1977, 007 and 420...

Once when I was a kid, after school while walking home another kid pulled out a knife and told me to do what he said or he'd stab me. Surprising considering we were pretty young (This was when Jimmy Carter was president, "You Light Up My Life" was the number one song and "Hotel California" came out.), we were 10 years of age. Even more surprising was when he did it, from all my years of watching television and movies I immediately bolted into action and kicked the knife out of his hand and punched him in the nose. I had never done such thing before, never thought of doing it, never planned it, but there I was playing 007 on the street corner. Later that day my sitter took me to an Eagles concert with her boyfriend, (Unbeknownst to my parents who thought I was at her house.) and I got my first contact high with all the marijuana cumulus clouds in the air. It was my first concert experience and it was a good day.

Today is a good day. It's a rare overcast day in May and I'll be meeting my friend Itai for an avocado smoothie with boba and talk about his album we're recording this August...then off to the Casbah for some music, art, and friends.

Pruriently Lascivious...

Pruriently Lascivious...well those two words aren't being used in today's texting world...though many are indulging in those behaviors with bold and brash sexty-texties. Words are falling by the wayside like our animals are, never to be seen again and only mentioned in museums, dictionaries and old movies, "What did Barbara Stanwyck say?" Your spell-check won't even know what you're talking about! How scary! Ooooh....how could you tell your lover of your prurient behavior in the work bathroom if you couldn't really trust your spelling of the word without spell check to save the day? Spell-check is the "falsies" of the 21st Century. Damn it! I thought there was really something in there! Nope...nothing...just emoticons.

Barbara Stanwyck...Phyllis Dietrichson...Double Indemnity...Billy Wilder...oooohh. Now that was a good movie! Sorry...but stream of consciousness blogs will do this. They jump train tracks...JUMP!!!!

Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then. 

Walter: Who? 

Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren't you? 
Walter: Yeah, I was, but I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean. 
Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour. 
Walter: How fast was I going, officer? 
Phyllis: I'd say around ninety. 
Walter: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket. 
Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time. 

Walter: Suppose it doesn't take. 
Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles. 
Walter: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder. 
Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder. 
Walter: That tears it. 

The Real Led Zeppelin...

I mean "Lead Zeppelin" actually. I'm referring to us as a species. If you look at us from the outside we look like something that will take off and fly and go to uncharted places filled with high adventure! But then you realize we're made of lead and will never get off the ground. I see such great and amazing things from people and society (...and I'm not talking about the movie "Zardoz" however much guilty pleasure I have in watching it...) and such horrific, selfish, ignorant hatred filled with fear I am sickened to the point of losing my California burrito. History has never taught us a damn thing. I'm convinced it's because we don't live long enough. You might argue we live too long, but I think we don't live long enough to really learn from any of our mistakes. By the time we've screwed up enough to straighten ourselves out we're too damn old or dead to do anything about it. Another serious problem is that we learn more by experience than being told. "Watch out little Johnny...the stove is hot!" You warn him, as Johnny listening and nodding his head all the while slowly reaching his hand out to burn himself. He needed to find out for himself. Apparently we all need to find out for ourselves what it's like to kill, maim, destroy, stand by and watch people suffer and starve, and have our world get either blown up in a mushroom cloud or cooked to a crisp with the global BBQ we're engaging in. I'm truly not trying to be negative or a pessimist. I am full of hope and great expectation that someday we will stop fucking around being "Little Johnny" and shed this lead and do what we're supposed to be doing...watching Russ Meyer's flicks, listening to 50's Cuban music, drinking mojitos next to a large body of clean bristling water with beautiful colored birds flying in the air that won't shit on your head on your favorite thrift store H Bar C Western shirt with people you love, sometimes lust and respect.

Seussian 70's....

You ever have forgotten something that you thought would never think you could forget? Not an Alzheimer's moment, but just gone. It never existed and then WHAM!!! (No George Michael isn't in this one..) It's back! It happened to me last night before going to sleep, I was thinking of when I lived in Florida when I was 8 years old and we had these neighbors next door that had this huge black cat. She was ginormous but sweet. Me and my friend would play with it all the time, I even rode it for about 5 seconds. It was that big. Years later, and I'm talking to my Pop about those days and I mention the cat, and he says "What cat? You mean the panther?" "The PANTHER???!!!!" Are telling me you let play with AND RIDE a friggin' panther?!!!!" I said almost having a full conniption. "You rode the panther?!" my Pop laughed and laughed. See in the 70's my Pop explained that wild animals as pets was a much looser thing in those days. Our neighbors had a de-clawed panther as their pet. She was really sweet, but I guess she had to be since she have little to defend herself with. Yea...the 70's...back when I could sit on my Pop's lap and drive the car as he just sat there and drank a can of beer and just used his foot for the accelerator and brake. Nowadays, the cops would have pulled him over, put him in jail and maybe even taken child custody away from him. You know what I say? However funked-up the 70's were, things weren't so controlling and litigious as they are now. Lighten up people! Life is short and I can say I rode a panther for 5 seconds!

Quixote Peyote...

Someone slipped some Quixote Peyote in my Irish oatmeal this morning! Holy Smokes! I swear I saw windmills in the distance! You know...the kind in Holland, not some wind turbine or anything. Does this mean I'll be wearing a suit of armor and going on a knight's errand? Sounds like fun, but I'm not ready for a full delusional life yet...maybe when I'm 80 or something...running down the street with a plastic light saber and a extra small hotel towel chasing joggers who I think are Storm Troopers er something. Yea...that would be HOT! Yea...one of the joggers would have big headphones on her and I'd think she was Princess Leah and I would take her in my Millennium Falcon ( a white rental van ) and...er...umm...wait...never mind.

So...the Padres are on a 10 game winning streak! *sheepish grin*

My Sponge Is Squeezed Dry...

It's true. I've squeezed my sponge dry from yesterday's recording of "Goth Coke Dealer". When my sponge is empty I feel like I swam a mile ( If I really tried to swim a mile I would be fish food... ). You know when every muscle in your body is tired and you have a slight hazy-dazed look on your face? That's me. It's old movie-nappy-dreamy-time, only to wake up for a California burrito and an aguas frescas of some sort. Maybe by then I'll have enough in the ol' sponge to squeeze some more...

Anna has a crush on a goth coke dealer...

"Anna has a crush on a goth coke dealer..." is the first line of a new song I wrote last night. As for the line itself, I did not write. I had overheard a guy talking on his cell phone. When he said that line I thought to myself  "Wow. That's fucked up." then internally laughed to myself. I wrote it down...over six months ago. Messing around with my drum machine last night, that line popped back into my consciousness. "Oooohh!", frantically I start to look for my lyric book and within 20 minutes the song was written.

Now here's my thought. Did I write it? Did the dude at the coffee shop complaining to his friend write it? Or did I just get struck by the lightening of the Universe telling me what to write? Or even further, was it a co-write with the coffee shop dude, the Universe, and myself? I still need to record it, which I'll begin that mysterious foray into the unknown in a few hours.

I hope it doesn't suck. I'm thinking I'll call the song "Goth Coke Dealer"...

To Be of Use...

I am writing. Writing songs. I have been making some headway on two albums. One, a love-song album "Paper Sun" that will be be recorded all with acoustic instruments, and the second is the EP "Los Feliz", which is inspired by my little drum machine and Los Feliz in Los Angeles, that are upbeat songs. Love songs and upbeat songs, all of which are during this time of financial hardship. No paid work and a credit card company suing my ass. A challenge to say the least. I should be pessimistic. I should be depressed. I should be a lot of other things, but I'm not. Fearing those "worst case" scenarios for many years, caused myself to have deep bouts of depression and a stomach so used to being tied up in knots that it wouldn't know what to do if it weren't. Now that many of the fears are coming true, I realize how little importance they really have on life, and on living. Yea...I now have "bad credit". Not something to be proud of for sure, but not anything to jump in front of a train for either. Many revered people have lost much and still they accomplished, still they persevered and endured. What I find of great importance is that it is "to be of use". I write, record, produce and perform songs. A humble trade. The idea of a rock star is and has been a bad idea. There are exceptions to every situation, but generally speaking rock stardom should never be a goal. It is only an effect, one that should be warily wished for it seems. I wouldn't know. I'm not one, nor have I ever been one. I just want to be of use. Sometimes I succeed in being that, other times not.

The "Thank You" Man...Whereabouts Unknown...

Nothing like a mental time warp. It's awesome! One second you're here and the next second you're... Well, this time I was warped back 15 years to an ice cream shop in La Jolla where the "Thank You" Man resided/worked. I do not actually know his name, but it doesn't matter because everyone knew him as the Thank You Man. For whatever reason, a strange new religion, mental illness, maybe he was just really friggin' weird, he would ALWAYS start every sentence with "Thank You". "Thank you, hello and how is your day today?" he would bait his question. If you thanked him back he would "thank you for thanking him"...and if you thanked him for thanking him for thanking you for thanking him, he would thank you for thanking him for thanking you for thanking him for thanking you. Needles to go further ad nauseum, you get my point. He would always have the last thank you, no matter what, as if his life would depend on it. Forget selling ice cream, who's waiting in line, no one was gonna out thank him. No one!

*sigh*  ( *sigh* is the universal sound of time travel...)

Now that I've warped back to present day...where the hell is that guy? Did someone finally just shoot him with a Glock 9 millimeter to just shut him the fuck up to stop saying thank you all time? Did he just give up, because no one trusts an overly polite man who is a dead ringer for Saddam Hussein? Or did he get on his space ship and fly back to Venus just like the guy from the Twilight Zone who had three eyes, but the third eye was hidden by his 50's white diner cap? You know the Thank You Man had the same friggin' cap! "God damn aliens...you can hardly understand 'em." That's what this old La Jolla man mumbled under his breath. Well don't have a clue what was up with the Thank You Man, but after 15 years I still think of that guy. "Thank You!" Thank You Man!

Yiff, Yiff, Yiffy!!!

"Yiff...Yiff...Yiffy!!!" Yep, you heard me! What? Don't you speak Foxish? Well it's okay, I don't either. *laughing* But I am gonna have to write a song with it though. I want it to be a Truckee Brothers song with a Stooges slant and throw in some Foxish language on the chorus. Ooohhh and a video too! Maybe I could get some fursonas to be in it.

Now this brings me to political correctness aka PC. I truly disdain PC. I'd much rather have someone say what they're really thinking than to fluf it all up into some homogenous crap that means nothing. With dissent comes discussion, and with discussion can come "understanding". This is what we want! It can't be done with everyone talking like a news reporter on television....everyone waiting to get sued by the FCC or Antidefamation League. Political Correctness is not politeness! People can be polite and still speak their mind however misguided or truly fucked up it is. Now....what was I talking about? Ummmm...oh yeah...whilst I'm excited and fascinated about the underground culture of Furry Fandom, I myself have no personal interest in being covered in electrofied polymeric fibers.

Now kids, make sure you read "The Yiffy Guide to Safer Sex" before you whoop out your jar of Yiffy on someone!

Zombies, cannibals and man-eating animals...

"Zombies, cannibals and man-eating animals all wanna get into my brain"... Those words are echoing in my head. I was a bad boy and instead of rehearsing this song and others for band practice tonight, I recorded a new song yesterday sans lyrics. I still have to write those suckers. So, just like school when I was a young whipper-snapper, I'll cram for the test and get an A. Procrastination is a killer for me. I've always done it and I still do it. Don't get me wrong, I work my ass off, it's just when something gets put in the procrastination file, it will not get taken out until the last possible friggin' minute! Nothing will stop it from stopping! *laughing*

"Sans"...did I just use that word? It's hip these days to use sans, but it kinda has that highfalutin air about it. Which normally I do not like, because many people use language to separate rather than connect with others. I friggin' hate that. I mean what is language for? To connect! My admission of using this word doesn't condemn me to the separatists, but rather that when I cannibalize this blog for Facebook and Twitter (I know...Facebook and Twitter...not a real blog...more like a bla.), the fewer characters used the better. Hence, sans instead of the more obvious "without". Now...you could go the other way and dumb down language to a high school text message "r u rdy t go?" Ugh...texting, while I'm the biggest whore there is in the land of textual encounters, I have to use punctuation and proper spelling. There are my limits to convenience! I side with the bell curve on this one. Nature's middle finger for extremism. Because in the end ALL things statistically end right where I want to be...right in the middle of things.

My eyes open, inhale, exhale, blink, blink, blink...

Coffee, Tea, or Orange Mango Banana Vivanno with 3 scoops of Matcha? New York Times...Newspapers are dying...will I be fine with an e-book version? Are newspapers going the way of prostition? Internet porn is expanding and growing far more than old-fashioned "ladies-of-the-night" because it's cleaner and cheaper. I mean an old fashioned leather "book" or such is ALWAYS the best choice...but who buys them anymore? Roberto Bolano...he fucking rocks. I've gotta work on those Greg Friedman bass parts for the show...I don't want to suck. I need to re-listen to that instrumental song I made for Teresa Gunn yesterday...I don't want it to suck. I need to shave. The Devil was in my dreams last night...but I don't believe in the Devil. Or do I? No...I don't. Or do I? To be continued... I have five songs finished for my love song album "Paper Sun"...I need 5 more. I need to write 4 more songs for my drum machine inspired "Los Feliz" EP. Fuck...I'm getting old. My shoulder is fucking killing me...damn rotator cuff! I need to call back Jim at the Transendental Meditation Center. I want some oatmeal. I need to call my friend Fred Van Vactor...his album is finally coming out. Yay! I should Skype Steve too...the bastard. You gotta love the bastard. Wait I'm seven hours ahead of him minus 24 hours. Zorba...get off me...I'll feed you in minute! Hell...I'll feed you now...It's time to get up. What am I gonna write on my blog?

Jamaican Voodoo Priestesses Before Tea...

In my dream I'm trying to fix my electrical system in my 99 year old house by using a Jamaican Voodoo Priestess. While she was walking about the house doing her thing my dog walked by and his skin was hanging on his bones like a blanket. Underneath the blanket I looked and sure enough, ALL BONES. He was happy and when he saw me looking under his skin he licked me, wagged his tail and walked away. I got into my truck to go to the store and every car I encountered attempted to deter me from my path. Not letting the bastards stop me, I got to the store with some stunt car driving a la "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry"...

So....now that I'm back home, my lucidity is not silent. I have a piping cup of Welsh tea which I fondly call it my "hot steaming cup of Tom Jones". *laughing* No homophobia runs through these bones! That is as long as every guy keeps their damn dirty hands off me, you damn dirty apes! *really laughing* After my moment with Tom, it's off to work. I must come up with a repetitive musical motif in A minor that will be repeated for three and a half minutes so my client can sing over it...yep....back to the salt mines...

Holy Rattlesnakes Down Around Your Feet...

My alarm goes off and it's set on radio and NPR. RATTLESNAKES!!!! That's the subject that is being discussed. Myths, legends and "what to do if" scenarios. When I think of rattlesnakes I think of Neutral Milk Hotel's song "The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1"...singing "When you were young you were the King of carrot flowers, and how you built a tower tumbling through the trees, in holy rattlesnakes that fell all round your feet...." I also think of all the Westerns I've watched with horses being bit by rattlesnakes and bucking off the the rider as they fall to the ground and hit their head on a rock. Talk about an over used theme! *laughing* But I suppose cliche' has it's reasons and it's power, just like ritual....completely predictable and it is in that predictability that sets the mind to relax and then wander and then race and then....RATTLESNAKE!!!

Dreaming...

I am dreaming again...for a long time I could not remember dreaming of any kind...until today. I know. Everyone dreams. Apparently 100 minutes a night for an adult. Hmmm...sounds like a song, movie, or book. A newborn can dream as much as 8 hours! Now you're talking! 8 hour dreams! Well....maybe not. *laughing* That equates to saying having 8 hours of sex. Yes, the thought of it sounds wonderful, but in reality it would be grueling, exhausting and hell you could damage something! *really laughing* So no, never mind about about the 8 hours of dreaming...a 100 minutes sounds just fine...

The shot has been fired...

Yessiree...it has begun. A light beginning...but a beginning just the same!

*smile*