Marathon Training

ow To Win Friends and Influence People round one.

After a week of reading bits and pieces of this book I went to the meeting ready to spring into action and put my new found skills to work. Would you believe that it actually worked? Incredible.

I approached a brother and said, "You know I hear that you've run marathons. That's really impressive. Someday I hope that I'll be able to do something like that."

Brother, "Wow! Let's start training this Saturday!"

So this Saturday I'm running with him, not that I want to, not that I look forward to it, but I kind of started this whole thing and I have to see it through. I fully understand that it means putting myself out a bit. And I'm prepared for that.

I fully intend to start showing love to people, witnesses and others. I fully intend to start being charitable and kind.

My objective in all this is not to wield influence over people. No, it's to be a Christian. Because I need to me. Because it's the best way of life.

peanuts _ love

My legs are aching and my wrists feel tight and my arms have a feint red blotch snaking up them.

On the way to work I saw two perfect rainbows in the sky framing the petroleum processing plants wheezing smoke. The oxymoronic nature of it was hysterical. The creation's of God vs the creation's of Man. I needn't state who won this little competition. Despite it all it's things like that keep me believing. Yeah, despite it all.

Some bad chinese food landed me in the hospital briefly yesterday ---> peanuts ---> again. I was driving when it hit me so I stopped in a fire house and asked for a lift to the hospital. They called an ambulance and started working me over with underused, atrophying first aid skills. My left arm was doused with blood when they tried to give me a drip line. The ambulance came and loaded me up on a stretcher and I couldn't help but to laugh about it. Well I would've laughed if my throat wasn't collapsing in on itself and my lungs were struggling to draw breath. But I looked at the paramedic and said, "This feels like overkill."

Cheers to men at the fire house though for giving it a good shot. Jeers to the nurse that told my wife, "Your husband shouldn't eat any more peanuts." Really?

I was sleepy because of the benydril so I napped and woke and played video games and then slept then woke with a song in my head. I went down to my now barren studio and hooked up a mic and quietly sung the melody and the words. It was one in the morning. I've written a lot of songs about a lot of girls but this is the first time I wrote a song to my wife. I asked her how she would feel singing a song about herself.

I feel a change coming on with me. My personality is changing so rapidly I don't know who I am anymore. But I feel so much love. Weird. Strange. I don't know when I quit loving. My mom claims it was when I was nine years old. But my (g)od it's been a while. It truely has. I could cry. I just want to curl up in the fetal position and just wallow in the goodness of it all.

Today I'm glad to be alive. Whatever life amounts to I'm glad to be experiencing it.

facelift

Please excuse the mess while I give my web-site a facelift. (I searched long and hard for an animated .gif of a jackhammer but couldn't find a stylish one.)

If you'll look in the corner there is a picture of me with my daughter, "blanket". When we go out in public I make her wear a dinosaur mask to protect her anonymity. It was a placeholder image but it has kind of grown on me.

The background image in the bottom and lower bars is of cherry blossoms. I went through a floral phase and I think I'm back in into it. I'm also back into pink.

I ditched the serifs. I'm really not going for readability so much as style.

I'm fighting against clutter. My life is so messy right now I want my blog to be somewhat pure. Distilled.

And it's true. Sadly, it's true what you've heard about me. As much as I hate to admit it, I am reading a book entitled How To Win Friends & Influence People.

But let me tell you. I value each and everyone of you. You make my life so much better. Even those of you who I just read about and haven't yet met.

Mina - Because her creativity is incredible, her intelligence limitless.
Rebekah - Because she keeps me in line and provides unconditional love and support.
Amanda - For being interesting and really talented, you make we want to get skills.
Tom - Thanks for always saying hello to me everytime.
Ryan - For helping me rediscover making music.
Brandon - For playing music with me. Your songwriting skills are awesome.
Steve - For giving me a good job and keeping me busy with interesting stuff.
Katie - For always having a smile.
Alicia - Her strength of character continues to touch me even after she's gone.
Casey - My cohort for untold projects over the years. Your attention to detail is admirable.
Derek - Your personality is enjoyable and your long, long fuse is amazing.
Hiromi - Your superb painting and web design ability is only matched by your thoughtfulness.
Reed & Janna - Your hospitality and friendliness still makes me smile.
Jason - For being an object lesson in how to be personable.
Carol - You went beyond doing your job and planted a seed that continues to grow.
Kim - Thanks for attempting to lift me out of a hole at the expense of your own wellbeing.

I'm gonna truncate this because I need to go back to work so if you didn't get mentioned don't feel bad. I'll get to you eventually.

rubbed raw

Yesterday I got the bright idea that I would try to clean my face. I mean CLEAN my face - - not just splash water on it and call it a day as per my normal morning ritual. I grabbed something that said Neutrogena Scrub out of the bathroom and set to work. However, the product in question was a body wash not a face cleanser and it although it said "scrub" it did not mean "scrub." But I didn't read it closely. No I charged head first into the wash basin and begin giving my face a real work out. The after effect was a kin to sandpaper on my nose. I'm sporting a mighty scab on it this morning. Just call me Lady Elaine Fairchild.

So I've been down ---> Y'know, life is constant peaks and valleys. Used to be the valleys were more numerous than the peaks but my situation improved and it was all up and up and up and up and skyward bound. But now I bottomed out. I know I have. I'm sad for no reason. No reason at all. Or am I?

Truth be told the band was the only thing keeping me moving. It gave me something to shoot for, look forward to, feel proud of. It was inevitable, Brandon's sister moved back into town and they are going to be doing their own thing again. I really can't fault him. If my sister moved back I would drop 6a2 in a heart-beat. But he dumped me. We're still going to finish the album, but he's coming over to load up his half of the equipment and that's, well, that's that. So if you missed our show. You missed out. Ha. I'll be like the divorcee looking around at my half-empty studio and wondering what went wrong. Yes, half-empty, not half-full.

But the truth is -- well the simple truth is -- well the fact of the matter is, I can't exist unless I'm creating. My happiness is linked with my creativity and unless I 'm moving on with something than I'm down and out and down for the count. Maybe that is why my Dial years were so bad. I wasn't doing anything but playing robot in a warehouse. I wasn't making anything but money and money can't buy happiness.


Anthony

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My So-Called Life

My life. Lately I've been spending a goodly portion of it lamenting about my age. I need to try not to think about it.

The band is on a two week hiatus or something.

My novel draft is back in my hands after my sister had it for a while. I'm removed from it far enough that I can begin to edit it with a fresh mind. But before I do I need to read some history books dealing with similar themes. I will say this. The book needs to be streamlined so that everything is firing at once and moving along. It needs to move at the beginning and slow down at the end. It's too leisurely at the beginning and the end rushes. I need to make the themes pop out. This is not a story. It's an essay. An essay on addiction and faith (or the lack thereof) and life and endings (or the lack thereof).

game-day

Just mowed my grass - a hassle of homeownership to be sure. I can no longer ignore the brown grass in my yard. I'm gonna have to go old-man on it and seed and weed and thatch and edge. No fun but at least my yard'll have a Christian appearance.

Last night I really wanted a martini. Problem no gin, no vermouth, no money to buy either - - I settled for a 24oz can of Bud from the corner gas station. It even came with a hobo bag to carry it in. Well the beer led to another craving so I ordered a pizza. satisfied I went to bed around Midnight.

This Iraq situation is growing worse by the minute. Are we far off from a draft? It's times like this were I'm thankful for my asthmatic old body racked with scoliosis.

We practised our set three times through. It's clocking in a 3-minutes without witty in-between song banter and extended tunings. We've never played through perfectly so at this point I'm just gonna settle for no major mess-ups.

*** Spoilers ***


ATMOS - A good opener because I can use the "train" intro from the CD. Not really a 6a2 song. It was a song that Rebekah and I had for another endeavor that just sort turned into a 6a2 song. After this show I'm taking it back.

Conclusion - Good on the CD because of the chorus harmony. Live it's kind of sloppy. I have a hard time with the rythym. I don't like Brandons vox.

Dial Tone - Nice. When we hit this one it works. When we are off it's still decent.

Athens - Better than the recorded version. The guitar is so big. The bass grooves. The drums kick. And the synth is a massive dance anthem generator. Brandon's got vocal duties on this one. I wish I could've done it, but I'm doing good to play that loopy riff without screw up.

Dividing Sight - A simple little song that takes it down a notch. A nice change of pace. The whole song hinges on my last guitar lead. So when I do it right (40% of the time) it works.

Mr. Tough Guy - A new song that we haven't recorded yet. I talked Brandon into us playing it and I'm glad. It's a frenzy of rawk. Erin and Rebekah trade on the vocals. It's wild. The only fault is that sometimes we play so loud that it becomes hard to hear the beat and we lose our place. - ouch.

Forgive Forget - This song has improved considerably. It's 80's synth-pop blended with Avril Lavigne. Our most poppy - it soars! Brandon and Erin has this ridiculous dance during it. I've never seen it because I'll start laughing and lose my place.

[Cover Song] - Still keeping it a secret because I want my sister to be surprised when she hears it. I think we may have tried to play it over the years but never pulled it off. It's turning out. We haven't practised it as much. But it is the cover and cover usually sound sloppy and half-arsed. We're better than that. It's a huge closer.

House of Thai

I'm sitting in my house smelling ginger and curry, the remains of an earlier cooking disaster. For every four recipes I attempt, one is doomed to failure. Tonight a Thai inspired noodle dish fell short of looking like the picture - it had such promise. Really with ingredients like canned coconut milk how could I have possibly gone wrong.

Nirvana's been on quite a bit of programming this week. It's pretty wild that I know the lyrics to all the songs despite not being a Nirvana fan, or even owning a Nirvana CD. I think it was because of my friend's taste in music. When we were teens, Lee Michael played Nirvana - constantly. He had ten cassettes of Nirvana songs sequenced alphabetically. He used to play the drums on his dash and steering wheel while driving around listening to Smells Like Teen Spirit. Mike really loved Nirvana. In fact he once ran away and began camping out under a bridge because he had read that Kurt Cobain did that at some point in his life. Maybe that's why he started doing drugs as well.

I really wish Kurt hadn't killed himself. I know he would have totally sold out by now and it would've been so much fun to watch the people who worshipped him have their faith crushed.

I thought of a great super-minimalist redesign for the 6a2 sight in proper. Perhaps I'll throw it up after the show. Speaking of throwing up . . .

spring forward

It's 10:30 pm and I should be asleep but I'm still in fall back mode.

Saturday was interesting. We ended up dropping Mina off at Leah's and went to go see Bi-Level at The Pageant. We got in free because Brandon had been given something like 100 tickets to give away.

Bi-Level did their thing which is listenable but not my style. They are pretty talented. I'm so envious of people that can dance around the stage with their guitars without messing up. Bi-Level finished up and the second band came on with some fossilized bass player and a lead singer who dropped an f-bomb every other word in an attempt to be hard. The pit vacated quickly save for the bandmember's wives who started doing some boot-scootin' redneck bar dancing. That was our signal to leave. So we walked down the street for drinks and late night snacks at Blueberry Hill.

Afterward we bid the group farewell and went record shopping. Rebekah got a couple of pieces of new vinyl in anticipation of the record player Nathan is giving her. I found a couple of reasonably priced CD's: Mary Lou Lord and Blonde Redhead's new ones. Blonde Redhead is really listenable to me right now.

On the way back to our car we ducked back into the Pageant to catch the last group, Fourty 'Til Five. They were a hip-hop Eminem cover band that had their own material. By that I mean you could close your eyes and swear you were listening unreleased Marshall Mathers. They had the crowd bumping and grinding which at that time of the night the punk rockers had left and the joint was filled with Frat Boys and faux-hipsters. We hung out, sobered up a bit, and then drove home.

It was so late . . . When did we sleep 2:00 am ? 3:00 am? Time changes are throwing me off.

I woke up Sunday and we made breakfast. It's some Jaime Oliver recipe where you basically toss a bunch of items (sausage, tomatoes, eggs, mushrooms) into a pan and fry them all together. Good stuff.

Spent part of the day (a really, really large part) programming the drums for the secret cover song. It's incredibably difficult trying to duplicate a real drummer. I know I've got some mess-up's but it's pretty close. I'll mask my errors under a 808 kit or something. But it's ready. Two more practices before the show - - help!

We went to the memorial. We didn't get invited out to eat - again. I know it's not supposed to be a social event but it is and so getting left out of the festivities is not fun - not fun at all. It was all Taco Bell for us . . . Taco Bell and the sad life of a B-List Witness.

tired

I came into work late today - real late. Rebekah and I did the radio show last night which was a weird, awkward experience. I hope no one taped it for posterity - because - because I'm not good at talking and I'm sure I came across like a fool - or worse. But I'm pretty tired.

I bought a new toy, an electro-harmonix Double Muff guitar pedal. I've been looking for a distortion/overdrive pedal for a little while. I couldn't decide between a Big Muff or a Proco Rat. This unit falls somewhere in between. I'm really enjoying it.

Oh yeah, one more thing, I think we decided on a cover song . . . I'll leave it as surprise for the April 10th show.