New song: "Proud"

In the effort to keep the ball rolling here's another new song. Well, new to you anyway. I started writing this song back in 2006. It began as a simple as hell guitar riff, a first verse, and a nonsense words to get a melody chorus. Thanks to the Word Box and some awesome encouragement it officially became a song this week after 5 years. Hit it up in the player below.




My project this week is to start a song from scratch from a short list of old titles that my friends picked out for me. Should be interesting. Rock on!

New Song: "Forbidden"...Finally.

Thanks to some friendly encouragement the long drought has ended. I honestly don't even remember the last time I posted a new song but last night I finally uploaded my newest song, "Forbidden".

It's not that I haven't been writing, it's just that the concept of recording and getting the quality I want out of it has been insanely overwhelming, especially considering my recording limitations. (The internal mic of a iMac G5 isn't exactly top of the line recording gear.) But I've tried to deal with what I currently have and focus on the main goal of getting these songs down and out there for people to hear.   Feel free to give it a listen in the player below. Rock on!

Down the Dark Stairway

Maybe this post is a stretch or just a poor excuse to create a metaphor, I don't know. Maybe it's just an excuse to write something in this sad example of a blog that has seen posts few and far between. Maybe I just saw this picture, which has been sitting in my phone for a couple of months and it flicked a switch in my brain, somehow reminding me of all things that I've wanted to do and haven't; that I want to do but can't seem to get started.

I took this picture leaving a club on a cold, November night. I don't go out much so it was kind of a big deal for me. It must have been, I don't know, 11:30. (Whoa, party animal.) I looked down the dirty stairway that led directly to the street and it seemed a bit creepy. Narrow and dark, walls covered with posters and pictures; bent metal and matted carpet on the risers. There's nothing really special about the stairway, just an ordinary, if not a little too steep, set of stairs. But being the cell phone photog that I profess myself to be I was drawn to the view and just had to snap the pic.

That leads to today, the second week of 2011 and I happen upon this picture in my phone while sitting in front of the TV, wasting away another perfectly good night that could be spent doing something useful. It's like I'm stuck in my head, waiting at the top of the stairs, looking down, not exactly sure why I don't dare take those 20 or so steps down to the street below.

Will I trip on the first step and tumble down the narrow stairway, smacking my head on each step along the way? Will I get halfway and realize down those steps is not the direction I want to go? Or will I get to the street just to get caught in a torrential downpour, to get mugged or hit by a car, or simply not know which direction to turn?

That dark stairway taunts me daily. Some days I take a few steps down, look back at up to the top and retreat. There have been days when I've made it to the bottom step, only to smell the sour scent of rain and car exhaust waft through the doorway making me turn heel to the stench of failure and stale disappointment.

You'd think it would be easy enough to just go down those stairs and do what I need to do. Unfortunately, it's not. But maybe it is just that simple. Stop over thinking, take the stairs two at a time, burst out into the street and pick a direction, damn the consequences. No one ever got anywhere without taking that first step. But they also got nowhere from taking that first step and failing to take the next 19 after that, and the next 100 after that, and so on.

I really don't know what's going to happen down the stairway, if I make it down, if I make it through the door, if I get the chance to turn and walk away from the dark stairway, but I think I'd rather find out instead of waiting at the top, worried what will happen.

Metaphor, complete. Let's write some songs quit being an excuse creating procrastinator and get on with life.

Guest Post: Cookie cutters for Christmas

Guest post written by Holly Nielson

I'm by far the least domestic of all my friends, as in I'm not that great at cooking. But, one thing that I'm really good at is baking. When I was browsing for some more cooking supplies a couple of weeks ago, I got a really great idea for something to give them all for Christmas. I had been putting off buying them gifts for a while so I thought that would be perfect.

I went online to try and find some cookie cutters for them. I thought that it would be a really cute gift to wrap up a set of nice cookie cutters into a gift basket and tie it up with a ribbon. While I was doing that I came across the website www.WirelessInternet.net and after that I decided to change over my internet access to that company.

I found a really great clearance on cookie cutters of all kinds of shapes and sizes. So I bought a whole bunch of the cookie cutters and got some really cheap gift baskets to put them all in. I think my friends are going to love my gifts.

Guest Post: Best Christmas lights display in the neighborhood

Guest post written by George Marshall

We probably put way too much thought into our Christmas lights display at our house every year, but it's one of our little hobbies. As soon as the kids start back at school in the fall, I start getting ideas online and trying to figure out new ways to rig up our lights so that they're look even better and be the best in the neighborhood.

I was online with our clear tv bundle a few weeks ago and found all kinds of great ideas to use! While I was at it, I also ordered a new ladder that would make hanging up lights on our roof and in our trees a bit easier.

I just finished all the finishing touches on our lights display during Thanksgiving weekend, although I started putting up some of it weeks before that. I like to take my time putting up everything so that it will all look perfect and itÕs easier to figure out how to plug everything up, to make sure that everything is electrically safe.

Guest Post: Michael J. Fox

Thanks for the post from Hal Potter

One the most interesting television actors was Michael J Fox. Most people have Michael J. Fox as a favorite television actor from his role in the show Family Ties. In this role, he played a role as the middle child having two sisters. His character was intriguing as a favorite television actor because it was the only character role on television that portrayed a liking to Wall Street. The show then disappeared from network television only to reemerge when everyone began watching their favorite actor on Direct Star TV.

As a favorite television actor, Michael J. Fox popularity increased due to his unbelievable fight with Parkinson's disease. His career as an actor had then changed. Everyone's favorite television actor became a compassionate, and desperate individual. Although his career as a favorite television actor was not destroyed, it was forever embraced by those fighting Parkinson's disease now. Our favorite television actor demonstrated that Hollywood is not void of terminal illnesses.

As his career moves on, Michael J. Fox will always be cherished as one of Americas favorite television actors. A little unknown fact by most Americans that Michael J. Fox's middle initial is really A[ndrews]. The change in the initials by our favorite television actor was due to the sounding: Michael A. Fox. The change was then made to Michael J. Fox.