Honey No. 8
Feat. a horny intruder, the fate of a lifetime, and two songs I can't stop listening to
Hi my friends! Welcome to February. Aren’t you so glad we’re here? I feel like everyone I talk to, including my SELF, experienced January as a marathon they didn’t exactly stretch for. But here we are! We made it to Feb and we’re limber as ever. Last week my mom and step-dad were in town before a slew of different friends were in for the weekend- every year it’s so nice to host a barrage of cold-weather escapees here in LA! And I especially love getting to show my family the corners of my California life. We took my mom to my fave cafe, Amara Kitchen (the buckwheat pancakes alone my GOD), perused antiques at Divine’s, and finally (for me) made it out to the Huntington Gardens which, have you been? They’re incredible! There are acres and acres of different gardens- desert, jungle, Chinese, Japanese, rose, Shakespeare- I mean who even knew there were so many versions of a garden? Apparently, I love them all.
Jesse and I have been making steady progress on our own garden at home- as I mentioned a few Sundays back, we lucked out on a Craigslist house with a large-for-renters-in-LA yard and garden plot, and have been pinching ourselves ever since. But it turns out that we are not the only creatures who love this garden. When we first moved in in October we were looking out the window of our bedroom one afternoon, gazing at the yard, so happily in love, imagining the fresh vegetables we would plant that would accompany the seasons of our life together. When all of a sudden a squirrel with, how can I put this, the HUGEST BALLS I’VE EVER SEEN came scuttling down a telephone pole and landed with a thud in our then-empty garden bed. He turned, made direct eye contact with us, dug up a peach pit I guess he had buried for a rainy day, practically gave us the finger, then thundered off into the neighbor’s yard. We immediately identified him as our alpha and have since referred to him as “John Wayne.”
Now, a few things. If you’re thinking to yourself, I have never noticed a squirrel’s testicles before, well dear reader, neither had I. But when I say they were swinging in the wind, I’m telling you those guys were knocking around in ways I could never have imagined. In the months following I have not felt curious enough to explore why this fellow could have been so well ball-endowed (I trust him!), but since we are nothing if not journalists here at Honeypot Inc., I decided to give it a quick google for you.
In less than two minutes, Reddit revealed to me that John Wayne’s balls were probably only that big because it was mating season. Which leaves me with more questions than answers re where he was headed with that peach pit…
Though he has not given us an update on how mating season went (fingers crossed for you buddy!), our new friend has since been a chaotic regular on the otherwise tranquil premises. A few weeks ago Jesse was reading outside when he heard a familiar scuttle. He looked up to see John Wayne upside down on the telephone pole, frozen and staring into Jesse’s eyes. They looked at each other for a long while, until Jesse was like, some of us have places to be, buddy, and resumed gently thumbing through the pages of his novel. He read in peace for several minutes until he heard a loud thunk on the tin roof of the pergola (a word I just learned). Moments later, another thunk. Then another. He looked up to find John Wayne throwing nuts at the tin roof over and over until the sound was too grating and Jesse went inside. John Wayne: 1, Us: 0.
The fact that our lot is ruthlessly patrolled by a four-legged, sex-crazed despot doesn’t strike me as so out of the ordinary-this place is chock full of delightful quirks! The previous tenants lived here for 10 years, ran an illegal restaurant out of the back patio (earning the ire and security camera placement of the neighbors who share our driveway, 2/3 of whom are named David) and left a seemingly endless melange of trinkets and trash in the garden bed. Fun! When we first moved in, Jesse and I found nerf bullets, pesos, legos, broken glass, figurines, a tin Raiders sign, and so much more. But after three plus months of weeding and planting and generally spending so much time on hands on knees examining every inch of earth, we are still finding treasures that simply weren’t there before. A large ceramic bug, fake grapes, a toy frog poking its head out to say hello- objects we couldn’t have missed in our close-up studies. Were these items being revealed by the wind? the rain? by the shifting of tectonic plates? Or do we happen to have….a collector on our hands.
Rather than imagining that we are being haunted by Earth or The Borrowers or Both, Jesse and I have chosen to believe that John Wayne is an avid antiquer who is storing his collection in our yard, excuse me, his yard. Underneath that callous exterior is a softie who loves aesthetics and a bargain. In our minds, he spends his weekends at estate sales and thrift stores, hunting for deals and haggling for treasures. He’s a maxxinista! Heck, maybe we just missed him on our trip to Divine’s! Picking up something sparkly for mating season- it’s sooner than you think.
Oops, You’re A Bard
Mike is a friend I can’t even believe I know. I met him during my 5-week stint in Portland as I moved across the country from Chicago, waiting for the covid numbers in LA to chill out a bit before I settled. He is an incredibly talented musician who works under the name Tiny Anthems and, well, I’ll let him tell you more about that below. Mike and I also collaborate on his spooky, silly, musical podcast, The Amethyst Inn. Check it out, honey!
Now, if I had ever been in charge of my life, of course I would have selected a more sensible career path. Sometimes I see a dentist or an electrician and I sigh audibly.
But, as I was dawdling there in the waiting room to my life, getting ready to do it, get born, and just really go for it, Life took a look at me and had a bit of an impish chuckle.
“Let’s make him a Bard.” they said to themselves.
“A bard? Are you sure? I don’t think that’s even a job in the 21st century that people can have.” (Again, saying this to themselves.)
“Lololol, exactly. That’s why it’ll be funny. He’ll have to explain his job to, like, literally everyone. Plus, he’ll end up living in Portland, so he’ll feel like, you know, a living parody. Trust me!”
“Well, okay, pull the switch then, I guess. Bard it is.”
So I was born.
Word-count limits and a sense of decency will prevent me from chronically too fastidiously the events that led to my becoming possibly the only working bard in the country. But to summarize some major plot points:
I bought a four-track tape recorder at 14 years old. My mother taught piano lessons. Music and musical ephemera were just sort of laying around. Music didn’t feel all that sacred or special, it felt more like a pair of ratty gloves that were just useful. With the tape recorder, I would record story-like elaborate songs, recording lots of instruments and layering them. It was just a hobby; I never shared them, I never really aspired to play live or be in a band, per se.
But I kinda always had this hobby, for nearly twenty years. Wherever I went, I recorded songs. I kept them on a hard drive, I listened to them later and liked them.
And “wherever I went” turned out to be a lot of strange places. Blame it on astrological predisposition, my absent father, or my attending a highly radical liberal arts school in the woods, but the oddest of fortunes kept carting me off into unconventional situations. Some force seems to routinely pluck me up like the little google-street-view man and drop me into the fringes, the margins, the peculiar vantage points that most people have little interest in seeing.
I worked on farms in Ireland, lied my way into a job as a chef in San Francisco, taught gardening in the sweltering heat of New Orleans, did conservation work with Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda, rode my bicycle across the country, worked as a journalist in Hungary, and eventually, like all good stories, I moved to a shack in Alaska with no water or power.
I met a lot of strange characters as a stranger in strange lands. But eventually, I pined for a mailbox and a consistent bed to sleep in. Portland, to my knowledge, had both.
Around Halloween of 2016, I arrived in town and rented a room. I found a part time gig but didn’t know anyone in Portland and had a lot of free time. As a goof, I put a notecard up on a bulletin board that said, “I will write a song about anyone you want for $2.” I thought it was an amusing proposition, and would give me an excuse to record songs.
One or two people responded. They told me about their best friend, or their spouse, for example. I read their descriptions and anecdotes. I’d kinda form a picture of that person in my mind. Then I would write songs with a handful of instruments that tried to “capture” that person. The first couple people liked the songs, and shared them.
More people wrote. So I wrote more songs. I got a few more instruments to play with.
After maybe six months, I mentioned to someone what my hobby was. A reporter for a local magazine happened to be nearby and heard what I said. She asked if they could run a story about me.
When it was printed, more people wrote to me. A lot more. The stories they shared were deeper, more personal. I worked harder and more carefully. I had now written maybe 100 songs.
Then the local newspaper did a full page story. Then the National News, then the Today show.
At this point, I was receiving hundreds and hundreds of requests for songs every day. I quit my job because, well, it just seemed like a lot of people wanted the gift I was offering. I told people it was all sliding scale, and they could pay what they wanted. Miraculously, they donated enough for me to pay my bills
And now this is my life:
Every day, I go into my basement recording studio and review the song requests that I have taken on. The birth of children. Grandparents’ immigration story. 50th wedding anniversary. I read them, I ask questions so I deeply understand the person, and then I figure out how to translate their life story into song, full of twists, turns, sounds, and inventive lyrics.
And the more songs I wrote, the more it became clear: wow, I actually genuinely loved the human beings I was singing about, just by virtue of thinking about, and researching their lives.
For me, the more time I spent writing a song, the more attached I got to a person, and the more delightful the payoff would feel. Because I think you can feel when someone spends a few hours writing a song about you because it’s their job. And you can feel when they’ve spent weeks obsessing on it because, well, it feels important to love strangers freely.
Imagine you’re at a party. People want you to tell that “one story” that you always tell. Your best friend is with you, and you trust them SO much that, what the hell, you let THEM tell your story. As they rivet an audience with YOUR anecdote, you feel a deep sense of camaraderie, trust, and companionship.
People keep letting me tell their stories. A total stranger with a tape recorder just wants to rivet an audience with your stories, and the wild honor and trust involved in doing so is not lost on him.
I guess it’s an acceptable alternative to a career in dentistry, if I stop and think about it.
P.S. According to Mike’s website he is booked out for the next 6 months, so if you wanted to commission a song for a loved one from August on I would get in there! The perfect holiday gift, anyone?!
The Two Moods I’ve Been In
Oh, Adrianne Lenker. What can’t she do? This song has been on repeat in my house, in my car, in my live performances in the shower. Bittersweet and loving, beware if you are in the tender stages of a breakup and don’t feel like crying:
On the other end of the feelings spectrum, this song is an absolute BLAST. I don’t know Chappell Roan’s work very well other than her song Pink Pony Club, which my best-friend-slash-roommate-at-the-time Lizzy and I played to absolute death during our first desperate year in LA, but I’m FIXING THAT asap! This song gets put on repeat after I’m properly caffeinated for the day (shoutout to the unsweetened almond milk matcha latte from the new Highly Likely on Figueroa, ilu bb), and I am tearing through the rest of this album in between red-wine-supernova-lyric-learning marathons:
Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you’re staying warm and dry. My step-sister shared this cooked cabbage and kale recipe with me that I highly recommend for a warm winter meal. Jesse made a batch this weekend, but I have a hunch I’ll be making it again…
See you next week!
xx Olivia
Wow! A lot going on here. LOL to the John Wayne story. Also loved hearing about Mike the musician and his backstory.