Thursday, October 27, 2005

happiness is...

I start pulling up to the gate of the townhouses where I live last night at 2 am. It's one of those gates where you need a code to open it. This gate also acts up sometimes and won't open.

Well, there was a car sitting there when I was getting ready to make the turn left off the street and over to the gate.

I figured there was something wrong with the gate again.

I started to turn in, and then I noticed that there was something pointed out of the driver's side window of the car. It was as if it was directed at the code/talk box.

I looked at it. It was bigger than a finger.

It actually looked like a gun.

I drove away. It didn't make any sense. WAS it a gun? It sure looked like one. Maybe he was talking to somebody through the talk box, trying to get them to open the gate. Maybe he just wanted me to see it so that he wouldn't be trapped with my car if he couldn't get in.

Anyway, I drove around for a few minutes and ended up parking close by, climbing up to where my place is, looking around cautiously, VERY cautiously peeking down to the gate.

There was no one there.

So, I got back in my car and drove to the gate. I was kind of scared when I was putting in my code, but it's pretty hard to lie in wait in a car around there if you're trying to get in.

If it was, indeed, a gun, here's the feeling I get about what happened:

This guy was trying to see his ex-girlfriend. He was talking to her over the talkbox trying to get her to open the gate.

If it WASN'T a gun, I really don't know what else it could've been.

But it was hard to wrap my mind around it and accept it for a couple reasons. First of all, you could only see the outline of it b/c it was dark. You could DEDUCE what it was, but it was hard to be completely sure. If it was a guy brandishing it, maybe not even in his car, I couldn't really deny that it was a gun.

Second of all, why would it be aimed at the talkbox, as it appeared to be?

Now that I think about it, I had looked up a movie earlier that day called "Penn and Teller Get Killed". The premise of it is that Penn says during an interview that he wishes someone would try tp hunt them down and kill them. It would help them to 'not sweat the small stuff."

Whatever the case...it definitely made me think.

I mean...what if that stupid cat picture post was the last thing I'd ever done in my earthly life?

Sometimes, you just gotta go for it.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

more to do

Well, they lost. Ah well. Some fans hung out for a long time after the game and gave everybody a curtain call. That's St. Louis for you.

I made a little trailer for my upcoming album, and you can see it here: http://media.putfile.com/preview1116. I need to get it up on my own page, but I just haven't made much headway with that yet.

It's actually more of a 'teaser' than a 'trailer'. A couple people have said they'd like to see more in it. For the most part, though, it's going over very well.

There's a lot to do. The artwork and layout for the CD needs to be finished. I mean, we've got the cover, but that's actually about it. We need a back cover, spine label, and maybe a booklet on the inside flap. It's a digipak, which is where the CD comes in a cardboard and plastic folding thingy...if you know what I mean.

I actually had a little problem with the people I'm working with to make this thing. For whatever reason, the rep I was working with from the manufacturing company was not very fast in giving me a quote on the project price. In fact, after more than two weeks and several e-mails, I still didn't have one. So, I had to get a little feisty [which I'm known to do if I think it's justified], and we've worked it out and we're back on track.

And, I hate doing that. I don't LIKE to get feisty, it's just that sometimes it's important to stand up for yourself. If you don't feel like you're being treated fairly, or if you think someone is out of line, I think, by all means, you need to speak up.

But some people relish those opportunities. I don't. I hate it.

But I try not to back down when it happens.

As of now, we're also thinking of making one side DVD. We'll see how that shapes up. But we can't do any filming until December, apparently.

So, there's more to do. But do the more I shall. Or whatever.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

simply miraculous



I turned off the game after it looked like they had no hope left. I was punished for my lack of faith by missing one of the biggest home runs in baseball history...especially if they come back in the series.

BUT, I got to see it played over and over and talked about and analyzed. So, I've lived it sufficiently now.

Albert. What a player. The only people you can compare him to, statistics-wise, are Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. And he's only 25.

He also makes $14.25 million a year! I didn't know that for some reason.

Anyway, I was virtually born a Cardinals fan, you see. Some of my earliest memories are of not being able to go with my dad to the 1982 World Series games he'd won tickets to. He took HIS dad.

Sports is a funny thing. I mean, THE BETTER TEAM'S GOING TO WIN! That's how it works! Yet, anyone with any attachment whatsoever to any team is invariably going to experience at least some disappointment when that team loses.

And, of course, the exceptions to that aforementioned rule exist...like how the Cardinals weren't granted the final out in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series due to a clearly bad call by the first base umpire, Don Dentkinger, that Jorge Orta was out.

It's been named The Worst Call of All Time by many sports media outlets.

See...

OK...

CAN'T THEY CHANGE IT AFTER THE FACT IN SUCH CASES?!?!

I mean, if the call is WRONG, if the umpire just made a mistake, CAN'T THEY SAY "Well, the video clearly shows the call was errant. The team that deserved to win has now been awarded the out."

Anyway, whatever happens, the Cardinals showed everyone tonight what's made them the winningest team these last two years. There really are inspiring characters on that team everywhere you look.

Fortunately, it is still just a game. It can be great theatre [and tonight was some the best sports theatre in quite a while], it's pretty metaphorical of life, and, of course, it's great to be able to share in something in a communal way in a fashion that sports can provide.

It's pretty awesome, really.

So, 'just' a game?

Sure.

But, hey?

Isn't EVERYTHING just a game?















But Jorge Orta was SAFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, October 16, 2005

a four-day odyssey




Wednesday

Slept from 12:00am until 12:30am.

Got on the road at 3:30am headed for Champaign, Illinois, with my mother, to pick up my brother Matt. Foggy conditions, and some very bloody deer carcuses on the road, which we ran over.

Arrived at Matt's at around 6:50am. Left about 15 minutes later.

Get a little sleep in the car while Matt drives. We have to be in Nashville in time to meet with someone from the Nashville Symphony front office who listened to the CD and wanted to meet me b/c he couldn't come to the banquet. My uncle Michael gave the symphony my CD.

Oh yeah, didn't I tell you? We were driving to Nashville b/c I was going to perform in an NAACP banquet. Something my uncle Michael set up for me, as he is part of it.

We roll into town sometime around 1:15pm, which is when I woke up from a short nap. Matt and my mother are having difficulty finding the symphony offices, but we eventually get there with time to spare.

Meet with Alan Valentine, who, as we learn only when he gives us his card halfway through the meeting, is the president and CEO of the Nashville Symphony.



He really complimented me on the music and said that he makes an effort to hear new things. Most of the time it's OK, he said, but every once is a while you hear something really good. So, no balogna. He likes the music.

Nothing against balogna...even though the way it's spelled is silly.

I asked him about agents, and he said he would give my CD to an agent from the Agency for Performing Artists that the Nashville Symphony works with. We'll see if anything comes of that. There's never any telling if something like that will work out.



Cool logo. Again: never any telling with these things. We'll see. It may prove that they're not even the right agency for me.

Anyway...

We go to Ruby Tuesday's to eat. I'm already dead tired and feeling beleaguered about several things, in spite of the good experience that the meeting was.

Thursday

I sleep from around 1 am until around 8. Definitely good, but still a short night for someone who got almost no sleep the night before.

Need to get into the venue [the Grand Ballroom at the Renaissance Hotel] to see if I need sound reinforcement and to get used to the piano. We can't get in until 3pm, which is when the piano tuner is scheduled to come in.



We get there at three. No piano tuner. He shows up at 3:15.

The piano tuner proceeds to make what is usually a half-hour process into three times as long. Taking cell phone calls. Being overly thorough. Me somehow not losing my mind. Remember, I need to get ON the piano for the aforementioned reasons.



I finally get on, and, quite The cool picture at the top is one Matt took of me from when I finally got to try out the piano.

And so, the wait to perform. I get onstage and everything feels right. A good performance:



I left the building and walked around [as is my custom]. It was the first time I'd been in this part of downtown Nashville. All the big venues and everything. Quite nice. Someone asked me if he could shine my shoes and I told him no. But, I changed my mind and turned around. Got my first shoe shine.

Didn't expect to sell any CDs, but ended up selling them all. The CDs were home-burned and home-labeled: NOT what I want most people to have. So, please don't ask me for a CD yet if you're a friend or family member [unless you're Mom, Dad, Matt, or Nick.] The official CD will be just as good manufacturing-wise as anything you can buy in a store.

But that was my 'pre-release' [a term I think I may have invented], and it sold out.

Friday

Couldn't get to sleep until 4-something am. Woken up at 8-something am. Felt like CRAP. STILL not a full night of sleep. We got on the road for the next 11 hours or so while we wentback to Champaign, dropped off Matt, had a couple fruitless enterprises, spoke with Nick, my little brother, briefly, and finally started home for St. Louis.

Then, today, to my suprise, my mother has come back again from Champaign with my brother's old computer [which has been replaced with a NEW one], along with a new monitor, keyboard, and speakers! So, all of the sudden, I now own a GOOD COMPUTER for the first time in my life! Thanks Matt and Mom!

...and it's NICE! Real, real nice. It stacks up very well with the really nice computers they have at Webster. In fact, I think they're identical in quality. GREAT!

It's actually a big deal: the first time I won't have to rely on Webster's technology to do computer tasks that rise above the Atari Pong standard. Wow.

And NOW, I get to REST!!!!

Matt took all of these cool pictures, by the way.

Monday, October 10, 2005

The Blame Game

I have decided to personify a few things I don't like and insult them.

Screw you, Confusion.

Hey, Grumpiness. Yeah, you. YOU LOOK LIKE A BABOON.

Hey there, Complacency! What's up, bro? Uh-huh...yeah, sure, JERK!

Well, if it isn't Whatever-Makes-People-Walk-By-And-Look-At-You-Coldly. Good to see you again, ya BAG O' CRAP.

Hello, Gas Prices! ASS Prices! Bye!

Who do we have here in the mirror? Hmm...well, I think I can accept myself today. You lucked out, Me.

yay

Friday, October 07, 2005

profound

You.

You.

WHO ARE YOU?

I am Kenny...to whom am I speaking?

ME. WHO AM I?

You are you...

...which is me.











Man, I gotta lay off that Cherry Coke.