Well, I think I'm going to stop this here blog, which is barely a blog, and MOG. Because over there folks pretty much talk about music stuff, which is pretty much what I do here, and I think I'd do it more often if I knew I had to keep up with my fellow Moggers! But as my last Blogger act, I'm going to answer to Ms. Paula's "tag"! The deal is, I post 6 odd things about myself, and then "tag" 6 others to do the same, sending them the link to this page. I've only got 3 folks to tag so far, so I guess I'll add the other 3 gradually. (I certainly answered the "tag" gradually.) Anyways.

Six "odd" things about me:
1. I like to go to fast food restaurants by myself, and sit for a while and eat something bad for me, and read the New Yorker.
2. Almost every time I send an email, I go into my "sent" folder, and read the email I just sent.
3. I take country music, the high and the low of it, very seriously. My favorite TV show is "Opry Live," which I watch with rapture and wonderment.
4. I was made fun of in grade school sometimes...one thing that really stayed with me is in 6th grade some kids called me "Pointdexter." I remember the main kid who was doing this had an "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt that he wore, it seemed to me, every day. I don't feel so bad about it now.
5. I have a thing about Sanrio (the Hello Kitty company) characters, specifically the black googly-eyed cat Chococat. I collect Chococat items.
6. I saved and framed the announcement from my first "real" gig (at CBs Gallery). In the frame next to the listing I stuck an illustration that had accompanied a NY Times editorial about Chelsea Clinton, that showed a teenage girl looking wistfully out of a window. The things seemed to go together. The little collage has lived on top of my dresser since then.

Anyways, here's the MOG page...you can find me over there from now on!

It's been requested that I blog about the CMAs. Well, I can, although the funny thing is, I didn't see them. I was coming back from L.A., and the plan landed just as they were ending. Of course, I immediately Googled on my Treo to see if there was any news. I was a bit sad that Big & Rich again did not win the Duo award, but I think one day they will. The Faith thing is weird...I just watched the video for the first time, if you can believe it...if you know me, you know that is my worst fear...that I will accidentally "broadcast" myself doing something mean or embarrassing. But I think she was joking with a bit of truth in it. The funny thing is, it led me to give Carrie Underwood another chance...I had listened to her when she first came on the scene and the stuff didn't really stick with me, but then after a conversation with a friend who loves her I hopped over to her site where you can quite easily listen to "Jesus Take the Wheel" and realized it is inspirational, beautiful, and quite well-written, and she sings the hell out of it. (Can't wait to do it in karaoke.) She also nails "Before He Cheats." Anyways.

Hello. Still kind of reeling from Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams and Neko Case at the Hollywood Bowl on 9/10. First let me tell you what they were wearing. Willie was wearing jeans and a tucked-in T-shirt and braids. And of course the stripey macrame guitar strap. Ryan was wearing a tiny Batman T-shirt, jeans and light-brown motorcycle boots with a substantial heel. They looked good when he did this hopping backwards thing he does. Neko was wearing jeans and an incredibly dazzly royal-blue sequined cardigan with a satin bow that was supposed to close it, but she let the pieces of satin hang down to her knees and blow around in a romantic way. Also dangly earrings and a black camisole-ish thing. She was accompanied by one of my fave singers ever, Kelly Hogan, on backups, who looked sophisticated in a basic black blazer, top and pants.

It was an amazing show, although they didn't do any songs together. FYI, Willie's new record is produced by Ryan and features his band the Cardinals. Neko was astounding; her beautiful voice filled the Bowl up to the brim. It was our first time seeing Ryan, and boy, did he live up to our expectations. The band was amazing, and Phil Lesh guested on bass for some of the songs and they did some Dead covers (see Ryan's set list). It was crazy seeing Willie...I kept looking at him going, "That's really him!" He did all the classics one after another, plus that vigilante-ish song he does with Toby Keith, "Beer for my Horses" (it was a #1 hit after all). There was a lady singing along a bit too much behind me, which was really OK except for when she did it during "Always on My Mind," which Willie was really imbuing with a lot of bittersweetness. Many of his family members were onstage. And then just a week later he got busted.

Anyways, please see the info re: our XXroads gig.

And Happy New Year. As Rabbi Burt said, "I'm still writing 5766 on my checks."

Pretty consumed with Klaus Nomi...we learned about him on New York Noise (in fact we've seen stuff about him more than once on there so we started calling it "the Klaus Nomi channel") and then Netflixed this. His story was fascinating and sad, and there are many beautiful things about the DVD. It made me nostalgic for a New York I used to know, as well as one I did not know. Also, the DVD contains a recipe for a lime tart (Klaus was a serious baker) which the enterprising chefs in my home attempted with total success. It's on the DVD but here's somebody who tried it and put her efforts on YouTube.
Also totally loving the Dixie Bee Liners.

Obsessed with Pandora.com. If you don't know about 'em, they create radio stations for you based on artists and songs that you like. They match music based on The Music Genome Project, a system they devised for breaking down music to hundreds of small, DNA-like elements. So, say you make a station based on an artist...you'll hear tons of stuff from that artist, not just hits but album tracks from all over his/her career, plus other similar artists. I have one station that's a mishmash of Ryan Adams, Kelly Willis and Neil Young, one called "Chanteusi" that's Jo Stafford and Doris Day, and a soul one based solely (soul-ly?) on Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. You can endlessly play with the stations, adding, subtracting, etc. Thank you to Sue for introducing me to them.
Speaking of Neil, I've always known I was going to have a Neil phase...I've known this since I was 5 or so and my Dad was into "Are You Ready for the Country." I've been waiting for the phase; it never quite came because I was always falling for things that were "easier." But here it is now, ushered in in part by the Heart of Gold movie. Amazing items: "Don't Let it Bring You Down" from 4-Way Street, and the Harvest Moon album, which it turns out I own (when you merge your CDs with someone else's, you're not always totally aware of what you have, and thus make discoveries in your own living room).
One more thing: S. recently mastered the soundtrack to Another Gay Movie. It is of course called Another Gay Soundtrack. It's totally great, with very disparate tracks blending together in a Garden-State-ish way. (I must say a few of the tracks are on the adults-only side.) There is this one song called "This is Love," by the band sELF. When this song comes on, I must dance; if I'm sitting down, I must do hand motions. There is also a Nancy Sinatra song made just for the film, this incredible song called "Fuego" that's in Spanish, and an astounding song called "See the Stars" by the Myrmidons which you can hear at their MySpace page. I'm sure I'll have more on this later. OK, bye.

Wow, I'm blogging constantly. Anyway, the below post was written in a fit of optimism. It's not that I'm not optimistic anymore, it's just that now I've been through the gig and out the other side. But I think the idea of possibility still holds, but this is the angle I see it from: After reading Jen's Trynin's book, I'm thinking a lot about why people need to express themselves and how far to go with that...if you can make people happy and/or entertained with your work (including yourself), I think that's it. If you can make one person not bored or not depressed for five minutes, I think that's reason enough to do it. And that's the possibility to hold out for. You just have to not end up bored or depressed yourself. Or scared, but that one may be impossible to avoid. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to do this. But just as everyone speaks differently, everyone expresses themselves differently. Anyways. This is the most amazing video. It comes from Jammed On On, which is in itself amazing.

A half hour after writing the below I got to the part of the book where David Geffen calls her and starts talking about Linda Ronstadt...