30 for 30

I am finally committing to what I've said for years: I WILL run a marathon this year before my 30th birthday.

I am sick of my on again-off again bouts of fitness. I want to commit once and for all. I realize a marathon in as huge a fitness commitment as one can get into, but I need to man up, STFU, and… wait for it… just do it! (pun totally intended, and you fell for it, suckers)

So, I'll check in and report progress for accountability's sake, although check out my reading list to see how well that method has proved thus far (major side eye). Spoiler alert: it has not worked very well at all. 

I did just buy some sick fluorescent, crazy neon yellow Asics that set me back a pretty penny. I hope that at least gets my ass out on the pavement often. In addition to a smokin' bod for the summer too, that would be nice. 

oh you nasty, huh: jelly roll edition

Every year or so I rewatch Ken Burn's Jazz . I love it and think it is an absolutely brilliant piece of work, even if it makes me sad that I did not grow up to be a nerdy-looking historian who serves as one of the talking heads on historical documentaries on PBS. I guess technically I am an historian, an art historian (side eye) and I certainly have the nerd part on lock… I just have to weasel my way onto a documentary. As long as I'm LA I guess I have a tiny chance. Coming to a TV near you… stay tuned.  

Anyhow, what I wanted to discuss was one Jelly Roll Morton. Jelly. Roll. Morton. AKA Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe. This guy was one bad mamma-jamma. He claimed to have had INVENTED jazz. Invented the entire thing!! Jelly Roll was born in 1890, and he claims to have invented the genre in 1902, so chronologically his assertion is at least somewhat feasible. Ego and tall tales(?) aside, the man was extremely talented, a musical genius, and seminal figure in early jazz who greatly contributed to the genre, especially his early work in New Orleans. 

Jelly Roll's story is fascinating. He taught himself piano as a child and around 14 started playing in the famed brothels of early twentieth-first century New Orleans (a fascinating topic in and of itself). In the brothels he entertained waiting patrons with humorous and smutty songs he performed on the piano. Later, once the patrons were taken upstairs and got down to business, Jelly Roll was in charge of providing mood music with all the right tempo for the business at hand.

It was during his work at the brothels that Morton chose his stage name. I always thought that was weird name for a musician. According to the Burns doc, "Jelly Roll" referred to a sexual act. What type of sex act, the nerdy talking head did not share, and of course that just made me super curious. After some digging around I found that "Jelly Roll" was in fact late 19th and early 21st century slang in black communities for… VAGINA! That's right… PUSSY!!

It gets better. 

Jelly Roll had a friend, awesome jazz singer Lizzie Smith, who recorded a song entitled, you guessed it… "Jelly Roll"… oh yes. In the song she proclaims, among other things, that her jelly roll is the best in town, and that ain't nobody gonna get a taste. Sing it girl! Basic bitches from today need to recognize you're the original pussy power pop star. 

Morton also had his tune, "Jelly Roll Blues," I'll let you decipher that one yourself.

open/close

It is very easy, much too easy, to lose track of all the awesome things I have going and have had/done/experienced.

I am extremely fortunate and very grateful.

I feel like an asshole for the complaining I've been doing and the apparent amnesia I have regarding how charmed, fortunate, and frankly, at the risk of sounding like a bigger asshole, how awesome my life has been thus far. It's like I have a shroud of shit covering my window and blocking my awesome view. 

Too literal? Too cheesy? Probably. But I love these photographs and dammit it is true.

I have lived in and experienced many places.  Have been surrounded by people who love me. Have never really wanted or gone without.

Paris, Venice, New York, Los Angeles. A family who loves and supports me. Friends who love and understand me. A home, health, health of those I love. 

Yes. Thank you. For all of it. Even the parts I thought were shitty and the massive sinkhole I find myself in now. I am grateful for all of it. Truly.

All stunning photos via

basically

flowergirlnyc

It's really warming up. Been running a lot. Too much time in the sun. 

I need to keep busy. I'm going crazy again. 

Saw The Punk Singer a few nights ago. So insanely inspiring. Kathleen Hanna is such a bad ass. Watch it. Now. It's even on Netflix so no excuses.

Wanna disco? Wanna see me disco??

nowadays

Not much to report. Or rather not much in the mood for reporting. Trying to keep the sun on my face and the wind on my back. Forging ahead with less of a shitty attitude and more optimism. This is proving disappointedly difficult.

I like this song very much. It is my pulse at present, my current state. Not many solid thoughts so much as just a mood. A feeling. A ray of light streaming through the curtains. Faint shadows. The restful sleep that somehow only comes from afternoon naps. And dreamy pink. Always pink.  

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                                        Film still from Vivre Sa Vie, Jean-Luc Godard, 1962

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me 

me

Watercolor, Bernadette Pascua


Here's hoping April will bring good things. How did it become April 2014 already? Frightening. Warp speed ahead it seems. After the ups and downs of March I've decided to call it a draw. Better things are coming but I am grateful for what I have. 

I need to get the hell out for a few days. That's my major goal for April. Getting my mug out of town for a bit. I want to be surrounded by green. Swallowed up by a jungle somewhere. Wish me luck. And bon voyage… 

how am i supposed to pretend...

I never want to see you again?? 

Perhaps it is the stupid cold I have been fighting for the past few days, but I have been feeling miserable and pissy and just downright unhappy. I got very angry about the job situation today. I think I finally let it all really wash over me. It was a shitty thing that happened. My heart was set on it, my booty was ready to be back in New York. A long walk made me feel better- I am still certain a lame nine to five will never satisfy me. But neither will Los Angeles. Not now. When I first moved back in late 2012 I remember I couldn't even see photos or films of New York. I would avoid everything NY related like the plague. And then Sandy happened and I remember feeling like an asshole and there was no escaping it. 

I need to stop being such a whiner.

you're a ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made from stardust, what do you have to be scared of?

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Somedays all I want is to dye my hair pink.

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And then I think about all the idiots I know with pink hair 

and swiftly proceed to pull my head out of my ass.

Fiona Mackay

 I actually had pink hair as a moronic youth at 13 or so. God bless my parents for putting up with my shit. Anyhow, one pink hair phase may be enough for a lifetime, but my god do I love this color. I just want to jump into a giant pool full of pink washes of watercolor. Death by pink. Hmm, this might be taking an unintentional Sapphic tone.  

Mark Rothko, Untitled No 37 (Red), 1956

 Rothko did great pinks. 

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1960-1961

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1968

 I have the unfortunate (or fortunate), uh, fortune of always getting what I want. Whether it is a good decision or not, I usually get what I truly want, even when I don't admit it to anyone, not even myself, or even utter it out loud.

film still from A Royal Affair (2012)

I was up for a great job with a great company doing exactly what I wanted to be doing exactly where I want to live, hence the trip to NYC a few days back  I was a shoe-in. I was finally getting what I had wanted for so long. And then I started getting cold feet… 

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and actually planned on turning down the offer and even hoped they wouldn't hire me at all so I could say it was out of my hands.

via someone's brillant tumblr I cannot find anymore, apologies!

Eek. What a terrible little bitch and stinkin' coward move, I know. 

Well, perhaps cold feet is the wrong choice of words. The idea of sitting at a desk for nine hours a day, five days a week, week in and week out started weighing on me. I always knew that I wasn't cut out for cubicle life. 

And seeing so many of my brilliant NY friends struggling just to make ends meet and a preliminary apartment search and the dismal, dismal options I would have given my potential salary and the number of times I almost slipped on the icy sidewalks and a messy situation that arose involving a dude and too much whisky and… and… well. All that, although legit, are minimal bullshit I used as excuses. As much as I want to move back to New York, as much as I am certain I love that city and my life there and am certain I have been the best version of myself thus far there, I just knew that this job, or any job I would take there or elsewhere, no matter how much I love New York, would make me miserable because what I really want is to work for myself and have my own business.

Cue the most satisfying sigh of all time: WHEW. 

And once I admitted that to myself, lying in bed in the dark, I knew that was it. I had toyed with the idea before, but always just jotted some ideas down and then would lose my nerve and brush it off as something for the future, for when I was "settled" and "a grown up". Hmmph. I am now convinced that may never happen so screw those notions. I also knew that if even the lure of New York wasn't enough to quiet my true desire, then there is no fighting it anymore.

Anyway, this morning I got word that due to poor business performance and structural changes, the department I was to be hired into has implemented a hiring freeze. What the shit. It was basically a done deal, and then this. I went from slightly relieved to rather bummed. It's kinda like having a person you were going to break up with break up with you first. And then of course in my typical fashion I immediately wanted all that I was sure just hours before I didn't: a 9-5, a measly wage, a shithole apartment, etc. I allowed myself to feel shitty all day. And then only about four hours into it, I knew this was the best thing that could have happened and feel pretty good about it all. I just know this is right.

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Anyhow, I saw this somewhere and I thought it was beautiful and silly and dumb and profound and inspiring all at the same time and just a wonderful reminder we should all write on a napkin, fold up, and keep in our wallets for shitty days. Or even for days that aren't shitty, but just are; days when we finally pull our heads out of our asses and realize what we have to do is actually what we want to do and are finally ready to do it, even if it is fucking scary.

Shit's gonna start getting done around here. All my neurotic, frightened, paralyzing indecision is going to become creative, focused, proactive energy that I cannot wait to release into the world.