Post-Christmas Cheer

It is the day after Christmas and all through the apartment, not a creature was stirring except for me writing this blog on some parchment.

Which is totally true, except for by parchment, I mean laptop.

Santa was nice. The reindeer didn't mess up the shingles on the roof.

I'm drinking tea. Can you feel the caffeine?

The Lakers won on Christmas, but my tivo lost, and did not record the game. Boo!

In the meantime, there's lots more family bonding and board games to be had before the Holiday season is over. Therefore, the blogs will be pithy for a few more days.

This year the meaning of Christmas is seeing your pint-sized relatives wearing their new pint-sized Chuck Taylor's with the special shoelaces.

I'm off to the post office to mail some Post-Christmas presents to some ZackHexum.com shoppers.

Don't forget to buy your ticket to the 3 Hour Tour before it sells out.

the compact disc is officially released

We done did it. The CD release party was a full-fledged success. Many to thanks to the fans, the bands, and everyone else in the building.

Here's the setlist:

Done him wrong
Easy for you
What if I
Beyond my means
Only a rehearsal
Hold on
Who knew
Little city driver
Jealous guy
Open to close
One spin

I gorged myself on cupcakes and In 'n Out afterwards (take THAT Elvis!). In a moment I'm off to the Post Office, my new home away from home, to mail out last minute Christmas gifts ("Open to Close" CDs, of course). It's not too late to get your copy of the disc. In fact, it probably will never be too late to buy a CD in my opinion, but for that matter it won't be too soon, so what are we waiting for?

I've been listening to the song "July Jones" by The New Pornographers on repeat today because yesterday I kept saying "behind the daaaayliiight" over and over again. I'm hoping this purges the parasitic grip this song has on my head. If not, we may have to amputate.

On that pleasant note...

Merry Christmas!

Giant, Salty Steps

Ladies and gentlemen, when the oatmeal makers say "a dash of salt" they really mean one and only one. I made a bowl o' oats for breakfast and spaced out on that little detail. It tasted like I made my breakfast in the Dead Sea.

In other news, all of my headless-chicken-runnings yesterday were fruitful, and the first batch of Open to Close CDs were sent out (complete with autographs, if he/she responded to my email). You can order yours here.

I've been avoiding buying Microsoft Word because I am stubborn. (They say as a taurus that's part of my nature, but I don't believe them! I refuse to believe it! You can't convince me! No, I say!) As a Mac user I was then forced into using AppleWorks. Because of all this CD mailing I've been trying to do a "mail merge" to print labels from a database -"Musicians, they're just like us!"- Did anyone send me a myspace message about putting the cover sheets on the TPS reports? This is another in a long line of tasks I didn't imagine myself doing when I was practicing "Giant Steps" in high school.

Yet I digress, and ramble, and carry-on. Point being I downloaded an open source program called open office. Click on the open source link if you wanna know in-depth stuff, but essentially this means: the program is homemade by computer programmers just like... umm... "you and me?" Perhaps just like my bass-playing-computer-whiz compadre Bill Shupp. Point being, it's free! I also found a free PhotoShop type program as well as a free Illustrator program for graphics.

I made this all by myself:



Can you believe it?

I'll be going hog-wild with flyers before ya know it.

In the meantime I'll be playing my CD release show at the Hotel Cafe tomorrow (Thursday, at 9 PM).

Here's a hog-wild flyer just for you, dear readers:

Tour Cliff Notes

Where does the time go?

I've got a magna carta sized list of things to do now that I'm back in sunny rainy California.

So I'll write a brief synopsis of the plot from the final week of the December Tour:

Knickerbocker's in Lincoln was grand and started a three day stretch of seeing my name gently misspelled, this time as "Zak Hexum".

Jerry's Bait Shop in Kansas City was also grand. Lots of familiar faces (at all of the gigs, really). Tyson Leslie sat in on keys. He's my hero. My name was written as simply "Zak", no last name. If I become a pro-wrestler, this might be the way to do it.

Rock 'n Racquets at the Qwest Center: the anthem went very well (my dad liked it, too). I give myself an A minus, because there's always room for improvement. I was supposed to go on at 7 o'clock or so. We ended up starting about a half hour late. I spent that entire half hour pacing back and forth and lightly singing "oh say", "oh say", "oh say" a billionty times, so I wouldn't forget the key. This was akin to a basketball team taking a time out before the second free throw at the end of the game, but hoorah, it worked out.

Also, at Rock 'n Racquets, I got to play two points with Andy Roddick. The first one was nice and slow. The second one, he turned up the heat because the M.C. told him he had to rap if he lost the point. I saw my life flash before my eyes when he hit that ball at me. By the glory of luck, I returned one lightning fast stroke, yet was unable to make it to the other side of the court for his return.

Mick's in Omaha was great, filled with friends from elementary school and old high school teachers.

That's all I got for now.

Here's a flyer for Thursday's show:

magic eight blog

Oh the weather outside is snowy
and I'm glad I don't have anywhere where to go (e?)

The first week of the December mini-tour is in the books. It feels great to be back in the saddle and seeing familiar faces in relatively far-off places. A special heart-felt thanks to everyone who came to the shows, and extra special props for the people who bought the new album. We've been pre-ordering the new tote bags and t-shirts. They're being shipped via FedEx to Omaha, so they'll be in the mail to your hot hands by the end of the week. The new album is officially available via PayPal through ZackHexum.com!

This week I'm back in Omaha. I was planning on getting back to ol' Westside High School and helping out with my old jazz band today, but wouldn't you know it, it's a snow day.

My high school friend Carey had a syndrome called "Bed, aaaah" that occurred on school snow days. It went like this: you woke up and got on the phone to call the school hotline (it was programmed on the speed dial of my childhood kitchen phone) and got the very rare, and very lovely recorded voice saying "Westside Community Schools are cancelled for December 11th." At that point you would most likely scream and race back into your bed, at which time you would say: "Bed, aaaah." Then you would sleep in real hard for two more hours. I imagined everyone in the city of Omaha doing this at exactly the same time, so if you listened carefully you could hear a few thousand kids hitting the pillow at the exact same moment.

Tomorrow I'm playing Lincoln, NE, followed by Kansas City on Thursday, then back to Omaha for the big Rock 'n Racquets event on Friday, and Mick's on Saturday.

I'm participating in a tennis clinic for Rock 'n Racquets on Friday. I'm currently wearing an early Christmas present: new tennis kicks. This is my first official pair of tennis shoes. No, this doesn't mean I've been wearing penny loafers my entire life, this means that these shoes are actually designed for running on a green court with white lines. I thought my court cred might be diminished if I was wearing my Forum-Blue-and-Gold (i. e. Laker-colored) Nike high-top-moon-boots. Of course my court cred might be diminished if I make an ass out of myself at the clinic, since I haven't had an opportunity to play tennis in the last week or two. Go easy on me, Qwest Center.

The Lakers seem to be doing moderately well despite the fact that I haven't been able to curse at the TV from the road. Whenever I write a blog that says they're doing well they immediately run off a three game losing streak. I bet you didn't know these blogs had such magical powers. Let's see if I can't create some other magic via weblog... Boy it sure sucks that there's no chance that they'll catch the scumbag who stole my alto saxophone last year.

Till tomorrow, stay warm, but mostly stay classy.

a note

Just a quick note to say a couple of things:

By now I'm sure anyone who's watched the news over the last 24 hours has heard about has heard about the shooting at Westroads Mall in Omaha. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims. I'm thankful that my family and friends who reside in Omaha are all safe. I used to hang out at that mall when I was a kid. Scary stuff.

I'm hitting the road to Columbus in a minute.

See you Ohioans tonight.

air quotes, lazer, end air quotes

I made it to the Midwest. Wouldn't you know it, it snows in December over here! Get out yo' shovel.

Airports and airplanes don't bring out the best in people. A ragaholic six-foot-teen-she-ogre tried to pick a fight with me for reclining my seat. I was hoping to avoid:

A. punching her

B. being punched by her

and

C. being tazed.

I succeeded, but it took all of the Zen I could muster.

Other fun sights and sound at LAX:

1. Man being cursed at by airline employee for being late.

2. Woman cursing at airline employee because she was late.

My solution? Taze them.

"Excuse me, I ordered a Diet Coke." Zap!

Tomorrow (Thursdee) I have a show in Columbus. I'm hoping I don't have to lazer my way through two feet of snow to get there. There was some start time confusion. I'm planning on hitting the stage at eight PM. Be there or be square, but preferably be there. If the snow is out of control and I get stuck in the snow in Indiana, I'll post it here.

In other news, they're raising the standards for MPGs to 35 by the year 2020. Does this mean that Hummers will be dirt cheap in 2019? Does this mean that SUVs will revolt like Johnny 5 in Short Circuit? Are we going to retrofit them with bicycle gears so we can still use them? If so, will soccer moms then have the biggest calf muscles in the world?

These are the questions I ponder.

Today I did a clinic for a couple of jazz bands at St. Pat's High School in Chicago. I talked about the nuts and bolts of what it's like to be a starving artist professional musician. I didn't tell them this old chestnut of a jazz joke:

Q. What's the difference between a jazz trombonist and a large pizza?

A. A large pizza can feed a family of five.

For the record, I don't think a large pizza is big enough to feed an entire family unless you get bread sticks and a salad.

Yet I digress. The clinic was a hoot. I really enjoy talking about myself teaching. The students asked some very astute questions. I think we avoided any "which do you like better, half notes or whole notes?" kind of moments. Hopefully the kiddies agree.

Till we meet again...

Wear your mittens.

no country for bad movies

Good morning internet, how are you? Don't you know me? I'm your naîve son.

Today is the day, barring any disasters, when I pick up my new album! They're going to be ready at 4 pm. The suspense is killing me. Will the liner notes be accidentally typed in Spanish? Is my name spelled correctly? Are all the tracks backward ("I buried Paul"?)?

I'm not really worried about anything going wrong, but it's fun to pretend.

I'm shipping out on tour shortly as well. Take a trip to ZackHexum.com to make sure you're in the know. I've added some Southern California gigs in January, including the infamously famous 3 Hour Tour. More on this in future blogs.

The city of Los Angeles is working on a sewer near my apartment. I can smell their progress, and I'm not enjoying it.

*Movie opinion alert- if you have any plans on enjoying The Mist, skip the rest of this blog.*

Friday night I painted the town in movie-popcorn-butter yellow and saw "Stephen King's the Mist". Can I have a refund?

I'm a movie buff of sorts. Thanks to Rotten Tomatoes I've had a stellar six months as a moviegoer. Into the Wild, Michael Clayton, American Gangster, The Simpsons Movie, Gone Baby Gone, Rescue Dawn, Superbad and No Country For Old Men have all been thoroughly enjoyable. Unfortunately, Beowulf was a step in the wrong direction, and despite mostly decent reviews, The Mist was a leap off a cliff into murky, crap-filled waters.

I'm not going to give away the whole plot line of the movie, in part because I don't want to give this movie any more brain time than it's already receiving, and also because if you're a glutton for punishment you can still see this film and have your own set of "are you kidding me?" reactions.

Suffice to say a movie that leaves all but the most obvious metaphor on the cutting room floor and goes straight for the jugular with dialogue such as "I can't believe you think that, people are inherently good!" isn't going to be dissected in a humanities class anytime soon.

On a related note, Marcia Gay Harden's Old-Testament-Bible-thumper has to be the most over the top, unbelievable, nuance-free villain in modern movie history. She did a great job of being annoying (the audience clapped when bad stuff happened to her), but lawd almighty! I'd rather be trapped in an elevator with Dick Cheney. There's not a trace of humanity in her. Even Anton Chigurh, from No Country For Old Men, was more believable in his outright disregard for human life.

There's a scene involving tentacles that made the re-animation of Jabba the Hut, in the original Star Wars movie, seem like a well-executed and wise choice. As Butthead once said, "These effects aren't very special, Beavis." A slinky wrapped in tin foil would have looked more realistic.