In Which I Dip a Toe in Videoploggery

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West Coast Hugfest

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The Soul-Soaked Ms. Winehouse

I NEVER saw Amy the way some people did, as junkie fuckup tabloid fodder. To me she was wonderful. Glimpses of her dark side saddened and worried me, but I did not mistake the ugly pictures for her.

It is possible to edifyingly consume artwork without respecting its maker, as though we believe the artist herself is not to thank for her own work. Many seemed to perceive Amy as an obnoxious, unworthy vessel for her Talent. I made that mistake myself at first: I liked her, but I didn't respect her. Fans can be cruel like that.

I came to properly appreciate her, though. How could I not, when Back to Black so uncannily resembled a gift granted me from Adonai above? You see, I was collecting tapes of the Supremes and the Shangri-Las back when the other little girls were on Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. Hearing that girl group sound from the quaveringly brassy vocal chords of a London Jewgirl with tattoos and rapper collaborators and British writing skills was almost more than I could bear. Amy was like a chimerical joint invention of my inner child and outer adult. (She even threw in some Specials covers to appease my inner teenager.)

IT'S FUNNY how much you can care for someone as a fan. I needn't try to explain the collision of internet mourning and the peculiar nature of loss when you are mere fan to the dearly departed, because Jay Smooth already did here.

I did cry. In the bathtub and on the floor of the Oakland Marriott. You only spend a bright summer Saturday in a hotel in the downtown of your own city (inhabiting the floor even) if you are recovering from a herniated disc and using your mom's stay at said hotel as an opportunity to abscond from your home for a change of scenery, so of course that was my reason. But the setting was fortuitously Amyish.

I completed the first inevitable cycle from "Back to Black" to "Tears Dry On Their Own" feeling sheepish, struck by how perfectly Amy had provided a soundtrack for mourning her. Her work made it too easy for me. And that's the gift I think we undervalue.

We can cluck about drugs and fame, but there was a more essential, if ridiculably "tortured," artistic quality to Amy. Tearing your heart open and pouring the contents into music can be healing, but it also costs something. We took Amy's end product, whatever it cost, lapped it right up. At best we listened to what she sang and really heard her. (And I suspect being heard was the compensation she sought, not money or fame.) At worst we violated her privacy and made sordid junk food meals of her pain.

That thing we got from Amy--that elusive, potent magic--she put it there. Herein lies the demanding quintessential skill of an artist. Perhaps we cannot directly see or hear the result of the exercise of such skill. But we do experience it some way, and are drawn to that quality. Crying on the floor was a poignant meme for me because Amy made it so. She did the alchemical drudgery. I got to enjoy the pain-turned-beauty.

If you really have a heart and it really breaks, some faux-angsty song like Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" won't do shit for you. "Back to Black" or "Wake Up Alone" might. That is the difference.

Someone once said to me (when I was in fact dressed for Halloween as Amy) that he could be no fan of hers, since he only listens to 'real Soul.'

I say real Soul really comes from the soul. Amy's damn sure did.

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Letter to Game

Game darling,

Funny you should write, as you had been on my mind lately. Been back painitentiary way (parole violation) so plenty of think time.

What happened? Ehhh...there was this whole coop killing incident and you know me: never ran from a possum, damn sure ainbouta pick today to start runnin (to twist your twist on Weezy). I have a release date, but you know how slippery those can be.

So...been here, reading BritLit. You'd like Trollope. Everything's about money for him, in this vicious, delicious, accurate way.

I like the star behind the "LA" over the butterfly. Am I the only one? (Teasing, sorry.) And huzzahs on the definite article snippage. More elegant this way.

Nah, no kids yet, though I don't doubt it's possible to become pregnant just off prurient thoughts about you ;)

Feel for you on the Jimmy Henchman situation. I can imagine how difficult a position that puts you in, &c. I still think the actual murders were Suge-backed, and I sense you think the same, though you know I'm not asking.

Obama...I know he is doing many things imperfectly, but I still feel, after those surreal Bush years, grateful to have a real president. Obama makes genuine decisions, genuine mistakes, understands and cares about what he says and does. Also I think at some point I decided to support him ride or die. There are plenty of people ready and willing to criticize him, and they should. I provide the unconditional love. Why, have you had a change of heart? (Sorry sorry know you're sensitive! But my penchant for teasing may be tied to your penchant for misogyny--just saying think about it.)

Want to let you know--because I'm truthful like that--you are not the only imaginary celebrilove in my life nowadays. I have another, Dan Auerbach, on whose YouTubed interviews I likewise stansturbate. Well and there's Nicki, but I know you won't mind that ;) You could have had my imagination all to yourself, for truth, had you fully met my needs. Anyway, he's a rockboy, half your size but quite equal in swag. If you can get past the sting of jealousy (and indeed I hope you cannot!) you'll find he's mad talented. He did this spine-tingling collab with your boy Chef. (See Dan stan out at 4:53; hear the track at 6:41.)

Random: what's Marsha Ambrosius like? I can't figure her out.

And now, because I care, several helpings of my usual unsolicited advice:

Beefmonster that you are, you remain surprisingly unschooled in the art of Hate deflection. Don't gripe about getting Hated upon. Hate is flattery, remember that. Far better to counteract the resultant insecurity by stepping your lyrics up. No whining about why do I get left out of top tens. Remember the old adage about talking -vs- being about it. Wise man say: You ain't grinding until you tired.

You have something a lot of rappers don't. It's easy to be Kanye clever. The hard part is putting your heart and soul, best and worst of yourself, into your work. You do that and no one can touch you. And I know you're capable of it, because I've listened to "Ol English" about eight thousand times. You don't have to have silken Snoop flow or Weezy wordplay; that's not you. You rap from the gut and at your best its contents pour forth. I know the process is not pleasant, but hey. If it wears you out just lay down some club bangers for comfort. Also, NO ONE's harder than you, so you have nothing to prove in that arena, trust.

Henpecks aside, I can see you're growing and working on your craft and I am glad. This was nice:

Walk through the gates of Hell

See my Impala parked in front

With the high beams on

Me and the devil sharing chronic blunts

Listenin to the Chronic album

Playin backwards

Shootin at pictures a Don Imus for target practice

The "Pot of Gold" joint seems meant for me and my radio-listening whitegirl demographic to love it, but I'm undecided. The beat is nice, as are your verses, but the whole feels a tad pandering. I say that with love; you know this. Maybe I just haven't forgiven C. Breezy, no fault of yours.

August 23rd! (Sure? [Continuing to give you shit ;)]) Can't wait.

,

Cleb

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Laidupedness

IN THE MONTH OF MAY the sharpshooters began to stand down. That electric nerve pain, worst kind, transmogrified to arthritic inflammation, pulsing along the nerve corridor like I was a bioluminescent sea creature. Lately I have lots of painless moments, or so they seem upon casual observation. If I inquire too solicitously my body usually reports that Pain is in fact still there, perhaps sleeping.

The controversially-called 'painless' moments are strictly conditional. I get to have them if...and you don't want to hear the ellipses contents. In brief, absurd limitation paired with ibupanacea.

I've had to cultivate some weird other kind of discipline. The kind where you don't do stuff--not even the sensible, responsible things your brain says to do. See the chickenshit on the patio, but don't hose it off. Hear the coffee beans crunch underfoot, but don't sweep up the resultant grounds. Faced with a heap of dishes, wash only one dish.

The little feline Buddhist nun understands such things. If her water bowl is empty, she says, Do not attempt to reach it! Merely open the door, that I may go and drink from the water garden. She is conducting clinical trials on the efficacy of feline saliva, applied topically, on spinal disc regeneration in humans. With a sample size of one.

I READ BOOKS about The Back and about Pain, trying to learn from them without being steamrolled by their high church pronouncements. Bed rest should not exceed 1-2 days. I agree: it should not. Not least because it FUCKING SUCKS. But what would general medical wisdom have had me do instead? Keep moving about until my screams summoned the neighbors?

I hold as my bottom line the oath I felt like a lot of doctors failed to make me: First, do no harm.

The research I do and the interactions I have about my back problem are often painful themselves, though I do learn from them. In such case I must unbandage the wound, saying, This hurts and I wish it would get better. That invites clucking opinions and facile judgments as readily as sympathy or genuine help. Princess SHao brought what I really wanted: chocozucchini bread.

AND NOW FOR a quick lesson in making a person's hardship their own choice and fault. It's a neat trick: 1. Think up something the person should be doing. 2. Suggest it to the person. 3. Sit back and relax! If the person fails to be better, it's on them! You tried.

Nothing I hate more than people's little self-solacing notions of What I Should Be Doing. The suggestey shit pricks me til I bleed with self-doubt. The philosopher JBird said what I really wanted to hear: that my ass retains its splendor.

But what would I have people do in lieu of solacing themselves? Doesn't provision of empathy require suffering along with me? How can I ask that?

AFTER THREE MONTHS of laidupedness and discouragement, I gave myself the following advice:

This will last...some amount of time. Some awful, unbearably long period of time, way beyond reason. The progress will be invisible slow; setbacks many. You won't have the support you need. Won't have options that could make it easier. Instead eight million things will conspire to make it harder. You'll often be mired in depression. Your self-confidence will wear down. Your life will get all off-track. You'll get farther and farther from being as you were. You'll lose your fitness and your beauty to some extent or other. You may not even feel like yourself; you'll feel like you are the Pain. Fully parasitized. All this will happen. Continue happening. Even so it will end. You'll get well.

That has proven useful. Eventual wellness is a damn fine promise, one beyond the reach of many who are unwell.

FINALLY, for Lolo, a word on bullshit-skimming. You see, ordinarily I care about a lot of dumb shit, like what people think about the things I do, and why I don't make more money, and whether quoting rappers makes me ridiculous. But with Pain at my back, how can I possibly care? Jay-Z said it best:

I used to give a fuck

Now I give a fuck less

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Fun Times With Chronic Pain, Part MCCXLII

STILL DOING my bid. Pain Prison, cell block 1722. Pain is not my constant experience. I get free from it sometimes and quiet it often. Rather, Pain is the bars and the guard. The walls seem penetrable, and I start telling myself that if I dared to walk through they'd give way. But what happens instead is I walk into a wall. Then Pain gets mad and I spend a day or two on lockdown.

Today I'm on lockdown, in bed, in a painstorm. The storms come less frequently now, and I had gone a record six days without one. Of course I was not without pain on those good days, but I could manage and be comfortable--so long as I didn't do anything wrong. In the concept of wrong Pain shows its capricious tyranny. Yesterday a walk and a stint in a reclined position turned out to be wrong.

This is where rope-a-dope pain management gets tricky. The initial strategy is clear: you feign surrender, let Pain think it's winning. So far so good. But like...you don't actually mean to give Pain the victory. And at some point along the fake surrender, perhaps when your muscles atrophy and your joints forget their parts and the nerve down your leg is so battered it goes haywire, making pain signals out of thin air, Pain does win. Can't have that. So the question is when and how to start punching back.

I try this or that: an exercise, a stretch, an activity. Maybe just moving about the house for twenty minutes. Sometimes I do these things and Pain is powerless to protest. Then I get a bit stronger, a bit more able. Other times I do these things and they open me up to a big fat punch. Then, like today, I stagger, curse myself and Pain both, hate being here, watch the painstorm pass, re-group, prepare for the next round.

Pain justifies the mixing of metaphors.

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Dispatch from the Floor

TERRIBLY OFTEN when I tell people I have back problems, they’re like, Yeah me too. And then I can't say, No but mine are like super bad. I will tell you, though, dear reader: they are quite bad. Bad enough that I’ve landed on the floor, two months and counting, though I didn’t do anything much out of the ordinary.

In fact the strain upon my spine over the last decade has been far less than ordinary, since I make innumerable concessions to the tyrant Pain. I work part time and stretch at ballerina frequency. I am mindful of lifting and sitting and sneezing and carrying too much in my purse.

But nor am I Pain’s little bitch; I defy its rules when I think I can get away with it. And really, it was a pile-up of such sneaky infractions that landed me here, spine trained to the floor, with my mercifully tiny laptop atop a pillow on my stomach and my feet on the couch and an ice pack beneath me.

For the last few years Pain was the weaker contender, and I spit in its face, daring to do things I thought I might never get to do, like have a normal job, live by myself, take dance class, walk for miles. At the height of my triumph I wore some obscene heels.

I was a blithe, jubilant rat fattening myself on a windfall of spilled grain night after night, and Pain was a cat with a grin, crouching and watching. I’m being melodramatic, but nothing inspires it quite like Pain.

THERE IS A NERVE corridor originating at my sloppy L5-S1 spinal disc, the disc aptly if uncharmingly named for its location between the fifth lumbar and first sacral vertebrae. This corridor travels the length of my leg. Errant L5-S1 protrudes and the nerve gets agitated. Back in the day the S1 nerve path used to be the thing; now my main pain corridor is L5. (Both are pictured below.) The S1 path ends in the tendon and heel, which made me feel like an aching Achilles. L5 ends in the toes, which are often a-tingle.

The corridor is constantly abuzz. Be it with electric sharpshooters, splayed inflammation, dull ache. The sensations, and locations thereof, are ever changing, and sometimes I lie here and watch them, as malignant internal fireworks. The corridor may grow dark and quiet, but it always exists. Even at times when I have negligible pain, the corridor is active, alert, ready. My unaffected leg feels to have no corridor; such is the difference.

You may get frustrated, dear reader, when I tell you there is little more I can do for this than rest and let it get better. This smacks of medical slackerdom. But having done much time down the rabbithole of pills, treatments, hospitals, I can tell you with confidence that this is the truth. I had surgery ten years ago, to the day. So do me this one favor and don’t suggest anything for me to *try.* If you wish to offer something, I like food.

I just have to do the time. It is not fun, but it is a test of a sort, a strength challenge, and I dig those. It's like a marathon, only instead of training from normal human to superhuman capability, you train from jacked-up to normal. You battle the daily discouragements and the limits of your body and develop focus and stamina. And sometimes you give up and fall backwards, and watch streaming episodes of Basketball Wives. (I assume marathoners get discouraged and turn to Basketball Wives.)

Sometimes it is hard to believe that my spine is so dysfunctional. But I think of how other people have diabetes or lupus or herpes or dire allergies and it seems common for the body to have some failed function or other. It is the human body, after all, and quite remarkable. It is much more shocking to think of what it can do.

I EMPLOY a rope-a-dope pain management strategy. I lie here in apparent defeat and let Pain punch itself out until I am the stronger one.

I've had to adapt to long-term battle. Reading and writing are all I can accomplish, and sometimes I can accomplish nothing. I'm drinking pint smoothies and eating mini yogurts and frozen dinners, with a resultant abomination of plastic refuse that is hardly less objectionable than begging friends to do my dishes. Bowls are heavy to carry to bed and glasses are easily spilled down the chin when drinking lying down, so the plastics do win for now.

My personality adapts too, as you might have noticed if you know me as a pleasant person and are reading this thinking you would rather not visit such a grumpbitch after all. I don't laugh much, but I usually feel alright. It's just I have to be serious. I can't listen to music that gets me worked up or makes me want to bust even the smallest moves. No Nicki, no Weezy. I've been on Joan Baez and Iron & Wine. My earffirmative action campaign got a leg up.

And I'm in the hard situation of needing lots of Help. A friend remarked to me that it's too bad how in our society it is frowned upon to need Help. And that may be so, but I think needing Help sucks inherently, not just because of some social norms. There are as many kinds of Help as there are kinds of love or water. Help can be given loudly or quietly, generously or stingily, for free or for an implicit price; you can be made to feel it or allowed to accept it with ease. Given gracefully, it is a tremendous gift. But the position of need is a shit position, even so.

Pain is not all curses and grumbles. I grow by its trials and appreciate how it skims the bullshit off life's surface. Maybe I'll tell you about that some other time.

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