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Imbalances

from Ginger Grapefruit by Kevin Dickerson

/

lyrics

Everyone’s sick around me and I’m starting to get a cold
I don’t know why people want to hang out when they’re sick, it’s very American
No one wants to get sick after someone sits next to you on a couch and sneezes and coughs without even trying to cover their mouth
Maybe I’m not getting sick and it’s allergies or because there is a significant amount of mold in my house

The mold is there because someone made a mistake and was afraid to property mitigate a water-damage-related problem
Maybe they were afraid that they might lose their job or not get a raise they needed or cause unnecessary pain or admit they caused it

Some heroes are dying and are now permanent modern gods like David Robert Jones aka Davie Bowie
Some heroes are fallen and remain alive after being exposed as manipulative serial assaulters like “BC”

Bill Cosby always gave me weird vibes with his authoritarian father figure posturing
I’ve had a disdain for authority my entire life and many adults around me always creeped me the fuck out
If you are a pastor and have a fondness for children and dress like a clown it’s fucking creepy
There’s no reason to put on makeup and dress in a costume to befriend children in two thousand fucking eighteen

You may encounter people who will try to mold you into their version of what they want you to be instead of the best version of who you want to be
To me such people are scared and fearful and don’t want to lose status in their society

If you put on your resume that you liked drugging people with Methaqualone in hotel rooms I don’t know that you would get many hits on your C.V.
I have to admit I never watched the standup of or listened to the comedy records of Bill Cosby

Three-to-ten years seems like not enough time in prison for the large number of lives BC damaged permanently
and sixty-nine years on this planet is far too short to be granted to the modern god David Bowie by this universe

There are two men in my apartment right now cutting up walls with power tools
I had time to cook breakfast this morning but I left for lunch to St. Francis because of the dust and the noise

I have some phone calls this afternoon to talk about Art History
I can’t remember it quite right but I think I remember someone was talking about Luaka Bop the other day

It’s bothering me that I can’t remember the conversation but that irritating itch in my brain
Made me think of a man who taught me about Mexican Muralism
His name is Greg Landau and I believe David Byrne asked him to help with Luaka Bop in the 80s or 90s
He worked with people like Los Lobos and Quetzal and Carlos Santana and now works in Film Industry

His father was a filmmaker and documented Fidel Castro and he’s somehow been an influence on my life
I wish I could talk about music with him but our relationship isn’t at that place
Our conversations have so far strictly about art and history and art history given our busy schedules
Although once he led me to Estudio 19 in Mexico City

Now I’m studying more artists, this time with a focus on modern aspects
And I just got off the phone with a professor of art history and she said what I am doing is on the cutting edge

One of the contractors cutting holes in my walls with power tools is now singing
And I can hear the two of them talking in Spanish about what they want to eat for lunch it’s an important conversation
The breakfast I cooked this morning was more or less Mexican in nature and involved tortillas and habaneros

And I wasn’t expecting two guys to come into my apartment at the precise moment I was taking a bite out of a blue corn taco
I had a moment of insecurity where I wondered if they were like what’s this overweight white guy doing eating tacos with ancho chile salsa for breakfast
Standing up this old Victorian’s kitchen wearing sweatpants and a Spiritualized sweatshirt

Now my nose is sniffling and my throat is hurting a little
I did an hour of training yesterday and it got my heart rate up with high intensity intervals

My trainer found a knot in my calf caused by my muscle imbalances
and said my tendons felt crunchy and she didn’t know calves could sweat that much

My pants are tight and I’m trying to trim down
Eating lunch at St. Francis isn’t helping anything so I’d better cut that out

The guy at the counter asked me where I’m from and I said it’s a long story
I said I haven’t lived in San Francisco that long, I lived in Oakland before
I said I’d rather not tell you where I’m from, you’ll find out in the next Marvel origin story movie
But where I live now is warmer, I found the other neighborhoods too cold and too windy and too foggy

He poured me water and asked me if I went to the Spiritualized show at the Fillmore
I said yes, I got this sweatshirt at the merch booth—I had just a t-shirt, it was very cold and windy so I bought it

We chatted for a minute and he said he was disappointed in the concert
I was like the guy’s been doing the same thing for probably your entire life, didn’t you know what you were in for?

My guess is Pitchfork gave the reissue of Ladies And Gentlemen we are Floating in Space a big fat 10
The guy saw the 10 and read the sentence “Spaceman is a modern god, and the cool kind of former drug addict” and bought tickets

Well that modern god has exclusively sat in a chairs with sunglasses on facing away from the audience reading sheet music for thirty years, even when he was on heroin
That’s why he hires very very very attractive backup vocalists

This guy seemed to have adopted a Jason Schwartzman kind of vibe
and he probably read a blog that said the Mission is one of the the coolest neighborhood in the States—5 stars /5
He’s probably getting down with all the hipster girls of the mission
Who talk about being broke all the time and have thousand dollar tattoos

I was practicing Spanish and my friend Emilio texted “can we listen to Rush”
I texted back “yes” and that’s just what we did
Got home last night just after nine pm
My old friend Emilio came home late too he’s visiting and we stayed up catching up and listening to music

I’ve got this twitch in my eyelid that I’ve been trying to get rid of cutting out coffee and getting enough sleep
But my life isn’t conducive to stability or a regular sleep schedule and I think that’s just the way it is

Last night I had a dream that I was writing more songs and performing on stage
Another dream that will soon become reality
I wrote the music in my head last night and I’m going to track it and put it down to tape
In my dream I was playing my Spanish guitar but I think I’ll play the guitar Danny Ransom made me

it’s new and cool and it’s faster to record electric and I don’t want to lose the ideas so I try to capture them quickly
and in the moment I have to wait until Friday to record this next idea so maybe by then I’ll play it differently

Maybe my mood will change by then and it’ll end up sounding slower or upbeat
Maybe another rock and roll legend will die causes, or someone will win the lottery

Maybe something else will make the news and it will inspire me to sing about it
These are surprising times, like, at this moment I’m reading a lede in the New York Times with the words “Kavanaugh” and “gang raped” in the same sentence

And it’s an actual part of an actual conversation about appointing someone who assaults women to the supreme court.

Between tracking the first part of the vocals and this part the guy from Jefferson Airplane died last night
Marty Balin, a patron of the 1960s “San Francisco Sound” 

It’s a ‘mean drunk’ versus teenage girls
It’s a ‘mean drunk’ versus teenage girls
It’s a ‘mean drunk’ versus teenage girls
It’s a ‘mean drunk’ versus teenage girls

Let’s make the right choice and not appoint a scared little boy to the supreme court
Let’s make the right choice and not appoint a scared little boy to the supreme court
Let’s make the right choice and not appoint a scared little boy to the supreme court
Let’s make the right choice and not appoint a scared little boy to the supreme court

credits

from Ginger Grapefruit, released December 13, 2019
Kevin Dickerson - Words, Vocals, 8-string electric guitar, Michoacán Vihuela, electric guitar, Portuguese guitar
Maryam Qudus - Synthesizers

Engineered by Maryam Qudus
Mixed by Maryam Qudus
Produced by Kevin Dickerson and Maryam Qudus
Mastered by Jacob Winik

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Kevin Dickerson San Francisco, California

Kevin Dickerson is a songwriter who lives in San Francisco.

Follow @kevindickerson on Instagram

Photo: Katie Thyken

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