Loose Ends

Many things have been happening and jumping:

1. The most wonderful and amazing thing is that PKP and T is gonna have a baby! Woo-Hoo! I am excited by this news.

2. I got stung by a bee!

3. I went to court about a week and a half ago cause I got subpoenaed for the shoplifter. I didn't really have to do anything because the shoplifter sort of plead guilty. But court was boring and interesting at the same time. It was interesting to listen to other people's cases. It was also interesting to watch the State's Attorney, the Public Defender, and the Judge, all of whom seemed to know their jobs very well. It was funny because everyone talked VERY FAST all the time.

4. Jeannie and I are going out of town this weekend on a super-secret semi-impromptu-but-not-really vacation. We're gonna camp. Theoretically. Unless I wuss out and decide I want to stay somewhere with a hot tub.

5. I guess the Schluetermetz' should be arrivin' in Oregon right about now? Or soon?

6. Korn is moving away. Which makes me sad. But I'm happy for her because I think her life will be more exciting and interesting once she moves.

7. I ran 4 miles the other day.

Goodbye O, Hello O!

Well, in a few days, the Schluetermetz' will be leaving Ohio. Truly the end of an era. Poor Ohio, which I have long held to be the suckiest state in The Union, now has no redeeming qualities. And although I definitely have great memories of hanging with the cool kids in Columbus and Bellefountaine, I am feeling surprisingly un-sentimental about their upcoming move. I really think that the good times haven't even started yet, that the West will treat them well, and they will enjoy it. And we will enjoy visiting them.

Still though, I'm always a little sentimental, especially at nighttime, so I've uploaded a few songs about Ohio and one about (I think) Oregon and the Northwest. Looking back and looking ahead. Although I will admit that the Too Much Joy song "Goodbye Ohio" has little to do with Ohio, except the title. But the Damien Jurado is pretty damned good...

I stink.

Goodnight!

Just About 80 Percent...

...of the cd's I've bought in the last year have been jazz cd's. Do I like jazz more than pop these days? Jury's still out...


...of the atmosphere at the B&N tonight was composed of my farts.


...of my dinner was my own chest (I hope) hair.


There's a little bit of a chill in the air tonight. It feels good. I can feel a little breeze blowing across the floor onto my bare feet.

The Jeanners signed up to go back to school today (I'm very proud of her, and I told her so), and yet she strangely didn't want to rent Rodney Dangerfield's 1986 laugh-fest Back To School to get her in the mood (which saddens and disappoints me).

My Big Day, or The Year of the Roach

Yesterday was an important day, for two reasons:

1. It was my 31st birthday.

2. I fucking finished Mason and Dixon. And this is what I have to say:

a) Fuck that book. Fuck it in its A S S.

b) Fuck Thomas Pynchon for writing that book.

c) And finally, and definitely not least importantly, fuck BJ Gailey for recommending that book. Fuck him with a big fat cock. Or at least 2 medium-sized cocks. (Together, not one at a time).

Had a good, low-key birthday. Worked in the morning, went to the gym, went to dinner at a place in Little Italy [where, when the waiter came to take our plates, a cockroach scurried out from either on or underneath my plate. Woo-Hoo!], and then watched an episode of The Tudors while lounging in bed. The Tudors is still bad and nowhere near as good as Rome but damned if we aren't a little bit sucked in.

Spent a good portion of the day working on music and the rest of it on the phone with Verizon trying to fix our internet connection after it mysteriously stopped working. Every time they kept trying to transfer me to someone else, so I eventually hung up and somehow got the thing working myself. Or rather, it started working despite my efforts to screw it up even further.

Thanks for all the Facebook birthday wishes! Sorry for all the bad language!

Not Tired

It's starting to get late but I'm not tired. I mixed myself a big G&T when I got home from work this evening, and I'm still working on it. I've been reading through some old blog posts and realizing how glad I am that I've been keeping this here bloggy-blog. I don't look back at old posts too often, but when I do there's usually something back there that I don't remember writing that makes me smile.

I've been missing folks a lot lately. I listened to some Emmylou Harris at work the other night ("Sweet Old World"), and it made me miss Seanyboy. What it really made me do was look forward to one day having the songwriting visit that we talked about when I was visiting Alaska. We decided then that our next visit would be a songwriting visit rather than a recording visit. So I'm looking forward to that.

And I've been missing the Beej because he's leaving his podcast, and I feel like I haven't seen him in awhile, and I don't know when I'll see him next. Whenever I'm at work and I have nothing to do, I often feel the desire to call him up and shoot the shit. But I don't because A) Inevitably, as soon as I pick up the phone to call someone while I'm at work, 10 customers will walk into the department and I'll have to get off the phone and do my goddamn job, and B) BJ is a bitch and doesn't answer his phone.

And of course, the Schluetrmetz', cause they're moving and have some major changes coming up, and I wonder how our lives will intertwine in the future. Will we end up in the same place? Where is that place? What the fuck will we all be doing? I am beginning to realize that they have a profound effect on my phsyche: 1) I quit smoking after a visit to the Schluetermetz'. 2) I quit eating like a piggy after a visit to the Schluetermetz'. 3) I feel rejuvenated and creative after a visit with the Schluetermetz', and am somehow able to come home and start working on songs again.

Somehow they help me transition out of any ruts I might be traveling in...

(I have just hidden some toenail clippings somewhere in our living room for Jeannie or myself to find at some point in the future and be entirely grossed out. And now I've probably grossed you out, too. Sorry. But it seems like a fun game? No?)

And today I was playing on the guitar that Rich made for me, and I can't pick the damn thing up without wondering how he's doing, and I hope he's doing well. I hope that he gets a chance to come out and visit at some point this year. That reminds me, I need to send uncle Rico an e-mail and ask his advice...Rico is one of a kind.

And jeez, I've been missing people who live right down the damned road. I haven't really seen Pat all summer, haven't seen anybody from CSC, haven't hung out with A-Train. I think there's something inside me that hibernates during the summertime, and I don't know why, exactly. And I really hope that it is just during the summer, and that I'm able to come out of it during the fall, and get off my ass, and make the effort to go see people when I can.

I was listening to some of my songs on the way to work today, and I decided that my favorite line that's in any of them is a pretty simple one: "When will I see you again?"

So, when will I see you again?

Alright, I should go attempt some sleep. Eye doctor appointment tomorrow!

SMARTIES! Part Deux

Seriously, I think I have given myself diabetes with the number of SMARTIES that I have eaten in the last two days. When I was finished tonight at work, I had filled about half of a standard-sized office waste can with discarded SMARTIES wrappers. But dammit if they didn't make the night better.

I'm gonna go ahead and post the rough draft of this song I'm workin' on. The vocals are pretty much just gibberish I was singing so that I will remember a possible melody when I actually try to come up with real words. I think it's a good start, definitely similar to 'The Ring' but maybe different enough...we'll see what happens with it.

Do you want some golden fried jumbo shrimp? Or is it just me?

SMARTIES!

Had a good, productive day yesterday. Went to the gym, did some laundry, baked some cookies, made some dinner, and worked on some music that could turn into a pretty decent song. Now I just have to come up with a decent song. But I like the music, because the things that were "accidents" ended up being the most interesting things, and that's always fun.

Listened to BJ's last podcast today, and it made me kinda sad. I will miss my semi-weekly dose of the Beej.

Tonight work was so god-damned boring that I seriously wanted to kill myself. Then I ate about 15 rolls of SMARTIES and it got a whole lot better.

I am currently stuffing my face with some delicious popped corn and some even more delicious beer.

When I typed "popped corn" just now, I first accidentally typed "pooped corn." How silly. It won't be pooped corn 'til I eat it tomorrow night...

There Will Be Transvestite Shoplifters

I just finished watching There Will Be Blood. I liked it. Daniel Day Lewis is pretty awesome. The whole time I was watching the movie, I was picturing PKP in the Daniel Plainview role, though. I think Pat probably would have done just as good a job.

Went to the beach on Sunday. Hung out with folks from B&N down there. It was a good time, pretty laid back, relaxing. Nothing too outrageous. I got a little bit of a sunburn. I was pretty good about using the ol' sunscreen, though. But I guess I should have put some on my titties, cause that's where I got burned.

I got subpoenaed the other day. Turns out that I have to go be a witness 'gainst the shoplifter that I chased down at the B&N. Anyway, it'll be my first time in court. I hope Harry Anderson is the judge.

The Jeanners and I have been watching the epic western miniseries Lonesome Dove. One of my favorites. We just finished it the other night, and both had ourselves a good cry. If you've never seen it, for the love of Jebus, do yourself a favor and rent the sumbitch.

Thanks a lot, Kneser.

This has been in my head (and Jeannie's, too) for several days.



From Knese's Emergency Pudding.

Download That Shizzit!

NPR is streaming (and you can download it, too) a full Tom Waits concert (2.5 hours!) from Atlanta. Score! Get it HERE.

I have to say, I preferred his setlist in Columbus. In fact, I have yet to read a setlist on the tour that I liked more than the show he played in Ohio, mostly because of the inclusion of "Cold, Cold Ground" and "Time."

Not much else to report.

The Jeanners and I might be taking a semi-impromptu trip to the beach this Sunday. Which should be enjoyable because Korn and John and maybe Brian G. will also be down there.

Got the day off tomorrow. I think I shall bike to the gym, eat some eggs and black beans, and maybe work on music. Maybe not. I farted around on some music today, with not-very-good results, but may have turned up something that I want to go back and revisit later.

Oh, Shenandoah

Today the Jeanners and I went on a float trip on the Shenandoah River with people from her job. I have discovered over the past few days that apparently people here don't use the term "float trip" and have no idea what the hell it is. So, if you don't know, read the sentence after the following sentence. If you do know, you don't have to read it. A "float trip" is when you float down a river in some sort of boat (in this case, a canoe) or other floating device, such as a large inner tube. It might, perhaps, be necessary to note that a float trip should not be attempted with any sort of smaller inner tube, such as a bicycle inner tube. It just won't work. Unless you are an infant (or just infant-sized) and have the inner tube wrapped around you like two or three times. Which might hinder your enjoyment of said float trip.

One day I might want to look back on this day fondly, so for the benefit of my rapidly failing memory I will list the people who went on the float trip: Matt, Kedri, Rodney, Ian, Nancy, Melissa, Eugene, Miriam, and me and J-Dog.

For each of the past 2 days I have held a shit for longer than 8 hours.

Confidential to E. Elz regarding unicycles: When I was a kid, there was another kid who was a few years older than me (I think his name was Mike) who used to unicyle around the neighborhood. The kid was kinda weird, and he looked just like a platinum-blonde version of the kid from the "Rothsdower" MST3K movie.

Today we paid $3.74 for gas. I felt like it was 1982.

Drunk Bike Ride

I came home today from JT's going away party on my bike, and I was a little bit buzzed. And then, when I got close to home, it started raining real hard. It was pretty fun.

The last (and only other?) time I went drunk bike riding was with Sean back in Kirksville. I think we were just riding around Kirksville on some bikes of unknown origin ("borrowed"?) after having been at the Dukum for awhile. I think we ended up at the Schluetermetz' place.

Speaking of the Schluetermetz', Brad posted this video today which made me miss my friends. Also been thinking a bunch about (and missing) the Beej. Especially after having had a delicious burger at the Rec Room.

Summa-time

Not too much happening. Biking, running, going to the gym, hanging out, sweating. I biked to work a few days this week, which has been good, and will save on the ol' gas. I also got asked for money by a panhandler while I was speeding by him. That's a first.

It's been hot.

Last night I had a dream that I gave Matt Davis (from Truman) a backhand slap across the face because he was bothering me.

Wow, I just paused midpost to go take a poop!

A few days ago I downloaded a trial version of some Auto-Tune software so I can make my voice sound like T-Pain.

Hmmm. That's really about it. Today I'm going to a going away party for somebody at work and I'm gonna eat a delicious Rec Room burger and drink some beer.

You fools!

The last post was just a test. Now I know which of my friends are quitting pansies (PKP, RR, JS, EE), and which are tough like me (way to go, JK!). I'm gonna finish that goddamn book! And what's more, I'm gonna finish it by tomorrow night!






























Ok, I've thought it over, and that last part probably won't happen.

Decision Time

I am on page 599 of Mason and Dixon, but I haven't picked the book up in several weeks. I have 174 pages left to go. I took a break and read a Tom Waits biography, and then we went on vacation (and I brought the book but never opened it up), and then I just read Slaughterhouse Five because BJ's review of it on his podcast was so damned good. So now I am faced with the prospect of going back to M&D, which I really don't feel like doing, but I also don't feel like throwing away several months of my life only to NOT finish the book. What do I do?

In other news, the J-Dog and I biked to the garden the other night, and it was a good time. But then she took a spill on the way home. She's ok, but she's scraped up a bit. It was pretty scary.

I biked to the gym yesterday, which turned out to be a surprisingly simple ride, but hilly. And, because the gym is right next door to the B&N, I now know that I could bike to work, which is a nice option.

Time to go poo!

Finally

1. Finally done with 'the ring.' Seriously. I've checked the mix on every possible listening device that I have available to me. Done. Moving on...

2. Finally clocked in at under 180 lbs. today. For the first time in probably about 12 years or so.

3. Finally ran over 3 miles. For the first time in like, ever.

4. Finally got the bike (that we brought back from the Lou for me) up and running.

5. Finally (Saturday in the shower) decided on my two favorite words in the english language: ocean and raining.

Xtreme Bass

After listening in the car to the song I posted yesterday, I discovered that some of the low bass at the end is a little out of control. I'll have to fix that.

Urine Luck!

Outside of our bedroom window, it smells like pee. Which is imressive because we're three flights up. But problematic because we like to have a box fan in the window at night blowing clean, cool air across our sleeping bodies. So if you've been taking your before-bed leak down in our breezeway, please stop.

Yesterday I finished up "The Ring." This morning I checked the mix, and as of right now I am calling it finished. Check it out over in the sidebar.

I think I forgot to mention that Jeannie and I brought back some bikes from St. Louis. Her parents found an old bike that someone was throwing away in the alley behind their house, and it was still in good shape, and my parents had some old bikes from when us kids were, well, kids. So now we have bikes. I'm still waiting on some new tires and tubes that I ordered over the internet, but then we'll be in business. The J-Dog has been riding hers to work now instead of walking, and although the morning traffic is scary, I think she'll enjoy it. I don't know where I'll ride mine. I might eventually attempt to ride it to work, but I'll have to see how practical that would be.

We've watched 3 episodes of "The Tudors." Don't know if we'll get any more discs or not. It's just not nearly as good as "Rome" was, and that's disappointing.

Why Bother?

Haven't really felt like writing since we've been back. Probably because of the heat. So, for the majority of this post, I shall resort to using god's gift to those who don't really feel like writing: bullet points.

But first, I would like to post nearly worthless pictures and video from the Tom Waits concert. Jeannie and I got to Columbus, OH without a hitch, ate a decent Vietnamese dinner at what appeared to be a scary scary Vietnamese restaurant, and then went to the Ohio Theatre, which looked like this:


It was described thusly by the metal heads sitting behind us: "This place is awesome. It's like, bejeweled. It's like a Faberge egg."

The concert was very good, I thought. Not life-changing good, but pretty much just what I expected. I came out of the show having decided that if Tom Waits ever goes on a solo tour, no band, I would slaughter little children in order to get tickets. This is a very poor quality video of a little sliver of "Lie to Me":




Now for the bullet points:

* Tom Waits looks, from a very far distance, like a cross between Frankenstein's monster and the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.

* Once again I was reminded: it's all about the bass, drums, and vocals.

* Though our stay in Ohio was quick, it was damned good to see the Schluetermetz'. Hard to believe that we'll probably never go back to good ol' Bellefountaine, OH again.

* There are certain St. Louis foods that Jeannie and I crave (Imo's Pizza, gyros from Olympia), but no Baltimore foods we crave. When we leave B-more, is there food that we'll crave? Crab cakes? Enchiladas with a fried egg on top?

* Hanging out with Rich Riley was one of those old fashioned, go-out-for-a-drink-and-get-a-little-tipsy-and-talk-about-life type nights the likes of which I haven't had in awhile. It was especially nice that Dressel's was nearly empty and quiet and playing Dixieland jazz.

* I like the new Coldplay cd, though I have mixed feelings towards Coldplay.

* I like the new cd by the Fleet Foxes. I think I could confidently recommend it to many people who read this blog.

* Adios!, Chuy Arzola's mexican restaurant!

* J. Knese, just by being himself, makes me laugh just about more than anybody I know. And I was truly surprised and bummed to hear about Casey's roller-derby induced broken arm.

* E. Elz makes me physically ill.

* "America's Best Value Inn" in Zanesville, OH is probably not really America's best value.

* I am overwhelmed by the gifts that Jeannie and I received while we were in St. Louis.

* "The Tudors" is not as good as "Rome". Not yet, anyway. We've only watched one episode.

* I indulged in beer and meat while I was in St. Louis, but now I am back on the starvation/exercise/misery wagon.

With a Little Help From My Friends

Still on the road. What a wonderful trip it's been. Don't really have the time to write a big post, but I wanted to give a shoutout to Uncle Rico. Thanks for hanging out with the J-Dog and I last night, Buddy. I've been picking around today with Whitey. He looks and feels great. And I can't wait to get home and try out the Pod. Reading the users manual makes me believe that this is the piece of equipment that I have been longing for but have been too lazy to get off my arse and actually look for.

Next round of beers is on me...

More once we get home.

"Hash browns, hash browns, you know I can't be late..."

Tomorrow: A trip to St. Louis with a stop in Ohio to see the Schluetermetz' and Tom Waits.

What a great sentence to write.

More from the road...

Cause I Look Really Good Bald...

...was the answer given to me today by a mentally challenged customer when I asked him why he shaved his head. For the record, however, he does not look as good as me bald. Not by a long shot.

Not too much has been going on. Working out a lot. Running a lot. Not eating a lot. Feeling good. Thinking a lot about music but not actually doing more work. Haven't touched the song that still needs a lot of work, but I might have come up with a very basic idea for a new one. We shall see.

Saw a picture today on Facebook of all the cool kids in Chicago, and it looked like a good time. Sure would've been fun to head to Chicago on a road trip to see the play and catch up with Bewley, but alas, the timing was just slightly wrong. Sure hope the Schluetermetz' write about how it went...(hint, hint)

Tomorrow, my goal is to go to Sherwin-Williams and buy me some aluminum roof coating and paint our roof a nice, shiny, reflective silver so as to try and drop the average temperature of our apartment by a few degrees this summer. I'm looking forward to getting up on the roof and rockin' out to some Tom Waits in the ol' headphones and gettin' a little sun and having some fun.

This week, by the way, is my "Tom Waits Immersion" week. In preparation for the concert (this weekend!), I have been reading a good biography, listening to all his cd's (at first, alphabetically by song, but I listened all day on Friday and only got up to the E's! So I switched to chronologically. And I'll probably skip over some of The Black Rider. Sorry, Tom.), and gettin' myself all pumped up. I'm very excited.

I haven't had any booze or bacon since June 1st! Who are you and what have you done with the real Dan O'Brien?

On and On It Goes

I spent nearly all day yesterday working on some music, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. And, more importantly, Jeannie seemed to like it, too. It's not finished yet, I still have to re-record all the vocals and add the last verse and chorus and ending and all that jazz, but I think it's a promising start. I'll just go ahead and put it over there on the sidebar...

Have a day off tomorrow, during which I hope to go to the gym, get laundry done, and maybe play a little Civilization III, which I haven't played in about a bazillion years. But I saw the CD-ROM for it the other day when I was fishing in my desk drawer for something, and it put me in the mood.

In the past 10 minutes, I have consumed:

1. One Cheeserito Just Cheese.
2. About 15 strawberries.
3. 3 dill pickle chips.

I'm wondering if eating fruit right before bed is gonna keep me awake.

Thaings for dooing sumthing you dont wunt to do.

Also not in my job description:

chasin' transvestite shoplifters all over the parking lot and traffic circle.


Long story that can pretty much be summed up in that one sentence.

It's good to be home. I'm gonna have a G&T.

Not Too Shabby

It's been a few days since I've written, and I have to say, things have been going pretty well during that time. The diet is still going strong; I still have yet to eat any meat (despite my proclamation that I was going to be eating some [I forgot to defrost the bacon]), and I've lost about 6 or seven pounds in the last week and a half or so. I'd like to lose another ten.

But anyway, I feel good. Much less like a tub of shite. Work has been good, easy, and I've had too many people scheduled which means I don't spend all day by myself, I actually get to hang out with people, which is nice.

It's been alternating between balls-ass hot and just warm. On the balls-ass days, the Jeanners and I turned on the window unit in the bedroom and camped out in there. Played some gin rummy.

The Tom Waits concert is only two weeks away!

Been doing some tentative, hesitant song writing, and it's felt good. I think that, in accordance with my new "write the song before you record it" guideline, I'm going to work on songs with the idea that I should be able to play it live. Maybe even go to some (shudder) open mic nights on the down-low. Who knows. Maybe not.

The other day at work, Chris asked me what my favorite Tom Waits album is, and what my favorite TW song is. It was tough to answer, but I've recently discovered a version of a song that I think encapsulates everything that I like about him. So I'll go ahead and post it over there on the side...

A day off tomorrow. Chores, and maybe some recording. Wish gas weren't so damned expensive or I'd consider heading to the beach...

Happy Birthday, PKP! I may take you up on your omelet offer.

It's Finally Here!

Yippie! It's finally arrived! The day of the year when it gets balls-ass hot in our apartment is really here!

So yeah, it's getting pretty derned hot here in B-More. Which is bad because it's uncomfortable but good cuz then the J-Dog hangs around with less clothes on.

The diet is still going well. Tomorrow morning I'm planning on eating the first meat that I've eaten since last Sunday morning. And that includes cock-meat!

Work has been feeling painful lately...

I've been thinking ahead to eventually moving away from Baltimore, and also thinking ahead about potential future employment, and right now the only job that seems halfway tolerable would be breakfast cook at a diner. It would be funnier if it wasn't true. (sigh).

Pinch a muthaf***in' inch

I am finally, FINALLY starting to shake the disease I picked up from Jack/Henry Steinmetz. Damn those Steinmetz kids and their immune-system-resistant viral strains.

However, thanks to Schlueter and all the fruit that she fed us while we were visiting, I have been on a diet since we got back to Baltimore. Eating a lot less, eating a lot of fruit, more veggies, etc. In fact, I'm hungry right now. That's gotta be a good thing, right? I think I can feel my six pack starting to poke out a little bit...

I am so very very tired of advertisements where they take half of one person's face and put it next to the other half of a different person's face and it makes a single, really f***ed up-looking single face. I'm really tired of those.

I am pleased to announce that "Operation Buy a Used Broken MP3 player on E-bay and Use the Parts to Fix My Broken MP3 Player - 2008" was a success. So my good ol' music player is working great again and it only cost me twenty bucks.

I was listening to the Tom Waits song "Time" the other night on my way home from work, and I think I stumbled on the idea that will guide me through my next round of recording: write the songs first, and then try and record them. I don't know why this always seems to be the opposite of how I work, but I think I need to focus more on the words and less on the music.

Oh, and I don't know if y'alls read my friend Jeff's blog (which is great in and of itself, although he hasn't written in a few days), but he links to this blog about Ice-T and his wife, which is very funny. Although it has occasional semi-sorta nudity, so you might not want to view it at work. Check it out.

Tom Waits Self Interview

This was posted on Tom Waits' website, but I'll repost the thing in its entirety here just in case they take it off his site:

TOM WAITS’
TRUE CONFESSIONS

(A conversation with himself)

I must admit, before meeting Tom, I had heard so many rumors and so much gossip that I was afraid. Frankly, his gambling debts, his animal magnetism, coupled with his disregard for the feelings of others… His elaborate gun collection, his mad shopping sprees, the face lifts, the ski trips, the drug busts and the hundreds of rooms in his home. The tax shelters, the public urination…I was nervous to meet the real man himself. Baggage and all. But I found him to be gentle, intelligent, open, bright, helpful, humorous, brave, audacious, loquacious, clean, and reverent. A Boy Scout, really (and a giant of a man). Join me now for a rare glimpse into the heart of Tom Waits. Remove your shoes and no smoking, please.

Q: What’s the most curious record in your collection?
A: In the seventies a record company in LA issued a record called “The best of Marcel Marceau.” It had forty minutes of silence followed by applause and it sold really well. I like to put it on for company. It really bothers me, though, when people talk through it.

Q: What are some unusual things that have been left behind in a cloakroom?
A: Well, Winston Churchill was born in a ladies cloakroom and was one sixteenth Iroquois.

Q: You’ve always enjoyed the connection between fashion and history…talk to us about that.
A: Ok let’s take the two piece bathing suit, produced in 1947 by a French fashion designer. The sight of the first woman in the minimal two piece was as explosive as the detonation of the atomic bomb by the U.S. at Bikini Island in the Marshall Isles, hence the naming of the bikini.

Q: List some artists who have shaped your creative life.
A: Okay, here are a few that just come to me for now: Kerouac, Dylan, Bukowski, Rod Serling, Don Van Vliet, Cantinflas, James Brown, Harry Belafonte, Ma Rainey, Big Mama Thorton, Howlin Wolf, Lead Belly, Lord Buckley, Mabel Mercer, Lee Marvin, Thelonious Monk, John Ford, Fellini, Weegee, Jagger, Richards, Willie Dixion, John McCormick, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Hoagy Carmichael, Eurico Caruso.

Q: List some songs that were beacons for you.
A: Again, for now… but if you ask me tomorrow the list would change, of course.
Gershwin’s second prelude, “Pathatique Sonata”, “El Paso”, “You’ve Really Got Me” (Kinks), “Solider Boy” (Shirelles), “Lean Back” (Fat Joe), “Night train”, “Come In My Kitchen” (R.J.) “Sad Eyed Lady”, “Rite of Spring Ode to Billy Joe”, “Louie Louie”, “Just a Fool” (Ike and Tina), “Prisoner of Love” (J.B.) “Pitch a Wing Dan Doodlec (all night long)” H. Wolf, “Ringo” (Lorne Green), “Ball and Chain”, “Deportee”, “Strange Fruit”, “Sophisticated Lady”, “Georgia On My Mind”, “Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Just Like A Woman”, “So Lonesome I Could Cry”, “Who’ll Stop The Rain?”, “Moon River”, “Autumn Leaves”, “Danny Boy”, “Dirty Ol’ Town”, “Waltzing Mathilda”, “Train Keeps a Rollin”, “Boris the Spider”, “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me”, “Red Right Hand”, “All Shook Up”, “Cause Of It All”, “Shenandoah”, “China Pig”, “Summertime”, “Without a Song”, “Auld Ang Syne”, “This is a Man’s World”, “Crawlinking Snake”, “Nassun Dorma”, “Bring it on Home to Me”, “Hound Dog”, “Hello Walls”, “You Win Again”, “Sunday Morn’ Coming Down”, “Almost Blue”, “Pump It Up”, “Greensleeves”, “Just Wanna See His Face” (Stones), “Restless Farewell”, “Fairytale of NY”, “Bring Me A Little Water Sylvie”, “Raglan Road”, “96 Tears”, “In Dreams” (R. Orbison), “Substitute”, “Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues”, Theme from Rawhide, “Same Thing”, “Walk Away Rene”, “For What it’s Worth”, theme from “Once Upon A Time In America”, “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing”, “Oh Holy Night”, “Mass in E Minor”, “Harlem Shuffle”, “Trouble Man”, “Wade in The Water”, “Empty Bed Blues”, “Havanagila”

Q: What’s heaven for you?
A: Me and my wife on Rte. 66 with a pot of coffee, a cheap guitar, pawnshop tape recorder in a Motel 6, and a car that runs good parked right by the door.

Q: What’s hard for you?
A: Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. Math is hard. Reading a map. Following orders. Carpentry. Electronics. Plumbing. Remembering things correctly. Straight lines. Sheet rock. Finding a safety pin. Patience with others. Ordering in Chinese. Stereo instructions in German.

Q: What’s wrong with the world?
A: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. Leona Helmsley’s dog made 12 million last year… and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio made $30,000. It’s just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. We are monkeys with money and guns.

Q: Favorite scenes in movies?
A: R. De Niro in the ring in Raging Bull. Julie Christie’s face in Heaven Can Wait when she said, “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?” James Dean in East of Eden telling the nurse to get out when his dad has had a stroke and he’s sitting by his bed. Marlena Dietrich in Touch of Evil saying “He was some kind of man.” Scout saying “Hey Mr. Cunningham” in the scene in To Kill A Mockingbird. Nic Cage falling apart in the drug store in Matchstick Men…and eating a cockroach in Vampire’s Kiss. The last scene in Chinatown.

Q: Can you describe a few other scenes from movies that have always stayed with you?
A: Rod Steiger in Pawn Broker explaining to the Puerto Rican all about gold. Brando in The Godfather dying in the tomatoes with scary orange teeth. Lee Marvin in Emperor Of The North riding under the box car, Borgnine bouncing steel off his ass. Dennis Weaver at the motel saying “I am just the night man,” holding onto a small tree in, Touch of Evil. The hanging in Oxbow Incident. The speech by Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner as he’s dying. Anthony Quinn dancing on the beach in Zorba. Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick covered in feathers in the church as the ladies stick needles in the voodoo doll. When Mel Gibson’s Blue Healer gets shot with an arrow in Road Warrior. When Rachel in The Exorcist says “could you help an old alter boy father?” The blind guy in the tavern in Treasure Island. Frankenstein after he strangles the young girl by the river.

Q: Can you tell me an odd thing that happened in an odd place? Any thoughts?
A: A Japanese freighter had been torpedoed during WWII and it’s at the bottom of Tokyo Harbor with a large hole in her hull. A team of engineers was called together to solve the problem of raising the wounded vessel to the surface. One of the engineers tackling this puzzle said he remembered seeing a Donald Duck cartoon when he was a boy where there was a boat at the bottom of the ocean with a hole in its hull, and they injected it with ping-pong balls and it floated up. The skeptical group laughed but one of the experts was willing to give it a try. Of course, where in the world would you find twenty million ping-pong balls but in Tokyo? It turned out to be the perfect solution. The balls were injected into the hull and it floated to the surface, the engineer was altered. Moral- solutions to problems are always found at an entirely different level; also, believe in yourself in the face of impossible odds.

Q: Most interesting recording you own?
A: It’s a mysteriously beautiful recording from, I am told, Robbie Robertson’s label. It’s of crickets. That’s right, crickets, the first time I heard it… I swore I was listening to the Vienna Boys Choir, or the Mormon Tabernacle choir. It has a four-part harmony it is a swaying choral panorama. Then a voice comes in on the tape and says, “What you are listening to is the sound of crickets. The only thing that has been manipulated is that they slowed down the tape.” No effects have been added of any kind except that they changed the speed of the tape. The sound is so haunting. I played it for Charlie Musselwhite and he looked at me as if I pulled a Leprechaun out of my pocket.

Q: You are fascinated with irony, what is irony?
A: Chevrolet was puzzled when they discovered that their sales for the Chevy Nova were off the charts everywhere but in Latin America. They finally realized that “Nova” in Spanish translates to “no go.” Not the best name for a car… anywhere “no va”.

Q: Do you have words to live by?
A: Jim Jarmusch once told me “Fast, Cheap, and Good… pick two. If it’s fast and cheap it wont be good. If it’s cheap and good it won’t be fast. If it’s fast and good it wont be cheap.” Fast, cheap and good… pick (2) words to live by.

Q: What is on Hemmingway’s gravestone?
A: “Pardon me for not getting up.”

Q: How would you compare guitarists Marc Ribot and Smokey Hormel?
A: Octopus have eight and squid have ten tentacles, each with hundreds of suction cups and each have the power to burst a man’s artery. They have small birdlike beaks used to inject venom into a victim. Some gigantic squid and octopus with one hundred foot tentacles have been reported. Squids have been known to pull down entire boats to feed on the disoriented sailors in the water. Many believe unexplained, sunken deep-sea vessels, and entire boat disappearances are the handiwork of giant squid.

Q: What have you learned from parenthood?
A: “Never loan your car to anyone to whom you’ve given birth.” - Erma Bombeck

Q: Now Tom, for the grand prize… who said, “He’s the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of”?
A: Mae West

Q: Who said, “Half the people in America are just faking it”?
A: Robert Mitchem (who actually died in his sleep). I think he was being generous and kind when he said that.

Q What remarkable things have you found in unexpected places?
A:
1. Real beauty: oil stains left by cars in a parking lot.
2. Shoe shine stand that looked like thrones in Brazil made of scrap wood.
3. False teeth in pawnshop windows- Reno, NV
4. Great acoustics: in jail.
5. Best food: Airport in Tulsa Oklahoma.
6. Most gift shops: Fatima, Portugal.
8. Most unlikely location for a Chicano crowd: A Morrissey concert.
9. Most poverty: Washington D.C.
10 A homeless man with a beautiful operatic voice singing the word “Bacteria” in an empty dumpster in Chinatown.
11. A Chinese man with a Texan accent in Scotland.
12. Best nights sleep-in a dry riverbed in Arizona.
13. Most people who wear red pants- St. Louis.
14. Most beautiful horses, N.Y.C.
15. A judge in Baltimore MD1890 presided over a trial where a man who was accused of murder and was guilty, and convicted by a jury of his peers… and was let go- when the judge said to him at the end of the trial “You are guilty sir… but I cannot put in jail an innocent man.” You see - the murderer was a Siamese twin.
16. Largest penis (in proportion to its body)- The Barnacle

Q: Tom, you love words and their origins. For $2,000…what is the origin of the word bedlam?
A: It’s a contraction of the word Bethlehem. It comes from the hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem outside London. The hospital began admitting mental patients in the late fourteenth century. In the sixteenth century it became a lunatic asylum. The word bedlam came to be used for any madhouse- and by extension, for any scene of noisy confusion.

Q: What is up with your ears?
A: I have an audio stigmatism where by I hear things wrong- I have audio illusions. I guess now they say ADD. I have a scrambler in my brain and it takes what is said and turns it into pig Latin and feeds it back to me.

Q: Most thrilling musical experience?
A: My most thrilling musical experience was in Time Square, over thirty years ago. There was a rehearsal hall around the Brill Building where all the rooms were divided into tiny spaces with just enough room to open the door. Inside was a spinet piano- cigarette burns, missing keys, old paint and no pedals. You go in and close the door and it’s so loud from other rehearsals you can’t really work- so you stop and listen and the goulash of music was thrilling. Scales on a clarinet, tango, light opera, sour string quartet, voice lessons, someone belting out “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”, garage bands, and piano lessons. The floor was pulsing, the walls were thin. As if ten radios were on at the same time, in the same room. It was a train station of music with all the sounds milling around… for me it was heavenly.

Q: What would you have liked to see but were born too late for?
A: Vaudeville. So much mashing of cultures and bizarre hybrids. Delta Blues guitarists and Hawaiian artists thrown together resulting in the adoption of the slide guitar as a language we all take for granted as African American. But it was a cross pollination, like most culture. Like all cultures. George Burns was a vaudeville performer I particularly loved. Dry and unflappable, curious, and funny – no matter what he said. He could dance too. He said, “Too bad the only people that know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.”

Q: What is a gentleman?
A: A man who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.

Q: Favorite Bucky Fuller quote?
A: “Fire is the sun unwinding itself from the wood”.

Q: What do you wonder about?
A:
1. Do bullets know whom they are intended for?
2. Is there a plug in the bottom of the ocean?
3. What do jockeys say to their horses?
4. How does a newspaper feel about winding up papier-mâché?
5. How does it feel to be a tree by a freeway?
6. Sometimes a violin sounds like a Siamese cat; the first violin strings were made from cat gut- any connection?
7. When is the world going to rear up and scrape us off its back?
8. Will we humans eventually intermarry with robots?
9. Is a diamond just a piece of coal with patience?
10. Did Ella Fitzgerald really break that wine glass with her voice?

Q: What are some sounds you like?
A:
1. An asymmetrical airline carousel created a high pitched haunted voice brought on by the friction of rubbing and it sounded like a big wet finger circling the rim of a gigantic wine glass.
2. Street corner evangelists
3. Pile drivers in Manhattan
4. My wife’s singing voice
5. Horses coming/trains coming
6. Children when school’s out
7. Hungry crows
8. Orchestra tuning up
9. Saloon pianos in old westerns
10. Rollercoaster
11. Headlights hit by a shotgun
12. Ice melting
13. Printing presses
14. Ball game on a transistor radio
15. Piano lessons coming from an apartment window
16. Old cash registers/Ca Ching
17. Muscle cars
18. Tap dancers
19. Soccer crowds in Argentina
20. Beatboxing
21. Fog horns
22. A busy restaurant kitchen
23. Newsrooms in old movies
24. Elephants stampeding
25. Bacon frying
26. Marching bands
27. Clarinet lessons
28. Victrola
29. A fight bell
30. Chinese arguments
31. Pinball machines
32. Children’s orchestras
33. Trolley bell
34. Firecrackers
35. A Zippo lighter
36. Calliopes
37. Bass steel drums
38. Tractors
39. Stroh Violin
40. Muted trumpet
41. Tobacco Auctioneers
42. Musical saw
43. Theremin
44. Pigeons
45. Seagulls
46. Owls
47. Mockingbirds
48. Doves
The world’s making music all the time.

Q: What’s scary to you?
A:
1. A dead man in the backseat of a car with a fly crawling on his eyeball.
2. Turbulence on any airline.
3. Sirens and search lights combined.
4. Gunfire at night in bad neighborhoods.
5. Car motor turning over but not starting, its getting dark and starting to rain.
6. Jail door closing.
7. Going around a sharp curve on the Pacific Coast Highway and the driver of your car has had a heart attack and died, and you’re in the back seat.
8. You are delivering mail and you are confronted with a Doberman with rabies growling low and showing teeth…you have no dog bones and he wants to bite your ass off.
9. In a movie…which wire do you cut to stop the time bomb, the green or the blue.
10. Mc Cain will win.
11. Germans with submachine guns.
12. Officers, in offices, being official.
13. You fell through the ice in the creek and it carried you down stream, and now as you surface you realize there’s a roof of ice.

Q: Tell me about working with Terry Gilliam.
A: I am the Devil in the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus–not a devil…The Devil. I don’t know why he thought of me. I was raised in the church. Gilliam and I met on Fisher King. He is a giant among men and I am in awe of his films. Munchausen I’ve seen a hundred times. Brazil is a crowning achievement. Brothers Grimm was my favorite film last year. I had most of my scenes with Christopher Plummer (He’s Dr. Parnassus). Plummer is one of the greatest actors on earth! Mostly I watch and learn. He’s a real movie star and a gentleman. Gilliam is an impresario, captain, magician, a dictator (a nice one), a genius, and a man you’d want in the boat with you at the end of the world.

Q: Give me some fresh song titles you two are working on.
A: “Ghetto Buddha”, “Waiting For My Good Luck To Come”, “I’ll Be an Oak Tree Some Day”, “In the Cage”, “Hell Broke Loose”, “Spin The Bottle”, “High and Lonesome”.

Q: You’re going on the road soon, right?
A: We’re going to PEHDTSCKJMBA (Phoenix, El Paso, Houston, Dallas, Tulsa, St. Louis, Columbus, Knoxville, Jacksonville, Mobile, Birmingham, Atlanta). I have a stellar band: Larry Taylor (upright bass), Patrick Warren (keyboards), Omar Torrez (guitars), Vincent Henry (woodwinds) and Casey Waits (drums and percussion). They play with racecar precision and they are all true conjurers. I’m doing songs with them I’ve never attempted outside the studio. They are all multi-instrumentalists and they polka like real men. We are the Borman Six and as Putney says, “The Borman Six have got to have soul.”

Pipe down, Tito Puente!

Still feeling crappy. REALLY don't want to go to work tonight, but there's nobody else who can cover...

Just finished watching the LOST season finale...it was both satisfying and unsatisfying. It answered some questions but in a rather matter-of-fact sort of way. All in all, I give the season a "B". Maybe a "B+".

Yesterday when I got home from work, the doofus who lives next door and plays drums was playing his drums. For like 2 hours. So I got kinda sick of it and went over to tell him to shut up and Jeannie was getting home at the same time, so we went over together and she very diplomatically told him to shut the f*** up. I think when we went over and knocked on the door he thought we were the cops, so he never even opened the door and just talked to us from behind it. He did, though, seem genuinely clueless that his drumming might be annoying to the entire block, so at least he was just dumb and not malicious.

That's about it for now.

Memorial Day Weekend

We're back from another great Ohio trip. I always feel a little post-trip depression when I get home, and this time is no exception, but I also feel renewed. Ready to put more into creative projects, ready to remember that there's still another life out there that has nothing to do with being a manager at the B&N.

Here's what I want to remember from the trip:

1. got a speeding ticket on the way there. Yuck. I knew there would be extra police out for the holiday weekend, but still let my speed creep up too much.

2. Meeting young Jack, who is a big ol' slobber factory. And cute and curious and a frequent napper.

3. Baseball games in the backyard after dinner.

4. Really stinky farts during Phase 10. Losing to Schlueter by points.

5. Sitting at night, after the kids are in bed, talking. Old stories and new stories, laughing, silence. It's the best.

6. I started coming down with some sort of weird cold last night/this morning. Still feeling a little crappy but nothing too terrible. I am glad, though, that I'm off work tommorrow.

If you live in Chicago, go see North!