Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song VIII -- Everything Turns Out OK

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This is the wrap-up! I felt like I'd been to the darker places in my psyche for the better part of the month, it was time to put a bow on it, ship it off and move on to the next thing. Little nod to my friend Josh Russell at the end of the bridge (the extended last chord in a section is something that always makes me think of him) bigger nod to my sweetie as a second verse. This is one of the more listened-to songs from the album, so there's something to feel good about!

There are two more songs from this project at my macidol page that are both good things, just not the central pieces of the record for me. An a capella piece called "seven ways" that I like as well as anything else on this record, and a cowrite with my friend PJ that is lyrically a little weak (something had to be, I wrote ten songs in 28 days!) but has some of my best harmony singing on it. There's a whole slew of other recordings there, across a whole wide range of styles. Most of it is downloadable and all of it is free. Check it out, and thanks for listening to all of these tracks.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song VII -- Sand

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Next to last one! It's the melodrama song of the set! You know what, though? I love it; I feel like it's one of my better songs. It's dark & despairing, but it has some really nice turns of phrase and I think it's a good vocal performance.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song VI -- Waxahatchee (new mix)

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This song was generated as a nonsense poem for a usenet group dedicated to nonsequitur. The central character is a cow, in case you were wondering. The lyrics for several of the songs for this project began as automatic writing, and somehow ended up being more than that. This is the one place where my (at that point unacknowledged) transgender-ness pops up. Which is in keeping, I guess. Always somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea that somehow I could maintain my female identity as a kind of secret alter-ego. It would show up just like this one. At this time in my life, however, I was having a lot of trouble dealing with it. All the depression and anger that were fueling the songs on this record, so many uncomfortable things about my life coming to an ultimate point, and underlying all of them the feeling that I was living the wrong life. Within a few months of completing this record, I would realize that I had to do something or things were going to get much worse for me.

Deadman Turner once again brings up the quality and the fun quotient of the track about 100% with his guitar work.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song V -- Kamakura

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This is the first song I wrote and recorded for the project. I felt that I had to start from faith, and that meant a lot of different things to me. I knew I was going to be writing about my life, either directly or indirectly, and as a Nichiren Buddhist, I understand Nam Myoho Renge Kyo as being life itself. So I began from the notion that whatever struggles I face, I have a place to go to refresh my spirit, and a source of power for change. I felt free to just lay my cards on the table, and talk about where I was & where I was going. I also felt like I was making the determination to see the project of writing these ten songs through.

"Kamakura" refers to a city in Japan, and is a reference to a quote from a letter written by the priest Nichiren Daishonin to a follower to encourage them not to give up: "Be diligent in developing your faith until the last moment of your life. Otherwise you will have regrets. For example, the journey from Kamakura to Kyoto takes twelve days. If you travel for eleven but stop with only one day remaining, how can you admire the moon over the capital?" (Letter to Niike).

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song IV -- The Things I Didn't Do

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This is one of two songs from this collection of songs that feature Deadman Turner on lead guitar.

This one is exploring the self destructive side of my imagination. Once again, we return to the feeling of being trapped, and the cost of getting free. What do you think: is the feeling at the ending of this song scary or hopeful?

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song III -- Bills Come Due

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Kind of a party song, with the requisite "I'm doing something I shouldn't" edginess. It's a Bakersfield-style rave-up that would have been at home on Trax on Wax 4, at least that's how I intended it. It's definitely a Friday night song!

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon. Song II -- 2007

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This song is central to the experience of the record. Minimalist 2-chord structure meant to evoke a kind of desperate monotony. Amped up, charging around in a too-small cage is how I pictured it. The solo was intended to evoke an ambulance siren. Lyrically, it seems like a series of random observations, but isn't. It's a certain brand of punk rock broadside, following the tradition of Iggy & The Stooges (1969 1970), The Clash (1977) and others. As I believe is true with those songs, the observation points both ways: both out into the world and inside me. I envision a sort of shell game. As I examine each factoid, whether cosmic or completely mundane or somewhere in between, I was asking myself, "Is this it? Is this why I am so full of angst?" Connect the dots, indeed.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon. Song I -- Goodbye

I am blogging the tracks for my 2007 RPM Challenge album Fuyu Persimmon. I am really proud of this record, and have since realized that I was struggling with major life issues that informed the songwriting and the performances.


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I'm starting with "the single." This was the track that was played at the RPM meet-up in Portsmouth that year, and represents the project's strengths very well.

RPM is a challenge to write ten songs (or make 35 minutes of music) in a month and record them. I set myself up to succeed, and this is the only time I managed it. I defined a band sound for myself with specific instrumentation: guitar, bass, and lap dulcimer. The drums were all apple loops, which come with garage band, the program I used to record all of my music at macidol. I intentionally used my second-best instruments to force me to play simply and directly: my Yamaha beater that has band stickers all over the top, my acoustic bass guitar that has the action set 'way too high, and a dulcimer that was barely playable then -- I struggled to keep it in tune and often didn't succeed -- and is totally unplayable now.

This song sets the tone for the project thematically as well. Full of regret but still looking forward. There were some goodbyes I needed to say, to people who were no longer around, to dreams I was no longer reaching for.

Screed

I am feeling more than a bit cynical this morning. It looks to me like, instead of using this lame duck session to put through as much of a rational, forward-looking social agenda as possible before the end of the session, or at least fighting for some of the changes we need, the Democrats in congress and the administration are going to spend this valuable time compromising with a majority in one of two houses in congress that isn’t even seated yet. This galls me. I am beginning to think some very cynical things. Here are the two main points:

1.) If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.
2.) The Democratic Party is the sucker wing of the Corporate Oligarchy.

If the Dems were a serious party looking towards the future, it is my belief that they would be fighting tooth and nail for certain specific things:

1.) Making sure that the world will not be an ecological nightmare when our grandchildren are our age
2.) Finding ways to end America’s status as the world’s leading incarcerator of its own citizens
3.) Changing the tax structure so that we are not in debt and so that we are able to maintain and improve out crumbling infrastructure.
4.) Creating a British-style National Health Service
5.) Reducing our military to rational levels. We have been on “war footing” since World War 2 and we can’t afford it any more. We cannot afford any more foreign adventures that cost in lives and resources to the extent our two current ones do.
6.) Dismantle the TSA. NO POLICE STATE!!!

We do all of things my above list opposes for the benefit of the corporatocracy. We do not support our people, we support the rich. The Democrats talk a mediocre game and deliver basically in the range of weak tea to absolutely nothing.

A committed left would not tolerate being represented by lackeys.

Voted

So it was, as usual, a great feeling to go out and vote this morning. It was a little warmer today than I had expected, which was pleasant. I even actually felt OK with walking though piles of leaves to get to the polling place (usually not a fan of fall, because it means summer is over.)

I generally dress up a little bit on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I have class those nights and I have made a bit of a deal about being trans in both classes. Today I put a little extra effort into my looks so I could go to the polls and express myself as a transwoman in that context as well. I wore my new calf-length beige skirt and a purple top, my black jacket with a sparkly purple scarf, my purple houndstooth print socks & my black mary janes. I didn't feel intimidated at all, I think I'm finally over the shyness, and said my name (still legally my old boy name) and took my card and went to the booth. I would like to acknowledge that the poll helpers were all cheerful and helpful. That made me smile.

As to how I voted -- I don't mind saying. I voted straight D, I think in my district that was the right thing to do. There's a trans voting guide being circulated by MTPC and for me, the Ds were pretty uniformly in favor of the trans rights bill that has been hanging around our state congress for a while now. As someone who's pretty lefty anyway, I was actually mostly OK with those choices.

Of course, I'm not really a Democrat, so there were a couple of races where I felt like I wanted to vote differently, but circumstances forced me to just vote the straight ticket against my own desires in three races in particular. I voted for Patrick for governor, in spite of having a strong preference for Jill Stein. Grumble, grumble. Jill is an acquaintance and I like her a whole lot. She has fought hard for a number of issues that I stand strongly in favor of. One of those issues is to change the way we vote from "either / or" to a more "first choice / second choice" model, which I think would be very democratizing and would ultimately serve the people much better. I was really wishing for that this morning.

I also held my nose and voted for Martha Coakley. I am not sure she's very good at her job, and I am so angry with her about the egregious senatorial campaign she ran last year that I really wanted to just leave her office's race blank on my ballot. Once again, there was a scary "R" next to the other name in that race, so Martha got a gimme. I think she counts on them, actually.

There was a Green / Rainbow candidate in the State Auditor's race, named Nat Fortune, who I was going to assuage my guilt and vote for, but ultimately, there was that scary "R" again. grrr.

There were 3 questions on the ballot related to reducing taxation & regulation, and I voted against all of them. There were 2 non-binding human rights questions that I wholeheartedly voted for. As a transwoman and a Buddhist, I absolutely believe health care is a right, and that no government should be making laws supporting one religion in detriment to another.

So there you go. I do feel like it was a great thing to get to the polls, it does make me glad I'm living in a somewhat-democracy when I go to the polls and feel like some of my candidates have a chance of getting in, and that my voice is being heard. I hope you voted today, too.