Slackjaw's Forum

I’m keeping the blue and red paisley carpeting in the family room for the floor of the new studio. I’m expecting my music will be taking on a slightly more psychedelic tone in the next few years…consider yourself warned. In the meantime, all the cream carpet with the little flowers is heading to the dumpster, being replaced by a carpet called Mocha Cream. I’d thought about keeping that for the studio walls, but I’m not sure that’s the environment I want my songs to grow up in…old fashioned flowers and paisley.

Father web, forgive me. More than a month has passed since my last update. What have I been doing to allow so much time to pass? Pulling up roots—the trailer is on the move again. This time we’re hoping for a longer stay, but you know…in this life who can tell? Packing box after box, reassembling the garage, the kitchen, the Shed, the kids rooms, into old liquor and apple boxes, so that when moving day arrives next week, we’ll be ready to load this life into a U-Haul truck and go. At Chroma Sound studios in Seattle, playing guitar with some of the best musicians I’ve ever played with in all the long years I’ve played guitar. Giddy with the fact that I’m more than capable in this company and excited as to what we were able to create. As host to an out of town friend who came via Cardiff, Wales. Breaking down Tacoma into visitor sized excursions over one of the last great weekend before the winter rains set in. To dinner at Charlie’s place, Museum of Glass, 6th Ave. bar hopping, Mexican...

I was out at Western State Hospital yesterday helping some troubled teens learn how to be in a rock band. I’m not really one of those people who feels held back in an endeavor like this—by the fact that none of them could really play an instrument. Well that’s not true exactly, there were a few who knew a little bit of guitar, and one who could play a little bit of drums, so there was a pretty good jumping off point. Up till then, my only experience in trying to get a bunch of non musicians together and teaching them how to play, was years ago after a night spent drinking up in Seattle. I used to record in a warehouse space I called the Brown Bag Studios on 9th and Virginia and on that night I wound up teaching Sweetie and our friends Linda and hubby Rob, how to play just enough to rock out and have some fun. Of course it helped that Rob knew how to play some drums—helped some, anyway. My friend Jeanlizabeth has worked at the hospital for years now, but just recently was able to procur...

Now that fall is almost here, The Shed™ where I do my recording and mixed my last CD, is starting to get a little cold. For that reason I've moved a good portion of it into the dining room, where, since we don't own a table, I've managed to claim a section of the room for my own nefarious purposes. I’ve also added a few new items, like a decent pair of monitors, a new mic and an updated Protools system. (7.2 Yeow!) so I’m feeling pretty stylish. This winter I plan to start the long process of recording and putting out another CD. I’ve been writing a lot of new songs lately, and that in turn has made me want to get them onto disk. Funny how that’s changed;”get them onto disk”—how tape has become as obsolete as camera film, at least for me.

We came out to Iron Springs again this summer—something we do when we need to breathe a bit of the ocean air. It’s not the only place we like to stay at along the northern coast but it is certainly one of the oldest. Sweetie and I first came out here back in 86 or 87 with Todd and Priss, a couple friends from Evergreen, and have managed to make it back what seems like once a year, although I find that hard to believe. There’s no internet access out here, at least none that I’ve been able to find, so right now I’m sitting on the deck with Ku’ya, waiting for Sweetie and the Older Boy to get done with their morning swim so’s we can pack up a picnic lunch and head out to the sand. Ku and I already went out this morning we could check out the damage to our sandcastle from the overnight high tide. It fared pretty well all things considered, it’s main central tower still standing with all decoration attached. The outer walls and small village we built was entirely wiped out, although I like t...

We’re still looking to move the trailer, but so far we haven’t been able to find a place we’d want to put down roots. It’s easy to think this is due to the very nature of living in trailers, which are after all transitory—and designed for a life on the go. But Sweetie and I don’t think that’s the problem. We’ll find it. We’ve come close, have visited trailers not for sale in places we could see a long history ahead of us. People tell us this is a buyers market and for some I’m sure that’s true. It hasn’t proved to be a buyers market for us, but this could all change at the drop of a hat. In the meantime, we’re doing the little things needed to put our own trailer on the market—things like painting the back porch and putting the yard in order. Sweetie and I attacked the garage the other afternoon and once again we’ve managed to carve out a small swath that allows us to stand in the middle and spin in confused lazy circles while looking for old flower vases hidden near the botto...

This is my first attempt at editing video. The footage is from last week up on Vancouver Island and the music is a piece from the soundtrack for the Kennewick man documentary I did.

We spent last week overlooking Hood Canal, making day trips by Kayak and pontoon boat. Eagles, like the one above were pretty common, as were giant flocks of Blue Herron and curious Seals. We took a boat tour that lead us into the Indian reservation, up past where Mr. Nalley had once damned up the river to grow wheat during the summer months and released the waters so that his rich East Coast clients could hunt for water fowl in the soggy grey days of winter. Ike had pneumonia right before we got there, so he and Sweetie showed up a day late, to give him time to get better. This is the second time this year Ike’s had pneumonia, remarkable only in the fact that he’d never had it before in all the years he’s been around. We are cautiously blaming the ketogenic diet he is now on to control his seizures. The tour lasted until the sun slipped behind the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula. In the last few rays of sunshine, the seals swam close enough to touch—breaking the surface of the smoo...

She sang a sad song into a small guitar While he tried to smile, but not very hard She could stoke the embers with a pregnant sigh But the flames burned low, no mater what she tried (She wispered) Love it, or leave it Nothing’s safe until you free it Nothing’s safe, until you run Far from home Far from anyone The truth was, with all that whiskey he drank The sleepless nights, he couldn’t think He used to tell her in his dreams That her lips were softer than anything But morning’s just a cold grey ghost Of the only thing that he loved most How he could feel that pregnant sigh As he drifted off to sleep at night (Sing) Love it or leave it Nothings safe until you keep it Nothings safe until you love me Far from home Far from anyone Love it, or leave it Nothings safe until you free it Nothings safe, until you run Far from home Far from anyone She picked the last notes from her small guitar And her voice felt drifted, as it fell from that wire And her heartbeat slowed, and the baby cried Ca...

Well it’s been a while since I’ve mentioned my teeth…in fact I believe you’d have to go back to the very first entry into this journal , back to the days before Blogger when I would have to painstakingly rewrite and recopy the HTML just to update, to find the post where they’re mentioned. I only bring this up, because yesterday I went to the dentist and now I have a temporary crown where before I had only an old tooth and filling. Dr. Dan has been our dentist for a while now, working out of a converted garage off of Pacific Highway, out past Spanaway but before you reach the Wagon Wheel Grill. Dewy and Ham told us about him when we first moved into the Park and since having kids makes you think a little harder about keeping your teeth, if only for self defence, we started going on a regular basis. I like him well enough I guess. In a lot of ways it feels oxymoronic to use the words “like” and “dentist” in the same breath—it’s an abusive relationship to be sure, and while I know that he...

Since Ike started the new diet back in January, the numbers of seizures he has have fallen off dramatically. He’s gone from four or five large ones a day with maybe twenty or so little startles, down to maybe one or two a week. In fact we’ve gone as long at twenty four days without seeing a single one, big or little and for that we’re forever grateful…and if quality of life was just about the number of seizures and nothing else, well then I guess we'd be thrilled. But unfortunately with Ike, there is no such thing as a simple move in a better upward-and-onward direction. Along with the new diet has come some major intestinal discomfort—to the point where he is at times awake and screaming for three to five hours before bed. We think it might be the laxative he was prescribed, and while he’s been more comfortable these last few weeks without it, he will, like he did last night, spend the last three hour before sleep, being pissed off and kicking our asses. On top of the discomfort, ...

My friend Eric has a new instant family, changing what had been a single dad and two kids to a happy couple with five. Strangely enough neither of their houses decided to grow to accommodate this sudden increase in habitants so they’ve been packing things up in boxes for the move to their new home. I mention this because I have benefited from this news by acquiring a box from Eric that housed the Digidesign MBox , a small yet powerful recording studio that I can run from this laptop. It is an upgrade from the Digi001 that I currently use in the shed for all my recording, all the while maintaining a friendly compatibility between the two systems. Along with the new recording equipment are a number of add-on’s, things like drums and graphic EQ’s, reverbs and compressors, video editing software and auto-tuners for when I sing off key. While I have had limited opportunity to use it so far, I’m excited about being able to come in from the shed to record things like the piano and my pump or...

Well it’s taken 42 years and 13 days, but I think I’ve finally earned my super hero badge, I’m not sure if that includes a whole outfit or just the cape part, but clearly I’ve got some sowing to do. It’s easy enough to say that sweetie and I earned them a few years back what with keeping Ike alive that first year when he was sick and in and out of the hospital all that time. But that’s your blood and kin. There isn’t anything you wouldn’t do for your own child—jump through a ring of fire and back or sit through a religious soaked Multi Level Marketing presentation about the benefits of Micro-Nutrients; the new millennium’s snake oil. No, you’d take a bullet for your own family, no doubt about it. I found myself at the deli section of the local mini-mart yesterday afternoon, getting some cold cuts for last nights quick and easy dinner idea: Sandwiches. At the other end of the counter a young woman shows up with her infant in the seat a grocery cart. The little girl was probably n...

My friend Paul Ford ( www.ftrain.com ) has picked up writing on his blog again. I call him my friend not because he is, or that I’ve ever met him, talked over the phone, or any of the myriad of other ways we bond with people before declaring them a friend. He did once send me a short email when I explained to him that I was planning on building a WobbleVision off of a schematic that he published, and another short email in which he explained that the guest columnist he had allowed to post on Ftrain, was in fact not a guest writer at all, but himself. He was kind enough that his short email contained no sense of “…you dummy” and instead was quick and courteous. Paul wrote and published a book and stopped regularly updating his site. I remember years ago when Sweetie, who had been decorating cakes for friends, decided that perhaps she should expand her repertoire and take a decorating class. She never really decorated another cake after that…it extinguished whatever small spark had been...

Got stuck in an elevator last night—stuck up high between the 4th and 5th floors with two long carpets and my Carhardt jacket to keep me company. I was taking up the last items from the truck into the rest home. I was already suspicious of the elevator, I had issues with it’s buttons which said G, 1, 2, 3, 4, PH. G obviously stood for Ground, though why ground wasn’t the same as 1 is beyond me—PH, for Pent House; like saying that it’s not just the 6th floor, it’s a little more fancy then that. As it slowly passed each floor a buzzer would sound—not a bell, not a melodious voice saying “three” but the type of buzz you might hear when entering a 7-11. This clearly was a self-important elevator, with twenty four small recessed lights in it’s ceiling because when you’re that important, 18 is just not enough, and self important elevators should be entered with a degree of caution. It also wasn’t an Otis. There are only a handful of elevator companies I can think of…ok, well there’s only one...

I should have made it my resolve, but I knew better than that—knew that I could never keep it up like I should, so I didn’t. Instead it just pops into my head now and again and I think about it and how to avoid it, or embrace it, or get lost in the stories that should be stories, but instead are now just fading memories. I’ve finally got up and running at Myspace.com where I’ve been posting my shows and pictures and putting songs up and that sort of thing. I don’t care for it as much as I do this page, but strangely it’s asked for all the time and already I’ve gotten two gigs in Portland that I would never have gotten with out it. Tomorrow night is my CD release party which I am holding at Northern Pacific Coffee Company out near Pacific Lutheran University. It’s a nice place, with pretty decent food and some nice beers and really, there just aren’t that many places to play in this town, ifyouknowwhatimean. Come by and say hello at Myspace , I will do my best, as always, to keep updat...