Time is like a roll of toilet paper

The second day of my life lasted for 50% of the time that I had ever existed.

The twentieth day of my life consisted of 5% of the time I had spent on Earth.

Once I hit 100 days old, or about three-and-a-half months, each subsequent day represented less than 1% of my entire experience.

I'm now 27 years old and I'll be 28 in the end of April. According to my calculator, I've lived over 10,000 days. I believe I passed my 10,000th day some time in September.

From now on, every day I live will take up less and less than 0.01% of my entire life.

Carpe Diem.

Noble Gas

It's been nearly a week since I last wrote a blog entry. Time is speeding up. I'm almost up to December rent already. Uh oh.
I skied today and yesterday. The resort claimed five-and-a-half inches over the last 24 hours. They opened up some new trails today. Now that we've passed Thanksgiving, I feel that the season is really on.
Please excuse the relatively inert blog entry. I'll write more when I feel like I have something to say.

Cold

Less than a hundred years ago, people would often simply not make it through the winter. I would just be too cold for them and they would die. I assume there are still places in the world where that happens.
It's hard for me to imagine living in situation where my primary concern was simply staying warm and finding food. I don't ever worry that I'm going to die from the elements.
I imagine that the good thing about living in danger of freezing to death is that it keep your priorities ordered. If you can't find firewood, you're probably not going to worry too much what other people think about your hairstyle. The number of real problems a person has is inversely proportional to the number of the problems a person makes up for himself.

Listening to Paintings

I'm reading Bob Dylan's autobiography. It's great. Here's a quote from a part where he's describing different performers.

"Most of the other performers tried to put themselves across, rather than the song, but I didn't care about doing that. With me it was about putting the song across."

I think that attitude is ideal. It's the polar opposite of the American Idol image that most performers go for in a lot of popular music. I hate American Idol, but I think the show is well named. Why is it that people generally laugh at karaoke, but take American Idol seriously? Because the American Idol contestants have cooler clothes.

What is the place for ego in art? A bass player once told me that if a frontman in a band has no ego, he's boring to watch. That might be true. That doesn't mean he's boring to listen to. A lot of people say that Dylan is boring to watch. Music is for listening, not for watching. Even MTV seemed to learn that, because MTV doesn't play music videos any more.

Car go beep beep

I played last night with Bobby and Dave at Scruffy Murphy's Irish Pub in Denver. It was pretty low key, but it went pretty well. They invited us back to play again next Wednesday and offered a few other dates in December.
Today I'm going work with Ilan in the afternoon, teach a piano lesson at five and then try to record with Julie in the evening. I also need to try to get my PA fixed again. It may make sense to buy a new power amp if I can find a cheap one.
I'm going to drive up to Winter Park on Friday morning and hopefully get some skiing in. I imagine it will be pretty crowded and not much will be open, but it's going to be great to get on the hill again. I'm settling in to this back and forth schedule between Denver and Winter Park. Hopefully, I'll get the best of both worlds.
I also need to work on my Berklee classes today. Bernadette added some incredible vocals and percussion to the track we're working on. The song has evolved into a pretty intense piece. I'm proud of it so far, and I'm going to try not to mess it up by overmixing it. I'm going to post the song on my Berklee profile page once it's polished up. Stay tuned.

898

It's about a quarter to nine here in Fraser, Colorado. It snowed today and it really feels like a new season. It feels fresh and new outside and I'm ready for a great winter.
Last night I had a great jam session with Bobby, Andy, Greg and Matt. We played very late into the night and "broke in the neighbors" a bit. Thankfully no one complained. We played a lot of new stuff and made up some new tunes.
Today, I talked to Steve at the Crooked Creek about hosting an open mic night there on Sundays. He seemed pretty positive on the idea. It could be a great thing. It could really build up the music scene here. Four years ago, Gary Key hosted an open mic night there and it was excellent. Some very talented players came and played. I know a lot of musicians in town that would come play. It would be a great experience for me and I think I would grow a lot with it. Plus, I could use the extra income.
I'm excited about my new project with Andy Irvine, Kay and Mike Ray. I'm playing bass with them and we're playing some great tunes. We're playing some old Delbert McClinton stuff and some Stevie Wonder tunes. We're going for an old Motown soul kind of sound and it's a lot of fun. It's a challenge and I'm learning a lot from Andy Irvine about the bass. We're going to practice together on Monday.
I also applied to play in the Blue Man Group today. They have a website and you can apply online to join their band. It was kind of a fun application, so I figured what the hell.
That's the news and I'm sticking to it.

897?

Why is the number 897 at the top of my page? It's actually there twice. I didn't put it there. The designer of this blogger template must have just thought it was a cool number. Maybe it was the 897th template that he designed. I suppose that after 896 templates, you start to run out of ideas. I wonder if someday that number will change and people will think "Wow, I remember when that page used to say 897."
I just found out that at least two people read this blog once and a while: my mom and Chris Fuller. Hi Fuller. It would probably be simpler to just e-mail you two my random thoughts. It's fun to pretend I have a big audience.
Fuller wrote me an e-mail commenting on the comments I get on my blog. I agree that they are quite insightful. I especially liked the one about road construction of pa. What does that even mean?
If you read this, you can e-mail me at yaniv34@gmail.com and tell me I should write things that are funnier. Otherwise, I'm going to keep boring you with essays on the meaning of the number 897.
The number 897 is a three digit number and is divisible by three. Coincidence? Unlikely. There are two ways to say the number outload. You could say "eight-hundred and ninety-seven" or you could say "eight-hundred ninety-seven." The second choice is more economical since you only have to say seven syllables. On the other hand, if you were writing a song, you might choose the first one in order to better fit your rhyme scheme. And if you are writing a song about 897, please don't rhyme it with "heaven" or "eleven." Those are easy choices. If you happen to be dating a girl named Evelyn, she probably wouldn't mind being included in your creation. Chances are you are not writing a song about the number 897, and don't view the number as particular worthy of a song. However, I assume that you are not unaware that 897 is only three away from 900. Of course, it is also only three away from 894, but I'll save that issue for another blog. If I wrote about the number 897 for 897 seconds, I would have lost nearly 15 minutes of my life. That would be a shame, because there are so many other numbers out there, and I should give them equal attention. How would 17 feel for instance? Don't worry my dear number 17--if you are reading this blog, I will give you equal attention in a future entry. In actuality, I not sure if the number 17 even reads this or even knows how to use a computer for that matter. Okay, I'm done. I'm going to go count sheep now. 1, 2, 3 ...

The Art of Practicing

I'm reading a book called The Art of Practicing by Madeline Bruser. It's great and I'm going to copy a quote from it. The author is describing a performance by conductor Yehudi Menuhin.

"What I perceived in him onstage was an inner stillness; in front of three thousand people and in the midst of torrential musical events, he was at home. It was as though he never forgot the silence from which all the sound arose and to which it would return."

Every song begins and ends with silence, and so does every story and every life. I need to remind myself of that often.

Connected

I'm back in Denver and I have an internet connection again. My new apartment up in the mountains won't have internet access until this Thursday. Once it does, I think that living up there will be easier. Not having internet is a similar feeling to losing your cell phone. You feel disconnected and you also feel pathetic for feeling so disconnected and dependent on technology that you happily lived without only a few years ago.
I feel like I often have to edit myself in this blog. I have no idea who will read this. Anyone from my old elementary school teachers to my future employers could theoretically read this. In reality, I think that my mom is the only person that actually reads this. But the point is that anyone could, so I feel like I have to be politically sensitive. Thinking about it too much could make this a very boring blog.
Am I an exhibitionist for writing this... or are you a voyeur? Perhaps I should have the attitude that I should write whatever I want and if it leaves a bad impression, then it's your fault for being nosey and spending your time in my business. Who are you anyway?
Good art shouldn't be exclusive or limited or restricted. It should be exposed for anyone to see. I'm not pretending that this blog is good art--I'm just making a point. I don't think Bob Dylan worried about what his future employers might think of him when he recorded songs. Granted, most art is created with a specific audience in mind. But in the information age, everyone has access to pretty much everything. An audience can so easily be enormous and uncontrollable.
Many times, I have written blog entries and erased them because I was worried about who might see what I write. I'm going to try not to do that anymore.

Uncomfortably Numb

Last night, Hunker Down played at the Lion's Lair on Colfax with One Time Experience, another band from Winter Park. It was nice of One Time to have us play with them. Those guys are great. The gig itself wasn't the best. First, we didn't know what time we were playing. I was told we were starting at 8, then I heard 9:30 and then the soundman at the bar said he didn't want music until after 11. We probably started at around 10:30. The soundman was awful--he took forever and deafened us all with piercing feedback as he tried to get us dialed in. The stage mix was pitiful and he was completely inattentive. The staff at the bar treated the musicians with no respect and threw off the vibe from the beginning. The bar itself was gross; there were bumper stickers inside the urinal in the bathroom. I felt thoroughly polluted by the end of the night. I appreciated playing together with One Time, but I don't want to play again at the Lion's Lair.
It seems that a lot of people "go out" just to self-destruct. The want to "lose themselves" and have fun, but they end up battering their brains into oblivion. They have the dark bar to numb their sight; cigarettes and booze to numb their smell and taste and feeling; and loud abusive music to numb their hearing. The bar turns into a tight room full of Helen Kellers dumbly bumping into to each other and grunting.
Music should celebrate the sense of hearing. A show should awaken your senses, not batter them into submission. I want to end a show feeling more alive and aware; more often than not, people end shows with half the senses they started with. I wish we could cut loose without cutting our heads off.