Dickheads

   
      Dickhead #1
      I was at a red light. It turned green. I didn't even have time to take my foot off the break when the car behind me honked his horn. 
      What a dick!
      I made a left turn onto a one lane street. The car behind me was following real close. I made the slowest left turn I ever made in my life, and proceded to drive like a confused grandfather. The driver behind me was at my mercy. I had complete control of him. Sucker!
      The world is full of dickheads. I'm one of them. But I'm not a true dickhead because I'll admit that I'm a dickhead. A true dickhead has no idea he's a dickhead, or if has an idea, but he won't acknowledge it, or he'll blame someone else for it.
      Dickhead #2 
      I was standing in line waiting to order the Wednesday special. Fish tacos, $1.29 each, when a young man walked up to me. He got right in my face and said, "hey, give me a dollar."
      I said to him, "I don't have a dollar." Which was true, I had twenty dollars. This kid had a tattoo on his face and was thinking he was pretty tough. He was staring me down, looking at me right in the eye. My inner dickhead kicked in and I was holding my ground, staring at him just as hard.
       He said, "you didn't even look in your pocket."
       "I know what I have, I don't need to explain to you," I said.
       "Alright, alright," he said and walked off in a huff. He was holding his phone in one hand. His phone looked a lot nicer than mine. 
       
    

Sequoia

      I spent a few days in Sequoia recording songs. I brought my laptop, guitars, mic stands, and mics with me and set up shop. I have a friend who owns a cabin up there. The cabin is in the middle of nowhere away from people and lights. It's real quiet, but for the birds. There were beautiful trees at every turn. They were barren from autumn, and their sparseness gave the place an eerie feeling.
      I'd wake up early in the morning and start in on the work. There was nobody around, so I didn't have to worry about making too much noise. I'd work all day and go to bed early. There wasn't a television or wi-fi, so I read 1Q84 by Murakami to entertain myself and passed out by nine-thirty. I'd wake up at six or so in the morning and start the routine all over again.
      I had planned to finish eight or nine songs while I was there, but I only finished the rough tracks to three. It always takes longer than expected, finding the right sound, and playing the song with out making any mistakes. I don't like to cut and paste tracks if I can avoid it. It took me half a day to figure out I was playing a song at the wrong tempo. I was having trouble playing the song in time, and couldn't figure out why. It was one beat per second too slow. That one beat made all the difference in the world. It's the natural rhythm of things. Don't butt heads with the natural rhythm of things. It makes life one beat per second harder than it needs to be. 

U-turns

      I yanked a U-turn from the curb and almost got T-boned. It might have been my fault. It was night and I didn't see any headlights behind me, probably cause I never turned my head to look, and yanked it. I was lucky not to get hit. A car jammed on his breaks and managed to stop in time. The driver laid on the horn pretty good. He was mad.
      When I got home I thought about what had happened. I needed to be more careful. I was sure the driver in the other car was telling the story to somebody and still mad about it. "And then this Armenian guy yanked a U-turn from the curb right in front of me!" 
      When you're driving in Glendale, Armenians get blamed for everything. 

Man The Invention

   
      I caught a cold. That's something. I'm getting ready to record a bunch of acoustic songs at a friend's ranch near Sequoia. It's gonna be just me and my guitars for a couple of days. I'm starting to think about fire wood and food. What kind of food should I take? 
      Oh yeah, I finished my album, Solar Road. It's on Bandcamp under The Glen Livers. I need to promote it better, but I'd rather work on my art. I got the book to edit, and songs to write, and a crapper to build. Life is good when the mind is active. My problem is, I'm scattered. There are so many interesting things to learn about. Old songs, and AI, and crypto-currency, and good bots and bad bots, and block chains. The world's economy is changing right before our eyes and it has little to do with man force, or everything to do with it. I'm not sure what's going to happen. Greed probably. A different kind of greed, but greed nevertheless. 

Flying Matresses

      I figured out why mattresses and seat cushions fly out of trucks on the freeway. It's because they know they're going to a home with a cat. Or worse yet, cats. And the thought of the impending torture is too much for them. So they panic and let the wind hit their sails and fly away.
      I'm not sure if they think it all the way through though. The chances of getting hit by a car on the freeway are pretty good. But it must be worth the risk. Death by a car, or a lifetime of claw scratches. That's a tough one. Either way I could understand their concern. 
      If they're lucky the cat will use the couch as a scratching post, but then the mattress or seat cushion will have to listen to the couch's cries for help and agony. And that's no way to live. So it makes sense to jump out of the truck while you have the chance. 
      It took me years to figure this out, but if anybody out there has a question or problem that needs solving let me know. Sooner or later I'll come up with the answer. 

Manson

On Charles Manson: he gave hippies a bad name. 

The Show Must Go On

      I have a show with The Glen Livers on Monday at the historic Dresden Room. It's an LA institution. I've been trying for weeks not to get sick. It seems everyone around me has been sick with a cough or a cold, and as the singer of the band I can't let that happen.
      My body was starting to feel achy yesterday, so I shut it down and came home early from a party to go to bed. I've been taking mega-doses of vitamin C and eating turmeric, ginger, and habenro chilies, and drinking lemon tea with honey and cayenne pepper. I took an ibu yesterday when I started to feel achy. I feel pretty good today, but I do have some phlegm in my throat. Any variance in the throat can make a huge difference in the tone and quality of my singing. 
      My gut says my voice isn't going to be at its best, but at least I don't have a sore throat or a cough. I'll have to fight through it somehow, and sing the best I can with what I got.