new year's revolution

you've come a long way since last year but you have a long way to go. you've done things you can be proud of. you've perfected talking the talk. but you still can't walk the walk. and you've made some big mistakes and you've paid for them dearly. you're pretty smart, but far from wise. will this be the year you finally start to get it?

you've got friends shipping off to iraq and all you do is whine about dumb shit. nobody wants to hear it and all this hand-wringing is getting you fucking nowhere. it's only reaffirming in everyone's minds that you're a big crybaby which is how you landed where you did in the first place.

your hindsight is better than 20/20. try to develop your foresight, and maybe this year you'll make more good decisions than bad. try to see your mistakes before you make them instead of months after.

don't second guess yourself. it's counterproductive. think with your gut when you should think with your gut and think with your head when you should think with your head and tell all your other body parts to mind their own business.

it doesn't matter how you justify it to yourself on a case-by-case basis. you lie because it's easy. stop doing that. man up and take your lumps if you deserve them.

your dad taught you how to shake someone's hand the right way. now learn to look people in the eye and please for god's sake try to remember their names.

when a pretty girl smiles at you in the subway, just open up your big dumb mouth and say hi.

only say you're sorry when you mean it. people can always tell when it's bullshit. don't talk so much. listen. tell people who matter that they matter. stop chasing your tail you'll never catch it. it's not over until it's over but even then sometimes it isn't over.

you're 24 years old. grow up.

it's not a long walk to my place from here

today is thursday, which means it's alternate street parking day where i live and my car needs to be elsewhere by 8:30 am. it's not usually a big deal because i work, but this week it sucks because i totally planned on sleeping until noon and when my alarm woke me up at 8 and it was raining i basically wanted to throw a temper tantrum.

so i hoof it to my car in the same clothes i wore last night and plan on finding a spot quickly, and returning to my warm bed where i had been oh so happy only minutes before.

but i couldn't find a spot after one circle around the block so i got cranky and just drove 45 minutes out to long island where i've been recording and did some takes on "triple deke." nailed it, dude. on the second take. at least, i think so. i'll have to listen again in a few days. but i sound tired and kinda sick and my playing is a little sloppy. if you're a dork like me, you think that's cool because the lyrics kinda lend themselves to that sort of delivery. or something.

so. it's raining in new york city, and i think i'm going to put myself back to bed now. this day has already been productive.

also in case you missed the memo sam ash still sucks.

break me in half and then step on both halves with spikey shoes

today i went to a sam ash music store to buy some new strings for my acoustic guitar so i could get to recording "triple deke" finally. let me say before i even go any further that i hate sam ash stores, and every time i land at one i immediately remember why i always swear to never go back. it just feels like something is amiss in those places.

so the guy in the guitar section has a really hard time finding the pack of strings i want even though i am looking and pointing right at it. then he wants nothing to do with ringing me up (strings must do nothing for commission) which i guess if it was the only thing wouldn't be so bad because i have done sales and the guitar showroom was full of people probably looking to spend money so whatever. the guy didn't want to help me.

so i walk with my package of strings to the drums section where three dudes are standing around calling each other gay. eventually they notice me and i get one to ring me up. when the register opens he stares blankly at it for about ten seconds (seriously) then tells me he can't make change for my twenty dollar bill so i have to hang on. he comes back like way-too-long later with a fistful of bills and hands me my change. asks if i want a receipt.

the only thing i wanted was to get the fuckshit out of that hellhole and i wasn't planning on returning the strings so i just said no and split. oh and i forgot also about how they try to get your phone number and address and social security number and mother's maiden name and blood type for a $5 purchase so they can sell your information to malevolent entities for profit. i told him no for that too.

it was a few hours later when i went to mcdonalds for a double cheeseburger (i know those will kill me give me a break) and realized that he had given me change for a ten and not a twenty.

god dammit.

so my guitar is nicely restrung now (although i can't find my wirecutters anywhere so be careful not to put your face anywhere near it lest you lose your vision permanently from the sharp string ends) and sounding sweet. i did a few takes but immediately lost my voice so i stopped but by the end of this week so help me god i will have a recording of "triple deke" that was done in one take and sounds pretty rad.

fucking sam ash. i hate that place. potty.

i spend longer thinking of titles to these posts than i do writing the posts

there's a very specific kind of bar in which i feel at home and almost always the places i end up are not that kind of bar. and especially around the holidays, when i find myself back in connecticut like all the others who find themselves back here and we go to a bar, it's pretty much a sure thing that i'll be squirming.

an old college friend of a good high school friend is engaged now. sure, i'm game to drive all the way to mystic to meet someone-who-i-don't-know's fiance. at least it won't be my unofficial high school reunion. it'll actually be the school my school beat in the state championship football game so many years ago when all that seemed like it mattered. but whatever.

the place is called margaritas. it is a beefy dudefest, mostly. and the bartender is being shitty about my new york id. no bouncers.

oh ho ho, what's this? a pretty girl? talking to me? this might not be so bad after all. oh. yes, i have heard of jerry falwell. yes, he certainly is something else. holy crap i just remembered i have to go give myself a swirly in the men's room brb.

a bar fight. real bar fight. brawl, actually. glasses breaking on the floor, glasses breaking on heads. all the lights go on. everybody out. we're closing. good thing we had bouncers tonight so that we could control this situation. i have to pee. there is blood just absolutley fucking everywhere in the bathroom. awesome.

and then on the way home we stopped at the mcdonalds rest area in milford and i saw some more crazy shit but i just don't have the words.

if you keep a fish out of water long enough will it grow lungs or will it just shrivel up? probably it'll just learn to play guitar. i should've asked that girl how she felt about intelligent design.

hey, happy christmas if that's your deal. i hope you've been good this year. i might be getting coal.

i made this with clicks.

what do you think? it's a real rough draft of an idea i've been kicking around for the album art. that thing on the floor is supposed to be a paint brush.

go, lovely rose

not sure if i've ever mentioned this before, and not like you ever could guess from hearing me sing now, but when i was in college i sang classical a cappella music with a lovely bunch of folks (represent). some of those songs still pop in my head now and again, and just now in the shower one came to me that used to absolutely destroy me. i don't have a recording handy and i don't even remember who wrote the arrangement we sang, but i was able to find the poem it was set to. by a guy named edmund waller.

  Go, lovely Rose-
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
  That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

  Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
  That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

  Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired:
  Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

  Then die-that she
The common fate of all things rare
  May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

believe me when i say i don't plan on making a habit of posting poetry up here. i positively can't stand when people do that. but it's ok to break your own rules once in a while.

the thing is, i guess, that this is almost a completely different language. it could never be written today. or, if it were, you can bet i wouldn't take it seriously. but it was written long ago about a beautiful girl who by now is dust and that just kills me.

also. we're all fucked.

there's plenty more where that came from

i think i've found what will be the new carrot on the new stick that will get me through a record past the one i'm working on now.

i don't know about other people's experiences writing/recording music because i haven't spoken with enough people at length to be able to make generalizations, but for me there has always been a lingering fear that i'm running out of ideas and that i've got nothing left to write about.

but my mind is nothing if it isn't creative when filling in the blanks in the stories that i wish it wouldn't tell me over and over again. now i've just gotta write it all down and make some of it rhyme.

i'm going to resume my old practice of keeping a pad and pen next to my bed again. to scribble in the dark the things that steal me from sleep. and in the daytime to sing about them until they're gone.

long distance

funny thing about phones these days. i don't have one in my apartment other than my cell phone (who can afford to pay for two when they hardly use one?). i don't pay long distance on my cell. there is no such thing as long distance anymore. or maybe now everything is long distance. i still have a providence phone number. you could stand right next to me in new york and call me and it would be a long distance call. i am 150 miles away. give or take.

i wrote a new song the other night. my first new one in a while i suppose. it won't be on the record because even though the record is hardly done it's set in stone and when it's finished it will represent exactly where i was at some point before right now because from now on i am where the new songs will be but that's not the record. make any sense? didn't think so.

turns out they'll never hear it in iran. which is a bummer because i was really thinking that'd be a good target market. but i guess i'll save my dollars and print less records now.

i am in rare form tonight. and i know exactly why but i'm not telling you no sir no way no how.

much ado about something

so i started work on "doctor, these headaches" today. so far i can tell you this much: it will be recorded at roughly 110 beats per minute in the key of G major. it will have 2 guitar parts, and a drum part that kinda reminds me of "where the river goes" by stone temple pilots (but don't worry, i will never rock as hard as them). of course there'll be a bass in there too somewhere but i have no idea how it'll sound and i'm sure it won't be anything special since i'm clueless.

if i manage to do it right, it'll be the best song on the record, but i probably won't manage to do it right. i might be seeking a guest vocal, or i might not. it's probably really going to test my voice. as it stands right now it's also going to test my guitar skills. i'm uncomfortable with both of those tests. i'm unduly nervous about the whole thing, and working very, very slowly.

it only has 4 chords.

i am a big baby.

were they all just lost in the flood?

i've spent all day so far today listening to old vinyl records. i have a totally sweet turntable that i never use and a really warm sounding old hi-fi amp that i probably paid about $10 for at a yardsale because some yahoo got himself an alpine. old speakers, etc.

the point is that everyone who says rock and roll sounds best on vinyl is 100% right. i have all these records on cd and vinyl. and they all sound better on vinyl. and if it totally doesn't break my bank, i am going to make some vinyl versions of "they're more afraid of you than you are of them" when i finally finish it. from what i hear vinyl is a specialty thing, but is affordable in small quantities. of course i haven't really done much homework on it yet.

but let's talk a bit about the record, since i don't feel like i do much of that anymore and as i've been recently reminded, that is why i started all this writing in the first place.

it's coming along. not without its share of frustration (i just shitcanned all but the drums for "a viking's funeral" so i can redo it in a different key that i can sing better), but it's coming. a song is done when i am still proud of it 2 weeks after the last time i tweaked it. and by that measure, 4/8 songs are done. of course one of those is the centipede song and it doesn't even belong on the album and it's been done for years and it'll probably just be a hidden track but who the f cares? the other three that are done are "if these walls could talk," "i spin forever," and "new york city." i haven't even started "doctor, these headaches" or "triple deke" yet. that leaves "the loudest man on the laugh track" which is the one i earlier intimated might end up sounding like a william shatner song. at this point that is still possibly the case.

in a drawer here at my desk i have about 10 rolls of undeveloped film dating as far back as my sophomore year in college (which is like 5 years ago) and some recent introspection has made me decide to get them developed. for all i know they've expired or something, but they've all been in lightproof cases and all that so i'm just going to hope for the best. the point is, there's going to be a lot on there that's going to hurt to see. but probably a lot also that'll be really nice. and since none of them are labeled, everytime i do one it'll be a surprise. i hope whether nice or not they'll move me forward with this record and with life in general. not that i'm living in the past or anything (not that far in the past anyway) but these film rolls represent to me a lot of shit i've avoided confronting for a long time. i guess i'll keep you posted.

lastly, i know i've linked you to the ex-girlfriend project about a million times by now, but he mentioned the other day how "mary, queen of arkansas" always reminded him of "kara" (who so far is unquestionably the most interesting of his ex's) and that just came on while i was typing all this. on vinyl the way it should be.