boolar

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bradley and i were just outside getting our daily vitamin d when we noticed something on the wall. thanks to the portapooter, we were able to capture the moment.

hooked this here portlable computron up to the virtual storage container today in hopes of finally getting all (digital format, anyhow) boolar tracks into this machine. 422 tracks in four years. and those are only the ones that made it into the computer and got saved onto the hard drive. there are no fewer than hundreds of four-track tapes, poorly or not at all labeled, in boxes downstairs, many of which have been re-recorded over in moments of self-pity and hatred. i just bought 100 new 42 minute tapes. and bradley has at least ten cd compilations of instrumentals and songs from before we met/started making music together. what do we do with all of this stuff? i can’t wait for ten or twenty years from now when i get to put together a retrospective best-of compilation. here, try this track, way back from 2003 (don’t miss that vacuum cleaner solo at the end):

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listening to that song again (the first i ever wrote! i think, and maybe the third vocals i’d recorded) makes me laugh with shame cuz it reminds me of the first time we played it for another person.  i have to apologize to you, unnamed friend, for thinking i was sassy and whip-smart, but lacking confidence and defensively reacting to your question about my use of the word “acquiescence” (of which i was so proud… effortlessly rhyming:  whispered acquiesence/breaks the silence/we’re close to brilliance/or is it only madness).  i can’t believe the most creative reaction i could muster was:

look it up, you dumb *expletive*

i still remember the shock and awe on your face, but at least i can laugh about it now…

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right click (apple click) to play

i’m not feel well. not for a long time, like two weeks. i have a very hard time dealing with the low energy version of myself. i’m always like go! go! go! and my body has been like no! no! slow down, please! so i feel like crud. the paradox is that, while my physical body feels like shit (complete with aches and pains everywhere from mi cabeza to my hands, feet, and low back), my emotional, spiritual, and creative energy is sky high.

and why shouldn’t it be? somebody else (mushpot records, ya’ll) wants to put our music out this winter, my lover is the best lover ever and our relationship is true blue, my pets are cooler than yours, my job is actually fun (and i’m getting a much better schedule these days), spring is here (on the calendar, anyway), the farmer’s market is opening next week and the good vegetables are coming soon (god i can already taste the spring onions and those wonderful green garlic tops that taste better than asparagus), i get to go back to california once a month to spend a minute with my family (including my famously amazing new nephew, ian aziz), somebody i like very much indeed has offered me the hope of a position working closely with her in the the near future in a line of work i have never done, but at which i would be good, no, great, sussurus station are moving, not only to portland, my friends, but into this very house with us, which means exciting things for us all, i have a got-dimmed hammered dulcimer and i love to play it, improvising songs, including vocals, is getting easier and more rewarding all the time, i actually like living in portland these days, mostly because of the fabular community of people i have collected over the past three years, bradley is making spectaculous sounds with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and the echo plus right here beside me now, and i had the best lunch ever. the list could go on, i assure you. oh, and i won at scrabble today, by like 40 points.

and i gots some bummers, sure. i’m sickish stomach-wise again and don’t know how to make it stop, bradley’s grandma is having a hard time with chemo, working in a bar can be overly dramatic and draining, i gots car troubles, tooth troubles, and debt. but whatever. did i mention the acoustic guitar and echo plus soundtrack to which i’ve written this posting???

how are you? here is a photo of us taken right now a minute ago by the pooter.

p.s. i’ve just been notified that the alesis quadraverb gt was also involved in the above mentioned echoplus/guitar situtation.

for you, melissa.

soak a mixture of quinoa, hulled raw buckwheat, and millet several hours or (better) overnight in 1.5 cups of water for every cup of grains. make note of how high the water is, rinse and drain several times, and then re-fill with fresh, cold water. add salt (you know, about the right amount, but too much is okay, too, because we are going to add bunches of stuff to it) and cook by covering, heating to a boil, and then reducing the heat to low. meanwhile, saute some onions on high enough heat to brown the suckers. you can roast in the oven, steam, or saute the following veggies: finely chopped greens like kale, carrots or other roots, zucchini, and fennel bulb. add all those veggies, plus frozen green peas, crumbled bleu cheese (i like rogue’s smokey blue best, but any quality, raw milk cheese will do. raw milk is important because this is a cultured moldy cheese… it needs a living medium to do best! point reyes makes a lovely blue, if you are in california…) fresh minced garlic and flat-leaf parsley, plus any other herbs you like (i like thyme with these things, and rosemary, too) to the cooked grain mixture in a large salad bowl. toss with apple-cider vinegar to taste. dried mustard powder makes a wonderful addition, too. when it tastes good to you, adjusting things like salt and vinegar, and adding oil if it seems too dry (try flax seed oil, but olive will work, too) top with halved hard-boiled eggs, toasted walnuts (soak walnuts for 10-15 minutes, or longer, in salt water before toasting in the oven at about 375… they’ll be much less bitter and lovely!), some more minced fresh herbs, and maybe some of the fennel tops to decorate. i wish i’d taken a picture one of the many times i’ve made large bowls of this beautiful salad. next time, gadget, next time.

if i could write a song for myself right now, and if it hadn’t already been written, i’d write this one:

2. “Friends”
Time: 2:34 Irving Music, Inc. BMI
Master #59400 Recorded 3/??/68
Single released 4?/??/68 (Capitol-????)
Charted 4/20/68 Reached #47
A side with “Little Bird”
Brian Wilson/Carl Wilson/Dennis Wilson/Al Jardine

We’ve been friends now for so many years

We’ve been together through the good times and the tears

Turned each other on to the good things that life has to give

We drift apart for a little bit of a spell
One night I get a call and I know that you’re well
And days I was down you would help me get out of my hole

Ohhhhhhhh

Let’s be friends
Let’s be friends
Let’s be friends

You told me when my girl was untrue
I loaned you money when the funds weren’t too cool
I talked your folks out of making you cut off your hair

We’ve been friends now for so many years
We’ve been together through the good times and the tears
Dim dipple ee dim dipple ay dim dipple oo dim dee aye oh

please visit http://www.cabinessence.net/

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listen. right click apple click do something. listen. you may have heard this one before. revisiting to celebrate the fact that this here song made its way to sxsw this year on a sampler cd… thanks mushpot!

so i’m upside down
feet suspended by the clouds

when did you decide that this was true? my lover asked of me…
i dunno.

sometimes i get really fed up, working in a bar, with what i perceive to be energy wasted by all these talking people around me. go do something, i think. i’m working, earning money, i wouldn’t be here otherwise. go make something, go break something, go do something.
and then tell me the story, or show me the picture, or play me the song.

but some nights i’m more sympathetic.
they are here to connect. anybody coming out into public is looking for it. it’s just that some people are better at finding it.
polite, considerate people who have positive, entertaining stories to tell (or absurdist tricks and jokes) are more successful in their attempts to connect with one another. they are. so they are less desperate (less bitter and dejected, too) because they are fulfilled in that particular category of need (we humans have so many beyond food air water shelter), and can spend more energy doing something else. fulfilling their need to create, maybe.
what’s up with needs/wants anyhow? desire is the root of all pain, my little buddhists. so let’s quit wanting for things (listen, i’m not saying we should stop dreaming… please, visualize the world you want to live in and help create it) and not only accept the moment for what it is, but make the moment what we want it to be.

thank you to the people who make these moments for themselves and then share the products of their creative energy with me. i hear fantastic music, see beautiful things, and eat fabulous meals, all prepared lovingly by people i like, people who make their worlds magical.

keep on making magic, please. scratch my back, and i promise i’ll scratch back.

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nothing satisfies the cravings i sometimes don’t even know i have (but always do) like good old beans and rice. legumes and whole grains in general are my soul food, my comfort, especially when you consider that peanut butter and crackers even qualify for this category.

the mister had soaked up some millet and hulled (but not toasted, raw) buckwheat yesterday, which we made up in the rice cooker to have in yet another warm fish salad (this time it was steamed wild caught alaskan coho salmon, food club, and steamed veggies with homemade creme fraiche).

forethought being one of my many virtues, i soaked some pinto beans up all day, anticipating leftover grains for the next day’s lunch. before i went to bed, i drained the beans in a colander and left them that way, sprouting, until this morning. as we prepared our noon paneer (directly translated as bread cheese, which is actually served with an assortment of fruits and nuts, yum, yum) for breakfast, i dropped those pintos into a pot and boiled them up. actually, they never really came to a boil for more than a few minutes, cuz i turned the heat way down and let ‘em simmer all day long. when our tummies began to rumble this afternoon, i fried up some onions and mashed them beans up with feta (works in a pinch for that radbatical hard mexican cheese which i had not), grey sea salt, oregano, and my very own chili powder blend. had a tomato, red onion, avocado and lemon for a salsa of sorts (look, i feel guilty about the tomato and avocado– though organic, they were shipped to portland all the way from mexico. i try to avoid such produce that has travelled so far, but it has been a long winter and i felt like a special treat… get off my back), but i didn’t have any cilantro. no cilantro? i did, however, have some beautiful baby dino kale, which had made the water he was rinsing it with look like diamonds in the sunlight to my lover, who pointed them out to me. why not? it’s a pungent green leafy, too, right? and tender enough to eat raw…

beans and grains and greens, oh my. i think i got food high.

do you ever do that? it’s only ever happens for me after home-cooked meals or great fresh raw fish and miso… a buzz from energy food. better than coffee, better than weed, a stable, high-riding bliss that makes me giggle and wiggle. literally. i guess i’m just… sensitive.

i love you.

we’re broke, so the food has been simple… but it’s still delicious, so i’ll share.

last night i had a craving for potatoes and tuna. yes, potatoes, yes, tuna, yes, together.

steamed some 1″ cubes of potato, opened up a can of pisces tuna (low-mercury albacore caught off the oregon coast on the fishing vessel pisces, available at alberta co-op, $4.99 for about 7 ozs, or $3.75 direct from pisces, comes out of the can in one huge chunk from one little fish, mwah), tossed that shit with tiny bits of red onion, juice of one lemon, salemville blue cheese (made in oregon, better than the rogue oregonzola, and half the price, a steal at $6.99/lb, food front co-op), and barberries (mine come straight from iran–thanks, daddy–and i’ll share if you ask). when the tators were close to done (to the tooth, my friends), i added some chopped baby red russian kale (grown at chateau rideux (sp?) in north portland, available at the alberta co-op for $2.19 a tear-jerkingly beautiful bunch) and frozen peas (food club, aw yeeah).

i tossed that shit up with fresh ground celtic sea salt (food club again, aw yeeah). and that’s it. warm tuna potato salad. white and brown and green and red and blue. i loved it. bradley loved it. bird-uh loved it. boom.

wish i had a picture for you. next time.

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apple-click that shit to open in a new tab (don’t even tell me you aren’t browsing with firefox and you don’t tab&surf)

the time is now (it’s always been) to act confidently in the knowledge that you can (and in fact do) have an incredible amount of power in the world (it’s only as big as you are). note: i’m only ever speaking for myself (and to myself). if these ramblings appear to be self-indulgent, it is in fact because they are. i do not pretend to represent you. when i say “you,” i mean “one,” as in “one ought to behave as if one appreciates the daily opportunities one has to experience anything, any emotion one so chooses.” and when i say one, i mean me myself. end note.

hype your life. choose your day. stoke your own damn fire.

thank you dj b.hill, bamboo john, and jeff the lawyer for cultivating communication with your local servant last night.

bamboo john: boolar sounds like love-at-first-sight. boolar sounds like the technicolor glow of that vagina-tingling first conversation you have in the aisle of a record store. boolar sounds like a first-generation iranian-irish american girl trying to overdub herself into the same zip-code as brian, dennis, and carl wilson. boolar sounds like an unschooled guitarist who’d blow julian swales and kevin shields, given the opportunity. boolar sounds like zest, lemon zest for good songs and good sounds. boolar sounds like the laziest inspiration you ever had. boolar is my music. boolar is your music. as meaghan said, “because boolar isn’t just a band. it’s a way of life.” chee-hee-heesy, but goddamned true.

i love you.