Slowly settling into another sorry semester

Sometimes, it’s necessary to indulge in a little alliteration. Well, I’ve been back for almost two days now and things seem to be just as I left them. This is very refreshing because it can be somewhat traumatic to leave a place for three months and return to that same place, but feel as though I’m returning to a different place. Example: Last summer, I was gone for 13 weeks and, when I returned, they had begun renovating our football stadium. Specifically, they had moved a road (or, rather, they made a road that was once straight into a curving, crooked road), and busted up everything around the west end of the stadium. I probably wouldn’t have minded except I was driving through campus one night and almost ran off the road because it didn’t go where it used to and I’m a creature of habit and routine.

Too much eating

Since I’ve been en route to Gainesville for about six days now, all my meals have been paid for by my company. That’s super, except that, about three days ago, I begun feeling disgusting because I’ve eaten nothing but Bacon Cheese Chicken sandwiches, burgers, ice cream, fries, fried seafood, and the like, for almost a week now. Not exactly weight-watchers, but very tasty. Anyway, I hope to be eating well again soon, but that takes discipline and I’m afraid I may have forgotten to pack that up when I left Dallas. We’ll see…

The Beach House

I did a little investigating (what I mean is, I asked a friend about it at dinner last night) regarding this beach house we’re all going to for the weekend. Apparently, it’s called a house, but may be more suited for a name like “mansion” or “really big place on the beach”. I was told there are at least 6 bedrooms and 12 beds, although, the person said, there could be more. Interesting. Anyway, it sounds like there’ll be about 20 people there, maybe more, maybe less (although probably more) and we’ll be hangin’ out there until Sunday. This works well because I’ll get some beach/vacation time in, but be back in time to unpack and settle in (by “settle in”, I mean force my body to adjust to sleeping from 3 am until noon every day) before the semester gets rolling.

More guitar lessons?

Yesterday, my guitar instructor called me about continuing guitar lessons. I told him I don’t have the cheddar, but agreed to meet with him next week and discuss the whole deal. He said we could work something out where I come every 2, 3, or 4 weeks, so I think I may do something like that. First, I need to decide whether I’ll be disciplined enough to practice consistently this semester. Last Spring and also this Summer, I was consistently playing guitar, although I wouldn’t call it practicing so much as I’d call it “trying to write songs”. I’m thinking it may actually be good for me to continue lessons as it may provide motivation for practicing the mechanics of the guitar, rather than just focusing on song-writing.

And that’s the rest of the story…

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In an earlier post, I mentioned that I may eventually write up an equipment list for my guitar setup. Well, I have a few hours to kill before my working stint comes to an end, so I figure I’ll use that time pseudo-productively. Here’s the list:

Guitar setup

• Takamine FD-360 SC Acoustic/Electric six-string guitar
• Fender Acoustasonic SFX acoustic amplifier
• Ernie Ball mono volume-pedal
• BOSS DD-5 Digital Delay Pedal
• Shure Beta 58A microphone

Gadgets and Gizmos and miscellaneous stuff

• D’addario coated (custom light) guitar strings
• Microphone Stand (tripod)
• Music Stand
• Kyser black, six-string Capo
• Shubb Partial Capo
• Third Hand Capo
• Pyrex (glass) slide
• Stool
• Digital Metronome
• Dunlop Tortex picks
• Dunlop Nylon picks
• Fender picks

There’s also some other stuff–connectors, adapters, instrument/mic cable, thumb pick, handy-dandy wire cutters, windy-thingie, lint-free rags for polishing, Gibson guitar polish, Lemon oil (for the fret board), steel wool (also for the fret board)–but I didn’t think those merited a spot in the coveted “bulleted list” above.

So, that’s pretty much it. I also have a few books and whatnot.

There are several things I don’t use very much–partial capo, slide, third hand capo, thumb pick, metronome (although I should use it much more than I do)–but I use the stuff pretty often for the most part. However, I do spend a considerable amount of time just sitting on the stool with my guitar and no pick, messing around with rhythms and picking patterns and progressions, trying to find something that sounds good.

That’s all for now.

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Minor change, major difference

Today, I spent some time revamping the song I wrote yesterday. Turns out I actually really like the song now that I’ve changed the style. Basically, I changed the guitar chord voicing to a more open style, allowing the guitar to ring a bit more and compliment the melody I’d chosen. I really like the sound and now I’m just having a little trouble synching the vocals and guitar lick. I’ll probably polish it up this week and record it once I’m home in a couple weeks.

Reading and the Macaroni Grill

Those were the highlights of the day. I read a little more of Body for Life–in fact, I’m basically done with it–and caught some sun while I was at it. The Macaroni Grill was nice, but the server didn’t write his name upside-down on the table. What a let down. Oh, and his name was Julio, so all I could think of was “…me and Julio, down by the school yard…” and that got old after a bit. Apparently, the turned water has found its way into everything including the soda fountains and ice tea makers in some local restaurants. The Dr. Pepper wasn’t really up to par tonight… I’m sure, however, that the caffeine content was super and that means I’ll be spending a few hours playing tag with my pillows before I nod off to sleep tonight. Oh, and note to self: Mama’s trio is an excellent entree at the Grill, especially for the money.

Yoink!

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I guess that’s what I get for changing things up…

I wrote a new song tonight and I’m afraid I wish I could un-write it. I like the lyrics, but that’s where my liking ends. I’ve mentioned this before, but I normally start with the guitar part of a song, then figure out a melody, then figure out the lyrics. That’s just how I write music. Tonight, though, I had the brilliant idea of taking a picture in my head and turning it into a song. The result was a song that I like lyrically, but can’t stand melodically or rhythmically. I sound like Frank Sinatra. I don’t have a problem with Frank, but that’s not what I wanna’ sound like.

So, that’s what I did this evening. Well, that and I watched Orange County, which I kinda’ liked if not only for the fact that the lead character is an aspiring writer. That added the element of sympathy to my movie-watching experience and so it wasn’t too bad. I probably wouldn’t recommend the film to anyone, though. It was kinda’ slow and really short. Joe Black was pretty funny, as always, and there were some nice cameos–Chevy Chase, the mom from Home Alone, John WhateverHisNameIs (the dad from Harry and the Hendersons)–but that’s about it.

I’m going to do nothing now.

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Co-op time at OTB, DAL

Several of my friends work at On The Border in Gainesville. They call it “OTB”–you know, typical workplace slang. Anyway, all the co-ops went to OTB for lunch today, and it was paid for by Raytheon (note the use of passive voice there… oops). We spent most of our time harassing the server and trying to get her to ring up the bill for twice as much as we spent. We thought it’d be a funny gag to pull on the co-op coordinator. But, alas, she wouldn’t do it, so we had to settle for constantly requesting napkins and demanding refills on still-half-full drinks. We couldn’t seem to rattle her.

Anyway, because it was free, I ate far more than I should have–Quesadillas for my appetizer, Three Sauce Chicken Burrito for my entree, the standard Sizzlin’ Apple Crunch (or whatever OTB calls their version of it) for dessert. Oh, and Dr. Pepper to drink. Lots of Dr. Pepper to drink; six, seven, maybe eight glasses. Needless to say, I’m wired and it’s a good thing I’m about to go out and see my friends who are getting in town in about twenty minutes. At least I’ll be able to goof off and burn some energy before I have my nightly staring contest with the ceiling over my bed.

Check, check… one… two… Check

I finally bought the missing link in my guitar setup today: a microphone. It’s a Shure Beta 58a. It is pretty highly recommended, supposedly produces high quality live and recorded signals, and is very durable. I’ll have to list my entire setup later… Not that anyone really cares aside from me, but it’ll be good for me to catalogue (I think that word is too big for my setup, but it’s the first one that came to mind) my stuff, so I know just what I have.

Until then… Ah ah, hush that fuss. Everybody move to the back of the bus…

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Well, still not much happening…

Things’ve been pretty even-keel for the past several days. Nothing outrageous has happened and, since my most recent little bowling accident, I’ve not done anything completely stupid, so I don’t have any funny stories to tell. I did spend most of the afternoon and evening with a good friend from Project: we watched Shallow Hal, got some grub at a local joint and just sat around talking for a few hours. All in all, it was a very productive, satisfying evening.

Shallow Hal was pretty entertaining, although it feeds on inaccurate stereotypes and is very degrading to women in general. There were some funny parts and, as usual, Joe Black was his wacky, weird self, “George Costanza” (I don’t know his real name) was irrational and ridiculous, and Gwyneth Paltrow lit up the screen. I guess it was a good commentary on how superficial people can be, but the irony was that the whole movie preyed on the very stereotypes from which it seemed to be trying to save its audience. Maybe they meant to do that…

The local joint mentioned earlier is called The Big Easy, not to be mistaken with the movie or the Cajun food chain, called Big Easy Cajun. It’s good food–big sandwiches and an endless supply of Dr. Pepper on tap–and a nice environment for just chilling and killin’ time. My buddy and I sat at our usual table by the window where he has a view and I get to see the window’s frame and a few parked cars. I don’t mind it, though, because there’re less distractions for me and I can focus on the conversation. We both don’t mind speaking our minds, so that leads to very informative, challenging conversation, rather than the kind of conversation that people have when both parties are afraid to offend the other or dispute anything they might say. It’s refreshing to be able to be genuine and honest.

After the dinner and Shallow Hal watching, my buddy and I sat around and chatted, mostly about different Biblical issues–What is ‘reformed’?, What do you think about those who say, ‘You’re not ready for a dating relationship until you’re approaching Holiness and totally right with the Lord.‘?–and just what’s been going on with us over the summer. We talked about heading back to school as fifth year guys and what we’re looking forward to and dreading. We spent a good amount of time talking about basketball–I talking more than he–and how I regret not playing in high school. He played in high school, so I guess maybe I lived vicariously for a few moments as he talked about his role on the team and whatnot.

I also bought a new CD yesterday–The Dave Matthews Band’s Busted Stuff. I guess that probably seems ordinary for most, but for me it’s extraordinary. That was the first album I’d bought in almost four years, thanks to the internet and my shallow wallet. I’m a big music recommender, so I usually download music, give it a listen and then share the music with friends, via recommendation. I may not have bought many albums, but I’ve been cause for many people buying many albums. Welcome to Josh rationalizes internet music piracy. Thanks for coming.

Anyway, it’s a great album; very organic and musical as opposed to their previous album, Everyday, which, in my opinion, was one of the most awful albums ever recorded. Busted Stuff is refreshing and is good quality music. All five band members are ever-present on the album, some laying down more than one track (Dave plays multiple guitar tracks on several songs) and it’s good to hear The Band exploring music themselves rather than bringing in guest artists to fill the voids. Anyway, that’s what’s in my CD player right now and it’ll probably be there for a while.

My guitar is calling me (it’s voice is audible only to my ears and says things like, “You’ve been neglecting me!” and “You just don’t love me anymore!”) and so I must go. As all other relationships, mine with my guitar requires time, which I haven’t been investing lately. “It’s me, not you…”, I say.

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I finished Catch-22 today

What a fantastic book. If I had Joseph Heller’s creative writing ability, if I had even an ounce of his ability, I’d drop everything and write until carpel tunnels kicked in or I kicked off. I’m considering writing a pseudo-review, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t even begin to do it justice. I am simply amazed at Heller’s talent and ability to develop so many interrelated and independent characters. I also think it’s fascinating that the phrase “catch-22″ has completely permeated our society. Just yesterday, I was speaking with a family member and she used the phrase without even blinking. I can’t think of any other book whose title has become a common idiom. I am also amazed that I got so many hours of entertainment for a mere twelve bucks.

I mentioned yesterday that I was thinking of reading War and Peace or Republic; I decided to read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius instead. How’s that for decisiveness? I’m not usually one for bandwagon riding, but I’ve heard good things about Eggers’ book, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I’m only about twenty pages in, but I’ve been able to get a sense for his writing style. He’s young, so I can relate to much of his cultural references–Nintendo, surround sound systems and so on–and that’s a completely different feeling than I had while reading Catch-22. I feel like his writing is sort of abrupt–he intentionally leaves out articles and conjunctions at times–but I think that’s just his way of giving personality to the narrator. I’m looking forward to my new adventure, although this one cost me fourteen bucks, which is a bit of an increase from Catch’s twelve bucks.

Screenwriting is in a holding pattern as I try and develop an idea. It’s frustrating and there’s a little voice in my head constantly repeating itself: Ah, just give it up! You’re taking acting lessons and writing music! What do you need to be screenwriting for? I’m trying to ignore it, but I can’t quite seem to shake it. Hopefully, I’ll have some progress on my idea soon enough and I can simply flush the little voice out of my brain with new creative thought.

Last night, I recorded a preliminary version of my latest musical creation. It’s called Rearview and it sounds quit a bit different than most of my stuff so far. The guitar is a lot more “open” and is more difficult to play than it sounds and there’s a distinct chorus whose hook is Dreams don’t lie, but they don’t tell the truth either. I thought that was clever, but the more I hear and read it, the sillier it sounds. Anyway, I still need to write lyrics for it–I generally tend to “free-associate” lyrics after I’ve written a guitar part, so that I can work out the melody and the theme of the song; then, I actually sit down and write lyrics–and I hope to do that soon. I said all that to say that I should be putting a finished version of it up on my FTP server shortly. In the mean time, if you’re curious, you can download other stuff I’ve written by clicking the link at the left side of this page, just above the hit counter (”Barebones Music”, I think it says).

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Man, am I tired.

There isn’t a good reason and I won’t pretend there is. I’m just plain tired. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing over the past couple of days though, so I feel like I’ve accomplished something this weekend. Yesterday, I read Elements of Style for Screenwriters and I’ll probably take a look at Elements of Style tonight, although I doubt I’ll read the whole thing (in spite of how small it is).

I played basketball tonight for a couple of hours and that went well. I was on fire the first game we played, but I fizzled out as the night went on. I couldn’t figure out what my deal was, but I think the culprit may have been laziness. I just wasn’t all that into playing tonight and that’s all there was to it. I was surprised that I played well at all because I didn’t touch a basketball all week and that usually leaves me feeling pretty rusty, but that wasn’t the case this time around.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of another boring work-week. I can’t express in words how excited I am… I just can’t wait.

Maybe it’s notable that I haven’t added any new music to my repertoire lately. I did record a song yesterday, but it was a cover and I’m not too sure how I feel about it. The song is called Me and it was written by Derek Webb of Caedmon’s Call. I think it’s a great song and I’ve liked it for quite a long time. I’m sure I didn’t do it justice.

I think I’m going to sit on the couch and vedge for a while. That sounds like an exciting way to transition into my exciting work-week from my exciting weekend.

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Coconut Mocha Frappuccino

That’s the name of a little ditty I just recorded on my guitar. It was inspired by the Starbucks drink by the same name. I don’t know why I saw fit to name a song after a drink at the yuppie headquarters of the world (am I a yuppie?), but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I also wrote some lyrics today, before I wrote the guitar thing, that I’m hoping to work over the guitar part. I’m afraid it’ll be sort of awkward to write a melody over, mostly because there’s a gratuitous modulation that occurs periodically in the guitar lick. Anyway, I hope to make it work.

I also made some headway on the screenplay today. I’m taking a new direction with it and I’m excited about that. Unfortunately, after I added the “twist” to my plot, I realized that there is another recently released film that takes a similar, although not identical, twist. My plot, at least on the surface, is not nearly as dark as this other movie and the basic premise is different, so I’m hoping it won’t be too similar overall. At any rate, I feel pretty good that I came up with the new plot idea and I’m anticipating that it will be easier to write the meat of the screenplay now that I have a different direction to take it.

I’m still reading Catch-22–I’m probably about 55% through it–and really enjoying it. It’s a reasonably long book–about 470 pages–and so it’s taking me longer to read than I usually spend on reading a book. But, I think it’s helping me strengthen my satirical thinking abilities. Perhaps I’ll give it a review when I complete it. Maybe not.

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Flyin’ by…

Today marked exactly four weeks of work so far this summer. Yes, it’s been boring, but it’s flown by and I’m grateful for that. I had a relatively unproductive day as I only did two things I would consider productive:

First, I worked out after work. While shooting around to warm-up, I realized that I was missing a key component in my jumping technique, so I began working on that particular component specifically. Since I decided I wasn’t going to do specific jump-training, I figure I can focus on jumping when I’m shooting around–it’s good for keeping in shape, strengthening my legs and, most importantly, making me jump better and higher. I’ve started patting the class as I make a lay-up, just to force myself to jump high when I am close to the rim. I think it’s working.

Second, I worked on Tommy some more and made some good progress with it. In fact, I made it more difficult to play and extremely difficult to sing and play (at least for me it is). I worked on creating a syncopated rhythm with the guitar, while leaving the vocals pretty much on beat. I also threw a little lick in on the verse progression, just to add some flavor. I put a little bit of the song up on my FTP server, but I warn anyone who listens that it’s very rough and my voice simply wouldn’t cooperate; translation–it’s not all that great sounding. It needs a lot of work, but I think when I’ve worked it all out, it’ll be a very fun, meaningful song for me to play.

And that’s it. That was my day. I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head, but none are ripe enough to write yet. Hopefully, I’ll be able to vent a bit this weekend; I feel as though I need some outlet.

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