As cool as it looks

5:30pm: Leave work, walk to subway, ride train to Astoria, walk to apartment

6:15pm: Shower, dinner-standing-up, vocal warm up, drumming warm up, grab all the equipment you need

7:30pm: load the car and drive to venue

8:15pm: arrive at venue, mingle and waste time

And then 9:00pm rolls around and the place blows up. I am convinced, although I've never seen it, that a performer could shit on a plate and throw it across the room so long as he or she engaged the audience, played with honesty and bridged the gap by communicating and creating a bond. But with music, more specifically with drumming, the enjoyment is felt on a sub-human level. Rats in the walls stop and wait while their whiskers glisten with vibrations. The clothes are just the car body, plastic and somewhat unimportant compared to the engine beneath. The lyrics and melody and rhythm are candles on the cake. The real magic, the cool, is all subtext.

Honesty is probably a performers greatest source of strength. Like all balancing forces of nature, honesty makes you vulnerable. The key to remember is that even if they can't express it in words, the audience knows who and what you are beneath all the layers you try to cake on. By actively shedding the layers, you're only complementing them, assuring them that you don't think they're stupid. So be honest, smile and be sure to drink plenty of water. Performing on a stage is as cool as it looks.

Five Minutes (or CHUG)

I want to be a famous, world-renowned, feared, admired, love-hated Rock Star. Huge white lights like a thousand suns burning the skin on my thin face as I scream lyrics, misting the microphone with hot, rock-star breath! I want an enormous video screen blasting my sweating, angst-crossed body surrounded by fireworks and pyrotechnics and delirious fans. Maybe I wasn't given enough love as a child. I want to be Phil Collins. Apparently, he doesn't do any drugs and is a pleasure to work with. That sounds wonderful to me.

How to do it, how to do it, how to do it...

Hmmmm. The wind-up makes good music, is received well by fans and friends, but it's taking forever to finish an album and move on to whatever is next. Speaking of which, what is next? Should we play in other cities? And how do we sell our album? And how do we get more people to hear it? Okay, I've made a decision: I'm out of the band! Off to pursue my solo career just like Sir Collins. Glorious Phil with his adult easy-listening and bizarre voice and "Taaaaaaake, take me hoommmmme. CAUSE I DON'T REMEMBAH!!!"

Your goal can't be to become famous. Nobody likes those assholes. Since the Kardashians and Paris Hiltons won't read this, they won't mind if I use them as examples. Oh, and the family who lied about their kid going up in a balloon. And serial killers. All of the above wanted to be famous and either filmed themselves having sex (camera ads ten pounds and I'm too self-conscious), lied to the press (don't have a balloon or children), or killed many, many people (wouldn't want to put my mother through the stress of finding out her son is a psychopath).

So if the goal isn't to become famous, I'll just sit here and work and do things for the wind-up. I've decided to rejoin the band and go on a reunion tour. Our first and last stop will most likely be Arlene's Grocery. Maybe Japan. From now on, you can call me Chug. Or, if you prefer the German pronounciation: "Chooog"

The Big Club

The next time she goes on a plane, I’ll be sitting next to her. The last time we flew together was in 2005 coming home from Ghana for the first time. We wrote notes to each other saying we’d give it a try. That was back when “a try” meant a few months. Now, as years buzz like the last few seconds on a toaster oven, “a try” could be a decade. That plane ride from Ghana was so long ago that it feels like a different relationship. It’s hard to imagine not knowing the person coming home tomorrow. Like standing on the beach with waves carving your feet into the sand: after a little while, you’re so sunk in that you might have always been there, staring out at the salty green heaven in front of you.

The Harvest of Love (revisited & clarified)

I really like the Decemberists, "Hazards of Love." I think I'm the only one (outside of the hardcore fans). That's alright though; it's got some great moments. When I listen to the album, I hear the feelings they had as they battled for their goals: happy when they reached them but sad as they had to let great ideas go. Sometimes it's not about the crops, it's about the harvest.

Band practice the other night was really amazing. We were going at it until almost 1:00 a.m. in MJ and Rob's apartment. No instruments - we didn't write any new music - just pizza, Bud Light, and conversation.

I have to call Billy Stratton today on my drive up to camp - he can explain to me the fostering of an independant spirit and how it relates to Motorcycles.

Ilana comes home in about four weeks but Faf will be gone when I get back.

Sometimes it's not about the crops, it's about the harvest.

Into the Hornet's Nest with 'Alphabet'

I think a big part of why we're all so upset about being 25 and not knowing what to do is because there seem to be other people who have it all figured out, are happy all the time, and don't worry about this stuff. Mostly, these people are older. That should be enough to arrest us out of angst but it's not so we'll press on. New York could be a hornets nest, obviously. Or life after College. Or a band. Really, anything interesting and dangerous is a hornets nest. And that's everything worth doing. Is it strange that sometimes I envy Elphaba (the dog)?

My friend Evan says that I, like most people, am afraid of change. He's right, and not in a bad way or anything. Once you set up systems for yourself that you can fall back on - a job, a relationship, an apartment, roommates - abandoning those systems leave you open to all sorts of trouble. And lets get something clear: a well taken care of dog is an obvlivious rich kid. Take all the risks you want and someone will clean the skunk off of you. So how do you stick your muzzle into the nest unafraid of getting stung to shit?

Le'ts all do that thing where we sniff really quickly inoutinoutinout and then let out a big HHhhhhhnnnnnnn! and resume the inoutinoutinout. Cause that's how dogs start. I'll abstain from making a list of my findings (the things I'm happy and sad about in my life). Besides, this list is unimportant, irrelevant. It's not the specifics of the hornets nest, it's the fearless, happy attitude about exploration. Elphaba is constantly in a state of play. Everything is playtime. And why wouldn't it be? Eating, sleeping, running, jumping, sleeping, tug-of-war, fetch, car rides and sleeping are all so much fun!

So we've got two things to focus on that I bet will make life at 25 a whole lot easier:

1) You have to be fearless when it comes to change. New car? New job? New city? Great. Take a walk, smell someone else's ass, and go to sleep. It'll be a blast.

2) You have to balance the weight of detractors with the weight of reinforcements. For example, if you're going to be upset about going to work five mornings a week looking for a new job, then you have to be equally happy about sleeping in and watching a football game (or movie or hiking or Civil War reenactments) with your buddies on the weekend. In other words, if you're owner makes you hunt with him all day, make sure you catch a pleasant nap on the living room floor that night.

That's really it, as far I can tell right now. Besides, those two are pretty hard without having anything else to do. Happy and fearless. Happy about the good things and fearless about changing the bad things.

Hush

It's one of those things that no one warns you about: how cold it gets when the window shade is a damp towell hugging chipped paint with duct tape and cigarette ash.

Through a mask of hazelnut and hope, you walk like a zombie to the yellow brick N-train surrounded by people who share your boxed wine dreams.

(wake up, please)

Your best friends cost ten dollars and die between your fingers while you feed the murderer with complacent lighter fluid and mediocrity. Trade your secure top bunk for a pillow top with a phone bill and credit card debt. Ain't the internet grand?

(please, please wake up)

How many bookcases do you need? How many socks? How many flat tires to fix when the bike shop doesn't open. Walk across the bridge just to find out the cheerleader has run off with the asshole beneath the laughing cow suit? Really?

(oh god oh god, please help me wake up)

Shhhh. Hush now. It's just the highway you hear. But it runs all time and it's soooo loud! It's just a dream, Jimmy, go back to sleep. It's not a dream, I saw him, he was driving his car too close - I saw him!! Shhhh. Hush.