two parts

PART I
Derek sent me an e-mail the other day. He showed me to a set of writings he's been working on. I was intrigued,,,

PART I
Derek sent me an e-mail the other day. He showed me to a set of writings he's been working on. I was intrigued and felt much like those who followed Forest Gump across the nation on his "Jog". After reading, what I found was that I had been enlightened in several ways. I left a few notes to Derek hopeful that he'd catch them in his spare time. That is, after all, how I caught his message.
Twitter was a lead he gave me. Now I have added it to the long list if websites I use. Feedback from friends who were already there is begining to come in. I'm up to 126 sites but only have been updating on the ones that actually show activity. Some have turned into fly-by-nights but I leave the page up because any exposure is still exposure.
There was a great place a lyricist could take inspiration from Derek told me about. I added it to my favorites yesterday morning but a slight glitch erased it along with his e-mail. The site had to do with key words. They scrolled on the left and short quotes and other notes scrolled in the middle. The words were along the lines of;LOVE,HATE,WANT,LISTEN,,,Just put "WHAT DO YOU" in front and there you have the jist of the page. Truly an amazing place to find inspiration when writers block sets in.
I'll have to keep looking but in due time. I'm a raging madman in the studio, but in here and out in the world, I'm a bit more laid back. A man of patience and focus, and wisdom I glean from great aquaintances like Derek.

PART II
My day starts at about 6:00 am. The alarm goes off. If I've had an idea wake me before then I may have been up an hour or two already. I clean up and log on. Check e-mails, reply, write a few new messages. Check certain sites due to activity. Maybe make an update here and there. This easily takes up two hours. After getting my digital freak out of the way it's nose to the grind-stone. 8:00 am to noon, 1:00pm to 5:00pm. Usually the hours are just 24 in a row. My day job is 24 hr call. It's a good enough one to pay bills and such. I've been there almost 30 years. Yes, you can laugh at this old man now!
After 5:00pm or so, I may log back on to finish something I started that morning. this second visit can take anywhere from 30 min. to 4 hrs. I try to keep it short but when you're on a roll, hang ten!
All day and all night, inspiration is floating about. It hangs nearby straining itself to turn into something almost tangible. It can be a fleeting memory or a silent shriek of eureka. Either way I must catch it when it coalesces. The evenings off-call are when I can sometimes spend a few hours in the studio. Tracking, mixing, mastering, I have to do it all. But I love the processes. If I'm not in the studio, I've got one of several sets of headphones glued on. I listen intently to the current line-up of songs very few people have yet heard. There is no album name, no artwork, no bar-code, no ISN#. The order I listen to the songs in is the order they come off the hardrive. I make no attempt to conform to any simillance of continuity whatsoever. The sun has gone down and so has dinner. If I'm lucky a cold beer or two. If I'm even luckier, the phone won't ring. It's too bad my number is so close to a pizza delivery place that I get calls from people trying to order pizza all day. When I order it I sometimes give the delivery driver a CDr. Having such a phone number does have it's perks. You get to talk to new people every day. You also get to see how people are all so different. Some hang up quickly, some chastise a person in the background for giving them the wrong number. Then there are those who lightly laugh at themselves and apologize for disturbing me. Still some others seem to hang on to my voice for some reason. Maybe I should write some talking pieces. Me do something along the lines of Barry White? Hmmm,,, Something like that, but my way. I know! I know! "SHUT UP AND PLAY!" We all have a story to tell and I'm no exception. I've always tried to tell my side thru the music. There may be a lot of pain and saddness, anger and defiance, but that's my life. I may have a decent job that Mom's proud of, but I have had some extreme hard times. I know many of you have as well. I'm just here to let you know your pain is understood, your anger is witnessed, and your tears aren't just evaporating into nothing. The salt that's left behind, from yours, and from mine, is what tempers the words of songs. It's what colors the notes and burns home the facts of the wounds we have. Nobody wins. Look at me. I'm stilll screaming with my eyes. The square root of love is what two people have done to each other along the way. Cupid shoots to kill. Caution, dreams are in progress and I'm not leaving until my body's in the ground!
PUSH BACK THE CLOUDS!