Mango Pudding Blues 3.0

IS IT WRONG TO EAT GREENS IN A BOX?
Hell if I know. Perfect florets of maché encased in glassine plastic tombs? Frisée? Radicchio? Baby romaine? Wily produce finally reduced to squared off product? Picked, packed, prewashed, shipped and merchandised by armies of men? Trucked through the night in precisely orchestrated campaigns of freshness and plunked down by me next to my tenderloin with chimichurri? Tossed with sundried tomatoes and goat cheese and baby beets? Bedded down beneath the szechaun peppercorn-encrusted seared tuna?

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Sunday, March 16, 2008

DISCIPLINE
Scales and warmups daily for 10 to 15 minues. Blues-based two-handed improvisation daily for ten minutes. Then a run-through of the repertoire and work on the latest two or three songs. If I like a song, I’ll keep playing it. The ones I don’t like, I dump after I get them. I’m idly working up a schmaltzy arrangement of Walk On the Wild Side. I’m also working on a heartbreakingly bright improvisation based on the theme for Mango Pudding Blues, which you may have downloaded from this website earlier. And theory. Endless transcriptions of notes and scales to try to understand the architecture of sound. Noise divided by time.

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Saturday, March 15, 2008

A FEW THINGS I MIGHT NOT HAVE MENTIONED TO YOU DURING THE LAST LONG SILENCE

I bought a new piano. My father died. I decided to get more serious about my career as a graphic designer. I went to Thailand again, this time with the lovely Killer. Spent some time in Chaing Mai during the Loi Kraton festival. Magic. Went to New York City with on a brotherly love roadtrip with my brother to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of my father. Had my house infested by rats. Had a waterpipe burst in the ceiling over my dining room, which sounds like bad news but was good news, since the insurance paid for replacing the ugly ceiling with a very pretty new one and the old hardwood floor with wildly cool bamboo flooring. Bought a new gas stove when the old one conked out. I loved the old one, but the new one is better. Has a griddle on the middle upon which I make my long-suffering girlfriend her two favorite meals; blueberry lemon griddle cakes and grilled goat cheese sandwiches with onion jam. Got a bottle of ultrafine aged balsamico. I mean the really good stuff. It was for Christmas from my brother and his boyfriend, who are the finest. Bought a new spring coat. Urban grey. Very cool. Ate a lot of sushi. Ran a lot. Listened to lots of Miles Davis and Wolfgang Dauner and Lou Reed. Played some pretty cool gigs with the gamelan, including two wild fusions with jazz players and ghanaian drummers.

Well, that about brings us up to date. What have you been doing?

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