Well it looks like my homey John Edwards is dropping out of the presidential race. It's too bad but I'm still very confident in Barak.

I got a rather disturbing email a while back, it was a forward claiming that Barak is an Al Qaida operative. It pointed to the fact that Barak had a Muslim step-father and grew up in Jakarta. Let me tell you, this is unbelievably ignorant. In case you might have any cultural, racial or religious prejudices about the man just because of his name, let me set the story straight. Obama did indeed spend time in Jakarta but only from ages 6-10. He was born in Hawaii and moved back there to finish school. He then went to college in L.A. and NYC. He's also been baptized and has been a member of the Trinity Church of Christ for over twenty years.

So if there are some morons in the world who still think he's secretly a terrorist, I don't know what to say. I myself have spent time in Hawaii, L.A. and NYC and I'm pretty sure I'm not Al Qaida. I have a friend who is of the opinion that Barak would be assassinated if he became president, I hope our country has moved passed that but you never know.

Anyway, he gave a wonderful speech addressing Dubya's last 'State of the Union'. Check it out, his comments about tax cuts for the middle class and no permanent tax breaks for the wealthy especially resonate:


***

In other news, I have a pretty big show tonight. I'm going to be playing with not one, not two, but THREE different bands in one show. My buddy Brandon Turchiano is having a CD Release Party for his first record "Working For The Man". I play both electric and upright on the record and am really proud of my playing, it's all funky stuff and there are some fun tracks. So check it out if you're interested.

So I'm playing with his band tonight. I'm also playing with my buddy Vinnie Santino, his music is a unique blend of swing and punk. And I'm also performing with my friend Cory's band Chloroform Days. It's electronic folk music with myself, guitar/vocals, and a DJ. Its going to be a fun night and a real workout for me playing such vastly different styles of music.

Last week I connected with my old, old friend Josh. Josh and I were in our very first garage band together back in Junior High School. He's still playing and has a successful band out of Florida, Tenspoke Indies. He also works for Dean Guitars so he as in SoCal last week for the annual NAMM show. I went to Hollywood to meet Josh and his friends all of which were rock musicians as well, they were all dressed in leather jackets, boots, long hair, etc. Needless to say I felt a little out of place in my thermal and Eddie Baur short-sleeve button-down. But it was great to see an old friend still playing music and still rocking the f***k out. I figured I'd be dressed a lot like those guys had I stuck with rock instead of gravitating towards jazz music.

The timing of our little reunion was perfect as I had just started reading this fantastic book Fargo Rock City by rock journalist Chuck Klosterman. Its about growing up on 80's metal in a small town, something I can definitely relate to. The book really is a sociological study on the impact of "hair bands" on kids' lives; his goal is to justify the genre as 'important' even though (as far as musics go) it wasn't a very 'good' one. It's also a hilarious memoir and is very well written.

Now, my 80's metal phase was rather brief. While I loved Guns N' Roses (still do) and similar bands by 8th grade I was in to The Cure and by 9th grade I was listening to Alice In Chains and by 9th grade Nirvana broke and changed everything. Sure I followed all of the popular metal bands of the day but I never owned a Motley Crue or Poison tape, I didn't need to--they were on MTV constantly. But 80's metal is still rather sentimental to me and after this past week I've decided its something I need to re-investigate and re-live a bit. I got rid of a lot of my old tapes long ago so I think I'll pillage iTunes looking for my old favorite tracks.

I'm back in the great state of Texas for another orchestra gig. Tomorrow night we'll be playing with the Houston Symphony which should be pretty good. This is a pretty short trip, we got in tonight and leave early Saturday morning. Short and sweet, nothing wrong with that.

And I have to confess to you all my geekiness for The Wire has reached new and scary heights.

If you're not familiar with Facebook its a social networking site much like Myspace. But it differs from Myspace in that its not as customizable and instead of adding a bunch of different bells and whistles via html on Facebook you add different Applications to your personal profile. These applications can be about a great variety of things; for example I have a book application on my profile. It posts pictures of books that I am reading or I have read and what my other friends with the same Application are reading.

Well, there is an Application for fans of The Wire and I am the 'officer' for said Application. That means for the Fans of the Wire homepage I facilitate discussion, approve user-submitted trivia, quotes, and pictures, and make sure things are running smoothly. So if you're a Facebook friend of mine and I ask you to become a fan of The Wire, do it.

I know, I know ... NERD!

Over the past couple of days I've watched and read some things with a very high body count; Sunday/Monday I re-watched The Departed, this morning I watched 3:10 To Yuma (a great, great movie), last night I watched the latest episode of The Wire (wow), and yesterday I finished a great novel that K gave me, The Exquisite which is about a man who works for a company committing 'fake' murders until the line between what is real and what is fake becomes blurry. I say I've probably seen upwards of 100 people killed over the past 48 hrs. No matter how high the quality of art is, that will put you in a somber mood.

On a somewhat lighter note it looks like I missed a spicy Democratic debate last night with Social Health being a big topic, I need to find it on YouTube or something.

And on a much lighter note if any of you watched the NFC Championship on Sunday you witnessed a fantastic football game. And to think, Eddie Murphy predicted it all:

If you hadn't heard, Comp USA is going out of business, this means a huge sale at all of their stores of course. Today we headed to Burbank so I could look for a long-lasting laptop battery but to my pleasant surprise the Comp USA had already closed up and had been replaced by a Steve and Barry's. This was good news. Why? Because I've been trying for a long time to get my hands on some Starbury's. They are pretty hard to find as they are extremely popular and only sold at Steve and Barry's, there is (was) only one location in L.A. So I walked away with two great, hip pairs of sneakers for only $20. Stephon Marbury is doing a great thing for underprivileged kids who see sneakers as status symbols; he's doing a great thing for my pocketbook too.

The three of us have spent the day together because Carrie is home from school for MLK day. K posted a poignant and timely quote on her blog, one I hope we can all take to heart:

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

My cousin Paul came out to our last show in Nashville. We had a good time eating barbeque, talking to alcoholic girls, and drinking beer ... a typical night on the road.

When I arrived in Nashville the night before last I discovered that I had forgot to pack a pair of jeans. In fact, I had no pants at all save for a pair of sweats and my suitpants. I guess its my first time on the road or something. I needed a new pair of jeans anyway so I ventured out to find one. I've discovered during my years of travel that there are two ways to get a true local experience in a new city; one is finding a local dive bar and the other is using public transportation. After the hotel concierge told me that a cab ride to the nearest mall was $20+ I soon realized I was in for a true local experience here in Nashville. The bus ride was quite easy and cheap (tax dollars working successfully!) and the people were nice.

When I got to the mall a feeling of homey familiarity came over me. Banana Republic, J Crew, Starbucks, Abercrombie & Fitch, Pottery Barn, Sharper Image ... all the familiar places I visited growing up, home in L.A., and nearly every town I've ever been to on the road. It was like seeing an old friend from home while traveling "Oh hey Gap! I thought I might run in to you here. Good to see you again, man! I see you're still sporting those pre-wrinkled shirts and cheap-ass polos, but who are these new sweater vests in your life these days?" My old buddy Gap sold me a pair of boot cut jeans and I was on my way. I even made new friends with a gentleman who doesn't leave the south much Dillard's. I got some great clothes there as well (I love shopping in the South, it's much easier to find my size than in L.A. if you knowutumsayin'). The mall trip was great and a great cure for homesickness. But I guess that's the point of these nation-wide corporate chains isn't it? People have a much easier time with familiarity than they do new experiences.

So far Nashville has been great. Playing with Symphony Orchestras are among the best gigs I do, fun musical experiences and great resume builders. And the assault of country music has been bearable.

I've been in a deep depression after the Colts loss. Luckily I watched episode 3 of the Wire yesterday and it immediately put me in a better mood. And with American Idol debuting tonight my spirits should be sufficiently lifted.

I'm off for my first Tyrell gig in quite some time tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to it, we are playing with the Nashville Symphony and the conductor is a well-respected jazz composer/arranger, Matt Catingub.

I've never been to Nashville before. I'm hoping I'm not inundated with too much country music ...

Of all the coincidences! Before we started playing this morning I told everyone at the club that I was DVR'ing the game and to PLEASE not spoil it for me. So I began talking to a waitress about the game and she told me she was rooting for the Colts.

Where was she from? Indianapolis

Where did she go to school? Ball State

So we hit it off and started talking. She was in the dance dept. at BSU and we even had some friends in common even though she's a lot younger. But after the game started her face couldn't hide the fact that the Colts were eating a big steaming pile of shit on the football field. Even though nobody spoiled it for me I just knew they had lost. I still went home and suffered the heartbreak myself. What an awful way to end a season.

There's a very cool Top Five up so check it out.

Tomorrow I have a gig from 10:30 AM-1:30 PM, the EXACT time the Colts playoff game will be airing here on the West Coast. I'm hoping the club doesn't have a TV; I'm going to turn my phone off, not listen to the radio, DVR the game and hopefully I can get home without finding out what happened.

Wish me luck.

If you follow this blog or Kathy's blog you have no doubt noticed us waxing poetic about the best TV show ever, The Wire. Well, the fifth and final season has just started and its not too late to jump on board. Spike TV (who airs reruns of The Wire) offers the following summary of the first four season in a mere four minutes:

The Wire in 4 Minutes

Funny stuff. Of course, there's much more to it.

In a true-life story that eerily mirrors the latest episodes of The Wire, Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed sweeping budget cuts for the new state budget which include closing one out of ever five state parks, reducing health care for the poor, releasing tens of thousands of prisoners, and cutting operating costs of gov't programs by 10%. Yikes! I'm going to give Arnie a pass here because even though he's a big ol' Republican I haven't had much of a problem with the guy and even admire his Green initiatives. But my initial reaction is "why cut funding when you can tax the rich?" Well, that wouldn't be the Republican thing to do!

Finally after all of this time we got the new car. One week ago today we acquired this 2008 Honda CRV, perfect for bass and baby. I really dig it. Its the first new car I've ever owned and I hope it will last until Milo takes Driver's Ed.

As you know I've been preparing for this for a LONG time. I've done so much research not wanting to get ripped off and I feel I've done well. Through CarBuyingTips and FightingChance I learned a lot, so this is how I finally went about buying a new car:

I first decided what I wanted, a Honda CRV EX series. This was one step up from the bass model and includes a 'moon roof', stereo controls on the steering wheel, and a better sound system. Through sites such as Cars.com, Edmunds.com, and YahooCars I got a bunch of quotes from a bunch of dealers. When you get quotes through a website you are usually dealing with an internet fleet manager as opposed to a salesman so the price is usually going to be more competitive. I took the lowest quote I got and asked if any of the dealers wanted to beat it, most said they would match it but not beat it. So I took my lowest quote to a dealer, picked out a car, and sat down to haggle. BIG MISTAKE. I'll never try to haggle with one of these guys again. Right off the bat he sat me down and said the car came with a 'Pro-Pack' (which was nothing more than a plastic liner for the cargo space, suspicious looking mudflaps, and different lugs for the hubcaps) and that option would add another $700 on top of MSRP. Carrie and I said 'no way'. He said he could give us $300 off but not the entire thing because the Service Dept. would still need to charge him. I said "isn't the Service Dept. and the Dealership owned by the same company" he said "yes, but they are a separate entity" and went on to say he didn't really understand it because he'd only been working there 8 months.

BULLSHIT!

At this point I whipped out all of my research which included the invoice price and my lowest quote. He immediately looked distraught and told me he had to take my stuff to his "manager". I made them an offer and they said "no way". I asked him what kind of hidden fees (such as dealer prep, etc.) there were after the price and he once again claimed he didn't know. Back and forth we went but they wouldn't budge. So Carrie and I left.

Now the CRV is the #1 selling SUV for $25,000 or less, it's a really hot car and through the quotes I was getting and the experience at the dealership I realized I wasn't going to get a deal below invoice for it. So I decided the base model (the LX series) would be fine and did another round of internet quotes. We ended up purchasing our vehicle for $300 over invoice which is not too shabby for such a good selling car. I got the quote over email, confirmed it over the phone, drove to the lot and picked up my SUV. There were no extra options such as the Pro-pack or Lojack or any of the other things they put on the car to pad the price. The only fees I was charged were tax and title. I couldn't have been happier.

And if you can believe it, I'm abbreviating the story. I was lied to on more than one occasion by these guys. But I learned a lot about buying a car. Here are some tips:

-DO YOUR RESEARCH. The worse thing you can do is walk in to a dealership without knowing everything you can about the car.

-Invoice price is NOT the price the dealer paid for the car. After you take into account 'holdback' and factory-to-dealer incentives cars often cost dealer a couple grand less than the invoice price they give you. FightingChance can give you up-to-date info on dealer incentives, invoice pricing, etc.

-Shop online. I can't stress this enough. The above sites I linked to strongly urged only dealing online but I didn't see the light until I went to the dealership and experienced it for myself. You apply for quotes online and the internet fleet manager with either call you or email you a price. If they don't come up with a number over the phone, don't deal with them-they only want to get you in to the dealership so they can start their bullshit negotiating.

-Finance online. Dealers offer financing so they can bump up the price of the car on you. When they say "what do you want your monthly payment to be?" run for the hills. They will hook you up with a low APR but claim they have to charge more for the car and in the end you will lose more money. I got approved for 5.6% APR online from CapitolOne, the best any dealership offered me was 5.9%. CapitolOne mailed me a blank check that was able to write for any amount I was approved for, I went to the dealership, made a down payment and paid for the rest of it with the blank check. My financing is all squared away and won't have to deal with the dealership again.

So thats the story. The sites I linked to above was how I came across all of this information but much of it didn't make sense until I actually experienced it. I really liked learning about this stuff so if you or anyone you know is buying a car (new or used) feel free to ask me any questions. I'm an expert at this point.

Best part is I love my car.

Now I need to add that I do have some guilt over my CRV. Not because of the price or anything but because my Grandfather, a life-long UAW member, drove the "Be American, Buy American!" philosphy into my head as a kid. And my father-in-law (who works at the same UAW factory that my grandfather did) has strong opinions on the subject as well. So let me say this for my own comfort: I have a young family and an unpredictable career, I researched a LOT of cars. With those things in mind the CRV was the best buy for SUVs in our price range. In regards to gas mileage, safety, re-sale value, dependability, and price it blows the American counterparts out of the water. JD Powers and Associates agree. I wish I could make a political statement and buy an American vehicle but I have bigger things to think about (and frankly if I could afford a political statement I would've bought a hybrid).

So that's the story of the new car. Well, most of it anyway. Now let's make sure we don't get another greedy, oil-lovin' crook in the White House so I don't have to finance my next fill-up!

I find it pretty funny that all of the "Best Of ..." TV shows on VH1, E! and the like come out in November. Does December not count or something? Is December the black hole of pop culture news? Say what you want about the Oscars at least they wait a couple of months before deciding what the best movie of the year was.

Instead of writing a really long post about the year that was or picking just a couple of things that were really important I'm going to throw out (somewhat chronologically) everything I'll remember about 2007 "We Didn't Start The Fire"-style only without the music or the rhyming words ... or the "JFK BLOWN AWAY!" part.

back home from NYC, big beautiful pregnant wife, childbirth classes, tours too close to due date, the best AFC Championship Game ever, serendipity in Miami-SUPERBOWL VICTORY, waiting for baby, the "THE" salad, induction, Feb. 26, grandparents and auntie, sleepless nights, too many pediatrician visits, another tour two weeks after Milo's birth, Philly/Reading Terminal, "that tour was too soon", Vegas with the family, "what is that baby doing in a casino?", formula and cereal, yet another tour and another birthday away, Atlantic City, poker, poker, poker, The Blue Note, the family in NYC, back home again, baptism, family parties/sandwiches and barbeques, Chicago, rental car, such a good flyer, summer brings more time at home, Musician's Institute, car troubles, Hawaii!, the beach, Hilo, great grandma, food and family, "this vacation was too short", good gigs with old friends and new, baby toys, baby crib, PJ's Abbey, DVR, good routine in LA, Houston, baseball, Nantucket, Betty, back-to-school, work, work, work, bossa nova, baby babble, baby crawling, Boston, back to NYC, mouse shit, small bathroom, mold, food poisoning, taking a stand, back home, baby's so big, Christmas in Indiana, more puking, baby's first Christmas, snow in Chicago, delays at O'Hare, car research, New Year's at the Hip Kitty

So there it is, I'm sure I forgot a few things here or there. I should also mention that I try to give every year of my life a tagline so as I get older and my memory starts to fail me it might be easier for me to remember what I was doing at any 365-day grouping of my life. '07 was "The Year of the Baby"

(And if you're curious: 2000, The Year of Change, '01, The Year of the Movie Theater, '02, The Year of the first Tyrell Tours, '03, The Year of the Buble World Tour, '04, The Year of the House, '05, The Year of the Record, '06, The Year of the Pregnancy)

Another year in the books. As far as '08 goes things seem to be shaping up nicely. BIG Colts game this weekend, everyone should watch and wear blue and white. New Hampshire's tonight, let's hope the candidates can hold off the mudslinging for a while. I saw both "Juno" and "Diving Bell and Butterfly" over the weekend. Please see them both, they would've made it on to my Top Five had I seen them in time.

And there's a new Top Five up, so go dig it.

You ain't foolin' me!

Just because it's pretty cool to see a politician rockin' out on the bass that doesn't mean I'll think you're a nice guy. You could be droppin' funky lines left and right it wouldn't change the fact that you are a war-preaching, gun-loving, immigrant-fearing right-winger who wants to abolish taxes and overturn Roe v Wade.

I recently saw John Edwards on the Today Show and immediately fell in love with the man. He stated clearly what his campaign was about; rooting out corporate greed, universal healthcare, and ending poverty.

I'm sold! Now if only he could rock the bass ...

EDIT

My fickle heart has changed its mind yet again, did you see Barak's victory speech last night? Boy, is he a good speaker!