D's Journal
cycle sluts from hell
played the barking spider last nite. that place is impossible to find. i think mapquest is the quinessential example of love/hate for me. anyway there was a ukelale dude who was nice to me. i think ukelales take the least time to burn.
last thursday nite there was a strange asian man who didn't speak english well and who shook my hand as i came in. he later bought me a drink out of nowhere and told me 'you play better than this one here' hmm i didn't know if he was telling me or asking me, so i assured him i would. i stayed clear of him in the bathroom tho. anyway i have experienced a lot of generosity in my day. i try to give that stuff back to this world. especially when i add to the water tables in people's gardens.
i've been around a lot of overlaughers lately. it makes me uncomfortable when i feel obligated to laugh at least a little just to equal out some of the laughter equalibrium, but it's over something that really is not funny in the least. what the hell gives?
and wal-mart does not sell silly putty, i found out. you watch it, this is the beginning of a communist leadership.
the best thing to use for seasoning pasta are the sauces they give for chicken at wendys. especially the spicy southwest chipotle. that shite makes my head spin like i've been wearing a really heavy sombrero all day it's so good yo.
i really just had a minute. but i wanted to say hi. to reassure the diodes and resisters and silicon that i still exist.
o yes, we have 'the internet'... over here..
the week that has passed has been munificent, beautiful. i don't really know what to post except that i feel blessed by this world. summer begins, and with the heat comes new routines and new spaces and new company and lemonade.
on thursday i played dr. dremo's in arlington, and that place is fantastic, i definitely want to play there again when i come round. anywhere where they crank you is cool. i'll take a place with pool and beer anyday over a listening room if they crank you good.
i was very fortunate in that i was given a headlining slot for the saturday show at the six string in cary. the unfortunate part was that kyler was out with the flu. betterness, kyler. anyway the room filled up with good people and i did a whole lot of talking in between my songs, which is normally not really my bag, baby. i was kindof rambling at the mouth, and i felt as if someone had poured a couple glassfuls of pixie sticks into me before the show. anyway it was this gal lisa's birthday and i sang her good wishes for it in the middle of uniforms. the group she was with was made of up a diverse lot, half emo, half plaid, but they were all tremendously cool and nice. afterward they invited me over to a party they were having, and i got to feel the sweet luxury of an old open-feeling woodeny cozy-type house during a deep thunderstorm with good vibes and conversation and stout (i only had one) and unpretentiousness. i got to play a couple more tunes in a more intimate setting, and i felt as though everyone was feeling good. it is amazing how we humans bounce off of each other. all you need is a good catalyst. anyway i had to go too soon but assured them it was only because i had a long way to go that nite.
last night i was up drinking wine at an erase the markings on the music party. cello players are the coolest. they put the least pencil marks on their scores. that's because they know they are the shit and have a large object vibrating between their legs. whereas first violins are like, 'o goodness, what haveth we here, a key change and a crescendo, i must signify my coursing emotions beyond what this composer has on this page, give me the pencil.' anyway, these people need fresh new scores to mark up, so i was one of the orchestral gimps.
the night winds hum and howl at me because they know i need to get on back to my homeland to get all the details flowing for this cd release. it won't be long. i was a terrible first cousin for not being at emily's wedding, and i really hope she knows i wanted to be. but i wish her content, union, patience, understanding, happiness, and love.
daily doses of those who already have the patience and focus to actually read this damn thing.
boone-django
the end of school and the shedding of skin
around where i am right now there are these things called cicedas, and billions of them. basically i was walking around vienna when i first noticed there was this tree where many of the leaves had the remaining exoskeleton of this crazy-looking large flying pest that looks a little horror movie-like if you get up close, like all brown and clinging on to the leaf but motionless and crusty. then i not only noticed that almost every leaf of this tree had one on it but before me was a plot of grassy land that was covered, like i started taking tiny steps here and there just to avoid stepping on the remains of these crazy things.
well come to find out, these things come out in a 17-year cycle, and for that time they are buried deep in the ground and then finally they come up out here and mate for 3 months and then die, and they leave their attractive little sheddings and their babies who perpetuate the cycle. and this year is this huge year of them, like a plague of locusts. for every acre of land round here there are supposedly roughly a million of them. someone was feeling bad for stepping on one of them, and i was on the fringe of having the thought, it's not like one matters, there are billions of them, when i stopped myself in the thought that the very same thing could be said of humans.
but it wasn't the first time i was on that trail of comparison. because it's like they spend all this time and contain all this protien and life just to come up and procreate and then die, and it all just seems a little futile, a little absurd, and during moments of aboveness, and bigness, we kind of seem that way too. like if you look at the grand scheme of humanity and the huge mass of history and arcs of creation, we are just peons of procreation. across whole history there are little specs of humans who have affected the wholeness of humanity like shakespeare and newton and einstein and jesus. but there is a point at which you can accept your own purpose, your own part of the stream, and be fully content in the absurdity. because we have been placed here with human minds, human spirit and compreshension and love, then each of our lives takes on this whole grand scheme where every day can contain so much, we remember it all and place personal meaning, we live for our beautiful purposes and we love other human beings and we have the ability to die with the sense of knowing that we have truly known this world and have given something to it, and the act of living has filled our souls and senses with so much. i cannot simply step blatant with the crunch of absurdity because i feel meaning in every day.
that isn't the only thing i think i'm supposed to think about because of the symbols that are these things. i think i've come across them to remind me about renewal. that the shedding of a former skin is a neccesary process, and what lies on the inside is the real me, and sometimes learning what to forget or move on from can be just as important as remembering.
i played the college perk thing again, and at the counter there was this little taped note that read 'free cicedas with any purchase.' that place is great. it is humble and buzzed and musical and youthful.
while i was in vt we watched 'the bride,' a frankenstein movie with sting in it. and there is a reason that it can be found in the 5.50 bin at wally world. but that reason should not restrict you from the all-enlightening experience that is the watching of this flick. we were on our sides howling with laughter. but on the contrary young gordan sumner does not crack a smile for the entirety of the movie. i think the directer forbode it. and what a director he was. be sure to check out the commentary to fully realize his directorial genius, and how seriously he actually took himself.
it is an odd week, and i miss whatever sense of home i seem to have. i am grateful that i actually do have one tho- the sense i mean.
nyc
every time i visit manhattan the particular host of the City for that visit takes me to the same place. 18 thousand bohemian hip beautiful dives with remarkable coffee and food, and i end up at yaffa cafe on the lower east side every time. but i love it. tacky and overzealously carnival-like and with no pretension, it makes me happy. i am in a tiny room which is kristin diable's pad, and like the feeling that one gets from being crammed into a lil maximized space with every tangible thing having to be functional, meaningful, and with the bumping cascading loud car noises seeping in with the sound of chris whitley singing from the computer.
i played in oradell nj tonite just about 25 minutes from here to a place filled with young jersey suburbanites who should be listening to something punk or hardcore, but instead just get vibed on caffeine and read poetry and play with waterguns in the streets and play acoustic guitars and the like. twas cool enough tho.
i duped the tollbooth lady getting over to the island bc i pretended, 'o god, how do i get to 95 SOUTH, that's where the gas station guy told me to go.. i didn't mean to come this way..' '::sigh:: go on ahead and get off at the next exit' -there's the secret to getting thru to the island without that obnoxious toll.
i think i might now attempt to end up cleaner than i was before entering the dingy communal floor room that provides showering. i hope everyone's minds have been cleaned by their weekend.
meal cards and battles of the 'bands' and everyday haloween
and now it is time to leave the campus of bennington college. this place has been like no other- there's a student body of 500+, there are no grades and no majors per se, and the atmosphere is completely open, free, liberal, yellow, different. still, i kinda have felt most of the events i've been to have been just short of weird contests. basically the popular people here would be outcast and failing at the college i attended, but i am sure they are much more aware of the realm of possibility than our achievers. anyway there are some amazing thinkers and artists i've met, and i wish i could hear and see all of their work. helen has been a blithe spirit and awesome host to bring me round here and make me feel welcome with all these people. the gratitude seeps out as i gather my stuff to find the toll road.
i'm headed to the new york and new jersey area to play some new places and i will slowly come on down, the next contestant on the south is tight.
baltimore, philly, vermont
been crazy travellin of late, and it's been all good in the car with the horns. baltimore is seasoned and new england-like and cool, but it is like an old man with a little trouble walking, whereas i see atlanta as a fresh twenty-something with a lot to learn but a lot to tell and a spring to its step. i played the funk box in baltimore, and it was a cool place with a nice well-run sound system. a hardcore band preceded me, and there i was, standing there with my vibe. i shoulda just played skynard. but i did my thing and i think it translated.
drove to philly and crashed at a really nice residence inn suite- much surface luxury but the shower still bit anus- all i really want is a nice shower. i'll take a dingy catpiss room but if it has a nice hot hard shower-- c'est ci.
did all the au neccesaire errand kinda stuff in philly and then played at the point- wow what a phat-ass room. i can't really ask for more than a room full of people, mostly young bright-eyed folks, waiting for something to shake em outta a good system and nice acoustics with a good vibe and quiet but not too quiet. you know? met a lot of really cool people and saw some good stuff. i did not however get to indulge in a philly cheese in the italian market. my bowels thank me. anyway there was this dude who played who had all these electronics strapped to him, and somewhere in the middle of it all was a guitar- he looked like some crazy astronaut about to like shoot off into the air, but by way of a huge crunchy power chord. all these wirings everywhere like with a flex-capaciter in the middle, and tubes coming up to his mouth and all. i was glad to survive his set alive, and multitrack echo wah sequenced harmonized sampled enriched as well.
gail had to finalize with cleaning the hood of her car with bottled water, and before the night was thru i was off my way seperately towards a state in which i've never before been spotted. i'm in vermont now, and let me tell ya, there aren't any grits here, but they've all heard marty. beautiful place, and i can see the stars. quote of the day: "you know, you might be feeling pretty down about something, but morressy will be feeling worse" -helen
ask alice..
i had forgotten how gratifyingly cool busking can be. but on saturday there i was in old town alexandria along the boardwalk right near the river and it was a ferris beuler day- perfectly sunny but not hot at all- and i had my crate taxi battery powered amp out there and i was playing for the leisurely peeps out strolling along the shops and the river. the kids were cool- they like to dance to the music, and i put their names in it, and i helped to make spectacles in people's home videos, and the people one finds around there have a surpising amount of expendible income, tho maybe not that surprising if you look at the real estate round there and upon which they have car notes.
later that night i soaked myself into bernie's cd collection and most of what came up on the forefront and took me by the shoulders and shook me was the tom waits discs he had. i know most musicians have heard bits and pieces of tom waits and know what he sounds like, but if you have not taken the time to open up the libretto and sit with it and take in a whole album or two you have done yourself a major blindsight and dis-service. it is entrancing, striking, hauntingly beautiful, masterfully written, boldly original, and with amazing words. much to be learned.
yesterday we were reccommended off to this 'cajun' restaurant somewhere in bethesda, called louisiana express or something, and so yea, i'm in need of a good creole meal, especially on mother's day when i hear my whole fam on the cell over at my aunt's house soppin up somethin good with their biscuit.. so i don't know why i keep trying. last time it was a place in alexandria that basically ended up to be thai cooks trying to cook new orleans dishes with an asian flair, and ending up with some sort of thing that would cause the teen girl squad to go 'ooh.. my stomach lining..' and so yesterday it was called etouffe but was really white rice covered with peppery brown red beans sauce with various articles in it, and some south asain waiter being really confused over whether we ordered beignets or aligator tail or both or what but charging us for all of it no matter. anyway the point is, i don't know whether to laugh or be beligerent at how my people's food is being represented in these far reaches of the country, and even as reccommended by a person who got her masters at lsu. i guess i have to preliminarily get the person to fill out a questionaire of how many times they have tailgated on the lsu campus, what things are included in a crawfish boil, define boudin, what color is the sauce in etouffe, etc bc dammit you can't trust just anyone. moral: don't eat lousiana cuisine where you may be near a gift shop with a shirt that says 'the south will never rise again as far as i can help it'.
anyway yesterday was good because i played a show at the electric maid with monty backing me that really felt balanced, good, dynamic. we kind of made the middle part of my grecian urn into this spoken/sung part where monty was reading off all the names in my cellphone. he tried to call my mom but she didn't answer. they also had this big fan that i got to sing thru in starboard, like i used to do as a kid when i was obsessed with poltergeist.
afterward we went to a band practice of my brethrin greg and jon, and it was one of those experiences where opening the portal to the world of people you've been knowing for awhile just makes them all that more real, all that more admirable and interesting. it's also crazy when you know someone you've had tons of musical convos with and who has been viewing your guitar chops for a long time turns out to be really good at the guitar. good band sound even without the presence of a bass player whose scheduling is similar to that of some of my past bass players. what is it about bassists? anyway i also saw a basement silkscreening operation with badass designs, and i'm now the proud owner of a fly-ass t-shirt with blocklike space invaders on it. and my jaw pretty much dropped wide open when i discovered that jon is like at the atomic prodigy genius level of dance-dance. like waay better than anyone i've ever seen on those pads, better than the asian kids doing it in lost in translation, better than that dude you kinda know, oh yea, he's better. like the arrows are coming a mile a minute, hundreds of em, and he's like some sort of whacked out fast-forward insect imitating a fast-forward michael jackson video hitting every one in succession faster than you could even imagine comprehending them. that was the goods.
i tried to find this house party that nite and had a notepad full-o directions, but somehow ended up in the ghettos of d.c. where they were like picking up my car while i was driving it, ok no they didn't do that but the line was busy at the house and i ended up finding the nearest semblence of interstate and got the hell 'home'. but i figured that was maybe what was supposed to happen. to humble my ego of the ability to find anything and to give me a peaceful nite in another house. bold new week ahead. hope it's all good for y'all.
madame's organ
last night: off the hook. adams morgan is the part of d.c. where the streets are flooded with hip people all decked out and looking chic, where there's no parking and where there are tons of sweet clubs and restaurants with exotic foods and lights and a million things happenning at once. a fest for the senses. anyway i was invited to play guitar with band of blue, my friend shane's band at a fly club namd felix there last night, and it was a fabulous eve. started off having some vietnemese food that was really good, then headed on over there and before i played there was this dude who soon became my hero- he cleared out a lot of space for himself by dancing like a maniac, looking like some sort of cross between bill cosby and a wild crack chicken, like this dude was the shit- i promise you've never seen dancing like this, and it was before anyone even had started anything called dancing. anyway he singlehandedly changed the atmosphere from martini-like and tight-ass to crazy-ass fun. he grabbed this girl, one who actually had the spirit and didn't scoff at him, one with flair in a polka-dot white dress, and started dancing with her like i'm sure put the fear of god in her. dipping her like way lower than i thought humanly possible, twirling her around, moving around recklessly furious and with abandon. the bar was quite happy she'd picked out a good pair of underwear that nite. but in a decent marilyn monroe kinda way of course. anyway, most people refused him but at some point i got out there with him and was doing some crazy brotherly moves and spinning round with him, and after he heard me sing he ended up buying me a beer. his name is sloop, and if you ever meet him, you've met a d.c. treasure.
anyway i got to play some mean electric on a paul reed smith, and the band was really funky and quick to pick up whatever i played. which was everything from prince to phish to hendrix to spearhead to beatles n more. was a good time had by all? i'd say pretty damn close.
afterwards: bob and edith's diner. this is the coolest diner next to louie's. i must tell the story. about half a year back on the tour with seth, if you can imagine four guys all sitting at a table at bob n edith's passionately engaged in a conversation where we were all talking about some controversial thing or other, all trying to talk, all having very different opinions on the matter- if you were looking at us from 10 feet away you would see men in a .. not a dichotomy but a.. quadchotomy. well this waitress walks up to take our order who has liv tyler lips and basically looks like one of the abbotts in inventing the abbotts, and we all stop, lean our heads and say, '..uh... yes.. what do we want to order ::shuffle:: hmm.. i think.. uhhh' ::glance at each other.. ::smile:: '...errr....' ::sigh::. it was an amazing moment because it was like the primal chemical instinctual male thing. you can have men from different backgrounds, different vantage points, totally on opposite ends of the arena, but what will with no hesitation bring them together in unity and make them a single unit... is a beautiful girl.
anyway, a little dissapointing last night bc we were met with this awkward spiky-haired adolescent of a boy at his very first real job last night, and i think the liv girls don't work there anymore. tis ok. sometimes things are better in purity of memory. and i have their jelly bracelets on my arm. they kind of represent simplicity to me in a world of difference.
y'all
so i have decided that college park MD is one of the cooler parts of the d.c. area. there's this strip of heaven where there is a huge cd store which carries everything and has lots of used stuff and cool college indie rockers working there in black who won't bother you unless you say, 'hey you- come help me. it will break up your monotony.' . i picked up the rites of spring disc there, at the onset of the hardcore emo d.c. movement next to minor threat. next door to that is a huge music store with crazy guitars and musical toys in dark dusty corners and i think pretty much everything there is used. on tues i played the mic a block down at some kind of place with some coffee pun in the name as i guess they all have nowadays, can't remember the name, and that place was superfly. whole lotta appreciatory response. i was even invited out on the porch to play some more for the stich-n-bitch team and they quite didn't bitch when i knocked over their pot of tea.
i rehearsed on wed and played on thurs with the cellist and the percussion fellow, and we had a damn good time. cellist kicks all getout ass. i want to put him in my suitcase and take him everywhere. he picked up hendrix and my crazy songs and tori and such like that ::snap::
and monty plays mightily on th'congai, and has a great stage rapport with me, espcially when i am making fun of washed up rat-race steriod mooks sitting at the bar wearing tight white ribbed t-shirts with gold chains who are unfortunately the only ones who find themselves o so funny.
i think 6 hours of your life is the maximum amount of time that should be allowed for dealing with a tiny rock cast towards your winshield by an 18-wheeler somewhere. and that's all i have to say about that. dammit.
things r cool up here. had some unexpected visitors last night, and it felt great to lay my weary head down after all that talking, playing, loading, cellphony stuff. they say 'soda' and wear jackets in may and pay toll roads up here but they claim i'm still in the south. bah. here thru the weekend, then onward upward.
north
well the cd release was interesting i'll say that. it filled me with a lot of things in my head- gratitude to those who helped, to those who came out, pretty permanent feelings about the venue itself that will affect my direction in the 404, feelings of certain grounded accomplishment mixed with feelings of inevitable defeat, and a lot of emotional things, many of which cycled through me to create this very album. so i guess it was not exactly all that i had planned it to be but a fitting culmination of bringing this thing into the world. with great sounding oboe on top.
i've now made it to d.c. and dammit how cold can it be in... MAY!? my nipples are telling me, daniel yes we are made to stand up tall under certain conditions but i simply can't hold this pose for too much longer you mook. how far are we from where you were born?
on the way here, we weren't even out of georgia yet and were stopped still on the interstate for a full two hours. the kind of highway thing where people are out from their cars talking to total strangers and first go thru that beligerent frustrated angry phase, then realize their own powerlessness and soon recapture their own humanity to be social again, and find themself talking about where they're going, where they're from, and why... i was mostly just listening to solo buckley.
anyway so we didn't make it to d.c. till 10 am the next day and my sleep schedule is like 3 times more freaked up than its already freaked up self. but it's ok bc i got to take a shower in the whole foods sink and then eat eel that didn't really taste like eel so i just imagined it as some kind of alien fiber, and then i went on my way and played at the jammin java thingy which had a different vibe to it this time. i can't place why, but the room sounded different and there were different germans there this time and it was kris' b-day with fabulous cake made of 100% saturated fat but she was all emotional and out of krisness, and i had to find different things to fill my open mic a.d.d.ity, but it was all good i am using an all different tasty tasty hi-hat which sounds even better then my guitar.
i am now in someone's house where i've never been and noone is here to entertain but a bird who is screaming at me in notes higher than i thought possible so i will do what i can to be industrious i will finally get to shower and change from rachel's lamborghini countach t-shirt i have been wearing for the last two weeks. but i think this computer deleted some of my e-mail. it wasn't me. bastardous thing. anyway so i hope i didn't lose anything important. if i didn't respond to you you know why.
this week up here is a little nebulous in my brain i do know that on thurs i am playing with a cellist and a percussionist so that'll be fly. the rest is gravy. i hope everyone lets me know what they think i will be in touch