The Black Forest

Random blaghness...

Exotic Moods...

I'm sitting here listening to Les Baxter. I close my eyes and feel transported to an alien-space jungle with dancing green women, blue mojitos, purple oceans roaring, warmed by the dual suns in sky and my rocket ship still cooling down from the flight.

Still working on my next song for the Los Feliz EP, the music is done. It's the lyrics that are left. AS ALWAYS. Damn lyrics. They are the last to show. I'm doing a little research on "Cholitas"...since my song is called "Cholita", this pinche huero better learn all he can. *laughing*

The trees are swaying a little and all the leaves are like fingers and hands waving hello. "Hello Trees! What's shakin'? What's bakin'?....Hopefully not you! Ha!" Wisely the Trees aren't talking. They know what happens if they talk. It's the hatchet, ax and saw for them. Unless you're in the H.R. Pufnstuff television show, then they'll try to take your golden flute from you. "Watch out Jimmy!!!!"

Yes...I was a child raised on 70's television and old movies. Like having my brain soaked in absinthe too long, I am scarred but proud to show it off. "See? Here on my left knee is my scar from arthroscopic surgery, my right hand a knife wound and a glass cut, my chest...a cigarette burn....and deep in my grey matter are thousands of movies and T.V. shows swimming and feeding on my synapses. I'm very proud of those ones."

Gone are the days of having to get up and flip sides of my records...except for those rare rainy Sundays when I spread out my pillows on the floor and have a vinyl marathon. My iPod keeps the music flowing...my mouth is humming...my foot is tapping, and my mind is turned to channel 13 watching "Attack of the Mushroom People"....

Yes. I'm sober. It's all Les Baxter's fault.

Strange Territory...

I've entered into a strange territory this week. I'm writing/recording (I typically write and record as I go, then learn the song when it's mixed. *laughing* ) a song that is totally not what I do. These last few weeks I've been writing and recording songs for a little funky EP "Los Feliz", based on the Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles. Spending time up there visiting my friends Frank, Cindy, Annissa, Erika, and Glen I really got attached to the area. A combination of 1930's Hollywood, with restaurants that have been around since the 50's, bars from the 70's, taqueria stands, mostly L.A. hipsters, but with a real strong Latino presence.

What the hell does that sound like? Well...the first 3 songs ( "Goth Coke Dealer", "So Alive" , "Los Feliz" ) have been pretty close to it. The one I'm working on now has sounds of Ennio Morricone, disco, rap, and Latin dance music. Anyone familiar with the music I usually write, this is a stretch! But it's good to stretch! I've grown a little from this Los Feliz experiment and I like it. I only hope that during my stretching I don't pop an ear-string and hurt myself with a song that sucks! *really laughing*


(Notice I *laugh* a lot? Yea...well, if you saw my bank account you would too!)


Why Do I like You?

Why do I like you? I like you because you smell and taste good. If I don't like you, it's because you're probably a Brussels sprout, cauliflower, or some kind of melon (I simply cringe at having to eat them...). It's just how it is. You like something or you don't. You don't even have a choice about it. Chemistry. We are all walking chemistry sets that when mixed with other chemistry sets produce positive or negative results. Can you think of someone whom you like that, by in large, aren't that great of a person and someone else who is always nice and sweet and you are repelled by? I can. (No I'm not telling. *spank*) Then there are always some exceptions like "acquired tastes". It took me years to like spinach. Now I love it. Perhaps my chemistry changed? Adults like different food than children. Adult food is more complex with strange and bitter qualities. Such things a child would just spit out. However much you might be "half-squinting" your eyes at me for this bullshit tinged diatribe in disbelief for equating the like of types of food to people, I think there is really something to it. Not in so much as finding out with our tongues, but acknowledging a deeper chemical connection to people and our environment. If we could logically choose our mates and friends we would, but we don't. It's by circumstance and chemistry. That's the ticket to a-pair-of-dice! *laughing*

Delirium at 103 Degrees.

Yesterday suddenly I was taken over with a high fever and chills. Like I was taken into a Hieronymus Bosch painting, except not the "The Garden of Earthly Delights" but more like "Hell". I've had these rare high temperature onslaughts all my life. They rarely happen but when they do, they come down upon me like a hammer with a million volts of electricity.

Today is the calm, half-in and half-out world of the aftermath. Birds singing. The sound of my heartbeat. Inhale. Exhale. Life. Nothing makes me want to create more than when life is appreciated. Maybe tomorrow I'll pick up the guitar or pen, but for now I'm just gonna lay here and listen to what these birds have to say. Maybe this time I'll understand...

Sunny...70...and...the Floodplains of America

It's sunny, 70 degrees, and I've run out. Empty. Vented. Drained. It has all been flowed, poured, sluiced, gushed, spouted and spewed. The reservoir has run dry and the tap is tapped. I want to be filled again. Filled to the brim. Chock full of nuts. An overflowing dam that will set the valley awash in flood. The cow's on the roof. The ice cream man is in a canoe. The tumbleweeds are tumbling downstream to a distant land that has not been laid low by a wave in 30 years. It will know again the feeling of soaked thoughts and drenched dreams. For if nothing the flood plains along the Mississippi have taught us is where it once flowed, it will flow again...