beautiful, funny, sad & true

Today I could barely focus on work because I had so much recording stuff to think about.  I kept thinking about how two of the bands I’m in are about to start recording new albums, and in both of those projects I’m doing the lion’s share of the production, recording and mixing.

My eyes popped open at 4:30 this morning, and I had a bunch of ideas about what to do with IrishBand’s recording, and how to go about it, and where to do it, and which songs we should do, et cetera.  I also e-mailed Breanna a bunch of times to figure out when we can go in and start on the basic guitar and vocal tracks, and what the process might be like.

I like not knowing what the process is going to be like, truth be told.  I like to sit with a song and let God (or whatever) tell me what to play.  Production is spiritual for me, and it drives me crazy when people sit there and tell me what to play, because I always think, “Shut your piehole. . .I’m trying to listen to GOD here.”

SHORT GEEK-OUT #1:  Last week I bought, with a great deal of help from IrishBand, a Digi 002 recording interface, but it has a slight design flaw with its power supply, which Digidesign is aware of.  If you own one of these units, and you have a problem with it, relax. . .all you have to do is call Digidesign and they’ll send you the replacement part (for free!) along with a little instruction booklet on how to install it correctly.  That’s what I did tonight, and then I spent the next hour opening up old sessions and listening to them.  Good times.

SHORT GEEK-OUT #2:  I use a program called SiteMeter here on BFS&T to tell me where all y’all are coming from, and their site was down this weekend because they were migrating to a newer version of their software.  Well, after all their and our (meaning the collective group of users around the world) hard work, they released a ponderous, worthless program which they must have received an endless stream of complaints about, because later that day they had already changed back to the original version.  God bless ‘em.  I can’t imagine Apple doing that.  Thanks, SiteMeter!  I love the original!

Here ends the geek-out.  We now return you to your witty, insightful blog, already in progress.

OneYearAgo

Yesterday, I decided that since I had a day entirely to myself, I would continue some of the photography experiments I had been working on the other day at work, when we had run out of things to do.  I’ve been wanting to redesign the look of this blog, you know, and I have a very specific image in mind for the header.  I went to Mt. Tabor Park and took about a million pictures like this:

I don’t know how long I spent doing that, but I took about a hundred million pictures.  My original idea was to be on the side of the hill that faces the city, and use that as the background, but that’s the windy side of the hill, so I wasn’t having much luck, as you can tell from the middle picture.  If I faced the city, the paper curled back toward me every time.  I think I’m going to have to go in the morning to get the right kind of light for that particular shot.  So I had to give up on that idea for now, so I walked to the forested top of the hill and used that as the majority of the backgrounds.  I walked around everywhere, holding a tiny scrap of paper in front of my camera, checking it against the ever-changing background, and snapping shots as I went.  It was surprisingly fun.  A couple of sneaky snoopers walked over, ostensibly to look at a plaque on the ground, but really it was to take a peek at what I was doing.  They surreptitiously poked their heads over to read my little paper scraps that were clipped to the back of my cell phone to save them from the wind.  It was very funny to watch them do that and not attract my attention.

Now I just need to learn how to edit the header image on WordPress blogs, and to find a new layout that I like as much as this one.  I was immediately drawn to this blue-and-black one because it’s beautiful, but it’s also unusual.  It took a lot of scrounging around to find one that didn’t look generic, you know?  So now I have to find a new one that I’m drawn to in that same way.  Then I have to try and put it all together with one of these images, and hope that the idea even works in the way that I imagine that it will.

Today I’m not going to worry about it, though, because I’m going to buy (with a little help from IrishBand) a newer recording interface and software, which means I can mix songs at home again.  For money.  Yay!  I will also have a portable system that I can take to other locations as well.

These are a few of the things that are very exciting right now.

I feel like I’m wasting my life.

No, I don’t mean that in a melancholy way; I’m not feeling bummed out.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  I’ve actually been feeling energized and inspired lately; inspired to change my life again.  I feel that I keep coming up against the same proverbial ceiling that I always come up against eventually, being the ’side’ person in musical situations.  I need to be either the main writer or one of the main writers in a group.  I need to take more chances.  I need to step up my metaphorical game.  I need to have confidence in the marketability of my skills.  My skills get results, you know?  Someone’s making money off of them, and it ain’t me, and that’s unacceptable.

I need to talk to other people who are out there doing it as freelancers, as professionals, not the nay-sayers, or cautious people who are slaves to security.  Working a dead-end job that sucks up my valuable time is getting really old.  I’m watching my life get frittered away, and I’m the only one who can change that, shake it up, and set things right.  I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.

Luckily, I do have a few friends and acquaintances who are making it work, so I have people I can go to and discuss all of this.  Talking to the right people is crucial right now; talking to the wrong people can be poisonous.

Right now I have some things I need to do, and some business to attend to.  In a good way.

This is a really busy week. . .not that I haven’t had plenty to talk about, just haven’t had time to tell about it. Saturday I went and had an awesome breakfast with my friend, and then went to KBOO to record an episode of JBJ’s radio show, which will be aired next week.

Tuesday night I made a nice, improvised dinner for my friend of tofu, bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and basil leaves, in a blackberry teriyaki sauce, stir-fried and served with rice. It didn’t come out like I expected, but it was really good nonetheless. Then I went downtown to see a show that featured many of my actor friends. It was very entertaining, and quite the combination of elements. I took lots of pictures; when I have more time I’ll post a few. After the show, a handful of us went around the corner to Ground Kontrol, where we played Rock Band for the first time. I played drums. It was really fun, but a bit weird, too, if you already know how to play the instrument in question. A few guys came up after our song and said, “You’re a real drummer, aren’t you? I could tell. You were using the pedal and everything!” Hilarious.

Last night my friend and I went to sushi and then went looking for a raincoat for her, and then the rest of the time I spent cleaning up after the cooking extraganza the night before. I also watched the movie DIG! after that, which is excellent. I’m definitely planning to watch it again before I return it.

Tonight after work, I’m driving down to Salem for a cello recording session, doing the session (as long as it takes) and then driving home. Tomorrow after work, I’m driving to Yakima for the weekend, to play a gig, and to see a couple of friends. Again, I’ll write more about all of this when I have some more time, and after I have some pictures to show for it.

Why ‘ouroboros’? Because I’ve been so busy lately that the feeling of chasing my own tail isn’t quite enough. . .by the time this weekend is over, I will have caught up with myself, and I may actually find myself able to eat my own tail.

Ew.

Anyway.

Carl Jung is rolling over in his grave right now.

OneYearAgo

Pretty dang good weekend.

Spent Friday evening with Joan.  We intended to watch a movie, but it took so long to make dinner, and we had such a late start, that she ended up leaving after that.  Saturday I cleaned my apartment and did about a million loads of laundry, then I had a gig with Susie, and we stayed out too late drinking and talking.  Sunday I talked on the phone a lot, and then finally got the new tubes put on my bike.  Went to meet Joan again after all that, and we went to a good, cheap sushi place on Northwest 21st, then decided to go see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  It was a very touching and emotional movie; many people in the audience were sniffling or choked up.  I certainly was.  I can’t wait to read the book, and I highly recommend the movie.

Yesterday I took the day off from work, in order to play accordion on a radio show with Breanna and BassistChris for the Local Music Spotlight show.  As soon as Breanna posts the song on her MySpace page, I’ll post a link to it here for you to check out.

When you first walk into the building, there are five large-screen televisions in the lobby.  I turned to Chris and gestured to them.  “Wow, there sure a a lot of TV’s for a radio station,” and then we both turned around to see the huge sign proclaiming NewsChannel 8, the NBC TV affiliate.

We played two songs, and were done and out of there in about forty-five minutes, with CD in hand.  Apparently the songs will start being played on the air in June, at approximately the same time that the radio station’s compilation CD - on which one of Breanna’s songs will be featured - will be released.  After we were done, we went and had sushi at the same place Joan and I had been to the day before.   That’s how good it was.

I rode my bike to work today, which was the first time I’ve been on a bike in about two years.  It felt great.  That is, it WOULD have felt great if I’d eaten dinner last night, and drunk any water at all, and gotten more than four hours of sleep.  I totally bonked as soon as I got to work, and instantly gulped down three bottles of water before even having to use the bathroom once.  (Don’t you just love my blog?)  Ate a huge chicken burrito for lunch, and kept drinking water for the rest of the day, which made the ride home MUCH easier.  I’m not gonna lie, though.  I’m pathetically and comically lazy and out of shape, ever since I got my car.  But not anymore.  It’s a whole new spring, and time to shake off this lethargic winter.  This experience was a reminder that there’s a right way to exercise, and that I have to plan in advance in order to have enough energy reserves to do what I want my body to do.  Looking forward to a lot more riding!

And much more spring.  After many freezing weeks, it looks like spring is finally going to come, and the weekend is supposed to be hot and beautiful.  I, however, will be in Port Townsend, Washington, to play accordion with Fenbi, the Irish band.  I’m sure it’ll be just as beautiful up there.  Love that town.  The best pastry shop I’ve ever been to in my entire life is there.  Why, that would be the Tyler Street Coffee House; I’m glad you asked.   If I lived in Port Townsend, I’m sure I’d weigh four hundred pounds from eating there all the time.  So f’ing good.

Today at work, a friend surprised me by giving me six CD’s.  They’re almost all by groups I’ve never heard of, too, which makes it even more exciting.

I find myself, again, at a loss of how to tie up all these little loose ends, and come up with a really good name for this entry.

Well, since this was just a plain old good weekend, all around, I suppose that means that the name should be. . .