Michelle Yo did not have her camera. Colin mentioned that it was a shame because she wouldn't be able to take an up-close photograph of his sweaty face. I then revealed that I had a camera.




Taking a break at a dance party.

A. Brown, C. Loughlin

M. Margarita

Skateboarding
Saturday, June 29, 2008

I went out and skated twice today.

A good portion of my youth was spent skating the sketchiest grindboxes, while drinking far too much soda, and having my pothead friends smoke in the woods nearby. Instead of getting heavy into weed like a lot of my friends had, I spent all my afternoons skating around, and in a way it helped prevent me from becoming another casualty of suburban boredom.

I also have some large format pictures that need developing soon. I've also been writing many guitar riffs.

I've been worried about falling into a creative rut ever since taking an office job, but lately I've been really active and it has made my life that much more fulfilling. I figure that I just needed to take my foot off the gas for a while, and reorganize myself. So we'll see where things will go from here.

Saturday, June 21

Saturday, June 21


I've been really into taking cell phone pictures lately. They remind me of diana camera, or holga camera photographs. Probably due to the fact that all cameras use really shoddy lenses that results in a strange effect.

Today I helped a woman with registering a class for her child over the phone. It turned out she was already in the system, so I started verifying information to keep everything up to date. I got to the emergency contact part, and one of the names was what I can only guess the recently deceased husband of the woman on the phone. She could hardly say anything, and barely got through in telling me he had passed. You don't hear pure grief and loss like that in a voice too often.

It made me realize that almost everyday, this woman has had to confront and accept the fact that someone she loved intensely is gone forever. That happened early this morning, and it's now past midnight and it hasn't left me. I know death is a part of life, but that never makes it easy.

The next call was someone with questions. We ended up joking around.

Life is a strange and complex mess.

Driving Ranges

The best summer activity.

So I'm going to post a bunch of audio clips of me playing guitar. This was all recorded by resting my headphones which are connected to the little pockets amp I sometimes use, over the computer mic. Obviously the quality is sketchy at best, but screw it. Also, these are all really short clips from songs, not the complete song. I know you all have ADD, so it probably works out.

I wrote this riff about 15 minutes ago, with no accompanying riffs yet.

My guitar style over the last couple years has become more and more influenced by the southern style of what's called "stoner metal". Basically, Sabbath inspired stuff. Other major bands like Kyuss, and Sleep carried the torch as well. Melodic riffs played on a low tuning.

One of my oldest riffs in that style. I had more parts to it, but I switched my tuning since then and it's kinda thrown it off a bit, so I need to re-write.

Aaaand another. I got oodles of different riffs in this tuning/style.

But also, a lot of my writing has been influenced by me just sitting alone and playing to nothing. My first "real" electric guitar is a Fender Telecaster which I still use to play brighter, and less "heavy" music. Some quick samples.

One of the few thing's I've ever matched vocal melodies to. Simple, but one of my favorites. Maybe soon I'll have the version with vocals up, as that's when it really sounds full.

This is the oldest one on here. Close to the oldest riff I still remember and play. I probably wrote this 4-5 years ago, if I had to guess. Probably the most traditional in progression, and melody.

The latest one. Really incomplete. I think it has a lot of potential. I dunno, it's something.