i'm not crying

hi from the past. i'm back and still not using capital letters. call me crazy but consistent.

it's been 7 years. which is a perfect number to be away from something. the seventh year is the year of jubilee, so here I am, jubil-ee-ee-eeing my way back to my favorite writing project, forcing the words to eek their way out of the cave of my brain.

reviewing my old posts has been a trippy little trip into the past. the kids were still kids then. bye, kids, hello adult people who I can't control. also, i'm the same. only not totally.

the reason i thought, "oh, hey, maybe I'll resurrect yoko" is that after many years, the long tours are back. which means that, essentially, so is yoko. but, really, do I have to answer to you about why? nope, how about i'm doing it cause i feel like it. that's the best reason for anything ever. no one can argue with that, and i'm a fairly big fan of not arguing most of the time. really, too, i couldn't stop  little yoko from rearing her not-always-pretty head back onto the page. she's beyond my control.

there has already been some touring lately, which is fine i guess. i mean, whatever. i'm not crying. i have my own plans. plans that involve being a little bit selfish finally. forcing the creator in me to emerge from my gut like an alien escaping from its host. it won't be pretty, but (for me) it will be powerful. also, probably painful if you want to continue to alliterate.

so this post, and the rest of my life, is dedicated to all the people who put everything on hold to take care of something else, something that was a labor of love but that stopped them from making the space to create, mostly because they were too tired. let's be done with that. shake the dust off and put on the working shoes. i'm not going anywhere but everywhere.

because, even though i've hitched myself for life to a traveling musician, i refuse to be, in any sense of any word (foreign or domestic), just another yoko. 

put your pom-poms on

recently my friend em conquered her second ironman race in madison, wisconsin. man it was a beautiful day. i've seen her do this once before in 2009 and it a little bit changed my whole life. 

it was a hot day in september. about 87 degrees. that's a great day for hanging out but not for exerting monumental effort in no shade for between 11 to 17 or so hours like the competitors did. i had stayed with em in her room the night before- ate with her, talked with her,  prayed for her body and her safety and her joy. she went to bed really early, and got up earlier than she had to so she could shower, prep, and give the day to the Lord. 

the swim start was like nothing i had ever seen. over 2500 people in an expansive blue dish, heads lightly bobbing treading water ducking around in the final surging anticipation of the relief of a finish. the gun blows and all at once the whole mess of them explodes in a frothy mixer. the early crowd cheers and sips coffee, squinting vainly to pick out their one beloved in the infinity of rubber caps and feet and arms, secretly almost wishing that they, too, were in the water, kicking and jostling and gasping.

i was cheering too. and during the bike, when she whizzed by 2 times, i cheered. and during the run, i zigged and zagged my way through the funky little streets so i could be at any possible point to see her and cheer for her again and cheer for her again.

the cheering changed me way down on the inside of my little soul.  i had never really all-out cheered for anyone before. i was standing at the finish line jumping up and down screaming and snotting my pigtails off in a cathartic sunburned frenzy for no reason except my friend had worked super hard to get there and for that i wanted her to do well. for once for once for once i wasn't even in the equation. i had nothing to gain. i wasn't jealous. i wasn't experiencing any creative satisfaction from watching her. i just wanted her to rock that ironman because she wanted to rock that ironman. i wrenched a little bit more free from bad stef that day and thank God for it. there's nothing so sad as a girl who can't cheer for her friend. 

or her man. so much the little yoko can get bitter about the race she has to run. feeling like nobody is zigging around cheering her on. like she's the one who deserves all the praise. take the yoko out and be free. we are the ones who need to cheer. we need to really see how great it is what they're doing and how much they love it and how they get better when we're not factoring ourselves in all the freaking time. they just want to rock and all they want is for us to yell loud, to cheer without reserve, all they want is just another yoko.

you're such a yoko

you're such a yoko when:

• unless they are in new york, LA, or austin, or you are actually on your way to the show, you dont ever really know where they are playing that night.
• you have carried an amp after 3 in the morning more than 4 times in order to start the process.
• there is a trailer parked in your driveway that used to belong to Jeff Pezzati.
• there is also a passenger van parked in your driveway.
• you've manned the merch baby.
• you're married to the guy. thats an automatic yoko.
• you don't interrupt the settling. 
• in lean years everyone gets t-shirts and cds for their birthdays.
• you hear it first.
• sometimes tour rhymes with manure.
• you never ever ever never tell the random bagger at the grocery store that your husband is in the band on the front of your daughter's t-shirt even when he freaks out that she's wearing it.
• you are forced to listen to the brilliant and unusual harmonies in the song Yellow Submarine twice in the year 2011. 
• your 6 year old girl is an elvis fanatic.
• your name appears in or is the title of one of his songs. 
• you let your mother-in-law collect the press clippings
• you are the final stop.
• you dont even have to read this list.
• you just are just another yoko.                 

burn upon re-entry

its fantastically romantic to feel like you can't live without the one you love, but if you're a yoko and you park your heart at that space station you're bound for misery and heartache and wet pillows and who wants that not me. when the van pulls away and rides out of site, i park my heart in a waiting zone. the valet takes it to an undisclosed yet safe location. its in an emotional bermuda triangle. i learn survival tactics and i go about my biz and i do what i do and i do it well. and fairly quickly, if i let it, desperateness dissolves and i am whole. but this freedom of autonomy can dangerously threaten to eclipse the duet that is josh and stef, and therefore his re-entry into clark street has to be handled very carefully.

re-entry has always been a huge challenge in space travel. NASA does all this preparation, training, calculating, building, maintenance, waiting, and finally the nauts go on the mission to study the weight of an egg-sized moon rock and when its over: mission accomplished? nope. they still have to get home. they still have to have to worry about re-entry.

according to the modern classic authority on all things spacey Apollo 13 (the movie), the little shuttle pod thing has to return into the atmosphere at precisely the right speed, right angle, and at the right velocity. it's heat shield has to be intact, its cooling system working, its oxygen tanks at appropriate levels. if all these things are working, then and only then can they can re-enter the earth's atmosphere and drop into one of the oceans so they can be hooked up to a chopper and flown to the nearest hyatt regency or whatever.

that's how delicate it is when my man comes in off the road. how is he gonna re-enter here? is his heat shield functional or is intense emotion of the homestead atmosphere gonna burn him out? does he have sufficient oxygen to get through or are we suffocating him? how's my mood? his state of mind? my vibe? are we gonna be able to interface at this galactic level?

we both know its weird so we let it be weird. we're face to face. he's no longer a figment of my ear, brain, and dreams... he's sitting in the yellow chair taking up actual space and oxygen and food wanting to know what movie we're going to watch later. its trippy lemme tell ya. i feel like swatting him to see if he'll yelp. then i'll know if he's real or if i'm making him up. mostly i just stare at him and listen to the debrief. i love the debrief. i want to know it all. every little thing. so he talks and talks until he gets hungry. then i mildly panic.

the thing is i sort of forgot how to make food. its funny that that's the big deal. that rut is hard to shake as yokos know only too well. so i get a little ornery after a tour: "what, now i have to cook? what am i even going to make?" mostly we just make a big salad together. i'm not even going to mention cleaning. that skill dies a sweet death every time josh walks out the door. so pretty much i'm lazy and messy when he's gone and his return only serves to illuminate those little weaknesses. ah well. time to shape up.

i asked josh what's the hardest thing about being off tour. it's that every day out there has a definite purpose, a goal, a summit to prepare for and everything you do is in anticipation of this high-adrenaline event. he plays the show and achieves the goal and one more city gets rocked. its like every day he has his own little mount everest.

then he comes home and is man enough to know there are some other peeps he has to rock and he brings presents and love and after a day and a half we all wonder how we lived without him for so long. he knows just where he belongs and we all grin and sigh and flutter around the leader of this pack. daddy's home and he's mine and i am so totally without shame and without regret... just another yoko.

ode to the van

no band can exist without a van. the van is the hive, the coop, command central. it is the control tower, headquarters, nerve center. it is the crib.

a few days ago judge judy was on one of the tvs at the club where i work out. i took one look at the defendant and i thought "he's in a band". he was just a short guy with a plaid shirt wearing a beard, but maybe yokos can always tell i dont know. he had that look in his eye. he was the defendant and boy if he and the plaintiff weren't arguing about a band van.

thats just perfect. triple ha!

one guy lent his van to another guy so he could take it on tour with his band but the van needed a new alternator and windshield before it was tour ready so the dude gave the guy $600 to get the stuff fixed but the other guy didnt fix it all the way then the guy took it on tour and got a bunch of tickets and now the dude wants money for the tickets but the guy already gave him money to kind of rent the van from him but they're bros so it should have all gone down kosher but it didnt because man, there's nothing easy about the van.

the van's proudest characteristic is that it is huge. it takes up practically our whole driveway and we have a weirdly long driveway. it sits there bombasting like a monolithic t-rex waiting for whom it may devour. it marinates there pondering its own inherent value, bellowing its worth for all to see and hear.

the thing is, the van carries the rock and it wont let you forget it. it knows that you are a band, and you need a van, so its gonna do everything it possibly can to make sure you appreciate it and treat it right. its a relationship. the van will carry the band, but the band must pay the van. there are no freebies. in one visit to the shop the van might demand without blushing new brakes, an alternator, new air-conditioning, and a tune-up. and the amount of times it has been loaded in and loaded out with gear would shock your grandmother. i dont help with that. rarely will i carry an amp unless i absolutely have to. what am i a roadie?

man but we've had some good times in there.

recently we drove the van to Sparta, IL to take our kids to see willie. it was prob their only chance to see him since... well i'm not talking about that. we stopped at Funks Grove for maple syrup on the way down. we had put a futon mattress in the back of the van and each kid got a seat to themselves and we camped at a rest stop after the show. that's one they'll never forget. see? its good for something.

hold on a minute, if i'm even just talking about the van i need to stop and get gas.

there's a mysterious quality about the inside of a band van. what happens in there when we're not around? what do they talk about do they talk about us? who's at the wheel and what are they listening to? what are they seeing where are they going what are they eating and wearing and saying? what are they saying? what are they saying? what are they saying saying saying? these are questions you should never ask but if you do they wont get answered anyway. its not for you its for them and thats just fine they're just a bunch of boys and you're just another yoko.

dubble bubble

the comic book illustration that exists in my head of justanotheryoko's world has a lot of bubbles in it. bubble: a small globule of gas in a thin liquid envelope. that's me. a small globule of gas. in jay's world, everyone lives in a bubble: a gas pocket protected by a spherical watery envelope. these bubbles are of your own making. in your bubble is your life, everything you do and see exists inside your own bubble. because other people have their own bubble too, really we're all just bouncing bubbles around like a bubble bath party.

when you leave your house, you bring your bubble with you, even if you go all the way to France. you are always in the middle of your bubble. sometimes, when you are friends with another human person, your bubble attaches to theirs for a while while y'all are having a BBQ, then after dessert you go home and your bubbles detach. if you're good enough friends you might exist in the same globule of gas for awhile until you find out they're sharing information about you to whomever they feel like, then you may have to make the choice to divide your bubble. that's called a bubble-birth. sometimes it hurts, but its for the best. or you could just forgive them, that would be graceful of you. being depressed is when you wish your bubble were bigger, or smaller, or more crowded with stuff, or even had different stuff in it. these are just some bubble facts.

when you're married, you exist in the same bubble. instead of you being in the center of your bubble yourself, your top person is in the middle of it and you are standing right next to him. unless he, by some chance, decides to go on a west coast tour. then your bubbles have to gingerly separate and you become a dubble bubble and are floating far far away from each other in totally different air pockets of the space-time continuum.

in josh's bubble there are legendary punk-rock musicians, actors from the stage and screen, tatoo artists and drum techs, califonia cuisine, ringo's suit from a hard days night, walls of noise, audrey hepburn's sidewalk star, stage diving, scenic views, city scapes, brutal drives, and stinky boys in a van.

i have a very different bubble. since josh bubbled out and we became a dubble bubble, it's like the universe has shifted to the left 3 degrees, dissolved, and re-formed. its like he got raptured into rock world. hey, wait, there used to be a man standing there making me a salad with avocado on the side. wait, i used to have to watch Talladega Nights. wait, someone used to think i was pretty cute and darn funny.

sustaining truth: the thing that connects my bubble to josh's bubble is the spirit of God. that is the air we breathe inside our spheres, and how our bubbles stay peacefully wistfully ardently afloat while we are apart. we may be living in separate bubbles for a while but we are walking the same way with the one true living God. if we weren't doing that there wouldn't be a dubble bubble right now, or a single bubble with us in it, there would just be two separate globules of gas floating far far away like loose balloons. believe what you want, but without Jesus i wouldn't be here, with a husband and a family and a dog and a cat. i wouldn't have the life i live with the man i live it with. i wouldn't be just another yoko.

punishers

there are the fans.

there are the super-fans.

there are the punishers.

fans: fans are cool. they show up, they dig the band, they know the songs, they buy the merch. they will drive up to 2 hours to see a show even if its not their first one. they clap and cheer and are generally well-balanced music lovers who have found something they like, and are willing to put a little effort into soaking it in. after the show they nod and smile and pleasantly get in their cars and bop away. they are the fans. love the fans. one out of every 500 fans suddenly and unexpectedly morphs into a superfan.

superfans: superfans make it fun. in hindsight. most of the time. superfans will drive 7 or more hours to see a show. they come to the club early with an offer to take them all out to pizza. they show up during sound check with a batch of homemade oatmeal cookies. they grab the set lists off the stage after the show and have intense talks with brad the merch guy. they know all the words to all the songs and are on very intimate terms with a few tracks on a record or two. they wait around after the show to get autographs and photos and to attempt to engage in any small conversation with any of the guys, trying desperately to appear like normal people, not freaky fans, and certainly not punishers.

punishers: punishers take my breath away. when they emerge from the cocoon that is their private life out into the open air, they know what they want and will do almost anything to get it. they are tunnel-visioned, focused on one thing and one thing only: to connect with the band. these people want,on some deep level, to force a bandmember into a very meaningful relationship and they want that to happen immediately. getting an autograph isn't enough, getting a picture wont cut the grey poupon, no way. they always want more/ that's the jelly in the donut. if they radar-lock on one of the guys and wind up having a super-awkward "conversation", this will not appease. they will continue to lurk in the shadows with wild shining eyes, hungry, following, pursuing, determined to have one more interaction, make one more connection with someone.

if a punisher isn't receiving the response they had envisioned for 10,000 lonely hours in their room, they get weirdly offended and will start to accuse the punished of something crazy like they're a jerk and think they're so great and don't take time to talk to people. this will all happen before the band, finally having loaded out, with a collective sigh of relief, lands in the safety of the bomb shelter that is the van, shellshocked and questioning their very existence. wondering if its worth it.

the band is being punished for being a good band. punished by the punishers.

anyone can be a punisher about anything. if a person always wants more and never lets up, when a person is never satisfied no matter what, they are a punisher.

they are not, in any sense of the word, by any stretch, in any country, just another yoko.