A woman came to the checkout with two items, I rung her up. I asked her, "Would you like a bag", because with only two items many people would rather not have one. She did not respond because she was distracted, so I said, "Well I could put these two boys in a bag for you"... it was fantastic. I had a huge grin on my face that I could not wipe away. Also, there was an insane security guard who was trying to scare me about the dangers of Ladera Ranch; including, but not limited to, wild animals and high school students who commit burglaries and suicides in the CVS parking lot. He also told me that some guy's body was found at the top of a hill, "He'd been sitting there a week!" This was a paranoid man. My favorite part of his amazing lecture was how he referred to the secretive ways of the people holding powerful positions in Ladera, he kept saying, "They don't tell us anything!" over and over, but the very best is when he said, "Everything's a secret in Ladera." with wide eyes full of fear.
So I thought I'd have tonight free from work, but instead I will be working eight hour shifts the next three nights, then I will have three consecutive nights free. On the first of my three free nights I will be going to Echo Curio in Echo Park to see Chris Corsano play a solo gig on the drums. I then will have two nights to do whatever I want, then I work for a night. With all of the modifications on the schedule it turns out I have two more nights off after that. On the 5th of April I will be going to Pehrspace, also in Echo Park, to see Rare Grooves and The Real Noriega presented by Sean Carnage, the Monday night hero. I am very excited for these two shows, and am exceptionally happy that I get to see them. Music is the only good reason to stay alive, as far as my current life is concerned... That, and possibly the look of the moon on special nights.
Tonight I only work six hours, I usually work 7.5, so this will certainly fly by. After this I have over 24 hours before I work again, though on the schedule the work days are consecutive. I work midnight on Monday (tonight's shift) and 10:00PM Tuesday. The last couple of nights have been exhausting, so it will be nice to have it easy for a couple of nights. Last night on my lunch break the moon was spectacular as I took my walk listening to Jim O'Rourke's "Bad Timing", It was just about perfect.
I have work the next five nights. It was nice to have a night off. I went to Mother's market, I got to relax and take my time with my home exercise, I took a long walk and listened to a lot of good music. If you happen to have a copy of Daniel Johnston and Jad Fair's album "It's Spooky" you should put on the track Summer Time... Trevor, I'm looking at you. I love that song. I got the first two discs of the State complete series in the mail yesterday and watched a bunch of it. Funny stuff. Netflix is great. So California is going to vote for legalized marijuana. I hope it passes, even though I have not touched the stuff in six months, nor do I care to, but it would be a real money maker and could really help our state. Not to mention, all of the money it would save us from jailing offenders of the current law, and who wants to have non violent people suffer at the hands of violent offenders and guards? Well, cross your fingers, hell, the health care bill passed!
Work. What can I say. I am sore from squatting and facing. I have touched more bottles of booze and packs of cigarettes in the last two days than I have in the last two years. I have very little free time, and the time I do have is spent getting ready for or winding down from work. I'm very bad with names, but in two days I have learned to match faces with a lot of them, Joey and John and Charlie and Reagan and Amy and Hiedi and Dave and Magdy... I have been checking out customers and I can use the computers. I have stocked shelves. I have faced shelves. Eight hours a night you can find me doing these random tasks. It is alright, aside from taking up all of my time. I wish I could exercise more and record more music. Sleeping has been a little tough too, but not just because I am sleeping all day. I am almost embarassed of the reason. I have trouble falling asleep because I cannot stop thinking about trivial details of my job, for instance, there are a few items in the dental care section that have are supposed to hang on a hook, but the things they hang by are broken and I just want to fix it. Another random thing that kept me up last night, there are promotional cigarette deals displayed on a certain cigarette shelf and I unloaded so much of one, that I could not fit another... How will I fix this? It is annoying to me, because I am investing more of myself into the job than anyone else seems to and there is never a manager thaere with me, at work, or in my head as I try to sleep.
March 21, 2010
Staying awake was too hard, so I passed out too early, as a result, I had to sleep too long. I am now getting ready for my first night of work. I'm going to finish my exercise, juice, shower, shave, get a bunch of food together and get to work by midnight. Seems easy enough. I have an extra hour, because I planned to sleep until 8:00PM, so I will have some extra time. If I'm quick enough I can watch King of the Hill at ten. I have very little to write about. I had some strange dreams. In one of them I was racing around with cars on my hands and knees... I can't really explain that. The only other thing I can think of to say that might be remotely entertaining is that my work shirt says "WOMEN" on the tag.
I met the assistant manager and got a temporary employee ID number... I even got a shirt. I will be making $9.20 an hour, after taxes I will take home at least A couple dollars. Everyone was very relaxed there, and I felt very calm about everything. My biggest worry is that I will hurt my arms stocking the shelves. I will work it out. So I will go back to sleep soon and wake up as late as I can, then hopefully stay up until about noon, and sleep until 8:00PM. Then I will do all of my home exercise and get to work by midnight. I will get off at 8:00AM and come home. Then it all happens again and again. It will get easier.
Things I must find time for: Recording Exercise Keeping with the raw vegan food (shopping a lot) Reading Being me
The training class only took 3 1/2 hours. Tomorrow I drop off a lot of signed papers to the manager of the store I have been hired to work at. I am supposed to start at midnight on Monday... or you might call it Sunday. I have no idea how I will pull this one off. I will either get an extra day, or do some sort of miracle schedule shift. Either way, my first day or so will be tough. The class was easier than I even imagined it would be. I will be tested, later from what I am told, but have complete confidence in myself to pass all the tests. At first I was taking notes on the answers, but I stopped because it was too simple to get wrong. My store manager is on his first day of a two week vacation, so I will be starting with the assistant manager. I believe that I will do well. I want to do well. I am going to make money so I can buy goji berries and mangoes and apples and all sorts of other raw foods. I wonder if anyone else working at any CVS location is working to support a raw food diet. They have over 7,000 locations nationwide, but I still would bet my bollocks to a barn dance that the answer is no. More updates to come soon. I will be sure to write about how well my new schedule suits me and, more interestingly, how my new job suits me.
Tomorrow I have another shot at that class. This time I will be equipped with a birth certificate. So from 9:00 - 2:00 I will be learning how to be the best employee I can be, and also will be getting paid for it. Then I will take as long a nap as I can. I will need to immediately be on a completely different schedule. I'm shooting for waking up at 8:00 PM and going to sleep at noon. I really wish that I didn't have to go back to being nocturnal. I have been enjoying the sun lately. I feel more alive when I wake up during the day, but I suppose working will give me some validation of life. Making money will be nice. So yesterday I walked to the place I will be working and noticed there is a vegan restaurant across the street. My first thoughts were temptation... I figured that I would be tempted to eat cooked food because I would be so close to good tasty vegan food. I quickly realized that the place would never be open when I am around. That certainly makes it easier to stay raw. I am really hoping this works out well. I must say that I am a bit nervous about a few things. I am mostly concerned with what I will do, and what there will be time for. I have been getting a lot of exercise and eating very well, juicing and recording a good amount of music. What will I keep doing once 40 hours each week are reserved for work?
Today I am going to try walking to my future workplace to get a feel for how long it would take. A bicycle seems more realistic I guess, but I figure I'll try walking. I have a feeling an automobile will be my most used form of transportation to work. It will probably take too long to walk, but there is a bus that can cut the trip about in half. Considering I am going in to work at midnight, I will not have any bus options to get to work, only home. I think it would be fun to walk to work late at night. I used to take late night walks all the time.
Here is a link: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/60072add5a/between-two-ferns-with-zach-galifianakis-ben-stiller
I went to the pool yesterday to swim some laps, but bees were constantly landing in my lane and swimming around for their lives. I have a bad history with bees... well, one terrible incident with bees that occurred when I was very young has left a permanent mark on me. That mark is fear. Needless to say, I didn't get as much swimming done as I would have liked. To make up for it, I just went back to the pool last night. Bee free and at ease I swam for a good long time. It was quite pleasant. Now I make vegetable juice, goodbye.
UPDATE: It takes an hour and ten minutes on both of the routes I took. After walking two hours and twenty minutes in that heat it is nice to gobble down some water. Gulp gulp, baby.
When I finally left the house yesterday it was to get myself and my bicycle to the beginning of Aliso Creek Bikeway. I rode about 26 miles in a little over 2 hours. It is a nice ride on a paved trail that stays mostly away from the road, though there are a couple sections that follow the road. It was quite a bit warmer, so there were plenty of tiny flying insects hitting me in the face, getting stuck on my arms, and occasionally smacking right into my eyes. That was a bit of a drag, but overall it was a nice ride. Forty minutes after I finished my ride, I found myself in a pool swimming laps. I found a fun new thing to do at the pool, which is to swim underwater facing up looking at the surface. It is just amazing, especially at night. Sometimes I would just let out my air in the deep end so I would sink to the bottom and I would just sit there looking up for a little bit, until I needed more oxygen. It reminds me a little of being much younger and sitting upside down on the couch to hang my head over the edge and look at the house as though it were flipped over. I used to think so much about what we would have to do to get from room to room and all the obstacles we would have to avoid, and how different our house would really be turned on it's head. A life never realized I suppose... but it is not the life for me anyway. Last night I spent a little more time with that song, and had to extract myself from in front of the computer to stop myself from what I was doing. It isn't that I didn't like what I was coming up with exactly, I just wasn't sure if I should be taking such an approach. I have now let some time pass, so I can listen to the changes made with fresh ears today.
Today is much warmer than the last week has been. I have been unreasonably cold for some reason, mostly my hands. Today I browsed the free downloads on amazon dot com. I found some good stuff... surprisingly they had a Merzbow track. I also got a track from the new Josh Rouse album and a Mogwai track. Those are the highlights. I am listening to an Apples in Stereo track now, and it just sounds to me like Of Montreal. Yesterday was my fourth day at the pool. I have been swimming an hour a day, and I really like it. Even with my job I will be able to swim in the mornings when I get off, if I am up for it. Last night I wanted to record a little bit, so I went to the folder of songs to work on and found some song Trevor recorded on the piano back in August/September '09 and added drums to it. I still have a lot of work to do on the drum parts, but I got most of what I was thinking captured. That is all I have to say right now. I need to get on my stationary bike now before my room heats up.
Quasi played a great set last night to a small, yet devoted crowd. Even the guy missing a foot was rocking out. All three of them are so good. Janet Weiss has a way of cramming fills in everywhere without ever losing the beat, or dragging the groove down. Sam Coomes epitomizes that loose rock feeling both in the way he stumbles around the stage, and the way he lets his fingers stumble around the guitar, in a perfectly controlled manner. Joanna Bolme holds the bass so well with them, you would swear she had been with them from the beginning. She has blended the sounds of the seventies with today so beautifully. But what is truly remarkable is the three of them together. They are so in the moment and always keep the music on the verge of insanity. They hit the highs several times last night. The moments where everything comes together, and every member of the band is completely in the moment, playing to the moment, and being open to the next moment. Most bands reach this maybe once in a set, if at all. Quasi made it here several times with ease. After the show I bought a signed vinyl copy of their new album. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, we had a long wait for the show to start, so I did the field work for my new project, I am making a calendar! It will be for the year 2010, and I will be giving it to Trevor as a gift. Why? Because I am a good friend, that's why. I actually already made the whole damn thing, but when I went to print it it crashed my computer. I lost the calendar, and coincidentally lost this blog, well, the original version of it. In that crash I lost something else too, I lost a lot of respect for this computer. So, the time moved ahead an hour last night. Today is a 23 hour day. Just another reason why I wish I could have taken that class on Friday and begun work this week. It would have been one hour easier to get onto the nocturnal schedule I will need to be on for my job. C'est la vie. I will do it next week anyway. Friday, wake up at 6:00AM, Sunday wake up at 8:00PM. Easy enough, right? Thinking about it now, I might ask for an extra day or two. I want to be on the ball for my first day. Today I will be finishing up my home exercise, then I will probably go to the pool again. I may ride my bike first. After all of that, I will record/mix more music tonight. I will also probably buy more figs and mangoes. That is all I have to say. Here is a video from last night edited by Trevor Martin:
March 13, 2010
Recorded yesterday what some may call music. I came up with a concept that has earned me somewhat confused looks from even my partner in crime. He did get it as we went along though. In fact, Trevor is the one who came up with the idea for the bass timing, and I really love it. After he left, I ate way too many figs, and then went back to the garage to do more mixing... I ended up finding the perfect balance of cross feed and feedback on my delay effect to create a never ending, volume steady delay. This was exciting for me. I also recorded some terrible sounds with the trumpet... of course I drenched it in reverb and did a lot of cutting and pasting to make one long nasty noise. I like to take a sound and copy it, then reverse the audio on the copy and put it right up against the original... then I go through that process many more times to create a never ending piano note, for example. It is cool to remove the attack and extend the tone. Tonight is the Quasi show. I am very excited to see Janet Weiss again, she is magical. I am also, of course, excited to see Sam Coomes for the first time... You may know him from Heatmiser, a band he was in with Elliott Smith. Sam also appeared on Elliott Smith's album "Figure 8". If you are not familiar with Quasi, I would recommend picking up the album "Hot Shit"... It is tasty, unlike actual hot shit. As for my immediate future, I have 69 more crunches to do, then I will get on a stationary bike, and probably go to the pool again. Why 69 crunches? Well, I was doing five sets of thirty crunches a day, but found it hard to remember how many sets I had done. I found a way to make each set unique. I increase the number by one each time. So I do a set of 31, my first set, followed by 32, 33, 34 and 35. I have only two left, therefore, 69 crunches. The pool closes early on the weekends, which is completely backwards from the way it should be, so I will have to use my time wisely to achieve my goal of swimming. On that note, goodbye.
I went to the training class only to find that my forms of identification were not adequate. I did tell my future manager what I had, there was just a misunderstanding. Now next week I will have to get myself up again and go to the class. Everything is put on hold for a week. I called the manager of the store and he said to just go next week, so I still have a job, assuming the class goes much better next week. This is a drag though. I still plan to go see Quasi tomorrow night at the Detroit bar... And you bet I will bring two forms of ID to that! You see, this is the very same venue that accused me of trying to pass off a fake ID. They took my driver's license, bent it all up, and laughed at me. "Really fake bro." They then refused to give it back to me and told me to, "Call the cops." Well then the manager came out with a phone and asked if I wanted the police to be called. I let him know that it was ridiculous that it had to come to that but, if it was the only way to get my license back, yes, call the police. After waiting for well over an hour they gave my license back to me, clearly understanding they were in the wrong. The police never arrived... I imagine they were never even called.
I chose to spend some time outside today, because I will be working nights very soon, and want to soak up a little sun first. I decided to ride my bicycle for awhile, and then stop by the pool for some laps. I did a nice ride, but near the end of it I got pulled over and ticketed for running a red light. I now will have to pay a hefty fine, and take traffic school... all without driving a car. I wonder what the case would be if I had no drivers license, would I still be allowed to take traffic school? After that exceptionally lame encounter, I made it to the pool and had a pleasant swim. It was unfortunate timing, however, because I was a bit upset by the ticket. I got out, hit the hot tub, and got dressed. I took out my phone to call back my friend who had called while I was pulled over. What's this? I had missed a call earlier from the manager who conducted the interview I had a couple of days ago. I was informed that I would not need my social security card after all. This is great news... because I don't have one. I also got some other news that would fall into the "good" category, The five hour training class tomorrow will be paid. I am clocking my first five hours tomorrow. I will be working 8 hour night shifts (12:00AM - 8:00AM) five days a week. I am not too solid on all the details yet, but there are benefits. I will be making good money, well, good for me. I am not sure what my hourly wage is yet, but even at $8.00 I will be relatively loaded compared to what I am used to. The hardest part of the next few days will be changing my schedule. Tomorrow's class is at 9:00AM... Saturday I am going to see Quasi in Costa Mesa and hopefully stay up all night... Sunday I get myself fully nocturnal... Monday at midnight, report for duty. Wish me luck.
I've been offered the job. I need to attend a class on Friday from 9:00 - 2:00 for the job I need to bring a color copy of two forms of picture ID (No Problem) I need to bring a copy of my social security card (Big Problem) Right now my main focus is on finding the lost Social Security card!
I can start Sunday, assuming I get through the class. This means that I need to wake up early on Friday for this class, but work on Sunday from 12:00 AM - 8:00 AM. Holy shit.
I am still really happy. I had completely given up hope.
Update: No social security card. I hope I can still get the job.
Woke up late today Stayed up late last night Recorded piano until 3:30 AM Now I'm thinking the whole song might need to be rerecorded I also filmed a video... I forgot about that until just now It is a food preparation video blog Much of what I did last night may never see the light of day
You know, for some reason it felt like yesterday was the last one, but sure enough another day has come. I spent last night eating too much food. A bunch of figs, dates, trail mix, goji berries, mangoes, apples, a big salad... I am one of those few raw vegans that will just pig out. I try not to eat like that, but certain days I just can't help myself. I was pretty bummed out after my interview, and just ate until I nearly exploded. Today I am back to craigslist and thinking about jobs again... I took a couple days off from that, but now I think it would be wise to focus again. Trevor is supposed to come by today to record. My folks are leaving for a couple days, so I will be able to get some recording done without any noise to worry about... from within the house anyway. I am still exercising every day. A minimum of 150 crunches and a stint on the stationary bicycle daily. I like to also take a walk or bike ride as well, but the last two days I didn't do the extra. Today I will. I stayed up late last night, and didn't get out of bed until noon. I like waking up early, but I want to go see Quasi on the 13th and I also want to get on a later schedule just in case I get this drug store night job I interviewed for. The shift they need to fill is from midnight to eight AM. Not my favorite hours, but it is better than nothing. My hope of getting this job rests on nobody else wanting those hours. I am really happy to be recording music again, and I have some cool ideas to put forward today, or very soon anyway. My basic idea is to record one shots and loop them, and have more and more of them come together to form a long, minimalist, repetitive thing that expands with time. We'll see how that comes out.
I now feel differently than before. I will be surprised if I am hired. He asked several times if I had any questions for him... I didn't. He didn't really ask me much.
I had sinus aches all night that seem to be subdued now that I am out of bed. I don't know what is wrong, but my allergies are going a bit bonkers. My interview is tomorrow, so I have to physically and mentally be up to it by the end of today. I'm going to get a haircut, and figure out what I'm going to wear. After all of that nonsense, I will record more music. If the weather holds out I'd like to get out on the bike today. I am sneezing over and over... it is no fun at all. I really hope this all goes away soon so I can really be sharp at my interview. Nobody hires a sneezer. On a different note, recording went pretty well yesterday. The song I wrote for the session is now recorded all the way through on the piano. That worked surprisingly fast, and then we spent a much longer time writing and recording a little guitar part for another song. That is the way it goes though. All for now.
March 06, 2010
So today my good friend Trevor is coming down to my studio to record. We will be resuming work on an album we started recording in August. Yesterday I sat at the piano and came up with a song for us to ponder. Earlier yesterday I took a long bike ride... probably the longest of my life. Clocking in at more than three hours, I made it from my Mission Viejo home, to the coast in Dana Point, to Aliso wilderness park, to Cook's Corner. It was exhausting, and fun. My father purchased a Vita-Mix today, which is good news for a raw vegan like myself. I have a butternut squash that is just begging to be shredded to bits. I have had an Omega juicer for a good while, and I've been juicing daily again for a month or so. I love that machine. The Vita-Mix is apparently incredible for smoothies, and gives the added benefit of keeping all parts of the fruit or vegetable in the drink, unlike a juicer, which discards pulp. This is very healthful, from what I hear, at getting rid of potential disasters within the body. Right now there are two pianos being moved into my house. Nothing new really. I hope that they make fun sounds before getting worked on. I remember when I just got home from my trip to Indiana there was a piano here that was incredibly out of tune, so I recorded it. I have yet to use the recordings, but every time I come across them I know that once I start manipulating them it will be a real treasure and quite fun. When is tape music not fun? Well, quasi tape music, since I don't work with tape, nor have I ever. I am true to my time, and I record on a computer. I certainly have less in the way of limitations, and more in the way of ease. Last, but certainly not least, Yesterday I made a very short video about my new computer game. Check it out:
Yesterday I went for a walk. I didn't want to go too far from home, because I didn't really want to walk for too long. I strolled around the neighborhood a bit, returned a book to the library, walked around my old middle school... Next thing I knew I was following a trail I found and was pretty far from home, after I had been walking for a good amount of time. I then headed home. I ended up taking a 3 1/2 hour walk. My legs were ready to quit on me for the last hour or so, but I did find a market near my house where I purchased some mangoes and plums. I have not heard back from anyone yet about a job. I suppose I am not trying hard enough. When I fill out applications it really makes me feel worthless. I graduated high school... I guess that is my grandest accomplishment to offer in this sense. It is enough to make me feel pretty bad sometimes. I feel like I am being looked down upon by the people I talk to at these places... Not always, just most of the time. I don't like summing myself up in a question and answer form. No, I am not the ideal candidate for any of the jobs for which I am applying, but I can learn how to use a cash register, I know it. I am confident that, given the opportunity to learn, I could welcome customers to a large shopping haven. Yesterday, during my lengthy walk, I realized something. I was walking around my old middle school, as I earlier noted, and there were some children there... As I passed by a group of them they made me feel the way I would have felt when I was going to the school, myself being their age at the time. I felt inferior. I felt like I was on the outside of whatever it is that makes a person alive. I can only observe the humans and never feel that I am what they are. After all of these years, I am still the lonely child looking for some sign that I, like the other children around me, am alive. Now, something completely unrelated: I have many dreams every night, and last night was no exception. I want to briefly describe one moment now. I needed to use the bathroom, in reality and in my dream, so I went to a facility at whatever establishment my dream provided me with. It was a fancy sort of place, the bathroom was modern, and completely strange to me. I knew how to use the toilet provided well enough, I suppose, because I was urinating into it. As I relieved myself there was a voice-over explaining the toilet to me, or some unseen audience, in the form of an infomercial host. I finished my business in the bathroom, but felt unrelieved... that is when I woke up and headed for my own bathroom. The television themed dreams have been common for me in the last few months. Sometimes I don't even participate, I just watch the show.
Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me High Llamas - Hawaii Edith Frost - Love is Real Van Dyke Parks - Song Cycle Melody Gardot - My One and Only Thrill Paul Weston - Mood For 12 Sufjan Stevens - Illinois Mayo Thompson - Corky's Debt to His Father
The other day it rained and I took a long walk with an umbrella. It was great. I walked a couple miles and caught a bus home again. I found myself wishing it was raining more of the time I was walking, and when it was raining, I wished it was raining harder. Yesterday I took my bicycle out. I took a bus far from my house and biked home. This was even better. I love riding my bicycle. There is one area on Camino Capistrano in downtown San Juan Capistrano where I always pass the cars... Possibly one of the best feelings in the world. Of course they catch up later, but it is still a blast for a minute. I'd like to get on the bike again today, so I think I will. My idea is to take a bus to San Clemente and ride home. We'll see.
