WHAT HAPPENS ON THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR IN THE MUSEUM August 5th, 2009 11:06 AM In the museum: In front of Amedeo Modigliani's Reclining Nude of 1917, a sudden cold gust from the vent moves a few straggling hairs onto my face. You stare at my profile as I glide my fingers across my face sweeping the hairs back into place behind my ear. You lick your lips. I turn to you and see the everything of your thoughts. We smile. I say to you that Picasso changed the world, as we gaze at his Girl in Profile of 1901. We meander through the rooms, turning corners and corners. I fall in love thinking of you at Pierre Bonnard's After The Bath of 1910. I turn to see where you have gone and find you right behind me. I grab the cloth of your waste and pull you towards me. You slide your hands inside my khaki coat. These hands then move towards my face. You grab my jaw line with both your hands. Your head leans sideways towards my face. You clutch my lower lip with your two lips. We hold our breath until we cannot any longer. I found you, you say. I found you, I found you, I fucking found you. And as a tear is being born you sweep my wet cheek with your warm, certain thumb. As you dry my skin I feel the swarming heat of your tender certainty that this is love, that this is everything, that this is not a season, this is the world of time and no time. This is the point. NOTES ON THE KING OF POP: June 26th, 2009 12:13 PM I'm writing this from the heart of a listener and believer in the creation of dreams. There was a boy inside this man that yearned for the past. He lived in nostalgia to a, perhaps unknowing, fatal detriment. He was never given the opportunity to be one of the kids on the block. And yet, this was to become his fortune, his momentary joys, and, soon, legacy. It is hard to fathom the mind of someone who has never had more than a small amount of time to be with himself in order to figure out the next steps in life. He always had his life planned and mapped for him. Soon, he would learn that there was no other route in life, but to face the crowds and media. He decided he would escape into a secluded world outside the papers and expectations and build his own Neverland. What happened on that 2,500-acre ranch is something we listeners and media-readers will never truly know or come to understand. That is neither here nor there, so to speak. It is superflous to mention his personal, physical, and sexual obstacles, fixations, and obsessions. This man was a genius. He built a musical kingdom and started an era that no longer exists as of today. When you read the papers today you will read headlines stating 'The King is Dead", "It is the End of An Era", "The King of Pop is Dead". These papers are the same papers that murdered his privacy and criticized and scrutinized his every word and action for years during the child molestation and bankcrupy cases. So, I sit and wonder why it is that even the meanest of these media manipulators can weaken and melt in spirit upon the passing of this man's life on Earth. There is a reason we are all walking the streets with our shoulders shrugged today. There's a reason why the city of San Francisco decided to celebrate the music of this man's career on the day of his passing by throwing parties and continuously spinning his music on the radio. There's a reason why you'll see a plethora of upcoming award shows dedicating some life-time achievement award or another to this man and the greatness that he achieved in the face of such adversity. There is a fragility to life that, today, this man reminded the world of. Rest in peace, Michael Jackson. FROM THE INSIDE OF MY STOMACHE March 14th, 2009 2:34 PM Birds discussing: Storytellers Epicurus and Plato, Jung versus Freud, Zelda versus Francis Scott. Perhaps Bob Dylan was a better songwriter as a twenty-year-old than John Lennon was at the same age; two completely different story tellers. One was more in touch with the coal mining train-hoppers, the latter more expressive about psychedelics and all that matters of love. Brian Jones. Who was he really? Do the stories told by modern-day Brit writers tell of his essential creative mind? Was he the reason the Stones are now immortalized? Birds discussing: The power of art Music. Novels. They are a part of the only immortal creations on Earth. Art. It resonates across generations. Even if the actual art is no longer here, people know the story. Shakespeare. The Bible. Da Vinci. John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Bob Marley’s “One Love”. These tales continue forward. These creations are the only things this planet universally holds as sacred. Its inhabitants have self-imposed the preservation of these ethereal creations. Someone will be there to make sure art survives and is passed on to the next generation’s reality. On-looker’s observation I sit here and write from the porch of a second-story apartment, overlooking the bay on Tiburon Boulevard. The pearl-white couches with blue paisley print make up part of this archaic ‘70s home. My dog, Gigi, loves the sun. The birds here in Tiburon remember her. They call the sunbeams out for her enjoyment. She lays beside me, with her back legs to her side, her eyes squinting in a dainty, glistening fashion. Her front legs are crossed in front of her. She is a Madam. Her red, heart-shaped nametag reflects against the white, silk-like coat of her throat. She guards me. Warrior. What great posture these animals have. They are regal, royal-like. Thank you sun beams for your loving, healthy, vital energy. We move because of you. We breathe because of you. There is a reason why we smile when the sun is out. The sun makes magic happen on the water’s surface. Molecules excite. Water glistens while the ducks and herons bath and dance on the yellow shimmer. Our bodies heat, creating a state of physical comfort; our minds react and reach euphoria, sedation, and/or energetic stability. We then dance. We decide to move forward with our lives. All of a sudden we see the now before our eyes This is Earth. We are breathing in the sky, which is a space of nothingness to our mere touch, yet it is the shimmering sky of everything that exists within our mind, stomach, and spirit. We are the collective unconscious. The sun is our savior. The moon is the factory where our dreams manifest. We are our creators of the art of papers, love letters, rhythms, jungle drums, and of all these arts that seem to never die. These arts are carried forward by the collective unconscious within us to future generations. There it is, the reason. My explanation for the Greater Existence, He, She, It, They, That, whom is, God Us. We. They. Mother Nature. Sun. Moon. Shimmering Ocean. Us. Gigi. The bathing herons. The scholarly birds. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Dylan and Lennon. Plato. Chopin. Creation. Nothing. All. Everything. Our beating hearts. AMOEBA'S HOME GROWN ARTIST FOR MARCH! March 8th, 2009 8:30 PM Golden sun beams, clear skies, and green, breathing trees wisping their branches in the windy park today. Outstanding weather for this Sunday in March! Good times. I'm stoked to announce that Amoeba nominated me for their Home Grown Artist in March and the Masquerade album will be available for hard-copy purchase at all three store locations (San Francisco, Berkeley, and Los Angeles) and through their website because of it! If ya don't have a hard copy of the album, this is a great time to get it for a cheap price, as I will charge you more for it at the live shows :) Thanks Nero, for the nomination. You kick ass. Check out Nero Nava & the Sexx Act LIVE at Cafe Du Nord March 24th. It's unreal, and not anything like the pseudo-shoegazing shit on Live 105. Shows are scheduled and coming in May. For now, music video for "O, Marie" is in pre-production :), along with some new weekly home-made videos up on Youtube. This week: MacBook Session 1 - Don't Let It Bring You Down cover. Spread the word about Amoeba, stop by the store, pick up a copy for 12 bucks, come to the shows, support your local independent musicians and artists alike! See yall at the shows! Peace and love, Chiara MEMPHIS & AMOEBA'S HOME GROWN ARTIST OF THE MONTH February 13th, 2009 4:05 PM Memphis & Amoeba's Home Grown Artist of the Month It's pouring. The hail came dancing through Sausalito and Tiburon, down the 101, and back through the bay a couple of hours ago. She sure can dance. I hope yall are doing well and kickin' some ass. I'm gearing up for my first showcase at Folk Alliance this year. It will also be my first time performing through Go Girls. They have really opened their doors to not only myself, but to a number of other young and hardworking female artists across the country. I'll be performing on the 19th in the GoGirls show room in Memphis, and will be hanging out at the GoGirls Merch Booth after 3:00p.m. that day if any of yall other Folk Alliance goers wanna come by, chat, and get some swag. I'm also stoked about goin' back to Santa Cruz for a night at my buddy's bar, Parish Publick House, on Thursday February 26th for a FREE ALL NIGHT SHOW. Lauren Shera, Buckeye Knoll & Friends, and myself will be performing from 9:00p.m. 'til close. Good times! Come out and enjoy some local music and great draft if you're in Santa Cruz that night! I'm stoked to announce that Amoeba Records has chosen me to be their Home Grown Artist for the month of March! Stay tuned for new press bits and news on Amoeba's website about how to order a hard copy of Masquerade directly from them! Stay tuned, and please check out Masquerade on iTunes and review the album, if ya haven't already! A couple words help! See yall at the shows! www.chiara-angelicola.com Love, C OBAMA, NYC & MEMPHIS! January 11th, 2008 1:14 PM Happy New Year! The moon last night was the brightest I've ever seen. With Venus and Jupiter in alignment with the moon this month, the brightest moon of the year, and Gemini leaving sight, I feel like all of our energies are intensifying. It's hard to harness our impulses, fears, passions, and behavior. The greatest challenge is accepting our demons and learning how to balance them in our day to day life. There are beautiful things happening and our thoughts are manifesting. Believe. Write. Create. Make it happen. I'm not tolerating energies that lack motivation and energies that are not conducive to happiness. With that said, I'm thrilled to be going to DC next week for the beginning of the Obamarama festivities. I'll be in DC through Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the inaguration. Then, on to New York City. I'll be playing my first show at Sullivan Hall on Wed. January 21st. Tell all your east coast friends and fam to come out! I'd love all the support and people we can rally! February is also radness with my first experience at the International Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, TN from Feb 18th til the 22nd! The ladies at GoGirls are puttin on a showcase and I am stoked to be performing for them! Also am going to try and get a photo op with Roger M the man himself (The Byrds), who is this year's keynote speaker! Woop woop. And yes, Graceland is in the itinerary. Back in Cali for my quaint and FREE show at Parish Publick House in Santa Cruz on February 26th! This show is totally FREE. And there is food. And there is great beer. So rally up. Support local, independent artists. See yall at the shows! Check the tour page for all the details on venue locations and set times! Peace and love, C DECEMBER FAMILY TIME & UPCOMING SHOWS December 22nd, 2008 3:15 PM Hey everyone! Hope you are keeping warm this holiday season. I've been in Guatemala for the past few days, being a bridesmaid for my cousin's wedding, and am spending Christmas here with my Mother, Brother, and Guate fam! I'll be back in the states on Friday December 26th and ready to bring in the New Year in San Francisco! I'm enjoying being away from the computer for a while, even though, I must admit I did get a bit anxious when I opened up my gmail today after not having checked it in a few days! Definitely changing some automatic email notification settings on some of my subscriptions... I want to let yall know that the east coast trip is set and ready to manifest in January! I'll be visitng our country's capital and documenting the Obama presidential inauguration on the 20th, and then I'm drivin' up to New York with a friend to play my first show in New York on January 21st at Sullivan's Hall in Greenwich Village...the heart of the folk scene in the '60s and the historic part of NY where the Beat scene started in the '40s! Tell your friends, family, and co-workers! It's going to be an early show, and my dear musical friend, Taylor Brown, will be joining me for part of the set! Wednesday, January 21st Sullivan Hall, NYC, NY Show starts at 7:30 PM SHARP 18 and over, $10 at the door I play first so get there early! Merry Holiday season to all, and enjoy the love and warmth in doors during this gorgeous winter solstice! See yall at the shows! Peace and love! Chiara ODETTA December 4th, 2008 1:35 AM Thank you Odetta, for your passion, your deep voice, your baritone, your subtle vebrato, your vibrant, persevering, struggling vebrato, your passion, your stories of lives we have not lived, but we listen because you capture us.<br style="display:none" gauntlet_tokenizer_reserved=""/> Thank you, Odetta. Thank you thank you...Bob, Karen Dalton, Nick Cave, they all worshiped you and say you were the woman of their folk generation...I think about not having seen you play at Golden gate Park this year for the Hardly Strictly Blue Grass Festival...paying rent and all...working...blah...fucking wow I can't believe these things, and yet I do and I don't, and I do and I don't. Odetta, thank you! Follow dreams. XO, C LA, SMOKE, SMOG, FRIENDS, CD RELEASES November 16, 2008 3:30PM Wowy wow! Flyin' into LA this mornin' was literally a haze!! Aside from the normal cloud of smog, it was exceptionally thick and brown from all of the eastern fires! I hope all of the families are safely evacuated! I'm here in LA for the CD Release Show/ Shout It Out Promotions Showcase tomorrow, Monday night, at the Derby on Los Feliz Blvd. EARLY SET! COME OUT! I PLAY AT 8:30P.M. SHARP!! THEN TO SF FOR THE CD RELEASE AT BOTTOM OF THE HILL! Hope all is well with yall! Stay safe and happy and in the moment! See yall at the CD RELEASE SHOWS! www.chiara-angelicola.com XO, C Week in the now and week before recordin! September 1st, 2008 11:21 AM Hellos, It's got to be the prettiest week San Fran has seen all summer. It's about 11 a.m. Just had some granola and hot tea, blasting the new vinyl purchases...right now it's My Morning Jacket's first album The Tennessee Fire...give me some Jim James...amazing. Gigi pup is loving the sun through the window on the couch. You can hear the 5 Fulton coming by every 20 minutes. Golden Gate Park is lit up with sun rays beamin' on the neatly cut and kept grass. The only continuing issue needed to be sorted in Golden Gate park is the amount of pigeon poo scattered around Spreckles Lake, which is two blocks from my house. It quite possibly is the dirtiest man-made lake in the city....maybe the world, who knows! Next week is recording and mix down. I cannot express how much I have had to be "one with"my patience these past months. Yet again, it has made my ear that much clearer and more understanding of the project as a whole. I'm so thankful and stoked for the people that I have been working on this with: Andy Zenczak, Alex Nitta, Marcus Balanky, Keith Wieland, Lance Lee, Michael Curry, Gianni Staiano, my Mom, Scott Javadi, Michelle Sibrian, and everyone in my life pretty much...keep on inspirin'! So stoked for the release and the multiple live CD release shows we are gonna set up. Santa Cruz will have a lovely CD release, along with SAN FRAN CD release... Want yall to know I am not drowning in liquor every night. I'm actually considering sobriety for a while. I just need to tame down my impulses in order to do that. Stay focused. No man to disrupt the plan, baby! Lots of sunshine. Good people. Staying surrounded by good times. That's all ya need. Sincerity gets you anywhere if you put your feet forward on your own intentions. So that's my update for now, today, this mornin'. Enjoy the sun wherever yall are! Keep the myspace hits coming! Support your local independent musicians! See yall in a few weeks for CD release time. XO C My Baby Nicky & A Piece of Driftwood August 29th, 2008 2:11 PM My dog, Nicky was 14 when he past away August 14th, 2008. He had recently been diagnosed with having a severe heart murmur. My Mother took him in to see the vet and along with telling her the former, he also suggested that she consider putting him to sleep. My mother had called me later that day, very stressed and down about the whole thing, and I immediately defended the decision of keeping him alive as long as possible and caring for him with daily vitamins and prescriptions. In retrospect, I believe I was a bit in denial about the whole situation. Who the fuck was this vet trying to insinuate that death was just the easiest alternative. I'm against the whole, "Let's just make it easier now, before we have to go on spending all this money and time on a very, very elderly dog...he's lived long enough" mindset. So with all of that said, my Mother, Brother, and I decided to stick to the meds and give him some extra tender love and care. His back legs had begun to give out a few months ago, when we noticed he would struggle up our three flights of stairs or start to collapse after running to the front door when he would hear the doorbell or the mail-woman. I didn't think the doctor knew what he was talking about. Nick's murmur would challenge him during high-activity things, but other than that, he was same old sleepy Nicky to me. Two weeks ago, the day my Mother had signed and sold her house and temporarily moved in with me before her move back to Guatemala Nicky had a severe seizure. I was about to go take him and Gigi out for a walk as I turned out of the kitchen and heard a banging against my bedroom door. I saw Nicky violently twitching on his side, banging his little soft head against the door. I thought that he had been vomiting blood but he had hurt himself so hard against the door that he began to bleed. The scene was horrendous. I knew it was coming. He was going to leave. My Mother and I both believe that Nicky's soul did not leave until he knew that our family was at ease with our new beautiful transitions. To think what would have happened if I was by myself with him, if my Mother was alone with him, or even worse, if no one was there for his passing. He chose to go at that time. In the back of my mind I knew this, but I couldn't help but try to save him. I yelled at my Mom, as if it was her fault to not react as dramatically as me. I asked her to "call the fucking vet!!! Nicky needs to go to the hospital now!! Let's go to the fucking hospital now!" and we got the Vet on the phone-the one from earlier in the story...the asshole that wanted to put Nick down- and I feverishly told him what was happening and that I needed him to come help us immediately. I had attempted to lift Nicky but his muscles and legs were spasming too much that he would not allow me to lift him. The vet then told me that he could not come to help me. And he said this in a way that seemed so natural to him. He's gotten this call before. Many times. And it angered me even more, that he could not react as if it were his first. Finally...I put the phone to my Mom, and accepted that we were not going to have him alive by the time we got to the hospital. I put both my hands on his tummy. I felt a faint heartbeat...the murmur. his eyes were slowly beginning to lose their wake. He was slowly leaving. It was as if his soul had left before the seizure, and his body was left to deal with the shock, and slowly release completely. In his last three seconds, Nicky made one long, sigh. And it wasn't completely peacful. It was as if it was his only verbal recognition of the pain. But after that sigh, his heart stopped. He little head stopped twitching, and he was gone away from the struggles of an old age. My Mom and I bundled him in an old towel we've had since I was little, since Nicky was little, and my Mom drove as I sat with Nicky in my lap in the passenger seat to go have him "properply" pronounced... I returned to the emergency hospital last night, after dropping my Mom off at the airport, to go pick up his remains. They give the ashes to you in a small rectangular cedar box with an old fashioned lock. There's a card that they place on top of the box, that's been saran-wrapped. The card states the name of the dog, the owner, and a Pet ID #. I can't stand the Pet ID#. and I can't stand the box. As much as they try and make it so personal. It's just not personal anymore. The hardest moment for me in all of this, was strangely, not the witnessing of his passing, but having to drop him off at the vet. We placed him on he counter where they usually do routine check-ups. And we layed him on his side. We prayed together. We reminisced. We cried so fucking hard. And we had to leave him in that room until someone came and picked him up in the towel to be frozen and then picked up to be cremated. All sense of life is lost the minute you have to "deal" with the "business" of a death. All sacredness is no longer there. And as much as it is not those people's fault, at times of sorrow and loss you really convince yourself that it is. I even had the audacity to say the gentleman who gave me Nick's remains last night that he "must be desensitized from doing this all the time." He looked at me with deep, inset eyes and said "I don't think you could be able to work at a place like this if you were desensitized." I felt bad, but at the same time I didn't. That was my Nick. Not his Nick. And so this morning my Father and Gigi came with me as I released Nicky's remains into the shores of Blackie's Pasture in Tiburon; the pasture of my childhood, of Nicky's childhood. We'd go roller-blading on the weekends with Mom, Dad, Tony and Nicky when he was still very young, and fast! As a sheep dog, he'd show his herding instincts by running around in huge circles on this big green field in Tiburon. And he wouldn't stop until finally you whistled him over and he'd come sprinting towards you and sit on command and pant and bark until his adrenaline calmed. I still see that face. After his release this morning, I let Gigi run around the shore and I crossed myself, like I used to when I was a Catholic. It was instinct. And I saw my grandparents Lulu and Vito up there with him-They had given him to us as a gift, and Vito even named him- And then as I was wipin' off what seemed to be the last bits of tears for that moment I found a beautiful piece of drift-wood. It might be just drift-wood to someone, but it was more of a gift in return for me. It is perfectly shaped. And I believe it is a gift from him. I love you Nicky. My Baby. Bite the Weaknesses, Live Softly, Listen, Heart August 28th, 2008 5:47 PM It's difficult to monitor one's weaknesses in a speed-racing world of makeshift-to make-fit-to pay rent-to play load and roar. Its difficult to breakdown and live softly. If one only lets the heart speak more. Let it be a quiet rain inside the body where the mind sits and listens to the world inside of and outside of the heart. Sitting down with a piece of art- be it a piece of paper like this with notes on the self and heart, or a song on a music sheet, or a lone chord on the piano waiting for its colors and brother chords to become a measure- whatever it may be, let it be for a longer moment in time. A day. A night. A month. A minute. Sitting down with it for a moment longer to question, embrace, alter, or simply accept. "THE RIP" June 19th, 2008 9:30 AM Radiohead does Portishead. Awesome! PONDER, PONDER, REGRESSION, STAND MY GROUND June 19th, 2008 8:57 AM Going through my actions in the past Trying to balance them all on the beam What has weighed down my satisfaction? What has manifested such anger in their minds? Have I not been honest and faithful? My subjective mind and subconscious wills have guided me While misguiding others Is that my responsibility to take fault? HIGH-SPEED CALIFORNIA RAIL June 13th, 2008 3:27PM Let's make it happen TWENTY MINUTES May 27th, 2008 8:12PM "Twenty-Minute" Spirits are twenty minutes of morbidly contemplating the beauty of smoke released from my mouth and breath into the crisp paper air. Twenty minutes of pretending I'm Kerouac, riding on the flat bed of a Chevy headed towards the unknown and awaited mysteries of my, still, youth. Twenty minutes of accepting hatreds and mistakes, re-contriving dissolved confrontations, solving intricate puzzles of my mind with simple answers while disregarding the inevitable mushroom cloud of how that simple solution would not work. Twenty minutes, and then putting it out on a hand-painted ceramic ashtray on my patio table, acknowledging the remains of my innocence, embracing the possibilities within hope and endless range, and walking back inside to the music. Leaving my blackened, fearful, insides outside.
LULU COLOM, MY BELOVED GRANDMOTHER TUVE LA GRAN SUERTE DE PODER DESPEDIRME DE ELLA
DURANTE MI RETIRO EN EL CENTRO KRISHNAMURTI Y MANDO
ESTE TEXTO DE EL Y ESTAS FOTOS PENSANDO MUCHISIMO EN
ELLA Y SU FAMILIA. UNA EXTRAORDINARIA MUJER QUE VIVIO LA
VIDA TOTALMENTE LLENA DE AMOR Y COMPASION EN EL VER-
DADERO SENTIDO DE LA PALABRA.....SIN ESPERAR.....
SU ENERGIA TUVO MUCHA INFLUENCIA EN MI VIDA Y COMARTI-
MOS MOMENTOS INTENSOS....LA QUISE MUCHO Y SEGUIRA
EN MIS PRESENTES SIN NOSTALGIA....QUE DICHA SABER QUE
ESTA TAN BIEN Y EN PAZ!!
THERE SEEMED TO BE A GREAT REJOICING AN SHOUTING
AMONG THE TREES AND MEADOWS; THEY EXISTED FOR EACH
OTHER AND ABOVE THEM WAS HEAVEN-----NOT THE MAN-MADE,
WITH ITS TORTURES AND HOPES. AND THERE WAS LIFE, VAST,
SPLENDID, THROBBING, AND STRECHING IN ALL DIRECTIONS.
IT WAS LIFE, ALWAYS YOUNG AND ALWAYS DANGEROUS; LIFE
THAT NEVER STAYED, THAT WANDERED THROUGH THE EARTH,
INDIFFERENT, NEVER LEAVING A MARK, NEVER ASKING OR
CALLING FOR ANYTHING. IT WAS THERE IN ABUNDANCE,
SHADOWLESS AND DEATHLESS; IT DID NOT CARE FROM
WHERE IT CAME OR WHERE IT WAS GOING. WHEREVER IT
WAS THERE WAS LIFE, BEYOND TIME AND THOUGHT.
MR. K
HASTA LA VISTA MI QUERIDISIMA LULU Y MIL GRACIAS
POR TODO. CON MUCHO AMOR
LUISFER"
DIGESTION
Ello loves,
DOING THINGS ON YOUR OWN WILLS & WANTS
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