clutter fried brainbox

My quest to write one song a week is on track! Sort of!

Everyday this week I've come up with pieces of songs, usually one verse and a chorus. Nothing's finished yet, but I'm moving in the right direction. A friend told me about the book "The Artist's Way," and some of the exercises therein. I'm three-fourths of the way through "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts and I have no intention of cracking another book until I'm finished. Instead I'm beginning my creative process each day with a page or two of free association. This has given birth to little two word babies like "befriend anemone" and "clutter fry" As to whether or not this scribed babbling will lead to a song, yo no se. I feel like these pages are mental calisthenics, so as long as I don't pull a hammy in my brainbox, everything should be good.

I can't help but wonder how James Mercer comes up with these gems:

"But when they're parking their cars on your chest
You've still got a view of the summer sky
To make it hurt twice when your restless body
Caves to its whims
And suddenly struggles to take flight..."

I'll have what he's having.

Speaking of free association, last night I put popcorn in a bowl of turkey chili, and it was delicious.

My next voyage is October 7th at Boardner's in Hollywood. It'll be solo electric, and I'll mash my fingers way up on the tiny strings.

Seal and the President

I have an upright bass. It was originally purchased by my brother for my Introducing Zack Hexum record. It stayed at his house for the last decade or so, and was a (slightly dusty) fixture in his living room. A year or so ago it was bequeathed to me. Now it's an extremely dusty figure in my living room. Through a friend of a friend of a friend it's now on it's way in an SUV to be used in a music video for Seal. I should've slipped a note in the fingerboard letting Mr. Seal know that I used to play his first album real loud in the (not dusty) living room when I was thirteen. I may or may not have danced around a little bit too. You'll never know, and neither will he.

According to his Wikipedia page Seal had six birth names, which he has since whittled down to one. That has to be a record. I wish I could have that kind of efficiency with my CD collection. Perhaps that kind of ability to cut away the fat would be good in the political process.

After reading about and watching some of the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson, and her failing the pop quiz on the Bush Doctrine (or as I've nicknamed it the oxy-doctrine-moron, because "anticipatory self-defense" sounds like something a locker-stuffing high school bully who was on the debate team would make up) I found myself thinking...

Who would you vote for if there were such thing as a Presidential Aptitude Test (PAT, henceforth), and your life depended on the candidate's score*. Let's say that the PAT has some multiple choice questions on current events (with extra credit for knowing how many houses you own), a speech section where you have to make Vin Diesel shed a tear, a diplomacy challenge where you have to convince a despotic military leader to trade you his chicken burrito from Chipotle for a can of spam, and finally a lie-detector with a full-blast-tazer attached that the candidates are hooked up to while watching their own commercials.

If my life was on the line I'm not picking the party who picked a VP that left her town of 9,000 people 20 million dollars in debt after her mayorship. Although, if she would've used the cash she kept from the "thanks, but no thanks" bridge to nowhere, I guess she could pay that debt back...

I'm also not picking the party that picked the V.P. candidate who still thinks that Iraq has links to Al Qaeda, even though the Bush Administration, who originally perpetrated that falsehood, have admitted there is no connection.

Tonight I play with my jazzy trio at Aura in Studio City at 10 PM.



*This was inspired by a Bill Simmons column about determining the NBA MVP race by picking one player as your teammate if your life was at stake.

Invoking Nickelback in the political debate

I was awakened this morning by what I think was the voice of a fireman on a fire truck. He was using his loudspeaker and a deep and burly voice to say "get off the phone!" to a driver who was practicing some civil disobedience by driving while talking on his/her cellie. I'm hoping to hear that same voice of reason command my neighbors to "pick up your dog's poo!" Or maybe tell me "stop watching TV and go play tennis!" This could be an invaluable motivational tool.

WARNING political viewpoints to follow, I won't be offended if you click the back button instead of reading on.

I was listening to the radio yesterday, and John McCain's life story was being retold with a tender piano accompaniment at the RNC. They put a cute little anecdote about both John and Cindy lying about their age when they met. They left out any part about Senator McCain already being married at that moment, I guess that wouldn't play well for the family-values party, but at least we're out of the airport bathrooms.

I'd like to reflect on Governor Palin and former Mayor Giuliani's mocking of Senator Obama's stint as a community organizer. Click here for Barack's timeline. In 1983 Obama was a full time organizer for City College in Harlem who mobilized student volunteers. 1985 was the year he began his three year stint as a grass-roots community organizer in Chicago. At the same time Ms. Palin was coming in second in a beauty pageant, and would then go on to an eerily Vice Presidential career where she would get paid to talk about hockey on TV, but that's not the point.

The point is after 1985 Senator Obama continued and elevated his distinguished career as a public servant (editing the Harvard Law Review, registering 150,000 voters, teaching constitutional law, being elected to the Illinois State Senate, passing legislation requiring interrogations be recorded, writing two books, and being elected to the U.S. Senate). Comparing Sarah Palin's penultimate job as mayor of a city of 9000 to Barack's post-Columbia pre-Harvard job is like Nickelback (sorry Canada) putting down Radiohead's Pablo Honey. It's nowhere near the whole picture.

the horror, the horror

I can't stomach it. I can't watch the Republican National Convention. It's the scariest fictional horror movie of all time, because it can become real.

I can, however, watch The Daily Show, and feel a little better:



Later in that show Newt Gingrich says that Sarah Palin has more experience than Obama, Biden, or McCain. Apparently, you're only qualified to be President if you're a former Governor, because that's worked out so well for Still-President Bush.

I'm going to go take a deep breath now.

celebrity purse attack

It's time. I'm picking up the pen and the microphone. Yes, it's time for new music, folks. I'm hoping to get back on the one-song-a-week pace that I was on the year before I recorded The Story So Far.

I wrote my song for the week today, so I guess I can get back to watching Simpsons reruns in a dirty undershirt and growing a beard. I don't know what the song will be named yet. It's about optimism, mostly, which is a challenging perspective during the Republican National Convention, but I digress.

The Hotel Cafe was a rip-roarin' good time. Thanks to everybody who came out, and especially those who came and brought fresh bodies/new people to the cult/concert. I salute you.

Michael Corcoran played guitar on Beyond My Means and Done Him Wrong. He also sang and tickled the ivories on Dr. John's "Such a Night". I moved Michael into my top friends so all can know where and how to find him.

Here's the setlist:

sun still shines
only a rehearsal
met a girl
what if I
hold on
open to close
beyond my means
such a night
done him wrong

I'm playing Aura in Studio City on September 17th with the jazzy organ trio.

I was a spectator last night at the Hotel Cafe. Dave Yaden and Josh Kelley performed. It's been too long since I've been an audience member there. Highlights included reuniting with some music folks I haven't seen in a good long while, having Katherine Heigl's purse whap me in the stomach when she squeezed by, and hearing some excellent musicians. What more could I hope for? (This is where "I Love LA" should be piped in, but I haven't paid for the licensing rights.)