Walking in a Wilco wonderland.

So my friend Heather let me commandeer her blog for all of five seconds, long enough for me to throw up some musings on my weekend with Wilco in the shady, rainy Massachusetts woodland. If you feel like stepping into my mind for around 1,000 words or so and seeing a couple photos of what these eyes saw, by all means, be my guest. And, if you've never been over to her part of the world, I'd advise you stick around and admire the scenery there. Take your time. Smell those roses. If you like music and discovering the new stuff, she's got plenty to show and tell. I tend to like it at Fuel/Friends.

Wordless Wednesday.

SOLID SOUND 2011: Wilco has "Reservations".

Call, answer.

"What are you doing today?" she asked that afternoon turning to a night, the question plucked out of the still sorta blued sky. She never asks that question, either, and so the mind races. The mind races because the answer ought to be right, whether or not she's looking for the right one. But there was so much to say on that day, too much to get out in a sentence or four. Halfway between North Adams and the Mohawk Trail State Forest, caught between the music crossed with small town beauty and being enveloped in a wooded, rained-on spot for the remainder of the night, the Eastern Summit boasted of its 65-mile view on a sign and that was what was happening, being experienced, taken in. So much had taken place in the last 36 and much had yet to still but, at this moment alone, there was staring and pondering and shoving a quarter into the built-in binocular viewfinder providing the eyes to look even further along the landscape. Clouds resting on top of mountain peaks that repeated themselves nine times over, pinks and blues and greens all tripping and blending into one another, the masterpiece allowing for a hollow in the chest to be filled up when it didn't even seem empty before. If there was a soul to be searched, this was a worthy backdrop. Instead, those proverbial roses were wafting in and getting good and smelled. It was enough. And all of that couldn't have been shared, not in the right way.

So I sent her a photo of that moment. "Ahhhhh," was her reply.

I'm coming for you, Tweedy.

Three little birds.

I feel like it's been quite a while since I went ahead and bragged on my extended family in this space. I try to be really pretty careful with how much I go about doing that, too, as I'm no mommy blogger, not by a long shot. Still, I have my moments. And this morning, I'm having one of them, like it or hate it. Here's a little video a photographer put together during a photo shoot with my sister's family. It makes we wish I were closer, of course, but mostly? I just like that I'm able to see them, period. This works for now. If I were either parent, though, I think I'd have a hard time not wanting to be around them for every single minute of the rest of their lives. 

Hey, I'm just saying. It's got to be rough being their mom or dad. Whaddya think? You like?


3 Little Birds from Collin Kartchner on Vimeo.

Wordless Wednesday.

Cass McCombs is winning.

And, by that, I'm letting on that he wins at making music. He's also got hold of my admiration and both my ears, all this Monday. There is so much beauty in this, so much fragility (both in the song and its moving pictures, yes). Thanks, Cass. As bleak as this day seems, I'm glad I've got this tune in my arsenal as its intermittent soundtrack.

Hey, Vancouver! This kiss'll make you famous.

Whoever you two are, I like where your heads are at. And I like that you're absolutely not thinking about a hockey game or overturning cars or joining in with the angry, angry masses. As you were, then. Carry on.

Smitten. Again.

9 observations of a weekend past.

·      If you are a wasp trying to build one of your nests above my front door, be warned: I will come at you with my can of Aqua Net and not feel bad about it.

·      Sometimes your friend’s 11-year-old daughter replaces a hello with “I like you better with a beard on.”

·      Driving your car onto a beach and then parking on it is wrong on so many levels but, in quite another, oh, so right. So very right.

·      Hearing an alligator growl, out of nowhere, even if it’s at another alligator getting all up in his gator business, most certainly can and will make my skin crawl.

·      Christmas, FL, does exist. And there’s the son of a gator farmer there who got named HoHo. His folks were real jokers. It’s been said: “I bet HoHo could fight.”

·      If you time it right, the temperature of the ocean matches the temperature of the air perfectly. And you’ll never want to leave the water until the sun goes to sleep.

·       The birdseed’s on the back patio. That’s pretty far away from my car, way over on the other side of the house. Eat up, wild birds, but aim you bird butts away from my car. Seriously. Anything else is just bad manners.

·      Meeting someone with the same unhurried sensibility as my own makes for a pleasant afternoon that turns into night really pretty quickly.

·      Learning how to tether your phone to your computer makes you feel like you’ve unlocked and conquered a great secret in the universe.

I hate it here when you're gone.

I miss $100 round trip tickets to Denver. I miss Sunday night flank steak, hot from the grill at my folks’ place. I miss sifting through so many of the good songs and playing them for a whole valley of listeners. I miss walking down snowy sidewalks and saddling up to acoustic shows in a neighborhood bar. I miss Crown Burger. I miss running into people I know unexpectedly. I miss singing with a band. I miss a time when I could date and feel like I knew what I was actually doing. I miss waking up in the mountains. I miss suddenly joining hiking trips and using them as excuses for long, drawn-out, intimate conversations. I miss a well-made, well-flavored taco. I miss those who hugged instead of handshaked. I miss gathering together a gaggle of friends and making them pancakes on a Saturday morning. I miss being understood. I miss owning long weekend vacations. I miss sisters who made babies and were eager to put them in my arms now and again. I miss enjoying an ever-rotating string of new bands and old musicians and the pleasantly supportive, slightly incestuous relationship they had with one another. I miss doing little more than traveling to new countries to talk to people about what they did for a living. I miss a different sort of comfort. I miss the same old, same old.

I like my new couch and how it took me a full week of sitting in it to finally know I’d chosen right. I like that I can walk out on my back patio into the pitch black and be quietly serenaded to by a band of so, so many crickets. I like the feeling of an old wooden floor from the 1950s underneath my bare feet. I like when my days are so impossibly filled up with so much of the blue skies and golden sunshine. I like celebrating a warm thunderstorm. I like that I live in a state with so much weird history tucked deep into its corners, every single weekend can lend itself to a myriad of new discoveries. I like that I get to kick off and spend a weekend with Wilco music and a tent out east, just me and a few thousand new like-minded friends. I like living less than two miles from the best black bean burrito and summer rolls w/ peanut sauce in the state. I like being able to write for my daily bread. I like happening upon old folks in a small town, dancing to live accordion music and allowing me to take a welcomed leap back in time. I like running full speed ahead into a kindred spirit. I like swimming during my lunch hour. I like blazing the unknowable path. I like clambering after this hope for more. 

Cover song 'o the day.

Thank you, Copenhagen! Thank you, Band of Horses! Thank you, thank you, thank you! And, while I'm at it, I'm just glad this is the last thing I heard before I sealed this work day for good ... the collective sound of so many joined voices and instruments making a true thing of beauty. Yes, this is what was needed. This and nothing more.