just_cyd: (Default)
I can't just call this concert travel this year, since two of the events already booked are book-related (har har).

First up is Mike Garrigan opening for Nikki Meets the Hibachi at the Eno Artists Den in Hillsborough, NC. Found an airbnb near the venue, too! Currently on my second listen-through of Semigloss Albatross, and I'm kicking myself for not diving deeper into his stuff earlier. I'll be buying & downloading that album shortly. It's all melancholy piano/vocals and I am just blown away by the emotion in the simplicity.

[And no, I will not be going to Darren's show on Jan 19th in Carrboro. Something about it doesn't sit right (college town, limited parking, not thrilled with the headliner), and let's face it, I'm a bit salty that I can't find ticket info online. The venue's site has nothing, the headliner's got not much, and Darren's site hasn't been updated in over a month (the 10/17 Greensboro show is still listed. Dude, you NEED me!). Hoping like hell he's got other shows planned. I'm sure he will. He better!]

Events #2 & #3 are both for the release of Tom Maxwell's A Really Strange and Wonderful Time, his book about the Chapel Hill music scene 1989-1999. First I'll be going to the event at Flyleaf Books, and then two weeks later I'll be attending the event at the Wake Forest Listening Room. That's actually the first thing I booked! Pretty much as soon as it was announced back in November I got my ticket, because by golly I do NOT want to miss this! And having met Mike, the owner of WFLR, I wanted to check the place out now that he's been able to reopen it.

The Flyleaf event is also the day after Darren's birthday. Not going to pester him, but I'll be in his neighborhood and love to buy him a drink or something, but he doesn't respond to messages, so *shrug*. Trying to decide if/how to let Zach know I'll be in his town at the end of the month, but again, I don't want to be That Girl, the overly-excited groupie that won't leave them alone. I'm driving halfway down after work, staying in WV/VA, and staying the one night in NC, so it's not like I can spend another day in town - I don't have the money for a 3rd night. I'm pushing it as it is. But it'd be great to see one or both of them outside of the pre/post show busyness. I'd really like to resume my conversation with Darren on writing, and with Zach on how on earth he got from WI to NC.
just_cyd: (Default)
I've long said that my dad is a wildly unreliable witness when it comes to my childhood, and I've grudgingly resigned myself to the fact that my brother's memories do not mirror my own. But what if I am also not the total-recall-minded person I thought I was?

In the midst of the flashback to the car crash, other memories have surfaced. unpleasant memories. the kind that should be discussed with a therapist or a very trusting friend, with a safety net in place, and a support plan. But since my therapist as all but kicked me out and I have no replacement I haven't bothered to bring this up. I'd have to email her - I don't see her again until later this month, and she's damn sure counting on this being our last appointment. She's banking on my primary doc taking over my happy pills. But I don't really HAVE a primary doc since mine retired last year. I saw a PA back in the fall to get meds refilled, and then I'm seeing the FNP on Tuesday for what I hope will to establish myself as an ongoing patient. I don't even know if this practice is covered by my insurance. I don't even know if i have a new insurance card.

Where was I going with this? oh, right: memories. There's no way to rewind and revisit those scenes to verify if I am recalling things correctly. The church is still there, just like I remember it. those three boulders south of the building were a source of much play, as one ever so slightly resembled a slide to my 8 year old brain. The stairwells in back, on the west side of the building appear to still be there, too. probably the same cold damp concrete I remember, a relief from summer heat but yet not, as it turns out. There were witnesses - my brother, impossibly white blonde yet somehow also tanned from hours of outdoor play; another kid - a boy - maybe a bit younger than my brother; and of course, the perpetrator. Older than me by a year or so, just on the cusp of being too old for daycare. Did he have a younger sibling? I don't remember. I do remember there wasn't much in the way of actual supervision, and the fact this daycare was held in the church we also attended meant nothing aside from the fact I knew the building well. Of course we were eventually caught. I remember feeling shame, but I don't recall any adults showing any sort of concern for my safety or wellbeing. I am pretty sure none of the boys faced any punishment, and I have no recollection of my parents saying anything to me about it. Likely they weren't told. This was, after all, the same daycare that had small chairs in the back of a cargo van to fit all of us kids in for school drop-off in the mornings; that had zip-up harnesses in the cribs that forced the babies to stay laying face down for the duration of their naps; and let the big kids completely unsupervised to run amok inside and out of the big-to-me church of my childhood.


As much as I want that all to be a figment of my over-active imagination, I still get angrier than probably normal over dad re-writing my childhood. No, dad, we never did crafts with mom. EVER; she had no patience for us. You see, we weren't what the brochures promised: we were anything but quiet and compliant and timid and seen and not heard. We were just outgoing, active, energetic, creative kids. Looking back, I was the poster child for ADHD, but my brother was the one who got the extra attention for a stammer and other learning difficulties. I was just lazy, didn't apply myself, and had great potential if I could just shut up already. Being the biggest kid in my class didn't help, and early puberty (summer prior to fifth grade, when I was 10) only added insult to injury. What could life had been, if only...

Randomly, I remember a copy of this book on the bookshelf, probably until mom died and dad sold the house. Hell, he may still have it. We didn't have a lot of books around, and the ones we had were never really read. We had the Childcraft Encyclopedia, too, but again, it was more for show, I think. If mom had gotten the help she needed when we were little, rather than just a few years before she died, what could all of our lives been? Was therapy and meds available in the 1970s? Was that self-help book supposed to make things better, just sitting there, only being picked up to dust around it? Am I truly breaking the cycle of generational trauma by not having kids if I'm still harboring all this anger?

Talking with friends about Things To Not Name Your Kids always gets me riled up, but I also remind people that if it's not your name, it's something about your physical appearance that'll get called out. I was called "Too Tall" for most of fifth grade, and a goodbye gift from my class was a sketch someone had done of a character wearing a shirt that said "Too Tall" and all the classmates signed it, and then it was laminated. I may very well still have it somewhere. that they threw me the going-away party was so very touching to me now (we moved in mid-April), but at the time, it was infuriating because I kept getting sent on errands and such and I was annoyed because I just wanted to be with my friends, and it never once occurred to me that they were trying to keep me out of sight so they could pull off the party.
just_cyd: (weird)
One of those traits (annoying or telling, you decide) I've had since childhood is the need to make lists and catalog things, and to do it in such exacting detail that it's all but impossible to maintain.

Of all of those various lists and catalogings, I find occasionally that I really DO want to know how on earth I ended up at a particular website/article/book/song. You see, my friends and I like a bit of a sport with one-upping one another with the weird and wacky, and sometimes my contributions are so far out in left field that I have to cite my sources or, rather, show how I got there.

With books, I finally created tags in Goodreads that say "rec-xxxxx" for the person or source (NPR) of the book. Because with 1400 books marked as "want to read" I need to know WHY I want to read this, too.

FUN FACT: I began logging the books I read back in February 1995 while working at a Casino in Atlantic City, NJ. They told me to bring a book when they hired me, as there was a lot of down time. Cashiers and bartenders would swap books, but I found I'd get partway through a book only to realize I'd already read it. So out came the little hardback notebook, and The List began. 100 books read between Feb 1995 and July 1996. Yep, I had a lot of down time.

Lately, it's music that is the Big Thing, and I have no real way of documenting how I find these people, at least not easily. So, here is the Quick and Dirty Daisy Chain Of Rabbit Holes that Led Me to Getting a Facebook Post Liked By Mike Garrigan:

1 Ben Folds Five --> 2 Hotel Lights --> 3 Darren Jessee --> 4 Nic Brown --> 5 Athenaeum --> 6 Mark Kano --> 7 Mike Garrigan

Simple, eh? No? OK, let me explain:

1-3
Last August, I was still working in the office full-time, in an office with a door I kept shut (bliss!). I needed music to keep my brain happy, so spotify was my friend. I got a hankering for Ben Folds Five, so I dug into their catalog and re-discovered their awesomeness. Dug into YouTube as well, and at the end of the Ben Folds Five - Live at UNC Memorial Hall, 2008 ('Front to Back' Reunion), Ben introduces the drummer as "Darren Jessee of Hotel Lights" and my ears perked up. A few of the YouTube concerts had comments mentioning Darren's solo work, but this band name was new to me. Dug into YouTube and found his songs and actual videos. It was pretty much an instant switch from BFF to DJ right then and there.

3-4
Began following Darren on All The Socials, and he mentioned an upcoming album, etc. He doesn't post much, but Instagram stories are the most common. One was just a photo of a book, which looks interesting. I get the book from the library and read it in one sitting, had a bit of a cry, read it again (and then later the audiobook because why not?). Followed Nic on Instagram, and learned Nic's wife Abby did the cover art for Darren's newest album.

4-5
Most of the time spent with Nic's book I was focused on the career shift stuff, not that he was in a band. HE WAS IN A BAND. IN CHAPEL HILL. Darren is mentioned both IN the book and in the acknowledgements at the end. Said band had a moderately successful late-90s hit. after too many weeks, I finally realized I needed to look up this band. Athenaeum. Found their hit song from their 20 year reunion show" in 2018, and the second that singer opened his mouth, it was all over. who is this man, and where has he been hiding. Turns out that's Mark Kano, the very Mark Kano that Nic started this band with back when Nic was still a very young teen. That's a voice with depth and range and damn where was I when this band was popular?? oh. right. Dig thought the Tubes of You, and get my paws on pretty much everything this band has released. sweet!

5-6
And while digging up All Things Athenaeum, I learn that Mark Kano has done solo work. Similar to Athenaeum, but more mature in other ways. Vocally, this dude's got range and potential - almost reminds me of someone who had done musical theater/broadway. quickly downloaded his stuff from Bandcamp

6-7
in watching Athenaeum, I noticed the other guitarist also sings, and seems to hold his own. Took a while to realize the guy in the early videos is one guy (Grey Brewster) and the bald guy in the later videos/reunion show is another (Mike Garrigan). On Bandcamp, Mark goes so far as to recommend Mike. so I check out Mike, and am immediately bowled over by his song Satellites. after a bunch of listens, I was prompted to buy the damn songs already, so I did. And last night, I posted to Instagram about it, forgetting that insta cross-posts to facebook, and this morning i discovered that Mike Garrigan himself liked that FB post. [just now, snagging the link to the post, I see he liked it on Instagram as well!]

And that, my friends, is how I find myself where I am today.

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