Showing posts with label Timi Yuro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Timi Yuro. Show all posts

Sunday, January 18, 2015

The Sunday Series: Sunday No. 2 (January 18, 2015)

Photo from https://www.etsy.com/shop/VintageMadeByDucky/about?ref=l2-more-about


Sunday No. 2

It took me awhile, but I think I arranged a chance to fuck “her.” It seemed like it took forever to get her to my point of view, that I was desperately trying to convey to her.   Her beauty has been a consistent heartache as well as a pleasure of sorts.  To want something, and being so close to “it, ” is like walking across two skyscrapers on a thin rubber-band in the wind.  She is standing perfectly still in front of me, but the wind is pulling me back, sideways, and this time, I hope forward.   She would often drop hints of sensual adventure, but once I try to act upon them, it is like it never happened.   Either by design, desire, or just a cruel version of torture, she would wear this piece of jewelry on her body that is like waving a red cape in front of a horny bull.  It was a thin chain that is connected to her waist and goes up to the back, and then around her beautiful neck.  If she was wearing a blouse it would appear to be a thin necklace around her throat.  But when she is wearing her backless black dress, you can see the full design, except the part that is connected to her, what I imagined, is her perfect waist.  When I was with her, especially in public, I could barely stand it.  

I’m consistently on the telephone with her, and she slipped in the information that she was planning to wear the “necklace,” in case I was planning to come over her house - which it seems she will be alone.  My reaction is like the wolf in a Looney Tunes 1940s cartoon, where my eyes are jumping out of my sockets, and my tongue is rolling over my thick lips.  I told her for sure I will be there, and since it’s Sunday, I’ll bring some things over.  Neither one of us works in the sense of “work,”… like Monday you have to go to work type of thing.  Personally I was daydreaming that I would be spending a week in her bed, while I trace my fingers against her jewelry.   In fact, I wanted to remove her jewelry piece, and with a felt pen, draw another version on her skin.   For the whole week beforehand, whenever I saw a felt pen on a table, or in a stationary shop, I would get an erection.  While we were talking and arranging a meeting just now, that is exactly what I was thinking.   Before I left the house I took at least three pens with me and put it in my bag.  



I knew she had a turntable in her apartment, so I stopped at Amoeba to locate Brian Eno and Robert Fripp’s “Evening Star” on vinyl.   Some years back, I remember having sex with this music in the background.  Side two is “An Index of Metals, ” which lasts for the whole side.  I think 28 minutes.   Perfect time length for intercourse, as well as climaxing at the end of the track.  Knowing this piece so well, I can use it as a guide of sorts, while actually fucking her.   I did find the album, although used, and looking at its surface, I did see scratches on the vinyl.  In theory, I thought this will be OK, and may even add creative tension in the sex act, with this in the background.  



As I was heading out towards the line to purchase the Eno/Fripp album, I saw a 45 single by Timi Yuro called “Interlude.” I stopped.  I turned around and picked the single up. This was a song, that I wanted like forever.  Timi was a favorite singer of mine, and often I felt, mine alone.  She was an American, died young, and had a big voice for a little girl.  This song, for me, is the ultimate doomed love song.  I often cried when listening to it, and that was embarrassing because a friend of mine had the single.  I tried to buy it off him, but he refused. He told me that once I find it, the song will bring new meaning to you.   I looked at the grooves of the vinyl, and it looked like it never has been played.  The store wanted $12.99 for it, and who am I to argue if the price is too high.  What I’m buying is not only art, but something that is essential to one’s life, or even identity.  With that in my hand, I started to walk towards the cashier, when all of sudden something caught my eye.



It was the front cover of an album by an artist or band called Perfume Genius.   I was struck by the beauty of the young man on the cover, and I immediately went to the record like an abandoned cat in a rain storm approaching a neighbor’s cat food plate.  The song titles were intriguing to me, especially the one called “Queen.” With my I-Phone, I found the track on YouTube, and watched and listened to it at that spot.  It was the glam rock song of my desires.  I gave up hope of ever hearing a new glam song, and this one with its pansy sexuality, was superb.  I played found another video of his, called “Body, ” and that too was magnificent.  When one discovers a new record or a new sound, it is like falling in love.  One wants to go around and shake people from their shoulders and tell them to listen to this.   Common sense told me that this was not a good idea.  So I took that album and put it under my arm with the Fripp/Eno album as well as the Timi single.  While standing in line to purchase the goods, she called me and told me if it is ok to come later over her house.  I said sure, and she said that she is really looking forward to seeing my face.  I felt good hearing that.  Also it gave me a chance to get back home and listen to the records.

Every time I play a record on my turntable, it takes me five minutes or so to clean the needle.  I’m obsessed with getting the best sound possible on my set-up, and I actually enjoy the procedure in preparing a record listening session.   I quickly checked the Eno/Fripp record to see if it’s in a good condition, and for a used album, it looked like it wasn’t played a lot.  There was a crackle here and there, but overall it sounded good, and therefore perfect for tonight’s planned love-making.    I then put on Perfume Genius “Too Bright” album.  



“I Decline” is the first song on side one.  At this moment, I ‘m taken to another place in my world.  I don’t even recognize where it is, but I know I like it.   Then comes the song “Queen.” It is like someone put a knife on my chest and cut it open, and released all the tension within me.  “No family is safe when I sashay.” I keep lifting the needle after the song is finished and replaying it.  I remember in Jean Cocteau’s “Orpheus” when the main character, a poet, would sit in his car parked in his garage listening to messages on the car radio from the underworld.  I feel the same way when I hear this song.  “Queen” is communicating with me directly.  Slowly, as I meditate on the song, it becomes clear to me that life is so multi-dimensional.  

Once the whole album was over, I immediately went into my work-space and got my head-phones and played the whole record again.  One of the things I admire about the record is its sonic textures.  The melodies are all strong, but there was something ‘ugly’ about the sound as well, which brings out the beauty of the lyrics and melody.  Due to the cord attached to the mixer, I couldn’t sit on the couch, so I got a big pillow, and lay on the wooden floor.  As the sound overcame me, I fell asleep and I had this odd dream of me being in bed and someone entering the bedroom.  It was a ‘she’ and I presumed it was my desirable obsession with the jewelry.  As soon as she got in bed in total darkness, I reached out and said her name.  She then told me that it wasn’t her, but someone named Sue. I didn’t recognize the voice, and I didn’t do anything. I just pretended that I fell asleep.  When I woke up, I hear the needle going back and forth at the end of the record. 



I then put on the 45 rpm single of Timi Yuro’s “Interlude,” and time truly became a dream.   I slowly realize that my desires are a dream.   There is my life as a living being, but beyond that, and through music, I realize that I am something more.   Not necessary a  better person, but I’m not the same guy that morning, then I am now this evening.   Time is like a dream, and my lust for her, has changed into a beautiful melody. 

Monday, August 4, 2014

August 4, 2014



August 4, 2014

The only thing I could write in my diary last week was this:

Monday: Me.
Tuesday:  Me
Wednesday: Me.
Thursday: Me
Friday: Me
Saturday: Me
Sunday: Me


I find myself fascinating, but to convey that in words can be difficult. However, now another Monday has appeared and there seems to be a glimmer of hope that my life can get back on the track, and therefore I will see the world in a much better light.   Nevertheless I’m working on a novel “Zastrozzi” and it includes my thoughts on irresponsible self-indulgence and violent revenge.   A dear friend of mine reads the original draft, and he wrote to me that “Zastrozzi” is one of the most savage and improbable demons that ever issued from a diseased brain.” The narrative (so far) is about an outlaw named Zastrozzi, for whom his two servants kidnap Verezzi, because Verezzi’s father had deserted his mother, Olivia, who died young and in poverty.   So going after his half-brother, he commits revenge on not only his father, who he killed, but also the off-spring of one of his other romances.   Zastrozzi manipulated Verezzi into committing suicide, which based on his Christian religion against taking one’s own life, guarantees the eternal damnation of Verezzi’s soul.



The trouble I’m having right now if trying to find a satisfying end to the book.  Also I have to be honest here, that Zastrozzi the fictional character is based on… me.   Not that I actually killed anyone or drove a man to suicide, but for sure the self-indulgence part, and I do have occasional violent revenge fantasies, but really, I do have it under my control.  Being a writer I can make my own world, and focus on the blank page and fill it with my thoughts and word-play.  While I was writing this novel, I listened to Timi Yuro’s “Interlude, ” which is a song that speaks to me on a highly romantic level.  “Loving you is a world that is strange” is the line that goes around my head over and over again.  I need to hear this song at least seven times before I even pick up my pen.



What may seem odd is that I’m more influenced by books on film theory than books on writing.  Béla Balázs’ “The Spirit of Film” (1930) is something I reflect on when writing.  The images in my mind are a set of montages that I try to fit together.  What seems like to be an interlude now, can be the beginning of love.  But with that love is a certain amount of poison, that if one is not careful, it can bite, and I often feel that the bite will go on eternally.  “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of  the cinema (i.e. the arts seek to unify subject-matter and form, and the cinema is the only art in which subject and form are seemingly one).”   Till then, time is like a dream, and I will try to hold on to that dream.