beautiful, funny, sad & true

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!

Here are some pictures from the geocaching trip that Todd and I took the other day.

rock from Lake Tai in Suzhou, China

Vista Street Bridge (a.k.a “Suicide Bridge”)

Todd

Does this T-shirt/long-sleeved T-shirt/hoodie/jacket combination make me look fat?

very tricky and ingenious

Todd likes blondes, no matter how small or how plastic.

Todd also likes counting bricks in elephants.
Don’t ask me why; it’s his way.

wild goose chase, but at least it was
a pretty wild goose chase

Like I wrote about the other day, there’s this new thing called geocaching. Okay, maybe it’s not that new, but it was new to me, at least. Todd was telling us on the way that people who don’t know about geocaching are called ‘muggles’, which I think is lame. Why can’t this game have its own separate lexicon of terms instead of borrowing from Harry Potter? I mean, I like HP and everything, but it seems kinda cheesy to trivialize this game by associating it with something that it has no need to associate with. But that’s neither here nor there.

The short description of the game is that it’s a scavenger hunt. You use the GPS to find the pre-arranged destinations that are posted on the web site. It’s easy to get kinda geeked out on the technology, but the best sites will take you to interesting and amazing places where you normally would never go, and you never know what they’re going to be like. All you know is the set of coordinates, and maybe a few hints from the web site, but that’s about it.

So on Sunday, Todd, Ben (another actor/theater director from the play-reading group) and I headed out. We met Hunt (yet another actor/theater director) and he joined us for a search too. He had his daughter with him, so he could only join us for one, and this was the one.

This is Ben, by the way. The panda thingy was hidden inside the rock wall you can see in the background. It’s actually a little box with a notebook inside, where you log your visit and then take a trinket from inside the box (leaving something in return, of course).

So we went from there to a couple others down in Lake Oswego. Really beautiful place, and there were several different ‘caches’ in the park. The first one was up the hill a bit, buried in some shrubbery. The newly-fallen leaves and pouring rain made this one particularly challenging.

After that, we followed the trail down into the main part of the park. I love this picture.

Todd said it reminds him of the end of the movie Being There, which I remember hearing about, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen.

From there, the game took us to a bridge (but the hint said ‘don’t cross the bridge’). So we found that one, and then headed over to the best and most challenging one of the day, by far.

This park apparently is the site of the oldest iron smelter in Oregon, and it’s now the oldest surviving one in the western United States. This particular ‘hunt’ required us to read the informational signs in order to work out the next clue. Todd’s classic comment of the day was, “Oh shit. . .we have to do math.” So we worked it all out, and it took us to this amazing place.

Left to right, is me, Todd, and Ben. I love our ‘vini vedi vici’ pose in this picture. We were thrilled to have succeeded after all that scrounging, and we were exhausted, freezing, and soaking wet, but with a bunch of great memories, excited to head out again very soon.

I know I’ll be going back to that particular park again sometime, just for fun, because it’s so beautiful and interesting.

Tonight, my friend John invited me to go out to dinner at McMenamins’ Edgefield, courtesy of his boss. He works for a fairly well-known software company, so part of his job involves setting up computer networks for Trade Shows and Special Events all the time. Tonight John’s boss needed him to set up a small network of computers out at Edgefield, and that there was “dinner for two” in it for him. At first he balked, because it would have cost him and his wife more to hire a babysitter for the evening than the dinners were worth, so he was prepared to give it a miss. But then he remembered how rarely he and I get a chance to hang out, so he invited me instead. Yay!

John ordered a steak with polenta and grilled vegetables, I had blackened ahi with saffron rice, and we each had a couple of glasses of nice Edgefield wine to go with it all. Suffice it to say that it was an incredible dinner.

When asked if we’d like dessert, we both opted for the same thing, a swirled chocolate/caramel/orange-glaze concoction with a little scoop of chocolate hazelnut ice cream on the side. When the waiter returned, however, he had brought only one. We were surprised at first, but after eating the bread, the salad and the main courses, we decided that splitting dessert was probably a good idea.

After we paid the check, the waiter told us to “have a great night” and “keep taking care of each other”, and then he walked away. Thinking we must have misheard him, we both cracked up laughing in disbelief. He totally thought we were a couple. Apparently two men can’t eat dinner together at a nice restaurant in the little town of Troutdale without raising suspicions, or at least eyebrows.

We were already having a great time, but the waiter’s off-hand comment made the evening hilarious and memorable. Thank you, John, for everything. I hope we can ‘keep taking care of each other’ for years to come!