Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

Let me preface this by saying something about Brian Eno: Before summer of 2002, I didn't know a whole lot about Brian Eno. I never bought a lick of Brian Eno music. I never subscribed to the school of ambient music at all, in fact. So how did Brian Eno change the course of my life?

Follow up:

When Noise publisher (and friend) T Max got obsessed with Brian Eno's music, he did what he always does: he focused his entire existence around his latest obsession. He does that. When T Max got interested in baseball, he had his girlfriend cut all his jeans into baseball-player uniform pants. You know, above the knee? Elasticky? With long socks. He walked around everywhere like that. When T Max got obsessed with, I think it was the Canary Islands, he bought a lot of big-leafed plants and Tiki mugs and grass mats. When he got obsessed with Brian Eno, he launched Project Eno. It was a supergroup, really, an astonishing cast of top-notch Boston talent.

They just didn't have a bass player who was "Eno-y" enough.

Auditions were held.

"Lexi," T max said one day on the phone. This is back when we talked every couple of days when I was Associate Editor of The Noise and constantly talking about local music. "Lexi, have you ever heard of Joe Kowalski?"

Now, these days, thinking back to a time when I had not heard of Joe Kowalski is like trying to recall what I thought "sweet" meant before I had tasted candy. It seems I've ALWAYS known Joe Kowalski. But no, there was a time that I had not heard of Joe, which I informed T Max, who then tells me about this Berklee dude, long hair, came out to Jamaica Plain (JP, we call it 'round these parts) and played the shit out of Brian Eno songs on the first try. Loved him, the Project Eno did. "AND," T max quipped, "He is gonna look great on stage!"

On July 1st 2002, T Max asked me to come to Peter Moore's place to shoot some photos of the Project Eno gang. I am sure that I met Joe that day, because there are at least two photos in existence that I took. Photos where Joe is clearly there. He's looking right at me. But you know, it was a REALLY hot day. I wore a blue silk sundress and strappy sandals, and I felt like my head was a hundred degrees of molten rock. Most of the guys were dressed in shorts and white shirts and, for some reason contrived by T Max, Vietnamese Sampan hats. Peter and Gene, the lead singers, were less comfortable in satin and brocade. But Joel, oh my god, dressed up in spot-on Geisha gear complete with whiteface. How he didn't melt, I have no idea.

That photo was taken seven years ago. I look at it and barely recognize Joe, who sits on the grass between Shawn and Glen. He's the only one who isn't making a face.

In the beginning of our relationship, whenever Joe would drive me nuts -- mostly simply for suddenly becoming so important to me against my logical will and despite my plans -- I would raise my fist and curse Brian Eno. "DAMN BRIAN ENO! I had a LOT I was gonna do this year!"

Neither of us cotton much to the idea of weddings, so by way of marking our anniversaries, we picked July 12th. That's the night when we met officially, at the Project Eno show, two weeks after the photo session at Peter Moore's house.

For the rest of the story, I cut and paste from my Diaryland archives.

---begin excerpt from 2002---

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Saturday, July 12th, 2002:
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It has arrived at LAST! The night of Project Eno. For months, all T Max has been saying is "Eno Eno Eno Eno EnoEno Eno Eno EnoEno Eno Eno Eno. Eno Eno? Eno Eno Eno Eno."

I can't believe it's finally here.

Oh, here's a thing that makes me look like the complete and utter ass I am. A couple weeks back (July 1st) Laura and I went to Peter Moore's and took some pictures of the band, and we met this guy, Joe Kowalski. At least I think I met him. Later Laura said he had a friendly smile, but I hadn't noticed. I wasn't paying attention. It was about a thousand degrees in the sun, and I didn't know how to use her camera (mine had bit the big one THAT DAY, another tangent I won't take you on). Friendly smile, hell, I didn't notice.

But at the Project Eno show? You know what I noticed? Okay, well, the man had stripped to the waist and covered his damn self in glitter, how could I not notice...the dude is...hot. In a Red Hot Chili Peppers kind of way. He didn't look like THAT with his shirt on, yo. It was just...surprising, you know?

"Ahem, Laura," I casually mentioned, unable, though, to look away from all the glittering manliness. Laura and I were, inexplicably, I still don't know how this happened, T shirt table girls that night, "...check...look...the..." Yep, she looked. "Whoah." Yep, she was as shocked as I was.

Oh but my darling little Junglebunnies, that's not the "I'm an ass" part.

The "I'm an ass" part was later, after the show.

Kowalski was just hanging around. But he had not put his shirt on. So this is his fault, really.

I stood behind Laura, placed my hands on her shoulders and turned her so that we were both facing him. Into her ear I think I said something like, "break me off a piece of that..."

Bad? I know, bad. But oh, it gets worse. He looked over at us. So of course I waggled my fingers at him and burbled, "Dude, you totally just caught us checking you out!"

Yes I did, I said that. You want to hang around with me? It's FUN. Really. Ask Laura. Anyway, the show was good.

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Saturday, July 13th, 2002
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I woke up feeling like an old sock.

Head, stomach, all of it was just not willing to get up and start the day with me. And that night was Bastille Day. There are some shows where I, in jocular hyperbole, declare "I'd go to that even if my LEG was broken!"

The proof, is, as they say, in the pudding. Only, would that I'd eaten any pudding, I would not have been able to keep it down. I know this because Hub insisted that I needed to eat something, and the very nice soup and sandwich I ate at S & S just about made it home with me before coming back up again. Yeah, that's...lovely. The next day I had to explain to Kenne Highland why, as we were passing his street and he was yelling at us to come over to his tag sale, I only waved and kind of ran into my house.

But in any case, some sleep, some tea, some saltines, and I put on my damn black strappy dress and fake fall (I got this little bit of whimsy-- a long pony tail-- I'll show you sometime) and we went to the show.

It was fan-fucking-tastic. Lots of peeps came. Benjy and Gabi, S. Decay, Al. T Max came, with Mardi Gras masks, and with...Joe Kowalski.

Seriously.

You know, the stud with the glitter?

I didn't even see him at first. I felt this tug on my arm, turned around, and there he was. "Hey, you ran away last night," he grinned. "Ohhhhh boy," I thought. Then, realizing the floor in the Lizard Lounge isn't the kind you can just will to open up and swallow you, "Just go with it," I advised myself. So I went with it. Yep. Sometimes you just gotta go with it. It was fun, Kowalski is cool. Later, Hub said, "Joe seemed really into you." "He was drunk, mostly," I answered. But dammit peeps, who cares, did I mention the glitter?

---end excerpt from 2002---

One of the most amazing things about Joe and I having found each other is that neither of us were looking. Hub and I were no longer pretending there was any further fire there, but I was looking forward very much to living on my own for awhile. Joe was...hard to say what Joe was, but in the year where we said we were "just friends" I played the Elaine to his Seinfeld and watched/talked him through SIX different women. Six! In a year! Dude was a playah' and that's no lie. His stories have stories. I wouldn't touch his bedsheets with tongs. I think I burned those when I moved in...

But that's not the point. The point is that we were both living our lives seeking self-fulfillment, just going with the proverbial flow and seeing what happens. And look what happened -- we found the greatest love you can find. It just happened. His friends were shocked, mine were, I think, still missing Hub and didn't know what to do with Joe. When I moved in with Dan and Tanya, both Joe and Hub helped me. "Lexi, you have your old boyfriend and your new boyfriend helping you move?"

I thought later (once I stopped cursing Brian Eno) that the way we found each other was not unlike the "Oblique Strategies." You see, one of the things I did at the Eno show was stand at the door and hand out these cards with these little sayings on them. It was all in-theme with Brian Eno, who had co-invented with Peter Schmidt this creative stimulant tool called Oblique Strategies. It's a deck of cards printed with suggestions meant to dislodge you from your rut. When you're stuck and you don't know what to do next or where to take your creative impulse, pull out a card. The Oblique Strategies say things like:

"Is it finished?"

"Get some water."

"State the problem in clear words."

"Abandon the usual instruments."

Some of the strategies are more oblique than others, but some of them are super-simple. It's a good idea, for a project or just in life. Sometimes when you run at problems head-on, you end up just banging your head into the same wall. Try a sideways approach. I'd like to advise all of you who are, right now, unhappy with where you are, but seeking salvation somewhere out in the world, engaging in pointless games, digging in heels, getting lost in noisy blather and sabotaging your own happiness. You can't engineer every outcome. So stop the crazy.

My oblique strategy: Just go with it, dude.

And Happy Enoversary, my baby.