"What are you, a f*#@in FREAK?!"

This was the question that was posed to me by David Sokol, the man who owns Euphoria Studios, a rehearsal studio where we shot a promotional video in New York City.



But let's back up. I had been getting accustomed to the piano for the last few minutes or so when he walked in and asked me:

"Who did you study with?"

"Um...actually, I'm self-taught on piano, and I've only been doing THIS music for the last few years."

That's when he posed the other question.

After the shoot, he approached James Lawrence, the manager-type that I'm working with up in NYC [and who I stayed with, along with Valerie, my second cousin - and two of the bests hosts you can imagine], and told him this:
"Look, you guys don't have to tell me the truth about him. I know he's not REALLY self-taught, and that he's been doing this for much longer than he says."

James told him it was actually the truth.

"Whatever. I don't believe it."

I was actually interested in what Mr. Sokol might have to say about what I was doing, because I knew he'd had a lot of well-known jazz and pop musicians in his studio, like Herbie Hancock, Suzanne Vega, Joe Jackson, and Victor Wooten, to name a few. So I was happy to find out that was impressed, apparently.
So I left for New York last Friday afternoon, the 18th. I can tell you that arriving at the airport and getting checked in and walking in to the airport; I felt unbelievably, incredibly proud. I had this big smile that I was actually trying to tone down a little. I just felt so great and so proud that I was officially headed to New York with my music, by invitation.Now I'm on the plane. When we started approaching New York, I didn't have a window seat, but I tried my best to look out the window. The sea of lights was still very impressive. At one point, I caught a glimpse of tall, glowing buildings, and I couldn't help but tell the person sitting next to me that this was my first time in New York, and that THAT brief glimpse was really something. And it was.
We walked into the room, and it immediately struck me as much smaller than I was expecting. There was also a drumset set up right in the line of vision. So I sat down and started getting acquainted with the piano, but I was feeling pretty stiff and unnatural for a while. By the time we were ready to start shooting though, around 35 minutes later, I was feeling better...
The shoot was Saturday afternoon. I was feeling a little tired and stiff when I got to the piano, but when the cameras started rolling, every piece [seven of them] except Ballerina's Blues was take one, and that was take two. We could've done a pick-up where I had to stop. There were three cameras rolling the whole time, and the for guys worked together very well and apparently got some great stuff.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying the shoot. James told me afterwards that he noticed quite a few amusing reactions from the camera guys - who were very cool, and seemed to be very excited about everything. In fact, everyone who was either there at the shoot, or who saw some of the footage afterwards, seemed to be very excited about it. I didn't even want to see any of the footage for a while, but Moose [the editor and one of the cameraman] showed up at James' apartment the next day [where I was staying] and just had to show us some of the footage. Looks good!
On Monday afternoon, I was in Union Square park, and I stopped to talk to someone who had a sign that said "Talk to me about living in the now moment." Turns out they were filming it, so I signed a release. After we talked, someone from the New York Times came up to me and asked me why I stopped, because he was doing a story on it. So, I got his information. New York. What can you say?

There's also what seems to be an endless amount of not just great, but unique restaurants. We went to five or six of them - they were all great.

I really enjoyed New York. I must say that it's a heck of a city with a lot going on. It's hard to sum up - and there's a lot I haven't seen yet.

That's the story! Thanks for reading!

whew

Well, here I sit at 3:29am in my room. I woke up an hour ago or so and I'm just relaxing while I can here before I go jog/walk/run a few miles and then go rehearse for a few hours.

I've been absolutely busting my behind for the last couple days and it's going to continue until Friday, when I get on the plane for New York.

On Wednesday, I'm doing a little photo shoot in the Central West End here in St. Louis, so I've been doing some pretty serious exercise. On Sunday, I jogged 3.6 miles, and yesterday morning, 5 miles. I've lost around 3 or 4 pounds! In two days! Is that bad? I'm actually feeling good, just tired.

So it's been a couple of long days so far, ranging from 17 to 20 hours each. It's a bit of a balancing act, because it's not like I can just sit at a piano for terribly long periods of time because I will overstrain my hands. Not physically exhaust them, but just put my fingers through too much percussive impact. The way I play is really eprcussive and impactful, so, I'm trying to be conservative about my playing time while also making sure I'm getting the pieces down.

We're shooting the video here: http://www.euphorianyc.com. Looks like an interesting place with a colorful history.

That's about it for now! I'm going to get ready to run, and then, eventually, go down to Webster to rehearse.