(A bingo hall in Baltimore. Awesome.)

Ri-chan is sending out resumes and cover letters for nursing positions. She has a potential sponsor for her work visa, at John Hopkins.
She has been studying and job hunting since I got here. She has two of her licenses; and is soon to take the registered nurse test for her final license. She’s a smart cookie.
She, however, doesn’t think so. This is one of our ongoing arguments. We spend our lunches together arguing whether or not she is intelligent and wise. It’s clear to me she is. It seems less clear to her.

This is always quite baffling to me.
I don’t think I’m all that smart. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that we have no fucking clue about ourselves. If you want to know who the fuck you are, listen to what people say about you. They know who you are, based on your actions and your words. Any time you want to disagree with them, bite your fucking tongue.
People tell you that you’re smart? You fucking well probably are.
People tell you that you’re impatient? Even though you think you’re some New Age fucking guru of zen? Bite your fucking tongue, pull your head out of your ass, and consider that discrepancy.
You have no fucking clue who you are; what your qualities are; what your peccadilloes are. You don’t know shit about yourself; the people around you know who the fuck you are.
You are your actions, not the self-indulgent puke of your conscious mind and the rancid wank of your internal dialogue. Every iota of you that you have access to is fetid and deceitful fabrication.
The conscious mind is a betrayer.
Your behavior is who you actually are. And only others are in any position to tell you who your actions make you out to be.
Not that you can actually ever convince anyone of this.
Even though we all know this, forwards and backwards, from infancy, when we first start manipulating our actions to manipulate others to win our desires.
Whatevs.
Ri-chan and I argue this each day at lunch, because she’s whipsmart.

Today I rehearsed for six or seven hours. (Okay so this must have been written three days ago, January 1st, 2009, because yesterday I recorded with the kick-ass double bassist Daniel Barbiero at his place in DC. And I did long practice sessions the two days before that. And this sounds like it was the first day.) Glorious.
I use a Novation X-Station 49 to control Ableton Live. I send out of an Indigo Echo to an Alesis Multimix 8, with a Korg Kaoss pad as my effects unit.
I am using about 40% old samples from the standard collection I’ve put together over the past decade. And I am using about 60% samples made from my time in DC, Alexandria and Rosemead.
(I’ll try to upload all of this to vime, soon.)

(I see things while traveling I don’t see otherwise. Like this instant margarita tub. Capitalism is awesome. In the same way black holess are, like, “wow, that is crazy, I can’t even imagine that, wait I’m trying, nope, no, can’t imagine it, will have to stick with Max van Sydow in mind.”)

I am very happy with the way I am sounding. By the end of the trip, I should be in fine form. I’m even thinking of asking the always agreeable Boni Banks for a slot at Noise n Pancakes in SF at the end of my trip. (I did ask. Haven’t heard back. Asked for a 24 hour show. With rotating guests collaborating through the day and night with me. Basically I’d supply a running atmosphere in the background of some venue and others would come and go as they pleased. I can’t imagine who would want to see this, or why Boni would want to put it on, but there you go, it’s be fun for me, and often what I enjoy others do to, even if I can’t figure why.)

Tomorrow I am recording a duet record with a double bassist in DC, Daniel Barbiero. Nobu is producing. That should be fun.
(It was. Totally faboo. Daniel was really responsive and flexible. His background and influences are contemporary compositional, so we share that. But my music is completely unlike what he is accustomed to. He generally plays with other acoustic musicians. And musicians who can provide more instant feedback and interplay. I, and this is a weakness of mine as an improvisor, am really a wall of sound, an environment other musicians are thrown into. I can flex and shift this environment to try and suit there needs, but I do so at a geologic pace, by musical standards. Daniel was fabulous at integrating the extended technique and broad range of his instrument to inhabit the world I created for it. Nobu is very happy with the recordings, and is hoping to produce them in the next few months, before getting the frakking brilliant Honyo Ohte to do up a CD package. He’ll then send the whole thing off to labels. Crazy that someone as incredibly talented as Nobu is that big a supporter of my music. It’s way beyond flattering.)

(This is Nobu looking for a CD on his wall of jazz CDs. He has that many CDs again of progressive rock. He loves music, and is encyclopedic. Right now, as I write this blog, he is writing reviews for a new book coming out, covering every ECM release in history. He’s writing 28 of the articles.)

Yesterday I rehearsed all day, as well. (So maybe this was written on the 2nd not the 1st. or maybe the 1st. Time gets all smeary when you’re traveling and couchsurfing and haven’t had a real life in almost a decade, and even then, it was only sort of real, for a few years, and before that, super unreal, and maybe before that it was on and off, but mostly off.) In the evening I read Cryptonomicon. My allergies (cat and mold are getting me here, I think) were worse yesterday. Now the loratadine is kicking in a bit more. (Yeah, yesterday at Daniel’s was a great relief. Today, I’m feeling a little better. The loratadine really helps, I just hate taking medication.)
I’ll post recordings from my rehearsals to vime when I get to a decent web connection.
As well as photos. Right now, I’m lucky to get on long enough to check email. I’m writing my blog posts offline and sending them when I get a wifi window here.

Right now Nobu and I are listening to CDs by Achille Succi, a saxophonist who we will be recording with (along with Daniel) in DC at the end of the month. That will be the fourth Stowe-Pembleton Project CD.
This recording session will alter my sched a bit. I’m probably going to be on the East Coast two weeks longer than anticipated. After Baltimore, I’ll hit Philly, then NYC, then back here for the recording. After that I’ll hit Holyoke and Lebanon in the first two weeks of February, before returning to Baltimore to begin the Amtrak leg of my trip.

Let’s see, SF, where was I?
I think I hadn’t even left LA yet, last time. Whatevs.
Now I’m in SF. Not in reality. In reality I am in Rosemead, a suburb of Baltimore. I am sitting uncomfortably at my laptop, and periodically running into Ri-chan and Nobu’s office to look at her work applications.
And now I am going to brush my teeth.

Hmm, well, that was a weird segue to end with. But now, on the 4th, I’m, actually, my ass really hurts from sitting on hard surfaces all day, so I’m going away now if there’s a wi-fi sniff I can catch to upload this.

(Okay, straight up, I mean really, giving yourself diabetes before the cirrhosis kicks in? Fucking brilliant. See, like a black hole, how can you not love the idea, even if, ultimately, you’re kind of thinking, “fuck, note to self, avoid that deathtrap.” No? Not buying it? You don’t see the connection? Capitalism doesn’t awe you at all? It’s nothing like what maybe you imagine happens at the event horizon of a black hole, that idea that maybe you’ll be pulled a part and stretched forever because of the possible oddities of time and space under such high gravity? No? Really, because I’m thinking, maybe, yeah, you know, you gotta give capitalism some props for just how marketing is everything, like give the ponzi scheme economy a ponzi scheme materiality? No?)