Faux Paws

As often as possible I make it over to my neighborhood tennis courts to hit some balls with a friend. We usually play five games to eleven, we don't serve to start off, it's more like table tennis with gigantism. In the middle of game three my friend recognized Craig Kilborn looking for a tennis court.

Here's my history with Craig:



Anywah, I haven't seen him since the day the show aired. It was fun to catch up. He's still abnormally nice to me, and I hope to be able to lone him a kidney at some point to return the favor. We talked about Frank Sinatra and this song.

Craig reminds me of Neil Slater, the director of the One o'Clock Lab Band at North Texas. They're both real tall, have a sharp biting wit, and have a goofy side that's unexpected. Also, I can now add that they're both tennis enthusiasts to the list of shared mannerisms.

There are many Neil Slater moments and quotes that were gently scarring, but mostly make for good stories after the fact. Among them: "it's not too late to go to med school." The rest involve adult language and belittling oversleeping drummers. We'll save those for another time.

My time spent with Craig significantly more brief than my five semesters in the One o'Clock Band, but Mr. Kilborn's half-joshing "don't fuck this up" before I performed on the show was definitely Slaterian.

Now it's back to work. On my plate today: I'm arranging some strings for Brandon the Rogers today. He's going to record a version of "Broken" and I'm sitting down with a couple of wikipedia pages to remind me of the appropriate playing ranges and Beethoven's String Quartet in C sharp minor, to remind me of how a string quartet is supposed to sound).

This will be my first time writing for a string ensemble, which is one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to do it. I'm hoping to avoid any amateur-hour missteps (by the way, what's the plural for "faux pas", is it "faux paws"?). I guess I'll start by writing in pencil. After that I'm gonna go for the gusto like Sasha Vujacic shoots threes.

Wish me luck.

biting a hole

And the Oscar for worst use of CGI groundhogs in a live action movie goes to....

Indiana Jones and the Disappointing Skills!

Accepting the award will be George Lucas, who previously earned an award for giving birth to the worst character in the history of cinema (Jar Jar Binks, Star Wars: Episode One).

And the Oscar for most depressing and simultaneously enraging cable movie goes to....

Recount!

I haven't finished this movie yet, but I have a pretty good idea that Gov. Bush becomes President. Wimper, sigh, shudder. The only way the bad feelings that surround this movie could be topped for me personally is if they made a movie about the game of intramural basketball where the dude shoved me from behind causing my knee to implode.

Back in the real, un-cinematic portion of Hollywood, I had a heckuva time at the inaugural gig of the Zack Hexum Trio. Kevin Kanner, and Luke Miller played great. Lots of peeps turned out. Many thanks to ye.

Much to my neighbors chagrin my saxophone practice routine continues on, even though the jazz gig has come and gone. I spent most of Memorial Day weekend nearly biting a hole in my lower lip, as I got intimately familiar with my still-new-yet-sixty-year-old alto saxophone. I also penned a new jazzy composition in anticipation of the next trio gig. I'm hoping it'll be July 18th at Tommy Ray's, but that's not set in stone yet.

Now I turn my attention to other matters. Sunday will be the return of my acoustic guitar and vocal cords at Libertine on Sunset. Get out your lighters (or cell phones) and prepare to semi-quietly rock!

you've got to follow through

It's time for a montage, folks. Duh duh-duh-duh duh-duh duh duh duh... (that was supposed to be the start of the theme from Rocky). I'm training like Sylvester Stallone: chasing chickens around my apartment, and punching frozen tofu (since I've given up red meat). I think there's even likelihood of a happy mob chasing me around Hollywood on the way to the grocery store. Friday is the world premiere of the Zack Hexum Trio. I've put myself on a saxophone practicing routine for the first time since skaters wore baggy pants. This blog will serve as an open letter to my neighbors thanking them for not throwing bars of soap at my door, like my suite-mates in Kerr Hall did in college. Yes, love and saxiness are in the air.

It's nothing spectacular really, I start off playing long tones, i.e. going from one note to another very slowly. Next I go through a particular minor scale through the entire range of the horn, then do the scale in thirds, and then play the arpeggio. I then repeat this drill through all twelve keys. This is the way good ol' Mr. Riggs taught me to do it, back in '97.

As an aside, Mr. Riggs, creamed-corn enthusiast, is retiring after this year. Everything I know about how to sing a melody I learned through him. He once said, and then had me repeat the phrase "the smallest increments are felt by your audience." This phrase was my "use of the force, Luke". I think he meants that the work you do matters. Johnny Jazzfan might not know that you're playing the major ninth instead of the flat nine on the half-diminished chord, but he can feel it.

My practice routine then carries on with improvising on the chord progression to a golden jazzy oldie, such as "I've Got Rhythm" in all twelve keys. I follow that up with working on memorizing the material for the upcoming gig.

Practicing saxophone makes you sweat, if you're doing it right. It's like driving up-hill in a Prius. It just takes a bit more fuel than other activities.

I've taken to watching the Tennis Channel a bit in between things. I'm hoping that some of the expertise I'm witnessing will transfer to my game. Thus far I've re-learned that 80's Andre Agassi could've been a stunt double for David Lee Roth, and that Rafael Nadal "adjusts" the back side of his capri pants a lot.

You've got to follow through on your forehand:



And on that note, it's back to running up stairs and punching Dolph Lundgren in the face.

ever serve time?

The pajamas are off, ladies and gentlemen, and it's 11:06 AM. I think I'm mostly human again (my bionic earlobe notwithstanding).

The tea is hot, the window is open and Spring is springing.

I've added three Southern Californy area shows, in addition to the jazz gig at Tommy Ray's on May 23rd:

Libertine on the Sunset Strip June 1st, 8:45 PM.

Hotel Cafe on June 24th, 8 PM.

Zoey's in Ventura on July 11th, 8 PM.

I've been coming back to this blog for almost an hour now, hoping for divine comedic inspiration to strike...

Instead I'll steal from Chevy Chase, and keep with the gastroenterological humor of the week:

hello my baby, hello my honey

I watched a Simpsons episode whilst couch-ridden that had a quote that was apropos to my last few days: "The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles."

In the dizzying highs category:

On Friday I had a fantastic marathon day in Phoenix. I performed for a non-profit called the "Musician's Enrichment Foundation" or MEF. The concert was held at St. Mary's High School, and it was a heckuva time. I got to play in a saxophone quartet for the first time since I don't remember when. The second half of the concert was me performing songs from "Open to Close" with flute, alto sax, trombone, and bass clarinet. I'm anxiously awaiting a copy of the video from the concert so that I might share it with the internets.

In the department of creamy middles:

On Saturday we had a Drake Bell gig at Union Station in Downtown LA. I awoke at the early hour of 4 AM, and made it to the gig without a hitch. Things would take an unexpected turn for the worst after a lunch at Luz del Dia (which I'm pretty sure must be Spanish for, "questionable results in your stomach are soon to follow"). Now, everyone had the same thing as me, two chicken tacos (I'm still avoiding red meat, but the occasional chicken has proven hard to avoid in my quest to be a semi-vegetarian), and no one else reported the same amount of destruction that was to follow me around for the next 72 hours. I'm not calling for a boycott, I'm just sayin'.

The terrifying lows:

I have spent lots of time with my bathroom and on my couch since Saturday evening. I polished off the John Adams mini-series I've been saving a for a rainy (poopy?) day. It's Tuesday now, and I don't feel like this anymore:



I'm still wearing pajama pants and it's one PM, so life isn't quite back to normal, but I'm optimistic.

fiery-toothed guitar

I'm officially going back to college to get a degree in cryptology. I updated my email (long overdue, dude!), and many of the handwritten email addresses are highly "artistic". I need to stop giving people massive quantities of muscle relaxants at my shows, because this is just not working. And yes, for the record, my handwriting is as bad as most righties when they try to right lefty. I'm just sayin'.

Because of this I did a little informal survey. Lots of people use gmail, hotmail, and yahoo. A surprising number also use "fake.com" or "poopypants.org" as well. Who knew?

My company whilst I worked on the email list assembly line was a live in home performance of Duke Ellington on Digital Video Disc. It was as if the whole band was in my living room, only my living room was Europe in the late 50's (and therefore black and white). Ain't technology grand?

I got my acoustic guitar out of the case after this weekend's beach bash and it smells like firewood. I'm not planning on lighting it on fire to see if it burns, so don't even ask. That would be a page out of the Jimi Hendrix book I don't need to swipe. Playing with my teeth is also not high on my list, although that would've been interesting when I had my braces in high school.

undefeated

And we're back. I took a "personal week" from my bloggy duties. Being 30 feels mighty nice, and kind of tastes like chicken. Thanks for all the nice burrthday wishes.

I had a heckuva time at Julie G's b-day-beach party on Sunday. I did my best to overcome the competing noise from the drum circle and the relatively chilly weather. I can officially feel my fingers now.

The Lakers are undefeated in the playoffs, and so am I. Of course, I'm not actually playing, so I'll be bringing that up in my post-season interview.

I'm excited about the big Phoenix show this weekend. I wrote arrangements for eight different songs for flute, alto sax, trombone, and bass clarinet. You do the math on the number of charts. Thus far I've been informed that I wrote a treble clef on one of the trombone charts. I think North Texas is knocking on the door to revoke my diploma. In the words of the great Paris Rutherford "feel that!". That doesn't make sense to anyone who I didn't go to school with, but it's real funny to me.

I'm holding fairly strong on my pseudo-vegetarianism, although my mom wasn't stoked "what will I cook for you?" I guess the beef broth with burgers, on a bed of steak won't be on the menu.

On that note. I'm off to lunch.