Rice Milk Teeth

Have you ever been on a plane with a head cold? I have. When we were landing I felt that the forward momentum shove my sinuses towards the guy in the seat in front of me when the rest of my noggin stayed attached to my buckled-in body.

Other than blowing my nose a record number of times all is well. I'm picking my new CD up from the printers either tomorrow or Monday.

I watched a thing on the local news about people camping out in front of stores to get first grab of stuff on Black Friday. As soon as the doors opened they were sprinting through the stores, presumably thinking "I NEED STUFF! GIVE ME STUFF!!" I understand that if people didn't buy stuff for Christmas the economy would go straight into the crapper, but perhaps we can think about buying recycled stuff for Christmas. That's my plan at least. I found this blog that has some links to some cool recycled Christmas gift idears. That way you can fulfill the "I NEED STUFF!" side of life without requiring new stuff to be made. By the way, if you're in my family, don't click on that link, because you'll know where Santa shops for you.

It's cute when your landlord schedules a plumber to work on the pipes and doesn't tell you the water is going to be shut off. This happened to me mid-shower when I lived in New York. I had to get the Brita filter out of the refrigerator and pour it on my head to wash off the shampoo. It was so cold it froze my thoughts. I'll guess I'll be brushing my teeth with Rice Milk today.

thank full of turkey

Happy Post-Thanksgiving, dear readers. It's been a great week, lots of bonding with turkey and family.

What am I thankful for? I'm thankful for the newly discovered "Magic Wand Tool" on the cheapie version of photoshop. We have designs for a new t-shirt and tote bag that were drawn on paper. There was a wild goose turkey chase involving Kinko's and broken scanners, but in the end we overcame. Once the paper is scanned and neatly placed on your computer, you have to cut out all the white so the background is transparent. This is like removing the hay from a hay stack one needle at a time (at least it was until I found the magic wand).

I'm also thankful that I tried my hand at piano tuning this weekend. This is another arduous task, much like photoshopping the chest hair off of Robin Williams, but one that I enjoy. I got a socket wrench and went to town on all the As and Bbs I could find.

Use your imagination:



I'm thankful for not having access to the Lakers games on TV during their three game losing streak. Because why watch a bad thing unfold over three hours when you can read about it in five minutes and skip the agony?

It's time for turkey sandwich number nine (number nine, number nine, number nine).

Climbing the Charts

Waking up to a weed whacker is not a good substitute for an alarm clock. In my groggy morning state I imagined a team of 12 foot-tall lumberjacks sawing my bed in half whilst I was clinging to my REM sleep.

Regardless, the show must go on, the weeds must be whacked, and most importantly, the cereal must be drowned in (rice) milk and made soggy.

Today will be the first taping of the Talking Music Show. My brother Nick, he's in a band called "311" (say it: three hundred eleven), will be stopping by to discuss life, music, the universe, and fishing lures.

I just now typed "talkingmusicshow.com" into my browser and found an empty, but nonetheless "real" website. Someone beat me to the punch on the title. As a result I've reverted to my old tricks and am using the babelfish translator to come up with a last minute new title for the program.

"Exposure of Music Communication"...

Not so much.

"Music That Speaks"

Maybe "Music Speaks" is a winner.

These are the decisions that control my day.

I have about three hours to make up my mind.

In other news, I have created a profile at OurStage.com. I'm new to the site, but it appears to be an online battle of the bands. This terrifies me a bit, because I don't have total faith in vox populi (how many albums did Creed sell?). On the other hand, why not? I entered "Little City Driver" in this month's Country/Americana contest and currently I'm 370th with a bullet! Look out world!

Striking Out

It's a good day, folks. The Lakers beat the Rockets last night, despite making more turnovers than a bakery. My St. Louis show came together as did Lincoln. I'll be playing Pops Blue Moon on Saturday, December 8th in St. Lou and Knickerbockers in Lincoln on December 12th. The phone tag with the venue in Chicago has reached epic proportions. I'm considering resorting to telegrams and smoke signals. Despite that I'm optimistic, and as he whose name shall not be mentioned said fifty million times "we're staying the course."

I've discovered it's hard to play tetris if your head is leaning to one side. I was contemplating the day, in a sideways-Rodin-style pose, and all of the blocks were going one slot to the left of where they should've gone.

Speaking of sides and ways, last night a friend told me the other view of the writers strike. The producers (the people not holding the signs) say that they are not making any money off putting the shows online, and that the money to pay the writers what they want for internet residuals would make putting shows online a waste of money. I also heard that the top paid writers in TV get $400,000 a WEEK! OW! That hurts. From reading this blog it seems to be a bit challenging to figure out how much the average writer really gets. Suffice to say, Aaron Sorkin won't go from holding a picket sign to a will work for food sign in the near future.

Maybe MySpace artists should go on strike to get a percentage of the advertising revenue that we bring in! Of course, that doesn't make sense, since musicians need MySpace like Tyrone Biggums needs crack.



I do, however, advocate drug users going on strike against drugs.

And on that note...

I bid you a hearty grass-fed moo.

corn-fed blogging

A couple of items of interest in the Open to Close/new album department:

-The album cover is done and has been posted online for your viewing pleasure.

-I'll be uploading "Open to Close" to iTunes today so it's ready to go on sale when I get the discs back from the printers. I'll be picking up a thousand or so copies of the album in the last week of November, assuming everything stays on schedule with the duplicator. The album will only be for sale through PayPal, iTunes, and at shows.

-"Beyond My Means" and "Little City Driver" have been added to my myspace player to tempt your eardrums.

-I've posted tour dates in December. Omaha, Columbus, and Kansas City are locked and loaded. Still to be added are Chicago (we're finalizing a venue), St. Louis (there was a wardrobe malfunction on scheduling this gig, but it's still looking highly possible), and Lincoln, NE.

I live in Hollywood. I leave my windows open whenever possible (i.e. not when there are evil particles in the air from rampant wildfires). Because of this I can occasionally hear nearby neighbors arguing. Since there are forty actors to every palm tree it's fun to guess whether these arguments are real or rehearsals for an audition or an acting class scene.

Occasionally I try to listens for film lines I might recognize like, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?" or "My sister! My daughter! My sister and my daughter!" or "go ahead, make my day." So far no luck.

Speaking of acting. I saw "No Country For Old Men" and it was alarming. It's one of those "stick with you"/"scar you for life" kind of movies. Be afraid.

Speaking of scarring you for life, and taking the "moo" out of "movies". I haven't ripped all the way through it, but "The Ominvore's Dilemma" is a fantastic and alarming book. What has it taught me thus far? I bought grass-fed beef for din-din, because cows are naturally supposed to eat grass, not corn. Cows have to have mad antibiotics to make corn digestible to them, and eating grass, if the cows are moved frequently, is better for the environment because it allows the natural cycle of consumption and growth to occur. Bet you didn't see that coming in this blog, did ya? Me neither. This is the part in the story where I get hate mail from my old Nebraska corn farming neighbors.*



*no, I didn't actually live on or near a farm when I grew up.

The taco conoco cat returns

I'm looking at the clock and it says blog:30. That can only mean one thing! It's time to get a new clock.

My musings the other day on the writers' strike made me think. If the Daily Show can go into reruns, can a blog? For instance I found my old Journal and feel I should share this little snippet:

"I’ve been thinking about palindromes a lot lately. So for I’ve come up with “bird rib” and “taco conoco cat”. We had a conversation back in Denton about a guy who came up with one that was several hundred words long. Scary."

There's no way to imbed html code for canned laughter, is there?

A new palindrome for ye: "word row".

I saw Mark McGrath at a concert yesterday. I met him back in '98 or so through my brother. He's very nice and told me that he came across my MySpace page. That makes me wonder who else has viewed this cyberspace that I don't know about...

Dear Pauls (Simon and McCartney),
If you're reading this, I'd love to play in your band and open up for you.
Love,
Zack

Dear Joni Mitchell,
I like your music a lot. I tell people that you're my musical mother. I don't smoke cigarettes like you do, but I'd like to go on tour with you.
Yours,
Zack

They're the band that did the Macarena

I'm off to the laundromat (that's where all the billionaires hang out) in a minute. This activity is so overdue that sorting the darks and the lights is like opening a time capsule. I think I found a Los Del Rio '95 Tour t-shirt wrapped up in a dirty sheet. I'm going to be folding like a very conservative card player (i.e. often).

Last night I had a bundle o' fun playing in Laguna Beach with Reina Boone and Alec Bridges. Reina gave me a hat she made. I wore it on the drive home (which was much quicker than the rush hour(s) drive to the gig).

Today should be the coup de gråce on the album artwork. Austen's coming over to finalize the album cover and photoshop a mustache onto my elbow.

blog writers lollipop guild

Of all the things I imagined I wanted to be when I was a kid, "web designer" was nowhere near the top of the list. That's probably because when I was eight years-old being a "web designer" meant doodling Spiderman on a spiral notebook. I've never been particular adept at doodling. I am decent at googling, but I can't say there's an art to that.

Point being, ZackHexum.com has been redesigned! Austen Risolvato did the basic graphic layout and I've done the programming. There are still some trimmings to add to this turkey, but please stop by and take a lookski.

What's so dang new-fangled about it? We used the back cover of the new album as the main image to give it that jukeboxy-je-ne-sais-quoi. I set up a flickr page to host photos for those of you who don't like "the myspace". All the lyrics from the forthcoming release are already up. I'm going to put The Story So Far and Realistic Fantasy up in a hot minute as well.

My weekday blog writing streak came to a screeching halt yesterday. I wonder if you, the bloggy faithful, got nervous yesterday that the blog writers guild went on strike with that other writers guild. Yesterday's absence was not a gesture of protest, I spent yesterday programming HTML like it's going out of style. Which in a matter of speaking, it is, but I don't know how to do flash yet.

As a resident of L.A. I get to drive by the striking writers and their picket signs. I wouldn't imagine that people outside of the entertainment industry feel much compassion for people who are at least successful enough to pay union dues in a job that one would imagine most often is a dream come true. Maybe you feel that this issue is akin to the South Park episode where they mocked Britney for not being able to afford a new jet because people were illegally downloading her record instead of paying for it. (For the record, I felt that episode was an irresponsible way to portray an issue that effects musicians as much or more than it effects popstars and record label CEOs. I don't give a hoot about Britney's "jets" either, but that's not why you shouldn't illegally download music. My guess is that cheap concert tickets are a thing of yesteryear as much as a 99 cent gallon of gas.)

I wonder if the writers guild has consulted these guys for advice on how to get what they want? I hear their pension plan is fantastic.



I personally started to feel compassion for the writers when I realized The Daily Show will be airing re-runs until this thing is resolved. Pay them! I've got twenty bucks I'll kick in.

If you're thinking you're having a bad day, just be happy this isn't your x-ray:

Charmin-of-the-Cob

Last night while reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, I learned that back in the day corn cobs were "stacked by the privy as a rough substitute for toilet paper. (Hence the American slang 'corn hole.')"

Ow! I love the internet and power steering as much as the next guy, but I have never felt such a need to squeeze the Charmin to celebrate the joy of the truly essential modern comforts.

I wonder if Charmin-of-the-Cob was used in the ol' West. Regardless, I felt no need to achieve that level of cowboy-realism when I donned my cardboard hat and pin on sheriff's badge on Halloween.

Bang bang:



Charlton Heston would be proud: apes and firearm enthusiasts stand together:



Maybe the guy on the left needs one of these beers more than I do:




Tonight I'm off to see The Polyphonic Spree play at the Henry Fonda. My ol' college friend Zac Giffel will be playing the slide trombone with them. I know some trombone jokes that I'd like to share, but they all require visuals. Ask me when you see me.

I had a dream last night that a couple of musicians were trying to teach me a song by bass player Steve Swallow:



I'm currently enjoying listening to M. Ward's "Transfiguration of Vincent" album. Observation: he seems to sing with a lisp at certain moments. My favorite lyric of his: "if life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long?"

grip tape worm

Dear internet,
I hope you had a spooky Halloween. Mine was grand. My costume involved a cardboard cowboy hat. I'll leave it at that until I get the pics online.

Today I've got a little rehearsal on the schedge with my brother Nick for the first episode of the Talking Music Show. We're going to dust off an old favorite from the Hexum Bros. Tour.

Yesterday I had a conversation about my tendency to find a hobby or subject that is new to me and obsess about said matter until I become a "trekkie" on the given topic. Cases in point: The Lakers, hot tea, The Shins, Wayne Shorter, West Wing, Apple Computers, etc. It's akin to a mild form of autism. This tape-worm-like ability to digest a topic is why I play many different musical instruments. I hope nobody convinces me to try crystal meth or these blogs could take a turn for the worse.

Tennis is my flavor of the year. I have the privilege of calling Venus and Serena Williams friends. Venus gave me my first tennis lesson, and, thanks to my skills at Simon Says, won a racquet at a party that Serena threw. Because of this I feel that I'm cosmically required to become a good tennis player; people who play tennis their entire lives and don't have the good fortune to be friendly with two of the all-time greats. With that in mind I've been playing tennis four or five times a week for the last month, and I'm actually starting to feel like a tennis player and not just the owner of a fancy racquet.

It's strange watching tennis on TV when you're used to watching the NBA. It's as quiet as a library during play, which is disconcerting at first. The upside is: you have a zero percent chance of hearing Soulja Boy in between points at the French Open. Each time I hear a piece of "Crank That" a little piece of my soul withers up.

This is also a good time to mention that I'll be back in Omaha to sing the National Anthem and an original song for rock-n-racquets". Andy Roddick and Serena will both be there (and you can bet your grip tape I'll be bringing a racquet).

I'm not planning on doing this version: