Different Hours

It's been nine days since I posted here and I haven't been on vacation, had a horrendous injury, contracted a miserable case of carpal tunnel, I've just been obsessed with the music blog and frankly find writing about music (something I love) much more exciting than writing about my life (which strikes me as modestly interesting at its most ebullient). But I have some kind of weird kinship to this little blog much in the same way that people have a tendency to get attached to inanimate objects. I mean, I could never just delete it. It's much easier to ignore it for days at a time. If you're really wondering what I've been thinking about all this time it's this:

I'M ABOUT TO BE 2 YEARS AWAY FROM 40. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

So I've been spending alot of time with Bars & Guitars, clearly neglecting this little spot. I was thinking today about something that Gwadzilla wrote recently regarding an email exchange we had. I had told him that working on Bars & Guitars was a bit of a dream job for me, except that I don't get paid. Despite his mild protestations I'm going to stick with that original declaration. His point was that every dream becomes a job once it's an everyday thing. I was bike messenger once and probably dreamed that owning a messenger company would be the best thing in the world. Truth is I never really believed that at all. I loved being a bike messenger, but knew I didn't want to and indeed couldn't physically do it forever. There was no mental stimulation in the job and in alot of ways it was a way to kill time as I waited for better things to happen. I moved into the office and became a first rate dispatcher, eventually seizing an oppurtunity when I saw it starting my company. None of things that had gone before were dream jobs. I certainly never dreamt of owning a messenger company or any company of any kind for that matter. It was an oppurtunity and I took it. Music is a different story. Music is a love, not a dream. If you love something you probably won't tire of it. Of course I'm not talking about key lime pie or the feel of leather seats. I'm talking about something that awakens you both intellectually and emotionally. It makes you think, drives you to find out more and makes you want to be actively engaged with it. Being engaged with it can mean doing it (though I'm no musician), producing it (I don't know what working for a record label is like), or writing about it. The writing part I can do and the more I do it the more I like it. I don't need to get paid to do it. It's simply something that I want to do, if that translated into monetary compensation at some point...well, great. A dream job is first knowing the dream when you stumble upon it, a dream job doesn't grow from a job into a dream. It must start on the other end.

I've been putting so much time into the music blog Bars & Guitars that I've been a bit neglectful over here. Truth is, aside from the new blog my life is a bit dull at the moment. Though that's not to imply that at other moments I'm living a life far more exciting than yours dear reader. Here's the synopsis:

-I'm not riding my bike enough.
-My basketball team keeps losing.
-Bush is a dirty bastard.
-NBA season is fast approaching and it's up to the Warriors to make up for the dissappoint that is the other bay area teams.
-Samantha loves Kindergarten.
-My wife has officially graduated from business school and can now claim to be a Master at something.
-I can't remember the last time I saw a movie.
-There's tons of good music out there.

Please direct any specific questions to the comment link or email me.

Not feeling super talkative today. I've been working hard on the music blog. Check it out: Bars & Guitars What I did want to post is the upcoming schedule for the show Austin City Limits. If you don't know, Austin City Limits is the last really delicious music show left. They feature two bands or artists on any given show with half dedicated to each. I'm finally starting to feel like the void that the departure of Solid Gold left is now starting to be filled. As you scan the schedule be impressed by some of these offerings: Wilco w/ Bright Eyes, Elvis Costello, Spoon w/ Ben Kweller, The Pixies, The Flaming Lips w/ The Shins, good God it's a veritable smorgasborg of delicious slow roasted music with gravy.

Check it here

I tried to watch the vice prez debate. I just couldn't. It's something about Cheney. He makes me crazy. He's sweaty and bald and doughy. Granted Edwards is an airbrushed, toned down, blander version of RFK but still at least he doesn't make your skin crawl. In fact I bet he makes some of the ladies skin do the exact opposite.

Does anyone else love good frozen food? The Annie's, the Ethinic Gourmet, all the Trader Joe's stuff. Forget the wheel, mankind really leaped ahead when we invented the microwave. It's not the I don't like to cook, I do, it's just that everything I cook comes out the same no matter what it is: slightly bland and yet a little too salty. I'm the same way with carpentry: make a chair that looks ok (maybe a little crooked) but for the love of God don't try to sit on it.

What is it with little girls and putting on shows? Samantha spent like an hour last night performing for me. She had costume changes, lighting (me holding a flashlight), Music, dancing. It was frickin' hilarious. She's got some moves too. Her Grandma says that Tami did the same thing when she was little. Is it a girl thing or a genetic thing. I tell ya she's gonna be a star.

Work related: The price change seems to have gone fairly smoothly. No complaints. The huge problem right now is trying to collect money from the Gap. It's not like they don't have any money, it's a Kafkaesque maze of mid level accountants that we're dealing with. They owe us almost $30,000. You try to get the money it's "resend that invoice", "we never received it", "the format isn't right". The killer is that if one of their job numbers is incorrect (if their people give us the wrong one or we get it wrong) they don't pay the entire invoice. So in a typical month they bill to like 80 different job numbers. If the one for $6 is wrong, they don't pay the entire $6,500 bill. The kicker is that they don't tell you that it's wrong. It'll be months before you hear that a certain invoice has to be resent. Frustrating. Chasing money around and around and around.

Jetset News: Today's the day that the rates go up. Exciting stuff. I guess. More stressful than anything though the feedback from clients since I sent out a letter announcing the impending change has been overwhelmingly positive. We'll see how they feel when they get their bill for the month of October. It's a fair increase that averages on the whole a little more than %12.1. When you consider that we haven't raised the rates in over 4 years this is very fair. It's essentially a cost of living increase of %3 per year. That's what the government preaches anyway.

Music Blogs: I don't know if you (I mean of course all 4 of the fine readers of my blog) are privy to this new thing called music blogs. It's really kinda cool. People blogging about music they like, but putting up MP3's as well, usually like 2 or 3 per day. There's a disclaimer on all the sites saying basically: I'll take it down if this pisses you off. But when you think about it, a popular music blog is getting alot of hits and for a small band or a small label this kind of exposure to the "trend makers" is invaluable. I'm hesitant with that "trendmakers" comment, but I couldn't think of a better word. To put it into high school terms I definitely get the feeling from the music blogs I read daily that it's the "cool" kids doing it, exposing others to music they think is cool. There are no links to the new Justin Timberlake single (or maybe there is), it's all hard to find indie rock, singer songwriters, house music, downtempo, hip hop, rare soul. It's an absolute treasure trove of info for people (and I include myself in this description) who are totally nerded out on music (another high school reference, wait until I work in hesher). I can't get enough, but no longer have the time to spend hours a day browsing record stores. This is an ideal replacement. Here are the Music Blogs that I read pretty much every day:

New Flux
Music For Robots
Clap Clap
Tofu Hut
Said The Gramophone

Each is different. It passes the time.