Category: Blogs

  • the clown mayor

    For the short story, click this link: The Clown Mayor Last year, I entered the nycmidnight.com Short Story Challenge. The way it works is that you pay your entry fee, and then on the appointed day, the contestants receive an email with instructions: 2500 words, genre, a conceptual prompt that must be included in the […]

  • writing

    “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” — Hemingway My third semester at Berklee College of Music, I was in a Harmony/Composition class taught by a talented and accomplished composer whose name I can’t remember. He was blunt without cruelty. We always knew exactly what he […]

  • TPP 27 – IHA We Are Back

    TPP 27 – IHA We Are Back

    It seems impossible that it’s already been 3 months since the last episode with Duke Hunter. That episode was recorded in November. So essentially we have been quiet for the last 9 months. A lot of things have happened in my personal life including a move. It’s been difficult to locate all of the gear […]

  • Meta meta meta…

    This blog is always on my mind.  And I end up thinking a lot about why I don’t write more because it isn’t like I don’t have a lot to say. 

  • Let It Be – The Beatles – 1970

    I first heard Let It Be when I was 8 or 9 years old. 

  • My Body Is A Cage – Arcade Fire – 2007

    The hardest thing to do is start typing.  There’s all this defeat in silence and procrastination.  And our ambitions hold us up so high.  It’s just that life gets in the way every single day.

  • Be The Boss – Phantom Buffalo – 2009

    There are all these different ways to approach the same idea. And usually the simplest idea is the best. But experimentation is always the key to any progress. But I always end up coming back to the same idea. Consistency is really the key to a lot of things. The least confusing idea for this […]

  • One Man Band – Mexican Kids At Home – 2009

    My friend, Mark, that I was in several bands with is one of the most interesting characters I have ever known.  But I hate to use a forum like this to tell Mark Pringle anecdotes.  There are so many of them.  But for the love of God, I wish I knew where to contact him.  […]

  • I Don’t Know – Ozzy Osbourne – 1981

    Yes.  I’m going to write about Ozzy now. Three different people that found me on Facebook have said that one of the things that stands out in their memory of me 25 years ago was Ozzy Osbourne.  I was apparently an Ozzy freak when I was 11.  I do remember that shirt with the Blizzard […]

  • The Mother Of All Funk Chords – Kutiman – 2009

    One of the times I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , I was living in Boston and coming to terms with the idea that there are so many people trying to be heard.  There are so many voices in this world.  So many needs.  I became very depressed.  The idea of Quality […]

  • Born At The Right Time – Paul Simon – 1990

    Getting back into writing after everything that has happened in the last two weeks has been ridiculous.  Where do I pick up?  What do I say about how profound everything has been?  Or do I just ignore it all and write as if nothing has happened?  There no way to ignore it all.  I feel […]

  • Have You Ever Died – Benjamin Wesley – 2009

    I discovered this song a few weeks ago through some forgotten array of connections of music that I happened to be searching.  And this may seem like a strange song to have attached as a soundtrack to the birth of my second  child, but it only seems strange because of the title.  Have you ever […]

  • Television The Drug Of The Nation – Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy – 1992

    In 1990, I became enraged with the lies leading up to the Gulf War.  I was pretty isolated in my existence as a music student at Berklee.  We didn’t own a television, so I didn’t follow current events at all.  But the Gulf War was impossible to miss.  It was also proof of my argument […]

  • Biggest Fan – Voxtrot – 2006

    This week my writing has sucked.  In some cases, I knew what I was trying to say but couldn’t say it.  In other cases, I loved the song but wasn’t able to express it.  And there are hundreds of ways to explain this.  Some of the biggest excuses could involve new jobs, soul killing corporations, […]

  • Waiting for a War – The Morning Benders – 2008

    There’s this concept in sort of fringe American social and political groups that there will be a civil war in our lifetime.  This concept has probably been around since before the country was even founded.  Perhaps it’s even a human condition, but I don’t really know.  Mostly it seems like a bunch of white guys […]

  • Cold Hands/Chapped Lips – Hot Panda – 2009

    My six year old son’s favorite song right now is Cold Hands/Chapped Lips by Hot Panda.  He makes me drive around in the car so he can listen to it over and over again.  He calls it the “yeah yeah no no” song.  And I’m not just humoring him (although I am humoring him but […]

  • Ghost Under Rocks – Ra Ra Riot – 2008

    I keep having these waking moments where I am half dreaming about Lucy in a sort of twilight between one world and the next.  And I feel myself reaching for her, but I can’t get to her.  She’s almost here.  She just needs to be led by our voices, but she can’t understand what we […]

  • Fly Mode – Odd Nosdam – 2009

    I had this idea in my head in high school that I wanted to go to Princeton and major in English. Each year of high school took me further and further away from this goal. I could not keep it together for more than a week. Eventually I got kicked out of public school. St. […]

  • Changes – Yes – 1983

    Back in 1991, I was in Ear Training 4 at Berklee.  The teacher was awesome.  He had a lot of energy and he organized trips to Africa every couple years to study rhythm with an African tribe.  He was very exciting and dynamic.  One of those teachers you want to impress. Ear Training gets pretty […]

  • Make You Sing – The Sleepover Disaster – 2009

    I didn’t want to play commercial music.  Like actual songs for commercials.  It’s not what I got into music for.  –  I got sick of being in bands with flakes.  You work your ass off on rehearsing a band and then someone quits or just stops showing up.  –  All of the drama around working […]