Monday, August 03, 2009

The End Times, post-finale hugfest

Goodbye, ladies. We're really gone now, on the Oregon coast (Depoe Bay at this moment), still not sure what we wanna do with the next ten days before I'm due in Detroit. As I expected, I'm experiencing mixed feelings about the move and as relieved as I am to be finally finished with our business in Seattle, I'm still mourning a very fruitful period in my life. While living in the Emerald City, I:

1. Wrote a handful of articles and numerous reviews/previews for the much-lauded gay-themed alternative weekly The Stranger. Interviewed Rudy Ray Moore and Greg Ashley.

2. Served as Film Editor for nationally-distributed quarterly arts magazine Resonance. Interviewed Johnny Strike from Crime, Lech Kowalski, Miranda July, Rick Prelinger and Daniel Clowes.

3. Performed every song from the Damned's debut LP (Damned, Damned, Damned) for a Halloween show at the Funhouse with a band that featured a former member of Cat Butt.

4. Wrote numerous articles for an upstart Seattle music magazine called Seattle Sound. Interviewed Dr. Know from Bad Brains, Brandi Carlile and a guy who plays glass armonica on Linda Ronstadt records.

5. Formed the perfect band, wrote the best songs of my life, lost the perfect band, cried for a whole summer. Resurrected the perfect band with new personnel, came back stronger than before and learned lessons about confidence and self-esteem that I hope I can actually retain in the future.

6. Put together a choir and played bass in a band that included pretty girls in skimpy Santa costumes.

7. Fried bacon for the first time. That's not a euphemism, I hadn't actually done it before. I also helped roast a pig, had to pry its rigor-mortised mouth open while someone else pulled the tongue out. This at seven in the morning after three hours of hungover sleep. It was surreal.

8. Worked in an adult novelty/bachelorette party supply warehouse, and wrote the text for said organization's porn trivia card game.

9. Got married, twice, to the same woman.

10. Recorded dozens of songs at Egg Studios with Conrad Uno at the helm.

11. Got airplay on nationally-recognized local public radio station KEXP and performed live on Evergreen College's student radio station KAOS (earning my very first speeding ticket on the way).

Since eleven is my favorite number, I'll leave it there. There's way more I could add, but eventually we'd be getting into more personal territory (new friends, bitter fights, confusing relationships) and some things I still need to keep close to the vest. I have loved Seattle despite the city's tendency towards smugness, insincerity and bleak weather ... I am better in many ways because of it.

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