london calling

Took a walk at work today and listened to the cover version of the Clash song ‘Hateful’ by Mummy The Peepshow’. Man, that rocks. It is very cool. A great guitar solo, great dual vocals. They get it right in a big way. It is nice out today and taking a good long walk and hearing that song (4 times in a row) really perked me up. Put me in a great mood.

Met Sara and Genie after work today at Panera (Rt 1 in Princeton). We went to Target and I got Sara a big pink mouse from ‘The Littlest Pet Shop’ type. We went to Michael’s and got some paints and wood things for Sara to paint. Also got paper for Sara to paint on and some other stuff. I got a frame to put around the portrait of Sara from Central Park in May. I got her a few times playing the ‘mine’ game with the pink mouse but I could not get her on the ‘I know’ game. I have not seen her with her ‘Teto’ plush fox-squirrel in a while.

We sat in Panera for a long time while Sara used my MacBook pro. She was mostly playing Disney games, but she was also looking for movies on Netflix. We have all the Miyazaki movies, so we can’t rent anymore.

Hello, I am Sara’s new pink mouse. I am a big mouse and I am pink.

thinking of cooper

Another day of getting up early after going to bed late.

Thinking of a lot of old Alice Cooper songs today. I was listening to the old albums. Great stuff indeed. Those guys really worked up the arrangements as a band. You can tell that they really put their souls into it.

Talked to a singer from Brooklyn about doing some stuff together. I will try to write some new material for new projects.

Took a nap after work and then stayed up late again. I will get a lot of sleep this weekend, it’s a long holiday weekend.

snl

Received ‘Saturday Night Live – The first five years‘ from Netflix. Very cool. Skip called last night and said he got me the ‘Minutemen – We Jam Econo‘. Skip is always thinking of me, he is amazing in that way. He said it is signed by Mike Watt. I guess he is hanging with Watt occasionaly. There was some talk about a project with Skip, DJ Bonebrake and Watt. I hope it happens.

Worked until late today. I am starting to really get frustrated at working all the time. I am about to start my studio again. I am also going to start several projects which I will document here and on my website. I will be pushing people to get serious with me about these projects. I want to work hard even though my job wants to take away all of my good energy. I am determined not to let the job stop me from doing what I want to do.

Usually, It is hard to get others to have the energy or focus to work hard with me. I don’t expect this to be any different. I hope I can find people who are serious about creating something. It will not be easy, I know. But I will not get discouraged. I promise myself.

Listened to ‘Terre Roche – The Sound Of A Tree Falling‘ in the car today. What a cool, down to earth album. Very nice.

the job that ate my soul

Worked from 9am until after midnight today. I will make a lot of money for today, but I can’t do this forever. No way, I would rather be poor than give my life away to the company. I am doing this to make a lot of money quickly. I plan on doing more with my life than working all damn day.

I am dreaming of my goals. Beyond this job. I will not work at this job forever, I need to do my own thing more.

remember the coop

Worked a long day (10hrs.). Received a live Alice Cooper show from 1973 from Netfilx. It was neat seeing the Alice Cooper band in it’s original form from 73. Especially Glenn Buxton. I listened to the Alice commentary track.. it was ok. Worth seeing for me because I liked that stuff a lot when I was younger. I still love the ‘Killer’ album, ‘Love it to Death’ and a bunch of stuff from the first 5 albums. I even like some stuff from ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’. The bridge in ‘Only Women Bleed’ is pretty damn great.

Glenn Buxton rocks.

rainy sunday

It rained most of today, so I just stayed home and was visited by Sara and Genie.
Sara brought over some DVD's to watch and we ended up watching 'Madagascar' which is actually pretty good. Some good humor in it. We also watched 'Cats Don't Dance' which is a favorite of Sara's. We played some baseball in the yard and went for a walk in the neighborhood. We got a pizza and also made popcorn for the movie. I pretended to be the lion in Madagascar and I was chasing Sara saying 'steak!'.. (In the movie, the lion sees his friends as dinner. They look like steak to him once he is in the wild.) Sara left with the Mr. Bill DVD which she was watching on her portable DVD in the car. She was singing some Shonen Knife today 'Sesame' and 'Forest Walk'. I was playing some guitar to 'Chinese Disco' with Sara (Am, C, Em verse) (C, F, G chorus). Later on, I took a walk by myself with my ipod. Listened to Shonen Knife (Explosion EP) among some other things. I walked by the baseball diamond where I used to play when I was a kid. I also passed the shopping center which was recently torn down and remembered when I was very young and my parents and I would go there for Chinese food. I felt sad thinking about them. I usually think about them when I am walking. I usually think of them everyday. I also passed the IHOP where I worked as a teenager (my first job). I looked in the window and it looked the same as long ago, I flashed back on that time. The passing of time is a strange thing.

I got my SATA hard drives working with some fiddling around. I had to initialize and format them, then had to change some jumpers on my SATA PCI controller card. I also played with simpleviewer more and my photo files. I am getting closer to being able to post a lot of images. 

Well, it's late. I better go to sleep, working day shift tomorrow. It was a nice day with Sara, I am happy. I consider myself lucky. 

lenny

Wow, I was tired today from working nights all week.
Watched 'Lenny Bruce Without Tears'.. very good. Picked up Sara from her friends birthday party at a ceramic studio. Then we came to my house because it was raining. We rented  'Powerpuff Girls' and 'Land Before Time' DVD's so we watched those and ate Chinese food.

Sara was listening and singing along to Shonen Knife, 'Chinese Disco', 'Golden Years of Rock and Roll', 'Rubberband', 'Anime Phenomenon', and 'Forest Walk'. She took Shonen Knife's 'Strawberry Sound' with her to listen to. A non eventful, quiet day with Genie and Sara.

here’s johnny

Saw Johnny A. today for the first time in about 5 months. He came over to pick up his guitar from Ed Wilson (Guild acoustic). I miss hanging out with him and making music but I hope we can pick it up again soon.

I have been listening to Japanese bands on my Ipod at work all night. It was a pretty uneventful day, just working these long shifts, making money for now.. but it will end and I will be back to my life at some point.

genki shock

Received the English version of Shonen Knife "Genki Shock" today. I had the Japanese version for a long time, so I am used to the Japanese lyrics on many of the songs. It is interesting to hear the english version. I like both versions. The order of the songs is different also.

Checking out tons of cool stuff on youtube.com today, mostly Japanese bands like Clammbon, etc.. There was no Yukari Fresh on there, but tons of Seiko Matsuda. Listened to "Akai Sweet Pea" again today a bunch of times.
I hung some Japanese artwork in my house plus the portrait of Sara that we got in Central Park a few weeks ago.

I received my IPOD in the mail today, so I will charge it up and use it tomorrow. I also received a PCI card to hook up SATA hard drives into my motherboard (4 internal and 2 external jacks) and an external enclosure to put SATA hard drives in. (Last week I received 3 SATA hard drives, all Seagate brand.. 80, 160, and 250 gb).

I transfered my domain names over to godaddy.com and I will host a new site and take down my old site.
Sara is at the fair with Megana, they have been there all night, they are going on many rides with the 'ride all night' wristband. I could not go, I am still working this long night shift.
Next week, I will work day shift (10 hour shifts) and then the following week will be 4th of July holiday.
My tenant upstairs is also moving out at the end of this month, so I need to plan what to do with the apartment upstairs.
I want to use it for myself, but it is expensive to pay the taxes and utilities by myself. I will try to make a plan about it in July.

Talked to Sara on the phone as she was leaving the fair. she was there for about 6 hours, wow.. that's alot of fair. We were making some plans to visit Sesame Place and Six Flags. Sesame Place will be nice to do with her because she will soon be too old to care about going there and we have so many great memories of being there with her when she was just a little girl. We will go back to the fair together on Saturday, they will have fireworks. As usual she signed off the phone with her Mr. Bill voice.. "Nooooooo" then click.

seiko

Listened to Seiko Matsuda – Akia Sweet Pea. That song has such an effect on me. It moves me.
I also heard 'One Week' (live version) by Shonen Knife. I love it, so much passion, such truth in the music.. I think Naoko is so special. I have been listening to 'Heavy Songs' by Shonen Knife in my car for a couple of weeks now, almost daily. I love it.

I listened to some old Skip recordings. Some stuff we recorded back in the 90's and I flashed back on those times. Some were demos we did at my studio (I'd Be A Fool, Cash and Carrie) and some were acoustic cover versions he did at Dale's with me producing (Martha, by Tom Waits and 'Minus The Woman' by John Hartford). I love the version of 'Minus The Woman' that Skip does, he really does it right and I know he is in touch with the soul of Mr. Hartford.

Did not get much done today besides playing with the computer setup. I got a haircut this morning and ran errands. It is hard to be productive while working these 10 hour night shifts. Talked to Sara tonight and she will be going to the fair tomorrow with her friend Megana, so that's cool.. she will have a blast I'm sure.