Hey alll,

Been surprisingly uncomunicative, its the perils of Kidney disease. I have been focusing more on the abstract, drawing, and am a good way therough my first solo compostions in a decade. Of course thats not what I have for you here, this a mix of insturmental and foriegn laungage tunes. Mixed into a nice little package, It’s all about downloading.  Hence the title, ten points if you get the reference

DOWNLOAD ME HERE

This thing has been going around Facebook, for the list of 15 or 25 recordings that changed your life,  I wanted to do this list but I wanted to do mine a little different and tell you why.

1. Tie: Nick Lowe ure Pop for Now People(Jesus of Cool) David Bowie the Lodger

This unlikely combination is exceedingly important to me  as they were the first records I ever bought that my parents didn’t approve of before hand.  My mother had always been very  prominent in my musical choices  it was very rare  that I got to spend money unsupervised.  That’s how I wound up with lots of Big Band jazz records and Billy Joel, not that there is anything wrong with those  types of music . In fact I can argue that Glass Houses is the first major label big name Punk Rock record.  In January of 1979  at a Zayer’s Shopper City  my Grampa offered to to let me buy any 2 8-tracks in a dime bin.  I passed over the collective work of Boz Scaggs, numerous disco records and , and picked these two, solely on the  basis of the covers, and the fact that my one young uncle had also mentioned that David Bowie was cool.

Little did I know that I had picked  up sacred texts: Pure Pop is a masterpiece of pop perfection, power pop that helped to pave the way for the punk steamroller that would soon come its way. Songs about Castro, and dead silent screen stars eaten by their dogs  took up the space in my head  that previously only cared about Star Wars, Superman and Buck Rogers.  Bowie’s lodger on the other hand was something else polymorphic weirdness, androgyny and a taboo smile   lurking behind every corner;  Not the typical fair for a 10 year old from Fridley.My mind was sufficiently blown to start the next decent.

3.  Adam Ant: Friend or Foe

MTV started right about the same time we got cable TV, the very first video that came on was “Goody Two Shoes”. I was instantly hooked the music was hypnotic, strange, but witty, and the DRESSED LIKE PIRATES!!! whats not to love. That day I tried to wear my long feathered hair like Adam Ant, I perhaps was the biggest sissy in the 8th grade at that particular moment.  it took another few months before i could get a haircut that didn’t look like something that Prince Valiant wouldn’t have sported.  goody Two Shoes didn’t just make me get a decent haircut it is really what strted the  major change from boy to man,IE; I let my mother stop dressing me funny.

I had always been a well behaved kid, in fact I was only a kid in size. I was always around adults, half the time raised by my Great Grandfather  who was in his late 70’s.  Not one for a lot of playing along with the kid.  i was an 8 year old that listend to Paul Harvey, relgiously.  Seriously I was beyond nerdy; I carried a briefcase to school every day. A briefcase that I had wired an AM transistor radio, I used it to listen to WCCO,  a radio staiaon aimed at the over 50 demographic. Its no wonder other kids thought I was a narc and beat the crap out of me.

My parents had also learned a cool trick when I was in kindergarten thaat they followed all through elementry school: bribing  the principal to keep me on the bus longer , most grade schools  get out before highschools  and they use the same buses- hence I would hget picked up after school they would drop all my classmates off at the their homes to play and watch TV, then head to the high school pick up those students-drop them off at their home to smoke pot and watch TV,  then about 2 hours after school I got to go home and watch TV.  On the plus side cute high school girls would talk to me, on the downside I was 7.

This sort of gives you th ebuilt in alienation you need to want to satart dressing like a pirate, which is what i did. At first I looked less new wave then I did an extra from a bad holiday pantiomime. Eventually I get better at, but I am pretty sure i was the only New Romantic in Fridley

4. Killing Joke: Whats This For

After a while I slide into this Punk Rock New Wave  Proto goth thing with regular trips to musicland at Northtown, i started  getting into other MTV fave raves like the Police and Oingo Boingo. However something was missing, i knew it was time to break the mall ahbbit and go to  a real Punk rock record store.

The problem with my new found punk rockness is that i was entirely in a vaccum, no one elese I knew was into it, and they pretty much thought me a freak for  liking  it.  That first record store trip was the first time that I was around people who indentifed themselves as “punk”.  I was scarred like  a chubby kid at the top of the talles waterslide at the water park.

Northern Lights on E Block in downtown mpls was the pinnacle of cool, small fdirty in an area of downtown that my mother forbid me to go to, so it was perfection. E block was the area of downtown that had peep shows, dive bars, and news stands. A little slice of gritty in an otherwise placid downtown.  The shop was a craamped crowded  box  with racks and racks of vinyl. I wandered around the store, i Looked at every piece of vinyl that they had, twice. trying o eavesdrop and just glom on to every nuainsce that i could.  I knew i was going to buy something, the question was what.  It dawned on me if I bought a record that I bought like something by the Dead Kennedeys or Black Flag  (things that were noticably missing from the racks of Northtown) that I might “flag” myslef as being incredibley uncool, like I should have owned it allready.

This set pure panic in my despereate for acceptance adolscent brain. I decided that I would by something  that I had never heard of,  and that they also didn’t have a lot of copies of , because obscure wouldmmean I was cool…riight…LIKE ME PLEASE OH GOD LIKE ME…oops sorry I was channeling me in the 9th grade.  From that I then decided that in this instance I could judge a book by its cover, so the album had to  have cool artwork, but should be diffrent then anything I had seen prior.   Enter Whats This For, the cover of which had a suburban looking heavy set woman looking at a bleak forboding street.

Upon getting the record home I was in shock this wasn’t hardcore punk (at this point I had no understaanding of the all the subtle nuainces of the various genres) it was dark droney and ..dancey. Loud droney guitairs, hard tribal drumming and hypnotic chanting vocals. I was intoxicated. I wanted some  crap hardcore record, instead I got a record that busted a busted up genre. To this day this record stands out as my most profound musical influence.

To be continued…

I need to write more, but I can almost never bring myself to do it. I stare briefly at the computer screen, with a sentence formed in my head, before I quickly turn the browser to Facebook. It’s my own personal form of avoidance Oh hell let’s be honest its pretty much all of the slackergencia’s form of avoidance, my generation really sort of mastered that particular art form. The economy sucks, everyone is broke, and if they aren’t they are preparing to be. I saw my whole industry die a stupid and ignoble death, leaving generations to try and figure out what to do once the record industry is gone. Make no mistake its over, There is no bailout for the indie world, if only we made expensive things that put people in debt and destroyed the economy then we could get a check.

I find myself in the rather odd predicament of having lots of little projects and because the nature of them (Film, TV. Music) they have a certain profile, while at the same time I haven’t had the well paying corporate gig that subsidizes it all since June. Giving me plenty of time to brood and more importantly worry.

Not this Harold, a different one

Harold (the name that i gave my kidney disease) has become more forefront as he slowly (hopefully very very slowly) shuts down an organ, the thing is its not just that its all the other questions and read questions as fear that it raises. Make no mistake oh dear and gentle reader this is a disease that feeds on fear, like fat people at an Old country Buffet, and me I am chock full of fear. One of the many joys of chronic disease is not being able to tell actual symptoms from the messed up anxieties in my head ( please note that said anxieties are different then those in your head) See the thing is I don’t want to be defined by disease but right now it’s hard help it. It’s like it doesn’t just have a hold of my kidneys, it very selfishly seems to want my whole life.

I get told by people how brave I am and I’d love to be able to front a little here, play off that Steve McQueen cool thing, but it’s total utter nonsense: because I am scarred. It’s a reasonable fear for certain but fear nonetheless. Fear is not cool, not even in anti-cool nerd chic way. It’s a mastodon chasing you into the cave type of primal thing. And me, I am an all you can eat buffet of fear, which sadly is just the right diet for someone like Harold.

For me in most aspects of my life I deal with fear by jumping in head first, if it scares me I confront it, because I want to conquer it. Its worked great in business I made a lot of people a lot of money (of course I never managed to make all that much for me), It helped me make art with some amazing people most of whom had no business taking my phone call in the first place. That conformational edge helped me to rule the world or at least a very small corner of it. That was of course until I met Harold.

It all changed once he entered the picture, his presence in my life has ebbed and flowed in relation to the severity of his toxicity right now he back and with an ego. I worry about playing it safe, its not about money, or career , things that lost that can be built again, this game you only get the one chip, so you better play it the best you can. Why is it that when forced to take a seat in the high stakes game i start to play like a nervous dowager.
Fear comes in all sorts of flavors, its what keeps us in a job that is going nowhere, relationships that are just sad, it makes people wear pleated Dockers and shirts with golf logos on them. It makes us drink too much or not enough. It makes people virgins, it makes peoples whores, and it is a great motivator- only in reverse. It’s something your never thankful for: honestly when was the last time you said “Thank God I was so afraid of Fill in the Blank ”It’s what keeps us from doing the right thing, or finding the secret treasure that we keep hidden in our hearts.

Fear does have an archenemy though: Faith, sadly faith and I have had a somewhat rocky relationship, but that’s what happens when you start to doubt. You wake up one day and wonder where your life went, when it changed from a song by Mission of Burma to something by the Eagles, and we aren’t talking Kinda ok Glen Fry “Take it Easy” Eagles, but the hell-spawn damnation “Boys of Summer” Don Henley Eagles. Fear moves in and Faith does something else, possible a tour of hostels in Europe- I really don’t know she never writes.

Don Henley

I want to rebuild my relationship with Faith, but I have no idea how, she’s fickle and you really have to do all the work, I am told that there is great reward if you stick around but I have never been around for the Payout. Meanwhile Fear just never wants to go home. I do believe that everything has a purpose and I have to wonder if Harold’s not here to help Faith and me get back together. In the meant time I find myself a not so lucky Pierre in a most unfortunate threesome

I want to have normal conversations, complain about Britney Spears, make fun of Orin Hatch, but each little tweak in my body, every patch of dry skin, or minor cough brings him to the forefront. Faith would tell me not to worry about the little stuff, she’s nowhere to be found, instead Fear is there, and she wants to make smores. I hope that Faith comes by soon.

Everybody hates a sequel, yet here I am sequeling, or really giving an update. My Kidney disease, or Harold as I call it, has gotten worse. So much worse that I need a transplant, and within the next couple of months if I am to avoid Dialysis, which I am trying to avoid like a cabinet appointee is the IRS.

My levels got worse last fall after I made “Unconvention” a documentary about the RNC. They stabilized briefly and then got worse, and worse quickly. At the beginning of February (2009) I went to the Mayo for a second opinion. That’s when they told me.

The transplant list that they always talk about in medical shows really is a list- but unlike on TV the wait is about seven years. Hence why we have started the call for a “donor Kidney” basically friend or family who can give me one. (Oddly enough the U just published a study about Kidney donors and how it doesn’t have an effect on there lifespan or health http://tinyurl.com/awgybe Nowadays the donor doesn’t even get much of a scar , they use lazars, all very sci-fi). My other option is Dialysis, which is 3 times a week 4 hours a day. And your zonked on the day in-between. People on Dialysis can collect disability because its akin to being handicapped.

A transplant lasts 10-15 years then I get to do it all over again (God willing new Stem Cell research will have made this whole process much easier by then), so the reality is I might need Dialysis then. Given its ability to destroy your veins, I want to wait as long as possible before going on it, don’t get me wrong I’d be very happy never going on it If I could.

The whole process is surreal, and scary, not to mention weird , and did I say scary? It’s like your in school, and the class gets divided into 2 groups: healthy and sick, suddenly your in a much smaller group on the other side of the room, and your friends are all on the other side, and your now riding the short bus. Nobody wants to ride the short bus.

I don’t expect everyone I know to immediately drop everything and call but I get asked so I want to include it in this note. I don’t want anyone to feel obligated or coerced in any way. To be honest this whole process is surreal, but not in a cool Daliesque way, more like an Escher drawing, lots of stairs, lots of doors, no map.

If you do want to find out about donating your kidney you can call 612 625 7010, Margaret and Cathy are the donor coordinators, they do a 20 minute telephone interview getting some history and looking for any flags. If that goes well they send you a pack to bring to your doctor (or set you up at the U to draw blood, then they see if it matches to mine. (Apparently blood type isn’t as big a deal as it once was ). If you do donate, my insurance covers the medical costs, there are also some grants available to cover time away from work, or travel if necessary. The whole thing is anonymous to me until the end, so I don’t know who called or their progress. Margaret and Cathy can give you a lot more answers then that, but that’s gist of it.

As for other stuff, what I need is friendship, and a hell of a lot of distraction. I am one who often gets trapped in my own head, so anything that gets me out of it is a plus. Not every, or for that matter any, conversation needs to be about Harold. He is after all kind of a prick.

I do have insurance thanks to my partnership in Miyagi (keep me healthy get a haircut- hmm possibly the worst slogan ever) So right now we are ok, of course that may change as the whole thing unfolds.

The most amazing part of this is that as I feel at my lowest- I am amazed by the response of my accumulated friends and acquaintance. I am incredibly fortunate because I have gotten to be a part of so many different and amazing communities, so many great people some who have shown remarkable kindness. From people I have known all my life, and people I barely know. Giving someone a kidney isn’t like loaning them a sweater, the fact that it’s even considered is in itself an extraordinary and humbling experience.

Please do feel free to pass this along to those that might find it of interest, and I will leave you oh dear and gentle reader a few promises, ones that I am counting on you to help me keep.
1. I will survive: Gloria Gaynor has nothing on me. If I made it through my lifetime movie of the week worthy childhood, there is no way I am gonna get punked by kidney disease.
2. I am going to kick this diseases ass: sure I might need a transplant, but I am going to continuing to be me, making ridiculously big art, crazy records and pithy commentary about whatever the hell I feel like
3. Better Faster Stronger: I look at this as a rebuilding, almost being reborn but without the religious connations. It worked for the Six Million Dollar Man, why not me?

Your pal,

c