Keep Your Trousers on and Your Head Held High...

Today was a weird day; things go down and problems arise - yet still we stumble on; and so we did. 10 hours of recording and more accomplished than humanly possible. After today, we have officially tracked all 13 songs for the album. We went in heads down and knuckles whitened; it's mind-blowing how much you can get done when you don't stop for anything. It's all the little stuff now; only two more sessions and it all wraps down. It's been amazing to watch these things grow from little, acoustic ditties, into full grown, big boy songs with heart and toughness.  We've tracked washboard through Metallica wah pedals, spinning wind tubes, synced alarm clocks, cannons shooting bells, kicking boxes, breaking bottles, and shaking anything and everything that makes a sound - and, by the grace of God alone, managed to do it all (rather) tastefully...I'm really excited about the way things have panned out. It's been a lot of fun and I hope you think the finished product is as good as I think it will be...

...on a strangely horrifyingly awesome note, I stopped at the gas station on my way to the studio today. It was my sole and pure intention to pick up Dr Pepper, pay the gnarled hag, and be on my merry way - all whilst all parties remained fully clothed.  Easy enough, eh?  - Debatable.   Continue. 

As I approached the counter to pay said, aforementioned hag, a conversation began regarding the lighthouse on my forearm. This crazy dame just kept rambling on and on and wouldn't shut up about how bright and precise it was. I kept trying to pay her, but before I knew what was happening, she un-tucked her shirt, dropped her pants to her knees, pointed to her butt and shouted, "I got this here phoenix on my thigh six months ago and it already looks faded." 

Now, I have never stumbled upon this scenario before; and am not sure if I was more in awe of the fact that the 40 year old cashier was no longer wearing pants, or at how horribly mangled the softball sized, awkward shaped, "phoenix?" tattoo was - but it didn't matter - for even my quick wit and cunning sarcasm were no match for machine gun talking, speedy-McYapYap...

             ...and the wench spoke on....

"I don't know how you get  yours to look so good. You must go to somebody. I done mine in the kitchen with a sewing needle and some ink I got from the internet."  - Huh - because that doesn't answer your question entirely.

The only thing I could think to say (well besides "...and you were last diagnosed with gangrene when?") was,

 "That reminds me, do you sell needles here? I'm trying to contract hepatitis A through E in a single outing and may have found the answer." 

Without hesitation, miss wonder-broad turned around, pulled a stitch-kit from the wall, handed me the needles and said, "if it's for a school science thing you can just take 'em, honey." 

True fact. She missed the joke and gave me needles. She gave me needles. 

My mind exploded, my heart burst with rapture, and the world was complete. Look out perfect ending, for you've been outdone...

Two is twice as nice.  There is a giant sign outside of Clarksville that says, "We have 50,000 tulips - because two lips are twice as nice"  All I think of every time I se it is,

"That's 100,000 lips...is that 100,000 times as nice? What if one of them sells? Do they change the sign, or do they have backstock that is not included in their advertised inventory? Why advertise so specifically? Many sports arenas couldn't hold 100,000 lips. But 50,000 tulips? - that's like an anthophobic's personal haunted mansion. Anthophobia is a weird word. I can't imagine 50,000 of anything I'm afraid of - who would deal with such an astronomical horror? What's the fear of astronomy called? I wonder what Galileo was afraid of? I should buy a telescope..."  

....It never truly stops, really; just an endless connection of ideas and thoughts, one to another. Similarities and counterpoints, and things that vaguely attach one to another, to another, and on again. Analyzing, questioning, and breaking it all apart until it's something so far from the original that it's original and something. I guess that's creation...I guess that's how it goes...