Archive for June, 2012

Musica Fantastica and Cake.

Posted: June 24, 2012 in Uncategorized
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Ask me what I love.

If you said cake then you are correct and if you said Rob Lowe than you are correct as well, so let me rephrase the question. Ask me what I love outside of food and 1980s teen stars.

 

This is Rob Lowe’s I-Like-Cake face.

Wait for iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit: The wide world of music.

Tunes. Vibrations. Something with soul and grit.

 

Cosby Sweater agrees. “Herp, dur, derp…”

I am a big music lover. I’m not picky or exclusive in my music choices either. I can sing show tunes with the best of them. Yes, my iPod holds Spice Girls (ah, fond/embarrassing memories) and John Mayer (shudder) but it also holds Creedence Clearwater, Neko Case and Cold War Kids.

Music is my necessary survival skill. It’s a must have for everywhere I am.  Cooking? Cleaning? There’s music. Driving with the Mother? Woman, hold your tongue, MUSIC IS PLAYING. Co-workers, do you see these earbuds in my ears? They ain’t for decoration, bitches. I got music goin on.

The most important role music plays in my everyday, wine-drenched life is when it makes sweet, dangerous love to my writing. I am one who cannot write without music. I use it to fuel my mood and my stories.

 

This is how you create music, right? RIGHT?

 

When I write I need my music to be inspirational, but I’m not talking about Yanni or Mozart-inspired. Something with oaked-soaked words and languorous vocab.  Pumped, upbeat, expressive. For me, it’s all about damn good lyrics.  

Fiona Apple. fun. Janis Joplin. Jimi.  Alanis Morissette. Amanda Fucking Palmer. Feist. Fitz & the Tantrums. Sublime. Annie Lennox.  Coconut Records. Elvis Presley. The Doors. Rilo Kiley. Jenny Lewis. Loretta Lynn. The Velvet Underground. Garth Brooks. The Grateful Dead. Tom Waits. The Dresden Dolls. Regina Spektor…

The list could go on and on.

Kind of like Dog the Bounty Hunter, music also tracks my frame of mind and mood. Every month I start a new Playlist: February 2012, March 2012, April 2012…etc.

I like this.

Because when I write a specific story and I go back to the playlists I remember my mood. I remember the angst or the giddiness, the fist pumping or the writer’s block. A good or bad blast to the past I’ll take.

Sometimes I’ll find a two-year old playlist, listen, and be like WTF? Was I on the verge of slitting my wrists while downing Drano? Then I’ll remember what I wrote during that time frame and it all makes sense. It makes you remember. It’s a great growth curve.

 

Pains so good.

 

It makes me wonder how other writers use music. The authors who thank the musicians they’ve listened to in their acknowledgements for the inspiration.

Yeah. That’s me.

How about you?

Jules Just Likes: Volume III

Posted: June 17, 2012 in Uncategorized
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Pressed Juicery

I can’t do much in life but trying to do a juice cleanse was one wrong turn on a dead-end street filled with zombies.

This week I drank delicious, delicious juices from the wonderful Pressed Juicery. I can’t praise this juicer enough. Sure, they’re a bit pricey but I’m lazy. There’s no way in hell I would juice. I got better things to do, which usually include lifting a glass of wine to my mouth but that’s neither here nor there…

Roswell Cat wants in on these empty bottles.

The whaaaa? is that for two days I tried to drink only juice. Just juice. Shit, I should rename this blog to JulesJustJuice but that would be depressing.

I’m a wimp. I could never be a starving child in Guana. I drank the juice, steadfastly refusing WHOLE food in favor of my liquidy diet, but at the end of each day ended up caving and having a granola bar. It didn’t help the fact that my asshole husband scarfed down chips and guacamole right in front of my face while I watched Master Chef.

Now this doesn’t sound like a good plug. But it is.

Pressed Juicery is a big hells yes.

It’s a great way to supplement meals with nutritious, lovely juice. Gorgeous website. Gorgeous drinkage. And if you’re not a wimp like me (like my hobo friend radiantrose who got me started on this is) you can definitely do it.

Although, take note, don’t go around your office bragging to co-workers that you’re a “juicer” because it sounds like you’re shooting up with steroids.

Trust me on this.

Demeter Fragrance

Want to smell like a disco inferno?

Maybe a needle in a haystack?

Okay. So Demeter Fragrance can’t get THAT precise but they can get pretty damn close.

I ordered a fragrance from this company called Paperback. Because who doesn’t want to smell like delicious book?

the subtlety of what i’m trying to get across with this photo is staggering.

And you know what? It’s pretty decent. It doesn’t have that antique smell of old books that I love, smelling more like newer books, but the mere fact that I can smell bookish hooked me.

John Dies at the End

Best. Book. Ever.

If you like Stephen King, witty banter, and scary ghosts and monsters, this book is for you. Author David Wong is brilliant.

I really need to rethink my bookmarks.

I will not claim to be an expert at book reviews so this will be a third-grade report, but ME LIKEY.

An excerpt for you:

“Scientists talk about dark matter, the invisible, mysterious substance that occupies the space between the stars. Dark matter makes up 99.99 percent of the universe, and they don’t know what it is. Well I know. It’s apathy. That’s the truth of it; pile everything together we know and care about in the universe and it will still be nothing more than a tiny spec in the middle of a vast black ocean of Who Gives a Fuck.”

 Yes.

Skulls

I have a fascination with skulls. I’ve always loved osteology and in another life I would probably be some sort of forensic pathologist, prodding your cranium with an ice pick.

They use ice picks, right?

So they’ve been on my mind lately. (PUN!)

From this great new website I discovered – craniophiles – to this super sweet skull clock I picked up at Z Gallerie.

it’s a skull

it’s a clock.

it’s blowing my mind.

Skulls are the best thing since sliced brains.

Come Along with Me to Miami. I Promise No One will Eat Your Face.

Posted: June 10, 2012 in Uncategorized
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Before bums were getting their faces eaten off in Miami, I was in a hotel bar getting asked if I was a porn star.

Confused yet?

Let me back up.

A few weeks ago, myself and the husband embarked on a cruise to the Bahamas. But before the cruise we decided to spend a few days in Miami. The airplane ride boded well as to what was coming. Sitting diagonally from me was a kid, maybe 17 to 20-years-old, cradling a stuffed kangaroo wearing sunglasses.

Fucking sunglasses.

Staring at it, I kept expecting it to come alive, like some sequel to Kangaroo Jack.

Goddamn you, Jerry O’Connell.

When we landed in Miami I expected glitz. I expected to be intimidated by the money and the clothes and the nightclubs.

When in actuality I was more intimidated by the store window mannequins.

Um, hi. Hello, ladies.

So in a hotel bar such as this—

This exact bar.

–my husband and I got a drink. Our lithe, German bartender informed us the porn convention was in town. I began plotting how we would crash it. Maybe steal some black dildos. Sometime during the conversation my husband escaped, leaving me alone at the bar with the bartender and another customer.

Customer turned to me and asked, in all seriousness, “So are you a porn star?”

Torn between wondering if I’m being flattered or mocked, I swiveled on my bar stool. Arched a brow. “What do you think?”  

Now I got 10 extra pounds on me, but it’s not on my boobs.

Speaking of boobs…

Customer laughed. I asked, “Are you?” and held up my pinky.

Conversation awkwardly turned to politics.

The night ensued. Much drinking was had, causing me to croak this little ditty from a Miami sidewalk.

Anyway…

All kinds of surprises awaited me in Miami.  The painting in our hotel hallway where I questioned the creepy decision to hang this photo.  Clearly, a rape in progress.

Clearly.

 

12-year olds drinking Boone’s Farm straight from the glass bottle next to this sign, which gave it a sobering experience.

 

Walking into Mac’s Double Deuce (a bar I had hoped to drink at but promptly fled) and the first words I hear are, “Well, the first time I got my vasectomy…”

Aaaaand, exit stage right…

I excelled in ordering Café con Leche. A travel guide I had read prior to the trip warned its readers to never order straight-up American coffee or scorn and mocking would reign. “Order a Café con Leche, Colada or Cafecito or prepare to be shanked,” were the words of counsel.

So at David’s Café I promptly ordered “two café con leches”, even giving a little accent to the “leche” part. Heart pounding in my chest, I waited for the ridicule but the hot Cuban waiter rewarded me a with a wink.

I will drink you now. And you will like it.

 

After two long days of staring at double D’s and sweating like Gary Busey on a bender, it was time to go. Miami was good for a few things. The stories. The Cubanos. The hair (I had no idea how much natural curl I had until Miami).

Miami is Vegas on steroids. It wasn’t glitzy or impressive. Sometimes I feared for my life…or my soul. But the one thing I could dig up, the moral of my Miami story is: If you sit and wait for it, someone will seriously ask you if you’re a porn star. And if you stay longer than a week in Miami, you get your fucking face eaten off.

The Write Space (PUN!)

Posted: June 3, 2012 in Uncategorized
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Everyone needs their own space. Isn’t that what serial killers always say?

Whether it’s the token man cave, hammock in the backyard, or porcelain throne, solitude is important. Epecially if you’re pushing or rubbing one out. But I digress….As writers I think that’s one thing we can agree on. Also, for me, it’s one thing—an important thing—I need to survive and be successful. I’m not speaking monetarily here in terms of success; success of the soul and the imagination. 

I am the type who cannot do focused writing without being in my space. Sure, I can scribble on notepads at work and while driving and during epic dance-offs, but I can never be that person who escapes to a beach or a soiled motel room to write their masterpiece. To really sit down and write my stories I MUST sit my ass in this sweet, sweet, black, leathery chair.

Note the (firm) butt indentations

 

The writing habitats of famous authors astound me. Oh, to have Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond. Virginia Woolf’s Monks House, Stephen King’s attic office (which I feel may be suitably haunted) in Maine, Hemingway’s Key West Home…

Been there, bitches.

 

 

However odd, grandiose or even plain, all writing spaces are different and you do what you can to make it yours. 

My writing space is a simple office downstairs in my home. I hesitate to describe the style since I cannot be trusted to decorate. But if my office were a Match.com profile it would read…

Sultry brick orange walls, and one chocolate brown one. Cluttered like crazy.  If you like bookcases filled to the brim, a case of vinyl, and a phrenology skull, then I’m for you. I have a map of Montana stuck to one wall, inspiration for my current work-in-progress. I like to surround myself with photos that make me giddy and remind me of where I’ve been.

God, if that doesn’t turn you on, nothing will.

And so here’s a little peek at mine (no touching):

 

Skulls and zombies. Life is complete.

 

CAT IN A CHAIR

Book boner.

 

 

Since I showed you mine, show me yours.

I want to see your space. The photos. The inspirations. The books on the shelf, shrunken heads on display, cats asleep in chairs (c’mon, we’re all writers, we have cats, people!), whiskey bottles lining the trash.

If you’re comfortable sharing, send me a snapshot of your favorite space, the one that best describes it, and I’ll feature them on my next blog.  

Email to: julia.archer@gmail.com.