illustration (c) kristin angelique
...i managed an active website for my fanzine for 5 years (before aol hometown quit hosting sites, they made this announcement with less than a month to deal with such consequences) ... i am reviewing all these "rescue" discs i made and - holy cow - when did i ever sleep! i published so much stuff! there's going to be so much for me to sort through and decisions to be made about what to add at my new page at facebook... but just now i read these three "reports" in my news archives and i want to share them with you. you don't gotta read them but here they are just in case you ever want to:
Attention Elaine (LOL): as i told you, this is how i very first suspected i had asperger's syndrome (in 2004, i'd never heard of it!)...
fyi: i wrote my (squirrels! squirrels! squirrels!) song "self-portrait of a fuck-up" right after this epiphany.
>> >> >>
A STATEMENT FROM THE VINES' MANAGEMENT:
"We are very relieved that Craig has received an unconditional discharge in relation to charges of assault and malicious damage stemming from an incident at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney in May, when he allegedly kicked a photographer’s camera during a gig.
The last six months has been a very trying time for The Vines and those close to them. Craig was recently diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a neurobiological disorder which is a mild form of autism. People with AS are generally considered exceptionally intelligent (and often obsessively focus their attention to music or art), but have difficulty reading social situations and are often accused of being deliberately rude and antisocial. They also have difficulty coping with change and only find security in a familiar routine and environment.
The band has NOT broken up and Craig looks forward to doing what he loves and lives for - getting back to writing and recording music with The Vines. On behalf of Craig and the Vines, thank you to family, friends and fans for their continued support, understanding and compassion."
Winterman & Goldstein management, November 20, 2004
illustration (c) kristin angelique
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...and this is me experiencing the ultimate conflict one eventually will when publishing a fanzine:
AUTUMN SHADE FANZINE
NEWS ARCHIVES
november 01-03, 2004
hey people (o:
on thursday evening i flew home from nyc to portland, oregon (via denver, colorado).
the planes didn't crash and i am very grateful.
portland is very incredibly different from nyc.
they are both fantastic cities. i can't stop thinking about nyc and it's weird, i was there and now i'm here, just 8 hours and everything is changed for me. i get to be home in portland for 8 weeks and then i go to denver for at least 7 weeks and then i have no idea what will become of me (o: but i hope that i go back to nyc as soon as i can. i hope this so much.
hey: happy halloween yesterday.
so, i have something sort of random sort of not that i feel the need to say and then probably i hope to never have to think about it again.
you know this whole stupid story about ashlee simpson lip-synching on saturday night live last week (october 23, 2004)? well, it's weird because i actually saw that happen. i haven't watched tv in a long time but i was pet-sitting that weekend and slacking and watching that show...
well, for me, the thing that really freaked me out when they f**ked up and ashlee got busted on live television, was this: it was like total deja vu.
i was thinking why does this seem so familiar?
and i knew right then. last april at the vines shows in seattle and portland, but especially in portland it was more obvious, there was this weird incident (at both shows) when there was like this awkward technical difficulty involving the sound. in seattle, it was too fast and i don't know at all what happened. in portland, i remember distinctly, thinking: what the f**k was that? are they lip-synching and faking it because i think they just started playing a recording of one song while the band was doing something else...
i brushed it off, sort of, saying, "no way." and i still hope it wasn't what it sounded like - prerecorded music playing when it shouldn't be.
the vines are one of my very favorite bands ever. i *love* craig nicholls.
but now i'm not so sure i was wrong. maybe that was lip-synching (or vocal "backtracking" whatever)... only it wasn't vocals. i remember it was music that stopped abruptly, whether vocals would have followed or what it was i heard i don't know. honestly.
but i wrote a huge long story about the vines which included some reporting on these concerts and i decided it was safest to just say there was some technical difficulty and a false start and a couple of glitches...
and maybe that's all it was. but what i left out is how awkward it was in portland and how there was like this instance when there was the wrong music or something or at the wrong time and how for a moment it was weird and people laughed and craig laughed but looked nervous and then they just played the next song and no one ever talked about it and i haven't talked to the band since before the show except to say goodbye.
that they may have had some technical assistance live doesn't change how awesome the records are or anything except that i think that's so not cool to fake it live.
i can't help wondering about so many things. but never mind what they are because maybe i'm wrong. and i don't want to be an asshole either way. my dad is like "you gotta bust them!" and i said how i maybe already did if anyone reads my news page.
i don't have to bust anyone - i've passed that up a lot (o: but i did report on that show and i do regretfully now realize i wasn't completely honest when i mentioned the technical difficulty. i censored myself because i really didn't know what had happened. and i still don't - but after seeing saturday night live and that "moment" all i know is that seeing the vines in portland is the scene that rushed to me and the first thing i thought is "what really happened at that show?" and the answer is i don't know but at least i am admitting it.
and now i have to wonder if there's more going on to what i do know as a fact - that the vines "don't really do their own soundchecks anymore" (the crew told me this and the band confirmed it) and i'll never forget how weird it was when "ride" came blaring from the venue but the vines weren't in there. and i've always pondered that whole idea, "what do you mean, you don't do your own sound checks?" i did mention that in my story at least.
i am starting to question this whole having a fanzine thing. it may be more responsibility than i can handle and lately, though there's been SO MUCH COOL STUFF - there has also been some very disillusioning stuff. writing for harp magazine - i thought that was disillusioning?
i was so excited to have my own fanzine where there'd be no bullshit, and i've enjoyed this a lot. but there's a certain amount of bullshit that will always be there getting in the way of your freedom of speech. whether it's replacing letters with stars so you don't cuss and get censored by aol or making a choice to report on everything someone said or did or only the stuff that won't make them look bad to anyone.
it's really important to me to be nice. and this is a fanzine and since i only would really choose, myself, to write about someone i like... i didn't see any problem.
and as frustrating as it was, writing anything for harp, i have to admit that i am beginning to see the validity of what both of my editors at harp said to me right away. that it's better not to write about your friends.
i couldn't understand that i guess until i'd tried it. just a few weeks ago i was saying how i had writer's block on my adam green story which was half-finished, and which getting through just part one (which i'd just published) had been so hard. well it's because i kind of knew adam better than when we first did an interview last june. well it didn't get any better and i ended up having to call the whole story off, and mostly this is me copping out because i didn't want to deal with the stress this was causing me at a time that i was remembering the death of my friend who died a year ago and was freaking out about the election and having to make a bunch of changes sooner than i'd been planning on. it was the easy way out. but it was also probably the right thing to do as i have lost pretty much all objectivity when it comes to adam green. and i don't think *part one* was written objectively at all, which because this is a FANZINE is ok. i know that. but i think that by the time *part two* was supposed to be getting finished, i was way beyond feeling starry-eyed about adam.
there's been a couple of incidents where i learned something or saw something or heard something - about the music business or about the artists themselves - where i have felt totally disillusioned as a fan. and i love being a music fan and this is supposed to be fun and it really is a lot of the time - mostly it's been really cool - but i'm really sensitive and i just don't want it to end up that getting this close to music ruins anything i love about it for me.
is this a fanzine editor's melt down?
(o:
i don't know. i hope not. i have so many cool pictures to share and tons of interviews with cool people planned. but i'm definitely reconsidering the whole reporting and essay writing thing. just interviews and pictures is cool, right?
(o: i always thought "who cares" about a lot of what i write anyway :o)
but i really liked it when someone said what i wrote was great so i thought maybe it's not important but it's still worthwhile. and it is i think, but i'm not sure i want to keep doing it.
i have enough material for several years of this fanzine even if i never write another story.
oh - and i have more than 20 interviews to write. and so many pictures.
so - if anyone reads this page - i don't know what you must be thinking (o:
what happened at that vines show?
what the f**k?! i'm so confused.
hey, please VOTE!!
peace, kristin
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november 03, 2004
we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked. we're totally f**ked.
[this immediately followed the announcement of the (stolen) election of george w. bush for another term as u.s. president]
illustrations (c) kristin angelique
