Proud Meat Eater?

Please watch this (all the way through, no cheating!) and then enjoy your carne asada tacos:

Meet Your Meat! www.meat.org

There's a scene at the end that is priceless, so hang in there.

:-)

Busy, busy I bees

So much is going on, I don't have much time to share about it.

I started working full-time with The 1 Second Film, plotting our upcoming Road To Oprah cross-country bio-diesel 10,000+ mile adventure.

The Evangenitals will probably be traveling as "The Love Punks" considering that we're going to be heading straight through the Bible Belt and visiting Oprah Winfrey. We don't want the name of the band to be any sort of distraction from the amazing cause and vision that The 1 Second Film represents.

In other news, I started taking classes at IO West and have become utterly obsessed with long-form improv. Tonight Ptryxxx and I are going to go see "The Lampshades" which stars my improv teacher Scot Robinson (who was also in Anchorman) and Meredith from The Office, aka Kate Flannery.

I have to go to the xBiz summer forum at the HardRock in Vegas next week for my "other" job, and then my sister is getting married in Florida on the 22nd. I saw her wedding website, and it is just plain surreal. This will be the first time in a LONG time that all the Crockett's are going to be in the same place at the same time. Hopefully the wedding cruise doesn't sink and take us all to Davey Jones' locker.

I have to admit thoughts like that when they occur to me, or else I am afraid that they will actually happen, and then I'll be dying thinking, "are you fucking kidding me? I totally called that!"

What else?

After a strange period of seeming song-writer's block, a bunch of new material is starting to flow out of me. I'm writing a new love song about Ptryxxx that has was may be the cutest subtly vegan choral hook that was ever written.

Newlywed Jeff Jones is going to return to the Evangenitals for a mellow yellow coffee house set at Highland Perk on July 28th! I've decided that we're going to make this gig an open-house, sing-a-long, play-a-long, Evan-hootenanny! After so much rocking so far this year (and much more rocking to come with another Molly Malones gig and the Evangenitals playing Universal Citywalk's Block Party on September 1st) we thought it would be nice to have a calm, sit down with coffee evening where we can share favorite songs, simple chords, and tell some stories about how these songs were written and why.

Lastly, I just bought some red and purple vegan/animal friendly Manic Panic hair dye and I'm thinking I may do something crazy with it this weekend. :-)

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I'm looking FORWARD to THINGS! To STUFF that's on the HORIZON! I'm in love with many of the things that are happening NOW and I'm super-excited about things that are COMING SOON. Heck, I'm still reeling with glee from things that JUST HAPPENED!

The Evangenitals show at Molly Malones last Saturday was awesome. It was like a whole new level of Evangenital action -- simultaneously a reminder of how awesome things used to be, are, and will be. It was a bizarre time/space intersection wherein I was reminded of all things great about being an Evangenital. How awesome it is that people actually show up, listen, cheer, and give us so much love and support.

Today I talked to a booker in Florida who absolutely did not respond to the mojo of the Evangenitals. It was kinda crazy... a first for me, that got me all hot faced and heart pounding whilst making me excited for the FUTURE! For MORE disbelieving promoters and bookers that don't see/hear/feel/believe in the power of the Evangenitals . Hooray! There was a time in the beginning where it was important that NO ONE say anything critical about the Genitals. We were so fragile and new. If someone had told me that we sucked and should give it up 2 months into the project, I may have believed them. But here we are, years later, and after so many big 'ol smiles, crazy gigs, opened hearts, and loving responses to what we do... I'm a believer. There's something going on with the Evangenitals. It's a movement, and we're all a part of it.

After that call, the booker from Molly Malones called and invited us back for another show, we got invited up to Seattle to play in September, Wanni booked a gig for us in Jacksonville that we'll be able to hit after our Tampa show, and Nirvan from the 1 Second Film sent me a map that outlined the route that he's thinking we'll take on the Road Trip to Oprah! So, the good energy won in the end. When it rains, it pours. :-)

I must say that I feel pretty good about the fact that throughout the conversation with the "nonbeliever" I managed to let my love light shine, full blast, and not get flustered by any of the seeming insults and gruffness that were being thrown my way. I'm working on getting better at talking with people and representing/promoting the band in person. It's funny, considering that I've been doing this big 'ol Marketing job for the past few years, promoting the hell out of a business, and I do a grand job at that. The real magic is going to happen when I can take all of those skills I've developed -- feeling confident and boldly promoting someone else's project/company -- and apply them to OUR project. The Holy Evangenitals.

Busy week, and I'm having fun.

There's a lot going on in Juli/Evangenitals land these days. The "day job" is just crazy as hell, so I won't go into that particular mouth of madness at the moment. The rest of it is full to bursting and only getting puffier every day.

This past weekend I went up to Vegas to meet up with my brother, Jaisen Crockett, the bomb-ass photographer, who was flown out there from New York to shoot a band -- KOR! Kinetic Origins of Rhythm (website, myspace page, and really awesome band photo taken by my brother forthcoming). I also got to see "Spamalot" which was lots of fun, play some video poker, go to the Ghost Town Calico, and take a bunch of silly photos with Ptryxxx, who was paying his first visit ever to sin city and did not leave disappointed.

We even went to an oxygen bar, which I has wanted to do FOREVER, and it was awesome. I wish I could get an oxygen tank for my house... as pure oxygen is the best cure for a headache and left me with zero desire to drink coffee and feeling like I was walking on the moon. Good stuff!

I raced home from Vegas on Sunday to make it back to LA in time for band practice. With Lisa Dee and Georgie out of town for this next gig, we're playing Molly Malones with an alternate lineup which always makes me a little nervous and a LOT excited for the new interpretations of old songs that always results when we shake things up. Brett's going to be singing more in this set, which is fantastic, Salad and Bryan Landers are coming on board once more, and the project of begging every person I know on my hands and knees to help us make the minimum draw and make this night a success seems to be going well. Good to know that honest desperation sometime does work. We'll see how it all pans out at the door.

TODAY I had to leave work early to meet up with the Genitals and go to Time Warner studios to do a little cable show promoting the upcoming Lummis Day Festival in Highland Park that we'll be playing at on June 3rd.

Much like our Q TV live television experience in the past, this one was equally disorganized, impromptu, and TOTALLY fun. We did end up getting to play two full songs on the show as well as talk about the origin of the band and the meaning of "Evangenitals". We also got some good video footage for our own documentary purposes and some cool pictures for the website thanks to Patrick Ian Moore, our resident flier artist, videographer, photographer, and budding webmaster.

Check out the pics here: www.evagenitals.com/photos.html

In other news, on Thursday Brett and I are meeting with Nirvan, director of the 1 Second Film, to discuss the Evangenitals being the theme band for their Road Trip to Oprah expedition. There is talk of a biodiesel schoolbus, a reality show, an animated mushroom voiced by Andy Dick... it's all a little crazy, and therefore I like it very much!

If any of you are not yet involved with the 1 Second Film, I highly recommend you get involved. It's awesome. It's art. It's good for the soul.

And you can look forward to my new song "Andy the Mushroom" which is causing me a whole lot of giggles and joy lately as I create new verses whilst driving in the car.... which Andy the Mushroom could never do, because he had no HANDS, man!

I love you all. Please come out to the Molly Malones show on Saturday May 19th and help us get famous. I wanna hump on your eardrums for a living, people. Only you can make that happen!

xo
julio

Alright.... so I'm a geek

But dammit, I get friggin' giddy as hell when a famous author whose work I respect the hell out of drops my name, and the Evangenitals name, as a band that he loves to get crazy to.

Check it out:

"For pure craziness, there are lots of other bands, including one that I can't write to but I've become a big fan; they're called the Evangenitals. They're from Los Angeles. One of the front singers is a former boxer-slash-philosopher. She's a fantastic singer. Her name is Juli Crockett."

Thank you, Colum McCann!

So, the back story to our association is that Colum was actually one of my professors my first year at The European Graduate School in Switzerland where I go every summer to work on my PhD in Philosophy. We had many deep conversations and stayed up late singing Evangenitals' songs and Irish classics with the hoodlums at the best damn theory camp in the Alps.

I even wrote a song about him, that a bunch of us geeks got together and hootenannied often. I'm trying to find a video of it that someone once sent me so I can post it. I know there's an audio recordin (bad quality) and I may throw it up online somewhere for the hell of it.

In the meantime, we may just have to revive the song and play it at the next Evangenitals show. It's a damn fine sing along, in the Irish tradition. February 11th - All Star Lanes - Bowling, Drinking, Evangenitals, Sing Alongs, Karoke. Be there.

You can read the full interview with Colum McCann here: www.powells.com/interviews/mccann.html

And buy his books while you're at it. They're friggin' amazing.

For the Love of Outkast

At Eliot & Jain Sekular's annual Christmas party on Christmas Eve, Lisa Deedle and I were asked to play some music, as we are asked to do at every Sekular-house party. It pretty much just isn't Christmas if we don't play their legendary Christmas party, which features the most amazing tamales ever cooked by human hands.

Lisa and I were taking requests from the party-going crowd, and we ended up playing a nice little acoustic set of Evangenitals and Evangina tunes... mostly sing-along/play-along's like Home, Diggin' It, Not Quiet There, Sun is Shining. The final request for the evening, however, was Hey Ya.

Back in 2004, during Grammy night, we were half having band practice in preparation for the open mic at Mr T's Bowl while half watch the Grammys. Outkast was on, performing their hit song, when Brettsky began to chunk it out on guitar. We all began playing and singing, and it was revealed that I, Juli Crockett, happened to know ALL of the lyrics to that catchy-ass tune.

A series of "double dog dares" were issued, as to whether or not we had the balls to play the tune at the open mic that night. As you might imagine, when it comes to the Evangenitals, we are never short on balls. ;-)

Then something miraculous happened. I started playing the song at about 1/18th the normal speed, and soulfully singing Andre's surprisingly heartbreaking and passionate lyrics. An instant classic was born.

We performed BOTH versions, fast and slow, at a show at El Cid in the summer of 2004. That show was recorded by our dear friend Joey Ninja (from Ninja Academy) and the slow version is currently our most downloaded tune on iTunes. That is the genesis of the Evangenitals version of Hey Ya, loving called... "Hey Ya'll"

Why am I telling you all this? Well, because I just discovered another gent who is singing the tune in the slow and low tempo, and at this moment in time, he's a lot more popular than we are. Perhaps I'm feeling the need to assert my turf? A little tinge of cover-song envy? I don't know. Maybe this is the proverbial Tipping Point for the Evangenitals. The moment when a million people start searching for "that awesome cover version of Hey Ya" and instead of finding Matt Weddle of Obadiah Parker, they find the Evangenitals.

Miracles do happen. And I have a feeling that 2007 is going to be the year of the Genitals. Can you feel it?

So, long story short, after seeing all the hub-bub going on surrounding the Matt Weddle version, I laid down on track with some moving action titles telling a little bit of the Evangenitals tale, and I loaded it on You Tube as a video response.

Please go see it, rate it, favorite it, show it love, send it to your friends, etc:
www.youtube.com/watch

With any luck, our version will get as much love as Weddle's. :-)

Regardless, I love you. All of you.

xo
julio

For the love of money....

Marvin Gaye said it and I'll say it again... What's going on?

What's going on?

I don't know. I've been a bit o the mess lately. Just hurting. Not just sissy hurting, either. Bones hurting, muscles hurting, head hurting, hands hurting, chest hurting. Aches and pangs.

Pain is the touchstone of growth and change gives me the willies, both ways: good and bad. I'm very excited about all the new developments, but I'm all tired and sore so I can necessarily show it, or feel it half the time.

I talked to my sister on the phone this morning and I rarely do that. She's out in North Carolina living in a Yert with her 40+ year old boyfriend who has no job, fears people, and smokes pot all the time. He's an artist. So is she, however, she has been working double shifts as a waitress for the past 5 years to support the both of them. The whole relationship started out on a bad karmic note, in my opinion, as part of his "wooing package" was the lofty promise of a very, very rich grandfather of his dying soon and leaving them buckets of ducets.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your moral fiber, the Grandfather is still going strong and steady, showing no signs of kicking the proverbial bucket anytime soon. My sister, in the meantime, is spot in the center of a mini mid-life crisis, wondering just what the hell she's gotten herself into.

Now is the time to pray for the salvation of her soul, my friends, for she is right smack in the middle of the fence as far as what sort of soul she may turn out to be after all. Part of her is filled with idealistic cravings to save some thing that she calls "the world" from a grave peril that she sees going down all around. The other part of her, perverted by years of serving the extremely rich and incredibly rude of North Carolina, feels that if they can not be beaten, they must be joined.

She's considering starting law school. Anything to get the money. She said something about Donald Rumsfeld being the major stockholder for the company producing the cure to the bird flu, and how he wasn't born a monster. She spoke of Hitler being an environmentalist and a vegetarian. The best of intentions. She was very angry and hurting in all the ways, sissy and non.

I, for my part, have been working hard to neither damn nor deify what the O'Jays so smoothly called the Almighty Dollar.

In other news, I'm working on new methods of communication and new planes of intimacy with the Significant Other, considering going to hypnotherapy (expect a full report on that one!), and will be doing my first session with a "prayer therapist" and "metaphysical counselor" this weekend. I suspect that it may be either a)an incredible and spiritually enlightened experience, or b)totally give me the jeebs.

Whatever way the cookie crumbles, I shall be back here soon enough, pouring out my soul excavations for you to mine for the nuggets of sweet somethings that can be applicable to your own search and experience mission.

That is my aim, and my aim is true.*

*actually, to be perfectly honest and more forthcoming than I ought, my AIM is actually "juliachrista" ;-)

Till then, I return to working on my Evangenitals' style cover of Kelly Clarkson's Since U Been Gone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I'm not the first, of course. Who cares? It was a special request from Steve Diet Goedde (a big fan of the Genitals), and how the heck am I supposed to turn down a friggin' legend?

My birthday is coming

Strange as it may sound, I'm turning 30.

On August 1st I will be as old as Jesus -- 3 1/2 years before he died.

It feels weird. Just another day, but not really, because I have WAY outlived my life expectancy. Never did I really think that I would some day be 30. It feels like a big deal, and it doesn't. It feels like I should do something to "honor" this day, this self, in some way... but I just want to sleep in and hide.

Luckily I have some friends on the other side. Folks who I see coming into their self-ness and walking with the strut of confident becoming. It looks lovely. I hear good news about the 30's. My mom insists that the 40's are even better than that. With every decade shedding the gawky adolescence of the previous becoming. Thank God for process oriented living.

August 1st is a popular day for birthdays. Myself, Lisa's boyfriend, Addi the Balloon Guy, Herman Melville, Jerry Garcia, Francis Scott Key, uh... Dom DeLuise... fucking Tom Leykis of all people.

My boyfriend's mother also shares the August 1st birthday. Weird, eh? Same day, 40 years later, her potential daughter-in-law (if she has her way!) was born. She's turning 70, I'm turning 30. Nemecia. Her dream house is finally finished -- atop a hill out in Fallbrook, on a 5 acre ranch filled with avocado trees and honey bees. She's having a housewarming party on the 30th, which she intends to serve as a joint birthday party for the two of us as well. She wants me to invite my friends.

Now, I'm not feeling too enthusiastic about trying to get my friends to come down to Fallbrook. Maybe it's low self esteem and not wanting to be too much trouble. Maybe I'm just not the birthday type. Hell, I love presents as much as anybody and possibly more, however, receiving them makes me feel weird and embarrassed. Conflict. There's a permanent kid at Christmas inside of me, always excited on each new day for the potential bounty that it could bring... always seeking buried treasure.... always looking at the ass-end of rainbows for something shiny. I have rubbed genie-lamp lookin' teapots. I have tried to make contact with the spirit and alien worlds. I did a lot of drugs. I think it's all the same impulse for me. There search for something else. Something amazing, I guess. I'm happy as heck that I'm still alive, but the self promotion that goes into birthday parties makes me feel like an asshole.

So here's the birthday pitch: The good news is, in Fallbrook it's beautiful and there's gonna be really good food. Mexican style. Bad news is that gas is expensive and it's far. Like Temecula far.
If you feel like a mini-vacation, let me know and I'll give you directions. We can even make carpools happen. Caravans.

You're all invited, and you're all excused.
How's that for low pressure?

Love Sickness

A sickness unto death. Psychological cramping. A permeating, soul-rotting infection. Marrow-draining, will-weakening, cancerous growth.

Awaken the Void! Get acquainted with the presence of absence. Experience the fear of loss! The illusion of having had! The march of time! Prepare for the ride of a lifetime!

Infect thyself willingly with that which poisons all else with lack. Shake hands and smile at otherness while it crawls up your sleeve, under your skin, into a vein, flooding the system with its own special brand of consciousness-altering nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and nausea.

Listen to the sound of the whole world saying your name with a sigh:

You are the one! Your are what it has all been leading to! This is the moment! History hath evolved, hath crawled, trudged, fought, fucked and eaten toward this very instant! And all for you! All for this! You are here, whole, and in Love!

In the grip of a feeling, the face turns sour. A grimace. The eyes squint. Too much light. Heat emanates from behind the eyes. A scratching, a stone, a scraping pain on the cornea. Piercing headaches. Rashes. Dry skin. Itching. Restlessness. Sleeplessness.

When sleep does come – nightmares! Hot nights, sticking sheets, sweat and too much presence. Worry. What if, what is, and why? Doubts. Dreams of infidelity, of death, of heartbreak. A hundred forms of fear and pain.

How can one accept such a gift?

Thou hast seen thine own innards and thy blackest deeds. Thy knowest the coward that ye truly be. Thy knowest how unworthy of any love other than that of the all-merciful Lord thou art. Thy poverty is complete.

A heightened sense of smell, sight, hearing, time passing, distances. Every gesture takes on new meanings. Complex symbologies. Signalings. Irritability. The constant presence of imminent weeping. A crumbling threshold of restraint. Weakness. Thoughtlessness. Blank mind. No thing, only feeling. A stupidity reigns. An idiocy. A retardation. De-evolution. Evaporation of personality, spontaneity, risk-taking, ideas, words, impulses, self.

How does it feel to be other than -- another -- him -- her -- that which is at the end of ones own finger? Why oh why oh why can there be no assurances? No guarantees? Why are the most fleeting things so precious and so pleasurable? How on earth to endure the humiliations of a fall from grace, as love, in the presence of love? Is there any pain greater than love itself with a broken heart? Love in fear of itself? Love held outside of Love?

A dull pain in the gut. A sinking feeling. Doom. Failure. Morbidity. Melancholy atheism. Faithlessness. The inevitable tragedy. The future of tears and a living death, full of emptiness.

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for!

You are in love again!