sad day

well updates are going to be difficult for a little bit here. i took my computer in last night to the apple store and won’t have it back for at least a week. I was getting little electrical shocks every once in a while and figured that might be a good enough reason to send it in. So I’m writing this on my iPhone, hence the random capitalization. Also it makes putting pictures up much more difficult. So you’ll just have to wait for more pictures of me and amanda’s little trip to new york

babe: pig in the city [redux]

a couple of you might remember the first time i used that title for a post. me and amanda took a few days for ourselves after i got done working on recording. so we came into new york city yesterday and are having a mini-vacation. i don’t know how much of a genius you have to be to want to stay in new york in the middle of february, but that’s how smart we are. it’s cold here, but that in no way diminishes any of the beauty or grandeur of this place. i know i’m glamorizing it, but i don’t care. the first thing me and amanda did today was go to rockefeller center. because 1. we’re tourists and 2. it’s awesome. we went to the top of the building and got a pretty good view of this whole island. here’s a picture looking towards upper manhattan. you can see all of central park and, past that, harlem.

here’s a shot facing lower manhattan. directly in front is the empire state building. if you look real hard, you might be able to see the statue of liberty on the right side waaaay in the back.

and then a really cool shot of my and amanda at the top.

if you want better description of the day’s events, check out amanda’s blog

and for the record, the recording went way better than i even hoped. we had the goal of tracking five songs in two weeks and ended up recording ten. there’s one that will probably never see the light of day and that might be for the best. all in all though, it was great to record in the place we did and with the people we did and i’m really looking forward to seeing how it all turns out

happy valentimes!

from one of my new favorite tv shows, 30 rock

day 9

…of recording. it’s going quite well. i’ve finished all but one song that’s planned so far. the hardest stuff is writing a part for a song you’ve never played before and having the first idea you get be the one you commit to tape. that makes it a much slower process than recording a song i’ve played a hundred times already. this is easily the most laid back recording process i’ve ever been a part of. coincidentally, it’s also the most productive. we’ll have about seven songs done in two weeks, which is much faster than anything i’ve ever done before. and the best part is that it sounds like a real record to me.

it was freezing on sunday when i got to go into the city. like 12 degrees plus a solid 15mph wind and light to medium snowfall. it was so cold and miserable that i literally got a headache that wouldn’t go away in the process of walking 7 blocks. this will give you an idea of the scene:

the weather here has only gotten worse. it was still freezing last night and this morning. and then it started to snow much more. here’s the door to the studio as of about 8pm tonight.

we also got a visit tonight from the man himself, ric wake. that was a good little time right there. i really didn’t expect to ever meet him, let alone so soon. he’s a pretty chill guy and it was good to meet him and hear what he thought of the stuff so far. he might even come to spirit west coast this year.

on a completely different note, i’m very excited that mr. obama has one every primary contest since super tuesday and is now leading mrs. clinton by about 25 delegates. i really think he’ll be a better leader than her or john mccain. i’d love it if ron paul suddenly won, but that just won’t happen.

that’s all for now. and maybe a while depending on what goes down this next week. but for sure there will be some good stuff when me and amanda get to the city for a while by ourselves. she got here early this morning and i’m so much more at ease now that she’s around, even if we still don’t get to hang out all the time.

“yeah, i’ll have a diet coke and a water”

i was in new york city yesterday and i did take pictures which i will post later. i noticed something about yesterday though that for some reason stuck in my mind.

we went to dinner at a restaurant in times square that bordered on the absurdly expensive. it was quite good though. when the waiter came around i noticed something about myself. i am friendly with waiters. more than any other social environment, i have no problem striking up a mini-conversation with waiters at any restaurant i end up at. it’s so much easier for me to do that than to do the same thing at a party or in church or even a small group when i’m new to it. i started to think about that during dinner and then again later when i got back to my hotel room. why is that so easy for me where otherwise it’s typically just not? i think i came up with a reason. i’ve gone to so many restaurants in the past six years that i think any restaurant just kind of feels like a third home. the first being actual home and the second being the rv. no matter where you are in the world the dialogue is almost always the same:

“hi my name’s _____ and i’ll be your server tonight. while you look at the menus can i get you guys started with something to drink?”
“….waters. ok, i’ll get those right out.”
“have you guys decided or do you need another minute?”
“you guys doing ok over here?”
“can i get those out your way for you?”
“do you want to take a look at the desert menu tonight?”
“here’s the check, but there’s no rush. take as long as you want.”
“you guys take care and have a good night.”

it’s like i already know what’s going to happen so i can improvise and guide the vibe wherever i want it to go. sort of like performing a song for the umpteenth time. and just like a show, it’s all over about 45 minutes later. i think being somewhat of a gypsy makes you look for familiarity wherever you can find it. whether it’s a starbucks or a dialogue, the road would be much more lonesome if there weren’t little spurts of homogeny throughout the regional subcultures in america. so here’s to single-serving friends. i look forward to the re-meeting of a stranger