in most places when you want x, you ask a question as follows :
“May I have x?”
in Seattle, it goes something like this :
“So… I’m just assuming that I’m going to get y becaaauuuussssee… ?”
[then pause with a shrug and an awkward half-questioning/half-accusatory facial expression]
First off - thank you so much for your comments, concern, calls, and good vibes. I really appreciate it, and in a time and place where I’ve been feeling kind of disconnected, if nothing else this break-in reminded me that I’m not… and that means way more than the value of any crap lying around the apartment.
I’ve been asked “are you moving?”, “will you put bars on the windows?”, “can you even sleep at night?” I’m beginning to think that most people get their notions of “bad guys” from television and movies, and not from real life. First of all… theft happens everywhere. Actually, I’ve had more petty car break-ins in the suburbs than in the city. Secondly, its not like the people who do this have any sort of vendetta… they’re looking for stuff to sell, not people to mess with. Taking it personally, imagining some sort of after-theft, or radically changing the routine is pointless, and would only serve to further inconvenience and demoralize.
You lock your doors, you make sure valuables aren’t clearly visible, you keep an eye out, but most importantly you live your life in a way that makes you happy. Fear is often a terribly vain emotion. The world is not out to get you. On the contrary, it doesn’t really give a damn about you, which often explains its actions way better than premeditation could.
Thursday night was an incredible Satellite 4 show splitting the bill with a hip west coast funk style blues band. Their keyboard player graciously let me use his rig - a new Hammond XK3 through a Leslie 122. I don’t think he was happy with how hard I pushed the Leslie, but it had an amazing tone, especially turned up to about 9.5. Something to consider…
Friday was a very long day at work, then another amazing Satellite 4 show. There were go-go dancers on stage. I need to pay go-go dancers to follow me everywhere. It adds a lot. Great show, though. We went on at midnight, everyone was dancing… it just amazes me how well those things all come together. Three and a half hours of sleep later, and yet another long day of work.
Saturday night into Sunday was pretty much just sleep.
Had a big gig in Oklahoma set for this coming Friday that cancelled at the last minute (was going to take three days off this week and get a pretty handsome payout from it), but wound up playing a last-minute invite in Kirkland Sunday night. Like I said, music is really about the only thing that’s panned out out here for me, but that’s fine… it wasn’t even really on the to-do list at first.
Today Jenelle, a dear old friend from college, needed a ride to the airport from her post-grad-school sabbatical on Whidbey Island. Catching up with old friends is a rare thing out here, and Jenelle is definitely one of my favorites. We had a few hours in between, so I figured she needed to see the mountains. A quick trip out 90 to eat God’s own pancakes at Snoqualmie Summit, and take in a too-short hike along Denny Creek… I had never done that before, and its really quite amazing to be in the middle of the wildnerness, look up, and see the interstate flying through the air. I’m sure there’s a profound deep and multifaceted illustration there. I’m too tired.
Both Amazon and iTunes appear to have authorized redownloads of the missing music collection that I got through them. I have a new, much better TV and laptop… just waiting on the insurance to come through so I can afford new gear. It would be awesome if I could find the old Nord (it - and the backup hard drive - are all I’m really interested in), but like I was saying about a drastic change in lifestyle being kind of pointless… I could have spent this whole weekend on the phone, frustratingly trying in vain to call every pawn shop and used gear store in the Northwest to track this stuff down, putting bars on the windows, adding more deadbolts, feverishly cobbling together a time machine…. or I can go outside, enjoy my life, and use the insurance I’ve been paying for. Life’s too short to stoop down to the bastards’ level. They do what they do, you do what you do… hopefully they balance out, preferably you win.
came home from work and noticed the front door was open. A large white space on the wall where the TV used to be. Quick look around : laptop, gone. Ipod, gone. Speakers, gone.
The kitchen window screen was cut in half and flapped in the breeze, the window knocked off its rails but fully intact, blinds slightly askew.
Its been a lazy weekend catching up on sleep and being generally unproductive. On the couch enjoying a mid-day nap today, I was startled awake… though not fully. I sat there looking at the door and thinking I had to get ready quick for some reason, because someone familiar was about to stop by.
more…
Growing up the child of a lifetime Federal employee, you develop a remarkably socialist set of expectations from work. Your job will always be there. It will provide constant, incremental promotions, comprehensive benefits, and provide for a very comfortable, stable middle class existence.
more…
Back in Maryland, she was a little awkward and unsure of herself. Speaking in broken grunts and spending most of her time head-butting corners of things, a debutante young Shirley was not. One year in Seattle has seen her grow into a Young Lady…
swanky digs! I’ve been thinking about doing this redesign for about 3 or 4 years now. The way the old site worked was super low-tech (which is fine by me), but a bit labor intensive. Now its all database driven, for better or worse.
Influenced by Boston Globe’s fantastic “The Big Picture“, I’ve decided this space will be primarily for beautiful images and any accompanying words to go with them, or big ideas that pop up now and then. Most of my random blather is soaked up by Facebook, and the complete photo archives are hosted on Flickr… but on neither of those can you really make a well-crafted statement, visually or otherwise. (I don’t even get Twitter - and hearing Larry King or Hoda Kotb talk about it finished off any modicum of interest I may have had.)
So anyway, thanks for sticking around. There may be a few hiccups in the next few weeks, but hopefully in the end I can better share some cool stuff with you. I’ll start by catching up on the last few weeks of cool stuff.