Hungry For Something

Text of The Voice Mail.

I didn't get to bed until like 3:30 AM this morning, and when I woke up there was a message waiting on my phone. I was like "who called me at 4AM?" So I dialed the retrieval number and heard what sounds like a 13 or 14 year old urban youth chastising me for an unmet social engagement. Here's an mp3 of the message, and a transcript follows. Please note that this message contains vulgarity and should not be played/read aloud to small children or religious people.

"Man, Josh, you was supposed to meet me at the gas station so we could go eat them girls' coochie? Man you just don't know. I went, they was rubbin they pussy on my head -- felt so good. Man, then they was suckin' my dick, should have been there dude. Ah, I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Ok. First of all, let me assure you that I DID NOT MAKE PLANS TO MEET A TEENAGER AT A GAS STATION TO "EAT THEM GIRLS' COOCHIE", as he so eloquently put it. That said, I should like to figure out why the kid addressed me by name, and his tone did not sound like a smirky teen making a crank call, but rather exactly as his message suggests, like somebody who had actually made plans to do something and then was disappointed, but not angry, about his friend missing out on the fun and excitement.

A Brief But Sincere Moment of Appreciation.

I wanted to take a moment to appreciate my goodest pal Jessica Hopper, who is a fount of creativity, wit, and motivation that should be an inspiration to every human being on the planet for how one should live one's life.

Her blog tinyluckygenius aka the Unicorn's tear is up there with Drudge Report and Unisys Weather on my list of daily must-read websites, and has the honor of Best-Named Blog EVER EVER EVER not only because it's hilariously evocative, but every time I think of the name, I hear Jessica's voice say it aloud in my mind and it just makes me smile.

Jessica is one of the rarest of people, who not only have amazingly great ideas of the sort that most people chalk up to "great idea, will never happen" status; but she ACTUALLY GETS IT DONE. Case in point: When Jessica said "Hey I want to make an album of covers of love songs for Valentine's Day and get all my friends in on the action and have it done close enough to Valentine's Day to actually be relevant," I sort of chuckled to myself and said "Sure, Jessica, that sounds like a great idea!" while not really believing it since I'm a cynical bastard with no spare time to devote to such projects, nor the guts to make time. So of course it was much to my surprise that other less-cynical people, with much less free time than I, started buying plane tickets to Chicago to join in the fun, and after what I can only assume was much hard work and late night re-re-re-takes, managed to come up with the CD of amazingly amazing music which I found sitting on my coffee table last night.

As soon as the first faux-but-not-too-faux soul diva melismas of Mary J. Blige's "It's Never Been" ceded into a raucous laugh-infused breakdown, I knew this was a work of genius and stupendous achievement. Tim Kinsella's deadpan delivery of Latimore's "Let's Straighten It Out" underscores how the whole affair walks a tightrope of balls-out killer mix-tape fodder without falling into either pit of self-indulgence or cross-eyed irony.

Anyway, I just wanted to express my appreciation to J-Ho and the entire crew of folks who worked on Muy Romantico. I'm sorry I could only lend gear to the project and not more of my time.

I Need A Vacation.

I came to this realization last night after a particularly effective editing/remix session on a String Theory cut that's been in gestation for close to 2 years now. It's gotten to the point where I cannot hear the song as anything but the collection of its parts, and trying to figure out where and how to cut/boost/edit/filter it is nearly impossible. Somehow Nate and I managed to get the arrangement nailed and a very good first cut at a final mix, so the end of the tunnel is in sight.

Which brings me to the vacation. I need to escape this city, if only for a week or so. I'm in the middle of so many tunnels right now, some of which have more light at the end than others. If I can get thru them all I'm going to reward myself with a vacation to someplace warm and sunny without buildings or desks or feuding co-workers or salty footprints all over the floor.

After the editing session, I was winding down by watching some late night PBS, and one of my favorite up-too-late shows, Rick Steves Travels In Europe, came on. He was travelling through France, and something about the shots of big old chateaus with woods and fields around them hit me deep down and I almost started crying from all the stress of everything going on in my life, and wanted so bad to just teleport myself through the television screen into old Europe and leave all this crap behind for somebody else to deal with it.

Years since my last vacation: 3, as of April.