loooseanaa... [turkey day blog]
o laawd it is my favoreet holiday. it's the one with all the right things behind it and the perfect framework for the soul. you know, football and the slaughter of indians. nah, i think that whole gratitudinal full-fledge fall harvest kinda family doing what families do comfortable or un, forget the stresses kinda framework. the further out i go into the world i think the more i learn to appreciate the simple things that make me thrive. but maybe i'm just imagining that. maybe i'm really just a demolition man. heh.
i've only been in baton rouge a few days, but there are so so many things i have seen and done right off that have made it good to be here:
-going up with jason in the copilot seat of his grandfather's tiny plane and flying over to false river, and him even letting me pilot for a bit. feeling the weightless surreal high of flying in a small plane built in 1961.
-going to see the whole choir after practice at ruby tuesday's, and remembering wendy working there.
-going over to kidnap adam's yamaha vino scooter which i guess i still partially own anyway, and zooming all the freak over this stillsmall town like these things were meant to do.
-CC's bread pudding coffee
-reviewing the new album with adam, talking volumes about musical directions and theory for the future, recording, etc, and playing our instruments in the comfortable way we always do together.
-mom's frog-in-a-hole; dad's corn and shrimp soup.
-making videos from inside the bright flourescence of mondo-br-thrift kingdoms for those far away.
-fruilessly turning my folks house upside down looking for 'the compleat astrologer's love signs' book i left here, feeling the despair after the empty search, only to find out it sells on amazon.com for 1.48
-going to their storage to find in such random places the randomnest things from my past, to muster memory i wouldn't have mustered myself.
-assembling the most kickass vinyl collection west philly's never
seen from my own, louis', and my dad's past records.
-the classic back alley cellphone-convo walks.
-coffee call
-wine and pizza at jason and anna's new house big enough to hold 3 large ethiopian families with them.
-celebrating my brother's b-day at their house and having him express that he'd rather do the quiet more personal at-homeness than the formalities of a restaurant.
-wittnessing an numb-skulled fratboy fight outside the caterie and amusedly feeling like i was at a sporting event.
-speedin like mad on two wheels by the mossy wonderful louisiana nighttime lsu lakes.
...it feels so weird to not have alaine, my b.r. connection, here to call up and see what the deal is for the evening. now ironically i'm the one relaying what is up in b.r...
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oh, in other news, "Elixir" won gold in the pop/rock category of the Songwriter's Association of Washington Awards, and "Tiny Spaces" won silver in the R&B category. i'm honored and excited.
..so i'm gonna be flying on up there to play the awards gala and do some shows, which is kinda ass-backwards, but there you have it.
fast n slow
i'm on the slowest computer in the world in asheville nc, and unfortunately commodore 64 has no customer service. so i will just drop in.
i am in the middle of my grand voyage southward and metaphorically back thru time for me, and i already feel as though my head is opening up and gaining a wonderful sense of meaning and joy. it helps perspective so much to change locale, and to invest all the heart you can into spilling over into the spaces of those who matter. i must have spoken more than 2000 words today and heard 5,000.
-boston: i began here, and most definitely had the goodness of all the bustling peacoated scholarly people around, and i got to hear some fantastic music and see people i haven't seen in too long. it definitely made up for the fact that to get around the place requires more directional skill than lewis OR clark and the savvy of a nyc cabbie. i really had it easy when i could park my car in the back of this big house there back when and didn't even realize it. this time it was spending 10-15 minutes 3 times a day negotiating parking. i figure if i could spend that same amount of time doing grannie tasks by the end of the week i would have a quilt and a bakery storefront.
-connecticut- this state is filled entirely with wealthy people. there is not a poor person in this state. i met bums who gave me four gold pieces each just for the ability to shine my shoes. it was great. and so i finally got to play that place called 'the space' in hamden ct that i have wanted to for so long. and it was such a well set-up room with such appreciation and great sound. it was like a mini grey eagle without the dogs coming up onstage. and i met the daria gal from ny that night who is out there kicking arse with her trio band singing with her whole body, and some kinda unexplainable way i knew her birthday was right by mine after seeing her perform, and it was a day from mine. anyway i hope to get on back to this place and that it keeps its groove on..
-living room, brooklyn- well i didn't quite make it here bc i was told by miss sophie that i HAD to come play this mic in central square boston at a place called 'all asia' that had painful comedy and huge drinks that came with 'free' t-shirts and a host guy who sang so sweet and high and buckleylike and so it was cool enough but a sopping wet night that had little to keep me from driving off into the night in a moonlit enchanted race for southern sanity.
-philly- so i opened for michael glabecki, the singer of rusted root, and it was a damn fine eve. despite the string break at the beginning i feel like i was able to build up this arc of energy that briefly wove thru my whole catalogue and tried some new stuff, and i felt good and a lot of people went home with my recordings. he was sweet and travelling on the road with his little long-haired son, so cute carrying in guitars and getting coffee for him and then disappearing into the back to read his hardy boys book. michael did his yodel thing and worked himself into a fury, and ended with a dance-happy 'on my way' that had the whole place feeling simple, elemental. all the coffee and late-night deleware diner with gail afterwards got me right on my way and sent me right thru dc on down to sunrises and richmond garage sales and sweet carolinas where i am now. i have been taking in the mountains and small-town brevard and films and huge huge conversations with sage, and i don't even know what hour it is and that is utterly fine for now.
i will be in atlanta and more soon, so i hope everyone will be in touch. sorry for the novel, but i thought i'd give the update about everything. i hope everyone is feeling the winds as though every piece of them was meant to move, to gravitate in motion and resistance to sloth flaccid apathy.
miles
i'm in boston now and so begins my big elizabethtown-like journey across the states, this time south. i'll be slowly making my way back to baton rouge and trying to stop at all the places to see all the people who have made the journey so meaningful. it's ironic in two ways: 1)at the beginning of my stay here at this crazycold city of bad parking, rachel took me to this pub that for some reason had all lsu fans in it, in the hub of new england raucously cheering on the footbal team on the screens that meant so much in my formative years. this unbelieveable event crowned the maiden voyage back there for the holiday season that puts thanks in our veins, or is at least supposed to 2)rach and i just watched elizabethtown, and despite all the obvious plot turns and overworked soundtrack cues, a lot of the film is about the battle between sentimentality and non. i know that for me, for my life, for my sanity, for my grace, for my dignity, for my sense of focus, and for my meaning artistic and otherwise, it is and always has been an essential ingredient.
daniel offline: laptop stolen
hello all.
so the relevant news is that today i had my laptop with my entire life, creative sentimantal professional and otherwise, on it,
STOLEN from me in philly, along with my iPod containing my whole music library.
i guess the first point would be that i can't really be online much at all during the next lil period of saving up for another, as filing the police report did not leave me the most hopeful of campers.
so if you are in touch in that way there may be a little bit of a delay. it's all dependant upon various computer-borrowing circumstance.
the second would be if you are close to me and have sent mail, photos, or files which may involve my appirition and soul, don't delete em because i don't have em.
the third would be that i'll be taking this as a pretty potent sign as far as focus concerning my life, so i will be concentrating for awhile on important relationships and the music within me.
thank you to whomever might think this a good time to order the new disc or give me a hello.
be good to your world. want what is naturally yours.
love your time and your present company, not the things around you and your feedless obsessions.
d