oh, my achin’ (insert random body part here)

now playing: jimmie spheeris, “i am the mercury”

man…ten minutes before one in the morning, and i feel like i want to sit here and write and write and write, but my body is going to betray that notion pretty quickly. my back and shoulders feel as if i’ve lifted a hammond organ and a piano onto and off of the back of a truck – which is probably because i did, not that long ago.

this is probably not a good night to be camping, but so be it…

i just have to take a minute to throw some props at my buddy mitch, who has come out from philadelphia countless times to help me get through all these transitions i seem to be in the middle of right now – i’d be absolutely sunk without him.

thanks, buddy.

still much, much to do…amidst a great deal of uncertainty.

may you live in interesting times, indeed.

bite me.

out loud and in public

now playing: shawn colvin, “ricochet in time”

“remember – no man is a failure who has friends.”

(written on the inside of george bailey’s copy of tom sawyer, from it’s a wonderful life)

i think i’m probably guilty, as are many people, of taking my friends for granted when all is well with my life, and not really showing the gratitude that i should as often as i should.

i made a point this morning, though, of sitting down and sending an email to some of the folks who have helped me through the past couple of weeks, through some incredibly difficult decisions that have thrown life in general into a state of shaky uncertainty, who have stayed up talking on the phone, who have repeated some truths to me out loud that i haven’t really wanted to face up to in the recent past, who have helped keep me focused at times when i’ve been more inclined to wallow.

i’ve stayed true to my earlier statement in that i’ve started a separate blog for more personal entries, but i felt that this needed to be said out loud in a public forum, and so it shall be.

my friends – you know who you are – thank you.

in other musical news, the alan mann show was a lot of fun – saw some folks that i haven’t seen in ages, and met some pretty cool folks as well. we played “lawyers, guns and money” and alan’s song “hockey punks”, which i loved the first time i heard it. tony astutely invited a friend of his (who i later learned was an old friend of mine), bill thompson, to come sit in on guitar with us, and it was a nice fit. nice enough, in fact, that i think bill might be inclined to join us on a regular basis…not that we’re going to lay “he’s in the band” on him, because i think with his other obligations he’s got his hands pretty full.

anyway, for the finale, everybody convened onstage to do “gimme shelter”. i had taken my les paul custom with the three pickups for the show, and bill brought his deluxe (we joked that we’ve gotta start coordinating our guitar choices), but bill didn’t get up for the last song. when it came time for my solo…i’m not sure why i did it, but i had a slide in my pocket and i dipped my left hand into my pocket and grabbed it. i was in standard tuning, so i was out of my normal element, but something just kinda jumped off the neck of the guitar during that song. i can’t really explain it, but i played a solo that i couldn’t recreate after the fact if i tried. i don’t know if it was the spirit of the show, or if it was some kind of emotional enema that took place at that point in time, but this monster just flew out and then it was gone. it was almost as if i was watching someone else’s hands on my guitar.

i looked up at one point at the rest of the guys onstage, and it was eerily reminiscent of the dance scene from “back to the future” after michael j. fox gets completely swept up in what he’s doing and then looks up to realize that he’s overstepped the bounds of what the audience was ready for – a couple of the guys were turned towards me, watching me play…and it was – well, kinda weird. not in a disapproving way, but it was this “who the hell is this guy?” kinda vibe.

anyway, on saturday afternoon i was doing some chores and my cellphone rang – the single-ring thing it does when you get a text message (which i only really get from my myspace alerts), and i opened up my phone and it said, “you have a new text message from alan mann” and it kinda freaked me out.

myspace messages from the grave. freeeeee-key.

anyway – half-days today and tomorrow…general clean up, tying of loose ends, organizing, so on and so forth…

pay no attention to that man behind the curtain

now playing: blue nile, “from a late night train”

ok, so let’s be realistic – we all knew this day was coming.

i’m splitting this blog down the middle, and leaving the RVM site for matters purely musical, and sporadic personal updates, depending on their pertinence to music. there’s a “news” section on the official site that’s essentially a blogger-published page, but it’s more for announcements and such – this will be more detailed than that, to be sure – but i think the time has come to draw a line here.

i find myself constantly questioning whether or not i’m crossing lines…i write about certain things (or people) and am told that i’m overstepping my bounds, only to find out later that there are those who don’t understand why i never mention certain things (or people), and this whole process has just become too convoluted. i’m finding that it’s more common for me not to write anything than to try and figure out what’s appropriate to the spirit of my site, and how much is too much, and whether or not i’m violating unspoken trusts by delving into certain things.

so, since this journal is a component of my personal site, which is essentially a promotional tool for my music, it will stick to its intended mission from this point forward.

no doubt i will give in, at some point, to the temptation to set up a personal journal elsewhere. if you know me well enough to ask, drop me a line or call me and i’ll let you know once i’ve set it up. there are friends of mine with whom i seldom get to connect who do depend on these updates to find out what’s going on in my life, and if this is you, i’ll happily steer you in that direction – with the disclaimer that what i think, what i feel, what my life entails at a particular time is what will appear on that page…for better or worse. as such, it may only be relevant to those within a certain circumference of my inner circle. or maybe, it’s best relegated to my eyes only. i don’t know yet.

so, that said – stand by for updates on the recording sessions for the new boris garcia album soon – i just put lap steel on a song last night for them at studio four in conshohocken where they’re finishing up work on the record, and i’m going to be adding some rickenbacker 12 string as well.

i’m also going to be playing a handful of instruments on a song for skip denenberg in the near-term at the other remaining legendary philadelphia area recording studio, Philadelphia International.

daylight savings time

now playing: jackson browne, “late for the sky”

daylight savings time is a crock. a myth. a fabrication cooked up by a government conspiracy.

because i’m actually losing an hour here…how can that be saving me anything?

i’m not sure what prompted me to write what i wrote last night…i vaguely remember having posted it. i remember walking back to the house in the rain with mitch, and i remember having the laptop on the pillow sitting in my lap, like i do now…but that’s about it.

this weekend has been one long comedy of judgemental errors, thus far. i can’t remember how much of this i’ve expressed, but there was a plan, originally, then there had to be another plan, because of the doom and gloom weather forecast…then today, fate gets in one more good sucker punch by not releasing a single droplet from the sky from ten AM, when i arose (by some miracle) and the end of the day. so, all the work i put into implementing plan B just to have it go awry was for naught, as plan A would’ve worked out just fine.

i have become the constant bedfellow of overwhelmed frustration. i seriously don’t know what to do next – so much so that i end up grabbing another beer and just flailing about, trying to organize shit here so that it’ll streamline the process tomorrow after the baseball game…but i don’t think i’ve been very successful there, either.

1:56…i don’t remember the last time that i actually watched a computer automatically change itself over for DST. any minute now.

anyway….

part of me wants to discuss the things internal that are fighting the external for my attention, but i’m doing everything in my power not to think about that right now.

not that this is working, because it’s clouding my thoughts and hindering my ability to stay focused and demanding audience with my consciousness.

it’s sad when a relationship ends and you don’t have a rational explanation for why it ended. you question and analyze and replay things in your mind and search for answers that ultimately never come. i’ve come to the conclusion, though, that it’s equally sad when a relationship comes to an end for what are clear reasons. there was a time when i’d have said that the former is much worse than the latter, but i’ve changed my mind about that now. i think the latter may, in fact, be sadder.

dammit.

missed it.

3:01.

distracted. again.

sure, it’s sad when you can’t put your finger on something and say, “that’s what it was…”…but if you’ve been in the position, as i am, of being able to say, matter of factly, that this is why – well, then, you’re forced to think about why you didn’t do anything about it. i mean, really…what the fuck? you can’t open your mouth and discuss this? you can’t put your cards on the table and have them seen for what they are?

what you come away with, my friends, in this particular scenario, is the Grand Bull Moose Gold Medal Winner Emotional Louisville Slugger:

you must not have wanted this bad enough.

wow. that’s just fuckin’ harsh. but that’s the thing that just keeps playing in your head…this must not have been that important, or you would have dealt with this and come to some kind of understanding. but, on the primary point here, i’m not sure that either party was willing to entertain the others’ thoughts on the subject.

and, ultimately, that’s fine. she knows what she wants, i know what i want – the truth is, they’re not as far apart as either of us think they are, but i digress – so we’ve adopted this course, and it’s clear this time that it’s for good.

and while i’ve had a couple of glancing blows that have landed since this bomb dropped, i’m still on my feet, still in the ring…right now.

i’m looking, though, and i see the glove dropping back, and i know that i’m about to be on the receiving end of a haymaker, and i can hear the wind from the leather of the gloved fist speeding towards my face.

it’s gonna land any second now, and everything that’s churning inside me that has been convienently elbowed aside by the chaotic turmoil of this past week is going to unleash on me, and it’s not going to be pretty, and i hope no one else is around when that punch lands…because i’ll be hitting the canvas when it does.

drunk? me? gidddaddahere…

now playing: the throbbing inside my head

so…it’s now 1:42 am. if i make it to 2:30am, it’ll be an even 44 hours straight that i’ve been awake and conscious. i think that might be a new record for me. i don’t remember ever being awake for almost two days straight.

right now, i’m sitting upright in my bed, with my laptop, with the strains of what i’m assuming to be neil youngs’ version of all along the watchtower coming up through the floor. my buddy mitch is downstairs, on the sofa, catching some tv before he falls asleep. mitch and i have kicked some mighty formidable ass today. tony came over as well, to help move the vast amount of equipment in the studio from the house to storage until the new studio space is ready. mitch has been at this for almost twelve hours…but considering that i started moving stuff over well before this time yesterday, it’s become a routine thing for me. the ten foot by twenty foot space is packed…PACKED…with musical equipment.

after we made our last run, mitch and i decided to take a walk up to flanagans’ pub for a couple of beers. when we got there, my ex-niece cory and my ex-nephew andy were there…andy with his spouse, cory by herself (since todd is out on tour with frog holler right now…anyway, we had gone in to pick up a six pack to go and hit the road, but we’ve just gotten home.

so now – i’m sleep deprived as well as shitfaced.

i vaguely remember going to the same place at about the same time of year last year and coming home with the same end result and going to sleep in the basement, because my house felt like such an awful place to be.

and hell…who am i kidding? it was.

today has been quite an adventure, though…for all of us.

i didn’t know how much of this i’d be eventually capable of. but i kicked it in the ass.

now…after a multi-hour heart to heart with mitch, i’m going to call it quits.

see you all later.

i wish i had something to say to you all about my situation right now…but firstly, i don’t know that it’s a good idea to talk about when i’m trashed, and secondly, i don’t know if i have the energy for it.

today i went to work late because i was listening to one of my lame-assed mix tapes…and on comes jackson browne. he sings the lines:

“maybe the hardest thing i’ve ever done is to walk away from you….

leaving behind the life that we’d begun…i split myself in two…..”

i sat in my car listening to the song, feeling the knot in my stomach and the lump in my throat…it took me a few minutes to get myself together and go inside.

every day, from here on out, is going to be taken on its own terms, i think.

i’m going to sleep now before i give too much attention to this feeling that i might need to hurl.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz