This is a cover of one of my favorite Bruce Cockburn songs. Recorded from my new apartment in Boston!
Told too many people.
Okay. Okay.
Um…
Disclaimer:
This is the first time I’ve started a post without the foggiest I idea of what I’m going to write about. This is bad. My moment to moment thoughts and experiences have proven to be less than riveting, so if this comes out bland and dairy-esque, I apologize, I’ll try to get better. The reason I’m diving into this post without direction (or, really, hope of quality) is that I recently moved across the country and I told people I respect and can’t blow off that I’d write more. Here goes nothing. (perhaps literally)
Facts:
I am starting school at Berklee College of Music, in Boston. I took a 24 hour train ride to get here. Trains suck. (mostly)
Transporting a guitar across the country without a car is difficult. The train ended up sounding like the best option. That is not the reason I wanted take a train. The idea of taking a train across the US has always left me swooning and doughy-eyed. Thinking about passenger trains invokes in me feelings of the wild-west and World War One and top hats and pocket watches and mustaches. There were none of these things on trip I took. Well maybe mustaches.
My plan to listen to The National and stare moodily out the window thinking great thoughts fell apart rather quickly. Thinking great thoughts isn’t as easy as it looks in most TV shows. And boredom comes on easy. I made a friend though, early-on in the trip, waiting in line. He had dreads and carried a bass and on seeing my guitar had asked if I wanted to jam on the train. I had shrugged, “Sure,” secretly hoping he wouldn’t be able to find me later.
He did and once the train was moving I followed him through two cars into the lounge car (top hats and pocket watches). A more appropriate name would have been cafeteria car, but that’s really not important. Dreads, whose real name was Coleman, told me after a conductor politely asked us to stop, that it had, “never been a problem before, probably just a cranky conductor.”
Con:
Sleeping on a train is pretty close to the worst experience I can think of. I did little of it.
Pro:
Every two seats have a power outlet.
I was able to keep my computer charged all the way through season one of Breaking Bad. There’s the mustache. If you’re not familiar with the show, thats okay. Mostly, its a show about Walt. Walt is a 50 year old science teacher with a loving family who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and begins “cooking” crystal meth to pay for his treatment.
Needles to say Walt’s a bit of a conflicted hero. And he should have got me thinking about something or other, but he didn’t.
So here I am sitting on a train, wishing I exist in some mixed-up, ideal, sepia-toned world of excitement and gentlemen and femme-fatals, watching a show that is trying very incredibly hard to look like real life. All the while the real world is whipping by me at around eighty miles an hour. And while all of these parallels would normally have me drawing grand and (maybe) irrational conclusions about life and my experience and (maybe) God, all I could think about was how blindly terrified I was of whatever was waiting for me at the other end of the the train tracks.
“Culdesac” is out.
You can get the whole thing for FREE right HERE.
Thanks for being patient.
May this album be your summer companion and friend. Thanks.
This is a song Amanda wrote, performed at my senior recital.
Her ability for writing songs amazes me.
yup.
This is a better clutter than the one in my head. At least all this stuff is the same flavor.
Also that green chair is awesome.
Also finals are dumb.
Completely Innapropriate (Mom, don't read this)
- me: oh i recorded some crap. i did the guitars for marry me.
- me: so next time we play lets lay that shit down
- Amanda: NO!
- Selina: alright, now we got the swearwords flyin
- Amanda: its gona be too fast i can tell
- me: soo? its better fast
- me: haha actually it probably will be too fast. crap.
- Amanda: yeah....maybe its an aquired taste.
- Amanda: i will lead that song when we play it
- Selina: fucking shit
- me: hahahahahahahaha
- Amanda: HAHAHa
Cheating on College with You
I wrote a paper the other night for my philosophy class. So this is kinda cheating. I’m doing it anyway.
Deal with it, internet.
Okay, so I didn’t need a reason to like Benjamin Morey more. But then he gave it to me. This guys so freaking awesome. Here is his tumblr: http://benmorey.tumblr.com/
Attn: Stupid Guy//3rd row back, 4th seat over//My Philosophy Class
Dear Stupid-Cliché-Spouting Guy,
Thank you for cutting your hair.
I used to feel bad for shaking my head in frustration every time you spoke. Your attempts to “laymanize” (your word) Kant’s critique of Mill’s Greatest Happiness principal for the class were made doubly unbearable by the complete confidence with which you offered them, laying them like a glittering treasure at our feet and warning us with a look to use them wisely.
And when you cut me off with, “I think what he’s trying to say is…” and proceeded to use some alchemy composed of an exposition of your morning routine, the phrase “if you know what I mean,” and the word “shitty” to illustrate the exact opposite of what I was going to say, I nearly ground my teeth to dust.
Fun With Bible Verses
There is no Top Forty list of Bible verses.
Well there is, but its crap; The verses are not listed by popularity, they are just what Glen McDonald thought the forty best verses were to read during lent. Ridiculous. I mean if you are going to use the phrase “Top Forty,” you have to have some semblence of a popularity-driven, pay-for-play, record-label-exec-controlled system. Glen McDonald just decided to use his better judgement and decide for all of us.
I don’t know Glen McDonald, and the verses he picks are pretty great. I’d love to talk about how his list is way better than one that would be created by popular demand, now that I stumbled across it via google, but it would do my essay no good. If there was a real Top Forty Bible Verses list, It would start something like this:
