Terrible, terrible things have happened in California...

My friends, a horrible thing happened to me tonight. I shudder upon remembering the details, but the world must know. The blog must go on...

So I am working on a jam in my room, amp cranked. I lay down a few tracks, get a nice little beat going, then realize I am hungry. Real hungry. I decide to give my ears a short break from the sonic pounding and shimmy on into the kitchen. I decide upon some toast. Then I think to myself, "how wonderful it would be to have some cream cheese and jelly." So, I rummage through the refridgerator...YES! BOTH ITEMS! A quick glance at the cream cheese assures it is of the regular variety. And the jelly? None other than Smuckers Strawberry. Mmmmm...

I grab my toast out of the toaster (ahh, so THAT'S where the name came from...), secure a knife and pop open the cream cheese.

OH THE HORROR!!!

Sprinkled throughout the cheese spread is revolting chunks of vegetable. Another glance at the tub, and it still says Regular. But next to the regular it says "Chives and Onions" WTF?! Why would it say REGULAR and CHIVES AND ONIONS. Those are two different things. It's like saying, "Hey, here is a normal Toyota Camry. Except with no engine. But it's still normal." No, that guy is an idiot. Regular does not equal Chives and Onions.

I am in the house alone at this point and let out an audible sigh of defeat. "Oh no. Now what?" My sorrow was so great at that moment that nothing could delight me. Not even if Kiera Knightly and Halle Berry showed up and had a girl fight over who loved me more. Well, actually, let's not be ridiculous. Kiera and Halle > Regular cream cheese. But if only ONE of them showed up, I still think I would be pretty sad.

Thanks to my college degree, I'm a quick thinker and able to problem solve on the spot. So I decide to smother the toast in Smucker's and make a little jelly sandwhich. I complimented the sandwich with some apple sauce.

The good news? I have a JAM stored up on this ol' computer of mine. Still in the early phases, but I'm pretty excited about it. I'm hoping to have an EP with 5 - 6 songs by Christmas time, so all of you North Carolina folks, go ahead and put aside $5. You know your gonna want one.



P.S. - For other horrible tales of snacking and dining gone wrong, check out Julian's blog about the incident with the sandwich making. Highly entertaining.

Wordle Up

So, the first weekend LA is complete. I have already gone on my first retreat, made bunches of new acquaintances who could turn into friends, have some job offers, and a possible audition with a somewhat successful local band. Not bad for the first week.

But I am super excited about next weekend, because I will be seeing (drum roll....) SHINY TOY GUNS! Yes, that's right. My band obsession for the moment. They are amazing. The Shinys are playing Friday night in San Diego with Jonezetta, another band that I happen to fancy. Should be a great show. Then I have to drive back to LA, because I have to take the CBEST at 8 AM the next morning.

What's the CBEST, you ask? The test that I must take and pass if I want to substitute teach in LA. Which I do. I feel like it will just be all around fun and good experience.

One last thing. I have discovered a fabulous website thanks to Brian Turney

Wordle

It takes the words you enter and makes them into a fabolous word picture. Here is some my newest work:



Bonus points for anyone who can discover what the image is a picture of.

Good/Funny News

So the job search is officially underway. Right now I am writing a resume to be an MC at weddings.



By weddings I mean Bar Mitzvahs. Whatever man, they pay GOOD down here in SoCal. I'm talking like $300 per Bar Mitzvah. I can play some Matisyahu, bring it on.




Aaaaaaand, for everyone who thinks that Christian Music isn't any good, check this out:

Best Musical Performance Ever. Seriously.

Much love from Cali. Or as Tupac would say,

CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALIFOOOORNIA LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE

Bad News

So, I was working on a sweet video of the Road Trip and having a bit of trouble putting in a picture. So i opened up the folder of pictures on my computer to investigate. Somewhere along the line, I dragged that folder into my Trash. Further along that same line, I emptied the trash. Permanently. Forever. A week's worth of videos and pictures, gone and digitally scrambled for my children never to enjoy.

I also just signed up for the CBEST, a test required by CA for substitute teachers. I decided it would be a good idea to brush up on my skills. I stumbled across this problem:

"Jim can fill a pool carrying buckets of water in 30 minutes. Sue can do the same job in 45 minutes. Tony can do the same job in 1 ½ hours. How quickly can all three fill the pool together? "

It took me about an hour to figure out how to do this. And even then I had to enlist the help of a Google search. So, this is my challenge. Respond with the correct answer, WITHOUT cheating like me. Good luck.

PS - If anyone knows how to undelete stuff that has been deleted permanently, holler at me.

Check It

Got some fresh music for you kids out there...

The Urban Sophisticates

Some of you already know about this group. They have a new album dropping really soon, and the tracks on the site are just great. I wish I was on the East Coast for one of the shows. Oh well, at least I got MySpace.

Seriously, they are phenomenal. Go listen to them and buy the album. Then send it to me so I can have a copy.

Magic J in LA

So i was driving through Beverly Hills today, and I see an orange Maserati to my right. Behind the ridiculously tinted windows, a large black man with a bald head was leaning back in his seat chatting on a phone. The large man? Magic Johnson. I'm 83% sure it was him. It looked exactly what Magic Johnson would look like behind ridiculously tinted windows.

Hooray for smog!

I am finally in LA. It is quite overwhelming. I woke up today and realized that I have lots of tasks to accomplish (find housing, a job, some friends, a band, famous people, a place with good fried chicken, etc.) but it is very tough to do when you don't know where to go. Or even who to ask about where to go.

Anyhoo, Turney and I explored a little bit of LA today. We drove down Sunset Blvd, saw about 15 girls that could have been Paris Hilton, drove alongside numerous Bentleys and a Lamborghini, and played in the Pacific Ocean. And then we watched Harry Potter 4 (I'm an addict.)

We have lots of great pictures and videos and stories and a song from the road trip which will be put up in the near future. But for now, just wanted to check in and let everyone know we got here safe.

Here is a little "teaser" pic from the grand canyon.

1000 down, 2000 to go.

We are 1/3 of the distance through the road trip. "We" would be me and my friend Brian Turney, who destroyed me last week in Fantasy Football. Lame.

We are currently sitting in a Starbucks in Little Rock, Arkansas deciding whether Hurricane Ike is nasty enough to detour our journey through Texas. I think we are going to do it. I mean, driving through a hurricane is a pretty good story to tell your grandkids, amen?

Two nights ago we stayed with Chris Cline. You may not know him, but Chris is a country music star. He was a finalist on CMT's "Can You Duet." Which may not seem like a big deal to you if you don't like country music. But Nashville is Chris' playground. We went out into the city to see some places and Chris took us to a little music club called 12th and Porter. The doorman stops us and asks for IDs. Chris says a few magic words, and voila, we are in for free. It was incredible. Inside we ran into some of my favorite rockstars, "The War."


(R to L: Chris Cline, Rick Seibold, Ya Boi, Daniel Goans, Scott Cash)

This happened several times that night. Chris shakes a few hands, kisses a few babies, and we are hanging out with Nashville's elite. What a rockstar.

We got some great video and pictures from the trip that will be posted later. Teaser: The famous Timbaland dance is making a return. Julian, Erik: get excited.

Peace.

It Begins!!

Friends,

I have officially left Concord / Chapel Hill / North Carolina. Right now I am stopped up at Snowbird to pick up Brian Turney. We will head out to Nashville to crash for the night, then onward. We shall be arriving in the city on Sept 15.

My car is jammed full of stuff. I managed to fit everything I could possibly need into my car. Three guitars, a keyboard, amp, sound system, a box of books, and several bags of clothes.

Let's do this.