December 18, 2009
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photo by joaquin de la puente

photo by joaquin de la puente

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Personal Best of 2009

-practice space jams (even though I’m not in a band really)
-new pedals & old guitars (loop station & cry baby + reverb + distortion)
-all ages shows in public spaces (not private residences)
-not hanging out in bars so much (but I do miss my friends)
-family dinners/saturday breakfast at ben moore’s
-punks at the Y (elliptical olympics!)
-saturday nights at OFS, especially midnight movies & classic art-house cinema
-cinefeminism! (thanks kanako)
-getting paid more than $10 for a freelance writing job (for NPR, thanks Carrie!)
-graduating from college aka school’s out forever no more frozen food/night school!!!!
-turning 40 and letting my grey hair grow out because I want people to know I am 40!
-exploring feelings about  feminism & “fashion” (vs. style) and dialoguing w/ women about it
-the olympic peninsula, the ocean, lake chelan, lake cushman & pool parties w/ joaquin
-spanish lessons
-quitting diet soda (this was hard!)
-inheriting sharon cheslow’s beatle’s songbooks (thanks sharon!)
-aunt carol’s 70th birthday bash in SF, esp. slumber party suite!
-gold tooth & extraction (not good experiences, but improvements for sure)
-the fabulous tropicana page (on fb)
-‘69 acoustic gibson from dad
-working on jigsaw again—new writing & archival projects
-the bumpidee reader
-the olympia library
-new exercise vids (mostly yoga)
-walks around the lake w/ joaquin
-priest point park and tolmie state park w/ joaquin….punks playing frisbee!
-butternut squash and swiss chard stew
-farmer’s market clam chowder/pigman’s csa
-jean fenske’s tropicana bbq & related shindigs—my 25 year punk reunion!
-fancy tea from chinatown (sf)
-white wine instead of red wine (pinot gris)
-free bass amp (thanks kelly)
-daisies at the capitol theater for my birthday
-halloween costumes, judas priest and dancing in the streets with the parents
-tofu hut
-martin way diner (the place fomerly known as the rib eye)
-family photos (thanks to dot, carol, dad and grandma)
-aunt dot’s writing (thanks carol)
-grandma’s files (from the 80’s) opposing u.s. intervention in central america
-going to the movies in lacey, tacoma, seattle, portland w/ joaquin

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December 12, 2009
“ By getting caught up in a debate over plastic surgery, feminists are losing this opportunity to advance women’s real (not cosmetic) rights. They are also sending an inaccurate message to young women about the substance and value system of feminism. Feminism is about fighting a discriminatory society, not about accepting that discrimination and making it more cost-effective for women to capitulate to it. It is about imparting in young women the ethic that they can be judged for their work and talent, not their breasts and wrinkle-free skin. If the foremothers of feminism have given up on these principles, they can’t expect young women to join their cause.
Feminism’s Face-Lift
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“ For D. Boon and the band to be in people’s mind still, especially young people who didn’t see us play, is pretty flattering,” the gregarious Watt says. “It just shows you how open-minded people are. In the early Seventies, when I was a teenager, there was no way you would be talking about the middle Fifties. I remember we were watching the Woodstock movie and Sha Na Na comes on. It was like, ‘What’s this shit?!?’
Minutemen Documentary Due : Rolling Stone
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“ Watt prefers to think of punk as a state of mind rather than a genre of music. It lasts longer that way. Says he: “All of us are individuals and somehow feel confined by some herd mentality, so how can that ever go away? Yeah, you can’t dress up in that Johnny Rotten uniform and make that sound. That would be kind of bogus, like Sha-Na-Na. “You can get too complacent even if your whole tradition is trying to buck systems. And young people can help you out there. Maybe there’s another word for it. I remember when I first heard the word ‘punk.’ In my town it meant a guy who got f—-ed in jail for cigarettes. But when I went to the gigs, I went, whoa, they’re just trying to make their own little world. They don’t fit in with the rest. Will that ever disappear? No. It’s just a word.
CANOE — JAM! Music - Artists - Watt, Mike: Watt the heck?
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“ I don’t want to get caught up in sentimentalism and nostalgia shit, to be the Sha Na Na of Minutemen stuff. I want it to make sense today. But punk is like a utopia in my brain, something in my head from a long time ago. Sometimes when I play I really don’t want people to forget D. Boon.

-Mike Watt

Music: Sea Chantey-Town (Tucson Weekly . 11-24-97)

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December 11, 2009
“ Books are like my one and only joy.” What?! Lead singer of a band that changed a culture, and of another band so radical that it’s still influencing bands now, says that books are more important than music? “Yeah,” says Lydon, “I think the written word is more powerful. Music is a simulation of something, but language is the greatest thing we possess.
John Lydon: ‘I’m not a leader, bully or dictator’ - Profiles, People - The Independent
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December 10, 2009
“ If Bush had said these things the world would be filled with violent denunciations,” said “When Obama says them, people purr. That is fine by me.

Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations:

Conservative praise for Nobel speech - - POLITICO.com

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November 20, 2009
“ At the end of the ’90s, I got excited when I realized that young girls no longer needed to hang out with creepy record-collector guys in order to find out about cool music. Information was out there for everyone to access equally via the Internet. Knowledge about obscure records could no longer be hoarded and used as power. Previously out-of-print gems in the punk-girl canon — such as Dolly Mixture’s Demonstration Tapes, The Raincoats’ first record and the Teenage Jesus and the Jerks discography — had all been reissued on CD. Maybe we could stop flirting for mix tapes and just go to the record store without having to make nice to the know-it-all guy behind the counter who didn’t treat us with respect.
Swagger Like Us: Thoughts on Women in Music, 2000-09 - Monitor Mix Blog : NPR
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