Live in New York City Once…

I’ve been tossing and turning in bed for 43 minutes now — can’t sleep.

I keep going over and over plans and schemes and reasonings for moving myself 2780+ miles to to Los Angeles. I’ve been talking about it for years now. Like Mary Schmich wrote (and Baz Luhrman later sang, er, spoke), “Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in California once, but leave before it makes you soft.” So, I want action. And no one else is going to make it happen but me.

Anyway, lemme’ tell ya’ what up, and maybe I can type myself to sleep.

It was a beautiful day here, but I spent a much of it inside (save for an hour+ sunset ride to New Jersey and back). My apartment was basically a recording studio in one end (the kitchen), and an art studio in the other (the bedroom). I was demoing songs I’ve written in the last few weeks (songs I like to call “What I Learned on my Summer Vacation”), including a new one I wrote last night called “Are You Happy Now?” It was slow going, as they’re pretty new, and they needed some work on lyrics and form. Plus, I was being extra meticulous ‘cuz I wanna’ rip ’em and toss ’em online (for you!). So then I would intermitently walk down the hall (which is, in essense, what my apartment is: a 15-foot-wide hallway) and work on all the panels I have in progress. I’m still doing four panel hearts (two semicircles plus two triangles, like the Valentine’s cakes we baked as kids).

Basically (not too surprisingly), today was all about blue. I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to brush strokes or mixing colors, so it’s kind of a mess. A pretty mess. I know when I like what I’m painting, ‘cuz I kinda’ dance around the easel and laugh, but exactly what constitutes a “good painting” to me seems to change. Initially, I was really into motion and texture, but my new thing is clean, flat and simple. They’re more about color, and contrast. And initially, I was doing four panels in four colors (as you may recall), but now I’m all about the monochromatic. You’ll see. I have three of ’em that are almost done.

As far as the whole rocknroll career goes, it’s actually moving along kinda’ nicely, and without a ton of input from me (save for, yunno’, writing the songs and all). That is, Kevin’s doing a bang up job setting up the “Summer’s Gone” tour. He already booked Friday, September 27th in Charlottesville, VA, and he’s got some tentatives from Iota in D.C., Met Cafe in Hartford, CT, and Otto’s in Baltimore. We gotta’ nail Philly, and I’ll add Boston and New York, and we’ll call it a tour. Plans for the EP thatthe tour’s designed to supprt are, of course, changing every day. Obviously, “Summer’s Gone” will be on there, the album version and at least one remix. My new thinking is to add both the electric and acoustic versions of “Dear Elizabeth,” since people seem to love it (so do I). Plus at least one new one (probably “Hollywood Arms”) and a cover (probably — believe it or not — Phil Collin’s “Take Me Home”).

So, heck, I guess all that begins to explain why I can’t sleep. There’s a lot going on. The older I get, the more I hate to let a moment slip away without absolutely grabbing it by the horns (going to the beach does, by the way, constitute grabbing a moment by the horns). So, g’night from Hell’s Kitchen. And sleep tight, wherever you are.