Kitty Power

Talking Only Me And You

Andreas Kauffelt & Toby Izui - The People

Most exciting news of the week for me: Soft Circle is opening up for The Sea and Cake at Warsaw. Yes!

My site is still kinda broken. This post is dated from when I started scribbling in it, but is definitely not today. In case you care, the cast thing has become less devastating as time has passed. I'm less bandaged (even though both feet are in the act now) and am back to wearing regularish shoes. It's gonna be a while before I can slip on anything with some height, though if you see me semi-normally, you know that's about par for the course except I can't if I wanted to. Instead, my stupid knee is the hobbling culprit. Oh the good times! My mother wasn't kidding when she said you fall apart rapidly after 25.

Life at the new mothership is pretty rad so far. Minus my hideous ID photo in which I'm frozen for posterity as a bewildered 12-year old with a fat neck. I've been obsessing over that quite a bit.And also last.fm which I just got my shit together and joined. (Please ignore the random Goo Goo Dolls songs sprinkled in. Thanks.)

And now for a story: some weeks ago, I went to see the Battles show at the Seaport. It was one of the few summer early Fridays I had managed to take advantage of and I'd had a nice nap at home before coming back out. I spent most of the show squeezed against a storefront while random packs of tourists went back and forth from booze cruises and the Water Taxi, but I had a pretty good viewing angle and the sound was great. After the show, I wandered further downtown away from the mass hipster stampedes and had a nice burrito at Chipotle before grabbing the J.

Across the aisle were some drunkie girls that seemed like a bit clueless college girls and at Fulton, this random dude got on. From the start, he made me uncomfortable practically boring a hole into my head with his eyes. I was sure not to make eye contact and not squirm. But when he responded to the drunkies' goodbye at Bowery with "goodbye you stupid sluts!," dude got upgraded to crazy fast.

The teenager across from me eyed him nervously out of the corner of the eye. New York kids' reactions are always along the lines of "is this motherfucker gonna lose it or what?" and it reinforced my feelings of uneasiness. A pretty woman on a date sat next to me and chatted with her guy and the man across eyed us both like steaks on a plate. She got off at Marcy and he whispered something in her direction before sitting down next to me.

I dug up courage somewhere and eyed the side of his head icily as he made a production of removing his headphones to talk to me. He turned to me and said "are you going to keep looking at me like that?"

"Yes," I replied, in a stronger voice than I expected.
"Why's that?"
"Because I'm wondering why you're sitting next to me."
"It's a public transportation, sweetheart," oozed the bastard.
"Okay, that's fine. I'll move then." And I got up to wander halfway down the car. Sometimes I wonder what's the point of being in the conductor's car if it doesn't make you feel an ounce safer.

He eyed me the whole time I walked and stood in the doorway and then when I sat at Lorimer. I refused to look and when I rushed off at Flushing, my heart beating in my ears drowned out what he yelled after me. I walked to the newest non-local local eying the sidewalk behind me every other step. Sometimes people are crazy and you'll never know what they'll do. My night was ruined from there. I haven't taken that train since.

I Want To Kiss The Concrete

Skeletons and The Girl-Faced Boys, You'da Been Better Off

I haven't been having the best luck health wise this year, but I'm trying to avoid even thinking "worst body year ever!" The latest saga is my foot. I've been feeling pain in it for a while and my no insurance head in the sand fix was to get some arch support and stop wearing flat ass flip flops worked for a bit. But the other day, it became pretty unbearable and I got tired of hobbling along, so I used my 4-day old insurance (we heart The Freelancer's Union!) to stroll over to the podiatrist and get it checked out. I was hoping for a nice sturdy insert and some painkillers, but instead I got a soft cast and next week I go back for the real way. Yay me? I guess I'm gonna get my money's worth out of these months of insurance I just paid for. And amazingly, I woke up this morning finally not in pain for first time since I don't even remember. So, it's heading towards all good.

The drawbacks are: 1) strangely, a bandaged foot is a prime target for stepping on. Goddamned jerks. 2) It doesn't really get me a seat on public transportation. I just end up with funny looks really. 3) I'm showing up to my first day of the new job looking like an accident prone dumbass. Ah well. 4) This more or less ruined a really fun weekend I had planned. Hard to dance in a cast and boot. 5) The only places I'll probably be the next couple of weeks are work and my damned fourth floor walkup. I think my couch and I will develop a very special relationship.

In other life, this job transition is very nerve-wracking for me. I really liked the place I left today. Not only because it was a great port after feeling so adrift back in the spring and helped me gain a lot of confidence and pride in my abilities, but the people were awesome and taught me a lot and working for one of the motherships (even as a lowly freelancer) does have its advantages. Now, I'm transitioning across town and it's like Monday is my first day of school. I'm sure it'll turn out great, but it's very overwhelming at the moment.

Lately, I've been listening to the old Skeletons album, the new Battles, and Oui and the latest Sea and Cake. Considering those are the three groups I've been obsessively going to see this spring/summer, I'm sure that's not very surprising. Oui was unearthed when I was randomly browsing through CDs. That CD is very junior year of Wes, sitting on the porch of 68 High with Alex and Tino and the crew. I've been thinking a lot about random school times since my brand new Facebook obsession is putting me in touch with randoms I haven't seen in years and the reunion is looming. Five years! I was musing the other day that the current class going in there is Class of 2011 and I'll be 30 when they graduate. Then I thought how my brother will graduate high school in 2017 and I decided to stop playing that game. I need to learn how to live in the present more. Most of the summer I've been looking in the rearview or getting ahead of myself.

These Girls Are Smart

My blog has been stuck in breakdown limbo the past week and change. It figures that I don't actually have the urge to write until it was all fucked up. Hopefully everything's back to normal now. Here's a post that's been waiting impatiently for primetime:

A few months back, I went to the !!! show and the opening band was terrible. Actually, terrible is too nice of a word for their level of suckiness. It was a painful experience that I will always come to when I think of worst performances I've ever seen (up there with M.I.A. in Miami a year or two ago, but that had more to do with her crap songs than utter lack of everything). This group was basically made up of chicks dressed like Stephanie Tanner -- complete with side ponytails -- and their music was utter garbage. Listless atonal clamor with hipster posturing. No fucking thanks. So imagine my surprise when I got my weekly podcast download and song #2 sounded strangely familiar except, like, decent. I did some internets research and it was that same shit band shined into diamonds with a fucking good remix. And I've been listening to it all week…willingly! I hear there's a blizzard forecast in hell…

September is a good music month. On my radar, the free Battles show Friday (August 31st but close enough) at the Seaport (I even have the day off so I can avoid the working until shit late and missing the show predicament I usually find myself in trying to see something there.) (ETA: Went! And it ruled. More on that night to come later); GZA/Jamie Lidell @ McCarren Pool; The Sea and Cake (again) @ Warsaw; Fujiya & Miyagi @ Bowery Ballroom; and the old fan is considering checking out Underworld @ Central Park. It's fairly typical for me that I'm planning days to stay up late when I'm starting a new job in a couple of weeks. I'm moving from midtown to…midtown. Actually only going across town to the West Side where the food is at least 10x better. A girl can only eat so many sandwiches for lunch, Now I can eat hot food from the supermarket! Progress!