. For me now, it’s somebody who’s a safe place, where I’d leave my daughter. It’s somebody that’s a good listener. That’s a powerful man. But when there is an intimacy between two people and one person starts to feel invaded by the other person, that is personalized terrorism. As we all know, the battleground between two lovers, or two friends, or two coworkers, can be vicious. Painful. Heartbreaking. And bloody. The sense of loss is such a tricky one, because we always feel like our worth is tied up into stuff that we have, not that our worth can grow with things we are willing to lose. To me, happiness—true happiness—is when you can really dance with sad. I found a way to dance with sorrow. I am a real believer in looking at pain and taking it out shopping. Betrayal happens in strange ways and comes from strange corners sometimes. Some days life can feel pretty normal, so to speak. Then there are other days that make you think you’ve walked into a Hermann Hesse novel. To have some honest moments is a rarity. We’re not encouraged to really look at what we’re feeling. Give the kids tools, so they can go build their own houses; not the blueprint of what the houses should be. I quickly realized that I had some kind of calling. But, just as quickly I realized that what was most important to me was following my own path—and not the one that was laid down by others. … when you are thirteen, you don’t want to be faced with a pitiful smile all the time. So I began to destroy the part in me that is actually creative. Instead, I became very cynical, disguised myself to become popular, to be loved by everyone. But actually that was nothing else than a game of hide-and-seek. You can be a bigmouth without having anything to say. At that time, I definitely only had the wish to be an in-chick. Today I know that you should have your own thoughts and that you have to stick to your point of view. I was raped once and thought at the time I was going to die. I didn’t think I was going to make it out of there alive. The idea that I hadn’t had the chance to tell my mother goodbye was the thing that really kept me thinking and focussed and saved my life. Anger in that sort of situation doesn’t work. Anger is not what gets you out. I was kidnapped and sexually violated. You feel like your boundaries have been crossed to such an extent that there is no law anymore, that there is no God. You feel like the Mother in you will do anything to protect the child in you from being shredded before your eyes. You’re thinking “I gotta get out alive, I gotta get out alive.” With Me and a Gun, I hope that attackers as well as victims are listening. As well as judges, as well as lawyers. I want you to taste in the back of your mouth what it was like to be in the car with that pervert. I’ll never talk about it at this level again, but let me ask you. Why have I survived that kind of night, when other women didn’t? How am I alive to tell you this tale when he was ready to slice me up? In the song I say it was “me and a gun” but it wasn’t a gun. It was a knife he had. And the idea was to take me to his friends and cut me up, and he kept telling me that, for hours. And if he hadn’t needed more drugs I would have been just one more news report, where you see the parents grieving for their daughter. And I was singing hymns, as I say in the song, because he told me to. I sang to stay alive. Yet I survived that torture, which left me urinating all over myself and left me paralyzed for years. That’s what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violence through sex. I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and that now I’m trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability.

Introducing

Having been a long standing fan of Dallas Green's work (under the moniker, 'City and Colour', for those who aren't familiar) and couldn't help but take notice of the growing following of people he's shared the stage with over the years. Introducing Daniel Romano (you can't miss the customised guitar with his name on)

I knew Prufrock before he got famous

Let's begin at the beginning:
We're lovers and we're losers,
We're heroes and we're pioneers,
And we're beggars and we're choosers.
We're skirting round the edges Of the ideal demographic.
We're almost on the guestlist,
But we're always stuck in traffic.

We've watched our close associates Up and play their parts;
They're chatting up the it girls,
And they're tearing up the charts,
While we were paying with coppers To get our round in at the bar.
We're the see-Team, we're the almost famous Old friends of the stars.
Justin is the last Of the great romantic poets,
And he's the only one among us who is ever going to make it.
We planned a revolution from a cheap Southampton bistro.
I don't remember details but there were English boys with banjos.

Jay is our St George, and he's standing on a wooden chair,
And he sings songs and he slays dragons, and he's losing all his hair.
Adam is the resurrected spirit of Gram Parsons,
In plaid instead of rhinestone and living in South London.
And no one's really clear about Tommy's job description,
But it's pretty clear he's vital to the whole damn operation.
Dave Danger smiles at strangers,
Tre's the safest girl I know,
Zo and Harps will skamper up to victory in the city we call home.

We won't change our ways, we will proud remain when the glory fades.
I am sick and tired of people who are living on the be-list.
They're waiting to be famous and they're wondering why they do this.
And I know I'm not the one who is habitually optimistic,
But I'm the one who's got the microphone here so just remember this:

Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings,
About fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings,
And the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering,
And help us with remembering that the only thing that's left to do is live.

After all the loving and the losing, For the heroes and the pioneers,
The only thing that's left to do is get another round in at the bar.

Exactly why I like Stephen Fry

Beginning at the beginning

The stuffed Rabbit asked, ‘What is REAL?’
And the Rabbit asked, ‘Does it hurt?’
And the Horse said, ‘Sometimes.’

‘Does it happen all at once?’

‘It takes a long time. Generally by the time you are real most of your hair has been loved off, your eyes dropped out and you get loose in the joints. But these things don’t matter at all because you were real. You can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand.’

Paris, Texas

Can I tell you something?

-Sure, anything you like.

It's kind of long.

-I got plenty of time.

I knew these people ...

-What people?

These two people.

They were in love with each other.

The girl was ... very young, about seventeen
or eighteen, I guess.

And the guy was ...
quite a bit older.

He was kind of ragged in, wild.

She was very beautiful, you know.



-Yeah.





And together they turned

everything into a kind of an adventure,


and she liked that.



Just an ordinary trip

down the grocery store was ...

full of adventure.

They were always laughing at stupid things.



He liked to make her laugh.




And ...

they didn't much care for anything else,

Because all they wanted to do was

be with each other.

They were always together.





-Sounds like they were

very happy.



Yes, they were.

They were real happy.

And he, he loved her more than

he ever felt possible.





He couldn't stand

being away from her,

uh ... during the day when he went to work.

So, he quit.



Just to be home with her.


Then he got another job

when the money ran out,


then he quit again.



But pretty soon, she started to worry.



-About what?



Money, I guess.

Not having enough.

Not knowing when the next check was coming in.



-Yep.
I know that feeling.



So he started to get kind of ...
torn inside.



-How do you mean?



Well he knew he had to work

to support her,
but he couldn't stand

being away from her, either.





-I see.



And the more he was away from her,
the crazier he got.

Except now,

he got really crazy.

He started imagining all kinds of things.



-Like what?




He started thinking that she was seeing other men on the sly.

He'd come home from work and accuse her of

spending the day with somebody else.

He'd yell at her, break things in the trailer.



-The trailer?




Yes.



They lived in a trailer home.



-Excuse me, sir.

But were you in to visit me the other day?

I don't mean pry.



No.



-Oh.

I thought I recognized your voice for a minute.



No.

Wasn't me.



-Mm-hmm.



-Please go on.



Anyway, he started to drink

real bad.

And he'd stay out late
to test her.



-What do you mean

"test her"?




To see if she'd get jealous.



-Ha.

Mm-hmm.



He wanted her to get jealous,
but she didn't.

She just worried about him,

but that got him even madder.



-Why?



Because ...



he thought if she never got jealous of him,
she didn't really care about him.

Jealousy was a sign of her love for him.



And then one night,

one night, she told him
she was pregnant.

She was about three or fourth month pregnant,

and he didn't even know.



And then suddenly everything changed.

He stopped drinking,he got a steady job.

He was convinced

that she love him now,







because she was carrying his child.







And he was going to dedicated

himself to making a home for her.







But funny thing started to happen.







-What?







He didn't even notice at first.







She started to change.







On the day the baby was born,

she began to get irritated with everything around her.







She got mad at everything.







Even the baby

seemed to be an injustice to her.







He kept trying

to make everything all right for her.







Buy her things.







Take her out to dinner

once a week.







But nothing seemed

to satisfy her.







For two years,







He struggled to put them back together like

they were when they first met.







Finally, he knew

that it was never gonna work out.







So, he hit the bottle again.







But this time,

it got mean.







This time when he came home late at night,







she wasn't worried about him,

or jealous,







she was just enraged.







She accused him of holding her captive,







by making her have a baby.







She told him

that she dreamed about escaping.







That was all she dreamed about:

escape.







She saw herself at night,

running naked down a highway.







Running across fields,







running down river beds,







always running.







And always,

just as she was about to get away,







he'd be there.







He would stop her somehow.







He would just appeare and stop her.







And when she told him these dreams,

he believed them.







He knew she had to be stopped,







or she'd leave him forever.







So he tied a cowbell to her ankle,







so he could hear it at night

if she tried to get out bed.







But she learned how to muffle

the bell by stucking a sock into it







and inched her away out bed







and into the night.







He caught her one night,

when the sock fell out







and he heard her trying to

run out to the highway.







He caught her, dragged her back to the trailer and tied her to the stove







with his belt.







He just left her there,







he went back to bed







and lay there and listening to her scream.







And he listened to his son scream.







He was surprised at himself because

he didn't feel anything anymore.







All he wanted to do was sleep.







And for the first time,

he wished he were far away.







Lost in a deep, vast country







where nobody knew him.







Somewhere without language







or streets.







And he dreamed about this place

without knowing its name.







And when he woke up,







he was on fire.







There were blue flames

burning the sheets of his bed.







He ran through the flames







towards the only two people he loved.







But they were gone.







His arms were burning.







And he threw himself outside,







and rolled on the wet ground.







Then he ran.







He never looked back at the fire.







He just ran.







He ran until the sun came up,







ten he couldn't run any further.







And when the sun went down,







he ran again.







For five days

he ran like this ...







until every sign of man ...







had disappeared.







-Travis.







If you turn the light off in there,







will you be able to see me?







-I don't know.







I never tried.







Can you see me?

- Yeah.







Do you recognize me?







-Oh, Travis.







I brought Hunter with me.







Don't you want to see him?







-Yeah.







I wanted to see him so bad

that I didn't even dare imagine him anymore.







Anne kept sending me

pictures of him,







until I asked her to stop.







I couldn't stand the ...







pain of seeing him

grow up and missing it.







Why didn't you keep him with you, Jane?







-I couldn't, Travis.







I didn't have

what I knew he needed.







I didn't want to use him







to fill all my emptiness.







Well, he needs you now, Jane.







And he wants to see you.







-He does?







Yes.







He's ... he's waiting for you.







-Where?







Downtown.







In a hotel.







The Meridian.







Room 15 20.







15 20.







-You are not going, are you?







I can't see you, Jane.







-Don't go yet.







Don't go yet.







I ...







I used to make up long speeches

to you after you left.







I used to talk to you all the time,







even though I was alone.







I walked around for months talking to you.







Now, I don't know what to say.







It was easier

when I just imagined you.







I even imagined

you talking back to me.







We'd have long conversations,







the two of us.







It was almost like

you were there.







I could hear you,







I could see you, smell you.







I could hear your voice.







Sometimes your voice would wake me up.







It would wake me up

in the middle of the night,







just like you were there

in the room with me.







Then ...







it slowly faded.







I couldn't picture you anymore.







I tried to talk out aloud

to you like I used to,







but there was nothing there.







I couldn't hear you.







Then ...







I just gave up.







Everything stopped.







You ...







just disappeared.







Now I'm working here.







I hear your voice all the time.







Every man ...







has your voice.







I'll tell Hunter







that you're coming.







- Travis,



What?







-I will be there.