mowntyn

saturday night 23:15 just got back from a night out with al. we started at alfanoose, a new lebanese old-skool family-run restaurant...what a rarity that's become lately. we then went to stepbridge studios and hung out with jack clift and later checked out rez abassi at gig. great night of absorption, which i really needed to do.

i've been a bit slack in my yogadoings and diet, and like always i can really tell, as the level of balance and acuity drop off. hope to get back on it this week. i prepped a 25 squarepusherfoot garden the other day; raised some beds and fenced it off in an aesthetically-pleasing manner.

and in gear geek news: i'm now the proud owner of a fender american deluxe cherry sunburst strat with unfinished maple neck, locking tuners, nice tremolo system and S-1 switching. i've never really spent any time with a strat before and i really fell in love with it. even did some recording last week that turned out pretty good.

i'd sure dig having an organ trio.

so les came back from her r n' r in the panhandle state and things have been humming right along. it blows my mind how fast time seems to be moving. things feel so accelerated and fast--and that's just in santa fe. i wonder how/if the freneto-meter is in more bustling cities? or is everyone feeling it? is it a 2012 foreshadowing? hmmm.

i got another perspective on blinding anger and the seeming relegation thereof to the animal domain. it moved up a bit. a couple weeks back i was driving back from a morning hike and i saw this girl running down the snowy sidewalk BAWLING in her socks and shirt. some meatfuck was chasing her and after i scratched my head and passed them i looked in my rear-view mirror and saw him tackle, hit and kick her. wtf?! so i pulled over and called the cops, all shaky and freaked out and scared to do anything because the guy was large, pissed and obviously prone to violence. long story longer i walked down his street to locate him and talked to the operator whilst doing so. cops came, found her, handcuffed him and i don't know what happened after that. i'm not sure of the point of relating all this other than i was pleasantly surprised i could react that strongly.

my dad had some breathing difficulties last week and spent six hours in a phoenix emergency room waiting room. seems it was a blood pressure drug thing, but the scare was it was a myasthenia gravis crisis, which could be a breathing problem and could be severe. he was diagnosed with this last fall and so far its only manifesting in his vision and face. i know my parents aren't going to be around forever, it just feels more real when something like that happens.

had a big scare with noni a couple days ago. i was trudging through some new discoveries around the burns trail and she took off after something. next thing i know, WAY across the valley and up this gynormous hill she goes bounding and then leaps over the guardrail for the ski mountain highway (byway?). i totally freaked, yelled and screamed and clapped and prayed and cried and felt so powerless. what was worse was i couldn't see where she went. then cars start coming from both directions, one of which was a huge blind corner. ugh. long story mildly-shorter than before: i ran down the hill and she was sniffling around the river, oblivious to my yelling. five minutes previous her mommma had taken off to look for her--maybe she found her, maybe not, but after putting noni's lead on i had to then yell for tesia, as she was nowhere to be found. made it back ok and actually found myself needing a pint, a need i availed myself of over at second streety brewery where my friends matt and sean were playing. hate to say it, but it was tremendously therapeutic. that's about my quota for the month, then!

folks are consistently coming out of the flu 'epidemic' and into the new light of daylight savings. guess there's politics going on, protests, births, deaths, starts, finishes, g minor seven chords, fish frys and floods all churning in the butter-matic for the bready lubrication of an entity-who-shall-not-be-named.

chocolate vein

it's monday night and i'm listening to the roots and blogging from home; bit the bullet and finally got a wireless signal of my own emanation. no more relying on neighbors for this homeslice. listening to the roots--?uestlove is the shizzit.

les is in florida and will be returning tomorrow night. i'd like to say it's been great having the place to myself, but i've been go-go-going ever since dropping her off at 5am on saturday and have been working ever since. luckily it's my weekend now and i can let my hair down. in fact i think i'll do just that.

that's better. yeah-it's tough being a single doggydad; i can't even conceive of the level of stress and lack of sleep a real daddylife would entail. luckily we have a doggydoor now so are able to leave the dogs without worrying too much, which is a real godsend.

tomorrow i'm playing at vanessie's as part of a public conversation put on by creative santa fe, of which i'm still a board member. i'd always heard of this place but had never been, and after a gift certificate found its way into our hands we went there a month or so ago and it sucked! overpriced and poorly prepared. we were expecting something along the lines of geronimo's but hit closer to applebees. okay, it wasn't THAT bad, but i sure wouldn't pay to eat there.

went to peter breslin's duology4 on saturday. a former student of mine, morgan wells, was one of the participants. all in all it was a good night but i had issues with the sound levels. ran into john and tricia and julia, who wants to talk this week about my comic in the santa fe reporter!!! i don't know what will come of it but am hopeful. peter's the shizzit too. i'd love to hear him do a duet with the aforementioned ?uestlove...him, along with other duets with Diamanda Gala and Kevin Kling.

I eschewed pat metheny last night, largely due to fatigue. I was happy to hear a couple of my students attended, though. The weather is warming up here in general, though it snowed last night and was a bit chilly today, especially up on the mountain. i went off the trail at one point and quickly found myself up to my ass in snow. i had to roll out and then maximize flesh-to-snow contact by walking on my hands and knees back to the trail again. yowza.

set up my studio for recording again and hope to have some new mp3s to share in the days ahead. i'm sure there's more i'm missing, but that about brings me up to date.

emcee light

i'm at counterculture in front of the wood stove, watching it dwindle down in intensity as lazy snowflakes pitterpatter around outside. rustle of newspaper. beeping fryer alarm. beethoven 'eroica'. throat clearing. fork on plate. refrigerator closing. coffee cup on table. hum of walk-in cooler. jingling of metal bracelets. laughter. chair scrapes. conversation. plate in bus pan.

i'm trying one last time to interest the santa fe reporter in an original comic. if this one doesn't fly i'm going to approach the sun instead; they might even prefer jacko n' noam to the new one (val y shoe--val is a goldfish who lives and cavorts with uncle shoe, my boston chum). we'll see, i guess.

hung out at 2nd street last night with tricia while "celia" from oregon, who'd just rolled through to play for free, serenaded the room. her real persona came out only after a theatrical sidetrip into tiny-tim and librarian characters; the uke lady with freaky hair and child's voice sang a song about dr. bronner's making your "hoo hoo tingle" (which started out really weak, got kinda funny, then went on too long) then the librarian beatboxed and rhymed something. odd. then she became a more normal folky chicksinger with a guitar who looped and had prerecorded harmonies she sang with. not bad. fun to see tricia, though, and post-restorative-yoga lesley stopped by for a spell too.

it's my weekend and i will not be voting. go ahead and reprimand me, as i might just deserve it. i just don't have any faith in this country's political machinery anymore, which i know makes me unqualified to ever complain about the next presidential epoch. there was one candidate who made me hopeful, and when he was ousted for basically not being a multi-millionaire, i resigned as a voter. there it is.

what rhymes with annapurna?

once again, internet access at home has been cut off. this time due to the moving of ellie, our neighbor with whom we shared a wireless signal. so i'm back to cafes and such, clickclacking away with other laptoppers and people who actually come to these places to just eat. crazy.

my cold came and went and kinda kept trying to come back, but all in all my health has returned to mostly-normal and life is humming along like a buzzcut on a wolverine. this past weekend i played percussion at a trance dance at la fonda hotel; about 1/4 of the amount we had last time but 50 people is still ok. it went ok but i feel pretty done with the whole thing. especially the fact that the prerecorded music we have to play along with (!) changes gears too much. i just don't think you can really get a good trancey groove if you don't keep building with music that builds with you. luckily the folks from taos who came down agree and we're going to start doing these things once a month in both towns. not sure how much i'll journey up there, esp. if on weekends, but there's lots of potential down here.

al was with me and is finally warming to an idea i proposed to him last year: an acoustic-esque duo with him on percussion and me on whatever i play. that could be very cool.

if not already mentioned, my old pal from high school, chris mcintyre, is coming to the fe in april. i'll be scoping out some performance venues for him and an ensemble as well. i tried high mayhem and wasnt' surprised at the lukewarm response. too bad for them, though, as chris would be a good person to know and wanted to work with them this past fall. oh well.

i'm booked almost completely solid with my teaching schedule right now. i just can't bring myself to add another day, however. i like my 4 days on/3 days off way too much. i made another video for youtube, but for some reason it uploads as an empty mov file. weirder still is that my file on my desktop is only 156kb, yet it opens as a full three minute thing with sound and everything; something that should at least be a couple MBs or so. i dunno. it came from iMovie. advice?

we got caught in a huge snow storm yesterday after i did a sacreligious (probably) snow dance on our dog walk. not that i'm taking any credit whatsoever, mind you, just kinda funny. it turned out to just be a mountain flurry, however, so nothing to crunch around on in our streets and such. the doggles are doing great, though.

i was reading a story called "push here for tears" in last month's sun magazine and quickly realized how much the author and i have in common, esp. in regards to feelings of intense anger in relation to animal abuse but nothing as intense about child or human. i have a theory why: i'm willing to bet he, like myself, has never had kids. i'm delighted i have kids in my life, but don't see it in the cards...

illin

it's been over five years since my body has succumbed to any sort of stay-put illness, but lo and behold i'm plagued by the common, boring cold. no cool symptoms to brag about, like bleeding eyeballs or pulsing boils. nothin. so i'm holing up at home, trying to catch up on sleep and watching way too many movies.

christmas/new years came and went. more anon.

*cough*

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.