Knight to Rookie's six.

   My first time playing music with Hash Brown was about forty minutes long, in an apartment, I on a snare drum and slip-sliding Bass drum.  It went well enough, so we played again.  The second jam was shut down by an irate super in an apartment surrounded (almost) exclusively by fellow musicians.

   Finally we wised up and rented a practice space in Prospect Heights, at Complete Music Studios Inc.  It was a fantastic space, with plent of room and a full back line - very classy.

   The jam went very well.  Grabbed a few snippets for possible future tunes.  At least I got to stretch my limbs and rock for the first time in about a month and a half - I hadn't realized how antsy and irritable I get without some sort of workout, musical or otherwise.  Hash's advice was "play what you feel."

   Lessons are going very well.  The challenge posed by transcribing music is similar to the challenge posed by getting back on a skateboard after years of bipedal movement.  The flags on my eighth notes are a little wonky and the quarter rests seem big to me, but otherwise points seem to be getting across.  

   Concepts of muscle memory are hard for me to put in to words - in my mind, at least, the point of practicing music is to attain mastery without thought so performance comes as through the performer, as movement happening through a body.  A body creating movement takes so much energy - the force required to start a body moving is greater than the force required to keep a body in motion moving.  

   Steve Sweet's Breukelen Jest Comedy Night was a freakin' smash.  Shout out to all the comics who entertained - hilarity ensued, even when rim shots were not forthcoming.  Wine flowed freely and the back space of Breukelen Coffee House converted beautifully into an open space for a stage, PA, and lighting:  

   Possible prospects, as always, are on the horizon.  Keep eyes and ears open for booking possibilities in the area.  If you, your friends, your local coffeeperson or bartender is looking to play out solo or with a band, I may have a space available in the near future.  Loose lips make blips - spread the word and keep your feelers out.  We'll talk soon.

‎"I’m goin’ down to the bottom, to the bottom of a hole goin’ down" Comin' out soon.

   An incredibly talented musician and good friend, Nathan Morgan, was jumped while he was in Harlem a few days ago.  Good vibes and prayers are with him through this very difficult point in his life.  He had to have some re-constructive surgery on some facial bone fractures, and hopefully he will emerge just as attractive and stronger from this ordeal.

   Nate plays a handful of instruments, composing for piano and keyboard, and can shred a mean guitar or bass. I think about all the talent wrapped up in his brain and how delicate is that machinery.  Vanderbilt University Research is just shedding light on the connections between music and the brain including increased creativity in problem solving, memory, and neuromuscular conditions.

   I lost my father one year ago, and playing music has been my one safe escape from reality.  I imagine Nate will, when he feels like it, use playing music as a relief from mental and physical pain, as a way to say things that need to be said that there aren't words for.

"It's astounding that given some of life's luxuries, you can put up with a lack of its necessities."

Update:
   Following a period of mourning from leaving Kill The Huxter  for over a year, I have thrown myself back into music.  Conrad Sanguinetti, Rocco Malozzi and Nate Morgan were awesome dudes to make music with, and only reinforced my notion that in the East I find the nicest, most welcoming friends I could imagine.
 
   But, it's time to utilize the hibernational properties of wintertime to gather my energies together to grow my palette of musical tools, in theory to be unleashed when Spring arrives.
   Practice continues on pillows and pads, at least once a day - Either along with Pandora Radio or a metronome .  The giving of lessons has begun - a little extra cash on the side and a great new way to hone my own skills.  This coming Monday I am planning on being part of the house band for Steve "Sweets" Carr's first Breukelen Jest Comedy Show at Breukelen Coffee House along with Max Rose, multi-talented illustrator/ivory tickler.

   I have barely started to play music with some incredibly talented and driven folks from the neighborhood, and I am incredibly excited for the soon-tapped wealth of talent within a two block radius of my apartment.  More and more I find one rarely has to leave one's microneighborhood if one were so inclined.
 
   Between the above projects, practice, and blogging in an attempt to cast a sizable mark during my brief passing through this point in time.  Extra-strength deep, man.

   It is the last night of Channukah, and though I don't necessarily consider myself Jewish (and neither do the Jews, I'm told), but I am Jew-ish with the worry and the guilt and the glayven.  I'm approaching the one year anniversary of my father's passing, and I'm using the legend of the burning oil as an analogue for the fire that burns in everybody, and that it can burn longer and brighter than I would ever imagine, and faith is its fuel.

   We don't have much disposable income at the moment - After three of four jobs evaporated from under our feet, we find ourselves surprisingly able to make ends meet and any extra money is reinvested in our respective arts.  As you can see on the always honest Candice Chetta's corner of the internet, selling paintings , prints  and Vintage eye wear on Etsy is allowing us a bit of extra funds, but mostly we reinvest directly into our respective arts.  Candice is out of canvas and I am afraid she might start painting on the cats as they slink by.  It is a real fear.

I guess what I'm trying to say is

Stay tuned for the further adventures of Broccoli and Chetta.  My blog is linked to Facebook to Twitter to Reverbnation to Linkdin to the Skynet Mainframe.  Look forward to hearing lots more from me as I assault the internet cloud.  Pray for rain.

Karaoke : Breukelen :: Sodium : Water

I love Franklin Ave.: Karaoke at Franklin Park on Tuesday

"I do believe it's the first time they've done this."

You're absolutely right, I Love Franklin Ave.  It will be a glorious night of no-pressure good-times singing!  I look forward to welcoming many first times to the stage, cheering on my Mizz Chetta, and even drunkenly monopolizing the stage myself.  See you there, my pretty platinums!

Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow

Many positive things are starting to happen in the area of music.  As the snow is starting to fall, prospects are once again heating up.

As you would see in the *new* Calendar section, I have my first drum lesson coming up TOMORROW, to a nice lady in Brooklyn.  I'm very excited to start a path of using my talent to give back.

As you might notice, I also have a gig planned, as the house band (with Damien Moore with the cool coos and Max Rose on ivories) for my good friend Steve "Sweets" Carr's comedy night, Breukelen Jest at the Breukelen Coffee House.

Come see one of the neighborhoods comedic masterminds "hone his act" (that's comedy lingo, BTW) with a handful of the rich talent from Crown Heights and beyond!  This will be the first Breukelen Jest ever - come have a drink and wonder where this life has been all your life.

Further details and awesomeness to follow - stay tuned!

Thanks for all the fish

    I figured Thanksgiving 2010 was as good a time as any to send up some smoke signals from this little corner of the intarnets.  I'm sitting on a purple loveseat with my astounding Candice Chetta.  We're enjoying each other's company listening to Dialated Peoples from our humble stereo setup.
   I'm so thankful for the young woman who has helped me realize a life I had only dreamed about, and without whom I would be lost.
   I'm thankful for my incredible health.  Nothing's promised, especially with these delicate Earthly forms and I've seen enough death to know I should never assume "it can't happen to me" because "it" can happen to anybody at any time.
   I'm thankful for my family.  I can barely comprehend how lucky I am to have been brought up by a warm, loving and supportive group of people.  Nothing was ever missing from my family life, a pretty damn rare experience.
   By the way, this is my job:

   

   So pretty much I have the most dope job I could ever ask for.  It's not filling my bank account right away, but I walk downstairs to my job of making extremely good coffee for a diverse, intelligent, talented and inspiring people.  I'm challenged and growing and discovering new aspects of my self and my relationship with the world every day.  

   I've always been told to reach for whatever it is I love to do, and I am thankful to have the mental and emotional capacity to believe in myself and that I can live a heaven on this Earth.

All the things I want to do.

   Maybe it's the curse of youth to be idealistic.  Maybe coming to terms with reality is part of becoming an adult - to face the fact that you just can't do certain things given constraints like time, physical and mental limitations.  I don't really want to be an astronaut, I would just really like to see space.  I'm sure the time will come when it will be possible for me to do so, so I'm not too worried about that.
   I'd like to write music, but for some reason I've yet to unlock a door in my brain that connects melody and word.  Maybe that will just take time, too.
   I love to move, so a dance or Kung Fu class is always satisfying, but finding the time in my crazy schedule for either is a near impossibility.
   Maybe I ask too much.  Should one expect to have the time for some of the things that makes one happy if one's schedule is filled with so many money-earning duties as to make one completely incapable of partaking in one's passions?  Maybe It's not that I ask too much, maybe I ask too often.  Maybe my head is so full of questions there's no room for answers.
   Perhaps the questions need time to reduce on my mental backburner, much like a sauce cannot be rushed but allow to simmer away, one ingredient slowly blending into another until they are one in the same and inextricable.  
   I want to invent something.  I want my creativity and problem-solving to work for me.  I want to learn a language - I've always had a propensity for language - musically-minded people do, so I've read.

   I'm twenty-five.  I've been told I'm an old soul.  I feel old.  I feel worn out.  My time is done, time to move to the side and make way for the new generation with their pad computers and their fucking twitter and all the other distractions that keep us from realizing our true potential as creators.  The time for idealization is over.  The world won't be saved by me so I might as well shut the fuck up and wait for whoever wants to get their fingerprints on this train wreck.  Maybe it's just time for sleep.

A little tip from the Pork Chop Express on a dark and stormy night..

   I have been working my tuchus off these past couple weeks.  Double after double after double.  Waiting tables for 14 hour days at Becco, training at the Breukelen Coffee House, slogging through slow nights at Pop Art Bar.  I haven't seen Chetta after sundown in two weeks. I tell myself I'm working so hard so we can get on top of expenses, no longer have to live paycheck to paycheck, and to hopefully eventually have free time available to make art for love (which may even attract money, meaning most time could be free time).
   How does one stay sane with this back-to-back-to-back work lifestyle?  When I find out, I'll let you know via tag you in a Facebook note.  Until then, though, I revel in the few minutes I can find to engage in my passion: on my breaks between doubles (ranging from a half- to two hours), or on a sparsely peopled subway train or platform, I pull out my Andante practice pad and Vic Firth 5As (which I carry in my bag wherever I go) and tap away to anything with a steady beat - my ipod, car alarm, or the second hand of a public clock.  Buying Stick Control For the Snare Drummer was probably one of the best decision I've ever made for music, and I've only progressed to halfway down the first half of the first page in the month I've owned it.
   I combat my vague fear of pissing any surrounding people off with incessant tappa-tappa-tappa by playing controlled pianississimo paradiddles and double-stroke rolls, shifting sticking around (RLRR LRLL, RLLR LRRL, RRLR LLRL and RR LL RR LL, LR RL LR RL, respectively).  I try to concentrate on how good playing makes me feel, to let it envelope me like an electric blanket (or a cool breeze, if it's a hot day).  I realize that every worry drips away from me when muscle memory takes over and I can rest comfortably in the space between the beats of the simplest rhythm.  I can't help but imagine a warm golden sunlight emanating from me, splashing invisible contentment on the walls of wherever I happen to be.  And no matter how dark and dank my surroundings or my mood, I have a feeling the contentment remains when I leave, maybe for someone else to enjoy.
   So I make the time.  Even with my nonstop work schedule of late, I've found dependable pockets of time that I can spend doing what I love to do and, more importantly, getting noticeably better at what I love to do.  Hopefully my talent will become valuable when paired with a good attitude, professionalism, well-placed contacts and a healthy dollop of luck.  Speaking of which, anybody know anybody who knows anybody who is wanting for a professional, easy-going, well-adjusted, talented percussionist for whom no gig is to small?  I might know a guy..

"The Long and Winding Road" or "How I Stopped Worrying and learned to Love Not Knowing What The Hell I am Doing"

I feel like I have too many plans and desires for the future.  Hell, I have too many plans and desires for the present!

   Musically, I want to make a living playing drums at least part of the time.  Whether this means playing on the street 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, finding my way into studio work, club work, band work, pit work, or simply teaching remains to be seen.
   Playing on the street would be the easiest, it seems - pick up a few showmanship tricks and play around New York on my days off either to drumless tracks of classic songs, or with other musicians.  This will push me to get better in every area of percussion until my talent forces the hard-earned money out of tourist's wallets. This sounds ideal - at least part-time it could be a healthy chunk of supplemental change.

Alternatively, to get myself into studio or pit work, I will have to take lessons to get much better than I am now to keep up with the caliber musician with which I would be surrounded.  As I understand, getting a foot in the door is the slippery part - apparently remedied by taking on drum teachers in the NYC area involved in pit or studio work and ingratiating myself to them until a job comes down the line that could possibly be passed on to me.  

A busking or studio gig supplemented by tending bar sounds like a much more viable and satisfying option.  Getting a bar job in New York is, as one may gather, not a piece of cheesecake.  Apparently it helps to have an 'in' to the bars with which I'd like to be in, which involves no end of wheeling, dealing, and verbal canoodling.  Alternatively, I could drink repeatedly at the bars in which I'd like to work, hoping all the aforementioned schmoozing would lead to at least a barback position from which I could work up to bar tender.  This seems like a long and treacherous road, but maybe it won't be, if I'm lucky enough to woo somebody who believes in a long shot.

So I have unconsciously decided to do a little of everything - in bullet form!

• Build a travel-ready drumkit to take to the streets with optional musicians
• Petition connected drummers in the NY area for lessons - I'm looking at you, Tommy Igoe!
• Audition - who else but Blue Man Group would take me?
• Alternatively pay for lessons at a school - Bang!  In Brooklyn or Julliard Evening Classes?  Oh the options..
• Continue informal lessons with neighbors - also useful for bartering.
• Work with new bands and fresh artists for reputation building.
• Involve myself musically and bartendrally with local business .
• Fluff my resume with NYC bar experience - for the craigslist.
• Schmooze and booze at bars where I'd like to work - subject to financial and physiological limitations, inefficient, but fun.
• Start from the bottom again - In keeping with "never move backward, always forward" mantra, convince myself that a potential Barista job in Brooklyn is a step forward from Waiter in Manhattan (which I had to previously convince myself was a step forward from Bartender in San Francisco) and that it can eventually lead to tending bar - It's pretty much an assured natural progression
•  Step 9: Profit.

Yeah, so I don't know if anything I'm doing will ultimately lead to where I want to be, but it can't be any worse than graduating after years of school only to find the economy of your field has withered with the supersaturation of overqualified talent.  And at least my way is exciting sometimes.

In my country, psychoactive introspection drugs will be required at age 23

Growing up, I had it easy.  I figure if I lived as part of the upper 10% for the formative years of my life and I still  feel screwed up, I don't know how anybody makes it through this life in one piece.  I guess some don't.

Why is recognizing our collective fucked-upness such a difficult task?  Why do we allow advertisements and television shows to fool us into believing what constitutes normalcy - a perpetually bright life surrounded by toys and friends who look exactly like us?  It's obvious from our own perspectives there is very little normalcy - we have our individual collections of neurosis and should extrapolate that every single other person with whom we come into contact is just as crazy and/or unhappy as we are.

Shouldn't we recognize this image of a chemically-induced happiness as bullshit, that dissatisfaction it is a universal human experience?  Could we recognize that most of us have been duped by our parents, government, or peers into believing everyone else is normal and we're the crazy ones?  If we threw out the myth of relative happiness, could we all see each other as brothers and sisters trying to do the best we can with the cards we were dealt?  As if any of us had a choice in being born the way we were.

Given the choice, I would probably would have chosen to remain stardust.

The Adventures of Lolo 2: Electric Boogaloo

I won't lie, it's a pretty rough day.  It's grey, hot and moist outside - a quintessential summer day in Brooklyn.  It's the perfect day for a novice debate!

I'm blessed.  I think it's taken me this long to seriously consider the existence of something "behind the scenes" of  what we can see with the tele- and microscope because I have a hard time believing that a Greater Force could grant somebody like me so much while others are given so little.  It's a truth of life that some people are born with the deck stacked against them and others are born on third base and assume they hit a triple.  I feel like I was born on second and have spent my life trying to figure out how the hell I got there.

I've never had to want for money.  Since I've stopped going to school I've had to ask my parents for some money to get by a few times, and I always know I can ask if i have to.  Most people, I imagine, don't know what that kind of security feels like.  It feels like a miracle.

So.  If I want to believe in something greater than myself ("The Universe", "God", etc.), I have to find a way to pay back the miracle of a situation into which I, apparently by no choice of my own, have been born.

Or, maybe there is nothing behind everything.  There's no Soul, we're just animals endlessly reproducing with an insatiable appetite for perceived  improvement.  My sense of "calling" is nothing more than a series of neurons wired together, connecting the concepts of  "playing music" (an umbrella for the summation of certain muscle movements tied to satisfaction of learning, the rush of entertaining, and a history of repeated positive reinforcement for doing so) and "guilt" (related to the aforementioned history of familial, financial, and health-related stability).

Digression: Probably a stupid question, but is faith really  necessary to "get into" Heaven?  Like it's a club.

Since the Bible's been rewritten a few times and a religion that espouses the sanctity of human life can be bastardized to convince people to murder their countrymen in the street, I feel like I can make my own calls in the deity arena.

Maybe I will never have utter, unshakable faith in the existence of a Great Hereafter or a Heavenly Ruler or even an unknowable Master Plan.

But I'd never completely throw my weight behind a solely empirical world, either.  I don't think I'd be in any way satisfied if we learned tomorrow that yes, the Rules Of The Universe are guided by science alone,  Randomness prevails, and when you die it's eternal sleep without dreams and nothing else.

So what's wrong with hedging your bets?  What religion includes accepting a higher power into your life to help while allowing for the possibility that every idol is bunk?  If religion is an eternal debate, at least I'm doing something right.

Just do you

The Busker

A bronzed pool of lamplight
Sirens blow by
A young man on the street corner
Giving all he's got

To whoever will hear
His story as best he recollects
His father was there
and then he was gone

This too shall pass.

His bike got stole
His job got sold
His shoes got holes
Water in a bowl

This too shall pass.

So he's facing the night
does what he knows to remind

Nothing changes but the leaves
Nothing returns but the tide
After the night, after his shoes
After the father, After the light

After the bugs
After the blues

This too shall pass.
By slowly or by brief
This too shall pass.

Lend me your ears.

I wanted to start writing in the morning, so I am.  I should have a steaming hot cuppa coffee next to me, but I'm a little finance-jittery, as we spent some cash on a new drumset, at 1968 Ludwig Jazz 3-piece:

She's a beaut!  I changed some hardware around with my mobile kit, which I'm selling on Craigslist (in case you're interested), and this little beast soon to be a-whollopin'.  Carried her down a fourth floor walk up in the Lower East Side.  

That was right before I picked up a new loveseat for our apartment.

Cozy little number.. I rolled it across Crown Heights on a dolly with the help of a friend, dodging strollers and cars - an adventurous day.

I'm trying to keep the faith on this roller coaster of a life I chose.  One moment I feel like everything is within my grasp and I can see 'the plan' clearly.  The next moment I feel like a vortex should suck me down into nothing so I don't have to think about all the real or imagined weights piling up on my shoulders.  Money worries, doubt, fatigue, and somehow, boredom.

I've got to find somebody to talk to.

Operation: Fugedaboudit

I have a vision.
A band.  An organically-grown band.

The Crow Hill Greens

Working name of course.  If you've seen The Commitments, you have an idea of what I'm imagining.

1.)I have a new drum set on the way:

2.) I've got permission from the Breukelen Coffee Shop folks to store her in the back of the coffee shop which is (for now) under construction.  From there, I can see a long way.  

3.) Collect musicians from the neighborhood - I've gather there's at least 3 guitarists, one other drummer, and a trumpeter in a one-block radius of my apartment.  We can without doubt find audio engineers to soundproof and record. 

4.) Create

Who knows the extent of the talent we can find unless we look?  In this neighborhood, fugedaboudit.

Soul, Rock, Blues, Hip Hop, Jazz.  Walls of sound, screaming highs, throbbing lows and everything imaginable in-between.  It'll be a indefatigable, unignorable whirlwind of local talent.  

Or something.  

The seed of an idea just needs time to grow.

Every day is waiting for my next chance to stop thinking.

Two hand drummers sat down on the train home yesterday and started slapping their congas, praising Jesus and making their instruments sing.  I couldn't help but hate them for celebrating life and having the means to do so.

The guitarist for my band, Kill the Huxter, had just informed me that a family vacation had popped up and the comeback show we'd slated for August 27th (see flyers below) was off.  I suppose we could find a replacement guitarist and teach him or her the licks, but I try to recognize and deal with underlying problems and not put an adhesive bandage on the symptom.  Since I had been in talking to the venue, I get to inform them of our flakiness and find a replacement band.  After that, I'm going to focus solely on the drums for the band and nothing else.

The last three shows where our singer ended each set early (replete with self-disparaging, self-fulfilling comments throughout),  an upcoming show nobody was asked about until after it had been booked, and now an unforeseen family vacation.  I'm washing my hands.  Flanked by musicians who seem to actively work against our interests while trying to keep my sanity and convince promoters and venues that we're reliable is a bigger battle than I can fight alone, so I'm not going to try.

My goal of joining a musical theater pit orchestra seems farther away than it did a year ago and I'm not sure how to bring it closer.

I got the broke A.C. blues..

I have the espresso desire to write at this late hour, but I'm short on brain power, so I'll keep it sweet.

All manner of plans are in motion of which the end result will hopefully be a schedule of intuitive and soul-satisfying work during the day and evening classes at Julliard during the night.  Now wouldn't that be sweet?

Stay tuned.

Scheme-y Like Wile. E. Coyote.

Things appear to have stalled.  While Kill The Huxter is going well enough - I'm challenged, creatively unbound, and energized to practice more and get a little better every day.  The hardest part, as it may or may not be with most drummers, is knowing when not to play.  By nature and practice I am a busy, one might even say verbose, drummer.  I loved the Irish Pipers of San Francisco because the drum music, concentrated on a single snare, had to be dynamic and controlled.  dozens of notes crammed into bars have to lilt and sing.  Transferring that concept to an entire kit is proving to be more difficult than I imagine.  Maybe the music doesn't lend itself as perfectly to my learned style - but I am a firm believer in the maneuverability of a non traditional musical style into a traditional musical genre.

I hate referring to (what I think is best described as) rock & roll as "traditional", but it does have its glorious traditions that are maintained, held up and worshiped to a fault.  I believe in rock as ever-challenging and ever-questioning and ever-instinctual.  The pioneers of any tradition don't seem to take first steps because they believe it will grant them perceived immortality, they seem to do so just to take the risk.  They do so out of curisity.  And they do so just because it feels right - like they just should.  


I have successfully digressed.  Things appear to have stalled.  Though apparently there is unprecedented want for pit musicians, I haven't seemed to have that "up-and-atom", that trademark moxie on which I rely for a means to a good story lately.  I won't lie, I've been in a bit of a rough patch, as tends to happen in life - can't be get-up-and-go all the time, after all.  I have been trying to stay busy, though.  Designing flyers for the aforementioned band:

..designing business cards for when the time comes:

..and working my way through Tommy Igoe's Groove Essentials have all kept me feeling relatively positive about my whole swing at this thing.  

Another change that may or may not effect music will be the probable addition of KITTIES.  Mizz Chetta has more on that story, but I have a feeling the warmth of two new furry things won't hurt my mood and best case scenario, will help me realize whatever I need to realize to move past these mental roadblocks that have placed themselves squarely between my desire to succeed and my ability to work toward success.

A change in job position probably wouldn't be a detriment to my energy reserves and general level of positivity.  Bartending would be ideal, though now it's been so long since I've shaken a drink, old insecurities are beginning to grow like weeds, sucking the nutrients out of these fertile surroundings.  God, I hate self-insecurity: rarely are they useful, and their resilience is bastardly. 

So I believe I can't move forward musically without a position change, which I can't talk myself into going out for as I can't hear myself think over my own ridiculous self-degrandizing mental tape-loop.

These meta-mental calisthenics are nice and all, but at the end of the day all it takes to change your situation is to change something for the better.  Enter: Bang!  The Drum School.  

Step 1 - drum lessons at Bang! (i.e. schmooze and network with more learned musicians).  

Step 2 - practice at the Musician's Union practice space (i.e. schmooze and network with better connected musicians.  

Step 3 - profit.  

It's all there in plain English - I'm a genius and my newest plan is foolproof.  Or foolhardy.  I always get those two mixed up.  

"I don't know how they expect people with ADD to read English literature."

I thought I worked a double today (leave at 10am, return at 1:30am or so), but it turns out I'm only on for dinner, so I get free time!  O, happy day!

Therefore, it's time for another installment of  "Aaron Learns How To Sing Better".  This time, Wilco's "Jesus, etc.", a lovely ditty that has been stuck in my head for years and which I decided it was time to nail it down.



I attended the Ashland Shakespeare Festival in Oregon my junior year of high school, and while most of my energies were not focused on the stage, one moment stands out clearly.  We were in a Shakespearean Music workshop, and the question of free online music sharing came up.  The woman in charge said, "The best way to enjoy free music is to make it yourself."  I thought that was just the coolest answer, as it touched on the deeper idea of manifesting one's own reality.  Want free music?  Learn to play an instrument.  Want to be in better shape?  do some push-ups.  Want world peace?  Challenge and expel hatred in every place it's discovered, within and without.

I'm just like everybody else, except I'm not.

   Dishes are clean, burnt lightbulbs are changed, and the laundry is finished.  I may now blog in peace.

   My mom always says "find what makes your heart beat fast and the money will follow." I love to sing,  I've been singing years longer than I've been playing drums, or slinging drinks, and it makes me happy.  Find the right song for the right mood, and it's a recipe for chills.  Chills. how many experiences give you regularly repeatable chills?  They start before you realize it, creeping up from the base of the spine and in a moment my head is filled like a balloon, my brain lit up and euphoric, and for a brief glimpse, I am in heaven.
   
   I've been doing a lot of talk about goals, and I think it's about time I give myself some homework.  I am going to learn a new song every day I have free time and post it online for the sole purpose of critique.  I've been wanting to take lessons for singing, but I put those same mental roadblocks up that I rail against.  This is the path of a detour.

   Here is my first completed assignment.  I played Ben Harper's "When She Believes" to cheer Chetta's day up yesterday.  Any singing skills I do have are self-taught and gleaned from the music teachers of the venerable Natomas Charter PFAA in Sacramento while I would be busy playing drums.







   So, if you have critiques, advice, helpful hints and the like, please feel free to pass them on, they would be much appreciated.

I'd estimate about 90% of real life to be imaginary.

Listening: Ken Burns' Jazz  

   I find it important to name your dreams.  I don't see any point in running from what I really want.  How often have I dreamed about what I'd really rather be doing, then stopped that thinking in its tracks with mental roadblocks and diversion?  Many times is the answer, but I think I'm quite done with that.  If the roadblocks are only in my imagination then there's no reason they can't be swept away like a whisp of smoke.

   So I'm naming my dream here, if nowhere else.  My dream is to work hard, and for it never to feel like work.  I want my work to enrich lives and lift up those around me and, in the end, make the world a little better place than I found it.

  My dad once said, when I asked him about death and the afterlife, that "If you try to make a heaven of Earth, you'll have nothing to worry about."
   That's my ultimate dream: to lift others up with the blessings I've been given.  I suppose I'm going to get there in a roundabout way and at a glacial pace (Aaron Standard Time), as I've done everything my whole life, but there you go. 

   There are only only two jobs I've had that didn't feel like work.  The first was playing drums for Runaway Stage, and Artistic Differences - two theater production companies in Sacramento .  Even for all the drama that ensues naturally from dramatic companies, Runaway and Artistic Differences and the Baxters, Daniellses and all the other folks involved selflessly endeavor the lift people up to heights they couldn't have imagined.  So "pit musician" would be a job that would fit me like an old pair of jeans.
    I've got an alright resume, already: Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Nunsense, La Cage Aux Follies, My Fair Lady, Falsettos.  And sure, this was all for little theater companies in Sacramento, but it's not like the music I learned will change anytime soon, let alone that I was able to learn it, and that gives me faith that there is nothing separating me from my dreams. 

   The second job that I've had that didn't felt like work was tending bar in San Francisco.  I was blessed enough to have been involved with Bar Drake from its very first day in the Sir Francis Drake hotel, and discovered, with the help of the fabulous Diana Brent, that I had a taste for mad sciencery, patient conversation, and rhythm of tending bar.  And you better believe if somebody doesn't tell their problems to their parents, lover, soul mate or dog, they'll tell their bartender.  And being there for stranger when they need to say something to somebody, anybody - it's a blessed feeling.
   And why shouldn't it be?  The two cornerstones of any civilization is the Church and the Tavern.  The only two places where people are allowed to speak "easy" - talk with frankness about what ails them, weighs on their minds, and follows like shadows, with no fear of judgment.
   This second job would also fit like jazz in the pocket.  There is no better stage for me to lift people up, help folks see the better part of themselves, or that they can easily dispense with the worst of themselves.  Booze being a lubricant of thought, even if you can "touch" somebody in a real, positive way, they might go right back to disbelieving when they sober up.  But that touch leaves a mark that might make somebody think differently in the future.  Planting seeds.
   I imagine if I'd had a more religious upbringing, I may very well have been a pastor.

   But I was making martinis at eight years old every day at 5 o'clock, so I believe it's my calling to dispense wisdom from behind a dark, wooden bar instead of a dark, wooden pulpit.  It's the dispensing of hope that defines my Self, not where my piece of wood is located.  That doesn't quite read right.  Or does it?

"Exercice, Lucien!"

Listening: Ben Harper

   It's a half-heartedly warm, decidedly muggy Saturday in Brooklyn.  The streets would be far more abuzz were it not for the shooting this past Wednesday, the tension from which is still palpable. 
   I'm taking a break from my drum practice on my day off, which feels very good so far.  Laundry done, business calls completed, nothing to do but hone the Craft.  This is my newest practice system, if anybody is curious:

  
  Not a bad little setup.  As you can see, I rested my practice pad in the middle of my snare stand and adjust the hight for comfort.  I used to have a neighbor who would practice his putting by aiming for a dime so that when he actually played, the hole looked enormous.  This underscores my belief that the lessons learned from any one skill are transferrable to every other skill, with appropriate jargon replace, of course.
   I digress.  I figure I can aim for the tips of the rubber braces with my sticks as if they were each hi-hat, crash, and ride cymbal.  Hopefully that will lead to increased accuracy with my cymbals, if I can't actually have them for practice, that is.

   I suppose I will have to invest in a practice set to be able to get the muscle memory for tunes I need to practice.  Plopping down in front of a practice pad and tapping away with my head down (thought I try to always remember to "keep your head up!"  In the voice of Tom Robinson) does not seem the most effective way to practice something so based in repetition.  Speaking of repetition, I think it's about time I get back to practice

Tipping My Hand or I don't want to be the best, I just want to illuminate.

Listening: Blues Brothers


It's my first day off in a week.  I got 2 nights of unexpected silence, which was nice, but otherwise every waking hour has been spent at work, or lugging gear and playing shows.  What a drag, right?  I know, I know, I could be starving in the street or have that "born without a face" disease.  All I'm saying is I had something strenuous to do nearly every hour this week, I finally got some rest, so I feel much better about everything in general.  Where do you get off judging?

First off, new business.  I joined the American Federation of Musicians AFL-CIO Local 802 this past Monday morning.  I have gathered there is a fair amount of polarized opinions about unions, especially around here on the East Coast, where the fight of the Labor Movement is written alongside the history of the country.  All's I know is that it's probably a good idea to have a group of (apparently) like-minded individuals behind me for advice or (legal) muscle in an unforgiving and tumultuous market.  So there's that.

That very Monday night, after work, J du Breukelen stopped by our place and informed me that somebody "connected" was interested in the cocktails for the Breukelen::Rebuilt art show, and by proxy interested in me. 

As my mother would say, "Don't think you have the job until your name is on the voicemail."

Opportunities are prospering on all fronts, it seems.  Even the basil in our window is growing.  Good spring.

The band business is challenging, and I am constantly rethinking my posture to music.  I have always, until this point, put music school out of my mind as a threat to the "fun" of playing, turning it instead to a chore. 

Interesting, but I suppose I'll never know unless I try.  Perhaps just some Juilard summer courses finished off with a nice cigar and Port.  Unless my idea of Juliard is totally skewed, I'm pretty sure cigars and Port are included in the tuition.

I do know I feel like I've hit a wall as a rhythm student, and am having a hard time breaking out of a claustrophobic mold.  Maybe that's something the 'boys at my Local can illuminate for me.

Also, I realize there may be a point in my life where I may have to choose (good gosh no!) between a Music Career and a Not Music Career.  I daydream of working for a respectable Spirits company which produces a high-caliber drink and all I have to do all day is meet people and talk about cocktails, flavor profiles and processes.
I would also accept guest-mixologist status, perhaps the Jacques Bezuidenhout of my eventual settling.
I have been making Martinis longer than I've been playing drums, so it would be wrong to ignore that I was more-or-less born to tend bar.

So my Music Life and my Food&Beverage Life are growing parallel to each other like our bean sprouts.  Yes, I may have to choose between them someday soon, but in my most bleary-eyed pipe dreams I envision a career in which success at either of my skill sets resonates and magnifies the inertia of both.  So we shall see.

So in the meantime, the plan is to get better at both, or at least get better results from either.  I see the commoditisation of my skills and self - not usually a positive thing, but necessary to insert oneself into a market where skill is bought and sold.  I just have to ensure that I have better Product than my competitors.
I see resurgence of the dreaded Drum Lesson, I see dance classes to connect to rhythm in a more all-body, dare I say spiritual, way.  I see first attempts to lead in situations where I know what to do, exploration of untapped or stagnant aspects of my personality, and a whole bushel fulla who KNOWS what else?!

25 is going to be a good year.

Last night a sound guy saved my life.

  OK, we captured a great show last night - I take back damn near everything I said in my emotional funk.  I do feel like we're not moving as fast as we could, but I am generally an impatient man when it comes to art and artistic growth.  Rilke assures me that "being an artist does not mean counting and numbering but ripening, like a tree,"  and he's absolutely right.  
 
  I was also wrong about the tunes being stale.  I don't know if it was the little help from my friends, drink tickets, the light show from the awesome sound guy at Ace of Clubs, but I was feeling "in the pocket" last night, and I can't wait to get back to that nexus, it's a beautiful place.  In the mean time, enjoy the ride. 

Neurology makes me want to rock out..

Listening to:  Art Brut

   Today's pretty rough.  I did have last night off, unexpectedly.  Bittersweet, as I never really feel good about canceling rehearsal, but it did afford me a more-or-less full night of sleep.
   So I have no excuse for being an absolute shit at work this morning.  But I was anyway.  I've got a gig tonight that I should definitely be excited about.  So I have no excuse for being 100% nonplussed.  But I am anyway. 
   Dissatisfaction with playing show after show of stale tunes is setting in.  It's hard to want to spend the hours we could be polishing much more awesome riffs together instead going through the motions with songs we should have moved past months ago when we found our incredible bassist.

   So that's my pissed off drummer rant.  Next step - step up, speak up. 

Non-Sequitorial

I'm having a glorious time here. 

I'm in one of those lately rare places where I can step outside of everything with which I'm unsatisfied and see that, in the scope of things, I'm having quite an amazing time here.

We made it through our first year, and it was a da-hoozy of a year, which it would have been had we not moved to New York.  But, upon passing this first year mark:  I have taken my drum to the street, my first gigging band played its 6th gig together, my incredible girlfriend, Candice Chetta has embraced and raised up burgeoning artists and has shown her own art in Brooklyn.

Sure, I'm not behind a bar yet.  Sure I don't have my absolute ideal cymbals for the drum kit.  Sure, it's about to get hot, humid, and muggy (probably record-settingly high levels of each).  Sure, there's bombs misfiring, or whatever down the street from my work a massive depression on the horizon.  I sound like my father.


But none of that stuff really matters because it'll all be fixed eventually.  With patience, faith, luck, and foolhardiness, everything will be solved if you keep your compass trained on what it is you want and let it wander when you aren't sure. 

I apparently didn't really pick up my father's pessimism.  And between Coelho's absolute faith in trusting your "Personal Legend," Rilke's assurance that "being an artists does not mean counting in numbers and years, but ripening like a tree, who stands confidently through the storms of winter that spring will come," and Lennon's "there's nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time,"  I'm feeling pretty positive about eventually discovering what I'm meant to be doing here.  Maybe it's just learning how to search.

Tomorrow is my day off.  I am going to sleep like a log baby tonight.  To Brooklyn.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step.

The sun reaches its apogee on the first of many muggy, muggy days in Brooklyn.  I find myself with an hour an a half to tap out this electronic update.

Yesterday I finished my chores before noon and spent a few hours psyching myself up to bring my drumset, Maggie to the New York streets.  Here she is, bungee'd up and ready for love:

So I wheeled this little beast down the stairs, out the door, down the subway steps, onto a Saturday afternoon 4 train.  I did not realize how many effing steps exist between my apartment and the subway. 

Sore, sweaty and suffering a few disgruntled looks, I schlepped to Union Square - a nice bustling spot to settle in with the rest of the Saturday crazies and lose myself in some rhythm.  Or so I thought.

I started setting Maggie up in a nice shady spot outside the Square, Children International canvassers and the pedestrians who avoid them my only company.  As I was finishing my set up and mentally preparing myself for the inevitable "Drummer Butt" byproduct of hours-long practices, a young NYPD officer approached me.

"You're not going to be happy,"  she said honestly.

Apparently the  Arizona Immigration protest taking place trumped any other busking or gathering.  I realize I should have just said,
"And what makes you think I'm NOT involved with this protest?  I'm drumming for REFORM!", or some other bullshit. 

But I didn't.  What I did say is "OK, how about Washington Square?  How do you get there?"

I know NYPD officers are not GPS devices, but this one couldn't even begin to tell me how to get to Washington Square Park.  Come on, get your act together, public servants.  I know the pay isn't good, but know your Manhattan landmarks?  Maybe I ask too much.

The next officer I ask for directions thinks we're already IN Washington Square Park.  False.  Once he pulls his iPhone out of his ass, he sends me to Washington Square Park.  Or so I thought.

I followed the very simple directions to Washington Square, only to realize the well-meaning, if disconnected officer has sent me to Madison Square Park. 

I grab a hot dog and reconnoiter, deciding Madison Square seems like a good place to bust one's busking cherry.  I apologize for the crass analogy, but it seems the first time playing music in public begins pretty much the same way as cardinal sexual experiences - sweaty palms, elevated heartbeat, mountains of expectations, spinning equilibrium, and so on. 

So I set up in an shady out-of-the-way corner of Madison Square park, facing the street, confusing public art installations and the Metlife building.

In the top left you can see a group of people assembled for a private Kentucky Derby party.  I played along with their Bluegrass band, prompting more than one person to ask if I was with them.  "I wish," I'd say, "..then I'd be getting paid!"

Now, full disclosure, I've busked before, but never drums, and never in New York.  So I was ready for the barrage of people who assume that because I'm practicing in public, I'm someone to come up to and talk to at length about Gene Krupa, drugs, slippers, oatmeal, and anything else that immediately comes to mind. 

That's not to say I don't enjoy the subjects of ramblings or momentary connections that busking affords.  My favorite part (at least until I start taking money) are the kids who can't look away as their parents lead them by the hand through the City East.

It's not that I'm a pedophile, though I do love pedaling, or anything resembling one.  But I remember when my parents took my to New York when I was eight years old.  I whined, I'm sure.  I'm almost positive my nose was pressed against my Gameboy for a week, because I don't remember much from the experience.  But, I do remember the street performers. 

I'm trying to fulfill a dream.  I don't know where these experiments will gain me anything, but one never knows until one tries.  I hope that the kids who walked by me yesterday, eyes wide as if seeing something they've never seen before, carry that memory with them.  Look back on that moment as a spring of inspiration - if there's people out there who take their instrument to the streets, who can fight through their insecurity in order to simply do what they want to do, then it can be done. 

And if it can be done by one, why can't anybody and everybody create their own life in their own image?  Why can't we all be happy?

Liberal idealist naivete, maybe.  But I have a feeling I'm not the only one.

1) Set Goal. 2) Achieve Goal.

"..drumming can be used to shift through major issues such as fear, resentment, or anger...using your drum can help you pass through and accept the natural biological and spiritual changes that take place in the course of our lives.." - Steven Ash in Sacred Druming.

I've had a fair bit of anger, resentment and fear in the past four months. Tonight at band practice, after a four-hour session of rehearsing, criticism and fine-tuning our current tunes, we muted our critics and turned it out with this thumping dirty blues jam with Nate on guitar and Conrad on bass, Rocco improvising lyrics overs all of us. It sounded like a swarm of batsouttahell, but I knew as I was playing that I was bleeding out negative energy I've been storing up for months. I feel great knowing I left it all on the drum mat.

I'm not sure what I'm doing with this band or if anything will come of it apart from some sweet memories and fraternity, but I am having a great time, I'm not hurting anybody, and I sleep well at night, next to a lovely lady - so I ain't got much about which to bitch.

First student, Franklin: Success!

My first student, Frank from the Breukelen Coffee House just left, following a very successful lesson. I started our friend on a basic rock beat last week, and he came back today with everything fleshed out in his mind, and after an hour of working on hand and feet skills, was able to play an eighth note rock pattern to a metronome. It was a beautiful thing. Nice job Frank!

I am now about to leave for band practice, reinvigorated and recharged. I'm antsy to take my little traveler kit, The Alchemist, on the road. I would really like a few upgrades: a bass drum mount for a little crash cymbal, with a little crash cymbal maybe, and a small throne. After those first are acquired I will feel confident enough to take to the streets.

Also on the to-do list is business card production, gigging with the band, writing new tunes, rounding out the unwieldy ones, and staying sane.

Work all day and night, trying to do it right.

I'd really enjoy a day off. In fact, it would change my life.

I don't work every day, but I'm busy every day. Keeping my girl happy, choresing, push-ups, tapping on my practice pad. Fill in the time in between with video games (Final Fantasy III virgin no more) and pepper in the occasional dash of spending quality time with the folks from around the neighborhood, and that's my week.

I did recently set a Monday rehearsal night with the band, Kill The Huxter, but it ain't enough, baby! I've got more rhythm than one night behind a drumset per week can satisfy.

So, I'm waiting. I wait for the rare day to come when I a) grow a pair, and 2) trek with my foldy-uppy drumkit to somewhere inconspicuous, but not too inconspicuous, get me? And then I'll change my life. It will be a dream of my life fulfilled - a bucket list box checked, at least.

In my mind, it starts as an experiment gone horribly, horribly right. In my mind I can quit my job, or at least cut down my hours from a stipend I make chopping it up on the most primal instrument in the most primal city in the world. In my mind, people I don't know know my name. My purpose is realized.

...

So we'll see, right? Paciencia y fe.

I decided today to do it the hard way.

I had a very interesting Easter.

Let this not be mistaken: it had nothing to do with Easter per se, or anything religious at all for that matter. Or maybe it did.

I saw on the subway on the way to work two people - a young boy and an old man. There wasn't anything particularly striking about these two people except that they both reminded me exceptionally of myself. It's probably a normal thing to be searching for oneself at this mid-twenty year point in life, and probably just as normal to look for the self in another person.

Anyway, this boy was an explainer. He was explaining the best way to stand to his father, with respect to the shifting of the subway train at the moment of stopping. I think I solved an equation like that for calculus. I digress - the kid reminded me of me.

The old man walked onto the train, and asked if the train was going to a certain street (which it was), sighed "oh" with a trace of sadness, and shuffled to a seat next to me with the help of a cane. I don't know what it was about this man in particular that struck a chord, but he did.

At work, a tall man who could have been 5 to 10 years older than I sat at a table. I didn't serve him but I got a good look, and if his curly hair, thick-rimmed glasses and facial hair didn't closely match mine, I saw something familiar in his eyes.

Later in the night, as I'm waiting for the last tables to leave, I get into a conversation about drumming with a family as I'm relieving a fellow server of his duty. Immediately after hearing I play drums she exclaims, "Oh! I can't wait to take drum lessons! I have to get myself a little more stabilized and centered and my neighbors probably won't like it..." and so on. I also mention that I'd like to be behind a bar instead of on the floor, to which she says "Oh you shouldn't do that... You seem like so much more of a drummer - you should just do that all the time..play drums all the time"

So, after this strange day of brushing by people who reflect some part of my self to me, I decided to take this strange, drunk lady's advice. I will strike out to the streets of New York and schlep through Brooklyn to play drums. I will write about it and document it.

The most interesting way to do something is to do it the hard way. And if there's one way I'm really good at doing things..