The 6 Best Donovan Songs To Listen To In September

WORDS BY LJ/DRAWING BY JEN

Donovan is Scottish. He is the posterchild for the vibes of the month of September. I don’t love him more than I love anyone but I fear I might love him more than anyone else loves him. He’s not a very relevant guy, Donovan, in 2012. 

Donovan went to Rishikesh with the Beatles, so I trust him. If you’re a cool/”out there”/”spiritually aware” enough guy that the Beatles were like “Okay, yeah. Yes. We want you to join us on our meditation trip to an ashram in India PS we’re the BEATLES the actual BEATLES this is a HISTORIC EVENT and we want you, YOU- you, Donovan- to join us,” you’re definitely okay by me. That speaks very highly of a person’s character, as far as I’m concerned.

Since I was 7 no maybe 9 I’ve always kind of loved Donovan- for “Atlantis,” “Sunshine Superman,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (But not “Mellow Yellow,” never “Mellow Yellow”- the other day Jenn and I were standing outside a church and a wacky old hippie wearing a chamois shirt unbuttoned down to his belly button told us about a bar we’d “dig” where the people are all “really mellow yellow” and that’s “Mellow Yellow” to me. YUCK)- but it’s only been a year since these songs have lived in my hands. 
          I talked to September about which Donovan songs are best to listen to inside of it and September nailed it down for me. These are the songs September chose. 

Joey Was A Babe

 BY LIZ

I don't remember much about that Ramones documentary; it made me sad so I blocked it out. But I'm pretty sure there was something about Joey being in love with a girl and Johnny stealing her away and then marrying her (right? I don't feel like Wikipedia-ing this), which is just so baffling to me -- why would you go for some mean crabby Republican* when you could have the sweetest strangest tallest boy in the world? Joey was a babe and I relate so much to his scrappy, weirdly/pervertedly traditional sense of romanticism. He was a lover and I love this snippet from some Creem article Joey's ex-girlfriend wrote about him a very long time ago:

"He always smiles and never lies, but makes up great stories about people getting hit by buses, girls turning into vegetables, and giant cockroaches breaking through walls. Joey sleeps in his leather jacket. He has a plastic bug zoo. Once he made me and Dee Dee catch a huge waterbug for him and he fed it bread until it died a few days later, then he kept it anyway."

          So these are a bunch of my favorite pix of Joey; a lot of them came from here. A few days after he died I went to see Patti Smith and she sang "Be My Baby" for him, which was so sweet. I think you should listen to the original version of "Be My Baby" as you look at all these photographs. Joey can be everybody's baby.

When Joey was little the kids made fun of him and called him Geoffrey Giraffe (his real name's Jeffry), but everyone knows it's a great thing to be a giraffe. Giraffes are so gentle, and so elegant in their gawkiness. Plus 6'6" is such a hot height, a couple inches past ideal but not quite Thurston Moore-level excessive. I mean, clearly Thurston Moore grew to 6'7" just to lord it over everyone all the time, but Joey's much too sweet and humble for that. 

          But what I really want to talk about is his jeans! Joey was so good at wearing jeans. The first boy I ever dated used to have these jeans with the most ripped-up knees and it was just too severe -- like, it was so obvious he'd ripped them up himself, and that's trying too hard and I don't approve. I wholly believe that Joey's knee rips happened naturally, that he never tried too hard for anything in his life. Plus he looks like Ric Ocasek here and right now Ric Ocasek is my other number-one favorite pop romantic of all time.

Oh my god, he's so cool. On his way to go surfing, flirting with some babe (Debbie Harry!) in a convertible, and some other guy (Dee Dee??)'s lying dead on the sidewalk. Also: is that Snoopy on Joey's shirt? Snoopy as the Red Baron, even?

Thing of the Week: David Lynch cooking quinoa, 'Taxi' & Its Tender Melancholy

JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK: David Lynch cooking quinoa

 On Sunday I saw INLAND EMPIRE in a theater with no popcorn, which was really brave of me. I afterwards I wasn't terrified. I even liked it!  Laura Dern is amazing!! I had read that part of the "bonus features" on the INLAND EMPIRE DVD was David Lynch cooking quinoa. Obviously when I got to work on Monday the first thing I did was google "David Lynch cooking quinoa", and thank goodness I did. I think I love this video more than anything. It's fantastic. He uses sea salt from Whole Foods! He adds vegetable bullion and Braggs which seems like a lot of sodium but what do I know, I'm sure it's just perfect. David uses this great pot and it has really made me reflect on my pot situation. My pots suck and I deserve a fabulous pot to make quinoa in and then to sit and drink wine and think about all the little quinoas floating around my gorgeous pot. This video might be the best thing that has ever happened to me.

LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Taxi & Its Tender Melancholy

One of my favorite things about "doing research" for my book is this Wikipedia page. The other night I watched an episode of Taxi on CBS.com and got completely swept up in its sweetness and tender melancholy, and then I downloaded a full-length version of "Angela (Theme From Taxi)" by Bob James and listened to it about 27 times in a row and it was beautiful. I think there's no other sound more wistful in the world, compared to "Angela ("Theme From Taxi"). And I'll probably always be in love with Jeff Conaway as Bobby -- what a babe and a dreamboat, what a great head of hair. And I'm in love with Latka too, though the purity of that love is corrupted by learning (via Milos Forman, I guess) that Andy Kaufman fucking hated Taxi. Also, the episode I watched the other night had Tom Hanks as Jim's roommate  at Harvard, during a flashback sequence where Jim eats pot brownies for the first time. I'm not in love with Tom Hanks, but I'm awfully fond of him.

LAURA VERSUS POWERMAN (A Story About How Gross Bureaucracy Is/ "This Time Tomorrow" by The Kinks)

BY LAURA JANE (ILLUSTRATION BY JEN)

June 21st, 2012 

 I was meant to fly to New York on the afternoon of Ray Davies’ 68th birthday and fly home on the evening of Mick Jones’ 57th. I borrowed a light brown leather travel bag from my father that looked wrong with the strap hanging over the crook of my elbow. I knew that bag and I knew it was meant to be shoved into the back of the Jeep Cherokee we drove to a cottage in Cape Cod that wasn’t ours twenty years ago, where and when it would rest by the foot of a strong kitchen table where at seven I sprayed I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter onto Entenmann’s blueberry mini-muffins- these were things we didn’t have in Canada, treats, which felt like stickers or painkillers or stickers of the Sailor Moon girls to me- and my dad bought a bottle of root beer and a jug of milk and mixed the two of them up in a glass and called it a Brown Cow. It was something from his childhood that he passed on to me and that bag belonged to that summer. 
       It was an Olympics summer, the first summer I was old enough to invest myself in the goings-on of an Olympics and it was the summer of a “Dream Team.” I remember my parents getting cranky being forced to watch exclusively American Olympics coverage, laughing at the bombast of US patriotism, explaining “We’re Canadian- it embarrasses us”; I remember the Olympics summer I lived in Brooklyn remembering back to that summer and trying to explain it to my American roommate until both of our faces went red, our voices shaky from the anger underneath- I’ll never understand the way Americans feel about America. 
        Olympics summers stay in your memory differently. World Cup summers are even better because they happen every eight years instead of every four. Two summers ago, when for a June of our lives the world was united by its knowledge of “what a vuvuzela is,” a feeling that was born to be forgotten. Vuvuzelas blowing at all hours of the night; at first you kept thinking a deer was getting shot to death and moaning and dying outside your window but it was always just a vuvuzela and then you got used to it. The world’s relationship to vuvuzelas is one of the most interesting things that ever happened, in my opinion. I swore to myself I’d never forget about vuvuzelas and I haven’t. They are proof that nothing matters.

Wings for Wheels: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen

There's this new cool Bruce Springsteen comic anthology out and I'm (I'm Jen) in it. I don't make comics, but I do make weird images, so I did that. Here is one from the collection about Bruce and Patti Smith being from New Jersey and being Best Friends Forever (& Beyond). 

The Collection was put together and edited by Nomi Kane and she really did a phenomenal job. I mean, look at how cool it is! Wings for Wheels features work by Nomi Kane, Pat Barrett, Todd McArthur, Jen Vaughn, Josh PM Frees, with cover art by Dan McCool. If you want to buy one, you can do that here for $6. I also added some older prints to this etsy page because I have them so why not.

Here's a special bonus Bruce thing that is not included in the anthology. Strawberry Fields Whateves exclusive!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'Moon Pix' By Cat Power Is For Missing Everyone You've Ever Met

WORDS BY ELIZABETH BARKER/DRAWING BY JEN MAY

A line from Who Will Run The Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore, which is a beautiful book you should absolutely read if you haven't already:

"It is unacceptable, all the stunned and anxious missing a person is asked to endure in life. It's not to be endured, not really."

This Saturday it'll be fall and in early fall it's good to listen to Moon Pix by Cat Power and sort of sink into its sultry melancholy and embrace the impending loss of light -- it'll make you feel really deep. Moon Pix is a deep record and it stirs up deep feelings, like feelings about missing people, especially people you used to love. When I listen to it, I feel like I miss everyone I've ever met. These are the people it makes me miss the most:

i. THE BOY FROM "AMERICAN FLAG."

My first L.A. man was a drummer and I liked to listen to "American Flag" and think of him, changing the "her" to "his" and the "she" to "he" ("My new friend plays drums all the time/his magic heart feels everything/He plays the difficult parts and I play difficult"). I actually never played difficult, I faked my way through being easy about everything. We lived in the same building and I'd see him all the time and always want to be near him, touching him, probably because of oxytocin -- being easy turned out to be really hard. But I was 25 and in a new town and I wanted to have a gorgeous adventure with this wild boy nine years older than me. I listened to "American Flag" and liked the idea of him being the friend in the song, and I decided he was going to be my friend forever no matter what.

          My friend was from Massachusetts too, he grew up in a fishing town way up north. He was totally classic about believing in rock-and-roll and that's what I adored most about him. The first night we met, he made a really chill/genuine Stiv Bators reference and looked so good rolling a joint on an AC/DC record cover, wearing a wifebeater and jeans and shitkicker black boots. He had the ragged-est, raspiest, most ripped-up voice and there was this one t-shirt that showed off his drummer arms so perfect, it was deep-purple and the sleeves were kinda too short and no other man in the world could ever pull that off. One time I was giving him a ride home and we were listening to "Black Math" and he was reading a music magazine he'd picked up off the floor of my car. I made a wrong turn and I apologized and he said, "Fuck it, man, let's go to Venice," still flipping through the magazine, not looking up. He looked good then too, so I-don't-give-a-fuck. He looked best clamping a cigarette between his teeth while pulling his hair away from his face, grabbing his dirty curls up in his fist and narrowing his eyes at whatever I was saying, his "thinking hard" expression. He had really pretty eyes, blue-blue-blue. We had the same eyes and the same hair texture. We were both really passionate about radio, and about soy mocha lattes with too much whipped cream.

          So it went on a while and eventually got pretty dumb; he liked somebody else and I didn't like anybody else, until one day I did. This boy came along, The Boy Of All Boys, who neither believed in rock-and-roll nor had amazing hair. The first night the new boy broke my heart, I was being all dramatic about it so that everyone would pay attention to me and so that my friend from "American Flag" would know that I'd moved on -- I wanted him to have that relief, but mostly I just wanted him to be jealous. We had this couch that we set up in the parking lot behind our building, for hanging out and drinking; it was disgusting and moldy and rained-on and probably had lots of things living inside it. I was lying on that couch, curled up like a sad baby, using my hands as a pillow, and the boy from "American Flag" was sitting on the couch arm and trying to make me feel better. At one point he leaned over and touched his big bony hand to my forehead like he was checking for a fever, then said something about how I was the first person he'd met in a really long time who really loved the hell out of rock-and-roll. It was non sequitur but I cherished it, I loved it so much, it meant so much to me and it still does.

          My "American Flag" friend doesn't live in my town anymore, and that's mostly all right with me.

Misty Day, Pearly Gray, Silver, Silky-Faced, Wide-Awake, Crescent-Shaped Smiles

This is a blog post about being a Cancer! The wacky title comes from "Child of the Moon" by the Rolling Stones, the song Mick Jagger wrote about how Cancers are wonderful. Thank you for that, Mick Jagger. We (Cancers) think you are wonderful too. 

This is a picture of me (Laura Jane) and my friend Chelsea at Anabela's wedding on Saturday. I'm so in love with our scamp-y cuteness! It's relevant because Chelsea is also a Cancer, so this is basically a photograph of that lyric from "Child of the Moon" come to life. The craziest thing of all is that these crazy smiles are real! It was a very happy day. My favorite part was a tie between 1) all the times Erin and I hit on the DJ, whose name was "Indie Wedding DJ" (he liked the Kinks!), 2) when Indie Wedding DJ played a Portuguese song where every second lyric went "Ay-yi-yi" and we all sang along to the "Ay-yi-yi" parts and 3) when the song after "Ay-yi-yi" came on and we were all bummed that it wasn't an "Ay-yi-yi song" and Ryan was all, "We can make it an Ay-yi-yi song!" and then started improvising Ay-yi-yis along to the melody and it was EXTREMELY hilarious to me and I forgot all about until I was EXTREMELY hungover at work yesterday and I started laughing really hard in the middle of setting a table and a customer saw me and it was weird. 

After I got off work last night I checked my phone and had the best post-work phone-check of my life and it was all thanks to my wonderful pal Chelsea. In addition to the adorbs crazy-smiled photo seen above she sent me a link to this beautiful perfect dress that all Cancers should own forever. 

Here is a picture of my favorite Cancerian-themed thing I own. It's from Nasty Gal and I have it as a friendship bracelet with another wonderful Cancer friend of mine, Kritty. 

I think next up I would like to have this Cancer ring. You know, sometimes it really does kind of suck sharing the name of your zodiac sign with an illness that often kills people, but what can ya do. At least I'm not one of the shittier zodiac signs! (You know who you are.) (hahahaha j/k ALL the zodiac signs are cool! I love people.)

MOST IMPORTANTLY: last night, Rihanna Tweeted the "Potascope" for every single zodiac sign, which was really awesome and thoughtful of Rihanna. Rihanna is a Pisces, BTW, and also RTed the following Tweet from "ZodiacPosts": A Pisces will find it easy to get lost in thoughts, almost blocking out the real world. I think it's neat to find out that that's how Rihanna sees herself.