i am tired tonight, but

i am tired tonight, but feeling strangely alive. I know why. like salt and lime on apple, my lips can taste the earth. listening to chris whitley of late. "dirt floor"
dark and crimson. musty. filled with lust. we mastered last night, not sure yet whether we're finished, but time slips hand to belly. gently now. a man in a room alone is breathing labored air. damp in his lungs, he grabs at throat. another takes it in softly and sees the light in his brick and morter tunnel. we are a car drifting on cement. the heat rises as cliche as it may be, only to bring us sleepless nights with a surfeit of thought. we are no longer hibernating. we are movement. we are blood.

we are tired.

we will go to san diego tomorrow and think new thoughts for a few days. my first time on a plane in years. i need this. and other things too. thank you ron.

sleep my dear chrimpshrine, sleep.

Somehow, I feel the need

Somehow, I feel the need to begin posting in earnest to the journal. But only after seeing Jeff's prose, which I feel is better than my own. Even if he reads too much Hemmingway and overly sweats the small stuff. We still love him just the same.

Tuve la oportunidad la semana pasada reconocerme con un amigo del pasado, de Catalunya, y su novia. Pense que nunca iba a verle de nuevo. Ha pasado mas de 10 anyos entre el y yo. Me alegrO muchisimo que el tenia el deseo y la memoria para encontrarme. Mucho amor a Toti y Chus. Ojala que estais ahora en Espana, seguros y felizes. La proxima vez que nos veamos sera mas pronto que 2012!

traffic. saturday afternoon on 880.

traffic. saturday afternoon on 880. why why why i ask myself. Then it hits. football. GODDAMMIT. fucking football. i'm stuck in traffic after teaching in freemont for three hours because of the raiders. oh, how i detest such things. people with their cars decorated absurdly, honking and waving at one another. tailgate parties. drunkeness. hotdogs. pj harvey sings to me perfectly. "until my middle name was excess." i drive home, wondering what the rest of my day will bring. maybe i will finally clean my fishtank and buy a new fish. maybe i will name him federico. maybe i too will be drunk before sundown. maybe i will read and drink tea. who knows?

friday night in albany. at

friday night in albany. at least i admit that i am lonely, as i putter about my room occupying my time. going for a walk. making a cup of tea. reading. playing guitar. tentative plans with friends cancelled, and the hermit falls back into his hermetic ways. head in shell. sometimes, i envision myself an old man moving about his house aimlessly, attempting to fill the hours. living room to bathroom to kitchen to living room to bedroom to kitchen to bathroom to front porch to bedroom and so on.
alone. i re-wrote a song tonight called "georgia at least." it will appear on i am not in spain, replacing the existing version, as it doesn't fit the feel of the record. worked with bean today, digging holes and tying dead trees together. she is so electric and alive. effervescent. i too will be that young at fifty. that beautiful. depth. twenty-nine. albany. alone. friday night. who would have thought?

george bush is such a

george bush is such a fucking imbecile it's amazing.

he gave a speech in the northwest the other day, suggesting that MORE LOGGING would be a good solution to reduce forest fires.

yes, it would george.
what a brilliant idea.
you are a true sage.

and herein lies the long

and herein lies the long version that wasn't printed, the first of many short versions that weren't printed, and lastly [the one in bold] the one that they finally accepted.
i am still bereft of words on the matter.

If Kristina Forester were a country she would be Spain. If she were a city, she would be Prague. If she were a cloud formation, she would be shifting back and forth between a stratocumulus and those thin wispy ones that seem to drift endlessly from one world to the next. If she were a poet, she would be e. e. cummings. If she were a Greek myth, she would be Leda and the Swan. If she were a painter, she would be Chagall. If she were an animal, she would be a gazelle. If she were a stone, she would be an enormous piece of amber, holding the wings of ancient butterflies. But Kristina Forester is, after all, none of these things. She is a woman who plays the cello, and her playing will touch you. It will show you the wooded pathway that leads to eternity. It will hold your hand gently, and may even seduce you, as you stumble to your knees; skin to earth. The sound she makes is the sun on your back, crashing in through branches and spilling light onto your childhood memories. Her powerful breath of notes is completely irresistible. Her movement of melody is the dream that you’ve had a million times, but cannot remember when you wake. It is the taste of longing upon your tongue. It is everything you‘ve ever known. It is eternal.

Yes, yes she has played with great and famous musicians. And she has studied at the most prestigious of places; and she has had the fever. The urgency that only music can give, causing her to sit for countless hours, her wondrous hands caressing the strings at arms end. She is constantly looking for and finding new meaning in the spirit of her instrument, as she defines its life, and it defines hers. The answers are in the places in-between. But she knows this. The places where stillness breathes. The places where mystery is found. The places where the two worlds come together; the merging of this life and the next. What a perfect guide through the unknown: the sounds of cello at the hands of a truly brilliant player. Alas, she will remain forever.

And you are invited.

And you are there beneath the open sky, watching the colors spin and blend and twist and turn. A whirlwind of echoes in a dance of light. The northern lights. The lights at the end of the earth. The curtains of your soul rise and fall, leaving delicate crimson petals in their wake. Scarlet red. Mysterious. You hear the sound of strings breathing their languid, painfully lamented, whispers into your blood. Oh Kristina, what is this glorious language that you speak?

She is currently embroiled in a project called Above The Orange Trees, whose music is a celebration of life in the face of ever-present mortality. Their world is that sweeping, lush, sound that captures even the most dour of us, and opens the heart unabashedly. You may find more of her there [www.abovetheorangetrees.com] lingering in the shadows and dreaming of days in the French countryside, as birds dance overhead, the sound of a million cellos’ ghosts at play in the wind. An oak tree, standing strong. Effortless.

Kristina resides in The Bay Area, where she cultivates a sometimes bombastic garden, and attempts to manage the eccentricities of her three cats. She believes in magic and adores the unpredictability of existence. At night, when she sleeps, her dreams are lucid and elaborate and strange beyond belief; and she remembers them all in the morning, much like you will remember her. Big, big, love.

#2. Kristina Forester and you are there, beneath the open sky, watching the colors spin and blend and twist and turn. A whirlwind of echoes in a dance of light. The lights at the end of the earth. The curtains of your soul rise and fall, leaving delicate crimson petals in their wake. Scarlet red. Mysterious. You hear the sound of cello breathing its languid and painfully lamented, whispers into your blood. Oh Kristina, what is this glorious language that you speak? Alas, she is a woman who plays cello, and her wondrous playing will touch you. You may find more of her at www.abovetheorangetrees.com.

and finally...
Kristina Forester studied at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and is currently embroiled in an ensemble called Above The Orange Trees. She has performed with an extensive list of players including Fred Frith, Wadada Leo Smith, Jeff Pitcher, Joan Jeanreneaud [of Kronos Quartet], and Alan Parsons. This is her fourth production at California Shakespeare Company, where she will play both a standard acoustic, as well as a 5 string electric cello [made by Jensen] with guitar processors. You may find more of her work at www.abovetheorangetrees.com, leaving delicate crimson petals in its wake. Scarlet red and mysterious. Eternal.

oh why oh why must i clutter your mind with this?
because i am obsessed.

little to say. physically and

little to say.
physically and emotionally exhausted.
wrote a bio for kristina that the shakespeare company won't print as it is too "atypical"
which was precisely the point; the idea being that for once the bio would attempt to capture her individuality.
but no.
they won't have it.

sad.
sad.
sad.
sad.
sad.
sad.

where is the courage in art?
has it all fallen into the abyss of monetary interests?
more more more more more more more more more more more olmre olmeromermeomromeormeomr.

i find it pathetic that they are not willing to let the artist represent herself in the way that she wishes.
so terribly depressing that she must conform to their ideals to get her fucking paycheck.
all in the interest of business.
it makes me furious beyond belief and goes directly against all that i hold dear and true.
so much so that i cannot write at the moment.

whatever happened to howard roark?

the skies are again murky

the skies are again murky today.
the air crisp.
a layer of fog and clouds lay low upon the hills.
slumbering.
down on its haunches like a lion in the brush.
waiting silently.
i cycled up through the hills today to orinda.
tilden park was perfect.
a flurry of wind and cold on my skin.
the trees more bare than last week.
eucalyptus laying cracked and torn by the road.
the smell damp.
wet earth.
as i rounded a turn, there before me stood a mother deer and her two fawn grazing.
they couldn't have been more than five feet away.
i stopped my bike, lay it upon the ground, and sat on the side of the road
watching them, and sending them my love.
what wondrous creatures.
they looked at me endlessly and i at them.
two animals living here in the same place.
i wonder what they would think of our graceless destrucion of the earth.
our cars and big houses.
our leather coats.
i could see their ribs moving beneath their fur and skin.
the mother had a large red sore spot at the base of her shoulder and left front leg.
i wished i could have helped her heal.
i felt like they knew that i love them.
i rode off, wishing to offer them their space, but knowing that i could have stayed there all day.
i prayed that on my way back by, i wouldn't see one of them dead in the road.
a cluster of blood and bones and mangled hair.
it would have made me cry deeply to see my friend there, crushed by human impatience and innovation.
and they were gone.
back to their house in the hills where we have forced them.
the glorious hills filled with clouds and fog and life.
alive.

today the sky is grey.

today the sky is grey.
the yellow-orange sun cowering behind a wall of opaque.
i will drive to freemont today, to teach high school kids how to increase
their score on the SAT.
that fact makes me feel absurd and frustrated.
i breathe deeply and swallow softly, reminding myself that
there is great beauty in all things.
even things we loathe.

there is this stretch of

there is this stretch of road that i often drive from kristina's house to mine [or vice versa] where
time seems to do something unusual. speed up or slow down, or just mutate in some way
that i can't quite understand. I watch the lights blur by sitting at the wheel.
my heart leaping out to the whores on the street whose sadness and pain i can sense.
whenever i get home, it feels as if i wasn't driving at all.
memory loss.
but maybe what time does isn't unusual in the least.
maybe it moving 'normally' is really what is strange.
maybe it is mutating all of the time.
time time time time tiemktemitmeimtiemitmeiti.
it owns me.
i want that to change.

saturday morning, and i slept

saturday morning, and i slept too late.
awoke feeling vibrant and electric then drifted back to sleep.
dreaming of buying tea.
then i woke with the heaviness of being overcooked.
pressure on the eyes and head.

but at least i emerge from the darkness where i was living.
or maybe dying a bit.

i should have written then, but even that felt impossible.
after we finished the overdubs and mixing i fell into a deep abyss of depression.
depression that the mixes are muddy and unclear.
depression that i'm still so fucking broke and still working jobs that i so deeply hate.
depression that my art just can't seem to become what i wish it to become.
i've never felt so crushed by music before.
never so listless and uncaring.
why is it that when i listen to other records that are so big and so lush,
they sound clear and crisp...all parts crashing through?
what is the mystery?
why does mine always sound so cluttered and busy?
i don't understand.

i truly thought that maybe this was the end.
maybe i was done.
time to go back to school.
for how long can this carry on?

but i don't much feel like writing at the moment, and i seem to have regained whatever
was stolen from my lungs.

so on we push.

silently.
loudly.
it must be coming soon.
it must.

is anyone reading this? or

is anyone reading this?

or am i just writing for me?
to me.
from me.

the heat is here today,

the heat is here today,
reminding me of its strong hands in davis.
everpresent.

i miss that.

i believe i miss most, riding my bike downtown late at night.
the warm arms of lingering sun caressing my skin.

today i write guitar parts.
they are coming slowly, which is quite rare for me.
i usually have such an overabundance of ideas that i must slice the best ones
from the bone, and leave the others to disintegrate in the air.
we go back into the studio this weekend to finish the as of yet untitled ep.
you may have one before september.
it is a gift.
really.

and we play tomorrow night.
luna's.
that place feels like home to me in a way.
as few places do.
the last two shows have been a whirlwind of timelessness.
our three hearts, finally beginning to share the same rhythm and language.
our souls stuck with glue, like pennies.
shiny.
we have captivated even ourselves for once.

send us fairies and love no?

Concierto esta noche. En la

Concierto esta noche. En la mission, Mission y Calle 22.

Empezamos el conquisto musical.

Hoy, la bahia, Manyana, el mundo!

ron

so i attempt a more

so i attempt a more present existence.
how often is it, that i stand crunched at the counter making tea in the morning,
hands slow moving and short of breath?

how is it that i greet the morning with such a lack of entusiasm?
these last 7 days or so have felt darker than usual.
a sense of doom if you will.
maybe it's my fear that the world is dying.
that people won't wake in time to realize the grotesque nature of our modern societies.

greed.

i read yesterday that large numbers of brown bears are in danger of survival, because pesticides sprayed are killing off the moths that they feed on.
and the fisherman who stocked the lake with trout so that they might catch BIGGER fish are ruining the salmon population.
and i worry about the fact that 7 hours isn't enough sleep for me.
that i feel like napping in the afternoon.
so, now i will find grace in the lightness of heart.
somewhere.
i can see the brown mass lumbering, filling the earth with slow beauty.
tomorrow night, we will play.
we will play for the spirit of bears.
starving.