My friend asked me to play a few songs with her at Eddie’s Attic. I said okay.

I called her today to ask what time I needed to be there, knowing from the times I have played there before that Shalom the sound guy likes things to happen in an orderly fashion, and rightly so. He prefers that you be early, do a sound check, and get everything squared away so his job doesn’t have to be any harder than necessary.

So it was with this in mind that I met the arrival time of 8pm for an 8:30 gig with some skepticism. I like this friend, though, so I’m game to do whatever I can for her and her project.

So, I packed up my guitar, my amp, my pedal board, and my box of cables and adapters and miscellaneous shit and hauled it all down into the car, being careful not to bang the amp around because the delicate tubes will break if you do. I started up the car and drove out to Decatur, about a 30 minute haul. I got there at 8 on the button, and parked in a lot about a block behind Eddie’s. The parking attendant advised me to “Rock on!” when I told him where I was going. He charged me $3 to park just like the sign said.

I put the miscellany box under my left arm and grabbed my guitar case with my left, hefting my pedal board with my right. My amp’s handle is broken so I have to carry it like a baby in my arms, which is fine because it’s old and delicate like I said. Anyway, I had to carry all that shit at once so I could cut down the load in to two trips.

I began plodding up the alleyway to the door, meeting the obligatory homeless guy there who offered to help. It seems that almost every venue has their homeless guy skulking about waiting for musicians to happen by so they can offer to help. I have never taken them up on their offers. They usually proceed straight from offering to help to asking for money, and I barely have enough of that for myself. My standard reply is “Sorry man, you see what I do for a living.” They seem to accept this.

I went up the ten or so brick stairs to the door of the club with all that shit weighing me down something fierce. The worst, as I knew, was yet to come. I had hoped for a passing soul to open the door for me, but was disappointed, so I performed a delicate and sweating maneuver on the handle with my fingertips, around the pedal board’s handle. I kicked a foot in and got the door open, which left only the flight of stairs.

Yes, the flight of stairs. I was beginning to sweat now, but I work out 5 days a week so I like to think I am in some kind of shape. I made it to the top, where the door guy emerged from behind his podium to see me make the last few steps. “All.. most.. there…” I groaned for his benefit. He chuckled.

He didn’t try to get me to pay as I was obviously a guitar player, between the long hair, the black Tshirt and the black Converse high tops. Oh, and the guitar.

I went through the double doors to the listening room where someone was on stage looking like they were ready to play. I set all the shit down and took a few breaths. Shalom the sound guy approached me, wearing a less than welcoming expression.

“Who are you with?” he asked.

I told him. He went and found my friend at the bar making out her song list. They had a short conference. I heard him say “just that it’s all already set up,”. I knew then that it was going to be a short gig for sure.

My friend came over. She apologized, and said that I wasn’t going to be able to play.

“Ok,” I said. “Grab that guitar.” I pointed.

She picked it up, and I got my miscellany box and pedal board back in either hand, turned around, and headed back down the stairs. My friend followed along with my guitar, apologizing profusely, and we repacked my car together outside. I said goodbye, assuring her that I wasn’t mad, and headed for home, light three dollars and an hour or so of time.

And that is what my rockstar life is like, sometimes. Other times girls kiss my face.

Behold the awesome power of the Locktop.

Yes, of course I have been slobbering over the fancy new MacBooks at the Apple store. I want one so badly that I’m indestinguishable from a heavily sedated crazy person, except for my recently-washed underpants.

However, it is impossible to overstate the aforementioned awesome power of my current laptop, pictured above. It is called the Locktop.

Here are its specifications:

That’s right, the Locktop was given to me free of charge by my friend Doug. It’s really hard to spend $2k on a new laptop, sexy though it may be, when you have one that works (in the strictest sense) sitting around the house.

Nevermind that misuse of the Locktop may cause grave bodily harm including (but not limited to) the breakage of any number of bones if dropped from sufficient height, burning of private areas, or worse, radiation of said private areas.

Still, it does have that awesome Frylock sticker.

UPDATE: God damnit, now the Locktop is broken. I can’t get the wireless card to work at all. Fuck!

Dear Jim Hodgson,

Thank you for your interest in iTunes.

After careful consideration of your application, we believe that the most efficient way to get your content up on iTunes in a timely fashion would be for you to deliver the content through one of the several digital service providers with whom we currently work.

Well fuck. Now I have to try to find a back door. Too bad Apple and Steve aren’t as supportive of the indies as they implied at first.

Update: I just signed up for TuneCore, and they promise my songs will be on iTunes in six to eight weeks! Huzzah!

I could tell she was a little embarassed about the house, and the neighborhood. As a socially conscious intellectual woman, her parents huge spread was a bit of a political liability. I chose not to make fun of her about it.

I found a mesh back ballcap in the backseat of her car and put it on, looking at myself in the mirror as she backed into the street. She raised an eyebrow at me but said nothing.

Encouraged, I opened her glove compartment and found a pair of sunglasses, which I immediately put on. I have a compulsive need to put on sunglasses, you see.

“Be careful with those,” she warned, “they’re so Prada.”

I was careful with them.

We rode in silence for a bit in her dirty import sedan. I became increasingly unnerved with the speed of her driving, but I didn’t let it show. I was much more concerned about the fact that she drove exclusively with her knees.

Her eyes were flicking back and forth from the road to the pinestraw needles trapped under her windshield wipers as they flapped haphazardly in the wind, making small but insistant ticking noises on the windshield.

“I mean, these are annoying. Can’t you understand that?” she exclaimed, pointing at the flapping needles.

It was the last time we laughed together.

Observe!

You are looking at the final copy of the CD art for my EP, Beep Beep Awooga. It is finally done, and the order should be placed today! Hooray!

I’m totally stoked about it. I can’t wait to get it back!

It should be available for online sale in the coming weeks. I told some people two weeks, but I have learned from people who know that it’s more like four. Yes, that sucks, but it’s better than five.

Yeehaw!