Greatest. Weekend. EVER

I'll have to keep this post short, as I only have like an hour to write it. My computer's internet turns off at twelve, which used to be fine since before I'd just go downstairs and finish on my parent's computer. Only now they've placed the same restrictions on their computer, for some reason they're hell-bent on keeping me off the internet after 12:00 on weekdays.

Other than that, I've had a really really good weekend, as the title implies. Saturday I unexpectedly had my first guitar lesson. There were two other students and both his kids (at least one was, maybe the other was just a friend) in the room at the time, so it didn't feel much like a "private" lesson, and he didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know... but still, my first lesson! I get the impression he's not as "hands on" as some other teachers, there will still be a good amount of self-studying to be done, but I imagine he'll give me repertoire and technique to work on, and answer any questions I have. That's what music teachers do, isn't it? lol

I can't have a lesson this week, because I leave for Regionals on Thursday and won't be back until Saturday afternoon. So in two weeks I'd like to have mastered the basic chords he gave me and changing between them, maybe set them to a song or two. The guitar neck on my mom's guitar is a lot thicker than normal, which is part of why it feels so awkward to play, so I'll be looking to get my own sometime soon hopefully.

Later that day was work, then me and my brother saw Coraline. Great movie. In 3-D which was really a little unnecessary, but it didn't detract much from it. The artistry was amazing, I would love to see it again just for that. I mean, the story and characters were okay, but it was really a treat to look at and experience.

Sunday I went up and saw Rachel. We had an amazing day. Went to see the Rodin museum which was great, ate pizza, etc. It was seriously the best time I've had in a long time, and I can't wait to see her again, probably sometime next month for spring break.

Today I slept until four since the night prior I'd only had 2.5 hours of sleep, then the rest of the day I spent with the guitar.

So I'm feeling pretty great, though definitely not looking forward to returning to school and show and everythingUUUGG.

I've dropped my album. I'm not in the right frame of mind to make an album right now, I just don't have any good ideas, and I knew the rest of the songs were going to turn out like the first one, and I didn't want to waste my time.

Rachel was talking to me yesterday about how she feels like she's wasting her time in college. Her mother said, and she agrees, that some people think you go to college to grow up, but really all you're doing is prolonging your youth as long as you can. You go there to delay growing up. All she wants to do, the only thought she has for her future, is to raise a family. And college is keeping her from doing that. So I said why don't, maybe in another year, we get married. I mean, why not? People get married when they're eighteen. I don't know how we'd raise kids when we can barely support ourselves (if that turns out to be the case, which with us both in college seems pretty likely), but we wouldn't have to worry about that right away. She said let's see how this next year goes.

All this school year I've been thinking about how eager I am to get out of highschool and out on the road, being in a different city every month, playing shows in backwoods bars and getting into fights with drunk old people. It's a very appealing lifestyle to me. But in the end, it's probably not worth very much. The person I care about most wants to settle down and raise a family, and create more little persons I care about most. How much more fulfilling would that be than traveling and playing music for strangers? Damned if I know, the good thing is life will in all likelihood decide that for me. The way things usually go, I won't have any say in it at all.

Fortunately, all I have to worry about right at this moment is not flunking out of high school, not flunking out of college, and learning to play this guitar. It's kind of comforting in a way.

_Dr. M

Friday the Thirteenth

Today wasn't a particularly unlucky day. I finally banged out what will be the opening track to the new album. The whole thing is going to be very unambitious. Just a few simple songs that repeat a bit and then end. I kind of figured it might be this way, since I'm so strapped for time and energy. I've been kind of out of it lately, and this week has been kind of frustrating since today was my only night off, and I had to say "no" to CVS in order to get it (they asked if I'd come in).

I hate having things to do. Why can't school just end already and why can't I not have to work in order to earn money. Why can't I just do what I want to do. Why can't life work that way. We all spend eighty percent of our lives doing what we'd rather not, and twenty percent dreading it. It's nice to have Heaven to look forward to. I guess.

I wish it were Sunday already. I'm kind of annoyed by how stagnant everything is. I can't seem to make any head way... but it's all my fault, really. I'm the one not doing anything.

This isn't a very happy post. Appropriate for the day, I guess. On a lighter note, I get to see my Rachel two days from now. She's about all I could think about all day.

I love her.

_Dr. M

Progress?

Well, the progress I was making Monday feels a little stunted now. I did finally learn today that I won't be able to stay at Jeff's house this weekend, so I'll only be seeing Rachel on Sunday. But I still haven't heard back from the guitar teacher, and I've made barely any progress in Logic. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, there's only so much I can do in the three hours between school and school show. I want to do more, but hey, I'm stuck being me. I'll have to make the best of it.

I wasn't looking forward to this weekend as much since I didn't know what I would be doing. But now that I know, and really it's not so bad that I won't be staying Monday since Rachel has class and I wouldn't have gotten to see her much anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing her Sunday. Then I have all Monday to get caught up with my album, since we don't have school.

Today and yesterday felt like straight-up spring, sprinkles of rain and everything. It was very nice, extremely nice, but it also made me really horny, which is weird. I kind of feel like a woman when I say that... men aren't usually turned on by environmental factors like that. At least I'm not.

Anyway, today I spent my one day off from school show at work, which was unexpected but nice seeing as it's MORE MONEYZZ HA HA. Never a bad thing.

So now! I need to hear back from the guitar teacher, I need to start my album, I need to get a bank account. That's about all I think. I wrote a song yesterday, and as usual I started wanting to write one thing, ended up writing something completely different, and still had something pretty good to work with. I'm trying to write a song for somebody to sing at the senior recital (which is just what it sounds like) which happens later this year. We'll see how that goes.

This week is PSSA testing, standardized shenanigans all PA schools have to put up with, but it's for eleventh grade only. I put in my time last year, so now all this week I get to sleep in an extra two hours. No English or photography for almost a whole week. Pretty good deal.

I know mostly I'm just blogging about what I'm doing every day, not so much my feelings or thoughts or anything. January I was in kind of a funk, and now I'm just chugging along, waiting for things to end, and for things to begin. It's not such a bad state to be in, really.

Westchester finally contacted me about auditioning for them. I don't want to.

I don't.

I probably will anyway. Seems to be the standard operating procedure in life.

_Dr. M

Vanilla Bean

I stayed up quite literally all of Friday night recording a new song. The deadline for that competition I mentioned a while back reared its ugly head, and I had to put my entry in the mail Saturday morning. Well, I'm back in the saddle, if I may wax stupid for a moment. That is to say I'm definitely ready to start recording again. I used Garageband this go-around, but I'm ready to start with Logic and maybe even finish an album by the end of the month. I wanted to start today (which is really Saturday, not Sunday) but maybe it's a little late.

The song I made is an instrumental, with a lot of contrasting sections. It sort of became a tribute to Joy Electric, my favorite band since I was eleven.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/pp2mlp

You can download it there if you get to the link in time. I think it stops working after only a few days.

I'm so excited! I don't know why I waited so long. The album is going to be a lot of instrumentals like this one, only simpler and more rhythmic. I want to stop writing so I can get started! Ah, it's good to be motivated!

I wonder if there's any pizza left downstairs.

Me and Khai officially switched the name of our band to Twilight March. I like that name a whole hell of a lot more than Napenthi.

I went to see Rachel's play today (Saturday). She was the props coordinator. There weren't too many props in it, but hey, I'll take any excuse to see her. I drove down with her father, mother, and sister. It was a series of one-act plays, four of them, and it was... interesting. I don't know, unless there's a good story, characters I care about, or some kind of clear message, I just don't have much appreciation for straight drama. Two of them I liked (the one about two people falling in love and the one about two old people talking about ducks), one of them I didn't like (the one about a dysfunctional family -GROAN), and one of them was just confusing (I won't bother describing it).

The love one and the dysfunctional one were illustrations of universal themes anyone could connect with, first love and infidelity. That I got. But the problem was, both scenes were as generic and banal as you can get. Think of any scene where two people unexpectedly fall in love, or where a woman is trying to get her husband to confess to cheating, and you'll have these scenes. They had nothing new to say. The ducks one was extremely well acted (but way too long), and relied completely on snappy, clever dialogue and subtle humor. I enjoyed it the most, but... let's just say I'm not going to remember it fifty years from now when I'm old and gray.

Anyway, it was nice seeing Rachel and it got me thinking about plays I myself would like to write some time. Maybe I still will.

AH! Goodnight.

_Dr. M

The GEE-TAR

Yesterday I called Misty's dad about guitar lessons, he didn't have his cell phone on, but I left a message and hopefully he'll get back to me. If not I'll take with somebody at the community school where my dad teaches piano.

I find I'm swiftly falling in love with the guitar -specifically blues guitar. More specifically slide finger guitar, but normal playing is good too. I love the rhythm of it, and the rawness. Delta blues seems to be the best description of the kind I like -just one guy and his guitar and maybe a harmonica. I'd like to listen to a lot more of it, the older stuff back when they first started recording in the twenties and thirties, and learn a lot of the songs, and use that mainly to perform when I get to college. This is one of those times when I get a little tingly feeling that runs all the way through my finger tips as I think about it and type about it... that's a good thing. I'm very excited and can't wait to start learning.

I've never worked very hard at learning an instrument in my life. I've taken lessons of various kinds, thought I was interested but never stuck with it. I guess I'm the most advanced right now at singing, though that's a funny thing to try and define, but I do know a good bit of vocal technique. I've absorbed some piano, if you sit me down in front of a piece and give me a while eventually I'll be able to play it. Well, this time it's going to be different. I want to become a really good guitarist. Never in my life have I looked a goal that would take hard work and dedication to achieve and said, "I am going to do this", and then do it. But I'm going to do it this time. Hopefully it will be a turning point for me.

The only thing stopping me from starting right this second is that my mom's old guitar that I'm tinkering around on is killing my fingers, and even with that I still can't sound a chord without extraneous buzzing (grr). I've never been one to put up with physical pain unless I know I'm doing whatever it is correctly, and the pain is the proper amount. For instance, if anyone is experiencing pain while singing, they're not doing it right and should stop immediately or they could irrevocably damage their voice. I'm not worried about damaging my fingers, but I want to see if it's a problem with the guitar, or something. I know some pain can be expected, but this is just a little bit overboard, and I still can't get it to sound good to boot. So some instruction might be good before going any further.

Misty's dad is an unbelievable musician and can probably teach me anything. The guy I'd take with where my dad teaches focuses mainly on rock guitar, but rock has its roots in the blues, right? I'd like to start out on acoustic, but I'm sure any competent guitarist could teach both. Anyway, I'm getting excited, like genuinely excited, about music, and it hasn't happened for a couple of months, since the beginning of this school year really, and that makes it all the better. I'm not as excited about recording, but I'm going to force myself to start the new album tomorrow, and once I start I think I'll be happier about it.

I feel like making an instrumental record. Overall I think I've had too much reliance on my voice, and on the melody and lyrics, so I think I'd like to push myself out of my comfort zone and focus on instruments and arranging. It will probably be more on the avant garde techno side of things, which is always fun. We'll see how it all goes down.

Yesterday was another day of school show. Some more guys didn't show up. We don't have many to spare, it doesn't look promising. We'll see though. Worse comes to worse we'll just do a review, which might actually be more fun than doing Joseph anyway.

I stayed home from school today. My mother wasn't around to wake me up (she was sick), and my dad woke me up late (I don't know why my alarm is incapable of doing this), so I just didn't get up. I said I was sick, and I might as well have been seeing as I didn't eat a thing until five. I'm going to bed on time tonight, even though I've only been awake for like ten hours. I'm definitely not sleeping in tomorrow. Ah school. Why must I hate waking up for you so darn much? Why must you start so freaking early?

Anyways, I have a bowl of Raman waiting for me that needs my immediate attention. So that's all for tonight.

_Dr. M

I'm Going Away

Only temporarily, of course. Districts starts tomorrow, so I won't be able to post again until Saturday. It doesn't feel much like I'm leaving. I'm not really very excited about Districts. I've been in kind of a funk lately, I don't know why. My computer is here, I should be happy as a school boy. Instead my feelings range from slightly dispassionate to a little depressed. Well it's not that bad. Maybe it's those post-holiday blues.

I've gotten into another one of these musical dry spells, and sometimes it takes something big to break out of them. You know what's funny is last year around this time I was talking about the exact same thing. From Christmas break to the middle of January it seems I can't ever get anything down on tape. Last year I broke out of it by recording one of the better things I had recorded in a while. This year I hope to continue in that same tradition. I have to force myself to record even when I don't feel like it, I mean hell, I'm going to be doing this for a living. This is going to be my job. I don't want it to be something fun I do on the side when the mood strikes me, I want it to be the thing I slave over every single day no matter what.

I know when I start making songs again that I want to experiment a lot more with sampling. I want to try and create a method of using obscure enough and short enough samples that I'll never come under fire for copyright infringement, even if I hit it big. Among other things, I plan on using sound effects from movies. All of the sounds you hear in movies, every foot step, every door closing, was recorded in a studio and slaved over until it sounded perfect, so why not use that in my recording. There are some pretty expansive percussive options there.

Again, not all that excited about Districts tomorrow. I enjoy rehearsing and performing new music though, that's why I do these festivals, so doing that again with a semi-serious group of fellow singers will be nice. However, I should probably stop writing and start packing since it's already pretty late.

I'm not really depressed. I think I'm just tired. I need to break out of this rut.

_Dr. M

It Is Complete (kind of)

You're now seeing me post for the first time from my new computer, in my room. It's so exciting! I have most of the programs I want all installed and everything, and some of my music is on it. Here's hoping we don't run into another disaster that will have us reinstalling the operating system, again. It seems to be working okay, with one of two minor gaffs here or there.

Rachel was supposed to leave yesterday, but the snow and inclement weather made her wait until today. Yesterday I saw the Blue Man Group at the Sovereign Center with my brother Dan, the tickets were birthday gifts. I have wanted to see them since I was very little, and so I was pretty psyched. I enjoyed it, it had a definite "rock concert" feel to it, they had a band that played with them and everything. The spectacle of it was great, the lights, how perfectly timed it all was, that in and of itself made it worth going. It was very humorous, and the music was okay. I loved the parts where the Blue Men were drumming by themselves on their weird instruments, then when the band came in it was kind of... well, a little generic. They had a vocalist and everything, but the songs weren't anything special. I would have preferred it to be more just the blue men, and props and percussion and stuff. I think I would like the stage show more, which apparently is very different from their touring show. I think they added the more traditional instruments to make it more accessible and sell more tickets. Maybe I'll get to see the non-touring version in New York sometime.

I know I didn't really want to get into politics in this blog, I mean, who wants to hear my dumb uninformed opinions anyway, but I have been thinking about it a bit lately. I think I'm an anarchist. I know that's a pretty extreme thing to say, and I don't plan on blowing up any buses or anything, but I'm starting to feel a little bit like maybe people actually would be capable of governing themselves, if they were allowed. Maybe all of this governing administered by the rich ruling class isn't as necessary as we all seem to think it is. I've been reading about it a little bit on good ol' wikipedia, and I think I'd classify myself as an "anarcho-capatilist", one whose views are "based on a belief in the freedom to own private property, a rejection of any form of governmental authority or intervention, and the upholding of the competitive free market as the main mechanism for social interaction." I don't know, it makes sense to me. My main point is in simplifying life and society, not forcing constraints or laws on anybody and allowing them to think for themselves. I guess this view is classified as "extreme libertarianism" but I actually think of it more like "extreme conservatism", where everything, utilities, public services like police and hospitals, are all completely privately owned and allowed to trade freely with no constraints by any outside force. My particular strain of anarchy isn't against all order or organization of any kind, which seems to be the stereotypical anarchist view, just against compulsory ones.

I'll be mulling that over for a while, in the meantime I have a new computer with which to make amazing music. If I had any immediate inspirations for doing so I wouldn't be here writing this blog, I'd be making music. The fact is I'm not sure where my sound is going to go once I start up again. I know I need practice with Logic before undertaking any serious endeavors. I also know when I do start again I'd like to be working on an album. Making Pogo, the short psychotic album I made over the summer, was a lot of fun, because I was thinking about more than one song at a time. I got to think about things a little more thematically, about how it would all fit together and flow. That was with a stripped-back album which used the exact same sounds in every song. A fully-realized electronic album with a lot of variety and instrumentation will hopefully be the same experience except more so, which I'm very excited about.

I'm starting to feel a little excited about my music again, something I haven't really felt since October. Inspiration comes and goes, I think it's coming back.

Anyways, Rachel left today. I met an old friend for lunch, a rare thing for me. I knew her from a summer theater camp we both used to go to. Originally it was going to be me her and someone else, but the third person never showed. Have you ever noticed how sometimes, different people make us a completely different person when we're around them? They bring out different aspects of our personality. This girl, whose name also happens to be Rachel (it's a virus), really brings out my intellectual side. Something of which I wish I had a little more to offer, I don't exactly read very much, or retain information like some people do. My Rachel really brings out all sides of my personality (good and bad), one of the reasons I love her.


I got to accompany my Rachel back to college, which was nice. It's weird, whenever I drive to Philly and see that skyline (something I've done quite a bit lately, between trips to UArts and to UPenn), it always feels like I'm coming home. It feels so familiar, and not really welcoming, but still like home. I don't know what it is, but it feels more like home than Reading does. I think it's my subconscious realizing that that's where I'm going to college, and it's a reflection of my desperation to get there and get out of here. I am pretty desperate to leave home. Which is weird, I mean by some standards my childhood has been positively ideal, and I love my family dearly. I'm just so ready to get out there on my own. At least I think I am. We'll see if that's actually the case.

I miss Rachel already, but not too bad since she'll be home next weekend for her birthday. =D Then I'll probably go up to see her on or around Valentine's Day.

Here's a list of things I should be doing at this very moment but am not:

1. Looking for my acceptance letter from UArts and with it the two letters we have to mail in

2. The history project that will be three days late

3. Preparing District music

4. Making sheet music for my guitarist

5. A remix for a musician that I said I would do but am having trouble doing it

That last one I feel especially bad about. I've wanted to do a remix for this guy for ages, but now that I have the opportunity sitting in front of me, I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do. Seriously, zero real ideas. To undertake a heavy creative project like this I need time, I need to not be worrying about my computer crashing and the various things I want to do with it, I need to not be in the midst of learning a new program and new music for these stupid chorus festivals. I could half-ass something in GB or I could just tell him it's not a good time. Maybe he'd prefer the former. Well in any case he's probably reading this (he's like that) so hopefully he'll tell me what I should do. Hi Nikmis!

I've rambled on for long enough I think. Not looking forward to school tomorrow, am looking forward to Districts (this week Wednesday-Saturday) being over with.

Bu-bye.

_Dr. M