Video

My latest creation.  Enjoy!

Rain

I don't mind. 

Money

Did the spending plans this morning.  Sacrificed sleep.  My health is to the point where I feel like I can do that again occasionally.  Felt good to have it done.   Plus I got to socialize with my DM homies on the FB.   Respect.   

Focus

Most of my life, my biggest obstacle to achieving my goals has been my tendency to procrastinate. 

Though many tell me that it's not as bad as I make it out to be and according to most outside observers I actually do quite a lot. 

But I feel I though I "do" many things and get very little accomplished in the end.  So I try to load up on motivational stuff like Gary Ryan Blair's 100 Day Challenge, my man Les Brown, Stin the Thought Coach....and it helps. 

It's hard as a self-employed person to find a balance between working and resting.   So I'm working on follow through and focus.  Here's a little "Hocus Pocus" by Focus to help your day run smooth. 

Scurry

Last November, my daughter got a hamster for her birthday.  She'd been wanting a pet so badly, and while guinea pigs are more cuddly they also smell worse.  Used to breed g. pigs when I was a lad.   Teryn promptly named the hamster Scurry Nibble Huff.

Though she is a little young for a hamster, I thought we could learn a little responsibility and share in the joy of the family pet.  Plus hamsters are nocturnal so I would have a nighttime companion, a rodent by choice, not one of the "free" rodents that roamed about the kitchen until we plugged up the holes with steel wool (and until the local mouse community learned about the Mighty Linda, destroyer of mice, breaker of mouse necks, the Terminator.) 

Teryn helps clean the cage, we take her out and pet her, and we also let her roam the house in the hamster ball.   While T can't be unsupervised with her, she talks to her quietly and is gentle.  So far the hamster has been uneventful.

Until this morning.  Awoken in a panic.  T woke up to find the hamster cage open and Scurry gone.  Which was very strange as I had heard her in her wheel when I went to bed at 4 AM (yes, I am nocturnal too).  Hammo had somehow pushed the door open, probably flopped onto the towels below, and took off.   Free at last!   The steel wool was moved in one part of the kitchen so clearly she had gone under the stove.   After about an hour of managing a weepy T and wandering the house with a carrot trying to cajole the wanderer out, we were giving up.   We left the cage open on the floor with a full food dish in case she came back.   Chances are when she got hungry, she'd come back.  Linda and I discussed what would happen if she encountered mice.  Not happy. 

I got a weird hit on my phone (I have a Google alert for Chris Huff music), and nothing was coming up on the page, so I went to my office to check it out on the computer.  T was still calling "Scurry...Scurry" in the living room.   Sitting on the POD XT Live underneath my Gibson ES-335 (good taste btw Scurry) was a very alert hamster, a dust bunny hanging off her whiskers.  I would have said little, but the thing has multiplied exponentially since arriving chez Huff. 

So many decisions for her to make.  "I love being free."  "But I am hungry."  Who knows what goes through the mind of the escaped hamster.  "Look, Ma, top of the world!"  She fussed as I picked her up, but mainly because I didn't give her the carrot.  Within minutes the crisis was averted, hamster was returned to her cage, and Daddy was the Hamster Hero.  Scurry dove into the food dish.  Twisties on the cage door should prevent further unsupervised adventures. 

Hamster.

 Hamster butt.

The proud owner and her hammo sharing an apple.

Bruce (brooooooooce)

Some gigs it is helpful to have a deep selection of someone's back catalog.  For some reason I always knew this skill would come in handy.  Last night, I had the pleasure of playing at this nice woman's 50th birthday.   She was a major Bruce fan.   Gigs in the living room are always a bit odd, but if the money's there and the drinks are a-flowin' amongst the guests it can be a great time.  The Bruce songs I played:

"Growin Up"
"Incident on 57th St."
"Born To Run"
"Hungry Heart"
"Darkness on the Edge of Town"
"Racing In The Street"

and I know about 20 more...

Eggs

Eggs are good for you!  Don't believe me? 

Check out this article from CNN.   Or this explanation from The Diet Channel.

I eat them for breakfast daily.   Sunny side up because they are locally grown and organic (i.e. I know where those chickens live).  

 

Bowiedream

Dream that David Bowie's daughter Alexandria and my daughter were in the same class at Bank Street School in NYC.  We were invited over to their house for dinner.   While Iman and I were chatting, David came in and I re-introduced myself.   They lived in this giant stone castle which had a huge hole hollowed out in the middle.  When I asked him if it was safe for children with the giant hole, he answered cryptically, "The wind blows the tiles back and forth."  He then showed me to this room which was like It's A Small World at Disney but more Christmasy - there was a Santa sleigh, and it was quite abstract in some places.   I laughed and said, "this is the one rock star indulgence you allow yourself, right?  A totally useless room that looks like a Disney diorama."  We were laughing.  I hugged him as we got ready to go and said, "I really wish you'd make some more music".  He looked tired and forlorn. 

Angel

My angels are close today.

You know who you are.   

Life

Keith Richards' autobiography stirs up a whole bunch of feelings.  I think everybody who's a rock musician (not counting pure artist types who are more experimental than rock 'n' roll) has at some point (probably in their teens) wished for the life of a Rolling Stone:  biggest band in the world, big tours, millions of dollars, houses in multiple countries, orgies, top shelf drugs, incredible musicians floating in and out...Etcetera.  So the first emotion you have is "why this bloke and not me"?  "What did he do right and what have I done wrong?"

But, once past the jealousy, it's impossible for me to read Keith's story without marveling at the amount of amazing recordings the Stones made and the brilliant songs they wrote.   The tremendous, earth-shaking, heart-wrenching tunes.  Do I even have to list them?  Angie, Wild Horses, Jumping Jack Flash, Satisfaction, Ruby Tuesday, Salt of The Earth, Sympathy For The Devil, Midnight Rambler, The Last Time, on and on and on and on the tunes poured out of them - Paint It Black, Let It Bleed, Monkey Man...you think you've felt them all, but then a lesser known one pops out of a movie and you're back to rolling on the floor thinking "Oh my God, this is The Great Spirit coming at me with a Telecaster and a bluesman's drawl".   Keef (a nickname given to him by his family, by the way) goes into great detail about WHAT he loves about music and WHY, his songwriting process, and why the music still keeps him going after all these years.  That alone should make this required reading for any  aspiring musician of any genre who wants to write a song or play an instrument.

The book meanders through his schooling and upbringing, is most compelling describing the early days of the Stones and the abovementioned love of music, and goes into lurid, salacious detail of his junkie wanderings around the planet which usually ended in some model's bed or jail cell.  The last part is campy fun, but ultimately pretty boring.  Keith tries to justify years of drug abuse and familial neglect with stupid lines like "It was hard to be a Rolling Stone and raise a kid".  Yeah, especially when you're on the bill with the spoon. 

I admit, I have a grudge against the man for the terrible, terrible show I saw in Atlantic City in 06.  This was shortly after his fall in Fiji, but he was just staggering around the stage, off rhythm most of the show, clearly messed up on some shit.  Which was sad and awful because Mick was so good.   But I try to balance the good with the bad because the records are so very very great, so full of life, blues, America, England, partying, God, and everything....

Mick.  Mick is brilliant.  Keith gives him much credit in the book.  "The best R&B singer in the UK", "the greatest entertainer of all time", "a brilliant lyricist" etc.  From what dirt he dishes about their famously difficult relationship (and he lays out all the typical beefs - big ego, mad at Mick not letting him know about business deals, mad at Mick's lame solo career, etc).  The two of them have a typical addict/non-addict spouse relationship.  One can only hope that Mick has gone to Al-Anon or CODA at some point to work through his codependent feelings and anger.  It was starkly clear in the "Shine A Light" movie how much Mick overcommits himself to micromanaging the band's affairs to make up for Keith's active addict lack of presence in helping steer the Stones.  No wonder Mick's pissed.  His partner checked out mentally years ago.   F.u., Keith.

But the records.  The love of music.  The blues.  The Chuck Berry movie (where Keith built a band for that egomaniacal prick genius Chuck Berry) is beyond fantastic.

He really loves his kids, he just has a funny way of showing it.  The parts where Marlon (son with Anita) is playing junkie nurse at ages 7 - 10 for his dad and then has to live in a mansion on Long Island with no heat in most of the rooms during the winter are just creepy though.  Dumbass junkie has kids and then doesn't know how to take care of them.  They don't sound bitter in the book, however.  Word has it that Marlon turned out quite well-adjusted.  

So, like life, Keef is complicated and full of contradictions.  One can only hope that the man still has some actual music left in him.  Some have said that the AC show was a fluke.   But we will ALWAYS HAVE THE RECORDS.

Motion

Everything is moving very quickly right now.  My daughter's getting taller, quicker, faster, more like a real person.  I'm tentatively booking what could be an incredible 2 - 3 week tour through the Midwest and South in the second half of October.  I'm also finishing a music video which is potentially lightning in a bottle.   ALSO recorded drum tracks for the next EP.   ALSO organizing the house and our money.  Planning my medical strategy for the next couple of months, switched primary care doctors which feels a-maz-ING (loathed the staff of the last office).  Read a great post about how to keep your house clean in 20 minutes a day for 30 days. 

Revolution is sweeping the globe!  Protests in the streets in Wisconsin! (there is POWER in a union!)  Roll The Union On!  I'm Sticking to the Union!

That bastard Qaddafi/Khadafy/Gadhafi may be hanging from the town square by the end of the month.  And I can't say I would be sad.  I don't wish violent death on anyone, but he would be first runner-up.  I had a friend who died in the Lockerbie plane he brought down. 

So onwards and upwards!