The new phonebooks are here!

I was recently faced with a conundrum. As a huge fan of The Avett Brothers, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the September 29th release of their Rick Rubin-produced major label debut, I and Love and You. I’ve voraciously consumed all the information I can get my hands on about the album, and have absolutely fallen in love with the three tracks that were released in July as an advance EP. But. The place where I go to find music to download recently received an early copy of the cd for free download. Hurm.

In general, I don’t have a guilty conscience about downloading music. For starters, in the past three years I’ve lost an iPod, a case of 90+ cds, and a laptop to thieves, and much of the downloading I’ve done is merely replacement of music which I once rightfully, legally purchased. Other downloads are for music which I need for a particular purpose (like a wedding reception) or just to scratch a momentary itch. The current artists that I care about merit me making a trip to Cactus Records to buy an honest-to-gawd physical cd, which I then dutifully rip to my hard drive and transfer to my iPod. I believe that musicians, particularly those who are trying to be heard above the drowning din of the current popular culture marketplace, are worth supporting, and I try as much as budget allows to provide this kind of support.

Besides, there is nothing like the first listen-through of a highly-anticipated album. The moment when a piece of music grabs you, and sweeps you up in the euphoria (or whatever emotion) of its own particular mood is so uniquely thrilling. You can probably remember particular songs that did it for you that way, where you didn’t even have to finish listening to the album before you knew what your favorite track was going to be. I can rattle off the names of the songs that grabbed me that way without much deliberation. Blister by Jimmy Eat World. Chicago by Sufjan Stevens. I’m The Man Who Loves You by Wilco. Fake Empire by The National (the oh-so-rare first track homerun). The Grey Album’s version of 99 Problems. Black Magic by Jarvis Cocker. Okay, now I’m just padding the word count…

Often these are the moments when you become a fan for life. While I’ve been a fan of the Avetts for a while, hearing the three tracks off of the upcoming album was like an epiphany. These guys should be HUGE. The aggression, harmonies, and unbridled enthusiasm of all their previous work have melted together along with a newfound pop sensibility to create some of the catchiest, most sincere music I’ve ever heard. And they all put it together in one song. And then then next song. And then the third, final song. I immediately put the little EP on repeat. It was better than it should be, a quantum leap forward as a band, and hopefully as a presence in the music world.

And that was just three songs. So now, the golden apple is dangling in front of my face. Free download. Nine more songs I haven’t heard, or of which I’ve only heard snippets. Craaaaaaaaaaap.

I’ve got to hold fast. I don’t want to ruin two Tuesdays from now. Besides, I’d rather have my first listen on my superior car stereo instead of these tinny computer speakers.

Cleansing the Palate

I used to hate doing puzzles as a kid. Once things progressed beyond those wooden puzzles where the pieces were shaped like animals and all you had to do was correctly identify a horse to solve the puzzle, I found that puzzles were infinitely more frustrating than I had the patience to tolerate. On paper, I’m a smart guy (I guess), but the whole spatial relationships + strategic thinking thing never really resonated with me. Mostly, I just liked finishing, and when it became apparent that you couldn’t finish a 5000 piece puzzle in an hour (unless you were Rain Man), I was done.

My ill-fated research career unfolded in such a similar way that it’s head-slappingly obvious why I’m not using my hard-earned bachelor of science degree. While age and experience taught me an appreciation for the big picture thinking that accompanies the daily drudgery of lab work, it was still infuriating to have to wait to see the tangible results of my work.

This week, the two main points of focus have been a job interview that I had on Tuesday, and a writing project that has slowly turned from a fun exercise into another 5000 piece puzzle or lab experiment. Ironically, part of why I undertook the writing project was to prepare myself for the daily writing of this potentially job. Now, I’m finding it necessary to find other things to write about so that I can return to the project next week with fresh eyes.

The first piece I ever wrote for the Chronicle required 900 words of re-writing after the first draft was labeled as boring. And it was, believe me. But that experience has given me the confidence that I’ll be able to draw some life out of this dry, academic article and make it sing like it’s supposed to sing. At least, that’s the idea. We’ll see how it goes.

Pro Discography

Friday afternoon was intermidable; one where your friends are already discussing how to escape work and find their way to the first watering hole of the weekend, and there you are stuck at the computer, attacking a project with attention-intensive gusto. You know the kind.

However, I didn’t much mind. I was already vicarious well beyond the bounds of sobriety as I entered my second hour of listening to The Hold Steady’s entire discography. I’m working on sifting some of the recurring themes out of their music for an article, and my current approach to the task was to listen to their entire output consecutively, in roughly chronological order. For those of you keeping score at home, that would be Almost Killed Me >> Separation Sunday >> Boys And Girls In America >> Stay Positive >> A Positive Rage plus some random bootlegs for good measure.

Soon the small beans Midwestern drug dealers and wandering kooks ran together in my brain, leaving me with something approaching a hangover, but without the attendant fun beforehand. In a way, that’s exactly what I was hoping for. Like a dream that you lunge to remember right after waking, all the ideas and elements were now in my head, but without any continuity or context, just big guitar riffs and singalong choruses to string it all together.

The experiment was a fun way of really finding out what a band is truly about. Try this out some time: pick a favorite artist (preferably one who isn’t ridiculously prolific; I’m looking at you, Ryan Adams), and listen to their entire discography over the course of the day, and see what kind of mood presents to you. I’m guessing a listen-through of The Avett Bros would have me grinning like a toothless mountain hermit, The National would leave me craving a cocktail in a bright Manhattan bar, and Lyle Lovett would inspire a cross-Texas road trip (taking only the smallest highways, naturally).

I’m more naturally inclined toward a shuffling, ADHD whirlagig tour through my iTunes library, but the immersion method was eye-opening. I’ll have to try it again soon.

On Vacations

I neglected to mention in my setup yesterday that one of the key rules of this 30 day project is that it not be self-referential, i.e. talking about the fact that I’m writing every day. That’s a crutch that I’m not going to allow myself.

Part of my recent spurt of imagination stems from the therapeutic effects of a recent vacation. Hold on, you might say, aren’t you marginally employed and recently married? Didn’t you just escape to another island idyll just four short months ago? Yeah, but.

Vacations, by definition, force you to leave all of your normal day-to-day existence behind at the airport, to be picked up at baggage claim along with your luggage. Even the leash of a Blackberry can be severed (as it was in my case) by wonky cell signal and the urge to throw the damned thing into the crystal blue ocean like a Corona commercial. You exist as Yourself Minus; minus job (haha), minus extra-curriculars, minus most friends, minus your cars, house, and possessions that wouldn’t fit in the Samsonite. It allows you time and clarity to see yourself as you are without those things. Which, strangely, is not nearly as pretentious as it sounds; it’s merely comfortable in the way that staying in bed on Saturday morning is comfortable.

A brief moment creased the armor of this particular vacation, a phone call informing us that a tree had fallen on our car, followed by a second call downgrading the crisis to small branches on our more sturdy vehicle. The sheer panic of an unexpected Responsibility encroached and receded, and was forgotten except as a funny story to tell over rum drinks.

I’ve never been one for vacations. When I leave a job, I always have excess vacation days remaining, sometimes weeks worth. In the seven years since I graduated from college, I’ve taken the odd extended weekend here and there, but the only real vacation I’ve had was my honeymoon in March. Having two trips close together has implanted the importance of these breaks. As much as we all pride ourselves on work ethic and willingness to go the extra mile, we also serve a God who ordains rest. As thirty taps me on the shoulder and hands me its business card, I’m starting to see the wisdom in rest and reset.

The 250: An Experiment

After a painfully long hiatus from this blog, and something like a creative dry spell, I’m geared up about writing again. But not just in a perfunctory, “I should write something” way, no, I want to kick start my creative juices by pulling a stunt, by assigning myself a task that will get me thinking like a writer again.

My recent career meanderings have called into question whether I have any right to lay hold of the title “writer”, and while I’m pretty sure that the jury is (and will be) out on that point of order for a while yet, I can certainly do what I can to settle the question in my own mind. To that end, I’m resolving to write two hundred and fifty words a day for the next 30 days. It may be on this blog. It may be on Houstonist. It may be elsewhere on the web. The only exclusions are message board posts, Tweets, and Facebook content, all of which are taking up a large degree of my attention lately and subsequently making me a little stupider with each 140 character missive. On the upside, this experiment should make my Twitter more interesting, too.

Two-fiddy isn’t oppressive. Heck, it’s taken me a hair over two hundred words just to set this up to this point. All told, it’s 7500 words; roughly the length of a decent short story. Which is exactly what I’d like to start writing at some point as soon as I can think about writing fiction without breaking out in a cold sweat. Baby steps, people.

So that’s the manifesto and the goal. The carrot that’s mostly for me moreso than you. (Sorry) I’ll post links to stuff that I post elsewhere, maybe on a weekly basis or something. So keep your RSS well primed, because I’m gonna spam it for the next few weeks.

If you feel like dancing

This is a sequel of sorts to my previous post on jukebox etiquitte, but with the twist that while it is possible (and proper) to dethrone the tyranny of the clown who picked several consecutive selections from Nirvana’s Nevermind, it’s impossible to stop today’s topic of discussion once it has begun.

I’m speaking, of course, of wedding dance songs. While the overall playlist for a wedding reception is also open to debate (except the inclusion of the Chicken Dance. There is never a right time and place for that crap), what we’re going to focus on today is the criteria for choosing a song for the first dance between you and your beloved. As with the jukebox stuff, there are many different facets to consider.

1. This should go without saying, but obviously the fact that I’m saying it means that that can’t possibly be true: pick a song that’s actually danceable. Example: you can’t do anything to the complex, if beautiful, compositions of Sufjan Stevens. No matter how much you like To Be Alone With You or Vito’s Ordination Song, there’s no sustaining backbeat that allows you to dance like anything other than a limp cod.
2. The aforementioned Vito’s brings us to another point. Pick a short song. People didn’t buy you a blender so that they could watch you enact an entire three-movement dance performance. Three and a half minutes, MAX. This (for me) rules out the otherwise-perfect South Texas Girl by Lyle Lovett, which clocks in at over six minutes. If someone tried to force you to watch them dance for even four minutes, you’d be running for the buffet pretty quickly, and by minute six, you’d be seeing if you could take those Wuesthoff knives back to Williams-Sonoma. Don’t antagonize your guests.
3. Pick something that’s not completely obscure. This KILLS me, but as much as I’d totally try to find an acoustic arrangement of the Cabin’s Dance With Me, my indie-ness would be my downfall as my grandmother falls asleep and anyone who is a staunch 94.5 The Buzz listener wonders why I didn’t use a Three Doors Down “ballad” instead. Pick a classic, new or old; I don’t care if it’s Michael Buble or Dean Martin, so long as it swings enough to meet #2’s requirements.
4. Do not pick You Are So Beautiful by Louis Armstrong. That is a father-daughter dance, you sicko.
5. All of this has been built on the assumption that you’re going to dance. Dance. Dance whether you’re any good or not, or even if you’re Baptist. Just do it. Especially if you’re Baptist, because if you’re not giving your guests booze, they should at least get some entertainment out of watching your goofy “waltz”.
6. Don’t pick anything intstrumental, unless it’s so completely well-known that everyone in the room, including your aunt who only watches the public broadcasts of city council meetings, will recognize it. Speaking to the dudes: you need to whisper the lyrics to your new wife. All of them.
7. You need to have a big finish, so pick a song that actually finishes. If it fades out at the end, no dice. How else will you know when to dip the bride?
8. Watch out for awkward lyrics. I watched an A&E special where Lyle and the Large Band were playing live, and taking requests from callers. One couple called in to say that they’d danced to Nobody Knows Me at their wedding; Lyle gently reminded them that it’s a cheating song. So many great love songs (particular the great R&B classics) are about unfaithful partners promising afresh that they will always be true. Awwwwwkward. Keep your love songs straigh forward. This same principle applies to any songs that get even borderline raunchy; nothing against raunchy, but it’s a simple moment for simple pleasures. Translation: probably skip Marvin Gaye.
9. If it’s a song that could also be played at a funeral, forget it. I’m looking at you, Wind Beneath My Wings.
10. Finally, pick something you like. Weddings are not performances, they’re parties for you. Don’t pick a song because anyone other than you and your intended think it’s cool.

So why am I obsessing about this? Eh, it’s been on my mind for a few months now, and I’ve been to enough weddings over the past decade to choke a horse. More importantly, what is my choice? After hours of research, I’ve found it: Come Rain or Come Shine, as sung by Ray Charles. Classic voice, classic song, only 2:45 long. Perfect.  But then again, this decision should be democratic, so discussions are ongoing.

I needed to get this down on paper before I introduced y’all to my fiancee. I love you, Mich; you’re my smile. Everybody else, block off some time next year and bring your dancing shoes.

She's my smile

Remembering how to rock

Monday night, I stepped into the Wayback Machine.  I guess technically seven years isn’t waaaay back, but that notwithstanding, it did feel like I’d climbed back into skin I hadn’t worn in a long time. 

I went to see Living Sacrifice in concert on Monday, about seven years since the last time I saw them, at a sweaty, low-ceilinged show off of Highway 105 in Conroe.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, the mighty LS was/is a seminal Christian metal band that began recording in the mid-90’s and reached its peak with 2001’s The Hammering Process.  They’re respected outside the Christian “scene” as influential in blending metal and hardcore for one of the first times.  The show this week demonstrated that they hadn’t lost their fastball during their five-year hiatus.  For a longer recap, I wrote this, but that’s not really important right now.

I’m in my late twenties now, and was kinda bemused about the prospect of being one of the “old guys” at the metal concert. Well, at least one of the old guys without hair halfway down his back.  But then I got to show, saw the kids who were there, and began thinking about who I was the last time I heard “Reborn Empowered” live.

In July 2001, I was:

• About to enter my senior year of college.
• Driving my recently-purchased 1995 Chevy Silverado.
• Working for a biotech company in The Woodlands.
• Fully intending to have a long, successful career as a molecular geneticist.
• Listening to way too much metal and progressive hardcore.
• Still waiting for my first serious girlfriend (who I would meet about three months later)
• Not able to grow a full beard.
• Desperately trying to get my hair to not have a cowlick.
• Teaching a high school guys’ church group about Mere Christianity.
• Wearing sneakers every day.
• Not blogging, or even writing anything other than lab reports.

So it’s pretty different now in a lot of ways.  Mich and I were talking about it, and were both convinced that if we’d met back then, there’s no way we would’ve ever gotten together.  My desperation aggressiveness would’ve overwhelmed her, and I would’ve been an awful boyfriend even if we had gone out.  Which is probably just as well.  In a world governed by a benevolent, sovereign God, we met at just the right time.  But that doesn’t make me any less of a 20-year-old dork back when.

The even scarier thought is how I’ll look back on 27-year-old Rob in another 7 years. 

On blogging, success, and an $8 peanut butter sandwich

Many of you (and by “you” I mean the five people who read this blog regularly and the sixteen people who were Googling for Looney Tunes slash fiction) have noted that this blog has gone un-updated for a while.  You have my heartfelt apologies, but I really didn’t have a darned thing to say for months.  Really.

When I began blogging four years ago, I decided that my little corner of the internet wouldn’t be a forum for my moping and whining.  It’s all to easy to come across that way, and especially given the stream-of-consciousness composition method that I use when I write, I very easily could’ve written quite a few posts that would’ve made a sixteen year old with a sparkling, seizure-inducing MySpace blush.  So when I would consider writing on here this spring, I always demurred, because I didn’t want to talk about the pressing, real-life concerns in my world: unemployment, crime, relationships, disappointment, writer’s block (of course), and finances.  Believe me, you wouldn’t want to read that dreck.

But why start writing now?  Well, I’m employed again (twice over) and haven’t had to talk to the police in almost a month, for starters.  Actually, that last part isn’t entirely true; I have had to talk about The Police.  For those of you who haven’t heard, I’m freelancing at the Houston Chronicle, and one of my recent assignments was to write a review of the Police/Elvis Costello show in the Woodlands.  Somehow, around the office here, this was deemed to be drawing the short straw.  For me, though, it was the first time in the five weeks that I’ve been here that I actually felt like something approaching a real journalist.  So that experience was the shot in the arm that I needed to start writing here again; it was something that I could re-tell here without it being so maudlin or boring that you’d click away to see what was posted on ManBabies today.

The quick timeline of writing the Police review, in chronological order: cracking myself up by thinking of fake interview questions for Sting (“what was it like playing the Goblin King in Labyrinth?”), figuring out how in the hell someone was going to edit my story at the ungodly hour it would be completed, receiving and then returning ALL the media tickets for the event, running into a nemesis,  cramming three people into Vesper for the return trip to town, a gigantic cup of coffee at Brasil, walking through the ghost town that Houston becomes on weekday nights, composing a caffiene-fueled piece while hoping not to be evicerated in the comments, meeting the creepy night editor, and slogging home too hyped up to sleep even though it was 3am.  Whew.

So back to the point, at heart I’m an optimist, and I’ve had plenty of reasons to support a more cheery outlook on life lately.  It even goes beyond the fact that I’ve got what amounts to my dream job right now (it is still a job, after), though.  On Wednesday, my post-deadline haze was rolled back under the influence of a sandwich and a conversation.  The role of the sandwich was played by the heavenly Fat Elvis at B’wiched on Westheimer, a pannini concoction of homemade peanut butter, caramelized bananas, and wild honey. (The King and the Big Puma would both be proud)  The conversation was provided by my dear old mum, who was somewhat out of the loop of recent developments in my life.  As I rattled through the litany of good things that’ve been happening, the act of relating them all in sequence brought to mind just how mind-numbingly blessed I’ve been lately.  As the great poets Chubawumba once said, I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.

(It’s stuck in your head now, isn’t it? You’re welcome.)

Anyway, on the heels of all this introspection and reflection, I rolled in to work this morning, intent on blogging, when I read this article.  While I don’t think I’ll ever have the attention of a large part of a major American city like she did, her experiences did really help me to coalesce the thoughts on my self-imposed hiatus, leading to the very entry you find here.  Writing has suddenly become not only my passion, but my livelihood, and I’m still wrestling with the implications of that.  Hopefully, it’ll make my writing here more vibrant and more focused, or it could just make this the one outlet for my not-suitable-for-print ramblings.

we. shall. see.

On Unclehood and Facebook

Over the past 72 hours, I’ve experienced two phenomena unique in my experience. One is an experience that has been shared (or will be shared) by most of humanity at some point, all throughout history. The other is so new that we’ve only just recently coined a term for it. I’ve had some time to try to reflect on these two events, to try to see if there is a common thread or unifying factor. I guess that’s why I’m typing this up, so that by thinking it out this way I can weave the two together.

First off, I’m officially an uncle now. While my parents have been laying claim to grandparentood for some time now, I count any familial relationship wherein one of the parties is still gestating as something less than legit. Not to say that Joshua Anthony Hays was any less of a person on Monday than he was when he emerged into this world on Tuesday, but the miracle of birth is the miracle of revelation. Of revealing something that was heretofore hidden. Nevertheless, I’m an uncle for real now, and the question of legitimacy is forever answered. For all the joking I’ve done over the past nine months about being the cool uncle, the corrupting uncle, (not that I’m going to set that aside) it’s a truly stunning thing to view your sibling’s offspring. Visions of eighteen years of birthday parties, speedy toddlers, t-ball games, and a mountain of diapers fly by so quickly that you can’t be sure if they’re your memories or premonitions of his. It’s a very cool thing, and it’ll be a sight to see as he grows older.

The Pitcher

It was halfway through my last day at my old job when the phone rang, the caller ID displaying an unfamiliar, out of state number. I muted the sound on my laptop so that the bleeps and pings of my chat conversation wouldn’t interrupt the call.

“This is Rob.”

“Hey Rob. This is Lou from the M2 Gallery opening a couple weekends ago. My restaurant did the catering. How’s sportswriting treating you?”

“Good, good. What can I do for you?”

“Well, since you’re the sports guy at Houstonist and everything, and we’d talked about you coming in to check things out here at the restaurant, I wanted you to know that after the game tonight, there’re going to be some baseball players coming in. The Pitcher has some friends in town, and they’re all coming here. You should come by.”

I did a silent dance and regained my composure.