The One In Which I Am Prone To Rash Gestures Of Romantic Impulse

When I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Saturday, I felt particularly inspired by the simple backstories of some of the biggest names in American popular music. That meant that I was soon overcome with nostalgia for Mellowtronic, the band I joined when I lived in Chicago, and one of my closest friends and fellow musicians, Chava Garcia, who led it. I tried to send him an SMS, but had forgotten his new phone number and instead sent my friendly reminiscence about rocking out to the stranger who now uses his old one.

Anyway, it turned out that he was trying to contact me at that very moment and having similar problems due to my quarterly Changing of the Phone Number tradition (for the record, I can always be reached by calling 773.432.4138, but it doesn't forward texts). He finally got through while we were finishing up in the gift shop. He told me that he was going into Studio 2020 the following day for a second mixing session for Mellowtronic's polished EP, a recording project we started shortly before my sudden departure from Chicago and the band in 2007 through long-distance correspondence and the miracles of compressed digital audio and Gmail. He wondered why I hadn't responded with feedback to the working mixdown of "Twilight Connection" (available in demo form at Mellowtronic's Purevolume page) he was sure he had sent me by e-mail. I hadn't received it, but was interested as usual in following up on its progress.

I'm not sure now if Chava actually invited me to join him in the studio during that call or if I invited myself, but before we hung up, we were both looking forward to seeing each other the next day, provided I could sell my parents on the idea of my leaving town without them. I expected this to be difficult, considering it was they who had laid down $900 for me to come home from France and visit them --not Chava-- during the holidays.

But less than 48 hours later, seven of which were spent in an uninterrupted studio mixing session for one song, I'm home with fond memories of another crammed visit for the history books. And onion breath.








See more photos from this trip on Facebook or Picasa.

The One In Which Yes, I'm Still Working On That

My father is a longtime member of Rotary International. Among the manifestations of selling his soul to the organization is his annual pilgrimage to Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum with one of the club's unsuspecting young foreign exchange students. Today my parents took me there with Lyuda, a 15-year-old Vietnamese-Ukrainian student with a flair for language and a comfortable fluency in English.

With an hour and a half left before closing time, we could only see the introductory displays in the museum's basement. But an hour-long crash course in rock history is just what a foreigner needs --and pretty much all one person could take in-- on day one of understanding its significance in defining American culture.

Dad had also planned to take us to Whitey's for genuine American cuisine that's not from a national, star destroyer megafranchise. Incidentally, it was also founded by a Ukrainian immigrant, Harry "Whitey" Bigadza, in 1953 (read more on Whitey's history). Unfortunately, the wait for table was an hour and a half, and after a considerable collaboration between my thumbs and Google's SMS query (just send a search term to 46645), the next best option turned out to be Longhorn Steakhouse in Montrose. Hey, we tried.

The experience turned out to be as patently American as any NASCAR concession stand nachos.

The classy decor, mounted deer heads excepted, screamed dissonance with the camo- and sweatsuit-clad, cell phone yakking, mullet envying lardasses that crowded the restaurant. The hostesses danced between the swinging bellies and orbiting globes that filled out doomed denim. At one point an exhausted-looking employee asked a huge man if his party would mind taking the highboy table that had just become available or if he preferred to wait on a regular sized table farther from the bar.

"Ah dunno," he drawled. "Yule hafta aysk tha bawss," thumbing toward his 11-months-pregnant wife or cousin or whatever on the other end of the crowded waiting area divided by a wall of couch.

"Um... okay," the hostess responded, looking defeated. Then she started make the long, awkward journey of "excuse me"s to ask a question the man could have asked his wife, who was standing just over an arm's length behind him, simply by exceeding his once-a-day rotation cycle.

Once we were seated, dinner was great and there was nothing to complain about, even when our waitress told me they were out of root beer. Lyuda opened up over a laugh when our waitress asked if she could "get that out of [our] way if [we were] done workin' on it" at the end of dinner, moments after my dad had finished explaining how much it he hates dislikes it when waitstaff can't muster the simpler and much more polite "may I clear?"



All that makes me and my family sound like a bunch of pretentious snobs. Maybe we are, but the truth is this is the same America I've been missing for the last few months, and I wouldn't trade it for all the Nutella and dance pop in the world.

It's good to be home.

The One In Which I Resolve to Make New Year's Resolutions

UPDATE 15:04 01.02.09: I totally forgot my most practical and concrete resolution of all! (see #4)


I've never been one for making New Year's resolutions, mostly because I'm already perfect and people typically don't start criticizing me until around April. But I've seen some bright lights this year, and I think I can fix some real problems with a few simple tweaks of my daily language and habits.

1. I resolve to stop using the word "never" (jamais).

   
   This is part of being a rationalist (look it up, I didn't) and not liking when people speak in dramatic absolutes. They're usually wrong, and "rarely" is an easy substitute that's difficult to disprove.
   

2. I resolve to stop using the word "hate" (la haine).

   
   Call me a commune inhabiting treehugger, but this is a word the world could use a lot less of in every language. I already use it to express my feelings toward mustard and olives, which doesn't leave much firepower for war, discrimination or 50 Cent's Wal*Mart brand of hip-hop.
   

3. I resolve to not be mean to anyone.

   
   Without a doubt, this resolution will be a struggle to keep. Sometimes you've got to be tough with people. Some things need to be said, and not with a smile. But living on another planet for the past four months has shuffled my priorities, and I don't have room in my short life for grudges anymore. So I'm going to try to kick them completely, along with the short term animosity that peppers the space between them.
   

UPDATE 15:04 01.02.09: I totally forgot my most practical and concrete resolution of all!

4. I resolve to stop kidding myself into thinking I can multitask.

   
   The human brain can not effectively divide its attention, despite centuries of half-baked attempts and a persistent old wives' tale that women are better at it than men. Neither sex has the capacity to give a fraction of its attention to any task or goal effectively, and it ultimately slows you down and muddies your work, art and love in any and every domain. To spread oneself at all is to spread oneself too thin, and this year I hope to stop completely.
   
   

Think these are too vague and idealistic? They might be a little lofty. But just think about how your life might change if you never said "hate" or "never." Think about treating everyone, regardless of beef or bad blood, with unflinching kindness! Think about finally getting your priorities in the right order because you've stopped attacking them all at once.

Kindness first. I hear the shit's contagious; all I want is a little epidemic.

The One In Which There's No Such Thing As Free Air

As I've mentioned here before, I've been missing America® so much that, coming home, I am ready --happy, even-- to accept her as a package deal, faults, fats and all. But that doesn't mean I won't enjoy recounting my encounters with her undesirables.

Take, for example, my recent exchange with a gas station attendant in Montrose...

My car has been sitting in my parents' garage, mostly unused, since I left. The cold weather killed all the pressure in its tires. So on my first day home, I went to Shell to remedy the problem before driving around for the rest of the day. The machine read,

75¢ -- quarters only for three minutes of air.

I dropped in the money and pressed the big button, but nothing happened. Then I saw the big stripe across the top of the machine's face:

Air Free to Our Customers!

There was no change return button. No lever. Nothing even worth kicking, really. I decided to read up on the rest of it before making any more mistakes. At the bottom, I found:

Air Free to Children Under 16. See Cashier.

What made me maddest about being duped by the machine's sadistic mindgame was that I had already entered the "convenience" store (a term applied loosely at most gas stations) to ask if either of the two belugas working behind the counter had a sense for an average cold weather tire pressure for a small car like my own. The older of the two women, a white tent with rolls of fat hanging from the backs of her arms that looked like loaded billiard pockets, told me the number was on the tire itself.

So I had gone back outside and put in my quarters. I'm not blaming her for my failure to read the sign's three conflicting messages, but maybe she should have mentioned "Heya, no worries, air's free. Oh, and while I'm at it, why don't I activate it with this button behind the counter so you don't waste your time freezing your ass off out there, confused and hungry and alone?"

At this point, I had already asked a stupid question, which greatly compromised my position to beat them about the face and neck with a snow brush for having a confusing sign on their pump.

I went back inside and asked anyway, this time to the younger girl, a behemoth with a Queen Latifah look, if only Queen Latifah made more appearances in grease-stained Shell uniforms and was totally full of horseshit.

"I put 75¢ in the air machine and nothing happened. Then I noticed the sign that says air's free. What's the... um... hmm."

"Oh, yea issfree btchoo gotsta aks us ta turnit awn. I'll press tha button anden it'll run."

"I see. Bummer about the 75¢."

"Aw yeah, but it goes ta charity."

::beat:: "Oh, that's cool." ::pause:: "Just curious -- what charity?"

"Um, you ever hear about that lady who got her face blowed off while she was fillin' up her tires?"

"Uh... no."

"Aw yeah, happened few years back, I guesshe juss put too much in 'em, like, she didn't know how much you were supposed ta put in and it esploded iner face. They hadda giver a whole lotta money, so, it goes to that."



I decided then that, even if I did ask why a charity fund would be set up to pay a civil settlement in quarters, I wouldn't get a very satisfying answer, and it'd just be more typing when I got home and blogged about it.


Besides, I had business to attend to outside.


I filled up my first tire, which had just over ten pounds per square inch, to 42 PSI. It's maximum is 44 PSI. Feel free to tell me if I did a bad thing.

I tried to repeat that on the tire behind it, which was just as low, but the machine shut off. I pressed the button again. Nothing.

Back inside the store, I asked for the machine to be reactivated. The white whale with the pool pocket arms raised her eyebrows. "Agyein?"

"Yes, please."

She pressed the button directly in front of her like I was asking her to fill the tires herself, rotate them and make me a sandwich.

I went back outside and filled the second tire. By the time I got to the third, the machine shut off. I pressed the button again. Nothing.

Back inside the store, I asked for the machine to be reactivated. The white whale with the pool pocket arms raised her eyebrows. "Agyein?"

"Yes, please."

She pressed the button directly in front of her like I was asking her to fill the tires herself, rotate them and make me a sandwich.

I went back outside and filled the third tire. By the time I got to the fourth, the machine shut off. I pressed the button again. Nothing.

Back inside the store, I asked for the machine to be reactivated. The white whale with the pool pocket arms raised her eyebrows. "Agyein?"

"Yes, please."

She pressed the button directly in front of her like I was asking her to fill the tires herself, rotate them and make me a sandwich.

I went back outside and filled the fourth tire, but tripped over the hose I had left lying across my hood, causing it to retreat into the machine, dragging the metal nozzle across the full width of my hood and leaving a thin, white scratch behind it. I couldn't believe my fortune. Clearly I had reached the lightning round.

But I couldn't focus on that because my fingers, which had been too clumsy for the job with my mittens on, were starting to feel the earliest effects of frostbite. I finished the last tire, cursing the throbbing pain and fumbling to recap the tire's nozzle through their numbness.

When I had finished and driven off in my warm car, the heat burned, and for the next ten minutes, it felt like someone was smashing the bones with a hammer on the steering wheel.




Other than that, my visit's been awesome. Today I will enjoy Robek's and Chipotle. Life is better than most people realize and me, I'm not complaining about anything.

The One In Which I Return Home to Brief Fanfare

Two nights ago, my car slid down my parents' icy driveway and stopped hairwidths away from Uncle Greg's ill-fated Cadillac, which has sustained thousands of dollars of damage in a tragic comedy of accidents since he came to live with them in April.

I know this because

• I'm the one who parked my car in that driveway because
  
• I am home visiting from France because
  
• I found flights that added up to a lot less than my mom coming alone to visit me in Bordeaux and spending a week in a hotel while I took final exams.

I filled up my four flat tires yesterday morning until my fingers were nearly frostbitten. Then I bought a prepaid phone and unlimited text messages, a luxury I've really been missing in Europe because of my ineligibility for a contractual wireless plan and a crippling addiction to Twitter.

I also managed to spring surprise visits on a great number of my favorite people. I crashed the radio station's holiday party, saw a rare concert at Musica by The Cingular, one of my favorite local bands to whom I would happily link if they were easier to find online, and stopped by Natalie's to a see a childhood friend who's been far away for years.

Then I did some Michael Bay shit on the way home on the black ice covering West Market Street. Unlike last year, I dodged the curbs and regained control of the car without crashing. I shall reenact it for you now:

The One In Which I Have a Head Cold

I have a head cold. My throat felt a little strange earlier in the week and was merciful enough to save its suicide bombing until after Wednesday's show at Hol'ART. But now it's Friday, and my head is full of concrete, and my nose is running, and my body aches everywhere, and I want Robek's and I can't have it. Not that I think smoothies equate to medecine necessarily, but the blueberry-banana thing I usually get would feel great right now.

Last night I finally found time to go down to the reflecting pool, or miroir d'eau, with a tripod as I've been intending to do for months so I could capture its majesty at night.






(the rest)

I went alone but found good company and ate a kebab and flan for dessert at Le Tricolore. All that goodness came with a side of neatly packaged sex appeal blastin from the music videos on their big TV.

If a place had to be designated to embody the spirit of rubbery electropop and Amsterdam were disqualified on some obscure technicality, the winner would be Place de la Victoire (où se trouve Le Tricolore).

Moral of the Story : Thank Your Janitors, part II

Part I : A Gracious Exchange in the Shower, Followed by Potentially Bad News



Part II: Reconnaissance

Two days later, I tried to confirm the cleaning lady's tip about our building getting demolished in January. The state-operated student housing institution, CROUS, has a main office in my dorm. The woman I spoke to misinterpreted my question, driven mostly by curiosity and only a sliver apprehension, as pure panic.

"Don't worry," she said in French. "The building's not going to be demolished, just remodeled. And besides, it's not like we'd start the day after we tell you about it."

"Yes," I said. "But when were you going to tell us?"

"Oh, we still don't know when it's going to be. Sometime in the spring, maybe. Don't worry," she repeated. "We'll make arrangements for you to live somewhere else."

You have to trek through the muddy sinkholes and quicksand four times a day to appreciate what it could mean to have to move out of this building. If we were put in Village 6, the nearest alternative, we'd be farther away from the tramway, the slick Bordelais transit solution that whisks you away from Gilligan's Island and into civilized urbanity. That is something I like to call "undesirable."

On the other hand, we could be moved into a newer, renovated building. That would be cool, but internet access is hit-or-miss on campus, and without it,

Moral of the Story : Thank Your Janitors, part I

Part I : A Gracious Exchange in the Shower, Followed by Potentially Bad News

This is based on a journal entry from 26 November 2008. I'm behind in the blogging game, and I'm glad to say it doesn't bother me much.


After today's morning class, I stopped by my room and smelled strong cleaning products in the hallway. The maintenance lady was scrubbing our three showers, a social networking site whose affront to hygiene is matched only by my relief for having running water at all. Even before the day I found the infamous used menstrual pad on the floor in there, I've been generous with my antibacterial spray before and after each shower. But I thought The Pad a crime vile enough to merit a sign on the door to remind my neighbors of the French principal of fraternity:

ON PARTAGE LES DOUCHES

-ALORS-

ARRETEZ DE LES TRAITER COMME
DES POUBELLES PERSONELLES.

-MERCI-

("We all have to share the showers, so stop treating them like personal trash cans. Thanks.")



Someone had to say something. A used pad for Christ's sake. Yikes.

All this means I was pretty excited to hear someone scrubbing them down with soap and a long brush. And then I remembered that janitors are rarely thanked for doing some of the world's most undesirable work. They keep the rest of us happily oblivious to what happens on the other end of the black holes in our trash cans. So I decided to express my gratitude.

"Merci, madame," I said into the shower room.

She backed out of the last stall and looked at me for a second. At first, she made a face like maybe she didn't understand me through my accent, which isn't all that thick. But she smiled after a beat and approached the doorway.

"On est vraiment remercient," I reiterated, stressing the french word for "grateful." "Bien qu'on fait ce qu'on peut" -- I motioned to my sign on the door, which hadn't been torn down, a strangely common behavior toward signs in American dorms. "On en a vraiment besoin" (They really needed it).

She acknowledged the thanks graciously, then we started shooting the breeze. This in itself was not insignificant, as she is known among my neighbors for knocking on doors and angrily interrogating them in a systematic investigation into the enormous puddle of water that used to accumulate in the hallway every day until the superintendant fixed the leaky drain pipe in room #111. So the cleaning lady wasn't a public enemy as much as a recognized grouch. But either way, here she was, smiling at me!

She asked if I was the one who plays guitar and warned that it's loud enough to disturb my neighbors. I assured her I had already had that conversation with a few of them and that I am sensitive to being a nuisance.

Then she had news. She asked me how long I would be staying here. When I told her my program lasts through May, she revleaed an unofficial plan to demolish my building in January.

Not, like, her plan personally, but you know what I mean.

So yeah. I might have to move.



Part II: Reconnaissance

music.colinmorris.net

I've been working on building out a new blog site dedicated to my music doings. The idea is that people who come to colinmorris.net looking for music stuff won't have to wade through the caterwaul of Akron news, travel diaries and inconherent vlogs anymore just to download a free album or watch me play a song.

The new site is music.colinmorris.net and, for now, will mainly feature videos of my current repertoire, which is entirely acoustic given my limited means while living abroad. Plus, it's easy to film yourself playing one guitar and singing, and I'm all about easy.

Here's the first installment of the videos, which you can also find on iTunes as a podcast or, less optimally, somewhere on YouTube.

"Kill Me Now"

If it's even fair to say I have fans, I hope they'll benefit from the reorganization as much as the music itself does.


Best,
Colin

A Lull for the Clearing of Dust

I've got plenty I've been meaning to post, but have been occupied with some housekeeping that is clearing the way for a handful of creative projects that have spent way too much time on back burners.

So stay tuned while I sweep the rest of this stuff out of the attic: