Relaxing on the Axis

"The semicolon is a transvestite hermaphrodite."

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:51:00 -0400

“The semicolon is a transvestite hermaphrodite.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

The Kurt Plus Plus

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:22:00 -0400

It was the strangest Kurt performance ever. Instead of the New York Society for Ethical Culture Concert Hall being packed with jazz students drooling over Rosenwinkels’ flying fingers and fluttering eyelids, the hall wasn’t even filled to capacity. Most of the audience was made up of the middle aged and/or European tourists. This was probably because of the ticket prices, which were about 35+ dollars per ticket. I got mine after seeing that Ethan Iverson had posted a 20% savings code on his blog. At first my jazz musician friends were excited to hear the show, which was a one-night engagement with Kurt joining The Bad Plus. But the general rule among that crowd is that if a show costs more than 10 bucks, it’s out of the question. They would have been thrilled to see it too, although it really became The Kurt Plus, and Iverson took a supporting role throughout. The highlights were Reid Anderson’s “Silence is the Question,” a pure and consonant and extremely slow build to a majestic climax, and the encore, “Have You Met Miss Jones,” which the band played straight ahead except for Dave King’s quirky accelerandos and deccelerandos, forcing the soloists to constantly alter their feels.

Going to the JVC jazz festival makes me realize how much things have changed since I moved here. At first i was just going to school, rapidly depleting the money I earned working in a high school cafeteria in Vermont, and spending my abundant free time moping around or falling asleep in various parks. While I had a lot of time to practice and study music (if I could muster the attention span), I wished things were different. Now I’m writing for two websites, which takes time by itself. I also have to do research and keep abreast of the news in the music world, and go see shows that cost more than 10 dollars, and seek out people in the industry. I’m also playing gigs, and as fun and monetarily satisfying as all of this is, I miss that time I had to just practice, or even just lie around and waste time. I’d always been sort of centered on my “projects,” and I felt like I was wasting my life if I wasn’t working on something. When all of a sudden I hardly had anything to do, I freaked out. Being forced to be alone and to see what sort of terrors arise was a shock, but it turned out to allow me one of the most productive periods ever in terms of musical (and emotional) reflection and development. Now I’m constantly busy again and I know I’m shutting out those terrors. I’m happy not to experience them, but I wonder what they can be teaching me.

Exchange I Just Heard in the Library

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:57:24 -0400

This is as best as I remember it:

Woman A: Don’t call him “professor” and don’t tell him to move over!

Man: If I want to tell him to move over, I will.

Woman A: This is my country, not yours!

Woman B: It belongs to the American Indian.

Woman A: No one’s talking to you so shut up.

Man: Move over, Professor.

Woman A: Don’t talk to him!

Man: If I want to talk to your husband, I’ll talk to him!

Woman A: He had a stroke, he doesn’t like to talk!

A New One From the Diary of Fletcher McPherson

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:59:13 -0400

Fletcher McPherson is everything that I’m not, and I simultaneously envy him and despise him. Here is a journal entry he shared with me so that he could leave his footprint on the internets, seeing as he doesn’t have a facebook profile or a hispace:

I need more ramen.

I realize this as I glance through my cabinets, trying to find some kind of empty-calorie-based carbohydrates to which I can add boiling water, some ground beef, black beans, and chopped onions. The antioxidants in the onions, along with the fiber in the beans and the protein in the ground beef will cancel out the hydrogenated oils, saturated fats, and carcinogenic preservatives in my 25-cent packet of Oriental-flavored noodles.

At this point food is just fuel, something I grudgingly stop for periodically so that I can continue driving down endless stretches leading to places I’m not excited about going.

“We’re here!”

My mind is expanding. It’s like I’m some vile animal suddenly endowed with self-perception. Food is fuel and Sex isn’t a source of pleasure. The thought of defiling some lovely wide-eyed thing doesn’t arouse the same zest and hope of fulfillment it once did.

“I need a man, not a boy.”

The trite words of my last girlfriend ring in my ears. She was being overly nice while trying to explain why I had no say in whether or not we stayed together. At 25 I have the body of a pre-pubescent girl with a pituitary gland problem.

She got rid of me so that she could see what it was like to be with real men; cooks at bad gourmet Chinese restaurants, busboys at bad gourmet Chinese restaurants, lawyers who sleep with the secretaries at their law firms, and friends’ college boyfriends who were off limits until now. The descriptions that fit me just don’t have the same appeal, not in this town of solemn, artistic, outdoorsy hipsters who politely ignore the poor and cranky locals.

The only females interested in me are girls below the legal drinking age who still associate depressive musicians with romance. Aside from them, I get a lot of attention from less-than-beautiful 30-year-olds whose ovaries must be quivering at the same frequency as the shame ricocheting with increasing intensity off the walls of my solipsistic shell of a hangover. Our desperation is equal, yet in true narcissistic fashion, I feel sorrier for myself.

Once the water is boiling I add the black beans, ground beef, and chopped onions, and think about how far I will have come in the hours before next time.

"I think that fact might make it difficult for me to find stability or happiness but i know..."

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:46:00 -0400

“I think that fact might make it difficult for me to find stability or happiness but i know it’s true.”

- Kurt Rosenwinkel on his claim that he would run his bike into a car and obliterate himself if that’s what it took in order for him to make music that would be meaningful beyond his life.

uh oh

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:08:00 -0400

The Tristano School is messing me up. The story is a well-kept secret, and I’m not sure why but I have some theories.

National Greek Soccer Team Fan Club Inc.

Sat, 31 May 2008 16:54:36 -0400

I’m reading three books at once. Haven’t read for maybe five months, and now I must be craving some bookish alone time almost as much as I crave some bookish lonely waif. Just kidding!

The three books are ordered according to how good their covers are:

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (I, along with every ninth grader, can relate to Siddhartha)
An Unsung Cat_{The Life and Music of Warne Marsh} by Safford Chamberlain
A Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander. This isn’t some Philip Roth sexual-obsession-as-a-reflection-of-man’s-fear-of-death sort of book.

Lee Konitz - “Marshmallow,” from Subconscious-Lee,...

Sat, 31 May 2008 16:36:00 -0400

Lee Konitz - “Marshmallow,” from Subconscious-Lee, feat. Lennie Tristano and Warne Marsh. Based on “Cherokee.” The angular, streaming melodies and rhythmic playfulness makes me think this was a big influence on Rosenwinkel. And of course Mark Turner came out of Marsh…

congeners

Wed, 28 May 2008 19:15:00 -0400

Not thinking very well right now, haven’t been able to for a week. Got some things coming up; an audition website for another writing job due the second week of June. Going to Vermont for a few days (kind of apprehensive about it) where I have some gigs and also plan on playing with some musicians I met there. Looking forward to the possibility of playing with some Brooklyn musicians there too, oddly enough. Playing the Fringe Theatre Festival in Minneapolis in August, I just have to make up some music and play it during various segues between some short plays. I was skeptical, but I think its going to be fun and there’s a chance we can each make some money or at least break even. The people are all really fun too. Had a recording session today that went pretty well considering I had never rehearsed with the group, just played along to some recordings with the composer and co-tenor player. Lots of odd meter which was uncomfortable for me at first but by the end of the two-hour session I finally felt good with it, then had to stop. Otherwise, going to V______’s too much, had to switch to gin and soda when I found out that tonic water was giving me heart burn. Its fun to avoid congeners. Don’t know whats going on in my head, spent three days unable to get out of bed, and now all of a sudden I feel motivated again.

Yoruba Andavo - “Maria Belen”

Sat, 24 May 2008 11:31:15 -0400

Yoruba Andavo - “Maria Belen”

What??

Tue, 20 May 2008 02:22:30 -0400

I think every May 19th for the past ten years has been one of the most frustrating and saddest days of the year. This year was no different. The days leading up to it were great though.

Charley Kaplan and Peter Teichroew

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:24:44 -0400

Charley Kaplan and Peter Teichroew

After Birthday

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:22:00 -0400

I woke up still crying after having a dream about being curled up in the fetal position and crying while two unrecognizable women talked candidly about me. I don’t remember my actual birthday, but I bet similar things happened then.

this is what I do when i go out. Run the king’s gambit.

Sat, 17 May 2008 13:58:42 -0400

this is what I do when i go out. Run the king’s gambit.

Apology

Sat, 17 May 2008 04:38:01 -0400

Sorry for dragging you guys out onto the fire escape when Nora obviously wanted to go to bed. Also for talking to you about ethanol. I honestly don’t know anything about it, it’s just fun to pretend! Also, sorry for playing music so loudly so early in the morning. (also, take out the garbage please.)

All the things...

Fri, 16 May 2008 15:52:00 -0400

Sometimes when I’m down I try to remember to be happy about the stuff that is easy to take for granted. Today the 59th street station didn’t smell like rotten piss, and that put a smile on my face. Also, the bathtub guy finally came and unclogged the bathtub. I haven’t felt so clean after taking a shower in two months. Now Jesse can pee in the tub too, and it won’t be that disgusting. He claims he doesn’t pee in the tub however. What other little things… Oh yeah, little packets of rice. I just cut me up some vegetables and throw some spices and ground beef in there, and twenty minutes later I have food. I actually cook sometimes too, ask me about the paella for twelve. But that is definitely not a little thing, especially because it comes with a fire in the oven. Oh, another little thing: Teddy tells me (every time I see him) that when he hears me practicing he is reminded of growing up in the Bronx during the great depression and hearing saxophonists practice in the airshaft/courtyard of his building, and then seeing people on the upper floors throw down nickles wrapped in newspaper.

Birthday card for my mom.

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:27:00 -0400

Birthday card for my mom.

Word of the day plus

Wed, 14 May 2008 01:26:00 -0400

Confabulate. This weekend was interesting. On Sunday night T-bone, Julian, and I saw Professor Dave play with Marty Ehrlich at the Standard. Ehrlich has one of the best clarinet and bass clarinet sounds I’ve heard in a while, and Prof. Dave was killing as usual. Immediately after that I went to V——-, where Ariel works and gives her friends free drinks. Bombay, not even rail! I hung out with Fuller, who taught me a bunch of jokes that I forget now, and also wrote Ariel a dirty poem on the back of an envelope that had previously enveloped a card my mom sent me. When I first offered him paper he refused, but when he found out it was the back of a used envelope he accepted because that fits his artistic vision. Then I got a text from Sarah at about 1:30 in the morning and I hung out with her in Burg. She got really mad at me for calling her a republican even though I meant it in some kind of pejorative sense, but not the political one. Whatevr did. Toy with me and you can expect to git toyed with. It was ok after a while though. I only got an hour.5 of sleep sunday night, but I still managed to be productive on monday. I made my mom a birthday card, which I guess I will post here because I like it.

"Makes me want to break out my best pair of corduroys."

Mon, 12 May 2008 14:56:11 -0400

“Makes me want to break out my best pair of corduroys.”

- Fuller - Lighting technician/poet

NIN, Ghosts I, track 2

Wed, 07 May 2008 12:29:55 -0400

NIN, Ghosts I, track 2