Six Eight Debate

I hate people who mosey,

truth be told.

And truth be told,

you are no friend of mine if you stroll, ramble, or meander.

God help you if you saunter,

cause if you're a saunterer,

you are dead to me.

I've always been infuriated by slow moving people. I don't mean the disabled or the infirm, just the sunday drivers on the two-lane highway of life. And that's not to say I haven't stopped and smelled my fair share of roses, but there are rest stops for that sort of thing.

My wife's a born dawdler. Sometimes I'll be half way across the parking lot before she has even gathered her purse from the checkout counter. The seventeen year old is a world class, gold medal winning, with an honorary doctorate dawdler. He can turn a simple combination of movements (like putting on his shoes and walking out the door) into a fifteen minute frustration session where he insists that he's been ready to go for "like hours."

"Come on, we're going!" My wife will yell.

"I'm ready!" he'll yell back.

"You don't even have you shoes on!" she'll scream

"It just takes a second to put them on." he'll scream back from the easy chair he's been texting in.

"We're out the door right now!" She'll scream loudly.

"I just have to finish this!" He'll exasperate.

"Let's go!" She screams louder

"I'm coming!" He'll exasperate again.

etc.

I've seen this take fifteen minutes,

I shit you not.

Calvin's a meanderer. But, fair being fair, what four year-old doesn't suffer from shiny object syndrome? He is a bit of a clothes horse, which worries me, and once he gets an idea in his head there's no forward movement until he either wins or I pull the spanking card, but he's lightening fast otherwise.

So I guess to sum up, I like to move quickly.

Too fast, really.

I've found that I don't work well around people who mosey. I get frustrated, they get frustrated. I pull the spank card. They tell me the spank card is only legal in Texas. I can't go to Texas. Those people virtually invented moseying.

And it affects me in my artistic abilities as well. I have to constantly remind myself to slow a song down, to stop playing ahead of the beat. I could get through a Leonard Cohen ballad like I was Joey Ramone.

Anyway, a few years ago I was watching the Golf Channel (Yes this was before I was a full time father.) and the show had session on putting.

Coach Putterer pulled out a metronome.

He said "In order for you to have an even, smooth stroke, you must first be in tune with your internal tempo."

He said "Buy yourself a metronome and go for a walk. They are for sale at the website below. (I added that part) Try to match the metronome's tempo with the tempo of your natural walk. Once you've found your natural rhythm, use the beats to measure your stroke. It is in this way you will achieve an even swing."

Seeing as how I had both a metronome handy, and an uneven swing, I decided to give it a try.

One two three four, one two three four.

But that was too slow, too uncomfortable, so I doubled it.

Oneandtwoandthreeandfourand.

Better, but not right. So I tripled it.

One and a two and a three and a four and a.

Much better, but insanely fast. I looked like a speed walker who desperately needs to pee.

So rather than fighting my way down the street in a boring 4/4, I decided to try a little 6/8.

And there it was. My internal rhythm. And I'm not talking about "Waltzing Matilda" either. My internal rhythm was more like the tympani of a Wagnerian thunderstorm.

Boom bah bah BOOM bah bah.

You can almost see the rumble under Brunhilde's leather corset.

And Coacher Putterer was right. Lift the club on one, breathe on two, reach my back swing on three, smash the ball on four, and follow through on five and six. Best I ever played.

And it didn't stop there. I discovered that for every song I've written in 4/4, there are like five in 6 /8. Half of my first album is in 6/8 (or some variation).

It's as if my internal rhythm is as impatient to get to the end of the bar as I am to get to the end of the grocery aisle. Which is to say, two steps faster.

But as my dad is always telling me.

"Slow it down son"

So the next song I'd like to demo for you has two versions. The first is the juiced up version in 6/8. Juiced up meaning there is more on the track than guitar and vocals. The second version is just me and an electric guitar in 4/4.

I like both. Not as recordings (I can't stand anything I've recorded), but as synonyms. Different words with the same meaning.

The 6/8 version feels immediate, impassioned. But there's a slow droning groove to the 4/4 that's just melancholy enough to warrant a second listen.

They both feel too slow to me.

Listen and enjoy . . .

or don't and mosey out of the way.



www.myspace.com/joshmacrae

Follow Me

I was thinking back and I realized that this is not the first time I have posted material of "Castle Park" for audience preview, in fact this will be the third. But this time I'm going to really push to get everyone within email distance to check it out and invite them to comment.

If you've been reading from the beginning, then you probably get the gist of this experiment and can skip the next three paragraphs. If not . . . follow me . . . and try to keep up.

Castle Park is the special park I take my little guy to whenever I get the chance. It's great cause it's old and big and I can point him in the direction of the slides and sit back with my little notebook and scribble. So, a little more than a year ago I noticed that I had a handful of songs. A handful of songs that were not written from my perspective, but from his, which happened because while watching him play I found his thoughts far more interesting than my own. So, not only did I have some material that I was really proud of, I also had a thematic concept. Writing from another perspective is a fantastic way of avoiding the rut of my own emotional crap and experiencing someone else's. The challenge in this concept, however, is to shy away from schmaltz whenever I can, the world does not need another "Cats in the Cradle" let alone an entire album.

Because my previous album had been a five year epic fizzle, it occurred to me that the journey might be just as interesting (if not more) as the destination, so I started this blog to document the entire process from first scribble to major label release. (no, I am currently not signed to any major label, but a girl's gotta dream). It also occurred to me that building an audience through the blogosphere might sell a few more albums down the road. I am a capitalist after all.

And lastly, I wanted to do something to embrace the social networking zeitgeist, and wondered what would happen if I broke a much written about taboo. Which is to say, never show a piece of art before it is finished. If my friends and loved ones could follow the story, what if I took the solitude of song writing and made it interactive? What if I allowed everyone to listen to the songs in their infancy and comment and maybe influence the final production? Totally awful idea, right? Nevertheless, here we are. And here we begin . . .

**Spoiler Alert**
This next section is going to be a deconstruction of the song "Follow Me"
If you don't care about the nuts and bolts of song construction, skip to the end and just listen and post your thoughts.
If, like me, you can't get enough of the details, I'll try to make this worthy of your time.

"Follow Me" The Idea:

It's monday morning. (its probably an amalgam of many mondays, but true none the less.)

My wife has literally just locked the door behind her on her way to work and Calvin runs full force into my leg spilling my coffee on the much hated carpet.

"Look what you did." I say. But he beams as if to say "You know as well as I do that I couldn't care less."

"Can we go?"

I raise my eyebrow.

"Let's go, lets go! Follow me."

I refuse to move, eyebrow still raised.

"Say yes! Say yes! Let's go!"

"In a minute." I say.

"No, not in a minute. Let's go!"

"What do you say?"

"May I please take me to the park?"

"It's 'Will you please take me to the park'"

"Let's go!"

So after we change from our jammies, brush our teeth, and bundle up, I grab my notebook and off we go.

Calvin had a routine at the park. The minute I pulled him out of the car seat he would jump from my arms and race over to the kiddie swings. If they were occupied, he would stand as close as he could stand without getting smacked in the face by flying feet and ask me every few seconds if they were done yet. He could tell when his turn was about to come when the other parents would get closer to the dangerous pendulum and begin to yank their kid out of the chair. Within seconds of the occupied little butts leaving the plastic seat, Calvin would lunge for the swing and hold onto it, claiming his rightful throne.

My favorite part is that he would close his eyes and wait for me to throw him into the air only to land safely in the loving embrace of the kiddie swing. He wasn't much of a conversationalist in the early days. "Higher!" "Faster!" "No!, too high!" were his only directions and since it would be another forty-five minutes before he relinquished his spot, I would pop my earbuds into one ear and space out to a little "Fresh Air"

Eventually I could convince him to get out and run around. I would lift him from the swing invariably losing a shoe, and when I got him back on the ground he would point to his crotch and give me a sad face.

"Time for a change?" I would ask. He would nod his head once and then we would go back to the car, put a fresh diaper on his little body and then off to the slides. Sometimes, however, I would ask him if he needed a diaper change, which I could clearly see that he did, and he would look at me quizzically and blast off for the jungle gym.

He was a fast little fucker even then, so sometimes I caught him, sometimes not. Those times I would wait till he was at the bottom of the slide and whisk him back to the car before his little Keds hit the ground.

Once he is running around socializing with the rest of the kids, I could sit on the bench and begin writing/observing. Note: when they're that little, if you take your eyes off them for more than a few seconds, the next time you see them, they'll be making a B-Line for the street. So at best, I could only jot down a few words at a time which is why my earliest pages look like the scribblings of a crazy person.

It's this event, and events like it, that makes "Follow Me" the perfect first cut for the album. It sets the scene and is a little wink/nod to the pied piper.

"Follow Me" The Lyrics:

The story basically illustrates the impetus for each line but there are a few little lyrical tricks I used to make it flow.

You say 'in a minute', but I want half that time
You say 'now you did it' but you know what's yours is mine

Yes, I did rhyme 'mine' with 'time' (it's not an error if you meant to do it) and 'you know what's yours is mine' is just a nice way of saying 'I'm gonna trash your stuff, deal with it'

If you say yes, then I'll say go
It's lift me up before I know it

"it's lift me up before I know it" was a reference to the game where Calvin would close his eyes and wait for me to throw him on the swing. I pulled a little Porteresque move by rhyming "I'll say go . . . its" with "lift me up before I know it." Cole Porter is famous for the double word rhyme (wild again, beguiled again) and I use it whenever I can get away with it. In an era where lyricism is either a collection of cliches or stream of consciousness set to music, I love attempting to honor the masters of form, techniques and style.

Push me higher, faster, I can't breathe. Follow Me.

A direct reference to the swings, but I wanted to juxtapose two competing ideas. Push Me (i.e. I need you to set me in motion) Follow Me (i.e. but don't forget that I'm the leader).

You say its time for changing
but I just run and hide
no point in rearranging
till we're down this slide

One of the tragedies of modern lyrics is that either they're downright stupid, or so bogged down with vagaries and metaphor that they're unintelligible. And since the modern ear is tuned to the form, it's nearly impossible to write classically without it sounding hokey. My own rebel stance is to make literal lines sound like metaphoric ones. So 'time for changing' may appear to be about growth and development, but it's really referring to peeling off dirty diapers.

I know that demon time
is right above your shoulder
there's not a moment with which
we're not getting older
so may I please
no
will you please
follow me

Every parent who's ever raised their children wishes they could go back in time and relive all those great moments. I don't want to feel that way. I want to capture those moments so that I can spend my life both in the now, and anxious for what's next. This bridge is how I motivate myself to live in Calvin's now, and be a good dad, even when I'm too tired to be anything to anyone. It's what I imagine Calvin would say to get my ass off the couch. The ending reflects Calvin's learning to ask for things politely, getting the words wrong, and then correcting himself. A reference to when he won't need me for the little stuff any longer.

"Follow Me" The Music:

For Christmas, dad gave me a Martin Ukulele that belonged to my step-mom's father and had been collecting dust. He knows I have love collecting instruments and this little thing was no exception. However, before I got a chance to even tune it, it became Calvin's favorite thing in the world. Anytime I would take out my guitar, he would grab the instrument out of its case and play along with me.

At first it was just the most cutest thing ever. Yes it was . . . yes it was. We did however discover that a prized family heirloom is probably not the best toy for a two year old, and so we got him his own.

Once back in my hands, I learned to play some basic chords and came up with a jaunty little riff that sounded perfect for my new set of lyrics. I drove my wife crazy for a week polishing my skill on the mini-instrument and singing.

Knowing that I couldn't very well use the instrument for my live show, I tried to make the transfer on the six string, but it just didn't sound right. Then I scaled it to the 12 string and the song found its voice. The twelve string also allowed me to rewrite the bridge so that it skips down into a minor key and the melody line can reach my upper register. The song would go from jaunty to dark back to jaunty. Since the most successful songwriters have been songwriting teams, writing different sections of songs at different times with different instruments allows me to treat myself as my own writing partner.

The music was born, shelved, reborn, shelved and then finally I agreed with myself that it was right.

"Follow Me" The First Recording:

So the recording you're about to hear was done in Dad's basement. First I threw in a basic drum track and then recorded a scratch track of the twelve string and my voice. I then agonized over a bass track, but discovered the simplicity of cutting and pasting on my new computer (an iMac by the way, screw you PC!). And then went to record the ukelele.

Of course, disaster struck. The ukelele track was in D maj. The 12string and bass was in E maj, a whole friggin step down.

For those of you who might suggest down tuning the ukelele, forget about it. Tried it, doesn't work.

But I wanted the damn Ukelele, so by the magic of Garageband (again, screw you PC!) I deleted the scratch 12 string track, and pushed a few buttons to make the bass track go up a couple notches. Didn't sound fresh and live, but it's the bass we're talking about. And I didn't have all day.

After a few takes with the Ukelele, and Dad's insistence that I tune the darn thing, I had a good enough pass.

Then since the 12 string was out of the question, I reenlisted the help of my trusty six string. Pan each instrument to opposite sides and make way for the vocal track.

Now here's where it got a little hairy.

I have been singing this song live for over a year now.

In E Major.

Unfortunately, the bridge that pushes my upper register in E major, is almost, but not quite, out of reach in D major. However, as my old man told me, if you can touch it, you can catch it.

So I went balls out. And learned a valuable lesson in vocal warm-ups. Which is . . to do them.

I didn't quite make it, as you will hear, and I cheated down a bit, as you will also hear. But I was trying to record eight songs in two days, and nit picking was not on my agenda.

After listening to the first pass, I realized that when the bridge comes, the butchered high notes sounded more like a blunt instrument that came out of nowhere, so to give them a little heft I pulled out my electric and twanged a thrashy D minor chord for punctuation. Not exactly a perfect solution, but as I said, time was of the essence.

A little EQ magic to polish it up, the end.

So there you have it. Start to finish.

Please follow this link to my myspace and listen to the song. If you have head phones available I suggest using them because computer speakers are usually awful. Also on this sight should be a YouTube video of the same song performed live at Streets of London in West Sacramento, in E Major.

www.myspace.com/joshmacrae

And please comment in some fashion. Again this is an interactive sport, and although I am a fragile artist, I heal quickly.

Minor Retraction

Got some great responses to my last blog.

But it made me realize that I may have been a little overdramatic.

A little too Tennessee Williams and not enough Neil Simon.

What I meant to say was that the scratch demo I recorded sounded far different from my original intent.

I didn't say it was bad, or that I should check myself into the Ford Clinic, but I wasn't prepared for how different.

It was like pouring myself a bowl of stew, and ending up with a mouthful of Pop Rocks.

I like Pop Rocks, but they just don't quite hit the spot on a lazy hazy sunday afternoon.

And that's what I meant by paradigm shift. To fall in love with what I've got rather than what I've dreamed and go forward. Like a husband falling in love with his wife rather than his secretary.

Sure the secretary might seem like a lot more fun, but she is probably a cat lover, and nobody spends that much time at the nail salon unless they have deep emotional needs.

With that said, it also reminded me that I haven't been fully open during this whole process.

My original intent was to pull a total Castanza. (ie "Hi, my name is George, I'm fat, I'm bald, I have no job and I live with my parents.")

Do everything a song writer is not supposed to do.

First I was going to use my son as my only inspiration: Too hokey. Too sentimental. Too Kermit the Frog for a Leonard Cohen career.

Second, I was gonna write about the whole process in blog form from first chord to iTunes release. Too unreliable. Too close to thousands of writer's block blogs. Too much like a vomit pail or a bed pan.

And lastly, I was going to invite the universe to listen to the songs in their infancy, weigh in, make suggestions, tell me how much they hate the ones I love, and love the ones I hate.

I chickened out on this last part.

Sure there were technical glitches, time issues, etc etc, but really, it's a very stupid idea.

Criticism can be such a baby killer.

But that was the most dangerous part of all.

That was the scariest part. (or dumbest, whichever you prefer)

And why do it at all?

Doesn't the taboo exist for a reason?

Yes, and for very good reasons, but it's an interactive social medium I'm experimenting with and it's something I could never do if I was already a commercial artist. I'm breaking with taboo, just to break something, and it feels good.

Hell, if I'm gonna stand up naked in front of everyone I know, I might as well have the balls to keep the lights on.

Get it?

Balls?

Anyhoo,

Starting this week I'm going to invite all of you to take your first listen to each of the new songs.

Every friday, I will upload a tune onto myspace. I will send out an invite via facebook to come take a listen, and comment if you feel the need. The song will only last until the next one comes along and will not be available for free download.

Note: each song will of course already have been registered with the copy write office (me stupid, but not that stupid.) Because each song will have already been registered, I will not be taking into account any lyrical or melodic suggestions.

Too fast?

Too Slow?

Kill it!

Keep it!

More Cowbell!

Whatever the response, I'm determined enough to take it, and fragile enough let it hurt.

Watch for the invitation.

Love,

Josh

Paradigm Shift

"For some of you, this new program will enhance the work you've already been doing, for others it will be a total paradigm shift"

he said.

Now, way back in the old days, to me, corporate buzz words were like finger nails down the chalkboard of my soul.

Using terms like synergy, paradigm shift and thinking outside the box was a one way ticket to endearing yourself to me as a court jester. Good for a laugh and a roll of the eyes, but it might take years to fight your way back into my respectable column.

At first I was smarmy just for the sake of being smarmy (its a youthful trait I've been dedicated to hammering out of my system). Then such terms angered me when I realized that anyone who uses the phrase "thinking outside the box" is usually the person who can't, won't and is desperately afraid when others do.

But I gotta say, when the speaker said "paradigm shift" I didn't wiggle or cringe or display any other obnoxious physicality. I just nodded my head and thought "That sounds about right."

Part of it is cause I'm older. I have responsibilities that keep my feet firmly planted on the reservation. Another reason is that I'm blessed with working with people that are as smart or smarter than me. And frankly, I've had enough paradigm shifts throughout my life that I just get it.

I says this because "Castle Park"

as it is now

as I see it

sucks.

One year ago (ish) I set off on creating a conceptual art piece that was part indie/pop album and part travelogue. I chose the father son relationship as my foundation with the firm belief that the raw purity of emotion would make me a better writer and applying the empathetic observation of a writer would make me a better father.

In both cases I was right.

So kudos to me.

But the actual material, the end result, the bottom line, the stuff that is left to posterity, totally blows.

I wanted this blog to be a daily thing, but daily turned into weekly turned into monthly turned into I guess whenever.

And the music . . .

the music was supposed to be dark and sexy and dangerous so that the casual listener would never find the literal hidden within the metaphoric. And those blessed fans who have followed along would be doubly ensnared as if they've been carrying around their own little secret.

So at the one year mark, I took two days off to record the whole thing. I wanted to hear where I was.

Two ten hour days. Every instrument from a twelve string to a ukelele. Fighting past throbbing fingertips and un-cooperating vocal chords.

And then I sat back and listened.

And where I was wasn't where I wanted to be.

Instead of sexy and dangerous, I've got cheerful and downright jaunty.

The metaphors weren't hidden, they're right out in the open. Lyrics that I thought where so cleverly disguised sit fat on the melody line and come across as cliches no one else has gotten around to using yet.

My mythic journey has ended up a toe-tapping romp.

It's a total disaster.

And now I have two choices.

I can scrap the whole damn thing. Maybe keep a few of the songs for other days. Delete this blog, so that I one day I won't have to explain myself to a corporate head hunter. Drag most of the offensive tracks to my digital waste basket. Me and my friends would ignore the subject at dinner parties and "Castle Park" would fade out of the scene like a bad stock purchase or an ex-girlfriend. It would be something I said when I was drunk just before I passed out at the karaoke bar.

Or

and this is a big "OR"

Or I can man up.

I can embrace it.

I can look deeply in to those big brown eyes,

look past the crows feet and unpaid credit card bills

and see this vision of love for the first time.

She might not be the girl of my dreams, but that's only because I need better dreams.

Paradigm Shift.

Thumbing the Muse

Time, man.

It's a killer.

In a different era, when I was a much different man, I was fond of telling the people around me who complained about not having enough time is this:

"Time is not something that's given. Time is something you make."

And I was right.

Still am to some degree.

But what I didn't conceive then, was what happens to you when you've spent your life making time and then you've reached the plateau. I've mastered bending time to fit my needs. Pushing out fluff and minutiae. Forcing the people who needed me to find another hero. I come first. Me me me. Write what you want on a post-it and I'll get to it when I get to it.

Then I became a dad. And time wasn't about me me me. Time suddenly became far more zen-like. Time became about the now.

Art, any art, is an open ended commitment. Sure there are some far more disciplined writers in this discipline of writing who can schedule a forty five minute writing session and then move on to the next priority, but their work is the result of craft preceding the muse, and always ends up feeling like a lesson in song-craft more than a moment of clarity.

No offense Mr. Hammerstein, I'm sure you meant well.

Moments of clarity hit with no warning. They strike with impunity and disregard of situation. The further the writer distances himself from the world around him, the more clear the signal, the more apt the writer is to capture lightening in a bottle.

The rub, of course, is that the muse exists in the world around us. Not in a tiny, one windowed studio, but in a bus and on a train, with a goat and in the rain. We exist, we observe, the moment of clarity drops like a piano on our tiny cartoon selves.

Boing!

But what immediately becomes apparent when one becomes a parent is that when lightening blasts its way out of the universe and falls into the level just above your sub-conscience

calvin

See! Right in the middle of a sentence, my son walks into the room and wants to type his name.

But what I was trying to say was that when the muse strikes, there are diapers to change. There are an infinite amount of Connect Four games to play. There are hot wheels to push around, legos to construct and let's go fly a kite.

But I embrace this. I feed off this.

"Castle Park" isn't about my experience, it's about my son's. I masterminded a way to incorporate the open ended commitment of both artistry and fatherhood in a way that allows me to be both a good father and a good songwriter.

dad mom taylor

Sorry. He wanted to type "dad" then "mom" then "taylor"

Taylor is his sixteen year old brother, which if you've been following along is the person I normally refer to as "the sixteen year-old" (Don't think I didn't miss the fact that he wanted to write "dad " first. The dripping sound is that of my heart melting)

But that's just the thing. I thought I had it made. I thought that I could have my cake, eat it, roll around in the vanilla frosting, and thumb my nose at the impossibility of writing a great album, be an awesome dad, the perfect husband, a fun blogger, great at my day job, six feet tall and a full head of hair.

I write this because of december 23rd.

It's 11:15pm.

I'm sick with the kind of cold that can only be caught from snotty little preschool noses. Calvin has a double ear infection and has been restless, but cuddly in a way that only a sick child can be. He's finally asleep and laying in his bed, breathing the soft sugary breath of christmas dreams. I look about the house and decide there's nothing I need to clean, nothing that needs picking up, nothing that can't wait till tomorrow. I tiptoe to the bathroom to strip the coffee stained clothes off my body. To brush my teeth. To blow my nose. The nightlight in the hall gives me just enough illumination to see my ghostly reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She falls.

There in my head, welling up from my sub-conscience, is the first verse.

The first verse to the song I've been laboring over for the last two months.

She's so perfect. The lyric, the melody, they both flow seamlessly into the chorus I've already imagined.

It might have taken two minutes, two hours, I don't know.

It was an unending commitment to capture her.

But I was exhausted. Baby finally to bed. Work in the morning. Restless wife warming up the covers.

I moved instinctively to my guitar, but the mirror caught my eye.

How did I get this old? How can I look so wasted? I must have lost weight, because the image was more skeleton than man. My strong body looked frail, and my normally shiny, ready for anything eyes told me the truth.

Not tonight, man.

Your life needs you tomorrow. and the next day, and the next.

Let her go.

She'll be back.

She'll come to you again.

She always does.

Get some sleep.

Inboxes

I missed a deadline.

Not just any deadline, a serious deadline.

The kind of deadline that caused panic in the streets and inured me with the title "Jerk-Ass of the Week"

How did I miss this deadline?

Glad you asked.

I missed this deadline because I forgot to check my personal work email inbox on a friday afternoon. And then again on Saturday morning. And then again on Saturday afternoon.

I checked my Facebook seventy-two times in the same 24 hours.

I checked my work email fourteen times.

I checked my personal email ten times.

I checked my blog at least five times looking for comments.

I checked my iTunes sales once. (The Australians are streaming!, the australians are streaming!)

I may have checked my myspace twice. I can't remember.

I don't twitter. But if I did, I would have. I did send five texts to my wife. Three of which were too dirty to share and the other two something about picking up wine and returning videos to Blockbuster.

I did not, however, check my personal work email. This is the separate email account I have at my place of business so that I can communicate sensitive material. So it is possible to be both obsessive and non-commital in the same breath.

Why did I not check this one? No idea. Just plain forgot. Well, maybe sub-consciencely I ignore it because it never has anything but spam and bad news, but that's a whole 'nuther uncomfortable conversation.

And the deadline; same dead line; every third week of the month; I have had for over two years.

So not only did I not check my email. I lost an entire week. Which is a much bigger problem than has been dreamt of in my philosophy.

Checking inboxes has an evil twin however. My boss's boss once referred to the inbox as the almighty Time Suck. Inboxes, email accounts, and social networking can very easily drain hours out of a clearly mapped out calendar. I've tried replacing my smoking habit with the inbox addiction, but alas, those monkeys play nicely together.

Although great danger and responsibility lies within the immediacy of connectivity, this revolution leads us to a new social zen.

The Life-Work-Inbox Balance.

So today, I reinvest my time.

I get in, check my mail. I go to lunch then check my mail. I map out the last 13 minutes of my day so that I can check my mail and still have at least ten minutes to deal with whatever problem may arise, or even better, tell someone that I only have nine minutes left in my day and there's no way I can run to the rescue. I get home, kiss my wife, yell at my kids, I do some light dusting to prepare for a party tonight, pour myself a half glass of zin, and sit down to check my inboxes. I will only do this while the pasta boils.

But there it was.

A message from a dear old friend.

His beautiful baby daughter was born premature and is in and out of the ICU.

And what was supposed to be a silly blog becomes something else entirely. Suddenly, a connectivity rant, a joke on the yin and yang of the computer age, escalates into a personal plea to the universe to bring a friend's life back into balance.

I once told a buddy that the real change from being a man to being a daddy is courage. You always think that you'll step in front of a bullet, you think you could run into a busy street, you're pretty sure you could kill a bad guy with your bare hands,

but when you become a dad,

you know.

So my friend doesn't need courage. He's got that.

He probably needs sleep more than a phone call, and I'm too far away to do some light pick-up around the house and cook some soup.

I don't believe in God. But I do believe in prayer.

Amen.

And thanks to a little click of the mouse, I can send all the love and good vibes that I've been saving for myself.

All the love and good vibes any man could respectably handle.

And it is his for the taking.

Whenever he gets around to checking his inbox.

An Ode to the Filler Song

Considering the holiday, with my belly stuffed with leftovers and a fridge full of stuff that will be nibbled but not fully eaten, I figured its as good a time as any to talk about the kind of songs that are tasty but have no true value.

I speak, of course, of filler.

Filler in my rough definition is the kind of song that is written to fill out the twelve song quota of the modern album.

These are the songs where we listen to the first few bars and immediately recognize that we've no intention of listening to the whole thing and inevitably hit the advance button on our ipods.

Now filler is not so much a new phenomenon as it is a fact of entertainment.

Act I: Give em a little excitement.

Act II: Give em a little plot.

Act III - Act IV: Filler

Act V: Kill someone the audience likes

Acts VI & VII: Filler

Act VIII: Happy or Sad: the play is over.

House lights to full.

I finished a piece of filler a few weeks ago and I'm not happy about it. Oh sure, there's some craft involved, some nice pieces of lyric, a slightly formulaic chorus, basically a ditty.

I should be able to write a ditty without feeling bad about it.

But I do.

(Quick pause to play baseball out in the backyard with Calvin, more on this later)

So why do I feel bad about a little ditty?

Simple.

I have a lot of rules wrapped around the songs I write. And still even more rules for the songs I'm writing for this album:

No cliches. No bad rhymes. Hummable. At least one stylized turn of phrase. For "Castle Park" the song has to be thematically intertwined with Calvin and myself without a hint of melodrama. Tough bill.

I can break anyone of these rules as I see fit, but there is one rule that is steadfast and unbreakable.

I have to be able to play it for someone without feeling embarrassed.

And filler songs embarrass me.

And, dammit, they shouldn't.

Filler songs let us know the Little Orphan Annie is still in danger.

They're the kids picked for the team between the jocks and the uncoordinated.

They get Tony from the soda shop to Maria's balcony.

Filler songs are the great B Sides that the Baby Boomers relish with glee.

They're a breath of fresh air before John Lennon takes us into "A Day in the Life"

They add volume to substance. They're long eyelashes, platform heels, and the hint of perfume.

And at the end of months of late night dead air, when the body has been saturated with fast food and cheap wine. And the painful feelings of inadequacy walk hand in hand with the shadow of imminent failure. When sleep fails to provide solace. When everyone around you is trapped within their own desperate lives,

A filler song is fucking salvation.

Castle Park has some great songs. It has songs that are fun to play, fun to sing, nice to listen to. Some of it is silly, some of it will reach into your heart and make you ache. What it doesn't have are the songs that give the other songs depth and meaning.

Yeah, I would like to create one more piece of pure magic for this album. But until then.

Its filler time.