May 23rd, 2008.

It’s a beautiful day to sit and type on the porch at Perk. I have good company and someone’s playing guitar and he’s got a Lovely voice. A Perk regular who I’ve never heard sing. I’m trying to convince him that I’ve practically come out here to listen to him, but he’s gotten self-conscious and stopped. A weird kind of flattery.

I’m actually in a pretty good mood, a welcome change. Life is. if not stable or necessarily all that full of adventure and excitement. running. There’s something to be said for that. My open mic is full to overflowing and we’ll be moving to a new night soon which will allow for later hours, my songwriting is kind of stalled but in that weird place where you’re full of ideas and just feel like if I had a LITTLE bit of time sitting still something would just crystallize – and maybe 3-4-5 somethings. the weather outside’s delightful and even I can find some joy in cool breezes and sunshine. Grass and glass glittering, we take our beauty where we find it.

Sitting, watching the traffic of Route 1, clogged like some McDonaldvore’s arteries, growling and emitting. On the news today I listened to people bitch about this and gripe about that and I heard the horrible news that a drunk driver, after crashing and killing his girlfriend’s kid, hid the body in the trunk and was drinking vodka when the cops showed up. He’s being charged with his third DUI and some other miscellaneous charges of no real consequence. How you get past your first DUI and are still allowed a license or don’t have a breathalyzer installed in your car I don’t know. How you hit your second one and aren’t doing time in house arrest with departures only allowed to get you to and from your mandatory alcohol treatment program I don’t understand. The fascist in me is upset that when you’re IDed there’s no automatic flag and that there’s no such alarm hooked to your credit card. How he’s not now being charged with second degree murder at the LEAST plus whatever charges apply to trying to hide the crime, I have no clue.

I know, I know, I know. how would we pay for ANYTHING if all the tax dollars that came in from alcohol sales were curtailed by actually GOING AFTER alcoholics?!!? I don’t have an answer for that either – and I’m sure that in the long run, the court costs, the jail time, the injuries and funeral costs as well as the inflated costs of insurance and anti-drug abuse programs are a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money taken in by drug sales in the US. And by “drug sales” I’m referring to our nationally subsidized and approved-of addictive habits of alcohol and tobacco. At least the latter doesn’t cause kids to get expelled from their high schools on prom night of their senior year and doesn’t bring about 50% of every year’s fatal traffic accidents.

Whatever – I’m off my soap box. NOW!

It’s a beautiful day and I’ve been lead astray by my angers and whims.

Last weekend Heather and I took the Metro downtown to play Artomatic. It’s a very cool, 10 story art show that I’ve known about for many a year, but have never managed to go to. It’s how we get exposed to a lot of cool things that we’ve always wanted to attend – we get booked at them. Heather and I, however, are sort of more used to stealth venues – shows that require us to get directions ahead of time, shows that require a little bit of research, the challenge of the hunt. Taking the Metro rather than driving was a last-minute decision and I didn’t have the Metro station written down. I didn’t really realize this until we were well underground, but fortunately, after a moment’s panic, it turned out there was a huge poster for the event (and it’s Metro stop) behind my head on the train. When we got off at the station, worried about which direction to head, I spent a lot of time staring at a map until Chris, Joylene AND Heather all noticed the gigantic sign plus arrow. behind me. And then when trying to track down the building itself of course it happened to have 10 foot letters up the whole side of the place. Yeah, poor rob and his lack of noting the real-freakin-obvious.

The show itself was sadly under-populated but quite worthwhile. Afterwards we got to run around the art with Chris and Joylene of the Honest Mistakes. Definitely worth checking out. Especially the Peeps on the 10th Floor. Almost TOO much fun.

Tonight we played another SAW showcase, this time at the Oneness School in an old Episcopal church in Bethesda, MD. A number of really good performances, including my reintroduction to the music of Jason Greenwalt who I hadn’t seen play since I used to play with Audrey back at Java Head. In between acts a friend and I ran around inside the church, discovering some beautiful nooks and crannies. It’s been a long time since I got to simply explore in an old building like that. I think I might be needing more adventure.. Hrm. guess it’s at LEAST time to go see how the Seminary is coming along.