11.02.07 7:36pm

Just ate Thai food with Kyle and Donny. Henry Rollins is playing in Reno tonight should be a good time.

I’ve been listening to old Soul and R&B today. Sly and the Family Stone to Bar-Kays to Isaac Hayes to Trouble Funk…

I found a great two-disc compellation in New Orleans called Get Low Down: The Soul of New Orleans ‘65 to ’67, it’s got some great songs that I’ve never heard. Nothing but a good time.

11.04.07 11:19pm

Well it took some time but the book is finally available online. It’s $10 post paid in the USA via Pay Pal. Click here for more info.

Practice went well tonight. We started working on an intro for the newest song, but it morphed into a song all its own. We have six songs in the can and two more in the works. We’re planning on playing our first show 11.17.07 (more info TBA). I can’t wait.

11.08.07 5:16pm

Not much to report today. The book is now available at Discology here in Reno. It’s nice to see my work out there on shelves. I haven’t gotten much in the way of feedback so far. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I have Scaring Sparrows practice in a few hours, can’t wait to go down there and play some rock.

11.11.07 11:15pm

Today was a good day. I hung out with Kyle and Donny for most of the afternoon and then had band practice. We finished a song we’d been stumped on. Ideas we threw out to use in this particular song have become the beginnings of more new songs, but nothing was really sticking to this tune. Tonight we found the right part and it’s finished. I had a real and profound emotional response to the tune once we played it in its entirety. Not sure you could ask for more in a song.

After practice I went to see Joe Lally of Fugazi play at Club Underground. The show was good and I picked up a copy of his new CD.

Now I must try and sleep. It’s Des’s birthday today. She was in Bakersfield for a high school reunion all weekend and I haven’t seen her yet.

11.13.07 6:42pm

The start of another long work week. Last week we found that some Job Corp kids are using our partially built homes as party pads. There have been piles of booze bottles, used condoms, blankets, feces and blood found in the homes. We know it was Job Corps kids because one of them was kind enough to leave her ID tag in a pile of broken glass that used to be a bedroom window. I just love my job.

Band practice tonight. Can’t wait.

11.18.07 4:33pm

I got my first of two cover-up tattoos on my neck Friday. I had these horrible looking kanji behind each ear that meant “pure” on the right, “evil” on the left. One of those ideas that sounds great at the time, but upon further reflection reveals it self to be kind of stupid. I now have a portrait of Boris Karloff as the classic Frankenstein on the left and I will have a portrait of Lon Chaney as the Wolf-Man on the right side in late January.

Sitting in Bibo Coffee editing a book of all the lyrics I have ever written. I’m toying with idea of releasing it through Machinery of Expression as a chap-book. It’s a bit of an odd trip down memory lane, digging into all the Twice lyrics and such. I do have some good memories of that band.

Scarring Sparrows is practicing tonight. We have seven songs completed and plan on playing shows very soon. We have a show booked for December 22nd but would like to book at least one before that. We’re going to record a four song demo the first weekend of December and will post songs as soon as we have them.

11.19.07 12:44pm

Scaring Sparrows practice was sort of a bummer last night. Josh couldn’t get there because he had a paper to write for school. Donny, Kyle and I went through some songs but we weren’t really into it.

The lyric book is coming along. I’m done editing all my lyrics that were actually put to music. Those amount to about eighty-eight pages. I still need to transcribe all the lyrics that never made the cut. I’ve lost the note books for my first two bands, Filth upon Filth and Sick Boys. Unfortunately there are no recorded documents of those bands so there’s no way to recover those lyrics. Filth upon Filth wrote about six or seven songs, at least one was an instrumental. Sick Boys had five or six songs, but I didn’t write the lyrics too all of them. I guess I’ll have to live with an incomplete document. The lesson here is if you’re in a band - record everything.

Sitting at work listening to the wind howl, reading Henry Miller, Under the Roofs of Paris and listening to Will Haven, El Diablo.

11.21.07 7:27am

I’m beginning to question the idea of releasing the lyric book. I didn’t type a lot of the lyrics up as I wrote them. They lived in composition notebooks and on scraps of paper. I’ve lost a great many of those notebooks and scraps of paper. Aside from missing the lyrics for both of the first two bands, I’m missing the last batch of lyrics I wrote for Twice. We had six or seven songs we were working on for a full length CD that we never recorded. I can’t find any of those lyrics. The point of the book was to have a complete document of lyrics I had written. In compiling what I do have I’ve found that I don’t like a lot of the things I wrote way back when. It seems pointless to release a bunch of stuff I’m not happy with unless I can make it a complete document. It’s kind of a disappointment to know I lost so much of what I’ve written over the years. I'll keep looking and see what I can come up with. If I can track down those last Twice songs I'll be happy.

Today is my last day of work before a four day weekend to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. I don’t care about holidays much, but I love four day weekends.

Listening to Foo Fighters, The Colour and the Shape.

11.26.07 7:37am

My four day weekend is over and I’m back at work. I was dreading coming in today. I figured we would have been hit hard by vandals and partiers over the holiday. So far it’s no worse than any other Monday.

Practice went well last night. We wrote and arranged a new song. Donny wrote all but one riff and I have real a challenge ahead of me to be able to execute his riffs with any consistency. Donny’s playing is light-years beyond mine. Having him in this band is forcing me to accelerate my guitar progress, which is no bad thing.
Before practice the whole band and Des went ice skating at the Reno outdoor ice rink. It was a whole bunch of silly fun. I’m sore today, but it was worth it. Life without some silliness is just boring. I saw Tim from the Juvinals on the ice. He’s good people.

Still slugging my way through Henry Miller’s, Under the Roofs of Paris. It’s a tough read mostly because it’s not very good. Miller wrote it for one dollar a page back in 1940-41. According to the epilogue it was written for a friend who was having trouble keeping his Hollywood book store afloat and resorted to selling pornography to select Hollywood producers. Miller gave the bookstore owner exclusive rights to these two-hundred and eighty-some-odd pages of sex, sex, sex. Only five copies were printed, one for the store owner and four to sell. Some time after Millers death in 1980, the book saw commercial release. The stories occur in roughly the time period as most of Tropic of Cancer. Some familiar characters appear through out both books, but Under the Roofs… has little else in common with that masterpiece. I’m about three-quarters through and will most likely finish today. It’s damn hard for me to shelve a book unless I’ve finished it.

Listening to Chavez, Better Days will Haunt You.

11.27.07 8:39am

So I’ve finished reading Under the Roofs of Paris. I tend to return to most of Miller’s works often, I’ve read and re-read almost everything he’s written. I won’t be doing that with Under the Roofs. Once was more than enough for me. To cleanse my palate I’m reading Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, also by Henry Miller. It’s an amazing book and makes me want to go back to Big Sur every time I pick it up.

I’ve been following the story of Baby Grace for a bit now. This week the mother and step-father of the missing two-year old girl admitted to beating her with belts, holding her head under water in the bathtub and throwing her tiny body against a wall. Once they’d killed her they stored her broken body in a shed for months before stuffing her in a plastic bin and dumping her in Galveston Bay in Texas. Tell me again why the death penalty should be abolished? Go ahead, I’m listening…

Sitting in the trailer at work watching the sky try to dump snow and listening to The Doves, Lost Souls.

2:44pm

I just read several new articles regarding the West Memphis Three. If you’re not familiar with the case, go to www.wm3.org, or watch the HBO documentaries Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost II, or read The Devils Knot, by Mara Leveritt. For those who are familiar, they’ve finally been able to do the DNA testing on hairs found at the murder scene. The DNA evidence does not implicate any of the three men who were convicted. The defense team has filed a 200 page writ and is trying ultimately to free three innocent men. These men have spent 13+ years in prison. They’ve lost so much and now it seems science many just set them free and hopefully catch the real murderer(s) of three young boys.

Listening to The Misfits, Collection II.

11.28.07 8:49am

I’ve been stuck in a several-month long dry spell. I haven’t been writing anything but this journal. This week I was able to write two new pieces that I’m pretty happy with. But other than that: zero output. I hate trying to write. It seems false to me somehow. I have to sit and wait for it to flood in and own me until I can get it all out. I’ve been talking to some of my friends who write for different reasons than I do and they don’t understand where I’m coming from. They can write on a schedule, they outline and brainstorm and bounce ideas off friends and lovers. I can’t do any of those things. Every now and then my brain just fills itself with words and lines. It’s my job to document everything as it pours out or I get eaten alive and can’t sleep nights. Lately I’ve been well rested and reasonably mental stable. On the surface it sounds pleasant, but I’m not getting any work done.

Last night I learned two more riffs from Donny’s new song. There are two more I need to learn and then practice, practice, practice until I can play them well. Once I can execute all the riffs confidently I’ll worry about remembering the arrangement of the tune. Josh heard it all for the first time last night. The look on his face spoke volumes. The song is damn good. Learning it is just going to kill me is all.

Listening to Jawbreaker, Bivouac.

12:27pm

PJ Harvey singing Is this Desire? is better masturbatory fodder than any hot-teen-all-nude-kitchen-appliance-crotch-stuffing-action web site could ever be.

11.29.07 8:09am

I’ve made a few entries in this journal regarding our pet sugar gliders. My wife and I have dealt with some fairly traumatic events with these little critters. Well, add one more to the list. Sugar gliders breed often, normally they are great parents and we’ve been able to give healthy, beautiful gliders to friends as pets. Not too long ago the female glider, Bianca, lost her leg. Since then they’ve not tried to breed at all. Bianca just wasn’t having it, period. Well apparently she gave in to our male Murphy’s desires. This morning I found a glider joey lying on one of the shelves in their cage. He was freezing cold but still alive, I warmed him back up and he seemed to perk up. He’s making a lot of “sneezing” noises which is a sign that he’s hungry. Bianca has rejected him for some reason; she won’t have anything to do with him. So my wife and I get to experience hand-rearing a sugar glider. We have a book that details the process and have spoken to our veterinarian who is supplying us with puppy formula (the recommended milk substitute). Should be an adventure.

I’ve brought the writing page back. Not sure what I’ll post there, but the page is back.

I can feel a cold or something coming on. I hate being sick.

Listening to Cat Power, The Greatest.

10:49am

I just got the call. The baby glider didn’t make it. He was ice cold when I found him this morning. I imagine it was too much for his tiny body to take. We’re getting Murphy fixed this weekend. It’s pretty clear they won’t stop breeding. They don’t seem to be taking care of the babies. I think it’s the only responsible thing to do.

Radiohead’s, OK Computer is on the headphones.

11.30.07 8:28am

Practice last night didn’t really pan out. We ended up talking and just hanging out for three hours. It was cool in a way because I learned a lot about my band mates, but with a show coming up in just over three weeks, I’d like to hammer out the set so we can kill it when we’re in front of the kids for the first time. We did hit every song at least once and some songs twice so it wasn’t a complete loss.

Rudy Giuliani has been in the news a lot the last two days. It seems he has a habit of regurgitating false or inaccurate information and then “sticking to his guns” when the facts are presented and contradict what he’s said. That sounds eerily familiar to our current Commander and Chief.

X-mas season is upon us. Without question, my least favorite time of year.

Both Blind, So Much Music…So Little Time is on the headphones. I love that Reno has so many incredible musicians and most have an impressive catalog of recorded material.

2:55pm

Evel Knievel died today from complications related idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. I'd always hoped he go trying to jump something huge and silly.