Smile

Those of you who know me know that my proclivity for smiling, well simply doesn't exist. Now I might of smiled more when I was a youngter but these days I smile, truly smile from unabashed joy, quite rarely. Yet I find myself in an office working the front desk which means I'm the first face many people see when they enter the office, yes I can't help but smirk a bit from the irony of that statement, and as such I need to be upbeat and happy. Now most of you then see me when I return to Queens after a long day of smiling and nodding and wonder why I look so exhausted and like I'm about to "die" or "faint" Well you see I think it has to do with this act I have to do all day, not that I'm by nature an unhappy person, rather I like to keep my moods to myself I think I need to work on being pleasant and not smiley because this smiley thing is absolutely tiring.

The Myth of Adulthood

Almost 1:00 and no more work to do. Which is good because I was out till 2:00 am last night having drinks with Blake, Ken and Mark at the Black Bear in SoNo. I was the DD which meant I only had a beer and therefore when I found myself lost in the middle of Norwalk I had no excuse. Blake recently got back from his third tour in Iraq, he's now Sgt. in the Marines, which sounds so very adult and got be thinking about this idea of growing up. The one thing that seems to necessitate "growing" up is the arrival of infants in your life, aside from this bouncing event the delineations are not so clear. Perhaps it is your first houese, the death of your parents or your first real job that ushers you into this club. I know that leaving my first real job seems to have offered me more in the way of growing up than all my time working. The uncertainty of what to do with life remains trhoughout one's time here but perhaps the options appear to be less plausible at a given point and with this narrowed persepective we get "Practical". What an awful word, it means that you do something you don't want to do because it makes more sense in the grander scheme of your life, but that doesn't change the fact that whatever that Practical choice may be it is in fact self denying. I don't think it hits all at once , adulthood that is, I think it is a series of small choices that lead to a different world view and value priority alignment than one had held previously in one's youth. But perhaps that is too harsh, it may be the reiteration of a worldview too, and in that confirmation of our own sense of being we find that we have been on the right track all along. God knows I wouldn't want to be 12 again nor 17 or even 21. That doesn't mean that those ages didn't hold things that I wish I possessed now, like no rent and more gall. I quote the Beatles "when I was younger so much younger than today, I never needed anybodies help in anyway but now those days are gone and I'm not so self assured" Here's to an ever evolving sense of adulthood in whatever form that it may take.

Friday Again

Which means music in Bryant Park once again, this time it was a performance by Robin Thicke, who pulls of the falsetto beautifully and worked the women in the crowd to quite a fever pitch. So glad it is Friday. Looking forward to a long train ride back to CT with a Fosters in my hand and a song in my heart. Ain't I sweet. Been digging the sound I'm getting out of my new Fender Fretless Bass, it adds a thump sound to the groove which is what I really enjoy. Listening to a lot of bebop stuff with a CD Jazz at Massey Hall '53 being my new repeat album. It has Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell, and of course the famed bass player Mr. Charlie Mingus. It's been a fun musical journey lately, I've been hitting up some of the funk stylings of Curtis Mayfield and Sly and the Family Stone then hitting the Jazz Giants all the while trying to incorporate that into a Rock band groove and I say groove because that is what I love most about those guys they can really envelop the audience with rhythm or a riff that just is incendiary and people leave feeling emotionally and physically spent.

So....

Mark and I managed to get our demo done and now for the first time in two years we have music to share with our friends once again. A good feeling to be sure. Today was one of those gorgeous days that remind you how good it is to be 24 in NYC. Bryant Park is full of the most beautiful women around and it's Thursday. Right now I'm chilling listening to some Thelonious Monk and enjoying having had a fairly productive stretch, which means I'm now being a bit of a lazy bum. I'm working with the managers of a few local Starbucks to try to get little artist showcases going, which would be great in that it would give Mark and I a venue for playing that is right in our own back yard while also allowing our friends a place to test their skills too. I'm hoping to have each set be around 25 minutes, the 10 minutes at open mics are never really sufficient to get into a groove. One of my oldest friends is getting back into town this weekend and his parents are throwing him a welcome back bbq, he's a marine and has put in three tours of duty in Iraq already. It's crazy how different life can be for two kids who grew up in the same town. I'm doing the whole artist NYC thing and he's off fighting in foreign lands. Psyched to see him again. What a beautiful spring day this has been, and in a bit I'll catch some of the Cavs/Spurs game while drinking a Corona. Life is mellow shade of yellow.

Saturday Fun

This last weekend was a blast, too bad it's only Tuesday now. On Saturday I had a jammed packed day of fun, saw the film Knocked Up, which I highly recommend on account of its wonderful use of dirty language and character development that mirrors real life. That and Katherine Heigl is wonderful to watch for any length of time. After this I got to go see one of my favorite bass players, Les Claypool, rock out Nokia Theater in Times Sq. till 12:30 in the morning. The scene was a throw back to an earlier era, with whiffs of sweet smelling smoke drifting up from the packed theater and beautiful women dance the whole night through, and not the hip hop grinding style either but that joyful Dead/flower child type of dance that flows effortlessly from the music. Les himself was amazing, doing some stuff on a six string fretless bass that I did not think where possible with a bass guitar. He's such a great performer and entertainer; he had the whole crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. After the show let out at my brother and I made are way back to Astoria to attend our friend Renata's "Goodbye to Starbucks" gala, in which she bids a long overdue adieu to the "Magical Land of Coffee". Doyles Corner was fairly packed for a 2:00 on a Saturday night so I and a few others made our way over to Crehans on 31st Ave to enjoy a few beers with out the hindrance to speech that always accompanies Karaoke Night at Doyles. Sunday was lazy and Monday and Friday both saw a fair amount of recording done which is good because Mark and I need to have our demo done by tomorrow. Here's to sleepy Tuesday mornings that allow for too much blogging.

Rain and Errands

Staring at the rain
Through the window of a parked car
Waiting for my mother to return
Solemn day dreams play within my head
A feeling of wistful peace surrounds me
I hope it thunders
Then this moment would be complete

Music in the Park/Investment Talk

I am becoming more and more a fan of Good Morning America, this morning they sponsored a brief concert by Daughtry and two weeks ago they had Rascal Flatts performing, it's nice to enjoy the last few sips of my morning coffee under the auspicious sky over Bryant Park at 8:40 in the morning. It just starts the day off on the right note. Plus it is Friday the glory of all days, the jobs report came out today and saying that we added 157K jobs to the payrolls this month which puts our unemployment rate at a nice little 4.5%, under what many economists believe to be "Full Employment" which means that the economy is most likely in good shape despite what the GDP revision downward yesterday might have us believe. So for those of you who own any broad index funds this should be a happy, even more so with the Core PCE Deflator coming in at .1% under consensus estimates of up .2%. The reason I bring these weighty matters up on a beautiful Friday morning is because part of my dream of living a laid back life is to live frugally enough to save a good portion of my funds so that one day I too could retire to a life of leisure, albeit if only a meager on, and live off the profits of my portfolio. I happen to favor broad based index funds that allow even the laziest amongst us to receive the markets returns. Now I know some of you will speak up about the rewards of being an active investor, you'll most likely to pristine examples of stock picking prowess like Warren Buffett, Bill Miller, Peter Lynch or active traders like George Soros and Stevie Cohen but one must remember that these titans of Wall St. work very very very long hours and who wants to do that. Hedgefund.net, which tracks the returns of 4823 actively managed hedge funds reported that hedge fund returned a whopping 11.9% to their investors last year, not bad but still not beating the 12.8% return of the S&P 500 which any Joe off the street could have purchased via an index fund. I myself am partial to Fidelity's four-in-one index fund, it allows you to invest in 4 broad indices, with a fund allocation of 55% S&P, 15% International, 15% Extended Market (smaller cap equities) and 15% US Treasuries. How about that diversification at the click of a button and it has no load and an expense ratio of under 10 basis points (.1%). So for those of us who can learn to save and live within our means, we are able to achieve similar returns to the Wall St big shots without having to do any of the work. There you have it democracy in action.