Nightmares

Had incredible nightmares last night.

- One involved a elephant running lose in a suburban neighbor and headed right for the backyard cookout I was at. People screaming. Nowhere to turn. "Fate or luck is going to get me out of thsi one," I thought. Dream fades

- Second involves alien abduction. I am sleeping in my son Cole's bed. I sense something. Get up and look out the window. There's bright lights but it's not the street lamp. Too bright. I seek solace in the room. Only now I'm lying w/ Cole and my wife. We are looking at the stars out of a sky light. And then the bright lights come. A ship, which looks like an oil drilling rig laid on its side, hovers over the sky light. "Shit," I mumble. "It's here." And then scramble to get Cole and wife out of the room. I'm behind Cole and standing in the doorway looking back on my wife on the bed. "Get up!" I yell and reach for her hand. And then the window crashes and this mechanical arm comes reaching towards me. "It wants me," I say to the room not sure to whom. "What do you want?" I scream. "Answer these questions," says a voice from nowhere. Dream fades.

- Third one. Three of my best friends and a childhood neighbor break into my house. Armed robbery. They are surprised I am home and I am surprised they are trying to rob me. They are dressed in black like cat burglers yet their faces aren't covered. This is bad they say. They tie me up, slap duck tape across my face and inject me with a needle. To put me to sleep or to kill me I do not know. Dream fades.

Seems like a good time for some Black Flag:

NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

I'm about
To have a nervous breakdown
My head really hurts
If I don't find a way out of here
I'm gonna go berserk 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
It's going...berserk
I hear the same old talk talk talk
The same old lines
Don't do me that today, yeah
If you know what's good for you you'll get out of my way 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
Going...berserk
I won't apologize
For acting outta line
You see the way I am
You leave any time you can 'cuz
I'm crazy and I'm hurt
Head on my shoulders
Going...berserk
Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!
I don't care what you fuckin' do
I don't care what you fuckin' say
I'm so sick of everything
I just want to...die!

Got A New PC

A Dell.

With sound.

And burning/ripping capabilities.

Oh my.

If I Was A Podcaster!

Fortunate Son - CCR (just because my band Chest Pains is partaking in the local Minutemen tribute show at the Local 506 on 12/10 [www.local506.com] and I had to learn it)

The Time Flys - Teenage Is The Stoneage

Bonniwell Music Machine - Two Much (sometimes you just got to raid the vaults)

The Blazers - Nobody Told Me

Souled American - Notes Camp Fire

Blackheart Procession - Release My Heart

Tom Waits - Underground (inspired to play this because I heard it in the suppose-to-be-for-kiddies movie Robots but it really ain't a kid flick)

X - We're Desperate

Los Olividados - Don't Cry

Lyres - Gonna Find A New Love

Blowtops - Black Jebus

Mountain Goats - Alpha Desperation March

Odell Thompson - Georgia Buck

Supersuckers - Pretty Fucked Up

Electrick Frankenstein - It's All Moving Faster

Guided By Voices - Jane of The Waking Universe

Cheap Trick - Stiff Competition

Ween - Gabrielle

Beil Young - Hopeless

Built To Spill - Else

Yo La Tengo - False Ending

Polovo - Feathers Of Forgiveness

When The Shit Hits The Fan

So my shitty sound-less PC died the weekend before thanksgiving.

I got drunk late one night and just listening to music...

Mike Brainard Made A Movie

and he wants you to see it:

go to www.independentfilmforum.com

sign up to see movies

click on "Lookin' For Some Posse"

nuff said, pard'ner

Sex Bomb Baby

http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=flipper

Yeah.

What he said.

And Yet Still More Flipper!

Living For The Depression Lyrics
We're living for life to be the way we feel Not living for life, but the Death appeal Who wants a cancerous boring end when you can die from misery and following the trend? I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time And if you wanna live in Super Market Isles And take your vacation by flying for miles Take a day off and live in the lies While others work and capitalize I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time We're living like cockroaches in this place Sprayed with insecticide that leaves no trace And if we could crawl on you at night You could be sure we'd love to bite I say "Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say?" This song rhymes and we play it in time I'm not living life to be A really cheap fucker like you Copout

Someone Say Flipper?

The Way Of The World Lyrics
There are eyes that cannot see And fingers that cannot touch That's the way of the world There are dreams left empty and blank And legs that have ceased to walk That's the way of the world There are kisses undelivered Sighs and moans unuttered That's the way of the world There are hearts no longer beating And there are entrails spilled on the floor That's the way of the world

Moonshadow, Moonshadow

We had the moonshadow tonight.

I am an Aquarius, I get the fever sometimes at full moons.

Like real insane, howlin' shit.
Werewolves of London and shit.
Fucking moonshadow.

A shadow cast by the moon?

Do you know I almost went blind tonight from that shit?

[CAN YOU SAY SHIT ONE MORE TIME. GREG?-Ed]

Got the [CHEESEY] telescope out, the one Gramps gave the kids years ago and tried to peeps me some astrology. I'm into horoscopes to some extent (www.freewillastrology.com), so, so, so, so.... so I almost lost mytrain of thought but lookin' into a telescope aiming for moonshadows is almost like bringing a magnifying glass to an eclipse.

[WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS KID SAYIN?]

[HE'S NOT TALKING VAN MORRISON IS HE?]
[NO, MAYBE THE PROMISE RING?]

Who is Ed? And why is he in my head? Get him out. I don't want him there anymore.

[GREG, IT'S ME Ed. I'M JUST WONDERING, WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID?] 

In Through The Out Door

The door to Spencer's room. Replete with the prerequisite punk rock show posters. He's a flyer artist in the making. Most of the white ones are for his band Sharks & Lions. The stickers under his name represent trips to the doctors' office over the years (7 stickers, 5 and a half years; unless he pinched two at one time which wouldn't surprise me).

He's probably behind that door listening to Thin Lizzy's Live And Dangerous, a drum set made out of old powdered Gatorade tins and a couple of shoe boxes for floor toms.

This is the kind of shit that spooks the moms on play dates.

That and the number of empty beer cans on top of my fridge. I store my empties there. When the top fills up they then are placed outside in the recycling bin... speaking of which, it is time to curb those empties.

This Is Cole's Room

My wife felt it ideal to repaint the room from the set-up we had for Spencer which was, uh, I forget but different.

So crazy Martha Stewart girl that she is, she made the curtains, did the "trains, planes, and automobiles" border (she wanted to do the whole room Thomas The Train - I objected), and got the big boy mattress.

Not that the kid ever sleeps in his bed. He's one of those that falls asleep on the floor trying to stay up with his older brother and then gets moved to mom and dad's bed after he passes out.

I object but there's no arguing with a mom. Especially a working mom who finds comfort in sharing a bed with her toddler. If he would just piss in the bed one more time maybe she'll see the light.

And that lamp? Hell yeah, that's some shit I cribbed from my parents and is total real deal '70s shit. Used to be olive green until Mrs. Martha Stewart Barbera got her hands on it and transformed it into some Trading Spaces room essential.

Hello

My name is Cole.

Please to meet you. 

I Mean C'mon!

Look at this kid in action! 

Go Gnomes!

So Spencer had his last soccer game of the season this past weekend. I missed it of course because I was working some bar mitzvah in Durham but my wife snapped a bunch of awesome pictures of our boy in action. Here he is jukin' some opponent enroute to a scoring the third goal of the day and sealing his umphteenth hat trick of his soccer career. As much as I bitch about my boys and rigors of being a parent, things like magic marker tattoos and little league soccer make it all worth it. 

Dean Smith Has A Posse

I worked a catering gig at the chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill's house last Friday.

Carolina's legendary basketball coach Dean Smith was in attendance. Smith is like a deity around these parts.

So I was walking past him with a tray full of spent wine glasses and empty dinner plates and he said, "Excuse me."

I stopped. His voice is very nasally. Like the antithesis of Bobby Knight's.

"Can I get some coffee. Black," he asked.

I looked at my tray full of empties and then gazed over at the two girls who were making the rounds in the room with coffee and dessert, then returned to the Dean'er not saying a word.

"That's your job isn't it?" he said.

I wished I had some witty b-ball retort.

I didn't.

I went and got a cup of coffee from one of the girls and placed it in front of him.

Tattoo You

So my boys have decided that in order to fulfill their rock star fantasies, they have to be tattooed. So in recent days they have taken to drawing on themselves with these Crayola (washable I might add) magic markers.

Spencer has had a cough for the last few days and had a coughing jag so bad last night that he puked twice. So today I took him to the doctor's office. You should have seen the look on the nurse when she pulled up Spencer's shirt.

"What have we got here?" she said.
The turned to me and said, "Kids get to have all the fun. Don't you wish you could sit around all day and draw on yourself?" Little does she know.

Then Spencer's doctor comes in. Same thing happens all over again. He asks about his cough. "Do you have any chest pains?" he asks.

Spencer turns and looks at me with a smirk then mouths the words "chest pains!"

Kids.

The Studio

Here's a picture of the studio we recorded in. The studio - Track and Field Recording - is nestled upstairs in the GO rehearsal space. Essentially, one of the room is wired for recording. Upstairs houses the boards and computer with Pro Tools and Rockets & Mortor's Nick Pedersen at the helm. It's amazing how long it can take to record something. We did most of our songs in one or two takes with the exception of "Action!" which took about five takes before we got a version we could live with.

Now we're going to take a week or two to sit on the rough mixes we got and see if there are any parts that need to be redone or if we want to add anything. The we'll mix it down and master it.

Fuggin' A.

It's a dream come true.

Now if we could just find somebody who wants to put it out on 7 inch vinyl... 

Punk Rock

So my band went into the studio last sunday.
We recorded 10 songs.
Set up at noon and went clear through to about 9pm.
Got some good shit if I don't say so myself.
One day I'll figure out how to post audio tracks... 

Halloween

Halloween used to be my favorite holiday when I was a kid.

I remember being scared shitless as a kindergardener going into a neighborhood haunted house with vienna sauges and ketchup representing the home owner's cut off fingers. Or the time the one neighbor was on the roof and would throw down this rubber jack o' lantern in front of your face and then have it spring back up on its little bungie cord.

By elementary school, Halloween was a total blast: me and my school friends following the cute girls from the neighborhood around. In sixth grade I went as Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live which I thought was cool as hell because that meant I had stayed up late enough to watch SNL and therefore knew who Mr. Bill was. In all fairness, I'd probably only made it a handful of times but who the fuck was counting? Plus, as a sixth grader on the parish's A league basketball team coached by Whitey Barry, you were deemed doubly cool. Coach Barry was also the guy who ran the catered events at St. Judes, so by default this meant you qualified to work for him. My first shift ever was doing the coat check at the New Year's Eve dance at the church.

We used to fill pillow cases up full of candy. One year, probably fourth grade, some local thug "traded" me a bar of soap for my bag of candy. I was totally bummed. I saw my older brother Mike, then an eighth grade stud and neighborhood hoodlum himself. He asked me to described the guy, told me to go home and not worry about it. He came home about an hour later with a bag full of candy for me.

Freshman year in high school was a total bust. That year a rapist had been terrorizing Aspen Hill, the neighborhood I lived in, and not a soul went out. By tenth grade I was doubling as a jock and punker. I had a football game that night and then caught shit from my friend Jeff's girlfriend for being more "jock" then "punk."

The next two years of high school saw me spending many a night partying in the cemetary by Rockville High School with my friends drinking beer and listening to the Misfits. So when Halloween came, it wasn't about walking around the neighborhood trick or treating, it was about going down to mix it up with the hordes of ghouls walking around the Georgetown area of Washington, DC. One year, my friend Mr. T and I missed the Metro and spent the better part of the night walking up Wisconsin Avenue drinking a found bottle of schnapps trying to stay warm and stave off the cold until his sister woke up around 5am and came and picked us up.

Comments

- This just heard while dropping my two-and-a-half year old off at his playschool:

"Where did you get that Hong Kong Phooey lunchbox?" says a mom to my son.

"It was mine when I was a kid," I reply.

"Figures."

-Yesterday at soccer practice this New Zealand woman was asking about what kind of things I get my boys involved in during the winter months. She just relocated to Carolina this summer because her husband is going to divinity school at Duke. "Many men I know," she says in her thick Kiwi accent, "always wish they learned to play guitar.

"So I'm thinking of starting the boys on violin lessons because it seems similar, ya know?" she says.

"That's not a bad idea. But why not just start on the guitar?" I say.

"I have musical instruments in the house - a bass, a guitar and drums - all available for them to use whenever they want," I say.

Another mother askes if I am in a band. "Yes," I say.
"Do you play out?" she asks.
"Yes, we just did the night before. And we play again Friday."

Kiwi mom joins in again, "I guess that's what you do to blow off steam?"

"Yep," I reply. "That and read books."

Mom Number Three joins in now. "I have a book club. We meet today."

Mom Number Two. "I was in a book club once but all we ever did was sit around and drink wine," she says with a giggle.

I tell them about the local library book sales. But add the comment that my wife thinks I already have too many books.

"You can never have too many books," says Kiwi Mom.
"And I'm told I have too many CDs," I say.
"Oh, you can never have too much music or too many books," she says.

She then turns to me and asks: "So you stay at home with your boys, do you?"

"Yeah," I say. "Have been doing it for over four years."

"You're like a hero," she says patting me on the back.