Life Quote

" Life is like great big canvas, you should throw all the paint on it that you can"

Danny Kaye

Ok, lets introspect.

My canvas is pretty full but no where near complete. Some of it's not pretty, but it is interesting to look at and it satisfies me.

If yours is sparse, you've only to blame yourself and it's too late for calculated brush strokes. You better open up, turn a blind eye to negative forces and throw buckets. Live, breathe, paint.

BEGINNINGS

I kind of like it in here. The space is a little cramped, but I can get comfortable by kicking myself around. Pretty cool having fingers now, helps pass the time by counting. Id count my toes if I could see them better but my head is too big compared to the rest of my underdeveloped body. I'm not sure what that thing is just past this rope connected to my belly, I dont think its a finger or toe, pretty good sized but I'm not sure what that's going to be used for. Best of all is breathing underwater. This is gonna be huge later in life.

Hey, what's going on? Where'd the water go? what the heck.... gurggle, mumble.... OUCH!!! Dude why'd you hit me... waaaaa!!! waaaaa!!!!! Man its bright out here, anyone got any shades?

Ft. Meade Army hospital was as dreary a place as you can imagine. It would be the place where later I would run down the halls because the Drs. produced syringes made of stainless steel, huge with finger holes to get maximum leverage. The floors were green tile, always polished, a dark sterile place. I'd always get caught by my Mom, or a Dr.

Ft. Meade Army Base is also a military intelligence base in Maryland, just outside Washington DC, near Laurel, MD. If you watched the movie "Men Who Stare at Goats" , the characters are in a paranormal psyche unit and adept at remote viewing. The movie places the unit at Ft. Bragg but this also took place at Ft. Meade. Remote viewing is the ability to see things without being there and the military experimented with it. Men Who Stare At Goats was a dissapointment as a movie, Clooney didn't pull it off and I don't think it was factual, b ut it did illustrate the fact that the Army experimented with remote viewing. Strangely, Im pretty good at it myself.

At about 4, I was at my cousin's ( that's him up there, a follower) Grandparent,s house at a family gathering on the Back River, an estuary of the Chesapeake. I remember watching my Dad and Uncles wade out into the river, catching soft shell crabs. I guess my Grandfather had decided it was time for me to learn how to swim. He snuck up behind me, grabbed me by the arms and flung me into the water. I remember vividly seeing black, brown, green, yellow... then surfacing. This was how we learned to swim, babtized in the Chesapeake..... underwater breathing sure would have come in handy.

Lady Gaga, The Grammys, and The Future of Mankind

I'm so hesitant to watch any Awards shows on TV nowadays. Especially after the Kanye/ Taylor Swift incident. The music industry is pretty saturated with so many artists and it seems record labels throw stuff up against the wall to see what's gonna stick any more. And Rap/ Hip Hop, Fogit about it. I used to appreciate Rap in the early days as an expression by an artist, not that I particularly liked it, but appreciated the expression and was curious about it.

I fancy myself a pretty good judge of talent, kind of have a knack for knowing what's going to be big. Not that I'm an expert by any means, it's kindo of intuitive. Earlier in 2009 I picked Lady Antebellum, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga as the lead horses. This was born out last night on the Grammys. I'm glad I watched and was impressed that melodic music seems to be back in the forefront, unless you watch the MTV Music Awards. Plenty of crass and un class still to be found there, but I suppose someone is downloading or buying the crap.

About Lady Gaga. I'm a huge fan. What first caught me was the visuals from her videos. Kind of sophisticated Devo esque. I don't know how much artistic input she has in them, but they are avant gaurde, eye candy. Secondly, her versus are club like but in all of her songs, she breaks into catchy melodic choruses. Thirdly, she is very talented, great voice, phrasing.

I had an arguement with my brother and cousins at xmas about her. I contend that she is a cross between Madonna, Cher and Grace Jones. And that she has the ability, and probably will transform herself from her current shtick and have great longevitiy. In the meantime, we get interesting and entertaining art. Her duet with Elton John was impressive.

Since her and Sir Elton did the opening act at the Grammys, I thought " who's going to top that...." well Pink did. I'm not a big fan of her punkyness, but she sang a song the demonstrated her vocal skills, low key but while doing acrobatics. I was in awe.

I pegged Lady Antebellum earlier last year for their great harmonies, diversions in the melody and bridges. Incredible vocals. Hillary Scot is actually country star Linda Davis' daughter. It doesn't hurt to have those connections, but they hold their own.

Then finally, Taylor Swift. Her songs are bubble gum for the most part, but when she crossed over from Country I realized her vast appeal. She writes her own songs, can you imagine the money this young woman is going to be worth? I have to believe at some point she will run out of lyrics. How many fairy tale princess, prince, high school, when you're 15 stuff can you come up with. But, she's been doing duets with a number of groups and people. I hope she can sustain.

All in all a good show last night. Lots of big productions, Beyonce, phenomenal vocals.

Back to Hip Hop. Whats up with Jayzee? What does he do? I saw him in a video with Alicia Keys, the New York song. I don't think he says much, kind of grunts here and there.... Guess he'll ride B's coatails. I dont know. Emmenem and the two guys he was rapping with... I either had technical difficutlies with the TV sound system or they bleeped out a bunch of lyrics.... and those guys need to buy some new belts for their pants because they're underwear was showing..

Pants on the ground, pants on the ground... lookin like a fool with your pants on the ground...

Life Story

So maybe I'll write my life story here, not that anyone reads this thing anymore. that way when I'm on my death bed, I'll whisper the blog site address and there you go, instant eulogy.

It will probably explain a lot of things as to why I am like I am. I know it's gonna take quite a while too. And it's as I remember with a little fiction intertwined, heck why not.

So, here we go........

Songwriting

Circa the winter of 1996 there was somewhat of a family reunion over in Sonoma with Cousin Kit, Cousin Johnny, Cousin Stevie, Cousin Nelson, Brother Scott and a number of Aunts and Uncle Mick. Coming from a musical family, one evening we attended a jam session at " Big Daddy Mur's " , retrofitted garage, jam palace. Murray was a colorful, local drummer and Sonoma is not lacking for walk in musicians. The place was dimly lit, xmas lights hanging on the interior, rugs on the wall to dampen the sound, a stage. Oddities scattered about ( I contributed a taxidermied rooster crowing on a post, one of my early taxidermy projects). Shadowy sillouhettes with gig bags and congas flowed through the door.

We all took turns getting up and playing, jamming and afterward the cousins decided that it sounded pretty good. We'd all played in bands seperately over the years, some with more success than others. We decided to write some stuff and record it on our own.

Mad Uncle Mick was the driving force behind the project, footing a lot of the bill for recording time at Prarrie Sun Studios in Cotati. A collaberation between some cousins and freinds who sat in on some tracks, it was an amazing 6 months project. I wrote 4 songs on my own and collaberated with music or lyrics on 2 others and Scott wrote one. Cousin Ricky flew out from Maryland to enrich a song " More Love" with his silky vocals.

The only problem with writing so many songs in that short of time is that I eventually developed writer's block. Then the mixing and re mixing of tracks, time, money. The studio liked the fact that we were family and gave us a discount rate of $45 an hour but then toward the end, the price went back to the normal price of $75. With all these factors we called it the End.

We passed out CDs to family, friends with good reviews. Several of the songs were played on a couple internet radio stations. Internet radio was in its infancy, the CD was for sale on MP3's website when they featured mostly Indie music. Until You Change Your Mind and What You Do To Me were in the top 40 for many weeks with good reviews from critics.

Recently, after listening to the tracks, I decided to try and market them, i.e, get a song published. Once its published, then the publishing company may pitch the song to an artist. Thats how I understand it anyway. If an artist eventually records it and it ends up on an album that sells, then you get royalties every time its played.

I found a songwriting consultant at songmd.com. An accomplished songwriter with many credits and an Emmy nomination. I sent 4 songs in not knowing what to expect. I paid my fee, submitted and waited. I didn't know what to expect really, I thought maybe a hook to get you to shell out more money for recording.... some angle.

But within a few days I received a 30 mintue CD with her comments. Well, lets call it mostly constructive critiscm. At first listen, I didn't know if this was her subjective opinion, projections based on her style but as I listened and re listened, it was honest critiscm. I learned her lean was oriented to having people break in the music business with a hit song. You have to write something good enough to break in even though I thought my stuff was better than a lot of stuff I hear on the radio.

I learned that the contemporary song structure is verse - chorus - verse - chorus - bridge - chorus. And a lot of them actually have this structure if you pay attention. I learned you want to go " up" into the chorus and the way to do it is with a major 3rd. I learned the chorus, verse and bridge should all have different rythyms, to write the melody first, then the lyrics, to tell a story rather than put together a song with a bunch of metaphors, poetic imagery thinking someone would understand what I was conveying... and on and on...

Interesting enough, the song she seemed to introspect a lot on was one that was my favorite lyrically but one that wasn't as popular among people who had heard it. She did encourage me to re write and not give up. Hey , at least I got 30 minutes of constructive critism, that means something, right? I could have been totally blown off.

Bottom line is I can't quit the day job for now. But her ideas are actually liberating in the sense that there is a definite structure to things, and I dont have to get too complex in the delivery, just tell a story, with a good melody that will make people want to get lost in the music. She told me to bleed and put my guts on the page..... ok. Back to work. I can do this!

Portabello and Asiago with Tarragon Aioli

Here's a recipe from the TOMM kitchen. It turned out delicious.

Ingredients: Per sandwhich.

1 Large Portabello Mushroom. ( De stemmed)
1 Large Red Bell Pepper
Escarole lettuce
Fresh Italian Flat Bread.
Asagio Cheese

1/3 cup of Lite Mayo
3 Roasted Garlic Cloves.
Fresh Tarragon
1/2 teaspoon Olive Oil
Two Large Scallions
Sea Salt
Pepper
Balsamic Vinegar

De Stemm the portabello and brush it with olive oil. Be patient, they get thirsty. Set aside.
Cut the bell pepper into flat slices, peel the skin and rind, no seeds. Then place the pepper slice in a plastic bag with a splash of balsamic vinegar. Set aside and let it marinate.

For the aioli, coursely chop about two teaspoons of fresh tarragon. Finely chop the roasted garlic cloves and the scallion onion part. Couresly chop one of the scallion greens. Whisk together with the mayo, olive oil, a pinch of sea salt and pinch of pepper. You can adjust the taste and add more garlic, tarragon to your taste. The Tarragon makes this sandwhich. Refrigerate.

Grill the portobello, skin side down until down while charring the bell pepper. When the portobello is done, turn it over and melt the asagio cheese slice.

Cut the italian flat bread into two slices about the size of the mushroom and spread the aioli generously on the top slice. You can lightly toast the bread if so desired on the grill brushing with a little olive oil. Place the mushroom on the bottom slice, topped with the bell pepperslice, add a leaf of Escarole and I like to slice it in half. You may want to use tooth picks to hold together.

You can pair this with a bold wine to match the meatiness of the portabello. A nice Cabernet or Zin would do the trick!

Guitar Hero

My cyber friend Amy emailed me to tell me she thought Neil Young was a great guitar player. She had been listening to him on the way to work. This is not only blasphemous but so imcomprehensible that it made me choke on my water. He did make Rolling Stones top 100 list of guitarists at # 83 but go figure. I don't put a lot of credence in these things. I do like Neil Young as an artist and songwriter but guitarist? NO WAY.

So after some dialog she asks " who is your guitar hero" and I couldn't answer the question. I had to give it some thought. It's kind of like asking who your favorite painter is because there are so many different styles. You have classically trained portrait artists that paint with great detail and then you have impressionists and abstract artists with unique perspectives. Likewise, you have classically trained guitar players like Brian May, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and you have what I would consider abstract players like Dick Dale and Jeff Beck. Impressionists, well I would put Clapton, Hendrix, Carlos Santana in this category... something like that.

There's a lot more to playing a guitar than picking and strumming. Artists develope their own styles by using the components of a guitar to get a particular tone. Different styles of picks create different sounds. Different woods create different resonation as do electric guitar pickups. Gibsons sound different than Fenders. A tube amp gives warm vintage sound ... whammy bars, effects pedals..... it goes on and on. I have a Line 6 amp that has a knob you can turn and get about 20 different amp modulations. But instead of hauling around a 50lb amp, I just bought a Digitech box for $99 with 72 different modulations, with wah pedal built in, a tuner and effects settings. Its about the size of a shoe box and I can plug it into the PA system. That rocks!

Ok, here is my top ten list:


1. Chet Atkins - He had to have three hands to play like he did. Deceased.
2. Eric Clapton - I was at a loss for words when I met him. No need to say anything here.
3. David Gilmore - Amazing stylist. He can bend a note further than anyone I know.
4. Dickie Betts - Plays alot in the major pentatonic scale. Love his style.
5. Jeff Skunk Baxter - My favorite lick of all time = My Old School, Steely Dan.
6. Jimmy Hendrix - He was actually a really good blues player.
7. BB King - Great solos only using one or two of his strings.
8. Mark Knoplfer - Dire Straits, brilliant.
9. Ted Nugent - Gotta love uncle Ted for a lot of reasons. Stranglehold baby.
10. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Probably should be higher on my list.

Special mention goes to: Duane Allman, Warren Haynes, Bonnie Rait, Van Halen, Johnny Winter, Jerry Garcia, Mo Keb, Derek Trucks, Gary Collingsworth, Eric Johnson, Carlos Santana.