Jonathan Field - Maker of Random Stuff

I managed to organize my office/studio a little on Sunday. Enough so that I actually played some music and recorded an idea or two. Been a while since I’ve done that. I should probably make some kind of commitment, like recording one song per month or something. But that’s too much pressure. Maybe instead I’ll commit to thinking about recording one song per month.

I met up with Romi outside the House of Blues around 6PM. Did you know you can’t buy gum at Mandalay Bay? And I thought Vegas was an “anything goes” kinda town. They did have Mentos, though, so my evening was not ruined.

Inside we saw Gogol Bordello … self described “gypsy punks”. I thought it looked a little more like “Pirate Rock” myself. They put on an amazingly lively show, which included people marching around with bass drums and cymbals, and others who just danced frenetically. I eventually counted nine members — the only time they held still long enough was on their final bow. The lead singer had a big fluffy mustache.

Following up were Tegan & Sara. Their stage show was dramatic in it’s lack of random people flailing around on stage. But their catchy little tunes made up for it. I think I’ll check out that “So Jealous” album that’s getting around…

There was a standup comedian who appeared between each act on a big projection TV. Note: he got pretty good reactions with the words “pot” and “blowjob”.

Cake came on and did a decent job rocking out. But here I will digress… throughout the night the sound was bad. Now, I don’t consider myself a master sound technician, but I know I could have mixed this stuff better. I mean I could hardly hear the vocals for the first two acts, and while I could hear the vocals for Cake, the drums and guitar were pretty much buried. I’m not sure they even had the drum mics on at all — just the acoustic sound of the drums competing with the terrifically loud bass amp. I really just wanted to walk over there, slip the guy at the board a roofie, and mix that shit myself. I mean, just turning everything up to 11 would have been a start.

But despite that, I had a good time. And finishing off with great sushi just put it over the top. Now get back to work, dammit!

Today I cleaned out my refrigerator. There were items with expiration dates from 2004.

But that’s not all! Thanks to Aki, (whom I helped give a mohawk last month), I managed to get out and do something. Something cool, in fact. We went to a show — Strunz & Farah. They’re in the “World Jazz” category in iTunes, if that’s any help. They were darn good; playing in a smaller venue at Boulder Station, which was sold out. And even though I spent over a year as a percussionist by trade, I was introduced to a new rhythm instrument, the cajón. No, that’s not cojones, though it would be pretty impressive if a guy could make drum sounds with his balls. Anyways, no, it was basically a box with some beads on it. And this Cuban dude was able to get some mighty good world-beat sounds out of that thing. So props to Aki for spotting the show, and bringing a bunch of us along.

And then tomorrow night (after cleaning my bathroom or something else exciting, I suppose) I’m headed out to see Cake with my friend Romi. She paid for the tickets with blood. No, really. They’re like $75 a piece tickets and she got them by giving blood. That’s very expensive blood. Or perhaps she just gave a lot of it. Either way, I’m impressed.

Oh: and the Zappos party last week was fun. Lots of people got sick and threw up and got tossed out of the club on their ass. But not me. I just watched and laughed.

I’m not going to get into details, and I’m not sure what use it is, but I just want some kind of recognition that I have an inhuman ability to turn down what would seem to be incredible sex with hot women.

Fuck.

Or, rather, not.

So coming out of work today as I walked to my car I passed by the the next office building to ours. It was about 7PM, and pretty dark out, so I could see into the building where rooms were lit up. The corner room nearest me, as I passed, seemed to have some type of class going on. There were about twelve folks sitting at their desks, looking up towards the front of the room. A teacher or something was projecting images on the wall and speaking. All this seemed normal. But I found the projected image itself a bit odd: a terrifically unflattering close up of Michael Jackson… you know the look I’m talking about: where he looks like a burn victim geisha girl. The caption on the top of the picture said “Nose”. And though I couldn’t hear what they were saying through the glass, the teacher spoke about this until I lost interest and went home.

A class of plastic surgeons maybe? “Here’s what you don’t want to do to a… ‘nose’.”

Yes, I’m known for throwing around superlatives like a Scotsman throws cabers, but only six days into this year I feel I’ve already come across the best song and video of 2006.

Maybe I like it because it seems like something I’d do, if I was still awesome.

And real life fades just like dreams do.