I tried. part 2.

Listen:

i promise i was blogging, and then i got very apathetic all of the sudden and deleted the whole damn thing. ha!

but we’re getting closer to a for real post!

b

i tried..

started a blog post, but felt it was getting too political right off the bat, so i stopped and now i have nothing to write. I wanted to let everyone know that i tried though.. 

b

remember when i used to blog?!

Listen:

i’ve not been busy, nor have i been uninspired.  I’m lazy. I think of great topics to blog about daily. Then i watch an Arrested Development episode, or read a book.  The blog has officially lost it’s luster.  I’m anticipating it coming back to me soon. I can feel it brewing.  I have some thoughts, and i’m sure i’ll put up baby pics when they are available. (and by available i mean a baby needs to be in existence to take a picture of) 

so quick thoughts, eh?

No baby. don’t text me asking if we’ve had the baby. dont write on my facebook wall (or amanda’s for that matter) asking if we’ve had the baby. When we have the baby. everyone will know. rest easy my dears..

I’ve been listening to A LOT of Aimee Mann in the last month and i’m a better person because of it.

Since January, i’ve been completely convinced that the human body can run perfectly well off herbs, acupressure, and Homeopathic anything.  Obviously this isnt true for terminal stuff, but you get the idea. 

No we don’t have a name for the baby yet. dont ask me.

yes amanda is feeling ok, dont ask me that either. 

We’re having the baby at home. Yes this is safe. dont ask what we will do if we need to go to the hospital. we won’t need to go to the hospital. 

i’m getting a bit flustered by pregnancy questions. 

on the plus side, amanda’s off work and we’ve been hanging out a lot. great times! calm before the storm!

i think thats all. i’ll update with baby pics, and hopefully light a fire to keep the blog up. 

Cheers!

Healthy in Paranoid times..

The thing is:

We put a silly amount of nonsense in our bodies every single day.  I have friends that are trying to bring awareness to such an issue.  in their own words..

We hope to increase awareness about what we use and consume.  We have spent over a quarter of a century buying, eating and using products that contain ingredients we can’t even pronounce, much less tell you what they are. We don’t conduct research, and we don’t have any lab results to back this up, but we are sharing what we think we know. We refuse to believe that we can’t live toxin-free, and we’d like to share our experiences in our pursuit of health.

Their blog is called KNOWLEDGE IS HEALTH.  You should all check it out post-haste, and continue to read so we can assume a bit of control over what it is we are putting inside of us!!

Cheers!

The Vortex..(for lack of better term and/or title)

Listen:

We went to dinner with friends tonight (who’s new blog i have carelessly not endorsed! dah! it will happen soon. perhaps tomorrow?)   Anyway, while at dinner tonight i told them of an existential moment i allow myself to have at the close of each and every concert i play.  I called it The Vortex because i needed a title to continue my story, and perhaps The Vortex it will remain.  

Basically it’s this:  

When a show is finished, the 90 or so seconds from the time i put my sticks down, grab my water bottle, stand up, give Evan a “good game” and walk off stage is usually scored with audience applause.  There is about 12 seconds immediately following those 90 seconds each night when i find myself alone, just off stage, not totally “backstage” but definitely out of sight. I’ve begun to go back to real life, but one foot is still in performance mode.  I check my phone for missed calls or texts, but still keep an eye out for an encore song.  I can see my suitcase and my running shoes and gym shorts, but i keep one In Ear Monitor in place because i’m not quite ready for the adrenaline to stop flowing.  

Before me is a half eaten veggie tray, my laptop still open to Facebook or CNN.com, my car keys which have fallen out of my bag in atrophy because my car is 800 miles away in a Kansas City driveway;  a sticky note with an “800 number” written on it so i can activate a rebate card for Amanda to buy groceries to fill a refrigerator i won’t see for days and days.   Behind me is a stage still thick with heat from the bodies of four guys playing music for an hour and a half, and house lights dim and stage lights burning down in multi-color, outlining where exactly the guitar players need to stand to be seen.  The low hum of amplifiers finally receiving a much needed rest, and my fellow Americans by the hundreds, sometimes the thousands, cheering; thanking us for our performance, usually urging for one more song. 

And there i am, right smack dab in the middle of The Vortex. Not totally finished with the show, and not totally reintroduced back in to society. For 12 seconds a night, i transcend time and my surroundings, and you know what?  For all the things i feel like i take for granted in this crazy world i find myself in; I never take that moment lightly.  I make myself appreciate it. I make myself feel it.  I take a mental snapshot every single night and say to myself, “you lucky man, never complain about where you are in life.”

Colorado, toilets and bodyguards..

So here i sit. 

We’re in Denver.  Tonight we’re off to Colorado Springs.  Its been a great start of the tour thus far.  The shows are getting tighter and tighter, and some awesome stuff is going on.  

We’ve teamed up with Compassion International on a handful of our shows, helping children all over the world be released from poverty.  In two shows we’ve had 15 kids picked up and sponsored!! It’s so amazing to know that someone’s life is changed in an instant, just by someone saying yes and going a bit out of their comfort zone.  I’m amazed that the economy hasn’t scared people away more.  It’s humbling really. 

Evan is sick.  I’m afraid he’s gonna get me sick. Punk. 

Apparently my toilet at home is leaking a bit and the ceiling in my garage is falling down due to water damage.  Nothing like being 700 miles away from home with a nine month pregnant wife and crazy water damage!  Needless to say, last night left me feeling a bit helpless.  To make it better, my very good friend Riddle says to me “just wait till you have kids and something happens to them while your out of town”  Thanks Riddle, that helped me sleep.. 

So last night we had a fairly elaborate security team in place.  These guys were hardcore.  They were great though.  From left to right we’re dealing with John the cop,  Rock (yes, the name on his birth certificate), and finally, the dude with the slicked back hair is Simon.  He used to be a Secret Service manager for the U.N. He was one President Bush’s security guards at the last olympic ceremony.  Evan and i asked him if we could take him down if we both attacked him full force… and he just laughed and said, “you can try.”

..oh and the handsome young man in the middle NOT wearing a black shirt and a headset, that me.  I was running the show.  They were scared of me.  I punched Simon in the shoulder, just for fun.  Not sure he even noticed.. 

so that’s it for now.  

Cheers!

had it. lost it.

I tried to write my first post via iphone the other day from the Denver Airport. I had a pretty great post.  

then it got deleted. 

and i got pissed.

and haven’t tried to blog since because of how pissed i was/am.

so i’m gonna try to get over it.

and hopefully kick out a post tomorrowish?

from Evan’s computer. not from the WordPress App on the iphone.

Cheers.

possibly the last day?

Listen:

Tomorrow I hit the road again, once again feeling much like Sal Paradise whisked away at the drop of a hat from everything i love to live an insane life of music and hanging out as if i were a 18 year old with no responsibilities.  It really is nice sometimes, i’m not gonna lie.   

The day before i leave is usually a downer for me. I get anxious, i start to miss Amanda even though i’m still here, i feel like the world might end while i’m gone and i’ll never see my friends again, ya know, all the happy things…  To counter it, I try to do a wash of laundry, catch up on relaxation time, clean up the house for Amanda, and take care of all the bills or whatever needs to be taken care of.  I think i’m putting together a dresser today.  

The crazy thing about this particular trip is that it’s really long (gone from tomorrow till St. Pat’s with only a couple days off in between) and when i get home, it will be a short time until the baby is finished cooking.  I’m sort of looking at today as the end of an era in some ways.   The last day that i will be able to just sit on my lazy behind and watch Seinfeld DVD’s for a few hours, or just got on a jog at will. (which i wont because thanks to global warming’s erratic weather patterns, KC is covered in snow IN MARCH). 

but i digress.

So i’m really trying to think of a way to fully take in the closing of the “lazy musician” chapter in my life, and make way for the “lazy musician with a son” chapter.  Maybe i’ll vacuum the house for Amanda, or maybe i’ll just take a nap and eat hummus and carrots until i want to pop. (it happens. a lot)

thats all. just a couple thoughts for the morning. 

if you live in….. Co. Springs, Grand Junction, Salt Lake City, Ft. Collins, Salida, CO, Waterloo,IA, or indy…. come to a riddle show and say hey!

Cheers

It’s been awhile, so i thought i’d come out swinging…

Listen:

i’ve intentionally not blogged about politics since we won the election by a landslide for a number of reasons.  1) i can be an a-hole about it. 2) i have a severe amount of conservative/republican friends. 3) i’ve not kept up to date fully on whats happening in D.C. 

But last night, i was flipping channels and saw him speaking to an entire group of his followers. 

The most influential man in his party, although not officially a member of congress, the house, a Governor, or a Mayor.  He is a hate monger.  He leads a group of people who follow his will even against their own good sense or instinct to help their fellow man.  His words are law in his follower’s minds.  His words in reality are usually close to poison with a just a hint of division and fear.   Brilliant? Yes. But so was Nixon in his own way. Stalin too.   

He has his key words and phrases that send adrenaline flowing through the veins of the lemmings attracted to his jovial voice.  He places a “small government” here and there, followed by a couple of “liberal media” and tops it off with a dash or two of either “U.S.A.” chants or the Game, Set, and Match crowd pleaser, “Drill, Baby Drill.”    Most of these catch phrases are dead to most of the world, but the lemmings love to chant, and dammit, they’re gonna chant. 

And they love to “boo on command” anything that even shares any of the letters with the word socialist. 

His party has failed to find a leader, causing him to step out from behind the safety net of a studio where he can call everyone a “terrorist” or an “idiot,” because he never has, nor will he ever be called upon to make a tough decision that affects someone else’s life; he’d rather let an unqualified, brain dead Governor from Alaska make those decisions for him.

Ya know, because she’ll keep “the gays” from getting married. 

What he and his Lemmings have failed to learn is that division is no longer as accepted as it was when Karl Rove was running the show.  America has gotten a little bit smarter since we (myself included in ‘04) put Bush Jr. in office.  Trying to fire up your own troops by proclaiming your desire for our President to fail is no way to keep this country moving forward.  Silly me, i thought the country’s desire to move on was pretty evident by the landslide victory in November and the fact that the Democrats run almost everything in Washington now (for better or for worse).  People are tired of division.  Are their not bigger fishes to fry right now than how unfair MSNBC treated Ann Coulter and her nose on a couple interviews?  

Hate begets hate. Division begets division.  I’m sorry Mr. Limbaugh, but your time is up.  People don’t want to sit back and watch another Presidential Administration fail miserably.  We’ve seen that.  We want to look forward now.  While You, sir, and your Lemmings sit on your hands, dying on your “tax cuts for the rich will make everything better” hills, the rest of us will be paving our own way; trying, although sometimes failing, to do our part to help this country out of the proverbial “poop storm” we find ourselves in.  We’ll be helping out our fellow man in whatever way we can. We’ll start community gardens and car pool or take the bus to work.  We’ll travel to third world countries and serve others who need to be served.  We’ll adopt orphans. When we have extra money, we’ll share it with those who need it much more than need to expand our savings, even if our 401K is tanking.  We’ll pray for the sick, we’ll give out towels, toothbrushes, soaps, granola bars, water bottles, and mouthwash to the homeless.  (because they’ll just spend our cash on booze or drugs..right Rush?)

If everything mentioned above sounds lofty and tree huggy of me, it may be.  The truth is that every one of those things is happening today in my own immediate circle.  This isn’t UNICEF or the One Campaign or anything else.  This is off the top of my head, little (or big) things that my personal community is active in.

In the same way that Hate begets Hate, Love begets Love.  Compassion begets Compassion.  Unity begets Unity.  Hope begets Hope.  Love begets Love begets Love begets Love.

Cheers!

Notes.

My friend Jason Domingues is the greatest photographer alive.  Because of this fact, Amanda and i had some maternity pictures done with him this week. Click here to take a look at a few of them. 

On a separate note, we had an amazing talk with some dear friends about the very real possibility of communal living within the next couple of years.  Craziness, but amazing as well. 

On a slightly related note, i have had the most terrible gas in recent memory for the last two weeks!

On a possibly related note, i have lost 6 pounds in the last three weeks. I’m trying to get ahead on losing my pregnant sympathy weight. 

On a completely related note, we’re trying to nail down a name for The Boy who will be making his entrance approximately 8.5 weeks from now. 

On a tangent that could be misinterpreted as a separate note,  I am having quite a hard time with the amount of traveling i have been doing lately.  I’m sort of in the middle of a busy few weeks. By the middle of March i will have been gone for 7 out of 9 weekends, and that seems a bit odd.  I’m sort of playing as much as i can before The Boy comes and i will need to be home for a bit.  

On a sorrowful memory of lost love note, due to the recent purchase of an iphone, i have not had my computer in my various travels this year.  As a result, i have not been able to type out my “thought from the ______ airport,” a series which i know my readers eagerly anticipate. (HA)  Good news however, i have downloaded a WordPress application onto said iphone and will be able to continue my airport thoughts.  Bad news is that i’m not a huge fan of typing on the iphone, so i dont know that they will be as comprehensive as previous thoughts from previous airports. 

On that note i’m off to bed. leaving tomorrow. 

Cheers!