happy inch

i was just googling old friend and contacts and learned that david hanbury has been in louisville performing hedwig on stage. can't imagine a better pre-written role for the guy. brilliant cat.

in one week me and the girls will be making the trek down to phoenix for a couple days of family-ness. dad is already forecasting snowy conditions near flagstaff and recommending we try shooting for tucson. i'm sure that'll all change soon enough...good to know someone who's down with the weather channel! and he turned 71 today: happy bday, pop.

this past week found me scurrying around: hung the last five of the thirteen photos that are now on display/sale at exit gallery (204 north guadalupe) in time for our (me and the four other artists involved) opening reception on dec. 29. wish me luck in at least breaking even! then i hosted the full circle guitar recital three nights ago. about 22 folks performed and we filled the room up pretty well with families and well-wishers. looking forward to the next one in the spring!

it's been damn cold here lately, but am still out in the mountains several days a week and am also happy to report i've been keeping up on my yoga practice with an average of four times a week.

i've been shooting lots of pics outside lately and would be processing the last round but my stoopid computer's memory is full so it's been tricky. might be time for a new laptop, methinks. a new higher-megapixel camera would be groovy too...

that'll do for now.............

turnkeydinner.org

we just got back yesterday from four amazingly-relaxing days up at valley view, our hot spring oasis in colorado's expansive san luis valley. i spent most of my birthday driving back and then we went out to eat at india house, where they brought me ice cream and mango sauce with a little candle in it whilst an obnoxious woman behind us regaled everyone within earshot about her famous artist friend who had a past-life regression and realized he was none other than Henri de Toulouse Lautrec in another life! isn't that fascinating? i suppose it was as good of a welcome back to santa fe as any. being in the mountains, not paying any attention to time, along with napping, dog hikes, hot spring soakage and lots of yummy meals can make you forget the finer points of micro-metropolis living...

i've uploaded new PAINTING THINGYS and am quite pleased at the way this batch turned out. also updated several portions of my websites and just watched american beauty in our bedperch. probably the fifth or sixth time i've seen it and hot damn is alan ball the sh*t or what?

An excerpt from a recent forwarded email (usually the bane of my inbox) attributed to George Carlin:
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life.
We've added years to life not life to years.
We'vebeen all the way to the moon and back, but have
trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.
We conquered outer space but not inner space.

it's well-documented culturally but still rings true: our comedians have become the sources for things that are actually real. i've never been a carlin freak, but i'm glad he's out there, and i usually like what he has to say. the whole premise of stand-up comedy rarely does much for me, though folks like rick reynolds, lenny bruce and bill hicks convince me there's always exceptions to any formula.

it's finally feeling like winter in the fe: i think it was below 30 all day today. we didn't see it come down as we got in late friday night, but when lesley stepped outside our cabin door in bare feet for what she thought was going to be a routine, late-night pit stop, i was awakened soon thereafter with a muted excitement (dan was sleeping next door) that could only mean the ground was covered with white. we went for a walk after the sun came out, did our final sauna/hot tub visits and left around 11:30 for the villa grove restaurant five miles up the highway where we always stop in hopes they'll be well-stocked with banana creme pie. i wasn't even that upset they were out, as all the healthy eating we'd beed up to all week pointed to little more than a few hedonistic minutes of sugarpleasure followed by a big crash. the cherry pie we used as a subsititute only confirmed this.

so anyway, we got to spend time with dan and lesley's old pal ceci came by from crested butte and we had our dogs too, so the cabin was a bit tight, especially with les and ceci trying a gob of contact yoga on the little floorspace we had. i was apprehensive about bringing the doggles, but they were so good and i was so proud of them. the day before thanksgiving was a little rough due to a negative experience with something i ate, but i pulled out of it and still remember the visual i had: i was sitting on a rock all alone; les and the dogs and dan were far ahead and were going to go to the top and come back for me (i was too weak to match their pace) i felt this green lightning bolt surge from the rock and up my spine and through my head. all of a sudden i was a floating copper bulb of consciousness in a pulsing, tapioca-like sea of other bulb-heads. i realized i merely needed to find my bulb and maintain the connection from it to my earth-bound body, and that this was so obvious and old-feeling it was utterly familiar and alien at the same time.

use your brain

still sore from dancing nonstop for 3+ hours last night at the santa fe brewing company where trombone shorty opened up for dirty dozen brass band, one of my all-time faves. even if just terence higgins and julius mckee (the drummer and sousaphone player) showed up i'd still have happily shelled out $20.

we went up to 10,000 waves today to soak and sauna and are solidifying our thanksgiving plans for valley view hot springs. looks like in addition to dan we might even have a couple extra bodies joining us up there as well. i'm excited to take my new car on a road trip! i sold my big-ass, gazz-guzzling truck last week and a few days later found a zippy little subaru impreza (who comes up with modern car names, anyway, and why do SO many end with the letter "a?") on craigslist. it's really nice to drive a stick again, and while it's not perfect with its scars and blemishes and quirks, neither am i.

my dad is on some newfangled western meds to alleviate his weird eyeball thing that's going on. the good news is they're working. the bad news is they may be in the landscape for some time. looks like they'll be passing through en route to az around the same time i'm in co, so will have to see them at xmas. speaking of which, this year we're requesting one present only from each family member, and anything else to go to charitable organizations, which need funding more than we need "stuff." i don't mind a few less objects under the fake tree, especially when wrapping paper isn't able to be recycled anyway, right?

bach in blach

It's Tuesday night and normally I'd be writing and publishing this within seconds of each other, but the guy next door, with whom we share a wireless signal, took off to Hava-ee-ee and discontinued his service. Nothing too new, really, as it's been years since I've had a consistent, dependable home internet connection. In the bigger picture it's probably a good thing, as I'll waste less time online now. One of the things I still enjoy though is the pursuit of curiosity threads. This seemed easier to accomplish back in the day, circa 1995-96 when a smoke was a smoke and groovin' was groovin'.

I just finished episode number sixty-two of jacko n' noam, though none are published online quite yet. It's still a project devoted primarily to self-amusement and by and large it succeeds pretty consistently. I don't have deadlines or any pressure to continue, and knowing there are freaks out there who are really into it is nice too, though I'd still do it even if there weren't. One of the challenges I try to keep afloat is to not take the easy way out and succumb to toilet humor and raunchy language. Sure there's a couple here and there, but I've kinda been there/done that, especially with radio Pu back in Boston, a project that still nudges me from time to time for fruition.

We just got back from half-price Tuesday at Annapurna, the local vegetarian ayurvedic restaurant...or so we thought. Turns out that night of cheap food has been discontinued. Oh well, that place can be a real crap shoot for consistency anyway and the owner is said to be a nasty little woman, at least according to the countless former employees now peppered around town at other jobs.

This week marks the beginning of a rock band mentorship I'm doing with Monte Del Sol charter school, my first after-school group music endeavor. This is something I've wanted to do for a while, so am toeing the waters a bit with this first step. Bill Frisell never had chicken pox. I'm also now a glorious board member of Creative Santa Fe, a non-profit arts group Chris Jonas enlisted me for. Hope to help it grow and fund some good stuff around this oddball town of ours.

It's been five days since returning from Minnesota, and it was a really fun trip. The last day I struck out on my own and saw some dear old friends (Jacki, Kristen, Judd, Cherie), visited some old haunts (cheapo records, baby) and finally ate some Ethiopian food, which was one of my many reasons for returning in the first place. You CAN go home again, it's just a matter of how you define the word, and how you've maintained relationships with people who are still living there. It's odd how much the phenomenon of proximity determines the closeness of ties with friends. People you're intensely close with just sort of blip off the radar when you move away and start/resume a life elsewhere. I've been pretty good at keeping in touch with people, though, and figure the ones who are still in my orbit, even if I don't see them too much, are good ones to keep around.

I got to catch up with the lovely Linda, my pal of ten years from Waddingtons. After Les and I left, Bob Waddington sold the business to Wellspace and was all set up with stock options, payouts, etc. Or so we thought: the place went belly-up and now he has to file a nasty lawsuit to reconcile anything. Ugly stuff, considering in its prime it was the best place ever to work and hang out. I wouldn't be the person I am, doing the things I'm doing in the place I'm doing them if it wasn't for Bob and what he created there. I hope something works out for him; nobody deserves it more than him.

My parents are not in the greatest of health, so it was a bit sad to see their physical abilities diminishing a bit more. Seeing them only a couple times a year gives me a bit of a perspective I might not have otherwise. They're still in good spirits, though, and I'm grateful they're still around and we still have a good relationship. You never know when that could change.

Looks like May of 2008 will be the next time I travel anywhere significant (Hawaii), though we are heading up to Valley View in CO for thanksgiving with Dan. May will be some cool ceremonies and workshops with Wilbert Alix again, who for all his extensive traveling, would probably be overjoyed if he just went between Bali and Hawaii. Hell, that sounds pretty nice, really, but I'm happy in NM for now, esp. as the season are changing and within minutes I can still be in the mountains on trails none of the touristas traverse, romping around with my two dogs.

I'm looking at a mid-December guitar recital, which is adding a nice element of dread and excitement for all my students. That's such a worthwhile process though: from the selection and preparation, to the pre-show nervousness and the post-show elation. Being witnessed. Being heard. Validated. Challenged. Scared. It's all good.

Got a couple projects in the works which I'll go into at a later date. Yessireebobananda.

maple sucrose

it's wednesday and the three of us (mom, dad and i) all just took an afternoon nap. seems some kooky vapor is released into the air here and just shuts the humans down for a little while. that or i was catching up from last night, when i only got about 4 hours of sleep. 'twas our thunderous gig that did it, combined with hanging out with dale before we hit the sack. we didn't get to play tennis, but we played guitar for a while, had some yummalicious nat shermans and eventually called it a night. our gig last night was realllly fun; it was me, paul cherba on bass and dale on drums. i also got a chance to jam on bass with judd august and brian hemsey playing and singing. what a trip to see old faces and friends, all of which were looking damn good.

got a hurried eye exam (don't go to target for these things, folks) and some contacts today and met my old bakery bud jacki for lunch, whose memory for detail is a bit frightening. she's doing great though, and we shared a lot of laughs and grease. in short, nothing tooooo exciting, but its fun to be back home. hope to hit the walker tomorrow and maybe zip around minneapolis a bit, maybe even see what's left of the 35W bridge.

harbor in the sky

i'm trying to stay awake during a layover in phoenix, a place i try to visit as little as possible, en route to minneapolis. it's been two years since i was in the homestate. last time i was here, our newly-adopted dog tesia, who we weren't sure about keeping due to her periodic freakouts, was giving birth to those amazing nine pups that graced our lives with spit and poo that fall. noni, the ninth, and her mama are doing great now and in fact we just celebrated her 2yr birthday with a couple of meaty bones.

i just confirmed what my student heidi told me a couple days ago: josef zawinul is dead. funny how few of my musician friends neither knew of this or came out and told me. september 11. tomorrow i have a gig with swingblade, my old jam trio and methinks we oughta at least attempt a mild butchering of "mercy, mercy, mercy" in the old boy's honor. i always dug that guy, esp. some of the live cannonball adderly recordings where the vibe is so greasy, the audience so ecstatic, the color so BLACK and here's this old austrian MF of a keyboardist on rhodes dishing out soul scoops of sound; funky, subdued.

tasty tasty tasty.

playing for the other team

i've had a blog over at livejournal for the past couple of years but am growing tired of it. time for something new and spicy! thrilling! vivacious! nothing highlights these adjectives more than another blacknapkin blog from another napkin-needing nerd. really, i like the idea of blogs simply because it allows me to peer deeper into people that i thought i knew already; language being one of the ultimate soulscopes and all. also, i dig writing and am finding myself doing less and less of it the more i concentrate on other artistic pursuits.