#the book poll from last night included this play so i suddenly remembered all of this like a shot. Oh God.

[crimeronan]

STORYTIME TO UNBURDEN MY DEMONS. I HAVE NEVER TOLD ANYONE THIS SO IT'S TIME FOR THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ONLINE TO HEAR IT:

when i was 14 years old and in eighth grade, i got cast in the importance of being earnest as cecily, a main character who is 18. this was a mainstage show, so the rest of the cast were adults. it was an insanely huge honor and i was extremely proud of making the cut!! there was just one problem-

cecily shares a single very boring kiss with her love interest.

and my scene partner was 24.

PREEMPTIVELY, i Promise this is not going anywhere horrifying. my mom supervised all of the rehearsals and i was honestly excited to kiss an older man because i have problems. my scene partner had excellent boundaries and was very respectful. none of this was traumatic; if the environment had been toxic, i would've dropped out.

HOWEVER. my scene partner was VISCERALLY uncomfortable with kissing a 14-year-old. as pretty much any chill 24-year-old man would be.

so. i got it into my head that he'd be less uncomfortable if he was kissing a high schooler than a middle schooler. (this distinction seems very prominent when you're in eighth grade and much less prominent when you are 24.)

so when the other cast members asked me what grade i was in. i told them i was a freshman in high school.

.....and one of the other cast had worked at my district's high school before.

so i had to, um. continually make up information about my classes and classmates and teachers.

for months.

.......and i got away with it.

...............until.

the cast party.

at which point my mom casually mentioned that i'd been cast as a lead in my middle school's show for that year.

and so the former teacher was like, "oh, you're dropping down from high school to do it??"

and my mom, so blankly, unaware that she was about to Ruin My Entire Shit Forever, was like, ".....no??? kitkat's in middle school??"

and he went, ".......oh!"

DEAD FUCKING SILENCE.

FROM EVERYONE.

DEAD SILENCE REIGNED.

NO ONE SAID A WORD.

IF ANY OF YOU THINK YOU'VE EVER BEEN EMBARRASSED-

[braindamageforbeginners]

The Morning After/Diet

Cycle 9, Day 16

POST-FINAL INFUSION, CYCLE 9

Thankfully, a quasi-legal medical substance allows me to get through the night, and wake up feeling mostly-okay on post-infusion days. I’m still exhausted and fatigued, but caffeine does help with that, too. I guess the DARE program’s message should have been that recreational drug use was bad, but as an entire lifestyle, it might be neccessary (I say that knowing they’ll eventually have to stop chemo, because, again, these are dangerous, expensive drugs that will burn out one’s innards. Good news, the outtards are doing pretty well at the moment, which plays well to my plan to ask for more napalm doses until those wretched new cells on the block give up. There are a few people who know me personally who know there’s a non-minor chance I’m just too stubborn to die. Of course, it’s easy to say that now, after a clean scan (that occurred two weeks ago). And it feels good to say that,even for what’s usually the worst infusion in the series was easily treated by some aspirin, and my new bionic joints (although I still seem to get a nasty wonky leg after infusions). The bad news is that, even with my bionic joints, a simple high-speed walk around the neighborhood left me wobbly. So much for prosthetic devices (although it’s worth noting that gait issues are very common symptoms of  progressing brain cancer; which pretty much also means they’re a side-effect of chemo)..

Also, even though I’m still not looking at 401K options, I am getting a little better at reading between the lines about cancer statistics, and figuring that our society is completely riddled with bad health practices that will automatically make every health issue worse, including brain cancer (Dad recommended looking into going back to grad school for biomedical informatics, since that’s now one of my hobbies). Case in point, the average American turbo-loading on unhealthy diets. This wouldn’t normally be worth commentary, but when you spend most of your waking hours obsessing over your own health, you can get tunnel-vision and forget most of us aren’t leading terribly healthy lives, anyway; as I kind of realized yesterday taking my grandmother shopping. There’s endless fats, sugars, and all kinds of insanely unhealthy junk (so says the man on a potentially-fatal course of drugs). Before we continue, I’ve been asked if I’m on a ketogenic diet. No, I am not. I am on the Jack Lalanne diet (that was intended to be a joke, until I did a little research and found out that I am). I’d normally not go over that, except this is intended for the next set of folks in line, and ketogenic diet is en vogue with cancer patients. To dip into my biochem background, the ketogenic diet basically swaps sugars for fats, and it is a fad diet. Even though there’s more research being done on it as an interventional therapy (that’s “we’re doing something medically to treat an illness”), I only saw one study for GBM, and it only increased life expectancy two months, AND, to be effective, he patients had to be kept in a state of near-ketogenic shock and in the hospital constantly. We’ll call that “Plan B.”

In the meantime, because chemo and/or zofran tend to stop you up; I thought it’d be easier to just eat loads of fruits of and vegetables to keep everything sluicing through me (that’s not true, I’m just terrified of laxtives; you can peruse the archives for that particular incident). I think I’m up to seven or eight a day, because it’s easier to maintain healthy habits than start and stop them (Jack had at least 10 raw vegetable/fruit servings a day). People often talk/ask about changes in taste because of chemo. I usually shrug because my own tastes are largely unaltered; however, upon reflection, pineapples got amazing in the last year or so. Add onto that at least 15-20 grams of protein before starting dinner or snacking, and, my rule is, you can eat as much as you want of whatever you want. I don’t think you’ll want much, though. If you’ve never heard of Jack, it’s a shame, because he pretty much invented modern fitness.movement. He’s credited with starting the first public gyms in America that featured things like barbells (he’s not so much “Old School” as much the guy who pours the cement foundations). And he lived to be 96, so, clearly, the man was doing something right. His dietary rule was - and this is a direct quote - “If it tastes good, spit it out,” So far, it’s worked fantastically for me (and that’s a pretty easy diet rule to remember), in the sense that I’m still alive and mostly-intact, and haven’t lost much weight (but my belt size has dropped by two inches)(to be honest, I have cheat days, and I do have the odd beer or Manhattan). That sounds all pretty narcissistic, but here’s the pay-off if you’re ever in the hot seat. If you are diagnosed with a terminal illness (another thing that skews GBM stats; if I get side-swiped tomorrow and die in a freak accident; that’ll get calculated into life expectancy stats, even if the cause of death is clearly a drunk semi driver), get into a level crazy health and/or physical activity. Cancer survivors have a severely reduced life expectancy, because of  all the side-effects and long-term damage associated with treatment. That’s not just brain cancer, it’s all of them.

And there are many, many cancers that were previously considered “acute” and have been reclassified as “chronic.”  My plan here is stolen from Ben Williams - stay healthy and alive long enough and well enough that the Warlocks will keep hexing me until I die, or the cancer (which is me, remember) does. I realize that seems grim and unpleasant as a philosophy, but that is the definition of a terminal situation. Someone will die. I’m damned if that someone is going to be me.

Because that’s not exactly an upbeat way of ending this post, I will point out that there are all sorts of nutritionists at the cancer center, who all have the secret to staying healthy during and after treatment, and, even though it’s a little mean, I do remember one of them mentioning, in a support group, something like, “It pains me to hear people say they want to eat healthy, but don’t enjoy the things that are healthy for them.” Which is an interesting statement to make to a bunch of people in chemo, because it’s not like anyone enjoys or feels great on a non-stop diet of mustard gas. I am now so deep in the Abyss that “unenjoyable” is almost a vacation. Still, I’m ready to endure more punishment, because my sense of humor is still there, and able to appreciate the delicious irony of an authority figure talking about the concept of “fun meals” with people who are now far beyond conventional fun. That seems horrible unless you consider the possibilities of unconvenional fun. Or getting funny, which was my coping method.

Also, because I’m getting restless with just the basic stress of undergoing chemo, micro-managing my health and keeping current with all my drugs, writing the tale/blog, and/or my ongoing attempt at a novel, I figured I’d start The Terminal Artists list. This will be an ongoing project, both as a form of therapy for myself, and because everyone who suddenly comes face to face with a life-altering and/or limiting illness could use it, and because it was a theme at the cancer writing group on Monday. So, the rules: 1. This is a list of people whose greatest - or best-known works (in a few lonely cases, the only books or poems some ever wrote were started when they began dying) were done in the final year of their life. I realize that “best” is highly subjective, and the idiom “best-known” would require a poll to establish. 2. Even though I use the word “artist,” I’ll happily use that as a catch-all for scientists, engineers, playwrights, dancers, athletes - anyone who produces/designs/discovers/creates anything that would positively impact those left behind is a contender. I just don���t want some estate attorney who cleverly scams their clients using loopholes in probate law; or a smuggler who figures a new way to smuggle and sell arms to UN embargo countries. Use your judgment, folks. 3. Ideally, you’d pair a specific person with their song/album/film/discover etc., but if it’s an extremely well-known (or prolific) artist/whatsit, I’ll bend the rules and do some research 4. people who are so prolific that they have works published after they die will be on the list, because the only thing cooler than giving the Reaper the finger and leaping on the keyboard (or easel, or guitar, or wet bench) is leaving such a vast, consistent body of work, it’s still considered awesome when you aren’t around to advocate for it

THE LIST SO FAR.... -Vincent van Gogh - “Starry Night” -Jimi Hendrix - “Angel” -Howard Ashman (Playwright/lyricist/) - “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” - Paul Kalanithi (surgeon/writer) - “When Breath Becomes Air” -Nina Riggs (writer) - “The Bright Hour” -Warren Zevon - “The Wind” -Freddie Mercury - “The Show Must Go On” -Johnny Cash -Michael Crichton (writer, minor demi-god to all sci-fi fans) - Pirate Latitudes -Samuel Clemens (writer) - Autobiography -Roy Orbison (minor private music teacher - “You Got It”

[back-and-totheleft]

Where others fear to trend

It’s a conversation any father and son might have -- a quick chat about baseball, families and world affairs. But when the speakers are President George H. W. Bush and his son George W. Bush, even a seemingly innocuous conversation can suddenly carry great weight, especially when Oliver Stone is at the controls.

With sweat cascading down his face on a steamy June night in Louisiana, the Oscar-winning director was directing James Cromwell (playing the elder Bush) and Josh Brolin (starring as President Bush) through a critical moment in “W.,” Stone’s forthcoming -- and potentially divisive -- drama about the personal, political and psychological evolution of the current president. Although the father-son patter was ostensibly friendly, the subtext was anything but, hinting at the intricate parent-child relationship that Stone believes helps to explain George W. Bush’s ascension.

While the Bushes in this scene from 1990 were talking about the Texas Rangers (of whom George W. once owned a share) and Saddam Hus- sein (against whom George H. W. was about to go to war in Kuwait), there was much more at stake, as Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser saw the fictional conversation unfolding.

“You need to back him down and take him out -- like you did Noriega,” George W. tells his father about Hussein. The elder Bush wasn’t sure he was going to be that rash. “You know I’ve always believed in leaving personal feelings out of politics,” the 41st president told his son. “But Saddam -- this aggression cannot stand. Not gonna allow this little dictator to control 25% of the world’s oil.”

As the architect of the outspoken dramas “Platoon,” “Salvador,” “Wall Street,” “Born on the Fourth of July” and “JFK,” Stone stands apart as one of the most openly political filmmakers in a business where it’s usually the actors who wear their beliefs on their sleeves. A longtime backer of Democratic candidates (recent donations include a gift to Sen. Barack Obama), Stone is either the oddest person to chronicle the life of the current president or the most inspired.

Whatever the verdict, the marriage of director and subject has left nearly as many people running for the sidelines as wanting to be a part of the director’s undertaking.

Indeed, “W.'s” combination of story and filmmaker and the poor track record of recent biographical movies scared off at least three potential studio distributors and any number of actors, including, initially, star Brolin, and even Major League Baseball, which declined to cooperate with the production.

Yet as Stone guided Cromwell and Brolin across Shreveport’s Independence Bowl stadium, doubling for the Rangers’ home field, it was possible to see that “W.” could be, in a complicated way, sympathetic.

The father was belittling a son, George H. W. cautioning George W. to stick to simple things: “Maybe better you stay out of the barrel,” the senior Bush told his son, and leave the family’s political legacy to younger brother Jeb. “Well, son, I’ve got to say I was wrong about you not being good at baseball,” the father ultimately said, tossing him a scrap of a compliment.

The future president didn’t quite get what the reproving “barrel” idiom meant, but he realized his father didn’t respect him. Brolin took in the snub, but then his bearing grew determined: George W. would have to prove himself beyond anyone’s imagining.

Stone said it’s part of what drove the younger Bush into the White House: to show his doubters wrong. “Someone who could step into that path and out-father his father,” Stone said in his air-conditioned trailer during a break in filming. Racing to film, edit and release the film before the November election, Stone was not always getting five hours’ sleep. Even though it was nearly midnight and the crew was just finishing its lunch break, the 61-year-old director grew increasingly animated talking about “W.”

“I love Michael Moore, but I didn’t want to make that kind of movie,” Stone said of “Fahrenheit 9/11.” “W.,” he said, “isn’t an overly serious movie, but it is a serious subject. It’s a Shakespearean story. . . . I see it as the strange unfolding of American democracy as I have lived it.”

Stone, Brolin and the filmmaking team believe they are crafting a biography so honest that loyal Republicans and the Bushes themselves might see it. Given Stone’s filmmaking history, coupled with a sneak peek at an early “W.” screenplay draft, that prediction looks like wishful thinking.

Still, it’s a captivating challenge: Can a provocateur become fair and balanced? And if Stone is, in some way, muzzling himself to craft a mass-appeal movie, has he cast aside one of his best selling points?

Dressed in a suffocating Rangers warmup jacket earlier on that scorching June day, Brolin kept running into an outfield wall, trying to make a heroic catch as part of the film’s baseball-oriented fantasy framing device.

Stone worried the leap wasn’t quite athletic enough and chose to add the baseball’s falling into Brolin’s mitt through visual effects -- allowing the “No Country for Old Men” star to throw himself into doing everything else.

Brolin spent countless hours studying the president’s speech patterns and body language but said he wasn’t trying to concoct a spitting-image impression, which ran the potential of becoming a “Saturday Night Live” caricature.

“It’s not for me to get the voice down perfectly,” the 40-year-old Brolin said, even though he came close. More important, the actor said, was to unearth Bush’s inner voice -- “Where is my place in this world? How do I get remembered?”

Like other actors approached for the film (including Robert Duvall, who was asked but declined to play Vice President Dick Cheney), Brolin had more than vague misgivings about starring in “W.” He was, in fact, dead set against it. “When Oliver asked me, I said, ‘Are you crazy? Why would I want to do this with my little moment in my career?’ ” Brolin recalled. Then, early one morning during a family ski trip, Brolin read Weiser’s original screenplay, which covers Bush from 1967 to 2004. “It was very different than what I thought it would be,” Brolin said, “which was a far-left hammering of the president.”

Brolin said many friends still weren’t buying it. “There were a lot of people I tried to get involved, who were very, very reluctant to do the movie,” Brolin said. In addition to Cromwell, the cast includes Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, Toby Jones as Karl Rove and Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld.

While noting Bush’s low approval ratings (23% in a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released this week), Brolin, like Stone, said “W.” isn’t intended to kick the man while he’s down. “Republicans can look at it and say, ‘This is why I like this guy,’ ” Brolin said. “It’s not a political movie. It’s a biography. People will remember that this guy is human, when we are always [outside of the movie] dehumanizing him, calling him an idiot, a puppet, a failed president. We want to know in the movie: How does a guy grow up and become the person that he did?”

Stone, who was briefly a Yale classmate of Bush, is clearly no fan of the president’s politics but said he’s amazed by the man’s resilience and ambition. The movie is basically divided into three acts: Bush’s hard-living youth, his personal and religious conversion, and finally his first term in the Oval Office.

“He won a huge amount of people to his side after making a huge amount of blunders and really lying to people,” the director said. What further fascinates Stone is Bush’s religious and personal conversion: a hard-drinking C student who was able to become not only Texas governor but also the leader of the Free World.

“We are trying to walk in the footsteps of W and try to feel like he does, to try to get inside his head. But it’s never meant to demean him,” Stone said.

The movie has hired a former Bush colleague as an advisor, and labored to get the smallest details right. For all the historical accuracy, though, “W.” is clearly a work of fiction.

“We are playing with our own opinions and our own preconceptions of him,” Stone said. “This is his diary -- his attempt to explain himself.”

This wasn’t the movie Stone was supposed to be making. Instead of “W.,” the film was going to be “Pinkville,” a look at the Army’s investigation into 1968’s My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

Only days before filming was set to begin, with many sets already built and department heads in place, “Pinkville” star Bruce Willis pulled out of the film last fall, unhappy with a script that couldn’t be rewritten because of the writers strike. Stone flirted with casting Nicolas Cage in the lead role, but enthusiasm from United Artists -- whose war movie “Lions for Lambs” had just flopped -- had waned on fears that “Pinkville” was too violent.

At the same time, Stone had been working on the “W.” script with screenwriter Weiser, the author of Stone’s 1987 hit “Wall Street.” Stone was at first worried the topic was almost too timely -- “When I made ‘Nixon,’ ” the director said, “he had died.”

Said “W.” producer Moritz Borman: “He wasn’t sure. He worried, ‘Is there enough material about Bush? Or will there be more once he’s out of office?’ But then a slew of books came out.”

Soon after “Pinkville” imploded, Stone returned to “W.,” and by early 2008 he was convinced it was not only the right time to make the movie but also imperative the movie hit theaters before the next presidential election, because its impact would be greatest then, when everybody was obsessing over our next president. But that early release date created a post-production timetable that would be half of Stone’s most hurried editing schedule. Before he could set up his cameras, Stone and his team first had to answer a key question: Who in the world was going to pay for it?

“You put the two names together -- Bush and Stone -- and everybody had a preconceived notion of what the film would be. But look at ‘World Trade Center,’ ” Borman said of Stone’s commercially successful 2006 movie about two Port Authority policemen rescued from Sept. 11 rubble. “There was an uproar when it was announced and then, when the movie got closer to release, the very people who protested it preached from the pulpit that it was a film that had to be seen.”

Still, Borman and Stone knew few studios would commit to the movie, especially given the desired October 2008 release date, because studios often plan their release schedules more than a year in advance. What they needed was an independent financier, someone not afraid of challenging material -- a person like Bill Block.

Block had formed QED International in 2006 as a production, financing and sales company interested in the kind of highbrow drama that studios increasingly shun. Block saw in “W.” not a troublesome jeremiad but a crowd-pleaser, and QED colleagues Kim Fox and Paul Hanson quickly assembled the “W.” deal.

“What Oliver is making is a splashy, commercial picture,” Block said. “This is not a static biopic. It’s kinetic.”

In addition to footing the film’s $30-million budget, QED also raised money to underwrite its prints and advertising costs upon release. Any distributor committing to “W.,” in other words, would have no money at risk: It could release the film, take the distribution fee of about 15% and move on. “I think it’s a no-brainer,” Stone said. All the same, “W.” could spark a potential inferno inside the White House. “You never know exactly why” a studio rejects a movie, Stone said, while noting that all the major studios are small cogs in global conglomerates. “But at the highest levels, it didn’t pass. Some would say it’s too much of a risk and too much of a hot potato politically.” Stone declined to name names, but two people close to the film said among those considering but passing on the film were Paramount, Warner Bros. and Universal.

Harvey Weinstein’s Weinstein Co. aggressively pursued the “W.” deal, but QED, Borman and Stone picked Lionsgate Films in part because of its strong balance sheet. Also, because it’s not part of a larger studio, Lionsgate is one of the only truly independent distributors left.

Lionsgate worried about fitting “W.” into its October schedule and has discussed a post-election release if the film isn’t ready in time. But whenever it comes out, the company is ready for any backlash -- after all, it’s the distributor of the “Saw” and “Hostel” films.

“To the extent there is going to be heat,” said Joe Drake, president of Lionsgate’s motion picture group, “we can take the heat. That won’t be a problem.”

-John Horn, “In defining Bush, Oliver Stone goes where others fear to tread,” Los Angeles Times, June 29 2008 [x]

[jayhawksofficial]

Golden Smog debut album to be reissued on deluxe vinyl

Run Out Groove Vinyl just announced that they are reissuing the classic Golden Smog debut album, Down By The Old Mainstream, in a limited, numbered, 180g 2LP edition on colored vinyl.

More details and to pre-order: http://runoutgroovevinyl.com/down-by-the-old-mainstream-2lp.html

IMPORTANT: Down By The Old Mainstream is available to order exclusively via the RUN OUT GROOVE website until 3/8/18 and will be limited and numbered based on total orders taken at the end of the pre-order period. After the pre-order closes, the only way to purchase a copy will be via participating music retailers while supplies last.

Gary Louris: "The Golden Smog....A good excuse for hanging out with friends that turned into some beautiful music, and lessons about making it that I carry with me to this day."

Pre-order opens: 2/7/18 Pre-order closes: 3/8/18

• 2-LP, 180-gram, color vinyl pressed at Record Industry. Fans get the opportunity to vote on the colorway of the vinyl through our Facebook poll starting at 5pm EST Feb 7th through Feb 28th: http://bit.ly/2EuM6Cx • Tip on gatefold aqueous gloss Stoughton jacket with printed inner sleeves • Individually numbered and limited to one pressing. • First repress since 2010, when it was first issued on vinyl • A lost classic from the 1990s that includes Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Dan Murphy of Soul Asylum & Gary Louris, Marc Perlman & Kraig Johnson of the Jayhawks.

Run Out Groove Vinyl website: www.runoutgroovevinyl.com

                                                                               (photo: Bonnie Butler Murphy)

Track Listing: Side A 1. V 2. Ill Fated 3. Pecan Pie 4. Yesterday Cried Side B 1. Glad & Sorry 2. Won’t Be Coming Home 3. He’s A Dick Side C 1. Walk Where He Walked 2. Nowhere Bound 3. Friend Side D 1. She Don’t Have To See You 2. Red Headed Stepchild 3. Williamton Angel 4. Radio King

Biography: Golden Smog is a Minneapolis-based, loosely connected inter-changeable group of musicians from notable bands comprising members of Wilco, Soul Asylum, The Replacements, The Jayhawks, Run Westy Run, Big Star and the Honeydogs. Since their inception in 1989, many members have come and gone, with the following musicians having appeared on all recordings: Kraig Johnson (Run Westy Run), Dan Murphy (Soul Asylum), Gary Louris (Jayhawks) and bassist Marc Perlman (Jayhawks). The group originally played in and around Minneapolis doing mainly cover song sets as a country-rock reaction to the punk and hardcore music that dominated the region. In 1995 they released their debut album, “Down By the Old Mainstream,” recorded at Pachyderm Recording Studio that was made up of mainly original material with a few covers. Drummer Chris Mars of the Replacements was gone by now and the line-up consisted of Johnson, Murphy, Louris, Perlman and two new members: Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Honeydogs drummer Noah Levy. All members were credited under pseudonyms to avoid contractual issues with their other record companies.

Golden Smog article from the St. Paul Pioneer Press

by Jim Walsh (January 1996)

It happened three days into Golden Smog's five-day recording session for their debut album, ``Down by the Old Mainstream,'' last summer at Pachyderm studios in Cannon Falls. Drummer Noah Levy of local roots-rockers the Honeydogs had already laid down his tracks, which left the five other players - Soul Asylum's Danny Murphy, the Jayhawks' Gary Louris and Marc Perlman, Run Westy Run's Kraig Johnson and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy - sitting in a circle, conducting an old-fashioned late-night jam. A Smog mission statement emerged from that circle session in the form of ``Radio King,'' an off-the-cuff homage to musical heroes - both in and outside the Smog - sung by Tweedy: ``Your music fills my car/ Your voice breaks every time/ I'm still wonderin'/ If I know who you are/ I hang on every line.'' ``To me, that song is totally about being a music fan,'' says Murphy. ``And that's kind of the vibe of the band. I'm obviously a big fan of all these guys' work. It was pretty exciting to play with guys whose records you'd probably buy, even if you weren't on it.'' The first incarnation of Golden Smog, which included former Replacements' drummer Chris Mars, released an EP, ``On Golden Smog,'' in 1992. But as the players' careers cranked up, Golden Smog (the moniker comes from a Mel Torme-inspired character on ``The Flintstones'') was put on the back burner. In the summer of 1994, Murphy, who had been an admirer of Tweedy's old band, Uncle Tupelo, contacted Tweedy to see if he wanted to collaborate. The two got together and wrote, and Murphy booked a show at the Uptown Bar, with the Smog billed as Circle the Drain. For Tweedy, who had just experienced a stormy breakup with Uncle Tupelo, the gig was healing. ``Doing that show really made me feel like I could play live again,'' he admits. The other members of Circle the Drain/Golden Smog also were at various crossroads when they entered the studio. The Jayhawks had just finished recording ``Tomorrow the Green Grass'' and were scheduled to tour Australia and Japan with Counting Crows. Soul Asylum was preparing to record ``Let Your Dim Light Shine,'' and Wilco had just finished ``A.M.'' ``We were all in our band modes,'' says Perlman. ``And when we got together, it was `Wow. This was meant to be.''' In essence, Golden Smog served as a musical vacation from the players' high-pressure careers. And when Johnson, who isn't the primary songwriter in Run Westy Run, presented his friends with some of his original material, it was received with no-holds-barred enthusiasm. Suddenly, Golden Smog had evolved from a jokey cover band into a creative cocoon. ``Nobody would ever say, `Well, you should do this' or `You should do that,''' says Johnson, of the Smog's creative process. ``Everybody would just kind of go, `Hey! That's a good idea, let's try it.' And sometimes when that happens, you think it's great, and then the next day, you have a hard time listening to it. But that wasn't the case. Even though it was recorded more than a year ago, I listen to it, and I don't say, `I wish I would have done this or that.''' ``When you feel like you're doing it for the pure joy of it, without any expectations, somehow things get easier,'' says Louris. ``It was a lot of work, but there wasn't that cloud hanging over your head, saying, `This is your next record, and this is what your career's based on, and this is your shot for this year.' Because of that, it turned out much cooler.'' For Perlman, the experience provided a creative outlet, which he had explored on ``Promises Broken,'' the latest Soul Asylum single co-penned by him and Murphy. ``It's so much easier to collaborate with your friends,'' says Perlman. ``It looked like a retreat in there: Everybody was just pairing off into corners, writing lyrics and stuff. It was just a really good vibe.'' ``Everybody was just sitting in little circles, finishing stuff,'' says Murphy of the session, which includes vocal cameos from Son Volt's Jim Boquist and Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner. ``It was actually pretty fun. I don't even think we knew we were making a record. We just thought we recording some stuff to see what would happen. But when we got the tapes back, I was pretty devastated.'' That can be attributed to the top-notch material, much of which was discarded by the musicians' first-string bands, including Tweedy's ``Pecan Pie''; ``Won't Be Coming Home,'' by Louris and his former Jayhawks partner, Mark Olson; Louris and Johnson's ``V,'' about their mutual friend Victoria Norvelle; and Murphy's ``Ill-Fated.'' ```V' is definitely a different lyrical direction than Olson usually likes to go,'' says Louris. ``And it might not have happened without the Smog, because everybody knew her, or had dated her or been friends with her. So everybody was into the song - because it was about Victoria, also.'' ``I remember the first time I heard `Won't Be Coming Home,' the Jayhawks were opening for us in the mainroom,'' says Murphy. ``And I said, `Christ, what is that song, Gary?' And he said, `Oh, it's this thing I'm working on.' I was just stunned. And it didn't get used on their record, because someone said it sounded too much like R.E.M. or something. That's completely ridiculous.'' For Murphy, whose songwriting in Soul Asylum usually takes a back seat to Pirner's, Golden Smog functions as equal parts buddy club and essential artistic outlet. ``I decided awhile ago that the only thing more pathetic than a guy in a band is a frustrated guy in a band,'' he says. ``Columbia [Soul Asylum's record label] has certain ideas for Soul Asylum, and it includes me to an extent. But if something doesn't get used, I'm not real political. I'll just say to the guys, `I think you're missing the boat; I think this is a good song.' And nine times out of 10, they'll agree. But if I have something that I've finished, I prefer it to be on a record. So that's what really motivated me to do the Smog.'' As for the future, the Smog will mount a two-week tour that visits First Avenue Feb. 29 and March 1, and ends up at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas, in mid-March. Other than that, there are no concrete plans. Anything more would smack too much of - yikes! - a full-time band. ``It reminds us what it's like to have fun making music, for the sheer enjoyment of it,'' concludes Perlman. ``Because we didn't go into it with the idea of selling a bunch of records. If it sells, it sells. And if not, it's still a great record, and we had a great time doing it. And I think we all needed to make a record like that.''

[womanonthe111]

Valentina

Valentina moved in on a freezing night in January, clutching a bottle of gin and wearing a pair of silver lorex evening gloves.

1 can’t stay in that place another night…..’ 1’ll go mad…..The night nurse is an old soak….not that I mind that, but he gets wandering hands in the early hours and it’s difficult to tell your boss to piss off , especially when he brings the gin. Anyway how are you? How are the kids? Have you heard from Titty? Titty was Valentina’s pet name for Catherine my sister, who had been Valentina’s school friend since early childhood. Have you got any tonic?

Valentina was twenty six but looked younger. It’s difficult to describe her really; she was more of a personality than a body. I suppose she cultivated it that way.  She was rounded and curved but tall. If she had been smaller she would have looked fat. Her hair was wispy and usually blond, red or jet black. It came out in handfuls when she was going through one of her traumas. It was baby hair really, but there was usually so many bows, strings, clasps and shiny things in it, that you never really noticed the thinness until she mentioned it, which she did five or six times a day. She had a chubby face, which she hid with exotic makeup, that made her look girlish and worldly at the same time.

She dressed magnificently in odd combinations of colours and textures, completely out of fashion but with a wonderful eye for style.

She had trained as a psychiatric nurse in a place up north.  Her parents were both alcoholics and a little mad. Her mother was Irish and her father was Russian. They had anglised the surname to Kay, early on in their married life. Valentina changed it back to Kinjowski, by deed poll at the first opportunity. I think she had gone into psychiatric nursing to try to fathom out her parents, it hadn’t worked though. Her mother used to ring her sometimes and Valentina, if she didn’t hang up right away, would put the phone down on the floor, ignoring it, whilst her mother talked monologues for hours on end.  Her mother never seemed to notice that there was nobody on the other end.

Valentina was an actress in every sense of the word. Every moment was a drama, from being late for work in the mornings, which she always was, to losing her toothbrush every night. My children loved the game of find Valentina’s toothbrush, each one trying to find the noddy brush that was a disappearing magic one. My husband Tom used to think she hid it on purpose, so that they could play the game, but it was simply that she could never find it.

She’d had a few minor roles in the theatres in Manchester but she really wanted to get into films and become a movie star.

She came to stay the weekend with us, but stayed two years off and on. She gave up her day job in the hospital, where she had been working, and got herself a theatre agent. In between bouts of theatre work, she made salads for a tourist restaurant somewhere near the Tower of London.

She moved into the top front bedroom, next to Jeremy, our nanny. I don’t know what happened to Aunty Biddy’s floral curtains, that used to hang in Valentina’s room, but I suspect they probably disappeared  into some evening concoction of hers.  I first realised they had gone, when Franco, who

owned the Italian restaurant across the road, had a man to man with Tom, complaining that his customers were not getting the service that was required. Franco noticed that all of his waiters had suddenly disappeared one night and went to find them. Franco discovered them upstairs in the attic room on top of the restaurant. They were in pitch darkness, watching Valentina getting ready to go out. Tom told Valentina and put some blinds up in her room. She obviously never used them, because according to Tom, the waiters now have a strict rota, Franco included, of time allotted to the attic room.

Valentina drove an untaxed and uninsured Morris Minor convertable that was an awful shade of puce, her favorite colour. She parked it anywhere and everywhere, double yellow lines, no parking signs they meant nothing to her. She tore up tickets in front of traffic wardens with delight. I don’t know what she does now with all the wheel clamps about.

Twelve O'clock one Tuesday, whilst she was doing a few nights at the bin for extra money, she came running into the kitchen hysterical. Someone had stolen the car. Even though she never cleaned it and it was knee deep in in ageing apple cores and empty Marlborough packets, her car was her incubus. It turned out that the police had impounded it, whilst she had been sleeping. The mad painter who lived next door had seen them drive it away. Cars were not allowed on the road in front of the house after nine o'clock in the morning. We had warned her, but she never bothered to move it. I drove her to the police car pound in Islington, leaving Jeremy with the children, even though it was his day off. It was fifty pounds to get the car back and they wouldn’t accept a cheque, only cash.

“Stuff these bastards ” she said. She waited until the man on the gate went inside for a cup of tea and then she crept under the barrier and was lost from all sight in the bowels of the pound. The next thing I saw was the puce Morris Minor screeching down the ramp, through the barrier at the bottom, which someone had conveniently forgotten to close properly.

Valentina went back to the pound later that day, as an irate motorist, demanding her car back. She had left the car in front of a pub, where the men from the pound went for a pint after work. A puce Morris Minor being very identifiable, it was found straight away. We got a telephone call later that night, from a very embarrassed policeman, telling us the car had been found, very near to where it had been stolen. Valentina went back to get it and there was no mention of a fine either. After that Valentina’s car was always left in front of the house, she got handfuls of parking tickets, but the pound people always left her car alone.

A few months after she arrived, I had returned home from work and was breast feeding the baby, listening to her telling me about her latest lover, yet another violinist  from Hampstead.  It was summer and the front door was open. There was a knock on the door and Valentina went to answer it.

“Does a Miss Valentina Kinjowski live here” said an officious sounding voice at the door. “Yes” said Valentine.

This did surprise me. Valentina had got everyone in the house, to swear that they would never tell anyone who came to the door, that she lived there and never sign for any registered letters.  Jeremy

had stopped answering the door, after an embarrassing occasion with a P.C. Williams, Jeremy he had an unfortunate congenital disability, he couldn’t tell lies.

“Is Miss Kinjowski in at present” said the voice that sounded suspiciously like P.C. Williams.

“Miss Kinjowski is at present in the Amazon” said Valentina in  her clipped middle class actress voice, that cowes most people.

“She went there last month…She has gone an expedition to find the lost tribe of the one breasted archers. Her last expedition lasted five years. She is very famous in anthropological circles…Have you read her books? They are very interesting you know”

“Well I don’t know much about expeditions, but l have a bundle of summonses here, that have not been answered ,all to do with parking offences and non payment of fines.” Sure enough he had a good armful of papers in his hands.

“Did Miss Kinjowski leave a forwarding address, Miss er…Miss…”

Ignoring the policeman’s attempt to get her name, she looked up into the air as though  remembering something.

“You could try the nearest post office. Yes, that’s it. Valentina Kinjowski, co the Post Office, The Amazon”

The policeman wrote the address down patiently in his book whilst Valentina rambled on.

“I don’t think she will answer, even if they did get there. She is a very strange woman, doesn’t like opening letters, thinks they are bad luck, bit of a superstition she picked up from some aboriginal tribe, in the Australian outback. I should imagine the postman might find it a bit difficult, delivering letters out there in the jungle. I believe some of them don’t get back. Anyway I am glad to have been of help. She has got houses a II over the place, you know, rich as Croesus, none of her tenants have been able to find her, to pay the rent. Good luck officer…goodbye”

Being dismissed P.C. Williams went down the steps disconsolately, fumbling with his papers. When he reached the dustbins at the gate, he looked around, then lifted the lid off the bins and pushed the papers inside .We never saw him again. Jeremy refused to answer the phone or the door again.

At the end of the summer, Valentina got a job as one of Dracula’s victims, in an American movie, filming in the South of France. I twas a month’s work, all expenses paid in a five star hotel. She was really excited, this was her first big break into films, if you forgot the army careers stuff, she had done for a crackpot company in Soho.

The house was very quiet whilst she was away. I think the children missed her the most. She was the anarchic element in the house that they loved. Life was so unpredictable when she was about, it was more peaceful without her but much less rich.

She came back a week early, having been deported. She had finished the acting work, so it d didn’t really matter that much. The incident happened, as they say, one night in the hotel bar, whilst she was drinking with the crew and some actors. A part of the bar had been cordoned off with velvet tassels and there had been drunken speculation as to why. Suddenly a n entourage arrived. There was a black man in leopard skin with, according to Valentina ,the most sumptuous headgear, complete with animal horns. He was surrounded by black bodyguards, some in traditional dress, but most in western type suits. There were complemented by French security police, swarthy granite faced mafia look a likes. Valentina, generous drunk or sober, wanted to buy the guy in the leopardskin a drink, she fancied the hat. Having failed  to explain her motive to the heavies, she went over, arms outstretched to the leopardskin, to grab him in Valentina hug. Suddenly guns appeared everywhere and Va lentina found herself on the floor, with a rather large French foot on her back. It turned out the leopardedskin  was a visiting head of state, from an unstable African country. What he was doing in the bar I don’t know, because he turned out to be a teetotal muslim.

After questioning, they realised it wasn’t an attempted assassination, but nevertheless she was put on the first plane out of France. The head of state was obviously amused, because Valentina got a headdress  months later only without the animal horns.

My sister Katy got married a month later so the whole family went to the wedding. Katy and Valentina, as I said earlier, were best friends, and Valentina didn’t like the prospective husband. I don’t think anyone did. His sixty two year old mother was there, in a long black wig. She had an imitation snake around her neck and a pair of red fish net tights on. If you don’t believe me look at the wedding pictures. She was the only guest on his side, the other two hundred and forty nine were friends and relatives of Katy’s, even the best man was a friend of my sisters.

My sister had to get married twice, because of my father, who was an old fashioned type of catholic. The future husband had been married before, so we couldn’t have a nuptial mass and my sister wanted a church wedding for my father’s sake. She couldn’t find a church of England vicar trendy enough to marry a divorcee, a catholic one being out of the question, so she settled for an elaborate blessing. Katy got married in a registry office at nine thirty and then she changed into her white regalia complete with veil, in the toilets and ran round the corner to the church for the mock wedding at ten o'clock.

Valentina didn’t go to either of the weddings, which was a bad sign. She stayed in the house getting the champagne ready. By the time we all got back, she had finished half a bottle of gin and was starting on the champagne. Everything went normally until the  best man started h is speech. Nothing could be heard in the room apart from the chink of glasses and best man’s embarrassed droning of some humourless platitudes.

“Why did we let you do it…We shouldn’t have let her do it. Oh my God I am sorry Catherine….l’ve let you down” Va lentina followed her opening with a loud moan. People were beginning to realise what was going on and were sniggering.

“Look at him…have you ever met anyone more boring…The Telegraph …my god…he actually buys the telegraph” She tried to get through the crowd to reach Katy. She came face to face with his mother. “Oh God a snake, think of the children…the poor children…won’t someone do something. Fortunately my father took her by the arm, looking considerably less depressed than he had for weeks, and took her out into the garden where the assembled guests could only hear the occasional groan, much to their annoyance. Valentina a nd my father made a pact to do a novena to Our Lady for Catherine’s sake. Whatever happened it worked, whether it was my father’s prayers or Valentina’s home made doll with the pins in it. Idon’t know, but the newly married couple were separated in a few months.

Va lentina is on a world tour at the moment with some theatre group, funded by the Art’s council. She was supposed to be able to dance and play a musical instrument for the tour but her ignorance of both didn’t deter her. She designed and printed a certificate of dancing from a fictitious school of the performing arts in Yorkshire . The musical director of the tour had the flu on the day of the audition, so the song she sang accompanying the three notes on the guitar, she had learned that week from a friend, who is a folk singer, was passed by a deputy. We get the occasional postcard from exotic places, which I have kept, in case P,C. Williams should ever renew his interest.