There is something awful about exhibiting the sort of sensitivity that I do in that I tend to allow myself to be dragged along, as if tied to some jalopy, mesmerized that it has the gumption to keep jaunting along without falling to bits, and I'm rolling in the dirt and feeling my limbs being scraped, because I always assume that the person whose psyche is the jalopy has it much worse emotionally than I do, and so I go along, tethered and bumped, instead of saying "I don't like the way this is going" or "that's not really what I had in mind" or "LET GO OF ME!" So what sometimes ends up happening is that eventually, when I start to feel uncomfortable pressure, I have to overcompensate for my original sensitivity/empathy (which yes, could be misconstrued as simple non-confrontation, but I'm telling you it's not simply that, and you'll just have to trust me on that because well, I'm not a liar) and put up a big fat wall that no leeches can get under. And I "screw my courage to the sticking point" instead of saying "screw my courage." It's like feeling you have to pee. You know you've got to get outta this place and you already held it too long. Like what makes so many men think they can latch onto a woman's cosmic boobie and never let go? And if you push them off you're a bitch and a princess (and it's such an obvious, unoriginal and predictable reaction, all the while he is more worthy of your tiara than you are). Like you wrote this recipe for this great zucchini bread and he sprinkled some powdered sugar on top and ate a piece, so that makes it just as much his recipe. And just because he was hungry it's his. Somehow. Or you painted a picture and he put it in a frame and all of a sudden he's signing his name to the bottom with a trumpet flourish. And you looked at him and thought, "He really needs this right now. I'll let him believe it's his. "It was a really nice frame. It added a lot to the picture. Or because you're existing under the label of "relationship" you're suddenly no longer individuals and anything that you might feel that might threaten the way he sees the "relationship" is bad and wrong and "if you love me you'll" cut off your arm to fit in this box. "If you love me you'll save me. "The teat is mine" (sing to the tune of "The Heat Is On.") If you do this you'll have experienced the true depths of my dorkiness because this is just the kind of thing I walk around my house singing). And they bring up all the times you said x, y and z and the dates and times of each and I say only manipulators and liars have to remember the exact date and time of everything that was said. Go do some work on yourself for God's sake. And blah blah blah blather blather blah. And then one day you wake up and realize your own misguided sensitivity is going to be lethal to everyone involved, because you feel sick to your stomach and need Pepto Bismal for your soul and you should have just trusted your own better formed gut right from the beginning, instead of trusting someone who "really probably does like you" but is looking for a quick fix for his own pained soul. And now you've come down with cosmic indigestion. But you've always felt guilty about trusting your own gut because it means hurting someone's feelings and saying "no" right from the start. Or when things started to get weird. Because you really trust in basic human logic and expect people to right themselves, like falling cats. But they've found you and have become akin to using you as a crutch or trampoline and you've not stopped them. And they think the art you've created together is "bigger than the both of you" but you've brought much more to the table from the beginning so of course it's going to feel to them that it's much bigger than them because it's not their soul and voice in the recipe, the songs, the painting. But your soul looks a little better to them than theirs and they'd rather just live there for a little while. And just EXPECT that it's going to be ok. And the moment you realize they're getting their hooks too far into your stuff and try to tell them "this feels like bad touch" they say you're "asserting your ego" because after all they liked what you did and they helped your art and so they OWN it just as much as you do. Bullshit. So there's no reason for them to flip themselves over in the air and land on their own feet. And the worst part is that you really liked them a lot and felt they were good people deep down, albeit a little troubled and it was quite a lot of pressure to hear they were almost constantly thinking about suicide and this "is the only good thing in [their] life" and you find that odd because maybe they're married or have a good job or write well and it feels wrong and like bad touch again. So you let them take too much and can't go back and rectify the situation because you can't be in any sort of relationship where you constantly have to monitor if you're setting your boundaries strongly enough and they've already decided you're a bitch/princess if you don't let them have their bottle. So it has to end because what kind of relationship is that where you always have to put your little toe in to make sure the temperature's alright before you decide if you want to get in? I don't know about you, but I plunge headfirst into relationships whatever they may be and maybe that's how I get myself in these messes. And boundaries don't work for me. But what I find the most laughable is that certain of these cosmic boobie leeches, in a last-ditch effort to try to make me feel bad, I guess, accused me of copying him by writing for a certain magazine he writes for (he had a CD and I asked if I could review it and if the review was bad to tell me and the review was good), putting my photographs up on a certain web site (I happen to take pictures too and thought he was giving me a "heads up" and starting a diary site (I copied Shannon on this one, SORRY!). I mean, how much more 2nd grade can you get. "Jenn, I was wearing that dress yesterday I can't believe you would copy me and wear it the next day." One would think someone 20 years my senior would not stoop to such juvenile depths but it just goes to show how little he knows me and how desperate he is. And I wish him nothing but the best and the only advice I can give is the next time you find something that you feel strongly and good about and want to lend your creativity to it, don't crush it "Of Mice and Men" Lenny-style because you're going to wind up killing it just like you killed this. I started, as you call it, "asserting my ego" when you started flailing and dancing embarrassingly about the studio around loads of ridiculously expensive recording equipment and high-paid professional engineers, getting off on it, practically ejaculating all over the room, while I sat back and listened intently to my music, one of the few things I feel is mine in this world, trying to figure out how to tweak it here and there, to make it the best, and you were most concerned with turning up the surface noise because it was one of the things you suggested and you wanted Brian to drum along to the electronic drum beat you picked because then you could salvage what little ownership you had over it, worried because there Brian was adding just as much to my song as you did and asking nothing in return. And the thing is, I agree with you that the music is "bigger than us" but that doesn't change the fact that the best songs are my songs, I WROTE them, and I think they can be even better with live strings, etc., which you didn't want to do because it would threaten your precarious position in this "band," as you call it, I guess I should have made it more clear from the beginning that I didn't want a "band" and at no point were these songs going to stop being mine and I had no intention to giving up ownership of them. But that seems logically obvious. Forgive me for thinking you rational enough to be aware of that. So somehow, being the extreme princess/bitch that I am I manage to have several very close female and male friends who have seen me at my worst and best, as I have seen them, crying, balling, screaming, laughing, loving, scratching, biting, kicking, and have earned the right to call me a princess/bitch and yet know me well enough to know where it's really at and what I'm really about. And yes, I can be a bitch. I can be a princess. But it's in random moments and I love nothing better than to share my heart and my music with people. But don't fucking try to manipulate me. I won't speculate why these people are my friends but I will say it's not because of their lack of anything. I marvel at my friends every day. They are a bunch of hard working, extremely talented, forgiving, fun loving, intelligent, open-minded, empathetic and dare I say revolutionary (and incidentally dead sexy people). I can only hope I bring them some of the same joy they bring me. In fact, I think my next entry must be about the people I love in my life because I've spent too much time on this entry and I'm spent. That's not to say when someone's having a hard time you abandon him or her. We're all walking wounded. We just have to try not to walk on each other ... And Lester Bangs was fired from Rolling Stone in 1973. As expected, it seems I've angered a saboteur Indiana Jones-style. I tiptoed up to the stony Beast and in an attempt to reclaim Ruby, disturbed its slumber, whereupon it Decreed that I will No Longer Write for Amplifier Magazine. Fair enough. It has the authority and the territory. It brought me into that world and hence can take me out. But it was a fine experience and I learned a lot writing for them. I will miss it. But I have some quality clips. Loss = Loss. Tit for tat. Ground Zero. I don't believe in personal revenge or sabotage. And I find it angers one to chalk one point off on one's dartboard when the other person isn't playing ... I'm almost glad that The Princess decided he would make sure I was terminated from writing for Amplifier. It just proves that I made the right decision when my gut was telling me I shouldn't be recording with him anymore because it was starting to feel like bad touch. I tried to tell him politely and he wouldn't bend, wouldn't compromise, and so it had to end. And he made sure to tell me how awful I was so I sent him a letter telling him how I saw the sitch and all of a sudden I was EVIL and monstrous (and piggish! Heehee!). So good. Terminate me. I don't ever want to see him again. And I hope he gets the fuck over himself ... My last three reviews appear in the latest issue of the Illustrious Pop Masterpiece Eighth Wonder of the World that is Amplifier. Au revoir! As I told you, I was not surprisingly cut loose. And have been ambiguously (and violently) written about in several places that a certain Scorpion in T-bird's clothing who deserves a tiara thinks I might look ... OK. I wasn't going to write about this anymore but he's forced me to because he's infringing. Every time he opens his mouth he shows what an even bigger asshole he is. Bear with me. Once upon a time I recorded with this guy. Beginning last summer, actually until about mid-March. Basically, for the record, how it worked is that we talked about music, he came over and I played him a few of my songs that I had written over the last few years, upon which he said, "oh, that sounds good - why don't you put a such and such part here and a harmony here." The first song we worked on is one that I had written/recorded the day before called "Spiders." I didn't realize the whole thing had the potential to turn into a stone soup situation because the facts seemed blatantly obvious - we would co-write some songs, perhaps (which we did, and those songs are weaker now that I've had time to sit with them than the ones I wrote alone), but basically he was helping me co-produce a few of my songs. At some point I agreed with him that we were "a band," even though he only played the tambourine (and on one song this rising up slide guitar thing) and I was singing/playing/recording. You get the picture. At some point (actually, I can pinpoint it just like Bart pinpoints the moment you can see Ralph's heart breaking) he got really excited and turned it into his religion. "I have nothing else going on good in my life right now," he told me. It became his crusade. And his pace became wrong for me, as he was pushing pushing pushing and it felt like there was no air in the room. He took up all the emotional space. I started to feel like a caged bird and like blood to a shark and tried to subtly push him back a few inches. I tried to tell him again and again that I wanted to take things more at my own pace. He ostentatiously backed off for like a week in that "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!" way. See, he had lost his job a while back and when he heard how good the music was that, yes, he had some hand in the outcome of some of these songs, and I've never denied that, he got all, "we need to go into the studio right now and mix down and everything because if something is going to come out of this and money is to be made I need it right now, sooner than later." I didn't want this thing to become about money. Music is one of the few things that don't always have to be about the almighty greenback. Hence, Jennifer was sucked into his emotional tornado. The thing is, I enjoyed working with him. And then things got weird. And he started writing about "my band" on his web site, without mention of credits and whatnot. I'm a generous person but when it comes to my intellectual property and songs that I wrote two-and-a-half years ago, I want credit. He would write "These two songs that Jenn and I (AKA Pocket Symphony [a name he had decided to glue onto us]) recorded at our last session." Now that's true, indeed we did record them, but how convenient to leave out any semblance of credit or anything. Purposefully bare bones minimum, to imply the most possible control he could have. The only thing that will be obvious to the listener is that it's not him singing. But he's not fucking Moby, for God's sake, and I'm not some girl singer he decided to pin onto this "project" like a cheap paper doll dress. Well, I just found them up on his web site without even a mention of me. I feel like the fucking little mermaid with her voice in Ursula's shell. And I didn't sell my soul. Some of these are songs I wrote when my mother was really sick, when I was despairing and mean a lot to me as they got me through some hard times (which doesn't even seem like something I would ever have to justify), and just because he has them in a form that we talked about together and hence recorded, he thinks he can do what he pleases with them. To him, the outcome of the recordings (which probably are not even my final product) are more important than the songs themselvesÉ his excuse awhile back for not giving "credit," or when it started to feel like bad touch to me and I tried to tell him I wasn't sure I wanted to work with him anymore, was that "this music is bigger than us." Yes. Of course it's bigger than him. I'm playing every fucking instrument. And he didn't want my brother-in-law and friend John to play drums and bass on it because he was afraid it would destroy "the intimacy of what we created." Gross. Of course not! It would destroy the little control he had over it. And when I told him I wanted to take the songs into the studio and bring in live strings, etc., he called in a cold sweat and said he was, "really worried." And I hadn't even said he wasn't going to be involved! I had every intention of having him come along! But that wasn't enough control for him and he felt it slipping. The moment someone else marched on the scene these would cease to be songs that were bigger than just the two of us and all of a sudden other people would be involved that would need to be acknowledged. And as I already told you, he was having a hard enough time acknowledging me. I mentioned to him in my parting letter (five pages, pulled no punches) that while recorded music is indeed important and poignant (and yes, George Martin was knighted - but I have a feeling he actually pushed some buttons) there is a reason why MTV Unplugged albums do so well - there needs to be a song to record. I WROTE the FUCKING songs. And Steve Albini, while giving In Utero its very sound, single-handedly engineering it, which is not something shitwad did for me, he never expected to be part of Nirvana. Nor did Butch Vig try to be part of Smashing Pumpkins after Siamese Dream. And these were milestone albums! And yet shitwad was still part of a "band" with me, which was ok, until that wasn't enough for him either. Maybe the difference is that Mr. Albini and Mr. Vig had other things going on? And as I mentioned before, my brother-in-law and friend are playing drums and bass on several of the songs and jerkwater doesn't give them one iota of credit either. I was never for a moment going to put these songs anywhere without a credit to fucknut, whom I consider to be an editor of sorts, a co-producer, but here they are, with a fake little cartoon band, on his site, with no fucking credits to me at all. With a smug little "Comments" button leading directly to the open heart of his signmyguestbook, looking for the love and compassion he can't give himself. I'm not the fucking Gorillaz. There's a real girl with a voice behind those songs and years of stuff, good and bad, which made me write them. He's so much more of a stealing asshole than I ever gave him credit for. And he called me "princess" and "piggish" and said shit about me "asserting my ego." Well, you know what? What in hell else am I supposed to do when someone is posting MY SONGS to web sites he doesn't even tell me about (yes, I'm a Goddamn sleuth and I do my own little web crawl every month) with no credits attached? We have egos for a reason. But it doesn't matter because no one gives a shit anyway and no one is downloading them or commenting on them. But I told him so long ago, even when we were working together, that I didn't want free downloadable versions of my songs up. So here he is, thinking I'm so fucking evil that copyright infringement suddenly becomes ok. Because I removed my teat from his mouth. He goes on about the Beatles and how they made something "bigger than them" and no one's ego ever got in the way. What kind of fucking utopia are you living in, guy? Are you kidding me? Egos abound! Egos ahoy! Besides that, there's a reason why everyone knows that George Harrison wrote "I'm Only Sleeping," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and other equally amazing pieces - because there are CREDITS AFTER EVERY SONG NAME. Maybe you wouldn't have it that way. I would. I would indeed have it that way because I like to hear the nuances between songs and see who wrote what. I am a huge lover of the Individual. The things that color one's work are important to me. I am not a musical communist. Spread the talent and work, some for everyone, and efface the individual. Fuck that. Art is selfish. And that's what we love about it. One could argue it's free publicity, of course. We'll see what I'll argue. And anyway the bottom line is that since I wrote and performed those songs, I will write and perform more just as great, I have no doubts. He may very well not. Unless he finds another unsuspecting and ultimately empathetic sot's teat to suck on. And while he doesn't like to think of this as an apron string situation, there he his, putting up my songs, under the link of "E's Music." As if it's ONLY his. And he calls me egotistical! Amazing! I mean, does he believe he wrote them and performed them? What the fuck? Does he put on a wig and dress like Norman Bates and run around the house with a knife lip-syncing to my voice, casting hunched arachnid shadows on the walls? A close friend of mine made a good point too - that it's REALLY sad, when you think about it, that someone who writes, who obviously revolves his life around what he produces getting the attention, needed to even undermine his writing and all the things he loves enough to just give himself the attention. Oh well. "What would Madonna do?" has been a popular thing for me to ask myself of late. I'll keep you updated on that front. In the meantime, go listen to some of my songs (even though I didn't want them up for free downloads, but I figure, I like you people and if I want anyone to download my songs for free it's you good people here at diaryland and beyond) FUSS IS JENN S.: 1. Spiders (Jenn S.) Keyboard/vox, Jenn S., Brian Trim drums at end (although I will say I'm not sure which version he has up because my AOL media player's a pain. And though my first instinct would be to say he wouldn't put the one up with Brian and John on it because he was so against having them play because it would "destroy the intimacy of what we created," I have a feeling he couldn't resist putting up the BEST version and taking the MOST credit for the LEAST work). And disembodied phone voice at the end, which is shitwad. 2. The Miserablist (Jenn S., with end lyrics by shitwad) I play guitar/keyboard, Brian Trim plays drums and John McFaul plays bass. Tambourine, grace a shitwad. Also, this song is really called "Humans." 3. Darkness Visible (Jenn S. music, words by shitwad) I play all the instruments on this song. Oh yeah, lest I forget, shitwad romanced the tambourine again on this Garbage-esque number. 4. Blue in the Night (Jenn S.) Me: guitars, keyboard, vox. Brian Trim: drums, John McFaul: bass. One of my best songs methinks. 5. Night and Day (Cole Porter) I play the keyboard and sing on this one. That's everything. The background track is by Raymond Scott, who made one of the first synthesizers. I stretched the track so that it would be slower and lower and shitwad suggested I sing it in French (which makes him think he owns it, I guess). I think it sounds like a French/Japanese film where a girl in running on wet black streets. 6. The Girl (shitwad) You'll get to see the vocal styling of shitwad on this one. It's a sweet song that his old band-mates and he co-wrote twenty years ago (he doesn't give them credit either - I think the guy playing the acoustic guitars is named Bob something or other, I figure somebody's got to give the guy credit, so here I am picking up the slack). I think I sing a couple little backups on it. 7. (interlude) an itty-bitty thing, me music, words Joe Frank. Shitwad used to work with him on his radio show. Remind me to tell you the story about the Holy Tire Iron. 8. Gone (words: shitwad, music: Jenn S.) I do everything on this song too. 9. Tinyman (Jenn S.) Again, I play everything on this song. Brian Trim maybe plays drums on it? The original version can be found here. I wrote it about several other music-related men in my life from a few years ago, when I was younger, who tried to take advantages of the Jenn S. You don't fuck with Da Jenn S.! Anyway, who knew how prophetic it would be! 10. July 23rd Thunderstorm (Jenn S.) Yep. Me again, going and playing all the instruments. Damn, you, Jenn S. Incidentally, this song was written on July 23rd, 1999. 11. Anything Now (Jenn S.) Right! You guessed it! I'm whipping out the guitar/keyboard/vox while Brian Trim lays down some hot beats on the skins and John McFaul rocks the bass party on this feel good number about returning to eighteen years of age in one's mind. I think you'll enjoy the bit of Booker T.-ness to it. I really like this song. 12. My Story (shitwad's story, my music) This is a sad song. I do everything on it except for the Wizard of Oz-like (appropriately - pay no attention to that girl behind the curtain) tornado slide guitar that I'm not even sure is on this version. I even said, "I won't do anything with 'My Story' because I know how important and close to you it is." I said that in the pull no punches letter. I guess, though, since he decided to put all of MY SONGS on HIS SITE under "My Music" I could even wipe my ass with this song if I wanted. 13. Everyone's Gone to the Moon (Jonathan King) I play everything on this song except for the sleighbell and radio at the end which were manned by the elusive shitwad. This is a really nice song with something Wes Anderson about it. I'm not sure. Anyway, shitwad had played me a version by Chad & Jeremy (maybe that's what's Wessy about it - he has their "Summer Song" on the Rushmore soundtrack, which, if you haven't already, get your ass out there and BUY IT!) and we decided to do one too. I like this song too. Also, it should be noted that all of these songs were recorded Chez Jenn S. in Jenn S.'s studio and mixed at Q Division and Renaissance, engineered by the loveable and talented local hero Dan McLoughlin. I'm all about giving credit where credit is due. If that makes me "vain black and monstrous," as stankass has described me, so be it. I feel much better now. Thank you for calling. Your call is important to us. Please no not adjust your screens. What you have witnessed here is true catharsis and has not been changed to protect the innocent. When I go back into the studio in the fall to polish/record/rerecord I'll let y'all know how it goes. I have a bunch of other songs that luckily shitwad didn't pry outta my apron pocket that I'll share with you ... Okay, of course we're all narcissists to one degree or another but some are well-oiled machines. And instead of wasting away like Narcissus did, they look for the narcissus flower (that Narcissus' body turned into upon death) in everyone and everything to give their life meaning. Instead of in themselves. And those people and things are merely objects that are there to suit their needs and if they don't, they're evil. It's funny really, how fanatical self-love and self-loathing are so closely related. I was just doing some research on narcissism and it's quite interesting. And just as I thought. Sometimes people place blame and project their own narcissism onto others because it's easier than admitting to themselves they've overstepped moral taboos through their own self-absorption. If they're too fragile to allow a huge blow to their self-esteem they will lash out instead, creating an ordered set of ideas to believe in lieu of the truth; in lieu of admitting they've done wrong. The human brain does wonders to allow us a cushy home away when our present state is too fragile to view the truth from what is often one's own cold hard reality. The most interesting thing related to this that I've found out in the world is that often the narcissist's descriptions and accusations of the people they've decided to blame are directly revealing of the things they know intrinsically about themselves - projection and all that. "You let your ego get in the way and lost the music" can really mean "I let my ego get in the way and lost the music." It's chilling, really. This happened with my brother's ex-wife too. She made up all sorts of shit about him just to escape her own icky self and it ended up being more telling about who she was than about my brother. I think Courtney Love does it too. It's funny how clear a view a narcissist can give you into his or her psyche when he or she plays the blame game and starts mudslinging. It usually turns out that mud came out of his or her own soul and can be read like tea leaves. A narcissist doesn't think of other humans as having existed before he meets them. Hence my songs didn't exist in his mind until he heard them. Narcissists are of the "if a bear craps in the woods and I'm not there to hear it a bear isn't crapping in the woods" school of thought. Hence by just the mere listening to the songs the narcissist automatically assumed we were a band. That's why it was so weird to him when "We ceased to be the band PS and it became simply Jenn with the assistance of E." Now, if I'm not mistaken, didn't all of my songs start out as Jenn with the assistance of E? That's sure what it seemed like to me. I mean, I think I existed before he came over to my house (I know the songs sure did)? But I could of course be wrong? His creativity rings hollow to me now, and he's really making himself look bad without even realizing it. When you put up someone else's work on your web site and call it solely your own, even if you've had some hand in those particular recordings, which God knows I've never denied, you bring into question all of the other music you've made, words you've written, photographs you've taken, ideas you've said. When you put up someone else's work and call it solely your own you make people cringe because it brings into question everything you've done before and claimed as your own. And the only reason they don't cringe is that they don't know because you've engineered them not to know. If that's not narcissistic, I don't know what is. Which makes it very obvious to me that you're living a lie even more so than I ever could have thought. I continue to give you the benefit of the doubt and you keep proving yourself worse. I believed you had valid ideas and were intelligent and talented even after we had our falling out. But you've really shown your true colors now, and I know more every day that I made the right decision. That you would sacrifice all of your integrity and credibility just to put something up and claim it as your own and omit pertinent truths just to feel as much attention as possible is chilling to me. Absolutely chilling. You described yourself perfectly when you falsely described me as having a fake sort of charisma that when its surface is scratched reveals something vain, black, and monstrous. It's hilarious, really, because people can say lots of things about me, negative things, but I know for a fact I've never, even in my worst moments, exuded something black and monstrous. Sure, we all have a dark side, but black and monstrous I just don't have in me. I need more black and monstrous, in fact. I wouldn't get myself into situations with those who are black and monstrous as often because I wouldn't be so trusting and would probably instead beat them to the punch with my own monstrous blackness! But you really can't deny your own aura. You can say words and dance in front of the truth but it's so visible when you really look. I haven't even had to dig for it. You've revealed it all on your own. And lyrics such as "Darkness Visible." Unless, of course, someone else wrote them. I'll never be sure, thanks to you. Just so you realize, in trying to efface me you've effaced yourself. Oh wait - no individuals did anything because the music appeared miraculously in front of us, bigger than us like the weeping Madonna, separate from our tawdry humanness. And lo, we were Saved! Until I yanked it away, devil that I am. No, I just don't like being pushed around, effaced, and my songwriting taken for granted. I tried to tell you politely, but that didn't work. Because you had no intentions of being anything other than a Pushy McPush until you got what you wanted. You even told me, when you were asked by Dave to please not just approach the woman in charge of the label at Q-Division because it wouldn't be proper, "that's how I've always gotten things. I just push and push until I get it." I don't think that's the right approach for my music. Or my life. (I would also like to state that I am only getting the bare minimum of necessary information from third party sources to protect myself as far as the nastiness written about me goes. I do not read it anymore but simply keep tabs. But I am always interested in thinking about what makes people tick or tock).