I am amazed, delighted and inspired by Eliot and my (a.k.a. Pocket Symphony) session at the recording studio tonight. We successfully mixed �Anything Now,� �The Miserablist,� �My Story,� �Tiny Man� and �July 23rd Thunderstorm.� As I was driving home from the session whilst listening to the disc, I actually proclaimed the wonders of the beauty of the mix loudly. �OHMYGOD� this is SO good!� I was just amazed. I wrote �Anything Now� several years ago and it was affectionately called �The 70�s Song,� but is one of my very favorites now. My brother-in-law, drummer extraordinaire Brian Trim and our friend and equally adept bass player John McFaul (whose father, Tom, incidentally I think co-owned one of the biggest jingle houses ever and wrote such ditties as �Meow, meow, meow meow��the Meow Mix theme and �In the AAAARMY� and has recently written an incredible Mass, which Brian and John both played on) came up last month to put drum and bass tracks on several songs, including "Blue in the Night" and made such a difference in beefing up the earlier incarnations of the songs. Go listen! Yay! I mean, I didn�t think �Anything Now� could get much better, but ended up being the subject of my aforementioned proclamation of thanks to the musical deities in my automotive machine. We lucked out getting our engineer Dan McLoughlin, of the Push Stars, when we booked time at Q-Division as per Brian�s suggestion, and have been loving him (aurally) ever since. He really digs our stuff and has made time between flights to Los Angeles (his soon to be residence), touring and general tomfoolery, to hop into the studio to help us mix. He has been invaluable.

You can also listen to our cover of Jonathan King�s song "Everyone�s Gone to the Moon." The version I�ve heard was recorded in � by Chad & Jeremy, who also did the lovely �Summer Song� which appeared on the Rushmore soundtrack� one of my favorite soundtracks EVER! One of my favorite movies EVER! Anyway, we changed it to 4/4, added a radio track throughout, and some other stuff. I LIKE it (-say that like John Lovitz would. You know you want to).

So I�m finally at the point with some of my songs that I�m again excited about them, even though I wrote some of them several years ago and was wondering if I could actually be excited about them again. They seemed tired� not particularly tired as songs, but I was tired of them. I often think of my music as my favorite professor at BU, Stephen Geller, explained it in my Sacred drama class, as relates to Maya Deren, alt.mod, avant-garde, screen director/siren/writer/actress,�she liked to dream the films up, but she didn�t like to dream them down.� I�m paraphrasing, Prof., in case you ever happen to read my humble (but link-droppingly saccharine) diary site. I could (and probably will) write an entry dedicated to Professor Geller as well as my other favorite edumactational people from BU and beyond. One of my fondest memories of Professor Geller was when he, trench-coated and cigar in hand, read my natal chart out in front of the Communications building at BU on a windy spring day. �You�re going to do great things, kid.� I love when I feel like that�s true.

The motherly nudging whir of the refrigerator. Oh jeez� it�s almost 5am and I have to get up early tomorrow to go to look at condos. Eeeeep! I�m hazy anyway. But I knew I had to write about it now or never. Oh yikes. It�s late. I�m going to hurt tomorrow. Ouch, I mean, er, today. I need a lot of sleep, lazy sot that I am! Of course all I want to do is go lay down and listen to the songs again on headphones. First I must blow out candles and the oil lamp. I love the dichotomies of our time�digital recording, mp3�s, lap tops, candles and oil-burning hurricane lamps. It�s all about marshmallows over an open fire.



My foot is asleep.

Word of the Day for Saturday March 9, 2002: unctuous UNGK-choo-us, adjective: 1. Of the nature or quality of an unguent or ointment; fatty; oily; greasy. 2. Having a smooth, greasy feel, as certain minerals. 3. Insincerely or excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech; marked by a false or smug earnestness or agreeableness. A warmed, crusty French roll arrives split, lightly smeared with unctuous chopped liver. --John Kessler, "Meals To Go: Break from the routine with Hong," [1]Atlanta Journal an Constitution, October 22, 1998 She recalled being offended by the "phoniness" that stemmed from the contradiction between her mother's charming, even unctuous public manner and her anger in private. --Daniel Horowitz, [2]Betty Friedan And the Making of 'The Feminine Mystique' He approached Sean wearing a smile so unctuous it seemed about to slide right off his face. --Naeem Murr, [3]The Boy Unctuous is from Medieval Latin unctuosus, from Latin unctus,"anointed, besmeared, greasy," past participle of unguere, "to anoint, to besmear."