Caesar's Logbook

Carpet Installation is Fun (and other lies)

2010-01-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

This week ends the epic saga of our carpet replacement and here's how it all unfolded (unrolled?).

Carpet installers were scheduled to arrive on Monday morning and I'm told it might take a good portion of the day.

Over the weekend, the last weekend of my three-week vacation, I moved EVERYTHING we own (with the exception of the few extra-large pieces of furtiture the installers would be moving for a fee) into the non-carpeted areas of the house (which is basically the bathrooms, living room, and kitchen). I tried to not utilize the garage as that's an extra walk that I didn't want to have to endure. Let's just say that this process was about as soul crushing as a process can be and by the end of Sunday night I was a completely broken person both emotionally and physically.

I got up and into my first day of work of the new year and Miho calls me at 9:30 to tell me the installers had shown up. This was great they were starting early but they were supposed to call first so she, in her nearly 9-month pregnant state, had to rush to get the cats put away and create her "nest" in the little bit of space we had left in our living room. All day at work I'm thinking that I'll get home at 6, walk in, then have the whole night to get things back in their rightful place and maybe even get my studio up and running. That didn't exactly happen.

When I walked in I discovered that only part of the upstairs is finished but at least all the carpet padding was down. Wait a second. They'd been there since 9:30am and they only have the carpet pad down? What the EFF! We wait and watch the hours go by and, stair by stair, they get closer to ground level and finish the job. Oh, what time is it? That's right, it's 11pm now and they are just finishing. We'll, at least we can go to bed now.

This is where the cold hand of reality slaps me across the face and I'm reminded that EVERYTHING WE OWN IS IN THE GODDAMN LIVING ROOM! That's right. Bed disassembled, clothes in bins buried under god-knows-what and my night devolved into a nightmarish hell. The sickening fear and horror only deepened when I started thinking about how Miho's mom's arrival from Japan at around 8am the next morning. My eyes darted around the room and my mind spun like the fans in a MacPro when it gets an unexpected kernel error.

Somehow I hauled my broken, defeated body into action and I began the process of preparing the house. The time was 11pm, about 7.5 hours until we needed to leave for the airport. I went into a trance-like state, in full-on fight-or-flight mode, brain functioning from a very ancient place, and I barely remember the next 4 hours of time.

All I know is I woke up with the alarm, in a bed, our dresser was there and had our clothes, I was able to walk into the bathroom for the first time in nearly two days, and we were more-or-less ready to go. There was still some bins and other miscellaneous items to deal with, but the house was habitable with the last thing to do was to stop at the hardware store and replace the toilet flapper.

Mission accomplished.

I'm sitting in BPM Studios (Duvall) which has taken on an insanely minimalistic vibe and I love it. Nothing here is superfluous and everything is more neatly organized and laid out than ever before. I just feel like a more evolved life-form being in this room. That said, not sure how much time I'll be in here but I'm guessing that time will be very strange hours due to the imminent arrival of "Little Caesar" at basically any moment.

G'night!

WInter Update 2009

2009-12-25T09:20:00.000-08:00

It's a frosty and clear wintery Christmas morning here at the house. I woke up before 6am which, this time of year, is a good two hours before sunrise. How did this happen? Yesterday was a full day of preparation for our Christmas Eve dinner where I played the role of Miho's sous chef in an environment not unlike the Kitchen Stadium from Iron Chef. This year's secret ingredient...Artichoke!

Dinner turned out great, thanks to Miho who was the conductor of the day's feast and we were left in a proper holiday food coma. What better than to then sit on the couch and watch the Michael McDonald Christmas concert - I've been looking forward to seeing this since I heard about it at Thanksgiving. He really delivered despite the lack of his signature mustache which I had always assumed was responsible for his muffled, yet velvety and soothing, tone. I'd highly recommend getting his "This Christmas" CD as it's fantastic as is Neil Diamond's "Cherry Cherry Christmas". Not even joking and they've been on repeat this entire week.

I've been on a break from work for nearly two weeks which is approaching the record amount of time I've ever had off (which was three weeks) but this won't compare to the epic two months I plan to take off after our baby boy is born. Not super interested in prioritizing work during that time as, well, I can't imagine eventually regretting not spending more time at work unless my job was to stay home, spend time with family, make music, drink coffee and wine, enjoy fine artisan meats, cheeses, exercise, travel, and generally do things not related to being in an office. I'm guessing that's what Sting's life or maybe Peter Gabriel's life is like. Gotta figure out how to get on that plan.

I love that I've now forgotten what day of the week it is. I know it's Christmas but I have no regard for what day it is as I have no schedule at the moment and, now that my many home projects are mostly complete, I can truly enter full leisure mode. That's not really an accurate statement as I really can't sit still for too long (which is why I don't update my blog very often) unless I'm spending good quality time with Miho, friends, or making music which is one of the few projects I can focus on for long stretches of time.

Today, we will be going to a friend's house for Christmas Day dinner. This will be great as yesterday was a full day of preparation and clean-up as I can't really deal with having an un-washed sink of dishes and I hated the idea of waking up to more tasks today. Maybe that's why I woke up and had to get up as I was just really excited to start relaxing and generally do nothing for a while as everyone else (cats included) slept. In fact, the cats were in their various sleep locations downstairs and I totally got double-takes from all of them wondering what the heck I was doing up before 6.

Plenty of vacation left for me as I'm not back to work until the 4th and I intend to go back to the office as a completely blank slate. Hopefully they won't mind that I start the first part of my work day in pajamas, sipping coffee, checking websites/updating my blog, and composing music!

The year was 1991.

2009-09-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

Back in 1991, I was in a Duran Duran inspired band called Jordan and the Jazz Cat Cairo. Originally, this band was my friend Tim ("Jordan") and I who I met and started writing with when I was 15 in 1987. On this year, we were to embark on an epic club tour of any club that would let us play in Seattle.

In the early days between 1987-1989, my studio consisted of a Tascam Portastudio 4-track, Midiverb v.1, Yamaha D1500 delay, Realistic microphone, Roland Juno 6 and Symergy keyboards which were replaced by a Roland D20, a tiny Marshall combo amp, and electric and acoustic guitars. Not a bad set-up considering this was the gear I had to work with between the ages of 15-18 and I must say that, looking back, I'm mildly impressed with myself and how we made the best of this gear and wrote such classics at "Egyptian Women" and "Animal Church".

In late 1989 and into 1990, I had secured a part-time job at Nintendo which was great as it allowed me to spend all my money on gear (since I lived with my parents at the time). I upgraded many things in the studio including going from four to eight tracks (via a Fostex 1/4" reel-to-reel), ditched the D20 for a Korg M3R, upgraded the Midiverb to a Midiverb 2, bought a Roland R-5 drum machine, and got a 16-channel Alesis 1622 mixer. On the guitar front, I managed to get a Kubicki Factor bass, Ibanez Jem 777, as well as a rocking Kramer w/Floyd Rose tremolo. Amp-wise, I was still mainly using the Marshall combo amp but soon upgraded to the Zoom multi-effect box that I could wear on my belt (more on this soon).

We knew we wanted to play live, got some friends with some know-how to manage us, and got our first gig lined-up: A holiday party at the Northgate Ramada Inn!

So, the pressure was on. We'd added a third member, Shawn McGoldrick, to play bass live but we had no idea what or how to pull-off a live show as we were only a studio band and everything was sequenced, layered, bounced, you name it. Most of the summer of 1991 was getting our live rig together and figuring out how to get everything to occur live in a way that we felt good about.

Of course, we wouldn't allow ourself to simply press play on a tape deck. That was out of the question as this simply wasn't live enough for us. We put together the most ridiculously complex MIDI setup with multiple sequencers, program changes, and audio routing you've ever seen. So many possible points of failure in our garage-made "rack of doom" (we literally made our own road case out of plywood and I'm shocked it didn't collapse) that, looking back, I have no idea what we were thinking. A footnote to this is that, for some unknown reason, we didn't leave everything wired-up! We'd bring all the wires with us to the show in a PAPER BAG and then try to re-create a patching scheme that literally required documentation (oh how I wish I still had the one piece of paper with the hand-drawn patching diagram).

Okay, back to the rehearsals. Things were going well and, in the heat of the summer, we'd managed to piss off just about every neighbor with our playing. We didn't care and just envisioned ourselves on the stage unleashing our pop stylings on the masses. Mind you, Nirvana had just hit the scene and grunge had taken hold, but we didn't care. We knew what was best and what people really wanted.

Fast-forward to the weeks before the holiday party. We were in rare form, I'd purchased a new pair of Z Cavaricci slacks, paisley shirt, and my John Taylor hairdo was in prime condition. We'd thought we'd thought of everything and I couldn't have been happier with my Zoom guitar processor that I could wear on my belt and change presets.

It's show day and we arrive at the Ramada. To our astonishment, they have a massive lighting riser, huge sound system, mixer board, big dance floor, the works. Pressure is seriously on at this point and we do some sound checks, get some promotional pictures taken, then we get ready for the show. The lights go down, they announce us, and we take the stage. All is going great with our ridiculous MIDI set-up and things are feeling really good until...the battery dies in my Zoom guitar processor just as my first guitar solo kicks in.

There I am, front and center, totally freaking out about losing my guitar signal and not having a cue as to what was going on. This soon devolves into me groveling around on the floor at the back of the stage trying to dig a power adapter out of the rats nest in the "rack of doom" which took an eternity. By the time I'd figured that out, the song was over but I was the only one who really knew how to operate the Roland MC-50 sequences and the next song just started up as I tried to quickly get power to my Zoom but the power cord was super-short and I couldn't even stand up without unplugging myself. I gave up, stopped the sequence, then we left the stage for a little re-grouping. This is not even into the second song...

We'll just move on. Okay, with that show behind us, we set off for our first real club gig at the Hollywood Underground (now the Fenix Underground and, coincidentally, I recently played there again with Thomas Dolby as part of Basic Pleasure Model with Paul Sebastien) and we were stoked. We waltz in, loads of gear, huge plywood rack, and a big paper bag full of a hundred or so cables, power strips, extension cords, etc. Not knowing how things work at club gigs, we didn't realize that we don't get the necessary 2-4 hours to get everything set-up adequately and this was a total shock. I mean, we're Jordan and the Jazz Cat Cairo! We need adequate time to set-up our gear, sound check, pre-show dinner, drinks! What gives with this?

Somehow the Hollywood Underground show (as well as the other 5-6 shows we played that year) went off without a hitch. We even added a drummer, Will McCammon, who played electronic drums standing up and synched via a click track to our elaborate sequences. This was pretty dang high-tech at the time as we had pretty much everything automated via MIDI program changes (effects, patches, synth parameters, etc.) I'm still shocked it worked as well as it did being that we were completely depending on 3.5" floppy discs and a ridiculous tangle of cables. The sound guys at these venues clearly thought we were idiots and had no idea what was going on.

Probably one of the coolest, and funniest, things was that we had this thing called the Digitech Vocalist that supplied Tim's background harmonies. This too was triggered live via MIDI data from our trusty sequences and, being we wanted to be seen as being super-credible, we didn't want anyone to hear vocals and not think we weren't singing them or that anything was pre-made. For this, being we couldn't invest in real headset microphones, Shawn borrowed a set of call center headsets from work (the kind that you use in a call center to, well, take calls) and he'd wear them and run the cable down the back oh his shirt and pretend to be harmonizing on stage. So ahead of our time.

This all fell apart with our final show, which occurred on a boat, in the middle of Lake Washington. It's a story too painful to tell due to the final, epic, failure of both man and machines. We're talking worst-case scenario here. Drummer off by 1/2 a bar, throwing us all off and everything triggering at the wrong time. Harmonies in the wrong place, music going haywire, everyone totally confused to the point that I (gasp!) stopped the sequencer and we played the last song completely live. Yeah, it was stripped down without all the synths and harmonies, but somehow it actually worked.

Caesar the Jazz Cat Cairo

Summer is hanging on!

2009-09-04T22:53:00.000-07:00

I thought it was over this morning, Summer that is, but it's holding on and we can a glorious sunny day and some nice warm showers tonight. The smell outside is just awesome and I walked around in bare feet on the warm, wet ground and thoroughly enjoyed that (even if it was just the distance involved in retrieving the recycling bin).

Tonight, I greeted Miho with a song I wrote for her on my new "I Am T-Pain" app for my iPhone. Having scored her a bear claw from our Friday Doughnut Feast (which is put forth by a very kind artist in our group), I decided that she should be greeted with the bear claw plus the accompanying song. It was basically a recounting of how I got a fresh doughnut, wrapped it up tight, and brought it home to greet her with it on a plate. Just your typical slow jam. Shawty!

So tired tonight. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that we went to the British pub for lunch today...

So it begins...

2009-09-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, so, this is it! Making a real stab at blogging, inspired by my witty and interesting friends and others that I don't even know in real life. Why? Because I have the memory of a trout and it would be cool to remember and eventually share the various goings-on that, well, go on.

Today was an interesting day. First, we're on week two of no automatic drip coffee maker and I'm using a tiny French press. My normal 2-3 cups per morning has been reduced to one cup. One, luscious, bold, almost creamy, mug of black gold. I'm feeling so much more connected with the coffee experience and may not turn back at this point. The next bold maneuver will be buying a larger French press that allows me to have that "second cup at home" on those mornings that require a little something extra.

Off to work I went, fueled with a one cup of coffee, piece of flowerless toast, and one egg. This has been my breakfast probably 300 days a year for the past 7 years. Being a creature of habit, and not having a problem with having the same thing every morning, it's a nice morning routine that I quite enjoy. I think it stems back to elementary school when my mom would make me one kind of lunch each year. May seem weird, but I loved it and only wanted something different if we had some excellent leftovers from a summer BBQ, pizza party, or my sister's amazing fried chicken which we'd have every other Friday as part of our "Chicken Party" schedule.

Arrival at work was uneventful, other than the flaming inbox that is always there to greet me, but this quickly gave way to an international conference call with my counterpart, and good friend, Jason over in Ireland. Having had only a briefest of business discussions, conversation quickly turned to his upcoming business trip to Seattle and the things we'd do which all seem to involve a glass (or two? or three?) of wine and some good opportunities to talk about travels, scuba diving, family, etc. Last time he came to town, he introduced me to Rugby (watching, not playing ) and we watched the Six Nations rugby championship matches on a couple of mornings down at this great Irish pub in the city. It was absolutely electric there, eating breakfast along with a Guinness, and getting a crash course in the rules. Once I sort-of had a basic understanding of the rules, I must admit that I was hugely into it even though I'm not much of a sports guy. By the end of the championship, with Ireland victorious, I was yelling, clapping, and providing some high-fives to just about anyone available (perhaps the 3 beers between 9-10am had something to do with it). Never expected that and I'm really glad I got that experience.

All of that and I'm not even at lunch yet?

Well, I'll quickly summarize and leave the rest to your imagination.

Lunch at my favorite local restaurant/wine bar.
Really friendly with the bar staff as I go there a lot (good people)
Decided a glass of white wine would be a good idea before the meal
Decided a glass of red wine would be an even better idea with my meal
Decided to let the bartender (who is a lot closer to a sommelier than a bartender) provide me with a final taste of a sweet wine for dessert)
Only charged for one glass despite my protests
Extreme tipping commenced and I returned to work (after four shots of espresso) a little bit more mellow than when I left

The afternoon was a warm, fuzzy experience that seemed to slip by effortlessly and I managed to actually be quite productive (at least in my own mind) but I'm now terrified to re-read the emails in my Sent Items folder.

Speaking of sent items, I have some advice (from experience) regarding email. I've traveled a lot for work, most of it was international, and all of it was to places where heavy after-work drinking is just part of the culture (Tokyo and Helsinki being the main offenders). I have a hundred stories about these trips that I'll get to another time but I just remember getting back to my hotel on a number of occasions and realizing that it's morning back home and deciding to hop online to chat with my friends, co-workers, and also to check email. Oh the responses I've sent. Probably my favorite bad idea was the "good idea" I had to do a video conference with my vendor back in Seattle from my hotel in Tokyo at around 4am after being out all night drinking hard liquor and sake. It was early afternoon back home, we had things to discuss, and I didn't want to have to wake-up early to have the meeting. Oh how I wish I had a video capture of the video conference (handled on my MacBook in my hotel room) as my vendor could see the darkened Tokyo skyline in the background slowly turn to day.

After that, I went to bed as I didn't have an early meeting that morning. I slept until noon, then proceeded with "the ritual. What is the ritual?

Go to the ofuro area (traditional Japanese soaking tub - they are pretty standard at every hotel and house in Japan from what I can tell).
Shower sitting down on the standard shower chair which is sort of like an upside-down bucket (I really want this in my house now actually as it's just awesome) in a large showing room.
Descend into the boiling cauldron-like ofuro for some deep relaxation until you feel well-cooked.
Proceed with standard grooming procedures, go back to the room, get properly dressed, then let the infusion of green tea and Japanese cuisine begin which usually (for me) includes a nice helping of natto which are fermented soy beans....Oishii!!!

Where was I? Oh yes, the warm and fuzzy afternoon. My day ended with some online training about what not to do at the office in order to not get in trouble with the various governments of the world and then I came home to enjoy some leftover turkey meatballs with crumbles of bleu cheese and half an avocado. For dessert, French press coffee and a retreat to the studio area where I am staring at an arrange window of Logic 9 reviewing my mix of a new Basic Pleasure Model song (more on this later!) while going off on a completely random tangent here in this little text window.

How's that for a first post? It will be a while before I develop a posting style. Maybe I don't need to. We'll see how it goes :-)

Caesar