Do you like Sigur Rós in the morning?

Or are you a Death Cab for Cutie kinda girl? Or perhaps an in-your-heart biker chick (like the newspaper cartoon mom character in Rose Is Rose) who needs a little Zep to get moving in the mornings? I have been feeling I am living this amazing, yea even platonically ideal, existence where I too can reinvent myself as I please – I could get on Oprah within a year after cranking out a book called The Madonna Legacy over the next two weeks (and hmmm, that would be a fantastic fundraiser for this venture, would it not?) -- and it makes me want to make it worthwhile. Makes me want to leave something behind to pave the way for people like me.

And film is calling, with lilting voice and yearning strings accompanying. A swell in the heart, moving me nearly to tears. I could film that segment again I tried to make yesterday and capture the emotion I did yesterday morning -- but with no film recording. D’oh. But that’s okay. It’s making me think about what to include and not include. Right now I have to put it all in the mix. So this morning I thought of famous fans in history and there are some examples that stand out in vivid relief like Pamela des Barres, the “plaster-caster” lady, a groupie who took her fascination one step further and made it an art form: She earned widespread fame for making plaster casts of the rigid members of real rock stars in the 1960s and ’70s. We talked a little at the Gomez listening party last night about how fine that line between fan and fanatic can be.

And I have this enthusiasm about its effect on my life that is a feeling I want to share. It’s a pinnacle of feeling good about each other that Gomez bring out in me (and I suspect with others) with their music, and it makes me want to get out there and work with other people. Hence this film. I’d like to offer something back to the people who inspire me.

And I was thinking about Gomez. I love the songs they’ve put together on this latest album, and they are such braggards about the volume of material in their total back-catalogue, recorded or not. So I want them to release an electronica album and a dub album and a medieval modal album and a glockenspiel album and collaborate a la Charlie Hunter with everyone they can because they are fucking fabulous musicians.

It makes me want to put something out there the way they do, in hopes of making a pleasing plash in the lives of many, or just a few.

And that brings up another facet of this question: Why me, at this age, when virtually none of my peers are like this? Have I just not found my tribe yet? But that is what I am doing by going out and talking to people and setting things up and seeing opportunities to spread a good word about something I like. For there’s a part of me and a lot of my best people are like this who really wants to try to make it better, better, better, better sha-la-la-laaaaaaaaaaaaaa, hey Jude! Jude Judy Judy Judy Judy Jude! Sha- la- la-lalalaaaaaaaaaaa, lalalalaaaaaaaaaa, hey Jude!

And I figure if I give advice I must be prepared to take it, so I started my film yesterday! I did not film at the event though, because what I had been thinking of filming could not happen. But I was a fool for overlooking the opportunity in front of me.

But maybe I could plan that separately and better, so as not to try and coopt the purpose of that event, which I felt I would be doing. Like invite people to come talk on camera about why they love music. Find some swanky bar or performance venue to film the interviews in, or one of those fabulous studios that stands empty so often over at Immersive or Coupe.

And I’m happy with the shape this film project is taking. I’m staring where I am, with my skills, with my knowledge and history and interests all pulling together. The research will be fun and interesting and amazing and potentially personal too. There’s grief for that music-loving kid I was who got more solace from that than she did from her warring, damaged parents at times. There’s just that pure love of music, like a river running through time [soundtrack: “The River Runs Slow,” by Sonia Dada] . (And rivers. Do you know that one of the things I love about living here is the water? Seeing the same rivers and ditches flow every year? I cannot tell you how precious that is to me. And some of the greatest moments of my life have happened on rivers, during those week-long trips downstream, sometimes easy sometimes hard and always infinitely interesting. Now that would make a great film – or series: Each episode consists of a one-week rafting trip with a company that arranges and accompanies guests on rafting adventures every week all summer. It could be like Fantasy Island, Survivor, Lost, and Shangri-la all rolled into one. And each season would follow one summer with the rafting company, so there are the Real World-type soap opera stuff that happens among the staff and when the staff mix with the guests because it’s like the What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas slogan that is so true for some (I love the line in the Gomez song: “What happens in Vegas don’t take very long.”): After a week on the river, things happen. People do form new alliances or discover new strengths or get really pissed off about something. (I went on one amazing trip when I was 16, and it was a terrific way to rehearse my role in life in so many interesting ways. I found I had to separate from my dad so I could be me (and because he could be such a jerk). I got to be strong and turned out to be really good at steering – I read the river well and pick good paths for big boats through rapids, whether I’m on oars or steering a paddle boat. It still feels like a skill, like riding a bicycle, that I’ll have forever, rooted in my body memory. I should put it on my resume as a skill. On that trip I had a little romance that was absolutely above board. It was great practice in choosing a nice guy. I’d even chosen nice guys already a couple of times and I had a nice guy waiting for me at home.) But imagine the issues you could tackle in a TV series: oil explorers, people wanting to live out their frontiersman fantasies, the BLM vs. ranchers vs. environmentalists; hippies vs. straights, sexuality, betrayal, the power of cliques, alpha-dog pissing contests, bad habits laid bare in front of large groups of people, oh my my I could tell so many tales! Huh!