this is romantic

i am currently drinking a stiffly alcoholic drink all by myself, just for the pure self-destructiveness of it. happy monday night.

pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

i think i am going to title this record i'm talking about "they're more scared of you than you are of them." of course, the subtitle will be "the centipede ep." because that's always what it was going to be.

thoughts? artwork suggestions? i'm serious.

quiet but still loud

i'm writing from the office again, taking a break from putting the finishing touches on this song. since i've mostly figured all this recording stuff out for myself, i have days sometimes in which concepts just click. today i understand how to use compressors for awesome instead of for good. or at least i think i do. james, you might need some johnson and johnson's wet wipes.

potpourri

how cool would it be to commit a high profile robbery in a foreign country and then leave the country before anyone even noticed what you stole was missing? pretty fucking cool. you'd get some attention from the ladies for that one, boy. let me tell you.*

coffee always tastes better when you make it at home. even if you don't have a totally sweet flavia coffee machine at home like you do at work. or maybe because you don't have a totally sweet flavia coffee machine at home like you do at work.

CryingWhileEating.com is a totally fucked up website.

i'm going to make a record. i'm thinking i can sell at least 5.

*i don't even have a passport. i watch too many movies.

the wait

zox's new record came out in stores yesterday. i went to school with them and i've probably seen them play live about ten million times. and i've got the record and it's great. so you should really really support them because they need it and they deserve it. it's called "the wait" and i've even gone to the trouble of getting you a link to buy it from amazon.

seriously, it's good stuff.

maybe i should do more work now. since i'm at work.

nobody calls me a retard... you friggin' hobo!

as i get more busy and have more exciting things to say, i have less time to post to this thing and so less things get posted. that's ironic, huh?

things have been mostly good lately, i've felt a lot more even keel the past few days than i have for months. of course, i'm sure i'll find a way to rock my own boat again soon, but for now i'm sitting in calm waters with a good book and a strong drink and aviator shades that i bought for $5 on lexington avenue.

i stayed late at the office again today to take advantage of the quiet building to re-record some vocals for an old old song. james will be happy because he played guitar and bass on it so he says it's his favorite.

but i'm teasing you because i won't be posting it anytime soon anyway. i'm really toying with the idea of putting together an ep (probably 7 songs?), and this particular song will fit way better in the context of such a record than it would solo. or something.

plus even though i sang it for hours tonight i hate how it came out. emo.

in my mind i've gone to carolina

i had a shitty day at work today. nothing profoundly bad actually happened, i just got a few snarky remarks from people for no real reason. bah, that doesn't matter. i haven't really had a minute to slow down since i got back from vacation a week and a half ago, and i think it just caught up with me today. so here's the tentative plan for my friday night:

1. sit around in my underwear
   
2. listen to james taylor and pretend i can sing like him
   
3. drink a few colt45 22 oz bottles (seriously. $1.25 each. there is still a trace of justice in this world. billy dee williams was on to something.)
   
4. play some guitar and pretend i can do that like james taylor too (this will require a lot of colt45)
   
5. play some sega genesis
6. chappelle's show season 2?
   

how does that sound to everyone else? because it's sounding really good to me.

back pat

i have raved about endless mike and the beagle club before. they are so good. seriously. go listen to them now or you may regret it forever.

but yeah, i got a note today from mike miller (who writes/sings their songs) telling me he liked my songs. holy crap, right? total holy crap.

i mean, one time a friend of james's played the stuff for sean lennon (yeah, that sean lennon) and he said he liked it, but that's a friend of a friend story and i wasn't there and sean lennon didn't f-ing email me.

i dunno, it's just really nice to know that someone who you respect so much also respects you. so if you're drinking*, raise a glass to mike miller for making my week.

*if i were you reading this blabbering, i'd want to be drinking.

[afterthought: anytime i get an email from anyone saying they like my music it makes my week. this is just kinda like, if you were out somewhere golfing and phil mickelson happens to walk by and be like "hey guy, nice swing." it's just kinda cool, that's all.]

do you want new wave or do you want the truth?

here you are. you know how to build a website, and how to record a song without a band. you know how to create things that don't really exist. your father can build barns. your mother can paint paintings. they were able to make you. you can't make anything. this is who you are.

you are a master of speaking without saying. sometimes you wonder whether you should have been a politician, to utilize this skill for more than just charming people in whom you have no interest, but who have something you want. or maybe that's all politics is anyway. you give the impression of being able to speak clearly, think clearly, and act decisively. maybe you should have been a politician.

but less and less are you able to justify your actions to yourself. decisions feel more and more permanent, and increasingly misinformed. why did you move to this city? why did you kiss that girl? why do you create only that which is essentially intangible? how come you're not contributing to a retirement savings plan? why do you get out of bed in the morning, only to return there at night feeling as if there was something you should have accomplished during the day, but you didn't?

this is you not taking your own advice. this is your best effort at a public apology. this is your half-hearted rededication. this is another thing you've created that you can't touch with your fingers.

and so you raise a glass to aimlessness, disorientation, insecurity, lonliness. only you call it independence. and you go to work in the morning, and you drink coffee, and you spend your money. and you sit in your apartment with your guitar and you want to tell the world something. but you don't know what, and even if you figure it out, you still have to find a way to make people listen.

most people will be forgotten soon after they are dead. you are probably one of those people. many will be forgotten before they are dead. you may even be one of those. time will tell. but it won't tell you.

this is who you are. you're not getting any younger.

up late

i'm back from san francisco. it was an awesome trip, and i can't thank my friends (you know who you are) enough for the memories.

maybe it's because i'm still on california time, or maybe it's because it's sweltering hot in new york (still), but i can't sleep tonight. my mind is racing. i figured if i got up and wrote some things down, i'd have a better shot at being my sparkling self tomorrow at the office. so here are some thoughts that have been bouncing around my head which may someday become song lyrics (not yet obviously because they don't even rhyme, geez!)*:

does a condemned man sleep the night before his execution? after his last meal and his meeting with the priest, can he fall asleep? how about the night before that? i wonder how many nights before your execution is your last good sleep. i'm betting a lot of nights before. i bet he doesn't sleep right for a bunch of nights after the sentence is handed down, either. i wonder if these two overlap, or if there's a state of mind somewhere in between in which he sleeps like a baby every night. in prison. on death row. probably because he did something really bad. or was at least convicted of something really bad.

when it's late at night and i'm wide awake lying in bed, this is the kind of thing i end up thinking about.

for the record i'm whole-heartedly against the death penalty. and don't give me that "but what if someone from your family was the victim?" line. you can be for it if you want, i won't hate you.

man, i wish i could fall asleep.

* if you steal these so help me god i will hunt you down and pee on you.

please no more california songs

I guess one time mark twain said "the coldest winter i ever spent was a summer in san francisco." he's only half joking.

holy crap so i'm editing this now. i made this post originally with my cell phone, so if you checked it before and it looked kinda silly, that's why.

california's been great so far. san francisco is cold as hell though (and foggy). this weekend i was in tahoe which might be the most beautiful place i've even been (besides of course monroe, ct).

i am stealing internet, so i'll cut this off here.

all my bags are packed, i'm ready to go

i made the text on this page justified. normally, that would be the highlight of my week. but this is no normal week. i leave thursday morning for san francisco, to hang out with some old friends from school, and hopefully to come back in one piece a week later.

here are a few things i'm looking forward to:

• beer
• that big bridge they have in that city
• that crazy jail you can see from the bridge

here are some things i'm not so much looking forward to:

• flying out of jfk airport at 7:15 am
• coming back to parking tickets on my car
• 10,000 phone calls from work when shit goes wrong and i'm not there

all in all though, it should be a great time.

and now, so that i can claim this post had something to do with the music:

i'm going to wait until after my trip to post "a viking's funeral" because i think it's done but i'm just not sure yet so i want to mull it over for a while and probably listen to it on my ipod a million times on the plane.