Ex Ballerinas

I have to go shoot this interview for a film Celine's friend is making about ex ballerinas. He sent me an e-mail with the questions. I know I'm dutybound by the first rule of Fight Club to only say good things about Fight Club, and to talk about the instructors and choreographers and other dancers with adulation as hi fructose corn syrup oozes out of the corners of my mouth but I wanna say that as soulful and incredible as the life can be it's soulcrushing (and bonecrushing and anorexifying) for most, and that 999 out of 1000 ballerinas are ex ballerinas after a few years, and its kind of a dead art, like jazz or classical music or even a lot of theatre, sadly, most of whats done that's good is just, technix, if not PYROTECHNICS, which is really sad.

And that I'm eternally grateful for it because it got me the hell out of dodge and to all sorts of cool places I would've never gone...

And then one of the questions of course is: What do you do now? Do you use your dance training in any way today? And of course I'm gonna say, well, sure, the discipline I learned, the blafuckingbla, respect for my body (yeah right, most classical ballet dancers battle their bodies on the daily), and art and blah. And I'm a student, now. The truth would actually be great. Now? Oh, now I'm a dancer. Yes, I use my dance training. I make a living dancing.

But I don't actually, I feel like I've had to unlearn a lot of it, to dance "dance" no it's really dancing, it's just really different, I mean, it's all dancing, but with ballet, there are just some really unsexy specifics....

Anyway.

I have to go throw myself in the wash and do that right now. I'm kinda overit. Yesterday was genius. More later.

Swank Clubs, Bad Crowds, Solo Performance, Sold Out

I have a show at a venue this Friday that can only be aptly described as "mad swank, yo."

Because it is. Mad swank. Yo.

But, ughhh, wrong crowd again? You know I think my music here in Lost Angels is like, USUALLY, falling on deaf ears. The old menz come to every performance and sit in the front and say things like, yeah, baby, and laugh at my little ironic musical nods to times gone by-- the only real IRONY I use musically, because god save the QUEEN is the scene just buttsore with irony these days, dizzie gillespie-glasses-wearin' hipsters, privileged and in $2000 worth of kit to look like they rolled out of the dumpster, had it so damn good they eschew even healthy REBELLION- the disdain of yesteryear, and appreciate everything, LIKE IT-- because they can play six degrees of masturbation by naming that white rapper on Def Juxx's sound engineer whose hi-hat hit influenced the chorus, and all kindsa other esoterica, et.al-- or just appreciate it IRONICALLY. Derisive sneermugged at all times.

Anyway. I dunno. I'm not totally NOT one of those people. I mean I'm not. But, not totally not. But I'm not into fey twee meaningless girlboy singers, whose every note is some kind of ironic homage. And. I dunno. The one comment I get most often (besides you sound like Regina Spektor, who, luckily, doesn't sound like Regina Spektor anymore, but I only get this comment anyway because I'm a girl, who plays a piano, and is kinda classically trained, and sings), is that my stuff sounds honest. It is honest. I don't do irony, it gives me the screamin' meemies to tell you the truth, I mean personally, I'm just not comfortable with it.

But. I love the West Coast music scene, way more, but, I dunno, I get booked at these CLUBS where the guy from S.Dak in the straw hat and Inspector Clousseau 'stache is nowhere to be found. I WANT that guy there... cuz like, I'm an Appalachian hayseed myself, let's be real, and at these places they have me play it's like, Hellay Posers who listen to-- I dunno what tf they listen to... but it's not the Pixies or Andrew Bird or Regina or even the Silversun Pickups and it's damn-sure not the Cranberries (which is my second most common comparison) and I see them there and I'm just like, Ugh. Ok. Lets just get through this So'D.

But for the love of Allah I am NICHT bringing my kangaroo dink keyboard again. Last time I heard it through the monitor it made my ears bleed. I'm gonna rent something. I'm gonna rent a f'n Korg. Yeah.

Some real serious sh-t...

First thing I did when I walked in the door just now was turn the damn piano off.

I just spent 5 hours in the studio with Kosta recording my songs... He's a pretty serious producer, jazz musician, and just cool and laid-back, and older, not like the guys I've worked with before who just wanna sleep with me or make quick money that they'll never make because their stuff is bland and boring and trying to be of-the-minute, always one step behind. Kosta was watching me play (on his RHODES.AMAZING.) and was like, "You're getting into some real serious shit." Hahaha. He asked me to do the vocals and piano separately which I've never done, and I had to redo the piano a bunch of times because I don't even know what I'm playing and it's different every time, and he tried playing a few bars just fixing it up for the track, and I showed him what I was actually playing and he was like, "Huh. Yeah. That makes a real hammering sound, you have all these classical elements, yeah, this is some different shit. This is good." And I was like, "That's good to hear cuz I don't show it around a lot and I can never tell if it's just totally off-the-wall or what..." And he was like, "It is. It's great." OK, let me just nerd out for a sec here... As far as having classical elements, there is this piece I've been listening to, it's called "Das Buch der Klange" (Book of Sounds) by this modern German composer Hans Otte, and it sounds like the voice of God and the heavens and the stars. It's seemingly simple piano, just gradually changing repetitive chords, but it's really hard to play and I kinda stole that style of twinkle. Ineffectual Snob-man Scott showed it to me, along with some other pretty things. He's pretty himself. But ew. Anyway.

Ahhhhh. Sorry about the boring music talk. I'm so hungry. I'm SO.HUNGRY. I'm seeing Julian in 10 hours. :-) I ordered a book he talked about and just got it delivered today, and I'm reading it, but I don't know if I'm gonna tell him... It's by a famous shrink and it's stories from therapy.. I have a feeling it might go into some no-no territory about being attracted to a patient and what a no-no that is. So I'm gonna finish it first.

WHY does rice ALWAYS stick to the bottom of the pan and burn??

I need a maid.