Categories
Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs Nashville

You Ain’t the Man

 

Saint in blue with cross on forehead.At the time I wrote this song, I always wore boots. Generally white boots, since brown boots represented drudgery and losing track of your life’s purpose, and black boots represented tyrany and abuse. They couldn’t have heels in case I needed to run for my life. They needed thin souls, so the pounding of my feet against hard surfaces would stimulated my electrical systems. And the toes had to be pointy- to represent fire.

Pants needed to be flexible and yielding enough to kick a predator in the chest and then escape over a tall fence. But sweat pants were out of the question, since they dampened my electrical circuits. Shorts were impossible, since they triggered water-attacks (the feeling that I was dying of thirst.) Skirts were less than ideal, since they make you reluctant to hang upside down or climb a pole, but it was generally skirts that I ended up with anyway. At least they let your legs be free (I hated it when pants touched my legs), and generally you only need to climb trees at nighttime anyway, when the bad guys are all out.

I needed shirts that would cover my shoulders and the back of my neck, which I could not bear to have exposed. But no turtlenecks- they brought to mind strangulation. And no sweaters, since I feared they would absorb the electricity from my body. Multiple layers of fabric covering my heart were a must and I preferred it to be something hard and form-fitting, like a suit of armor, which frequently led to me wearing extra layers of underwear on top of my shirts.

I always wore a hat, even indoors and even at night. I didn’t feel safe without one, and it needed to have the widest brim possible, which generally meant I ended up wearing fussy outdoor-wedding hats covered in lace and silk flowers, a look I didn’t much care for. And last but not least, I needed a gigantic cross pendant, to keep anyone from trying to steal my soul. Later, I switched from a cross to a letter A.

Download MP3: You Ain’t the Man

Categories
Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire Santa Fe

Shed Some Blood

 

Lord Horatio Nelson with eye patch and ribbon.I used to believe in “Silver-haired soldiers,” which is more or less the notion that older men are wiser and more benevolent than younger ones. Unfortunately, while they may be wiser, I have learned the hard way that they are by no means more benevolent. Personalities can soften and harden, hearts can open and close, but wolves never seem to turn into sheep, no matter how much time you give them.

But I do think older predators tend to take on more lofty and benevolent personas than younger ones. They are more subtle and shrewd, and very rarely seen outside of their sheep’s clothing.

As for whether or not people get wiser over time, it is hard to say. Time brings perspective and experience, but also pain and unresolved emotions which can thicken into phlegm and finally dry into a hard crust inside our hearts and brains.

But still, I do think we have faculties that continue opening up to us throughout our life, including psychic and supernatural ones, even though many of these may be outside the vision of our culture.

“Let no one beneath the age of 84 years call himself a man.”  -Confucius

Download MP3: Shed Some Blood

Categories
Los Angeles Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Ring of Fire

 

Nude Lady with green fire hose on red background.

I feel like I need to come up with a wholesome explanation for the sentiments expressed in this song, and luckily I have one. It is a song about fire. As I’ve mentioned before, I used to be very very interested in fire and the spirits of fire, despite not being a very fiery person by nature. My obsession with fire may have had a bit of Helsinki Syndrome to it, since it only began after being dominated by some extremely fiery people that I was unable to escape. Over time the obsession grew into addiction (to fire), and a compulsion to remove everything watery from my nature. The mania really only ended when the fire had nothing left to burn, when I no longer had any friends, possessions or even brain cells to call my own.

The nature of fire is to touch and consume, to tear down boundaries and remove clothes. That is what fire does, I don’t know why, and those are the sorts of images fire gives to people close to it.

Download MP3: Ring of Fire

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs Nashville Plants and the Emerald Kingdom

I also wanted to Make Love

 

Garth Brooks and his horse on a mountain path in Mexico.I like this song because it is a question song, and I really like questions. I like people who ask questions, and I love asking them myself. I’ve been trying to cut back though, because it can get to the point where I only ask questions and never make any statements at all. James (who may be biased because he hates questions and comes from a culture where they are neither asked nor answered) has also warned me that constantly asking questions could make me seem unintelligent.

But for some reason, appearing unintelligent has never bothered me. At times, it has been a source of joy, like in school, where through a campaign of routinely saying the dumbest things I could think of, I was able to change my horrible nickname “Brain,” to the more palatable “Brainless.” Being Brainless was fun. Brain had to stick to the program, saying things others could understand and appreciate, but Brainless wasn’t confined to those narrow gray crevices. She was free to explore, to soar to the clouds, to give the right answer OR the wrong one, if the spirit moved her.

Still, freedom  can lead to exhilaration,  and sometimes spin into intoxication and mania. One thing I have learned to appreciate about intelligence, even feigned intelligence, is its sobering and grounding aspects.

Download MP3: I Also Wanted to Make Love

Categories
Music & Songs Santa Fe Uncategorized

Greensleeves

 

Guatemalan Baby carrying plants on head.At some point while living in Santa Fe, I decided I had to change my favorite colors if I wanted to be a true musician. Pink would no longer do. I felt that blue- with a little green mixed in- was the true color of music. The true purpose of music, as I saw it, was to tap into parallel realities so that the expanse of our everyday world could be increased. Blue is open and expanding, while green gives things a wicked twist helping us to see things from non-human perspectives.

I see life as a big green expanse of land with roads cut through it. Life itself may be grand, but our perceptions, thoughts, and even emotions are generally limited to travelling the roads that have been carved out by others. Sometimes this can get a little claustrophobic, depending on how many roads we have access to. A limited view of life can also cause pettiness and greed, as we try to grab as many donuts as possible from the tiny tray in front of us. Some people try to expand their reality through drugs, but if you’re not  careful you could end up off-roading it and never finding your way back. Some people join spiritual cults and religions, which helps to liberate pieces of them while locking the unacceptable parts in cages. But music, on the other hand, is just about communicating with new realities while trying to keep your feet planted in your current one. That way you can gradually learn about new roads to travel, and even find some places to build new ones.

So, I thought blue-green would help me accomplish this. Too bad I was so poor that the only way I could change favorite colors was to buy a blue teddy bear sweater I saw on clearance, and wear it on my head like a hat.

Download MP3: Greensleeves

Categories
Music & Songs Nashville Santa Fe Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Blessings from the Father

 

Ladies... this is a nude man. Naked man with black kidney.

 

I started painting nude women to please my husband, and then at some point I started painting nude men as a form of rebellion. It was very satisfying and I never went back. Even now when I see a “Cowboys in Shorts” calender it makes me feel giddy with feelings of freedom and power, like a bird flying out of its cage.

Not that by nature I like nude pictures of men anymore than the average person (who I know from experience is not fond of them!) But I do think that in a culture where women are frequently objectified (some call that a phallocracy), they are funny and refreshing.

Once I started hanging around my nude male paintings, however, they became a lot more than just refreshing. Once the shock value wore off, I started to find feelings of great comfort and safety in their presence. Nude men like these will never let anyone hurt you. And they are every bit as sensitive and caring as they are strong. They are true blue and have nothing to hide. They will be there for you forever and ever.

I guess through my own paintings I was able to envision men who were givers, not takers, and supportive rather than narcissistic. I don’t think this would have happened if I was painting men with clothes on.  It is through their musculature, organs, and the shape of their bodies that these men reveal their true natures. Sometimes a face can be a mask, but organs never lie.

Download MP3: Blessing from the Father

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs Nashville

Who Will Make Love to Me?

 

Are you ready for space? Grey alien with big eyes in pants suit.

 

 

It seems that, for a while now, the color white has been trying to take over the (human) world. White walls, open space floor plans, buddhism, yoga, kale smoothie detoxes… when will the reign of white ever end?

At the time I wrote this song I was completely swept up into the color white, trying to wear, eat, and decorate with it exclusively. White can be refreshing and protective, but geez, it can also be such a cold color, disconnecting you from everything warm and earthy.

 

Download MP3: Who Will Make Love to Me?

Categories
Los Angeles Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Life Everlasting

 

Self-portrait in blue coat on red background.

One of my dearest wishes, at the time I wrote this song, was to be illiterate. If only I could have a clean and unconditioned mind, I felt there were so many things I could do and know… the sky would be the limit for me.

Books written by humans seemed like a distraction to me- a way of constraining my mind within a narrow bandwidth of information- when the whole world that surrounded me, with all its colors, shapes, and fragrances, was a page of a book written in the language of the angels (which I called Angelese). Angelese is a language of symbols and the senses, the notion that everything we perceive around us is deeply meaningful and that our hearts are naturally capable of discerning this meaning.

Because people lie all the time, and constantly distort the truth. But in the book of angels, the truth will always be written out, clear as day. As the pedophile walks down the street, there will be a sign, an impression somewhere, that tells you who he is.

 

 

Download MP3: Life Everlasting

Categories
Kentucky Music & Songs The Savage Life Uncategorized

Easter Hill

 

Nude woman with pastel ribbon and polka dots.

When I wrote this song, I was scared all the time. A feeling of absolute terror and doom was a constant in my life. If I was taking a shower, I would feel like a psycho was just about to pull back the shower curtain. If I was walking outside, I would feel like a car was just about to screech to a halt and force me inside at gunpoint.

Because of that, I suppose, I tried to surround myself by things that were as non-threatening as possible. Everything in my apartment had to be pale pink (or white when that wasn’t possible). Pictures of unicorns had to fill every wall (preferably baby unicorns being protected by their mothers). I only read children’s books and rarely  ate anything other than dessert. I would spazz out and begin to cry if James mentioned anything remotely dangerous or violent from the news or world events.

Smells would especially freak me out. I couldn’t tolerate the smell of any savory food. And perhaps due to living in such a smell bubble, my sense of smell started to get more and more sensitive. Soon, I could tell what James was thinking about through subtle “smell puffs” he would release. Cupcake or baked good puffs meant he wanted to spend time with me, and the faintest puff of meat and tomatoes meant he was thinking about work, with garlic and onions being added if he was angry at his boss.

 

Download MP3: Easter Hill

Categories
Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Music & Songs Nashville

Little Russian Boy

Kevin Srebnick in brown shirt with indigo background.   This song has its roots in a dream I had as kid, in which a boy dressed in rags would run through a never-ending cityscape of ruins. I knew it was Russia because the ground was soft brown/tan and the sky was robin’s egg blue and endless. That is always how I imagine Russia- an endless expanse of light brown earth under an endless light blue sky. No plants, no water, just earth and air.               Download MP3: Little Russian Boy