Saturday, February 11, 2017 / SW Nashville to Boston Surprisingly, I’m not as exhausted as expected. A brief rundown of ye olde intinerary since I arrived back in Austin Wednesday night about 10:30pm:
Wednesday / 10:30pm ABIA / After a somewhat brief moment of road rage at the Austin airport exit that brought memories of my 20 years of driving in NYC [why do those motherfuckers have to work on the only exit from the fucking airport when I’m trying to get the fuck home?] then home, finally, around 11:30. Hug my beautiful wife, hug the beautiful dogs, juggle the cats, eat some crackers and ice cream, take care of some school business, get to bed by 12:30.
Thursday / up at 6am, lots of coffee, ride the stationary Schwinn 16 miles while watching CBS news, walk the dogs a couple of miles, head for UT teach until 3pm, head home, hug doggies, 10 minute nap, make dinner, take care of school business, drink lots of coffee, walk the dogs 2 miles, fix dinner with Jess, watch episode of Baudelaires (great show – hats off to Neil Patrick Harris), try to work on Cézanne music and fail, 10pm head for bed.
Friday / up at 6, lots of coffee, walk the dogs 2 miles, teach Austin Community College and Berklee Online until 2:30, pack the car with all my shit for gig in Houston (took Collings Soco Deluxe, ’65 Princeton Reverb, ’65 Bassman with mod by Ziv Nigary) head for Houston about 3:30, arrive Cezanne about 6:30, Woody Witt arrives 7pm, set up equipment, Daniel Dufour and Richard Mikel arrive and set up, we run hard music for 20” or so and doors open. I had a really good time playing at Cezanne. A lot of nice people came out, the band played great with the exception of the guitar player, room sounds good, not a whole lot of talking. Played until midnight, back in the car and back to Austin. Arrive about 3am, hug dogs, kiss wife, eat a slice of cold pizza, hit the sack, up at 6am back to airport catch first SW flight to Nashville now on the 2nd leg to Boston.
Saturday / Back to current flight / Once in Boston I’ll pick up my rental car and head to Berklee to grab my guitar and then drive to Bennington, weather permitting (lots of snow and more on the way). Going to visit my mom who, while still in the rehab hospital, has been getting stronger and seems to be recovering from what the doctors think was pneumonia. Going to play solo guitar at South Street Café 2-4:30 tomorrow (is tomorrow Saturday?). Lots of online assignments to grade, hopefully I’ll be able to exercise although I think the snow will be an issue. However things play out it’s been a brutal week so far and I should be a puddle on my faux leather seat but have only been able to nap about 10 minutes so far. Which is perhaps owing to the powerful jet of icy cold air from my vent that I discovered too late is broken and will not close. Speaking of puddles, one dark moment of the gig last night was when I was changing into my dress jeans in a men’s room stall prior to our first set and dropped my right shoe into the toilet. The same shoe I’m currently wearing. There does seem to be some provocative odors in my vicinity but possibly only the usual farting by my fellow passengers. Luckily I am protected from the most noxious odors by the icy hurricane blast from on high. Yes, it’s a glamorous life. Some people have their golden toilets (what the fuck is THAT about?) and some people pick their dripping shoes out of a shit encrusted porcelain model. That being said, in the grand scheme of things I see myself as the luckiest person in the world. I know there are a lot of people out there who dream of having a shoe, having a foot, having any of the incredible blessings that have been given to me in this life. I do not take these blessings for granted nor do I view them as my due but merely a cosmic toss of the coin which could (and probably will) change in the blink of an eye.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017 / SW Flt 465 BWI to Austin Abiding. Long-ass couple of weeks winding down. Made it through the drive back from Vermont, getting the car back to Payless at Logan and running the toll gauntlet trying to use my personal EZPass that I got charged at $20 fee for some shit I don’t understand when I used it a couple of weeks ago with another rental car. But I got the fine Ford Focus I rented back to the airport, made it back to Berklee. Made it through a long Tuesday of teaching and now working on making it through another long Wednesday. Having a couple of fun gigs seemed to give me a whole lot more energy. It was a long, boring drive down and back to Houston but the crowd was great (of course I took no pictures), the band was great and really nailed some tough music, I didn’t die on the highway, made $50 or so for 12 hours of gig. The solo couple of sets at the South Street Café were really nice as well. It was one of those rare days when I felt like I could play anything – just kind of played without regard for anything except wringing every last bit of music from each tune. I was trying for total concentration and got there a couple of times. My utter exhaustion may have played some part of that and it’s certainly possible that I was only thinking that I could play anything when in reality I sounded like dog shit. If dog shit were to make a sound. In the forest. With nobody around. It was probably somewhere in the middle and I sounded better than usual which is very left handed compliment. “You’re playing like you never played before!” A few friends came out, though, and while it may not have been the most happening couple of sets ever I certainly had a good time and didn’t want to quit. But quit I did – I needed to visit my mom in the hospital which thankfully I was able to do 3 or 4 times in the 2 days I was in Bennington. I guess a day and a half. Now there is one more hour to go in this fucking oversold shitbox, get in the car at the Austin airport in approximately 1:45 and home. Tomorrow try to run early, teach some lessons at UT and a couple of dog walks.
Wednesday, March 1, 2017 / Logan Airport waiting to board Flt 934 for BWI connecting to some bullshit flight to Austin Listening to Johnny Cash sing “Hurt” via my new (and almost certainly soon to be left on a flight somewhere) Bose QuietControl 30 Bluetooth noise canceling earbuds. These things sound so fucking great and if I can’t ignore the visual assault here at Logan and beyond at least sonically I’m on another, much happier, planet. Much happier as a relative term since “Hurt” is about as dark as a planet can be. (Visual half-solution – sunglasses. I had forgotten that on my flight out from Austin on Monday I left my sunglasses on throughout. I’m not doing anything except hiding from this panic-attack world of airports and fellow supplicants to the travel gods.) I quit drinking a little over 2 years ago. On the whole that’s a good thing but every once in a while I get the overwhelming urge to knock myself out with a bottle of scotch or two. The problem there being that despite prolonged and valiant efforts I could never get drunk enough to knock myself out more than a couple of minutes at the start and end of flights. Working on this loaded brownie I brought with me but taking it a small piece at a time. Had a busy week and I’m only halfway. Should be home by midnight tonight (It’s 8:30pm or so right now and I’m on the final leg to Austin. Sporting an empty middle seat, row 4, aisle seat, lady in window has finished her raw onion sandwich. Tomorrow 6am wakeup, walk feed animals, walk dogs, get my shit together and head for UT to teach, etc., etc. I had all that travel a couple of weeks ago, got back to Austin 2/15/17 and woke up Thursday, 2/16/17 with what looked like bed-bug bites on the back of my neck, arms and face. They were itchy, swollen and inflamed. Fucking itchy. Went to the doctor, got referred to another doctor and started one course of treatment in case it was chicken pox. That didn’t work so Thursday started Prednisone which is knocking it out. On that same Thursday Jessica went to the emergency room with a pain in her abdomen – appendicitis. Thursday she had an emergency appendectomy so I was at the hospital from about 7pm to 1am, back home, to sleep by 2:30, up at 6:30 to walk the dogs, feed the cats, clean the house, teach, pick Jess up at hospital, fix dinner, feed dogs and cats, etc. Stress and exhaustion would appear to be my new reality. Playing good, though. Playing is the only way to shed some of this fucking weight on my shoulders.
Saturday, March 4, 2017 7:30am CT / ABIA waiting for first leg flt AUS/BNA Back at the airport. Left my wife and various animals sleeping in their respective dens. Megabeth was on the couch, Jess and Apple on the bed (in addition to a few cats). We spent Thursday evening changing the bed linens because the big dog has been shedding up a boxcars worth of fur every day. I vacuum every day and still empty a footballs worth of compacted doggy fur every night. I say “every” but I was only home for 2 days and 3 nights, one of those nights being Wednesday on which date I didn’t get home until almost midnight. It’s a bad-ass bed though. King size, adjustable, some sort of space age mattress, heated mattress cover – the works. We bought it on Craigslist for a good price and I haven’t regretted that for a minute. Maybe the minute when we had to wrestle the bulky and very heavy mattress into the Element and then into the house. Luckily there are sliding glass patio doors in the master bedroom. Love that fucking bed. Tonight will be a horsehair mattress in the guest room at 144 Union St, Bennington, VT 05201 that my mom is really fond of but I can’t help but think is somehow connected to my allergic reactions of last week and a few years ago. Paranoia strikes deep. Ok, asshole, stay on your side of the fucking seat divide. Fuck you you fucking fuck.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017 / Southwest Flight 465 BWI/AUS Not a whole lot going on except another long-ass delayed flight with Asshole McTavish in the seat in front of me doing everything he can to use his massive body weight to push his seat backwards. Unfortunately for him the seats only recline about 2” now and are probably more uncomfortable pushed back. Same movies on the inflight entertainment: John Wick, Captain America, Lucy, etc. I’m tired. All the flights last week then the drive to and from Vermont was pretty exhausting, makeups Monday night after a full travel day, teaching Tuesday/Wednesday and the long delayed flights tonight. Tomorrow must run early then walk the dogs, UT teaching, grocery store, walk the dogs, cook dinner, online grading. Friday walk dogs, teach Austin CC, online office hour, online lesson, walk dogs, cook dinner…. Fuck me. I’m feeling the nefarious forces of time and physics (I did turn 61 in December) but I am also pretty durable. At least physically. Mentally I'm stretched thin and there have been more instances where I have to just stop and figure out where I am and what needs to happen. After each day is done it’s just gone, history, forgotten, and I’m already working on tomorrows potential problems. Since I am teaching constantly, seven days a week, my attitude around the middle of the semester with lame students can get condescending, sarcastic, exasperated, sometimes angry…it’s not good and that’s not the way to teach. Luckily I don't have any lame students. :) On the other side of the “what kind of life is this?” aisle I bought a ’63 Deluxe (blonde tolex) from Mike Williams. The last, very last, so last, thing I need is another amp. But it’s pretty sweet. Unfortunately now stuck in my office at Berklee where there is already little room. I’m going to try to get it in a suitcase so I can bring it home on the plane but what a pain in the ass that is. I do have a big suitcase but I’ll have to check it and it’s JetBlue next week (no free checked bags) so it’ll be a minute before I get it back.
Saturday, July 29th / Austin, TX Been having a nice summer. I was able to at least start a few projects, surfed at Nland a few times and miraculously got better at it (and took a few hard hits), refinished the deck, practiced a lot, wrote a couple of not very good tunes, walked the dogs a lot in the heat (it's going to be 106° in Austin today), worked on my pedalboards, played a few gigs, built a strat, worked on the Willmott polyrhythms class for the fall.... Like the majority of the world I've been very disturbed by the political firestorm in the US and around the globe - disturbed by the fucking president, by his supporters, by all the greedy, cruel, immature, vindictive, soul-less motherfucking assholes. You know who you are. Heard Rotem Sivam at Lamberts last night and was really happy that I went. A lot of creative, different stuff going on and Rotem is a very good guy. Daniel Dufour and Richard Mikel on drums and bass respectively. I sat in on a couple of tunes and I'm happy with the way the Collings Soco is sounding. Been taking four or five guitars out of their cases and leaving them around my studio and picking up a different instrument every hour or so. The Collings seems to be winner most of the time. It's lightweight, the treble strings have a sound similar to a 335, maybe not quite as much output and bloom, while the bass side has more clarity and separation than a 335. It's a little "electric" sounding at times which is strange but something I've noticed from the Buscarino I sometimes play.Strangely enough, the carved top guitars do sound a little more electric than a tele or strat. The bottom line is that I have way too many very good guitars and probably not enough years left in me as a player to do them justice.
Thursday, August 3 / Austin / Asshole bass player story (let’s call him "ryan”) I'm growing discouraged on many fronts but lately what discourages me, personally, the most, is the lack of respect I'm getting from some local Austin musicians. I'm not talking about not getting asked to do gigs or people not wanting to do my gigs (although I'm confused and hurt by that), I'm talking about common courtesy. I'm used to disrepect from the audience although I have to say audiences have been very appreciative in the past year. Getting dissed by some of my peers digs a lot deeper than disses from audiences I don't necessarily expect to be knowledgeable critics. Just getting a yes or no answer about paying gigs from players can take forever in Austin. Yesterday the bass player (“Ryan”) bagged on my gig the morning of because, and I shit you not, according to him the music was too hard and he wanted more money before he would spend time with the charts. What the fucking fuck! I was paying the band out of my own pocket, I sent the music to him a week in advance and he was basically holding me for ransom unless I came up with more money. First he disrepects me by not looking at the music (which I told him was tricky) until the last minute, then again by saying the gig doesn't pay enough for him to work on the music, then again after I told him the money was out of my own pocket. I hate admitting that I'm doing gigs that pay nothing but I'll pay the guys myself if they are willing to come out and play. I get to call the tunes, I get to work on my sound, maybe sell a few CDs, get my name around a bit. I was only paying bass and drums $40 each but one set, 7 or 8 tunes, no pressure except to maybe look at the music a bit (or learn how to read music motherfucker). The main thing is that I had a great set planned out with some killing arrangements and tunes. Adam Kolker's arrangement of Green Chimneys, Joe's Gazelle, a couple of mine, a standard or two, Crepuscule with Nellie.....nice tunes. Did it not occur to this guy that by learning the music he could grow as a musician and one day, just maybe, he would be half as good as Hans Glawischnig who was playing on Green Chimneys. Nope. This guy is content and has mastered music. I didn't tell him that I was on that recording with Hans and he read the fucking difficult soli down, I didn't want to tell him about all the gigs I played for very little or no money but was honored and overjoyed to be asked to play with players I respected and admired. Or tell him about the time I was playing with Alan Ferber's nonet at Smalls and John Riley, right off the plane from a Bob Mintzer big band tour, subbed on the band and fucking nailed it. For $35. He obviously checked out the music in advance and just fucking nailed every little thing. He had to drive from Westchester or wherever he lived, find parking in the Village, lug his drums, etc. I'm assuming this bass guy had no respect for me which, while it's a drag, is not as fucked up as his lack of respect for the music. I posted the charts and mp3s way in advance and working out the set and organizing the music took me some fucking time and then more time when I had to find another instrument (organ) to play the gig and then work out a set for this new group on the afternoon of the gig. I didn't tell him that because he is a musician he automatically has my respect and my disrepect has to be earned. Congratulations, fuckface, you've now earned it. I didn't tell him any of that. What I texted was "I'm sorry I can't afford to pay you more and that the music is difficult but I don't want to play all standards. I'll try to find someone else."
Okay, then I get to the gig (Hole in the Wall). Remember, I'm doing this gig at a potential -$80 loss because I'm paying the organ and drums and the gig pays 5% of the bar for the 1:15" set. (I ended getting about $30 back - so the gig was -$50). There is a duo on the stage, supposed to be done at 8:45, we set up and start 9:15. They play till about 8:45 then say "2 more". Okay. Play 2 more now it's 8:55. "We'll do one more but it's an 18" song so we'll go into the next bands set - somebody buy them a beer!" Okay, gotcha, fuck you, too. They are finally, mercifully, blessedly done, take their sweet drunk singer-songwriter time moving their hurdy-gurdy or whatever from the stage and we thread our way through the tables, their equipment and both of their adoring fans (two more than I got) with our heavy-ass crap (I have the Vibrolux - more about this later). Hole in the Wall likes turn the lights way down between sets so I'm stumbling around in the dark trying to stay out of the way of Daniel and Terry, both trying to set up their shit on this pretty tiny stage. Finally get ready to play and "ta da!" my Vibrolux is powering on but no sound. I had loaned the amp to a NY guitar player in town and he played it pretty hard for a few gigs - Daniel had been playing with him on those gigs and Daniel was nice enough to bring the amp to the gig with me so I could play it. Which didn't give me an opportunity to vet the amp out before the gig, something I always try to do. You can picture me up on stage in the dark, peering into the back of my amp trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong. Once I got it home I discovered the rectifier tube had popped out - due to low light and stress I missed this obvious amp problem and was focused on the speaker wires. I did have the foresight to bring a Pro Junior, currently in my car parked a couple of blocks away. No denying that my Vibrolux is fucked for the gig, though, and after the amp, the bass player thing, the fact that not one person came out to hear us after all the work and time I put into getting an original set and then the new set together, not to mention the texting, emails and calls dealing with the bass asshole and then finding someone else to do the gig the day of, after all this my sails were flapping. Or would have been if there had been a breeze. After a moment of contemplation I walked through the sticky body-temperature air of Austin to my car, grabbed the Pro Junior, walked, fairly slowly, back to the club (yes, I was vaping). While I was gone the band asked the "sound guy" about me using the house amp (a circuit board Fender of some kind - Deluxe?"). Club said it was okay to use so I bailed on the Jr and plugged into the house amp and played the first tune (my Like This) with the controls on the amp set: Bass/10- Mid/2- Treble-0. What fun! The glamour! The lights! or lack of them. Eventually we did have fun, or at least I did. I identified some things about my playing that I could improve, learned how to try and have fun even if things are going wrong, learned some things (good and bad) about the Fractal FX8 that I brought to the gig, some of the guys at the bar dug the music, I got to play music with some nice players whether they enjoyed it or not, I wasn't sitting at home watching TV like the bass player who will never be any better than he is now if he doesn't figure out why he plays music. I play music because I have to. If I'm not playing music then I'm already dead. And compared with what most of the worlds population has to endure each and every day I feel like I'm just about the luckiest guy on the planet.
