May 30, 2005
Farwell dinner with Johanna
Last night I had dinner with Johanna for the last time before she leaves for New York. [ed. It’s likely I’ll see her again tonight at Jon’s homecoming barbecue.] Her sister Danielle had come into town the day before, so I got to meet her. She’s really nice, and an excellent cook—she made the dinner, pasto with a tomato-based sauce with salmon. Very tasty.
Jo and I agreed that’s it’s really too bad we only started hanging out a lot recently, although it’s hard to see how that would have happened while Jess and I were still together. Anyway. I really do like Johanna a lot, and I’m going to miss her. I’m looking forward to seeing her this summer in New York, though, and I’m glad to have met her sister, too, because I think that will make visiting her easier.
I don’t have much to say in particular about last evening, actually, except that I had a nice time, as I always seem to do with her. I would have liked to stay longer, but Jess was coming over to visit, and I left just before she got there. I’m still not ready to see her yet; I’m hoping she doesn’t come to Jon’s barbecue tonight, but if she does, I’ll just leave quietly.
Posted by alex at 07:37 PM | Comments (0)
Weekend with Kelly
With the loss of Antonia weighing heavy on her heart, Kelly felt like she needed to be together with me for the weekend. She came down on Friday, and she left today (Monday) about three hours ago.
We had a nice weekend together, and it was just about the perfect length. I think we both needed it, really. I was glad to be there for her, to comfort her and support her; she’s really grieving, and I feel so badly for her. On the other hand, it was so nice to be with someone again. I don’t mean just sexually, although of course that was great, but much more than that I mean the comfort and companionship of having a partner, even if only temporarily.
Honestly, there isn’t much to say about the weekend; it was pretty laidback and uneventful. But I’m glad she came to visit, and I’m looking forward to seeing her again when she comes for another visit in three weeks.
Posted by alex at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2005
Another evening with Johanna
This time it was to go see Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room. I was pretty disappointed. I don’t feel as though I gained much insight into what exactly they were doing. I mean, I understand that there isn’t a lot of sense to be made there—that’s partially the point, right? That their business model and accounting practices were all a sham? But I didn’t leave with a much better understanding of what they thought they were trying to pull.
I brought Go over to Johanna’s place beforehand, and we started up a game, which we continued upon our return. For a first-time player, she really picked it up quickly; I’m pretty impressed. She’s going to have me over for dinner either tomorrow or Friday, and we’ll play some more. I get the feeling she could improve pretty quickly to the point where she beat me regularly.
Which is so friggin’ attractive. *sigh* I’m sorry she’s leaving.
Posted by alex at 02:21 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2005
Antonia boo
I saw Kelly online Sunday night and decided to say hi. I don’t know if I should have; she did, after all, want space and separation from me, and until Sunday night I had respected that need. But I hadn’t seen her online since February, and I guess I figured that her return meant that maybe she was ready to talk again.
She was glad to hear from me and talk with me, as it turns out. Antonia was really sick, and she was beside herself with worry. She (Antonia) hadn’t eaten hardly at all in almost a week, and she was moping around and acting listless. So Kelly scheduled an appointment with the vet for testing on Monday morning around 8:30.
She called me at 10:00, crying, to say that the vet suspected an intestinal tumor and was going to perform exploratory surgery that very morning to find out if it could be removed. Kelly called me back at 12:30, completely hysterical, saying that the vet had found too much damage and hemorrhaging and had decided not to wake Antonia up after the surgery. Kelly could go down there to say her goodbyes, and then they would euthanize her.
It all happened so suddenly, and now she’s gone. Poor little cat; she must have been miserable that last week. And Kelly is in for a terrible few weeks ahead of her as she grieves. I feel so sad for her. Antonia was only six years old, and Kelly loved her like a child.
Posted by alex at 08:02 AM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2005
I’m getting real tired of insomnia
Hehe. I oughta turn that into a song or something.
I’m not going to use this post to talk about Jess, because I’m (hopefully) through with that. No more. No more reading her journal, that’s for sure. No more emails to or from her. No more IM’s. If she calls me, I’ll tell her not to and then hang up. No more bitching about her to everyone else. And hopefully no more posting about her. I’m actively moving to remove her from my life.
Mom had a great suggestion for me this evening—I should look into Habitat For Humanity. I’d get out of the house, meet new people, volunteer for a more-than-worthy cause, and learn some valuable skills along the way. I’m going to look into it; let’s see what’s out there.
I really wish I could sleep, though.
Posted by alex at 03:30 AM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2005
Pooh recording begins
I recorded the first five chapters in Winnie-the-Pooh yesterday over at Mansion Studios. It went well, but later on I listened to it with Johanna, and she gave me some really good feedback.
I need to slow down and allow the words, as she says, “to resonate.” I had been aware of pacing as a potential issue, but I guess I had been dealing with it by pausing between sentances. A bette approach would be to take my time with the sentances themselves.
Also, I need to think about and come to some decisions about the voices. I thought that pitching my voice differently would do the trick, but Johanna pointed out that some characters could speak more slowly or more quickly, or with different inflections. These are great ideas, but now it means that I have to actually consider how to pull it off.
I’ve mentioned this project to a lot of people, and everyone seems really excited by it. In particular, Jason is really pumped up about it, and he’s got lots of great sound-effect ideas. I’m so thrilled by his enthusiasm! I’m starting to feel more ambitious about this whole project.
But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Right now I just have to go in and do it, and then I’ll worry about what I’ll do with it later.
Posted by alex at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2005
Jess redux
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May 17, 2005
Ok, I admit it…
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May 16, 2005
Beautiful day
Yesterday’s weather was so nice I just couldn’t stay inside. So I took a book (I’m giving The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay another shot) over to Forest Park. I found a quiet spot to read and spent an hour and a half out there. The weather today is similarly gorgeous, so maybe I’ll do it again today.
Jeff crashed on my couch last night. He was coming through St. Louis on his way back from a wedding in Chicago, but his car started to make some troubling noises, so in order to be safe, he decided to stay the night and have it looked at the next day.
It’s always good to see him. We talked last night about the possibility of my buying a house, which has been on my mind since playing with Phil on Saturday. The possibility of purchasing an inexpensive fixer-upper in a rising neighborhood such as Old North St. Louis intrigues me, but makes me nervous as well. I wish I had a firmer knowledge of my future at Wash U., but right now I don’t know how much longer I’ll be there. I suppose in some sense it doesn’t matter—I could just get a job elsewhere. But buying a house here also means that I’m probably staying here for a while, and while that has some definite attractions, I still haven’t let go of the idea that I’ll go back to Chicago.
I guess I should call Dad and see what he thinks about it.
Posted by alex at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2005
*whew* Two new gigs!
I’m actually a bit surprised I’m not more tired. It’s been quite a day of music. Not the most busy day of music I’ve had, perhaps, but still unique for its first-times.
The short version is that I had two gigs, one with Phil Valko, with whom I haven’t played music in at least three and a half years, and one with Steve Bequette, with whom I’ve never played a gig.
The gig with Phil involved the kind of situation I don’t really enjoy, i.e. totally unprepared improvisations with just a drummer. Now, I enjoy Phil’s drumming, even if he’s a bit rusty (as am I, but I’ll go into that in a bit); he’s a very organic drummer, not afraid to try some new directions, but he always feels the moment well and responds with interesting and appropriate ideas. He’s not a heavy hitter but he’s not timid either, which I think is perfect for the kind of jazz I’d really like to play with him. I hope we can find some other musicians to play with and really try to get together and do some cool stuff.
And that’s really the crux of what was frustrating about this gig. I hate being the only pitched instrument. It’s really more of a responsibility than I’m able to handle. The truth is that few players are both technically proficient enough while at the same time mature enough to be able to play the complex combination of harmony and melody simultaneously. I have some chops (although again, I’m really rusty—I seriously need to resume lessons) although I’m not really up to the technical demands of solo work even yet. But way more glaringly, I’m not mature enough by far. I approach this kind of situation as if I played the sax—lots of fast single note lines that try to outline the harmony while still being melodic. And this fails on two levels: one, I’m just not good enough to pull it off, and two, I’m not a sax player. The guitar’s biggest advantage over horns is it’s multi-timbral ability, and I completely waste it. I should be playing chord-melodies. But that’s really hard to do, both physically and mentally.
So clearly I need to work on it. I emailed Rick Haydon on Monday, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. I’ll email him again this week—I’m going to be persistant about this. I need lessons, and I have confidence he’ll be able to help me.
I came home around 3:30 after playing with Phil and crashed for a bit in preparation for the Steve Bequette gig, for which I needed to leave around 6:30.
We played the high-school graduation party being held for a cousin of Steve’s wife. There’s not much to say, really, about the music—we played our set, which went off without a hitch, and then the grad’s father sat in on the drums and we jammed a little while longer. But what really got me was the party itself. First off all, I guess I should say that I shouldn’t actually be as surprised as I was. I gather that this kind of party is the standard thing for lots of people. But they’re definitely not my kind of people.
Everyone was already drunk, getting drunk, or wishing they could get drunk (Steve’s wife Cory is pregnant and can’t drink for another six months). And again, this was a high-school graduation party, so lots of the people there were seventeen and eighteen. And also again, I gather this is pretty typical for many people. But c’mon. What a terrible example the adults set for their kids. All the smoke, all the alcohol—these kids are going to grow up thinking that this is how adults behave. And I guess for these adults, it is how they behave, but it’s just so gross. All the women looked terrible from a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. Leathery, drawn faces that look so much older than I’d guess their owners really are. And the men didn’t look any better.
The general behavior called for course vulgarities and lewd comments. One of the women there, who’d I guess was about forty-two, works as a stripper at all the main clubs in town: Penthouse, Hustler, etc. She’s done movies, too—great! What a scary person. She was clearly high on coke, and she was equally clearly available to go home with the nearest man who offered her some pot. So sad and pathetic.
On the plus side, Erik and I hung out and bonded over our mutual distaste for the general tenor of the evening. He’s really cool, and I had a good time talking with him. I don’t imagine we’ll hang out much outside of the band, but Steve can be a bit overbearing, so it’ll be nice to have someone I can relax with during the tedious parts of gigging. He helped me bring my amplifier in, so I made sure to help him pack up and load out his drums at the end of the night. He was very appreciative, and I think we’ve established the beginnings of a good working repore.
We’re going to practice again on Monday. Either there are more tunes for me to learn of which I’m still unaware, or we’ll be forced to start writing some new stuff. Which is fine by me. Our current set is really only about forty-five minutes, so it could stand some development and expansion. In the meantime, I’m going to go to bed and rest my ears for tomorrow, when Jeff is perhaps coming into town and going to see this one bluegrass band he’s considering hiring for his wedding.
Posted by alex at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2005
I ran into Jess today.
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May 10, 2005
Audition for Steve Bequette
Last night I played with Steve Bequette and his drummer Eric for the first time, my audition of sorts.
The background: Steve called me three weeks ago to say he was looking for a bassist. He had gotten my number from Jess when he was posting fliers at Vintage Vinyl and mentioned to her that he was looking for a “hip-hop bassist”. Nice coincidence, and considering the difficult times Jess and I were going through, a nice gesture on her part to recommend me.
So I said sure I’d be interested, and he dropped by that afternoon with a CD. We talked a little bit, and he mentioned that he’d been out on tour with matchbox twenty (apparently he’s friends with their lead guitarist). I suppose this impressed me more than it should, not in any star-struck way but in the sense that it led me to assume his career was fairly well advanced compared to mine. He talked about recording, gigging, and touring, and said he was looking to make some money through music. This all sounded good to me—even if the music didn’t turn me on (and it doesn’t, really, it’s pretty bland alt-rock) I figured the experience would at least be new.
We rehearsed in his basement, which makes sense in retrospect, but I was surprised to learn he wasn’t using a rehearsal space. I guess I assumed that anyone as successful as I took him to be would have graduated out of the basement rehearsal space stereotype. But of course, the basement is free, and a formal rehearsal space isn’t. Sac Lunch would be rehearsing in basements, too, if we had access to any. Steve, I found out, is pretty deep in debt due to his musical ambitions, and I can bet he’s pinching every penny.
Anyway, I was set up and ready to go long before Eric and Steve were, partly because as the first-timer, I wanted to make a good, professional impression, and partly because they didn’t feel any such pressure. I told Steve I could play all the songs on the CD he gave me, and so he suggested we run them through in order. Which we proceeded to do.
I blew them away. To be quite honest, despite the fact that it makes me seem cocky, I completely blew them away. I think they’ve really never met a musician like me, someone who actually has ears, knows harmony, and has some idea about how music is put together. They simply couldn’t believe that I knew the songs as well as I did. We never needed to run through any of them more than three times, and often once did the trick. Then after a break, they taught me some new songs, and again they couldn’t believe that I picked them up so fast.
The truth is that the music is really easy. The changes are almost all diatonic and/or blues-based, and when there are riffs, they’re easy and obvious. As I write this, I realize I sound condescending, but let me clarify: I understand that Steve is writing pop music. He’s not trying to advance the avant garde, he wants to get on radio. His music is just that—uncomplicated and accessible, easily consumed pop blather. So that’s fine; I knew that going into this, and I’m clear about what I want to get out of it.
I’m actually encouraged by his financial investment in his musical career. He’s got a wife and a baby on the way, so I’m hoping his family obligations combined with his steep debt will contribute towards his working hard to get us good gigs. I also don’t feel any responsibility on my part to help out on the business end of things any more than I care to do, which is nice. This is his venture, I’m happy to be a part of it for now, I’ll be very happy if it puts money in my pocket, and that’s all I’m concerned about for the time being.
I’m curious about how I’ll view this post a few months from now. Will I laugh at the pre-conceived notions I had about where Steve’s career was taking him and where it would take me? We’ll see.
Posted by alex at 07:53 AM | Comments (0)
May 09, 2005
Insomnia
I can’t sleep. This is really irritating, and it’s been going on way too long now.
For weeks, I couldn’t sleep because of the whole Jess thing. I was so upset, and on such a visceral, foundational level, that my stomach simply wouldn’t let me physically relax. So I’d get up at 3 every morning and check my email, hoping there’d be something from her, or whatever.
I don’t do that anymore. I’m angry with her still, of course, but I’m more emotionally removed from the situation than I used to be. Certainly I don’t feel that same sense of physical tension that used to prevent sleep. I’m starting to feel that maybe I’m getting over her at last, which is a welcome relief.
I don’t know what’s wrong now; I just toss and turn. I’m thinking of buying some sleeping pills. I’ve never used them before, and given my general distaste for and suspicion of drugs in all forms, I’m a bit reluctant. But this insomnia has got to stop. I’m tired all the time, and this makes me lazy and unproductive. And then at the end of the day I haven’t done much, so I’m tired but not exactly worn out, so I still don’t really sleep well. I’m hoping that the sleeping pills will provide me with a couple of night consecutive quality sleep, and that then I’ll feel better and more motivated to do the things I both want and need to do.
Like resume swimming, for example. I haven’t been to the pool in two weeks, and I need to get back into that. I’m feeling fat again. Whine whine whine… :) Well, anyway. Enough of this. I’m not tired enough to go back to bed, but maybe I can find something to amuse me until I am.
Posted by alex at 04:43 AM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2005
My night out with Johanna
I had a great time last night, really great. Johanna and I went out dinner, coffee, and a movie, and I enjoyed her company so much I’m still smiling.
She called me yesterday around noon or so to ask if I wanted to see a movie. This took me by surprise, I’ll admit, but not entirely. I know she and Jon hang out almost every day, but with Jon in Europe now, I can imagine that Jo might be feeling his absence. Anyway, I was thrilled that she called and we made plans to get together later.
I had the inspiration later of asking her if she wanted to have sushi before the movie (which was to start at 7:20). Since we were going to the Tivoli (she wanted to see Kung Fu Hustle), I thought we could go to the Japanese restaurant across the street (I can’t remember its name right now). The thing is, though, I didn’t even have the idea until 6:00, and for fear that she’d be ready to go immediately, I showered first before calling her. She wasn’t ready immediately, and we didn’t get going until around 6:30.
Dinner was great. We ordered all ala carte sushi—eel, tuna, salman, yellowtail, St. Louis roll, other yummy stuff. Naturally it was delicious. But we didn’t get out of there in time; I had counted on the typical twenty minutes or so of pre-movie “entertainment”, but it seems the Tivoli only does about five such minutes, and we were twenty minutes late. The next show wasn’t for two hours, so we decided to get coffee in the Loop and sit outside, since it was such a beautiful day.
So we did. Coffee to go at Meshugga’s and then since their outside tables were all full, we walked down the street and found an empty table outside of Riddle’s. The wait staff insisted that we be paying customers if we were going to use their table, so we looked at the dessert menu—and they were serving rhubarb pie. *sigh* so nice.
And then finally the movie at 9:45. I’ll have to write more about the movie itself later; suffice it right now to say that it was the goofiest, funniest movies I’ve seen in a while. Truly absurd, but in a great way.
All this is by way of saying that Johanna and I were out until 11:30 or so, which amounts to five hours together, and it was fantastic. I’m so glad I had the idea for dinner, and I’m so glad we missed the first movie time, because it meant we got to keep talking. We talked almost non-stop for what must have been three hours.
I find Johanna easy to talk to, and I guess she must find it easy to talk to me, too. She says that in her social circles, she feels her young age a lot, as if she’s always the least worldly, knoweldgeable, or experienced person in the room. But I don’t see her that way at all. She seems really together, interesting, intelligent, and mature, and I don’t at all feel like we’re on different levels when we talk.
Brody has mentioned how many of the girls he meets aren’t what he calls “deep”, and while I think that connotes something different from what he intends, I tend to agree with him. It’s not just girls, of course, but Brody and I talk about girls a lot, so that’s the context in which it comes up. Anyway, his point is that many of the people he meets don’t seem to spend much time thinking about themselves or the world around them too deeply, that they’re satisfied with a shallow interpetation of what they observe, either because that’s as much as they’re capable of interpreting or because they simply don’t feel like putting forth the effort to dig deeper.
Johanna is deep in this sense. She’s very much interested in exploring not just what happens around her, but the reasons those things happen and the reasons for those reasons. She’s genuinely curious, and for its own sake. She’s genuinely capable of sincere self-examination, and she’s not shy at being honest about exploring her motivations. She’s an excellent conversational springboard—she puts forth interesting ideas that I really enjoy listening to, and those ideas inspire ideas of my own that I want to share.
Last night’s conversation was all over the place, as I suppose any three-hour conversation will be. We talked about our parents influences over our educational paths, we talked about the role of art in society, we talked about our own frustrations (well, mostly hers) with being a creative person in a culture that doesn’t necessarily value those contributions. We laughed and joked.
I just really had a great time.
Posted by alex at 12:06 PM | Comments (1)
May 06, 2005
Hitchiker’s Guide To Disappontment
Brody and I just saw The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and I wasn’t all that impressed. There are two things I like about the Douglas Adams books:
- the unmistakably British dry, absurdist humor
- the humanist philosophy
Sure, the books are science fiction. But I always viewed that as merely a point of departure; part of the wit of the books is the juxtaposition between the vast majesty of the universe with the piddling details with which its inhabits concern themselves. And besides, with science fiction, you can construct a universe that obeys whatever laws you want, no matter how ridiculous—but again, it’s meant to serve the comedic possibilities.
But dry absurdist wit, unfortunately, doesn’t really translate well to the screen. Plays on words, humorous exposition, and subtle jokes don’t work in a movie, or at least they didn’t really work here. I found myself saying “well, that’s a really funny joke when you read it…”
Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent is perfectly cast, and so is Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beablebrox. But I didn’t think anyone else really did justice to the book’s characters. Mos Def was most definitely miscast as Ford Prefect. Rather than the suave, smooth, take-it-as-it-comes adventurer, he seemed almost as perplexed by events and places as Arthur.
It’s still fun, though, and it’s still goofy, so it succeeds on those points. For those people who enjoyed that part of the book the most, it’ll be great. But it didn’t really do it for me.
Posted by alex at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2005
WTF is wrong with my computer?
This is really weird. I installed Tiger yesterday, and I decided to do a clean install, complete with partitioning my hard drive so that my User account could reside on a different partition than the system, just in case I need to re-install it at some point. In any case, the point is that my hard drive should have been wiped completely clean.
So far so good, except I just got back from school, where things were fine, but now that I’m home, I opened up the computer to find that the Dock has, somehow, reverted to its old Panther state. Weird. I’m going to reboot and see what happens.
Posted by alex at 07:29 PM | Comments (1)
I’m such a bad student.
This is my first entry into Boycats. I know it’s a bit tacky to point that out, but that’s okay. I’m excited, to be honest, to have set this up, and I’m really looking forward to using it and playing around with it.
Anyway, my Enterprise Information Systems final is this evening, and I haven’t really started studying for it. It’s just so boring I can hardly stand it. It’s not that it’s hard to understand, it’s just that the information is couched in corporate-speak, and it’s hard not to be turned off by it. But I guess I just gotta do it.
Okay, Brody just proposed that we go get Indian buffet at 1:00, so I’m going to use that as an excuse to start studying.
Posted by alex at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)