Meme: Post the first line of your first journal entry of each month for 2007 (snerched from davidlevine)

( Behind the cut on account of length )

Kirsten's answer to my question "Why sewing?" deserves its own entry.

(Scroll down to Question #5.)

It is a meme. It is the five questions meme. Here's how it works:


1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

So, I think I'll put an upper limit of, say, six people, on account of I'm a bit busy with stuff.

Anyhoo, Tim grilled me, and here are my answers:

1. Why squid? I mean, you live in a freakin' desert, dude.

It was an ocean once, a long time ago, and the ghosts of sea creatures still swim overhead in the night.

Also ... giant squid! Their eyes are the size of dinner plates! Their beaks can snap steel cables! They grapple with the mighty sperm whale! Giant squid!

2. Rush breaks up. Then they reform... but without Geddy Lee. They get somebody else to sing. Hell, I don't know. That guy who used to sing in Extreme, and then in Van Halen. You know, that guy. They're having a show. They promise to play some "new material." Do you buy tickets and go see them play?

Are you kidding me with this question? Rush without Geddy Lee is analogous to a car without wheels. It's not just Geddy's vocals. It's his song-writing, his arrangements, his on-stage dorkiness, and most profoundly, his bass playing. I remember the first time I listened to the Moving Pictures album, in my friend Todd's Toyota Tercel, in the parking lot of Vet's Park back home in Culver City. The sound of Geddy's Fender Jazz, his riffs and melodies ... it changed my life. I love Alex Lifeson's guitar and Neil Peart's drums, but without Geddy Lee? Inconceivable.


3. Is it the heat, or is it the humidity?

It's the mutagenic gamma rays. Seriously, I hate the heat, but I'm no longer profoundly shocked by it. And 102 degrees with 3% humidity really isn't all that uncomfortable.

4. You're given one wish by the world's lamest genie, but it's not so
much a wish as a choice: You can save a guy you never liked that much from drowning, or you can eradicate all leaf blowers from the world, forever. Which do you choose?

I save the guy I never liked, but I lord it over him for the rest of his miserable life.

5. Another lame genie (they travel in packs): You can become a
bestselling author, but only if you give up beer and chicken wings
forever. Or you can kick the genie in the nuts, without fear of
supernatural repercussions. Which do you choose?

I think the crux of your question is a choice between success and recognition, or the small, daily pleasures of life. I choose the small, daily pleasures, for there are more small moments in life than large moments, and I seek happiness by trying to make as many of those small moments pleasurable as possible. What good would a bestseller do me if I had no beer and wings -- and the friendships implied by beer and wings -- to celebrate it?

Tagged for a meme by Randy: Seven songs you're currently enjoying.

As is my usual memey practice, I participate while tagging not just the number indicated by the tagger, but rather by tagging everyone who might like to be tagged, all at once.

1. "Express Yourself" by Charles Wright - Funky-ass bass riff that can't be beat. It'll put a groove in your duodenum.

2. "Express Yourself" by N.W.A. - Much the same, only with Dr. Dre. "Cuz some don't agree with how I do this/I get straight, meditate like a Buddhist."

3. "Bus to Beelzebub" by Soul Coughing - Kirsten gave me this in a Soul Coughing compilation, and I found it at work on some guy's network-shared iTunes playlist. I love network-shared iTunes playlists. Ultimately, I think most buses take us to Beelzebub.

4. "Spoon" by Dave Matthews, Live at the 10 Spot - One guy, one acoustic guitar, one weird song.

5. "In Hiding" by Pearl Jam - Just one of those songs that makes me nod my head rhythmically in rock and roll fashion.

6. "One Vision" by Queen - Big arena cheese. Love it.

7. "Soul Kitchen" by X - I was never part of the 80's L.A. punk scene, but this song makes me feel as though I were.

***

I've developed feelings for First Person Shooter, the creepy guy who's always at the coffee joint, wearing camouflage and playing shoot 'em up games on his laptop. I think he actually might live in his pick-up, and he's been using the coffee joint to escape from life in a hot metal box baking in a parking lot. Doesn't matter if I'm here in the morning, at closing, weekday or weekend, he's always there, same corner table, looking like he hasn't moved in weeks. At least he used to be.

The other night a customer walks up to him and says, "You're always here. You never go home."

Shooter laughs nervously and says, "No, not really."

"Yeah," intrusive customer insists. "You're here all the time. You live here."

Shooter laughs, painfully, reiterates that he does actually leave, doesn't really spend all that much time here. But the instrusive customer won't leave him alone, just keeps drilling him, despite Shooter's squirming.

And I haven't seen Shooter since. Whatever his circumstances, instrusive customer made them more uncomfortable, I think.

I hope Shooter's found another coffee joint where they give him water and let him sit at the same table for sixteen hours, nursing a decaf.

***

You can skip the following if you're not interested in meta blog thinking.

With the last couple of entries, I've been mirroring Writing and Snacks at my LiveJournal to save LJ users the trouble of clicking over. But, man, I really don't like LiveJournal all that much, despite cool features like friends lists and all that. Over at writingandsnacks.com, I've got all the links to my Flickr stuff and my bibliography and online stories and interviews and stuff, and it's prettier there, I think. But more and more, it seems a bit futile to try to control how and where readers make contact with your content. RSS means that people will read your content in the manner of their choosing, not yours, and fighting against that may be like trying to hold back the ocean with a spork.

So, for now, I'll be posting full entries at both places. But for the record, writingandsnacks seems like home to me, and the LJ is ... something other.