Welcome to the Monkey House

Wire is coming back again
Elastica got sued by them
When Michael Jackson dies
We're covering Blackbird
And won't it be absurd then
When no one knows what song they just heard
Unless someone on the radio tells them first
So come on come on come on
Come
Come on come on come on
Come on
Come on come on come on
You monkeys


I wonder if the Dandy Warhols will make good on this barb.

A Thought Which Delayed Sleeping

In the time in which I live I am aware of a blur of the shiny and the new. The fabulous grabs constantly for my attention and it is so easy to find myself caught up. I see it in me and I see it in everyone around me.
Tonight as the final minutes of a film wound down before an acknowledgment came to me. It was not an acknowledgment of something previously unknown, but that of something far to easy to forget. To attempt to state it simply, it was the realization that prior to my existence there have been thousands of years of intelligent thinkers.
Our time is no more important than those that came before simply because it is happening now. Our thoughts because they are currently happening are not necessarily new or better than those of our ancestors.
I often sense an attitude in my peer group that those things in the distant past have no relevance on today. On a basic level this is short sited, on a deeper level it is stupid.
There comes with being human a rich and varied history, full of wonderful minds and a multitude of already experienced experiences. I wish to draw more from this and participate in the furthering of ideas. It is all to easy to ignore what has come before and water it down for present.

I should sleep now or at least stop typing.

Trudging And Thriving

It's a battle these days. There is a negative energy flowing all around us. I read the news today, oh boy. It's hard to keep convincing yourself that the world around you is going to hold up long enough to support your dreams and wishes. It's a trick of the mind to separate yourself from a world of problems, but we modern humans to a great extent seem to be doing just that everyday. The information you take in everyday tells you one thing, then you go home to a little bubble and you see something else. I know that many other people have had a burst bubble, and I can see the threats coming from different directions, yet I believe I can always keep my head above water. I try every single day to make my world better. Is it due to this effort? Is there a reward for being sensitive to the predicaments of others?
Does a person get credit for acknowledging the peril lurking on the perimeter while not succumbing to a crippling fear? If this is the case to what power am I attributing this idea of credit?
I'm a mixture of perhaps too many half formed ideas.

Each day there are new threats upon the horizon. I have to look for them. I'm thinking of this option arm mortgage trouble coming down the pike. Will this be worse then the sub prime debacle? Do I care? Will it effect me? Of course it will effect me. I hear the horror coming. The state parks are closing... How do you close state parks? natural spaces... how did they ever get to the point where they require so much expenditure to keep them natural, so much that we can't even afford to operate them? Are we missing the point of these things entirely? Are we humans left to our own devices so naturally destructive that we need to staff and pave our natural parks just to protect them from each other? Of course we are.

Mean while, back in my own little corner of the world I wake up and I go through my day. I try and say nice things to people and be aware of their problems. Some days I get overwhelmed and I take out my frustrations on those that love me most. I can be childish at times. I can be a very poor communicator. I have a sense of myself and I try not to take myself or any of this too seriously. Life's rich pageant envelopes me and I am so amazed at it's diverse beauty that I just try and pry my eyes open as far as they can go and take it all in.

I have projects that fill my thoughts constantly. Things exist only in my head and they matter in many cases exclusively to me. I get such enjoyment from my inner being. I have known lonely, but I have also been always my own companion. There is so much to do.

I have been spending evenings working on songs for my brother. I love them, they are very well made pieces of work. It's nice to have him in my life. I have been mixing a couple tracks for his solo album. I want to do a good job, if only to have something that can last, that can't change or lose it's value. This is my investment.

Dog walk tree

Resuming a Neglected Practice

I have wrote before of a place called "Green Vista Point", a closet in a house I once shared with my brother which wasd converted into a space to listen to music in the dark. Such dreams and ideas grew in that dark. So many albums listened to start to finish in that space, how much I grew to love the seldom noticed deep cut.

I have recently realized that I do not listen to music with the undivided attention which I used to give it. I'm always moving, doing something else. My mind needs to be let of out it's body every now and then. My musical brain needs to be fed from the fountain. I have decided that I'm going to set the modest goal of at least once a month sitting down and listening to an album start to finish while doing nothing else. I will probably begin in Angela's CD and record collection, which has depths that need to be explored.

Falling Back into the Swing

"For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender my fierceness for a small gain in yardage." - John Steinbeck

My mother and sister were just out for a visit and it was grand. We went to LACMA, Descanso Gardens, Griffith Park and Runyon Canyon. I watched my mom use facebook on a mobile device from a homo party in Hollywood. I played a round of golf with my sister and band mate Robin, at was beaten soundly into a pulp by both of them. We ate constantly and drank like bottomless cups.
Angela and I worked round the clock in the last month in order to make our new home as wonderful as it was for their visit. It had been a tiring and stressful week, it seemed that once we finished one thing 4 more items to do would pop up in it's place! Finally, just minutes before they arrived last Friday things clicked into place.
It was a great experience to have a wonderful new apartment and a beautiful new girlfriend to great my visiting family. Angela and my family got on splendidly. Angela and Adrienne both have a wonderful sense of humor and they got on famously. I'm very excited to do Christmas in Maui with the entire family!

I have been working on a track for my brother this week and it really has been inspiring. I am starting to better understand many of the new programs I have acquired. It's very exciting stuff. My new apartment and life seems set up so much better to be productive in. I've already been more creative in the apartment in 2.5 months then I was in my old apartment for 3 years. It's a wonderful feeling.

Coming back to work was a bit of a shock but it was lessened by the fact that I cleaned my office on the day I left of all dust and unfinished work. I left here in such a matter that had I not ever come back there would be no trace of me here. It was nice to come back to work and start new.

Back at it.

A Regional Memory.

My fly was down the other day, or to be more generally specific, my zipper on my pants was down the other day when I did not intend for it to be. As I reached down to zip it up I said to myself "oh no, my cows are getting out!".
Growing up in western Kansas this was a common euphamisism for your pants being unzipped. Your cows are getting out. It was also a game where when you noticed some one's fly was down you would start counting and how ever high of a number you got to before they zipped up was how many cows had escaped.
I was a sloppy child and I lost many cows.

I have found in a brief survey of people around me that people in california and other parts of our fine country did not keep cows within their pants. Sad. I'm going to bring it back.

May Steps

It's been a while since I've been here to check in. A tooth ache had me pretty well down and out last week. I've since been to the dentist and the pain is now gone. Angela and I continue to improve our apartment and ready our home to accept visitors. It has sure been a long row to hoe but we are tending the crops and getting there. It's looking very pretty and really starting to feel like home. I can't tell you how excited I am to have it finished, thus the act of living and breathing can commence.

Last week I didn't do any exercise. I was allowing my foot and mouth to heal. What am I a horse? Hoof and mouth? I was feeling pretty sloppy by the end of the week. This week I am back to my quest for better health with a vengence. I'm eating excellent and worked out last night with no foot pain.

Musical creation has hit a small snag. I need a ram upgrade.

Life is good, more soon.

Atwater evening

there is a steady hum of city sound filling the low frequency around me. Its nice that its steady, a low wash of noise. Off to my left some indian women and their children talk and play. They are no longer indian, they are like me, american, but they choose to observe certain customs of where they come from, and to speak in their native tongue.
From a window over looking a child, I know because I see the silhouette, practices violin. She's still learning but great.
A man on a picnic table to my right is reading what I hope are chinese proverbs.
I'm grilling a steak, smoking a cigar and drinking a bud light, retaining some aspects of my peoples culture.

Cross roads tavern

Lake hughes road. We gone country.

Cross roads tavern

Oh my!

Adventure

Albino Elephant

Earlier this week I was looking for a particular S no S (my old solo project). I was chatting with Ronnie about it in google talk and soon it popped up on my computer screen, sent from Ronnie's old studio computer. Back in the S no S hay day Ronnie and I were constantly video conferencing and sharing files back and fourth. So when he found that track for me he copied me his entire received files folder, it turned out to be a treasure trove of unreleased S no S.

I am now in the beginning stages of compiling "albino elephant (pretty rare for rare)" the untold album from S no s.

In addition to that, for those who are interested I'm going to recompile all five original S no S albums into one massive zip file. Call it putting it behind me so that I can move bravely forward!

Here is my first crack at a track list:

Track List

1. It's Coming Down
2. Blunder and the Change
3. New Demo (will probably actually name this one)
4. Cheap
5. Sigh One (Version 2)
6. Yellow Submarine
7. Jeogie
8. Circa
9. Green Being (Demo)
10. Lushing (Ronnie and Brandon Barely Live)
11. Stranger Strange
12. As if
13. Timiner (Demo)
14. Ceremony
15. Lobster Vamped

Time to curl up with a good book

After

Before

New inventory at homeless store

Is that where you buy homeless?

The Warm Flash of LEDs

I'm so enjoying the new life being built in my new neck of the woods. Our apartment continues to come together. Angela has already put in an amazing amount of work making our home homey. The walls are seeing paint and the furniture is being placed.

In the meantime, thanks to Ronnie's gentle nudging, I'm setting up my home studio in a new and different way. I've installed a version of Cubase and am deep in the process of importing old and new projects and learning the lay of the system.

In addition I've obtained an old stereo rack which will sit next to my computer desk, I will fill it with all my audio gear, and my computer tower, leaving a good deal of it patched up and ready to go. It's an exciting time for me. I look forward to creating more than I have for many years.

Each night I've been burning a little midnight oil. It feels good. It feels like life.

I posted this and then realized that once again it's April and I'm deep into music creation. What is it with me this month?

Cherry blossom festival

Wonderful day in downtown L.A.

Reality Retail

This is a store that a homeless man operates on the freeway exit I take every morning on my way to work.
his sales pitch is simple, point at your car and gum words at you.
I don't think business is very good.