beautiful, funny, sad & true

It’s 11:30 p.m., and it’s a very stormy night.

Nights like tonight are the nights that I really miss my old Taylor House apartment. You know, the one on the third floor of the hundred-year-old mansion. The one with the beautiful views of the city from three different directions. The one that I could watch fireworks downtown during the Rose Festival, the Starlight Parade, and on Independence Day. The one from which I watched almost every single sunset. The one that I called the Rock Star Factory. The one in which I learned how to play the accordion and the cello. The one in which I learned how to become a recording engineer and producer. The one in which I went from being a regular guy with a crappy job to a really talented guy doing what he was meant to do with his life. Basically, it was the place I lived when I learned how to do (and to be) all of the things that I’m doing (and becoming) now.

On stormy nights like tonight, the wind would beat the rain against all of the windows, and threaten to blow the roof off of the building, and I loved every minute of it. In fact, the more the wind howled, the more I enjoyed it. I would crack the window open, turn off all of the lights, turn off all of the music, light a candle or two, and just listen to the wind. I’d sit at the window and look out over the lights of downtown, or, on the warmer stormy nights, I’d stand outside on the fire escape, drinking a glass of wine, daring the wind to blow me down.

I wish I would’ve had a camera back then, because the sunsets alone were priceless. But then there are the countless memories of Katrina Petrovisky-Mouskewicz (the best cat ever), Amber and her fearless blind cat Kati and her mischievous rat Hannah, Craig, Kevin, Jeri, Meechai, Pelsang and the constantly rotating crowd of Tibetans, Erika, Daniel and the constantly rotating crowd of Brazilians, Henry, Morgan, Kristi, Amanda and Simon; the house parties until 4:00 a.m., Decemberists sing-alongs until the wee hours, mix CD’s which I still cherish and enjoy to this day, Jake and Skip flicking cigarettes from the fire escape to the street below, endless hours of recording my parts for Crystin Byrd’s “My Silence” CD, S.S. Flint and her pencil drawing, Jaime and Becky’s “Bus Song” and “12 Step”, rolling up the rug and recording the sound of Laurena the flamenco dancer weaving her magic spell, playing the cello badly while Andrea played the piano beautifully, climbing onto the roof for no reason at all, reading in the sun on the fire escape, seeing BoringFish again, walking with my guitars to the recording sessions at Jackpot, and a myriad of other things.

Here are some pictures of the apartment and me at the time. I have more, but they’re not on this computer. The best ones of all are the ones in my mind, anyway. The two gables on the right (top floor) are that apartment. Yes, I had a fireplace. And yes, I used it often.

I lived there for three and a half years, from when I was 30 and change to when I was 34. Moving out of there, while it wasn’t easy, was the right thing to do at the time. Sure was sad, though. It was by far my favorite place that I’ve ever lived, and I fully appreciated it the whole time I was there. I look back on it fondly as the place that I lived during the biggest changes of my entire life.

LoveItLoveItLoveItMissItLoveIt.

[edit: Incidentally, my gesture in the bottom picture has prompted a few questions. Since Crystin Byrd is the one who took that picture, I was doing an imitation of something our bass player and his girlfriend at the time used to do, which was to randomly make that face and gesture, and at the same time make the sound of a hissing cobra. It was very funny, and they would do it all the time. They might sneak up on each other in the kitchen, or it could be just as likely to happen when they were sitting and watching a movie. They could do it in a romantic and funny way too.

So there you have it. Not that it’s going to make any more sense, but at least you know the context, and that it’s not a “Hey, baby, lemme grab ya” expression or anything.]

I think the best thing about living in this building full of musicians is the incredible amount of diversity represented, and the caliber of the musicianship. Right now, the Portland Cello Project is rehearsing upstairs, and I’m sitting down here listening and thoroughly enjoying it.

From the apartment next to mine, I often get to hear the Pete Krebs Gypsy Jazz trio, or the Stolen Sweets (1920’s and 30’s jazz with three-part vocal harmonies).

From the apartment in front of mine, I get to hear classical flute, sometimes in duet with another flute, or with other instruments as well. Sometimes I take my cello over there and participate.

From the apartment upstairs in the front of the building, I get to hear alto sax parts from Vagabond Opera songs, as well as piano playing and singing.

From my apartment, the people in the rest of the building get to hear people like Breanna and Susie, and sometimes Stephanie.

The Portland music community is very well-represented by this one building alone.

In other news, Joan and I went out clothes shopping at a whole bunch of places yesterday. I totally scored:

black hoodie – YAY! The five-month search for a black hoodie is finally over.

two orange thermal T-shirts, each with a different ‘pattern’ of stitching and thickness. Plus, one’s medium-sized and the other is small. And it was $10 for both of them, so why the heck shouldn’t I buy both?

button-up dress shirt from J. Crew. White, green and black pinstripes. If you look from a distance, though, it just looks like a really cool green.

brown corduroy jacket, also from J. Crew. This was the score of the year. It’s a $200 jacket, on clearance for $50, then another 25 percent off, for a total of $35. $35!! For a two hundred-dollar jacket! I can wear it whenever I want to look like a university professor or something. It has patches on the elbows, and it even has a pen pocket inside.

I’m thinking of going on a picture-taking excursion here in a little while, since the weather’s so nice. I’m not going to spend such a beautiful day sitting inside. I did, however, want to fill you in on the clothing ‘scores’, and say how much fun the rest of the weekend has been. Good birthday party on Friday, and good gig on Saturday.

Funny thing about the gig on Saturday was that CellistSkip, who I play with in various incarnations of both Susie’s and Stephanie’s groups, was actually in the audience (first time I’ve ever seen him in the audience) while I played the cello with Susie. She came up to me near the end of our set and said, “Skip just got here. No pressure.” I was a bit nervous at first, with one of the best cellists in town sitting right up front and watching me, but after the first cello song, he smiled and applauded, then ran up and stuffed a couple of dollar bills down behind the tailpiece. It was a hilarious and supportive thing for him to do, and I was completely relaxed after that.

Well, time to get in the shower and out the door to start the day ‘frealz, yo.’

Peace, out.

Well, I made it through the rough patch.

I don’t know why it hit me so hard, but there was a combination of factors that led to that little meltdown. Add a few sad dreams–I’ve had a few brutal ones lately–and a liberal dose of exhaustion, and that makes a perfect recipe for depressive episode.

I walked to work three days this week. It’s about a half-hour walk each way, so I get a pretty decent amount of exercise when I do that, and it’s a great way to wake up, too.

Luckily, my dreams have also been more normal. Well, okay; normal for me. The one last night involved a friend of mine who was selling a brand new BMW (but it looked more like a swoopier, sportier SmartCar) to a guy he met online. My friend needed me to go over with him to help drive it over. The guy lived in a town that was perched on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the ocean, like Big Sur or something, so we drove through a curvy, mountainous road, and through an old mining area with a water slide (I don’t know, it was a dream!). When we arrived at his house, I saw that he had a drum set, but it wasn’t like any that I’d ever seen before, so I was trying to figure out if I could jump back there and play it while the guy was testing out the car. There, you see? Completely normal dream.

Tonight is RockShowGirl’s birthday, the third of the three Capricorn girls I know. I could barely keep my eyes open at work, so I’d love to take a nap before heading downtown, but I don’t know if I’ll actually do it.

My friend Maddy has been raving about a book called The Unhooked Generation for weeks now, and I finally made it to the library today. Coincidentally enough, it turned out that today was the perfect day to go, because there was a woman working there who seems to be exactly my type, who I’d very much like to ask out when I go back. I normally wouldn’t share that here, but I did for the simple reason that I’m a little bit shy, and I’m more likely to do it if I’ve told someone about it.

I also checked out some DVD’s; Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Mondovino, an excellent documentary which I’ve actually seen before. It’s about the wine industry, and it compares the ‘new’ practices of the industry–led by American companies, naturally–with the more traditional, mostly European ones. It runs the gamut from the super-ultra-mega-producers like Robert Mondavi to a tiny French vineyard run by a single octegenarian gentleman, and everything in between. Alyssa and I saw the movie about a year ago, and I think you can probably imagine which we preferred, and found ourselves rooting for.

Tomorrow night is a Susie Blue gig, and although I’ve played accordion or keyboards with her for two years now, this will be the first time I play cello with her, and I’m very much looking forward to it. Our rehearsals have felt great.

The rest of the weekend is wide open. Here’s to some wide openness!

Between hanging out and playing with BT and his band last weekend, and hanging out with Maddy, Heather and Jeff–and certainly not to forget Kelly, her dad, Nancy, and Joan–at my gig last night, it’s been quite the week for reconnecting with old friends.

Went to see the movie “Walk Hard” with my friend John a couple of nights ago. We both loved it, but I think we would both say that it’s not for the faint of heart. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s sort of a send-up of a lot of rockumentaries like “Walk the Line.” The main character is based primarily on Johnny Cash, but there are plenty of other allusions too, like Brian Wilson, Ray Charles, and many others.

Tonight I have a cello gig down in Salem, and this whole weekend will be spent playing drums and electric bass for a new recording project that I’m working on.

I have to confess that the wind has been out of my sails this week where blogging is concerned. You can always tell when I post things like videos instead of writing actual entries. Not only have I been super busy this week, but I spent the afternoon and evening of Christmas Eve in an online argument–see the comments at the bottom of this entry, if you care to–and that’s why I’ve been a bit more scarce than usual.

After tonight, I have no gigs until after the New Year, which I’m very happy about. Glad to have the opportunity to just be with friends or go out instead of having to be somewhere and play.

Hopefully your week and holidays are going well!

Today is the one-year anniversary of BFS&T. Actually, to be more accurate, it’s the one-year anniversary of this incarnation of it, because I’ve had a MySpace blog of the same name for two and a half years longer than that. I still use it for a few things, but this one has definitely taken over and become the main one.

Lots has happened in the last year. I learned how to take much better pictures, for one thing. This year’s ‘best pictures of the year’ entry will be quite a step up from last year’s.

This year’s musical accomplishments have been a step up, too. The Young Immortals–whose CD I produced and played on–have had a song picked up by WorldFamousCoffeeCompany, and radio play all over the country. There are even some radio stations in France and Ireland who love and play TYI. There are teenage girls who make videos of themselves singing TYI songs and posting them on WebSiteThat’sLikeTV. This past spring, summer and fall, I made enough money at music-related endeavors that I could have quite easily lived without my day job. Too bad about the whole winter season, though. There’s always a huge drop-off then, and I’m still trying to figure out how to make things happen in that time.

Cello-ness has been steadily improving as well. This year has seen the cello become one of the primary instruments I’ve been called to play, both live and on various recordings. That has caused a certain amount of anxiety for me, since some of my friends are among the best cellists in this town, but I’m also not stupid enough to turn down great opportunities that come my way, either. If it’s something I can play, I play it, and I appreciate every gradual step up.

Romantic relationships continue to be a bit troublesome for me. The one this past year was one of the ones that really changed both of our lives, though, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much. As one of my friends likes to say, “You’re just making room for the one that’s the right one.”

Overall, I’d say that things are going really well. Goals? Yes, I have a few. Keep improving myself as a person and as a musician, take more ‘chances’ in my life, TRAVEL MORE, reach out more and be a better friend, take my music career to the next level (and figure out what I want that next level to be), and also to take better care of myself.

Oh yes. . .and of course, to keep blogging steadily. I expect you to help keep me accountable in these endeavors.

Here’s to the next year!