The Weblog of Daniel Tashian

Nice day. A bit muggy. Made oatmeal then measured the barn. I got a book out of the library called “the cabin” and it shows all these different cabins and how to build them. Then Brian Siskind came by and he brought my drive and told me Whitney Houston was looking for songs and he was reading the pitch sheet from LA and I would have songs for lots of people. He was very nice and encouraging and I liked what he was saying. Decided to make black beans but never got around to it because Angelo and Eulene called and said come meet them at “The Greenhouse”, which is a pretty cool bar I’ve never been to before and there’s tons of plants in there and television screens. Then we went to Radius 10 for dinner, one of the trendy new places in the gulch and it was good, but so echo-y in the restaurant. We had trouble hearing each other until we finally went outside. I was talking about stocks and they told me the Kings of Leon wear these certain kind of jeans that everybody is going to want, and to invest in them now, and I’m sure he’s right. Angelo picked up the check and it must have been pretty pricey because we had everything from hors deuvres to entrees, to desserts; to coffee and brandy and it was nice. Then we went to Angelo and Eulene’s house and hung out for a while. He was playing some of his new songs and they are very clever. One is called “thump thump thump” and it was really good. Then we played a little indoor golf and listened to Cat Stevens. What a voice! He was such an intense cat.
Went home and fell asleep but I was hot and Leslie came in at 3:30 and turned on all the lights.
She was out with Nicki, who is appearantly a force to be reckoned with when it comes to partying.

I think this studio thing is going to happen because Gherke came over and really hashed it out with me.
He said to “run a tape on it” which I suppose means measure it? That’s the next step. I think it will be really great! I need to ask Dick Hoten what his brain would suggest. He said he could come over tomorrow. I will wine and dine him. Or at least give him a stroopwaffel or two. Kalamata’s forgot my salad dressing. I was so mad that I had to make myself breathe before I went in there. I called Jon Wright Sr. to ask his opinion on some clubs so he told me come over and he would loan me a few to try, which is what I really wanted. I went over and he gave me a 15 minute golf lesson. He really knows his stuff. I got a driver, an iron and a putter. Went out to Costco with Bob and Lynn and Jeanne and my dad. Got some groceries ($81). The Dog Whisperer marathon was on and Leslie went to Las Cazuelas with Nicky. Watched 20 minutes of The Seven Samuarai! Wow! What a movie! I love it when the distaught woman dramatically says: “How about we give the bandits all our rice, then hang ourselves! That’ll really get they’re attention!”

Leslie walked with us and it was more humid. Sarah Siskind called, and she was having a rough day she said, and could we reschedule. I said sure. Leslie and I went to starbucks ($11) then to the post office ($.69) I picked up The Seven Samurai DVD at the library. Went to Krogers for cat food and milk ($7) and Nashville Pet Products for chew toys for Posh. ($37) I went to Corner Music and paid my account ($128)
I changed my address online to get my BMI checks to come to the house. I called my uncle and asked him about golf clubs. He said they were cheap and plentiful in Florida, but when I asked him would he find some for me he said no. He said not to rush into it, and do some research, which is a good idea. There’s a whole section on ebay about buying golf clubs. A big storm came up about 4:15 so we didn’t walk the dogs. Posh took an afternoon nap with us. Leslie cooked some pasta and we played backgammon until it was time for dog class and tonight was the night we get our diplomas. Posh was excellent in class, and I saw Scott Sears. He said he’s been working on this restaurant idea for 3 years. He asked me if I had tried any of the new restaurants in the gulch. I said we hadn’t. He seemed dissapointed. I guess we should try more places but the problem is we don’t really like trendy places with “hip, modern” interiors. I like places that have been around for a while, like Sperry’s. We are signed up for Level 2 obedience with Posh. Hurried down to the upstairs bar of the sportsman’s grill. Now there’s a bar I like. Cool, old fashioned feel. Met Jeremy Lister and Jason Lehning and Liz Norris. Jeremy is a nice, interesting guy. He comes from a very religious background, and I think it makes him want to rebel a bit. He came over and played us some of his very good music. Leslie was impressed. I got pulled over by the cops on the way home but the cop was nice and didn’t give me a ticket. It was that damn intersection at the end of Belmont.

Walked both dogs and continued renovating my closet. Leslie said a red tie and an orange sweater do not the beautiful combination make, so back to the drawing board. Going on five days in a row wearing ties. People seem to treat you better if you have a tie on. They probably think “he’s just come from a funeral, better be nice.” I’ve also been bringing back boat shoes. So I fell asleep and when I woke up my new Shoes had been obliterated beyond recognition by a chew-happy dog. This is minutes after waxing evangelical about the virtues of the daily walk: “It takes all the anxiety away from the dog, and gets rid of unwanted behavior.” I self-righteously proclaimed. Only to wake uo to find my BRAND NEW SHOES had been lacerated to the point where they resembled string cheese. I was so mad because I told everyone I was going to be the one to bring back boat shoes and make them cool again! I couldn’t be deterred from this quest, so back to Broadway Shoes for another pair ($38) and then to Brooks Brothers for a manicure set ($14). I went to lunch with my grandfather and out of the blue I asked him to buy me some golf clubs. I didn’t know I was going to ask him, it just slipped out. It was weird, but after I said it, I didn’t regret it. I need some clubs because I have the golf bug BAD right now and I will only be satisfied if I can find some clubs. I will check on ebay. I can get them one club at a time. Then David Gherke called and he said he couldn’t come over, but in general that we would just start working on the studio and I could pay him when I got the money.
he’s such a nice guy. Anyhow. Ordered a pizza ($12) and went to bed.

I met Charlotte Avant for coffee and she’s remodeling her garage. James Digiralamo stopped by and he was describing the circumstances of a recent auto accident he was in. Jason Gray called and we went to lunch at Chinatown. He said things were going well with his girlfriend Shalene. He said she cooks for him and lays his stuff by the door when he’s ready to go to work. I told him I do the same things for Leslie. Took a short nap and went to the library with the dogs. Answered emails and spent a stressful hour on the phone with ROAR. Then I remembered the gentleman’s club and there were lots of people there. David Mead and Joe Pisapia, who’s working on a instrumental LP, Hags and Marc Pisapia, jason Lehning, some guy who works for RoughTrade, Emerson Hart, David Gherke, Brad Pemberton, Bob Bradley, Jason Hoffhines, and Jason White told a hilarious story about Peter Collins. Peter said: “I’ve just met a real asshole.”
Jason said: “Oh yeah? who?” and Peter said: “He’s called Daniel Tashian.”

Went to Suntrust with the bees to set up a business account. At one point one of the bankers was tapping her nails on the table. I asked her to stop. At first she looked horrified, then I said I was kidding and everybody laughed. At any rate the bees are more official now. We should have done that a long time ago. Jason said he still had Bees money in his personal account. Why didn’t we do that years ago? Then on to Noshville and Liz said she was bored. She said she was sick of Nashville and wanted to be in New York. She said she was tired of all the rednecks. Jason and I were trying to convince her she just needed to travel more. I said it was a good thing to be bored because it means you are ready for the next thing.
Then I went to ROAR and Matt was downloading the new itunes so we could listen to Roger Miller. “Dang Me” is so creative. It doesn’t sound like anything else that I know of. He said he wanted to get a mac, but the network at ROAR was all PCS. I think Bernie should trick that place out with macs. It would make everybody psyched to come to work and be good Feng Shui. I told Liz her Public Enemy poster was bad Feng Shui. I said I was glad it fell down. Then she asked me to take some cds to Diane at the bank but I missed the turn and was too lazy to go around the block, so I will have to take them tomorrow. Posh and I went to Opry Mills and I got a shirt with french cuffs which I am planning to bring back. Also some ties. Before that Angelo called and he said he might have left a cigar burning on his porch and would I go see so I went over there and it was in the ashtray. He said he’s been getting into cigars with his coffee. He was going to the Kings Of Leon’s studio and he said he was going to ask them to get him in to the strokes concert later. I really enjoyed the strokes when I saw them. Then I answered about 600 emails and Dave Jacques is around which is good for the ukulele club so maybe I will get everybody a tie. Walked at 4, then came home and cleaned a little but what I really wanted to do was organize my wardobe so I started at the bottom and went through and ironed everything and got some stuff out that I need to get rid of. That took me til 11pm then i was exausted and went to bed.

I was sore when I woke up today and I didn’t feel like walking the dogs but I did anyway. Then I made breakfast for Leslie and got outside and started working on the paths in the garden. Laying down weedblock. There was a great piece on Peter Guralnick’s new book on NPR. Back to home depot for more pine nuggets, and to return the hoe we got yesterday because it already broke. and we found a nice potted plant for the front steps ($107) and all this landscaping stuff is expensive! But mom told me she spent $10,000 landscaping her yard and so if you compare it to that we’ve probably only spent $500 so far. Then we finished the garden paths and took Sula and Posh to Smoothie King. My hands were hurting from all the digging and bricks and everything. Talked to Warren Pash on the phone and he’s thinking of writing a country song with me sometime. That would be cool. Then, on that food show on NPR, I learned more about wine in 5 minutes than ever before! For those of you who really know alot about it, discontinue reading now. For everyone else, presenting:

THE 2 MINUTE WINE PRIMER:

1. Australian wines:
Typically fruitier, more robust, even maybe demanding wines. Good with spicy dishes
and with dishes where you want the wine to really command attention.
2. European Wines:
Typically more subtle (a high level of generality is taking place here) but better for
meals where the food is not so high octane. Sometimes you want a wine that takes
a backseat to the subtlety of the food, not overwhelming to the leeks etc.
3. Alcohol Content:
If the Alcohol content is 13% it will be a robust/sharp-ish wine. If it is %10-%12
it will be more subtle.
If it is below %10 it can become fruity and quite sweet. The Alcohol content is a major factor in the
taste of the wine.
4. The Label:
A nifty label does not the good wine make. Buy wine to compliment the food, not because it
looked snazzy.

There it was. I swear to god I didn’t know any of this before and it was really helpful to me. If you want to listen to the show it’s The Splendid Table.

Walked and made some oatmeal. I started messing around in the garden and Posh came out and was digging weeds with me. There was an intricate subterranean network of wiring underground which had to be removed. Then Leslie came out and we went to Home Depot for more supplies. ($107) Lunch was two “depot dogs” chicago style ($11). I’m always losing my shears so I got a nice pair with a holster. We crammed 20 bags of pine chips in the caddy, then came home. We saw Warren Pash heading for goodwill. He’s a brilliant thrift shopper. Then we walked with the dogs to the Library and came home and did a few more hours of work. The garden is really starting to look nice. Showered and went to Las Cazuelas and I had the shrimp of the devil and Leslie had fried tilapia ($32). I saw Vince, the bass player from The Crayon Ensemble and he looked pretty hammered. After dinner, we went to Opry Mills and they were closing in 30 minutes so we ran around and that place is huge! I got 2 pairs of shoes at Broadway Shoes ($97) and a shirt and 3 ties at Brooks Brothers ($108). I spent too much money and when we got home I was having buyer’s regret but you have to dress for success. It doesn’t do any good to go around town looking threadbare. I read Jay McInerney’s book until I fell asleep and I slept until Posh started puking about 5. I don’t know why she does that! If it continues we have to go to the vet but it’s probably cause she’s a puppy.

Took the dogs around, then Adrian called and he had a couple extra tickets for Wilco and I love that guitar player Nels Kline. He’s awesome. But I just don’t know if I want to go out on St. Patricks day. I told him I would think about it. Then I had a great meeting with Carla and Carey at Big Yellow Dog. It was weird at first because I messed up Carey’s name and said “Are you Terry?” But I had some coffee so I was kind of wired and I was cracking Carla up. She told me I was funny and a gentleman which are two of the biggest compliments anyone can give you. She guessed I was a virgo right away. How can people do that? Are we really so obviously uptight? But I really like the vibe there. Usually publishers have all the charm and grace of a scud missile, but these folks are cool! I am a little nervous about the prospects of really digging in to the country world, but they always come back to country as Harley Allen once said. So I was feeling good and I decided to let my grandmother take me to lunch. We went to Maggianos and I had chicken parmesan and she had some kind of panini. She was looking at my lunch the whole time, I think she would have rather had mine, but you snooze, you lose. I’m the one to pay attention to when I order, because i know how to size up a menu. All the time on the road teaches you how to order. People ALWAYS envied my order. Then she said she wanted to take a nap so i took her home and I went home and I wanted to take a nap too, but there were like 7,000 emails to answer. I’m not trying to make it sound like there was alot, it’s that there really was! I typed away for an hour, then went to the library with posh and I was going to look for some books but it was closed. I went to the bank and got out $50 for the weekend. We took the dogs in to the bank and all the bank tellers love it when we do that. Banks need dogs on friday afternoons. It’s like they set the whole place free! Then when I came home I worked on a country idea and I was going to see if Angelo wanted to get a drink but he wasn’t around. Then I answered some fan mail on myspace and it was kind of neat, although some intern had gone on there pretending to be me and mass-emailed a bunch of people which I wouldn’t have minded but it kind of pissed me off because I never got to write the thing! It totally didn’t sound like me at all to me, but nobody else probably noticed, but it was the principal of the thing. It was like I was spamming people unknowingly! The myspace thing is cool though, and I was psyched to see that Imogen Heap is one of the Bees’ friends and I thought about emailing her a fan letter but i didn’t. I tried to make dumplings and they stuck to the pan, so we had half dumplings and brown rice. Then I bought Sara Evans record and it was cool to see Troy had some songs on there. He’s so good. Sleepy but kind of wired. Leslie watched U-571 with posh and i went to bed.

Woke early and walked, then checked my messages and they didn’t need me in the studio. At first my feelings were kind of hurt but Lex told me it wasn’t me, they were just running behind. So suddenly I had a free day on my hands and a beautiful one at that, so I decided to pick up my grandmother and dig some weeds. We worked for a couple hours and I made us lunch of egg salad sandwiches (which I knew was one of my grandma’s favorites) and we ate on the porch. We worked a little after lunch, then I took her home and went to the kick-off party for tin pan south. I really like the NSAI people who are involved in this thing. It was at 12th and porter and it looked awful! They painted the inside red and black! gag! and all the furniture is black! It’s not as if it isn’t dark enough in there already but they had to paint everything black on top of that! Then they had about 20 bottles of whisky sitting out and they tried to get people to drink but it was at 3pm, so most people had to go back to work. Jason Lehning was ready to go. He just moved his whole studio, so he was ready for a mint julep, but they didn’t have any mint. Jason Wilkins was there and he looked good in a pin stripe suit. He told a story about running over a deer that was funny in a sad kind of way. Emerson Hart was one of the performers and he was fantastic. The second song he played he had written with his wife and it was beautiful. Matt Maher looked sharp also in pin stripes and Erica Wolham is such a good spokesperson. She’s so cheerful and effervescent. It was strange to hang out in 12th and Porter, it had been such a long time. The girl at the bar said thay had to spend six months just cleaning the place and I believe it. They had hot wings which I love and I had to try, but they forgot the ranch dressing so everybody was dipping them in guacamole which was weird. Then I went to the library with posh, and before long it was time for dog class which was good but posh is not sitting in the right place. I feel bad because she has already learned to sit, it’s just that she sits away from me and she’s supposed to sit in closer. I just wish somebody had told me that weeks ago. Oh well. Something to work on. And Scott Sears was at the dog class and he’s starting a restaurant and wants me to help be a vibe consultant. How do I fit that in? I really want to do it, I just don’t know if i have time. Then I went to Subway and got some sandwiches ($10) and brought one home to Leslie and she didn’t think they put the right amount of stuff on them. The “sandwich artist” was new and inexperienced. We were all tired so we fell asleep and the heat was turned off, so I slept well. I hate to be hot at night. Posh puked in the middle of the night and so I woke up cleaning it up, and Leslie was adjusting her sleep number at 3:45.