Shama-lama-ding-dongs:
I just wrote you a long and link-filled love letter about the new legislation in Congress to counteract radio consolidation, proposed by a Wisconsin guy and supported by the beloved Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone.
(Then the computer crashed and completely demoralized me, and destroyed the entry.)
Anyway, is it any surprise Midwesterners are pushing for good radio?
Nope.
Midwesterners are culturally evolved and musically deep.
Oh yeah, I'm still in Minneapolis.
Last night I wanted to hang out with my soul brother Jim Walsh, but the final time I called him his wife Jean said he was seeing Paul Westerberg at the Guthrie.
So I called my GF Suzanne and we drove around Uptown, trying to think where to drink. The Leaning Tower of Pizza's electricity was all busted, so we drove by my fave dive, the Red Dragon (Minneapolis's Ye Rustic Inn), but the bug bit me for Liquor Lyle's. I never ever go there ever, but it just bit me, so we went.
It was totally packed and sporty and gross, but in the back room I get this special feeling and I look up across the room and who's smiling at me but Jim Walsh! With his best friend Craig Wright!
I guess the concert ended early.
Craig made us drink several rounds of tequila. You see, Craig's new play isn't finished and it is due to the theater today.That is why he was at Liquor Lyle's doing tequila shots.
This is how it is to write.
If I'm not mistaken, the play actually opens in two weeks.
Jim asked me to explain to him again what John Frusciante and Jack White had said about the importance of creative limitation in songwriting.
So I explain it. As you may have read on this blog, John's explanation began with a polemic assertion that there is no free will in the traditional sense, but rather a sort of a-linear perfection to all experience, which supercedes the concept of individual freedom.
So I'm explaining it, and Craig goes, "That is what I have been saying for six months--and not only the same idea, butword for word."
This is what his play is about.
We argue for ages because it turns out that I have fundamental problems with Craig's take on this concept. Unlike John, Craig seems to use it to say, personal ethics are obsolete.
This is pure bullshit.
Every time he said something, I disagreed with it passionately, and on many levels. But he said, Kate, everything you say, I agree with.
Maybe it was the tequila, or maybe it was something deeper than logic that was bugging me.
But I now officially love Craig. He's such an incredible wonderful insane freak.
He's moving to L.A. in a month to be a big-shot writer for "Six Feet Under." I never watch TV but if the show starts becoming good, you'll know why. Craig also has a new songwriting/publishing deal and is making outrageously delicious bubble-gum pop songs full of "sha na na"s and handclaps. When Jim played it for me I freaked out, it was so Radio Disney, in all the best ways. It was everything Radio Disney promises to be, and sometimes is: Smart, subversive, sexual kiddy-pop for grown-ups (and kidz).
So, at midnight Craig stands up suddenly and says, I'm walking home.
We try to get him to catch a ride with one of us but he refuses. He's walking. And so he leaves, and walks down Franklin Avenue all the way to St. Paul.
In L.A., this would be the equivalent of walking down Franklin Ave. from where it begins near Curson, near Laurel Canyon, to where it ends at St. George in Silverlake.
A month ago, I tried to explain to Craig and his wife that they need to live in Silverlake, but they're moving near LACMA.
You can lead a genius to Silverlake but you can't make him rent. (oof--sorry)
After Craig left Liquor Lyle's, we had a long talk about community and L.A. and Minneapolis.
See, walking to the bar last night, me and Suzanne pass by a basement-level apt. with the windows open and the lights on. Inside are racks and racks of LPs, a turn-table, old rock posters, junk and books everywhere.
This is Minneapolis.
This is Minneapolis.
This is Minneapolis.
I'll shut up now and go walk around Lake Calhoun now before sunset. The sun goes down here at 9 p.m.
Freak out!
Love,
Kate
I just wrote you a long and link-filled love letter about the new legislation in Congress to counteract radio consolidation, proposed by a Wisconsin guy and supported by the beloved Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone.
(Then the computer crashed and completely demoralized me, and destroyed the entry.)
Anyway, is it any surprise Midwesterners are pushing for good radio?
Nope.
Midwesterners are culturally evolved and musically deep.
Oh yeah, I'm still in Minneapolis.
Last night I wanted to hang out with my soul brother Jim Walsh, but the final time I called him his wife Jean said he was seeing Paul Westerberg at the Guthrie.
So I called my GF Suzanne and we drove around Uptown, trying to think where to drink. The Leaning Tower of Pizza's electricity was all busted, so we drove by my fave dive, the Red Dragon (Minneapolis's Ye Rustic Inn), but the bug bit me for Liquor Lyle's. I never ever go there ever, but it just bit me, so we went.
It was totally packed and sporty and gross, but in the back room I get this special feeling and I look up across the room and who's smiling at me but Jim Walsh! With his best friend Craig Wright!
I guess the concert ended early.
Craig made us drink several rounds of tequila. You see, Craig's new play isn't finished and it is due to the theater today.That is why he was at Liquor Lyle's doing tequila shots.
This is how it is to write.
If I'm not mistaken, the play actually opens in two weeks.
Jim asked me to explain to him again what John Frusciante and Jack White had said about the importance of creative limitation in songwriting.
So I explain it. As you may have read on this blog, John's explanation began with a polemic assertion that there is no free will in the traditional sense, but rather a sort of a-linear perfection to all experience, which supercedes the concept of individual freedom.
So I'm explaining it, and Craig goes, "That is what I have been saying for six months--and not only the same idea, butword for word."
This is what his play is about.
We argue for ages because it turns out that I have fundamental problems with Craig's take on this concept. Unlike John, Craig seems to use it to say, personal ethics are obsolete.
This is pure bullshit.
Every time he said something, I disagreed with it passionately, and on many levels. But he said, Kate, everything you say, I agree with.
Maybe it was the tequila, or maybe it was something deeper than logic that was bugging me.
But I now officially love Craig. He's such an incredible wonderful insane freak.
He's moving to L.A. in a month to be a big-shot writer for "Six Feet Under." I never watch TV but if the show starts becoming good, you'll know why. Craig also has a new songwriting/publishing deal and is making outrageously delicious bubble-gum pop songs full of "sha na na"s and handclaps. When Jim played it for me I freaked out, it was so Radio Disney, in all the best ways. It was everything Radio Disney promises to be, and sometimes is: Smart, subversive, sexual kiddy-pop for grown-ups (and kidz).
So, at midnight Craig stands up suddenly and says, I'm walking home.
We try to get him to catch a ride with one of us but he refuses. He's walking. And so he leaves, and walks down Franklin Avenue all the way to St. Paul.
In L.A., this would be the equivalent of walking down Franklin Ave. from where it begins near Curson, near Laurel Canyon, to where it ends at St. George in Silverlake.
A month ago, I tried to explain to Craig and his wife that they need to live in Silverlake, but they're moving near LACMA.
You can lead a genius to Silverlake but you can't make him rent. (oof--sorry)
After Craig left Liquor Lyle's, we had a long talk about community and L.A. and Minneapolis.
See, walking to the bar last night, me and Suzanne pass by a basement-level apt. with the windows open and the lights on. Inside are racks and racks of LPs, a turn-table, old rock posters, junk and books everywhere.
This is Minneapolis.
This is Minneapolis.
This is Minneapolis.
I'll shut up now and go walk around Lake Calhoun now before sunset. The sun goes down here at 9 p.m.
Freak out!
Love,
Kate
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