In 2007 I wrote a review for my Live From New York column of a Blonde Redhead show I went to but didn't actually watch. You can read the posted review below. If you click on the images you can read them better. Today I found that concert on Youtube. It's crazy because during this entire performance I'm leaning against the red brick wall behind the band on the outside of the pool, listening to the entire thing. Tix to NY were purchased today. I cannot fucking wait! March is just around the corner. <3 Also, anyone who says Kazu can't shred, I implore you to watch this. Girlfriend is badass. Forever one of my favorite bands. Anyone interested in reading an interview I did with them two years ago click here!
Sammy and I also went nice neighborhood hiking and dreamed about the future. I'm pretty positive things are changing in a big way for a lot of people very soon. I'm no psychic but as I get older things start happening faster and the wind is definitely blowing all strange.
I have writers block- I'm at a coffee shop trying to write and read some heavy theory- so why not two posts in one day?
This is the greatest Roxy Music song ever written. It's PERFECT.
Jedi Nights.
These are the best rock critics going right now who are not Greil Marcus-because he's in the cannon- duh! People who I read voraciously and try to emulate. Of course every critic has their own voice and that in essence is and should be a rock critics signature. What makes a good rock critic is their unique view and history. Unlike other media criticism, art, dance, film, et cetera, music, rock n roll, hip hop et al, depends squarely on the critics own relationship with music and how they got to a place where thats all they wanted to think about listen to write about. It is a strange dance the reader must do in order to determine if this is a voice they can trust. These people I would trust with my record collection. I buy anything they tell me to and think deeply about the issues they bring up, that perhaps, this lil o rock critic hasn't thunk bout before.
Chris Ziegler- Number one most underrated rock critic in the ZE WORLD. Also one of the smartest people I know. He has like zero interest in fame and yet still manages to be a megalomaniac recluse. Creedance Clearwater Revival, Os Mutantes, Sparks, The Zombies, Charlie Louvin.
Jessica Hopper- Best feminist rock critic writing about issues pertaining to culture and gender. Most unapologetic feminist critic writing with a feminist 'slant' in non 'feminist pieces'. Mika Miko, No Age, Jane's Addiction, Hole, Sonic Youth, David Scott Stone.
Sasha Frere-Jones- Most appropriately lauded critic. Good for Sasha. He is a terrific writer and one of the only reasons I buy the New Yorker. Wu Tang, The Jackson Five, old U2, Django Rienhardt, The Specials.
Daphne Carr- Doing the hard work of making people care about rock criticism. Also an amazing writer in her own right. Nine Inch Nails, Kraftwerk.
Ann Powers- The professional. She heads up the LA Times music department. Not sure, she writes about everything!
Jay Babcock- A true believer in the power of peace, doobies, records and mind expansion. I can't keep up with this guys integrity. I mean, he says what's on his mind. People should read him more. Diamanda Galas, Lavender Diamond, Bright Black Morning Light, Neil Young, Frank Zappa.
Lists, I live by them. Try one out. It's easy peasy 123.
Some people I just don't like and I don't have to have a good reason why. It's fine and dandy. They might donate their house to feed the hungry, march in line with the best o feminist's and for all intents and purposes be the best of peeps, and I can still not like them. ITS OKAY. In fact, I probably don't like you. Not everybody likes me.
One on one hang outs rule. Having lots of friends is overrated. I like internet scrabble and eating alone in my bed sometimes, sometimes i don't want to go out for drinks when i can fart alone.
Llyod Dobbler wins. He will always win, except maybe against Heather Duke.
I am my own best friend. You should be yours.
Just because I have a boyfriend doesn't mean I'm not grumpy about men. I generally, pretty much, hate them all the same as before.
Just because I, in general, hate all men doesn't mean I'm angry at my boyfriend.
The Kogi Truck sucks. Sorry doods, it does.
Sometimes I wish I introduced myself as Nicole. Nick calls me Nicole and never asked if he could. I think this might be why I like him.
I don't want to get married, ever. You can write that down and fold it up and put it in your pocket as an 'I told you so', but it will just turn to dust lost amongst your change and hairpins. Some people, omg, can you believe it, is it possible, don't want the same things as you.
I don't believe in marriage, but it doesn't mean I won't be happy for you at your wedding.
Transgendered people, young gay men and women, recovering addicts, homeless children and battered women are the bravest people I've ever met personally.
My mom is the strongest person I know. But also the most frustrating.
Even though I look white and my last name is Darling and I went to college and am in graduate school and don't like 'mexican things' or 'sound mexican'- whatever that means- it still pisses me off internally when people assume I'm white. I'm half Mexican, raised by a single mexican mother who sent me to private schools on my grandpas veterans checks. When I call Citibank to get my balance and they ask for my mothers maiden name to check my security code, saying 'Valdez' is sometimes the most whole I ever get to feel.
I possess a great well of anger at society and am generally unhappy and unhinged on a daily basis by the things most people seem to be at ease with. I am constantly having to monitor my behavior.
I don't have a great sense of humor. I'm not very easy going.
I was raised on credit cards and live in my own debt today.
I love animals because they are instinctual and do what's in their best interest. They are funny and beautiful and strange without ever having to say a word.
Tom Petty The B52's Guns n Roses Th Pretenders
I like music more than books.
I like theory more than philosophy.
I like lyrics more than poetry.
Eileen Myles Sylvia Plath Anne Sexton Laurie Anderson are my favorite poets.
The Simpsons seasons 1-5 are perfect.
Beavis and Butthead and Daniel Johnston make me think of a home i've never been to.
If everything you are preoccupied with disappeared tomorrow what would you be left with? What would you do?
I'd take out a piece of paper, write "To Do" at the top and put #1: My novel.
Pics from last weekends 5 Points. Taken by Paul. Kasey was in town this weekend and it was really fun to hang. That girl is the freakin best! We went to the Black Lips, Nobunny show at the El Rey last night. Dood, Nobunny, thats all I have to say! Her and Dean came over for a 3 am hang. The cats were out of it and groggy, but, like the pageant mother that I am, I made them pose. Kasey's nails were fierce. The view from my office. Good night. To say it's been a long day would be an understatement. Lets just say grocery shopping, baking, jumper cables, theory homework, deadlines, and driving to Valenicia on a Sunday were involved. Wooh. Its nice to be at sleeps doorstep.
Kitty posted this video recently and it seemed very fitting for this post. Del Sol was more than just a car, Del Sol was a member of our family. When I first met Sarah she owned Del Sol and she would carry us to adventures across the varied LA landscape, most notably at night, some dangerous, others benign, but all memorable. Del Sol was more than just Sarah's car, it was an extension of her personality. Using it to get her way in almost every situation, squeezing between other slow cars, stealing parking spots, almost running over children in parking lots, flipping off strangers she dismissed and zooming away in a little huff. Del Sol could haul ass. Del Sol also served as a perfect excuse to never have to drive "I can't, I only have two seats." I contemplated writing all my favorite memories about Del Sol into this post, but some thing's like Del Sol, are best remembered privately. This car was more than just a car, it was bridge to my twenties and carried me all the way to NY where I knew, Del Sol still wrecked havoc wherever he went. So, in tribute to Del Sol, I decided to post a short story I wrote in 2002 about my own car, that in many ways, sums up the spirit of that time, and what will be missed, but never forgotten.
My Car
My car is my mother, my father, my best friend, my muse, and my target for unwarranted anger. Silver 1989 Mercury Topaz, my car has one spare tire that I have been driving on for close to a year, even though the AAA guy told me to change it the minute I got home. I abuse my car, vomit splashed against the right backseat door from my nineteenth birthday has yet to be wiped off, even though I’m about to turn twenty. The inside has cigarette holes on every seat, even though I don’t smoke, my friends do. When we come gliding home, slicing a path down the 110 at night, the scent of tiny white Jasmine and gasoline leading us into the East Side, when their heads lull and sway to the music and all our windows are rolled down and we follow the north star like sailors at sea, and the water swells around us like the flood of some small love, and mix tapes croon ELO, Randy Newman and Aretha Franklin, sometimes their hands slip from the weight of busy fingers, clicking and snapping and fighting and biting, and their cigarettes drop and burn my seats. And, hey, that’s all right with me. My car is my garbage can, anyone that rides in my car for more than five minutes can write a book about me when they leave. I like iced tea, I steal magazines, I let my friends leave empty cigarette boxes strewn all over the floor, I don’t empty my ashtray, I drink and drive, I sometimes sleep in my car, I like Cheezits and cocaine, I sell clothes and buy clothes and horde clothes and trade clothes and fuck clothes by accident when they get tangled between my legs if I’m making love in my backseat to some boy that I found making love to my car. And then in the ramble of my daily travels they can see that I drive, a lot. Every day, in fact, for hours on end, delivering rolls of film to Bauhaus on La Cienaga, picking up boxes of magazines from COP in Glendale. I like the 2 freeway, to the point, cuts through the heart of the beast in ten minutes flat. Too bad no one ever needs to get to Glendale in a hurry, no one’s ever in a hurry to get there.
A few thoughts on pubes: Ladies, if you want to go through all the, in my opinion- totally ridiculous pain of waxing it into a little triangle, then by all means, please. Seriously, if it gives you an xtra swish in your step, then strip away, honestly, feel sexy, be powerful, otherwise, WHY? Don't let the rest of the world make you feel like this is something you need to do. Why? Fuck them. Fuck the man. Keep your shit the way god designed it. You don't need hot wax ripping at your most tender flesh to satisfy societies hetero normative ideas of what your pubes need to look like. Dudes, if you don't like it au natural, you know what? I'll come over and wax your nuts for free. Can we start a giant movement called, oh I don't know, feminism, where we tell every asshole advertiser that he can take his ideas of what I need to buy to feel beautiful and shove it up his ass? Ladies who feel this is an essential part of being feminine, ask yourselves, seriously, honestly, ask yourselves WHY? Why do you feel this way? When did you start to think this way? Do you remember when it happened? Go back and try to remember. Write it down the best you can, read it back to yourself. Out loud. Don't worry, if you wash, you smell fine. If you've got a brain and love yourself like you should, heh heh, he will like you with or without a bush. TRUST. Think about it, getting some, versus not getting some. Oh well, looky here, look who doesn't mind pubes so much after all. Do you really think normal every day dudes have pussy being thown at them so much that they can be picky? Dudes who do, and accept, have emotional problems you don't want to deal with anyway. They're insecure and secretly hate themselves. You're not too good, no one's too good for anyone, but you're more emotionally mature. They'll get tired of being in pain someday and hopefully get help, if not, knock on wood for them, no pun intended. But don't let them drag your perfectly beautiful bush into it. Dudes, so pubes, if you're a man, why look like a boy? Leave that shit alone. I don't want a barbie doll dick. Eww. Leave it like god made it. So yeah, it bums me out to see the Man have so much control on people around me who I love. We can't transform our society into an anarchy state, but we CAN transform what we think about beauty and in turn that transforms what the man tries to sell back to us, and at the end of the day, what the next generation of young people thinks. Lets try anarchy one big thought at a time. Let's challenge ourselves. I went out this weekend and had all kinds of fun. A mushroom convention at Machine Project, Scoops made mushroom ice cream. Woo hoo! Sayer curated a really cool show at Eagle Rock Center for the Arts. I also saw some crusty punks at Women of Crenshaw. Oh man. That's all I have to say about that. Nick and I went to Echo Park and visited Stacy at 826LA and then went shopping in the park. He bought a boombox with a little TV. Were going to watch telenovellas on the beach. I'm buying a convertor box for it. Then last night was 5 Points, I don't have any pics cos I was busy hostin with Kate, but I'm happy to report that it was amazing and each reader blew me away. Then today I spent hanging out with wonderful Lia. This was a really lovely, spectacular weekend. Thanks to all the buddies who shared it with me. trees were climbed! It rained and my office looked magical!
