Jenna's House of Idiosyncrasies Version 10.0 [Focus.]

I do this every year, (or, at least, every year since 2003) and it is absolutely compulsory.

As in years past, I must preface this with a warning to not proceed if you have delicate sensibilities. I would say, though, that overall, I've been especially good this year. Read More »

Dawn today found me walking home after a second consecutive sleepless night, singing Cole Porter's “I've Got You Under My Skin” in the swinging style of the 1956 Frank Sinatra cut. At the end of my street I could see the guy who works the all-night convenience watching me, most likely puzzled at what could cause me to allow my voice to echo all over the narrow street.

I'd sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near
In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night
And repeats, repeats in my ear:
Don't you know, little fool, you never can win?
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.
But each time that I do just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
'Cause I've got you under my skin.

I should have been thinking about why I would possibly allow myself to come home at dawn when I hadn't slept in over a day and needed to work, but I wasn't. I was thinking about the night that led up to the darkness. I was playing the horn saturated instrumental fill in my heart and trying my damndest not to spin on the street as if I was on a studio backlot in some mid-20th-century comedy musical.

I remember us at some late hour watching a bowling championship on ESPN, and he mentions that he loves bowling, and I some how work in that I can't stand it. I don't know exactly how but I'm not surprised that I would do such a thing.

“I guess we can't get married now.” I sadly say. Our eventual marriage has become somewhat of a running joke, and his tolerance of said joke indicates one of only two states of mind: ignorance or some other, slightly warmer, elusive thing.

“I guess not.” He hangs his head in mock disappointment. “Good job, Jenna!” He admonishes me sarcastically and I break down, despite the fact that the game purports to be only pretend.

“Well, if that was a deal breaker,” I say in a more serious tone than is strictly necessary, “I would learn to bowl.”

Each year, we at the house take an intimate look at the last 12 months, in a frighteningly frank way. This is to keep things honest, despite anything else that may have been written. This year it seems more important that ever, because we haven't been checking in as much.

As always, if you think you may be offended by cursing, graphic sexuality, talk about death, destructive relationships, or substance abuse, among other topics, turn away now. Have some kittens.

In addition, if you feel that such talk might ruin your holiday, save the read until after the new year.

And now, on with the show. Read More »

When I was seventeen, I went to my first real rock and roll show.

Yes, I like to act as if I've been in the scene forever, but your little Jenna, who is at once a professional fan and pretentious, unforgiving music critic, had at one time completely given up on anything remotely resembling contemporary music.

I listened to nothing but the local oldies station all through middle school. This was back when “oldies radio” meant the '50s and early '60s, and not any year remotely approaching the year of my birth in the early '80s. I didn't have any strong affinity for oldies radio, but a person has to listen to something while doing homework or falling asleep, so that is what I kept the clock radio in my bedroom set to.

At the end of eighth grade I was advised (more or less) that everyone my age listened to 99X, which I believe, at the time, was billed as “Alternative Rock”. Whatever that means. I remember the exact conversation sitting in the computer room in the hallway where you took all your electives, next to this girl whose name I will not publish but do remember. For some reason I perceived her to be cooler than me, and when she heard that I listened to Fox 97 (“Good times, great oldies”) she tried to chastise me, and fully succeeded. So I switched.

What followed that was a few festival type concerts, the kind of all day events with too much sun and overpriced food. I thought that's what live music was. I had never been to a club show, and I think I was completely ignorant of their existence. And while I generally had fun playing in the sun all day and into the night, throwing up rock hands and dodging the feet of wayward crowd surfers, I never felt like I had seen a tremendous amount of music. The performers at these shows were often hundreds of feet away and projected onto large screens at either side of the stage. I often wondered to myself why I was paying so much money to basically sit in the hot sun and watch broadcast television.

I distinctly remember, at 15 years old, lying in the sun, in the middle of the stadium at the International Horse Park, catching a nap during the Fuel set. Granted, Fuel isn't the most amazing band, but I was 15 and this was 1998. I should have been nuts for them. It seemed like everyone else was. Read More »

Busking 8/5/2007 from Jenna Tollerson and Vimeo.

Downtown Athens, Georgia, 3 AM Saturday night (or Sunday morning). August 5th, 2007.

These guys had a sign that read:

WE SING ABOUT WHAT WE SEE.
     -------------------------------------
OUR DRUMMER IS WASTED!!!

Geek talk with CB; lunch with Mom and Dad, because they think everything I say is hilarious and they make me feel like a standup comic; Hot Kathy (Demo) by Apes & Androids; EveryTopicInTheUniverseExceptChickens.com; Defaced; the photos of Franca Alejandra (warning: some are NSFW);The Scissor Sisters on Passions (which you've got to admit is just fucking weird; twitter (like having an AIM "away" message without the annoyance of actually using IM of any kind); “You move Smoothly!: Cute five-year old breaks out moves, kicks out jams, etc.” Let My People Come, The Musical; “Slab City. Several hundred people spontaneously built a city on desert land that was owned by the government, and continued to occupy it for decades despite the absence of any services that are taken for granted in civilization, such as water, power, gas, sewage, garbage, phone, postal or governmental authority.”

I am a music nerd. This statement is probably not a great surprise to many who know me. My taste is vast and idiosyncratic, yet discerning; I have about 7000 songs in my iTunes library, which translates to about 20 days (the majority of which I forked over money to obtain, thankyouverymuch).

All this asshole hipster posturing is to say, I have a number of smart playlists to manage all this music. To make sure everything gets an even chance at rotation, if you will. (If you don't do this, you'll end up playing My Chemical Romance's “Helena” 680 times and never listening to anything else, because it's that good. I speak from personal experience.) A lot of these playlists depend on giving each song a rating (one to fives stars) so that you hear the songs you love more often, and the ones you aren't as crazy about a little less often.

Here's where it gets weird: I have friends that are also musicians. Several of them are represented in my music collection, and I feel a little awkward giving one of my friends a lower rating on a given song. What if they were to come over one day, and start browsing through my iTunes library, only to find that I gave a track they considered their opus two stars? How would that conversation go?

Actually, they are all sensitive creative types so they probably wouldn't confront me about it, they'd just go home and write a song about their feelings.

However, when I thought about it, I decided this whole senario was unlikely from the outset, for three reasons:

1. I don't think I know a single musician whose first impulse upon browsing someone's music collection is to make sure that person owns their record, so we can all listen to it right now!
2. I rarely let people near my computer, especially without my watchful eye.
3. It's my house, I get to pick the goddamn music.

Crisis averted via selfishness and paranoia. That's the Famous Jenna Tollerson™ Way.

Got To Rescue Candy Corn on Vimeo

My friend Sam Deeds improvising in song.
October 1, 2005
Athens, Georgia

More on flickr.

We do this every year. Frank, R-rated discussion of friends, drinking, sex, music, money, illness, politics, and many other subjects follow. If you are a sensitive, delicate flower, I suggest you go elsewhere. Particularly if you are over 50 (if you baby boomers proceed anyway, I'll bear no responsibility for possible heart attacks). Read More »

This Christmas, for the first time in many years, I'm not buying presents for anyone. It's a hard candy Christmas—with apologies to Dolly Parton—and the state of my finances makes it impossible. In lieu of material things, which are hardly in the spirit of Christmas anyway (right?), I present for your viewing pleasure, two songs from my 19 year old self, and some reflection on these performances. Why the dissection? We compulsively analyze things. You know we can't stop just for Christmas.

Note: streaming flash video appears below. If if doesn't work, or you prefer Windows Media, or even want to grab the MP3 audio versions, you can find the original, four-year-aged post here.

These are two songs from the 106 West Annual Christmas Show in 2002. I know that if you are much older than me, four years probably doesn't sound like a long time, but to me it feels like a lifetime ago. This was after I had gone to college, but before I had made any close friends there, before I ever had a job, before I ever paid bills, before I cut my hair, before I had gotten over my shyness and learned how to talk to people, before Abie taught me how to dress in a way that wasn't hideous.

River (Joni Mitchell Cover):

While you can't appreciate how loud everything was, especially the applause from the audience, what you can see in this video is how uncomfortable I am on stage, in my own skin. I look at this now and think, “Get your hands out of your pockets! Why the hell did you pick that outfit?” and even “That is completely the wrong bra for you.” Overall, the person in the video feels like someone different, not me, but I can relate to her on one level, about something you can't see in the video.

I hesitate to bring it up even now, because it's long past, but it's important to my appreciation of the performance, and I've never talked about it before. At Christmas in 2002, I was estranged from one of my best friends in the entire world. The worst part was that I felt it was entirely my fault. It was probably the loneliest I have ever been. This feeling permeated every facet of my life for awhile, so while I had no romantic interest in this friend, I still related to River on a deep level (“I’m so hard to handle / you know I’m selfish and I’m sad / I lost the best baby that I ever had”), so much so that every time I sang the song the pain hurt my heart. I often am praised for an extremely emotive performance of River, and that's because I can't sing it, or even watch this performance of it, without being transported back to that time.

We eventually reconciled (with a vengence), so in the end, everything worked out, but sometimes, I still wish that I had handled the situation a different way, so that maybe I wouldn't have lost that time. Even if it means that the performance would have suffered.

Please Come Home For Christmas (Charles Brown Cover):

“A! Everything I sing is in A!”

Here, despite my lack of a compelling stage presence, I've got the audience in the palm of my hand. It's a pretty stiff performance, until the monitor made a strange, very loud sound (at the first “So won't you tell me / you'll never more roam”) and all I could do was open my eyes in shock, smile and laugh it off. However, by the end of the song, I'm freaked out to be on stage again.

The applause at the end of the song was absolutely unreal. The video doesn't at all capture the roar that came at me. One of my biggest regrets to date is that I practically ran off stage instead of taking a moment to bask in the glory.

These days I don't sing as often as I used to. Chances are, however, that I'll be making an appearance at the 106 West (Site | MySpace) Annual Christmas show, next Saturday night, December 16th, at 7:30 PM. The show is free, and should be pretty rockin, if past years are any indication. I would love to see you there.