Heading to Colorado

It's time I started blogging again!
So I'm heading to Colorado today to do some shows opening for Buckethead. I probably should have flown but for some strange reason it seemed like a good idea to get in a car and go on a road trip. I'm not sure I really thought this through but I just didn't feel like getting on an airplane. I wanted to take a bunch of stuff with me and all the airplane logistics seemed daunting. In retrospect though it would've been a pretty convenient flight out and back. Can't cry over spilled milk. I'm gonna have a chance to catch up on all the music I've been meaning to listen to and all the thoughts I've been meaning to contemplate. Besides which I think a road trip away from New York city is gonna be just what the doctor ordered. Of course the real reason I was reluctant to fly comes down to voodoo, or at least what I like to call voodoo. To me that's the religion that governs all electronics. For some reason, and perhaps it's because I haven't been slaughtering the right kind of chickens, all my equipment has been incredibly tempermental lately. Every time I set up there's another problem to troubleshoot. Dodgy leads, computer problems, pickup connections. I've gotten really good at troubleshooting problems and fixing stuff but the thought of my stuff being tossed into the cargo bay of an airplane seemed like the possible last straw. That's also why I've decided, to the detriment of all my friends who've been on my case, not to continue on to burning man after Colorado. I can't say I wasn't tempted and I probably could have fit it in between Bucket tours but the idea of taking my testy equipment into a desert dust storm was probably not a good one. I'm pretty sure my stuff would not survive the desert. Oh and the money factor for burning man made heading home after Colorado seem like an even better idea...

A Boy and his Tuba (opening take 1 first person)

My life changed in an instant. There was no flash of light, no explosion of awareness, no overwhelming epiphany. It wasn’t religious, it wasn’t spiritual. It was a completely mundane matter of fact moment without a hint of doubt of irony. There, in the window of sound exchange, on North Loop, in Austin, Texas, as the summer of 1994 was starting up, was a beat up tarnished old sousaphone previously owned by an old German guy who had put it up on consignment for reasons only he will ever know. I remember nodding matter of factly. I didn’t even get excited, but form one instant to the next I knew that was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. Now I’m normally a person who over analyses things from every excruciating and possible angle to the point of complete inaction. Looking back, for the life of me, I still cannot believe my lack of self-doubt. How could there not have been a voice yelling inside of me about the ludicrous nature of the situation.
“You’re an idiot. What the hell are you thinking? You have no idea what you’re doing and considering and you’re so caught up in a moment that you’re not even aware of past and future. Don’t you realize that at the age of 24, never having blown a note on the tuba, the idea that you’re going to spend the rest of your life dedicated to the playing of an instrument of which all you know is encompassed by having listened to some New Orleans Brass bands is both dumb and stupid.”
Somehow, at that moment, not only were there no doubts but I failed to follow an action to its future repercussions. At no point did I argue with myself that if I do this then it would lead to this and that. I saw no future but only immediate action. It was easily the strangest and most wonderful moment of my life whose significance registered only many years later.
I bought that sousaphone and started teaching myself to play. For some strange reason, even though they are virtually the same instrument (comparable to a trumpet and a cornet or a baritone horn and a euphonium), I really wanted to play an actual tuba. The sousaphone was $700 dollars and though I could barely afford that I was able to come up with the cash but tubas were well out of my price range. Even a cheap one was $3000. Doubts and obstacles were completely meaningless at this point though. Somehow I’d think of something and somehow I’d continue plunging mindlessly forward with no thought of the consequence of my actions…

drives me nuts

The whole Iraq debate drives me nuts. Look, we shouldn't have gone in so that's a plug for Obama's argument. But we did invade the country so it really isn't too constructive to just go on and on about the origins without thinking about the future as McCain rightfully points out. But then McCain does the same thing and goes on about how Obama was against the surge. So what? It happened. It's what happens next in Iraq we should be talking about. Obama at least has a plan. A Sixteen month pull out. McCain won't say what his plan is at this point. He can only go on about how the troops can't come home as losers. I wanna know what that means. He said, she said is all fine but the bottom line is what are you gonna do in January and beyond...

Fucked Up About Race

Well, it finally happened. with their backs against the wall, unable to make a viable case for her candidacy, the Clintons managed to make the campaign for the Democratic nominee for president all about race. It's a lot easier to create reasons why you shouldn't vote for a candidate than to make the case for why you should. The greater good of the party be damned. There aren't a lot of policy differences between Clinton and Obama so she's gone down what will turn out to be a problematic road once the general election comes along for whichever candidate triumphs in the end (if anyone ever does). It was bound to happen at some point I suppose. I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that we are a country (and a world for that matter) that is still fucked up about race. People simply cannot understand each other and cannot or will not understand all the factors that leave other people believing what they do. It seems to me that Obama for the first time is really trying to be somewhat honest about race (truthful compared to his ideas of working hand in hand with republicans which we know is never really gonna happen) and to no one's surprise it's hurting him politically. All these pundits are up in arms over what Jeremiah Wright said in his sermon. Frankly it didn't seem like that big a deal to me. It's not something we haven't heard before. If I were black I'd be saying much the same things. It's fairly obvious that people are actually not treated equally and that we have not achieved the utopian color blind fantasy land in which most pundits live. I've been following the case in Long Island in which Daniel Ciccario Jr. was shot and killed by John White. Daniel was drunk when he went to White's home with four friends late at night to confront White's son Aaron about what turned out to be a bogus rape threat. Racial slurs were exchanged and the gun went off. Now I don't claim to know exactly what went down that night and I'm sure you could make a strong anti or pro gun case according to what perspective you have and it is a tragedy that a houng man was killed but come on. He was leading what amounts to a drunken lynch mob to a man's house late at night to do what? Talk civilly tohim? Where did these kids think this was going? John White was sentenced to 2 to 4 years and Daniel's dad freaked out. He has threatened Aaron's life and the White's property has been vandalized. The thing I find fascinating is Cicciaro Sr's claims of reverse racism. If White were white he argues White would have gotten a much stiffer sentence. As if blacks get so many privileges in our society. As if jails are not filled disproportionately with black men. Actually if the races were reversed and White was white and was confronted by a drunken mob of black men at his doorstep I doubt if he would be looking at any jail time at all. This perception of privilage amazes me. Your Geraldine Feraro's of the world claiming Obama is only successful because he's black and oh by the way I'm not a racist. Actually it seems he's been successful despite his color and now that it has been pointed out endlessly that he actually is black (to say nothing of the things that have been pointed out about him that are not in fact true) and race has become an issue in the campaign, lo and behold, Obama isn't doing so well anymore. Why was the Sopranos a huge hit and the wire wasn't when the wire was clearly the superior show? Because people are uncomfortable with race and with confronting the realities of the society we have created. And until we are willing to face those realities we will continue to do very little to change them. What you do not understand you cannot fix.

Mission Accomplishing

I like to keep up with what people on both sides of the aisle are saying. On my recent tour in Texas I listened to a bunch of right wing radio (that's just about all you can get) and between that and your Krauthammers of the world I learned that apparently the war in Iraq is now a success. We're well on our way to victory and the democrats are being completely unrealistic and disingenuous about the prospects of withdrawal. The last part may actually be true. Far be it from politicians to lie to the public. It's not so easy to just aup and close down an operation of this magnitude. But it seems to me the republicans are being equally evasive. McCain knows it is unrealistic to expect to occupy Iraq for the next 20 years. We can't sustain troop levels and we can't afford what it costs. What I don't understand about conservatives is how in their own country they are against big government and they claim to want to reduce spending but they are all about prolonged nation building overseas. Yeah there is a certain threat imposed on us by terrorism but frankly it's not nearly as great a threat to American lives as the decaying infrastructure of this once great nation. Perhaps we could mix things up and try a little nation building here at home...

OKC

Just cruised in to Oklahoma City. The weather is finally what I expected down here. Sunny during the day and crisp and cool at night. I was afraid that I had permanently brought the northern cold down south with me. I was just reading about the rep for Oklahoma City who said that Gays are a bigger threat to America than terrorists. What is it with people? Are they really so uncomfortable and so afraid? Today’s big political news is the storm back in New York over Eliot Spitzer and his thousand dollar prostitutes. Part of me truly doesn’t care and part of me has to wonder about a man who is so confused that he would actually prosecute one prostitution ring while hiring another. He should probably resign for that hypocrisy alone. As far as the bigger battle goes, seems like we’re going to go all the way to August. I am continuously amazed by what a mess the democratic system is in the United States. Anytime a contest is close we seem to learn how flawed and confusing the rules are.
I spent last week visiting the legit world of the tuba at Texas State University in San Marcos. I’ve got to say I had a great time. I was pretty nervous about how things would go over but everyone there was extremely open minded. It was a totally different experience for me as I’m used to rock clubs and such. I can barely remember the last time I was on stage in a concert hall at an academic institution. I used to get really nervous but I guess the key to that was just being really comfortable with the music you’re playing and I surely am that by now. I’ve got a few more shows to go here before getting to Austin for SXSW where I’m certain David Geffen is just waiting to sign me to a really big contract…
Tonight’s show in OKC was not great but let me tell ya a weird little story. At my instore in Dallas, Texas at Good Records I asked the guy there to recommend a cd. He suggested a band called HolyFuck. I liked the cd and bought it. So today before my show I open up the paper and they’re playing this same night down the street from me. A weird coincidence. So I go down there to say hello and see when their show is and I run in to Jay, one of the bartenders at Piano’s in NYC where I play my weekly show. His band is opening up. Two coincidences together make one big fat weird coincidence…

Super Fat Tuesday Celebration

Like Haley's comet we recently had an extraordinary confluence events occur. Never again will so many people vote on the same day as Mardi Gras when the Giants are having their victory parade. Crazy! Well, my time in Canada is a little prematurely at an end. My show tonight has been cancelled and of course it is snowing...again. On the Republican side of things I must admit to being shocked that John McCain has all but wrapped up the nomination. How a man so reviled by the Rush Limbaugh wing of the Republican party could win is hard to fathom. I suppose it's more an indictment of the paucity of candidates than anything else. I mean, who couldn't beat a man named Mitt. And Huckabee, let's be serious. He is way too populist for any of those right wingers. Religion is fine as long as it doesn't involve sharing the wealth. So it comes down to McCain. Who would have thought last year that someone so in step with Bush on the war could have a really good chance of winning the presidency. Somehow the war has been spun as this huge success now. Because it is no longer a collosal horrible mess it is now a huge victory. There are strong anti war arguments to be made but the Dems are not really making them. Part of their problem was that they never really made a good anti war case beyond we shouldn't have gone in there in the first place. Yeah, true, but we did and now what? Neither side is being very truthful or realistic. Are we going to be there the next 15 or 20 years because that's at least what it is going to take. Whether or not you think the surge is working we just do not have the man power to sustain so we'll have to withdraw troops whether you are for the surge or not. Can we afford to spend a couple hundred billion a year (I'm sure it probably ends up costing even more than that). What about Afghanistan and North Korea and Iran and... Don't it make most of our threats and intimidation and influence empty when it is clear we can only just barely sustain the wars we are already fighting? On the Democratic side we're looking at a long drawn out slugfest. I suppose I'm one of these undecided people you hear about. I think I'm leaning towards Obama but I'm not entirely sure about his lack of policy details. He's great at the platitudes but it'd be nice to have some more specific proposals. At least he would avoid a quarter century of only two families ruling the most powerful country in the world (Go Democracy!). And on top of that he seems like a genuinely good guy. Not that it is necessarily the job for a good person. To me politics is like sports and I follow it the same way checking out all the scores and trades and it's pretty fascinating. The stakes happen to be a little bit higher though.