Tag Archives: writing

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk About Usernames and Passwords and Thanksgiving

I’m on the studio computer a couple of days before Thanksgiving while my wife is entertaining a friend upstairs in the living room, and in an effort to be courteous but wanting still to make progress on the music listening/writing project, I decide to listen to music in the basement and record my experience inContinue reading “We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk About Usernames and Passwords and Thanksgiving”

#603: A is for Aurora

It’s Halloweenand next up in this October listeningritual is oneof the least frighteningfamous human beingson the planet.But she is kind of other-worldly, sprite-like, impish, adorable, and monstrously talented. Watching her interviewsand clips of her stage banterhas become a favorite pastime. She’s funny, personable, almost awkwardly honest, a kind of personality that is winning, irresistible.It happens,Continue reading “#603: A is for Aurora”

#597: A is for Angel

Let’s say you’re a youngmusician in the early 70’s with big rock star ambition. First, you need a schtick, a look, something glammy, something preposterous. Yeah, Cooper did the make-upthing, but you could go bigger, and you watch as some fellow musicians from neighboring New York Citygo the whole hogon the face-paint, so yougots toContinue reading “#597: A is for Angel”

#592: A is for Arooj Aftab

I go to a tequila bartonight, not for tequila, but for food, in part because it’s right behind the liquor store, where I reallywant to go, but also becauseI need something to eat. No kitchen. Everything on the food menu is preparedhere inside of an air fryer.I can easily go elsewhere,elsewhere, but for convenienceand economicsContinue reading “#592: A is for Arooj Aftab”

#571: You’ll Always Be Right Here

After something like 25 yearsliving on different sides of a widecontinent, the two friends decideto start writing music together. He’d arrange a musical idea,play bass guitar to a click track, maybe add some keyboard, and share these tracks with hisfriend via the mighty google drive. His friend, then, would downloadthese tracks into his own homestudio,Continue reading “#571: You’ll Always Be Right Here”

#559: There is something odd and possibly wrong

(Here’s a poem loosely modeled after a formal structure invented by Donald Justice. It was yesterday’s prompt from NaPoWriMo, but I found it especially challenging. This one took me two days) I There is something odd and possibly wrong about writing a poem with the Notes app, at a gate in the Atlanta airport, no less.FewerContinue reading “#559: There is something odd and possibly wrong”

#554: A Friendship Ghazal

All my best friends are musicians, it seems, which is no surprise, Cool cats who sing, strum, pluck, pound, mix, and write, not a surprise. I married one some 39 years ago and we’re still together, drumming. I did the easy part, but she gave birth to one, a great drummer, surprise. Guitar players, whoContinue reading “#554: A Friendship Ghazal”

#553: A History of Drumming

Today’s poem is very loosely a poem. It’s a little essay broken into lines so as to imitate a poem, a pretty standard technique of mine. I tend to be pretty liberal about what constitutes a poem and what does not. Like most discussions around genre and form, it’s really only interesting if one findsContinue reading “#553: A History of Drumming”

#550: That Guy

Wednesday night at the John Grant concert, my friend and I sat mesmerized by his witty stage banter, his beautiful voice, one man, a grand piano, and a synth. A low volume rock show, in between songs after the enthusiastic applausewe could hear the theater seats creak,and while he played, even in the quietestmoments, IContinue reading “#550: That Guy”