now playing: idlewheel, “dust of this town”
a la my buddy michael anthony smith, a few random and splintered thoughts for the day….
for the longest time, i thought that jackson browne was singing “his destination envious, and i had none at all” in song for adam from his first album (he is, in fact, singing “his destination india…”).
even having realized this, i think i like “envious” better. makes the narrarative sound a little jealous that the subject is headed to wherever he’s going…and that, to a certain extent, the act of leaving in and of itself is envious.
i need to find something to do for a living that has nothing to do with computers, if i want to maintain the slightest semblance of faith in humanity whatsoever. humans have managed to use two devices to plunge to new depths of stupidity – computers and motor vehicles – and i would ideally like to have no part of having to fix either of them.
i cherish my late night drives with my daughter, and i shall miss them terribly in the not too distant future.
sometimes in life, it’s absolutely necessary to take inventory of the people around you and trim the fat. we all collect people who, over time, take more than they give…and it happens without our knowledge or consent. in my own life, i seem to have accumulated a large number of these folks in a musical sense. although i still miss some of them, the tradeoff of having a night or two a week to go home and do nothing has been reward enough to outweigh the losses.
the flip side of that notion is that there are a lot of folks who are important to me that i’ve fallen out of touch with in the past couple of months…i need to rectify that situation in the not too distant future.
as i get older, i have even less of what little patience i’ve ever had for musicians who refuse to use the ears that god gave them.
as that patience dwindles, god seems intent on throwing more and more of them into my path.
with every day that passes, i see a new way in which my son is just like me…and it’s frustrating as hell that i can’t show him the error of my ways, so that they don’t become the error of his ways.
in a pathetic way, i’m secretly happy for the academic failures that brought about his coming to live with me – it’s the only way i would have ever stood a chance in hell of pulling that off without some mitigating circumstance to force the issue – and having him there every night has been wonderful. frustrating, but wonderful.
dylan’s taste in movies sucks ass, but i always end up laughing at them.
much as i would like to view the fact that the american idol premiere this season had four times fewer viewers than last year as some kind of evidence that the human race is trying to right itself before capsizing, i can’t help but feel that it’s too little, too late. (as you probably know, i consider the advent of reality television to be one of the figurative horsemen of the apocalypse.)
every time i get a fleeting moment to spend with jayda lately, i can think of little else but how much i’m going to miss her when she inevitably flies the coop.
that same inevitable sense of loss hovers over the time i spend with dylan, but since we live under the same roof now, it’s tempered with a degree of gratitude that we’ve gotten the opportunity to be this involved in each others’ lives. he usually puts up a front that it’s against his will when we do things together, but if my hunch is correct and he truly is a clone of his father, he’ll be thankful someday that we had this time, too.
if there’s a lesson that it appears that i’ll never learn this trip through this life, it’s this:
if you want it done right, or at least to your personal definition of right, either do it yourself or learn to do it yourself.
i’ve had opportunity after opportunity to soak up that lesson in the forty years i’ve been shuffling about this planet, and i seem to have this subconcious refusal to accept it, learn it, and move on. this studio debacle from last year is just the latest in a string of opportunities i’ve had to learn this for good…maybe this time, it’ll take. if you cast your lot in this life with other people, no matter how well you think you know them, they will disappoint you. period. if you can do it by yourself, do it by yourself.
i firmly – FIRMLY – believe that if you’re capable of mastering World Of Warcraft, then there’s no excuse whatsoever for not being a C student. if you’ve been exposed to this game at all, and the convoluted rules, plot twists, levels, point scales, et cetera…you’d be hard pressed to argue that high school english, chemistry, or western civilization is somehow beyond your comprehension.
someone posted on the nashville craigslist board recently that “by the time you’re old enough to figure out the game, you’re too old to play.” maybe that’s true in nashville, but in all the years that i’ve been able to consider myself a musician, i’ve never had as many opportunities as i’ve been given within the last couple of years. some of them have bourne fruit, some of them have turned out to be wasted time, but it seems like new doors are constantly opening for me. i haven’t been this excited about being a musician since the weeks before the release of my record over ten years ago. it truly feels like i’m in a position to do this on a respectable level, with other talented people who are worthy of the level of effort that i’m willing to make.
i find that i’m fascinated with people who hold the past in high regard…they have the best stories. 🙂
after some four decades, i’ve finally figured out the source of my aversion to eating healthy – laziness. seriously. i could make half a dozen sandwiches in the time it takes to concoct a salad. and while i can operate a motor vehicle while eating a wrap, most healthy food requires the use of at least one utensil – thus disqualifying it from serious consideration for vehicular nourishment.
today, oddly enough…i’m neither disgusted nor amused.
this, too, shall pass.
...from the rear view mirror 