break

time for winter break. classes are over. this quarter was quite enjoyable. if only they could all be. next quarter may be a bit of a drag = no art classes. we couldnt sign up for classes because i hadnt paid all my tuition still (technically amber could have signed up but she waited for me). so now we are stuck taking some of our general eds. spring quater is gonna be the bomb tho. well do the opposite and take all art studio classes. were gonna try to get in a painting class with rob who we had for color theory this time.

Tonight.

Joy. I'm completely taken aback. As I watched him speak to a crowd of a million people I knew this was one of the most significant moments in my life. I have ever been as proud of my country as I am tonight. Watching Barack Obama speak I knew that he really was someone I could believe in- and I truly do- not just as a politician- but as a person who I believe cares about people- everyone including myself, my wife, my neighbors, my family, everyone I'll ever meet, everyone. I watched him speak strongly and eloquently about unity, and my streaming tears spoke as loudly as my smile, and still I couldnt speak a word.

I'm so happy that our country can now take a new direction, to move on past the divisive, hurting society that Amber and I have had to live in for our entire adult lives. This is the dawning of a new hope for this country.

I'm so proud of my country and of people everywhere. This moment has inspired me greatly- not just because he won, but because the people all around me have stood up and made it happen. I am proud of my peers, my elders, and all of the youth out there especially. Their voices and their minds and their hearts have opened and shed light on a dark time, filling it with a new hope. When we act with love, we truly can do anything.

"Yes we can."

psocial

going to a psocial tonite that andrew of mas bagua is putting on. its going to be on north campus. theyve got the aha collective and mas bagua playing and there is going to be raw food and oh man. we've got some chocolates from the deej. gonna be a crazy night

...reading and nervousness

holy shit man another show tonite! oh man when the thing started it was crazy- the cat that went up before us was real mellow and kinda like jack johnson-ish or maybe whats his name [ john mayer ] anyways i felt like we were gonna go up there and blast everyones ears compared t o him because everyone was chillin listening to his mellow accoustic groove and we were gonna be all loud. neither of us were nervous before hand. setting up the gear, i plugged everything in and since there wasn't a sound guy (pete was busy in the back cooking) the board had the vocal all the way up from the last dude- the mellow soft spoken one, but amber's pedal board was set too loud for it and it SCREEECH fed back like crazy! i freaked and ripped the cord out and was actually so embarrassed for the 1st couple songs that i almost couldn't hardly play. about halfway into the set, pete came out and fixed the monitors and the levels so we could hear what the hell we were doing, and i chilled out a little more and started playin better and not staring at my shoes :) anyways i thought the last 1/2 of the set sounded great. we got someone offering to play bass (& maybe his friend to drum) for us. i think he was experienced enough a listener to hear what was put into the music - also we had anne trippin to our stuff which was fucking cool. another mission accomplished.

hrmm so what to do with my life? everything seems to be falling into place right now and the usual hopeful but deep-down-disbelieving self seems to have given way once things have given that reassuring glimmer of hope that i have been waiting for and working for- for so long. i feel a sort of long-time-coming change has happened, but it seems to have happened less gradually than it maybe 'realistically' would- but after so much supression.
i feel like i've grown. i have a different perspective- seemingly everywhere- eyes, ears, mind, etc. it's exciting but also relieving. and i know that all the hard stuff isn't over. but i've got a reflection of progress as a faith booster/ i feel like i'm leaving finally on a journey that i've been planning for years and it's a bit scary but in a good way- the way it feels to start a new book, a new relationship, a new journey, a new road in life.
peace

happen

its all happening! so exhilarating- our efforts have not been for nothing- we are really doing it. now. we have not and will not take no for an answer, we wont back down and those seven swords can eat our fucking wand dust because we will stand and fight.

flow of things for now

hrmmm
been reading some u. s. anderson lately... interesting stuff from 1954. also finally getting around to the newer chuck klosterman that ive been meaning to get at for like a year. amber and i are both having trouble with the concepts of work and poverty manifesting into these obstacles for us. i wish i could say it's easy to be impoverished all of time, for even though we handle it with grace and even romanticize it for our bohemian selves, that doesn't mean it doesn't suck sometimes. we are having so many equipment related issues lately. we need so much music equipment, and most expensively a new com puter. we decided not to waste out money on another cheap pc, so were going to try to save up for an imac that will at least not physically crumble in our hands after a fortnight. weve also been having issues with managing our time in between periods working lots and then not working much. aaaand were trying to find ways to enrich and express co-existingly on our independent levels as well as collectively (as we have become so accustomed to). we have been reading more, writing more, trying to do more. i think we have been just waiting for this day to come when we can just wake up and have the place and all the stuff we need to do our art and music and writing and reading and expressing and impressing and etc etc. but if we keep putting that into the future, we'd be no different than any one else who does such things. i think we need to try to be the people we want to be / the people we already are - everyday. i think the lacking of materials and equipment is just getting used as an excuse for not doing this stuff, and i think its something we just have to overcome in what ever way necessary. we have access to computers at the school, or we have access to picking up shifts at work so we can save up for this shit. i decided that i'm going to do a day in the life of me. not what i do or what i have or who i have to be for anyone else, blah blah blah. i mean the person / spirit within me that i see and dream about. the person that i want to become outwardly that i already am inwardly. i don't need to save myself or any of my ideas for the future. those things are all brilliantly eternal and repleneshing and growing anew every moment. i won't spend myself. so, a day in the life of me. i want to start today, tomorrow, immediately, but i realizer that such an effort will wasted if not done whole heartedly, which could be hard when i'm serving tables for about half of the day. therefore i'm going to plan this on a full day off. i want to see what a day in the life of me is really like. until then weve been making an effort to make sure we are going out and supporting alot of local bands playin around and chattin it up with everyone in the scene. there are so many cool places at our disposal here in this city and we just don't utilize them enough, plus its good karma (vastly better put than networking, i think), and it's good inspiration.
whew! such a strange point in time for us! we are being tested and challenged in a big way, and though we have been hoping all along for everything to just break through and get a little easier, our intuition has told us that it will not happen this way. we have been overwhelmed and challenged by like seven fucking piercing swords but instead of running away even when we see no easy sailing, we pull out the magic fucking wands. ((just like the W.A.N.D.)) here's to us knowing what we are doing.

pirate

saw pirate tonite at skully's. the two bands that opened for them were ok. both seemed a little josh-y (our code for christians in disguise). were actually quite good at spotting them, and havent been wrong yet. pirate was good, people had pirate flags as well as flags for random countries that were being tossed about. they are doing a free show at the newport and shooting it for a music video next saturday that i think were going to go to. also ran into jake - just being himself as always. we might go check out the event he's promoting tomorrow night; after party following the gallery hop at high five. maybe.

sound

weve been so busy lately and luckily weve still been able to throw some practice time in there. we made some great progress with a couple songs the other nite and will try to continue doing so. kind of at the point where we want to expand into a full band so that we can start playing gigs as much as possible, but:

A. its so difficult to find a decent drummer or bassist. we dont even need someone who is extremely skilled as much as we need someone we feel connects with us and the music. Everyone who is available seems to be either a middle aged suburbanite looking to kill time or a metalhead just out of high school still too young to get into bars. No one weve noticed yet seems to fit even the genre of the music let alone shows promise as someone who shares a vision about music or art. The drummer is becoming extremely necessary at this point.

B. Our material is still too much of a folk-rock hybrid, and isn't yet exactly what we want it to become. We've started working on this, and seem to be doing some cool things- it actually sounds the way it was intended.

so what to do? we have had an intuitive feeling that the drummer we need will just be around and we should be observant and look for signs / keep the feelers out / the awareness up, rather than picking one out of a craigslist ad or rushing to find someone who isn't right. of coarse we've been needing one for a while now and it is becoming difficult to progress! so, what to do?!

last nite

went to see brainbow, lions, and russian circles last nite.. doing a write up of that. brainbow and russian circles were awesome. lions... well they worked hard but i just dont think anybody was feeling it. they even tried crowd pleasing tricks like saying 'columbus, ohio' and 'ohio state university', and they kept trying to compensate for the lack of energy by having the sound guy turn shit up, but that just kinda made everyone plug their ears a little.

anyways, brainbow was fantastic! they were like 5 meditating spirits up there! russian circles (also all instrumental, but with only 3 members to brainbow's 5) were crazy- one change after another.. so much so that it was hard to tell where anything was ending or beginning. also it was good to see such a crowd for a late show here in columbus (and in the summer, no less!)- as the condos and valet barricaded bourgeous restaurants push all the real art and music out into the streets to be impounded every first and third thursday for street cleaning, thank the universe that there are still music-related gatherings in town involving more than just the bands and a handful of regulars.

going to see pirate tonite at skullys.

fri nite comfest

brainow was awesome, we sat in the grass and just chilled on the vibe.

mas bagua blew our minds! andrew was crazy awesome and the whole band was wild. crazy pete and another guitarist (rob?) went mad up there. i thinmk pete was tripping !! then there was a time when andrews table leg gave way and all of his mixers, synthesizers, samplers, mics, bell and whisteles, etc went sliding, sliding, sliding off the way that spaghetti slides off a plate and there everytrhing was just spilling onto the stage, but just as it happened the band was quick and the drummer took off and took pete and rob and the bassist along. rob and pete almost immediately launched into some crazy backwards virtuoso psychedelia solos and everyone was jumping twice as high. it was like they floored it and they never missed a beat! andrew got the table back up all his gear back on it and smoothed back into the groove. amazing!

hookah

we went friday nite to hookah and after standing and waiting in line for like 6 hours and missing the entire night's worth of music we left and drove back home for the night. there was certainly something else, though. we both strongly felt as if we shouldn't be there, and it definitely seemed a lot more shady than any other fest. we had been to. everyone seemed pretty damned intent on either getting fucked up, or selling stuff to people to make money. The next day we still had a lingering feeling of distrust for the whole thing (particularly me), but after squabbling over it all day and purchasing our brand new fender amp for our show the next friday. we decided we had enough money left over and the tickets were cheaper now, so we went. saturday night was pretty wild, but we were both pretty exhausted and i had some anxiety so we watched some of the music and headed back to the tent where we viewed the rest.

sunday was wonderful. we bummed around the camp sites and shops in the morning, and i accidentally haggled my way into getting 3 glass pieces for $15 when they were supposed to be like 10 or 15 a piece. thats including a bubbler that would sell for like 50+ at the import house. i felt a little bad because i was just trying to avoid spending too much so we had some money for food, so i talked them down to 2 for $18, was digging in my wallet for ones, to make $18 but at that point didn't want to use a $20 since i had already talked them down. all i else i could find was a ten and some straggling folded up ones stuck in between random papers and receipts in there so they felt for us as if that was all i had and gave me the 2 pieces we picked plus another for $15. after we walked away i even had amber fooled (accidentally) into thinking that we had spent everything on those. 'so we don't have anything for food tonite?' she asked sticking her bottom lip out and jokingly pouting. 'i still have over $40!" i whispered. that was the only time i'd ever really successfully haggled and felt guilty afterwards.

we saw the ragbirds who amber just loved, as well as ekoostik hookah who were freakin great. hookah has a very underworld glowy party type of atmosphere. there were also candles and campfires glowing everywhere (open fires allowed!) it was quite beautiful / magical at night.

first electric show!

finally! it'd been a long time coming, but we did it! opened for two bands from new york and l.a.; gangi and electric tickle machine, as well as local mas bagua. the guys just left from d.c. the night before and this was their first stop on tour.

our set went well, and we were relatively calm / not too nervous / not freaking out. with the loss of our recent crate amp (blew tubes?) we had to hook both guitars into the fender amp, which was ok for some of the cleaner material, but when we both had a little drive or i was using an edgier effect, it seemed to blend the signals kinda funny. it was fun, though and sorta like jumpin in a pool or ripping off a bandaid, or something, now it feels like a giant weight has been lifted. its like we can actually focus on doing this stuff instead of having all of this blockage. we are considering trying to bring more bands in and open for them / put them up for the night. There seemed to be a good response from everyone and greg kept the bar open like an hour or two later than ive ever seen him do.

the guys took a while to get setup after us, probably because vics house sound isnt very good, and crazy pete wasn't helping too much. i think they had so much stuff plugged in that vic's mixer overheated and they had to put a fan on it to cool it down before they could play! meanwhile the house kept getting more and more packed... all turned out pretty well though. we collected donations (instead of cover) for the touring acts for gas $$ and they sold some cds. we were all up till like 5 in the morning chilling and whatnot in the backyard. they all crashed in various rooms- greg made us all free breakfast in the morning. ;)

well anyways i guess nows the time to start doing and being, and stop being so afraid of people / our own dreams / everything

feeling wonderful

hot energy balloon

wow! had a great practice tonight. was starting to get worried there for a minute. we have a show coming up in like 2 weeks and things were coming along but not coming together... we had a couple discouraging practices where it seemed hard to make it through any of our material- even stuff we werent having problems with before...

but tonite we threw so much positive energy into it that we ran all the way through the set a few times and it sounded fantastic like never before! awesome.

oh man

oh man did we ever do some good practicing today. we are all mad here is starting to sound great. it went from getting bumped from the setlist to probably the opening spot. funny how things work like that. we are making so much progress! amber is getting super smart and attentive musically!

try to remember baby try try try try try try try try