nanowrimo

After reading a book last year that was written as a part of National Novel Writing Month, I became interested in the event.  I navigated to the website linked above and while scopin', I found myself signing up for it.  Next thing I knew it was November and I was sitting at the computer not really feeling like writing my daily words, so instead I started patrolling the forum.

""There are hundreds of people writing novels this month that none of us will probably ever read," thought the stranded sith as he awaited his execution," might be a line that is being written in a novel right now.

Anyway, as I struggled with what I guess is writer's block but felt more like a belly ache, I ditched the writing and decided to read some synopses of interesting looking profiles on the nanowrimo's forums.  Then, I thought I would share a few of my favorites:


From MikeAlx's Tolombok trilogy, book 2:

Reen Trajen and Korbin Benvanine have escaped from their home planet Nilva and are now aboard a space station in low orbit above Prembis. Furnished with fake IDs, they are set to board a sleeper ship to distant Tolombek, in the hopes of finding Reen's long-lost brother. But, with Korbin wanted for a serious assault, and Reen still pursued by the secret organisation who call themselves "The Friends" (though they might not be), it's never going to be plain sailing. So what could possibly go wrong?
No, I haven't a clue either. Maybe I'll tell you in December.

 From AlyRuth's Fountains of Green:


In 2061, the UN declared the current environmental state a global crisis. Scientists predicted that earth would be uninhabitable within thirty years without drastic changes. In 2063, a desperate decision was made. With no more time to 'innovate' new ideas, industrialization was declared the problem, and the global powers united to "de-industrialize" the world. Their plan was to revert people, over the course of 200 years, back to hunter-gatherer societies by force.
In 2282, after the last cities, factories, and plantations have fallen, this vision in almost Kiko's reality. Global Operations, the only populous society left, has been enforcing the transformation from cities to villages, from tribes to nomads. Living in a small tribe, Kiko must learn the ways of the nomadic hunter-gatherers in the wilderness, but while on his journey, Kiko realizes that Global Operations may not have the best intentions at heart for the people or the environment when he witnesses massive genocides against local tribes.
Kiko, while conflicted against societal life and a nomadic life, must stand up against the violence and discover exactly where Global Operations true ambitions lie. 

From MCat's In a Bind:

When one of the teenage generation's most popular writers, Shanie Lennox, goes missing, it's up to Bree Michaels to find her. She's sure she can do it - of course - she's one of the CIA's most successful junior agents. But there's just one problem. No one seems to know what Shanie looks like, or where she lives! She's never used descriptive author bios, or pictures. She's never even had book signings. Come to find out, some say she's a recluse. Others claim that she actually lives on some remote mountain in China. Has Shanie been abducted? Will Bree be able to find her before it's too late?

From LousyWriter13's One Fine Day:

In the beginning, there was a day.
This, a careful study of history reveals, is when everything started going downhill. Fast.
That first day was followed by another day. Then another. And yet one more. The universe, being the creature of habit that it is, seemed to think it a good thing to have days fly by with regularity, and so it kept on with it, sending day after day after day.
This, a careful study of history reveals, was quite possibly a mistake.
Days simply became expected. Everyone started to assume that tomorrow, yes, tomorrow there would be another day. As a result, people stopped really paying attention.
Well, almost everyone stopped paying attention. And this... well, history hasn't made a public announcement of its opinion on this matter as of yet, but for those few who continued to pay attention, each passing day molded them, changed them, and made them into the angry, seething mass of unpleasant, war-mongering, monsters they are today.
This, history will surely reveal in time, might be a bad thing for at least some of the people who had stopped paying attention. And maybe for the universe. And, quite possibly, for history itself. For on this one fine day, the Fleglen Requiem of Flegola Five had a bone to pick with history, and the universe would never be the same.


All of these novels are being created right now as we speak.  Some will be lost on hard drives, others will be published with full color illustrations. Think about it.  It's so much fun to think that all these people with all these different ideas are all spending the month just spewing out 50,000 words for the fun of it.  Who are all these people?  Insomniacs?  The unemployed?  The beautiful foundation of culture? The dudes that hang out in coffee shops all day?  Either way, reading some of these inspired me to get on my horse and work towards completion of my book and to track down the Tolombok trilogy some day.

 

Middle School

I just finished the latest episode of This American Life.  It's about middle school students and spends a lot of time discussing how stressful things can be for them.  The stresses revolve around close friends growing apart, being made fun of for not bathing, or trying to find someone to slow dance with.  It was great.  It made me so thankful to not be in middle school anymore.  I don't want to know what it's like to smoke a cigarette and whether or not that will give me enough cool points to sit in the back of the bus.

And so the episode got me thinking about  something I have been tossing around in my dome for a while now.  The broad term- STRESS.

Here is an idea I want to be true: what if stress is just always the exact same number of brain synapses in every single humans brain at any given time.  Every one gets one stressy per second to use as they please.  The middle school kids are using it on looking cool, the high school kids are using it on getting kissed, the adults are using it on life and the old people are using it on death.  Your stressy-per-second allowance will never go up, it's just up to you and any given chain of events on how that stressy is utilized.

Now, stressy isn't the best word to make this point... it's silly.  However, think about how often you stress out.  If you are me, you constantly stress about all sorts of things... While I am stressing about money (and not having any) people with a lot of money are stressing about family or work or business and people without those stresses are stressing about global warming or how their socks have too many holes in them or about how their dog is sick.  Everyone gets the same number of stressys, its just how it is.  While you may think your life is crazier and more stressful than a middle school students, listen to the podcast and hear about the kid that throws up at lunch every day because he doesn't have any friends at his new school.  If you think your life is less stressful than the president's life, think about how many people he has to help him make all his difficult decisions and how in 1 or 5 years, he will be all set for the rest of his life.  His lifetime stressy-count will not be anymore than anyone elses.

Now, I feel like maybe there are some flaws to this argument:

First- are you less stressful if you don't have to worry about death?  Is death-stress a heavier weight than money-stress or friendship-stress?  I feel like maybe marines that are being shot at every day are more stressed than someone who lives in the Hamptons on his inherited trust fund.  But, for the sake of argument, lets look at it from the stressy system of stress equality.  Don't a lot of marines re-enlist?  Don't they develop a level of camaraderie with their friends that is unmatched?  If they die, aren't their families well-compensated (or at least compensated)? And don't a lot of rich kids in the Hamptons get addicted to drugs?  Don't they over medicate themselves and take anti-depressents all the time?  Don't they always have therapy sessions?  Are their stressys, without a doubt, any less than the stressys of a war bound marine?  maybe/maybe not.

Second- doesn't everyone always think that their life is too stressful at times?  Without a doubt, everyone has climaxed on stress and it is not a good kind of climax.  It is sweaty and wide eyed and hair raising, but it is not an orgasm. So maybe if you are climaxing on stress during midterms or a loved one's illness it balances out when you have no stress on Christmas day or sitting on a beach with a margarita.  So instead of an exact stressy-per-second rate, instead you have a stressy allotment for your lifetime that will get used up and it is the same allotment for everyone.

So maybe I am thinking in scientific terms (stressy? scientific?) when I should be thinkin' in religious terms.  I love a lot of buddhist philosophies, and one of them is that everything is flowing in one giant union.  All matter, consciousness, and everything is a giant pool rippling in with the high tide and out with the low tide.  Everything is shared and nothing and no one is anything more than a collective flowing force.  You can take it as far as you want, but I just like to think of it as everyone being connected and sharing the universe.  If this idea makes you want to barf, so be it, but remember you only have so much of a stressy-allotment for the day.  If we are all sharing everything, than wouldn't we share the burdens of stress?  Even though we don't realize it, we are passing around the stress from the middle school student puking in the boys room to the investment banker thinking about jumping out his office window.

Okay, the religious outlook makes me feel even more silly.  I just know that when I am overwhelmed with stress and wanting to go into the bathroom and puke my guts out, it is no more or less stressed than any of my fellow humans.  At that moment, I am consoled by the thought of a Radio Shack employee labeling 3 cases of AA batteries as AAA batteries and missing his date on a Friday night because he had to stay late and re-label the AA batteries or the small business owner whose business just didn't pan out like they planned it and now they are scouring the want ads because their mortgage notice just changed colors or the footy player who was to take a free kick with his team down by 1 towards the end of the big game or Steve Bartman or the boat captain who is being overtaken by pirates.

Stress is weird like that.  As you stress, you yearn for the porch-chill, or the peaceful car ride, or the morning you get to sleep in... The non-stressy moments that are so closely related to the stressy moments they could be siblings.  They could be the Olsen twins, so similar in so many ways, but perfectly unique in so many other ways.  Either way, embrace them and remember that you can't ever lower your stressy-quota, so you just gots to deal.

The Waffle Machine

I think it is fairly well accepted that the best feature a hotel can provide is a waffle machine. Placed atop the breakfast counter, a waffle machine easily allows the hotel to charge an extra thirty-five dollars a room with the understanding that their guests will pay more for waffles at breakfast.

Every hotel I have ever checked out of after eating a waffle, I have always said to myself, "man- that was a great bargain!"

So, now as I begin a new job as the night porter at a local hotel, I am proud to say that the hotel has a waffle machine. What I am even more proud of is how much syrup I can fit on my waffle at 2 am as I sit behind a desk and watch Survivor on the laptop. Not only do waffle machines swoon guests, they also help convince me that it won't be so bad to work overnight at a hotel. Despite the hotel not seeming haunted, it is a pretty nice gig. A few spooks every now and then would be nice (and probably bump up the price for those ghost-hunting travelers), but right now I am just happy to be alive and eating a free waffle.

Age in the Age of Plastics

I watched a man turn 90 the other day. He was sitting down and --* pop *-- the earth finished it's 90th revolution of the sun with his fleshy matter aboard for the ride. I had never seen anyone turn 90 as it is a rare site. I looked closely, not sure what to expect, only to find that 90 looks similar to 89. Then I was thinking, if 90 looks similar to 89, does 89 look similar to 88? If 89 looks similar to 88 shouldn't 90 look similar to 88? Simple flawless logic would then lead us down a long line which would be abbreviated by saying 90 looks similar to 12. I suppose if perhaps he had slipped in a bit of plastic surgery, we could even say 90 looks very similar to a character in Spirited Away.

Believe it or not, its not even silly to think within these lines. As long as you don't watch a 90 year old man stand up or sit down, they are still the same beast that roamed the hills 78 years ago. They still dream and hug and get scared of dark hallways. They still stick their finger in the cake icing and marvel at professional athletes and squint to blur the sparkling fireflies in the distance. Old man and child both turn their head to peek at a beautiful woman and both quickly turn their head back in fear of getting caught. Old man and child both lay their head down at night, look up at the ceiling and think to themselves, "why bother flossing?"

Sleep With Me

While investigating an inert folder on my old ibook, I embarrassingly uncovered inebriated expressions originating in April of '07:

Sleeping in a bed should never be considered a luxury. Thousands of millions of poor de-privileged persons win my sympathy. Sympathy! You say with a lofty dart. Well, I do and I don’t. Street sleeping is foreign to me- foreignly frightening. I speak of something not streetish, but simply a sleep in which no bed is available. Sometimes this sleep forces a creativity and ingenuity that stimulates grey matter in the dark. Don’t turn on too many lights. People are sleeping. Strangers are a-slumber in their beds. I imagined their apartment to be carpeted. Hope-prayed for a vacuumed cozy rug in which to unravel my sleeping bag and cushion my bruisable hip bone with the delicacy of thousands of fabric Lilliputians rocking me to a dream of back home. Instead I am hopeless. Soreness creeps into my thoughts. My neck reminds me of a week ago when scouting a merge in the van became painful. My spine recites an anatomy lesson a chiropractor once taught and my shoulders, they simply dip.

I have been here before. I will prevail. I am a Buddhist. I took a class on Buddhism. I know how Buddhists do it. I remember something about a Buddhist in a video and a nail and a stick. It is late, I am... this is easy.

I like to be near a wall or two. Tucked into a corner where there is minor midnight traffic. I like when chair cushions can be removed and curled upon....

Who knows where I was planning on going with that one. Just out of curiosity I cross-checked the last date that file was opened on my computer with the back catalog of the spinto blog and it seems that maybe this was written while on tour with The Changes and Dios Malos, and the only crash pad that jumps to mind from that tour is when we slept in a concrete broken glass factory.

Symmetry

Little Girl That Draws Pictures

On facebook the other day, I saw Jonathan Mann post this video with the comment "my new hero." It is short, so I watched it:

While I wouldn't normally think much of a little girl talking into her webcam, I will admit that Sadie's message is strong and to the point. So whether you spend tonite watching basketball on TV or making passionate love to your dream date at the bottom of a hole, remember we are all connected.

sxsw guest blog

I did some blogging last week for the WXPN site called The Key. It is a fairly thorough music blog with a whole lot of information on the main page. It was a fun mission to undertake as there was so much happening during the few days we were in Austin, that it was nice to take a bit of time reflecting. I remember one of the posts I ended early because I was in a hotel lobby and I had to pee real bad and I didn't want to leave my email open, so the reflection time was shortened for that post. Here are the links (1, 2, 3) and here are the posts pasted in for easy reading:
Day 1

I’m at a hotel, standing by a friendly man and typing this up on the hotel’s guest computer. A sign tells me I only have 15 minutes before I am being rude and should allow others to use this computer.

I wanted to utilize that time to explain a beautiful event that took place today. After a handful of stresses in planning, practicing, promoting, and traveling to Austin for SXSW, we finally made it. It is easy to become cynical as a result of the media and promotional blitz that follows a band leading up to this event. Our email is flooded and our socks are dirty. There is an onslaught of people trying to sell you the Next Big Thing, trying to plant their product in the masses and then photograph it and tweet it and put it on their website. It tastes bad, and requires a few drinks to get the taste out of your mouth. Then, there is also the coordination race. Set times, travel plans, parking, credential pickups, RSVPs, meeting with friends, meeting with industry types, making a spreadsheet, forgetting the spreadsheet, and losing your phone charger. All of it becomes overwhelming to me.

Then, suddenly, when we aren’t even expecting it, we discover why we are all here: beautiful, beautiful music. The magical power of performance. The delicious sounds of discovery. The force of a kick drum/bass line/guitar solo/falsetto shriek, all of that coming together. Today we all stopped thinking of anything but the excellent sounds from the stage at an Austin legend: Emo’s. A band traveled all the way to Austin from Melbourne, Australia. They arrived in red shoes and took the stage as I finished restringing my guitar. Engaged with my own errands, I wasn’t listening to the band at first. The Spinto Band was parking the van, setting up the drums, getting some beers, and looking for the stage manager. Then, this band overtook everything else. We were all smiling ear to ear as a band owned the stage at 2:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday I guess I should mention, the band is called The Vaudeville Smash and they truly owned it. They took it to the hoop. It sounds silly, but they cut our heads off. They danced, they rocked, they had the indescribable magic every concert-goer knows and yearns for every time they purchase a ticket to a live music event.

After their short set, they broke down their gear and another band took the stage. That is the beauty of this week. SXSW isn’t about standing in lines or sneering at all the assholes profiting off rock bands or trying to get free tote bags. It is about music and musicians and the power they carry. I am resisting every urge in my typing fingers to write a Star Wars metaphor. Discovering music is an experience that is enjoyed universally. Here in Austin, over the next week, there are so many opportunities to discover music; everyone in The Spinto Band is rejuvenated and ready to hit the pavement and find another dozen Vaudeville Smash moments.

Thank you, Vaudeville Smash, and your Doobie-Brothers-/Journey-/Thin-Lizzy-/Quincy-Jones-inspired sounds for breathing new life into my ears and making me so, so excited for the rest of the week.


Day 3

From Roy Spinto, our man in the field:

im standing 7n thebaustin convention centr on one of those computers (inspiron one) thqt forces you to type onthe screen… I apologize for typos. [Ed. note: All typos have remain untouched for maximum comedic value.] So I spoke with our whole posse about what grrat things happened yesterday, and I wanted t0 report the events… here we go:

Nick (guitar/soul): I was lucky enough to be walking down the street and received a drive-by-hi-5! Is that caaled a Drive-five? Our friends from Sunairway were cruising down the street in their van, passed me while I was on foot<>

Shane (sound man/youngin’): I hd a great sxsw moment> My fried/boss was throwing aparty, but his sound man becwme ill, so I filled in all day. THE chaos and energy flowed through my veins. We all worked togetherto get through the 17 bands, then my boss bought me the best burrito I have ever 4asted.

Cathearine (girlfriend): I saw some peoplebreak up. It was captivating, but not the sort of thing that you can stare at. They hugged, yellled and wnettheir seperate ways. Good luck to themm both. Love is eternal.

Mike (videographer): I dontknow what this is about, but I’d sure like to name-drop.

Sam (keyboards/puns): I saw a dude. I didn’t know him BUT he still wanted a high 5. I obliged and the stranger whispered in my ear, ” $hanks for being an American.”

Tom (bass): I wwas able to hug th3 lead singer of Sea of Bees! I saw them twice, and they were spectacular. What a treat!

Joe (guiar/trailer-maestro): I sang my first lead vocal on stage (twice) today. It was exhilerating. All the practice paid off, and I just let loose and barreled through the audience. It was something els!

Jeff (drums/spine): Michael Cera wouldn’t let us take a phot with him. Its all good though.

Whooo… Touchscreens r no good for blogging. Ill do my best to report from a real computer tomorrow. The energy flowing through these streets has a power. I am off to harness it.

Day 4

Saturday, March 19th, 1:45 p.m.:

I have found a computer. Here in the Four Seasons, I am surrounded by bright-red people who are drinking a variety of beverages and draped in meaningless credentials: wristbands, badges, lanyards, tote bags. They’re resting their sore feet and preparing for the final day of SXSW. The Spinto Band is in the same boat. I am afraid to tear off my wristbands for fear of losing my entitlement. It’s frustrating.

Despite the frustration, last night I experienced a magical moment. (I wish I had written about it then, as it has blurred a bit in hindsight.) I’m not sure if it was the “kind bud yerba matte” from the Guayaki man or the collective energy of the evening, but it dawned on me that this festival is truly great. As a musician who has traveled to all sorts of colleges, bars, and basements to perform, it is inspiring and invigorating to see a whole city overflowing with passionate, loving music fans. The suits and drunkards may be more obvious, but hiding behind every guy in the cool shades is a kid who is just excited to see music and discover bands and dance next to someone. Not every show is like that for us. Usually we will travel and play a week’s worth of concerts and I can count the dancers on one hand. Last night, however, all the Counts in the world wouldn’t be able to tally them.

During the Floating Action set at the Park The Van showcase, it became crystal clear. Floating Action is a brilliant band with so much talent. I watched their set from the back of the venue. At first, people were just listening. Then they were swaying, then they were tapping their feet. Then, by the end of the set, the whole venue was dancing and singing and pumping their fists. There were a few sunburned people sitting at the bar, or toward the side (this was pretty late in the night… maybe 12:30 or so)—but, for the most part, the band had captured the audience, taken hold of them and tickled them for the last half of their set. Not to sound lame, but it brought a tear to my eye. I forgot about the traffic cops, the gifting suites, and the nighttime-sunglasses dudes and raised my feet with the masses. How does music do that? Is there an equation or a recipe? Is it alchemy or magic? Is it comparable to anything else? Whatever it is, it’s valuable. However this festival is viewed by most people, it is foremost a celebration of music—and its incredible value to us all.

dogspeak

Life is a beautiful ride. One I cherish every day. The smells of fresh air, blossoming flowers, and newly cut grass- they all build within my nostrils as though they were small sailboats riding the breezes of my heartbeat. They sense my curiosities and float towards me. They need no reminder of the day or week or even if it is dinnertime, for they have but one mission; to fill me with joy. So much joy I run and run and run some more. I am a creation of vigorous speed. I will catch and pass you with little effort, then I will run a circle around you and continue to run. The sights and sounds blur in my wake as I create a tornado of feverish footprints. It is not to fear or confuse, it is only to excite. What is more important than excitement? It is full of life and passion and the sort of chemicals that cause the cackles on the back of my neck to stand on end. Excitement is the birth of energy and the extinguish of boredom.

Boredom is where I find myself most times. With life drifting by the locked window above the sofa, I sit alone. The shallow ripple of water slowly drawing to completion within my bowl, this will be the only activity worth seeing. Noises cackle and lights shine from the boxtop, but the language comes from another land, one I will never comprehend. Words like “fersail,” and “newbuybuynew,” mean little to me, but as I stare at the flashy lights, my head aches and my heart yearns for something with shape and life and, most of all, smell. It is an eternity of this. With each exit of my beloved, I am convinced there will be no return. The bristles of my bed, wedged between the sofa and the banister, feel like the pricks of a million pins stabbing me to death, disallowing me to sleep through the monotony in which I am buried beneath. Oh how I would love to find sleep. With sleep comes dreams, and with dreams comes running and more running and such speeds I lift off and run through the air. I pass the trees, then the birds, then the clouds in my dreams. Such great dreams bring me excitement as well. Instead, I lap up some more water and stare into the bowl. Ripple… ripple…

-click- what is that?! Someone is turning the door handle? I hear it? I smell the lunchpail and sweat and sawdust and oh the glorious smell of humanity. I feel my heart drawing in and pushing out with renewed vigor! I can only let out a howl of excitement and run and run circles then run some more. Companionship causes me to collapse.

When the leash and the tennis shoes and the little plastic baggie all come out, my heart extends all the way to the tip of my tongue. Who knew this would ever occur again? I was trapped within the doldrums of never-run and now I am among the grass and the dirt and the delicious smells of discovery. They rush through my nostrils and strengthen my heart. I feel them sailing all the way to my toes and then popping out onto the cement with every stride. I run and leap and sniff and dance and, all the while, I exist.

…and then, something new. We stop. His breath is shorter and undoubtedly full of invigorating smells as well. He sits. I sit. We sit together and breathe. Two units connected by each breath, passing along the delicious smells. I inhale, taking in a lifetime of delicious sailboats, they pass through my heart, strengthening it, and then I exhale, passing the smells along to him, so his heart will also be strengthened. I am so excited to share such smells. His socks are the most powerful. The stripes and wrinkles and stains all fill my nose with life and with him. It is all I smell for a moment. I focus on the socks and their vivid, powerful odors. If only their colors matched their odors, we would be ablaze with technicolor light. I am so happy.

Uh oh… again… I smell them; the headphones. The lull of the headphones as he plays the Sketches of Spain tape against my head is not a good sign. I know the sound of a trumpet and it is absent of smell. I accept these musical notes as they are simply another way to share a sensory stimuli with another, but why would we sit here and be lulled to sleep, when we could be amongst the butterflies and bicyclists? Running and chasing and smelling will leave our hearts with more beating than sitting and dozing and listening. A trumpet is a creation with little to no smell. It sounds of life, with bellows similar to my own beating heart, but it has no smell, and all living things have smell. I can only listen to this lifeless sound and hope that his heart is pushed towards the lake.

Luckily, he shares little, and enjoys the sounds himself. My heart has slowed, which commonly occurs after a bit of Sketches of Spain, and I sit, drowsy. I peak up at him, past his socks and his tennis shorts and into his eyes. They are closed. The smell of his cigarette leaps from his fingers and his lips down through my nostrils, but it does not excite my heart the way the fresh grass does. Instead, it makes my eyes heavy. The music, the smoke, the setting sun all climb upon my back and force me to lie down and then, with one last smell of the socks, I am asleep.

Swooooosh! Awwwoooooooo! The sun shines again, and I am up in the sky running towards it. The birds cannot outrace me, they only laugh as I run circles around them, through the air, and then we smell each other’s rear ends and our hearts beat faster. The sun laughs with me. It giggles as the temperature warms my body. I decide, today, I will even run circles around the sun.

Thanks to Lisa for sending the photo. It is a fun project to create a story around a photo... you should try it.

The Spinto Band returns to SXSW

Divine Relaxation

I was gifted a book called This I Believe for Christmas. It was one of my favorite gifts. It was a used copy that was delivered via used book gift exchange, and I love the idea of someone feeling as though they needed to pass along the wisdom within it's binding. Tonite we stumbled upon Louden Wainwright's:

Here's a question: How do you believe in a mystery, in something you don't understand and can't prove? When we're children we're encouraged to believe in some mysterious things that turn out to not necessarily be true at all — things like the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny or the flag. Naturally, we're disappointed after our illusions have been shattered, but usually we get over it. Some of us, however, become skeptical, even cynical, after that.

I've been asked on many occasions how I write my songs. Often I'll glibly reply, "I sure don't wake up in the morning and sharpen pencils." Then I'll admit how lazy and lucky I am, and how successful and downright great some of the more notorious pencil sharpeners have been — two of my heroes, Frank Loesser and Irving Berlin, being among them.

If I'm feeling expansive I'll bring up the mysterious aspect, the mere five to 10 percent that matters the most — what's commonly called "the inspiration." That's the thing beyond the technique and the discipline, when the sharpening and the gnawing stop, and something, as they say, "comes to you." It's a bit like fishing, really. There's certainly luck involved, but maybe what you took for laziness was (and I'm going out on a limb here) a sort of divine relaxation.

When I write what I consider to be a good song, when I realize it's going to hang together, when I somehow manage to get it into the boat, so to speak, I invariably find myself looking upwards and thanking something or even, dare I say it, Someone. If I'm alone, my heartfelt thank you is often an audible one. Oh, yes, I've been known to mutter a few words at the head of the table at Thanksgiving dinner, or hoarsely whisper an "amen" at a wedding, funeral or Christmas pageant, but usually it is just embarrassed lip service. As a rule I don't give thanks at a dinner table or in a church pew. For me, it happens when I've been hunched over a guitar for a few hours.

I believe in the power of inspiration, in the mysterious gift of creation — creation with a small "c," that is — creation as in one's work, hauling in the day's catch. When I write a song, I'm happy for a few days and it's not just because I've been reassured that I still have a job, though that's certainly part of it. Mostly I'm happy, I think, because I've experienced a real mystery. I haven't the slightest idea how it happened or where or from whom or what it came. I'd prefer not to know. In fact, I'd prefer not to talk about it anymore. It might scare the fish away.

Let's Roar from Mountaintops

Chex Mix is just a snack, but it can also be symbolic of something marvelous. It is a combination- many individual snacks that, when combined, become truly delicious. When I surfed to the Roar session on daytrotter this morning it was like eating Chex Mix online.

Besides the obvious reasons, there was a line in the Moeller-musings that really vaulted the metaphor: I can't keep the lid on and I roast Rivers Cuomo all over again, kicking the ground, punching the walls and bad-mouthing the horrible lyrical bed that he made and sleeps in so fucking comfortably.

While potentially out of context, this is the statement of a generation. Maybe not a generation, but a sect of a generation. Maybe not a sect, but a whole bunch of dudes that I am realizing is more than just me and my buds. It is a statement I have made sitting in many different chairs in many different homes with many different beverages in hand. Usually everyone is in agreement too, and it turns more into a wake than a bro-hang.

Alas, this statement was the peanut in the Chex Mix. It was the crucial element that made me realize that what I am tasting is delicious. My good friend Owen and my friend who I know a little less, but still like to call my friend, Sean, combine to constitute the corpus of the calories and then there is more: daytrotter, the site that makes the internet seem like it has a soul, is a beautiful place to make this discovery. Especially while drinking coffee on a sunny Sunday morning. So many different flavors, all joining hands in one moment of one day.

foxy follow-pup

So I have not seen my fox friend since the other night. I find myself looking out the window each night hoping he pops back in. In fact, I've found myself seeing the fox everywhere... in my head. I relayed the story to a friend and he said I saw my spirit animal. I have to admit, I've given serious thought to that claim. I can't help but wrap myself in the beauty of the whole event and the series of events before and after the fox stared into my soul. It is all connected and it is all natural. At any point an electron could be in a number of different places forcing a number of different neurons to fire in different directions creating alternate realities, but the reality I am blanketed with found a fox speaking to me with it's face- Staring at me, scared or hyper-aware or hyper-hyper-aware of everything happening: noises in the woods, scarcity of food, freezing weather, pressures of society, the impotence of consumerism, the importance of family, disgust of money, the need to be loved, and the hope that everything is somehow connected.

The fox knew.

I keep thinking of the fox. Even more so after the events of Tuesday. Get ready to read some crazy shit. Granted, some of the stories I have told on this blog are false, what you are about to read is 100% true and blew my mind to another stratosphere. I won't be able to truly capture it with my poor vocabulary, but just imagine the scene in Eight Below, when Paul Walker finds out what happened to his favorite dog. It was like that a bit:

I woke up, readied myself for the day, started my drive to work and listened to a podcast that was mainly annoying, but touched on some great points involving currency being more than just money- a comedian was discussing how he was paid very little money to open for Louis CK, but his true payment was the education he received from a successful comedian. I worked all day with the thought in my head that paper money is of less or equal value than certain experiences and lessons that can happen. How much money would you pay to eat dinner with your hero or take a long drive with your ancestors? It is a great debate, but not for this post. Anyway, with these thoughts in my head, I trudged through my day. I bumped into a professor from Temple University who I had met a few months ago, while standing in the same spot (A Whole Foods demo table). He dropped a good bit of knowledge on me as well, when he summarized this speech he had just played his students. Alas, I was still sour and depressed, but trying to combine all these short events into a collage and the only picture I had in my head was the face of a fox staring at me. Where was the fox now? Was he still hanging out near the house? Was it a he or a she? Was she going to make it to spring time? I couldn't get around the fox. So I drove home and listened to another mostly annoying podcast that did have one redeeming point that involved a Nike slogan. It was a nice ride home, I was tired and paid a lot for gas, but all of that is only to further build up the suspense before I drop the bomb. What happened when I got home was the most amazing event that might be considered coincidental. I walked in, gave out a few hugs and kisses to fiancees and dogs and then, before plopping down on the couch I noticed the mail. Atop the mail was this month's National Geographic. Has anyone seen it yet? Well if you haven't here is the cover:
Can a fox become man's best friend? That is pretty much the exact question I had been asking myself the past 2 days, and suddenly it is the cover story on the only magazine I get in the mail. A magazine that my mother has gifted me every birthday and Christmas as if she knew that someday it would completely shake up my whole belief system and cause me to hit my head on the ceiling in excitement. I don't need to kill the fox! I don't need to ever have that thought again. It is all in their genes, they have a gene that can make them be my friend. It's all in the article. Way to go March 2011 issue of National Geographic. Not only did you get my blood pumping, you included some great photographs that a high school art student will do a color pencil portrait of in the next ten years. The fox is not the enemy.

From there, I have thought of a number of ways to end this post. I have decided to say this: To have a series of fairly ordinary events tie together and excite you as the events above have done to me feels great. It is a wonderful feeling to search for meaning and purpose in things that are easily pushed into piles of meaningless and purposeless. Every day has countless events, and even more events if you search them out, and within those events there are connections and within those connections there is something I'm not sure of, but it is strong, like gorilla glue. I hope more steps are added to my fox adventure, as I will climb them wholeheartedly.

I trust the fox.

Barkley

“There are only five real jobs in the world, teacher, fireman, policeman, doctor and someone working in the service. Everybody else should just chill out and enjoy life.” -Charles Barkley

Well put! I don't think he was talking about Life magazine or Life the board game, although both of them are occasionally enjoyable. I enjoyed a short moment of life last night when a fox came and sat on our porch for a few moments. Off in the woods, something was howling, and it was almost as if the fox was hiding from the howls on the porch. It had a look of alertness I rarely see. Just a fox, on its toes, looking into the darkness. I shined a flashlight on him through the window and he looked over. As it stared into the light, I watched the fox for a good minute or two and thought about how I could kill it. Then, I kept staring at it and tried to figure out why that particular idea jumped out at me. The chickens were safe, we were safe, Badger was safe and snoring and the fox looked as though it was the only unsafe creature around. Maybe I figured it is best to just play it safe, but there was a certain unmeasurable value to that fox staying alive. It visited me on a dark cold February night and came right up to my front door, and stood in front of the spot where I often eat breakfast and read magazines. I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture in attempt to capture the magic, but it was an impossible task. I was curious what the fox's next move would be. would he try and dig into the chicken coop? would he snuggle up on the porch and get some rest? would he stand up on two legs and ask me for a cup of sugar? anything was possible I was so mesmerized.

In the end, the fox ran off, back to the woods, to rejoin whatever beasts lie in the cold winter night. I laid down and went to bed with another thought in my head. Why did I want to kill the fox? The obvious answers don't quite explain the immediate urge I felt. A flag just dropped in my head convincing me that the fox was the enemy, but I don't think that's true. The fox brings a lot to the party. Just this internal discussion I am having with myself and trying to figure out via blog-post (it's therapeutic- alright!) has value, not to mention the enjoyment of staring at a wild fox trying to survive in the dead of winter. I would say it is more valuable than the $10 I spent to see Transformers.

winter beasts

I've been meaning to update the 6 of you that read this on our chicken coop. Here are some chicken thoughts that have been cooped up:

I've been reading a lot of facebook updates lately of people complaining about the weather. Don't worry friendly faces- do like J- when I start to worry of the weather I just look off my porch and see 7 chickens toughing it out with no problem.

Chicken literature-- read it-- states that when a chicken becomes stressed out or unhappy they often stop laying eggs. Our chickens are surrounded by a foot of snow and living in arctic conditions, but still hook me up with breakfast daily. They aren't stressed out. They aren't whining about how much better summertime is and how depressed all the cold weather makes them. They don't even have thumbs to knit warm mittens and hats with. They are out there fluffing up their feathers and working as a team to conquer the cold. I love it. Right there, I am already warmer just thinking about it.

They even boycotted the heat lamp we turned on in their coop. We flicked it on when the weather was real cold- towards the beginning of December, but the chickens stopped going inside at night when it was on. "what, Jon, you think we are a bunch of toucans? We like the dark for our beauty sleep." It really is something.

Chickens are commonly thought of as whimps. I am here to tell you, that's a bunch of bullsquash. They are out there even when the squirrels and Texans, surrounded by nuts, are avoiding the cold. The only place for them to escape the elements is a little shack made of some plywood and tin. They aren't migrating, they aren't putting on smart-wool, they aren't even putting vaseline on their combs (except the one time Nogeeshik and I did do that as we were scared they were getting frostbitten). Every time I eat an egg, whether it be scrambled, poached, fried or in a tuna and pickle and egg sandwich, I think to myself, "Jon- why are you so soft- where is your hard shell surrounding the gelatinous goop you think is a man! Get naked and run through the snow right now and make a snow angel mooning the heavens!" Every time, I just sit down and eat my egg in front of a basketball game.

Kudos to the chickens... Let us raise our mugs of hot cocoa and toast the hen, for they know not what it is to complain about the weather, they only know what it is to eat, shit, and lay eggs.

bottles and cans

A strange series of events gained momentum and struck me upside the head with the force of dozens of domino bricks this past week. I am not sure where to start, so I will flush it out in a nice rambling nonsense as the beauty of it is that there is no place for Order, there is no start or finish, and it continues to evolve as I write, post and reread these words.

A few months ago I conceived a podcast idea that matured into Human Trampolines. Well shux, I suppose I first thought of it about a year ago now, but it stewed about in my head and in email conversations before any true action ever took place. Like many ideas, I feared this one would never gain enough momentum to get lift. I suffer from laziness, procrastination, and a slew of other slothy sludgy smudges. They are shackles that when viewed with hindsight bring me a good deal of shame. However, this idea had wings. My glorious friends came forth with glorious stories of glorious songs and the podcast became something real. It existed on the internet and in people's ears and as people listened it may even cause them to react to any certain incident differently than if it had not lifted off and flown. While it is simply a minor 15 minute podcast with only 4 episodes to date, it was a grand accomplishment in my mind to have HT and it's website and the idea of people enjoying the episodes the same way I enjoy the podcasts that I enjoy.

Then the world turned a few times. The sun came up and went down... It happened quickly and while the enjoyment was still there, many other things came and went through my head that caused the enjoyment to be a little less noticeable. Faces and delicious meals and scores of sports games on the television all joined the HT enjoyment in my mind similarly to how the Whos joined hands in Whoville. More and more it built up and more and more the sun set.

Finally last week rolled around. Another beautiful moment took place. As the Social Network was being celebrated at the Golden Globes, I utilized Facebook to its most glorious potential: contacting friends you may not normally contact to try and get the word out. With little fear of my privacy, I asked friends if anyone would be interested to contribute to HT, then posted a link to the site. The next day I had an email in my inbox with an attachment.

Now this podcast was just a small tiny thing. About 50,000 of them (total guess) are posted to iTunes daily and about 6 billion people swim the Earth and about 3 trillion dollars are made up. Size is an important factor to be constantly thinking about. You can think you are big or you can think you are small, but really you are just you and everything is moving so fast, it is hard to judge and be certain. Seriously.

Ok- back to the email. It was from a young student at NYU who I had met in Los Angeles and is a big fan of the spinto band. There was an attachment alongside the email. He sent me a story (channeling his inner Woody Allen) for the podcast. Now, if you don't know about the podcast, read this quickly. I haven't posted his story online, but like most of the episodes, it is based around a song that affected him. That song is Oh Mandy by the spinto band.

Now I have heard many people sing many praises (and criticisms) to the spinto band in all shapes and sizes and that is not what is great about this.

This young man proved that everything in the universe has a place and is connected and moves in and out of form and lack of form constantly. Here we are, billions of us, sitting around, blogging, sleeping, making cocoa, and it will all eventually collide. I love it. It is why I like to read the credits in movies- I probably won't know any names, but I might and that gives me evidence that there is a connection flowing from all atoms to all atoms. Events all happen. Some have reasons and some don't, but we can't question that they will happen. What we have to do is make more events happen. We have to work hard at it. The most minor of things all take shape and connect and each is necessary to the next. It is best to not view events as chores, but rather as opportunities. We have a lot at play here and I'm not sure I explained it very well. Let me try a new paragraph:

A young boy fell in love with a song and then, years later, told the story about falling in love with the song on a podcast about songs you love created by a guy who is in the band of the song he fell in love with and was, quite honestly, growing tired of the song the boy fell in love with, but then the boy and his story inspired the guy to realize that songs and love and everything are not to grow tired of, they are all puzzle pieces or intertwined hands or (damn- I'm going to say it) grains of sand.

Get it? I honestly can't even grasp how blown away I am by it all. I'm not sure why... This blog post didn't even really get it across. Just trust me.