December 31st, 2015.

For better or for worse I can’t turn down an interesting project, and for Thanksgiving I spend plenty of time helping Kristen’s Dad work on a four-disc CD set compiling the recordings of his piano teacher, Alexander Borovsky. It’s an interesting project but it involves a lot of Russian. Not because of deadlines. Because he was Russian. Get it?! I know – stay in Albany. Psh.

I haven’t been writing a lot. I suppose that’s okay. 2015 has been a great year personally, but a really rough one for the world, and I think I’d grown tired of writing political rants and theoretical ramblings. If I have readers, dear readers, I’m sure you are sick of reading them. I’m frustrated with the world, with the country, with my race – with my species.

But it’s been a good year for me, for my band. Our bandkids grow steadily and are healthy and happy. Lex and Ella are rambunctious and chaotic and beautiful kids. My ACTUAL familial nephews, Max and Ike, I know less about. My brother is a fifteen hundred miles away and distance breeds… distance. Kristen and I are happy. Rowan is happy, Sharif has a new job and is happy, Heather is making claims to being the happiest she’s ever been. We’re happy.

I know, I know – ANOTHER picture from Teavolve in Baltimore, MD – however THIS one has nothing to do with my open mic! It’s a celebration of Teavolve! The three artists that have been involved with Teavolve the longest are Nellie’s Echo (standing – he was the first artist to play Teavolve), Mosno (playing djembe) and myself (behind Nellie). Adding Kristen for the ride we did a surprise 10 year anniversary show for Del and Sunni (the owners). We had a fantastic time – possibly the most fun I’ve had on stage in a LONG time simply because it was so out of the box. We did it “Nashville” style, going round and round and round, sitting in on one another’s songs and just having a great time. It was SO good we’ll probably have to do it again! November 27th, 2015.

It’s just the world around us that’s filled with EXTREME weather and daily mass shootings and lowest-common-denominator politics, racism, hatred and war. Cold war even. Growing up in the 80s, the greatest optimism of the 90s was that the existential threat of nuclear war was over, and yet it comes creeping back over us as we find excuses to spar with Russia and insult China – even as the polar ice caps melt and coastal cities flood and the Mississippi rages and … and I watch the news and think “is it finally here?”

I have faith that my species will take climate change on the chin. It’ll knock us dizzy when it is finally recognized and we’ll spend a LOT more money surviving it than we could’ve spent avoiding it, but I have faith that my species will persevere. Eventually. We’ve got to get through all the denial and then the blame and then eventually some country or another will actually get down to business (oh, and what GOOD business it will be!) shoring up the cities and moving populations. Once the biggest corporations snap up all the construction companies we’ll get into full swing, because finally the right people will be able to get rich doing something about it.

But again – 2015 has been good for me, for us – and 2016 looks bright. Right?

November 28th, 2015… I added this in the Great Journal Migration – this appears to be a PLOJ, but there’s no mention of it in the Old Journal…

On December 2nd Kristen and I joined Joey at Villain and Saint’s open mic cause we could! Happy accidents – met a bunch of great players AND ran across the booker who’d I’d been having a LOT of trouble getting a hold of – and locked in another date at this wonderful Bethesda, MD venue!

I’m sitting in a hotel in Winchester, VA. It’s pretty in a silly kind of way. A lot of right angles and slightly off-set linear motifs remind me of those optimistic 90s. A lot of slightly muted rainbowed stripes that imply open-minded corporate design and ugly multi-channel input blocks on the desks that almost signal forward-thinking connectivity. Pseudo-retro phones and lamps, hip paintings of 60’s musical icons on the walls, a slightly smaller-than-regulation pool table and a slightly-smaller-than-Olympic size swimming pool – it’s definitely the sort of place designed by … designers… but not designed by hotel designers. A lot of hip fabrics and hip textures, hip lines and hip surfaces only slightly marred by the fact that they’re… well… marred!

Everything’s been clearly chosen for the way it looked, but nothing seems to have been chosen for the way it looks now. The very cool, dry-brush-looking wallpaper shows tons of scrapes and scratches from the inevitable contacts betwixt the metal chair and the walls. The exciting mirrored surfaces and big and beautiful, but it looks like the cleaning staff are either uninspired or perhaps… frankly… short. Everywhere there are signs of wearing, and not wearing well and I think I’d go easier on the aesthetic as a whole if it wasn’t for the verbiage in the pamphlet in our room : “Designed for global travelers who love open spaces, open thinking and open expression, this is where travel creates possibilities. Where style is necessary. Connectivity keeps up with you. Social scenes are vibrant. And the only direction is forward. This is Aloft Hotels. Different. By design.” It’s like the worst kind of Hipster Grope I’ve ever seen, courtesy of Sheraton.

*Heather and after our show at Firestone’s Culinary Tavern in Frederick, MD on December 3rd, 2015. It’s our annual “gosh this town has its faults but DAMN they do Christmas right!” celebration!*

Went to get the Christmas tree today. It was the first time having Mosno go with us – and his first time ever going to find a Christmas tree! Yeah Muslims and atheists celebrating Christmas together with pagan traditions! So we dressed it up with Batman toys, Muppets, Krampuses, Star Wars peeps, dinosaurs and whatnot and generally though “job well done!” January 6th, 2015

I think that’s maybe a term I’m going to try to get out there. Hipster Grope : “when a corporation blatantly courts a particular social set through superficial appropriation.” Something like that. Needs work. Maybe I’ll use the excessively design-laden yet-cheap pencil and work it out on a napkin at the WXYZ club downstairs. Except they’ll probably have cloth napkins. And there will probably be a DJ because it’s New Year’s Eve.

Ugh. Sorry. 2015! Good! 2016! Better.

But bloody Hell, the notepad has so many block design elements on it that it looks like it’s been pre-redacted for my convenience.

Enough out of me. This didn’t sound the way I meant it to sound. It’s the danger of being honest!

And did I mention the locks? The not-chain-lock thingie is really cool, but it’s metal against metal and of COURSE it’s going to get all scratched up if someone forgets to unlock it!