Lonna

Mark surprised me when I got home, he arranged to have Becky watch Jack for a few hours so we could go to this. (Totally awesome of Becky and Mark!)

It's rare when I get to see so many friends packed into the same place so I was really grateful to be there.

And really grateful for my good friend Eric who opened the LOst Leaf and who has been a big supporter of music in Phoenix. He actually pays bands that play there...go figure.


Ps.Haunted Colonge was F*cking amazing.

I think folks who tend to be happy will trend that way regardless of the circumstances... alternately folks who are chronically unhappy will tend toward depression regardless.

I'll break the pattern here & admit to being one of the latter. Things are generally good for me - rad material stuff (relatively), good family, friends, some small career success, recently managed to lose 20 lbs (really!), etc... nonetheless every day I avoid flinging myself off a building is a good day. Ain't that rotten? I need attitude adjustment. Or I need to join a hockey team where I can blow off steam reguarly.

(tell you what, though: when I'm happy my songwriting sure sucks)

Well written skeksis. I tend toward unhappiness, which leads to ungratefulness, which leads to self pity, which leads to anger and blame and so long. A simple thought can lead me down a dark road of perpetual obsession over wanting certain things and not wanting other things and thinking that somehow getting what i want and not getting what i don't want will bring me happiness.

So the question: Am I happy? I'll be honest, normally it depends on my mood and circumstance (if life and people are doing what i want, when i want, things are great). But there are rare moments when I catch myself clinging to the illusion that I will be happy when this or this happens and I choose to let go of that thought, not repress it, just let go of the obsessive deluded story. Those are the moments that I am most happy.

About songwriting and unhappiness: I used to think the two were related. That I needed to be miserable to write a good song. I used to think my best songs were when I was completely unhappy, and wrapped up in self pity. On closer examination, I realized, sometimes I write good songs and sometimes I write bad songs. End of story. Sometimes I write great songs when I'm feeling on top of the world and really bad ones when I'm depressed and then other times, it's the exact opposite. The reality is, when I get REALLY depressed, I get nothing done, no songs get written. I find that if I want to write a good song, I just have to keep writing...all the time, whether I'm happy, sad, bored, stressed, longing, tired, fat, angry...and so on, just gotta keep writing.

For me, right now...hmm, I can honestly say, I still have some pretty miserable shit*y moments, but I am also very grateful to have an extremely understand boyfriend who I love dearly and a beautiful son.

I haven't spent much time on the the shizz lately.

But recently I found myself feeling nostalgia for the shizz and for those beginning days, when the shizz first started and when alot of us met for the first time.

I am in danger of sounding ultra cheesy, but I'm throwing caution to the wind and opening up a thread for those of you who want to share crazy stories, memories, or moments from those good ole days.


I'll start:

When I was 22, I decided that if I was ever gonna start playing music in a public setting, I had to start playing music in a public setting (duh). But seeing as how I sucked and didn't know anyone, I started playing open mics. On Monday nights I played at Joe's Grotto, a really shitty rock bar in North Phoenix. Then I heard of another one in Tempe at a place called Hollywood Alley. And then a few months later I heard of another open mic in downtown Phoenix. The venue was awful. It reeked of puke and piss and stale beer. The layers upon layers of cigarette smoke made it hard to breath, let alone see more than a few feet in front of you. When I left, I was sure I would never be back. That place was the Emerald Lounge. And for me, it ended up being the best local dive bar/venue in town.