THIS Rhett Butler Will Never Die

well, i finally regained access to my BraveJournal blog, where i like to do my personal blogging. i've survived the holidays pretty much. spent them alone basically. very alone. very very. alone. uh, got my new camera. the months ahead are going to be lean, as i will too become... thank you all who have ever taken the time to read what i type here. i appreciate it. honestly i do. oh, i'm going to start a Flickr project on the first of the year. 365 days of a self portrait of being bipolar i'm going to call it...

Adrian Belew (born December 23, 1949 as Robert Steven Belew) is an American guitarist and vocalist (and sometimes drummer, pianist and bass player), perhaps best known for his work as a member of the progressive rock group King Crimson, which he first joined in 1981. He has also released a number of solo albums for Island Records and Atlantic Records, and has worked with many other musicians. He was nominated for a Grammy in 2005, for his single, "Beat Box Guitar", which was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. In addition, Belew is well-regarded for his contributions, particularly on guitar, to various other artists' recordings. In 1977, he performed with Frank Zappa, appearing in Zappa's 1979 concert film Baby Snakes, as well as Zappa's controversial album Sheik Yerbouti. In addition to playing lead guitar on David Bowie's 1979 album, Lodger, he also supported him on his Stage world tour in 1978 and the Sound + Vision world tour in 1990 as music...

It's the birthday of the singer, songwriter, and composer Frank Zappa , (books by this author) born in Baltimore, Maryland (1940). When he was 15, he read a magazine article that described the work of the avant-garde classical composer Edgar Varese as "the ugliest music in the world," and he decided he had to hear it. That turned him into a huge fan of 20th-century classical music. He later said, " I didn't have any kind of musical training, so it didn't make any difference to me if I was listening to Lightnin' Slim ... or Stravinsky. To me, it was all good music." Out of high school, Zappa supported himself as a greeting-card designer, window dresser, and encyclopedia salesman. At night, he played with various bar bands, and he began experimenting with playing atonal classical music on an electric guitar, backed by a rock-and-roll rhythm. He said his goal at the time was to make music that would cause people to run from the room the moment they hear...

this site gave me a lot of joy tonight. i actually laughed out loud looking at all these photos and fantasized a bit about what it must be like to have such a close relationship with one's son. really, really awesome works of art. http://jumpingboy.com

It's the birthday of Frank Sinatra , born in Hoboken, New Jersey (1915). His mother was a midwife and a saloon owner, and she encouraged him to have big dreams as a kid. He spent a lot of his childhood sitting on the Hoboken wharves, staring at New York City, imagining how he could make a name for himself. It was his uncle who introduced him to music, and bought him a ukulele. He liked to sit on the curb at night, under a lamppost, and strum. He also liked to sing along with the player piano in his parents' saloon, and occasionally one of the men in the bar would pick him up and sit him on the piano. One day, a customer gave him a nickel for a song he sang, and he decided that he wanted to spend the rest of his life getting paid to sing. He got sidetracked for a little while when he got into the newspaper business, first working on a delivery truck and then as a copy boy. But one night he saw Bing Crosby sing in Jersey City, and that persuaded him to quit his day job and focus ...

TOM WAITS, BORN DECEMBER 7, 1949 (pretty auspicious birthday, eh?) It's the birthday of the singer, songwriter and actor Tom Waits , (books by this author) born in Pomona, California (1949). As a teenager, his parents moved around a lot, and instead of making friends, Waits became obsessed with music. He didn't listen to rock and roll like his classmates. He was more interested in older music: George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Frank Sinatra, Jerome Kern, Cab Calloway, and the old Nat "King" Cole Trio. He later said, "I ... slept right through the '60s. Never went through an identity crisis. Never had no Jimi Hendrix posters on the wall, never ate granola, never had any incense." Out of high school he worked odd jobs, as a fireman, a cab driver, a gas station attendant. He said, "[At one point] I worked in a restaurant ... [as] dishwasher, waiter, cook, plumber, janitor — everything. They called me Speed-O-Flash." He wasn't sure what he wante...

(more photos) December 3rd was young Krista's birthday. She would have turned 27 this year. I've been visiting her grave for about two years now. It is an impromptu shrine that her mother has crafted amongst the eternal crust of dead leaves that fall from the oaks, alders, and sycamores that umbrella the path side she lies next to. Small angels stand guard and wrought iron carved flowers are rooted; there was a whirligig here last year but the weather must have destroyed it. The angels and wrought iron endure. I came to visit her late Saturday night, bringing candles. I always bring candles. I used to also bring incense. I think they like incense. I used to suspect that it would awaken them a little more to my presence. I would sit longer with them when I burned incense as it would also take me to a deeper place of reverie. I'll start to do that again. Anyway, I brought a large votive for her of the "guardian angel" and three smaller votives that I sim...

not too much else happening these days. been in a lot of physical discomfort - muscular tension, legs are still cramping up often - trying to make myself go to the health club tonight to sit in the spa. i feel a disparate sense of disconnectedness from society and people right now. my mother and brother are leaving for 6 days. last time that happened my brother came back after one day and i was really upset at not getting to have my time to myself. i'm happy now that they are leaving again, but there is always a remote thought in the back of my head; what if they never come back... oh god, and i heard new information today during a conversation my mother had with her best friend over lunch that blew me away. forever i have been thinking that my father died when he was 36 years old. well today she says that he was 38 when he died. i had never heard that before. all these years i've been telling people otherwise. so all the emotion i had when i turned 37, thinking that ...

well, i've mentioned it to some of you in person and i think i mentioned it here or on the other blog that i was being interviewed for a paying position at the library. that was Wednesday last week. they left a message for me on Friday saying that they wanted to talk to me. not to boast, but i felt pretty sure that this was a slam dunk, that the job would be mine. i already do the needed tasks on a volunteer basis (just less hours than they want a hired person to do them). i am enrolled in classes at the JC to become a library technician and i have past experience working in libraries. i phoned back on Sunday, the day the supervisor that interviewed me said she would next be at work. she told me that i did not get the job. i have a lot of mixed feelings about this, and a lot of troubling thoughts going through my head too. regardless, i showed up for my volunteer shift today and did my responsibilities spot on. the reason she told me that she was not "able" to hir...

got a call from my son in Ireland this afternoon. oh, how he misses celebrating turkey-day here! i don't think he is lonely, but i think he misses the family and our traditions. so that was a really great thing to hear his voice, but more importantly he reminded me (and i'm kicking myself for not remembering this myself) that today, the 24th of November, he is 4 years clean and sober! of all things in my life i am most thankful for that. that he is alive, healthy, safe and sane. he has a girlfriend, a community of friends that love him and lives somewhere that makes him happy. he is terrifically successful in business too. profits at the cafe/bookstore he manages have risen 33% since he took over 3 months ago. also, i got a call from the library today. they left a message actually. i'm pretty sure that they are offering me the position that i interviewed for on Wednesday. it's going to be a good new year for me i think. tonight i am going out to listen to pun...

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I photographed two concerts this week. Tuesday night was The Damned show at Slim's and last night was a death metal show at a small bar on 17th Street somewhere in San Francisco. This was a great crowd, as you can see!

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Dearest Adrian, You must have looked at me the other night thinking, "Who is this guy. Doesn't he know who I am?" I am sorry if it seems that I blew you off when I shook your hand and then walked away. I got washed away in my own "self" that night and forgot that I was in the presence of someone extremely special to me. Someone that has done something that has stuck with me for more than half of my lifetime. You are Adrian Belew and not only do I love all of the music you have made, I love what you are and where you have come from. I love the people you know and what they have done and become. If people ask me to name writers that have influenced my life I'll give different answers from year to year. When asked what music I love, what music has changed my life, what music makes me feel alive, for 30 years straight I have said KING CRIMSON. And you Mr. Belew are the very first representative of KC that I have ever had the holy honor of being so close ...

I'm not sure how to start to delve into the story of what happened to me last night. Through my life becoming less private (through the simple act of blogging) my world has become larger. I was invited as a guest to photograph a concert last night! Bleeding hell! You all saw the shitty snapshots I posted from the show at Slim's (which the allowance of my attending that show is attributed to the graciousness of Leah and the management at Slim's. Honest to god they have given me free tickets to 5 different shows there!). And one lonely mother sitting at home the next morning was searching the internet for pictures of her dear children that performed the night before. One soul found another... I wasn't nervous in the least strangely enough. An hour before the doors opened I saw Julie Slick looking in the window of a music store next to The Catalyst. "Are you Julie?" I inquired. "Yeah." she said. -=Well, I've been talking to your mother on...