My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So, the lyrics game is over… we have a winner! Reader, Eve, rocked out a perfect set of answers to win a bundle of three really spectacular records, The Both, Either/Or Extended Edition, and Mental Illness via the iTunes Store.

Here’s Eve’s display of badassness:

Hi Mike!

Just found your post with story and quizz!

Here goes:

1- Artist The Both. Song: Hummingbird, album: The Both.
2- Artist Aimee Mann, song: How am I different? Album Bachelor No 2
3- Artist : Nirvana. Song: Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. Album In Utero
4- Artist Elliot Smith. Song: Rose Parade. Album: Either/Or. (love that album!)
5- Artist Priscilla Ahn. Song: Lost Cause Album When You Grow Up.
6- Artist Death Cab For Cutie. Song: Champagne from a Paper Cup. Album You Can Play These Songs with Chords.
7- Artist Elliot Smith. Song Angel in the Snow, Album: New Moon. (love that album too:D)

Hope that sums it up! Did I make it?!

Congratulations, Eve, and thanks for reading!

Speaking of reading, if you haven’t had a go at Music in the dark, the flash fiction that started this game, give it a read. I’d love a little more feedback.

So, seeing that nobody won my lyrics game, though lots of folks viewed it, perhaps the game’s a little too rough. I’m going to give away a few answers to see if we can’t get a winner…

Here’s the lyrics list, with a few answers filled-in. I don’t want to make it too easy. C’non, people, hit the google machine! I want somebody to win!

But I got a message from the hummingbird, he gave me a warning in disguise… 

Just one question before I pack, when you fuck it up later do I get my money back? – Aimee Mann, How Am I Different?, Bachelor No. 2 (Or, The Last Remains of the Dodo)

I love you for what I am not, I did not want what I have got…

Won’t you follow me down to the Rose Parade…

Oh it’s all just a lost cause… – Priscilla Ahn, Lost Cause, When You Grow Up

Drinking champagne from a paper cup is never quite the same and every sip’s moving through my eyes and…

Don’t you know that I love you? Sometimes I feel like only a cold still life, only a frozen still life… …that fell down here to lay beside you. – Elliott Smith, Angel in the Snow, New Moon

Like I said, the first person to note the…

Artist

Song title

Record

.…for each song wins a bundle of three of my favorite records, The Both, Either/Or Extended Edition, and Mental Illness via the iTunes Store.

Just leave your guesses in the comments for this post. Comments left on Facebook, or Twitter, or my e-mail, or anywhere else don’t count.

So, I wonder… Did any of my readers who read Music in the dark know all the songs playing on the fellow’s iPhone at the story’s end? I picked them at random, whatever popped up on my mix, I used it in the story. It was sort of an exercise, making the story fit the songs, while still keeping the story intact. Two of the songs are super easy, they’ve had plenty of exposure. The others are more obscure, which is a shame, they’re beautiful songs. That said, let’s play a game…

The first person to note the…

Artist

Song title

Record

…for each song wins a bundle of three of my favorite records, The Both, Either/Or Extended Edition, and Mental Illness via the iTunes Store.

Just leave your guesses in the comments for this post. Comments left on Facebook, or Twitter, or my e-mail, or anywhere else don’t count.

Tattoo correction by Amanda, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor

So, here we are (officially), tattoo number eighty-four. This tattoo is some brutally beautiful lyrics from an Alanis Morissette song, No Pressure Over Cappuccino, which is off of her MTV Unplugged record. It’s brutal because of its stark honesty; we all learn to lose absolutely everything, whether the loss is afflicted by circumstance, or time, or death. Especially death, which is guaranteed by time. It’s important to be aware everything is inherently temporary, in order to cherish and hang on to that which we cherish most. This is what I take away from the lyrics, at least.

I’ve lost… a lot of things I never expected to lose, or wanted to lose. I just found the words… fitting.

As for the typo correction, I think it came out nicely. I wanted it to look organic, like someone simply scratched out the wrong words with a pen.

God damn me, and my typos…

So, we’ve come to tattoo #84, and… it’s broken. I got the tattoo last October. Even then, I felt uneasy about it. I wasn’t sure about my lyrics. From the get-go, I wasn’t sure. I’ve only just confirmed my blunder. I should have learned my lesson from Tattoo Crisis 2010, but alas, I’m apparently still quite stupid.

The tattoo is some beautiful words from an Alanis Morissette song, No Pressure Over Cappuccino, which is off of her MTV Unplugged record. It’s a gorgeously written song, particularly a couple of lines toward the end. Unfortunately, the way I used to hear said lines isn’t quite how she wrote them. Of course, once you KNOW the lyrics you can’t hear them any other way. I wasn’t completely stupid, I checked several lyrics sites, but the thing is, the sites don’t agree. Today, alanis.com is pretty sophisticated, with every lyrics sheet from every record. Last year, it was still evolving. If the MTV Unplugged lyrics were there, I missed them. At any rate, off I went! I flew to get words permanently etched into my flesh that may or may not be right… Genius! I should have waited. Then again, I avoid waiting if it’s in my power to do so.

What I heard:

You will learn to lose everything,
we are temporary arrangements

What Alanis wrote:

You will learn to lose everything,
be a temporary arrangement

Either way, the lines have the sad beauty that I love. Either way, they state the transient nature of existence that terrifies me, and drives me. Just, what I have on my arm is a giant fucking stupid typo.

This will not stand, it will be fixed!

Tattoo by Kyle, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor…

So, fuck, I got this tattoo ages ago. I’m finding it really hard to write about, because it asks a question that I was undecided on at the time, but I now know the answer, and it hurts.

The tattoo is from an Alanis Morissette song, That I Would Be Good, which is off her second record, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. People may argue it, but I feel like Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is the best writing she’s ever done. It’s absolutely my favorite Alanis record. I’ve likely said this before, but I figure it’s worth saying again. Too many people for my liking think Jagged Little Pill is her only record, but Alanis Morissette has done a great deal of gorgeous writing over the years, That I Would Be Good is just one example. The song is a beautiful inner-monologue of uncertainty, a running string of questions, fears… That I would be good, even if I did nothing. That I would be good, even if I got the thumbs down. That I would be good, if I got and stayed sick.  Her own worries that are true to being human, worries that are in all of us. If one of my worst fears happened, would I still be okay? Anybody with a bit of self-awareness thinks such things, and often enough, our possible “worsts” become reality.

In the last ten years, I’ve experienced (quite literally) every single one of my worsts. I’ve lost people I love, to death and plain old circumstance. I died myself, but apparently didn’t care for it, as it only lasted a few minutes until my heart decided against giving up on me. I quit talking… and so on. Out of everything, losing people I never wanted to lose feels worse than dying but not. I don’t even remember my lights going out, but I feel all the empty places in me, the pain never stops. Sometimes, even after years of being apart, the pain doesn’t so much as dull. When I got this tattoo, I was thinking about someone in particular. I kept hearing Alanis sing…

That I would be good, whether with or without you.

I can’t just say it’s okay, because it’s so not. Being without her, it hurts every moment of every day. It’s been years now, I don’t love her any less, I miss her all the more. I hit kind of a difficult time health-wise, so I pushed her away because I felt like she’d be better off. Though, deep down, I didn’t think she’d go. I don’t think we really are better off apart. I know that together, really together, we can get through anything. We can do anything. I know that when I’m with her, it feels like home.

That’s it for now.

Tattoo by Kyle, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor

So, this tattoo, number eighty, is a lyric from, and the title of one of my favorite Aimee Mann songs, Fighting the Stall, which is off her fourth studio record, Lost in Space. Though, it’s only found on the Special Edition disc.

One of my fears is being stuck, being worn away by circumstance and time until there’s nothing left of me. I’m scared I won’t be where I want to be before I quit breathing. Right now, that place is so far away I can’t even see it. When life takes its bad turns, it’s a fight not to get stuck, to stay stuck, to just stall out. Hence the tattoo, a note to myself that I’m fighting, and that I need to keep fighting to have the life I want.

A line from the song goes…

“…I’ll go down in flames just for the Hell of it all, ’cause I couldn’t take standing in place waiting to fall…”

That line has affected me since the first time I heard it, it’s how I try to live. I’d rather die because my vent failed while I’m on some adventure with a woman I love, than face the slow death that happens by inches over years just sitting “safely” at home. Death, the fall, is guaranteed, it’s the only guarantee time deigns to give us. I’d rather meet it on my terms than just wait for it. That’s the essence of the song, I think; make for the sky, fly high, fly hard, and no matter what, don’t stall out. Don’t die standing still.

To me, tattoos aren’t frivolous. Tattoos are permanent, even if removed your skin is never the same. I like that, I want that permanent reminder of a statement or thought or prayer. I get words or images etched into my skin that will always be important to me. It’s just a gut feeling, but certain things you simply know. I know fighting the stall is a fight that won’t ever end for me.

I’m stalled out now, but I’m fighting. I need to fight harder.

So, Tuesday evening I saw Alanis Morissette play an acoustic show at the Mahaffey Theater, a swanky venue a bridge away from Tampa, in nearby St. Pete.

Generally, I go into concerts with low expectations, but certain artists are just guaranteed to put on a spectacular live show, Alanis is one such artist. مراهنات المباريات Honestly, she often sounds better live than what she creates in the studio. I can’t stand her two latest records, not because the songs are badly written, but because they sound awful, her voice run through so many filters, she sounds like a fuckin’ machine. Fortunately, Tuesday, she played unplugged and filter-free. بيت365 She sounded absolutely gorgeous.

The show wasn’t part of a tour for any particular record, but rather, a celebration of twenty years in music. كازينو عبر الانترنت She sang for her fans, all the songs we love best, mostly from Jagged Little Pill, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, a little Under Rug Swept and MTV: Unplugged. The years have only given her voice a certain richness, emotional depth.

It was a fun night.

So, tonight I see Alanis Morissette, it’ll be the third time I’ve seen her live. The second time I saw her live was actually the first time I’d seen her in concert, she was doing a tour for Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, and that was a great show. Obviously, she mostly sang songs from Jagged Little Pill, but she also did a few songs off of my personal favorite Alanis record, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie.

However, the very first time I ever saw Alanis Morissette wasn’t in concert, it was during her U.S. tv debut, on The Late Show with David Letterman. Guest-wise, it was a really off-night, it was David Brenner, an astonishingly boring (God rest him)… comedian? intellectual? raconteur? I don’t know. Then, the musical guest, some girl from Canada, Alanis Morissette. I knew who David Brenner was, but Alanis Mori-who? I’d never heard of her. I didn’t care about the guests anyway, I was just really excited to be there, and really nervous. After the show, I was going to meet and photograph Dave. I was so nervous about meeting Dave, I didn’t even notice Alanis setting up, but once she started singing… you HAD to notice. She sang You Oughta Know, full-blast, absolutely raw, intense, totally un-edited for tv. Well, she had me at and are you thinkin’ of me when you fuck her?

Jagged Little Pill was massive from then on, and Alanis joined the lexicon of singer/song writers that truly changed music.

So, after much waiting, we are now running WordPress 4.0! The update is pretty interesting, it mainly centers around making adding media to posts a much better experience. Basically, I never used to know how an embedded video or music clip would look in a post until I actually posted it. I don’t post a ton of media, but at least now, doing so will be way less annoying.

Let’s try…

Nice! It worded…

Wake Up, off of Jagged Little Pill, is one of my favorite Alanis Morissette songs, I always think of it when I’m doing something that really scares me. It helps me remember that it’s always easier not to do that scary thing, it’s easier not to risk anything, but if you don’t go and do and risk, you’ll never have anything that’s worth anything.

Anyway, this is WordPress 4.0.