7/9/08 - The sun is down and I feel I went with it. The dark has come and I feel I’m down in it.
Can this mean everything I know and everything I had? Not that this has anything to do with why I feel so bad. I’ve been wandering now for almost 50 years with nothing much to show for it; bit of noise and a bit of fun and a lot less than I care to admit. And just when I get back on track pulling my head out of the clouds, I can feel some things coming apart; I can feel the breaking of my heart. The sun is down and I feel I went with it. The dark has come and I feel I’m down in it.
5/25/08 - I am, for the most part, feeling like the last person on earth tonight. It’s a sadness that I cannot describe or even express. I’d like to cry for a week. Anyway. Tonight a storm blew into town. Nothing huge but a lot of wind, lightning and thunder. Early summer storms like these are always quite enchanting. I hear long ago voices in the wind and the rattle. This house, the shutters and doors have so many spirits in them. So many families have been protected from the weather by this house. For so long. Longer than you and I have been alive this house has stood guard and served sentry to the souls within. If I thought an apartment built in 1941 had some stories imagine what I’ll find out about this 113-year-old house. This structure that we are quickly bringing into the modern world with working hands, working workmen (and women), and money, a lot of money. What hits me at the moment is that our house was standing before and during the entire timeline of Bill Caddick’s ‘The Writing of Tipperary'. This house stood before, during, and after the Edwardian era and saw the end of the Victorian era. And on it goes. But now we’re in it.
4/22/08 - I don’t quite understand where life takes me sometimes but I can’t help it. I like to kick things up even if I don’t come out of it too well. A job is a job, right? And work is work. What is life if you can’t follow your heart? Brenda, Brenda. All I can say now is Tora, Tora. Have a good life. I see it on the panels and behind the glass. The faces, the smiles, the places. This is it. This is your life. This is what you’ve done and where you went. From these roots, from the earth that smelled damp and like rust. From that girl that lived in the house behind you. That girl with the dark around her eyes. The girl all the kids rejected. The person. The person behind the black hair and the scary, dark eyes. The girl who’s room smelled like stale sheets and patchouli with no pictures on the walls, just smudges. The girl who’s only defense was to lash out with verbal reproof, black hair in her eyes, as she declaimed her needy, impoverished heart. But she was weird. But she scared us. Them. Scared them. Not me. Like the girl tangled in her yo-yo string that no one would help, this girl never scared me. She broke my heart. My heart was broken like hers. But how do you tell that? But. I wanted to tell her that. But in the heat of July in a treeless suburban backyard in 1971, all I could do is watch from the wings (a swing set seat) as my sister lashed back at her with an arrogance born of privilege. What did my sister know about any of this? How did I know about it and she didn’t? Weren’t we protruding from the same branch of wood? Weren’t we blood? How then did my sister seem so alien to me? How then did the girl with the black hair in her eyes and the loud voice seem closer to me than God? As she stomped away, I grabbed a steel bar of the swing set to steady myself. My hand hurt from the metal cooked by the sun on a July afternoon in a treeless suburban backyard. I wanted to pull my hand away but I didn’t. I wanted to feel solidarity with her broken heart. My palm ached. I gripped harder. Her heart ached worse. And she lost her grip. Late on a school night I woke up. I walked down the hall to the dark dining room. I sat in my place at the table and looked out the window. I saw a flashing light. Red. Rotating. Lonely. December 1973. Across a cold winter suburban backyard, to an even colder winter suburban driveway, I saw a white sheet over a lump on a steel mechanism designed to wheel humans to and from unthinkable tragedy. What is this? What happened? As the white and red station wagon with the flashing light crept its way between the houses and then gone, my heart hurt more than ever before. The lonely little girl. Those lonely children. They wander everywhere and ache for someone to love them. They’re flawed and difficult to get along with. They bother you and are irritating. They make life difficult. Your life. Because their life is already difficult. Because their life is so confusing and hurtful and unloving, they reach out to you the only way they can. And what do you do? Turn them into a lump under a white sheet on a steel mechanism designed to wheel humans to and from unthinkable tragedy. But this time, only to.
4/5/08 - Betty and Abigail sit across from each other in Betty’s room. 2:23pm on a dark January afternoon, 1692. Between them is a Venus Glass and their hopes and dreams are riding on the slow shapes they are watching. No one else is home. The girls are alone. They want to know. They want to know the future. Mommy where did you go? Your Betty needs you so. Abby at eleven, needs a suitor for her heart to leaven. Such a dark and winter day. Such dark and melancholy girls . . . Wait, I know what to do! We can act like those stories from the Indian servant! We can stare and shake and shout . . . I’ll bark at daddy like a dog when he rebukes me, for he is such a foolish man! I’ll throw the bible! I’ll cause them to concern with me and wonder if I’m ill. Pray tell the story you hear. That old man Jacobs beats on Sarah when her work fails to satisfy him. Oh, that old horrible man! He should be careful who he beats, I pray you to think of what power your victim may have one day. And you found that power was not in your hands. You found yourself hung. Dead. . . . The girls so lovely sit in a room lit by candle on a purple winter afternoon in a house in an isolated Puritan community. A glass between them. Isolation. Sad girls. Alone girls. So misunderstood girls. No one listens to girls. Not here. How much more terrifing can things be? Just wait. Just wait until Byshop. She will be the first. Oh, my heart, sweet Betty. Yours will hurt forever . . . What do we have to do to be heard? What do we have to do to be taken seriously? What? I am no witch. I know nothing of it. Nore am I and what will thou think? The girls in the room say they will have a husband. They will be okay. They don’t believe a word. They are so afraid. They have seen too much. They have seen death close. They have had the stink of death in their clothes, in their skin. They are so scared. The elders are pressuring them. From what they have been through already, the are suffering ptsd. A modern term so suffered by Salem girls.The women. All of them stand accused of sundrey acts. The blackness of the latter part of life. For them, caught in a web of sickness, opression, and misogyny. They know nothing of it. And one laught. She never thought it would end like this. Oh my heart. These women of intelect and maturity. These women already kept down. They will now face men who have already decided who they are and what should be done with them. These women who have cooked dinners, baked bread, pulled water from the well. These women who have already toiled for their men-folk. They have already given their lives. Now they must die. With not even a drop thereto of wine or spirit. The ultimate submission. I am clear of this sin, she says. But they don’t care. It’s spring. The flowers are blooming everything is fresh and new. But the hatred is mounting and the fear has made everything black and cold. It might as well have stayed winter. Or so thought Martha Cory. And Susannah Martin. And Mary Parker. What hath thee done little Elizabeth? What hath thee comitted Mr. Hathorne? You have brought unearthly pain and sadness to all of the girls and women of Salem. Did God have mercy on you? Pray tell I think not. And the cold turned to warmth. And the warmth to heat. And the birds sang. And the flies buzzed. And the buggys snapped and rattled. And the hoofs clopped. And the breeze rustled the leaves on the trees outside the window of the meeting house. And the voices inside can be heard outside the walls; the accusing and pleading, fits and shouting falling onto the dust outside and soaking into the earth and the wood and the walls of Salem Village. Poor girls. Poor women.The town will reak of this sickness forever.
3/18/08 - I just want to let “everyone” know that I’m still tanking about. I have been given the terrifying duty of dismantling my studio. Yes, we are moving. To a house this time, our very own. So, after the limb shaking nausea of taking down and rebuilding my only creative tool has subsided, I will again begin work on some more songs. One song that was completed a few weeks ago must undergo a bit of a remix. It’s got this ghastly drum machine tom that has become quite problematic. I think I may remove it altogether. Who needs drums anyway? They drain resources and represent no creative value. I can’t believe some people actually use only drums as their sound. Shameful. I really don’t mean all of that, just most of it. Oh, and if that weren’t news enough, check this out; the Clinical Archives net label has picked up the Hating Gait EP for distribution. They will offer the extended version of the EP (with ‘Grounded’ and ‘Buckles and Bows smear version’) with cover art and all, of course, free of charge. This is a good time to be alive.
2/21/08 - The Look Folder has been updated with some wintery stuff. Go to the Look link to download the folder.
1/13/08 - So goes the recording of the new CD. Lot’s of ideas are flying around and the mental purging is rampant. This record is going to be a lot more sonically dense than I thought. As always, I start out to make something empty or sparse and it ends up being a huge, albeit mellow, wall-of-sound. Meh. Anyway. In video news, I want to thank all of you who have sent kind words about my videos. I do enjoy making them along with the high therapeutic index the activity affords. Just a reminder, all Hollydrift videos are available for free from hollydrift.com. You can download them to your computer or iPod. There are files for both from the download link. Also, a wonderful artist by the name of Lila Sakura used some images from the ‘Stay Forever’ video for her spoken word piece "Dear Creator" from Lila’s upcoming V-day 08' CD release Soul Killer. Lila’s had a rather difficult past and she is bringing it to light with this CD. You can find her videos on her website and here as well. You can find out more about the extremely important V-Day here
1/5/07 - The halls I’ve walked. The rooms I’ve occupied. The words I’ve said. The words I’ve eaten. I do not feel sorry for myself. I could have sought help. I could have told and adult. I could have told my parents the truth. They could have told someone else. This happened how many times? Every time I left the house I walked into some devastating hell. But it was never like I thought it would be. It wasn’t like on TV. It always happened with such delicate subtly as to render me blissfully unaware until I was in the middle of it, involved and unable to escape. Or be held unaccountable. Or be innocent. Or to say I wasn’t there. Or to say I didn’t like it although I really did. Innocence. Looking through the window well, I can see a lifetime in the backyard. Ancient toys buried long ago, the ones we held so dear. Grass has grown over the sandbox, and the trees are so much bigger. And all of this is why I never feel sober on Mondays. This is why sometimes I can’t move. This is why I’m different than you.
12/28/07 - Good evening. Work on the new Hollydrift album continues. I have posted a new Hollydrift track that will only be available here and will not be on the new record. It’s called 'Grounded' and you can download it free from the download link. The song is a small reminder that behind every boarded up window is not always an empty room. Until later, greetings from snowbound Ozaukee County.
12/8/07 - More frozen weather is rattling against my window. I hear the howling wind of a friendly storm. This is fine with me. Evening has come. I’m waiting for the Lunesta to kick in . . . I don’t think I can top yesterday. That’s the fickle nature of creativity; illusive, hiding in the shadows refusing to be seen. The magic dust needs to be collected before it’s provoked and spent. And I dig deep. And I say too much. I don’t really have to worry because no one’s paying attention, anyway. But how can I give it up without giving it away? I can’t. I have been found out. No wait, I decided to tell. Mysteries, secrets . . . I’ve said way too much anterior about my interior. This life inside my head and all the things outside. The outside world that I cannot manage. What happened? And I was a part of this? Seems unlikely but there I am. Was. It went down and I handled it the best I could. I’ve never been an Olympian at handling tragedy. I wasn’t then and I’m not now. I just muddle through. It’s a mess. A completely different planet away from everything. Some things I haven’t thought about yet. Things that happened so incredibly long ago. Darling daughter stumbles upon them. Without knowing she shakes the memory box and suddenly something falls out so old that I can’t place it ever being in my life. Then she wants to know everything about it. And I don’t have anything to say. Yet. My lovely one, where were you, where was I. The questions so old I left the question marks off. They aren’t needed. They will never be answered. And I remember being in the kitchen in Madison making dinner. And I never heard the little voice inside me say; do you know what's going to happen to you in Cedarburg? And there was nothing to warn me. Not that I needed it. I was waiting for so long. And there you were. And I can’t believe my first thought was about Elizabeth, like she had any part in it. Just a distant forgettable moment in history. My history, I think.
12/3/07 - All of this and the time of year cause me to become romantic and nostalgic about what happened . . . The poor girl down the street. She had been in that room forever and she waved to me from it one dark winter day. A pensive, do-you-see-me wave. To me, walking by her window tugging on the stings of my hat, I looked up to see her. Wave back. And see her some more. Her hair was dirty and long. She hadn’t combed it in so long. Her face soft but here eyes hard (or maybe the other way around). She’d been kept in that room for so long (some sort of punishment-a long forgotten disobedience). But once, awhile ago, she was outside with me. It was an autumn afternoon when the setting sun made everything shine gold. She hurt her hand and I wanted to help. I said, let’s go inside and tell your mom and dad. She said no, I don’t want to go back in. She said, I want to stay here with you until its dark. I want you to stay by me and keep me safe from the cars with ugly music coming from them. I want you to keep me safe from those people over there who want to hurt me . . . Worse than my parents. Her hand was bleeding and I reached out to hold onto it. She let out a croupy sigh when our hands met. Like this was some sort of relief. My hand and hers smeared and stuck together with the biology of her pedigree. I said, we should get you inside. She said, no, and then looked to the house. The big stone house with three stories and thousands of square feet. She was thinking sooner our later they’d find us and she’d have to go back into it. She blinked her eyes at the house and the hair draped over them bounced with the movement of her eyelashes . . . She looked . . . And turned back to me (our hands still stuck together in coagulation) and looked through her hair at me looking back at her. Did she have no sense of self? That she left her arms and legs smudged with this and that? Such an unclean girl, smelling of some old perfume, something found in the attic were she was kept. The sweetness of it mixed in with her and formed a smell of desperation and loneliness. Of isolation and sadness. Here eyes darted until she locked them with mine slowly letting her hand drift away and travel to my shoulder where it rested, soaking. (I was kneeling. Why stand over her like her glowering father did?). Her hand was so heavy; the dirt under her bitten fingernails seemed to be so much a part of her . . . Her gaze moved to the street. Across the lawn it was an ambling street lined with large trees and impossibly ornate streetlights. A charming street, those passing through would say. She watched the cars passing. I followed her gaze suddenly to feel her weight and self disappear. She was running. Running as fast as her bare feet let her. Faster than my mind could process. Across the lawn, off the stone fence onto the sidewalk and, without a word, into the path of an oncoming car. It leapt forward and howled. The thump made me sick as she rolled of the hood and dropped to the street. As she lay, a small crowd materialized. I sat down next to her broken body, shocked with disbelief. Her eyes staring at the curb in front of her. She said my name. I said hers. She said, people from that office will have to come now, right? I said, yes. She said my name again. I said hers again. She said, now they’ll come take me away and give me a bath and pretty new clothes a brush for my hair. I said, yes, now they would come do that. She giggled almost silently through her open unmoving mouth, lips resting on asphalt. I said, don’t move. She said I don’t have to, they will move for me. They will bring me flowers and candy and tell me, I love you. She said my name and said, it hurts. She gurgled. And sighed. And then was gone. I looked at my hand with the blood of a few minutes ago. A few minutes ago when all we needed was a bandaid. And then the voices and the sirens. Such an intrusion and too late. I looked back at her and noticed a sticker stuck to her bare shoulder; half curled like it got there by mistake. A pink bunny with words printed in red below its feet; I Love You. And I knew at that moment I would never recover from this. And through the years since, I have found it strange how the winter always reminds me of the little girl and the howling car. And how she smelled of an old perfume. Even though this happened on an autumn afternoon when the setting sun made everything shine gold.
12/1/07 - And maybe if I write. Maybe this will pull it out. More snow coming this weekend and that’s fine. I’m ready for it. Sheets of freeze in layers and layers. Like people here. So much to get through before you arrive at the actual them. And the townies never take off their coats. They get up and go out into their day and the coat never leaves their shoulders. Indoors the hood or hat may come off but not the coat. We live in the cold, we walk in the snow and there’s hardly a reason to pull off all the layers when you’ll be leaving again in an hour. Just hang out in the kitchen. And I exist with the heavy boots that trip me, and the big coat that I’m always moving out of the way of something breakable or a doorway or a passerby on the sidewalk . . . All of them clanking, too, with the heaviness of Eskimos. With the weight of winter. And we move slowly. And we eat a lot. And we watch the dial on the wall. And the mittens in the closet. And the salt stains on the floor in the doorway. And the cold coming off the windows. Winter.
11/23/07 - I wonder what the thought process is. How it’s decided who steps into eternity. And when. The great decision. The last moments. And you are loved beyond anything. We’ve had so much of it here lately. It’s almost like something’s wrong there. Something is occupying that length of earth. And it won’t let go.
11/10/07 - Good evening everyone. Welcome to Hollydrift.com. Here you will find everything you need regarding my artwork. However, let me share this caveat: After 7 years of doing noise collage, I am done with it. It was okay for awhile but I’ve gone beyond it. It’s just not who I am anymore and really, noise has reached its bubble gum phase. The hits are everywhere and everyone’s doing it. Noise is so yesterday. Anyway, I’ve come to embrace and mix together two music forms that I have always liked but only dabbled in; Darkwave and Shoegaze. Yes, both of these have had their bubble gum phase, too, but they're still excellent forms for further exploration. I like the sounds I’ve been working with as of late. The long drones, sparse rhythms, and dynamic synth textures are a part of my ever expanding pallet. I still use found sounds in my compositions (hear them now on ‘Seduced’ and ‘Michipicoten’) but in a much different way. This is all very good for me because I am not a badass and I really got tired of people thinking I was based on my music. I mean, I never thought my noise work was all that hard, especially when you compare it to what's being played on mainstream radio. Outside of my family, no one knows me very well. At root, I don’t fit in anywhere and I would prefer to live in some other time than the present or future. This desire consumes most of my thought time. I look at everything and wonder what it used to be like. My artistic output reflects who I am. I have an active imagination and sensitivity towards the spiritual world. I thing it would be nice if humans would stop pounding the earth and it's creatures into submission. For what it’s worth. Anyway, the noise is gone. For those curious about what I used to do, you can download this zipped folder of old Hollydrift. This folder is a time capsule of my last 7 years work. It contains a lot of music, videos, interviews, photos, etc and is 335mb in size. So, depending on your connection speed, it might take forever to download. For those curious about what I'm doing now, check out the 4 new songs and 2 new videos posted on the MP3 and Download sections. In regard to this site: The look folder will be updated regularly with announcements of updates posted here. I will also add to the listen section on a regular basis. I have a huge number of field recordings and it seems a shame to let them sit and gather dust. As for the rest of the site, it’s pretty intuitive. For those of you who stuck with me during this dry/transitional period; thank you very much. It means more to me than you know.
