Since I'm still getting a lot of visitors wanting to see / hear the whole Paul thing (and since this thing is archived on a monthly basis and today being the last day of September and all...) I've given the saga its own page. It's in the "other" section under "misc".
Go here to check out the photos / MP3. In the next week or so I'll add the unabridged Q&A and a link to the story once it's up on the Pop Culture Press web site.

Paul aside, I've got a lovely (or should I say "lubley"?) head cold. Last week I thought it was the flu (and perhaps it was). Saturday I felt like super-crap and checked my tempature obsessively every hour or so - but no high temperature, just aches and pains. As such, feeling lousy made sitting through the two-and-half-hour Elvis Costello set a bit much (plus the 40-minute set plus from Phantom Planet and the 20 minute set change). If I had felt better I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. Elvis seemed to be in fine form – really rocking out – and played a lot of stuff off the new album. Of course, sick or not, he nearly reduced me to tears with “I Want You” which segued nicely into “Almost Blue.”

What was I trying to say? Oh yeah, now with the head cold (which I'm trying to self-medicate with caffeine, cold medicine and juice) and a general lack of good sleep, I'm waaaaay behind on my school reading and I haven't even started to outline my next short story for class - so bear with me if I'm cranky.
As if I'm not always cranky right? Yeah yeah...I know....

it seems that the powers-that-be have neglected to inform my city that it is now officially fall. Thus, the scorching heat continues....thus my general sense of apathy and laziness continues. It's been hard to find the motivation to do homework much less update this journal - I'm going to try and get better about that. Not that I have anything exciting to really talk about. In fact I can summarize my life quite nicely with just this:

• lots of coffee


• some rock'n'roll (Elvis Costello and Phantom Planet at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland this Saturday)


• am happy that the Sopranos and Gilmore Girls are back in full-swing


• reading, reading, reading


• writing, writing, writing


• eyestrain, eyestrain, eyestrain


• more coffee (black of course)

Last week's show at Old I was fun - despite the fact that I heard a million and one covers of "Dead Flowers", many of the bands really pulled it off. And, of course, the Groovie Ghoulies - with Cory on guitar - were awesome. They managed to take some obscure stuff and rock it out w/ typical Ghoulies flair. Other acts that I thought were exceptionally good: Sonic Love Affair and Victory Gin. I'm not normally much of a Victory Gin fan but they had Mel from Luckie Strike on vocals and they wiped the floor w/ "Gimme Shelter".

The rest of my weekend was pretty much spent studying - oh except for Sunday night when we went over to the Ghoulies house to help celebrate Kepi's birthday. Members of the Helper Monkeys, Secretions, Mallrats and Riff Randalls were there and a good time was had by all...

If I was a really good journal girl I'd link to all of these bands but it's hot and I'm apathetic and lazy.....

just an update on the Paul thing. For those of you who have asked, I think the Pop Culture Press interview with Mr. Westerberg should come out really soon - I thought it would be up this month - maybe within the next week or two is what I'm guessing. In the meantime go there anyway and check out Cory's interview with Nikki Sudden.

Still kind of alive. Just super-busy with school and work and trying to maintain some some sort of human contact beyond those two factions. Erg. Will someone just wake me up when it's December? What did I get myself into? I mean, I haven't even seen the new "Survivor" yet. And "Gilmore Girls"starts anew this Tuesday and we JUST got digital cable today (featuring M2 of course) and of course I can't forget about The Sopranos.
Anyway, I am getting out tonight for the Rolling Stones tribute at Old I where Cory will lay down some of Ronnie Wood's riffs with the Groovie Ghoulies. A little dose of rock'n'roll should do wonders to help me feel human again.....

Some of you might already know the Great Paul Westerberg Story of April 2002 - the one wherein our trusty heroine (that's me, silly) gets to interview the amazing Paul Westerberg (of the Replacements, of course) in a hotel room in San Francisco before an in-store performance at Virgin Records. The interview was for Pop Culture Press magazine and of course I had to bring Cory - being that's he one of the world's biggest Paul fans and all...anyway, to make a long story short, the interview went great - Paul answered the door smoking a cigar and the three of us talked for more than an hour. At the end of the interview Cory asked if we could take some pictures of Paul and he happily obliged. Cory snapped a few pictures and then asked if he could take a picture of Paul and I together. Paul said sure - but we'd have to do it in bed. Ummm, yeah - so I didn't have a problem with that - especially when he wanted to "pretend" he was sleeping and rested his head against my chest.

Lemme tell you, it's probably the only time my husband is going to (happily) let me be in bed with another man. (For the record - I got a picture of Cory in bed with Paul as well - only they're not quite so cozy...)
Anyway, those are the resulting pictures. And yeah, I know I look goofy...but I'm happy, damn it.
After the interview we hightailed to Virgin (for a review of that knock-down, drag-'em-out performance, go here) - we were both really happy with how well the interview went - hell, I was giddy for days - what girl wouldn't be?
That moment easily captured the number one spot in my "top celebrity encounters" list (beating out the time Courtney Love threatened to kick my ass....) ...until now.
A few weeks ago Cory got a CD from a friend featuring a copy of Paul's in-store in Philadelphia. At some point during the set Paul decided to set his tour itinerary to song and perform it for the crowd....
...so, umm...yeah...so what if he mangles my name? Dude - I'm in a Paul Westerberg song! (The use of the word "song" being relative of course) (it's a little over a minute so it shouldn't take to long to download...)
Oh, and for the record...I never said he couldn't touch me...

FINALLY....got the comments thingy figured out -am using Enetation simply because they have a better help/forum section than Haloscan does.
Whew. I think I need a beer now.

comments function is temporarily down until I can figure out why it keeps giving me a scripting error...damn HTML/javascript --it's like freakin' math - you get one teensy thing wrong and the whole thing explodes in your damn face.
Anyway...I have to write and I've been procrastinating long enough...so back to the grindstone for me....

ok, leave it to techno loser me to get the comments thing wrong. For some reason the same comments are showing up for every post. That's just not right....erg.....but I'm too tired to think about it right now and somehow I doubt anybody but me really cares at this particular moment and since I have a gazillion pages of Mrs. Dalloway to read it will just have to wait until tomorrow....blah....

look...I added a "comment" function...(see directly below) only it's all lonely because no one's commented yet. And no one's commented yet because I just added it...somebody please help me break this vicious cycle!

Today I received an e-mail from someone at Mills regarding a memorial service for poet June Jordan who died last spring.
The letter included a poem that Jordan wrote shortly before her death from breast cancer.
As I read it, sitting here beneath flourescent lights with the chill of an air-conditioner raising my skin into goose bumps - all the while trying to avoid the newspaper, TV and certain Web sites because of what I know they'll do to me, I thought it might be appropriate to share on today of all days....
(if you are interested, the memorial service is this Saturday, Sept. 15 from 1-3pm in the Wheeler Hall Auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis).

ON A NEW YEAR'S EVE

Infinity doesn't interest me

not altogether
anymore

I crawl and kneel and grub about
I beg and listen for

what can go away
(as easily as love)

or perish
like the children
running
hard on oneway streets/infinity
doesn't interest me

not anymore

not even
repetition your/my/eye-
lid or the colorings of sunrise
or all the sky excitement
added up

is not enough

to satisfy this lusting admiration that I feel
for
your brown arm before it
moves

MOVES
CHANGES UP

the temporary sacred
tales ago
first bikeride round the house
when you first saw a squat
opossum
carry babies on her back

opossum up
in the persimmon tree
you reeling toward
that natural
first
absurdity
with so much wonder still
it shakes your voice

the temporary is the sacred
takes me out

and even the stars and even the snow and even
the rain
do not amount to much unless these things submit to some disturbance
some derangement such
as when I yield myself/belonging
to your unmistaken
body

and let the powerful lock up the canyon/mountain
peaks the
hidden rivers/waterfalls the
deepdown minerals/the coalfields/goldfields
diamond mines close by the whoring ore
hot
at the center of the earth

spinnin


- June Jordan 2002

So tomorrow is that day. On one hand I’m very tired of all the coverage. I don’t need anyone to remind me what tomorrow is. I’m really tired of people trying to put it “perspective” for me. I’m tired of being advised on how to “deal with it”.
On the other hand I can’t stop thinking about it.
I haven’t stopped thinking about it for the last 364 days.
That said, I don’t need any special service or TV show or magazine article to help me commemorate the event. Instead I plan to think about my life before and after Sept. 11.
I had wanted for Cory and I to go to dinner with Bobby –because that’s who we spent the evening with on that day last year – but he’s busy. So it will be just Cory and me. And that’s good too. Because I get to be with the person I love the most and I get to be thankful that we have each other.
And sometimes that’s all you can ask for.

The Associated Press reports that an Oregon couple is trying to sell Kurt Cobain's childhood home for more than four times its estimated value.
And on Ebay no less.
Surprsingly - no bids. Is it that it costs too much? Or is it that most people have no desire to cash in on the "inspiration for lyrics of many of his songs" that were "derived from life in Montesano during these early teen years."
Shameless and tacky. How very fucking rock'n'roll.....

Super Furry Animals:
oh good lord this is so cheesy that it's beautiful...
you have to watch the WHOLE THING

I'm feeling kind of low today and I'm not quite sure what it is. Maybe it's the nearing of the anniversary of Sept. 11. On one hand it feels as if it just happened - but then last night I went back and read through some old journal entries and it suddenly felt very far away. It's like there's this great big chasm between now and then and I'm standing here looking at the other side wondering how I got here and trying to reconcile the now with the then.


Does that make sense?


Or maybe it's just the nearing of fall - it's my favorite season. I love the changing of the colors, the cooling of the temperature. I love the way the very air seems to change - in color, texture and scent. But there's something melancholy about it too. A slow fading of light into darkness, I suppose.

check it out - Cory's national editorial debut: an interview with the legendary Nikki Sudden in Pop Culture Press magazine.....

Napster is officially dead and buried - check out their final goodbye (via Metafilter)
I'm interested in finding out which sites people are currently using to download music - if you can leave me suggestions in the guestbook (even if you don't have a suggestion, you could always just say hi, you know....)

Ah...a nice long Labor Day weekend and now it's what, Tuesday night?
How did that happen?
Sunday Kim and I went to go see Blue Crush and I'm happy to report that this film totally exceeded my already optimistic expectations. Hoping for, at best, an action-packed girl-power friendly flick I got that plus more. The film avoids many of the obvious cliches and sketches out a somewhat realistic picture of working class dreams as well as a positive commentary on female friendships. My favorite scene in the entire film comes towards the end when the main character Anne Marie (played by Kate Bosworth) is choking during the final surfing heat. Her competitor (some real Surfer Girl - I can't remember exactly who right now) is just tackling wave after wave and our poor heroine has yet to even stand up on her board yet.
Instead of relishing her easy win, however, Anne Marie's competitor comes to her rescue and guides her out to the waves. She encourages her to face the waves - to face her fears. She leads her out, she cheers her on and when the heat is over she is among the first to offer her a cheer of congratulations and a hug. To me this says so much about the strength and beauty of female friendships. Sure women can be catty (and "Blue Crush" doesn't pretend otherwise) but there are situations -even competitive situations - when camaraderie wins out.

###

So MTV wants to pretend that the whole Moby / Eminem thing didn't happen? Maybe if they stopped hyping it in their "news" reports it'd be less disturbing to watch the edited reruns. Very strange.....

###

Speaking of stranges, how many Google hits on "meg white" + "white stripes" boobs can I possibly receive?
Plenty, I tell ya...plenty...at least half-a-dozen....
among the other recent top Google contenders for this site

• Jordan, "Sorority Life"


• "Joey Burns" AND "Calexico" AND "girlfriend" AND "2002"


• Hello Kitty Punk


• Winona Ryder "MTV movie" boobs


• J.Los boobs

What is it with you people and boobs?