Guys Just Wanna Have Fun Too

I was supposed to play "the rock" in a local community theatre version of Ozma of Oz until i got the chicken pox on opening day. I was devastated, the Wizard of Oz series were my favorite books and all I dreamt of doing was opening the stony gate to the Nome king for Dorothy and her friends.Instead I stayed home that week tucked into a purple rode sucking down soup and watching Nick Jr. until my dad left and I would change it to Jerry Springer. 

My dad knew how much the show meant to me, and I'm sure this was a moment he wished he had super-dad healing powers. Without any supernatural gifts, he still tried to make things better. We were avid board game players and I had been wanting Pretty Pretty Princess for ,like, EVER, DAD! But we mostly played Clue, Life, Payday and of course, Don't Wake Daddy (please). 

I was taking a nap when I heard him come home and that beautiful breeze of fresh air followed him into the room, the best smell in the world when your sick. He put down his briefcase and took off his jacket as normal, and sat next to me on the bed.

"How're you feeling?" He said as he put his hand to my forehead.

"Okay" I muttered back

"What do you want to do tonight?

"I dunno, I'm kinda hungry" I was always hungry.

"Okay, well we can order in. Do you want to play a game while we wait?"

"No, I'm okay. Can we just watch T.V.?"

"Okay" My dad turned the TV on for me, left the room and came back. Enthralled Who's Line is it Anyway? I hardly noticed him when he put something across the snotty tissue collection on my bed next to me. I looked down and it was Pretty Pretty Princess, in the pretty pretty flesh. 

As sick as I felt, I jumped out of bed and buried him in a huge hug. When we played that night he had no bars held when wearing the plastic clip on earrings and necklaces, I think he was even supposed to win the tiara but let me win instead. 

I always thought my dad would be the only male in my life to care about doing these little girlie things with with me, just cause he had to. Duh, he's my dad! But then again, I never even thought to invite my guy friends to do any of these fun things with me.

Instead I had been searching for a girl gang to join or start. Honestly even just one girl friend to talk to, for some reason I felt like they would be easier for me to connect with. But since the only friends I have are guys, we do things like play pool, kick back listening to metal, shoot hoops, watch the game and then play pool again. Don't get me wrong, I love pool and I love my friends but sometimes in the middle of a game my mind wanders off to thinking about a cat portrait collection I'd like to paint with glitter, painting my nails with little daisies , or the how-to I've been meaning to follow to make saddle shoes from my white keds (which are done, and are rad. Thank you).

In my search to find girls, I think I may have come off too strong because I was so excited and my constant requests to get a Ouija board, dress up in flowey white dresses and flower crowns to conjure up Judy Garland was a little overwhelming. I sat around bumming myself out for a minute, but then I realized I had never asked my real friends that I had been excluding just cause they're guys to do these fun things with me.

So yesterday when my friend texted me around the time we were supposed to hang out "What do you want to do?" and I was tired of saying "pool?" I finally said it...

"I've been wanting to make a Ouija board to conjure up ghosts, but we don't have to do that"

A little nervous and trying to occupy myself with a book I couldn't pay attention to, my heart jumped when my phone buzzed back.

"Hell yeah, that sounds tight"

Really? Okay, awesome! My friend came over, we searched for a piece of wood, sketched out the board and took out the wood burning tool. I started it out and figured he might have been nice and just wanted to hang out with me while I made the thing, but NO! He asked if he could burn some letters in too! I was shocked, but I still don't know why. Boy or girl, burning shit is fun. 

So while he did that I took the opportunity to put on some Jesus candles that I had turned into character candles for each of the Skins (UK) cast. I thought no one else but myself would think this was cool, but I took it out anyway. While lighting them my friend asked about how I made them, what materials to use and where to get the candles cause he wants to make one for his favorite metal dudes.

I was so excited to finally be talking about these things that I liked with someone that wasn't through tumblr. Soon enough my other buddy came over cause he heard we were almost done with the board, and when he got here he just threw on a flower crown with me, we put on the rest of the candles and tried to meet Judy. 

For a second there I of course thought, "These guys are only doing this cause I'm their friend and they have to" But they didn't have to, I didn't force them, I hardly even asked them. And now I'm realizing, neither did my dad. I had been so blinded by girl power that I assumed my guy friends has already excluded themselves from my interests. I was excluding them though, I somehow forgot all those times we hung out searching for ghosts in abandoned correctional facilities, playing poker with flowers, exchanging each other's writing, making zines and tapes together, the meaningless road trips to China Beach and Treasure Island, playing Nicki Minaj with the Kids Bop versions and laughing at the differences, playing music together, and doing all of those other joyful things that come out of a friendship like talking, and getting to know each other.

I know there might be times when I wish I could blatantly tell somehow how much my period is killing me this week, but I think I can live with that, as long as I get to keep my friends. And honestly the one time I was "caught" buying tampons with them, I offered to leave because of the huge line, but they kindly told me they didn't mind the wait.

It's a brighter day with this new realization, I don't feel like I need to hide a huge part of myself because I assume everyone will think it's lame, honestly, I think my dad really wanted to win the tiara and my that friends had been waiting for an excuse to put flowers in their hair since they moved to San Francisco. Next time I won't hesitate a second to ask them to do what I think are considered "girlie" or "lame" cause, guys just wanna have fun too.

They said that we were trash, but the name is Crass, not Clash

           My alarm hissed at me for it's last time "7:30, 7:30". With two hours of sleep and perhaps still drunk I surprisingly made it out of bed, washed my face and sleepwalked to my jacket to leave. After a desperate attempt to clean my room yesterday, i unfortunately forgot to clean the litter box, I had even thought to myself to clean it but I decided to do that today...which is too late cause my cat pissed on my jacket, so I had to pull out my old beat up denim jacket. I love that jacket, and i may sound cray cray when i say, I just feel like it's part of my "past me".
                                                             
 So let's get on with the story-

 I get on the bus, where i figure out by the girl moving seats away from me that my cat had also pissed on my backpack, by this point I'm up and leaving at 8 am, i've been getting no sleep, i smell like i have 10 cats and poor hygene and probably look like it too. Music, that's what i needed. The morning bus always seems so much more serene and quiet like a cathedral during prayer. Sunlight glints itself through the plastic windows as dawn continues, heads are knelt down towards sleep , iphones and books. I thought i should join by listening to some light music, i finally added the moonrise kingdom soundtrack to my ipod so i was quick to put that on.

Soon enough i almost fell asleep to the "coo coo, coo coo" sung by a troop of ten year old british kids, so I turned to shuffle.

Crash symbols bring me into a rythmical beat i can't resist. It's my love- Crass.

Probably the best band in the world, not because of their reigning "punk" status and obviously not based on technical music skills and most of all I could care less about any of the member's personal lives. They are literally just the best band ever- think the beatles of punk rock.

Everything you know or assume about punk rock just put it aside for right now cause I'm going to tell you a beautiful story, or I'll try really hard cause my room mate is playing some shitty music really loud in the other room and it's totally fucking with my head while trying to write this-but I can't hold it back any longer!!

The drums, the dead giveaway to any Crass song. Tom, snare, tom , snare, tom , snare , crash crash, repeat. I don't think there actually is any tom, but i wanted to lay out the vibe. This marching band vibe- as if two 15 year old kids were stuck at school for too long, snuck into the marching band equipment and set it up to get a steady rock and roll paced beat.

Then in comes the guitar-no shredder, just a delightful tinny dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Always with the background noise, the glue to crass songs bringing together the drums and, my personal favorite, the bass.

Oh, I could have a love affair with crass bass lines, budum-bom bom buhda-bomp bomp. Dancing with the snare, the guitar doesn't like to join, just watch and then in comes the vocals. The lyrics are great yet mummbled and cockney thus hard to understand,but the message is always heard. Angry jabs are shouted as the music grows louder, and faster, ad louder, and faster, then just when you thought it was already perfect they fucking blow your mind again with a louder, faster, harder, better version of what you were just tangling yourself in. Yes,I used a daft punk reference.

Banned from the Roxy-Crass

needless to say, this is basically a reiteration of my first time listening to Crass, my first album was feeding of 5000, then i quickly aquired stations, soon after that I held on to the glorious penis envy. It was a gift for a friend, but within the year, the same album was gifted to me by the same person as a token of appreciation since perhaps Crass changed his view on punk rock as well.

Penis envy, ladies, might be your number one go to if you're a first time crasser. The album starts with Beta Motel, an amazing song that you can finally understand the lyrics to. A feminist song before the riot girls, and ten THOUSAND times better than kathleen hannah. I'm sorry if i'm using harsh words right now, but for reals ya'll Bikini Kill has nothing on the ladies of Crass.

Beta Motel-Crass

For one it's not the usual out of key whining usually heard in bikini kill, but the lyrics are poetry. I mean we all love "rebel girl, rebel girl, rebel girl , you are the queen of my world" but how can you beat "i've got 5,4,3,2,1, i've got a red pair of high heels on, Strap my ankles, break my heels, make me kneel, make me feel"

The I'm trying to point out is that bikini kill ,as feminists, tend to talk about experiences from another woman's point of view or idolizing, whereas Crass really expresses their own opinions and speaks for themselves, and even comments on idolization. Maybe I am touching on something untouchable so I'll go back to how amazing crass is.

Dirt-Eyes to see

On top of this one amazing band we have the birth of others, flux of pink indians, the ex, one of favorites, Dirt . Chumbawamba used to be a part of the Crass clique, that's right, are you making your home alone , screamer face? I get knocked down was a song they had written to make fun of how lame music was at the time, ironically it became a huge hit single that I heard on the radio everyday before school. The rest of their albums are what one might call "anarcho-punk".

 Bjork used to be a part of the gang as well!!! I was extremely surprised when I heard this for the first time and denied it, but 'tis true.
Crass has also influenced me in the way I write lyrics and sung in my first and recently over band, Statutory Apes. In fact I think we only existed because of crass, the three of us who started the band were all recently obsessed with them and wanted every jolt of their music in our veins.

All in all I wanted to write this post because throughout my time on the blog scene I've been seeing a lot of love for riot grrl, and some great punk-ish bands from the 90's, but no one seems to be talking about Crass. So here I am, giving them the deserved time to say (once again) Crass is the best band. And I would highly recommend this album to a friend :) Which one? Any of them! Oh and I love Bikini Kill, don't get me wrong. I'm just sayin......CRASS

Hi, I'm Elektra. What's your name?

So, like many posts, I have no idea where to start with my head right now. In the past two weeks I have been undergoing major self surgery to the brain, by collecting every thought that could possibly make me upset , highlighting those areas and putting them in the trash. I hate to use technology based metaphors, but 'ere I go... After putting those thoughts and feelings in the trash bin, it's not as easy to go   back to them and fully press empty right away before feeling like I might need them one day, so maybe I should just put it on my hard drive . I don't even know what a hard drive could be a metaphor for in the situation I'm trying to tackle, but it could be that I look back on the situations and think things like "Fuck, well , I'm right. What the hell?" and "Maybe I'm being too harsh on myself".

Possibly I am, and in fact have been for far too long. I let my emotions get the best of me in the worst cases. Not what you may think- What I mean is I bottle up a continuous river of self hatred and doubt and in the times when I am trying to reach out to someone to break the dam, my hand is slapped back for ever thinking of going for that cookie.
A part of me wonders why I would ever try a move like that with some people. But then a huge part of me screams at myself saying "I can't fucking stand you, that's why I need to talk to someone else already!!"

Little bit o' background if you're not familiar with who I am. Hi I'm Elektra, I work from home, where I sew in a tiny little room. Stroon about are piles of fabric where my cat chooses to lay until I'm done. When I'm not sewing I'm doing things like this, writing, drawing, reading, eating, thinking, dreaming etc.. So the most amount of human contact I get in a day is (if I'm lucky and business is going well) Crystal, my favorite lady at the post office, and Alex, my outgoing coffee girl .Who is now gone so that's one off of my list and replaced with another girl I am forming a dollar-for-coffee relationship with at the moment.

I go crazy inside of my head. My boyfriend works nights, which is when I am not sewing anymore, so I write and do all that other crazy stuff, and when he is home, I have to be sewing and working on shit. He is also an artist and a guy with his own life.

It used to be for a good while there that my buddies would come over and drink 40's, or we'd go to the local gay bar and shoot pool THEN go to our place and pound 40's. I liked that because of how little contact I got in the world, they still were around to make me feel human again.

Now shit like that doesn't happen anymore, so yeah I'm kinda bummed. And I don't really want to go into full detail about anything-so I won't. Although I have no idea how to convey how I feel right now.
I'm trying so hard not to care about anything. I have been told for 15 years how much more emotional I am than my friends by one person. I never cease to fail her with my tears so she may have the opportunity to back out of our friendship. I'm not sad anymore though. I'm fucking pissed, and I have been trying for years to not be an angry person anymore. Where do I put all of this energy? My boyfriend hears me yap all the time, and he doesn't know what to tell me. He feels like he is in the same  boat with his friends so it's like .."yay, we get to be pathetically lonely, together!!!......what should we do tonight?" Then we play pool on two separate computers because we've out played each other at the bar.

I guess this post is my first attempt at trying to find friends online. I am a frequent user of tumblr and rookie, and I see all of the friends that have been made through them. I wanna make friends!!! Haha.
If you feel like talkin' or reblogging each other's shit, that would be cool.

Again, hi, I'm Elektra. What's your name?