When a ledge appears in life, we all get a little fearful. Some questions & thoughts may arise, such as "Maybe I should just turn back around?" or "Do I go over this ledge? Cause I'm just done, spent, over it."

But maybe, it's just best to have a seat on the ledge and enjoy the view. You'll still have you feet planted firmly on the ground and it wasn't as deep as one would think.

September 30,2012

"Sensuality: She's one of my favorite words, as she encapsulates sexy, with this flair of mystery. It's being the Goddess, roaming this earth, unleashing that sliver of slut at the moment when it's expected of her. Every woman wants to be her & every man wants to be with her. I like to keep "Sensuality" close by, as a necessary ally in the vast spectrum of characters that we can choose to wear on a day to day basis."

Sept 18 2012

"Acqua di Gio for women was the perfume I wore when I went to Europe at seventeen. I no longer have the perfume but I miss the memories it triggers: The Moldau in Czech Republic, The concert I played in the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the view of Vienna from my hotel room, just to recall a few. This evening has mysteriously brought back to my mind those couple of weeks."

Sept 16 2012

"As I visualize & dream my thoughts, Ravens congregate in the heart shaped tree outside my window. They fly towards the setting sun while the stoic skyscrapers reflect back the peach & pink hues of this magic hour."

Sept 16 2012

"Starships twinkle in the Moonlight on Saturdays,

Luscious lips suck on blackberry gum drops,

Silent Mysteries in New Orleans cemeteries,

A river of love flows from my heart's cadence for you."

Sept 12 2012

"A reply from Giger's PR :

Dear Tammy,

There is nothing in the plans for the USA, but it can happen if and when an American museum extends Giger an invitation.

We are certainly ready on our end. Mr Giger does not do gallery exhibitions anymore for a variety of reasons, but as you can see

in Europe that it not an impediment. I am certain, though, the sometime in the near future the art institutions in America will

come around to acknowledging him. Just keep an occasional eye on the official HR Giger website.

Best regards,

Les Barany"

September 9, 2012

Random thought:

Bipolar bassist Jaco Pastorius use to eat fried chicken before he played his bass, to grease up his fingers.

He was murdered outside a bar in Florida as he turned on his bipolar side to the wrong person... A big bouncer.

No one told him about how greasy Vitamine E oil is ?

Let's never smell that bass guitar...

June 29 2012

“The Overpass and the secrets that it held.... 

I shared the bathroom with a married couple. The guy was gentleman enough to let myself and his wife pee first, while he faced the opposite wall.

The guy who bought the place repeatedly told me he that he did. "That's nice" I said nonchalantly & unimpressed, as I looked over to where you were standing in the crowd, absorbing the attention from a couple of goth girls touching your hair & jacket. So venerable to their eyelashes and stilettos. Adorable moment.

No sooner I turned my head and a polite boy attempted to converse with me, unknowingly cashing in his only moment with me. The night is young and my rigid disposition is not swayed by his dialogue. Besides, I arrived with two and I leave with two, no more, no less, for my own safety and theirs. 

Musical moments where everyone can unanimously sing the lyrics together, as others dance in the other room with the “Forbidden Zone” projected on the wall. Appropriate for the mysterious evening. 

The mind reading emaciated bartender who inadvertently called me wife, or did she mean it? I wanted to hug her skinny binny body after that. 

Lady, I know too well how it is to work yourself to the bone. 

Best bartender in LA.

Standing outside in the cold morning air, a discussion about doppelgängers arose in the early morning fog. Someone said to me, " Your doppelgänger is in India." Yes, indeed, I've always believed this to be true. I love that this observation was pointed out.

The dog in the bedroom, the present spirit animal, allowed me to give him belly rubs for a few moments as the indecipherable conversation circled the room. The belly rubbing was enjoyable for me as well, pooch.

Anything goes. Everyone looking for something to elevate their spirits in this broken economy. 

...The Overpass and the secrets that it revealed.” 

June 28,2012

"The Versal code is found in Diatonic modes,

I dream of slicing a Carrot in the back seat of a limo,

Mystic Temple Amber Oil hidden behind Patchouli & Jasmine oil,

And I share the discovery of these things with you."

June 27, 2012

"A tiny note of the simplest kind,

That I discovered here in my mind,

Baby bats & blacken hearts, 

Can be found where it starts,

These things whispered to me,

That I hope may set you free,

Peace, more valuable than gold,

Never to bought, never to sold,

Peace was guarded & protected,

In a different time,

And in some other place,

Here, another day can go on,

With tranquility & calm,

With today's setting sun I write these words of truth,

With my love, I graciously thank you."

June 15, 2012

Introducing the Band

 

“Suede was drowned out by Oasis & Blur. But this was due to the record labels over promoting these two bands. They all thought it was pretty stupid. There’s a really good documentary on this whole Brit Pop 90’s revival that have all these bands expressing what they thought of that time, including Jarvis from Pulp.

Another little thing about Suede is that they had to call themselves “The London Suede” here in the states because some random singer was called Suede…but wasn’t even as successful… Pretty weird.

I’ve been re-listening to Suede the past weeks or so. Really good English stuff. Takes me back to when I was 17 listening to music all day in my room when I wasn’t in school or orchestra rehearsals…

Kinda doing the same thing now. Not enough hours in the day to keep on listening, analyzing, & hunting for music.” 

June 14,2012

When I met my dad I was fifteen. He really did nurture my viola playing as he found a viola teacher and a youth orchestra for me. The arts high was something I found for myself and it took some convincing to get him to allow me to take three public busses from Pomona to the campus of Cal State La ,where LACHSA is located.

My viola teacher, Laura, is from Kentucky. She married an Italian man when she was performing out in Italy. I had the greatest fortune that my viola lessons with her would always be timed around lunch or dinner... And I would have an authentic Italian meal after my lessons... For three years... Lobster ravioli , omg , fresh made pasta, fresh made mushroom sauce, ... I can smell it all now. 

Laura had so much patience with me knowing that I probably wouldn't be a classical performer. I started playing at eleven, already too late. I held my viola wrong because I was taught by the public school system in Miami. She had to re- teach me how to hold my viola on top of keeping my mind up with the proper repertoire for my age. So, I would play twinkle twinkle little star shit music to re work my posture along with learning some concerto and my CYMO orchestra parts.Talk about over load. I actually had a cyst in my left wrist from holding my viola wrong.

If it wasn't for her and my dad, I would have never been in that youth orchestra. I have all the sheet music and when I attempt to read it now, I guffaw and say to myself " how the fuck did I play this as a teenager ??? " The Shostakovich fifth symphony or Smetana's Moldau, and countless others.

These pieces have the hardest viola parts. When I got to college and they handed out Shostakovich's fifth, I didn't struggle like a few other violists did and I thought to myself "You , you again, great..... I just played you in another state and you followed me all the way to Florida..."

The only times I didn't enjoy my viola lessons were when Laura's mother was in town as she was a true viola player. Laura was a violinist who happen to know viola enough to teach it. So, those lessons were concentrated with two generations of musicians  and a mother-daughter combo arguing with each other on what I should or shouldn't do. 

Needless to say I'm grateful for that time. I gained knowledge in music that I wouldn't have gained any other way. And the appreciation for very well made food, too.

“It's assumed that girls keep diaries. This is true to some degree as I've had diaries numerous times yet I've failed miserably to complete one from beginning to end. I feel like I've written more diary entries now than all of those barren books that I've kept through out my lifetime....

I woke up at my usual time as if I were to drive to work, but I went back to sleep having one of my regular erotic dre

ams. For whatever reason, this character that I am in my dreams, she can be lascivious from time to time.

When I awoke from that moment, I found myself visiting the Crystal Matrix. The energetic potency in this place is dense and I shouldn't have gone inside with an empty stomach, as I could feel myself nearly fainting. I asked the lady who worked there where can eat that's walking distance. She rambled on & on about what to eat in which direction & I felt more lost as she continued to speak. I politely thanked her & left the store. I walked in one direction only to find that there was a huge line in front of a taco joint . I decided I didn't want to stand like a fool, dressed in all black, in this June sun. Then I remembered that there was a cafe next to the crystal store, which the lady didn't even mention at all.

Should have went with my intuition.....

The place is called Canelé. The aroma is tightly locked up like a food bank vault. It's kinda dark inside, with a brick wall to the right & a red wall to the left, where the kitchen is. There were a fair amount of families inside & the waitresses had some glorious tans. Well, I got another front row seat watching the cooks. The main cook was a stoic young man, whose forearms were covered in burns & lacerations from moving the food out of the industrial oven. He wore a Jagermeister cap and it made me wonder if this liquor kept him going when he wasn't burning his arms on the regular.

The menu had mimosas as well as veal. I'm certainly going back to try that damn veal. Since it was still breakfast, I ordered eggs in the hole with coffee & water. The sugar for my coffee was shaped like a block of crystal as if were from the Crystal Matrix store. My meal was wonderful, arugula salad with purple onion slivers, buttery baked French bread with eggs. I watched one waitress perpetually order the cook for grits, shrimp, & pancakes. Kinda annoying & made me want to swig back a shot of Jager.

Afterwards, I went to Amoeba to get rid of a few things. I found it humorous that there were a couple of posters with the word "Crystal" printed on them. Wonder what the universe is telling me...”

June 2, 2012

I attended three high schools; G Holmes Braddock in Miami ( where I did most of my skipping school) , Garey High in Pomona, and last but not least, The Los Angeles County High School for the Arts ( or LACHSA for short). I have a serious laughing problem, you probably know this. I can laugh at pretty much anything. I swear to you, all the way til I graduated high school, nearly every teach wrote "Talks too much" under class conduct. Why? Because they couldn't find a statement equivalent to say "She laughs at all the god damn class clowns and I can't teach my fucking lesson" ... Because essentially, that's what I'd do.

In Garey High, I had this English professor, Mr. Prentice, a scraggly old black man who had a glass eye. He was one of my favorites because he would always put extra emphasis on our SAT vocabulary words, to kinda grill them in our minds. This worked for only one one that I can remember : ostracize. When he would scold some one, he would say, "Don't make me OSTRACIZE you!" , looking at one student while his glass eye would be "looking" somewhere else.... This would confuse so many kids, because they would turn and look at each other and question if he was talking to them or someone else. So, they would shut up and get back to their school work. I was always laughing at this because I knew on some level, he was just fucking with them to make his day go by in a better direction.

Then there was US History, with the very young, handsome, Russian, Mr. P, because no one, not even himself, could pronounce his name. I never learned a thing in that class ! I was goofing off, laughing with one class mate, while just constantly in awe with my hot teacher, who was a notorious chain smoker as well. This was all he seemed to talk about too. He actually called my class clown classmate & myself tweedle dee & tweedle dum. And he never separated us, however, he would yell at us from time to time, and we would have to snicker to ourselves the rest of the class. Never ask me anything about US History, I blame my hot, chain smoking teacher and that class clown. Alls I know is some document was signed , bills of rights, Louisiana was purchased, slaves were freed, and something about a cherry tree. Oh, and France gave us The Statue of Liberty. That's it. Epic fail.

In LACHSA,  there was Mr. Morotec, a very flamboyantly gay man who knew everything under Sun,.... Except how to teach fucking Algebra!! This man knew Latin, Music theory, and government like no other teacher out there. He was awesome. During our class, other students would come in and bug him for help ....on subjects that weren't Algebra. Some of us even began asking him questions on our music theory homework. But if you had one question for Algebra, he'd look at your problem, look at you & simply say " You need to work on your Arithmetic" . What? Are fucking kidding me? I cheated on all my exams. He would leave the class during the exams and go get a sandwich, talk to other professors, and THEN, pop his head in the class room and shout " I know you're all cheating !!!!" and walk away. Smart ass. He was fired the following year. In hindsight, maybe he knew this and didn't care to teach the syllabus.

High School was such a joke. I don't remember anything apart from laughing at all the constant absurdities from all these other humans. It still makes me lol, as we say now per #internetspeak.

Maybe I have had a bit of a Southern drawl or so I was once told when my cousin from New York visited me when I was little. The accent may have shifted to some degree, yet when I talk to my sister, the accent, may come out to visit. One thing that I have always kept with me from being a Southerner is always having a fan on. I've done my best over the last ten years to be conscious of this. The South is humid, all ...the ... time. You don't get a break from the humidity, not even at night. This is why I love LA because we have such nice cool evenings. Yet in the South, the nights are still sticky and humid, you just don't have the sun hanging out reminding you how hot it is.

As for the fan thing... I always have one on, especially when I sleep. The droning sound of it is what I need , not so much the circulation of the air, as pleasant as that is. You see, since the South is so humid, you have a fan on at night. I realized that the sound was missing when I moved with my roommate to West Hollywood in late 2002. I bought a very small fan and kept it on at night, even in the winter. She thought it was pretty strange, but so was her choice in choosing We Ho for us to move to, after leaving a disastrous roommate scenario in Park La Brea... To each their own .

May 23 2012

I woke up practically drunk. So I needed to do something about this self inflicted hangover. The Brite Spot is the only place that I know of where I can put Louisiana Hot links in my eggs Benedict. I decided to fulfill this desire. I drove over there, listening to Ziggy Stardust. Entering the Brite Spot, "Changes" was playing through their sound system. I chuckled to myself that the David Bowie soundtrack is continuous in my life. The waitress had me sit at the bar area. I had a front row seat to satiate my food voyeurism, watching the cook, the waitresses, & bus boys hold down the fort. One of the waitresses began speaking to me saying that it's slow for a Saturday & how they only have one cook, as the other cut his finger. They all seemed to be overwhelmed by this and did their best to smile. I began listening to the guys speak to each other in Spanish and I imagined how truly foreign this sounds to people who don't know it. A different waitress approached me and asked if I was a journalist, possibly afraid I might be a food critic. I laughed and said no, I'm enjoying watching everything. She said that it's the best theatre. The eggs Benedict were so good and this time, and I chose the fruit bowl in lieu of the usual potatoes. I realized I might have made things easier for the lone cook, in that he had one less thing to heat up. My waitress, possibly a mind reader, put a bottle of Chulula in front of me. I continued to watch all these people while eating my breakfast, hustling around the area, with plates of perfectly prepared food that flashed under camera ready lighting, moving trays filled with prepared scooped butter that looked a lot like mini vanilla ice creams, & laughing together when the cook dropped a plate. Before I knew it, I reached my full limit. I asked my waitress for a box for my fruit and she handed me a Chinese take out box. I laughed at this, and she sheepishly said "That's all we have!" but I was laughing as it just added to the experience. When I left, I told the waitress who assumed I was a journalist that this is the best place to come to for a hangover. She laughed and said that it is. I noticed she had a flower of life as a charm on her necklace. I love that place, it's pretty cool and quirky. May 19 2012