A Night in the Recording Studio

My band and I went into the studio the other day! It was so awesome. My bandmate and I met them at this fundraiser for my chemotherapy treatment/bills, and they offered to record some of our originals--for free! It's literally blows my mind and blesses my socks off that people like that exist. Every time I bring up any kind of payment, they turn it down, saying "Your payment can be getting the word out that there's these guys out in Sahuarita who record." So here's the word guys, seriously, if you want to get some stuff recording, they're your guys. Nicest guys in the whole world, Scott and Jake Smith.
But yeah, my band, The Ungeneral Public, an acoustic/indie/alternative-rock sounding group, recorded a song of ours called "Yours Truly"," and we went through the whole song and got the vocals done, which is a miracle, and awesome. Vocals take forever--normally. But I guess you could say it was a good day vocally for both me and Taylor. Brad (our other band member) experimented with a drum track, but it turns out the kit that was provided wasn't quite what we were looking for in sound, but we're going in next Wednesday evening to lay down the final brush kit track (we're bringing in the right drum mics) and to throw in the bass line.
It's always really encouragin and exciting to hear a musical work that you've heard pretty much only in your head and on a guitar come out through pro-grade speakers with other instruments. It puts the biggest smile on my face. Yes, I can hear the stuff in my head, but it's really not the same. And it makes me appreciate the musicians I work with so much more. I know some talented people!
Talk of going to Nashville for a small amount time next year has actually been going around, and I agree, that would be pretty cool. We'll definitely see about that! Any n kind of travel like that for our band will defnitely be encouraged.
So yeah, we are most definitely hoping to get a record of about 6-8 tracks out this year; that's our official goal. And it most definitely is a fun goal! Be following us on our facebook page: www.facebook.com/theungeneralpublic and on Twitter: @ungeneralpublic.

My Book

This is Chapter One of the book I've been working on since October. Enjoy! Let me know you think.

With the stealth of night itself, and the intent of a lion stalking a deer, the claws of shadow stretched eagerly towards the child wrapped in cloth, lying flat on the bed. While the boy was oblivious and always oblivious to his presence, Sadisarius hovered over the weak creature and studied him for a few brief moments. An excitement swept over him as the gravity of his mission settled into his mind. This youth was surely made for something great, but now, that would all change. His purpose would be morphed for a new outcome. The bedroom darkened to a pitch black as Sadisarius’s cape unfurled and touched every corner of the room. He lifted his left claw, and with a malevolent laugh, he swung it down and tore through the heart of the boy. And as fast as he had done the deed, the devil was gone, leaving in his wake a despair; an uneasiness that the boy was sure to feel when he awoke in the morning.

CHAPTER ONE: GOOD MORNING TRISTRAM

 “Tristram!”

It was at that moment that I felt like my heart would beat out of my chest. But I could not reply. My mouth refused to open, as if a large hand smothered my face; or as if I had lost all sense and had just lost the ability to actually speak. Panic stabbed through my heart. I desperately wanted to reply, to acknowledge the call.
  “Tristram!” the lady called again, but this time I just let her voice wash over me. It was so beautiful, like a song. She was so beautiful, the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.
  The wispy clouds swirled about her, as if the image I was seeing was all choreographed and rehearsed to perfection. Much like the movement of the clouds, her hair danced about above her head; splayed about every which direction, but beautiful all the same. It was black as night but glossy like obsidian. Her skin was dark and her eyes a deep brown. Her nose was a gentle slope that turned up at the end, which gave her an air dignity and perhaps royalty. And maybe she was, I could not tell. But whoever she was, she made my legs feel boneless.
  Her lips were luscious, and her teeth a brilliant white. Her chin and jaw gave her the angular shape of her head, which made me think of the illustrations of the many elven princesses of old. Perhaps she was an elven princess. After all, the elven princesses were known to be the most beautiful things ever beheld in all the world.
   Her dress was a silvery silk, with a deep purple sash wrapped about her; from her left shoulder to her waist. And like the clouds and her hair, her deep purple cape flitted about behind her, as if it was the very source of her levitation.
  Again, she called out “Tristram!” ...but this time, she sounded more like...

   “Tristram! You do not want to deal with your father when he sees your chores unfinished! Again!”

 ...My mother.

  My eyes snapped open, and my mouth answered my mother out of habit: “I am awake! Here I come!”

Blast it, I cursed to myself. I had yet another dream that felt so real. So real infact, that I had the hardest time leaving the warmth of my sheets and braving the world for another morn. It saddened me greatly that my dream was the farce, and this creaky old house was the reality.
  But I had disciplined myself not to give in to such depressing thinking, for if I did, I would surely have quite a dreary day. So I threw off the blankets that lay atop me and swung my feet off the edge of my bed, testing the ground with my bare toes. At first touch, the wood slats were rather cold, as usual. I needed a rug. Ah, but so much work went into the making of a rug. If I really wanted a rug, and brought the subject up to my father, I knew he would put me to work on making myself a rug right away. My father would sooner cut off his hand than spend his hard earned money on something he could make for himself. A rug is one of those things one could make for himself. It was a lot of work though. Work, in that degree, was never my strong point. I would have to hunt the creature that provided the rug. Hunting the creature was not so hard, but effectively subduing and killing the creature was quite a challenge, and my whole family could attest to the fact that I was not a very good hunter.  Furthermore, I’d have to skin the blasted animal. That would probably be the worst part, I decided. After skinning the animal...well...I was not quite sure what happened after that step. I would have to learn. And learning took patience. And patience—I had gotten pretty good at faking the quality. Learning also took humility. Granted, humility is an important thing, although I felt like my humility often turned into self-loathing at some point. Actually, it always turned into self-loathing for me. Maybe that was just me. Either way, a rug was out of the question for me. It was nothing but a little day-dream. After all, I was only a dreamer. Someday, I would put feet and wings to my dreams. I needed the motivation though, and I had not the foggiest idea where I could find such a thing as that—motivation.
   I stood up from my sitting position on my bedside, and reeled as a strange head-rush came over me. My desk and bookshelf teetered dangerously in my vision, and they duplicated and re-duplicated themselves, and tiny specks like little gnats flew about the corners of my eyes. Interesting, I thought, I must be dehydrated.
   And that would not be too unheard of. I could definitely use some more water in my daily diet.
   I walked groggily over to my dresser, where my mirror was mounted. The dresser was about three feet away from the foot of my bed. The face that stared back at me in the reflection surprised me greatly, and a laugh escaped from in between my lips. My thick, curly, straw-blond hair was going every which direction but down, and my face was scrunched; my forest green eyes were barely visible behind ‘the scrunch’ (as Father called it). Lines etched my cheeks from my sheets and pillow-case...yes; I somehow managed to ruin everything from the neck up during  my sleep.
   I slid into my moccasins and pulled on my beige trousers. I sighed as I noticed that the right leg of the trousers had developed a hole in the right knee as well. There was no way my mother would ignore the state of the trousers now. Soon she would be chasing me with a needle and thread.
“Mothers,” I sighed aloud, “their sons can turn seventeen, but they will still fuss over them as if their sons were still toddlers.”
   I opened my bedroom door as I was sliding on my shirt and coat simultaneously. My door opened up to the banister of the house’s upper hallway, and just to my right was the descending flight of stairs. I made it all the way to the first landing in one bound, then slid down the banister the rest of the way. The wooden posts groaned and complained under my weight, and I could not help but wonder if someone as light as myself could actually cause those posts to falter. I highly doubted it.
  The stairs dropped me off in the front room of my house. A couch built for three had its back to me, and a large, sketched family portrait stared at me from the far wall, across from the couch. That must have been, oh, maybe four years ago that that picture was drawn by a friend of my mother’s. She was a good artist. Though, in my opinion, the sketch she drew of me was not very accurate.
  Next to the portrait was a window. The only window in the front room. Mother was in the process of making some curtains for it, actually. And perpendicular to this window was a book shelf. Every room in this house had one thing in common, and it was a book shelf. Books were important to my family. For in books, were knowledge, and “knowledge is everything,” my father once said. I believed that he was right at one time. And then I grew into a teenager...
  A small table with a candelabra on its surface stood just beneath the portrait frame, and another, smaller couch was set perpendicular to the large couch. It was a fairly small front room, compared to some others I had visited, but it was comfortable. 
  To the immediate right of the stairwell was the front door. And the front door opened to a hallway that passed right through the front room and into the dining area, which was also the kitchen...which was also where I happened to be heading.
  The dining room and kitchen were significantly different from the rest of the house. While the upstairs, stairs, front room, and hallway had wood flooring, the dining room and kitchen were tiled with slate rock. This was because only the front half of the house was the original building and floor-plan...
 
When my family had traveled to this town (Prew) from Fardûnôs, I don’t know, I think it was ten years back; my father was looking for any land he could afford, so he could do what he originally planned to do; build us a permanent home and start a ranch. As we were passing by this area, we saw the house, and noticed it was abandoned. My father asked around town about it, and found out from Old Hursteid that the house was actually a shepherd’s shed. It was long out of use, and the townsfolk of Prew had almost forgotten about it. When Father inquired about the price, Hursteid shrugged and replied, “Don’cha worry ‘bout it, no one knows or cares about the price. All we know is; its owner has been gone for nearly a decade. It don’t belong to nobody now!”
  So it seems that things worked out in our favor. Father wanted a ranch, and he got a whole sheep pasture with a shed—for free! My mother said it was certainly a “divine appointment” that we had so much luck with the house, and the rest of us could not help but agree with her.  After we took a little tour of the shed, it was evident that it would not make a large enough home, so all we had to do then was get the supplies to add on to the shed.
  We tore down the whole back wall of the shed to add in the dining room and kitchen area, and it was Father’s and my older brother Nad’s idea for the slate rock tile to be the flooring. Sure enough, it proved satisfactory for us...

   It gave the house beauty, taste, and a sense of character, but only a fool would walk across this floor with bare-feet. Hence the moccasins—I never forgot the moccasins.

  In the middle of the dining room was a rectangular table about five feet long, with two chairs along each side and one at the ‘head.’ Father always sat there. Nad sat nearest to the head on the right, Mother sat nearest to the head on the left, and I sat by mother. The vacant chair was for a guest, on the rare occasion we had one. Most of the time, if I wanted some social interaction, I would have to venture forth from the house. My parents were always on the anti-social side of life. It bothered me only sometimes.
  Mother was in the kitchen, pounding a big ball of bread dough with a floury fist. Behind her, the brick furnace was lit, and I could almost feel the heat radiating off the hot coals from where I stood by the dining room table.
  Without looking at me, Mother asked, “Did you check on Lathríl’s and Nimmiel’s water yet?”
  “I just came downstairs, Mother.”
  She let out a short burst of humorless laughter. “You had better start moving! We’re wasting daylight!”
  I moved toward the back door that was just beyond the dining room table. As I turned the knob, I asked over my shoulder, “If I may ask, what is the hurry for today?”
  Mother sounded exasperated. “You don’t remember? Father told you this yesterday...Narina, our newest horse you know, broke the gate in the southwest corner of the corral the other day, during one of her tantrums. You, Nad, and Father need to get that repaired before Mr. Eldhart comes through.”
  Mr. Eldhart?! I repeated to myself as I opened the door. Mr. Eldhart is buying today?
  As I stepped out from the doorway, I was suddenly greeted by an extremely friendly group of flies and by the eager paws of my dogs, Lathríl and Nimmiel.   Lathríl was ancient in comparison to most dogs. She was sixteen years old, whereas Nimmiel was only two years; still just a pup. Both the dogs were big Labradors; Lathríl was white with brown splotches all over, as if someone dumped some paint on her. Nimmiel was a more...interesting color. He was the darkest shade of blue there could be; perhaps it could be described as a just-after-sundown-blue. Truly, it was quite remarkable, and no one I knew had ever seen a dog like him. Yes, Nimmiel was special, and I loved him for it. Both dogs stood about three feet in height.
  After greeting them and exchanging some slobbery kisses, I pushed my way passed them and walked toward the west side of my house, where the dogs’ huge bin of water was stationed. As always, it was nearly empty. Filling the bowl would be a rather easy task on any normal day of the year, but alas, winter was coming, and the cold had frozen the pipes that led to our family’s pump. So the solution to that problem was not all that hard either, it just meant more work. I would have to get two buckets from inside the house and take them down to the river. It was only a half mile down the old deer trail to the creek, but the trek back with the buckets full of water would be a sorry one. Oh well.
  When I went inside to fetch the buckets, Mother made sure to remind me to fly like the wind, since Father was expecting me to be ready to work on the gate by the time he returned from town. A near impossible task she had given me—to fly like the wind with a five-gallon wood bucket full of water in each hand, heading up hill! I sighed as I hurried back out the door and started across the meadow behind my house; past the miserable, frozen pump, and towards the tree line that prevented the rays of the morning sun from penetrating its depths.
  Once in the woods, I found the trail that led to the creek, and began to follow it down. I thought about how disorienting it would be to live in the woods. It would be nearly impossible to tell what time of day it was until nightfall, but even then, it was not that much of a difference in lighting. I imagined many people went crazy after having spent too much time in the darkness. The sun is a medicine, and you cannot go too long without it.
  The trail wound its way towards the bottom of the hill, which is where the creek lay. One of the best things about living where I lived was the fact that I could hear the babbling creek every time I stepped outside. It was always a joyous noise to my ears.
  I hopped onto the large rock that ventured from the shore to the running water, and I dipped my buckets in until they were full. In turning to jump off the rock, I thought I saw something across the creek and upstream of me. I quickly looked over that way and examined the shoreline. Nothing out of the ordinary—wait!
  Was that a man poking his head around that tree over there? I could not tell. I stared at the shape for a little while longer. My heart started to slow to its normal tempo when the shape did not move, and I began to doubt my eyes.
  It moved! It moved!
  The shadow shape stepped out from behind the tree and ran up the hillside—through the woods and over the thicket!
  I did a similar thing—I ran like I was being attacked by a hive of bees back up the trail towards the meadow; trying my best not to slosh the water from the buckets too much.
  When I came through the tree line, I could see Nad making his way over to the corral with Father’s canvas bag of tools. I kept up my speed, but remained careful of any gopher holes and other such things that could trip me and send me sprawling.  
 I was panting like Lathríl and Nimmiel by the time I dumped the buckets contents into the dogs’ water bin. I was still reeling at the thought that someone could have been spying on me. What was that man doing down by the creek anyway? My family’s house was just out of town, and the creek cut right through Prew; it would be silly for someone to travel this far upstream and out of town while there was plenty of water and fish in town. ‘Unnerved’ would be a great word to describe how I felt about the matter.
   Just as I was going inside to return the buckets, Father was coming through the front door. He raised his eyebrows at me, a common greeting from him. He took of his wide brimmed hat and hung it on the hat rack that was right next to the front door. He ran a hand through his thinning dark gray hair and started down the hallway into the dining room.
  “Tristram, you remember you’re fixin’ the gate with Nad and I, right?” Father asked.
  “I remember, sir.”
  Father went over to Mother’s side and kissed her cheek. She smiled. “Well go on out there,” he said as he went over to the fruit basket by the flatware sink and picked out a plum (we had three plum trees on the east side of our house), “Nad’s all ready to go. He already has an idea about what to do, so let him get you started on somethin’. I’ll be right out.”
  “Alright...and Father?”
  “Tristram?” he replied, mimicking my tone of voice.
  I hesitated for a moment. I was suddenly worried that I might be ridiculed from my father. It needed to be brought up though.
  “There was a man down by the creek this morning...I think he was spying on me.”
  Mother looked up from her kneading and gave me a look. It could have been a look of amusement, or maybe it was look of concern. I could not tell.
  “A man down by the creek was spyin’ on you?” Father asked with his mouth full, and plum juice dribbled into his thick beard, “Well what were you doin’ at the creek?”
  “I was fetching water for the dogs.”
  “Ah.”
  “Isn’t that strange? Why would a man be up so far north of the main creek? And he was definitely spying on me father. He was farther up the rise and crouched behind some thicket! Certainly, a man of good intention would not hide himself like that...and he was staring at me for the longest time! He ran away when I noticed him.”
  For a brief moment, Father looked concerned. But, like I figured he would, he waved it off and said, “You have an overactive imagination son. And that’s not a bad thing...but it could be a bad thing if you start believin’ your games.”
  I was a little hurt that he thought it was my imagination, but the last part of what he said troubled me more.
  “Games? What games? Father, there was a man down there!”
  “Tristram, do not raise your voice at me! I meant it all in good humor. If there was a man down there—he was not spying on you!”
  I was getting frustrated; I slapped my thighs and practically pleaded my case as if I were trying to sway a jury. “I promise he was spying on me, Father. What else could he have been doing?”
  Father wiped his mouth clean and sighed. “Now you’re getting too excited about this boy. We will talk about it later...if it still needs talkin’ about. Now go to Nad! I have some things to discuss with your mother.”
 Court was adjourned...for now. “Yes, Father.”
  “I wanna see you runnin’! There’s no walkin’ when you’re workin’ with me!”
  “Yes, Father,” I said, and hurried out the back door.

If YOLO, We Got One Shot

If We Only Live Once, I want to make an effort to succeed and to change when neccesary.
If We Only Live Once, I want to be an inspiration.
If We Only Live Once, I want to learn to love the hated. I want to learn to accept the rejected.
If We Only Live Once, I want to be confident in myself.
If We Only Live Once, I want to make moments matter, to me and those I'm with.
If We Only Live Once, I don't want to break hearts, even if it means waiting a while for love.
If We Only Live Once, I will love my future wife as if I had no second chance.
If We Only Live Once, I want to say what I need to say when I need to say it.
If We Only Live Once, I want to have changed at least one life for the best.

If We Only Live Once,
I will never give up.

Drop Love on a Stage and the World Will Be Entertained

Why the heck are we so coy?? I mean, I've had some time to look at boys and girls falling in love from a distance; and it's depressing. I can know for a fact that one boy is in love with one girl, and that one girl is in love with that one boy, but nothing happens next, because they keep playing these little games with each other to test and see if the other has a mutual feeling....
Oh wait, I'm the same way, all the time.
So I guess I can't totally hate it if I do it all the time too, but I guess I am kind of frustrated as to why it is that way with young romance.
Kids might be better off these days if they learned how to not be so darn apologetic for their feelings. Maybe there's a happy medium....but the medium can't be that happy.
Of course, the sad thing is I can go give plenty advice to both boys and girls and probably be able to help in some way; but I'll probably be single for another significant length of time.
But hey! YOLO, my friends. If you're interested in someone, at least try to do something about it. And don't forget say what you need to say. Seriously though, that's the most important part, is using your words. Not using some song you didn't write, not using your eyes, not some coy refference to your love-life...just use your words.

Now I'm going to go take my own advice, I'll be right back.

....

....

Okay, so maybe tomorrow.

...

Let's try this weekend, that's a far enough date a way for me to forget about it for another while.