Radical Transparency

What impressed Giuls most about last night's show was Ween's ability to wear an audience down.

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be a compliment to any other band.

Transdermal Celebration is track 3 on Quebec.

Click here to download:

Transdermal Celebration.mp3 (3221 KB)

Married to the Sea. Again. Thank you, Lauren, for sending me this one too.



I can't think of anything for myself at the moment, but if that grizzly bear was my sister, I'd play Isis (track 2 on Desire). Something about the rhymes she just can't handle...

She said, where ya been?
I said, no place special.
She said, you look different.
I said, well, I guess.
She said, you gonna stay?
I said, if you want me to, yes.

Click here to download:

Isis.mp3 (6546 KB)

Typed to my sister on The Chats of G yesterday:

Giuliana: how are you offline and typing to me?
me: i'm invisible
 it's an option
 a sneaky one
Giuliana: really?
 isn't that a bit untransparent?

It is untransparent.  And I'm sorry. 

But I'm going to keep on doing it.  Because I like it.  And because now that I've admitted to it, it's no longer untransparent.

Right?

I think we were walking north on 18th St. 

We'd walked all the way from the ceremony grounds at The Capitol and cut through the grass halfway between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.  We passed swarming jumbotrons.  We jumped a barrier.  We high-fived a giant raccoon.  We did not buy a totally awesome but totally outrageously priced peace sign Obama button from an Asian hippie with dreadlocks.  We walked uphill against a trotting sea of latecomers.

And we kept our eyes out for the perfect street to take us back east to Union Station.

Giuliana: G might be our street.
Jake: G for Giuliana.
Giuliana: G for Good.
Jake: G for Gangsta.
Giuliana: G for God.

Neither of us have any idea what we were talking about.  But we laughed.  And took H instead.

Giuls asks:

How can you say the future is at your command?

I answer:

You can't. You just do the best you can.

She answers:

Piece of cake: You can't - It's not.

She gets points for the reference back to the music.  I get points for rhyming, even though it was an accident.

After spending the past two weeks surrounded by our cousins and overflowing with the goofiness we inspire in each other, my sister and I decided last night that we need to keep heavy doses of uncontrollable laughter in our lives forever. 

No adult seriousness.  Never.

There is tragedy everywhere.  Tragedy in the mundane.  Tragedy in comedy.  And we should feel it and acknowledge it.  That's compassion. 

But there is comedy everywhere too.  Comedy in tragedy.  Comedy in pain and fear and death and anger.  And feeling that and acknowledging it is not taking things too seriously, remembering that, whether or not you take it as deep as Bill Hicks did, it really is just a ride.

We figure all we need are the right people around to help us find the funny.  And the occasional return to Step Brothers for inspiration.

Wiley and Tuna and I sung harmonies on The Weight for months in Beijing.

My sister, my uncle Zach, and I just made plans to watch The Last Waltz sometime in the next week.

And I'll be surprised if I don't always remember this song as one that I only fully discovered after it made an accidental introduction from my left-behind iPod.

I don't know when or how The Band released this version of Get Up Jake, and, since the internets aren't giving me easy answers, I'll leave it at that.

Click here to download:

04 Get up Jake.mp3 (3346 KB)

Just got this from my sister.  She says it reminds her of Mimi, our granny, who died last January.  It's from The Velveteen Rabbit.

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Wisdom and inspiration come from unexpected places.  Glad Giuls is always on the lookout.

My sis asked me yesterday if I knew anything about Barack Obama's taste in music. 

I didn't, so I asked Fluther.

Got lots of solid answers, but this was the silliest:

Got a text from my sister a little while ago.

What does the moon look like?

Best question anyone's asked me in a long time.