Danielle Egnew's Official Bloggy Thing

Danielle Egnew's Official Bloggy Thing 2008-07-20T00:49:13Z http://blog.danielleegnew.com/atom.aspx Quick Blog I don't know how I feel about "Diary Blogging" tag:blog.danielleegnew.com,2008-05-01:9a0c9db3-6557-486a-922f-d8e2386e972d Danielle Egnew 2008-05-01T21:59:36Z 2008-05-01T21:25:00Z
I am told that this is the new form of intimacy in our virtual culture, this is how we "get real" with one another these days, although I find the very nature of that statement, a virtual memoir to many gracious, reading strangers, not to be very "real". In fact, I find a blog to be ridiculously antithetical to "real" -- the whole process of getting to know one another through the written word, in spurts and digital imprints, none of which have a voice, or a pulse, or even -- an opinion, outside of what we create the written page to say.

I thought I would be a better blogger, because I have a lot to say about a lot of topics, but in fact, I'm lousy at it. I'm lousy at deciding that anything I would have to say, on a personal level, would be of any interest to anyone in particular, moreso than what THEY would have to say, on any given subject. In short, I'm just not convinced my opinion is that interesting, to be captured indefinitely, or until the server crashes, on the blogasphere.

Perhaps so much of my life is spent "in public", that my emotional opinions enjoy their privacy?

Or perhaps I just like to keep my emotional cards a little closer to my chest than I thought I did.

I really like to read other people's emotional blogs. I really like to see what makes people soar, and what makes them happy or sad, and I sincerely enjoy reading about other people's opinions. I find that I am slow to offer my own, unless I am REALLY passionate about something. I think this "slow on the draw" opinion casting comes from years and years of balancing the strange, sick and wrong plate-spinning dance of the politics in entertainment. You say one thing to one person, and the next thing you know, you're hearing a completely different version of the same thing you said coming from another person.

You learn to chose your words carefully. It's not that you are disingenuous in your opinion, only that you rarely offer an opinion, because God only knows what version of that opinion is going to circulate through the ranks, and come back to kick you in the hind-end later on.

I have a blog on MySpace, and I tend to throw online some crazy thoughts and experiences there, whereas that environment, to me, more supports a little goofing around. But there's something about this blog that's different to me, and I can't pin it down. This seems more serious in here, or maybe that it's so singular, with only my opinion, not simply a sea of opinions in many other seas of opinions, all there for a casual glance, like MySpace?

I do encourage everybody to take a gander at my blog on Myspace, because it does tend to be a lot of fun -- www.myspace.com/danielle_egnew

I'll work on sharing my thoughts and ideas, but for today, the only thought I have is that if you're reading this, I am really grateful you'd take the time to do so. And if you're reading this, know that this isn't me attempting to "get real" with you, because not only do I find that saying to be juvinile and insulting on a number of levels, so I would never direct it at another person in seriousness -- I find that it's an impossibility to do, as virtual and hyper-constructed as is the nature of this medium.

But, know that this is just me, giving you a shout out. And in effect, musing publicly, which seems to be such a strange practice to me, though I love reading it when other people do it.

I don't know that I'll ever be the big emotional online-diary-keeper. At the end of the day, I've discovered that I'm a little too private for that.

If you want to read my emotional diary -- check out my song lyrics. Now THAT'S a medium where I just puke my emotional guts up, for everyone to see, all jagged, and ugly sometimes, and stinging sometimes, and eye-watering sometimes, or cutting sometimes, or just plain ragged. I noticed that a lot in my lyrics on my album Red Lodge.

Here's to everyone out there who is comfortable with laying their heart on their sleeve, in print, for all to see. For me -- I'll keep my heart in my song lyrics, and keep my sense of humor online!

]]> Has anyone else had this “dark purple apocalyptic sky” dream? tag:blog.danielleegnew.com,2008-03-12:bc8a86b0-9697-401f-acc8-5bf97eb8c637 Danielle Egnew 2008-03-12T07:00:41Z 2008-03-12T06:59:00Z I've had two dreams with this weird, sort of dark-purple with a reddish glow sky. Have you? I Googled it, to find an alarming number of people have dreamed about this same disturbing sky, and always around post-apocalyptic issues.

I was watching Population Zero: Life After People, and I am reminded of one of these "purple sky" dreams -- a really disturbing reoccurring one I had when I was two or three.

Yes, two or three.

I remember this dream because it was so vivid and so creepy. And I know I was two or three because I was having it when my family lived in Chicago, and that's the age when I was there. It was so ridiculously detailed that I remember it like it was yesterday. It went like this:

In my dream, I was my current age at the time – two or three. I was walking through what appeared to be a huge junkyard, with mountainous piles of refuse on either side of me. The thing is, the sky – the sky was this deep purple color, with a slight reddish hue to it. It seemed almost illuminated, but from what, I don't know, because it was such a dark purple. It wasn't "nighttime" – the sky was just purple, and very dark. You couldn't see the stars – like, whatever was making it purple was a thick purple cloud-cover, or something of the like.

I was the only person alive in this junkyard. I was a little scared because I knew I was alone, but not terrified, as I walked through these towering mountains of grey garbage piles. Looking back on it as an adult, it looked more like rubble, but at the time, I saw it as a child as being a junk yard. Pages of exploded books blew by me collecting at the base of these rubble / junk heaps, and I recall there were papers blowing everywhere, and there was a feeling that this refuse had been there awhile.

There was a warm wind blowing, and everything smelled like burned garbage.

Off in the distance, I saw a tan short-haired dog running around, looking for something to eat. It was my height, and stocky and strongly built, and looked like it was a tough junk yard dog, what I can identify now as maybe a bull mastiff, or some pit bull mix. Its collar was really faded, and ratty, and the dog had the feeling of having been on his own awhile. The dog was creepy, and I let it pass, because I thought it would eat me if it was hungry.

In the middle of the junk yard was what looked like a wooden observation tower, built on stilt and elevated about three stories up, overlooking the whole yard. It was plain, ragged out looking wood, and the wood looked like it had been weather worn, the being the grey color that weather worn plywood gets. The front of it was open, where it looked like a long 15 foot window would have been, and it had a flat roof that was pitched slightly up in the front, with a small lip overhanging the open "window" area. Sort of like what a short baseball dug-out would look like if it had a window space up front and was put up on stilts.

In my dream, I thought that if I could climb the stairs wooden stairs to this tower, I might be able to see out over the junk yard, and find my parents.

I walked up to the wooden stairs, and I was so little in my dream, I had to climb the stairs using my hands, too, like little kids have to, because my legs were too short to just step up the stairs.

I get to the top of the stairs and stand on the top platform, and I look out, and all I see are mountainous piles of grey rubble, for as far as the eye can see. I remember thinking that this was the biggest junkyard I had ever thought could even be in existence. It was endless. And off in the distance, fires dotted the junk rubble piles. Thinking back on this now, as an adult, that's what was causing the sort of "reddish" hue to the sky, and illuminating it.

Once I got up to the tower, I looked inside, and I was disappointed by what I saw -- it was a disaster of a room about maybe ten feet wide and maybe 12 to 15 feet long. Inside on the floor, there was glass all and tons more of these book pages that had been torn out collected in the corners that had been blown through the enormous opening where the window once was. The room was also coated with this silty, grey dust everywhere.

Around the room, it looked as though there was all sorts of electronic equipment that was destroyed, splayed about. I mean, completely destroyed, all the metal casings just twisted open, and on the far wall was something that looked like it might have been some sort of sit-down control panel. But it was all bashed up and torn to pieces, with wired hanging down below the panel.

Around the rooms, there were twisted, coated wires everywhere, and big metal casings torn open that some sort of instruments were once held in, like something you would find military equipment in. The metal casings were grey.

In the middle of the room was this long rectangular table that was really beat up looking. I was too short, too small in my dream to see what was on the table, so I pulled an old ratty wooden chair over so I could climb up and see what was on the table.

On top of the table was a telephone that was destroyed. It was an old rotary phone, again, smashed, with its circuit boards and wires and actual bells smeared across the table like someone literally took the phone apart piece by piece and left it gutted on the table. The handset was one of those old rotary handsets, and it had both it's ends unscrewed, and it's wires hanging out of the handset.

There was nothing up there expect ruin. There was nothing outside for as far as the eyes could see except ruin and fires.

And then the ripped-up phone on the table started to ring.

This dismantled, pieced-out, unplugged phone stared to ring this sickening, haunted, awful, loud, disturbing ring. All it's parts were jiggling on the dusty table as this thing would ring, and ring, and ring, that loud, disturbing actual "bell ring" ring phones used to have, only this ring sounded sickly, and half choked out as the wires lay across the exposed, dust-coated ringer bells.

As a two or three year old kid, I found this part of the dream terrifying, as there was NO way this phone could have worked. I even knew that as a child.

The ring was so loud, and I watched the bells get struck, and the longer it rang, the louder and more ragged sounding it got, and the more freaked out I got because I realized that I was completely alone in this "junk yard" – with this demanding, dismantled, ringing phone. It would get louder and louder until I woke up.

Now, I had this reoccurring dream so many times, over and over and over again, that it was really a nightmare. It would run through the exact sequence, me walking into this junk yard, looking up to the weird purple sky, feeling the warm wind, smelling that sweet burned garbage smell, passing the mountainous piles of rubble, looking at the book pages blowing, me seeing the dog, me coming onto the tower and climbing the stairs and surveying the endless burning junk yard, going inside, climbing the chair to see the top of the table, only to have the phone ring and ring.

The last time I had the dream, the very last time, I can remember, I finally got past my fear of this nasty haunted broken phone, and picked the handset up though it was trailing all it's pieces, even though it didn't even have an earpiece that was attached, and I went through the motions and said, "Hello?"

And then I woke up.

I never had the dream after that, but I can't even count how many times I had it before that. And every time I would start climbing the stairs, I was sick to my stomach, because I knew I was going to run into that smashed, dismantled, screaming, demanding dusty phone on the table.

I hated that creepy thing.

The other time I dreamed about a purplish sky, just like that, as a dream I had when I was 17, that as time wore on I realized was about the war in Iraq, clear down to appearances of a "business man in a red tie" chasing a "Latin Man with a Black Moustache and white button up shirt" though pumping oil wells in a desert, but the oil wells looked like the bobbing well pumps in Texas, not the big oil towers of the middle east – but the sky was that dark purple, and as time wore on, I was later able to identify the "business man" as George W. Bush and the "Latin Man" was actually Sadam Hussein. But seeing as that I was in LACE w:st="on">MontanaLACE>, the only cultural reference I had for someone who looked like Sadam was Mexican or Spanish, not Iraqi. I only had that dream once.

But my question is – who out there has had a dream about dark purple skies? I Googled it, and found countless people recanting dreams of an apocalyptic nature, so I am wondering if we are all picking up on the same transmission coming form somewhere?

It's not as if, as a two year old, I would have seen this "junk yard image" on TV, or in the media anywhere. That was 37 years ago, and there wouldn't have been any CG abilities to create what I saw.

You'll know exactly what I am talking about if you have seen this sky in your dreams. You can't miss it. And you never forget it.

Let me know – this dream has been popping into my head a lot lately, so I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has seen this sky in their dreams.

]]> I just don't get Obama Mania. We're not electing a Savior, are we? Yikes. tag:blog.danielleegnew.com,2008-02-24:a01580fa-e9ab-47e6-b0b7-4cd71806cdad Danielle Egnew 2008-02-25T07:06:17Z 2008-02-24T08:32:00Z
In fact, people are considering the fact that he doesn't have this type of national experience to be a "positive". I simply don't get it.

I mean, yes, I have endorsed Hillary Clinton as a candidate. So obviously, I have a Democratic preference there. But, the reason I feel she is the strongest candidate is that she knows the ropes, emotionally and tactically, and she actually HAS a plan for change that she's excited to talk about, and I happen to think that experience matters, especially in application to the Presidency.

I feel that we, in our country, have gotten a little too "American Idol" in creating a sensation in one season. But I think we've forgotten that we can't start over with a brand new cast of candidates next season -- we're going to be stuck with this president for the next four years.

AND, I am both shocked and furious at how sexist our media truly is. If Hillary were not a woman, she would not have incurred such scrutiny, while Barack has basically received a free pass by the media because the hype around him is so intense that it is, in fact, an interesting news story. But, that being said, I truly am amazed that people have gone so hook-and-sinker after Obama simply because he uses the word "Change" and "Hope", and he has little to no national political experience past a few years in the Senate.

My opinion is not as much ANTI-Obama, as it is ANTI-Ignorance. This Obama-Mania encourages people to turn off their rational thinking minds and to boldly stare into the sun called "Hope", throw the rose petals in the air, and HOPE it will all work out, once he is sworn in, because goodness knows that none of us have a clue as to what Obama's ACTUAL plans for the nation are -- since he just doesn't feel it's important enough to talk about.

And if you can't just throw aside the fact that Barack Obama may just be too green to take on the role of the Presidency now, or that he doesn't have any particularly outstanding national record, or that his own supporters can't even quote to you what his proposed "plans for change" would be -- then you are labeled by his campaign as a "skeptic", and a "non-believer". Smart.

Apparently, asking for that type of public record information is practically considered Heresy by the Obama group. I call labeling a differing opinion as "heresy " to be a FANTASTIC campaign strategy. It worked for the Crusades. But I do think it borders on being a little dangerous, if indulged.

I feel that we as a nation are so disgruntled and disenfranchised with how the Bush Administration has ignored our domestic needs that people would vote for Bozo the clown if they saw 10,000 people behind Bozo on TV shouting "Yes We Can!"

And let's take the Obama campaign's "a vote against Obama is a vote against hope" attitude into a national perspective -- let's focus on the heresy aspect here. How is President Obama going to handle the country, when we want to be told details in his State of the Union Address? When it won't be enough for us anymore to just simply watch him motivate people with his oratory prowess, because our sound-bite mentality is bored with the "yes We Can" speeches, and we want something different, something of substance? Is he going to see everyone who questions him as a "non-believer"? Isn't that a little Catholic Inquisition to anybody? It is to me.

I caution everybody, no matter WHO you vote for -- please have a REASON. I mean, a reason youput some thought into, not just "the guy can put together a great speech and he makes me feel good" -- Yeah, well, so do the pastors of many churches across America, but I don't think all of those people would necessarily make great Presidential Candidates.

I went off on a bit of a rant on my MySpace blog about this Obama-Mania, and how some of the die-hard Obama-ites have been acting. It's a little more heated, and a little more humorous, but if you want more of a pundit-style commentary, you can view my MySpace Blog Here:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=7689404

I also wrote a letter to the editor of my hometown paper, The Billings Gazette, about Hillary Clinton vs this Obama Mania, and it was published in the Sunday February 17th edition. You can view that letter online here:

http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/02/17/opinion/letters/23-clinton.txt

I just hope people pull it together before these elections to realize that we are not electing a saviour. We're electing a President. If people can't get a grip on why they are voting for someone past "I believe! Shut UP, non-believer!", then our country has far bigger emotional problems than Obama Mania.

]]> The NAMM show 2008 de-brief tag:blog.danielleegnew.com,2008-01-23:10c3ef4a-e1f7-4772-82a4-6ce4875d16f9 Danielle Egnew 2008-02-25T07:07:58Z 2008-01-23T22:33:00Z

Well, I'm back from the NAMM show in Anaheim, and it was a blast! For those of you who have never attended a NAMM show, it's INSANE. The doors open at 10:00am and close at 6:00pm, and there are three floors in the Anaheim Convention Center that are covered in the latest music gear, software, services, equipment -- you name it. It's an invitation-only trade show, and it's CRAZINESS, and I was guest of the guitar company that endorses me, Minarik Guitars, so I was really enthusiastic to attend. I'm a gear-head anyway

!

I knocked myself out looking at everything, trying out new gear, talking to all sorts of creative new vendors, and making new friends. I'm very proud to say that after the weekend, I have a couple of new endorsement deals in the works, and I'll announce them when all the details are finalized.

Some NAMM highlights included:

- Playing with Sheena Metal's Beer Bong at a Minarik Guitar sponsored show at Fender's, a club that's named after -- yup, you guessed it -- the guitar, whose maker is from the Fullerton/ Anaheim area. I play th character of "Ivana Rock" in that band, which is a satirical 80's theatrical rock project, and I play keyboards. It's a HOOT!! THANKS to Minarik Guitars -- Marc, Nicole, and Bill -- for attending and having us at the showcase!

- At Fender's, I met up with my talented buddy Raymond Hayden, who is also a fellow artist on Maurice The Fish Records, and it was terrific to see him, as he lives up in the Seattle area. So THAT was cool! I had a ton of runny

Ivana Rock make-up on, and my hair was matted down from the silver Tina Turner wig I wear in that band, but it I think
he probably didn't care too much. I also hung out with my pal Amy and her (and now my) buddy Dan, which was nice,
as Amy lives in Arizona but was in own for work -- she's a professional sound person. I drank a LOT of Guiness, which
is HELL on the waistline but a lot of fun in the moment, and Fender's was a great time all around.

- I was asked to play and sing at the DeMars Guitars booth, and that was a treat! Dan DeMars makes some GREAT
hand-crafted guitars that sound like a MILLION bucks, and all the guys at the booth were so much fun, especially Dan
and Gino, a fellow Italiano who reminded me a TON of a much younger version of my grandpa Louie, rest his soul. Dan
and Gino us out to dinner two nights, and we had great fun at Buca Di Beppo and a place called Azteca, which is the
ONLY Elvis-themed mexican restaurant in Cali. Their food was outstanding, by the way, and the collection of Elvis
memorabilia was out of control.

- Our hotel was just outside of Disneyland, and every night at 9:25, the Disney fireworks show would blast off. We
were directly under the fireworks, as it turned out, so we were treated to 20 minutes of GORGEOUS fireworks every
night. For those who have never been to Disneyland, they shoot off fireworks nightly, as part of their parade and exit
show.

...that's mostly the highlights. Like I said, I'll let you guys know when the endorsements are finalized, as they are
TREMENDOUS pieces of equipment that I really believe in. I don't believe in taking on an endorsement deal unless I
actually USE the gear I'm endorsing

. That's all the news that's fit to print for now -- now I have to go answer some
e-mail. So I'll talk to you guys later

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