2 blogs in what night? What a boring night I must be having.

I actually got this for a friends email and thought I'd post my response here. So here ya go...

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE????

So here's how it works:
1.open your library in your MP3 player
2.put it on shuffle
3.press play
4.for every question, type the song that's playing
5.when you go to a new question, press the next button
6.don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

Opening Credits:
"I will survive" by Cake (YES!)

Waking Up:
"My Juvenile” by Bjork

First Day at School:
"Round here" by Counting Crows.

Falling in Love:
"Offend in every way" by White Stipes (Love should be offensive...otherwise what's the fun...j/k...maybe)

Fight Song:
"BY the skin of my yellow country teeth” by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Breaking Up:
"Rum to whiskey" by Murder City Devils

Prom:
"Scarlet Begonias" by Sublime.

Life:
"Suffer for fashion" by Of Montreal

Mental Breakdown:
"Was it a lie” by Sleater-Kinney (nice)

Driving:
"My Friend the Embryo” by Ugly Fat Kids

Flashback:
"My Pretend” by Apples in Stereo (yeah – dead on!)

Wedding:
"Oscar Wilde Breakdown” – Digitata (OK, sexiest wedding ever!)

Birth of Child:
"Going nowhere" by Cut/Copy

Final Battle:
"The Earth died screaming" by Tom Waits

Death Scene:
"Heatherwood” by Deerhunter

Funeral Song:
"Sleep to dream" by Fiona Apple

End Credit:
"Someone great" by LCD Soundsystem

No good can come from this posting. Or any posting for that matter.

We (my band Scar Tissue consisting of myself and my phriends for life Josh (JW) and James (JS)) entered Depository Studio last weekend to record a new demo c.d. We had just over 48 hours booked (though we have no way to pay for it), and in that time we wrote and recorded like crazy. We hope to have the finished product by the end of the week. It's not going to be most specatular, mind blowing quality you've ever heard but the idea is there. Maybe the idea will be enough. I hope.

We were experiencing the pre-studio tension headaches. James buyed all the 9V batteries he can get his hands on, like it was stompbox Y2K. Josh and our engineer Brian have already started butting heads. Josh wants to bring his own knobs for the mixing board and is insisting that Brian refer to him as "The Real Engineer" and Brian to refer to himself as "The Make-Believe Engineer." We've also had a great deal of trouble contacting Phar, our made up musical shaman. I keep suggesting to call him or stop by his house, but the guys insists that Phar will contact us telepathically through a pre-determined (but undisclosed) spiritual plane. And as for me, well, I'm pretty much excited. I've been watching Creed videos all week for inspiration, and I should have enough money on Friday to buy a second Whammy Pedal. I'm hoping that this dual pedal approach will help define the sound of our album (and - fingers-crossed - rock music as we know it) as "Double Whammy." Other than that all we're missing is a barbershop quartet. Ya know, on second thought who needs the quartet.

I guess I'm excited as hell. I've been having trouble sleeping the past few days. Jittery I guess. It's the weird thing about studio. I mean you can think that you've got a song nailed, that there is no way you could play it better but once you hear it recorded all you hear is the flaws and mistakes. At the same time I'm excited. I'm excited to give copies to my friends and see what they say. Two songs on the demo have never been heard before by ears outside of ours. I can't wait to blow their ear goggles off. Peace out y'all.

Gav.

The weight came down today. Moments like watching a dog almost get hit by a car. The relief seeing that the dog is ok. Seeing the love of your from life very, very far away. Seeing her walking to you. Dead leaves on the dirty ground. Days like this, it's good to make a list:


Shit I'm grateful for as it all flows forth:

I can walk, use all four of my limbs, see out of both my eyes, hear out of both my ears.

I can read, write, draw, sing, run, dance, fuck, cry, and laugh.

In my daily life, I don't have to worry about being shot, bombed, raped, mugged, terrorized, tortured, mutilated, rounded up into camps, persecuted, or stabbed in the eyes with a screwdriver.

I can believe in any god or religion that I want to, even if that god is a wet napkin over a mound of melting ice cream.

I don't have to believe anything I don't want to.

I have a job that pays me well enough to own a car, rent an apartment, buy nutritious food, CDs, DVDs, pay for gas, a bike, a helmet, water bottles, clean water, clothes, and light bulbs.

I've never killed anyone on purpose or by mistake.

I have a loving and generous mother.

I have a hilarious sister who is the greatest person on the planet.

I have spent the past year and a hlaf with the most amazing person anyone has ever known.

I have friends that love me despite all the ugly, flaky, selfish shit that I've pulled over the years and continue to pull to this day.

I play music with brilliant musicians with kind souls.

I have the capacity to feel hurt and love and pain and grief and joy and contentment and gratitude.

I am not the center of the universe, and that's a big relief.

I have what I genuinely believe to be the most phenominal cat in the world.

I'm from the greatest place on earth.

I know the different between coke and pepsi – pepsi is way better.

I've lived hard enough to know the comforts I've taken for granted.

Sunny days, even when they're muggy like this one.

Cloudy days, pregnant with rain.

Knowing that I don't know shit, and being 100% ok with that.

The limitless potential of right now.

Letting go of the past.

Leaving the future be.

Embracing clichés and convenient ways of appreciating much more complex things.

Being unique, just like everyone else.

Having loved and lost, than never loved at all.

Knowing there's a lake in the mountains of Vermont that awaits my return.

Stories about Cthulhu.

Burning a Mike Doughty cd for someone who will appreciate him.

The batcave.

Stepping out of my head.

Vinyl, because it sounds warm.

The flowers along the path behind where I work.

My plant, Robert.

The mighty Mississippi.

All things Tom Waits.

Standing it on its head. Turning it over.

Breathing.

Just breathing.

Just like that.

Holy shit. I feel better.

Love

I was talking with kid joey dennis the other night at the Babylon, a bar/night club. We were both inspired. Not just by the music, or by seeing random friends, or by the massive crowd, or being out till 2 on a Tuesday night, or anything else. "This is a great town man," I said, "We're really lucky." Joey agreed. He started telling me about a conversation he had with a friend that moved here from bumblefuck nowhere. This guy goes out every night. Said joey about the guy, "He said there's so much to do here, and that he's spent so much of his life in a place with nothing to do he can't justify staying in very often; here there's art and music and movies and restaurants and parks and clubs and bars; man, I'll never get bored."

I've gotten to a point where I don't understand video games. Or staying in night after night watching movies. There are nights for movies, don't get me wrong, but there is a living breathing city around us. Too often we're called to withdraw; be it through over stimulation from the media or draining days at work – days when we just don't have the energy to get our asses out onto the street and see what's going on around us. I don't even mean going to an event or show. I mean even walking around the fucking block.

It made me think, "if you're going to live in the city, then fucking LIVE in it."

Beauty's friend Amanda has been a gift to us in of a sort. She's from another state that has slightly less in the metropolitan department, so everything in the city to her is brand new. Beauty and I have been showing her around a bit, mainly some of my favorite places to go: The Day By Day Café, The Copper Dome, Big Vs, Crosby Park, The Tea Garden, the Electric Fetus, Cheapo's and so on. These are some of my favorite places, and they have been for years. But one thing I've lost sight of is exactly WHAT made me fall in love with them in the first place; that first time walking through the door and feeling exhilarated or awe-struck or completely calm. She's been going through that at some of these places. It is a real gift, being able to show someone around your hometown, because you get to look at it for the first time all over again. Things temporarily stop being granted and rise up as unique. And it opens your eyes to new possibilities and means of re-enjoying these familiar things. For example, I've lived within a 10 miles of the Mississippi river for the last 24 years (everytime I'm home from Grand Forks anyways) and had never swam in it. Last week, we were standing on the shore and I was compelled to just jump in. And that's what I did. It took me 24 years to feel ready enough to jump in the Mississippi river; a river I have run along and driven over countless times, so rarely pausing to consider how else I could know it, or try to understand it.

I think that can be said for just about anything you've become used to. Routine, I'm beginning to believe, is a killer. It stops us from exploring, from adventuring, from looking at things differently. Yes, routine can be a very comfortable thing. And there are times when we need that comfort. But I'm sure many will attest that everywhere from the lover's bedroom to the after work commute; routine begins to grind away at your ability to explore and appreciate.

And what ties us to routine? Comfort? Fear? Maybe both.

I've been afraid of the silence that exists between breaths. When the ear-goggles come off. When the conversation stops. I get anxious. I want to fill it. I'm a gasbag. A Chatterbox. A socially drowning man, desperately trying to make his demise entertaining. For years it's been like this, and I'm tired of it.

I've been stopping to listen lately. To watch. To let my thoughts arrive, say what they need to say, then let them pass. Knowing that silence between two people can connect them just as much as a conversation. Being alone with yourself can be like that, too.Trying to stop thinking of where I need to be in 5 minutes and take care of what's in front of me. Breathing.

I moved into a new place with Beauty 2 months ago. It's an apartment. I have a deck which I find awesome, especially when I just want to chill with my acoustic guitar. I can hear birds and the wind. When I close my eyes, sometimes it sounds like the sea. I walk around my place naked sometimes, just because I can and to encourage Beauty to do it too (shh). I listen to cds and lay on my living room floor. I have a bookshelf and I have begun building a city. I have Jackson Pollock prints on the wall. My picture of "Old Guitarist" is sideways; I think he looks more comfortable that way. I now own matching dishes. They match my dishcloths. And I'm ok with that. I don't turn lights on unless I have to, because I kind of like the shadows that my house keeps.

I am breaking the routine of "me." These familiar places and things that I have grown to love and know (all too well, in some cases) are not changing. My approach to them, however, has. I will always be me. The past is gone. The future, as much as I'd like to predict/control it, is uncertain. All I have, all any of us have, is right now. Right now, can always be amazing, fresh, and new. The difference is in approach. In the willingness to take a new angle, break from routine, and shut the fuck up for two minutes and pay attention to what's going on.

Right now.

Sometimes it seems like I want to say that art, in the general sense, is about pushing forward/creating the "new" or at the very least trying to push beyound the boundries of what is current/acceptable/expected. Well if this is art, I mean trying to make something new/different than what is up with fashion in our society? I ask you "is fashion art?" I was just talking with my fiance (it's awesome saying that instead of girlfriend) about how clothing styles just recycle everything. Like style is on a 10 year loop. Capri's were in when our moms were teenagers. Baggy pants were in in the 70's, the 80's gave way to skinny pants, the 90's saw a re-emergance of the baggy, and 00's have gone back to a slightly skinnier style. From watching the show the The Hills on MTV, ever the beacon of what's "in", I've learned that tights which were so popular in Madonna's early 80's videos are now fashionable again. So I ask, is there every anything new in style? Fuck lets just all be naked all the time. You know Plato wrote about that once, only he limited it to gym class.

My possible answer...

All art, i think, is at a point of recycling. Visual Art, fashion, music, all of it. I think real art, these days, is about finding new ways and means of combining elements from the past and making something new. This is the genius of one of my favorite bands TV on the Radio. They borrow from African traditional music, 80s indie rock, doo wop, blues, industrial, electronica, and so on - and yet, none of it seems borrowed. I think we've reached a point where true art is the combination of innovation, drawing on the past, and mastery of craft. In an age of dullards, the masters of the arts will rise.

and naked never goes out of style.