The Concert: Riverhead, Stolen Babies, Black Light Burns, Combichrist.

In order of events:

After getting slightly lost, Ruben and I found The Avalon and stood outside in the cold for twenty minutes. The people in front of us were smoking [peh!]and I was thinking of telling them to use their lighters to keep us warm. The people behind us were pretty funny. I don't remember what they were talking about, but they were funny.

Then the doors opened just as I was about to become a freeze-bug [Metalocalypse reference]and we went in, where I spent exactly $55 on Stolen Babies merchandise-the full length album and two amazing t-shirts and because I spent that much, I got two free little buttons, a "STOLEN BABIES ON BOARD" caution-sign sticker which will one day be on the windshield of my first car, and two other large stickers, one of which I promised I'd give Ruben.

Then we made our way to the front where the first act, Riverhead, began performing. Their bassist looked like a goth version of the Joker.

But more importantly, Stolen Babies was the next act. I had a clear view of the drum kit and took a picture of the logo stamped on it.

First one out was Gil [the drummer] and he did some test runs on the drums, which I filmed. Ruben informed me that he wanted Gil's brocade suit jacket.

Next out was Rani [bassist and brother of Gil]. Each time one of them would come out I'd squeal.

Ben [keyboards and oil drum] followed.

And then Gil brought out Dominique's Weltmeister accordion and set it down and I took some pictures of it-I could have touched it if I wanted to-it was that close. And then Dominique came out and put on the Weltmeister! I've waited two years to see them. I could have seen them on the Hottest Women in Metal tour but I had to go to a memorial for my grandmother in Washington and missed out on seeing THREE of my favorite female-fronted bands. Sorry, Nanny, but you had been cremated for three months and if it were just postponed a day....and the Dresden Dolls were performing the next day, too, so I was rather pissed the whole journey.

Their set included Spill!, Filistata, Lifeless, Push Button, Tall Tales, Mind Your Eyes. I think I got them all.

Here are the pictures I took:

After their performance when they were clearing away their instruments, Dominique bent down and put her hand out so I and the people around me could touch it and she said that the band would be hanging out in the lobby after Combichrist.

The next band was Black Light Burns and they were all wearing black clothes that reminded me of clothes men wore in the 1800's. Wes Borland [ex Limp Bizkit] was the frontman and he had a handlebar mustache. Anyway, when they were performing, he took off his vest, and then his shirt, and kept dousing himself in water before flinging himself around like he was being electrocuted. Seriously-he was bouncing off the walls. Just check out the pictures on their myspace page to see:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=36794676

Then after the longest wait ever, Combichrist came out. Well, you couldn't really see them come out because of the fog, but they had to come out somewhere...two drummers, one keyboardist, and one vocalist. The drum sets reminded me of industrial versions of the ones they had at Celtic Woman. They put on a superb show. The singer was really into it and everyone would start jumping and he'd be bouncing around. He reminded me of Till Lindmann from Rammstein with his facial expression-the blue eyes that are so light they're almost white, the mohawk, the [fake?]blood dripping down, the creepy-doll-face-conducting-an-invisible-orchestra actions. It was a lot like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8pBe1Zbd3Y Except the female drummer wasn't there.

They did three encore songs, one of which, if it were turned into a radio version, would be called "This__will__you up," haha.

So Ruben and I made our way over to the Stolen Babies merch table and I told them that they did an amazing show and gave them the sketchbook I painted to them and Dominique turned to Gil and Rani and said that she was just talking about how she should have brought a notebook but only had pieces of paper. A practical present. They really liked it-I hoped they would given their love for artists like Gris Grimly, Tim Burton, and Crab Scrambly [who illustrated their album].

Ruben asked Gil where he got his brocade jacket and he replied, "I got it in a porn shop in Seattle." And Dominique confirmed it, haha. I wouldn't think porn shops would sell clothing.

And Jose was there, so I made him take a picture of us with the band. It was a small area and part of it was a step up, so we had to spend a minute arranging ourselves. I've read that Dominique is really tiny, but she was as tall as me. She was wearing heeled boots, so I think she'd be a couple inches shorter at the most, but I was expecting a hobbit, haha. She's so pretty. And her makeup was flawless because her skin was flawless [only girls notice these things!].

Ruben wanted to buy something, so I made a quick pit stop and when I came out, Ruben was chatting with Rani and Rani turned to me and made me sign the sketchbook and promised they'd fill it up and bring it next time they came to SLC. They kept thanking me for the sketchbook and telling me how cool it looked-praise from the Stolen Babies was so very cool. I'm still in awe. They're either in or on their way to Denver right now and then one or two more shows with Combichrist, I believe. So it's not really long enough to be a tour, but I still expect them to fill up the book with many ideas for the new album.

And with ringing ears and no voices left, we made our way home.

Her Ghost in the Fog.

We had fog on Friday. Real fog. I haven't seen fog like that since first grade. Here's a picture:

It was really bad during the night. Or really cool, depending on how you look at it. It would have been fun to walk around in it during the night but it was too cold, so instead there was dancing:

Falling out of bed.

Last night I was hanging halfway out of my bed in an attempt to reach the chapstick on my dresser [accursed canker sore!], when I fell out of bed. The trash can smacked against my lower jaw/right lymph node. Most of my weight fell on the heel of my left hand. And my right elbow got carpet burns. I was surprised no one heard my head collide with the trash can. I wonder if lymph nodes can rupture because that's what it felt like, reverberating through my teeth.

Combined with being sore and tired from the atrocity that is the boot-scootin' boogie, I am very sore, but glad I didn't bite my tongue off or something.

I am concerned about my left hand, though. If I didn't bruise the bones, I think there might be a teeny little fracture-there's this one spot that throbs and burns and turning my hand weird ways sets it off. Nothing to do for it.

Entry.

I actually got out of the house for reasons other than to wash vomit off my shoes. I know. It calls for a celebration.

Thursday I went to the junior high to help out with lunch duty and paperwork. There's some really tiny kids there. I need to write down all the things I did there sometime.

Friday I went to the YSA dance. I hate the term "YSA." I don't think one's relationship status should be part of it. It merely amplifies the hypocrisy of the thing-emphasis on being single but you're a freak if you're not married to a returned missionary at the ripe age of nineteen. Too much contradictions. But I went with our ward group and had some fun being in a circle of people making up dance moves. And I did the boot-scootin' boogie a couple times. I must mention the fog outside was so cool-it was like living in Halloween Town. Last time I remember fog like that was first grade.

So I woke up at one thirty this afternoon, still exhausted and quite sore. Country music isn't good for my weak health. And while accordions kick musical butt, a line of guys doing pow-wow noises to the polka before snatching away female hostages into a springy mosh pit is not. I got my forearm hit and can feel the deep bruising but have no visible bruising and fear my complaints wouldn't be considered legit.

Today after a brief stop to the library where I picked up this:

Amethystium! It's the project of Øystein Ramfjord. Why do Norwegians make such good music? I really like his compositions. New-age without being hokey. Where the keyboards don't sound like keyboards. Ethereal.

And then to the craft store because everything there is neat and I needed stuff for the Stolen Babies concert this Friday. They're the kind of band that comes out to hang out with the crowd after they perform, so I'm giving them a blank sketchbook, but I will paint something on the cover [haven't thought of what yet] since they're genuine artists and can use it to doodle and scribble on...not to mention they do a couple lines that make it work as a gift: Notebook, scrapbook/Somehow I've misplaced you/You were a scratch on a paper/Ink and a voice not meant to look back at me...

Yup. And I picked up some cool Indian pendant things because as I just wrote, they were cool. A

That's about it. Time to sleep some more.

Create, hate.

A review of my uneventful week where the tiniest of things are noticed.

Nothing happened until Thursday, where I was going to have Josh come over so I could explain my amazing zombie-movie idea explaining how Cassidy disappears. I've been inside the house for a sodding month and a half now and was looking forward to having someone come over, but I was blown off. And I don't know why either-he never answers the phone. Seriously-this was a big event-I made sure everything was clean and I actually didn't wear the pajamas I spend my days in and went to bed early and all that stuff. My parents are quick to point out the unreliable nature of the people I know. The dwindling list of people-everyone's at school when I take a break but everyone's partying when I go to school-how does that work? I'm either sick or tired and the rare occasion where I'm not I am blown off. My insides boil but the pills make me stay quiet-the murderous rage that should be tearing holes in the wall until my hands look like hamburger is drugged to become more depressed than I was in the first place. It's hard to say "Look what you've done" to deaf people. It was incredibly rude to blow me off in the first place, but to not answer for it is a slap in the face.

The only high point of my week was getting a free grapefruit from Bob from Harmon's. Bob and Randy, you know? This was the Bob-from the commercials. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate free produce, but isn't it terribly miserable that the only happy thing that happened this week was a grapefruit?

Last night was Ruben's birthday party and someone vomited right where I stepped out of the car and I didn't see it because it was dark outside, so I spent my time at the party slowly being nauseated by some sort of odor that reminded me of elementary school and it was only upon leaving that I saw the massive pile of upchuck by the van. I'm sensitive to smells and retched as I had to step over it and drive home gingerly pressing the pedals of the car with my toes.

After further inspection today in the light, I got most of it off via frosted grass, but nonetheless armed myself with gloves, a steel wire brush, carpet cleaner, and ammonia.

These were my new, specifically-asked-for-Christmas shoes, too.

Add in the things that would be little by themselves and you have me pretty pissed off at everything. I'm waiting for a way out-a job, a car? Coincidentally in the middle of a recession. "Half the world is down the toilet and half's on its way,"-Ministry. It's like being aware of being dead and you realize how terribly boring it is to just sit there and rot and the people you want to swing by forgot you're still thinking and you don't want charity from anyone else.

Doodly ding dong tick tock.

Well, I finished a bunch of chores, many of them "not my chores" and took a bath and washed my hair and took my pills [which got somewhat stuck on the way down and gave me some terrible heartburn]and did dishes, swept the floor, did a little stretching and bicycling and now have nothing to do. It is therefore a good time to blog.

Yesterday my day was devoted to doing "good deeds" since I woke up too late to go to church. 11:45, more specifically, courtesy of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And that good deed? Illustrating Dorian's book for his creative writing assignment, which took a little over seven hours to do. Yeah, it was due today and I drove it to his house late last night. And the teacher who assigned it was one I really really really didn't like last year. She's senile and always changes her mind and though I gave her multiple doctor notes, had my dad talk to her, and so forth to explain my absence, she still gave me a bad grade in creative writing but somehow deemed me worthy to be the art director of the more stressing Lit Mag class. All we did in that class was watch movies and read "poems" about fish. I even made fun of her in a poem and she read it and gave it a good grade because she didn't get it. "Pontificate, you faded star!"[-Emilie Autumn].

Sorry. Once I saw that the illustrations had to be done in only felt-tip pen, I knew who assigned it and had a sudden urge to burn the school down, ha.

Oh, wanna see my new pink camera?

It's pretty sweet. I need to think of a name for it. Something long and British and related to candy and tea. It's easy to find it against all the black things of my bedroom. And I'll need to get a little case for it and I shall put the name I name it on said case. And perhaps a memory card that can hold more info than my current one which held like, 300-something on my old deceased camera but only 100-something on this one; but more film time on this one, strangely.

And now to get rid of the feeling that my heart is pumping Vitamin C. While everyone else is starting a new semester, I am being loaded with herbal capsules and lozenges in addition to all my other pills to get me feeling better. Scrambled eggs, it is!

I heard Elise got pneumonia, and Brother Hancock got it really bad and had an oxygen mask. Masque. That's a fancier way of looking at it. I can sympathize but my two pneumonia occasions weren't severe enough for hospitilization because we caught it early on. I did have an inhaler for the first one-the instructions were to use it twice a day or something but I would be coughing so bad and it'd feel like drowning to inhale, so I puffed away on that thing like a smoker. It was a weird feeling to inhale-like when the tip of your fingernail gets bent back or you hit your funny bone or you get tapped on the knee with one of those reflex things. Once at school when I was well enough to go with my little inhaler I remember standing there coughing and I couldn't inhale and school had just gotten out so everyone was walking around and I was thinking "I'm gonna pass out soon, so try to fall sideways so you don't hurt anything." I didn't pass out though. That would have been a good story.

Enough storytelling for now. My health problems would fry this computer with their length. Off to make scrambled eggs.

-K.

I Miss You, Sam.

I happened to check what day it was on my computer.

January 9, marking two years since Sam committed suicide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKDOZiNQE-c

That's the tribute video I made. Sometimes I watch to have a good cry. Read on and you'll know the significance of the song I put to the pictures.

I remember going to school the next day and everyone was talking about it and I kept myself from crying. Crying makes your makeup drip and your nose red. Crying means people view you differently. Crying means you're depressed and get pumped full of pills and needles. I almost cried when they came over the intercom that morning and had a moment of silence. They almost mispronounced her last name-that would have sent me over the edge.

I know some of her reasons which I promised I would not divulge, but I know she cut. Dorian asked her once in a class they had why she had a cut on her leg and she informed him that she did it herself. And I look at all the scars on my arms and legs and think if she knew I'd been cutting and burning since I was twelve, maybe she would have felt less-I don't know-alienated? I know she was on antidepressants and likely getting therapy, which I have had since the ripe age of twelve. Maybe we could have complained how much therapists suck.

The last time I saw her was Sunday in church. We were joking about Monty Python. And some scary movie had just come out and our class was talking about that and other scary stories and she talked about a story she'd heard where someone committed suicide in a house and it became haunted or something. I didn't think anything of it. I don't know if she thought anything of it. Campfire [or sunday school] stories to scare each other.

And then Tuesday came. I was watching Hellboy while assembling a puzzle of The Beatles on the floor. My mom had left to go to cub scouts or something but came back a few minutes later and got us all in the living room, turned the telly off, and braced us. Our grandmother was in bad health, so I asked if it was Nanny and she said it wasn't. That would have been right in the way things work-an old person with terminal cancer, not someone who'd just turned 16.

And all week, I wouldn't cry at school. If someone was natually gossiping about the events but had the rumors wrong, I'd straighten them out. I'd come home from school and cry until I was too cried out to cry at her funeral on Saturday. I remember Elise and I in our weight-training class just sitting on the fake green patio grass stuff, occasionally mumbling a question about how it went down, what was going to happen.

I didn't know that there were grief counselors there, that a room in the school had been set aside and if you wanted to you could leave class and go there. If I had known, I would have done it.

"If I had known." I think a lot of people were saying that.

The song I was listening to when she did it was an acousic version of a song by a Dutch band called Within Temptation. The song's called "Our Farewell." I was just listening to it on youtube as I checked my email and stuff. It would have been around the time she did it. I shared the lyrics in seminary when our teachers sat our classes down and talked about the situation.

"In my hands
A legacy of memories
I can hear you say my name
I can almost see your smile
Feel the warmth of your embrace
But there is nothing but silence now
Around the one I loved
Is this our farewell?
Sweet darling you worry too much, my child
See the sadness in your eyes
You are not alone in life
Although you might think that you are
Never thought
This day would come so soon
We had no time to say goodbye
How can the world just carry on?
I feel so lost when you are not by my side
But there's nothing but silence now
Around the one I loved
Is this our farewell?
So sorry your world is tumbling down
I will watch you through these nights
Rest your head and go to sleep
Because my child, this not our farewell.
This is not our farewell."

Death of a camera.

My camera is dead. I should have named it. It was a survivor-dropped many times and being taken in a backpack to school to record random Muffin Society events. Rest in peace, unknown soldier...maybe I should cremate it in the driveway or something.

In other news, I shall be hunting for a new and better camera that's actually cheaper than my dead one. I have espied one at Walmart that should do the trick-I must be able to document the approaching Stolen Babies concert.

Once said camera is purchased I will take a picture of it in all its glory and then post it here.

STOLEN BABIES are coming!

It began like any other Saturday-I slept in 'til noon and lounged around until I decided to drive to the library, finding some Brom to look at, vampire novels to read, Cirque du Soleil to listen to, and green raspberry tea to drink when I went upon facebook, a site of which I have a newfound respect for.

It informed me that STOLEN [freaking!] BABIES are accompanying Combichrist to The Avalon in a few weeks. A vessel in my head nearly popped with joy. By the time I had discovered them a couple years ago, they had done shows here before and they were doing one on the day of my deceased grandmother's memorial service along with two of my other favorite bands, Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation. Gah. Sorry Nanny, but you had been in ash form for a few months and I was internally fuming that we couldn't put it off one day. Especially since I heard from others that attended the concert that the Babies and Within Temptation came and hung out with the crowd.

Think a heavier, more intense, female-fronted version of Oingo Boingo with the clinking of metal, the wheezing of accordions, and "creepy little kid voices" singing in the background. Circus music [calliope for those who don't know the term]gone eerily wrong. Their music conjures images of the works of Tim Burton, Gris Grimly, Brom, Edward Gorey. And that one movie Something Wicked This Way Comes. Twisted Moulin Rouge, a bit of zombies, sewers, harpsichords, steampunk, striped stockings, and greasepaint. Maybe something the Joker would listen to.

Therefore I love them.

May I rant a little more on the singer, Dominique Lenore Persi? She was a drama nerd in high school and wrote plays and stuff. She plays the accordion. She has an enormous range-I don't know how high she can go, but she can go to a female tenor [that's pretty low]. And she can scream and then switch back to a voice appropriate for a cabaret show without messing up. While playing the accordion. I'm told she's really tiny-like 5'3"and you listen to her scream and think "How can she hold that much air in her lungs?" She's freaking gorgeous-you can tell

because of the greasepaint that she has perfect skin. This picture won't get any bigger on this blog format, but she's so pretty and of course, is a big fashion inspiration. Gah. I'm going to do my Stolen Babies Street Team duties and put up some flyers, send some emails. They need monies to keep building cool sets and props. My favorite prop that I must mention is a spine that attaches to a microphone stand-it's really nifty. Lemme see if I can find a picture of it. Yup. The angle of this picture doesn't really show how it has the double 's' curve of a human spine, but it does!

Needless to say, I could care less about the headlining act, Combichrist, even though they're cool. At Weber I made some flyers for Who Killed Amanda Palmer? and put them up with the other thousands of flyers on campus, but I think I could just stick a few around the high school like they've done for other local shows. Especially the drama department. Mrs. Fields liked me and always has a spot advertising auditions and plays and the like and if I took thirty seconds to explain that this band was a group of quirky drama kids in high school and now they've toured Europe I'm sure she wouldn't mind. All for promoting practical uses of drama in life.

Now to make some flyers.

-K.

Auld Lang Syne

New Year's Eve:

9:00. Woken up too early for my likes to get a retainer thingy to space out my lower teeth and straighten them out again. Ergh. It should only be a month or so, but the invisalign I wore for two years was supposed to have done that...it's like having a thermometer under one's tongue combined with a horse bit, whatever that feels like. My first metal device in two years of dental work, ha.

So then I went back to sleep with Gracie keeping my feet warm [and kicking me if I moved], having weird dreams, being woken up by a vibrating phone, and then finally getting up at one in the afternoon.

I was planning to stay at home, watch The Fellowship of the Ring, and eat Chinese food when I got a call from Dana asking if I wanted to hang out for New Year's Eve.

When I got there, I saw some familiar faces and met some new ones. We started out by playing Monopoly until other people came but ended up probably playing it backwards, pieces thrown everywhere, and a sudden need for everyone to wear a hat was called for. And Dana took pictures of it all. Here's a little of the havoc I snapped:

This is my top hat piece, which I wore on my top hat below:

...it's that tiny little silver dot. I look like I'm praying. And now I am passed a noisemaker that didn't really work, but I took a picture nonetheless.

And then it turned into a mad hat-fest and everyone was doing whatever they could with the hats we wrangled up.Apparantly when doing this I looked liked the following, to which I was unaware: "Pyramid Head is the nickname of a fictional monster from the Silent Hill video game series, primarily the game Silent Hill 2." In other words, this guy:
And everyone seemed to get my top hat at some point. There's Roman and ignore Brian in the background, who I can assure you was not naked.

And we did a bunch of more odd things when others showed up, which shall be put on youtube in one conglomerous [is that even a word?!] schlob [another made-up word?] of video goodness.

But until then, we ate many a snack, including hand-made sushi courtesy of Dana...well, I didn't eat any, being a veggie-head, but everyone else liked it. And a box of Milano cookies! And we played the sign game which could be misinterpreted in such humerous ways that it was a Seinfeld episode in and of itself.

For a good part of the party, I came across a white mask and wore it with my top hat and pretended to be a mime and playing with creepy dolls and sitting properly and employing what little sign language I know to the applause of those there. I swear the mask made my eyes fog up, though. Phil successfully wore the other mask for a while, a monumental achievement considering it was too small for his head. And then Brian and I wore the masks when the decision was made to go to Denny's for cheese fries.

We got the big round table in the corner and whenever I had to use the bathroom or switch places so Dana could take picture when I was in the cool mask I had to contort to inhuman lengths to be able to get underneath the table and pop up on the other side. And we loudly played the sign game again, but I don't think anyone noticed since it was loud anyway. I wouldn't think so many people go to Denny's at midnight.

Upon returning to Dana's house it was decided that although I don't like anime or Japanese art or videogames or anything, I must cosplay because I am thin enough to fit in most of the costumes. But that does include dressing up in outfits from historical costumes to steampunk to Middle Earth to Joss Whedon to Farscape, so I agreed. I have little idea of what I'm in for...as long as I'm not in some anime video game costume thingy. And then they dress up and go to conventions and do stuff and stuff. Again, I have little idea of what that stuff entails but hurray for dressing up!

And then I drove home unaware of how the unfogging do-dad works in the car and hoped the swerving wasn't enough to draw a cop as I drove with one hand and sprayed wiper fluid with the other the whole way home. Considering I wasn't pulled over, I was successful.

Now I woke up at one in the morning and the effects of Dana's fluffy dog seem to have kicked in because my eyes are all swollen and drippy and my lungs consisting of steel wool.

The End.

-K.