So How Are YOU Going To Celebrate Joe Strummer's Birthday?

Today is Joe Strummer's sixtieth birthday. I wish Joe Strummer were alive so he could have refused to play London Calling at the stupid Olympics and said something smart and awesome about it. I wish Joe Strummer were alive for a number of other reasons. 

I am going to celebrate Joe Strummer's birthday by rolling my eyes at a cop if I see one. I'm going to listen to Clash City Rockers a hundred times and think about how grateful I am that Joe Strummer wrote the sentence "I wanna liquify everybody gone dry" in addition to the great many other extraordinary sentences Joe Strummer wrote that changed my life forever. I have the day off today, which is appropriate. I don't think that any human should ever have to go to work on Joe Strummer's birthday. I'm going to book Joe Strummer's birthday off work every day for the rest of my life. 

If you can't think of anything to do on Joe Strummer's birthday that properly honors his legacy, here are some stories I wrote about some songs Joe wrote that you could read: Janie Jones, Cheat, Rudie Can't Fail, Lose This Skin, and Straight To Hell. And if you're not in the mood to read, all I ask is that you take maybe five minutes out of your day to think very hard about life and death. I think it would make Joe Strummer very happy, if we all could just do that. 

Pictures Of My Life, August 16 - August 20 (by Liz)

I'm in Massachusetts and last Thursday I took the bus down to New York City to see lots of people I love, including our friend Laura Fisher, who hosted a gorgeous party on the stoop of her building in Brooklyn. There was pink wine and Twizzlers and so much cheese and I brought chocolate-covered ancho/chipotle tortilla chips I got from Vosges, and we ordered Thai food and drank some beer and decided we're all going to be a sitcom in which most of the dialogue consists of our buddy Katie saying her catch phrase ("Ya get whatcha pay for!") over and over and over again. Here is me and Laura being cute -- look how lustrous her hair is! Look how it catches the light.

In preparation for Laura hangtime I watched some weird interview with Mary Timony from like 1997, which I'll tell you about later, and screencapped the hell out of the video for "Honeycomb." I like this filmstill and totally relate to it:

Due to magical traffic and other terrible things, my trip back to Massachusetts on Friday took about eight hours instead of four hours, and I hadn't slept much and I got motion sickness and generally felt like I was dying. I tried to pacify myself by pretending I was swimming in a freshwater pool and/or eating chicken pho, which was intermittently effective. I also attempted the crossword from the fashion issue of New York, but only got this far:

And then I read the article about Jane Pratt and re-confirmed that my "emotional age" is 25 (i.e., the age at which I moved to Los Angeles) and learned who Cat Marnell is, which set off this whole thing of Cat Marnell popping up everywhere in my life. I've got mixed feelings, but I will say I think it's cool that she's very passionate about the sky being pretty.

The Most Fantastically Ridiculous Text Message Conversation I've Ever Had The Misfortune of Participating In

BY LAURA JANE

When I worked at Starbucks this guy named Ben would come in really early on Saturday mornings and flirt with me aggressively. One morning I asked him his name because it was my fucking job to write people's names on their cups but I don't think he understood that that was a thing about Starbucks. I think he thought I genuinely wanted to know. He asked me my name too, and then every time he came in forever he'd say my name so many more times than was necessary and quiz me on whether I remembered his name or not. I kept forgetting it and told him I'm bad with names, which is not true of me. I'm amazing with names, I just had no reason to remember his, because he meant nothing to me. He said, "I'm bad with names too, unless I have a reason to remember them" and then raised one eyebrow suggestively like a regular James fucking Bond. It was gross but he was pretty old so I thought he might be rich and therefore half-heartedly flirted back. Also when it's 7:30 on a Saturday morning and you're working at a Starbucks you definitely 100% want to kill yourself so an average-looking man who annoys you being flirtatious is pretty much the best thing you've got going. He had this weird in-joke he made up with me where he'd ask for whipping cream to put in his coffee and then say, "It's your fault, Laura! You got me addicted to this stuff!" and I imagined myself saying "What the fuck? How the fuck is this my fault, Ben? I never once in my life said anything about whipping cream to you ever. You just came in one day and asked me for it and I gave it to you because that's my job and now you're acting like I've got you 'hooked' and am to some degree invested in your putting whipping cream in your coffee when I am not and you're not cute. This doesn't have anything to do with me."

The SFW Survey: Which Song Do You Most Closely Associate With The First Time You Fell In Love?

Here's our new thing: we're asking everyone in the world to answer song-related questions for us so that we can share your responses on Strawberry Fields Whatever and then all get to know each other so much better. Our next question is "Which song never fails to make you cry?" If you'd like to answer, please email your response here (letitbebeautiful at yahoo dot com), sometime before September 1st. Unfortunately, we will not be able to publish every submission we receive. (Our most sincere apologies go out to everyone who submitted to this week's round under the impression that all responses would be featured on SFW. We were overwhelmed with submissions and have decided to cap off all SFW Survey entries at 25 writers in the name of not crashing our blog. We loved reading all the words you wrote us and hope you will submit again.)

For this week: WHICH SONG DO YOU MOST CLOSELY ASSOCIATE WITH THE FIRST TIME YOU FELL IN LOVE?

The November I was nineteen a boy mailed me a mix CD which came in a case he'd made out of corrugated cardboard. I'd never kissed him, and I'd only met him once, but I anticipated loving him and I was right about that. I would love him. 

I had a different boyfriend when I first met him, a Hungarian skateboarder with slammin' inguinal ligaments; I hated him. He called me seventeen times in a row while I was stoned and playing Monopoly with my roommates. I finally picked up, broke up with him, he threatened to kill himself, I didn't believe him, hung up, nobody died, he's definitely still alive, and I went back to playing Monopoly. Once we bought a cake shaped like a football and when he grinned up at me his teeth were blue from the icing and that was when I knew I hated him. Learn to eat your cake like a proper fucking grown-up. 

I broke up with Blue Teeth for Corrugated Cardboard. Blue Teeth had painted me a painting and I threw it out my window. It snowed all winter and when I found the canvas in the springtime all the paint had washed off. Corrugated Cardboard took me out to see The Life Aquatic on Boxing Day and our knees touched, it was a magnificent two-and-a-half hours of knee-touch. I remember nothing of that movie; I was paying too much attention to his knee. We kissed for the first time three weeks later on his patio with a red felt blanket draped round our shoulders like a cape. We stayed together for three and a half years. That same red blanket was lying on the couch the night we broke up.

I lived in New York and he lived a nine hour drive or a twelve hour bus ride or a two hour flight away from me. When you're nineteen you are stupid and believe that loving a boy who lives kind of faraway is the most tragically unfair circumstance that any human being has ever encountered ever. It's grey out and you're wearing a white sweater and you'll allow yourself to believe that this is the worst it will ever get, and you'll be wrong about that. The only time I ever fell in love and I spent the whole thing sobbing. 

"Chariots Of Silk" by Tyrannosaurus Rex was the second song on my mix CD and that November it was my only song. It's the saddest-sounding song that isn't sad- it plays like an elegy, but it's about moose and frogs (who aren't dying). I never once stopped to think that maybe it wasn't sad. I was sad so I wanted it to be sad too. I only bothered to look up the lyrics for the first time last February, when I realized Marc Bolan is my brother. The words go Stone jars stacked with stars on her shoulders/ Hunters of pity she slew and those words are so perfectly, exactly what I'd love for all lyrics to go like, those lyrics are so me to me. 

Me to me enough to sever their association with a period of my life that I resent myself for squandering. Youth wasn't wasted on me but love was. 

-Laura Jane

Electric Honey by Luscious Jackson came out the same week I met the second boy I ever fell in love with. We worked together at a big-deal alternative newsweekly in Boston -- it was my first job after college and I was the receptionist and he was a graphic designer; let's call him Jason. On lunch break I'd go to the convenience store/deli across the street with the other receptionists and we'd eat sandwiches and they'd chainsmoke Marlboro Lights and we'd gossip about all the boys in the office. The rest of the day, I was stuck at the front desk and sometimes J would bring me presents, like paper bags full of Skittles and Starburst and Sour Patch Kids. On Fridays after work we'd drink beer at the bar downstairs. It was the middle of summer and Fenway Park was next door and the streets were full of yelling boys but my boy was very quiet, and smarter than everyone, and funnier than everyone, the best kind of goofball-funny, and he was tall and kind with the softest skin and the nicest shoulders I've ever known.

By the end of summer we were an item and our third "real date" is the one I remember most vividly. It was a Friday and after work we walked down to Newbury Street and walked around for a while, then went out for Thai food and beer and Thai iced tea. After dinner we took the train to Little Italy and bought a box of cannolis and went down to the water and ate the cannolis and kissed a lot. We took a cab home and kissed in the cab and then kissed at his house, to Electric Honey by Luscious Jackson.

I only ever listen to four songs from that album now, but each of those four is so beloved by me, especially "Devotion." It's midtempo and lazy and shimmery and sweet, with lyrics about skies and rockets and shared understanding. There's also repeated lyric where Jill sings about being an "underwater fraulein," which make no sense but still means a lot, because the mood is so right: it's sweet and bighearted and hopeful and grateful, sexy in an chill and easy sort of way -- like it's got nothing to prove. All through the song there's this cool and almost-dopey sense of surrender and I guess that's why I'll treasure it forever. We had a really good two years.

-Liz

Sleater-Kinney - "Leave You Behind"

-Jen

LAURA JANE'S QUITTING SMOKING JOURNALS: Week 2

BY LAURA JANE (ILLUSTRATION BY JEN)

I am quitting smoking by incrementally reducing the amount of cigarettes I smoke per day and documenting my weekly progress on this blog. 

MY PRE-QUITTING SMOKING GAME PLAN: 

Week 1 (August 1st- August 7th, 2012)- 15 cigs per day 

Week 2 (August 8th- August 14th, 2012)- 13 cigs per day 

Week 3 (August 15th- August 21st, 2012)- 11 cigs per day 

Week 4 (August 22nd- August 28th, 2012)- 9 cigs per day 

Week 5 (August 29th- September 4th, 2012)- 7 cigs per day 

Week 6 (September 5th- September 11th, 2012) 6 cigs per day 

Week 7 (September 12th- September 18th, 2012) 5 cigs per day

Week 8 (September 19th- September 25th, 2012) 3 cigs per day 

“Week” 9: (September 26th, 2012- September 30th, 2012) 2 cigs per day (This week lasts 5 days because months are strange lengths)

“Week” 10: (FOREVER!!! THE ETERNAL MONTH!!!) 0 cigs per day! 

Week 1's entry features a lengthy preamble explaining exactly why I'm quitting smoking so click away if you missed it the first time around. As follows is the tale of Week 2.

Day 8 (August 8th, 2012)

13 sounded so much harder than 15 and I was right, it was hard, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t that much less hard. It was maybe 3% less hard than I’d expected. 

I smoked 2 cigarettes in the morning and had therapy in the afternoon. I challenged myself by only bringing 1 cigarette on my journey. I smoked half of it before therapy and half of it after. I walked all the way there, and all the way back. I bought a Mocha Coconut Frappuccino Light and the chick forgot to put the mocha in and then was a giant bitch to me when I asked her to make it again. That’s irrelevent, but seriously, what a shitty person & barista that girl is.

I didn’t walk straight home. I went for a serious wander and by the time I wandered back to my neighbourhood I wanted to fucking DIE. The air felt like living inside a blister and my shoes were eating up my feet. I really overestimated my own ability to not smoke for three hours. I was fiending. I was foaming at the mouth. Fiending for a smoke- for everybody’s who’s never experienced it- is one of those things like being hungry or tired or sexually frustrated only with more of an emphasis on feeling like your whole body is made of violin strings tuned too tight. I’ve never fiended that hard. It felt worse than all the times I’ve flown across the ocean because I used to bring Nicorette on plane trips and also this was self-imposed and I didn’t get the payoff of landing in London to justify the hellishness. The cigarette I smoked when I got home was one of the best cigarettes I’ve ever smoked in my life. It was like being found.

I came upstairs and had a mini-emotional breakdown about quitting smoking but then I bucked up like the buckaroo I am and the rest of the day was fine. I made it through two hours of a beer on a patio AND a meal of Mexican food with only 1.5 cigarettes! Two weeks ago that would have taken me at least 6. At the end of the night Erin and I were chilling on my front lawn and I realized I had so many cigarettes left over so I had a nice little binge of 3 in an hour and a half. By the time I was getting myself ready for bed I realized I’d only smoked 11. So instead of 1 pre-bed cigarette I smoked 2 in a row. Probably counter-productive but it’s only going to get harder and harder so I’ll take what I can get. If I’m allowed to smoke 13 I’m fucking smoking 13. Goodnight. 

5 David Bowie Songs I'd Rather Die Than Live Without

WORDS BY ELIZABETH BARKER/DRAWING BY JEN MAY

i. SUFFRAGETTE CITY

When you're a child born in the late 1970s, David Bowie is probably the weirdest human you're frequently exposed to, with his different-colored eyes and his whole dapper-poet-from-outer-space thing. He's weird but he's so elegant about it, and pretty soon you figure out he's the coolest person in the world. He'll always be cooler than everyone else and that's why we need him: if you ever got to be as cool as David Bowie, it would be so depressing. There'd be nothing else to look forward to.

         "Suffragette City" is Bowie being cooler than everyone else and having the best time doing that -- it's so much fun. It's romantic too, especially the line that goes "There's only room for one and here she comes, here she comes." Referring to your girl as a "mellow-thighed chick" and a "total blam-blam" is really smooth and classy. "But she, and then she" is a cool way to describe the action. It's so sweet of David to indulge us all in our silly-human need to be left wanting more.

          My friend Tim said this nice thing once, about how when David Bowie walks into a room, all the light must shine on him. I'm sure that's true -- so much of why we love David Bowie has to do with light: he's shimmery, glimmering, glittery, resplendent, transplendent, luminous, lustrous, brilliant. "Suffragette City" is one of the brightest songs and the light is all white; it bleaches out the rest of the world. I've been hearing it for 34 years and it never stops being exciting, and David Bowie will never stop being exciting either. He's so reliably wild.

ii. ALADDIN SANE

I don't meditate either. But I like to pretend that the bassline from 1:32 to 4:09 on "Aladdin Sane" has the power to automatically induce a meditation-like state in me -- those four notes over and over and over while David Bowie's playing piano like a genius baby on drugs, they kinda make my head come apart.

          This is the only song in the world that I fatally love almost entirely for the bassline. I think it must have been the funnest thing in the world to be "the dude who played bass on 'Aladdin Sane.'"

iii. CHANGES

"When you grow up, your heart dies" – The Breakfast Club

One time many years ago I was bugging the fuck out about not being teenager anymore, how I was terrified of my heart imploding and my soul turning to dust. "Knock it off," my buddy said to me. "Most people just get cooler as they get older."

           That's mega-optimistic, too optimistic for me, but I think it's true that some people get cooler as they get older. And now that I'm 34 and cooler than I've ever been, the lyric that John Hughes used as the epigraph to The Breakfast Club ("And these children that you spit on...") is no longer my favorite lyric in "Changes." The lyric that means the most to me now is from the last verse, the one that goes "Ooh look out, you rock-and-rollers/pretty soon now you're gonna get older." I'm fascinated by rock-and-rollers getting older, maneuvering through decay and attempting preservation instead of just dying, which I used to think was the most gorgeous thing when I was a teenager. I'd just much rather see how rock-star dudes deal with being far past their prime, how they get by on not being beautiful boys anymore when their livelihood was once largely based on being beautiful.

          Thinking about David Bowie in that context, neither "It's better to burn out than to fade away" nor the converse of that rings true. Right now the only lyric I can think of that relates to David Bowie and how he's aged is "It's better to rise than fade away," from the Hole song "Reasons To Be Beautiful." Women and David Bowie are better at this, maybe.

A Short Story Of Mine Just Got Published; It's Kind Of About The Song "Winter" By The Rolling Stones

It's here, on Storychord, and it's accompanied by a wild illustration by Casper Johansson and a very dreamy song by Beat Radio. The name of the story's "Long Hot Winter" and it's backstory to the book I'm writing -- it takes place in the summer in the late-'70s and it's a love story that's kind of about "Winter" by the Rolling Stones, which I think is so gorgeous:



xo Liz