Monday, October 23, 2006

monday lunchtime ramblings

this weekend we had a stomach bug that curtailed our scheduled extra-apartment activities. lexi wasn't feeling well, and i stayed in to take care of her (while all the while being anxious about my own potential for getting sick). never fun. lexi's feeling much better now, though, so that's good, and i ended up fine myself.

for a bit it seemed as if the dinner i cooked friday night (nothing impressive -- just fish sticks, nachos and spinach & cheese pizza*) might have been the culprit, which had me on edge for two reasons:

1) i ate it, too, which would mean that, were it the food, i'd definitely get it, too.

2) i rarely handle the cooking duties. it'd be a shame to have such an instance dissuade me from further culinary adventures.

* goddamn, what a chef i am! seriously, though, i can cook more advanced stuff than that. as a matter of fact, i'm capable of cooking a couple of ridiculously tasty Ethiopian dishes courtesy of my lovely ex-girlfriend hilina. lexi usually handles the cooking duties for our household because she loves to cook and is unfathomably more creative in the kitchen than i.

******

anyway, gastrointestinal distress aside, it was a good weekend. i did a little bit of writing, composed and recorded a new track with an eye on a documentary in production, etc. despite feeling terribly groggy and out of sorts saturday, i managed to be somewhat productive, finding a path from inspiration/ idea to final mix in a matter of an hour and a half for one piece of music. came out pretty good, too.

it's really just so. freakin'. nice to be merely working in the studio of late. after a couple of years of predominantly running mentally from gig to gig, learning these tunes for that band and those tunes for this band, etc., i'm getting to figure out what music is in my head right now. i get to come home and pick up whichever instrument strikes me at the moment, and i get to take my time and explore. haven't had nearly enough of that time for way too long, and i really need it for my sanity.

granted, it is a great deal of fun to get to play with the people i'm extremely fortunate enough to play with. but in each of those groups, i'm playing what they want to play -- it's their gig! after some time away from what's playing in your own head and trying to make it exist outside of your head, you start getting a little nutty and desperate to get back to that.

at least i do.

so that's where i find myself these days, though it's counterbalanced with the weight of composition for film/ tv, which i'm trying to do a lot more of. the thing i enjoy about that is that i have this external impetus pushing me to explore sonic and musical elements i may not have otherwise found myself exploring.

also watched the world series goings-on over the weekend. how about that kenny rogers? i don't think there was anything up with what was on his pitching hand in the first inning of game 2. besides, he kicked ass wholly and completely subsequent to the the first inning. and this was a continuance of his last two pitching performances (unmarred by speculation as they were) to bring him to 23 consecutive scoreless innings pitched in the postseason. twenty-three! i was just reading today that the only streak longer than that was christy mathewson's 27 consecutive scoreless postseason innings in 1905(!!), during which he pitched three consecutive complete game shutouts.

now that's impressive.

i hope the speculation of what was on his hand in one inning out of those 23 doesn't stain what has been an outstanding postseason so far for mr. kenny rogers. i'm psyched for him that he's pulling this kind of intensity out and extracting such an historical performance from himself.

Friday, October 20, 2006

project runway finale!

okay, it's taken me a couple of days to get to it, but i've got to write about the Project Runway Finale!

Jeffrey won!!

in the weeks leading up to the finale, i was convinced that michael would pull it all off. he's got a great sense of style and fashion and has some interesting ideas. ultimately, though, the runway show proved to be his downfall for the time. it's like he's fine with single designs and can really make them vibrate with a great energy, but, when faced with doing numerous designs that each vibrate with the same energy in different ways, he just couldn't make it fly. but that will come with experience, and now he's got some of that experience. he'll make it work in the future, and he'll keep growing.

uli, in the weeks leading up to the finale, had me thinking she was too one-dimensional (although maybe i was brainwashed by the judges, me being as fashion-clueless as i am) to pull off a win. nothing was wrong with anything she'd done, but nothing was like "wow!!" well, until the final four was supposed to become a final three. she seemed to be the one most likely to be eliminated, but her last minute reworking of her dress (literally in the last five hours before judging!) blew everyone else's work away. i'm convinced that her upset there was the reason they retained a final four, as i think the judges were expecting her to be the eliminated designer, leaving jeffrey, michael and laura to duke it out on the runway.

but damn! her collection, while in keeping with her warm-weather designs and caribbean influences, was broader in scope than i think anyone was expecting and contained a lot of lovely and exciting touches. after seeing each of the final four collections, i was convinced it was either her or jeffrey.

laura's work was fabulous and interesting but just seemed to lack a level of scope, almost as if each design was merely another exploration of the possibilities of formal evening wear. nothing wrong with that by any stretch, except inasmuch as the collection was, i think, meant to be something more expansive than that.

as an aside, i think laura is the one that least needed to win in order to have a shot at making it with her own line. did you see her house? in new york? they've got money, obviously, and haven't any need to be concerned about how to break her into the field. she will be able to translate her experience and exposure on the show into opportunities, and i expect that her family finances will be able to support her endeavors just fine. but that is neither here nor there.

jeffrey's design work was amazing and the execution was flawless. i think he earned the win fully. and while he can come off objectionable personally, i think he's got a good heart and good intentions. and i think i'd wear some of his stuff (not the dresses), though i think his name has now priced them well out of my financial means.

i'm going to miss my wednesday dates with mr. tim gunn. *swoon* ;-)

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

october boston walkabout (with a few photos)

today, despite some early showers, turned out to be a lovely day in boston. i took my lunch break walking down to the public gardens, armed with a few (unsalted!) peanuts for any squirrels i might find on the excursion. i can almost always get their attention, and some have followed me some way along the trails in the park. so why not be able to at least offer something besides some goofy looking guy calling you over only to go "what? i don't have anything for you."

but they were happy to see me.



and they were happy to come up close to get a peanut.



one actually stood up straight just under my hand. i dropped the peanut lightly into his outstretched arms, and he easily caught it and scampered a few feet before setting out to enjoy it. this one took his up onto a relatively low branch to relax and dine.



but easily one of the biggest surprises was yet to come. i pondered my directionality -- right, into the common, or left, back through the other side of the gardens -- and opted for more of the gardens. shortly along the path, i noticed a couple looking up into a tree, pointing and aiming a camera upward. as i approached closer, i quickly saw the impressive sight they'd found.



holy crap! it's a freakin' hawk! a little sleuthing on the part of lexi and myself led us to believe it's a red-tailed hawk! let me know if you know us to be right or not!

more pictures posted on my site right here.

right now we're alternating between the project runway finale and the NLCS. holy crazy tv, batman!

Friday, October 13, 2006

mouse mouse

the other evening i'm working in the studio, just home from work, and i hear this loud rustling in the kitchen. starting and stopping, starting and stopping. i snuck over there all quiet and stealthy and localize the sound to be coming right behind the fridge.

the mouse is back, and it sounds like he's trying to chew through the wall or something. last week, he was moving about through the stove (not the cooking part, but within the frame of the appliance) to my annoyance. we'd picked up these mousetraps some time ago in order to rid the place of the one or two little guys that we'd been sharing the apartment with. the nice thing about these traps is they're black boxes with the trap inside, so you get to keep a little distance between you and your little friend.

anyway, the trap was sitting nearby, between the trash can and the fridge, already triggered (accidently by lexi) and as such harmless. still being quiet (and thusly still hearing occasional gnawing from behind the fridge), i grabbed the trap, opened it up, put a little Jif peanut butter in the bait cup and stood there. "do i set it and place it?" i knew it was a sure thing and that it was sure to be quick. he was right there. i'd be placing a trap, tantalizingly furnished with peanut butter, within a foot of where the prey was hiding. because of this lack of distance -- no placing the trap, leaving, and coming back later to find, yes, it's been set off -- i gave pause before finally setting the trap.

i bent over and, still being terribly quiet, the stealth hunter i am, i reached down with the trap, placed it on the floor and started sliding it carefully toward the gap between the wall and the fridge when...

SNAP!!

crap. i knew it would be quick, but my hand was still right by it! was it legit? did i inadvertantly trigger it? the gnawing had stopped, but that could've been just 'cause of the loud sound. a quick look through a crack of the trap with a flashlight showed nothing in residence, so i once again set the trap, now already in place, and wandered away back to the studio.

after a few minutes -- about what i expected -- another SNAP comes from the kitchen. this one is followed by the soft sounds of little mouse feet sliding repeatedly along the inside of the trap, the vain attempts of the mortally wounded and captured to get away and back to safety. no peeps or squeaks or anything. the "death throes," as lexi put it, didn't last long and the kitchen was once again silent.

neither of us had the heart (or stomach) to open the trap casing and have a look -- just seeing the lifeless tail hanging out of the one-way door made me feel bummed -- and so lexi wrapped up the trap in a plastic bag and i toted it out to the dumpster.

so long, topo! and sorry.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

organization is good

this past weekend i spent a good chunk of time just carefully going through and reorganizing the surprisingly large amount of music i've recorded since january. much of it is incomplete, so it was one of those things where i designate a few new boxes to place things in after assessment. the "good" stuff that i have to finish up, the stuff that is too unbaked to assess, the stuff that's finished, etc.

it was actually a rather exciting process, considering that it's really just cleaning and organizing (two things i'm not overly adept at). i was happily surprised at how many song ideas and musical fragments conveyed an image of a finished work and also sounded good. may be closer to a finished new record than i thought. also surprising was the number of songs that i had forgotten about. now i just have to finish them up! easy!

otherwise, i've been writing and recording for film/ tv stuff, picked up a new book on zen buddhism, and had dinner and went bowling sunday night with lexi, jennifer, munk and munk's very cool son trey. he and i raced a little, too, as he wanted to play his Cars videogame with me. all in all an excellent weekend. though i should probably get my own bowling ball if i'm going to keep bowling. the balls there are either too small (my fingers won't fit!) or rather heavy (my hand size is requiring one of their 15lb balls!), so my arm's still a little tired. but i did alright, especially once i stopped trying to hurl the ball down the lane like hercules or something.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

project runway

okay, it's a little strange to me that i'll concern my blog with discussion of a tv show, but here we go...

last night was the new project runway -- the reunion show, where they had back all the designers from the season to talk about what went on. quite entertaining, though, after the rerun last week, we were dying to see the competition progress. oh, well... we'll have to wait 'til next week!

anyway, i started getting into the show around mid-season. i had rehearsals for the august [munk] show on a few wednesdays, and i'd get home from rehearsal to find lexi watching runway. i was quickly wrapped up in the show (despite my resistance!), and here i am. but to the point, i wasn't familiar with many of the earlier-departing designers. i think one of the first shows i saw was when keith got auf'd for having the design books.

he was pretty confrontational in the reunion when they talked about his departure and the reason for it, going so far as to suggest that his books were taken from him and later planted in his room by someone. now, were that to be true, that's a terrible thing to have happen to you. he shouldn't have brought the books to begin with, but, if they took them from him, no harm done. i seriously doubt that someone planted them in order to get rid of him; it reeks of a desperate ploy of a guilty party to alter the perceptions of the judges around him.

vincent was hilarious -- i couldn't believe that tirade he went on about his clothes being laundered! michael and kayne out on the roofdeck, shocked, doing impressions of him and leaning over the edge of the deck to look at vincent, now out on the street, still yelling and cursing. somehow i get the impression that the producers' dealings with his clothes didn't turn him on much.

michael deserved to win the fan favourite, and that he did. he's just a very likeable, friendly and sweet guy with loads of talent. i think he'll win the whole thing.

one last thing -- if i were gay, i would be so all about tim gunn. smart, concerned, caring, and quite dashing as well. quite dashing indeed.