April 17, 2012

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792 Plays

Ian Crawford

Busted!

This was a song I wrote and recorded back in 2010 when I was first working on my solo recordings. It was inspired by a real event where I got in some trouble with the law. Dusted it off and finished up some things for you to enjoy. Special thanks to Lenny Lujan on bass and Joey Resly on drums.

-IC

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April 8, 2012

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hip-replacement:

I have to find a new home for the two cats I live with, Franklin and Oscar. It has nothing to do with the cats themselves, who are terrific. I love them and would love to find them a good home with someone who can take excellent care of them and keep them together (and maybe even keep me updated on them).

Franklin is about two years old. He is white with unique tabby markings and has yellow eyes. He is beautiful, sweet, and affectionate. He sleeps in bed with me every night. He is playful and enjoys chasing balls and attacking feather toys, but never plays inappropriately (i.e., with things that are not his to play with). He is neutered. He has his claws, but I have never seen him attempt to scratch any furniture. He loves cardboard scratching pads that sit on the floor, especially when they are sprinkled with catnip, and those seem to satisfy his scratching needs. He loves belly rubs and will roll onto his side or back so you can give him one. The only treats he likes are Greenies. He never begs for food or tries to get into your food. He is an awesome jumper and very graceful. He loves people and is great with other cats. I think he’d be good with children and with dogs. He does not care to be picked up, but he will climb onto your lap for cuddles. He has a very funny high-pitched voice, which he uses when he wants you to open a door for him (i.e., when he gets locked in a room). He is litterbox trained, uses a box with a lid and a flap door, and has never “missed” his target. He is very laid back and relaxed. He loves to play and hide in cardboard boxes, especially long ones that he can use as a tunnel. He is very attentive to “his” kitten Oscar, and frequently tries to groom him.

Oscar is eight months old. He is a tuxedo cat with a white chest, belly, and paws. He has green eyes and is impossibly cute. As a young cat/older kitten, he is quite small. He is extremely affectionate and sweet and likes to be in the same room with his person at all times. He will follow me from room to room and even sits next to the shower when I’m bathing so he can keep track of me. He sleeps in bed with me every night. His favorite place for sleeping is on my chest, with his body as close to my neck and face as possible. He is the happiest cat I’ve ever met and will sometimes start purring loudly as soon as someone just looks at him, without even being petted. He loves to be picked up and held like a baby. He likes to eat just about everything, including some things that are not actually food. Being younger, he is very high-energy and mischievous. It’s always a surprise to see what he’ll get into next. He likes to open drawers and doors and always tries to sneak into the fridge when I open it. He often tries to run across my computer keyboard. His favorite toy in the world is any plastic drinking straw, but especially one that’s currently in use in a beverage, so when I have a drink with a straw around him, I have to guard it with my life. (When I’m done, I give him the straw.) He adores his “big brother” Franklin and can often be found curled up next to him, trying to wash his ears, or starting a fight/wrestling match. He is good with other cats, dogs, and people of all sizes. He is neutered and litterbox trained.

These cats are wonderful. I’ve known and lived with a lot of cats over the years, and none were as awesome as these guys. They are loving, funny, and easygoing. I’ve only known them about five months, but I fell for them almost immediately. They came to me through a local foster network, and I was only supposed to foster them until someone else could adopt them. I got attached and couldn’t bear to let them go. Now I have to let them go, but I’m determined to make sure that it’s to good people who will love them like they deserve. If you know of anyone—even somebody who could take just one—please let me know. I am willing to drive them a good distance away from Brooklyn if it means getting them into the right home. I’m also ready to include their litterbox, toys, food dishes, beds, etc.

Please forward/RT/whatever.

I have some photos of them here

3,954 notes

February 29, 2012

Patrick Stump: WE LIKED YOU BETTER FAT: CONFESSIONS OF A PARIAH

desertmarigold:

nervousbreakdance:

There’s this really nice piece at underthegunreview.net by Jacob Tender that a friend forwarded me today. It’s about how important Fall Out Boy’s album “From Under the Cork Tree,” was to him. After reading it though, nostalgic and well-written as it was, I really found myself more depressed than…

Coming out of Tumblr hibernation just so I can reblog/reply to Patrick Stump. Which is weird. Because I usually just want to leave artists alone and not be like, “Hi, I’m totally going to inflict my opinions on you and you should listen to what I say like it’s gospel because you’d be nothing without me!” That’s bullshit, by the way. I could rant about people who feel like buying an album or going to a show entitles them to more than just the music, but I won’t.

What I am going to do is give advice. That’s also weird since he’s a total stranger, but whatever. I’m an old lady, and old ladies love giving advice. If you want to know how old I am, well, let’s just say that I was old enough to drive when I went to see Nirvana in concert. The advice is going to be in list form, by the way, because I like things to look neat even though this is going to be a jumble of thoughts and I’m not going to bother with anything like a rough draft or editing.

No one is a has-been at 27. I know it feels that way. I remember the years between 25 and 29 and how I felt like I was drifting away from what I’d wanted to be and had somehow turned into a failure. You might feel like your course is set now, that you’re an adult and your life story has already been determined, but that’s not true. I dropped out of corporate life when I was 30 to work in a coffee shop, and it’s fucking awesome. Harrison Ford was an unsuccessful actor and made his living as a carpenter until he was 34 and got cast in Star Wars. Julia Child was 40 before she even learned to cook. Life is weird and winding and despite what the people who have a detailed 5-year plan say, you never know what the hell you’re going to end up doing in a year or two, let alone five or ten. So you’re not a has-been, all right? You’re just in your mid-20s, which sucks just about as much as being a teenager.

The fact that you can’t get booked also sucks because I’ve seen you perform your solo show, and it was fucking awesome. From the moment you opened with Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” until the end, I was thrilled and truly entertained. My best friend hadn’t even wanted to come to the show (she has a thing about crowds), but your performance wowed her so much it was pretty much all she talked about for weeks. Do you know you’re fantastic? I hope you know you’re fantastic.

Everybody likes you better when you’re fat. I mean, not really, but they feel better about themselves when you’re fat. I lost about eighty pounds, and even some of my closest friends got really bitchy about it. It was so weird. When I was fat and talked about wanting to lose weight, they were completely supportive. When I actually lost the weight, it seemed to make them angry. I think it’s because change is scary, even when it’s somebody else who’s changing, even when the changes are only superficial. And I think that it was also a visual reminder of their failures; if they set goals and didn’t reach them, they had to just look at me to see someone who’d set a goal and achieved it. So I think that when your appearance changed, a lot of fans panicked because they’d already had to deal with the heartbreak of FOB going on hiatus. And that kind of panic makes people assholes.

And, okay, since we’re on the subject of fans, we should talk about how cute you are. It’s going to be uncomfortable for both of us, so I apologize in advance. You’re a good looking man. You’ve always been a good looking man. And fans fell in love with you but, because you were fat, they felt like they could see something most people couldn’t. Loving you felt special to them, like they were part of an exclusive club. Now that you’re thinner, the idea that anybody who looks at you will just think, “Damn, that’s a good looking man!” is scary, and it’s all your fault. You took that exclusive club away from them by losing weight, so they resent you and you’re going to be the one they take that anger out on.

One of the shittiest things about asshole fans is how they’re the most vocal. The rest of us don’t want to bug you, don’t want to make you feel awkward so we don’t interact with you. We don’t send you tweets, we don’t post things about you on Facebook, we don’t reblog your Tumblr posts or try to talk to you when you’re having dinner or even think about doing something as seriously creepy as trying to find out where you live so we can send you letters. We just listen to your music and go to your shows and adore you, but we do it where you don’t see it, so maybe you think it doesn’t exist. It does.

And now, just some general advice. Your problems are not trivial or unimportant just because there are people in the world who have it worse than you do. When people are jerks, it usually has very little to do with you and more to do with how unhappy they are in their own lives. Rest and solitude are vitally important to your physical and mental health, no matter how many times that Midwestern voice in the back of your head tells you you’re just being lazy.

And finally, there are very few things in this world that can calm my overactive mind; I’m neurotic and demanding, a perfectionist who’s her own harshest critic, and one of the only things that always tugs me out of that spiral of unforgiving self-analysis is “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia).” So, thank you. Also, I may or may not have cried the first time I realized the German Shepherd in the video only had three legs. Don’t judge me.