Essential Elements

There are a few essentials that I simply can't live without, they are:


1) Music
2) Exercise
3) Love
4) Friends
5) Food
6) Shelter

These are my essentials, what are yours?

Evaporative Swamp Cooler Contest - "Essential Elements", enter to win a free fan and a chance for a free swamp cooler from Air-n-water.com!

Taking Care

So, for the past month we have been taking care of Dad, who had a problem with his heart which resulted in his having quadruple bypass surgery about 10 days ago. It's been nice having him here with us recuperating. I'm just not used to seeing him so frail, normally a stocky little Irishman always ready for a laugh. He is now trundling around the house during the day to his chair, tending his wounds, and the occasional walk around the cul-de-sac.

Stephani has been so wonderful. We have been like a couple of tag team wrestlers for the past month, switching duties as cook, planner, shopper, errand runner. All for a great cause though. The shirt he was wearing when he landed in Emergency was his prized Farnham Golf Club shirt, which was promptly cut from his body while they worked on him. The nice folks over in England at his beloved Farnham just sent a replacement shirt which arrived today. I want to see him teeing off wearing it real soon.

Needless to say, not much going on musically, though I am working on a couple of new songs quietly. One is called "Sunday Girl". which is kind of an ode to being a regular old married couple in LA, surrounded by TMZ, Beverly Hills, Collagen and staggeringly high divorce rates. I played it for Dad and he loved it. Stephani said "don't you already have a song that sounds like that?", well, no dear, and if you listen to the words, you would notice I just wrote you a love song. Wakey Wakey!

We did manage to get a little break in recently with a trip to New York City last weekend. We were in awe. So much has been written about New York, I can't top it, other than to say how amazing it was to walk the same pathway along Central Park West across from the Dakota Building to Central Park as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. We had the pleasure of meeting our friend Billi Baracuda from You Tube up in Union Square on Saturday night. He was as nice in person as he is in his videos, really creative and motivated. Food wise, let's just say it was gastric heaven, but we are back on the healthy food and daily walking around the mall. I am determined to not go through what poor Dad just went through.




Well, I hope to put some video clips from the trip up really soon. Stay tuned.

Taking A Break Can Be Good

Perhaps because it is so busy at work for me lately, and I have had some family health issues to be attentive to, and whatever spare time I have seems to be devoted to being a husband and songwriter. I started to cut back on the places I participated online. Here are the places I have been taking a break from.

Blogger

I took a bit of a break from blogging recently and it felt really good, but I missed having this format to ramble and rant. I've been enjoying Twitter, but I must say, I feel quite restricted by the 140 character limit, so I am thinking I might use this blog for expanded topics and updates, and point folks here with a tweet.

Making Videos

There has been quite a lot going on that I could Vlog about, but I just got tired of the process. One makes a video to update others, but so often what you get are a bunch of odd comments, or asshole kids posting stupid unrelated video responses.

MySpace


I haven't really been on MySpace too much lately. I have about the same friend count that I had about a year ago and don't feel the need to present myself as an artist looking for listeners because I am a bit inactive at present in terms of new recordings, and well, I would feel strange asking a complete stranger to friend me.

Rachel Fuller Forums

I used to visit this forum on a daily basis to check in, but since Rachel and Pete stopped doing In The Attic, and kind of left us to it, I feel a little sad when I am there. During the election I had some terse words with some fellow forum dogs and have felt a bit out of place ever since. I still listen to Rachel Fuller and Pete Townshend almost daily. I wish Pete would get the urge to blog again, what fun times those were.

Things I have been doing:

-> Walking in the mall every day during lunch
-> Picking up my guitar after work every day
-> Upgrading my home studio to be a dedicated Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
-> Watching "So You Think You Can Dance"
-> Lurking without posting on your blogs
-> Planting a veggie garden
-> Trimming palm trees in front of our house
-> Eating natural and healthy foods
-> Waiting in hospital waiting rooms
-> Logging on to Skype to see nobody is online or wants to talk
-> Reading Bob Lefsetz newsletters
-> Going to family events

Not much time left over really, but I do like to write, and I love to read and respond to your comments and checking out your blogs. I feel I should be writing something more deep here, letting you all know something more about me that you didn't know. Perhaps I am just a regular everyday normal guy.

Cool Sounds of Summer

A couple of years ago we purchased a portable Air Conditioning unit from the nice folks at Air & Water Inc. in Fountain Valley. It's really come in handy on several occasions when there is a heat wave.

Anyhow, they are running a really cool promotion where I can enter to win a free fan if I name three songs with the word "air" or "water" in the lyrics and provide a link from my blog to their web site. So, knowing a good thing when I see it, and a great marketing idea that I just might steal and do for myself, here goes.

Songs:

- "Solid Air" by John Martyn
- "The Air That I Breathe" by The Hollies
- "Something In The Air" by Thunderclap Newman

So, there you go guys. If you would like to do this for them, go to their Cool Sounds of Summer page on their web site.

I hope I fly on this guy's plane some day

Quite possibly the most entertaining flight attendant out there.

The Who Take To The Road

Watching pictures taken of The Who on tour this came to mind.


Everything in abundant supply
Except for the time that passes us by
To New York by white jet you flew
Starting as four, now only two

No more airstream, no more feed
No interruptions, just what you need
No light in the attic, nothing but static
On stage as you tune, it's all ending too soon

We have what it takes to ward off boredom
You traded an art life for rock n roll stardom
For pulling you here, and pushing you there
Because you made up a song, pulled it out of thin air?

And that song was the start
Something more than Pop Art
Pound the fist as you scream
Writing words from a dream

Strike the chord like a hammer
As we roar our approval
Blood drips from your finger
With a sharp nail removal
Still you strike it again as we build and then crash
Was it Baba O'Reilly? A guitar you could smash?

On the road for the last time
Who could ask more of you?
When you've given it all, and then some too
Will we get one more song if you're feeling alright?
Would you play "Tea and Theater"
And then say goodnight?

This n That, just a chat

Fly by The Jam (Cover)

Well, it took a little while to put this one together, but finally got "Fly" backing track done good enough to attempt a live demo. I hope you like it.

Abacus

Listen

The grass is screaming long
Midnight cars roll past
I've been chasing your room
While the summer lasts

So count it on your fingers
If we got it wrong
It's cause the days have no numbers
if we leave tonight
Then we leave it all behind

Drinking alphabetically
Cause the beauty's gone all sore
Honey dripping pale of skin
While there's bodies underneath, the floor

So count it on your fingers
If we got it wrong
It's cause the days have no numbers
If we leave tonight
Then we leave it all behind

words & music by Fionn Regan

licensed cover by yours truly.

So much left undone

I was going to write something about these heart palpitations, but got to thinking how stuff, once it's out on the Internet, is hard to wipe out, so we'll just say that I haven't been feeling myself. Last weekend I worked both days pretty much and have been driving pretty hard because things have not been going well at work. The economy sucks, everyone is afraid of losing their jobs so I have been working like a bastard trying to overt a total melt down at my company.

Two days ago I started getting wobbly feelings in my chest as my heart palpitated. It happened about 2 dozen times. Coughing usually settles it down. A year ago I saw a doctor about it, but after doping me and performing an physio-electrical study of my ticker by inserting a wire in my groin and sending it up into my aorta where he made it beat faster and faster for about an hour, he failed to make it palpitate so he could isolate the region that causes the electrical system in my particularly English heart to hickup. I think palpitations are kind of like peeing, you can't do it on command. So, there was no result to his experiment, he sent me on my way and I was never bothered by it, choosing to adapt an even healthier lifestyle, walking 6 sometimes 10 miles a day. The cost of those tests were enough to stop anyone's heart I tell you.

Today I've had several dozen episodes, and I've had this thought in my mind. What if this is it? What if, instead of my heart wobbling and jiggling for a few seconds, the palpitations caused cardiac arrest and I lost consciousness, and basically died. Yeah, this is what I have been thinking about as I try to work today, as I try to relax tonight. What would that be like for the family to have to deal with so close to Christmas?

The truth is, I really don't want to die for a long time. I feel there is so much left to be done and so many things to see come to fruition. Like watching our first African American President get sworn in, and witnessing in real time, America's image around the world get transformed back to what it was years ago. At the micro-level, I thought about my company's web site and what my replacement would do to it, or make of it. If they would figure out how to access it and keep it going. I thought about the several song tracks that I have with no vocals done, just music, waiting for me to feel up to it, which is what I should be doing tonight with Stephani away, but with this jiggling in my chest, I just want to be sitting still. I've been thinking about my dear Stephani all day and our little cat, and what might happen if I was gone. I am sure after a while she would meet, and I would want her to meet, someone as fantastic as me for sure. She has told me several times though how mad she would be at me for dying on her, so I need to work extra hard at staying alive man.

Anyhow, I thought I would pop this out there for whoever reads my blog to let you know what was on my mind today. I do hope everyone has a lovely Christmas. I mean it, really.