Verses

Sorry.  That last post was crazy.  I didn't mean for it to be terrible and nonsensical.  But I never mean to be either of those things.  I promise.

Today was a good day.  I've been writing a lot.  Less fiction than I'd like but enough lyrics and music to make up for it.  This music is...different.  I haven't decided yet if it's 'yeah...' different or 'oh...' different or 'hm...' different; I'll finish the songs soon and find out.

It takes me into a certain space though.  The process.  Embalming ideas in ink.  Being ready to recapture those ideas when they reanimate off the page.  Eventually they evolve, grow wings (or some other fancy metaphor for metamorphosis).  And hopefully those winged ideas migrate to their respective chord progressions in a timely manner.

I don't rush songs.  I also don't wait for 'inspiration.'  Sometimes I want to.  Sometimes, even when I love an idea so completely, I get bored with it if it doesn't do anything or go anywhere for a few months.  I stop playing it and reteach it to myself a couple seasons later.  It's not the most time effective method for songwriting but, I think, it keeps me from writing crap.

I'd like to think I'll have three or four songs done in the next week -- I may be performing at an open mic on July 7th.  I'd like to think that they'll be good songs.  I'd like to think that they'll work for Momentary Prophets even if we're dormant as a band.  I'd like to think I won't be terrified to perform alone.  Really, I just don't know any of that.  

I do know, however, that I feel a lot closer to a lot of everything when I'm right in the middle of a song.  The strings vibrating, the wood humming, my pulse syncopating against the chucking and strumming.  What a marvel that music is ours.     

Keep the Harem beatific.

"What have you been doing for the past two weeks, Jake?"  The universe asks.

"Oh,"  I look away because, "I need to think about that.  I've been pretty busy.  It'd probably be easier to tell you what I haven't been doing."  I laugh.

"Hm, like not writing your blog."  The universe doesn't laugh.

I try to gather a ropy excuse from the heap of undocumented refuse that's filled in and filled out and filled up my mine-pit skull.  I don't do a good job.  I end up focusing on the stretchy sound that the universe's
eyebrow makes as the hair (and dark matter) rise up to make a '��'.

"I thought you were taking it seriously." The universe says, imitating anyone's disappointed mom -- with perfect pitch and tone.

"I was.  I am.  I just haven't felt inspired.  I've been busy."

"Doing what exactly?"

"Working at Path.  Studying Mandarin.  Composing for Generic Theater.  Herding ideas for stories and songs.  I'm not sure where they're all going but I guess I'm the person to take them there.  And then I just got back from Wisteria yesterday.  That's where the title of this post comes from.  It's the most in-in-inside joke I can think of right now."

"None of that inspires you?"  The universes tone softens.  It reminds me of my mother.  Specifically, it reminds me of a conversation I had with her (the topic of which escapes me currently).  At one particular point in that chat I perceived in my mother a shift in her perception of me, like she realized that qualities of her son were strangers to her.

I snap out of memory, inspired by the promise of justifying myself.  "Of course everything inspires me, that's why I do it all.  I can't 'be inspired' all day though.  If all I ever do is output, output, output, I'll end up with A, an empty well, and B, spiritual dehydration."  That's right.  Take that universe.

"Is writing a blog such a labor?"

"No.  But writing isn't natural for me.  Writing is toiling.  I have to grapple with ideas just to dissipate all the wordy fog.  Expression, while something I think I could do for a living, isn't easy for me."

"Of course not.  You're not alone in that.  After all, doesn't everyone struggle with it?"


"I'm sure they do.  I mean, I know they do.  But, sometimes it's hard for me to think about anything but how hard of a time I have trying to get everything I want done."

"Life isn't fair,"  Again the universe side-steps like a mime into my mother's robe and british accent.

"Thanks for the condescension."

"Jake, don't be childish."

"Don't be motherish then."

The universe reaches for something invisible.  A fridge manifests.  The universe pries the door from its spongy seal.  "Almond milk?  Orange slices?  Cat-shaped triple chocolate cupcakes?  I call them Choco Cup Cats."  The universe stares proudly at the four faces who stare back with pious chocolate-chip eyes.

I sigh and say, "You know I have no power against chocolate."  The universe tosses one my way.  Like a proper cat it lands right side up in my palm.  "Thanks."

The disembodied fluffy head tastes good.  But I can't help but feel as though I've just been goaded into sugar happiness.  

"It's not sugar.  I used agave."  The universe dunks its cake into a tall glass of almond milk, real nonchalant, as if it hadn't just read my thoughts and then corrected them.

"Where do you even get agave?"

"Whoa Socrates, slow down."

"What?"

"Exactly."

With the Cup Cat burrowing down my esophagus, I realize how thirsty it made me.  That glass of almond milk looks really good right about now.  So white and, presumably, cold and, presumably (because it is in the universe's fridge), unlimited.  Few things are better than the security of infinite almond milk.

I think for a minute of how to ask politely but not too politely.  "I'll, uh, take you up on that almond milk too."

The universe deposits the last coal-dark nugget of cake into its mouth and drains its own glass of almond milk.  "But you wanted a Choco Cup Cat.  So that's what you got."

Are you serious?  The universe can't be serious.  "Are you serious?"  I have to ask.

"I gave you the choice.  The almond milk would have hydrated you.  The orange would have..."

"Spare me.  Spare them.  I didn't think this was going to turn into a lecture about..."

"Having the cake and eating it too?"

So funny.  But no, universe, your deadpan delivery gets no laughs.  None.

"Reminders are so bad?"

"No.  Shitty jokes are.  You made those cupcakes just so you could get me with that joke."

"They are Cup Cats.  And yes.  But not totally.  I think I could retail them.  There's a lot of cat owners out there who'd love them."

"Great.  Cat owners can give themselves treats and confuse the hell out of their cats at the same time."

"I see, you're in no mood for brainstorming or constructive criticism."  The universe reaches up and pulls the string to the lightbulb that appears simultaneously.  The fridge vanishes, leaving behind a small nest of snakeish lint and shredded leaves.  How so much collected in the span of a couple minutes?  Not worth thinking about, I decide.

"Sorry.  There's never really an excuse for negativity.  I'm just decompressing a bit.  Trying to sort myself out."

"Like usual?"  The universe smiles.  It reminds me of my mother.  Specifically, that benign grin reminds me of all the times I ever got sick, or got my heart broken, or really achieved something, and my mother was there, caring, knowing everything about me.

"Yeah.  Like usual."  I say.  I feel acutely aware of my predictability.  No, there's a better word: reliability.

(Too much?  Probably.)

"You should get to bed."  The universe says.  "Busy day tomorrow."

I laugh a little.  Mostly, because I am so predictable.

The universe recombines as the space between my fingers and the keyboard and the space between my legs and the blanket and the space between my head and the pillow.  Then the universe becomes everything again.  Which it always was.  And I feel no need to explain further.

I'm still thirsty though.  So I falling-asleep-walk to the kitchen.  I open up the fridge, hoping that Liz and I didn't down the new Almond Breeze already.  A frosty glass of almond milk poses like Superman next to siamese-twin Cup Cats who smile up at me from the plate.  There's a note:

Good Cat.

The Path stretches ever on.

Today was my first day and everybody's first day at Path Norfolk.  Those of you unfamiliar with Path Norfolk should make every attempt possible to become familiar with it.  It is a vegan restaurant.  It is a love restaurant.  It is a silly, happy, exciting, taste-bud popping restaurant.  And I get to work there.

It must have been early high school when I realized how much I loved to cook and that I wanted to have my own place some day.  While this isn't my own place, I'll be given a remarkable amount of freedom to shape and cultivate the entrée menu as time goes on.  I have so many ideas.  I'm thrumming and hopping with enthusiasm to unleash my culinary prowess on strangers.

It was a fun day.  I'll be uploading recipes and pictures soon as the experiments unfold and we get closer to perfecting the recipes which will (hopefully) be on the menu soon.

Stay tuned.  Stay hungry.  Stay with me.

Rings White Array

I essentially got hired on the spot at the Virginia Beach Trader Joe's today.  The First Mate from the Newport News store, affectionately referred to as The Todd, was manning the office.  When I asked for an application he responded:

"No shit.  You want to work here?"

It's good to have that settled, sorted out, so my breaths are a little less narrow.  I remember my last night at Trader Joe's -- two years and three days ago.  After my shift, I whistled for Shadowfax and rode into the infinte night, knowing that I'd never have to return to Trader Joe's for work.  Ever.  In my whole life.  Four hours and a pound of cherries later, I pulled into Ted's driveway  The next day we were rehearsing and preparing to record Sunflower.  What humor the universe has.  Such cleverness.  The way circles and cycles close and resume.  Surprises hop out of the horizon.  The universe asks:

"What do you know, Jake?"

"That I like surprises."  Says I.

And along those lines -- not the surprises but the manner of my soon to be source of income -- I spent an hour at a food safety class, learning a pile of food wisdom.  Magically, I was awarded a paper rectangle.

FOOD HANDLER

That's me.  It's for my fancy cooking gig at Path Norfolk.  Come eat my foods.

The food handler class was interesting but about 95% of the lecture was information that I'd seared into my head as a teenager, praying at the altar of the Food Network.  That was back when what I knew was that I would excel in culinary school and I would be a food architect and I would delight bellies and I would be a practitioner of man's longest, and grooviest, shaman tradition.  Making meals.

"Are you beginning to see a pattern, Jake?"  Asks the universe.

"I see patterns all the time."  Says I.

"Don't be cute.  Do you see this pattern?"

"Yeah yeah; I get it."

"Good."  The universe smiles and skips jauntily down the road.

"It's kind of crazy, you know?"  I jog to catch up, now a little breathless.  "How easy absolute is.  How shocking it is that changing my mind is even easier."

"It's really not that crazy.  What's actually crazy is shitting all over yourself for changing your mind.  For not being right."

"Shitting all over myself?" says I.  "Don't you think that's a bit harsh?"

"You tell me."  Replies the universe.  On it skips.  Jaunting through space-time.

Smart, smart universe.  Saying smart things.  Making me feel smart, just because it doesn't make fun of me for not getting it all right away.  Smart.  That's kind of a weird word if you look at it long enough.  Sound it out.  Really.  s.  m.  a.  r.  t.  Smart.  Anyway, so then I say to the universe:

"Where's all this going?"

"Where isn't it going?"  The universe raises a milky-way eyebrow.  Then it vanishes.

I thought long about that.  A good long think.  About as long as it took you to reach this question mark?
What?

So I didn't really think that much about the universe's question.  Because it made a lot of sense.  Something, I fear, I have now strayed from.

Ohhhh, and the whole point of this.  Sometimes people mispronounced words, rather, they get the letters and sounds a bit mushed in their mouths.  It's easy to tell where their brain is though -- already on the next word.  The teacher of the Food Handler class, who occasionally made good jokes, had this tendency.  Sometimes it's embarrassing to watch.  Other times, boring boring things become sublime and poetic and just plain interesting.

What he meant to say:

"You can thaw frozen chicken wings with hot water, as long as you cook those wings right away."

But the circuits leapfrogged and he ended that sentence with the words, rings white array.  I like that much better.

||MIDNIGHT:50||

bed.

Dreaming the Right Dreams

Today I slept in; it wasn't a choice.  I woke in the night (first time) because I was sweating.  The second time I was sweating feverishly so I yanked off my shirt -- with the same amount of grace a child-magician employs as he snatches the tablecloth from the table, breaking most things in the process.  The third time I woke may have actually been the first or second time or both of them blended together; either way I remember three distinct instances of being awake when I didn't want to be.

This morning, when Liz left, I woke suddenly, barely hearing what she had to say as she walked out the door looking luxurious and splendid in her fancy clothes.  I remember saying:

"You're leaving?"

I was shocked.  She was leaving!?  Already!?  But I had just woken...Despite my shock, I managed to soothe myself immediately back to sleep, maybe before she even left the apartment.

The next few hours were a quicksand gravity-well, spitting me out and sucking me in again and again.  I would wake, half-remembering the dream I'd just been a part of, and I would think, I want to be awake, I want to get up now.  But the blanket washed around me and the subconscious undertow dragged me down to the next scene I would scarcely remember.

After hours of that, I convinced my arm to reach for the phone/clock/reality buoy.  11:38.  Oh, come on...The frustration of sleeping three hours past my planned real world entry point was enough to get me out of bed.

I don't mind dreaming.  I love dreaming.  What I have a hard time with is slithery dream thoughts and flighty emotions (which habitually amount to the sentiment of 'it's not enough', or 'I couldn't quite make it.')  So many of my dreams, and the way they plot their course in my waking life, orbit around that 'couldn't quite make it' feeling.  My goals and aspirations amount to:

"When I can do this...When I can do that...When I am better at so and so...When this thing, that thing isn't in the way..."

It's easy some days to rise with the sun, to move and bustle like a pillar of photons.  Some days, the dreams are less mirage than they are marriage of accumulations and aspirations; I can touch them because I know them.  I know their names.  Other days, I'm sore from treading against the current, yawning through the daze of my psyche's clipped and hiccuped sound-bites.  This morning, I could hardly make sense of any single dream, waking or sleeping.  Today, everything is just too distant.

Drawing the White

Tuesdays are my favorite days.  The philosophy behind 'why?' is not sound, what's important is that today is no exception.

What I done so far:
Wrote 2000 words (of which at least fifty weren't awful), hugged gentle-clever-paws Botkins, read a post on Gabriel Robinson's blog GemForest (a connection which those in the 'Rudras-know' ought to dig), and then I got to watch this:

http://vimeo.com/24648634

This is a year and a half in the making.  The artfulness, the delicacy, the beauty that Jenna expressed with this video was enough to make tear up in FairGrounds.  Last winter, I sent out an e-mail to as many film schools as I could find, essentially volunteering the services of Momentary Prophets for any student who wished to have original and/or newly composed music for any projects they may do.  I heard back from one student; Jenna Harcher.

She lives in Savannah (soon New York) and studied at SCAD.  She is sunshine in the shape of a cat, and then wrapped in human.  She directed this video.

Co-inspiration, distance collaboration, blessed blessed emotion, thrills me today.  Anyone want to collaborate on any kind of project?  Stories?  Musics?  Food?  Interpretive Dance?  Let me know.  I need to be better at sharing.

Happy Tuesday.   

I don't know if I can make this place my home

Lyrics are strange.  Other people's words and feelings and thoughts, sometimes thorny, other times fulfilling and deeply moving.  I used to have this strange conviction -- in a former life -- that music was all that matters.  Just notes.  Immaterial tones strung together, bong-rips for the imagination.  Lyrics got in the way.

That was before.  Before a lot of things.  I write those strange things now, I purposely put them in the way of the music.  As best I can, I give it an exact meaning and hope it guides people to the images I've been personally transformed by.

Lyrics are fickle.  Like most arts and crafts, one day it's perfect in it's unpolished simplicity, the next day it's corny, obtuse, cliché.  There is too much at play cognitively to really dive into all of it now because I had a point.  Have a point.

Sometimes (and this is the strangest things about lyrics) we extract the lyrics and they mature into mantras, ideas that transcend melody, rhythm, and timbre.

I love this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzBM34cEyUU

When we learn to walk

Today I had a nice walk.  The walk was long.  The sun grinned the whole time.  I thought more and came closer to a conclusion in regards to what I would say, what message I'd deliver, if the whole world was listening.  I am, obviously, thinking too hard about this.

Today I did not have a nice writing session because I did not have a writing session at all.  Instead, I played a lot of guitar and came closer to understanding the mood of a new song I'm writing.  I hope I will finish that song as well as a few others before the fin du mois; next mois I may play in a local singer/songwriters showcase at Kerouac Café.  Tomorrow I will meet with the lady who books it.  It will be a good song.

This evening I had a splendid time hanging out with Skye and Gabriel and Brendan at the opening of Gabriel's art show.  Floating Island Sanctuaries. . . from what magicful corner of the universe does Gabriel import his genius?

Speaking of genius, there were several babies about:  Anita and Scotty's baby girl who smiles and dances and flirts like a bee, Brandi and Tim's baby boy who mostly screams at the humans around him but giggles gently when lowered in front of a dog's friendly face, and Liz and Jonathan's baby, who still nests in Liz's tummy awaiting the world and a name.  Liz is pretty sure she's a she.

I think I need to ask my mother when I first started walking.

||Happy Friday||

The Running of the Racoons

Today a thing occurred, the silliest thing I've heard in at least twenty-four hours...Gabriel and I were walking, conversing about vegan entrées we want to explore for Path, and as we were leaving (out the man-sized hole in the fence) we stumbled and were stumbled upon by a raccoon kit.

|| Almost 2/3 of the cerebral cortex area that is reserved for sensation is reserved for tactile sensation -- touch.  That's cool ||

The baby raccoon's eagerness to be our friend was alarming.  Not because we feared the tiny creature but because we didn't see his/her parents around and that meant that they could be hunkered down under some bush ready to torpedo our necks -- á la Monty Python and the Holy Grail rabbit.

Let's call the raccoon Sneaky-Pants.

Sneaky-Pants seemed only to want our attention and affection but I'll be honest, a small creature (rabies?) who clings incessantly to strange humanoids (starving? [and rabies]) and then follows them out of the woods into the streets then back to the woods then into a big field and then makes a heart-breaking caaaaaawwwww bark, makes me feel two things: Guilt from running away from it and. . . no, just guilt.

Sneaky-Pants was so cute.  "But he might have rabies!?"Gabriel and I reassure ourselves as we run circles to lose the furry, evolutionarily advantaged mammal.

We re-entered the bird sanctuary and saw Sneaky-Pants' two siblings watch prudishly from their perch in a bendy tree.  Careful-Pants and Gonna-Tell-Mom-Pants eventually descended and in a few minutes Gabriel and I, and the guy we met in the field who was throwing frisbees to nobody, sprinted through the bird sanctuary with a trio of galloping raccoons in hot, whiny pursuit.

We lost them in the small but tall patch of mint and milkweed.  And then Gabriel and I ran away, laughing and sweating and feeling guilty about the whole thing...

Running into people

I was asked by a friend earlier:

"If you had a chance to get one message across to the whole world, what would it be?"

Oh my god.  What kind of question is that?  A great one.

I guess I'm still thinking about it.  I was thinking about it when I left the house to go write and I was thinking about when I ran into a friend from CNU (and fellow musician) Joe Hamm.  We really don't talk much at all but we share the trajectory of being independent musicians.

He asked what I was doing and I rattled off the list of things: composing music for a play, scoring for an independent film, studying chinese, working on silly fiction stories.  He responded:

"Wow, you're really in the creative zone."  If you've heard Joe speak then you understand the enthusiasm and amazement that accompanies most of the things he says.  I was glad he said that because it gave me a distraction from the excellent and intimidating question that loomed over me.  He was right, is right.  I am in a great creative zone.  I am lucky.  How is it that I can spend so much time poring over emotional and imaginational work?

I don't start my next 'real' job until after this weekend.
Ahhhhhhhhh.
It's ok
It really is.
I will enjoy this week of unhindered jake-divides-his-day-exactly-how-he-wants time.

Maybe if I work hard enough for the next few days I can shrug off the responsibility of answering my friend's question.  Because then -- by dodging even a slight thread of responsibility -- I'll really be an artist!