I love this comment

"I am a generation older than you. You need to focus on one word in your post. Entitled. You aren’t entitled to sh1t, and being smart doesn’t make you worth anything to anybody. You need to work hard. You need to love something and do whatever you can to make it happen. You need to stop whining. Nobody cares that you are self-aware or that you filled your head with ideas you can’t seem to find a use for. Except maybe your parents.
The world is full of people struggling just to survive. If you don’t understand the depth of that, stop reading blogs all day and go take a trip. And don’t just go shopping for skinny pants on that trip.
Go find your own path. You can’t hate on office drones for finding their own happiness between the lines. Because the reality is (coming from somebody who has never really had a normal job, and who has managed to support themself by one form or another of whoring out their creativity and thinking) all that is really important are the little things. The other shit you think is so credible, important and worthwhile is just empty. Go be a hit BLOG house artist. You’ll see how quickly that demystifies and how full of shit people are.
Find somebody and something to love beyond yourself."

from hipsterrunoff - he kind of schools carles, but I still think carles is awesome

Yo La Tengo - By The Time It Gets Dark

Yo La Tengo covering a song by Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention. Sandy also sang on the Zeppelin song 'Battle of Evermore'. This is a b-side from the 'Little Honda' single I think, I'm not sure.


Yo La Tengo - By The Time It Gets Dark

I can stand to be a fixture in a faded family picture

So I practice guitar on average about 2 hours a day. Playing an instrument is sort of like learning a sport I guess, or developing as a writer. You keep trying to improve with deliberate practice, then you arrive at these sort of plateaus when you realize you have mastered certain things, and then you sort of coast for however much time just enjoying the level you're currently at. I notice as I go on that I recognize these plateaus much earlier and push myself to delve into another round of deliberate practicing. I feel like I went from being totally unsure of myself to striving to improve to feeling over confident to feeling like a beginner all over again. I also feel like I've given way too much weight to my musical endeavors over the past decade of my life, and it really hasn't gotten me anything. I haven't recorded much or performed much. I guess the most I've gotten out of it has been some enjoyment playing for my wife, the appreciation of various people who've heard me play over the years, etc. I'm probably still too insecure of my playing, and I don't have much desire to pursue songwriting.

What else. The iPhone is really rocking my world, I'm addicted to iPhone apps, especially the ones that are like little musical instruments. I started running, or training for races, in July of 2008 - since then I've lost about 21 pounds. I was losing weight at a pretty rapid pace but remained at the same weight for most of the winter. Lately I'm starting to lose again. I was thinking back to when I was in college, I guess I weighed about 5 to 10 lbs less than I do now, I lost even more weight when I lived in NYC, and I weighed about 15 to 20 lbs less than I do now. Part of it is diet. I'd skip meals all the time in my 20s, and these days I usually eat 3 meals a day. I don't take supplements, I don't eat 'six small meals' as it seems too difficult to pull off with my schedule. I just try to eat sensibly and I monitor my caloric intake. I just figure with all the running I do, I should be able to enjoy eating and not have to live like a bullemic model. 21 lbs in 10 months, I guess that's not very rapid weight loss. My metabolism is probably slowing down too, so it's harder for me to lose weight no matter how much I run.


My life is actually very narrowly defined right now - there is work, there's reading and blogging, there's running and training for races, there's guitar and music in general, and there's my family. Mainly family to me these days means my wife and baby, and my brothers and my parents. Honestly I feel distant from my brothers and parents, I don't necessarily like having to admit that but I also feel like there's not a lot I can do about it. We are after all, middle aged men, my parents are old, there's a lot of water under the bridge. I've spent 4 years blogging about my personal problems on this site, most of which are connected to my family in some way, I've went on and on about the various dramas of my family, imagined or otherwise - and I feel like I've only really scratched the surface. I think one of the things I'm starting to realize as I get older is that I may have to accept the fact that I may never resolve some issues that I've had since childhood. My relationship with my parents and brothers may always be frustrating and disconcerting. I may never be completely satisfied with my life - even if I go on to achieve everything I think I want to do at this point in my life. I've already come to terms with the fact that huge patches of my life - years, decades of my life - are gone, wasted on nothing. I'm growing old, and I'll never get that time back, and there are some people that I've lost as friends that I totally regret losing. I'll have to live with that.

I think about my wife and about married life, how it's limiting, and you wish you could do certain things, how you can't even go out drinking with friends anymore and thinking that those friends will eventually move on without you. Thinking that I can't be with another woman for the rest of my life seems a little unreal to me, even now that I've been with her for a couple of years. But married life is also comforting, and the thought of not being with my wife - I don't even like to think about it. Likewise if something were to happen to N. Life develops rigid boundaries but that's actually good for me because I was all over the place when I was a young single guy. The thought of these people depending on me seems to be keeping me in check a lot more than my parent's disapproval, or personal ambition ever did. There are some things I want to remember to tell N. when she is old enough to understand, she may not take them to heart but I feel like I must tell her:

When you are growing up, treasure the friends you make along the way and keep them forever. Reward any spontaneous acts of friendship with loyalty, they are a sign that you've found an important person in your life. Remember that the significance of someone may not be clear to you for many years.

Love your parents and siblings unconditionally, no matter what happens. It is inevitable that your relationship will be tested throughout the years.

Hard work is the key to success and hard work will always win out over talent. Often what most people see as talent is merely the by product of hard work. Everything is possible. When you are in high school and college, your reason for living should be to a) find out what you want to do for the rest of your life as a career and b) doing everything necessary to assure your success in that field. Usually this means grades are the most important thing, not your social life. You can always have a social life despite your responsibilities - and your social life will not be enjoyable anyways if you know that other areas of your life are being neglected.

Superstar in your own rock movie, I wanted just a minor part

I go through phases in my guitar playing development, and my idea of what I want to sound like changes as my skills improve and my musical interests change. If you asked me five years ago who I wanted to play like, I'd say Jimmy Page, if you asked me two years ago I'd say Kirk Hammett. So I put in a lot of focused practice time working on skills such as blues based penatonic soloing, palm mutes, rudimentary sweep picking and tapping, to varying degrees of success. Usually I wind up buying a bunch of related gear as well - thus, I'm currently the owner of a sunburst Gibson Les Paul and an Ibanez s470 with EMG pickups, and a Mesa high gain amp.

Not that I regret the time spent on this type of practice since it's made me a better guitarist, but I find my tastes changing again. Ever since my baby was born, it just felt silly walking around with a big honking electric guitar strapped to my chest, blasting these metal solos. I started learning quiet fingerpicking versions of nursery rhymes to entertain my wife and baby. If you ask me now who I want to sound like I'd say Ben Gibbard or Elliott Smith, probably a combination of both. I want to be equally adept at intricate fingerpicking, fast acoustic strumming parts with or without a pick, basically the 'indie sound'. Not that this is the most difficult thing to do in the world, metal playing requires much more skill, I just like to play the acoustic more and more these days.


I was thinking - I'm already a pretty good player, I can play 'These Days' by Nico, which to me means that I already have a good grasp on acoustic fingerpicking - it will just take me a couple of months to get totally used to fast strumming with the light nylon pick. I know I talk about this a lot - but I'd really like to record more, possibly record some youtube videos instead of just mp3s. After I get around 20 songs recorded, I'd like to look into either playing out at open mics or something, or maybe I'll take an ad out in craigslist about starting a band.

If I could play like either of these dudes, I'd be happy. I don't need to play like Eddie Van Halen or anything.

Ben Gibbard Live at Theatre of the Living Arts on 2007-05-09


Elliott Smith Live at Black Cat on 1998-04-17 (April 17, 1998)

Killing off book a week reports

I'm killing off my book a week 2009 reports. My schedule at work has become horrendous all of a sudden, and the baby is occupying the majority of my free time - I have to carve out time for my personal pursuits like guitar and running, I even feel bad making time to do these things because my wife needs all the help with the baby she can get. She's also doing her Master's degree thesis, so it's really difficult for her to juggle school along with the demands of motherhood, I feel like I should be making myself available to help as much as possible. That's a way of explaining that I'll still be blogging, but I'm killing that particular series off because it seems like a waste of time, like I'm just posting links - I sure as hell don't have time to write reviews. I'm still on track for a book a week by the way, you can check my progress at goodreads.com on my sidebar.