I guess I should have looked sooner, but David Byrne's Journal (don't call it a blog!) is quite an engaging read. And I guess I should take heed of the "don't call it a blog" advice. I've been writing Journals since 1990 on paper, but the past year or two have seen my writings split between places like this and actual paper. Oftentimes it's the mundane, but every once in a while I hit a nerve. I'm often too lazy to compose my thoughts, certainly on a sustained basis like Mr. Byrne. But it's a little unfair. I'm caught in a debt/work trap and have to spend most of my day doing work I don't want to be doing, and I'm a little drained for the creativity part. That will change in a couple of years, once the plan my wife and I have put in place finally gets rolling.

Construction of the in-law unit has been delayed again, this time due to a problem with the foundation. So...we wait. While followers of Lyndon Larouche move in the upstairs unit in our current apartment and make noise until 3 or 4 in the morning. And we wait.

David Byrne and Talking Heads changed my life. I was living in Berlin, Wisconsin, vaguely dreaming of playing/writing music, but those dreams hadn't coalesced in terms of the direction I wanted to GO. "I Zimbra" changed that in an instant, one evening some time in 1985. It would take me a while before things clicked for me in my own attempts, ten years in fact.

The first result was a crude, haphazard four and eight track recording called "Handsome Western States," and our group name: Beulah. All that has come and gone by now, and here I sit, cubicled, waiting for the next move.

I'm putting the finishing touches on my musical journey, probably more of a comedy than anything, but there is a hearty section on Beulah that most people will probably want to read it for, and I'm trying to get the tone right. It's difficult. Writing about my earlier life in bands is easy, because mostly I can put it off as comic farce, a Spinal Tappian (to give it an academic flair) odyssey of gigs in hospital parking lots, junior high dances, and the like. I formed my first rock band in a church. Not many people can probably claim that...at least any that have gone beyond the bedroom or a few local clubs.

Anyway, more to come. I'll probably be launching my own website soon, and this page will disappear. I will then come out and identify myself in earnest, and stop writing cryptically and quasi anonymously. Then again, I'm pretty much anonymous anyway. And bored out of my fucking mind as of late.

I have an exciting trumpet session trip to Seattle this weekend, though. I'll post when I return.