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John's LiveJournal:
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| Monday, October 19th, 2009 | | 4:29 am |
boyz 2 men playing on the theio's radio as i write.. bringing back those middle school memories. this entry will be summarized for your convenience and my sanity. I am good. Busy with school, putting out 2 records in the near future, recording, and - since it's fall - hunting and fishing. Shot a turkey last week, my mother cooked it up and it fed at least 7 people. mom and i made gravy together from the juices, and it was great. spending time cooking with my mother that is. and the gravy. i caved and joined facebook. trying to make the most of it as a business tool, and of course, re-connecting with old friends. I work for myself, you know, since march. and i'm doing fine. i'm really proud of that. i have a very recent crush on a girl. it's a strong one. i'm managing a band now, my first foray into that field. they're called jason alarm and they're really good for being in high school still. i see a lot of potential in them, and so far every young band i've seen potential in has done quite well for themselves. i have a talent for that, i think. cyndi lauper on the radio now - i love her. saw frontier ruckus from the outside for the first time in over a year on friday - my muscles twitching with every beat.. it was hard. game face though. best foot forward. looking forward. carry on. | | Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 | | 5:11 pm |
Things are really good lately. I have been able to actually enjoy summer a little bit in the last week, and it's so great. I took the boat out last night for the first time this year, we took Avery in her cute little life jacket to old town for ice cream and a visit to the pet store. I'm going out on it again tonight with Jen, and then we're making an awesome dinner together, like we often do. I have been eating mostly things from my garden, and venison. I was really, really broke after coming back from Europe, despite the fact that I paid for very little and in fact sold $400 in records. But, I worked hard this past week selling some stuff I didn't need, distributing more records, donating plasma, recording bands, and borrowing a little bit... And I managed to pay rent, car insurance (in full), and make a $400 payment on the loan I took out to finance the Frontier Ruckus records, all in the same week. In addition, I found out I passed my Isle Royale class (with a 1.5 - she said my writing was excellent and would have been a 4.0 if turned in anywhere near on time) and I have caught up in my online statistics class that I need for my minor. For a while I was sure I'd fail both classes. So things are good. I am single, but keeping several special people close to me. Close, but not too close, which is the right distance for me at this point in time. I have several different emotional facets that my special people help me satisfy, and I am being honest and trying to work towards the personal growth of everybody involved. Who knows how things will work out.. I just want the people I care about to be happy with themselves and what they are doing with their lives. We still have so much life to live. I have been biking a lot more, and using my car a lot less. I did recently have to use my car to drive around Detroit distributing records and visit with friends Angela, Dave, and Augie. That was the last straw for my brakes - they now have no pedal pressure whatsoever, I have to press them as hard as I can to the floor to slow down. So that is a huge financial burden, but if I can get through August I'll spend most of the next 3 months on tour, so maybe I can have them fixed and pay my mechanic in payments while I'm gone - he can keep my car for collateral. Anyway, today I biked probably 8 miles or so.. Running errands all over town. Getting my bridge card reinstated (hopefully), signing up for the Ingham Health Plan (Ingham County's own little version of free national health care), donating plasma, and most of all enjoying Lansing. I passed a lot of cute little neighborhoods, a lot of ghetto that didn't seem so bad, and I took the southern branch of the river trail for the first time, past Hawk Island Park. It was SO beautiful, shaded and nice. I had no idea Lansing was hiding so much nature away between Pennsylvania and Aurelius, Mt. Hope and Jolly. I saw lots of different kinds of birds, and no house sparrows or starlings. This makes me happy. I discovered that you can rent paddle boats and rowboats at Hawk Island, so I definitely want to do that sometime. I saw a lot of little spots that I'd like to fish someday when I have the time. I love living in Lansing.. it's cheap and has everything I need. I have a base of clients here that enable me to be my own boss and spend time how I choose, and a lot of these bands are great. Lansing is producing multiple bands that are touring the country and the world right now. Nobody needed to move to the coast or Chicago to make a living out of making music, or to be respected, or to be heard. We're doing fine here, thank you. I have friends here, family here, places to see, things to do. I have barbeques here. I sit on the porch with friends here. I keep telling myself, hold on to these moments, as they pass. This is what life is for. I only wish I could see all of you distant friends more often. | | Sunday, July 19th, 2009 | | 1:48 am |
to my family
since I can't make calls and don't even know my own sister's e-mail address, hopefully you check this and will know that I am doing fine and am having a great time! e-mail me sis! | | Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | | 1:12 am |
I'm restless. I have had an enviable summer, which perhaps peaks out tomorrow and next week when we fly to Norway for a week long european tour. I haven't had a job since march, I work for myself selling records and recording bands, and i'm getting by, easily. So why am I so restless? Because summer is passing me by in a whirlwind of tour dates and school commitments. I should be doing writing for school right now - I hate to say it, but the amount of writing involved in my class for which i spent a week on isle royale has outweighed in shittyness the awesomeness of actually being up there on the island. did that sentence make sense? My boat was stolen. I got a new one, but haven't had a chance to go out since. I feel like I need more friends.. When I get restless I scroll through my phone.. But everybody is far away, or has to work in the morning, or is just not the sort of person to want to go outside and do something. I sort of broke up with jen for that last reason. 4th of July weekend was horrible and lonely as a result. Things are better now, but i'm still searching for something.. I need to float down a river and sleep under the stars. I need to have sex on the hood of a car off some country backroad. I need to swim, then nap in the sun, without wanting to check my e-mail every 5 minutes. I need to shoot a gun and cast a line. I need to eat bbq until I'm bloated and then play euchre into the night. I think i need kids. I need hobbies that aren't my job, like having a bug collection or racing radio controlled airplanes. I need a house that is mine, my own. I need to play competitive sports. Somebody please call me when i get back in august and do one of these things with me. I need more awesome. | | Sunday, July 5th, 2009 | | 10:24 pm |
profundity
“…the back page of an October issue of San Francisco Magazine shows a vivid photograph of a small boy, eyes wide with excitement and joy, leaping and running on a great expanse of California Beach, storm clouds and towering waves behind him. A short article explains the boy was hyperactive, he had been kicked out of his school, and his parents had not known what to do with him – but they observed how nature engaged and soothed him. So for years they took their son to beaches, forests, dunes, and rivers to let nature do its work. The photograph was taken in 1907. The boy was Ansel Adams.” | | Friday, June 12th, 2009 | | 1:23 pm |
help a brother out
Does anybody have a spare ac adapter for a dell inspiron laptop? I am getting back to Lansing on Monday from a tour, and I left my adapter in New York.. But I have a lot of business I need to get done between monday and thursday (when i leave town again).. If I can even borrow an AC adapter for those three days, that would be crucially awesome. | | Friday, May 8th, 2009 | | 5:25 pm |
going away party
I'm having a get-together sunday night at 7pm at my place. It's a chance to see my friends before I leave on monday for tour. After the tour I am doing study away on Isle Royale for about 10 days. I won't be back in the lower peninsula until July 1st, spare next friday when the tour comes through Lansing. I hope I can see as many of you as possible, and I wish this touring could happen in the winter instead of the summer when Michigan is particularly amazing. That being said, I am excited! Current Music: jason alarm mixes | | Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 | | 11:56 pm |
ok, real quick. i did two consecutive all-nighters to write two papers I had put off, and now I feel free. I have 3 final exams, but I'm not worried. Today I came home from school and felt like I could do whatever I wanted, which I haven't felt in a long time. I cleaned up the house, did laundry, installed a new dvd burner in my pc, cleaned up my hard drives, discovered some live recordings I had made but never mixed and started mixing them. I have constant recording work for the next week or so, then I go on tour for 5 weeks. I especially can't wait to be in NC and go camping with Selina and Kevin. I went thrifting yesterday with my friend Emily and bought a raincoat, super-comfortable velcro shoes which I'm wearing right now, a sweet tie which I'm wearing right now, a sweet shirt which I'm wearing right now, and 3 VHS cassettes. One of them is a turkey hunting video. I have been turkey hunting a lot lately and loving it. Another one is the movie Election, with Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon. I came home and immediately watched it, which re-affirmed that it's probably in my top 10 movies of all time list. I saw it in the theater randomly back in 1999, and have loved it ever since, but I hadn't seen it in probably 5 years. OK, gone wired is closing. maybe i'll audioblog soon. | | Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 | | 11:36 pm |
| | 9:23 am |
| | Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 | | 1:19 pm |
quickly
I just called a customer service line for a record jacket printing plant in Montreal. The receptionist picked up and greeted me in French. Luckily, she could not see the deer-in-the-headlights look on my face as I realized I was talking to a native French speaker and I don't speak French. I quickly recovered though, and in knee-jerk fashion uttered one of the only French phrases I know well, 'parlez-vous anglais?'.. She did in fact parlez anglais, and we were seamlessly off to business. I feel pretty good that I repped the U.S. as at least making an attempt to be bi-lingual.. rather than being like 'ummm... what? do you speak english?'.. yeah. real update coming soon, once I have my life back. Current Music: fruckus test pressings | | Saturday, March 21st, 2009 | | 3:16 pm |
For fans of Syscrusher / The Casionauts
If there are any of you left! heh. Lower Peninsula Records recently bought out the remaining stock of The Casionauts' The Dynamic State of Body Constituents 7" picture disc from Hell City Records, and are re-releasing it along with Syscrusher's posthumous concept rock opera, A Choice of Catastrophes. Featuring guest performances by Chris Bathgate, Matt Milia and Zach Nichols (of Frontier Ruckus), Will Yates (of Zoos of Berlin & The Pop Project), Ian Graham (of Cheap Girls), Alfonso Civile (of Know Lyfe) and more, A Choice of Catastrophes is an dense fabric of layered synthesizers - equal parts melody and harmony, pop and prog. Interested parties can check out this, and all of Lower Peninsula's releases, right here. | | Friday, February 20th, 2009 | | 11:57 am |
life is life
I need somebody who is planning on making a rather large purchase in the next 4-5 days (up to $900) to let me make that purchase for you on my credit card, and write me a check for it instead. maybe a rent payment, for instance, if you can pay your rent with a card. in related news, i sent the orion songbook/way upstate masters off yesterday via priority mail to the laquer cutting plant in colorado. the laquers will hopefully be cut by saturday march 5th, when i will be arriving at the mastering facility in person on my way to new mexico with jen. i called to ask if i can take a tour of the facility and witness a laquer being cut on the lathe, and they said yes! i'm super excited. at that time i will listen to the reference laquers and approve them, and then it's a race against time while the laquers are sent to new jersey to be plated, then the plates are sent to detroit to press the records. I forsee a group of us frantically assembling records on April 9th hours before the big show at MSU. Fingers crossed. yeah, new mexico. it's 2 weeks away now. i am so ready. the walk to school every day is SO COLD. i hate being at my cold house when i'm working on music. i can't wait until summer. please let this be the last winter i rent an uninsulated house. i love my house, i just want it to be insulated. i wish i could buy it. rrrgghhghg. it's such a rad place when the weather is nice. anyway, we are couchsurfing the entire way except for one night at a spa resort in truth or consequences, NM. we are staying in omaha, boulder/denver, santa fe, albuquerque, t or c, carlsbad, and lawrence, KS. can't fucking wait to hang out naked in a private hot tub all day with a book. jen has never been west of chicago. i planned the whole trip out, again. i am very, very good at that. i should be a travel consultant for cheap people. that can be one of my many part-time jobs where i am my own boss. that's my life plan. everything is going well. last night was john on john movie night. we cooked pierogies in a chorizo, onion, and tomato stew. it was an interesting cross-cultural creation of stuff i happened to have around. it turned out pretty good, actually. then we watched W. it wasn't that great, sort of like his presidency. it had been too long since we had john on john movie night. there has been a period of shutting myself in with jen and it's been nice, but i'm itching to play magic again and hang out more. jen goes to the bar on thursdays, and i did for a few weeks, but i'm done with it. i don't hang out at bars unless i'm playing a show. i hang out at theio's and play magic and drink gallons of pop. that's just who i am. word, motherfuckers. Oh, and our mayor is a rockstar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-nLS6FJtSM | | Sunday, February 15th, 2009 | | 3:15 pm |
For Fans of Frontier Ruckus
Anybody interested in obtaining The Orion Songbook on Vinyl LP can now pre-order it from Lower Peninsula Records here. This double LP release contains all 14 songs found on the original cd release available from Quite Scientific Records, plus an exclusive new six-song EP titled 'Way Upstate and the Crippled Summer pt.1' which further explores the Orion mythology. Enjoy. Current Music: Megadeth | | Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 | | 10:16 am |
today is the kind of day you can be proud of. i woke up at 7(ish) and ate breakfast. those of you who know me well will immediately notice something suspicious about that statement. yeah, i've been eating breakfast consistently lately. i haven't noticed any benefits to eating breakfast, nor can i relate to people's assertion that it's the best meal of the day. clearly dinner is still the best meal of the day, because you don't have steaks and pasta and hamburgers and the like for breakfast. still, it's good for you i guess. anyway, then i dropped jen off at class. i like when i can help make her life easier. this is her last undergrad semester and it's apparently going to be really hard. i don't know about you, but i like when people try to help me through something difficult. that's why ian and i do dishes together. it's been scientifically proven that doing dishes is impossible without a friend to keep you company, and rinse. okay, okay, so then i dropped my car off to get an oil change (and apparently to fix a bent rim - second bent rim of this insufferable season).. then my mechanic gave me a ride to my 8:15am dentist appointment, because my mechanic is awesome. my teeth are good, except for the broken wisdom tooth i've been dealing with for a year or more now. but other than that they are very good, which i chalk up to a healthy milk addiction, and now they are a lot cleaner. i love my dentist. i was there before they opened, and as the secretary and her husband, the dentist, pulled up and got out of the car, she greeted me by name. only the third time i've been there in 3 years, i think. the dentist gave me a free x-ray of my wisdom tooth because i declined to pay for x-rays and he was concerned about the tooth. what a nice guy. it's a small family owned place and i feel good paying cash for cleanings, knowing it's going to good people. plus it's across the street from my house. now i'm in class. i'm gonna start paying attention soon because it's a really interesting class. then i go to work. then i have a meeting with a potentially lucrative new recording client. then i'm seeing matt pryor of the get up kids and the new amsterdams for free at MSU. i like being a student. this semester is going great, i love all my classes, and i have a great study buddy who also gives me kisses and helps me wake up in the morning. laterzz... | | Saturday, January 10th, 2009 | | 1:08 pm |
| | Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 | | 1:45 pm |
last day of work. alright! i celebrated by sleeping in until 11:30. after all, tonight will be a late night. i think i'm going to ferndale. something tells me i shouldn't spend the money though. i probably will though. family christmas last night was great.. lasagna makes such a great xmas meal. kids everywhere. my cousin's wife is due in february, so now my sis and i are the last two of the cobb cousins without kids. keeping it real i guess. i scanned my aunt's photos of my deer and the turkeys that tom and i got in the spring, so those are on my flickr page now if anybody cares. afterwards, i retreated to a coffee shop and mixed two fruckus live shows. yeah productivity. you know what, new year's is probably my least favorite holiday, because december is always, always such a bummer time of year. maybe this year will be better. the day started off weird, but maybe it will finish strong. Me, i'm already looking forward to my favorite holiday, the 4th of July. oh sweet, sweet summer. boating, bbq, babes in bikinis. i'll see you there. oh, we're playing in Grand Rapids on thursday the 8th, Kalamazoo on saturday the 10th, Mt. Pleasant on saturday the 24th, and in East Lansing on saturday, february 7th. | | Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | | 12:02 pm |
lately things and people have been re-entering my life in a positive way. for instance, cassette tapes. just when you think you'll never need a cassette tape again, your car breaks down and you have to borrow your mom's car, which only has a tape player. then your friend returns a case of tapes that you gave her 2 years ago when she only had a tape player in her car, and suddenly you're ROCKING OUT to Pearl Jam's Vs.. http://www.lansingscene.com/audioblogs/12-30-08.mp3nothing much to say in this audioblog, just re-affirming to myself that life is pretty good. sometimes you just need to say it out loud to believe it. | | Saturday, December 27th, 2008 | | 12:00 pm |
| | Monday, December 22nd, 2008 | | 11:49 pm |
to my few friends who actually make decent money...
And are looking for ways to get some more money back at tax time, let me make a couple of suggestions.. these are pet issues of mine, and i just wish i had enough money to give away... first off, donate $200 to public radio or television. you'll get $100 back (a credit, not merely a deduction) on your michigan taxes. Plus i think you can take some percentage of it as a credit or deduction on your federal taxes. next, consider making a contribution to the Michigan Education Trust: http://www.michigan.gov/setwithmet/0,1607,7-237-43834_44677-204901--,00.htmlthis is sort of like the kalamazoo promise.. this fund buys needy kids college scholarships at today's prices. if you're really loaded and have a vested interest in some young person, you can straight up buy them a college education in semester increments, as a lump sum or a payment plan. for instance, for $60 a month for 4 years (less than your car payment) you can buy a kid one full year of full-time tuition at any community college in michigan. and it's all tax-deductable. Current Music: larry king live |
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