radiohead drives me insane

one day ill listen to the bends and ill say to myself "holy shit, this is the best album they have, its so good." but then the next day ill listen to kid A and ill say to myself "holy shit, this is the best album they have, its so good." and the same thing the next day but with OK computer and so on and so on. so basically what does this mean? that radiohead is fucktardingly good and every album is its own world that they created, unique and independent of all others and ridiculously better than their other albums, hence the radiohead circle jerk of awesomeness...everything is better than everything and vice versa. radiohead drives me insane.

you may all know that the infamous jj and aj were wed recently. here is a photo of the happy couple. photo credit: mark 5 (happy?)

truth.

there is no deception in flying. there is no unforseen thing that will jump out and get you. there is only the truth and the mistake; what you know and what you dont; life and death. there is no chance that it wont reward with you its most luxurious riches if you give it everything. there is also no chance that you will live if you dont. it doesnt have any secrets, it doesnt hide anything from you. the areas of real bad air are clearly marked by the clouds, and if there is any question, just look at the latest weather. you cannot auger into a hillside and say "that hill just jumped out in front of me, out of no where!" no it was always there, you just didnt see it. there is only truth in flying. there is no marketing team that will find you and thrust you into glory, you have wings for that. there is no guy sitting in the back dissecting your performance and patting you on the back saying "keep at it kid, one day youll make it" because if youre in the air, what else is there? youve already made it.
there are no lies. the sky wont make promises it cannot keep. it demands respect and has the ability and the authority to make you pay for any lack thereof. it wont run off with your best friend, nor will it not let you in one day because its tired of you. it is constant, it is truth, it is love. you will always be worth it, and so will the sky.
i know where i need to be.

Come now and now my love,
And leave your dying desert to the rain.
Give up your treasured wounds
Let go the tempting memory of the pain.
Give up the vows you've taken
And you will live
And you will learn to fly again
And you will fly.


And you will live my love,
And see the stars regain your starless night.
And you will find your sun
And know the magic meaning of its light.
All souls will be yours to cherish
Rising, falling in their earthly flight
And you will fly.


And I would love my love,
And she would seek a refuge in my eyes.
But no resource of love
Could keep her from the fire
Where loving dies.
And I would reach out my hand as she was
Falling, falling to her home on high
And she would fly.

just when you thought it was safe! ...or, a night for the ages

tonight was one of those pivotal nights in your life where you know a situation has presented itself for a reason. there was a reason i went and saw Sigur Ros tonight and then had to play a show myself. this of course was not just any lgb outing, but perhaps the last one ever.
first, sigur ros. brilliant. amazing in every way. it was the most impressive vocals i have ever seen in person (still lucky i missed buckley of course). they played just about everything i wanted to hear allin the span of 90 minutes. at times i couldnt sit still and i had to move my feet with the drums and tap along with the toms. at other times my toes were clenched up into fists as they peaked in some musical territory where few dare to go, not that many even know it exists. it was exhausting, wonderfully exhausting.
our show. we played last. this was the final round of a battle of the bands. the winner would get a live broadcast on 98.5 and a chance to meet with an exec from rounder records, the largest indie in the country. we play, and we play the shit out of our stuff. we are packing up our things and the exec from rounder comes up to me..."hey, i really dug your playing, you play very well. i especially like the vibrato you used on the first song, very cool very cool." flatter obviously i thank him very much and ask him his name again, i am expecting just a pat on the back and a "way to go, have a goodnight"...but...."jj from rounder records. here is my card, there is my email address. email me soon, we need to talk. i want a kit from you guys, i really enjoyed it." ummmmmmmmm. wait. you. want. a. cd. from. us. hmmm. ok. well then...i thanked him for coming out and for complimenting us and wished him a good night and said i would be in touch.
you should of course realize the dilemma. laura wants to leave boston. yet here is the thing that we have been working for so long to get. just an acknowledgment from someone, even if nothing comes of it, it still says to me, hey youre doing something right. laura and i are gonna chat next week about this whole deal. but, if you love our band, if you love our music, if you want this to continue, please please please, send us your messages, send laura your support. she needs to hear from all of you. thanks.

how i almost died vol. 1

two entries in one day. scroll down or the first one. this one is too good to not put in here and i didnt think of it til now. so here goes.

the other day i had a mega long day in the air, 6.5 hours worth. went to lebanon, nh and then to rutland, vt, back to providence, to amherst, ma, back to providence. well...i almost didnt go anywhere.
know how when you are coming in to land in a big airliner you can feel yourself slow down quite a bit rather quickly, and if you look at the wing, the trailing edge of the wing is now split and pointing down? those are flaps. flaps give you more lift (the force that keeps you up) while allowing you to fly slower. in my plane, i take off with a notch of flaps out, incredibly called take off flaps, or t/o. to land we put out the landing flaps. the landing flaps are much more exaggerated than the t/o flaps ( 45 degrees vs. 15 degrees... huge difference.) so i am taxiing out to the runway and i start going over the pre take off checklist. fuel primer off, fuel pump on, warning lights off, trim neutral, strobe on, flaps t/o. when i check the flaps i accidently hit the switch and lower the flaps to the landing setting. i line up on the runway, push the throttle wide open and off i go...
now...under normal circumstances, if you stay on the runway longer than you should during the take off roll, the plane will start kinda dancing around a bit. this happens around 60mph. at 40mph the plane is starting to come off the ground...waaayyy too early. i immediatly realize something is wrong, but you cant just abort the take off. so i pull back on the stick a little bit...nothing happens. shit. pull back a little harder and im off the groud, but now the stall warning is ringing in my ear. i pitch the nose down to keep the air going over the wings but im still climbing. i pitch down a little more but im still climbing. i pitch down enough that the nose is basically pointing below the horizon but somehow the plane is still climbing like a friggin helicopter. okay, what is going on. i run over all my dials and switches and i realize the landing flaps are out. so you would think that all you have to do is raise the flaps a notch. if only it were that simple.
flaps give you extra lift. if you take away flaps, you take away lift and you literally sink 20 - 30 feet. if i do this and i am too low, i die because i sink right into the ground. so now i have to climb. what do you need to climb? speed. if i go too fast in the plane the flaps will fail, literally tear off the plane and i die. so, i now have to climb out to a safe height, while keeping my speed low, and correct the situation. i climbed out to 500 feet, kept my speed to about 60mp (yup, that slow) and casually raised the flaps up. i laughed my ass off about that one all the way to nh. woops.
i waited a while to tell my instructor. but i finally asked him "hey have you ever taken off with the landing flaps out?" he looks at me and says "hell no, and i wouldnt want to try it either." this coming from a flight instructor with 1000 hours in air compared to my 50. hmm. "well i might have done that last week." "are you serious?" "yup" "holy shit, thats bad. what happened?" i told him, he laughed and then added "well if someone were gonna be able to pull it off, it would have been you. all my other students would freak out and drive the thing straight into the ground." best compliment i recieved all day.

in closing, i definitly wont be making that mistake ever again. but, that was my first brush with disaster. not too bad, but enough to make an instructor raise an eyebrow.

i know i know i know

its been awhile. but HEY ive been busy folks. ive been cruising all around new england and new york in my plane racking up the hours. the test is coming up in a week, after that i should be a fully licensed private pilot. word.
in other news, jimi james got married. i will write that again so that you can read it again without have to start over. jimi james got friggin MARRIED. and i couldnt be happier for him. it was so rockstar though. really. who else but jimi james says "know what? fuck it. im not gonna have a dj, ill make my own playlist, hook up the iPod to some speakers and wrote out." who else? no one. and also, who else would put Boston, Black Crowes, and Blue Oyster Cult on the playlist for their WEDDING?!?!? no one. that is why jimi james is the coolest dood i know. so bad ass. it was the jimijames rock n roll wedding. but the fun didnt stop there. the food was served buffet style. how many weddings have you been to when something gets put in front of you and you really have no interest eating it or they gave you way too much or perhaps not enough? everyone one of em. well jj came to the rescue and said "fuck it, eat however much you want!" and eat we did. the menu was...get ready....fuckin breakfast food. at a wedding. at 3 in the afternoon. we had a buffet of eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, home fries, omelets, and coronas of course. so bad ass. jj i tip my hat to you for throwing a bash. so rockstar.
what else what else...oh...yeah a hurricane ripped the ass off of the south. thats pretty tit. of course in an opportunity for people to shine through and help one another and have moments where their characters are pushed to the limit what does everyone do? they point fingers and say its not fault and this and that and its racism and then kanye west starts talking and my head explodes from the amount of stupidity flowing from his mouth. shut up. just shut the fuck up. you are a rapper. you dont know the first thing about anything other than the following words do in fact rhyme: lame, game, same, fame, name, tame, came, shame, pain, and so on and so on. holy shit, was i just rapping? quick someone get me a mic and a national platform stat!!!
yet another reason i am moving to france. arizona first, then france.