Mumbling Madly

“Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.”
–Clown
“The Winter’s Tale” by William Shakespeare

I’ve been listening to classical music all day. Can you believe that Seattle has no public classical music station? Oh sure, maybe you can get a signal from Canada occasionally, but otherwise you’re left with the local Jazz station and a pretty grim NPR channel filled with no music only bad news. I’ve currently resorted to streaming classical music through the Roku; The only announcers I hear are speaking in French via the Swiss station I’ve found. Such a far cry from the daily connection I used to have listening to KUNC out of Greeley, CO with Kyle Dyas. It’s a small connection, but obviously a big enough one that I’ve spent all day brooding about his death. From the reassuring radio voice who guided me through my commute to performing with Kyle in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” via OpenStage, this person really mattered to me.

Ah yes, the 2004 production of “The Winter’s Tale” (subtitled: ‘Dancers Appear On-stage Constantly As Props’). Whether it was the heavy Ben Nye make-up that hid my increasing acne break outs or dancing with an enormous sheet over my head in the finale, that show took me to task (but looking back, very much in that youthful, self-entitled, sort of way). Kyle played the Clown, and he was the object of affection for me (Mopsa) and Teri (Dorcas)–both on and off stage, for he was affable in a really easy going sort of way. Our scenes included a lot frolicking, for we joined the Clown in providing comedic relief. Kyle was nervous about dancing–something I cheerfully informed him was ridiculous, he could totally dance, anyone can dance. I’m pretty sure I took the helm and bossed him around during the whole rehearsal process, or maybe I played the role of The Guy and led him through the steps in the way that’s taboo in the ballroom dancing community, or who knows, I don’t really remember. What I do recall is that really lovely synchronization you find with someone on-stage. There’s no struggle, or lost sense of space, instead you find an ease and a sense of comfort. It translates to laughing a lot backstage, light teasing, maybe a few assorted dance moves while waiting for current call in the wings. This was the show where the dancers kept prop bananas in their sport bras as a way to liven up the run.

As with all shows, we created a tiny, microcosm of a world. From the first read-thru to closing night, we fell into hierarchies, natural highs and lows, the rhythm and sync of a group building art. These small worlds, each show I’ve done, are so powerful that even seven years later, miles away, in a whole different city, the news of the Clown…well, the Clown is gone…how could that be?

Cut to a Random Memory: It is Fall. I am standing outside the costume shop in Old Town when I see Kyle just outside the store on the street. It’s the first time I’ve seen him outside of our rehearsals, and I think he’s a little thrown that I recognize him. I am thrilled because I just purchased these black feather wings for Halloween and a burgundy wig. In my excitable way I outline to Kyle my plan to go as an “Evil Fairy.” He is supportive. In fact, he absorbs my manic enthusiasm in a truly encouraging way.

I had already made the connection during rehearsal that, yes, he is the announcer I hear every day on NPR! “You’re a real celebrity,” I gushed in that way only someone who was brought up on public broadcasting truly can. When you’re not raised with knowledge of Hollywood celebrities, when you’re still watching Sesame Street as a teenager because it’s the single channel your parents allow, well, the only real consistency is the local announcers on the classical music station.

Now I live in Seattle and it’s big and rainy and yeah, everyone is obsessed with coffee, polar-fleece, and repeating what they heard on NPR. I miss the feel of Fort Collins in that obnoxious way a City Girl reflects on living in a Small Town (Life was so much slower! I could bike everywhere! Sure there was no public transportation, diversity, or a liberal voting majority but the cost of living was so much lower!). But all clichés aside you can’t erase the fact that I once won a free bike tune-up for writing a poem about ‘Why I Love KUNC.” That sort of thing just doesn’t happen in The City. It’s also hard to make the sort of connections I made with the members of OpenStage, the dancers I used to teach at CCB, and the many artists who made Fort Collins a truly wonderful place to live. Kyle was all part of that for me, all wrapped up in the memory of a really great time.

Because I’ve been gone for a while, I’m not churning inside with missed opportunity, the question of ‘where I was’ when this sad decision was made, or other conflicting emotions my peers who are closer to Kyle are currently feeling. But Kyle is still important to me. It’s not a happy ending when your former cast mate reappears briefly in your life to star in a tragedy.

Cut to another memory: It’s snowing in Fort Collins really hard. Outside, the world has taken a soft approach and I’ve lapsed into cooking with the radio on (one of my favorite past times). The run of “The Winter’s Tale” is over and we’re all gearing up for the holidays. After a bit of music, Kyle’s voice comes on. “I know him!” My brain instinctively says. Outside, the streets are slowing down with snow but I still have connection, I still have my radio, my friend talking through the airwaves. “I know him.

To read more about the show, check our my website. For details about the photographer who took this press photo, check out the original on flickr.

Baby whispers, “Hide….hide….” and then she disappears behind the couch.
Baby says, “Rrrooooarr!” as she reveals herself to me.
She points, she coos, I try to get her to say my name.
I pick her up, I carry her around, I pull her in the wagon.
A cat appears, he prances around, he avoids her, he is scared of the Baby.
She points to him, then watches as he follows along.
“Hide…hide!” I can hear her small mind whispering.

The staggering economy has merely lent itself as fuel to my usual state of penny-pinching, money-worrying, and frugality. It has, however, prompted a lot of creativity. In my on-going quest to reuse and create, I took old paper bags, cut old fruit in half, dipped it in tempera paint, and made wrapping paper:

Today people seem so friendly! I took a 2.5 mile walk near the water and people looked up from their bbq’s and waved. One fellow joked, “I’ll catch up to you in a little while!” Indicating that he would join me on what he perceived to be my running regiment. I got honked and waved at while walking near the water. The air is mild, smelling strongly of damp sun and passing thunderstorms. After a huge cherry bomb went off in front of our house 1/2 hour ago I brought Hobbes in. She is sleeping on my chair. This morning, Hobbes loudly protested when Josh moved her over. “Sorry Hobbes,” he said “No Bed For Old cats” a direct rip-off from No Country For Old Men.

Thursday night we went out on a date. We headed to Pioneer Square and hit up a few happy hours. We sat on stools and received poor service, $1 mini pizzas, and an excellent dry martini. Tipsily, we visited the former snowboard connection turned skate shop. I found a disturbing hoodie which I became obsessed with:

Later, we went to the best Art Walk I’ve ever attended in my life. Now I know why Pioneer Square is known for its galleries and artist lofts. An acquaintance invited me to his gallery space in the fabulous 619 Western Ave. It houses more than one hundred artists work from studios all in one six story building. I learned that it is one of the largest artist studio enclaves on the west coast and has been a workspace for artists since 1979. Upon my friend’s recommendation we rode the elevator to the sixth floor and then made the slow descent down. The building is ancient, raw, and slanted at a steep angle at the top floor; I experienced something like vertigo when exiting the old fashion elevator. Studios were laid wide and open for our inspection. Snacks and wine sat on homemade tables on every floor. The walls were cement and chipped, but the art hung firmly like faithful flags, the landscape gritty and punctuated with beauty. A little dog roamed freely on one of the floors, wagging his tail in and out of each studio space. The work was priced decently and varied. We saw graffiti art, portraits, sculpture, goth photography, nudes. We entered one studio and the very generous Dr. Johnny greeted us by giving away free art–’9 by ‘11 portraits sketched in charcoal. He had large murals covering his ceiling, the walls, and even the floor. “You should always leave an art walk with some art,” he advised. “I have so much of it I never sell so I thought I would just give it away.” A poorly shot picture in the middle of it all:

This morning I called my sister up and told her to request the first Thursday of August off. “We have to go,” I told her. “You have no choice.”

Everybody has that band, that special, special, band that summed up their adolescence, their angst, their heartbreaks. Some of you may think, for me, that would be Skiploader, the Portland based indie band I pursued with origami, or maybe you’re remembering when Courtney and I gave the lead singer of Guttermouth a ring to give to his girlfriend back home (he gave us tickets to his next show, backstage access, and beer in return). ‘Wait,’ some of you are saying, ‘weren’t you into really weird bands, like Big Daddy Meatstraw? Karen Black? Didn’t you see Tribe 8 before you really knew who they were?’ (Yes, and Lynn Breedlove really did perform shirtless, wearing a strap-on dildo). But none of those bands compare to The One:

Jawbreaker.

I love Jawbreaker. I was very lucky the first time my high school boyfriend leaned over and flicked on his cd player for some make out music, (specifically the terrifyingly sexy “Want” off of their first album, Unfun). Perhaps because of the make out association, the music of Blake Schawrzenbach became the narrative of my youth. It could have been anything, I suppose, Metallica, Sonic Youth, (Pearl Jam, according to Josh’s recollection of early make out music), but the language of Jawbreaker was so heartbreakingly well written that it stuck.

I had never been a ‘lyrics’ kind of person, preferring the poppy sounds of Erasure and Pet Shop Boys for their dancibility and maybe a little practical REM from time to time. With the introduction of a bad boy in my life, my music shifted specifically to his taste. Suddenly NOFX (which I embarrassingly pronounced Noff-ix), Bad Religion, and Screeching Weasel blared out of my station wagon. My bf moved to Japan for a stint in the navy and I was left with nothing but a bunch of cds; my loneliness made me reach for reminiscent music and the impact of Jawbreaker began. What better music to listen to on a rainy northwest afternoon wearing long underwear, doc martins, and a sundress? Jawbreaker remains the only band that I truly love inside and out to this day. From the popular “You’re not punk/and I’m telling everyone/save your breath/I never was one” to the obscure and painful “Beneath the neon sky/ Our moonlight/ Six a.m. the floor comes alive with lice/ The pan’s dried up so tight/ With hardened beans/ We’re hungry/ So I lean on you sometimes/ Just to see you’re still there/ Your feet can’t take the weight of one/ Much less two/ We hit concrete.”

I used to have every single song on every single Jawbreaker album memorized. Each song had special meaning to me, a special inner-narration, a deep reflection on my life at the time. I listened to Jawbreaker on the bus, on the train ride from Seattle to Portland, at home while wallowing in self-pity. It’s as if Blake Schwarzenbach reached inside and rewrote my inner brain dialog better then I could write it myself. I also thought it was incredibly sexy that he had a degree in Creative Writing. I actually found a guy in the English department who I dubbed the “Sensitive 70’s Shirt Wearing Guy” and lusted after him in a way a girl can only lust after a Creative Writing major. (He must be so in touch with his feelings! He must be so tortured and in need of my help! He must write in a journal! Every night!) I saw Jawbreaker twice in concert: once in 1995 (they opened for the brand new Foo Fighters) and again in 1996 (after Dear You, their major label release). The second time I was so distraught in my personal life that I cried during the entire concert.

So obsessed with this band, I would write down the lyrics to certain songs (Chesterfield King) and create crude illustrations for them, (later publishing them in my zine “Well, I Swan”).
If MySpace had been around or any sort of social networking device I’m sure I would have been all over Jawbreaker’s page. So impressed was I by the idea of a man being able to capture his feelings in such gorgeous text that I shared his music with anyone who would listen (when Courtney had her car broken into the first thing she told me was, “they even stole all my Jawbreaker cds”). I may have succeeded in getting the attention of the lead singer of Skiploader but I was never bold enough to even write a letter to my favorite song writer.

I thought my love for Jawbreaker was because I really loved Blake , (my high school boyfriend said his friend, Christina, claimed to love Blake so much she wanted to ‘marry him,’ a sentiment that I realized I shared and jealousy recall saying, ‘well, I want to marry him too’), but I could never get into his second band, Jets to Brazil. As much as I wanted to love this band, I found it lacking. Perhaps, like myself, Blake had grown from the angsty, heart-wrenching, writer to a more grounded individual…by the time Jets came around I was no longer a pioneering, single, twenty-something living in the U District on $500 a month. My high school boyfriend was long gone, having abandon me for hard drugs in 96,’ and subsequent guys couldn’t really match those feelings.

Sure, the lyrics of heartbreak, betrayal, and tragedy still helped narrate the harrowing events of my early 20’s. But as those difficult times dissipated, my clinging dependency on this band softened, and when they quit in 1996 I barely noticed. Sure, I still dragged out the old albums from time to time. Recently, I sat in front of Wikipedia and thought, “What is one my favorite things?” I pulled out an old favorite: Jawbreaker. I looked them up, reading anything I could find about the band, and found a picture of the lead singer. Oh my gosh! He’s aged! (All that sexy emo smoking) I found a link to a tribute album that came out in 2003 and purchased it off of Amazon. I’ve been driving all over Seattle with this cd in my car, listening to all of these classic Jawbreaker songs sung by other bands. “None of these other singers have the heart,” I thought to myself, “They can’t be TRUE fans, listen to how badly they’re singing ‘Boxcar.’” The remixed version of ‘Want’ is so terrible I have to skip it every time it plays. I went home and pulled out the originals, playing them, writing about them…(maybe channeled my high school boyfriend a tiny bit). Back then I didn’t have a real job, stayed out until 4am, and entertained dangerous men. Life was so exciting back then!

“I love you more/then I ever loved/anyone before/and anyone to come/someone said your name/I thought of you alone/I was just the same/twenty blocks away.”

It’s time to announce the creation and work-in-progress of my jewelry website:
www.marahelena.com
This website is primarily to showcase my work, a reference point for other crafters I’ve met, and is certainly less about making “big bucks off” of web sales. In fact, if you live locally, don’t order off the site and pay for shipping…talk to me and I can save us both money by hand delivering.

The site leaves room for lot’s of improvement, so any feedback you might have would be really excellent. This project has been a bit overwhelming, what with the holidays sneaking up on me, and I realized that it doesn’t need to be perfect. I will be regularly fine tuning and adding new and exciting things.

Enjoy!