Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #151
Guest Post by Bridey Elliott (Warty Roses) + "High You Are" by What So Not, Branchez - 06/02/21
Today we have another wonderful guest post! This time from Bridey Elliott, who I became reacquainted with through her Warty Roses Substack. Check out her post there yesterday for a spot-on depiction of the vibe of Los Angeles right now post-pandemic. She really captured the moment here in real-time.
And here’s a fuller bio!
Bridey Elliott is a filmmaker and actress trapped in Los Angeles. Her newsletter: Warty Roses is on Substack and consists of personal essays and short stories. Her feature: Clara’s Ghost premiered at Sundance in 2018 and her documentary: The Starr Sisters had its premiere at Sundance in 2020. She often collaborates with her friend Charles Rogers on insane sketches that live on Instagram.
And with that, take it away, Bridey!
This playlist is called “Thanksgiving”. I don’t really care about Thanksgiving foods, besides my deviled eggs, but I do enjoy designing the vibe with music. But I know your ears were perked when I mentioned the eggs. My deviled eggs are from a recipe passed down by my Nanny, Virginia Lee Pepper, a beauty pageant queen from West Virginia who was very funny and always landed a perfectly snarky comment to past boyfriends that made them squirm. Her deviled eggs are doused in paprika, curry, and onions. It’s not a sexy food, but I enjoy the ritual. Two years ago, I made too many and started eating them while watching The Irishman by myself. I threw them up while taking a shower. It was a depressing Thanksgiving, but enjoyably so. There was something cinematic about how gross I felt. I like the freedom you have musically on turkey day. It seems pretty open ended, there’s nothing you HAVE to listen to. It can be any genre, no one is gonna yell “TURN THIS SHIT OFF FOR F$CK SAKE! IT’S THANKSGIVING!” I hope no one respects the holiday enough to yell such a thing anyway.
This song is Islands In The Stream sung by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.
I like singing this song at karaoke and doing both parts. I am not great at their voices, but I think it’s ambitious enough to garner respect from my audience all the same. Once, I was singing it at a party hosted by a man I thought I was dating at the time, but neither of us had really bothered to label it. I think he just thought we were pals who plough. I did a fun job at Islands in the Stream, but I was really hurting my throat trying to get just a hair closer to Dolly’s range. My throat felt stretched and raspy afterwards, I sat down somehow defeated, which is how I feel usually after karaoke. I want a treat after performing like a square of kraft cheese or some arcade tokens, just something to say “Congratulations!” The girl singing after me at the party took out her tits, while singing Cher incredibly well. It was a sexy, cool turn of events that completely eclipsed my cutesy attempt to get this man to fall in love with me. It was our last time hanging. I don’t love karaoke because of experiences like this, it drudges up some performance insecurity and I find myself straining under the pressure to put on a show stopper where everyone’s jaws drop to the floor and a talent agent looks me up and down intrigued, while sucking on a cigarette. “She has it.” I loathe needing to feel “on” at a party. I gravitate towards the pulse of people who seem “off” or darkly horny and quiet. Kenny Rogers died right at the start of lockdown last March. I wonder how Dolly was affected, was he her biggest love? They were friends and apparently never dated. Kenny is quoted as saying “I’m a believer that tension is better if you keep it than if you satisfy it.” Perhaps this means they edged together but never came?
Next is...
WALK THE LINE by Johnny Cash- a hot and horny song.
I listened to it so much after I saw WALK THE LINE (2005) which was my favorite movie for about 4 years I’d say. I saw it with an older, handsome senior named Robbie when I was 15. Robbie and I smoked a little weed in his car after eating hot Arby’s sandwiches beforehand. My mind was blown by Joaquin and Reese Witherspoon, both so beautiful and giving such tender performances. I saw it three times in theaters which I had not done since Jumanji when I was eight and would not do again until seeing The Dark Knight. We showed Walk The Line to my grandfather who had taken a really bad turn after my grandmother passed away. His dementia was debilitating and he didn’t talk much, but he gave warm smiles and sometimes on rare occasions was completely lucid telling stories about his days as a science teacher and then later working at John Deere. Anyways, I’ll never forget him air guitar-ing in his wheel chair as the credits rolled with a huge smile on his face. It was the sweetest thing I had ever seen. He was a beautiful, complex, hard working Iowan man his whole life, often needing to seem tough and strict, but in that moment I got to see him as a child, innocent and inspired.
Always See Your Face by Love.
I think Love is one of my top 5 bands ever. Their music is as beautiful and catchy as it is eerie and tragic. Every song rides on all levels of emotions. Mostly though I get the feeling of “Oh, riiight. We’re all gonna die. Everything is sacred.” This is a pretty heavy sad, love song for Thanksgiving, but I’m usually melancholy on turkey day wishing I had a spouse that would compliment me on my cheese potatoes, though cheese potatoes would be a euphemism for my milk bags. I don’t have high hopes for an eloquent spouse I guess. “Won’t Somebody Please help me with my miseries.” My first big love put this song on a cd for me. It was a cd intended for a grey moment of our relationship. We were long distance. I was 19, he was ten years older. There were huge gaps between our lives even though it never really felt like that. It was a time in my life where I felt like a popular girl for the first time. I had never gotten the attention I was getting my first year of living in New York City and lets just say I was drinking a lot of scotch with some lonely dinosaurs in the West Village and spending my time waiting for more of these invitations. This song expressed the longing I felt for my boyfriend across the country, while also contemplating it’s end. I remember listening to this on an airplane flying away from him and my eyes flooding with tears. They wouldn’t stop. My first experience surrendering to the permanence and simultaneous impermanence of love and loss. My heart wouldn’t be the same. Illusions dissolved into practicality. I don’t know how to make love work despite the feelings being there. Possibly still don’t. Sometimes love isn’t enough. Another lonely Thanksgiving on the horizon.
And no matter where you go, no
You will always see my face
And no matter where you go, no
You will always see my face
Wow, Bridey, thank you! I love having guest posters, because, and I know this is obvious and therefore perhaps cliche, but there are so many perspectives on life and music that I just don’t have, billions in fact, lol, and it’s so fun to highlight someone else’s. Especially someone who writes so beautifully and poignantly and vulnerably and humorously and many more adverbs about them.
I actually had ‘Island in the Stream” in an earlier post, and it’s fascinating to see someone else’s completely different associations with it. For one thing, I can’t imagine having the talent to even try to karaoke that one, let alone both parts. I usually stick to joke-jams.
The MMMBops
and
Who Let The Dogs Out
of the American songbook.
I also did tons of Googling about that song and their relationship and didn’t find that Kenny Rogers quote about sexual friend tension, which is lovely!
Johnny Cash, for me, and this is embarrassing to say, has been kind of a pandemic find. Very late in the game. I had almost completely written off country music until my awakening/mania/dad’s death/divorce. I got into George Strait through some friends who took me on a road trip to a ranch in Colorado, Cash via his Christianity, and “Island in the Stream” again via a friend from the South’s escape from LA during the pandemic playlist.
Lastly, that Love song, oh my, properly introduced to me by my ex(?)-wife on a magical trip to San Francisco and Berkely back in 2010ish which made the city still feel like the summer of love. Interesting that you quoted the “always see my face” half of the song, with you being the object of love of the seeing, whereas I always think of “I will always see your face,” with me being the seer of the object of love. But it’s nice to be reminded that it’s both!
For me today, I got:
"High You Are" by What So Not, Branchez
Which was I believe introduced to me by a friend of my ex(?)-wife’s when she slept over one night. I hadn’t given EDM a shot yet (remember I was a very judgy neurotic person), and she showed me all the newly canonical songs. I was hooked. I think this song was even put on our wedding dance playlist for the DJ to play.
The chorus goes:
And I don't care how high you are
Open your mind, inhale the dark
Which feels so psycho-spiritual to me now. “Open your mind, inhale the dark” is like inhaling the shadow, continuing to open your mind to all its depths and mysteries, to integrate and heal. And the “I don’t care how high you are” is like a David Hawking vibe of the benefits of continuing to let go.
Here’s a quasi-digital-bibliomancy from that book again:
“At one time, such states of consciousness as the above were considered to be solely the province of the mystic. At the present time, however, investigation of these states, and the information obtainable from them, is considered to be the leading edge of science, especially that branch of physics concerned with quantum mechanics and high-energy subatomic particles. Investigations of these particles indicate that they are not things in the usual sense but are actually events that occur as a result of energy frequencies. Science now postulates a transcendent frequency beyond space and time…It is interesting that the theories of advanced theoretical physics, which are the product of so-called left-brain activities, now require a new context in order to be comprehended. The context that is evolving from these left-brain scientific researches matches Reality as witnessed by the mystic, who represents right-brain function. Thus, whichever side of the mountain we choose to climb, we end up at the same point: the peak.”
Or as What So Not would say: “And I don’t care how high you are.”
Or as Bridey said: “Everything is sacred.”
Or as I will now say: “Give thanks every day?”
Okay, that’s the one hundred and fifty-first Shuffle Synchronicities.