the promise of a new day

yesterday i started loading all of my old cds from books into my itunes. i want to get all of them in by the end of the weekend. there is so much music, most of it from the late 80's up through the mid-90's that i haven't listened to in a long long time. like the first 2 Paula Abdul albums, or the Commodores, whose greatest hits i'm listening to right now.

the first cds i had i got for Christmas in 1987 - Prince's Sign o' the Times and Fleetwood Mac's Tango in the Night. Those actual cds are both still in my collection. Batman was the first Prince cd that I bought first and only on cd, it was also the first time that I bought a Prince album the day it came out -- a tradition I held up until 3121 was released in 2006 -- I was doing a Lenten Prince cleanse, and I also didn't really care so much.

Anyway, this importing of the cds has turned into an unexpected resolution of sorts to get myself organized and not so scattered. I'm consolidating 3 itunes libraries at the same time, and looking forward to having all of my music in one place for the first time in years.

white flags of winter chimneys

this is a piece i wrote for out.com's popnography about Wendy & Lisa and their new album:

You may think you don't know Wendy and Lisa, but you've definitely heard them. As resident keyboardist (Lisa Coleman) and guitarist (Wendy Melvoin) in Prince's Revolution, they helped define both his sound and persona at his heyday, adding the only truly gay element to his apparently omnisexual universe. They left the purple fold in 1986 for their own pop career. It never fully launched -- they wanted to make pop-rock-funk music in a pre-Lilith Fair world where record labels were more interested in them as scantily clad "Prince women" than as real musicians.

But if labels weren't biting, plenty of artists were -- over the last 20 years, together or independently, Wendy and Lisa played on, composed, and/or produced songs and records for Sheryl Crow, Gwen Stefani, Seal, Madonna, Joni Mitchell, OK Go, Lucinda Williams, Neil Finn, Lisa Germano, Me'shell Ndegeocello, Robb Thomas, Grace Jones and others. Their day job is as composers of the score for NBC's Heroes, with plans to release a score on CD in the spring.

White Flags of Winter Chimneys is their first album in 10 years -- their last outing was 1998's Girl Bros., an elegiac tribute to both the death of Wendy's brother Jonathon and the end of their own romantic relationship. White Flags is loaded with Lisa's melodic piano and Wendy's steely guitar, shifting from dreamy ballads to uptempo pop and rock numbers with ease, sometimes within the same song. Their lyrics reflect a maturity and vitality of two women secure in their lives and settled into some sort of rock 'n' roll domesticity -- Lisa married her longtime girlfriend in October and Wendy's longtime partner is film director Lisa Cholodenko.

"What you believe in is what I fear," Wendy sings in the rocking "Invisible," possibly an open letter to "the purple Republican," as Lisa called Prince after he shared his religious views with the New Yorker. The standout track is the nine-minute closer "Sweet Suite (Beginning at the End)," which opens as a simple piano track to segue into a reprise of the opener "Balloon" before exploding into a lush orchestration reminiscent of the end credits of a Hollywood tearjerker.

When all is said and done, Wendy and Lisa stand head and shoulders above their former boss Prince (I'm trying to resist the short joke here) and prove they are capable of maintaining a signature sound without sounding dated. White Flags of Winter Chimneys is available exclusively at wendyandlisa.com.

http://www.popnography.com/2008/12/hummer-wendy-li.html

anticipation is making me wait...

@wendyandlisa it's COMING.................................

Next week we may see the release of Wendy and Lisa's first album in over 10 years. We keep getting updates/teasers via twitter, but a statement posted on their official facebook page two weeks ago said to expect a December release. So I keep waiting and expecting.

It dawned on me the other day that in the whole pantheon of Prince associated artists, Wendy and Lisa are the only gays. All the androgyny, gender bending, rule breaking play from Prince's Royal Court back in the day and only 2 gays to show for it. Or at least only 2 who are out. Kudos to them for that!

She's not me, she doesn't have my name

So I have a google alert set for Wendy and Lisa. That means I get a daily update of internet postings about Wendy and Lisa. The only problem is, 99% of what it finds are everyday, run-of-the-mill Wendy and Lisas, not THE Wendy and Lisa. But I always scan the blurbs with the thought that it may actually be them, which sometimes gives me a little chuckle. Here's one:

Others say Lisa is mentally ill and insist she is a danger to her two children and their friends.

Child advocate Wendy Murphy, a lawyer, says: "This case is the essence of child exploitation, because he's in the throes of puberty...

Actual story, not funny. Imagining Lisa seducing a 17-year-old boy, funny. Wendy being her opposing attorney, funny.

It's been 7 hours and 13 days

As of today I haven't had any alcohol or coffee for two weeks. Wow. It's an impromptu cleanse that was borne out of being sick, and then stuck. Not sure how long it'll be around, but right now I'm just rolling with it.

queriendo, necesitando, esperando

One of the earliest tattoos I thought about getting was this:

poor is the man
whose pleasures depend
on the permission of another

It was going to be in courier, left justified on my left shoulder blade, just the way it popped up in the closing frames of the "Justify My Love" video. As I have added more tattoos and started thinking about other pieces to come, this one fell off the plate when I started thinking about a larger piece on my back. In fact, I had forgotten the idea until I was talking to someone about what I want to do on my back. Then last night, in my trip through videos Madonna subtitulados, I see this:

pobre es el hombre
cuyos placeres dependen
del permiso de otro

I kinda LOVE it! I think it's a tattoo that's now back on the plate -- but not as I originally imagined. Aside from being in Spanish, I think it will be in more of a script font and centered. Not up on my shoulder blade, either -- possibly right above my ass and below the Maverick tattoo? Hmm... decisions, decisions.

Also, last night for the first time I wondered if Madonna wrote those lines. We all know the "Ingrid-Chavez-
wrote-the-lyrics-and-gave-them-to-Lenny-Kravitz-and-Lenny-didn't-tell-Madonna" story, but Madonna does have an "additional lyrics" credit. Those are the only lines that aren't intrinsically part of the song, even though they do perfectly capture the theme of unbridled fantasy. And they do it in a way that is soooooooo Madonna, particularly Madonna of 1990, "Permission? Fuck you! I don't need to ask for no permission!"

Entiendo means I get it

Watching Almodovar movies always reminds me of a few things:

a) it's hard to casually watch a movie with subtitles, even one i've seen many many times
b) i fucking love his scores - always!!!*
c) gotdamn i want to live in Barcelona, seriously
d) i really need to be fluent en espanol
e) i want to write a script loaded with powerful women
f) Sapic (sa-peek) is a great name for a dog!

*The first score I fell in love with was from High Heels. I found the cd at a used shop in Old Town Pasadena on a visit out here in '95 or '96 (the other cd I bought that day was a collection of Pansy Division singles, including their cover of Prince's Jack U Off). Anyway, along with the score I fell in love with the song Piensa en Mi, written by renowned Spanish songwriter Agustin Lara (I might name a son Agustin, I like that name) and recorded by Luz Casal. In the movie, the visual of the song is performed by Marisa Paredes -- one of the amazingly brilliant women featured in Almodovar works. Before tonight, courtesy of my new best friend, I had never seen Luz Casal, and boy is she a heck of a lot younger than I expected! Here's the video, with clips of Luz, Marisa and co-star Victoria Abril:



oh yeah, this is what she's singing (warning: HIGH drama!):

Piensa En Mí
(Think of Me)

If you have a deep wave of pain
Think of me
If you feel like you're going to cry
Think of me

You know that I worship your divine image
Your childlike mouth
Taught me to sin

Think of me
When you kiss
And when you cry
Think also of me

If you want
Take my life away from me
I don't want it for anything
It's useless to me
Without you