May 21st, 2009 by Andrew

af_grad

Grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies seem to be to glo­rify the insti­tu­tion and not the indi­vid­ual, but as I never grad­u­ated high school, I thought I’d par­tic­i­pate at least once. It also helped me draw clo­sure to my time at AB-Tech, which I needed. I’m so glad to be out of there.

I even got rec­og­nized a lit­tle: Citizen-TimesSen­si­ble City

A lot has changed since I last signed off here — I’ve been accepted to UNC-A, some­thing I’ve been try­ing to accom­plish for six years. It feels good to have a plan, accom­plish a major part of it and move for­ward with the next step falling into line. Maybe I’m just not used to the feel­ing of accom­plish­ment, but it feels like an addic­tion which I will gladly sur­ren­der to.

At least I’m a bet­ter stu­dent then blogger.

December 14th, 2008 by Andrew

One more time. Ahh­h­hhh… Sunday.

I always try and keep Sun­days free from too much eco­nomic activ­ity or social oblig­a­tion. It is a big help to my men­tal health to be able to sit at home and accom­plish per­sonal tasks, catch up on domes­tic work, prac­tice music, or just relax with a book. And now that the semes­ter has ended for me, I feel par­tic­u­larly light in spirit on this Decem­ber Sunday.

I should start with yes­ter­day. Yes­ter­day morn­ing I drove to Tryon, worked for my favorite clients and made good money before going to my grandparent’s to social­ize and work on my grandfather’s new iMac. Awe­some com­puter, really fun and easy to use and work on. Then I drove home, changed into a fes­tive red and black get-up and went to MoDaddy’s to hear a band that I met last March. The Two Man Gen­tle­man Band, from New York City played two killer sets while I drank whiskey and sang all the words I knew. I love their CDs, and the guys (Andy and Fuller) are great peo­ple and very tal­ented musi­cians as well as snappy dressers (knick­ers!). I had promised them enter­tain­ment of the musi­cal vari­ety and after­wards we went to my friend Woody Pines’ house for a party pop­u­lated almost entirely by musi­cians. Woody has an awe­some old upright that has a great action for honky tonk and blues, and I sat down at it and kept it hot for nearly 3 straight hours. Some­times I ques­tions my musi­cal abil­ity, but not last night. I killed it for three straight hours, with only the brief of whiskey breaks. It felt awe­some. Like most peo­ple, I have a lotof  musi­cal poten­tial; it’s nice when it breaks through the clouds once in a while. And the clouds have been break­ing more and more often lately.

The past two Sun­days I have taken myself out to the Dripo­la­tor Cof­fee­house, pur­chased the New York Times and ate a nice big brunch of huevos rancheros with my usual dou­ble Amer­i­cano and Emergen-C. I try and look my best (not always easy after a busy Sat­ur­day night) and be socia­ble with the other Sun­day brunch­ers, and I always leave feel­ing like a mil­lion bucks. It’s a really great way for me to begin the end of my week.

I’ve had lots of new begin­nings and mile­stones these past cou­ple months. Lost an old friend/lousy room­mate. New roo­mate Henry (of the Fire­cracker Jazz Band and Squir­rel Nut Zip­pers) is an incred­i­ble musi­cian and wants to play music all the time at the house. There is so much I have to learn from him. On Thurs­day, I fin­ished my penul­ti­mate semes­ter in my soon-to-be decade-long pur­suit of an Asso­ciates degree.  Prob­a­bly have 1 A (Music The­ory I) and two Bs (Lit­er­a­ture Based Research and Cul­tural Anthro­pol­ogy). Not bad, but prob­a­bly not enough to bump me up to a 3.0 GPA, which I des­per­ately need to keep my UNC-A hopes alive.

I’m also launch­ing a new busi­ness and slowly get­ting out of the in-home com­puter biz. Not going to be a lot of long-term money in that, but I’m glad to pick up some ran­dom ser­vice as it’s usu­ally easy-money. My new busi­ness will hope­fully launch Jan­u­ary 1. I’m really excited about it — I feel it’s the begin­ning of some­thing really big for me.

Oh and some­body threw their shoes at Pres­i­dent Bush today in Iraq.

September 6th, 2008 by Andrew

So, this is my 100th post. To com­mem­o­rate the occa­sion I’ve decided to try and break 200 by the end of the year. There’s about 100 days left, so this should keep my busy every day.

I find that I like blog­ging for a lot of rea­sons, and I don’t think van­ity is one of them. Blog­ging turns writ­ing and infor­ma­tion col­lect­ing into a per­for­mance art; much more inter­est­ing than stamp-collecting to me.

First, it’s fun dur­ing the day when I think of some­thing to know that it has a home. Instead of scrib­bling it down in some note­book that I file on the shelf I can feed it into a liv­ing doc­u­ment to be shared.

Sec­ond, it helps me hone my writ­ing skills. Writ­ing is a skill that would help me immensely at work and at school. I some­times can write effort­lessly, but more often it is a strug­gle to get a sin­gle para­graph out. Hav­ing a for­mat in which I can do any­thing helps me to get the write juices flow­ing (pun intended) and silence that lit­tle self-doubt demon that’s the bane of so many’s creativity.

Third, it keeps me hon­est. Because this forum is open to any eye­balls that surf by, I feel sort of account­able for the con­tent, and since the con­tent is derived from my life, I feel that I should keep a clean act.

Fourth, things can be tedious or they can be fun. And if you can trans­mute the tedious into the fun, you win at life. Blog­ging is fun now.

August 30th, 2008 by Andrew

Chris Rid­dle — actor, film­maker, video­g­ra­pher, and stage direc­tor — is one of my old­est friends. We’ve worked on many projects together in the past. Every year he puts together a team for the 48 Hour Film Fes­ti­val here in Asheville. If you’ve never worked on a 48 Hour film, it’s a blast with the right peo­ple. High stress, high cre­ativ­ity, solv­ing com­plex prob­lems on the fly, and after two days of that you have a fim. It’s really fun. Chris and his wife Sam put together a great team last year — Direc­tor of Pho­tog­ra­phy was Mike Belleme, who’s an awe­some skate­boarder and gasp­ingly good pho­tog­ra­pher, (and also in my blogroll). They tapped me for an act­ing role — though I had no prior screen cred­its. Now, I think act­ing is really fun, and I’ve done it con­fi­dently — on stage. On film I was totally uncom­fort­able with myself. We pulled the Romance genre (which is a tough one) so nobody was really thrilled with the story, and my lines made me feel like I had mar­bles in my mouth. I hate myself on screen. I hope I don’t really sound and look like that. Enjoy.

I thought of this because I saw Mr. Rid­dle. I kid­napped him and brought him to Asheville to see the Fire­cracker Jazz Band play at the Rocket Club, and he asked me to be an extra in his next project which is film­ing tomor­row. He’s film­ing it at the cofee­house in Tryon, where we met. The first friends I ever made out­side of church or work was at that cof­fee­house, and it always feels good to come back there — espe­cially to work with Chris, who was the first guy to ever talk to me there. I was just weird guy in the cor­ner that nobody knew, and when Chris said “The time has come,” I fin­ished it with “the wal­rus said,” and I often think of that pre­cise moment, when the out­side world first rec­og­nized me.

Thanks, Chris.

August 16th, 2008 by Andrew

I have a lot of work ahead of me.

My friends and I have been bub­bling with talk of a move to New York City. Not imme­di­ately or any­thing, but the prospect excites me greatly. I’ve always had this self-defeating atti­tude that I was not good enough for New York City, but I’m try­ing to shed my self-imposed lim­i­ta­tions and level up, to bor­row an RPG term. As the song goes, if you can make it New York you can make it any­where, and I’d like to see if I’m made of that stuff. I think there could be a lot for me there.

But I still am feel­ing the old frus­tra­tions, the old strug­gles, the old weak­nesses that peck away at my poten­tial. There’s all these things I feel I could be truly great at, the things I feel I have inside me that I can’t get out — I could be a great piano player, I could be a great designer, I could be a great ________. What stops me?

Me.

And so, I’m on big self-improvement kick again.

ONE: I’m going back to school, and I’m really excited about it. I have a great sched­ule — just Tues­days and Thurs­days. I’m tak­ing Lit­er­a­ture Based Research (again, because I’m lazy and a ter­ri­bly non-prolific writer), Cul­tural Anthro­pol­ogy (awe­some), and Music The­ory I (4 credit hours, easy A.) I may yet be able to add a 1 credit Yoga.

TWO: Music has to be a big­ger part of my life. I’m play­ing semi-seriously with a friend of mine, Elias, and we’ve had some killer song­writ­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions. First time in a long time I’ve felt like I really had a great musi­cal part­ner­ship that wasn’t a student-teacher thing.

THREE: Read­ing. I’ve been read­ing a great deal more lately. I ran into Malaprop’s I bought an awe­some called Osman’s Dream, a start to fin­ish his­tory of the Ottoman Empire. But before I start that mon­ster (660 pages!) I have to fin­ish the Steven Pinker book that Laura bought me months ago, The Stuff of Thought by Sep­tem­ber 8 because the author will be at Malaprop’s that night. For as much of a nerd I am, I have never been to an author event at a book­store, and I’m look­ing for­ward to it. I should develop a good ques­tion for him.

FOUR: I must write. I’m feel­ing flush with words and prose and have been re-reading some of my old mate­r­ial and I have to say I don’t know why I gave it up.

SUMMARY: Apol­lon­ian inter­ests must tri­umph for this next phase in my life. The end­less Bac­cha­nals that have gripped my life and lifestyle must be brought into line with my larger goals. I’m on the verge of some­thing, and I aim to vault myself over the edge.