22 Days To Dudes: "Claws" (Outtake From The Luxury of Time)

As Part of the '25 Days To Dudes' promotion, I will be posting an entry here about each of the 25 featured songs every day until DUDES official release November 15. If you have not already, please download the collection from the widget to your right. It's free!

Like a lot of suburban kids, I was perpetually unsatisfied with my beginnings. My family moved around more than most but, whether in Atlanta, Saint Paul, Birmingham or Nashville, we always ended up in a calm neighborhood where the houses, cars and people were rarely indistinguishable from each other. A big reason I wanted to get into the show biz was to shed what I perceived to be the boredom of a middle-class upbringing, the eternal weight of sameness and White America’s general lack of notoriety.

I had became aware of Rufus Wainwright in 1998, falling hopelessly under the spell of his debut album about eight bars into the lead-off track. Rufus and I were the same age, but his songs were about a world that I had only dreamed of living in, a far-off universe populated by neo-Victorian dandy’s traipsing the streets of New York, Montreal and L.A. A lifetime devotee of opera, Rufus was fluent in a complex melodic language that I had grazed the surface of but never fully grasped. He was good-looking, he dressed like a champion, he was friends with celebrities and seemed to be everyone’s favorite new version of The Real Deal. On top of all this, he was openly and flagrantly homosexual, which seemed to me like a pretty brave and mysterious way to be.

“Claws” was my attempt, by imitation, to gain entry into Rufus’ private musical universe. Like a teenage girl who dresses like Justin Bieber, I thought some accomplished mimicry might lend me some of his street cred.

After moving to New York, I ended up running in some of the same circles as Rufus for awhile. I even socialized with his family on several occasions, one of which was a late gathering in a room above a bar called Nightingale following the release party for his second album, Poses. There weren’t many people there, just Rufus’ band, his sister Martha, his mother Kate, and a few hangers-on.

It was a long night. At some point, someone put Schubert on the stereo. Rufus abruptly stood up, took his mother’s hand and expertly waltzed her around the grimy room, weaving in between thrift store couches and fold-up chairs, both of them laughing, brown cigarettes dangling from their mouths.

There was something so effortlessly cool about this, so easy and genuine, that all my suburban envy simply drained out of me. Suddenly, I had nothing to covet anymore. Rufus and Kate, with a few lazy turns around a makeshift dance floor, showed me that nothing real will ever be accurately imitated.

Everyone has their own story to honor, their own truth to live out. Life is too short to waste energy attempting to be anything other than yourself.

Dudes' Facebook Chat, September 22

5:31pm
W: how do I get dudes. just a quick answer. pls.

D: NOv. 15 it's everywhere. Dude.

W: awesome can't wait. 2 sentence description?

D: "Music worth getting sued over." Right up your alley, Esquire.

W: that's 1 sentence.

D: "Music worth getting sued over, spat upon and licked like a kitten. Like a shaved kitten, that is."

W: sweet that shit is usually my JAMZ!

D: I knew you'd be down.

W: you know it brosef, I've been outta the loop working two jobs to try and save up for school for the past year and a half so I was bummed that I missed out on all the DUDEs hype and kickstarter.
just started seeing info. about it when school started and I was spending more time around computer.

D: that's what they all say. brosef, that's strong

W: listen here scooter britches me and the ol' lady is up to our eye-balls in babies and I had to do something quick so I had to get a couple of jobs that were awful.
in addition to the job that I kinda liked.

D: sweet jesus you are fertile bunch. I applaud your move towards the decent life. and more ginger offspring.

W: thank you, I've always been interested in law and if I felt like music could support my family even just pay the bills I'd still be doing it.

D: tell you what, i'll trade you a copy of dudes for one of them carrot children.

W: done and done.

D: sweet. can ya'll fedex that shit?

W: actually we only have one ginger but we might have another one cooking we'll know in a cupla months.

I just opened the door and put a brown bag in his hand and pointed him the direction of Nashville.

Tell you what he'd probably appreciate it if you met him half way.

D: Tell him there's a good titty bar on the west side of knoxville...

W: he's already crying...sweet moses...that's gonna be a looooonnnng walk.

D: I can be there in a day or so

W: contact I can call at the titty bar? he's got his name pinned to his shirt.

D: Mona 347-666-PONG

W: perfect. there's no holes in this one its air-tite. Listen you don't feel the need to put the hurry up on the disc. I know yer good for it.

D:10-4.

W: peace. Oh...WAIT! did t-swif call yet?

D: 23 goddamn times. think it means anything?

W: as your lawyer Imma tell you DON"T answer her calls. Text her these words: "paper. you get the song when I get my paper."
she's industry savvy she'll know what it means.

D: sounds air-tite. You know what that means.

W: I don't.

D: Aaaiiight picklenuts I gotta dash off a piece about that very thing for AMerican Songwriter

W: for the mag?

D:this has been damn enjoyable
yeah the mag

W: What's the best way for me to keep in touch?
as far as what you're up to?

D: Imma bout to release a holy onslaught of shit that will be impossible to ignore
you got my everything, hit me up whenever you feel blue
and thanks

W: I don't get blue. Imma future lawyer I just clip coupons and smile dawg.
lates.

D: over and outs

W: peace.

Key West, Remembered

On Cargo Shorts And Other Dangerous Weapons

The blue Paul Smith ‘Byard’ suit haunts me. The auction will not end for two more days, but the bids have already inched up within spitting distance of my personal limit on what should be spent for a beautiful-yet-unnecessary suit. I could torture myself a bit, check the bidding history, theorize about who will and who won’t be willing to go to the mat in the final seconds. I could attempt to chill with a quick trip to my closet to examine and admire the 13 suits that already hang there, several of which have been worn no more than three times. But I remain in a dream state, buoyed by a promise of faux aristocracy, of fine fabric draping my shoulders like a coronation cape.

Dream on, Levon; the day is young. Lest this all seem like an exercise in frivolity, I should mention that I buy my suits exclusively off of Ebay. I have a price ceiling of $175.00 that I generally adhere to, busting my budget only when a truly exceptional piece comes up on the block. That said, I have never paid more than $250.00 for a suit. In spite of the fact that the retail value of my current collection is somewhere in the $13,000 range, I, through careful channeling of my mother’s bargain hunting acumen, have amassed it for little more than a tenth of that figure.

But to what end? Needless to say, my wardrobe does not suit my natural habitat. Men in Nashville generally dress for comfort until held at sartorial gunpoint by the occasions of certain religious holidays, funerals or appointments with loan officers. Even at my recent nuptials, the sheer volume of open collars and denim was remarkable. The man arriving at a Nashville event in (what appears to be) an expensive suit is generally regarded with suspicion and a certain amount of contempt, as if he is attempting to upstage everyone else or is simply too consumed with his own vanity to get with the damn program and put on a pair of cargo shorts.

I own a pair of cargo shorts. They are incredibly comfortable. I wear them around the house and for work in the yard. When I walk Stan in the morning, I do it in cargo shorts. And occasionally, when the heat index has pushed all Nashvillians beyond powers of reason, I venture out to public establishments in cargo shorts. When working in Key West, I can usually be found in little else besides the cargo shorts. I am pro-cargo shorts. I advocate the ownership and proper use of cargo shorts. When worn in the appropriate context, they are a useful thing.

This does not diminish their inherent danger, however. Cargo shorts don’t destroy lives; people who use cargo shorts improperly destroy lives. Let’s make a corollary examination of a particular clothing chain called ‘Life Is Good.’ I have never actually set foot in one of their stores but, by the lay of their window displays, I gather that they specialize in every item of clothing ever designed for total comfort and minimal upkeep: faded t-shirts sporting goofy slogans and cartoons, several varieties of flip-flops, sun visors, baseball caps, mu-mu’s, rhesus monkey pelts and, of course, cargo shorts. I find ‘Life Is Good’ to be a bizarre moniker for such a place. Perhaps ‘I Give Up’ would be more appropriate.

To frame the discussion in a more suburban context, let me expound for a moment about a particular neighbor. This fellow… I’ll call him Dick, to protect his long-lost innocence… thudded onto my shit list a couple of years ago after making a particularly snide comment regarding the length of the grass in my front yard, alluding to the fact that, in case I hadn’t noticed, ‘Other people have to look at that.’

Fair enough, I reasoned; I had been out of town for two weeks and had indeed allowed the grass to flourish well beyond the length considered to be ‘Belmont Appropriate.’ But as I watched him waddle back to his property, a large sweat stain inching down the center of his ample posterior, I reflected on the multiple times I had seen him leaving his house clad in an old t-shirt, crappy flip-flops and some variety of baggy, shapeless short pants that sagged well below his donut knees. I imagined a brief admonition that might be considered less than Belmont Appropriate:

“At least put on some pants, a belt and a button-down shirt, you fat fuck. Other people have to look at that.”

Attention to wardrobe is not an exercise in vanity; it is a condition of mutual respect. If we cannot get our sartorial shit together, it not only reflects badly on us but also on our ability to take those around us into consideration. Yes, I realize it is your right to wear whatever you want, whenever you want. Now, stop picking your nose, go stand in the corner for five minutes and don’t come back until you’ve learned to play nice the other children. And work on that attitude, kid. Remember, Life Is Good.

Meanwhile, the bidding on the blue Paul Smith ‘Byard’ suit has spiraled upward and out of my reach, $272.00 and climbing. I shall humbly delete it from my watch list, make another cup of tea and head out to the back deck for a smoke and a quick examination of the hosta blooms. The late morning is burning hot, steaming up yesterday’s rain from the ground, a hot breath bathing my lily-white ankles. In the alley, Spady and his demon terrier are passing by. He cracks the gate and sticks his head in.

“Looking good back here. Hosta’s are really coming up.”

“Thanks. How’s the book coming?”

“31 chapters with a bullet. Almost there.” He gives a thumbs-up sign. The terrier growls and begins pulling violently towards the street, most likely in pursuit of a poor, defenseless animal. Spady demurs. “OK, better get moving. Have a good one, buddy.”

“You too.”

“Nice shorts.” Another thumbs up.

“Yeah,” I agree. “I thought you might like them.”

Don't Call It A Comeback

Morning blasts the windows lining Belmont Blvd., flashing the panes into a thousand runway lights, a suburban invitation to chaos and opportunity. I have been waiting, Martha; waiting weeks for a goddamn spark of inspiration. I wonder why the Universe keeps beating the hell out of my friends, driving the dinner dogs into mad frenzies over rawhide bones, the Congress getting nowhere in Washington, oblivious to any obvious conclusions.

Squinting back at it all, I slip on a pair of Air Force sunglasses and evacuate my bowels, heartily. The coffee is still warm in the French press and smoke permeates my fragile lung tissue. The back yard sun feels good on my bare chest. You could sweep all of these limbs and dead insects off the deck or just live your life, I reason. Three long moves into my catalogue of online Scrabble matches and suddenly I am 37, standing on my back deck, staring into a mobile device, clad only in sunglasses and a pair of patterned bikini briefs.

“Fuck it.” An hour later I am following Deakin through channels of furniture into the kitchen of his 80 year-old Tudor. His two children and three dogs are all gathered around Spiderman on a laptop, the kids eating sliced fruit, the dogs wagging and panting. “Davey, all I can say is, I’m alive.” A tattoo crawls over his deltoid like black ivy. Posting up behind the counter, he folds his arms and scrunches his shoulders. The turtle. “I’m just alive, you know? That’s all I can guarantee anybody at this very moment.” The smaller child lets fly a strawberry that lands on the floor about two feet from the closest dog. Deakin gives him a look. The kid raises his arms in triumph. “Fuck it!” screams the child.

Virgomama367, you dirty whore. My recent gaming successes have attracted a certain amount of attention in the online Scrabble community, the sort of acclaim that accompanies elevated win/loss ratios and the search engines that feed on them. I have been punching throats up to this point, handily discarding a series of anonymous guest players along with the jfreiberg51’s, the nmolgren’s and wurdkitten069’s of the world. These have been small triumphs, unseen by most, shots never heard round the world.

But virgomama367 is a different breed entirely. She attacks even my most ingenious 3-letter multi-word plays, birthing strange, Welsh-looking words, her disjointed consonants enveloping my vowels like a pair of Gypsy thighs. She refuses to take the bait of a juicy H laid in careful proximity to the Triple Word Score. She, most likely from the comfort of a well-organized cubicle in Nebraska, is currently beating me by 21 points. And then… HWYL. 42 points. What?

“Nice hat.” Tommy, now arranging himself in the chair across the table, is a pillar of my existence, six feet one inch of immaculate grooming. Eyebrowing the mobile device I have just tossed into a condiment caddy, he blows across the surface of his coffee. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“Chicks are smarter,” I reply. “Always have been.” I register an approaching pair of milk-heavy breasts swaying in a pink tank top. “They are superior, evolved…” The mammaries come to rest at a table of children with sticky buns. “The givers of life. What have we got?”

“Disappointment,” smiles Tommy.

“Prostate cancer,” I counter.

“Erectile dysfunction.”

“I am officially switching my allegiance from Jelly Belly’s to Good n’ Plenty,” I say. “It’s the mature thing to do. It’s an age thing. We get older, we care more about definition, specificity, noticing the details.” At the table next to ours, a pack of Christian indie rockers in cut-off’s and fedoras join hands, bow heads and begin to pray. I continue, “Jelly Belly’s are clearly the adolescent choice: over a hundred different flavors, millions of potential combinations. These days, I can’t make it through a bag of Jelly Belly’s without feeling completely overwhelmed. It’s like a gang bang in my mouth.”

“Hmmm.”

“Good n’ Plenty, however, is the pursuit of purity. Two colors. One flavor.” The Christians break from their huddle and noisily tuck into their breakfasts. “Things like freshness, environment, even the quantity of consumption… yes, three Good n’ Plenty in your mouth at once is totally different than five, or one... The finer details are not overwhelmed by the total onslaught of artificial flavoring and sugar.”

“Good n’ Plenty: the Dao of Candy,” Tommy offers, his teeth gleaming.

“Jelly Belly’s remind me that the good times are fleeting. That I’m going to die.” Suddenly, I feel better. “Good n’ Plenty… well, the journey is endless.”

The Categorization of Days

Some days just don’t fit into a category or a to-do list or a goal-accomplishment metric. No, they don’t. Some days you just wake up and wonder, hmmm, what the fuck? Time’s a wasting here, what am I doing about it? I’m 37 years old, maybe halfway done, where’s the old carpe diem? Some days it takes so much strength to not dial up more Law and Order episodes on the Netflix that there is little gusto left to accomplish anything else except, possibly, throwing down some wandering language about that very fact.

This morning I passed Spady and his killer Scottish Terrier on the Belmont Blvd. dog walking circuit. He’s apparently 25 chapters into a novel. I wonder about Spady. He kind of reminds me of the Key West dudes, the tiny Hemingways who seem to have surrendered to the pointlessness of it all and are more than content to be carried along on the whims of existence. Experiencing his presence in Nashville is akin to witnessing a dried starfish washed up at the entrance of the Whole Foods Market. Anyway, Spady told me the plot of this book when I saw him out a month ago. Not much about it sticks with me except some allegory relating to numerology and a murder… it all gets hazy in the early-Summer humidity.

Doesn’t it, though? This document can stand as a testimony to the scatteredness of it all. Some days the Universe finds it goddamn funny to pour a vat of molasses straight into your skull and watch you stumble around the house in a sorghum daze, thinking one thing whilst doing something completely different, like trying to come up with a two-letter word that begins with ‘C’ as you take what will hopefully be the first of several dumps today. There is no two-letter word that begins with ‘C,’ you remind yourself, just as there is no particular dietary regimen that will guarantee more than one dump per day at the age of 37.

Men, I tell you. Let’s ponder the endless derogatory remarks made by women about men in certain comedic entertainments these days. If they could only peer into the gooey brains of the species itself… my goodness, the thoughts that men actually have about men. Like women, we are constantly comparing, and perhaps in not too different of a manner. Take Spady vs. Me. I don’t really have any particular desire to beat or one-up Spady in any specific area, but I can’t pass the motherfucker on the street on a perfectly good Wednesday morning without wondering whether or not my life is measuring up to his by some indeterminate scale of which I have little comprehension or mastery of. 25 chapters into a novel? Really? I have nothing to compare to that, in my mind, and here’s why: I feel completely unable to focus on anything that requires the dedication and commitment a novel demands. I have been focused on things that last for three-and-a-half minutes for quite awhile now, as well as the means by which to foist them upon the world, which are probably best suited to people who with even shorter attention spans than three-and-a-half minutes.

Meanwhile, I have male friends whose marriages are falling apart. The dark hours of abandonment and disappointment these folk are currently experiencing crush my piddling piddliness with an iron fist. They are being drawn towards real man-child moments, those seething encounters with the ego that find a dude waving a fist at life one moment and curling up in a corner like a baby the next. Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Ernest… just please make it go away and I promise to either beat it so far into submission or nurture it like a lost kitten, if only to prove a point.

Years ago I was motoring around Bristol, England with my radio promotions guy. We crested a hill in the city and were greeted with the site of hundreds of students sunning themselves on a lawn that sloped down towards the city center. A lawn, that glowing, illuminated green that only occurs when the sun comes out on certain days in England, setting the grass pulsing, aglow with all the stored-up chlorophyll generated by days and days of endless moisture.

Neil (the radio guy) and I had been riding around for days at this point, hopping from station to station, plying my new single. Neil was eternally sparky and blissful, always happy to be doing his job, to be cresting another hill in another city. I was depressed, completely absorbed in the slightly confusing process of attempting to gain acceptance at radio stations and with the British public in general. Had there been a forest, I would not have been able to see it for the crab apple trees. Truly, there was nothing but grass, centuries-old buildings everywhere and young, nubile people relaxing and enjoying themselves. The moment escaped me. I imagine I was wondering how long it would be until we could stop off for our afternoon pints.

Today I have a yard that is in desperate need of cutting and flower beds that could be weeded but should probably just be completely dug up and begun again. I have what feels like an endless list of administrative tasks to do, most of which seem daunting and mindless. I am writing from the confines of the nicest house I have ever lived in, one that needs some attention here and there but is remarkably perfect. Yes, something is telling me that I am, once again, missing a great moment here, but I feel incapable of reaching out and grabbing. Recent experience has taught me that taking small steps towards the goal is the best way to proceed. I suppose that this little missive is the first one of these. However, I am still thinking of Law and Order: SVU and wondering how they will solve the next hideous crime they are faced with. I would still very much like to get through at least one computer Scrabble match. Neither of these tasks would involve engagement with the world on any level and would, I fear, only draw me a little further into a particular hole.

And thinking back on what seems to have been written so far here I am taken with how completely self-absorbed it all is, how I will never care to read it again and how it probably serves no purpose whatsoever. About how Social Media, the most tempting outlet for these labors, would actually accept this load of hooey with open arms as something worth sharing, having contemplated and commented upon. I just can’t get with the ide of airing these thoughts for consumption. We really have to rise above the idea that this crap is worthy of sharing with each other. That is the problem with art today, I believe; we have become utterly convinced that these type of musings constitute a relationship with an audience, an interaction when, in fact, these kind of musings are exactly the shit that we should keep to ourselves, the grist that will (hopefully) propel us to creating something higher, something infinitely more useful, for our compatriots in existence to chew on and to share.

Did someone mention breakfast? Since moving in with Liz three years ago, I have become infinitely more attuned to the needs and goings-on of my body. I know that part of the issue with getting this day going is merely the fact that I have given myself nothing to work with on a cellular level besides caffeine and nicotine. I need protein mixed with just the right amount of carbohydrate to achieve a roper balance that might assist in seeing things in just the right light. That solidity that sets in after a couple of eggs or even a fat dose of almond butter. Meat is a possibility but some days you just don’t feel like thinking through the reality of the death, the slaughter of innocents, the very real possibility that you could just as easily be eating the dog you were so tenderly walking only hours ago. Goddamn meat. Why are you so tasty and wrong.

Our friend Emily Leonard is a startlingly good artist. She gave us a gorgeous print for our wedding, a gorgeous print that I have yet to have framed. A plane of happiness that currently sits furled up on a bookshelf, its joys hidden from me. It is a painting of a forest, oddly enough, one rendered impressionistically enough so that there is not really a hard option of actually seeing individual trees so well. It’s like the perfect existential rendering of woodlands. Just merge with it, don’t let the small stuff get you down. Asshole.

One of my favorite avoidance pastimes is reading The New Yorker. I don’t recall at what point in my life this magazine took hold of me, but goddamn it, it did. Its promise of weekly sophistication and high-mindedness has driven me toward of number of unrealized ambitions, such as being an eminently cool musician, a well-regarded writer, a long-time resident of New York City. All things I have touched upon at various junctures in life, none of which I would say that I have ever really achieved. But the New Yorker still comes every week, still promises and idealized frame of mind that seems achievable somehow. I don’t know why, anymore. I have finally reached a stage in life where I feel comfortable not reading every goddamn word of it; yes, I am now capable of skipping ahead after reading a few paragraphs of the 15,000 word piece on Ugandan sheep hymens without feeling as if I am cheating myself out of some seriously necessary life knowledge… or merely not getting my money’s worth. It’s a step.

I am beginning to question my newfound allegiance to the IPhone. I waited ages until my Verizon contract was up last October to jump on board but, once I did, I was shocked by how it immediately influenced my life. Everything seemed to get infinitely more organized and categorical: blobs of unintelligible ambition aligning themselves into brightly-colored squares on my ICal, legions of unforeseen needs suddenly met by the acquisition of another smartly-programmed app, badly-written emails from other IPhones instantly replied to with my own badly-written email.

But in recent weeks I have begun to wonder if all it has, ultimately, been for naught. If all these perfectly-scheduled new events (with reminders) are actually getting me anywhere or merely serving to fill up all of that undefined white space on my calendar. If these apps that get used maybe once a month are really just filler to camouflage the Scrabble and FIFA 11 games that get most of the action. If those badly-written emails are just going out into the universe attracting more half-baked thoughts and ideas.

I love to look at the IPhone. It brings me pleasure. I won’t be getting rid of it anytime soon; the transition would be way too much of a pain in the ass. Nothing is really that big of a deal, anyway. This I should know by now. All things get done eventually, just don’t get too stupid about it. Right now babies are being born, children are starving, divorce papers are being served. Life is coming to a series of very hard and immediate conclusions, whether I am paying attention or not. You can’t get an app for that shit, no way.

Gathering Steam

The 13-year cicadas are dying off in droves, and I will miss them. They are the rock stars of the insect world, germinating underground for the aforementioned time period before emerging for a very brief (days, my dear) period of singing and fucking. And then it's over. Their offspring, in egg form, will fall from the cracks in trees into which their mothers laid them, make their way back into the ground and then grab onto some root system to find nutrients for the next incubation period. A long time will pass; governments will be toppled, technology will advance, many many dinners will be cooked, cars will be exchanged for newer models, bands will form, bands will dissolve, children will be birthed, children will become overachievers, or junkies, whatever... the cicadas will not care. They will reemerge from the ground again in May of 2024, completely unaware of how the world has changed around them, going right on with making the absolute most of their tiny little lifespans, their song, their sex. Shine on, you red-eyed subterranean commas of nature. It's been emotional.

My new bride and I took a long hike at Percy Warner this morning, breaking a sweat and stimulating our endorphins to a mad wiggle. We saw a crimson skink with an embarrassingly large head poking out of a tree. We passed a couple in their late 50's running up one of the many hills like teenagers on meth. There was light dappling all along the trail in the shapes of hickory and hackberry leaves high above our heads; I noticed the blotch of perspiration between my pectoral and abdominal muscles and wondered if there was a connection there.

Later on at the Nashville Puppet Festival, Davey Ukulele and the Gag Time Gang took the stage at 2:00 and whipped the young ones into a frenzy. My old friend Jill and her husband Chad were in attendance. Jill sat fifteen feet in front of me with her two kids Ollie and Coco and, as I announced that it was time for everyone to do the Rainbow Dance, locked eyes with me for a fertile moment. We shared a good smile about how they time does fly. Professor D.'s song about allergies was particularly effective today, as was Uncle Louis' spoken word about his adventures with cruise ships and meatballs. The ions at the Puppet Festival was bouncing all over the place; it reminded me of the first festivals I ever played with Joe, Marc's brother. There was no pot and no jam bands but the vibe was just as crazy, if not crazier.

Our friends Hal and Kim are cooking us a major dinner this evening. It's a wedding present, and a good one, for what lasts longer than a belly full of beef and a night stuffed with chuckles? Well, fuck me. It has been a royal May in Nashville, one I hope to not forget come next February, when shit goes dark and dingy and moist and morose. I got married to a woman who is, quite literally, the finest specimen I have ever come across. I never quite expected good fortune of this magnitude and my heart verges on the bursting when I step back and get a take a good look at it all.

Video Session : David Mead : LaundroMatinee

I finally found this today. I love Bill DeMain and his pickin,' and I think the guys in Indianapolis did a fine job of capturing us in pretty good form.
Video Session : David Mead : LaundroMatinee

More Photo History of October and November

More Photo History

I Got An IPhone. Finally.

Sorry I have not posted for so long. Here is a photographic look, in three parts, through some highlights of the last two months:

Our First Flood Refugee

Ladies and Gentlemen, Bill DeMain, our guest indefinitely. Bill has been without electricity or running water for four days. I think he looks pretty good, all things considered. Welcome, Bill.

Heartbreak Weather

As many of you have probably heard, it was a pretty horrific weekend in Nashville. The Cumberland River swallowed a good portion of downtown before finally beginning to ebb today, officially shedding its status as a minor waterway generally ignored by the city's good citizens. To the West, the Harpeth performed a similar feat, leaving us with weird aerial depictions of unfamiliar things like a Publix grocery store sign barely protruding from its brown water. All over the city, smaller creeks and forgotten tributaries flowed freely into basements and home studios, quickly overwhelming rusty sump pumps and destroying mountains of memorabilia. The official body count stands at 19 so far.

As my friend Matthew Ryan once sang, it's heartbreak weather. Facebook walls are chock full of despairing reports of loss, reassurances and general offers of help. News channel sites are purring along with multiple amateur and professional videos of the general mayhem. The Internet is an oddly isolating environment in which to be commiserating over a natural disaster occurring right outside your door, but at least it's dry.

Me and mine were fortunate enough to be shacked up in a sturdy bungalow positioned on a favorable angle to a downhill slope. It was kind of amazing to watch the waters run around us, through the back yard and into the alley, which began to resemble a really ugly and powerful water park ride by Sunday afternoon. Besides a loss of electricity and a few trickles of water in the basement, we were completely untouched. Even the new brick sidewalk remained intact. Nature is a finicky lass.

There's no easy way to clean up such a massive pile of shit, but donations never hurt. Please throw some cash Nashville's way here if you feel inclined.

I had planned on posting some new sunshine songs this week, but I think I'll give it a couple of days out of respect for the victims of all this. Let's hope the eerily gorgeous weather predicted for the coming week dries this nightmare up sooner than later; 'til then, please join me in staying dry and being thankful.

The Importance of Being Earnest

My friend Jay Odenbaugh blew back through town earlier this week. I was able to catch him for breakfast and a hike on Tuesday. As we crested the Mossy Ridge at Percy Warner Park, he informed me that he had recently attained tenure at Lewis and Clark University. I was damn near misty-eyed as I contemplated the ramifications and the long road to his achievement: At the age of 15, when I had known him for three or four years, Jay stated his desire to become a Doctor of Philosophy, a feat he achieved quite handily in the subsequent decade. After countless exhibitions of pride and determination, I can't say that I was surprised to find out that he had finally grabbed tenure out of the hands of defeat; I just wish I could remember more of the details about his rise to the top.

This morning I met my father for breakfast at the Pancake Pantry. I had not seen him for a month or so and there was plenty to catch up on. He and Vicki have sold their house, not before winning a Nashville Historical Society Preservation Award for their fine renovation/restoration efforts. They are soon moving into another house that Dad has renovated, a Cape Cod that was on the verge of collapse this time last year. We went to look at it this morning, and I was truly stunned. It is one of the finest home renovations I have ever seen anywhere; the floor plan flows beautifully and old and new aesthetic details have been married with nary a flaw. It is the seventh house my dad has renovated in my lifetime, and by far his crowning achievement. I am looking forward to visiting and, as always, very happy to have such a sweet place to hit rock bottom, should the need ever arise again.

I went straight from Dad's house to Bill DeMain's apartment, where we wrote a new song called "Philosopher Dog," recorded the two remaining demos for 1908 Division and then mixed all of the demos. Listening back, I am pleasantly surprised. The songs are alternately more complex and deconstructed than most previous efforts. The implied apartment building narrative allowed for the use of various styles and dynamics that I would normally not include on one album, but all in all it holds together pretty well. Then again, what wouldn't sound good to ears tweaked on high-grade organic peyote? Before the carpet began slithering up my ankles I was able to detect a few arrangement issues here and there, but nothing major, nothing that won't be easily dealt with the minute these goddamn fruit bats stop flying out of my nostrils.

Word on the street is that I have my third home-cooked supper of the week to look forward to this evening. Liz is on a real culinary tear and I am supremely grateful. Tonight is Quinoa and vegetables, I believe. I would like to go for bike ride in the meantime, but feel obligated to hang with Stan for a bit; he endured a terrible thunderstorm today alone. He seems shaken but did managed to avoid relieving himself on the floor, which is certainly what I would have done in his position.

The Price of Adulthood

Last night, Liz and I rode the yellow bikes to a restaurant in Germantown called City House. I had visited the establishment on three other occasions with mixed results, and this occasion was no different: for every five things the restaurant gets right, there is one element that seems slightly off, just enough to tweak a particular synapse that may or may not affect the vibrational frequency of everything else. Which means nothing at all, really, and, since most things don't, I will continue with the pride and determination of a little band you may or may not have heard of: Fognode.

The occasion was a festively grim one: our friend and confidant Peter Bradley Adams was, and still is, moving to Brooklyn, of all places. As a send-off dinner, it was a fairly disappointing experience, as there was exactly one toast to the guest of honor and almost no storytelling or 'This Is Your Life' kind of moments, of which the ensuing embarrassment is one of my favorite elements of a proper 'send-off' dinner. However, as a dinner honoring Peter Bradley Adams, it was a complete success, as Peter Bradley Adams had apparently expressed no previous desire to be properly 'sent-off.' In fact, he will be leaving most of his belongings in Nashville, taking only a suitcase and his now infamous collection of shrunken Doberman heads. Theories abound that the entire migration is merely a method by which he might construct an appropriately bizarre and disappointing set of circumstances that would propel him straight back to the Music City for the recording of an award-winning album.

Ah, Peter Bradley Adams. P-Bra, to his friends. Two glasses of Chablis into the dinner, he acquired a particularly giddy air, seemingly befuddled by the flood of non-attention being paid to him at his last Nashville hurrah. Someone had seated him smack in the middle of the table, the unwilling bifurcation of two incongruous sets of friends who, as the evening unfolded, seemed to express no interest whatsoever in getting to know one another. Firmly planted at the non-alcoholic end of the table, Liz and I were unable to follow the thread of his slightly-impaired logic, the cut of his jib. At a loss, we continued making fart sounds with our armpits until the pasta course arrived.

The heartburn and gas had begun to set in, so we said our goodbyes and hit the road on the yellow bikes. We navigated a slightly different route home, one that took us over the Demonbreun Street Viaduct just as mighty freight train was passing underneath it. "Look Liz," I pointed, "two paths intersecting, like strangers in the night."

"What?" She was too far behind to hear me.

"That broccoli was divecting, this gas like a knife," I shouted as she pulled up closer behind me.

"Just let it go, Honey. Let it go."

Peter Bradley Adams, this one's for you. Ahh, that's better.

The Hulabaloo

I love The Week. It's a thin magazine that shows up in the mail every seven days, containing most of the relevant stories from the States and around the world, summarized in the words of different journalists from several sides of an issue. It is extremely well-edited and always gets me about as up-to-date with events as I probably need to be. In our house it is referred to as 'The Crack.'

Yesterday was a fine one. I began by heading over to Brad and Keri's house to check out some new Raleigh's Brad had purchased on EBay. Brad is a collector of Raleigh bicycles, most from the 60's and 70's. He is particularly fond of the Sports model, which he usually purchases and then re-sells to his friends. I bought one off of him upon arriving in Nashville last year, a bright yellow specimen that came in very handy before and after I was able to bring the Honda down from NYC. Yesterday, I intended to buy a smaller gold model for Liz, who has coveted mine for quite awhile (and is out of town this weekend), but it turned out to have some previously unnoticed problems in the gear hub that Brad wanted to address. In the meantime, I noticed another yellow model that he had recently acquired. It was in even better mechanical condition than mine, with more aesthetic points intact, not to mention a rack and leather saddle bag. I had to buy it. Oh, what a beautiful morning; say hello the the Twins.

Upon returning home I was picked up by Lindsay Jamieson and his brood, Walker, Rainier, Schaeffer and Emerson. We had an excellent late breakfast at one of the 73 local Cracker Barrels, then attended an open house for a film school for which Lindsay had done some branding work. After that we met his wife Molly and a few of her friends at a residential salt-water pool, the loveliest I have ever seen or jumped into. After trouncing Lindsay at water polo we left and I was deposited back at my house. Our roommate Rachel arrived home soon after and she and I went to Shintomi for for Sushi. We stopped by Blockbuster on the way home and got some movies, one of which turned out to be a BBC television series called State of Play. Talk about The Crack; we watched four straight episodes. I began falling asleep during the last one and had to retire.

Which was a good idea as today dawned bright and early. Stan and I took a stroll to Portland Brew. I finished a bagel at home while reading The Week, started this and then hit the road to White's Creek to work at Bob Workman's farm. He and I moved a refrigerator, then drove to another rental property he owns on Clarksville Highway, where I proceeded to spend the rest of the day mowing grass on a nifty little tractor. It was nice to pass seven hours outdoors in a field with a powerful piece of machinery underneath me. Cut grass and open expanses of country landscape make me feel tiny, in a good way.

I was pretty tired by the end of it so I grabbed a salad on my way home and promptly hit the couch to watch more of the TV series. I took a break after two episodes and rode the new bike to Blockbuster to return some movies, then looped back to the Circle K for some cigarettes. There is something surreal and circular about riding a bicycle through the empty streets of your hometown on a Sunday night. Combined with the dog walk and the day spent in the country, I feel as if I have spent the past 14 hours being eleven years old.

Schedule Of Events

SCHEDULED:

7:00 Tennis with Paul Deakin @ Maryland Farms YMCA
9:30 Breakfast with Jay Odenbaugh and unknown lady friend
10:30 Songwriting session with Jason White
3:00 Lunch with Jay Odenbaugh and unknown lady friend
6:30 Dinner at Peter Collins' house

ACTUAL:
7:00 Arrived MFYMCA seven minutes early, stretched, chewed fat with Deakin, proceeded to lose 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. Serve impressive, ground strokes horrible-to-professional, with exception of lob, which is nonexistent, allowing Deakin, the shithead, to execute weird drummer monkey-run to net with no fear of serious retribution. Draw small amount of pleasure from estimate that Deakin has dropped somewhere between $500-600.00 on new gear, apparel and lessons since becoming interested in game six months ago. My expenses thusfar: $19.72, for one can of balls and court fees. Suck it, Deakin.

9:30 Breakfast canceled. Back to house to check on the ill and complain about various things over which I have no control.

10:30 Rode bike to J. White's. Started something vaguely Henley-esque that eventually transmogrified into Randy Newman/Leon Redbone-esque song about canine's: "A Dog's The Nicest Person You're Ever Going To Meet." My favorite song I have written in awhile, truly lovable and catchy as a cheerleader. Drank fresh apple juice, ate beef jerky from California and Gouda from Kroger. Smoked. Observed vegetable garden, very impressive and inspiring.

3:00 Rode bike to Fido to meet Jay and Karen, his friend from San Francisco. They are driving across the country in a U-Haul moving things. Karen is a dancer, very enjoyable. Odenbaugh better get his game right on this one. Ate chopped salad called 'Chop Salad,' very good.

6:30 Dinner at Peter's, heartily anticipated. We're bringing a bottle of port and some flowers that Liz bought. Looking forward to telling more people to go see Anvil: The Story of Anvil, the feel-good movie of the decade.

A Different Sherrie

Last night, in an exceptionally odd instance of life imitating art imitating life, I was introduced to a girl who appeared to be of Persian decent.

"David, this is Sherrie."

"Hi Sherrie, it's nice..."

"Oh, I know you, " she said. "You went to David Lipscomb, right?" She said, referring to my sinister alma mater.

"Oh yeah! Sherrie -----..." I remembered a warm Summer evening, a year or two after high school. I had run into her at a friend's house. After several-to-many beers, we ended up in a bedroom together. It was one of those moments in which you assume you are inspiring the tender loss of innocence but, years later, realize that you were merely developing into another set of bad habits.

Smiling, I leaned in to embrace her.

"Oh! No, I'm Sherrie ------."

Which led to an altogether awkward scene that can more eaily be imagined than described. The even stranger thing about all of it was that my good friend Daniel Tashian had once had the exact same experience with the same two women (incriminating circumstance need only be supposed, not assumed). He actually wrote a song about it, a fine version of which was eventually recorded by his band, The Silver Seas. I was fully prepared to provide you with a link for streaming but cannot locate it anywhere.

Library Thing

And so it is Christmas Eve, a day generally adrift in melancholy for myself and a surprisingly large number of Americans. Nashville has presented itself in dull grays and muted ochres for the occasion, seemingly as non-plussed about the situation as I am. Rejoice! And, in a funny way, I do. Stan and I are supine in the living room, fresh back from a walk around the neighborhood that was fairly uneventful except for a completely chance run-in with Peter Collins, the producer of my first album, and his dog, Dave. This, of course, is what the holidays are supposed to be about, old friends and good cheer.

I checked in with a long-lost cyber portal of mine last night to find that I had all but been erased from its memory. Library Thing is a web site that has been in its beta version for over two years now. I stumbled onto it in 2006. It allows you to catalogue all of the books in your library online. Or all of the books you have ever read, if you like. Whatever you want to do, as usual.

Upon first finding the site, I hastily set about adding all of the books physically in my library as well as every one I could remember ever reading. This process was long but very satisfying. My books are the only material possessions that have remained with me from my adolescence. As much as I strive towards complete unattachment to things, I cannot let them go.

I hang onto my books because they are my history. The wonderful thing about my scrappy little library is that I can pick up any volume in it, read a few pages, and suddenly remember when I was first read it, where I was and what my general mood was at the time. This experience is unique to books, surprisingly; I usually lose most memory of similar circumstances surrounding a creative act within a few months of its occurrence.

Sometimes I wonder if this strange literary sensation is some sort of compensatory sub-conscious balance for my lack of powerful olfactory functions; I have read that smells are one of the most powerful agents of recall, but never really experienced the sensation myself. I liked to blow my nose a lot when I was a kid... perhaps I did some permanent nerve damage, I'm not sure.

So last night I checked in with my Library Thing page and realized that, somehow or another, all but ten of my previously added books had been deleted from my collection. I was shocked for two seconds, aggrieved for one, then pleasantly elated at the prospect of adding all the books again. Because the adding, the accumulation of books is the most enjoyable thing about the site. It allows the cataloguer to relive the experience of reading all of these wonderful and shitty books again at warp speed. The total number piles up in front of your eyes, the covers are all displayed in front of you, the rich melancholy of all that information stewing somewhere in the recesses of your addled psyche washes over you like a warm vat of honey. This is mine, you think. This is me.

But, as with nearly everything online (this blog included), Library Thing tempts with the short term gratification found in the further display of oneself for the perusal of others. 'Look at me, I've read this, and I liked it so much I read six more by the same author.' And, like nearly everything online, it also offers the opportunity for complete and utter fabrication. Which is where things get tricky.

For example, before I began writing this I was adding all of the Norman Mailer tomes I could remember reading in the past 35 years. An American Dream, cool. The Executioner's Song, yeah. Harlot's Ghost, sweet! Marilyn, of course. Tough Guys Don't Dance... loved it! Wait a minute... Marilyn? Mmmmm... I cross-reference a few other Monroe biographies and realize that Mailer's was not the one I read at all. Well, shit. There's an entire week of my life misplaced, in the literary sense. I confused Mailer with some crappy thing I probably picked up in an airport on a long layover! What does it all mean?

It's survival, bitch. I have a supremely annoying tendency to canonize all aspects of my life, the triumphant, the mediocre, and the downright shitty, into capsules of grandeur. It's only natural that the legacy preparation assistant in me would inject the tawdry knuck-a-knuck of an airport paperback into the form of Mailer, for the sake of preservation for future generations. What can I say? I like the night life, I love to boogie.

But it does raise a slightly disturbing possibility: How much of my life have I modified to fit into the hardcover limited edition autobiography that will, surely, any day now, be published to great acclaim and interest?

I will never, ever know. I release it all into the goddamn cosmos. To swirl around my head like so much dirty water in a high-school toilet bowl and then evacuated to the long, grey sea.