L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Righting from the Left

If my right hand is dominant, does that mean the left is submissive? If it is, it has been willingly and uncomplainingly so all these years, quietly letting the right call the shots, obediently assisting when called upon. The dominant right has been smugly assured of its superior position and, quite frankly, dismissive though occasionally amused by the feeble efforts of its sub.

The tables have turned.

My right hand has been contained in a cast from just below the elbow to the tip of the thumb for a week now. The experience has been… interesting. I am so very right-handed. My left hand has been pressed into active duty and is as helpless as a beached squid. It tremblingly clutches a lipstick tube but won’t move it; I have to actually move my face. When presented with a butter knife and a jar of mayo it dabs weakly at the bread while the right paces and steams, thinking for christ’s sake get on with it.

But slowly, the left is developing a taste for power. It’s handling the mouse pretty well, thank you very much and spooning cereal from the bowl with, if not grace, then at least without creating extra laundry. If this goes on for another twelve weeks, which is one possible scenario, will the left come to regard itself the equal of the right? Will it be content to resume its former submissive position? And what of the right? So far it is peevish and resentful, but will it develop a habit of helplessness? To borrow another term from BDSM, will my hands become switches? I can see the logical advantage of the situation. One never knows the turns or tumbles life will take.

But as I watch this drama unfold, I am reminded of another term from the parlance: Topping from the bottom. Or in this case, I guess, righting from the left.

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Zombie Orgasms

I love the TED talks. You never know what you’re going to learn. They are stimulating, deep, probing, enthralling, addictive and surprising by turns and sometimes all at once. But who knew that the living dead were capable of rubbing one out? (or off, as the case may be)

Is this where la petite mort meets la grande mort?

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Chocolate Radio

Through a series of unlikely coincidences, my song “Tango de Cacao” is going to be featured on KOPN 89.5 FM radio in Columbia, Missouri at 7 pm Central Time, Thursday May 28. It’s a show of songs by women about food. I don’t know any more than that. Listen live here: http://www.kopn.org/listen

Here are the lyrics:

Tango de Cacao Buy the MP3
© Eva Moon

When first I saw you in the window
You caught my eye and called me in
Was it fate that drew me to you
Into this candy story of sin?

Beneath your surface smooth and dark
Lies the promise of delight
I know to have you is my doom
But even so I’m yours tonight

I give in there is no cure
I can’t resist your sweet allure
Without you I’m incomplete
Though our love is bittersweet

Let the longing fill my cup
I drink to you in steaming sips
You are my sweet forbidden love
Your candy kisses stain my lips

You are my favorite obsession
I think about you day and night
You are the singular expression
Of my helpless indiscretion
It’s a force I cannot fight

I give in, there is not cure…

Oh, waiter. Yes, you. Would you please bring me the chocolate decadence cake? And I don’t need a fork…

Let them point at us and stare
As I revel in disgrace
Let them laugh, I don’t care
I only want another taste!

I give in there is no cure…

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Eternal Chaos: Folklife 2009

Various forces conspired to draw so many people to the Seattle Center this weekend that the fountain was in imminent danger of imploding into a singularity. One that would suck in every dread locked, tattooed, nose-pierced, guitar-playing, Keenes-shod, organic tie-dye-clad geezer into the hellish maw of the newly spawned black hole. And there were a shitload of them.

Folklife landed once more, and once more we played. It’s a zoo in a normal year, but in addition to being an irresistible magnet to every eccentric for hundreds of miles, this year the weather was perfection. Four transplendant, sun-drenched, breezy days. To that add an economic climate that has more than a few folks saying “Let’s stay home this year. Is there anything to do that’s free?” and you have a situation where you can’t turn around without hitting a teenage boy with fairy wings and a free hugs sign.

I blogged about Folklife last year with photos. This year I took video with my crappy little camera. But I think you can get a bit of the flavor, if not the sweat, garlic and patchouli-scented aroma.

Balkanarama played of course. We’ve been liberated from the annual Balkan Dance Party and found ourselves at the much cooler Vera stage, which was jammed with lines wrapped around the building. Not everyone who wanted to got in. More video later of the band.

Notes: the woman playing bass clarinet in the second to last clip is principal clarinetist with the Seattle Symphony and the belly dancer is Leslie Rialto, who dances with us regularly. I’m glad I waited until after the gig to get my fractured wrist seen to because I’ll be able to annoy people for years with tales of my incredible toughness.

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Workout Smackdown

Dear Shawn,

You’ve been my personal trainer for a long time. It hasn’t always been easy to live up to your high expectations, but I think I’ve been game. Being dressed before noon twice a week is a testament to my commitment. But Saturday, I think we really reached a new standard in high-impact workouts. My right wrist will be in a rigid cast for possibly six weeks. It’s really sad when healthy living comes back to haunt you.

Just wanted to say thanks!

I’m going to share the lyrics of the song I wrote about you. Maybe someday… when I can play the piano again, I’ll record it.

Workout Smackdown

The workout smackdown of the century: My personal trainer was up against me
In this corner, my trainer: Demona Demise. Her challenger: me, Éclair Sugarthighs
At the sound of the bell, Demona attacks. Give me five sets of jumping jacks
Then she orders 200 crunches. I’d rather order 200 lunches.

You can train me, you can drain me, you can even ball and chain me
But I will never, ever learn…         to love the burn.

Demona looks strong coming out of the gate, with an evil grin she gets out the weights
I give it a try. Too heavy by far. Then she puts weights on the bar
My legs are like jelly, arms are like lead. I say to myself, “Éclair, use your head.”
Pumping iron is way too much toil. I’d rather pump… tin foil

You can drill me, uphill me, you can even try and kill me
But I will never, ever learn…         to love the burn.

The final round. It’s do or die. Demona looks fresh, I’m totally fried
“Interval training,” she suddenly blares. To me, that’s a nap between two flights of stairs.
Got me some moves even though I’m a rookie. I strike back with chocolate chip cookies
“Damn you!” she cries, knowing she’s beaten: Demona Demise… goes down eating

You can work me, you can irk me, you can even clean and jerk me
You can make me, you can break me, you can even shake and bake
(You can pound me, you can hound me, you can even kick around me)
But I will never, ever learn…         to love the burn.

For the record: After the incident, I finished the workout.

And also for the record, Shawn is a terrific trainer and I’d recommend her to anyone. Just don’t let her make you chase a tennis ball on pavement until you’re sure there are no hidden mud slicks. She says she owes me as many pushups as I want to see her do. Hmm… Check out her site.

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Moon Falls to Earth… with a new CD!

Our new album “Moon Falling Down” is out! Buy it right now.

The Eva Moon Cocktail: Take one part Bette Midler’s divine chutzpah, one part Fiona Apple’s juice, down a quick shot of Winehouse and top with Tori Amos’ flaming hair. Blend in a hot band and stir with a comedy shtick. Mmm, tasty.

Eva Moon & the Lunatics’ new release, Moon Falling Down, is a quirky, high-energy cocktail of pop, jazz, funk and Latin originals. The music is hot and the lyrics are hotter. Brazilian waxes, mail-order vibrators, barista lust, sadistic parenting — nothing is off limits. So, put the kids to bed … and slip into something both shaken and stirred.

Eva Moon & the Lunatics is a fresh mash-up of solid music and edgy comedy.

The CD, with all our cool graphics and notes and stuff, will be launched at our CD release party at Soulfood Books in Redmond Saturday, June 27. But don’t wait! Hop over to http://evamoon.net right now for the download version.

Regulars on the Seattle live music scene, Eva Moon & the Lunatics are veteran artists who have performed a wide range of music all over the U.S. and abroad.”

Eva Moon: Vocals, keys, charm
Ferko Saksmanoff: Saxes, flute, percussion
Dave Quick: Guitar, keys
Mike Gordon: Bass
Sue Niemann: Drums

Thank you!

Eva, Ferko, Dave, Mike and Sue

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Rant Sponsor: PayPal

It’s a simple thing, really. People do it all the time. Sell stuff on a website. I help other people do this all the time. But selling my own MP3’s on my own site and turned into a week-long odyssey. I’ll spare you the full saga - a tale longer and more tedious than the original Odyssey - and point my sword at one particularly vexing enemy.

It would be easy to sell MP3s on my site if I wanted to pay half to someone else. But I have iTunes and Amazon for that.

I’m not thrilled about the pound of flesh the big retailers take, but I get it. They bring lot’s of eyeballs. You pay for eyeballs. They also set everything up, handle cranky customers like me, and every once in a great while send a check.

But on my own site?

There are two basic requirements: A way to collect money (PayPal) and a way to give access to downloads once the money has been paid (PayLoadz.com). PayLoadz has been easy. I uploaded the songs, created buttons, set up a page on my own site with my own design and none of their branding - it all works like a charm.

Then there’s PayPal.

The stage was set. Time for a sound check.

When my kids were little they adored a game called “Pooh sticks” and could spend hours dropping sticks and leaves from the upstream side of a bridge and then running the other side to see them emerge. I had that same giddy feeling as I bought a tune and then scampered over to PayPal. Yes! There it is! One sale for $0.99! Then I looked at my balance: $0.66. WTF? Had a troll under the bridge bitten off a third of my stick before it reached the other side?

Oh, yeah. If you want to receive payments, PayPal takes 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. This is actually a fairly standard merchant rate and it’s fine if you’re selling, say, $100 jackets. But the math gets worse the lower you go. On a $1 sale, you’re giving up a 33%. For payment processing alone.

I called PayPal, explained the sitch and then asked: “Do you have an alternate plan or rate for micropayments?”

No.

“Are you sure there’s no other deal you’ve got for handling micropayments.”

Yes.

“So people are just supposed to pay a third of their sales to PayPal.”

Yes.

Grrrr…

Off I go to PayLoadz, the company that handles the shopping cart end and ask if maybe they can gang up my sales and process them weekly, or monthly or when they reach some magic number. They wrote right back: “Oh, PayPal has a micropayment rate: 5% + $0.05. Here’s the link to sign up.”

So back I go to PayPal. “Why didn’t you tell me you had micropayments?”

PayPal: “Micropayments are only available on a Business Account. You have a Premier Account.”

Gah!

Of course all of this is by way of saying: Our new CD is almost here. Stay tuned!

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The Law of Infinite Regression

The Law of Infinite Regression states that whatever you want to do, there’s something else you have to do first.

I learned this many years ago when we were doing some “simple” home fix-ups. I wanted new tile on the bathroom floor. But first I needed to take out the old linoleum. Before I could do that, I had to remove the toilet. When the toilet was up, we discovered a leak, so the sub flooring had to be redone and the leak fixed. But the pipes were ancient and corroded in our 1911 house. Try to attach anything to it and it would crumble like the mummy when his age catches up with him. So we learned how to sweat solder copper pipe and re plumbed the whole house. At that point things go dark.

That’s essentially what happened to my website, http://evamoon.net last weekend. We’ve got a new CD coming out very soon and it was time to add something about it to the site. But every time I tried to shoehorn it in, I’d run into another obstacle. The navigation was constrained, the code dated and graphics-heavy, the page width too narrow. The copy was sadly out of date and there was far too much of it. I hadn’t updated the design in three years. That’s about the equivalent of 1911 in web years. So Friday night after band practice I tore it down and built it up again from the ground.

The weekend didn’t involve much sleep. You know how it is when you get into a project - time just melts away like the mumm… But we’ve got a fresh new site and I didn’t need a blow-torch!

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A Remembrance

Il Capretto D’oro (The Golden Goat) was a tiny, quiet northern Italian restaurant tucked into an unpretentious strip mall in Woodinville. We didn’t go often - perhaps two or three times a year - but it came to be “our” place for a special night out. It wasn’t because of the food, though the food was always excellent. It was because of owner and chef, Jeff Boswell. Jeff and Simina Bus, his lovely and most competent Romanian hostess seemed to run the place entirely on their own. And yet, neither of them ever seemed rushed.

Jeff Boswell was a man who loved wine. The real treat of a meal at the Goat was having Jeff come over and sit down at your table and talk about wine. He would get this happy, dreamy look on his face as he scanned the extensive and exclusively Italian wine list as if each one was an old friend and just seeing the name brought back some sweet memory. He pondered your food order, asked about your tastes, gauged your experience and finally recommended a bottle or two. He never hurried - a steady, quiet, deliberate man who got everything done in good time. He made us want to slow down a bit and appreciate each moment too. And he never once guided us wrong.

This rememberance is belated. Jeff died suddenly and unexpectedly last December. We only found out when we tried to make a reservation yesterday. It took a bit of sleuthing to discover the sad news behind the disconnected phone. My condolences to Jeff’s family, Simina and anyone who perks up at the sound of a cork being pulled from a dark green bottle. I hope the Seattle Times will forgive me the use of their picture. It’s the only one I could find.

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Drunco de Mayo

So we were driving down 85th in Seattle and four hands fluttered into view through the open sunroof of the car in front of us.

The hands retreated for a moment and then reappeared with arms this time, waving madly. Then two heads prairie dogged up with giddy faces and fluttering hair. Two young butterflies soon emerged from their steel chrysalis until their rumps were seated on the roof of the moving car, arms raised and screaming as if they were on a Six Flags roller coaster ride.

The mom in me was instantly admonishing: “Get back in that car before you fall!” I hissed. But not loudly enough for them to hear. Mostly because there was this mental background track of all the things moms admonish their kids about that never happen. Put down that stick before you put someone’s eye out. Get down off that roof before you fall and break your neck. And so on. You know they’re rolling their eyes so hard they can see the insides of their crania. You know they’ll be back at it the minute you’re out of sight. But you say it anyway. It’s the mom legacy.

Then, the car turned left and in an instant, a pretty blond in a white sundress tumbled from her perch onto the road right in front of us. We stopped, shocked and breathless. Did that really just happen? The other car stopped too, thankfully.

The girl rose unsteadily to her feet, giggled and tottered off unsteadily to her friends.

They say God protects drunks and idiots. I hope so, because moms sure can’t.

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