The Baltic Times

Not to knock my gender, but I am pretty insane one day every month. Not like "Hi Wayne here's this gun rack I made for you. Will you sign my neckbrace?" insane or Anne Heche worthy of national news coverage and a book reading insane, but just sorta crazy. It comes one day after the Exhausted Day. "My goodness, why am I so exhausted?" I ask myself every time. You'd think I'd remember by now that thats just the way it is.

So there's the tired day and the crazy day and I typically dont realize either one until it has passed. It leads to conversations like, "Oh gee, I was pretty nuts yesterday. Really, I dont need two week's written notice if you want to make plans with me. No, I dont have narcolepsy. Why do you ask?"

But thanks to the wonders of technology I now know when I'm crazy in real time. My email service only provides related ads in some "totally safe and secure" way - it scans key words in your email and provides ads that are relevant. They haven't worked out the kinks yet though. When I first signed up I remember writing an email to a friend about a visit to San Francisco and seeing Social Distortion at the Warfield. The opening act was a band called Tiger Army and I didn't like them at all. I wrote something like "Tiger Army sucked" and got a related ad for the Tiger Army fan club.

But besides that glitch I've found it a pretty cool email provider. And now that I know to read the related ads to identify my crazy, the world's a better place. My crazy day was yesterday. Some email I sent caused me to get this related ad from none other than The Baltic Times sponsored by Kazbalt "The first and only consulting company of Kazakhstan and Baltic States." I didnt write about anything Baltic so I can only assume the content of my email made me sound like a pissed off Latvian woman.

NEWS

10 things not to say to a Latvian woman

May 03, 2006

1) "You are very beautiful." She will only think youre a stupid foreigner if you do.
2) "Your voice is like a plaintive nocturne." She will think youre making fun of her.
3) "Your melons are very juicy." She will confusedly insist that Latvia doesnt grow melons.
4) Dont ask her for her views on post-feminism. Latvia isn't past Simone deBeauvoir yet. (yeah, I'm still trying to get through The Second Sex myself, and really if he's commenting on her melons, I doubt post-feminism is in his vocabulary.)
5) Don't try to impress her with the fact that you're a foreigner. Latvian women are extremely smart, pragmatic and proud, and they don't need your passport anymore.
6) Don't be gaudy. One stereotype that is largely true is that Russian women love gold, Latvian women silver. Gaudiness is a no-no.
7) "You Russian girls are really sexy." That one speaks for itself.
8) "You kind of remind me of that girl in t.A.T.u". See point (7)
9) "Oh man, you still live with your parents!" Yes, just like half the country.
10) Dont bullshit her. Latvian women are extremely skilled in the art of sniffing out bullshit.

End NEWS STORY

Maybe this is why all those Russians keep stopping me and asking me directions to buildings at MIT. Maybe they're really Latvians who think I'm non-gaudy and won't comment on their melons or try to impress them with my passport and knowledge of fake-russolesbian schoolgirl pop music.

Just Shoot M-ow

I was in San Francisco recently and while I was there I saw Ryan Adams at the Palace of Fine Arts. The stage was candlelit, a grand piano stage right, a single microphone stand stage left, a bohemian living room at center, complete with a glass of red wine, a framed photograph of Jerry Garcia, and a velvet loveseat in front of which his three guitars sat like wallflowers waiting to be picked up and taken for a spin.

Pretentious, sort of, but it did set an intimate mood and sort of matched the venue. Ryan came out and sat at the piano, fumbling to light his cigarette, wincing in the low light and asking for it to be set to red, same as the place he just left, mumbling always mumbling about the perils of being left alone in San Francisco all afternoon.

Im always torn when I see someone brilliant, possibly at a creative peak, so in love with getting high. Some fans revel in it, whooping and cheering the artist on, looking forward to saying I saw him when, hoping it will be like saying you saw Janis with her bottle of Southern Comfort. They buy their tickets like greedy speculative investors, hoping theyre buying Apple and its 1980 all over again.

Me, I just feel sort of singed by the white heat of it all. Art and addiction: its pretty to look at for a time, before you start seeing spots in your eyes.

And then he started mumbling again, charming everyone including me, smoking cigarettes, forgetting them, shuffling over to his wallflowers and making them sing. All amazing talent and self-deprecation, joking this is a song about god Im so lame wah wah my life sucks, another relationship I couldnt make work, oh man I want to kill myself.

He was funny and petulant and pissy and rockstarish and real all together. And he played (and talked) for hours. And then went back stage and got high and brought out Phil Lesh and that Dead drummer whose name I always forget and jammed in a purple haze for another half an hour at least. I guess the tortured songwriter lasts only so long and then you need to go all fuzzy electric. Besides being exhausted because I was still on east coast time, and the fact that all of a sudden goofyass Dead fans came out of the woodwork and assaulted my vision by wiggling their squishy t-shirt clad bodies around like gummy worms as only the whitest Cali college boys can, it was a pretty good show.

That is besides the opening act, Jamie Mallon.

-You saw Bryan Adams and Jimmy Fallon???!!!!

-No, Ryan Adams and Jamie Mallon.

-Oh. Who the hell are they?

Let me tell you about Jamie Mallon. Jamie is this slightly funny Italian guy from Queens with a Keith Richards circa 1969 haircut thats all wrong for his face (Look, Jamie I know its a cool indy rocker haircut right now but you have a Mediterranean nose just like me. I got over the fact that I cant pull off Bettie Page bangs, now its your turn to face reality and let your forehead show. Make the world a prettier place.), a leather jacket, and an acoustic guitar. Formerly in some minorly famous punk rock band back in the day (you google it, I dont have the time), hes gone all indy singer/songwriter and is best buddies with Mr. Adams.

He also sorta sucks.

The songs themselves are semi-tolerable, but his voice: not good. He has this really affected way of singing like if The Boss sang Counting Crows songs. Fake raspy semi-southern thing. It gave me THE SHIVERS. And I didnt think it could get much worse I mean the audience was tittering with laughter - until he started to channel Jack McFarlane of Will & Grace channeling Cher when he ended the night with a cover of The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

Imagine if you will someone singing in an exaggerated Bruce Springsteen style and changing the last syllable of each line to OW.

Her name is Yoshim-OW

Shes a black belt in karat-OW
Working for the cit-OW

She has to discipline her bod-OW

Oh Yoshim-OW
They don't believe m-OW

Ow, indeed.