I've had a horrible week. Like most horrible weeks it took many little horrible things to make.
The first horrible thing was coming to terms with studying. I'm still in a transition state, my fingertips still itch a bit where I press the strings, but I'm doing alright. I heard Wynton Marsalis play a minor blues somewhere, and I nearly lost it right then. I needed to figure that line out, but oh well. Mixture of laziness and despair.

I bought a file, and I put all of my things in it. It's grey.

The second horrible thing was jazz club, and everything that goes with it. I'm losing control already (which kind of shows how much of a control freak I am) , can't deal with anyone, not sure where we're heading or what we should be doing. Just really low on self-confidence. At least I hope some of the j1s will stick around. First prac was a nightmare (not because it was bad, but because I didn't know what was going on).

The third thing is church. I've stopped going for youth meetings on sunday, though I still go for mass. What's the point. I don't believe in half the things you all believe in. You're wonderful people but I feel like a hypocrite standing there. Please go ahead anyway.

So, angst, depression. Whatever. I still rate very highly on the happiness and satisfaction scale (see blogthings), which may prove that i'm a bit of a masochist. At least i'm not bored.

And there's still stuff to do. I vow to live forever by never having enough time to lie down somewhere and die.



adam

I guess this should go on my other blog, but whatever.
I got to play at the esplanade!
I am really happy about that. Got dragged down to the outdoor theatre by mark and shawn to join the mosaic jam and there were all sorts of pro people who played the pants off us. We went up anyway (kicking and screaming, as it were) and I think we did ok. I was very, very scared.

But... wow. Achievement, even though it was just an open jam and we kind of < everybody else. It was fun and I got to meet all the cool people backstage. I kept the little 'artist' tag they gave me too .

adam

I hate this. I hate everything.

It's 2007. 2007 means J2.
J2 means A levels.
A levels means studying.
Studying means no practice.

First off, I hate studying.
Studying is for the sort of people who grow up to be withered shrubberies in some meaningless post in a backward university, teaching the next generation of withered shrubberies.

I am also deathly afraid that when it comes to the crunch i.e. practice or study, I will be completely unable to choose the latter.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

adam

meme#2

Got this from Ryan.

Comment and I'll give you a letter; then you have to list 12 things you love that begin with that letter. After, post this in your journal, and give out some letters of your own.
My letter is O.

1. Orange. Orange is now prescribed in tablet or syrup form at your nearest clinic for cases ranging from mild depression to suicidal tendencies. No known side effects except uncontrollable happiness.

2. Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy INVENTED screamo. Black Sabbath FTW.

3. Othello (the character) for being so amazingly screwed up, but STILL great. I like Othello a lot.

4. Ornithology (the Charlie Parker tune, not the discipline.) Only song which I have 3 versions of all by the same artist.

5. Opus Pocus by Jaco Pastorius. Favourite pastorius tune ever, and one of his best.

6. Orion, the constellation. Probably the only easily recogniseable one from Singapore. But I don't do stargazing so maybe I just don't know. If the night is clear you can always see the three-stars-in-a-row belt of orion.

7. Ostinatos. Listen to Hiromi's 'XYZ'. She is entirely composed out of awesome, as Ryan would say. Not that I think he'd like Hiromi. But he talks like that.

8. Obfuscate. Obfuscate. Obfuscate. Obfuscate. Obfuscate.
Obfuuuuuscaaaaaaaaaaate.

9. 'Of' the word. Without which we would have no 'Heart OF Darkness'.

10. Orkz. Even more dakka!

11. Onomatopoiea. I can spell it.

12. JAMES BROWN. OK, I cheated. But I think he deserves a mention.
My heroes are dying one by one and I can't do anything about it.
My man, you are Soul Brother number one. You are a sex machine.

adam

New blog.
http://cosimavoodoochild.blogspot.com/

But it isn't replacing this one.

adam

There are 2 kinds of people in this world: Those who don't understand what Pat Metheny is doing, and those who don't understand what Pat Metheny is doing, but listen to him anyway.

adam

Gigs

I'm happy now, because I've got lots of gigs.

And I love it when i get to perform. Ok, given... the wedding today was a bit of a screwup. But nobody noticed! (Or at least, it being a wedding, they were obliged to be nice.) I guess you can count on Nobody At All to understand what a jazz band is doing. In fact, we survived a dangerously teetering rendition of that most hated song, Fly me to the Moon, and made a sort of careening way through My Funny Valentine, and came out the other end looking slightly bruised, but not really worse for the wear. It has been worse before.

For example, taking a gig with mark who shows up 15 minutes before and asks what songs we're doing. The thing is, he can do it. I can't - therefore, echoing Descartes, I suffer.

To anyone who reads this blog, if such a hypothetical person does in fact exist, COME DOWN TO WOODLANDS CC TOMORROW (Sunday). There's an open jam session at 1.30 .

Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island
Might even raise a little sand

'cause I'm a voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child baby

I want to say one more last thing
I didnt mean to take up all your sweet time
I'll give it right back to ya one of these days
I said I didnt mean to take up all your sweet time
I'll give it right back one of these days

If I dont meet you no more in this world then
I'll meet ya on the next one
And don't be late
Don't be late

'cause I'm a voodoo child voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child

Jimi Hendrix

MEEEEEEME.

I guess this is revenge for the 'hanxin smashes head, then smashes Ryan' comment.


Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included.

1. First thing that came to mind - i love it when it rains. Especially when it rains outside and i'm indoors... somehow i find that very comforting. Must be linked to some childhood thing i can't remember. I have a big transparent door that leads from my room to outside so i can see the rain and the plants and the garden slowly flooding up. I find it fascinating. Although, now there are plants and the garden doesn't really flood up anymore. It's still good.

2. I have incontrollable bouts of nervousness before public performances. Despite all my experience with that sort of thing it never goes away.

Notably, the worst was before my first debate in the Julia Gabriels national debating competition. I remember sitting in the canteen outside the debate room and being paralysed. As in, I actually felt breathing difficulties and dizziness. I went on to win best speaker, but that was the last and only time and eventually my team dropped out at the quarter finals.

The other time was before band concert this year in which hyqel and I were guest performing. We were both novice jazz guitarists at the time, barely able to decipher a 'D7+5' chord (doesn't that make it a D12?), let alone navigate the intricacies of fingerboard harmony. Worse still, we were accompaniment. Hyqel told me he got it too. Strangely that somewhat alleviated my panic... and I realised that the best antidote to nervousness is empathy. And winning.

3. Perhaps my favourite musician of all time is the electric bassist Jaco Pastorius, even though I don't really play bass much. I wouldn't say that his music is terribly profound compared to the likes of john coltrane, but it just radiates an energy that is incomparable. I don't think I will wax lyrical about his music right now. Rather I think i'll note that up to the 70s and 80s electric bassists were progressing hugely by co-opting electric guitar technique. So much so that I think (at least as far as jazz is concerned) they overtook us. Now I think it really is time for guitarists to start learning back from the bassists.

4. I used to be a swimmer. As in, I used to swim competitively. This is in spite of the fact that i'm horribly unfit and I have never taken my gold survival certificate. It also was around 8 years ago, so whatever swimmer is left in me has probably drowned. I still regularly owned my non-swimmer classmates in secondary school though.

5. I always use (almost) full english when I SMS or email or use msn. I don't shorten things which don't need to be shortened like 'You' or 'like'. I can understand using shorthand for long words or phrases like brb for be right back, but I can't stand people hu tok lyk dis. Seriously. You've saved, like 4 letters at the expense of looking completely retarded.
I also don't use a qwerty keyboard. I've switched to Dvorak which is faster and easier on the hands.

6. I really only speak one language : english. My chinese is good enough to express myself in a very limited fashion. I usually just resort to english and gestures. I also know a little French, but not enough to speak fluently. I can understand rudiments of Bahasa Indonesia, but not enough to speak as well.

I am tagging RYAN, ABBY, ELI, NATALIE, GERARD and SHARON.

Sorry Ryan, if this takes too much time away from nanowrimo then please tell me.

adam

EDIT: sorry, had to post this. This is brilliant.
I think it's important that churches are up to this right now. I think it's a step in the right direction.

Have been feeling very insecure lately, about everything. I put it down to hormones, but that doesn't make it any less shitty.

In fact, I've been pretty emo this whole year. Whoever it was on that documentary about teenagers got it right. It's a terrible time and a wonderful time.

Mr. Pastorius

I saw Jaco Pastorius and his band play 'Liberty City' on Youtube.

It is heartbreaking to see a man so happy.
Toots Thielemans, the harmonica player, came over to him during a rest and said something I couldn't hear and he laughed. He threw his head back and laughed like a little kid.
It is heartbreaking because in that instant I knew my life's goal is to be that happy some day, in the same inimitable, exuberant way.

Hey, I don't even know the man. I don't claim to. Never before have I seen a person, let alone a grown man, so joyous.

So I'm sitting here and I'm listening to 'Liberty City'. It is infectious. I wonder what it must be like on the other side, if just listening is such a moving experience. What's it like behing the score, behind the instrument, putting out such wonderful noise?
You couldn't listen to his music and not be moved. You couldn't play his music without being changed forever.

I found a vid of Jeff Carswell and Richard Bona covering the piece with the Jaco Pastorius Big Band. They're grinning like idiots. I wonder if they've seen that same performance and that same huge grin that I saw.

I wonder if they felt the same bittersweet regret that the world might never see such a smile again - at the same time knowing that a piece of him lives on regardless. Maybe they somehow felt inadequate.

Few know that 14 years before the 2001 terrorist attacks made the day infamous, on the same day ocurred a smaller but no less profound tragedy. Jaco Pastorius was beaten fatally in a club on september 11th, 1987. He died 10 days later. Until I saw that laugh I didn't think anything of it...

It is heartbreaking, it is heartbreaking.

Nu-metal. What a stupid name.

Disturbed has renewed my faith in modern rock.

Let's just say, if, for the last year or so you were to place a little camera in my room, unbeknownst to me, you would be hard-pressed indeed to find me headbanging to anything.
I mean, Velvet revolver, yes. Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Nirvana. All great, but not really headbanging-like.

I can truthfully say i've never had the urge until about 10 minutes ago. Nu-metal is my one weakness when it comes to modern rock-derived music. I've never given a second thought about anything from punk-rock to death metal - but from the start i was sort of attracted to linkin park. I recall intensely liking a Korn song from awhile back. I shamefully admit having listened to limp bizkit for a short, short period.

Those were dark days.

Eventually linkin park's teenage-angst lyrics and hip-hop leanings began to annoy me. I never heard another Korn song in my life. Limp bizkit thankfully faded from any of my playlists.

Never once though have I had the urge to headbang. I guess it's one of those things I figured was for uncouth teenagers with pimples and bad breath - at best, woefully unrestrained, and at worst just utterly silly. Which intelligent rock band would want their fans all to develop whiplash? Seems kind of counter-productive.

Anyway, GETTING TO THE POINT. Disturbed is fantastic. They've got the nu-metal thing going on. They've got a groove, and some fantastic song-writing. They have a half-decent guitarist (far better than the quarter- and eigth- decent guitarists present in other rock bands.)

So i guess i sort of broke down and headbanged.
A little.
I'm watching my pimples.


adam

I can't shake the feeling that sitting alone at the Coffee Bean, reading a book and nursing a vanilla Ice Blended somehow automatically brands you as a social outcast without any friends.

I tackled that hypothesis gallantly this afternoon with a copy of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Haven't finished it yet, but it is proving to be a fantastic book with thoughtful (as opposed to mindless) humour. And it is Very Funny.

For me this is a good reprieve from the apocalyptic we are all machines doom-n-gloom drugs-and-sex-and-violence imagery of Neuromancer (which i'm doing for h3 lit... go me).

On the other hand, incest isn't much better.
Haha.

adam

We can NEVER win against the world. It's like a casino on a mind-boggling scale, the odds constantly and consistently weighted against us. We claim our victories in the mute flashes of our lifetimes. The sudden jingle of slot machines. The sound uplifts our sordid, lonely souls for enough the time it takes for us to fade into the mists of eternity, forgotten.

I think it's the greatest irony that those of us (and I speak categorically) who reject what we perceive as a 'system' and rebel eventually become systems ourselves. Only now we are systems of rejection, the scientific method. But we claim our bright moments of victory before we are trampled and forgotten.

Destruction is beautiful. It's a sordid, animal impulse. Tell me you've never experienced a moment of catharsis seeing a fallen tree, mangled by fire. It's as if the world for a moment became a voicing of the hatred that burns inside all humans. Or if the dust of our bodies for a brief moment felt the kinship of the oblivion that is our inevitable destiny.

Haha you have got to try this.

I was playing Pat Metheny's 'all the things you are' on itunes in the background while surfing the net - then I (somehow) navigated to someone's (super emo) blog which was playing that 'how do i breeeeeaaaaaathe without you' song. The resulting mix was quite shocking. I almost laughed.

For nonteknischen, that version of all the things you are is a fairly liberally interpreted (even by modern standards) version, and mixing it with sappy love ballads is HILARIOUS.

My next project is to find 'my heart will go on' and mix it with Song X. Maybe i'll call it 'performance art'.

Giggle.


adam

I feel horrible... open house rehearsal was such a screw up. We didn't know what we were doing... mostly underpracticed and underconfident. Everything was off... timing, tuning and stuff. We can't keep playing like this...

I promise we'll do better. I promise.
And to Julie Andrews, i'm sorry for mangling the song that you sang. We'll do better next week.

adam

sonya* it only hurts when i breathe / freedom! (= all the things i wanna do with my life, here i come says:
A BAT IS IN MY ROOM!
HELP

sonya* it only hurts when i breathe / freedom! (= all the things i wanna do with my life, here i come says:
HELP
HELP
MAKE IT GO AWAY


If i wasn't wondering what on earth I should do, I would've fallen off my chair laughing :P

adam

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/144186.asp

Shit. They managed to execute the people. The 3 Christians accused of inciting violence against Muslims.

The promos are like breakfast cereal.
Except without the sugar.
... and most of the carbohydrates,
and the dietary fibre,
and the 7 essential vitamins and minerals,
and come to think about it, without the fancy packaging...

and all you're left with is crunchy despair.

Life sucks bad.

adam

Global Personality Test Results

Stability (40%) moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious. Orderliness (30%) low which suggests you are overly flexible, improvised, and fun seeking at the expense too often of reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment. Extraversion (50%) medium which suggests you average somewhere in between being assertive and social and being withdrawn and solitary.

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