wordswithoutmusic

Left & Right. Right & Left.

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:56:00 +0000

My mom arrives tomorrow.

I was given every middle-class opportunity. Good schools, basketball camp, art camp, churchianity, boy scouts, little league, brothers. Some things stuck and some didn't. We had an upright piano in our living room, to this day one of my favorite pianos, which, admittedly, is probably a chicken/egg situation. There's no precise age when I first approached that alter. Just an uninterrupted, blurry ascent as my legs dangled evercloser to the pedals. Old-timey piano bench pieces: mom playing the right hand, me playing the left with both.

Downingtown, Pennsylvania was a "main street community" long before they began advertising Downingtown as "A Main Street Community!" It was on that street, actually called Lancaster Ave, that my mom first chauffeured me, eight years young, to my first piano lesson in what would be just a few years later a quaint tea room. I still remember the first piece I was ever assigned, "Left & Right", and the second, "Right & Left". Each piece has only two notes, play, repeat.

(Both songs are still quite beautiful to me. And in the way that anything becomes everything if you plum a sufficiently deep depth, I can plainly see now that all secrets of all music were already captured in those first childish pieces, just as the terrifying complexity of an entire human body is written in the DNA of every single cell.)

And now, these almost twenty years later, all that remains is the path begun, legs dangling long ago. Everything else has changed, everything. Family, friends, myself, even God, who changeth not, has changed perhaps most of all: one of his best tricks.

They say that reality may actually be not three or four dimensions, but rather ten or eleven or twelve, though they are curled up, hidden between, unseen, but very real. I couldn't ask for a more perfect mirror, now that music, time, space, money, love, food, sex, they are all inseparable, all one, curled up together in pairs and pairs. Left & Right. Right & Left.

Give me enough time

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:23:00 +0000

Give me enough time, and I can explain it all to you. Everything...well, everything I understand at least, whatever that is. It's a bit. It's some, sometimes more than others.

Give me three or so years to wallflower, to dip in and out of your life, to build a true trust, to grill you hamburgers, or long slices of yellow squash if you're a vegetarian.

Give me your phone number, and then text me a few months later when you change it.

Give me spontaneous conversations that show us how similar and different we really are, and give me a chance to show you that you have things to show me.

Give me whichever pieces of your personality you're prone to present to whatever category of person I am to you. Give me enough time to see that tupperware type melt in the microwave.

Give me a few bucks for tortilla chips; I'll get the movie later.

Give me enough time, and I can help you. I can try to.

But I don't have enough time for any of this. I have between 3 and 5 minutes, an army of ones and zeroes, and a willingness to try to love you. Wish me luck.

Musings on Having a Beard

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:57:00 +0000

I guess I have had something of an itch lately -- to play with the notion of my own physical identity, with how I see myself, with how others see me, and how we both react. (Part of this has to do with my current obsession with short shorts, but that's another story for another time.) This kind of experience is part of the fabric of everyday reality for most. Whether it's clothing, make-up, tattoos or accessories, physical expressions of identity are common. But this is somewhat exotic for me; I don't count myself among the majority of people openly interested in actively crafting their outward image. I've never, ever felt even the slightest twinge to get anything pierced, or anything permanently written on my body. And while it would be naive to say that I don't dress and groom myself in a way that I find comfortable or cool or good, I'd say 90% of the time I just don't care.

It is this lack of caring that led to having a beard, which I guess I do right now. Isn't that funny: hair is one of the few things, if not the only thing about your physical appearance, that simply happens by not trying. You have to get dressed to wear clothes, you have to exercise to shape your body, you have to apply make-up to accentuate your features, but to grow hair, all you need to do is not cut it.

I'm writing this blog because yesterday, this subject reached something of a tipping point with me. Three people, in three completely different social contexts, went way out of their way to comment on my facial hair. I'm not just talking about someone saying, "Oh, growin' a beard, huh?" or "I like the beard, man." These were very interesting interactions.

#1. The "I Look Like Jesus" Comment

This observation deserves attention just because of the sheer number of times I've received it. Yesterday's specific example was a friend telling me, "Yeah, when you walked in the room and sat down, it felt like Jesus was watching." This is really interesting to me. Chew on this for a minute: Jesus is, without a doubt, the most famous person who has ever lived. He was so unique, so different from every other human being, that he's, well, he's Jesus. So how do you physically capture the image of Jesus? Show him walking on water? Lightning bolts coming out of his eyes? 20 feet tall? No. It's just some dude with a beard and long hair, smiling. Isn't that crazy?!

It goes back to what I was saying before about the whole lack-of-caring thing. My response to the "I Look Like Jesus" comment is this: contrary to our current culture of Mach 3's and electric shavers, to look like Jesus is simply the physical default position of being a human male. If all shaving and cutting paraphernalia vanished tomorrow, about a month from now, every human male in the world between the ages of 23 and 33 would look more or less like Jesus. I think it's such an interesting commentary on how small the minority must be of people who have not cut their hair, who have not shaved their face, that for someone to let the natural course of events happen looks unnatural.

#2. The "Nobody Grows Facial Hair Like Dave Madden" Comment

This is a favorite of my friend David Tobey, who went to the trouble of interrupting my rehearsal yesterday to tell me how amazing I am at growing facial hair. Who knew? Must be all those facial hair growing supplements I've been taking.

#3. The "Long Stare...Is That Real?" Comment

This one was priceless. So I'm at the Barton Hills Market, a local convenience store run by some kind of foreigners, I dunno, maybe Indians? They're good people, if a little hard to understand sometimes. The guy working the register clearly did not have a confident grasp of the language, which probably added to the awkward flow of this conversation.

I was buying two Cokes and some mayo. This guy rings me up, and then just stops. Dead stops. Staring at my face, not saying a word. It was a long enough pause that I thought "maybe this guy is a narcoleptic, and he just fell asleep". I'm not being funny, I really thought that...this guy's glazed-over expression was so extreme.

So he finally snaps out of it and just points and says, "Real?" Relieved that my cashier was not in fact dead, I say, "What?" Real, he persists, pointing to his own face. "The beard? No, it's not fake. Yes, it's real." Are you kidding me? Does my beard look fake? Why would I wear...no...why would anyone wear a fake beard around? My friend Brandon is standing behind me, and I turn to him with a can-you-believe-this-guy? I take my Coke, my mayo, and what little I can salvage of my dignity and leave.

Pflugie the Lonely Duck

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:47:00 +0000

It is sometimes said that there's a fine line between heaven and hell. I experienced this today.

I met a few friends out at Pflugerville Lake, a man-made, mostly non-de-script-yet-generally-beautiful fresh water reservoir, 3 miles in circumference. I've been swimming all the time lately at Austin's beloved Barton Springs. After a lifetime of adequate swimming, it has recently occurred to me that I don't actually know how to swim at all. (I hope to someday try my hand at some triathlons so I've been working on this weakness.)

Both my swimming technique and endurance have improved dramatically in just a few weeks. In fact, we simply hung out in the water for perhaps an hour or so, about a quarter mile away from land, just swimming and treading water and floating. The water was warm and inviting, clean and bluish green. Out in the middle of nowhere, out of my element, just swimming. Heaven.

Then this duck approaches us, just swimming casually towards us. A common duck. My friend Melody informs me that she has seen this duck before and that it is famously friendly, that it likes people, that it allows people to pet it. Note: There are no other ducks in the entire lake. Literally. Zero. This is the only duck. Melody had named him "Lonely Pflugie".

From afar, Lonely Pflugie paddles towards us. We're delighted. As he approaches, it becomes clear that he has chosen to swim directly to me. We laugh. I greet Pflugie. Pflugie continues to swim closer. And closer. Ten feet, five feet, arm's length. He slows. I am shocked at this duck's extraordinary confidence, his lack of fear. If only I knew.

I timidly reach out and gently pet Pflugie's feathers. He seems to like this. He comes closer...he comes too close. He seems like he would just swim until he bumped into my face. This is a little too much random confident duck interaction for me. I back away. He follows. I back away more. He follows, but more aggressively. I gently splash him. He is undeterred by my water attack. Probably because, oh, I dunno, he's a duck.

I splash harder, but it's no use. My wussy attacks are no match for millions of years of evolution. I reach out to Pflugie, but instead of petting him, I push him away. It seems like everything I do simply fans the flames of Pflugie's fire. By this point, I'm getting freaked out: Out in the middle of nowhere, out of my element, just swimming. Hell.

As the laughter of my "friends" rings in my ears, I attempt to escape. I swim as fast as I can towards shore, but Pflugie out-swims me without breaking a sweat. Probably because, oh, I dunno, he's a duck. I panic. I am not proud of what I did next, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I punched Pflugie. Punched him right in his little duck body. It had no effect. This duck was like the fucking terminator, except with little cartoon hearts in his eyes.

I swam like crazy towards the shore, and it is at this point that Pflugie caught up to me and climbed on my back. I shook my feathered foe loose and gave him a thunderous kick to the ribs. While it surely stunned him, I was terrified to think what Hellish duck fury would now be unleashed upon me. It is at this climactic moment that I looked up and saw my savior: a big dog swimming close to shore. Sure enough, as I approached the dog, "Nanook", Pflugie slowed and eventually stopped, keeping his distance. The nightmare was over.

Epilogue

Pflugie was not hurt by my water karate. We watched him happily harass other swimmers for a while, and eventually swim off into the distance, all alone. Who is this Lonely Pflugie? What made him the way he is? How did he get separated from his family? These are questions that may never be answered. But I, for one, will tell Pflugie's story, the story of a brave young duck just trying to find his place in the world, trying to spread love and getting kicked in the ribs. All I know is, if you're ever up at Lake Pflugerville and a friendly duck swims towards you, swim like hell.

Let's Talk Music

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:13:00 +0000

There's this little anecdote I've told so many times that a) my close friends must be SO tired of hearing it and 2) I've actually come to believe that I made it up. I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't, but now...I'm pretty sure I did. It goes something like this:

Pianists start out by learning the piano. But they also learn music theory, and ear training. And then they pick up an old bass guitar and start plucking around on it. And maybe they learn a few chords on guitar. And eventually, they buy an amp and a guitar, and then they start writing songs, and they want to record them, so they start messing around on computers. Then they get a drum set and learn how to play that.

Guitarists start out by learning the guitar. Then they buy a better guitar. Then they buy a blue guitar. And a sparkly guitar...and guitar effects...and a guitar amp...and a semi-hollow-body guitar...and a 12-string guitar...and a vintage guitar...etc.

You probably only think that's funny if you already know how true it is, because it's one of those "it's funny 'cause it's true" things. There is just something about the piano that creates an intense outward focus, and something about the guitar that creates an inward focus. Nothing wrong with that. Just different.

In that way, I'm a pianist through and through. I have this insatiable appetite for new musical perspectives, understandings, languages. When I was in high school, I became intolerably frustrated with my own inability to understand the drum set. Drummers are easily the least understood of all mainstream musicians. As a pianist, I couldn't comprehend a world comprised solely of rhythm, lacking all melodic and harmonic content. It would be like someone from our three-dimensional world trying to exist in a one-dimensional reality ("Wait, I don't get it...I still have height, but where should I put my length and width?" (<---wow, dorky!)) So I (or probably my mom) bought a drum set and practiced my brains out for a summer. In a closet in a church where they kept the air-conditioner. Very glamourous.

I've practiced along the way, enough for my nascent skillz to survive and sometimes even thrive. And here's really what I have to say: I am really glad I put in the time, because this drumming thing is about to get really bad-ass. For all of us.

See, although drums are the most ancient of all instruments, drum set is brand spankin' new. The modern drum set wasn't even around until the 1930s. Compared with piano and guitar, that's just a wee baby. People messed with pianos for a long time, adding this, changing that, but after a few centuries of evolution, consensus is reached, standards are set, and today, a piano is a piano is a piano. They've all got 88 keys and the same 3 pedals. Any pianist can sit down at any piano and feel at home.

The same can't be said for drum set. It's so young that people are still messing with it, experimenting and deconstructing, fidgeting and redefining. Engineers can't agree on how best to mic a kit. Drummers can't agree on how many toms to have. Or how high to sit. Or what the measurements of depth and circumference should be. Consensus has not been reached. The evolution continues.

I think this is the Age of the Drum Set. The 60s and 70s had the electric guitar, the 80s had the synth, the 90s had modern recording techniques. From all different corners of the music world, from different genres and styles, I feel like drumming is honing itself, refining itself, maturing, really standing on its own two legs, once shaky and now strong. It's beginning to display a newfound confidence and creativity I've never heard before.

The way I see it, for decades now there's been something of a template for modern rock/pop/soul/funk/blues drumming. It was basically all the same beat. What's that? You want me to play drums for this brand new song of yours? No problem. How 'bout we start with me playing the kick on 1 and 3 and the snare on 2 and 4, and when it's just kind of cruisin' along, I'll hit these smaller cymbals, and when it gets all big and loud I'll hit these other bigger cymbals. Add appropriate modifications to accentuate melody, rinse, repeat. Cool? Cool.

And it was cool! It is cool! Duh, that shit will make you shake your money maker, wonder where that $60 that was in your wallet went and why "balls" is written on your forehead.

But what I'm seeing and hearing in today's bold new generation of drummers is the willingness to leave behind Mother Template and start anew. What is this song about? What is it trying to say? How can my part complement what the music is trying to express? Death Cab For Cutie. Cake. Imogen Heap. Switchfoot. And increasingly so, If I have any say in the matter, Dave Madden.

The Music Industry does not equal Music

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:43:00 +0000

My friend Amy Mitchell, young, shrewd, intelligent music attorney, just sent me a link to a young (about a week old), shrewd, intelligent blog posting (by Gerd Leonhard). It contains all kinds of new, amazing ideas about music and technology and the Internet that, to your average consumer would sound like something straight out of a Ray Bradbury piece.

It uses words like micro-music-channels, longtailing, MediaRSS, wimax-ing, imoogli, beatwibes, digggster, RL. It talks about "this will be the next that", leaving many of us confused, because we haven't even heard of that yet.

As a musician, it's impossible to avoid these conversations. You may or may not be aware that the entire music industry is in a state of panic and crisis right now. Remember 9 years ago when you downloaded that N*Sync single for free using Limewire? Well, you don't get something for nothing, the trickle down has happened, and you (and hundreds of millions of others) have brought the industry to its collective knees. It is in its death throes.

The funny thing is that even as these millions of cogs were turning -- as people were forwarding links, tweeting on Facebook, checking out new music on Myspace, syncing their iPods, honing their streaming radio stations on Pandora and otherwise getting their technoratic rocks off, as my friend Amy was sending me this blog about waves upon waves of new gadgetry, new mediums, new platforms -- I was sitting here in my room, playing harmonica. I am learning to play the harmonica.

Because I'm a musician. What new platform is that?

How many flash drive Terra bytes are in the college-ruled Five Star notebook that I wrote my newest song in the other day, a song written on my acoustic guitar, all rosewood and steel and fingers and vibrating air, a song in C# minor, a song about being aware of your life, living in the present?

Where is the 360 merch-publishing-online-distribution-record deal in this Hohner Bluesband harmonica, a little too moist because I'm still learning how to block two reeds with my tongue, learning how to use the shape of my cheeks and mouth to bend notes flat?

A message, from musicians to the music industry: I don't know what shape this whole thing will take. I don't know if we'll be lifted up, turned around, or screwed harder than ever. I hope everything works out. I hope everybody wins. But at the end of the day, I know my place. It isn't with any infrastructure of any kind, but with the raw material of music itself. And that will never change.

A Letter from Melinda Wheatley

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:13:00 +0000

This is an email from my friend Melinda. She loves my song, "You Don't Have to Worry"...but thanks to her persistence, I'm officially changing the name of the song to "Dirty Feet".

I was leaving home this afternoon for a meeting downtown, feeling absolute fear over my work situation. It woke me up several times this morning before daylight. That, in turn, kept me in bed until almost noon. I develop horrible fantasies of being homeless and without a car or husband or friend to save me; my kids have gone onto new lives and are embarrassed of their mother's inability to act like a grownup. These kinds of thoughts wrap around me sometimes. I'd assume they do it to everyone at some point or another.

Your song comes on and it's different for me today. Usually, I hear your voice and it's like I'm listening to someone I love (I do), and I'm envisioning you singing it, writing it. I'm usually thanking God for you being you, the usual shit when you love someone and want them to do well and create great stuff. It's part maternal, part friend, part sister. I'll feel the sense of "how cool to know this incredible young man," etc.

Today it was the backdrop for my own music video, the message to a girl who's got a weighty problem. I felt the sense of commonality, that place we all need to be reminded exists for everyone else- that things are a bit dirty; indeed, they should be a bit dirty.

I felt God say I was okay, channeled through my sweet Dave Madden. It was profound and sweet; when it was over I smiled. I'll be okay, I'll be alright.

For this, I wanted to thank you.

M

I probably won't tell you my birthday, Part One.

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:05:00 +0000

Let me set the scene. You're in a public place, a hang. Maybe a bar or a club, a restaurant, or walking your dog down by the river. You strike up a conversation with somebody for any number of reasons: attraction, coincidence, you have the same dog. You begin the complex yet familiar task of "getting to know someone". You are accumulating factoids. "Oh, you never saw Jaws II? How weird, me too!" They ask how old you are. You tell them. "Ah ok," they nod. And then they ask your birthday.

This is the point in the conversation where I usually say something like, "I'll tell you my birthday...if you tell me your family's patron Hindu god."

See, there is absolutely no reason for someone who just met you to know your birthday. Except to learn your astrological sign. And what's wrong with that? Well, nothing. To each his or her own. It's not that I don't want to tell you my sign, it's just that I don't have one*.

I don't have an astrological sign any more than you have a Chinese zodiac (dog, monkey, snake) if you aren't Chinese, or an idea of who you were before your current reincarnation, if you don't believe in reincarnation, or a favorite Bible story if you aren't Christian.

I would rather not tell you my birthday, because once I do, everything that I have freely chosen to reveal about myself up until this point in our enjoyable little conversation will now be squeezed into an astrological-sign-shaped box. (Ah...he said THIS, but he must have meant THAT.) And I don't know about you, but my identity is far too complex to be 1-out-of-12.

This illustration is only one piece of a larger puzzle. To be continued...

*On a side note, I personally believe that while the planets move in geometric circles, there is no reason to extend that motion to the symbolic notion of cycles. A "birthday" is the day of your birth. It happens once and never again. Birthday Anniversaries, as we all celebrate, are a fun and harmless excuse to party, but nothing more.

Fan Mail - Desirea

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:33:00 +0000

"I like that no matter what mood I am in, how pissed off, or happy I am I can put your album on and it makes me happy, makes me move , and I love singing along to it. I like falling asleep to it, and when I wake up to it, my whole day starts out good."

Required Reading

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:44:00 +0000

This is a very long compilation of blogs by a very wise artist. I am making this required reading for anyone with a dream and an open mind.

Fresh, Warm Bread

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:51:00 +0000

I have made, not bought, my last three loaves of bread. And by hand, not in some bread making machine. This little number is a recipe for whole wheat maple bread.

I really recommend doing this. It's a lot of fun, it tastes way better than store bought, and it's healthier. Plus, you know exactly what's in it, no surprises, no weird additives.

Although the whole process does take a few hours, most of the time is just letting the dough rise in the oven, so you can kind of get things going, go do an hour of work, knead it some more, go do an hour of work, turn the oven up to 350, go do 40 minutes of work, and it's done!

Here's a little video tutorial.

Dear Stacey

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:09:00 +0000

A letter that I (can't believe I) wrote when I was 17, to my friend Stacey, who was going away to college.

The only advice I have to give you is to think. That's all you need. If you think, you will come to realize any other advice anybody could give you. Think about what is important and what is not. Don't listen to anyone who doesn't have reason. Remember that you are a human being, and never take for granted how indredibly amazing you are. If you forget, run, or pick up a ball, or calculate a math problem, or create something -- anything to make you realize that there has never been nor will there be anything like you in the entire universe. Think, because when you do, you are changing the world, and proving that you lived. And just when you realize how unfathomable a tool you are, you might as well just fall down and cry because not only you, but everyone has the same potential, and for that reason, listen to everyone with an open mind, from the smallest child to the most intimidating professor.

...17???

Hypocrisy and Butt-Spray

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000

Fine. I admit it. I'm a hypocrite. But I'm seeing the error of my ways. Let me start at the beginning.

Somewhere deep down inside me, tucked between perhaps my ribs and my lungs, lies a thin strip of real estate, and in this strip there lies a part of my psyche that I just can't shake: Dave the paranoid, I'll-believe-anything conspiracy theorist. I don't feel weird about this part of me, because in truth, everyone has it. It's that part of you that from time to time suspects there is something deeply wrong with the world, and you just can't quite place it, and besides, it isn't really worth the time and worry, because this whole "life" thing is way too complex and mottled for anyone to ever really figure out, except like, Jesus, and maybe Bono. And my mom.

I indulge in these alternate perspectives weekly. Every Saturday night, as I'm driving home at one in the morning from a late gig, I listen to an AM talk radio program, "Coast to Coast AM". A host interviews guests that cover all sorts of topics, some a little crazy, some a lot crazy. I tuned in to hear a Dr. Leonard Sax discussing his new book, "Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men." This guy didn't seem at all like a crack pot. He's a medical doctor and clinician who spoke with conviction and intelligence. Plus, I looked up his book later and it's legit. He's been on the TODAY show with Matt Lauer.

Dr. Sax is worried about boys. He thinks that something scary is happening with boys today. Here's a little quote buffet to paint a picture.

"From kindergarten to college, boys are less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. In fact, a third of men ages 22–34 are still living at home with their parents—about a 100 percent increase in the past twenty years." *** "According to the United States Department of Education, out of 100 men who matriculate at a 4-year college or university, only 29 will earn a degree four years later." *** "The average young men today has a sperm count just about half what his grandfather had. His testosterone level is lower as well."

Dude...50% sperm count? What?! Here are some probable causes.

"Prescription Drugs. Overuse of medication for ADHD may be causing irreversible damage to the motivational centers in boys’ brains." *** "Endocrine Disruptors. Environmental estrogens from plastic bottles and food sources may be lowering boys’ testosterone levels, making their bones more brittle and throwing their endocrine systems out of whack." *** "Devaluation of Masculinity. Shifts in popular culture have transformed the role models of manhood. Forty years ago we had Father Knows Best; today we have The Simpsons."

Hold on, the hypocrite part is coming...

The most interesting part of Dr. Sax's research had to do with the chemicals that saturate our daily environment. There is a growing body of research that chemicals can and do leech from plastic bottles into the liquids they hold. Go ahead, look online, there are millions of concerned articles about bottled water, baby bottles, sodas. Chemicals are transferred especially in high heat, like when they're locked up in some huge truck on a summer day on their way to Walmart. Anyway, a lot of these chemicals are harmful to both boys and girls, so watch out.

It just makes you wonder, doesn't it? Look around you. Right now. What is all that shit MADE of? Ok, fine, that table is wood, you can probably trust that, and the patio is stone, that's cool. But the ink, the paint, the rubber, the tv, the microwave, the fridge, the speakers, the cable modem...febreeze, endust, antibacterial soap, hand sanitizer...and lots and lots of plastic bottles...what are they made of? "Plastic." And when exactly were we taught what plastic IS?

And then there's the the hygiene hypothesis, which suggests that rising allergy rates are linked to our more antiseptic, modern lifestyle. I've subscribed to this theory for some time now. We, as Americans, are WAY too clean. We've got a different soap for every part of your body. Tell me that's not ridiculous. I don't need individual soap for my hands, arms, face and hair. I don't need hand sanitizer on a keychain. Rising rates of peanut allergies and asthma are thought to be connected to this hype-cleanliness.

"Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT. I don't care about spots on my apples, give me the birds and the bees." -Joni Mitchell

Ok, here comes the hypocrite part:

There is one thing that I've always said needs to be a lot cleaner, a lot more sterile in American culture -- poop. My point is simple. Dry paper? Are you kidding me? We can put a man on the moon, create the internet, and map the entire human genome, but I'm still wiping my ass with dry paper?

I mean seriously, I'm sorry to be crude, but how is that clean, exactly? I mean you care enough about any other surface to make at least some kind of effort, right? Your kitchen counter gets 409, your dashboard gets Armor All, your tub gets Scrubbing Bubbles. But the one place that really needs to be cleaned, a place that is not only extremely filthy but inches away from our all-important reproductive organs, well, that gets dry paper. Go ahead, just smear it around. I'm sure it's spotless.

Well friends, have I got some news for you! Introducing "Portable Butt-Sprayers"! Description from gizmodo.com

Japanese people are getting so accustomed to having their butts sprayed clean that they're going to need to carry the paraphernalia to do so wherever they go. That's where Japanese toilet butt-spray champ Toto steps in with its Travel Washlet, a porto-ass sprayer that cleans you right up without the need for wiping. This handheld unit differs a bit from the home version, though, where it does the spraying but lacks that heated blow-drying capability of its potty-bound brandmate. So there still will be some dry-up wiping necessary, we assume.

Although these washlet devices might seem bizarre to Americans, if you think about it, the concept actually makes a lot of sense. As one of our erudite commenters so aptly put it, cleaning yourself up after a poop with dry toilet paper is like spreading peanut butter around on a shag carpet. Sorry. Hope you already had breakfast."

I know what you're thinking: "...leave it to those crazy Japanese..." But I saw one of these babies with my own eyes in Whole Foods in downtown Austin just the other day.

And I want one. And that's what makes me a hypocrite.

Follow Your Heart

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:39:00 +0000

Because the world truly does need to hear this. Infinity times.

Past, Present & Holy Soon

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:27:00 +0000

I have read this quote: "Happiness is health and a short memory." And it is probably true. Because to have a short memory is to forget what actually happens, and we all know what happens: shit happens. But ignorance is bliss, indeed, it is. It is beginning to worry me then, that bliss is one of only three things that our great land pursues, along with Life and Liberty.

As the Onion says, "America: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness at any cost; even Life and Liberty." This rings truer every day. "Every day". What a strange expression. I don't know when this "every day" happens.

On second thought, I think I do know when every day happens. It happens in slogans. It happens in advertising. It happens in the ever present, all important, the Holy Soon. Perhaps most of all, it happens on the evening news -- which occurs every day.

And when our presidential hopefuls are asked in some town, in some church, about the state of the world -- the state of the World, mind you -- they talk of the Future. And change. Changing the future. It is a good thing for them that we as a people don't know anything about the past, because if we did, we would quickly see that the distant past did not change the recent past, as it had originally promised, and that the recent past did not change the present.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -Winston Churchill

Maybe then we would put 2 and 2 together. Maybe then we would rethink our entire paradigm of economy, of foreign entanglement, of wanting more stuff. Maybe our government would listen to us. Maybe they would start thinking about where we came from and where we're going. The distant past. The distant future.

But today they say, "We're sending you a check for $600. You'll have it Holy Soon."

And what is the evening news? It is one half hour of history. One half hour in 10,000 years. You might as well pick a book, any book, open it up to the very last page, read it, form passionate opinions, and write a review. Good, now you're halfway there. Go get 300 million other people to do the same thing. Argue about it. Rinse, repeat.

For weeks I've been seeing Ron Paul's crazed supporters cavorting around Austin and hearing about his record-breaking Internet buzz. Well, I finally buckled last night and checked him out.

I watched video after video of his speeches, debates and TV appearances. And the more you watch, the more you listen, the more you learn about this guy, two things become increasingly clear.

One: "Holy crap. I can't believe it. This guy is really intelligent. He's a veteran, a medical doctor, a professional economist, and he has decades of experience in public service. He supports every single point with articulate, insightful historical and economic fact. He is actually bringing people together. He's Republican, but Democrats love him. He's bold, curious, open, and speaks his mind."

...and two: "There is no fucking way this guy stands a chance."

Doing What Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:05:00 +0000

It is 43°F and feels like 37°F. It's overcast and 63% humidity. Basically, the weather is complete bullshit right now, especially for Austin.

I'm a pretty healthy dude. I eat well and exercise. But I have a few Achilles heals, and one of them is running in the cold. I fucking hate running when it's cold outside. So I'm not going to.

Except, I am. I am going to. I'm going to put on my undies and my ball-high socks (yes, for real, they come up to my groin) and another pair of socks over them. I'm going to put on my knee brace and my sweatpants and a thermal long-sleeve shirt and a t-shirt over that, and then a scarf, and then my big Berklee hoodie, a bandana, ear warmers and gloves, and of course, my sneaks.

And it's going to suck pretty bad.

The way I see it, there is no such thing as being A Runner. Right at this moment, sitting here typing this, I'm not a runner. I'll be a runner when I get off my ass, stop bitching about how cold it is, and run.

There will always be an excuse to avoid doing what sucks.

Dave Madden Day

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 16:07:00 +0000

Vegas, Change & Go-Gurt

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:17:00 +0000

I was laying in one of my two beds last night, watching political coverage of the New Hampshire primaries on CNN. Obviously, this wasn’t at my apartment in Austin, because I don’t have two beds, and I don’t have TV. I also don’t have a shower that listens to me; mine requires constant temperature compromise. And it squeals like a pig.

Anyway, the buzzword in New Hampshire, used over and over again, was “change”. Granted, to some degree politics are always about change, about who can do what better or faster or cheaper, but there was something different to the tone of the interviews last night. Indeed, there is something different to the tone of our country these days. It is a rare day when a country as diverse as America can come together with one voice. No matter how variant the vernacular, no matter the angle of approach, people are waking up—12 years or 12 months or 12 days ago—to a world that they didn’t agree to. Perhaps they were misled. Perhaps they didn’t read the fine print. Probably both.

“What is this?” They’re asking, “Why is the planet falling apart? Why am I still not completely sure why we’re at war? Why are so many people dying from lack of food, and so many Americans dying from excess of food? And what’s with Go-Gurt?! Yogurt’s gross enough without putting it into a squeeze tube.”

Ok, maybe that last part was just me. But people are starting to see, myself included, that this whole capitalistic, consumer-driven craziness only goes so far before it becomes an obstacle for the truth.

David Simon, creator of the scathingly critical HBO show, The Wire, say it this way: “On commercial TV, there’s no fucking way you can say, ‘This is America, and we’re not all right anymore.’ Not if every 12 minutes you have to say, ‘Hey, we’re sorry we brought you down, but check out the new iPods!’”

Brian McLaren offers this analysis in his new book, Everything Must Change:

“And ultimately we consume communities and produce extended families, consume extended families and produce nuclear families, consume nuclear families and produce individuals, consume individuals and produce consumers, and finally consume consumers themselves and produce disembodied fragments called “wants” and “needs” and “markets” and “segments” and “anxieties” and “drives” that the economy consumes and excretes and reconsumes in a kind of cannibalistic ferment or rot.”

It was very helpful, then, to read those words against the backdrop of perhaps the very pinnacle, the tippiest-tippy-top of Western consumerism: the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (By the way, I was just there to play music; I consumed very little.) It’s nearly impossible to describe the sheer magnitude of this event. For our purposes, just picture a Sharper Image (but sharper) that takes up two stories of a few city blocks. Vegas and CES have this in common: they both have everything you want and nothing you need.

Now, flying away and looking down on the city from above, I notice a few remaining patches of undeveloped land, which betray the landscaped sod and imported water to reveal Las Vegas for what it really is: nothing.

In what is truly a remarkable example of irony, Sin City is a perfect nickname; “sin” literally translates to “without”. This barren wasteland of little intrinsic value, in a masterful stroke, confidently embraces this role, building watered-down replicas of the valuable contributions of others. A giant vodka advertisement, “In An Absolut World”, hangs from a black Egyptian pyramid. Casinos fill Caesars Palace, along with countless other cultural nods: Sahara, Riviera, Venetian, Paris, Hollywood, Monte Carlo, New York, Excalibur.

This is the brilliance of Las Vegas. It is everywhere in the middle of nowhere, a purgatory that doesn’t actually exist, complete with their own colorful currency, which of course is a symbol (poker chips) of a symbol (dollars) of a symbol (gold) of True Worth. (Of course, you must decide for yourself what, if anything, true worth is.)

Well, I choose worth over poker chips and with over without. And you can keep your solar-powered stud finder, I don’t need it. And pyramids, though badass looking, are a terribly wasteful use of vertical space. And fine…squeeze that Gogurt into a bowl and we’ll talk.

A Day in the Studio

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:23:00 +0000

Merry Christmas! Also, Runners Are Kinda Like Sperm

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:16:00 +0000

So I ran my first 5K race this past Saturday evening. It was the Trail of Lights 5K here in Austin. For those of you that don't know, part of Austin's Christmastime tradition includes a "trail of lights" that winds around a large park. A mile-long path is lined with lit-up scenes both sacred and secular, sponsored by various local groups, companies and institutions. Families come to admire the lights, drink hot chocolate, and warm up next to the Yule Log (a big ass fire). It's a swell time.

A few hundred feet away is the trail's sister attraction, the Zilker Tree. This "world's tallest man-made tree" was first erected in 1967 and stands 155 feet tall. At its base, the diameter is 120 feet, which is more than enough room for people to gather and eat kettle corn.

Because of the unique spiral pattern of colored lights, one important tradition is to stand under (inside) the tree, look straight up, and spin around like crazy. It gives you a hilarious, crazy/dizzy buzz, and everyone falls down. Here's the view while spinning:

Annnnyway, so I ran a 5K (3.2 miles) that went from this big tree, around the trail of lights, and back to the big tree. I chose this one because it's one of the few races that happens in the evening, and I loathe morning runs. The distance was of no concern, my usual runs are about 4 miles, but this was my first race ever.

The problem was that the race began at 6:30 PM and I needed to be done, showered and clean, dressed and on the road by 7:30 PM for a gig that night. So timing was going to be very tight.

I planned out everything with the precision of a watchmaker. I knew transportation was going to be troublesome; roads were closed and parking was extremely limited. So I prepared a three-tiered procedure: by car, by bike, by foot. I threw a bike in the trunk, drove as close as I could get, got the bike out, biked as close as I could get, locked up the bike, and walked the rest of the way.

This is where the sex metaphor begins. At this point, you have like 5,000 people just waiting around, waiting for the race to begin, getting more and more anxious and excited. I struck up some conversation with a nice girl named Karen, a grad student at UT (I kept up with her for about the first mile, before she left me in the dust). As more and more people show up, space becomes tight and in the final few minutes, everyone is just on top of each other, bumping into one another, trying to stretch out their hammies, jumping up and down. You know, just like sperm.

The metaphor does break down momentarily, when the announcer explains that the people racing in wheelchairs will begin first, thus getting a hefty head start. Natural Selection would never be so kind.

Then comes the moment of truth. The air-horn is sounded and off we go. This is a scene that should be described by a ranting, hysterical Jack Kerouac: "And into the night, legs, arms inside around behind me, swirling the sky, churning and can't feel what you, next to me, but that these souls, crazy bumping into my chest and hands, crazy the sacred pounding feet that pound, the swinging arms that swing, and all of us together like an octopus gasp for air that hangs just above us like a vast cumulonimbus in heaven."

But really, in the moment, I was struck with the definite realization: "This is like being sperm!"

Anyway. I did really well, I think. It's technically a "fun run", so they don't gather hardcore statistics, like everyone's time or anything, but I finished in 22:15, which is like just under an average 7 minute mile. It was exhausting. I had a pretty good view of everyone ahead of me at one point, and if I had to guess, I'd say I came in about 100th place.

Right, so I come sprinting through the finish line, absolutely GASPing for air. I'm like Cramps McGee at this point. Everyone is stopping, catching their breath, slapping each other on the back, getting some water. But not me. My race isn't over. I have a gig to get to.

I don't even stop running. Seriously. I just took a sharp, right turn and kept running, down a grassy hill, slowing now to a jog, through a thicket of trees, around a fence, to my chained up bike, which I freed and immediately hopped onto. I pedaled up a hill and back onto the main path. I then had the surreal realization (surrealization?) that I was back in the race again: there were so many people there, that in the 25 or so minutes that had passed since the air horn, some people had barely had the chance to BEGIN the race.

Drenched in sweat, I biked about a mile back to my car. The cool breeze felt so good. I threw the bike in the trunk and drove home, ran through the shower, and saw that it was 7:25 PM. Perfect timing.

My Theological Worldview

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:03:00 +0000

So my friend Julie told me to take this quiz, which would analyze my spirituality, and a picture of Brian McLaren came up. Hilarious. If you weren't aware, he came to Austin to speak about his new book called Everything Must Change, and I performed a few songs to open for him. You can take the quiz here: http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=43870

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern

You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern

89%

Classical Liberal

75%

Modern Liberal

68%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

64%

Neo orthodox

54%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

39%

Reformed Evangelical

36%

Roman Catholic

32%

Fundamentalist

11%

Duckies, T-Shirts and Shows

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:30:00 +0000

Advice Advice

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 20:06:00 +0000

Part I - I get by with a little help from my friends.

I know this guy, Miles. He always seems relaxed and happy, which is surprising, because I'm pretty sure Miles is homeless...by choice. (Come to think of it, a lot of the homeless people I've ever known seem relaxed and happy -- but that's another blog for another day.) Miles plays a mean bass guitar and is generally pleasant to talk to.

So anyway, this one time I was talking to Miles and, knowing that I'm into physics, he gave me an anonymous looking DVD titled, "9/11 Mysteries Pt 1: Demolitions". I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but, open-minded guy that I am, I took it and watched it. It made a series of well-researched and surprisingly coherent arguments that the twin towers were professionally demolished.

The next time I saw Miles, I approached him and told him I had watched the DVD, and thanked him for sharing it with me. I asked him, "So, you really believe that this is true? That this kind of hidden, wide-spread evil actually exists right now in America?" And with the same relaxed, happy vibe that Miles applies to being a homeless-by-choice bass player, he said, "I do believe it's true. But you know what? It shouldn't come as a surprise. These things are the way of the world, and it's all the more reason to look to the Kingdom of Heaven."

That's the kind of statement that slips right beneath your skin and just stays there. I came back to that thought once, twice, and gradually, it became fully integrated into the way that I see the world: "It shouldn't come as a surprise. These things are the way of the world."

We seem to have a barrier, a thin, invisible barrier that we just can't tear down between big, sweeping philosophies and the nitty-gritty of our everyday lives. If we know that "hey, no one's perfect", than why are we so surprised, hurt or offended when people screw up? This concept makes gossip completely irrelevant to me. This person said that, this girl did this, can you BELIEVE that he would say that to me?! Honestly? Yes. Of course I can believe it. And furthermore, it really shouldn't come as a surprise. What did you expect? Perfection?

Maybe the tone of this sounds snide or cynical, but I don't mean it in that way. I really mean it in the most encouraging, forgiving, loving way possible. We're all flawed. I mean REALLY. And not just past tense flawed, but constantly flaw-ing, all the time. Don't throw the first stone, sure. But don't throw the first pebble either or even the first speck.

Part II - Right there with you.

I know this girl, Rina. Like one out of thirty people in this country, she lives in New York. She's gotten about as much maturity out of her 21 years as I have in my 25. Maybe part of that has to do with her time in the military, or moving around a lot. She's currently a very talented art student. For whatever reason, we find ourselves having some very stimulating, coherent conversation.

We were talking about the often augmented view that many people share about relationships, and conversely, their often diminished view of the importance of singleness. For many people, the rhetoric of "having a relationship" versus "the lack of having a relationship" eventually manifests in the hugely unbalanced (and wildly profitable) system that is our modern society (not unlike the phallocentric focus of "having a penis" versus "the lack of having a penis"). Just stand in any checkout line, anywhere. Even lighthearted views of singleness imply a fleeting pit-stop before the next relationship: single and ready to mingle!

Having this conversation with Rina helped me clarify what I already knew but couldn't articulate. That at the heart of so many peoples' struggle with shallow, cyclical companionship is a refusal to simply be alone. You really can't blame them. Once someone has experienced the overwhelming feeling of being emotionally, physically and sexually held, loved, needed, wanted and accepted, anything less can feel like pure hell. An empty void. The Lack Of. And so we'll do anything to avoid that bad feeling, or more precisely, the lack of those good feelings.

The big problem with this, other than the obvious mental trauma, is that over the course of 5 or 10 years, people who should be accumulating hobbies, experiences, knowledge, and other truly interesting personal quirks, are instead accumulating baggage. Lots and lots of baggage. In my own personal experience, this is an epidemic. It's the reason why you just don't meet that many truly, mind-blowingly amazing people, fully formed and beautifully sculpted, well-read, well-informed, wide-eyed and confident.

In the last year I've tried to really become comfortable in my situation, in this reality, to try to just let it be and not fill that hole with the next person, the next person, the next person. It's hard at first, to be lonely, but there are only so many times you can just keep going through this destructive cycle that hurts other people and yourself. And I think that I've really achieved something special. I think I really have become comfortable being myself, to the extent that even when I come across someone who is beautiful and special and a potentially amazing partner, that that person is still something outside of me, something whole in itself, not something that I crave in order to be completed. People shouldn't complete each other. People should be full, overflowing with wholeness, so that they really have something special to offer another.

Part III - Lean on me.

I have this friend, Amanda. Her friend Jack died earlier this year in a car accident. She's watched as many of her other friends have turned to binge drinking to numb the pain, which is particularly disappointing to her, as alcohol was likely involved in the crash. Amanda's lingering pain was recently compounded by a break-up. It's a time of pain and confusion. We talked about all these things over coffee.

Without some great advice from Miles, I wouldn't have been able to share with Amanda the view that her friends aren't trying to be bad people, that they're just in pain and young and foolish and beautiful and coping however they can. No one's perfect. It shouldn't come as a surprise. These things are the way of the world, and it's all the more reason to look to the Kingdom of Heaven. This helped her.

Without great conversations with Rina, I wouldn't have been able to cleanly articulate my evolving view of relationships and singleness. I offered a different path, that singleness can be something bold and valuable, exciting and practical. And it's a twofer: not only are you bettering yourself, but when you eventually find that special someone, you'll have that much more to offer them. She told me that she had been meaning to take more time to write stories. This helped her.

As we were leaving, she thanked me and told me that I had told her some pretty useful stuff. And I told her, "It's only useful if you use it."

Part IV - The Method

Speed and velocity are basically the same thing, except for one thing: as a vector quantity, velocity includes direction, whereas speed doesn't specify direction. It's kind of like knowledge and advice: much the same, but advice is a vector. It is directional knowledge, knowledge informed by its audience. In this way, it's also like art. My college art history professor used to say, "Art is not created in a vacuum." Too often we know the whats, wheres and whens of art, but not the why, the reason that the art was created, to react against something, to encourage something, to anger or please.

This is why, in my opinion, there are many less good-advice-givers out there than there are good-knowledge-havers. It's one thing to gain wisdom, but it's another to be able to pass it along. If you haven't noticed, people generally need to make their own mistakes. There is a beautiful, masochistic gravity that pulls us towards the same pitfalls that hundreds of generations have suffered before us. I don't know why.

I do know that the few people who have succeeded in elevating my understanding have done so by stooping to my level. You may, of course, attempt to let down a fishing line and pull others up with a sharp hook. Good luck with that.

Because of this, it makes sense that someone at 18 can be more easily advised by someone at 25 rather than 50, the 25 year old having recently been through similar struggles themselves. This is a familiar system, I guess. It's called "friends". And not that the 50 year old is unable to help. They are potentially the most capable, having been through a long life and seeing the entire picture. But that's very special, and very rare.

In A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren, he takes a page (or two) from the Methodist method: "...imagine a group of people ascending a mountain, each one always having someone a step above and ahead of them to emulate and follow, plus someone a step behind and below to encourage and bring upward and onward."

So thank you for the help, Miles, and thank you, Brian. Hey, Rina, what's up? Amanda, lean on me. Advice is a powerful spice; the tiniest bit goes a long, long way, and only when we're open to it can we stomach it at all. If you're open to this, please, take and enjoy. I hope I've met you where you are. And if not, cool. Have a nice day.

Steal a Base, Steal a Taco

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:28:00 +0000

So TB & MLB teamed up to make this deal: if anyone steals a base during the World Series, everyone in America gets a free taco. Tuesday, October 30th, 2-5pm, one taco per person. Pretty awesome. But how does that work, though? How will they keep track?

That's what I wanted to know. And what started as an innocent, legitimate free taco quickly escalated into a dangerous obsession. I couldn't help myself. The notion of free tacos was just too sexy to ignore. Here's my eventual quest, via Google Maps.

My grand total was 10 free tacos. 4 of those were at the same restaurant which I hit up (1) drive-thru, in a T-shirt and cap, (2) drive-thru, in a hoodie and shades, (3) in-store, in a hoodie, beanie and different shades, and (4) drive-thru, but in the passengers seat of a friend's car.

They say that nothing in life is free. And that's truer now than ever. Because although I may have gotten 10 free tacos, I paid a heavy price...in shame. And probably in weird number 2's.

Pumpkin Earth

noreply@blogger.com (DM) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:12:00 +0000

On the advice of a few friends, and because I've Googled the crap out of "pumpkin jack'o'lantern earth globe" and come up with absolutely nothing, I have decided that I may, inexplicably, be the first human being to ever make a globe from a pumpkin...which is impossible, but hey...The Google doesn't lie.

So here is an extended cut of the soon-to-be-famous fruit, with my song "Photographs" as an appropriately dark and pensive soundtrack.