La Fête de Marquette - Saturday, 7/11/09

I made another venture out of my comfort zone today. I went to the Saturday edition of "La Fete de Marquette," a neighborhood festival for Madison's uber-l33t near-East side.

I first got the idea a few weeks ago on a whim. Someone from work forwarded an email from WYOU looking for volunteers for their booth at the Marquette Neighborhood Waterfront Festival. I went for it, feeling very nervous, yet very excited at the chance to force myself to meet some people and offer my time for a good cause. Yes, I do think community-supported media is a worthy cause. Plus, we made them air the first (and only) VOTAR live performance, so I guess I owed them something.

Anyway, it ended up being a really good experience. I met some nice people, and actually got to help out a little bit. And I saw a really great band too, which is always a bonus.

So anyway, the lady from WYOU said they might need some help at La Fete, so I volunteered to make myself available. Turns out they didn't actually need my help, but after perusing the festival's schedule, I decided I'd go anyway, just for myself. I wasn't disappointed.

The fest has kind of a "French" theme, and the musical acts drew from French influences ranging from Quebec to Louisiana to France to Algeria to Mali to Cape Verde. (Well, Cape Verde isn't very French, but whatever...) There was an excellent selection of food & drink from a wide variety of local caterers, including your typical beer & brats, Laotian, Cajun, slushies & floats, etc.

The first act I caught was Robin Pluer backed by Mrs. Fun, all hailing from Milwaukee. Robin Pluer is an R&B/French singer, and Mrs. Fun is a keyboard & drums jazz duo. The music they played was VERY French ... it sounded like something one might have heard in a French WWII-era night club. Traditional folky and/or loungy kinda stuff. I'd seen Mrs. Fun a few times in the past do their fun jazz thing, but they shifted gears somewhat to do the Frenchy thing, and quite good too. The keyboard player looked like she was having a lot of fun playing (, and that with the singer's charisma made for a good show. They also had a dude playing guest accordion on a few songs. Neat.

Next up was Chic Gamine, hailing mostly from Montreal (with one of them from Winnipeg). They were a mostly a vocal group, with four female singers (sometimes playing backup instruments, but mostly using their voices as instruments) and a dude playing a drum kit and lending a few vocals here and there. The style of their music was a blend of traditional-sounding stuff with a strong R&B flavor. Not necessarily my kinda thing, but it was enjoyable. It probably didn't help that the sun was really bright and in my eyes the whole time. But whatever.

I took a break to get some food. I enjoyed some Laotian chicken fried rice, which was a lot like Chinese chicken fried rice, except a little more flavorful and a little less MSG-ish. Maybe, I dunno. I washed it down with a nice Thai iced tea. Good stuff.

Watcha Clan played next, a fun blend various Mediterranean traditions with a heavy electronic implementation. The band, hailing partly from France and partly from Algeria, consisted mostly of a singer, a bass player, and a multi-electonics dude (keyboards, sequenced beats, samples, etc.). Most songs they were joined by a 4th dude who played guitars. Sometimes one or more of them would play little percussion thingies, a nice flavoring to the rhythm-heavy mix. I'd describe the music as having a strong foundation of Middle-Eastern & North-African influenced rhythms, implemented mostly by electronic sequencing, over which pulses a persistent bassline, and ultimately led by dark French-flavored melodies and other musical backdrops. These guys clearly were at home on stage, performing and getting their music on. It was really delightful to watch their enthusiasm spill over seamlessly into their playing and stage presence. Awesome. If I was a dancin' man, I'd have been gettin my groove on, srsly. My personal favorite of the day.

Balla Tounkara, from Mali, had the unenviable task of following up, but he and his band were definitely up to the task, and put on another good show. Balla Tounkara plays the kora, an interesting 21-stringed African harp-like instrument. His band consisted of a drummer, a percussionist, a bassist, and a backup singer/dancer. I like plucked-instrument sounds a lot, and the kora has a beautiful sound, but something seemed missing to me, like they could have used another instrument to fill out the sound. But maybe that's just my stupid white-guy American ears, I dunno. I still enjoyed it, even if it did sound kinda samey after a while. For the last song, he let a little girl come on stage and show off her mad hula hoop skillz. It was very cute.

Headlining the night was Lura, a Cape Verdean singer with a very smooth & slick jazzy tropical sound. It sounded like the kinda thing I might expect to see at night at a cafe in the Caribbean or something. Both Lura and her band were excellent musicians and performers, but I wasn't really into their "thing." On a different day, though, I might have been more into it. Or maybe it's because the overall energy level decreased from Watcha Clan to Balle Tounkara to Lura. This, combined with my decreasing stage view (more people standing in front of me), led me to leave early. Oh well.

I didn't really socialize much. The WYOU lady did go out of her way to say hi to me, and that was nice, but I didn't really converse with anyone else. That's okay... I didn't really intend to. I would have liked to, but I didn't want to "force" anything. So I just sat back, enjoyed the weather, and enjoyed the music. All in all, a good experience, and I'm glad I did it.

In My Own Head

So in my recovery I'm discovering something ... It's not good for me to remain "in my own head." I tend to think myself into the dumps. Woe is me. I'm messed up. Things will never get better. But if I "get out of myself," do something social, work on something productive, etc., I feel much better. I don't feel despondent, the despair lifts, etc.

What I don't like about this is how it sets me up to see my own head as my enemy. That is, my thoughts, feelings, opinions, predictions, analysis, etc. The stuff that I've always prided myself on. But now .. It's evil. I can't "go there." My head is a bad place to dwell.

What am I supposed to then? Not use my brain? Rely on other people and activities to keep me from imploding? I spent about 5 years of my life fighting against my own thoughts, and it was exhausting! Constantly monitoring my own thoughts, blocking anything that resembled sinful thinking, brain dumping daily to the scrutiny of others. I've vowed never to do that again! I'm sick of fighting against myself. My brain is not bad. Messed up, sure. But not inherently evil.

Medication

Due to financial mismanagement, there was a period of about 3-4 days where I took less Anafranil than my prescribed dose, and had to skip Lisinopril and Hydrochlorothiazide altogether. I suppose I could have borrowed the money to cover it, but I decided to experiment a little.

Well, I suppose I should introduce all the medications I'm on. Here goes...

Fluoxetine (generic of Prozac): Kind of the workhorse of my recovery. I've tried to come down on this several times, but I always come back to it. Without it, I get horribly depressed. I'm currently at 40mg every morning with breakfast.

Clomipramine (generic of Anafranil): I was diagnosed as having "obsessive-compulsive features" to go along with my depression. So, I was prescribed the leading drug to combat OCD, Anafranil. And it worked! Within a few days, I was able to stop "looping" thoughts, and re-focus on a thread of my choosing. It also boosted my mood somewhat, affecting the whole seratonin system. (My pastor also talked me down from some faith issues that were feeding the loopy thoughts.)

Hydrochlorothiazide: I was diagnosed with High Blood Pressure a few months ago. Not "pre-hypertension," but the real deal. Like, we gotta get it down or you might have a stroke. Hydrochlorothiazide is a common "first line of defense." It's a diauretic, which means I have to pee more. The idea is that I pee out all the sodium, and that lowers my blood pressure. It made me pee more, but it didn't seem to affect my blood pressure.

Lisinopril: This, on the other hand, did lower it. A LOT. Maybe a little too much--I get kinda light-headed sometimes. It also had a couple of other pleasant effects. My headaches, which I'd been getting several times a week since I was a teenager, disappeared almost overnight. Cool! It also made me start losing weight. I went from hovering around 200, to hovering around 185. Cool!

So those meds are keeping my mood stable and my blood pressure at healthy levels. But .. I don't like medication! It has side effects. And it stops working after a while. And I tend to become dependent on medications. I DEFINITELY don't want any more dependencies! Anyway, I've been feeling better emotionally and physically, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to find out where I was at.

Unfortunately, the headaches came back almost immediately. After I first went on Lisinopril (about 2-3 months ago), and before I ran out, I had to use ibuproffen maybe two or three times. In the 3-4 days I was off Lisinopril, I had to use ibuproffen two or three times. That's like a 2000% increase. Sick.

I also noticed myself gaining some weight back. I weighed myself on Monday, and sure enough, I was back up to 193 (or thereabouts). My pants didn't fit me as loosely anymore.

I was expecting my mood to slip a lot more than it did. I lost a chunk of the easy breezy mellowness the boost in Anafranil gave me recently, but I wasn't affected too badly.

So .. yeah. I think I still need these meds. :( I HATE that I'm so dependent on medication. There are so many side effects that I don't like. But being a miserable wreck with constant headaches is more unpleasant than some spaciness, sweating, and other side effects. Still ... I hope one day to be off all this crap.

Friday Night Magic - 7/3/09

Oy vey. Well, the good news is, I extended my perfect winless record at Friday Night Magic to 11 matches with 11 losses (one time I got a bye, but I don't count that one). The other good news is, I still had fun, though I was hoping to do a little better this time.

Well, I think I actually did a "little" better. I won two games, which isn't too bad. I should have won at least one more (and the match), but I drew a bad hand and I didn't mulligan. I only drew one land, (Savage Lands) and I hoped I would soon draw more ... but I didn't, and it cost me the game & match. Doh!

I did get to pick up some decent stuff in the rare draft, like Maelstrom Archangel, who will go well in a 5-color deck I'm planning on building at some point. So that's neat.

RIP - Michael Jackson

(originally posted in my other blog, 6/26/09)

I wasn't going to say anything about this, but since I'm actually developing an opinion about the whole thing, instead of letting it fester and eating me from the inside out like a dirty fungus, I thought I'd "get it out there" in a way that's somewhat cathartic.

I appreciate Michael Jackson as a very talented musician and performer. He really is the Elvis of my generation.

So what about all of his ... idiosyncrasies? I don't know. I didn't know Michael or anybody close to him. All I know is what the media tells me, which is obviously VERY slanted towards controversy, hysteria, and drama.

It is possible to deduce a few things about his life. First, he lived a very unique life that very few people will ever come close to. Performing since he was 5 years old, always in the spotlight. I hear his family life was .. well .. difficult. As someone who was forced into adult situation at an inappropriately young age, I understand how that kinda thing can damage a fragile growing person. And I can also understand (though I can't necessarily empathize) how super-mega-fame can really mess with someone's head.

Yeah, but wasn't he a god-damned child molester? Whether he did or not, I don't know, and neither do you. We only know what the media tells us, which I can guarantee is not the whole truth. What I DO know is: (1) childhood sexual abuse is devastating to a person, (2) abusers are almost always former victims of abuse themselves, and (3) every person, abuser, victim, or otherwise, is deserving of life and happiness as a human being with dignity, living responsibly.

I genuinely feel sorry for the guy, and his death saddens me. :(