Interview with Carlculation Infinity

Here's an interview I did recently with Carlculation Infinity.

FREE DOWNLOAD for the Loverrrrrrrrs

Here is a cover Lex Land and I  recorded a few years back. Download it for free:

I'm coming out of retirement for 4 shows in CA

BACK FROM THE DEAD TO BLAZE YOU: 

Free Download - Holiday Hit Song "Tangerines"

It's that time of year when I suddenly get gooey-eyed thinking about how a bunch of people I don't even know support me and help me do what makes me happy. Here is a free hit song I offer as "thanks" to you - it's guaranteed to cheer you up this holiday season:



Lyrics:
We gather at my sister's house on Christmas Eve
I tip toe through the snowflakes shaped like nephews and nieces
and I wish I had my son with me, but he died last year
It's only he knows what I went through just to still be here

and everything has changed
the only thing constant is

Tangerines
in my stocking again
Tangerines
something I can depend on

And the older I get, the more I miss the pulse of an old religion
as it becomes harder and harder for me to identify my breadcrumbs,
and I start to see the value of traditions like

Tangerines
like my mother used to give us
Tangerines
like my sister has continued
Tangerines
a fruit that bookends my years
Tangerines
they come as steady as the tears

And I used to brush off this stuff
when Lu was just a pup
but now I know

if you anchor yourself to the biggest things
they will pull you down when they start to sink
when drifting off to sea it's best to cling to simple things like

Tangerines
in my stocking again
Tangerines
one thing I can depend on

Tangerines
like my mother used to give us
Tangerines
like my sister has continued...

Hope and Batteries - Chapter What

The first forty-eight hours were the hardest - not because they'd spent its entirety sloshing through the McCormick woods, and not because a square off with the Warrington Creek had earned the woman six stitches above her left eye. No, the hard part had little to do with the grueling search itself, and everything to do with the hope that fueled it. The hope in those first two days was so strong that it might have well been surety; they were convinced that thoroughness, persistence, and endurance would be deciding factors in determining the head count of their four-year-old family. Hope made it imprudent to eat, drink, or sleep.

The second night was even more urgent than the first. They knocked on every door from the Wise's down to the old Jetstream on Chauncy owned by the veteran, Mr. Carter, and nobody had seen nothin. By that time they were so unraveled that both had forgotten to buy batteries before Walgreens closed. So they harvested the attic's Christmas boxes for candles, the camping gear for lanterns, and the boy's beloved Casio keyboard for the last existing D batteries in the suddenly barren house. When those ran out, they drove the Suburu out to Jerico Prairie, pierced its briared coat where the oat grass was newest, and shot the headlights straight out into the nothing they found there. The car died only minutes before dawn, "passing the torch" as it were. They walked home, dazed and distant.

On the third evening, the woman crashed hard. She'd returned to their place on Carbuckle to call her folks, when in walked Officer Stutzman tweezing a muddy sock in his gloved hand. He'd fished it out of a tire swing behind Shoals Elementary. Her husband was hanging signs outside the Wallmart when she called him in a wash of hysterics. It took him a painfully long time to get the whole story out of her, and in the end it wasn't much of a story: the sock was white, Fruit Of The Loom, and Medium-sized. Unfortunately, so were those of a good twenty other boys in the neighborhood. And furthermore, the last sighting of their son was on the opposite end of town. But the woman needed that sock ever-so-badly... They'd been floating through those first few days so anchorlessly, waiting for something to point them up or down. She refused to see the sock as pointing any way but up, while he could only think of how much further she'd fall when it proved fruitless. Even Coach Teffler, who'd never been married, warned him that keeping her spirits up was his #1 priority - why couldn't he just let her have it?   Because men have a knack for asserting reality at the most inopportune moments:

"Now we've got to stay the course, here. I want to believe it's his sock, same as you, but we shouldn't go sending everyone over to Templeton just because of a sock. We've got to 'ma-xi-mize our re-sour-ces,' honey. And if---"

Suddenly he heard a series of noises come from his wife, the likes of which he'd never heard in all their twenty-three years together. Before he knew it the line was dead, and he was back in the Suburu driving home frantically. Officer Stutzman called him back a few minutes later to tell him his wife had been successfully transplanted to the couch, and was now moaning feebly from beneath a packet of frozen peas.

The next 336 hours were the most exhausting 336 hours of their entire marriage. They turned up the world around them, adding two small TVs to the bathroom and foyer respectively (for a grand total of five in the house), and a new radio in the garage, all tuned to different news stations. All blaring, all the time. They fought sleep and silence simultaneously, orbiting each other with the tightest lips, never colliding. Occasionally a circuit would be blown and the house would fall silent. When this happened, the man and the woman collapsed into crumpled piles wherever they'd stood. In the morning, The woman's mother would arrive with bags of tupperwared pasta salad and find them strewn about the house like the laundry they no longer bothered to wash. No sooner would she revive them then they'd flip the circuit and set the house, and themselves, to whirring again.

After the first week, the woman began to visit St. Matthews nightly. In the silences that found her there, she wondered if the man blamed her for the disappearance of their son. She wondered if she could survive to Christmas. And, most daringly, she wondered if her husband had already given up hope.

The man had no relief routine, no coping method. He tried to busy himself with the humbling task of stirring up publicity around the case. When his hands found themselves empty, they slipped into his coat lining and fingered the empty pewter flask hidden there. In those times, he only wondered one thing: at what point will knowing that her son is dead be better than not knowing?

The man and the woman never asked these questions of each other; they continued their ghastly game of musical chairs and waited for something or someone to break.

Year of the Giraffe

This year I became acutely aware that my niece is approaching an age group that goes completely unserviced in regards to animal costuming. If Amazon Search is any indicator, children between the ages of 8 and 14 are expected to go virtually suit-less year-round, or worse, don something awkward and immodest - Sexy Cat, Sexy Bee, Sexy Lobster, etc. Because of this, I have chosen to furnish her with one of the more elaborate costumes for her Suit the Snoot program this year: The Giraffe.

It is my sincere hope that when it comes time for me to hand-knit these things to continue The Program through that 8-14 drought, I will have already purchased for her those animal suits which are too great a challenge for a novice seamster such as myself.

What have you done this year?

One year ago today my best friend died. For those that did not know him, here he is getting fancified by B. Schoeck 1 month before a sudden case of bloat took his life:

Lumas found me when I was just a dumb 18 year old kid. He walked me through the 15-year earthquake of my pre-adulthood life as a skinny artist and deposited me on stable ground with a house and a UX Designer's income/diet at 33. The responsibility of caring for him kept me on this earth many times when I didn't want to be here. He was more loyal, affectionate, and forgiving than any human I ever hope to meet, and he was all these things without the use of english.

When he died, I began planning an album about his life and his lessons that I hoped to release today, one year after his death. Today all I have to show for those plans is a few text files full of notes and fragments of four songs far from presentable. I'd convinced myself that I could complete the most complex and important record of my life while working a full time job; I was very wrong. It turns out that my creative engine does not turn over so easily in short 2-3 hour sessions. At least not any more.  And it turns out that money and comfort lead mainly to TV and internet addiction rather than creative endeavors. Who knew?

So today, after much internal strife, I spoke with my very understanding boss and told him that I need to leave my job to finish this record. I'm walking away from a great salary, health insurance, and stock options in a company about to go public. I've saved up enough money to work on music 24/7 for six months. After that I don't know what happens. But I can't live with the guilt of not properly honoring my best friend this year as planned, and I intend to make it right by charging face first into the most ambitious and challenging project of my life. I'm sorry my creative output has declined this past year - the wait will be worth it.

Hannah Boo - 5th installment of the Kickstarter Campaign Collaboration Reward

Here is the 5th collaboration from my Won Over Frequency Kickstarter campaign in which a Backer provides me with lyrics which I then turn into a hit song.  The inspiration for this track was provided by Maya Peart, who gracefully recounted the life and final days of her beloved pure bred Bullmastiff, Hannah. 

Regarding the music: 

I don't know why I return to hymnal harmony when trying to communicate pain, but I do. That being said, I purposefully kept it from following any expected direction, so as to simulate the sea-legs of profound loss. To represent that hourly oscillation between numbness and hysterics, I used a man vs. machine theme throughout the production: authentic snare and ride cymbal paired with electronic kick drum; synth strings and rhodes with acoustic guitar and electric bass; unfettered lead vocal with robotic vocoded harmonies. 

Regarding the lyrics:

It is a heavy thing, paying homage to someone this special. It is a heavier thing still to take on the voice of the grieving. If I weren't still knee-deep in my own grieving over Lumas, I'd venture to say that this sort of emotional co-opting is downright morally reprehensible. But lucky for me, Hannah's parents are dear friends of mine and myLumas, and were wonderful enough to trust me with something this sensitive. I really struggled to marry the subjective snapshots laid out in the verses with the objective rhetorical questions posed in the choruses. I know that the specifics of Hannah's death are not entirely clear to a listener who did not know her, and I grappled with whether or not to remedy that. In the end, I felt that vacillating between the details of injustice and a desperate lunge at gaining a larger context turns out to be a pretty accurate depiction of what coping with a loss of this magnitude looks like. So the song remains a dichotomy, optimized for her parents.

Hannah Boo

Well I suppose you were the silent type

but oh oh oh dear, you made a riot out of my tiny life

and nosed your way into every space

the anti-graceful, full of grace

you stoic bulldozer

why did you leave me with this mess?

And why do the biggest hearts break easiest?

Why do the smallest hearts survive?

Is it that love defies naturally selection

or that the big hearts keep the small hearts alive?

The way it went down was so hard to take

we'd been through hell and back but things felt ok

when the call came through we were both far away

Darling Hannah Boo, we never abandoned you!

I tried to be still but I'm not built that way

I couldn't take control or make the call - I had no say

Now I can't fill your space

I can dwell on the best, forget the rest but

why do the biggest hearts break easiest?

Why do the smallest hearts survive?

Is it that love defies naturally selection

or that the big hearts keep the small hearts thrive?

Maybe I'm wrong,

maybe I'm right

maybe my small heart tripled in size

just knowin' you,

just lovin' you,

myHannah Boo...