It's The Little Things
Posted: August 29, 2003 Filed under: Personal Updates Leave a comment »Thank God for small blessings. My DSL equipment finally came and was installed (after more headache, of course). It only took them 6 weeks. ha Now I know the joys of Airport Extreme and wireless DSL in my apartment. Can IM’s from the bathtub be far behind? 
We get a lot of thunderstorms down here in south Jersey. I love it. The thunder and ground to sky lightning is an awesome thing to watch. I just ate some watermelon. There is nothing quite as tasty in the fruit world as a nice ripe sweet watermelon. Dang. I finally found the local record store, Vibrations, this week. What a dissapointment that was. All the CD’s that were stickered as being ON SALE were priced $15.98. Regular price for a lot of stuff was $17.98. And the guy who owns the place wasn’t very friendly either. One of those paranoid of shoplifters type people. He was following me around the whole place. Lame. I managed to get Over The Rhine “Eve” on clearance for $4 and I splurged and got the Suzanne Vega best of disc at “Sale” price. I just saw her on Craig Kilbourn and she was awesome. Remember that song “Luka”? She did that. I am also looking forward to getting the new double CD by Over The Rhine called “Ohio”. Their last disc “Films For Radio” is just awesome. I am also eagerly looking forward to the September release of the new Pretty Girls Make Graves CD. My fun in the sun of the last 8 months is finally coming to an end. That’s right ladies and gents. I have to get a day job. Canceled tour #2 just struck and I’m afraid I won’t be able to weather another month of coming up short. I consider myself blessed and fortunate that I was able to pursue my dream full time for this long. I will still continue doing The Power Agency and Urban Achiever. Hopefully I will eventually be able to get back to doing it full time. I’m sure once my dead end job comes through my blog will be very entertaining to read. Have a great weekend everybody.
Official
Posted: August 27, 2003 Filed under: Personal Updates Leave a comment »I’m a semi-official Jersey-ite now. I got my new license plates today. Now people will stop looking at me with a look that says “WASHINGTON?!?! ARE YOU LOST?!” Maybe, it’s just my driving. I’m checking out the new Dashboard Confessional CD right now. I still can’t believe the new record sold 122,000 the first week. Nuts. Thanks to all of you who have ordered CD’s from Urban Achiever. I really appreciate the support. I’ve gone back to being a vegetarian. I’m trying to lose weight and help my heart out. I’m on blood pressure medication already which is a bummer for a young guy like myself. And my cholesterol is high too. So by cutting out animal products and lowering fat intake I can cut out almost all cholesterol since it is only found in animal products. I never knew that until about a year ago. I guess a lot of people don’t know that. So if you know any good vegetarian recipes, send them on over!
Swapping Coasts
Posted: August 26, 2003 Filed under: Personal Updates Leave a comment »My lady is back in California. Boo hoo. I’m back down the shore at my place. In spite of being alone it feels really good to be back in my apartment. Now I just want to try to get into some sort of “normal” routine. I’m going to try out this Church that Ronee’s mom suggested on Sunday. Could be good…could be a disaster. We’ll just have to wait and see. After reading my whole tirade about Warped Tour again I realize that I must sound like a big crybaby to a lot of you. I guess you just have to take it all in context. Going to that fest was something I was looking forward to all summer (I have attended every year) and it was a big bummer. Anyway, I should never start explaining myself. It never comes out right. ha I am starting to get back to writing music for my debut solo CD. It’s going to be self titled and autobiographical (as if my past musical efforts haven’t been largely that). I seriously doubt that many people are looking forward to my silly little piano record. But I’m going to indulge myself anyway. I don’t have too much else to report right now. Looking forward to hitting the beach sometime this week. Have a great day!
Please Don't Go
Posted: August 21, 2003 Filed under: Personal Updates Leave a comment »Well kids. It’s been pretty busy over here. Ronee is getting ready to head back to school for her last semester so I’m going up north to spend the weekend with her. Sad. Anyway…I’m hanging in there and trying to get back to a happy place where God is at the forefront. Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated. Have a great weekend everybody!
Road To Nowhere
Posted: August 12, 2003 Filed under: Personal Updates Leave a comment »Sunday was one of the most miserable days in recent memory. Aside from the fact that I was spending time with my wonderful lady it was an unmitigated (did I spell that right?) disaster. The plan was to drive up to Asbury Park and go to the Warped Tour. I had free tickets I got from a friend at a record label in California. (speaking of California…Arnold is running to be your governor! ha!) We drove up to Asbury. No problems. Got off the lovely parkway at exit 100a. That’s when the bummer started. It took us 2 HOURS TO DRIVE 8 MILES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so slow that kids were jumping out of their cars running down the road to Dunkin Donuts…getting donuts and coffee…and walking or jogging back to their cars and MAKING IT WITH NO PROBLEM. There was a mass exodus of kids walking on both sides of the road who could no longer take it. The gates were set to open at 12noon which was the time I got off the parkway. When we finally got to Asbury Park we had to park several miles from the area where the festival was taking place. By the time we got there it was after 2:30pm. I had already driven for 4 hours (2 hours in painfully slow stop and go traffic) and walked for a half an hour. Then we had to WAIT IN LINE. While we were waiting there I heard the last 3 chords of one of the main artists I cam to see…Slick Shoes. I don’t say this to brag, but only as a frame of reference. Back when the singer of that band was 14 I discovered and signed them to Tooth & Nail where I was their A&R. They are now on Side One Dummy Records and they were on the entire Warped Tour. I was excited to see them at a new level of success and to hear them play songs from their new record which is my 2nd favorite of all their albums. Doesn’t matter. I missed them. Wanted to see Me First & The Gimme Gimme’s. Missed them. Missed The Ataris. Wanted to see them. But golly The freaking Used was playing. SUCK. And Simple Plan was playing. GAG. Thankfully we managed to see Face To Face. They did great. But by that time the mass exodus of Jersey teenagers had made it to the fest too. There was not enough space to breathe or walk or be comfortable ANYWHERE. It was all just too much to take. So…we left. I wanted to see Thrice and some other bands that were playing but I was just miserable and mad and I wanted to just cry. Seriously. I haven’t been to many shows since I left and I was looking forward to catching up and seeing a bunch of bands in one day. Unfortunately my patience was all used up. Asbury Park is home of the Stone Pony (a legendary Jersey bar/club where Bruce Springsteen and others got their start) which I got to see. That was cool. The whole place is a ghost town now, though. Real sad. It’s very pretty there. I took a lot of cool pictures. Maybe I will post some of them. Well kids…that was all painful to remind myself of. I’m going to get some sleep. Cheers. OH…and THANK YOU so much to those of you who have ordered stuff from Urban Achiever with the special offer. You guys and girls rock! xoxo
Make Me An Offer
Posted: August 4, 2003 Filed under: Personal Updates Leave a comment »It’s hard to believe but I’ve lived in New Jersey for a month now! WOW! Time flies. To celebrate I have a special offer for those of you who visit my website. My label, Urban Achiever, has put out 2 new CD’s in July. Movies With Heroes “Years” and Evelyn Hope “Self Titled” EP. If you order EITHER CD from the website I will send you the other CD for free. If you order Movies With Heroes I will send you the Evelyn Hope EP free. If you order the Evelyn Hope EP I will send you Movies With Heroes for free. What a deal! All you have to do is place your order and then send me an e-mail with “CD Offer” in the subject and your order # or information in the e-mail. I ship the orders myself (who am I kidding…I do EVERYTHING myself). Don’t be surprised if I slip some free buttons in there too. I make those myself too. It’s a real DIY operation over here. Anyway, the offer is good for the rest of August. Thanks to all of you for your nice e-mails and for stopping by. Goodnight.
Lifeguards Hate Me
Posted: August 4, 2003 Filed under: Personal Updates Leave a comment »Well, it was bound to happen eventually. I got worked today at the beach. It was beautiful and the waves were big. I actually managed to catch some of them too. The problem was they were coming in fast and hard with no lulls between sets to paddle out. So I just got pounded and pounded for about 2 hours. When I finally managed to get past the breakers the lifeguards whistled to me to come in closer. That was enough for me. Great waves though. Huge. Breaking too fast though. Yesterday I went to North Wildwood. It’s better there, I think. The waves break further out and kind of at an angle to the beach instead of straight in. Easier to navigate. Well anyway… it was fun…sort of. ha Back to work.
