we came home so I could play a gig at Teavolve with one of my favourite local guitarists : Quinton Randall! T’was very, very fun to jam together. Shame more people weren’t there. But let’s not talk about that right now. The MUSIC was great!
random toad because I do Love the toads…
I often try the mental exercise of placing myself in my father’s shoes. Not literally (well, when I was a kid I certainly did, swiping a pair of my dad’s loafers from his bedroom closet and clomping down the hallway) – not really even his place in Life (I have no real interest in visualizing myself as a NASA optical physicist with two kids) – but really just, trying to remember what he acted like at a particular age.
Lynn Verroneau of the band Verroneau was in her capacity as a dj and radio personality at the studios of WERA in Arlington, VA when she spied Kristen’s Boba Fett purse. We managed to keep her from making off with it but it was a close thing.It’s Thursday June 30th – Heather is in Reno, NV and Villain and Saint and my proposal to Kristen are all yet in the future – our friend Susan flew in yesterday in time for us to go catch Anthem Electric Quartet at New Deal Cafe, and this morning we’ve gotten up and driven to Arlington to be interviewed on the new community radio station there, WERA. I didn’t realize Lynn was part of it till the last second, and though we’d rolled in to mostly chat about our upcoming gig we ended up talking a LOT more about art and its place in the world. It was a great interview. Bonus : I’d forgotten how GOOD “Another Life” was!
Kristen and Susan overlooking the Potomac on the outskirts of Washington, DC.
It’s 2016. I’m 41 years old. When my dad was 41 years old I was 11, in fifth grade. What do I remember my dad acting like when I was in fifth grade? Proud of me. Stern at times. Sarcastic about Star Trek and Star Wars. It’s the year the Challenger exploded – a particular blow to any family related to the space program. Terrorism was a huge deal in Libya and Pakistan – and Ireland – cartoons even made fun of it (though I didn’t get it at the time, Transformers and GI Joe both had reference to the fictional Middle Eastern country of Carbombya), though there were breakthroughs in nuclear arms talks on the TV I certainly didn’t understand what was really going on and then Chernobyl exploded… it was the year that Halley’s Comet came through and I remember going to Goddard Space Flight Center to look through the telescopes there with my dad and probably Cyrus’ dad and Alan Williams, whose evil twin I would meet some 25 years later…
A favourite spot, with Sue in tow we swing over to Marc Evans’ fantastic Acoustic Soul open mic at Peace and a Cup of Joe in Baltimore, MD.After modeling Kristen’s new Lulu’s Fate shirts for the internet, my nipples became the subject of much comment. I Photoshopped them out, much to the chagrin of the internet community, who immediately retaliated en masse. It was a bit odd. Just fyi : the shirt’s designed by Amy Law and the tapestry behind me, Will Schaff!
This morning I got up grudgingly at 10am. In another couple of minutes I’ll be recording drums in my Living room. I made toast for breakfast. My dad would’ve gotten up probably about 2 hours ago and either walked (that was probably a couple of years ago) or more likely driven (it’s a hot, sunny day – so probably in his Austin Healey) to Goddard where he was still an optical physicist, not yet an administrator. Maybe working on GOES? Not yet working on the corrective optics for Hubble I suppose. He and my mom would’ve been married for longer than me and Kristen have known one another – and this week she and I just got engaged.
I try it in reverse sometimes too. Can I imagine having an 11 year-old right now? Probably moderately spoiled (though he didn’t know it) – obsessed with Transformers and space ships, drawing. Very proud that my sons are now both in the Talented And Gifted Programs and Glenarden Elementary school, even if that DOES mean now they’re bussing for half an hour every morning instead of walking the two blocks to Gaywood – undermining one of the reasons we bought this house – and speaking of undermining, I’d be preoccupied with my sinking house, built in the ex-swamps of Seabrook, MD.
ilyAIMY setting up, sound checking and then playing at Villain and Saint in Bethesda, MD.For our Villain and Saint show on July 2nd, many things didn’t go as planned, but the show itself was amazing. Heather had just flown back from Reno, NV… and with the idea that we might need to buy some downtime, plus since it hasn’t for a LONG time – we stepped aside to get some IO on the stage!At the end of IO’s set I got to do something I’d never done before : play cajon on stage. IO invited me up to play percussion for their rendition of “Sober” – above, Heather turning around and realizing I’m about to play drums!So – the show at Villain and Saint on July 2nd was awesome. We were ON and passionate and on fire and relaxed and had a great time. But the lead up to it was pretty painful, with the venue going from difficult to contact to kind of incompetent to downright shady. I have a whole write up on it if you’re REALLY interested, but long-story-short – after taking almost 6 months to set up a show, over the course of the NEXT 6 months (started bugging them summer of last year, booked the show in December for this July…) they were slow with details, then changed those details with the contract, and then 4 weeks out from the show tossed the contract and put in some really underhanded fine print. As I argued with the manager that night after the show she laid out all their reasoning – basically their booking guy had been hiring acts with no draw and acts that violated their contracts and acts that didn’t show up on time – so rather than learn the lesson of hiring more professional acts they learned the lesson of a) musicians don’t take contracts seriously, b) will lie about their draw and c) as visible above, maybe it’s just easier to hire cover acts. Wrong lessons guys. Wrong lessons.
I’ll probably run around in circles a couple of times today. I’ll probably curse a fair amount. I’ll go to a bar tonight and play some music with friends. I’ve read the news, caught up on emails and tonight I’ll probably unwind by watching re-runs of Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) – and maybe a Young Justice cartoon. If I was 11, my dad would’ve read the newspaper and I might’ve read the comics, my dad would’ve gotten the very first emails while still relying heavily on the inter-office vacuum tubes, and I might’ve caught re-runs of Battlestar Galactica (1978-1980) and on Saturday morning watched the Justice League.
Very early on the morning of July 3rd I asked Kristen Jones for her hand in marriage. And the rest of her too – I had an artist in Pennsylvania make her this beautiful maple and silver ring (maple cause cello) – and she happily said yes! And after 8 years of being together, didn’t even say “FINALLY!!!
Oh yeah, and I proposed to Kristen Jones late Saturday night / early Sunday morning. I’d been looking for the perfect moment, carrying the ring around with me for a couple of weeks. I got tired of waiting. Mischief managed! I believe my Dad proposed to my mom when they were in their late 20s. On a rock. In a rambly kind of way. After getting lost for a while. Similarities and differences.
