Somebody's Mother

I have posted an ad in the rideshare section of Craigslist, because Courtney Love's Hole - her new, improved Hole - is playing Live 105's BFD at the Shoreline Amphitheatre this Sunday, and it would be shameful of me not to make an honest attempt to finally see this borderline psychotic, borderline genius, enduring freakshow of a woman - an icon in whom I have, for some highly questionable reason, invested so much emotion and significance for at least 15 years now - live and in concert, at last.

How would I describe Courtney to an alien from another planet who had never heard of her? Well, to me anyway, she's sort of a rock-and-roll (Bride-of-) Frankenstein combining the poetry of Patty Smith and Anne Sexton with the fiery scorn of Lydia Lunch, the punk-rock style of Siouxsie Sioux and Exene Cervenka (not so much the talentless Nancy Spungen), the sheer emotional intensity and towering cultural iconicity of Janis Joplin, the combatively controversial persona of Madonna and Yoko Ono and Sinead O'Connor, the fragility of Tori Amos and a dozen other vulnerable and more traditionally feminine singer-songwriter types, with...the glass-and-gravel vocals of PJ Harvey and Johnette Napolitano and Medusa and Medea, the on-stage spontaneity and unpredictability of Iggy Pop and Wendy O'Williams, the plastic surgery of Amanda Lepore, the trainwreck life-as-performance-trash-ness of Frances Farmer and the late Anna Nicole Smith, the smoky glamour of an old-school movie star like Clara Bow or the younger Bette Davis, the oversexed brashness of Blanche DuBois....shall I go on? What I'm saying is, girlfriend is COMPLEX. She's not just a walking study in demonology, she's....sort of a walking study of womanhood in the 21st Century. She's an enigma, and I love enigmas. For all her TMI and metaphorical nakedness, seeming to throw it all away and tell us all the truth, there is something central and secret that she never actually gives away. That must be what keeps me guessing, and paying attention.

I just received my copy of Hole's new album, Nobody's Daughter, today - the first real, solid, physical album I've purchased in...years? (I stopped buying music about a decade ago? Abandoning it, for some reason, in favor of other art forms like film and literature.) And it's pretty fucking good. Good enough that I'm sure after a few dozen more spins it'll permanently bond itself to my soul and psyche the way ALL of Love's four previous albums - including her not-entirely-terrible solo album, 2004's cheekily titled America's Sweetheart - have done.

For better or worse, she fills a space in (un)popular culture that would be naught but a gaping hole in her absence.

From the liner notes of Nobody's Daughter (quoted without permission, yet with respect):

Nobody’s Daughter is dedicated to all the motherless children and fatherless babies in this world. This record is dedicated to the light and to the eternal clonthian fire. This record is dedicated to numinosity and to vengeance and to sobriety. To the delusion of the ten world and to the endless cycle of birth life old age and death with enlightenment firmly in our sights.
We are dedicated to the deepest love, the truest love and the purest self love. We are dedicated to a rapacious greed for living and for Gods sake holding onto yourself in a hurricane knowing you are so loved.
This is dedicated to complete surrender. Just give in baby, just give in and you will find the light inside of yourself full of hate and fury, piss and vinegar, cracked mirrors and total self annihilation.
But the light, the light will overcome, just hang on. And in the end, Love and nothing but Love.

The calm before the ecstasy

And I’m 33. I believe Bette Davis once remarked, “Ah, to be 33 forever!” And look what happened to her.

My boxes are snugly nestled at Vicky’s house until such time as I need them shipped to San Francisco. My social obligations are fulfilled, with the gathering last night at Chameleon now history, except for another two-hour volunteer shift as a greeter at the closing party of the Love Show tomorrow, and maybe one or two other minor things. Now all I have to do is get Lucy dropped off at her new home (still not sure where that’s going to be, but I have a couple options now, and Vicky also said she could be a backup if all else fails) and unload my computer – a guy’s coming to look at it tomorrow. I’m really proud of myself for getting on the ball so early with packing and readying for this transition. Now all I have to do is coast down the last few days until I board the plane, relatively stress-free. This is the calm before the ecstasy. The ecstasy, of course, being Maui, seeing my cousin again, and all the great things we have in the works when I get out there.

Damien, who left Portland for San Francisco last year and lives in the Mission, said a friend told him that “San Francisco hipsters make Portland hipsters look like gutterpunks.” That sounds all right to me, if I interpret this comment correctly to mean that the S.F. kids are dressier, more upscale, more refined perhaps. I’ve been thinking about being a full-time dandy for a while: vintage suits every day, just for the hell of it. Looking sharp, well-groomed, well-coiffed, balancing on the fine line between elegance and pretension. I think I can pull that off. Maybe not three years ago, but this tiger CAN change his stripes. Damien also said I’d love his neighborhood, in response to my remark about the kind of guys I’m attracted to most: the slim, pale-skinned, dark haired lads.

I’ve met a nice boy here named Alexander, of course a week before I leave Portland.

Prez Obama is on the Tonight Show in a few minutes and I’m going to watch it – I never watch the late night shows, but come on, it’s our president! Kirk is bellyaching about how he voted for Obama for hope and change and now he’s disappointed, but I just ignore the feeble backlash for the most part. Bush had eight years to fuck everything up, let’s give Obama more than three months to fix it.

If I want to get into acting, where should I start? I guess I need to meet some actors in the City and see what doors I can open through the magic of social networking. That’s one thing that still doesn’t come naturally to me, at least not all the time, but I’ve definitely improved.

Lisa is off to Seattle for the next stop on her itinerary. We had a lot of fun doing karaoke for five hours at the E Room on St. Patrick’s Day, hitting a strip club on Hawthorne, then more debauchery at Chameleon and Sam’s Billiards last night, but I fell off the wagon a bit. I know my partying days are ending because if I skip exercising one day I find myself craving it. When we brought my boxes over to Vicky’s today, I met Vicky’s cat Audrey Hepburn, a BEAUTIFUL black cat with Siamese blood who looks and acts a lot like a pure-black version of Lucy. Absolutely beautiful, a lovely pantherette with gorgeous yellow-and-black eyes. I fell in love with her on the spot. If Lucy ends up being permanently re-homed here and I don’t get her back in the City, I’m going to try to find a cat like Audrey in my new home.

It’s almost over now, and I am so ready.