Cotton Tail
After you've absorbed the day and you've got all settled down. And you're quiet. And you're already to go to sleep. You turn out the light and you put your head on the pillow and you get your sleeping stance together.
And then there it is. There's the idea you've been looking for all day long.
-Duke Ellington
Photograph
In 2001 I bought my first camera. A few days passed and then I woke up one day and there it was. Nine years and five cameras later and much to my surprise, 16,000 photos to show for it.
I'm amazed at how far I've come. I never thought I'd be that into photography and the art, nor that I would progress to this level of photography. And though I have a Very long way yet to travel in the photography world, the journey and the path is where my heart still lays. And I'm not done yet.
Find something you love. And never stop trying and never stop learning. Maybe that's the secret to life?
A time. A place. A journey.
In the last quarter of my last year of college, a year wrought with academic achievement, I got cocky. I decided to enroll in an Honors History of Jazz class, you know, to pass the time. I love history, it was my major, and I fucking love jazz, and I mean that in the most sincere and serious of ways. So it was a natural choice really. That is to say, when browsing the course catalog, this class sought me out.
The later part of the quarter would reveal my ignorance, my arrogance, and my luck.
This was a graduate level music class that only happened to have the word "history" in its title. This was not a history class. It was a music class. And with my jock on the floor after the first week, I soon realized I didn't belong. I should quit. I don't belong here.
But I didn't. Something kept my dumb ass around. In what would turn out to be the greatest act of my college education, I stayed in to burn. And boy did I burn. I didn't give up, not because I'm a bad ass or have some unreal work ethic or super powers, no. I stayed in the class because I couldn't wait to sit in those red row bucket auditorium seats and listen to the professor.
He was a jazz musician by profession that landed a gig as a professer. He taught on a music stage with house lights, a gorgeous black piano off to his left. And man was he compelling. Every word he spilled, every musical theme he taught, was filled with such conviction, direction, and absolute seriousness. This was his craft, his art, passed down through a history so rich and so deep, and I never saw someone take something so serious in all my life. Ever. This shit was not dying on his watch, no mother fucking way.
I'll never forget that class.
That someone had something so close to the bone, in the heart, on such an absolute level of seriousness and resolve. That there was something that mattered, something that mattered more than life. That killed me. And still does.
He was in many ways the greatest professor I ever had. He taught the greatest class I ever took. A great jazz pianist. A great teacher. I owe you. Thanks Marc.
*Marc Seales has several albums on iTunes, I personally recommend the track Deep River off of his album A Time, A Place, a Journey
the return of the dz rant
Let's be clear and concise here. If you listen to r kelly or j zay or justin bieber or any of that hip hop wet panty making music, we're cool. You and I could be friends and get along all day, every day, no problem. By doing so, however, let's be very clear. You have lost all right to critique music wherein actual people play and comprise the musical sounds. We like to call such people musicians.
Sorry. That's just how it works friends. Listen to fake beats and you have zero cred to critique a Black Sabbath or an Alice in Chains or an Opera or a Symphony. Sorry. Pack your fake beats and silly wizard hat and get the fuck out. Cause your critique club card don't work here.
Kiss Fresh
I am actively soliciting feedback on new toothpaste. Looking for a new brand that doesn't leave my mouth numb, like licking tigerbalm off an ass, nor dry and scratchy like eating sidewalk chalk.
I am convinced such a tube of paste does not exist.
Thanks
You can try to start a chapter a thousand different ways, maybe more, though ultimately the straight line is the shortest distance.
Despite the ways in which my sarcasm probably punched you in the face, hear this.
I am so fortunate. Beyond belief. To be surrounded by my friends, my family; to have my health, clean water and a roof. To even be able to pull off all that I've pulled off. And though I don't believe in all that thank god crap, that doesn't diminish my humbleness. My thanks. My gratitude. That I have it so good. And as much as life is about me, and the decisions and path and journey I partake, it's as much about you as well. And I thank you. More than you know.
Stank
While cooking a few fried eggs this afternoon I happened to singe some hand hair on the gas burner. I am convinced, there is no worse smell on earth. Not poop, not cabbage passed as gas, not the liquid in the bottom of a black garbage bag left out in the sun.
Am I wrong?
Slice
I have serious reservations about people who can't cook, and I'm not talking coq au vin from scratch. I'm talking basic food prep and cook. To grill a meat. To sweat an onion. To fry an egg. The simple mere basics.
Well, I guess we know who will be the first to go when the revolution hits and the power goes out.
Lotus
I have a certain affinity and appetite for lotus tea. Gorgeous aroma, a light pleasant taste with the additional delight of green tea effects. Thrilling.
Big Dumb Sex
Found an old draft post in one of my pst files. Might make for an interesting read. Once upon a time I was a fairly successful bodybuilder, on a personal level not professional. Almost twenty years now in a real gym and I've got a few things to say as a result. From dieting to nutrition, drug use and suplememts, to weights, cardio and everything in between.
What started as merely off season work to supplement my on the job football career grew into a love affair with the gym.
It could prove to be interesting. Might be time to unleash a beast.