So. When we left off last week, your intrepid correspondent was sitting down with Ms. Choi to go over tunes while awaiting the arrival of one J. King.
I've been busy of late so our session consisted primarily of going through a tape of ideas from the last 5 or 6 weeks and noting yeas or nays from JC while cringing at some of the more poorly conceived numbers, an activity usually undertaken in privacy, like masturbation or watching FOX. We settled on 3 or 4 ditties that seemed to have potential, and brought back one that I'd left for dead, at which point Mr. King rang the buzzer. He suggested a new ending for a pure pop number that I hadn't figured out how to wrap up, and gave the thumbs up to a couple that were on the bubble, before entreating JC to work out some piano parts for one of his own new ones, a terrific little tune in a Pet Sounds/Village Green vein.
Standing outside smoking a cigarette, it hit me, as it often does in times like these, how fortunate I am to be able to do this stuff for a living. 20 years ago, I would have thought such a future way out of my reach; sitting around with my pals working on tunes all day would have seemed too good to be true. If you've ever thought that it would be really cool to write songs and play music for a living instead of getting up and going to a job every day, you're absolutely right. I can't say I'd encourage anyone to give up college or the day job to give it a shot as it's really not all sunshine and lollipops, but times like these help me realize that I have the best job in the world.
Which brings me to the mission statement I meant to write when I moved over here from the old blog. The old blog was a mishmash of stuff, completely unfocused and maddeningly (or so I'm told) focused on sports. The new leaf has turned, friends, Romans, countrymen; forthwith you shall be treated (or subjected) to a slice of life at Weasel Manor from the creative perspective, more-or-less daily. Sort of like a blog version of that MTV reality show about the drummer from Blink-182, minus the money, fame, and civilized weather. That doesn't mean I won't pop off about baseball or the NHL or politics once in a while, but I'll try to keep it in context. It also means I'm going to be dumping a bunch of links. No hard feelings, bloggers - just trying to maintain focus.
For the past couple dozen moons, life has treated your narrator very well indeed, a statement I don't make lightly given my serious superstitions regarding the acknowledgement of good fortune ("Life's been really great lately!" "Oh? Very good, sir. By the way, your test results just came back. You have rectal cancer."). But none of this good fortune has been wasted in obedience to the old Scottish genes, standing around waiting for the other shoe to drop. Of course it's going to drop: nobody's gotten out of this world alive yet. It's the little things that make everything matter. Not coincidentally, the little things are always the subject matter of the best songs.
Not everything is hunky dory, naturally. There's the matter of a large sum of money owed, the hiring of litigators to secure same, and the usual discomfort we all feel as we try not to puke all over ourselves on the Tilt-A-Whirl of life, but just as the tide rises and falls and day turns to night and then back again, your faithful narrator will continue to report back for your amusement as I attempt to navigate the leaky canoe through the choppy seas of life on this earth.