Hello. I am e.n.d. Once upon a time I came from Minnesota. But then I moved everywhere.
Curiosity didn't kill the cat. Complacency did.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Texts from Thom Yorke.
How I roll.
Come to Mama… (Taken with instagram)
Licensing in Germany means I see (and thus, share) some shit quality videos.
But that doesn’t take away from the fact that this was a favorite of mine over sixteen years ago. I remember when I first saw it.
I loved the colors. I started wearing a lot of colors that summer.
I remember recording the video on a blank VHS tape from MTV and watching it over and over. And at night, I’d ride in the car of my best friend, Kari, and we’d play The Bends cassette tape all night long after we went skateboarding. She got her driver’s license a year before I did. A driver’s license in the Midwest, United States, meant freedom. So together, we drove around free. And every time we popped the tape in, we’d fast forward to play Fake Plastic Trees first and drive fast.
And yes, that’s right, I used to skateboard.
This was my entire summer of 1995.
According to last.fm, my most scrobbled track in the past five years is Radiohead’s 4 Minute Warning.
I know for a fact this information is wrong. It says I’ve listened to it 191 times. No way. That’s at least 191 times. But most importantly, I’ve listened to other tracks many more times. Unfortunately, last.fm hasn’t scrobbled everything I’ve tossed in my ears (though I desperately wish it had just for the fun of data and nostalgia).
That said, there is a story, of course, behind all of those 4 Minute Warning scrobbles. And it’s all about adjustment, building, and moving to / leaving New York City (or any city, for that matter).
In March 2009, I was on my first real vacation from work in three years. Three years - WTF!
I missed my graduate school friends from years earlier, who, by then, were living and working for the EU in Brussels. They had planned a reunion. I flew over and made a longer vacation out of it. Few days’ trip solo to Köln to see Pantha du Prince before our weekend together and quite a bit of time in London and Oxford afterward.
In the middle of the trip, I received the blunt notification from my boss that I would be moving to NYC four days after my arrival back to San Francisco, where I was currently living and working. Mentally, I had been preparing to move for a bit - work mentioned they’d eventually require it - but not like this. Not this last minute uprooting.
I had lived in San Francisco for three years. Longer than any other place outside Minnesota. I wasn’t prepared to stay there for life. In fact, I was ready to move on. But I wasn’t prepared for a move I didn’t know was going to be so painful.
I arrived back to SF from London and nine hours later, the movers were at my apartment door. Ten hours after that, my life was in boxes. A somewhat familiar feeling but again, this time, too last minute. A control that was out of my hands.
I arrived in NYC four days later. Luckily I already found an apartment while trolling Craigslist in Brussels and Oxford two weeks prior. I stayed in corporate housing for the first three weeks while my stuff was traveling across the United States.
I plunged myself back into working too much. Refusing to accept how difficult it was to desperately try hard not to resent and blame both New York City and my friends for my low feelings and homesickness.
Work got crazier. I worked more. I went out a lot. But I often left early and roamed the streets of Manhattan by myself. Often so embarrassed or frustrated by how emotional I was. I wanted it to stop but I also cuddled up to the cozy blanket of sadness. After all, I knew that it would lead to happiness later.
Early on, a coworker told me it was the rainiest spring New York ever had when I moved over. But I didn’t mind at all. I didn’t want it to be sunny until I was ready.
Being ready took more than three months.
In that time, I had a few tracks on heavy rotation. Over and over and over, I walked from my Gramercy Park apartment to the gym, ran for miles. Took it back to the streets, walking over to the west side for work, then back to the pavement again. Same tracks. Same feelings.
The track I had on the most was 4 Minute Warning.
I had controlled every move up until this moment. Six countries, many cities, and my own independent choice as to when and why I’d move. Not this time. So my resentment for NYC was deep. Too much happened before the move. Too much was happening after.
I was of this mindset:
Don’t tell me to cheer up since I have ‘so many friends’ in NYC. Who are these people, really? Don’t suggest all of the new friends I should hang out with. What bars to go to. What the shortcut is from my apartment to my gym. What pizza place has the best thin crust. What subway line is the most direct from Chelsea to Park Slope, Brooklyn. I didn’t want to hear about your own move and how easy it was. Oh, and that because I’ve traveled and moved a lot, this move should be easy? No. It never is. Let me figure this out.
Defensive for the first three months. I was just adjusting.
But of course I wanted to hear all of those suggestions and easing thoughts to cheer me up. I just needed to wait and be ready for them to sync in. And they did.
I moved to NYC at the end of March, 2009. By the end of June, I started to come around. I ended up loving my time in NYC so much that when I left in April 2010 for Berlin, all of my friends were completely shocked.
But they knew why. And they knew I wasn’t running. I was just trying.
And so it goes. When too much happens at once, difficult relationships end, a job becomes what you don’t want anymore, and a city of stress doesn’t forgive you because it has 8 million other people to deal with, perhaps then, you feel it’s time to leave and start anew. Afterall, if you loved a city so much, and it’s not going anywhere, even if you don’t want it ever again, it will still be there for you, if just only for a visit.
And so will this track. Which I had back on heavy rotation when I arrived in Berlin. An independent move but still a massive adjustment. It got easier. A bit faster. Because it was my choice and I processed it my way. But it was still painful.
They all are.
“I don’t wanna hear it,
I don’t wanna know.
I just wanna run and hide.This is just a nightmare.
But soon I’m gonna wake up.
Someone’s gonna bring me ’round.This is a warning. 4 minute warning.”
I woke up to this in my feed. My ADHD self can’t follow a ton of people on this or Twitter (I can never handle all of the incoming as is!), so a breakfast wake up call to one of my favorite Radiohead B-sides is a nice surprise.
Especially this morning. My windows are screaming sun and blue skies. I heard the punk bakers below me setting up shop. I pressed play while still under the covers.
In very similar weather, I bought this single in Los Angeles when I was with my Mom over a long weekend in early 2002 while she was attending some kind of ‘product marketing insurance conference’.
Gross, I know.
But these trips were common and more often than not, she took me with her. I was always pumped to travel on these micro-domestic journeys. Perfect breaks spent with a person who is still one of my closest friends.
On this trip in particular, I’d take our rental car out of the too-nice-for-our-liking Beverly Hills hotel garage we were staying and I’d drive solo, every day, to Orange County on long freeways. I had every B-side from the ‘Knives Out’ single with me. Heavy rotation, playing while plowing on smaller seaside roads once I reached the good ole’ OC.
I was busy writing, reading and fresh out of a silly break-up. Silly in the sense that at 22 yrs old, you’re still pretty unsure but fairly confident that it’s not the end of the world but the occasional second pops up when you treat it as if it is. Damn emotions! But, it cracks up to just a young learning experience. After all, I wasn’t about to be kept in Minnesota. Break-ups were both tasty and painful at that age. Leaving Minnesota was key. The world was big.
So instead, I was a 22 yr. old who appreciated driving in cars alone to beautiful soundtracks, still searching for CD singles and unreleased bootlegs of live performances in the stores of cities and countries I didn’t frequently visit.
Wondering what a post-University experience would look like in six months, I compartmentalized and focused on writing my undergraduate honors thesis on ‘Debt Relief in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’ and defending it to a committee I feared might not be convinced to allow me to graduate at the top of my class later that Spring.
(I always felt that I sucked at writing. I’m far too passionate to make sense half the time).
Six months later, after sitting and speaking (trembling, really) in a small, hot room for two hours, completely sweaty and still terrified, that said committee was somehow convinced. After hearing my pathetic attempts to define what the ‘moral obligation’ was on behalf of the Belgian and US Government’s duty to relieve the Congo’s debt, I got a harsh lesson in what real Political Economy and Post-Colonial transitions were and they gave my Summa Cum Laude honors. Pointedly and so often, I stood harshly critiqued during the entire defense. Mystified, even after, as to why they rewarded me.
Still, after being challenged so much, I later (and rightfully so), convinced myself that debt relief was definitely the wrong way to go for any transitional economy, country or populous. Aid, too, was wrong and no longer worked in isolation. Period. And any attempt to develop anything only happens within. Within the country, the leadership, and every individual, no matter what the issue or topic. Personal or political. The continent of Africa, included, could only be helped if it wanted to help itself first.
These were all relatively controversial opinions I later went to graduate school with to make more friends and some, well, not so good friends.
Los Angeles, my Mom, some professors, music, and a lot of books.
“It’s such a beautiful day.
It’s such a beautiful day.
Go up to the mic,
Go up to the mic.
Go and get some rest.”
at seanfennessey:
Radiohead: “Worrywort”
from the Knives Out EP
One of the great things about occasionally being up early in Berlin is chatting with my homeys in SF. This came in through my old friend Andy as we did our bi-weekly gchat voice catch-up.
Combined with nine hours of sleep: my jetlagged is cured!
Anyway, the video is a neat….and it seems we’re now back to my blog being a temporary Radiohead repository. :/
Back to regularly scheduled programming soon, I promise.
:D
Yayayayayayayay! :D :D :D :D :D
I can’t tell you how smiley this made my overly-jetlagged-sleepyhead self tonight. Seeing them still enjoy each other’s company after all of these years is so sweet and nice! What a rad bunch of Oxford homeys.
It also gave me signs of life on the ‘is-Radiohead-going-to-tour-soon-or-at-least-play-a-couple-shows-live-somewhere-sometime?’ paranoid thought path. (I know, I know…hard to believe, but a homegirl had her doubts!). And now, perhaps some live performances aren’t too far off the mark…
This was now just the first time hearing this new track and I like. (I mean, duh. This is Emily you’re reading here :P).
Oh, but make sure not to miss Thom smiling over a a quick positive exchange at the end. He’s actually pleased with the results straight away? A Radiohead happy! :D
*Guten Nacht*
I swear this isn’t a Radiohead blog. It’s just been a week of Radiohead nostalgia.
One of my favorite b-sides. This is the first version.
Originally called “Alligators in New York Cities”, this was written in New York City, partially about New York City. In my ears as I’m leaving to board a plane bound for New York City.
:)
“Anything you want, it can be done now.”
My favorite Radiohead song.
It is timeless. And every line sticks.
In the 16 times I have seen them live, I have never seen them perform this song.
Go figure.
But I have a good story hidden here regarding the samples in this track and a conversation about activism with Thom.
It’s just nostalgia.
I watched this video in bed on my glass-shattered iPhone 3GS nearly every other morning in June of 2009, the year I lived on 18th street in Gramercy Park, Manhattan. A beautiful track they usually have such a hard time playing live - done amazingly well here.
At one point I showed it to a friend of mine after another über late wine-night in NYC. He watched it on my couch six times that morning, horribly hungover in the humidity. He, too, admitted the quality totally sucks but he also said, “it’s a beautiful up-close reality in two minutes. It says a lot about a lot and don’t you love reading into songs like these with your own narrative? It’s a strange kind of fun.”
Completely.
I lived with two other girls in a *tiny* three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 5th floor walk-up of an old Manhattan brick apartment building. We had a “walk-through” kitchen - a pathetically small thing on your way from the front door to the living room with a small fridge, stove and oven that seemed almost make-believe, as if used only by children. We barely cooked. We were bachelorettes in a city with the best take-out ever.
Our apartment was covered, floor-to-ceiling, with exposed brick. If you know me and how obsessed I am with open brick buildings, you will know that my tiny apartment was heaven-in-the-big-apple to me for a year.
The final highlight was our private rooftop deck on top of the building. Only the three of us had access to it from a steep staircase that ran from the side of our living room all the way up to a door in the ceiling. We also had awesome sky windows where we could see through to where the deck was from inside. Windows that tempted you to take your life outside everyday.
Having a bit of private outdoor space in Manhattan is one of the only things that keeps people sane in that city. Doing yoga a couple times a week up there solo helped even more.
But what was a different kind of nice was the number of cocktails we’d have until the wee hours of the morning up there.
Our guests and us would wake up, sometimes hungover. And I’d watch this video. And then I’d do it all over again. Until I left.
Going back for another visit on Friday.
Two years later, I am now on my third shattered iPhone.
I think I’m onto something…
Like every Radiohead album, I highly anticipated the release of Amnesiac. I mean the nervously-walking-around-in-circles-the-last-days-leading-up, pacing-back-and-forth, over-analyzing-the-list-of-tracks-that-made-it-on, how-they-would-sound-and-if-I-would-become-obsessed-again-or-only-just-‘really like them’-kind of anticipation.
It came out ten years ago yesterday, hence this post.
I know what you’re thinking: ‘whoa’. But it was Radiohead and already nearly a decade of my political, economic, and geo-social development that I can partially attribute to them (but mostly my parents and a few amazing professors).
Released only eight months earlier, I was not even full from my daily dose of Kid A on repeat. I mean, it was too soon to firmly ask the question then but some people were quietly thinking, “How are these Oxford homeys even going to come close to following-up that album with something awesome again?”
I wasn’t one of these people.
Now imagine being abroad, fucking far from the ease of knowing US record release dates and purchase locations. Traveling between continents, having to guess between international time zones and dates when you’d be able to pick up your copy…in CD format of course.
My Sony Discman was getting hungry. I was motherfucking starving.
I had been in South Africa the month leading up to Amnesiac’s release. On a research trip to analyze ‘Post-Apartheid Nation Building’, my head hurt and my mind was blown after we had interviewed, studied and analyzed activists and victims of a nation I only started to get to know. (I moved there a year later). I was only focused on the depths of that research during the entire trip. But upon our departure, I was hungry for the new politically infused-Radiohead that awaited me.
On the way home, the only time I didn’t dwell on the fact that I’d soon be listening to what was sure to be a badass album, was when I was in the cockpit of the 747, flying back to Amsterdam over North Africa. (This was three months before 9/11. I met a stranger on the plane who flew this route often. A Dutch descendant living in South Africa who knew the pilot and pulled some strings. That on it’s own was amazing and beautiful experience. Separate post coming later).
Upon our descent into Amsterdam, after 11+ hours of flying, I remembered my mission upon landing for our layover there. I was not about to wait 35 more hours until I got to the States to find my first copy.
Hell naw.
Exited the aircraft. Dropped my backpack sans wallet with our research group. And bolted to the information desk.
“I’ve got 35 hours but where can I buy a new CD *now*?”
Got my location, ran to the general music/media/magazine store at the airport and what did I see?
Goddamn right.
Bought. Owned. Stared at the plastic case. Unsleeved it. Read everything as I walked back to the group only to quickly pause and say I’d be back in some hours.
Found a quiet bench by myself facing the runway. Popped it in carefully (no scratches, please!) and played it on repeat more times than you or I can count.
It might be an underdog but it’s another beautiful political, economic, philosophical reminder that they care about another world they could easily forget due to their faculties and success. I told this to Thom four times before this moment. But it seemed truer even then.
Two months later my Mom flew her and I to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio to see Radiohead live together for the first time, on the Amnesiac tour. When Thom played a piano-solo version of ‘Like Spinning Plates’, we both cried a bit together.
I told her that track was about Patrice Lumumba and Mobutu in the Congo. But she already knew because I had told her before on the plane ride over.
:)
“We ride tonight.
We ride tonight.
Ghost horses.
Ghost horses.
Ghost horses.”
It’s also the lyrics. The best track on The Eraser.
Seeing Thom play this live as a piano solo three years ago in Los Angeles meant…no dry eyes for me:
“Try to save your house
Try to save your songs.
Try to run.
But it follows you up a hill.
It’s all boiling over.
All boiling over.
Your little voice.
Your little voice.
No more conversation.
No more conversation.
You should’ve took me out when you had the chance .
You should’ve took me out when you had the chance.”
ario:
Thom Yorke (Radiohead) Cymbal Rush (live) (by thehungover)
One of my favorite Radiohead remixes ever.
The transitions are fantastic.
Was (and still is) my San Francisco walking track.
Nigel Godrich.
This is for today, Thursday.
I know what you’re thinking,
but I’m not your property.
No matter what you say.
No matter what you say.
- Radiohead, Gagging Order
