Radio Crystal Blue

This Sunday, October 29th on the 7pm live show
Radio Crystal Blue will be playing music
from my soon-to-be-released album
Sirens of Brooklyn

Listen to the show

Fall

For me, the fall is burnt wood and apples. These are two things that fill my mind when the leaves begin to turn and the air becomes crisp.

There is one other thing that is indescribable. The best way to explain it is the smell of snow. Tiny particles of water freeze in the air and fly up your nostrils and it smells like kissing a snowman. They are so small that they can't be seen by the naked eye, but you can feel them.

These things are here. Though I love them, I know that they bring the cruel and ungiving tongue of winter. It makes me want to flee to the south and do a show.

I recently did an interview with a very nice man named Russ in Texas. We talked for over an hour about the album, the world and all sorts of things. I accidentally locked myself in the airshaft on the 23rd floor of a 24 story building, which is where the whole phone call took place.

I miss my family. Lately I have found myself in a very emotional place, very open. The fall does this to me. It is the dark and the cold that seep into the skin and the soul. I've heard of people in scandinavian countries going into rooms with ultraviolet light as a therapy for their sadness. This makes me wonder, are people happier in California?

Some News and Thank You's

Some News. I recently did an interview with .... which will be featured in the December issue of Genre Magazine.

On Nov. 6th, I will be sitting down with Josh and Sarah for some conversation and to play a couple of songs live in the studio for the HereTV! Podcast.


Thank you:

-to the people at Homopod radio who have featured my music and have put 7 of my songs into rotation.

-to Duane Wells for writing a review of my album that almost made me cry. I couldn't possibly ever ask for a better review.

-to Bear Radio for featuring 2 of my songs.

Extra Extra Read all about it

The first review for Sirens of Brooklyn has been posted.
I am a little bit smiley to say the least.
Read the Review

F**K is a 4 letter word

Folk is a 4 letter word, often inspiring shivers of pain to ride up the spines of would be music listeners. We all squint in terror waiting for the F bomb to explode. The shrapnel can be devestating and often takes the form of a long haired hippy dippy woman who wants to tell you all about an erotic experience with a birch tree in wyoming during her cross country voyage to the Michigan Women's Festival.

My music is often categorized as folk, not something with which I fully agree.

However, some of the best songwriters I know are self proclaimed or labeled by default as folk merely because they play an acoustic guitar, have intelligent lyrics and don't work with crazy dirty electro beats and that insane vocal filter that removes all human qualities from the voice.

This pigeon does not fit in your hole.

Folk however is A O K with moi.

Violent Touch

I had the good fortune of being roommates with a girl who was studying massage at the Swedish institute. The only problem is that every time she would massage me I would scream and laugh to the point of needing to be gagged. It's not that the massage didn't feel good. It is just that the sensations were too intense to process in a manner which didn't sound like a tickle torture tantrum.

For better or worse I have always been sensitive to touch.
Yesterday, a woman rammed a briefcase into my shin and kept walking as if it never happened. I couldn't really fathom that she was unable feel the throbbing pain pulsating in my leg. How someone can hit a person so hard with a briefcase and keep walking amazes me.

Recently a friend poked me very hard in an extremely tender part of my body without realizing it had happened. It sent shocks of pain up through my stomach and raised the finest hairs on my body to razor sharp attention. For a moment I felt like I could vomit. When I pointed it out, I was told that I was not poked in my tender parts. The dismissal of my pain brought my emotional tenderness to the surface. I feel so open, exposed and raw at times.

Violent touch awakens memories from the past,
small words to deaf ears,
things I don't talk about.

These things didn't happen to me.

Robert Recommends

Robert German and Carrie Thomas in Coney Island. Photo by Carrie Thomas.

I would like to take this moment to discuss some things I am in love with right now.

first off, The Dresden Dolls!
Self-described as Brechtian Punk Cabaret, they fuse the sounds of British punk and German Cabaret with electrifying live shows that hump your ears like hardcore early Tori Amos. Yes, someone needs to towel off that piano bench at the end of the night.

My second love is BAM, Brooklyn's much hipper answer to Lincoln center. I highly recommend the movie screenings at the Rose Cinema. I was able to catch, David Lynch's Lost Highway, and let me just say that it was both perplexing and emotionally penetrating on the big screen.

Much more than an art-house cinema haven, this purveyor of cutting edge theatrical, musical, and dance performance makes Brooklyn's burgeoning art scene puff it's chest in defiance of Manhattanite elitist attitudes. No, You don't need to cross the bridge to consume some culture when it's just a leisurely stroll from the epicenter of South Brooklyn.

Clap Your Ass Say Yeah

I went into the studio this weekend to work on Unplug.
I added hang clapping, but needed a deeper clapping sound, so
had to drop my pants and smack my ass into the microphone for the desired effect.
I'm sure I could have gone into the street and found a random "professional" clapper,
but this was so much more interesting and produced the desired effect.

After the studio I went to an international sausage party. I kid you not. There were sausages of the world all lined up with little descriptions and the flag of their home countries. There was also a selection of mustards of the world which just made the night that much better. In the backyard were bluegrass musicians jamming. Chris, Marc, and I all went back and added our own special harmonies to the songs. It was a foot tapping good time.

After that, we dropped by a potluck dinner and had a taste of the best pulled pork in the universe.

Yes, my life revolves around food. Clap your ass, say yeah.

Full Moon

I was riding the F train from Manhattan to Brookyn last night when a crazy man got on the train. He was a harmless nutter butter,randomly yelling phrases or advice that made no sense. The one that stuck was "You can't smoke reefer on the train. You have to go on the platform for that."




I may have fallen a bit behind on advances in the penal code, but I think you probably can't smoke reefer on the platform either.

Regardless, this man was somewhat entertaining. He started yelling stuff about food, which of course caused me to feel immediate bond. He knows the way to my heart.

Just when I had gotten used to the rants of one crazy, a second crazy man stumbled into the train car clutching a photograph of Paris Hilton he had obviously ripped from the pages of a tabloid. He was yelling something something very important and totally garbled. I appreciated his passion, but still have no idea what he was saying.

It's so typical that I would end up being the meat in a crazy sandwich during the full moon, when I should be squatting in the woods naked writing poetry to the goddess, beating a drum with my pagan sisters. Oh my pagan sisters, take me into your loving bossoms.

Photograph by my lovely sister by choice Carrie Thomas

When I'm feeling like an outsider, strange and bizarre to everyone around me, I find comfort in those who make me feel as dull as dishwater. I pale in comparison to Salad Fingers.

Digital Whiplash

Somewhere in Brooklyn I am sitting at a coffee shop on my laptop computer wirelessly connected, oh so connected to the information super highway. Next to me is a girl also on her laptop next to a guy on his laptop next a girl on her laptop and so on and so forth into infinity. It's quite possible that the girl by the door is in a chatroom sharing her bunt cake recipe with the guy in the back on his laptop next to the bathroom.

I have never been one to fear or loathe technology. I generally embrace it, but there is something horribly wrong with the world. We are collectively losing our ability to interact face to face. Never in our history as a civilization have we had so many ways to connect with people. We have cellphones, smartphones, webcams, laptops, email, and even smoke signals.

For some reason though, we're all disconnecting. we are plugging in and tuning out the world. We are all suffering from attention deficite disorder, obsessively checking email and flipping between open computer windows, television shows, podcasts, and text messages. We sit across from each other checking our cellphones, responding to texts sent, and maybe even actually talking about how much of a boring time we're having, planning our exit via the digital escape hatch.

Is it just me or is everyone suddenly so busy that they can't return a phonecall, email or smoke signal? Are we on overload? No one can focus. We don't even have the patience for commercials. We DVR and fastforward through them or we simply download the show from Itunes and watch it on our video ipod as we surf the transit system, happy that we don't have to make eye contact with another human being.

I am a hypocrite. I am blogging about this when we should be having a face to face conversation.

I need to step away for a minute and unplug.

Photo by Carrie Thomas

3 trains of thought

There are times in which I want to lead a more glamorous life than I do, and when it comes down to it, I'm not incapable of being glamorous. It's just that the effort required to sparkle and shine like a new penny, is more than I am willing to muster.

The closest I got to glamour this weekend was being perched on top of a piano singing Tina Turner's Private Dancer, a song which is near and dear to my heart. My sister and I used to have this classic album on vinyl. We would sing at the top of our lungs into hairbrushes and dance around the house. Why my mother ever thought this was a good idea, I'll never know.

After the Kitt and Kaboodle show, I went out with my friend Jason and his hubby Simon. We found ourselves in a crowded bar full of attractive well groomed individuals, yet I was bored out of my mind. I found that all I really wanted was to be able to interact with my friends without having to endure the combined chattering of so many people. I guess also, when you're walking through the meat market and you don't have cold cuts on your shopping list, it all just looks so raw and unseasoned.


On Saturday went back into the studio for the first time since running the final mixes for sirens of Brooklyn. I recorded the first track for my next album, title still to be decided. The result was kind of peculiar and baeutiful. This track is very much rooted in the African Spritual with my mind glued to the rejection of technology. How contradictory to then write about it in a blog. Yes, I know, my first album hasn't even been released and I'm onto the next thing. This new project, which is floating around in my head will include some songs which aren't even written yet.

Some of my other songs have been giving me grief. I didn't allow them to be on Sirens and they're getting nervous about not making the cut this time. I have assured them that they will have their days in the sun. I may have to appease a few of the more nagging ones by letting them have their b-side glory on a possible EP. My lips are sealed though. I'm not going to say what's coming next. There are three trains of thought going on right now. It's almost impossible to say which will pull into the station first.

chanteur de charme

I have always wanted to sing on top of a piano. I want to be a chanteur de charme, with long curly eyelashes,tails and a tie. I want to pierce through the cloud of smoke with Greta Garbo eyes and make you squirm in your seat. I want to make you uncomfortably clink the ice in your glass and hope with a sense of futility that a cocktail waitress will save you with a shot of something to numb the chills riding up your spine,making every hair on your body stand at razor sharp attention.

So, yes, I got to sing on top of a piano and kick my pink converse high tops. The great thing is that it was all fun for a good cause. I did two Kitt and Kaboodle shows over the weekend for the Anti Violence Project. The first was in Union Square, the 2nd was in my beloved Brooklyn.

Though it felt wonderful to be involved with both nights, i must say that the Brooklyn event was the real cream in the coffee for me. Cattyshack was packed with performers and audience alike, all with a sense of palpable purpose. The event started with a self defense demonstration by a group of park slope ladies. I practiced attack moves on Kaboodle, which felt quite invigorating. I think maybe I would like to have my own Mr. Miyagi to train me in the "wax on/wax off" ways of the world.

I do after-all have twig arms and though it has been a while since my stalker has threatened me with bodily harm, I still find myself noticing menacing possibilities in the shadows. It's so strange, when I think back to the day I had to file the police report as the threats became more and more frequent laced with bits of information that would only be known by someone who was actually watching me.

I can joke about it at times. It inspired a song called Big From Down Here. Though it isn't on Sirens of Brooklyn, it does look like it will make its way onto the next album. In reality, it is a scary thing to be threatened with violence.

To everyone who came out to support the Anti-Violence Project events: A big Heartfelt Thanks!
We raised a lot of money and had the time of our lives.

Tonight I will be on top of the piano again at the D-Lounge
9pm
101 E. 15th street
Below the Daryl Roth Theatre

I eat my feet

The filter that once kept the slush of inappropriate, ill-advised comments from leaking out of my mouth has officially broken.

I had known for some time that it was not operating at optimum levels, but it wasn't until I started actually answering questions very politely posed by reporters that I came to grasp the real severity of the situation.

The last time this happened I went on a five minute tyrade about how important bacon is to my daily existence. This time, well, I think I actually said that when I "came out" it was like someone tied a gay rocket to my back and shot me out of the closet.

I eat my feet, or I least I should eat them.

Though You'll have to wait until December, to survey for yourself the damage that hits the newstands.

Unfulfilled Fantasies

I stumble through life hungry and slightly unfulfilled at times. It is human nature to fantasize with an intensity that bombards the senses, leaving one wet with desire. I am no different. I crave and I hunger and lust with my heart. I have visions of sugarplums dancing in my head or in this case bagels.

I want to give a shout out to Bergen Bagels in Brooklyn. Their bagels have been such a comfort to me at times, soft and sweet with just the right amount of fluffiness and the perfect amount of chewiness. I find myself daydreaming and salivating, just thinking about a garlic bagel with scallion cream cheese. Oh god, this is the real deal, scallions cut into pieces and mixed in with the rich creamy goodness.....And the garlic, oh it's perfectly toasted so that it melts in your mouth like candy.

I was on my way into the city, as we Brooklynites refer to Manhattan. I love this seperatist attitude. Technically Brooklyn is the city just as much as Manhattan, but we like to wear shirts that proudly display "I heart Brooklyn" and such.

I decided to stop by my little bagel love shack and pick up my garlic scallion breathe bomb. I watched, delighted as the woman helping me used a long knife to pull the bagel down from the shelf and flung it into her hand. My eyes followed the blade as it sliced through the outer chewy layer of bread revealing its tender center. I almost lost my shit when she started to smear the cream cheese all over the bagel, so generous, she gave with both hands.

I had ordered coffee as well and became distracted from the process when she went to get my coffee. She came back and slid the coffee into a brown paper bag with my bagel. I paid. I smiled. I left and got on the subway to head into "the city."

So we now live in a police state. You can't get on a train in New York without seeing 6 police officers pretending that they're going to search your bags. When they actually do search bags, it's someone who looks middle eastern. Oh no, that's not racial profiling. We are so a tolerant free country with no discrimination. By the way, last time I checked there was this little thing in the constitution. It's called the fourth amendment. Here's a refresher.

Amendment IV


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

We might as well take that part of the constitution and use it as toilet paper at this point.

Well, anyway they also passed this horrible coffee law, which I feel has seriously traumatized me. It is illegal to have an open container of coffee on the subway. Now I have to hunker down and sneak sips like a crack whore.

I got on the train and decided that I would not open my bag of garlic goodness, because let's face it, once the garlic bomb is dropped, there will be no more love for me on the 3 train. I contemplated opening the coffee, but I really wasn't interested in being padded down and rubber glove butt raped by the po po just so I could get my 100% Columbian fix.

So, I instead drifted into a fantasy. I could picture how I would open the bag, placing the coffee beside me, slowly unwrapping the bagel...You get the picture.

So I finally got to my destination and sat down. I began to live out my fantasy, placing the coffee next to me, slowly unwrapping the bagel...And there it was. Inside the wax paper that should have been cradling my garlic love lump was nothing other than a plain bagel sliced down the middle with not so much as a drop of cream cheese. I was heartbroken, horrified, scared, and dizzy.

I immediately called 411 and got the number to the bagel shop. I called them and told them of my traumatic experience and convinced them to write my name on the register with a note saying that they owe me a garlic bagel with scallion cream cheese, which is only right. I am officially neurotic. I immediately contacted the lovely Carrie Thomas, a fellow foody and the only person who could truly understand the hurt,pain, and emptiness I was feeling inside. As always she was a rock in stormy waters.

I did indeed go back to Bergen Bagels and fulfill my fantasy, and they did make good on their promise of replacing my bagel. I have a stomach fool of stank and all is right with the world.

Photo by Carrie Thomas

I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies

I stand outside in the waiting room, pacing anxiously, looking at the digital readout on my cellphone for the time.
How much longer until the baby arrives? I bite at my nails, well the nails on my left hand, the ones that hold down the strings. The nails on my right hand never get the attention that my teeth showers on the left one. This is due to the simple fact that I don't use guitar picks, but instead abuse the fingers of my right hand, hammering them against the strings of my guitar. Half of me is a crazy old hermet, living in a cave with overgrown fingernails. The other half is a nail biter, with jagged nails gnawed down to the quick.

I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies, but whether I'm ready or not, my baby is about to be born. If I hadn't quit smoking, with the knowledge that nicotine had a powerful hold on my body, I would have a cigar in my pocket, ready to smoke with my pals as I recieve their congratulatory pats on my back. Instead, I nervously pace, ocassionally checking tracking numbers, with the knowledge that my first album is on a truck somewhere in Brooklyn.

As soon as the nurse comes to get me, I will send you photos of my baby. You can tell me how cute she is, even if you really think her face is wrinkled and misproportioned. You can even tell me her face is wrinkled and misproportioned. Regardless of your thoughts my baby is coming and I will love her and I will give you a picture for your wallet. Do with it what you will.

Mupples

The word mupples was coined a few years back by my then roommate, Piia, The Finnish Wonder.

Mupples=Male+Couple.

This weekend was one of absolute laziness, I must admit. Remnants of the tropical storm had fluttered their way up to Brooklyn bringing sideways rain and turning umbrellas wrong side out. My umbrella was beat to begin with, and was laid to rest late Friday night very unceremoniously.

I spent Friday through Sunday mostly just curled up on the sofa watching mindless television. This is a strange departure for me as I really don't watch TV much at all except for the show, Lost, which was injected into my veins like dirty heroin last fall, afflicting me with an instant addiction. It's return to television in October will mean that I will get my weekly fix and stop the shaking in my hands.

On Sunday, I decided to venture out into the world, which had turned from apocalyptic to rather pleasant. However, a strange wind was blowing through Brooklyn. As I walked down the street, I kept passing couples. Let me correct that. I kept passing Mupples. Some of them were hand in hand. Some of them just sort of skipping along. All of them looked medicated with happy pills or some sort of potent love tonic.

I wanted to be happy for these frolicking couples, but they only served as living reminders of my singlehood, which seems to have settled in like a pair of old jeans that maintain the shape of my ass even after they've been thrown in the laundry hamper.

I passed the bus stop and noticed that the bus was coming, so I decided to get on it. I had no destination. I rarely ride the bus because I feel that it is a portal into a strange world which smells and tastes of something of which I just can't quite comprehend. It scares me. If there are vampires in Brooklyn, I think they ride the bus.

Three stops into my busride a gentleman got on. I knew him, yet we had never spoken. It's strange how you can see a person repeatedly yet you never say hello. I knew that he had to recognize me as well. We are familiar strangers, an odd urban phenomenon that would never fly in a small town.

I used to see him walking his dog. I would see him go into his apartment, which was one block away from mine. I always felt sad when I would see him, because he looked sad and his dog was very old and could barely walk. I knew that the dog would die soon. At some point, I guess the dog did die, because I didn't see him walking it anymore.

I feel that it had a profound effect on him because I noticed that it coincided with his appearance at the gym. He was working with a personal trainer, very intent on some sort of fitness goal, I thought. Next came subtle changes. The grey hair he had atop his head changed to dark brown. His clothing changed from loose fitting outdated garments to tighter and trendier threads to showcase his developing muscles.

I think the death of his dog made him feel old and alone. He decided to turn back the clock in little ways. Of course this is all speculation, coming from a passive stalker.

It had been months since I had seen this familiar stranger. He sat there on the bus with his dry cleaning neatly folded over his lap, the grey hair emerging at the roots, the muscular frame softer than the last time we had met but not said hello. I think that he has forgotten his mortality again. How many dogs must die for him to stick with his gym regiment and the regular maintenance required when one commits to coloring one's hair?

We got off the bus at the same stop and walked in opposite directions, not saying goodbye. I walked past more mupples, feeling that there is some factory pumping them out in twos. I stop myself. Have I become bitter?

It is then that I notice a young boy feeding McDonald's French Fries to a squirrel and realize that the world has gone terribly awry and I might as well just eat package after package of bacon and embrace the fact that I am not part of a mupple and that ultimately, that is a choice.

I am single. I accept it and embrace it. I sit at restaurants alone like a mysterious European professor, obviously wearing tweed. I talk to myself. I take bubble baths and listen to lesbian folk music. One day I will own many cats and have stacks of newspapers. Eventually, I will stop shaving and take up whittling. I will learn the banjo and lose some teeth. I will lose touch with the world and become what many call crotchety. I will make my own loose fitting clothing out of burlap sacks and rock on a porch with cracked planks, which I will never take the time to repair. I will reject technology and be the last person to send paper letters as everything becomes wireless. Above all things though, I will maintain my sanity.
We must all have romantic notions.

Photo by the lovely Carrie Thomas

My sentiments exactly

Next time you are having your bag searched by the police at the subway turnstyle or having your lighter and bottle of water taken away from you at the airport while you're being padded down, remember these words.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."- Benjamin Franklin

Nerdy Boy

There's a nerdy boy who finds his joy is buried in a book.

All it takes is just one look and I'm in pain.

I want to be the one who's always on his brain.

Science has failed us

I awoke this week to the unsettling news that Pluto is no longer a planet. It had in fact been demoted to dwarf planet. This came at the same time that I found out I had slipped from number 4 to number 10 on the Sirius Countdown.

As you can well imagine, It was a devastating day, more for the fall of pluto than my position on the countdown, but the combination of the two sent me into a downward spiral from which I am just now recovering.

I was barely able to eat my BLT last night as thoughts of pluto's demise still reverberated through my confused head. How could they do this to us? Why did I feel so empty, so cold inside? Apparently, Pluto had provided a comfort to which a value could not be assigned, much like bacon.

I began to go through the stages of loss. Anger, denial....
bargaining. I was ready to do anything to make it all go away....To make the world right again.

As my fellow American's stuff their faces with fast food fatness, overeating to obese results, Pluto has somehow slipped through our fat fingers into the abyss, the victim of our need for bigger, better, and bolder.

Are we all going to sit back, complacent? Is this really the end?

The world no longer makes sense. You can't take hand sanitizer on a plane, but snakes on a plane? Sure.

Pluto's not a planet? Why???? Why???? Why???? Pass the bacon, please.

photo used with the kind permission of the multitalented, Carrie Thomas