Next

I'm driving up to Winter Park later today. Starting next week I'll be spending most of my week there. I'm renting a place in Fraser and I'll move in at the beginning of November. I'll still be working in Boulder on Tuesdays and in Denver on Wednesdays, but I'll have the rest of the week in the mountains.
I'm psyched to have my place again. I actually haven't really felt like I was living in my own space since May when I moved out of the place I was renting with Jacob on Grant Street. I spent the summer in Brazil and since I've been back I've stayed at my brother's house. It's been nearly five months without my own turf. I'm thrilled to live up in the mountains again. Most of my friends are up there and everything I want to do is there. I feel like the music scene is better too--or at least more accessable. I feel like I know all the good musicians in town and it's easier to work on it up there. I feel like less of a number up in the hills.
I finished a version of a colloborative recording project for my Berklee course last night. I created a groove and a woman named Bernadette who lives in Boston added the vocals. I think it came out okay for a first try collaborating with a new person in different state on unfamiliar equipment. We're going to re-mix it and fine tune it over the next week, but our first version is posted here: www.cyberyaniv.com/music/Collaboration.MP3 -- Ilan showed me how post things using cyberduck last night, so it will be easier to post mp3's. I can use my mac instead of my pc, which is about to die... and visit the pearly (Bill) Gates. That was cheesy.
Well, I'm going to clean up and get going. I'm playing gigs four out of the next five nights, so I've got to get myself together. I'm a bit concerned because my throat hurts a bit, but hopefully the little tickle will go away. Godspeed.

'cause I gots to

So I went to a concert last night. My friend Greg won tickets to the Jason Mraz concert through a radio staion and offered the tickets to me. I'm not really in to Jason Mraz, but my little sister is--so we went together.
It was a funny experience at the concert. All the pretty girls who wouldn't talk to me high school were there--only they hadn't aged at all, and I was almost ten years older. It was kind of weird being at a teeny-bopper, bubble-gum concert. I noticed that all the high school kids just stared at the stage the whole time. They didn't really dance or even nod their heads to the music. Maybe they were stiff because they are self-conscious teenagers. Maybe it was the lack of alcohol served.
Jason Mraz has a good voice. I'll give him that. He struck me as a clean-cut theater and choir kid-type who comes from a good family and has never had any problems in his life. The show felt so clean and healthy, it almost approached Christian rock (which is an oxymoron, by the way). I like more edge in my music. I like to hear a little more pain. Jason Mraz is a great singer--I won't bash him there. I wish he'd stick to singing. When he tried to rap, I got a little nautious. There are only so many times you can hear a skinny rich white kid say the word "gots" before you feel like hitting him. Anyway, my sister had a great time and I was happy to go with her. It was really nice of Greg to give us the tickets.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I wonder if dogs in the wild sleep as often as domesticated dogs. My dog sleeps the vast majority of the day. Maybe she's just bored. She eats the same food every day, runs around the same yard and she doesn't have any thumbs to change her situation. Maybe she sleeps all the time because she has nothing better to do. I know some people like that.

Sugar

I'm a bit more wary to write stuff on this blog site now that it's connected with cyberyaniv.com. I keep imagining who might read this and then I'm quick to censor myself. Down with censorship, man. It makes for boring art.
Today I drove back from Steamboat Springs in the morning and then played music at an event my brother held for a development project he's working on. Last night's gig in Steamboat was awesome. The bar was packed and people danced hard. The guy who does the booking said he'd would invite us back and hook us up with free ski passes to the resort the next time we played. Hunker Down had a full page write up in the local Steamboat paper the day before we played. The article looked very good.
I actually got pulled over this morning on the way back from Steamboat. The cop said I was doing 65 in a 55, but he let me off with a warning because I smiled and called him "sir." I can't understand why anyone would want to be a policeman. The cop didn't notice the giant piece of broken plastic hanging off the bottom of my car. Some sort of protective piece under the car broke and I ended up dragging it on the ground all the way back to Denver because I didn't have the right tool to take it off. I fixed it once I got home.
I also finalized my apartment rental up in the mountains. I'm going to sign a six-month lease on a place up in Fraser. I'm psyched to have my own place up in the mountains again. I'm planning on spending most of my week up there and then driving back in forth in the middle of the week to work down here in the flatlands. I'm much happier and healthier up in the mountains. It's going to be an awesome winter. I hope we get some good snow. There's a fair amount of sugar on the hills up there already.

Joke of the day

I read this hilarious banjo joke on a bluegrass website today. I figured I'd repeat it.

Why do banjos suck so much?
Because Polish people are stupid.

Okay... Go!

I just put a link to this page on my website. That changes things a bit. Now there's a better chance that people I know will read this. My mom will probably read this. (Hi Mom.) Oh well.
Sometimes I want attention and don't want attention at the same time. That's what this blog is... kind of.
So back to the theme of yesterday, I think my insides are filled with brown paint. I read this book where the main character is convinced that instead of organs and blood and bones, the inside of his body is just pure white light. I like that. You can't really prove him wrong. It's kind of like how blood is blue on the inside of your veins and then it turns red when it hits oxygen on the outside. Realistically, deep down everyone is black on the inside. Not like African American black. Like the color. Or rather the absence of it. Even your heart is black unless it's on the outside.
On the other hand, your body does put out heat. Maybe you can think of your insides like the pictures from infrared cameras. Your body puts out radiant energy--it's just not in the visual spectrum. I wish that it was. It seems like it should be. Maybe there are some animals that can see that kind of stuff.
What the hell am I talking about?
I got to go now. I got to go paint some more food brown.

It's not all bad

I just read some of my past blogs and realized that they are very negative. I seem to write blogs when I'm feeling negative. When I'm feeling good, it's not my top priority to sit alone in front of my computer and write personal letters to no one. I suppose these blogs aren't really letters to no one. In a sense, they are letters to everyone.
In fact that's exactly what they are: letters to everyone... at least everyone who can read English and can use a computer. That cuts out a few billion, but still leaves many millions. If I wrote an e-mail and sent it to everyone I know, that still wouldn't even brush the number of people who could theoretically read this blog. Crap. I better come up with something good.
Um... Here's one. Have you ever noticed that whatever color the food is when you eat it, it always comes out brown!? How does that work? Um... That all I got. Goodnight.

Boring

It's been over a week since I last wrote. I've been too busy procrastinating..

Pithy

It's not about knowing right from wrong. It's about making right from wrong. ... It's all wrong.