Archive for May 2005
Memorial Days
They say you can never go home again. They may be right. “What have you been up to?” they ask. “Same old, same old,” I say. Nothing could be further from the truth. Still, I found myself mute to the din of inquiry. Somehow, the weight of the me that they know, the crush of…
Read MoreDo Or Do Not
I have a soul-crushing headache with Skywalker Sound written all over it. Heather commented that my last entry read like one of those “Fuck you, I’m too busy to post” type posts. Not at all. I am neither that busy nor that misanthropic. Instead, I’ve found myself in some sort of strange limbo over the…
Read MoreSummer Song
So, it’s summer. Ya-hoooo. Summer doesn’t mean much to me, as I’ve long since matriculated from summer vacation, camp, and kick the can with the neighborhood kids. Plus, news teams are exempted summer hours. So the days are longer and brighter, and there’s no snow to trudge through. That’s a bonus. But other than that?…
Read MoreThe Sound Of Settling
Doug Llewellyn says, “Don’t take the law into your own hands. You take ’em to court.” And I’m with him 110%. But not today. Listen, I’m a law abiding citizen. Excepting maybe jaywalking, I’m down with the Rule of Law. I mean, yes, the masses are asses. But in general, if you’re gonna’ live on a…
Read MoreHoliday Road
For the first time in thirty-three years, I have a plan. Well, not really. I always have a plan, sometimes to a fault. But this time, I’m way ahead of the ball. I have dates. I’m buying plane tickets. It’s the summer of neo-hippie weddings, midwestern recordings, and plenty of bicoastal, red eye travel. Here’s…
Read MoreI’ll Close My Eyes & Bite Your Tongue
It stands to reason, somehow, that a wholesome afternoon would be followed by a spontaneous evening of debauchery. The upshot? 3:01 – Ethan and I walk (ok, stroll) along the Hudson to the 70th Street Pier. He learns the word “boat,” and proceeds to use it successfully all afternoon. Yes, women do notice him and…
Read MoreSleep To Dream
I just had the oddest night of sleep in years. First, I wake up at 3:57 a.m. from a strange dream. I have to get from Philadelphia to New York City with a bunch of high school buddies, including my L.A. James. I forget my passport and miss the last train, so we have to…
Read MoreAct Naturally
My grandfather had families all over the state of Iowa. Of course, none of us knew this until his funeral. I was sixteen-years-old. It was one of those scorching, midwestern summer days. The wind was steady and hot like a convection oven. I was standing over his casket at Mt. Holyoake Cemetery in Waterloo thinking,…
Read MoreSet Me Free
Kevin and I began playing country songs together in the final days of recording “Almost Home.” He was teaching himself to play fiddle, and, well, I appreciated the diversion from the mind-numbing mixing process. Late one night a few weeks later, I was behind the mixing board, Kevin was in the iso booth tracking his…
Read MoreFree Fallin’
When I walked in from an hour-long MTV Overdrive programming meeting, everything was lit up like a Christmas tree: my office phone, my cell phone, my email inbox, my Blackberry, my AIM. Something was awry. Wes got to me first via AIM. “Your show with Casey is cancelled.” I checked my email. Deena had written…
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