This Yellow Taxi Cab In Which I Ride

Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Turkey. Stuffing. Rolls. Oh, those warm buttery rolls. There is something really wonderful about the common Thanksgiving dinner. There is an associated fulfilling warmth that follows the meal. Today, I'm enjoying the above described meal while watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This year, above others, I looked forward to eating Thanksgiving dinner more than I ever had. I wasn't really sure why. As Smeagol argues with himself, and I await the warming up of a plate of seconds, I think I've decided that the warmth of the Thanksgiving dinner is more than just the temperature of the food. When I was a child, I most looked forward to Thanksgiving for the days off from school. I would spend Thursday, Friday, and the weekend playing video games with my brother or visiting my cousins. There was often an outdoor game of football or something similar, as well. I don't recall a disappointing Thanksgiving dinner in my youth. As a child, I wa

I had a really wonderful music experience last night that come up serendipitously. It began when I received an invite to see one of my favorite bands, the North and South Dakotas, play in a barn. The invite included the promise of beverages, food, bonfires, and a trebuchet: all elements that seem necessary for a party that takes place in a barn. I attended, not really knowing what I was in for. When I arrived, there weren't may people there. I'd say about thirty or so folks were hanging out in the barn and near a small fire that was set up outside of the barn. There were sofas and comfortable chairs set around the fire. I chatted with members of the band and a couple other friends that were also there. I drank a beer and searched for a cup to pour the whiskey that I had brought in to. Then, I heard that the trebuchet was going to be launched to start the first bonfire. I walked outside and stood near the trebuchet. A few rolls of toilet paper had been soaking in some so

I named the upcoming album Stepping Outside . This may sound familiar as the phrase is an integral part of my song For the First Time . I almost named For the First Time Stepping Outside , but decided that For the First Time fit better as the name of the song. Stepping Outside works really well for the title of the album. Being that it's my first album, Stepping Outside is an indication that I'm putting myself out there. While I have been playing my songs for a long time at open mics and in videos and home recordings, this album is the first time that I have made my songs what I believe they are meant to be (full band, additional instruments). And I'm putting them out there in that form. The other piece to this title is that Stepping Outside is a metaphor for experiencing things (I know; it's broad). The collection of songs on this album are all experiences (when are songs not experiences, though?). The point is, it works as a title for the album. I'm s

You can't predict the future. Who really wants to, anyway? I mean, if you could -- and you knew exactly what would transpire in days/weeks/years -- what fun would now be? Still, right now is pretty awesome and the way in which things (music related things, that is) are going, the future seems to promise even more awesomeness. Right now, I'm recording an album. It's really shaping up to sound great. Each recording is really impressing me with the instrumentation, the parts played by friends, and the tone. It seems like every time I hear a track, it's my favorite until I hear one of the other ones. It looks like tracking should be done in two or three weeks. Then, mixing and mastering. Then, printing. Then, I'm releasing the album. I'll be sending it out to radio stations and venues. I hope to be booking gigs and doing some radio interviews and performances. Right now, I'm playing with a band. Foxmen, the band, has been playing at open mics and rehears

When I woke up this morning to my alarm clock (the first time in nine days), I felt the most intense lack of desire to be alive. It was as if I had awoken just before the good part of a really great dream. This, of course, wasn't the case. I was simply waking up to my first day back to work after a week long vacation. My job isn't that bad. I don't know why I dread it so much. Waking up and going to work is always a chore -- mostly because at work you are doing things that you are told to do instead of what you choose to do -- but, it's even more of a chore when it comes after not having to wake up and go to work for over a week. Florida -- where I went on vacation -- was fantastic. I did a lot of nothing. I joined my dad early in the morning to watch the sunrise. I laid by the pool. I swam in the ocean. I repeated this most days. I had some amazing dinners with my grandpa and his wife, my dad and his wife, and my step-sister and her daughter. (It just occurred to

Trips, vacations, and the like are wonderful and problematic. For some reason, my mind associates taking a trip and/or a vacation as a next step or some sort of progression of my life. I find myself, in the time leading up to a trip/vacation, developing an I-no-longer-care-at-all-about-anything-current attitude, which I suppose is due to the misconception that I am leaving all of the current anythings behind. While it is true that current anythings are being left behind, my brain does not wish to allow the reality of the situation (that I will, in fact, be returning from the trip/vacation and, thus, will need to pick up where I left off, so I shouldn't leave too big of a mess) to be present in my thoughts. This makes me wonder... is it just me? Or do we all have that sense of "moving on" from the current when we take a trip or vacation? Sadly, trips and vacations are not permanent. They are not "next steps" to something other than the current. They are sim

The end is nigh. It may seem silly to say that the world ends at the point of each individual's death, but I believe it does. For when you die, your world certainly ends. I'm heartbroken, right now, and disappointed in myself. A former coworker of mine passed away last Sunday and today is the funeral. I missed the calling hours. I'm missing the funeral now. I can't bring myself to go. Joe Maher was a really nice guy. He almost always had a smile on his face and told jokes quite often. He had a real cynical sense of humor at times and delivered his sarcasm with an ironic laugh. Joe often joined myself and a handful of others for group lunch outings and was always part of the group for outside-of-work activities. Joe wasn't cut out for the work that we do. I'm not cut out for it either; I don't think anyone really is. Joe drank to attempt to wash away that emotional burden that we bear. Joe was a big fan of "Pumped up Kicks" by Foster the Peo

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am that I sold my house almost a year ago. Home ownership just wasn't for me. I wrote a song about it. It's called One and Only Home . Shortly after moving into my apartment and sitting down with lawyers and the buyer, I started writing about what was going through my mind as it pertained to moving out of the home that I had lived in for most of my life. There were a lot of thoughts and feelings and it didn't come to a cohesive conclusion and, thus, wasn't a song. One idea that I had jotted down stuck with me. It was that of a gingerbread house that didn't taste good. I had written about trying to build a gingerbread house with ingredients that made me sick, which was a great metaphor for my experience owning a home. This became the first verse. The second verse is an inside joke in a way. You see, I had married a former pageant girl who was very concerned with how the home looked. Everything had to be perfect

It was the summer of 1997. I was driving an ’85 Camaro that was just as much bondo as it was Camaro parts. Much of the summer was spent in that car with my brother and my cousins, driving to Lake George for mini-golf and to the mall for Laser Tag and the movies. The gas gauge didn't work and we had to guess at when it was getting close to empty. We never did run out of gas. I had two cassettes that we used to play most of the time: Summertime by Will Smith and Whoop! There it is. The four of us knew all the words by heart and when we would walk the streets of Lake George, we would sing acappella, badly. The adventures of that summer culminated in August. My cousins had to go home to New Jersey, college started for me, and high school continued for my brother. The last hurrah, if you will, was a concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC). I was always a loner. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends in school and was incredibly awkward around my peers. However, when I wa

I used to go to concerts at SPAC a lot. I saw numerous bands back in the 90s and early 2000's and often attended multiple concerts each year. Over the past 10 years, there has been a change in popular music and the bands that were coming to SPAC weren't worth spending on, in my opinion. The bands that I wanted to see were playing smaller clubs, which was great because it was often much cheaper to see them. So, I hadn't been to SPAC in a while when I saw Tom Petty there this past Sunday. Back when I was going to lots of concerts, I was always searching for the key to snag the best seats. The "pit," as the orchestra pit at SPAC is known, was always the holy grail. These seats were as close as you could get to band that you were there to see. And I was never in them. I would log on to ticketmaster.com on the day that tickets went on sale with multiple browser windows. I would select "best available" and hope that I would end up with "pit seats.&quo

I have been trying really hard to keep a secret. But, the secret has been really wonderful and I have been wanting to talk about it, which has caused me to "leak" little bits and pieces of the secret to various people at various times. The purpose for keeping the thing a secret has been to assure that the thing is good before telling people that it will exist. You don't want to get people anticipating something that turns out to suck. Nothing worse than setting high expectations and falling way short of achieving them. The thing continues to be doing what it is supposed to be doing and is mostly succeeding at exceeding my expectations for it. Even so, I intend to continue to mostly keep this secret a secret for roughly one more month. There was some particular excitement surrounding the thing that occurred last night and I just want to share it with the world... but the excitement was only anticipation of awesomeness and not the completion of awesomeness (does that make s

I've been spending much of the last two weeks suffering horrendously from seasonal allergies and preparing for my show at Caffe Lena on June 19. I'm pretty excited about the show and generally pleased that my sinuses have cleared up. Breathing is helpful when singing. I have had some rehearsals with the guys who will be joining me. I'm pretty impressed with the riffs and things that these guys are adding to my songs. It's really cool to hear what Ray Pashoukos is doing on mandolin and what AJ plays on bass. I haven't been able to get the whole band together for a full rehearsal yet. Scheduling is tough and we all have other commitments. But, I'm confident that everyone can play together. These are all solid musicians who know what they are doing. I just have to not screw up (ha!) and we'll be fine.

I met her on a dating site. I saw her pictures. Drop. Dead. Gorgeous. When I wrote her, I wasn’t expecting to get a response. Most women of her level of beauty have no time for the likes of me. I even stated in my pathetic message, "You're out of my league." To my surprise, she wrote me right back. We proceeded to exchange a few messages. I gave her my phone number and she called right away. We talked on the phone for three hours. She lives in New Jersey, but she's getting her master’s degree in Albany by taking classes on weekends. She stays at a hotel when she is in town. I asked her out. We planned to go out this past Saturday. For the purpose of this story, her name is irrelevant. However, I shall for here on out refer to her as Aphrodite. When I got to Aphrodite’s hotel Saturday night, I called her to let her know I had arrived. She said she saw me pull up and was sitting in the gazebo. I saw the gazebo. I watched her stand up and I stopped breathing. The

Does anyone really want to read a looking-back or looking-forward end-of-the-year menagerie of my thoughts, feelings, and misadventures? I don't really want to write one either. So, let's just do our best to get through this together. Deal? It is somewhat customary for me to post the previous years end of the year, New Year posting, comment on it (looking-back) and then go from there. Well, last year I posted this: resolutions Which is not the customary looking-back/looking-forward thing and instead was a brief commentary on what I think about people who say they are going to do something, don't do it, say they are going to do it again, and don't do it again. In other words, it's about liars. I posted this after the new year: new-year-not-new-issues And it's not a looking-back/looking-forward thing either, but is rather hilarious. So, I can't really comment on what my expectations of 2012 were at the end of 2011. I did make some resolutions f

If you don't collect something, I feel sad for you. When I was in high school, my family took a vacation to Orlando. We went to Universal Studios and had a blast. Next door to Universal Studios, at that time, was the Hard Rock Café. I implored my parents to take me there to see what it was all about. Some friends in school had been wearing Hard Rock Café t-shirts and when I told them I was taking a vacation to Orlando, they suggested I go to the “Rock Shop” at Hard Rock. Having never been to a Hard Rock Café before, I didn’t really know anything about it. I had seen some of the slogans on t-shirts: Love All, Serve All, which seemed cool. I agreed with my friends that I should own one. When I walked into the Rock Shop with my family, who was in somewhat of a hurry to move on to something else, I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people in there. I didn't have much time to find a t-shirt that I liked, and instead was drawn to a guitar pin that was under a glass case. The