This Yellow Taxi Cab In Which I Ride

Open mic was incredibly crowded this past Thursday. I got picked late in the drawing, but miraculously the first slot was still open. So, I played first -- well, first after the host Kate Blain played one of her own. I played Walking; Standing Still and Walls by Tom Petty. I love Walls . I wish I had learned it sooner. I received a good response from the huge crowd. The following day, I brought my guitar to a training for my job. It was the the third day of the training and I was beginning to build some rapport with the people that I sat near. During one break, I played a couple tunes, one of which was Passenger . After the song, one of the trainees said, "Do you mind if I make a comment on the song?" I said, "no" and she went on to say that I must have been really depressed when I wrote the song. I don't remember her exact words, but she talked about parts of the song and the feeling that she got from it. I was pretty excited that she totally "got"

Intermission. So, here are a few pics of David performing. Sounds great! Your missing an excellent show. Getting to hear some songs I've never heard him play, including the Tom Waits version of 'Down Town Train.' Pics From Caffe Lena 6/24

I'm writing from Caffe Lena. David Fey is playing the emerging artist series and I am here to listen. I'm mostly sitting alone, except that Rik Kent is sitting nearby with Laura his girlfriend. I was also introduced to some of David's family and had a nice conversation about live music with two live music lovers. Before coming here, I ate dinner (leftover Panera) at Uncommon Grounds and checked my facebook. Which, by the way, still drives me insane with its non-compatability... After dinner, I stopped at Borders and bought Pete Yorn's new CD. I also looked at every book in the fantasy section before buying Mostly Harmless, the last Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy book. And the show is starting, so... David Fey at Caffe Lena 6/24

It's the 21st and I haven't done a true blog since the 14th. In between I posted a couple pictures with words from my cell phone. A true entry, however, is now due. Even so, I don't really have a whole lot to post about. I covered open mic from the open mic. I didn't do anything Friday night because the friends I typically get together with on Friday both had lousy excuses, but excuses non-the-less ("It was a long day at work and I have a headache" and "there is chick involved"). Saturday was a family gathering on Stephanie's side. I became a jungle gym for a period of time as a nephew and second cousin of Stephanie's crawled all over me in acrobatic-like ways. I also watched a lot of Dora the Explorer and was referred to "anti-social" at one point for hanging out where there were cartoons instead of where there were people socializing. This morning I went out to eat with Stephanie, her brother and his family, and their parents for

I forgot/didn't-have-time to send this last night at open mic. I was very busy 'speed hosting' because the list of performers was so very long. The night ended at 11:30. There were some great songs, two excellent spoken-word artist, and Knuckles who plays song by cracking his knuckles. He did a sweet job on the Scooby-Doo theme song and received a worthy applause. Anyways, i had time to take a quick pic in the men's room near a quote from one of my songs. Lenas 6/18

Hi-O from open mic. Its a packed house here and a fairly long list. And a lot of first timers. Its been a good night with some sweet spoken word. I played 'rainy day' and 'whats up' by four non blonds. Tom pentkowski suggested I do the cover and I'm glad he did. It went over very well. Lenas 6/18

I just spent a good part of the day (let's say four hours is a good part of a day) figuring out how to send pictures and text to my blog from my phone. I want to start by making it clear that I'm not stupid. In fact, I consider myself to be above average when it comes to computer software intelligence. I can usually figure something out if it is giving me trouble. This time, however... It seems that the computer world was against me. I started out by setting up photomail blogging through blogger. It was quite a piece of cake and I sent my first blog from my phone earlier today. The problem was that blogger only lets you use one layout for the entry and that is photo first, text below. That's well and good most of the time. It's not well and good for my website feed, which reads the first part of my blog and magically makes it appear on the first page of my website. The problem was that it was showing the picture and screwing up the layout of my site. So, I began reading

A test post from my phone... A picture of Bert. The fish that lives on my desk at work. Bert Originally uploaded by jamesfrederick2

I took a picture of the cake we ate to celebrate stephanie's mom's birthday. It is a panda and it has little red candies for eyes giving it a possessed, blood thirsty quality... Killer Panda Originally uploaded by jamesfrederick2

My knee is bright red. This is due to me wearing my favorite jeans (the ones with the rips and tears all over them, including the knee) to the park where the craft fair thing was taking place yesterday. I put sun tan lotion on before leaving the house and glanced down at my holy jeans. Then I put the sun tan lotion away, grabbed my guitar, and left for the park. I found a nice shady spot, tuned my guitar, and played. I played for about an hour and a half and made a few dollars in tips. I bought myself a hot dog for lunch and relaxed in the shade for a bit. Then I played for almost two more hours. I made enough money to buy dinner later that night. Which was kind of cool. I randomly decided to sign up for facebook about 10 minutes ago. I received an invite from a person I know and just started typing in my info. The page came up and boom, I have a facebook. I hate it. I want to burn it down or at least throw sharp things at it. I was putting in brief pieces of info about my songwriting