So can anybody tell me this: why is it that the only women that respond to my guitarist ad are over 30... or close to it? Are there no younger female guitarists that sing out there?! To some, that may be confusing. In the process of rebuilding Breakfast Epiphanies, I need to find a female guitarist to sing (and of course play) with to fill out the sound of the band. Basically I need her for the voice but we also have a need fo another guitar...why not two in one? Besides, what would a backing vocalist look like with nothing else to do but sing? Weird. So this process has been going on since April... maybe March, and the youngest one (of the many I've tried out) was 27. Twenty friggin' seven! That's seven years on me!! Do they understand that I was finishing elementary school when they graduated high school? Anyway, I'm actually finding that most musicians out there looking for stuff are older...men as well. Kind of scary. Especially when they respond to an ad that may say: "Female Guitarist/Vocalist needed." In the delectable words of Aro: What the crap! Any way, still searching obviously looking for compatibility as well but I'd like to find someone who can play... period. Haven't gotten many of those in the search...but what ever. They'll come when they need to. Really, all of this was just a question anyway...not a rant. I'll step down now. Until then---

a poem

stand out on a limb
inch out
a bit
stepping
breathe in the freshness
the newness
air
a feeling
a freedom and chance
to let go
drop
everything
that you have come to know
or have become
inside
when you had
but you never really had a thing
that meant
a thing
so that now
you feel something new
and that
now
it's all
right before your eyes
no longer hidden behind a face
a mask you saw for way too long
and you lived behind its shadowed way
and now you slowly step out from
all you've been and known
from inside the darkness
into the light
you fall

Until then---

Lovely homework... I'm taking this American poetry class which is pretty cool... lot's of discussion on a topic that I can do. Well we've got this project due tomorrow in which we have to turn verse (a poem) into prose (essay form/sentences/stupid structure). I didn't really want to do something that has been done... Honestly, I kinda wanted to use one of my own writings, but I happened to fall across Aro's Quiche of the Day and I think that this entry is perfect for my project. Read one of them and then the other... I think that it's cool:

Intersection.
Wait for the little red hand to disappear
on the crosswalk light and
then push off hard
and fast
into the street
past the Explorers and Escorts already lining up
at the stoplight.

The asfault of the street
is darker than the concrete of the sidewalk
and rises before it falls,
like a hill you only notice on a skateboard.
Kick off twice
to get to the middle of the street,
side by side with the roaring cross traffic,
then once more
in the center,
at the top,
and ride the rest of the way
down,
then up again
sharply onto the smoother sidewalk
and you’re sailing again.

It’s sometime after seven on Friday night
and Tustin Avenue has everything you need,
trust me.
It’s my inaugural trip to Tustin tonight,
first one of the fall.
I’ve been wanting to decorate
my room
with posters
and pictures
of my family
and my girlfriend
and so I am in the market
push-pins or
sticky-tack or
both.
If Christina were here
with her bike
we’d be enroute to Rite-Aide,
but she’s moved into an apartment,
so I’m going solo,
and though that doesn’t mean
I’m lost,
it does mean I forgot
which way to turn down the
Everything Avenue.

So I’m just on the lookout.

You see things on a bike you don’t see in a car:
the moon in the
milky blue sky above telephone wires strung between poles like an empty music staff;
a trio of young men
lugging five boxes of Corona between them
across the parking lot.
And stores and stores and stores.
No different really,
then a marketplace in any period drama
and I have the sense of being
a visitor
in my own time.

Until then---

Right now, just thinking... Just thinking about my next talk for Tuesday at Refuge: The purpose of God...or something like that; thinking about this article I just read on music piracy/file sharing/whatever else you want to call it and how it's not goign to go away anytime soon. You know what...? I'm going to talk about that coz as a musician, i should care, right? In a way, I definitely do see that this is stealing from possible profits that could be made. But the issue is, who makes the profit? I know, being a musician, that unless you're the producer, distributer, and recorder/engineer, you don't make money on CD sales. The rising prices of CDs leads to the idea that getting songs for free is much more worth the effort rather than supporting the band. I was just thinking. A little more. If we...musicians in this case... got rid of all of the middle men, and learned how to take care of ourselves...or could at least know what's going on, we could make some real money on GOOD music. The producers/record labels just want to put out something catchy. Who hears any substance on the radio anymore? Most all the bands considered old, or too experimental, or (insert crappy insult here), like Bush, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins (just before being refused their last record contract), Pearl Jam, etc. are freaking amazing and actually wrote good poetry/lyrics and music that moved(s). Moved beyond a four chord chorus that mirrors the verse. With guitarists not afraid to rip out a solo...ever. My gosh..I'm stopping now and going to sleep dreaming of that: GOOD MUSIC. Until then---

I have a new nick name: UG. Until then---