the downward spiral (a tragedy with a happy ending).

March 11, 2008

This blog was originally posted to The Dresden Dolls Diary.

before i write about days as a mute 4-6, i had to share this video link with you before i forgot. kinda long story, but worth it. i promise.

so, last month i was in seattle with my good friend jason webley to finish producing the first album by the conjoined twin sisters Evelyn and Evelyn Nevel.
one night we had a small show in the studio/performance space owned by my fine pals in Estradasphere, who live, play and record there (jason and i also
spent a few nights crashing there…waking up in total darkness as the space has no natural light. and no heat. but that aside the place is RAD.)

anyway, there was very little space to fit people, only about 100 spots, so the tickets sold out almost overnight.
i felt really badly about this, because by the time i got my ass in gear to send out via myspace and to the e-blasting list,

(- break: i love this. brian just called me to tell me he was coming over and i answered his questions using only a shoe and a tambourine -)

most of the tickets had sold out. the show was a week or so away.
so i talked to jason and said: lets do a ticket giveaway contest! involving imaginative portraits of the twins since nobody’s met them yet! he was like: yar.
we would give away 5 pairs of two tickets and one lonely ticket for a total of 11.

so i sent out a huge email blast, which i’m sure many of you got, asking for “pictorial representations” of the twins.
i suggested, with my typically winning sense of humor, that the pictures could be related in any medium: watercolor, crayon, acrylic, gingerbread, scarification, etc.
except i made a typo, and somehow the email went out just asking for “pictorial representations”, without specifying OF WHAT.

jason and i were together in seattle by this point, working hard with the twins on the record every day.
the pictures started to come in, and jason was checking the account. and something was Very Wrong.

the first picture that came in was a complicated painting of two squids (not conjoined), one small one and one large, and some other sea life.
the second painting that came in was giant letter E floating in space.
and so on.
none of these pictures looked AT ALL like the twins and we were wondering if we were on crack.
then the most frightening entry came in. jason broke the news to me.
somebody had sent in a very fresh looking photograph of their shoulder, covered in deep spiral-shaped wound about 6 inches wide, cut into their flesh
about a half centimeter deep with a scalpel. wow. i said. that’s heavy.
i had forgotten at this point, i should point out, about my scarification joke. so it did not bother me too much

things were getting weird and the art was getting less and less twin-looking. then we went back and checked the mailing and caught my mistake.
and i re-read my suggestions for mediums.
jason showed me the photo of the contestant’s freshly-sliced open shoulder.
that night i told jason: “that’s it. i’m going to hell”.

i sent an email quickly to the list clarifying the deal, but blood was on my hands.

we gave scar-boy the lonely winning ticket.
here are the winning entries & some runners-up (not including the scalpel one, because it might make you faint):

-ursula rose

-dixie

-theresa

-beth and nicole

-lisa

-amanda

-sam

-miss oblivious

-david

-emily (also, fyi, the artist of the “letter e” drawing. she re-entered and won

the show was excellent. we met all of the art-makers and saw all of the art first-hand and were really very happy.
we saw scar-boy and his healing scar first-hand (who had a name now: jes) and the twins were good but really nervous (it was their first public appearance EVER, so they were freaked out but honestly they did great, considering, they kept laughing for reasons nobody could understand…there’s a good clip being put together of one of the new songs they played, we’re going to post to youtube soon, i promise and will inform you when this takes place.)

this story did have a point.
this is the point.
after the show, jason did this thing he’s been doing where anyone who wants can stay after the show and write a song with him, including an impromptu filming of song to be posted to youtube.
he’s done some really excellent once in all different places lately (i recommend “frozen smiles of indonesia”).

so it was REALLY late, about 1 am already, when this process was started

we found out, by the way, that jes’s scar was NOT made expressly for the purpose of the contest.
which made me REALLY happy on top of our already excellent night because now i wasn’t going to hell.

i ate some soup and was just going to WATCH the song-making promise but i’m a songwriter and a bigmouth so of course that did not happen.

about 15 people stuck around to write the song. we sat in circle and jason played guitar and then tim and (other) jason from estradaspehre joined in on bass and electric guitar.
we tried for a while to come up with a topic for the song, and we started talking about weird shit that had happened to us that week. we wrote the song in about 45 minutes and practiced it a few times.
by then it was 3 am.

and well….i’ll let you see the results for yourself.
we did some slap-dash choreography as well. jason put his macbook on a chair and that was our camera.
i should point out that jason and i both missed our true callings as junior-high school drama teachers.
i should also point out that for the dramatic purposes of the song, jason embodies my pain.
i guess i don’t need to tell you which one jes is.

ok, ok, enough, here it is ladies and gentleman:
“The Downward Spiral”
(or as i call it in my head: “I Am Going To Hell For Sending a Terrible Email to The Dresden Dolls Mailing List”):