Brain Trauma: A Working Hypothesis

September 29th, 2009

I'm not quite claiming that brain damage is a good thing in general, but here's how it seems to have been the one constant catalyst of my life for the last 20+ years.

Age 6: Spinal meningitis sends a fever through the roof exposing my brain to dangerously high temperatures.

- Developed interest in tap-dancing
- Developed interest in drumming
- Began harmonizing obsessively
- Began switching songs from minor to major and vice-versa

Age 12: Heat-sickness after all day at an air show sends fever sky-high again.

- Self taught to play drums in a couple days
- Self taught to play basic guitar
- Began clogging lessons, skipped to second year classes in two weeks
- Quit school

Age 17: Massive concussion erases entire week of memory, slows speech semi-permanently, slows reading.

- Improved unnaturally fast at guitar over the span of a month (noted by several friends)
- Took GED test. Passed with honors with no junior high or high school education
- Absorbed massive amounts of information regarding recordings technology. Started engineering records professionally.

Age 26: Punched in the face by a mugger. Mild concussion. Forgot names of room mates temporarily.

- Quit band and enrolled in acting school
- Moved to New England
- Started writing essays
- Took SAT, Almost perfect scores in writing and reading sections
- Enrolled in writing class at Vanderbilt U. Straight A's

So maybe it's all in my head. Or maybe it's all in my head!

Always Love

September 28th, 2009

Always love. Hate will get you every time. Always love. Even when you want to fight.

Nice words, huh? Easier said than done. I've wanted to love for a long time, and honestly sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't I like to think I'm getting better at it, but not without thousands of hours of practice.

Honestly, I still haven't nailed down how to love in every environment. For example when I lived in New Brunswick, New Jersey for 3 months this year it was all I could do not to fight. It's a really oppressive place, see. Where I am right now it a very supportive and positive place, and my love generators are firing a lot anyway naturally, so it's easy to push them over the edge into constant yesness.

But I will say that in every phase of love I go through it seems to become easier and easier to embrace everything and say “perfect!”, so that's why I think practicing a lot really does help. So I'll keep doing this. It makes me really happy.

So keep practicing!

I love you.

Crazy, I'm Crazy for Feeling So Crazy

September 27th, 2009

Everyone has reasonable thoughts and unreasonable/absurd thoughts. Lets define “crazy” as the inability to identify the unreasonable thoughts as such. Furthermore, let's categorize different degrees of crazy according to different degrees of awareness of the absurdity of one's thoughts.

Now, on a scale of 1-10, how crazy are you?

That's right! 1! The only possible answer! See? It's all a trick to keep a brutha down! Ain't no such thing as crazy!

I biked to Brooklyn again tonight. It takes 45 minutes by bike. Pretty much the same as the subway.

Today was beautiful. In my mind and in my universe. Goodnight.

Wielding a Bicycle Chain...

September 24th, 2009

As children, my brother and I spent more time on bicycles than we spent doing anything else (besides sleeping). We rode obsessively for the better part of a decade. Many times my first thoughts upon waking would be looking forward to just being in motion on my bicycle. Hours a day, day after day, summer after sweltering summer, we rode (and crashed) our bikes with Christmas-morning-like enthusiasm.

Until I was 10 years old my bikes were all comprised of junked components welded together by my grandfather, a detail which seems much more special to me now than it ever did as a kid. The other detail I wasn't keen to was that the bikes were all extraordinarily heavy and ill-geared. I just knew they worked. Over the years they were thrown to the ground, launched off ramps, tumbled down hills, left in the rain and snow, and recycled through 4 children. And they just kept on working. I don't actually recall one structural failure of any kind.

Then I hit my mid-teens. I started driving and traveling longer distances for work and recreation. I still loved biking, but there are few towns in which it's really easy to cycle and mine was not one of them. In recent years, even when I had a nice bike and a nice day to ride, I'd use my car. It's “easy” and “fast”.

Although any experienced biker has passed hundreds of cars in stalled traffic, and knows the joy of parking-hastle-free travel, it wasn't until I moved to New York that I re-discovered the child-like joy of regular cycling and many of the true benefits of donning a helmet and wielding a bicycle.

I showed up in New York two weeks ago with a duffel-bag and a $130 bike and felt like a kid again. I actually always feel like a kid, but that's another story. I started small, biking down the designated safety-zone, the greenway for bikes and pedestrians. I live right by it so there's no hazardous transit to safety. After a few ventures down the length of Manhattan, I branched out onto the streets. That's when my long-forgotted instincts began to kick in. Over the following few days I became more than the cyclist I thought I was. The childhood decade of cycling muscle-memory came flooding back, and I found myself in moment after moment of speedy bliss! You've heard this sort of thing before, but there really is some kind of zen state I reach after a few minutes zipping around on a bike. It's not really calm, but very focused and alert, more balanced, and with a quicker reaction time.

It took me all of 10 days to muster up the courage to bike from the upper west side to Brooklyn. Not on the greenway; I've already become bored by it's safety. I've been barreling right down Broadway, it's the most direct shot from where I live and work, to where I go to school. Fortunately it's also the most fun.

I've been dreaming of some pretty intense cycling trips for next summer. Have you been on a long bike trip? How long? What should I know?


Big Brother Noah

We'll Have You, Oh Yes, We'll Have You

September 23rd & 24th, 2009

The thing about dating overseas, is that it's totally different from dating in real face. It's not really that it's worse, it's just different. Depending what you're looking for in a relationship it may not fit your requirements, but that's not to say that it doesn't work for anyone at all. Here are benefits of a romantic relationship which are not negated by the overseas part:

-Consistent caring attentive contact
-Regular affirmation and moral support
-Constant contact with another perspective

Can you think of more? Post it!

Benefits of a long-distance relationship not found in zero-distance relationships include:

-Increased personal time
-Schedule flexibility and independence
-More money! (Yes, dates are expensive...but not on Skype!)

Can you think of more? Post it!

I've decided not to take the sub at all until I'm intimately familiar with this city. So many people who live her can get anywhere on a subway for aren't familiar with the geography. I want to connect all the dots...hopefully before it gets ass-cold!
_______________________________

Class yesterday was awesome! Maggie (my teacher) said my partner and I did very well in our exercises, and she said I brought the best activity. I'll tell you about that; we do this repetition exercise with our acting partner where we repeat eachother for a long time. It's interesting because the repetition sort of takes a life of it's own and you start to read all kinds of subtext in your partners behavior. The thing is, it's easy to get heady and start paying a lot of attention to yourself and getting all heady (bad for acting. To avoid this, we do a difficult activity while repeating so it absorbs to much brain power to get wrapped up in ourselves.

Anyway, I brought in my guitar and itunes and was teaching myself a really difficult guitar solo. It was really fun and worked out nicely.

Notes from yesterdays class include, but are not limited too:

-Let your partner play on you
-Take everything personally
-Fuck It
-Move on
-NOW
-Always connect.
-CONNECT, YOU SELF-ABSORBED ASSHOLE
-PERSONAL
-6
-(Scribbles)
-Not late, NOW
-Polite people are LATE
-I live here
-Difficult, Simple, Specific
-Rehearsal: DON'T FUCK AROUND

_________________________________________________


Pat and I went to Peacefood today. I think she enjoyed it and she met my boss, Eric. They really hit it off and got along great.

Finally, this evening I went to dinner with daughters family. Talking to the children, William and Wyatt, I began to notice many similarities between their upbringing and mine. They include:

-Home-schooling
-Taking care of a vast garden and orchard
-Baking their own bread
-Raising chickens and harvesting their eggs

Ways in which their upbringing differ from mine include:

-Lack of fundamentalist Christianity

Kudos, Warners. Kudos.



Oh Crap! Kevin just put up the video to Say Goodnight!

Late night on Maudlin Street

September 23rd, 2009

Dear Mom,

I met a fellow named Adam Levy. He's a phenominal guitarist and songwriter. He also plays guitar with Norah Jones. He said he'd love to play with me sometime, although I'm sure that will take some mental manifestation on my part. Luckily, I'm a pro at it!

Also, I met this singer (performing with Adam) named Leah Siegel. I meet singer-songwriters all the time in Nashville and most are pretty mediocre. Some are downright bad. Leah, is downright good and you should listen to her music.

New York Times dining section today: Vegan Fare, Spiced With Sophistication
Yes! Peacefood review was positive! (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/dining/23vegan.html?_r=1&ref=dining)

Also, I met some blogger for the CNN site who talked to my boss Eric today about blogging about us. I don't know if it was an interview, but whatever, it's neat.

And I had a great time practicing with my acting partner Vivien!

Also, at dinner the other night I met this nice lady who is a vocal coach. Apparently she works with lots of actors and such (she just got back in town from working with actors on a show called “Glee”. I hadn't heard of it, but this is a promo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIzimBcUUnY)

Anyway, once I accumulate some funds I think I will contact her about some coachage. Yes I would do the shit out of some musical theater. For that matter, I'd be happy to channel my clogging background through a tap-dancing filter and do some Fred Astaire!

And I biked to Brooklyn in the dark tonight and felt like a badass! I found this area of broadway that was all kinds of over-the-top lcd-screen and neon-lit and brimming with asian tourists. I think that's time square, or times square, or some such. I'll go back with I'm not dodging through traffic and 25 MPH on a bicycle.

I'm wearing a helmet.

Love,
Enoch

Tell Me That You've Heard Every Sound There Is

September 22nd, 2009

On Ice:

Northern folks like less ice in their cold beverages than southerners. There are several distinct possibilities here. 1.) It's not as hot here and therefore less threatening to frigidity, thus, less ice is typically needed to maintain coldage. 2.) People want more “bang for their buck” and are willing to forgo chill for beverage volume. 3.) The pace here is faster; it's not common to leisurely stretch a beverage out over the course of an hour, so there's no need to keep it cold that long.

On Yoga:

Apparently some of the things I've been doing with my body for fun since I was a child are advanced yoga moves.

On EMDR:

It's a kind of therapy which involves, through one method or another, drawing your eyes from side to side as you work through unresolved experiences. One of the methods uses sound. Low sounding beeps alternate ears, causing an automatic eye response. This is what happens during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. “Let me sleep on it” has real validity in this context. Sometimes, when memories have strong emotional content, our minds will react in such a way that we'll wake up before ever processing “filing away” these memories properly. That's where EMDR comes in.

On Stereo Recordings:

Until the late 50's all recordings were in mono, meaning the sound came from straight ahead of you. There is a reason stereo recordings took off in the way they did and are still popular. There is a reason the first stereo Beatles records were such a big deal to the generation that first experienced them: WORLD-WIDE EMDR THERAPY FOR EVERYONE. Aid in the EMDR effect, Beatles records were often hard-panned, meaning instruments and voices were panned to the furthest L/R points in the “stereo field”.

Those records healed people in a way unavailable before.

Racism, Nationalism, Recanted Statements, and Moldy Concepts

September 21st, 2009

(The following is not a politically charged statement or argument; it's more a social commentary.)

I know bigots from a past life and I've ended up on most of their email lists, so I get all kinds of nasty forwards. Today I got one that went on and on about immigrants (“illegal”) and how we should send them home/shoot them if they're coming across the border illegally, put ex-millitary personnel along the border with guns and such.

Racism in disguise as “immigration enforcement” is still racism. Our neighbors are living crappy lives right now and just across the border there is a better life for them. If any of the bigots I know were in a poverty in Mexico they'd want to immigrate too.

I know, I know, mass immigration decreases quality of life here. Listen, if my not making enough money to own a big house and a car or two, or even foregoing my retirement facilitates an immigrant feeding themselves and/or family, I'm totally fine with that. I contend that everyone should be. Do you have enough to survive? Well, some folks don't, and we happen to have a fertile spacious plot of land.

One note about patriotism/nationalism:
I don't care about countries at all. I care about people. I am no more proud of the USA or any country than I am of humanity, and life, and the universe, in general. I am not “rooting for” any one group of humans. I want all of them to feel satisfied with what's around them, and to have good friends, and to feel good a decent amount of the time, to be fed, and to have a place to sleep and think.

I would rather not see folks killing each other or contributing to each other suffering, but the method doesn't really concern me. If that required a one-world-government, that would be fine with me. If that required anarchy, that would be fine with me. If it required wide-spread religion, that would be fine with me. If it required wide-spread atheism, that would also be fine with me. A corporate world takeover? A financial collapse? I guess even universal drug use would be fine with me if everyone were happy, stimulated, and loved.
__________________________________________________________________

I'm sorry that I said so much negative shit about New York city for years. No, it's not my favorite place, but it actually has a bunch of cool shit. Although I might prefer it was less crowded, there's even something cool about having somebody to say something too at any given moment. Additionally, it's fun to ride a bicycle around here.

You know how food goes stale over time? So do ideas. I'm not saying there aren't timeless ideas. I'm saying that when you have an idea it's good to act on it or record it immediately. Ideas are often most potent and effective when fresh. Stale ideas fail to be compelling. Similarly, it has become evident that if I don't write about experiences the day they happen, they cease to become worth writing about. SOOO, I'm sorry I did that last night and that you will never hear what would probably have been a superb story. I was tired. It was late. I shant be a lazy-ass again.


Acting Class II:

First called up. It's exciting to be first and you also get to make everyone's mistakes for them. Well, better me than most other folks. Failure means learning. That's a good thing.

Existential Grapes, Conventional Poison, a Beautiful World

September 20th, 2009

7:34 AM: Good morning. If Ben Griffith and I were going to write a book together I would want it to be about the synergy of science and religion, and how all scientific research is self referential and meaningless, and how religion is just as backwards, and how they're both meaningful, and about about art, and paradoxes, and the human spirit and behavior. It would be called A Portal Into Nowhere; Everything That Make Sense About What Doesn't.

I can't see straight and I'm going back to sleep.

Now I'm sure you're privy to this and I'm the one who's been in the dark, but just so I can get it out there...you can't just walk in Whole Foods and start buying up everything they've got assuming it's organic. It's not. As a matter of fact upon my very unscientific examination of the produce at the whole foods on Columbus Ave, I found that only about 35% of the fruit is Organic. They have them all marked, you see. Organic is specified and all the rest of is is marked “Conventional”. Apparently poison is conventional. I was for a second miffed at the percentages, but once I was able to remove Whole Foods from the pedestal, I saw the sense in the whole thing. Whole Foods is not so much an oasis as a it is a microcosm of the rest of the world. Everything is constant. No matter where you are in the universe the same laws apply. No matter where you are you must look for good. It won't always explode in your face, but if you look, you will find it. You will find organic grapes, and I did.

And as I cruised down riverside drive approaching 92nd st, from the blue convertible several cars in front of me I heard one of the most perfect choruses ever blasting from the stereo, “...We live in a beautiful world. Yeah we do, yeah we do...” I gave the three 20-somethings in the car a hearty thumbs-up as I passed. They laughed and waived back. I think I almost shed a tear of joy as I coasted the next block. Then I stopped here on a bench overlooking some trees and the Hudson river and wrote this.

Feats of Senior Strength, NC-17 plays, Mind-Blowing Cheese, & Southern Hospitality

September 19th, 2009

Have I mentioned Pat? Pat is a lovely woman I live with. She's 83 and still goes to work every day. She's an attorney. Yes, it's impressive that she still works every day, but the more impressive part is that she bikes to and from work every day in Manhattan. How inspiring!

Today Pat had a guest here from Connecticut. I really nice lady named Kim who runs a website called TravelingMom.com. Pat, Kim, and I went on a 17 mile bike trip to Hoboken, NJ. We then biked to the trains station and from the train in Manhattan back to Pat's apartment. Two hours later we biked from the upper west side to Greenwich village to see a play and then back. I estimate that we biked about 30 miles today.

NOTE TO SELF: WHEN YOU ARE 83, BIKE 30 MILES IN A DAY.

Pat is actually take a bike trip from NYC to DC next week. 4 days. 200 miles. WTF.

Our trek to Hoboken was to the legendary Fiore House of Quality, a deli famous for its fresh mozzarella and other Italian deli specialties. I had the fresh mozzarella and the smoked mozzarella and I must say that both were the absolute best I've ever tasted. What more could I ask for but perfect weather perfect cheese and a long-ass bike ride?

As if I needed more awesome shit, I had Ethiopian food and then I saw the most vile play I've ever seen, complete with nudity, rape, drug use, teen pregnancy, and murder! Believe it or not, it was a comedy. I think.

Final thought: At one point during our cycling trek today I waved a friendly hello to a passing cyclist who, after a look of surprise, smiled and waved back. Kim, riding behind me, said “That's so southern.” I nodded. Then she added, “Keep on trucking. These people need it.” That felt good, and I agree. Everybody needs it.

Form, Function, The Art of Love and Happiness

September 18th, 2009

I have often, in excusing my demeanor or actions, described myself as a 6 year-old boy who got thrown into this world which is way bigger than me and concerned with things I don't grasp. Kids try, but at a certain point there's a disconnect. At my core, there is a disconnect. I am a boy on the living room floor in his fireman hat with a toy fire engine. I am a boy with a Fisher-Price bubble-blowing lawn mower. I am a kid obsessed with the novelty of the bicycle without training wheels. I am into sweets and whole dill pickles...jar after jar of them. I am intrigued by the physics of hoisting my own body up a 15 foot pole to the top of my swing set. I can be seen at times in my back yard as the honorable knight Sir Enoch of Nochsenburg wrapped neck-to-toe in aluminum foil, gleaming in the morning light. I've missed some fashion cues and am the only 6 year-old on the block who can be found wearing hot pink hat, shirt, and shorts...BECAUSE I LIKE PINK. I've also been known to don a three-piece suit all day around the house for to particular reason, but I woke up and felt like it. My childish curiosity has compelled me on many occasions to dress up as a woman, complete with heels, a wig, and a fancy ladies hat, just to see what I might be missing as a boy.

I've been in some very adult situations. Strains of all kinds of stretched and contorted me in every way imaginable. In those moments it's difficult to feel in touch with the zen child within yourself. You feel very much in touch and connected to the weight of the world, and the dark matter of the universe which drags you closer and closer to a the final halt--one moment, after another moment, after another earth-shattering moment.

Kids don't understand those kinds of moments, and therefore they are not within their universe. Don't believe me? Spend a few moments with a child-in-body, connecting with their eyeballs and living with them. They'll let you into their universe for a moment or two. Pop your head in and you'll lack to apparatus to perceive the shit-storm you so frequently imagined.

This is not a lament for days gone by. You and I are still 6 year-old kids in a world which is way bigger than us and concerned with things we don't grasp. We sometimes try, but at a certain point there's a disconnect. At our core, there is a disconnect. Thank God. There are better things to dwell on.

ASK YOUR MOM IF YOU CAN COME OVER AND PLAY WITH ME

Mother, I Can Feel the Soil Falling Over My Head

September 17th, 2009

It sounds like a cliché, but every morning from my window I hear a jackhammer echoing around the buildings of Manhattan. Can there really be that much jack-hammering going on? It's not that the sound annoys me. It's not loud or overbearing, it's just that I thought maybe that was just in the movies and there wasn't actually always a jackhammer running.

The rest of this chapter is written less in a clever way and more in a mom-here's-how-my-life-is-going sort of way. But I feel that's okay because sometimes you want to let your mom know how your life is going, and while it's best to do that is a song (and dance), sometimes the logistic limitations of life weigh heavy on an artist's plight. So... Dear mom,

Today I had my first class at the Maggie Flanagan studio. I love Maggie Flanagan. She talked for a bit about the nature of acting, and about her teaching method. We had a short break, and then introduced us to a few fundamentals of acting and the beginning of repetition, an exercise designed my Sandy Meisner which I would do a disservice to try to explain. (If you're curious about the Meisner technique you should read a book called The Actor's Art and Craft by Bill Esper.)

Peacefood, my job, is pretty much awesome. I couldn't tell the first day because I was training and it was akward because training is always akward. But yes, all the people who work there are my speed of folk, the guests are good people looking for good in the world. It's awesome. I had a really good time tonight and I think maybe I did extraordinarily good work.

Any Fool Can Think Up Words That Rhyme

September 16th, 2009

Cool things happen/are happening to me. I've been in town less than a week and already have been to an awesome beatles concert (for free – see previous post), got a job, had dinner with my good friends from nashville Adam and Kate, Shot a bunch of awesome photos, met other nice folks, popped my NYC-cyclist cherry, and saw rodrigo y gabriela perform.

You might say to yourself, “Gee, I like the couple of songs by Rodrigo y Gabriela that I've heard, but they're pretty similar. I wonder how they keep their two hour set from all sounding the same.” Well, they don't.

To be fair, they do the thing that that do very well. They play spanish sounding music...really fast. They can thump on their guitars...really fast. Oh, and loud. Seriously, Gabriela strums so quickly I didn't mind hearing the same song for two hours.

Occasionally Rodrigo would get different sections of the crowd clapping different paterns. I think most people enjoyed that but at one point a frat boy behind me yelled, “This shit is so complex! What the fuck dude!”

So did I enjoy myself? Yes. Do I think it was a good concert? Well, if you're wowed my speed and dexterity you might have thought it was a good concert. If I made a checklist of things at a good concert, instrumental acrobatics probably wouldn't be on it.

England is Mine and it Owes Me a Living

September 15th, 2009

Dear Universe Earth-Bird,
Thank you for supplying me with awesome experiences and giving me what I ask for. I don't know what was up with that weird segment in New Brunswick, NJ, but I can let it go if you can. I think we both said some things we didn't mean and regret and we can just leave it at that.

I enjoy the job that you gave me and am glad that it pays well. I also appreciate all the nice weather you always give me like a spotlight in a dark room.

I would also like to that you for all the good people who are in my life and who I meet every day, and for the mind-blowing and edifying interactions I have with them.

I'm grateful also for the gifts of music, photography, writing, acting, and comedy.

Thank you for a little computer that I can take everywhere and use as an outlet, and thank you for skype so I can talk to Anna.

Thanks for rodrigo y gabriela who I am seeing in concert and for all the other great enriching artists I've seen over the course of my life.

I was happy to find that you saved that bike for me at amber lion aniques all year, and that I got it for such a damn cheap price.

Thanks for the best apartment in this city, and for this view from my window at night.



Yours litterally,
Enoch – Age 6

Oh what a world we live in

September 14th, 2009

On Biking in New York City:

It's totally not as daunting as I thought. People seem cautious to watch for cyclists and even understanding when they have to yield to them. It's easy as anywhere really. There's a lot of traffic but everyone driving knows that, so if they're on the road their eyes are open. Better than I can say for Tennessee drivers actually.

On Memory:

I often think mine is not that sharp. People quote me from time to time and I ask who they're quoting. It's nice to always have a new take on things, even if they're my things, but sometimes I think it makes me less sentimental, or at least slows down certain kinds of social learning, or learning about my own patterns.

So, if you're a friend of mine and you're reading this and thinking you've noticed a flaw in my that I haven't, I would ask that you present it to me (please be gentle if you can) because I might just not be picking up on something.

On Subconscious Learning:

I think it's my strength, but that only good for certain types of tasks. Non-fact work is my speciality.

On Vegetarianism:

Notable vegetarians include Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, Socrates, Confucius, Budda, Thich Nhat Hanh, Pythagoras, and Ghandi.

On Fluorescent Light Bulbs:

First off, fluorescent lights look horrible. Apparently you can search out CFLs with specific light temps, which emulate natural light better than others, but the overlooked fact is that color temperature is a poor indicator of the quality of light. A better one is the CRI - Color Rendering Index, which measures "the ability of a light source to reproduce the colors of various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal or natural light source." (so says Wikipedia) If you look at a spectral analysis of Compact Fluorescent and Incandescent lamps. You will see that a very small part of the spectrum is actually delivered with CF lamps. This causes problems with illustrators, textiles, and any other business or hobby that requires good color rendition.

As far as the mercury part goes...As I understand it, waste from burning coal to produce power ends up as mercury. Someone more knowledgeable than I needs to do the math and figure out if the waste from an incandescent is less or greater than the 5 mg or less of mercury in CFLs.

The trouble is that neither kind of light bulb is sustainable. Both produce waste and absorb the resources faster than nature produces them. We build an un sustainable system in the first place, and until we 1.) Have some brilliant idea and 2.)want to (or are forced) to restructure our society from the ground up, we'll keep having to live with (or die by) inadequate stabs in the dark,

For the record I'm all about decreasing pollution for the general well-being of all organisms (including humans). Global warming may or may not be man-made or whatever. I don't care; I just don't see anything good about breathing, eating, and drinking carcinogens.

The meat in your mouth as you savour the flavour...

September 13th, 2009

There is an area in Nashville called Hillsboro. There is an area in New Jersey called Hillsborough. I never really thought of the Tennessee spelling as a bastardized version of the word until this week, but I suppose it makes sense. By the time the word spread that far across the country language was already evolving.

You can't think about photographing anything in new york city. Well, of course you can, but what I mean is that if you think about it you'll find it pointless. How many photos have there been of new york city? From how many different perspectives? What does my bundle of glass and plastic have to offer that has not already been. This, of course, is not intuitive knowledge. It's intelectual mumbo jumbo, which untimately fails. Because for that matter it's pointless to photograph a sunset or the human eyeball. That's just not true. Not true to my soul. I have shot many a photo here. Not all are pointless. Novelty comes from the uniqueness of your nervous system, not from the objects you record.

This is a vomit story. More acurately, this is a near-vomit story. Recently, until a few hours ago I haven't eaten much flesh, or any cooked food for that matter. I've been consuming fresh fruits, vegetables, sprouts, and such. I visited my friends Adam and Kate tonight and Kate made this delicious caserole with lots of...CHICKEN FLESH!!! It was perfect tasting, but I nearly puked later. I don't think Adam or Kate knew, but I'm kind of like a robot in that I can disconnect certain discomforts from my immediate consciousness for the sake social interaction, productivity, or general fun. The moral of this story is that eating flesh is actually as weird as it seems in those strangely lucid moments that flash through the long gooey continuum of my mental adventure, and that I'd be better off sticking with the foods that make my body feel good, and which appeal to my common sense.

Strangely, cow flesh doesn't appeal to my common sense, but has more often than not made my body feel good. Insert subjective theory here:

Rain, I don't mind.

September 12th, 2009

Last night in my dream I had a guru. The trouble is, I can't remember what the guru taught me. I guess I'll just have to trust that whatever there was to be learned seeped into my subconscious and will make most effect from there. Strangely, the guru took the form of a busser at Cafe Coco named Emily who I barely know. Strangeness.

Meet my job: Peacefood Cafe. All vegan. All organic. BAD ASS VIBES. Anna and I went there for breakfast this morning. “A macchiato, anything else?”, “Yes, can I work here?”, “Uhm...Maybe The owner is looking for somebody.”, “Is the owner here?”, “Yeah, he's around here somewhere.”. The owners name is Eric. We chatted for a long time about food and yoga. He wanted to tell me all about his Guru. Was that the guru in my dream? Synchronicity.

Anna just left for JFK Airport. She's going to London for the year. The last two days leading up to here departure were really hard for her. Not so much for me; I don't feel preemptive sadness or loss about much of anything. Sometimes I fear I'm just not emotional enough. But then, as I waved through the taxi window, it hit me. Right on time. Now is real as shit.

People are nice as hell in New York. I mean, it's not like Nashville, but when considering my recent experiences in New Brunswick, NJ, folks are comparatively lovely! School starts on Thursday. I didn't realize it was so close until I checked the date on my watch just now.

As if today wasn't already a motherfucker, I accidentally had one of the most awesome concert experiences of my life tonight. A friend of my hosts mentioned he had an extra ticket to a beatles tribute show. Although I wouldn't typically pay money to see not-the-beatles, I figured since it was free I'd give it a shot.

I showed up at the Beacon, which it turns out is a beautiful beyond description and worth the trip alone, then Richard starts filling me in on this band we're about to see. They're called The Fab Faux. Clever, right? The band consists of bassistWill Lee from The Late Show with David Letterman and guitarist Jimmy Vivino from Late Night with Conan O'Brien along with three other totally bad ass musicians (all five of them are stellar vocalists), a full horn section, string section, and a harpist. The first half of their set was the record Revolver in its entirety, then after an intermission, they played about an hour of songs the people who bought tickets to the show had voted for, including I Am the Walrus, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, a legendary sounding A Day In The Life, and ending with Hey Jude.

But out of all the great songs they nailed I was most moved by Rain. My friend John has a gentle spirit and loves animals. He's moved around a lot in his life so his social group naturally has always changed. The one friend he was constantly with for 17 years was his cat Bukka. Bukka was actually the coolest cat I've come into contact with, for many reasons I shant recount here. Back in 2006, while john was in the process of moving out of his apartment in Nashville to relocate to Texas Bukka died. John was really torn up about it and stayed in Nashville an extra week to take care of his friend's remains. John's lease was up so he stayed at my house. The day John left he told me that the song Rain was going to carry him through his heartache. He took my guitar down off the wall and there in my bedroom played this song with about as much passion as I've ever witnessed:

If the rain comes they run and hide their heads.
They might as well be dead.
If the rain comes, if the rain comes.
When the sun shines they slip into the shade
(When the sun shines down.)
And sip their lemonade.
(When the sun shines down.)
When the sun shines, when the sun shines.
Rain, I don't mind.
Shine, the world looks fine.
I can show you that when it starts to rain,
(When the Rain comes down.)
Everything's the same.
(When the Rain comes down.)
I can show you, I can show you.
Rain, I don't mind.
Shine, the world looks fine.
Can you hear me, that when it rains and shines,
(When it Rains and shines.)
It's just a state of mind?
(When it rains and shines.)
Can you hear me, can you hear me?

Repackage, repackage, repackage, re-evaluate the songs

September 11th, 2009

There was a large snake in my dream last night. It was fucking huge. Here's how it went down: I was helping Chuck Cinelli (my friend and old boss) start another new business. He had this huge warehouse and we were loading things into it. A large box arrived. “This must be the cobra I ordered” he said. WTF? A cobra? He commenced opening the box and sure enough, out slithered a giant snake. The thing seemed content enough around chuck, but he got a glance of me and suddenly rose up into an attack position. I must have looked scared as balls because chuck started trying to calm me down. “Don't worry, Enoch. Just hold your hand up as high as you can and he'll see you as an equal. You'll be fine. Apparently Chuck was all kinds of wrong because the snake lunged forward and sank it's fangs into my hand. Chuck tried to coach me through this one as well, “Ok look, just relax your hand and your whole body so he knows you're not a threat. He'll only inject poison into you if he feels you're a threat. I had no reason to believe this, but what else was I gonna do? To my surprise, the snake carefully pulled his fangs out of my flesh and laid down against the floor again.

I stood there, not as shocked as I should have been by the whole experience. I should have died just then. Madness. Then the snake started to shift forms. I watched him change from a snake into a fairy child, wings and all! He waved his wand and suddenly a big dinner table appeared full of food. “Do you like the foods with egg in them”? The child fairy asked. “Mommy says they're the best for you!” Utterly confused I just stared at the fairy. Then he looked back at me and spoke without speaking. He said that he really was a snake, but he hated being a snake because nobody loved him when they saw him. He said he'd take on different forms so people wouldn't be scared of him. “Maybe people wouldn't be scared of you if you'd simply avoid biting them”, I thought back at him. His response was fair enough; “What can I say? I'm a snake.”

Just then chuck handed me a letter to deliver to someone, but as he was handing it to me the fairy flew over and snatched it away. Chuck and I stood there and watched him fly away as he transformed again from a fairy into a carrier pigeon.

“That dumb snake”, Chuck said, “Always trying to please everybody.”

Do you have a vacancy for a back-scrubber?

September 10th, 2009

Today is the day I might move into New York. I say “might” not because New York died or because we had a falling out. It's just that Anna and I are in New Hampshire waiting on her visa to show up in the mail so she can fly to London for school. The Chicago consulate has had her passport and information for 3 weeks and her flight is tomorrow. Hmm...

I lost my job in NYC. How did you lose a job you haven't even started, Enoch? Well, you see, I was to replace someone at a bakery/cafe when I arrived, but the guy quit before I got there, so the manager hired somebody else. Life salad.

I got confused, I killed a horse, I can't help the way I feel

September 9th, 2009

Last night I had a playmate in my dreams. He was about a 3 year old blonde kid and one of the funnest people I've ever been around. He had such zest for everything! Anything I he found to do or that I suggested he was just totally into. He seemed infinitely happy, content, and full of energy. At some point near the end of this dream my mom arrived and the little boy left.. I told her how great this kid was and all about how much fun we'd been having. I asked her who he was, and she said, “That was you, Enoch.”

I don't feel like that kid, but I can, so I guess I will.

Some girls are bigger than others...

September 8th, 2009

Toe clips, or no toe clips? I never can make up my mind about the damn things. When you're riding a bike, what exactly do they do for you? Can you thrust throughout more of your pedal stroke? That what is seems like to me, which gives me cause to reinstall them on my bike. Then again, getting your foot in the stirrup while starting can be a pain and if you stop suddenly and your foot sticks somehow you really can bite it. (I know; I've done it!) What do you do?

Someone I was dating once told me that she was afraid if she wasn't dating me that she wouldn't be successful if we weren't together. When I asked what she meant she said she felt I was lucky and being connected to me would earn some luck by osmosis. Now, I don't believe in luck, but I do think that if you believe in luck and and believe you're lucky then you will be. So, yes I'm lucky. Furthermore all the people I know are lucky via proxy! Congratulations!

You know what? I grew up in a large family, but I've realized that it's only gotten bigger as I've gotten older. Let me explain: No family is perfect. No parents are perfect. Every person has family-shaped holes in them that their families couldn't fill. Not because their families are comprised of bad people but simply because people are people and have their own shit they're dealing with, so they can't engineer themselves to be what you need, yeah? So, I think one of the later stages of growing into an “adult” is figuring out (consciously or unconsciously) what kind of relationships you need and seeking them out.

When I was 5 years old I told my mom that I thought people would die without music. Trying to be agreeable, she said something like “well yes, there's a timing to music just like the seasons and humans wouldn't live without those seasons.” Unsatisfied with her abstraction I responded, “NO! NOT THE SEASONS. PEOPLE WOULD DIE WITHOUT MUSIC MOM!” and stormed off in my cowboy boots. I love music. Music is not a vain art. Music is essential to life. People would die without music.

__________


I'm on a short vacation in New Hampshire. Anna and I are spending a few days at her grandparents sailing on Squam lake, swimming, riding bikes, and playing cards. It's kind of a limbo period between the last 8 years I've spent in Nashville and the impending future elsewhere. (New York for me, London for Anna.)

I'm moving for acting school. I really don't know anything about acting; I've been in one show as an adult – that was this summer – and I pretty much faked my way through it. Whatever that means.

My brain jump through all the rhetorical hoops as a matter of obligation; It asks if I'll be good, if acting will come naturally to me, if I'll fail, embarrass myself, or if I'm wasting my time.

Really when it comes down to it, what I truly know is that I'll be fine, and if I work hard, I'll be great. I feel like I've been lucky to have ended up with very self-assuring brain chemistry. Though I'm neurotic as hell, at the end of the day, I believe in my ability to learn and become great at anything I put my mind to.

That said, I have no idea what to expect really. Everyone tells me Maggie Flanagan is a hard-ass, and from what little I'm seen and after having met her during my interview, I believe it.

I wonder if this turns into a book. I am entering a field in complete ignorance having no experience and yet learning from the best. I think since I have the awareness to observe a process and document my experiences I might be learning something more than just the craft.