It's amazing how much a soul can be shaken in a (roughly) 24 hour period!
It began with waking for a night of glory with Ray Harryhausen. As a kid, those movies seriously affected me-I'd say close to Star Wars level of affecting me, so technically astounding and still so poignant. The living skeletons, man, living skeletons! Attacking in broad daylight! The convincingly huge crab monster! Though I blubbered like an idiot and had nothing to say beyond the expected "really loved your stuff when I discovered it, futhered my fascination with discovering how special effects are done, etc", it was fucking awesome to meet Harryhausen. I practically worship George Lucas as a demigod and I think I'd be me cool and collected about him, but Harryhausen! The guy was very pleasant to speak to, I'd have loved to have picked his brains for a few hours.....I still haven't gotten the pictures from the event, except for this one picture.....and it's absolutely horrid, taken midconversation as he signs my book, so I look ridiculous and you can barely see Harryhausen, but soon I should have the proper "posed" pic he allowed to be taken sitting with him. (ugh. Goddamned SG Journal format. Just right click the image and view it.)
So there was that, some really cool news from Joel about a project that I hope to work on in some aspect but I can't talk about it until I know something.
I got a pleasant surprise early in the afternoon, as my phone rings and it's....Stacy! She's in town (from Dallas) and wants to get together! I'm busy in the evening, but I've a few hours to spare....staying at your friend's home downtown? You want to go to Spiderhouse Coffee, also downtown? How convienant, I need to be downtown later anyway! She showed up in the most hideously hilarious bug eyed sunglasses ever:
...and off we went! I'd intended to spend a bit more time with her during SXSW than I did, but I already had company and was swamped with other things...I need to move more of my friends to Austin. See if you can spot the important story detail in this picture:
The Scrabble board. Coffee, beer, blueberry muffins, Scrabble and wonderful weather make for a perfect afternoon. The drive downtown became perfect, too:an already good CD mix suddenly became...holycrap, King's X!!! And one of my favorite live cuts of a favorite tune...."We knew a person one time, we trusted him. We put too much trust in him and he let us down. Be careful who you trust. Never give your life away to any human being-don't trust them." Though she has a difficult time grasping my apathy towards life, she always knows how to pull a smile out of me and brighten my day-it's just part of who she is. I loves her. (I should clarify that I don't LOVE her in the literal "I love you" sense)
So the next big event was....not really something I could prepare for. My dear friend Austin has been on the road for a few weeks with his band, and last night they were in my city. I haven't seen Austin in years. When he moved to Florida, Darren and I were his first friends and we shared many zany adventures (which I'll have to log sometime), some of them involving golden diapers and always involving way too much to drink. Austin and I planned to conquer the local music scene....but I was in a financial rut and working too much, I couldn't get my own equipment and had to fall back on simply jamming whenever schedules lined up, filling in on whatever instrument(s) sat around. I ended up doing more piano/synth than anything else, since keys are more intuitive to me than strings. There was a great room in my home, perfect acoustics for recording, we'd drag everything in there and hang a mic from the cieling. If I'd ever been able to pull the funding out of my ass for a bass, Austin was trying to teach me and that'd be my position....but alas. Never did, and then I left FL as Austin was forming a regular band. There'd have been no room for me anyway (well, maybe on keys). He always spoke of one day being on the road....and he's done it. He's signed to a decent label, now getting offer from a major, on the road, living his dream....and just down the street from me.
Showed up while they were doing setup, and it was still a few hours before they were to go on....we went for a walk:
Showed him around downtown, and why we have the reputation of "Live Music Capital Of America"...streets and streets of packed venues, stand on a corner and you can hear a band from every direction, and that's just downtown....poor guys, they didn't have a very lucky night in terms of competition:the venue on either side of them, one was housing Anti Flag and The Casualties that night, the other had Dinosaur Jr, elsewhere in the city were other large events that I can't remember....time has really flown by. "That could be us up there."
Small turnout for the show, sadly, but with no advertising what does one expect? "There's a few people here now, but first tours always go like this-one day there'll be thousands of people."
The boys packed up to head to their next destination, I bought a shirt and left them a little extra cash to help them out-so far they're coming out ahead with money, but the tour is only half done....I hate saying goodbye and seeing how things are so very different and yet as wonderful as I left them...it almost put me to tears and made goodbyes more awkward than they would have been. The band and the girlfriends have a beachhouse, I'll stay a week or two with them this summer....
Years. It terrifies me to think of how difficult it will be to leave Darren again, as that is the next big even in the manic roughly 24 hours:I get home to messages from Darren, and the Florida trip is ON.
A childhood icon and two of my closest friends from a dream deferred, talk about kicking a man when he's down....or perhaps it should be inspiring. It's not, for some reason.
SO, at the end of this weekend.....it's to Florida with Kevin, to be reunited with my brother after 4 long years and to fulfill one of our childhood dreams.
It began with waking for a night of glory with Ray Harryhausen. As a kid, those movies seriously affected me-I'd say close to Star Wars level of affecting me, so technically astounding and still so poignant. The living skeletons, man, living skeletons! Attacking in broad daylight! The convincingly huge crab monster! Though I blubbered like an idiot and had nothing to say beyond the expected "really loved your stuff when I discovered it, futhered my fascination with discovering how special effects are done, etc", it was fucking awesome to meet Harryhausen. I practically worship George Lucas as a demigod and I think I'd be me cool and collected about him, but Harryhausen! The guy was very pleasant to speak to, I'd have loved to have picked his brains for a few hours.....I still haven't gotten the pictures from the event, except for this one picture.....and it's absolutely horrid, taken midconversation as he signs my book, so I look ridiculous and you can barely see Harryhausen, but soon I should have the proper "posed" pic he allowed to be taken sitting with him. (ugh. Goddamned SG Journal format. Just right click the image and view it.)
So there was that, some really cool news from Joel about a project that I hope to work on in some aspect but I can't talk about it until I know something.
I got a pleasant surprise early in the afternoon, as my phone rings and it's....Stacy! She's in town (from Dallas) and wants to get together! I'm busy in the evening, but I've a few hours to spare....staying at your friend's home downtown? You want to go to Spiderhouse Coffee, also downtown? How convienant, I need to be downtown later anyway! She showed up in the most hideously hilarious bug eyed sunglasses ever:
...and off we went! I'd intended to spend a bit more time with her during SXSW than I did, but I already had company and was swamped with other things...I need to move more of my friends to Austin. See if you can spot the important story detail in this picture:
The Scrabble board. Coffee, beer, blueberry muffins, Scrabble and wonderful weather make for a perfect afternoon. The drive downtown became perfect, too:an already good CD mix suddenly became...holycrap, King's X!!! And one of my favorite live cuts of a favorite tune...."We knew a person one time, we trusted him. We put too much trust in him and he let us down. Be careful who you trust. Never give your life away to any human being-don't trust them." Though she has a difficult time grasping my apathy towards life, she always knows how to pull a smile out of me and brighten my day-it's just part of who she is. I loves her. (I should clarify that I don't LOVE her in the literal "I love you" sense)
So the next big event was....not really something I could prepare for. My dear friend Austin has been on the road for a few weeks with his band, and last night they were in my city. I haven't seen Austin in years. When he moved to Florida, Darren and I were his first friends and we shared many zany adventures (which I'll have to log sometime), some of them involving golden diapers and always involving way too much to drink. Austin and I planned to conquer the local music scene....but I was in a financial rut and working too much, I couldn't get my own equipment and had to fall back on simply jamming whenever schedules lined up, filling in on whatever instrument(s) sat around. I ended up doing more piano/synth than anything else, since keys are more intuitive to me than strings. There was a great room in my home, perfect acoustics for recording, we'd drag everything in there and hang a mic from the cieling. If I'd ever been able to pull the funding out of my ass for a bass, Austin was trying to teach me and that'd be my position....but alas. Never did, and then I left FL as Austin was forming a regular band. There'd have been no room for me anyway (well, maybe on keys). He always spoke of one day being on the road....and he's done it. He's signed to a decent label, now getting offer from a major, on the road, living his dream....and just down the street from me.
Showed up while they were doing setup, and it was still a few hours before they were to go on....we went for a walk:
Showed him around downtown, and why we have the reputation of "Live Music Capital Of America"...streets and streets of packed venues, stand on a corner and you can hear a band from every direction, and that's just downtown....poor guys, they didn't have a very lucky night in terms of competition:the venue on either side of them, one was housing Anti Flag and The Casualties that night, the other had Dinosaur Jr, elsewhere in the city were other large events that I can't remember....time has really flown by. "That could be us up there."
Small turnout for the show, sadly, but with no advertising what does one expect? "There's a few people here now, but first tours always go like this-one day there'll be thousands of people."
The boys packed up to head to their next destination, I bought a shirt and left them a little extra cash to help them out-so far they're coming out ahead with money, but the tour is only half done....I hate saying goodbye and seeing how things are so very different and yet as wonderful as I left them...it almost put me to tears and made goodbyes more awkward than they would have been. The band and the girlfriends have a beachhouse, I'll stay a week or two with them this summer....
Years. It terrifies me to think of how difficult it will be to leave Darren again, as that is the next big even in the manic roughly 24 hours:I get home to messages from Darren, and the Florida trip is ON.
A childhood icon and two of my closest friends from a dream deferred, talk about kicking a man when he's down....or perhaps it should be inspiring. It's not, for some reason.
SO, at the end of this weekend.....it's to Florida with Kevin, to be reunited with my brother after 4 long years and to fulfill one of our childhood dreams.