NINE Playing background dinner music is one of the best places to people watch that I know of. It’s better than a bench in the mall, better than a county fair, better even than a cafe table on a busy street. When you’re on the piano you may stare all you want and no one [...] Continue Reading »
nine. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
2eight. the men in black suits.
1EIGHT My warmup for a gig starts many hours before. First I walk a mile to Andy’s and borrow the Neon. I head downtown to Market Square, park in the alley, enter Cafe Four and go down the elevator to a storage room. The keyboard case is in the back, through piles of crates, [...] Continue Reading »
working days, excitement about a new found work of Steinbeck
2When Ashley and I loaded up and headed for the artistic promise land, I heavily relied on The Grapes of Wrath as a source of determination and hope. And also as an answer when the day of reality and hard facts was laid out flatly before us. Throughout our scrambles since, whatever mused Steinbeck we [...] Continue Reading »
good monday and why it is so
0(by Levon who is listening to Stephanie Nilles on 11 O’clock Rock knoxivi.com) Good Monday. It looks like Fall. I get that familiar feeling, looking at those last few squash and trying to stomach them. I just discovered an artist and I’d like to share her with you. Stephanie Nilles, from New Orleans. She is [...] Continue Reading »
i’d like to say a lot about nothing and a little (but a lot) about Ashley
6Tomorrow is kind of a big day for us, our seven year anniversary. We’ve been talking about what we’re going to do for a while and it’s looking like we’re going to build a couch. Ashley has some concepts, all of them minimalist, and she feels I am qualified to make the cuts and assemble [...] Continue Reading »
happy independence day, and an invitation
6Ashley and I were reminiscing last night, thinking back to all the 4th of Julys we’ve had. With the way we rotate the big holidays, you know the winter ones, we can’t always recollect where we were, what year, what we did, or all of it. However, we accounted for every Independence day in the [...] Continue Reading »
getting it together
5A month ago I was preaching about taxes and organization. (Our Qualified Joint Venture blog) Ashley and I have a very complicated tax situation, nobody wants me to drag it out and explain it, but I emphasize that it’s very complicated. Thats why I bought the army file cabinet and promised not to fill it [...] Continue Reading »
writing music
4I heard it said that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate effort to develop accomplishment at something. Ashley says running the Elton John catalogue does not constitute as productive practice. Specifically, it takes 10,000 hours of placing oneself at the edge of current ability. If she doesn’t want to hear Elton then it’s going to [...] Continue Reading »
a good saturday
0Ashley and I fit a 10X8 tent, a couple wooden tables, an easel and a plastic crate full of crafts into the Corolla most Saturday mornings. After that we shove paintings and wood blocks into the crevices before jumping in the car and trying not spill the first mug of coffee or slam a canvas [...] Continue Reading »
last stop on the 4 train tonight is 125
4(from Levon) I’ve been quiet on here because I thought we had turned a corner and we try to keep this a story of hope. The hope is there, but the circumstances have left me brimming to push the story of the Flight of the Walker’s forward. I’ll need to back up a bit. Ashley [...] Continue Reading »