I pretty much love Halloween.

Not Zeus. Not Santa with a fish tail. Not some kind of confused king precariously mixed with a drag queen. Nope ... but they were all real good guesses. I like being something or someone for the holiday that others can't quite pick out right away. The ambiguity and mysteriousness are reasons I dig on Oct. 31 after all. I was King Triton today ... from that cartoon everybody's already seen. Even though I walked like a stumbling drunk, even though I had pins poking me on a consistent basis, even though I had synthetic hairs in my mouth pretty much always and even though people pushed me from building to building like I had no use of my legs (and, to be truthful, mermen don't have legs anyway) ... it all pretty much ruled. Long live Halloweekend.

This is happiness.

photo courtesy of Said the Gramophone

Heard of these guys?

The uber-talented and plenty likable Kings of Convenience finally put out another album, titling it Declaration of Dependence. As expected, it's incredibly easy on the ears and, if there's one thing I can say about their music, it's that you only need to hear a song to end up wanting to hear more. Talk about your chain reactions. Anyway, go ahead and watch all the songs here, especially that last one, a cover of Lesley Gore's "It's My Party." I happened to grow up with that 45 record, thanks to my mom's record collection. Highlight? Trumpet solo.

Wordless Wednesday.

This is for the best.

The funny thing is, I never mind when the sadness stops by for a visit.

I’m not prone to wallowing in the emotion or anything and, given the choice (which usually doesn’t exist), I sidestep it for anything but the feelings it lays on me, but he’s an altogether familiar visitor. I know when he’s here and that he’s been here so many times before and that, even though he hasn’t been around for quite a long spell now, I remember how he’s prone to making me feel. I also know there’s a reason for it (and, often times, there tend to be several) and that I can go about sending him on his way once I discover and dismiss and/or solve it. Some say there’s no logic in the emotion but I don't believe that’s the case.

Besides, there are things you do (or don’t do) when you’re sad that you wouldn’t do otherwise. I do things like throwing out all my old, forgotten cucumbers and bad broccoli and stanky cottage cheese and such. I skip out on exercise. I don’t watch any movies because, when sadness is around, he certainly prefers my full, undivided attention. Oh! I tend to sleep a lot more than my usual amount, too, though it’s one of those light rests, the kind that come with a wide array of crazy dreams. Even music tends to mean more, sound better and make more sense.

You ever notice how nobody calls you back when you’re sad? That’s almost always the case.

It’s supposed to snow, maybe even tonight according to the paper. If that’s the case, I sorta hope this sadness sticks around. I'm no glutton for punishment, mind you, but it’d certainly be a waste to not be blue while snowflakes were falling from the sky. They tend to go together so well after all.

Half of what I say is meaningless.

A couple days ago, I was able to see this guy (Tony Dekker of those Great Lake Swimmers) play to an audience of two, just Bad Brad Wheeler and myself. I was pretty riveted, I have to say, and mostly forgot I had a video camera in my hands. This was the last of his three songs and, well, this is the one that ended up moving me the most. At the actual concert later, he'd let on that it was supposedly a song he'd been commissioned to write about the architecture in Toronto (the inside joke being that there isn't really any). Still, I didn't let that ruin it for me. I also got to play Tony's taxi cab for a bit, where we talked about the Beatles and how he inherited a rather large vinyl collection, the magnificent White Album being one of those. My remastered copy was sitting in his seat before he was, so it made sense to jaw about it. Want some inside info? Okay then. His very favorite vinyl sequence ever starts with "Martha My Dear" and ends with "Julia." If'n you feel like reading my take on the show, you can go HERE but, if not, at least take the video below in. Maybe a few times.



For that whole HIGH QUALITY effect, making it more bigger and more beautifuler, click here

Let's squish our fruits together.

I don't have words good enough to describe this, so I'll stop now.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

I've been thinking of this one since last night.

"The wager with the highest stakes of all is with our hearts. Here is where we must accept risk, sometimes a lot of it, in order to win. In no other activity do we expect to be skilled from the outset. Everyone accepts the idea of a learning curve accompanied by sometimes-painful mistakes before we become adept. No one would expect to become good at skiing without falling down. And yet many people are surprised at the hurt that routinely accompanies our efforts to find someone worthy of our love.

To take the risks necessary to achieve this goal is an act of courage. To refuse to take them, to protect our hearts against all loss, is an act of despair." — Gordon Livingston

There are a lot of things I can say about this, but I'll break off a piece of what goes on inside. There is truth in these words ... truths that must be considered and possibly even added into the way I think and believe about the way I go about doing things. It's hard for me to get behind consistently accepting risk when it comes to matters of the heart, especially having risked and lost many times in my long, spotty career of loving and losing. I know I don't always go down this road, either ... there's protection there, based on my bagful of experiences. However ... I have always regarded those who've married and become parents and, sure, even entered into one of those longstanding relationships as brave, courageous people in my mind. They're the ones, after all, who've stepped off the cliff and believed in an eventual soft landing. I can't help but admire them.

Thanks, Gordon, for helping open the floodgates of thought some.

Falling into Fall.

It's so easy to accept the change of the seasons when it still feels like summer outside. Best o' both worlds, that's what we got this weekend. Thanks, Utah.

Saturday is meant for musing.

Only the depressed ones are revered as true artists. Only the ones with their souls torn in two are given any real notice or credibility. So, given the fact I feel relatively normal and am generally among those in the well-adjusted category (though some would certainly take issue with that), my poetry is all for naught. My musings beyond the poetic ones are also cast aside. I prolly won’t be published in the poetry journals that want someone with a vocabulary much greater than mine and past acquaintances can finally stop saying things along the lines of, “So, when am I going to get to read your bestseller?” Nobody wants to hear how happy a person is.

With that knowledge then, I can shout it out and be alright with it: I am incredibly, undeniably happy. Is it that I’m merely content or that I have joy? Eh, I believe it’s some of both. I wanted to remember this long moment for the happiness that comes inside it, so I set about discovering it this morning. This sunshine in mid-October and the bit of a bite in this air thrills me. I scored a couple winter squash at the Farmer’s Market, along with a lemon beef empanada and cream cheese danish and it ended up being one of the best starts of the day ever. The good friends I surround myself with are my warm blankets. A good chunk of silence left to think inside—much like this one, sometimes touched with music—it is like my manna from heaven. These are all pieces of this long equation that I try to add together to make sense of the end result, but I’m not even sure I can pinpoint a specific reason for my present state of mind. Perhaps I’ll just chalk it up to caffeine, right?

It’s true I’ve no real somebody special in my life, but I have love in it. I may not have the world’s lone perfect job, but I find perfect parts about the one I do have all the time. My family isn’t like yours or much like anybody’s that I know of, but it’s filled with good people you’d do well to know. It’s so good to see past the impossibility and keep your eye on that horizon of the absolutely possible. So much can happen. So much will.

Swim swam swum.

The Great Lake Swimmers are headed our way a few days from now and, if you haven't snagged your ticket, I'll go out on a limb and cordially invite you to do so now. Come with me and we'll have a good time together, yeah? Promise. Anyway, I prolly wrote this about them and, should you get the hankering to do so, maybe you should read it. May it be the very piece to shove alla the fence-sitters in the proper direction. So let it be written.

Shortest Yo La Tengo Review ... Ever.

I promise to shut up about Yo La Tengo soon enough, but that time is not yet. I didn't do a proper review of Monday night's show, but it was pretty perfect. Ira and Georgia were working their own merch booth beforehand even, which sorta blew my mind. They've been around for more than 25 years as a band and they're still doing things all by themselves ... talk about your ultimate DIY approach. Anyway, the guitar solos were incredibly loud, long and crunchy. Distortion was a necessity. Old favorites popped up ("Autumn Sweater" was there, of course) as well as the new ("Periodically Double or Triple" won't get old anytime soon) and, well, they were enjoyed. Even got some of their old, grizzled fans to come out and get their records signed. Yo La Tengo can get along in a crowd of a couple hundred as easily as they can a festival of thousands. Smiled my way right through at 15-minute guitar solo, I did. And, I can't believe I haven't seen it before now, but the Internet Gods led me to the video below ... it'll enrich your life, too. If that's not enough, check out Part 2 here. It's almost as good as being there.

Yo La tengo - A Take Away Show - Part 1 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Yo La Tengo and their Sugarcube.

I was actually sorta lamenting the fact Yo La Tengo hasn't put out any good music videos, as I wanted to throw one up here and expose all of the greatness they have in one single, musical shot of glory. They're in town tonight, you know, and it'll be at the most intimate venue I've yet to see them in, so I'm plenty excited. Anyway, you should know how good they are. You oughta. You should even skip over to Urban Lounge tonight and try and prove me wrong. But, if nothing else, you gotta watch this, if only for a young David Cross, running around in a crazy wig. Has that guy EVER had hair? Maybe it's the only good video they ever put out, but that works for me. I'll console myself with some meaty guitar solos in a few hours.


Watch it.

Sometimes.

Sometimes skipping yoga for Jimmy Page on the big screen is completely acceptable. Sometimes it makes you listen to Led Zeppelin immediately afterward. Sometimes it gets no better than "In My Time of Dying."
Sometimes turning on all the lights in the place makes it seem like there are others here. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with not wanting all of that solitude.
Sometimes days both start and end with cold cereal.
Sometimes Free Tetris on a Friday night are the most beautiful words in the world. Sometimes the words "I'll be right over" help improve on that.
Sometimes falling asleep in your clothes beats wasting time switching to pajamas. Sometimes they're just as comfortable.
Sometimes you get back at The Man by not brushing your teeth before bed. Sometimes you could burn the hair on somebody's face with that revenge breath from the night before.
Sometimes sleep comes a lot faster than you ever expected. Sometimes (and usually) you're completely okay with that. In fact, sometimes it makes you drift off before you quite

Passion Pit does Salt Lake.

They came, they saw, they rocked. What? You want more than that? Okay. Clickety-click. Oh, and Justin Hackworth was responsible for that photo (and a few others). You might want to watch this goodness as well. Maybe try and not miss them next time, yeah?

Great Lake Swimming.

My head's all wrapped up in Canada's Great Lake Swimmers this afternoon. They're making their way back to Salt Lake City in a couple of weeks (Oct. 20th @ The State Room) and I, for one, couldn't be a happier boy about it. Fantastic band + Best Sounding Venue in the City = A Night of Magic. If you're a fan, you already have their latest Lost Channels and, if you aren't, there's never been a better time to be. They've all been solid albums up to this point, but this just very well may be their best. Might have something to do with the banjo or the female vocals mixed in or the fact that they recorded a bulk of it in a castle (all natural reverb, all the time). I'm not here to sell, though. Just to share. This is the kind of stuff you want to roll around in a while or go to sleep to or, well, a-hundred other things I'm not going to add to the list. Listen to this offering from their latest and tell me I'm not right about this.



Listen.

26 years ago today.

In Remembrance of Dustin Jay Moody
October 27, 1949 — October 5, 1983
Gone but not forgotten

Truth gathering.

"I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way." (Carl Sandburg)

Sometimes I share quotes with my stepdad and he, in turn, fires little witticisms from writers and intellectuals and God-fearing men and such back in my direction. We’ve done so for more years than I can recall. And, well, they pretty much run the gamut: reflecting, say, our view on life or things we admire or new perspectives that are worth exploring and ingesting. Now and again, he’ll ask me where I find my quotes and, truth be told, I don’t have a readymade answer. I have no books filled with quotes for every situation or mood. It’s more like they hide under rocks, rocks I end up stumbling across in my path. They end up finding me sometimes, as cliche as that might sound. I think a good lot of us are more or less in constant states of discovery and, when something rings true to us, we latch hold of it. We devour a few lines like they’re poetry made for our own lives. Maybe we’re truth gatherers?

The above quote landed in my lap this past week and I happen to like it quite a lot. I’m not a worrier—I’m not one who conjures up five bad ways for a particular situation to end. Instead, I see life for its possibilities. They’re endless. There are so many directions and opportunities and dreams to seek out. I’m in this for the adventure and the discovery and all that comes with it. A lot of the time, I believe that’s what fuels me. My yearned-for optimism tends to chase away my fear. Sure, I’ve loved and lost. I’ve set out for greatness sometimes and crash landed. Still, I don’t fear the future. I can’t wait to see what’s behind Door No. 3. I highly anticipate what’s next.

That said, I empathize with Carl Sandburg. I like his outlook. It reflects mine.

My stepdad, on the other hand, sees it through different eyes, stripping the quote down to being about faith, plain and simple. Perhaps that’s what Sandburg is getting at ... we don’t know how our life will play out, but we believe in an outcome and march towards it. What happens, happens. If that’s the case, maybe I’ve more faith in me than I originally thought I did. Given the choices, I’d rather have some of that to spare than to be without it. You know?

Okay, okay.

It's October 1st. It's also the first time I've worn socks in I can't remember how long now. Fine. I'll wear 'em, but don't expect me to be happy about it.