The Weblog of Daniel Tashian

Walked to the Post Office and went home with all my stuff. The house was a wreck. But I knew it would be. Spent most of the day cleaning the house. Had some vegetarian corn-dogs. Jeremy i-chatted me some of his songs. I’m going to play with him on Thursday at the Mercy Lounge. Answered some emails, paid the bills, and had a nice day just tidying things up. Went to Chinatown with both grandparents and it was good. Leslie was impressed with the cleaning job I did when she came home. “Yeah!” She said “The house feels so much better!”
It made me feel good when she said that. I had some Chinatown for her. She packed for a while and I charted Jeremy songs. Watched a japanamation cartoon about Submarine battles called “707″ and it was actually pretty good. Went to bed about 11.

Walked early and did some dishes. Jaren called at 9 something and I didn’t think he got up that early but he sounded very proffessional and he told me the band was signing their deal today. Went to Harris Teeter and got a chicken ($6) and made chicken sandwiches for me and my grandma. Jaren came over after lunch, and he had an idea that was pretty cool, so we worked on that. Picked up Barry and Holly and they told me a little about their trip, then I went to meet Brad Jones at the Sportsman’s and he was talking about Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley, and he said he would never give me acid, because I was already kind of a tripped-out cat. And it’s true, I never had much of a feel for LSD. We had a couple beers and he said he thought the vocals on the Bees record could be better and he’s really right, but what can you do? Just try harder next time I guess. But he felt kind of bad, because he said “Carrie loves the vocals!” and he was trying to smooth it over, but he’s right. Leslie called about 11 and she was just getting home. Went to Hopkins and slept in the guest room. It gave me kind of a sad feeling, in a way, but I fell asleep almost immediately.

So my parents come back tomorrow, so I was kind of tidying up. Grimey came over and I fed him chilli and Leslie came too. We thought of some funny band names. “Simply Pony” and “The Henz”. I really like “The Henz”. I have Jaren Johnson tomorrow from “Bang Bang Bang” and I was thinking I should make up some kind of riff. Grimey and I walked the dogs around the block. It rained for 15 minutes, and Grimey was going to go to the movies, but he decided not to. Leslie went home and I stayed at Hopkins. The Chilli was good. One of the best.

Woke up about 7 and did the big walk with the dogs. Whatever that nice little streak of cool breeze was that we had last week is gone. It’s back to nasty, humid, pretty much unbearable weather. Did some chores and went home and took some of my stuff with me. I have to look and see if this Apple battery re-call thing affects mine. Maybe i’ll just go to the Mac store. I’m disappointed in myself. I didn’t really get much done while I was here at Hopkins. I pictured myself writing a new album, or illustrating my book, but instead, the days just flew by. Oh well. This isn’t my best season, summer. Went to lunch at South Street with Tom Littlefield, and I don’t know if I will go back there for a while. It was just so filling and it put me out of comission for 2 hours. Only the dogs really wanted to do something during that time, so I couldn’t really sleep. They were being pesty. So I finally got up and took them around and it was still so disgustingly hot, and my stomach was upset from the lunch, it truly felt like some kind of low point in the week. Which I was happy to put behind me. Made soup, salad and toast for my grandma, and we had a nice dinner and conversation. I thought about some of the Millenium Problems and read a great article about the Poincare Conjecture.
Then Leslie came home and I heated up some soup for her. She was hungry. We took the dogs around and she went home, to Clayton. Liz Workman called, and she was having a birthday party for her brother, and I contemplated going, but my skin looked terrible and I had this huge zit, plus my stomach was still iffy, so I stayed home and watched a French movie called “Sex is Comedy” or something like that, and I was switching back and forth between that, and this documentary called “Sexual Healing”, where these REALLY unattractive people meet with therapists and discuss their sexual problems. Yuck. Sheryl Crow was on Larry King and I like her so much. She’s so grounded and cool. She was talking about global warming and cancer treatment and the world is so complicated now! I mean, I’m kind of worried about it. I just don’t know what else we can do besides stop driving cars immediately, at least gas-powered ones. I mean, it’s already so hot outside, I couldn’t take it if it got any hotter! I haven’t seen the Al Gore movie yet because I know it’ll just make me more concerned. I just wish things weren’t as dire as they seem. I wish it was like it was in the 40′s or 50′s. But then again, science has come so far since then. Medicine anyway. I guess every generation has it’s own problems to deal with, and these our ours. Oh…I watched this morbidly fascinating thing on the History Channel about Caligula. What a baddie.

Took Bob to Vanderbilt and Tommy came over. My grandma gave us a vocal warm-up and we worked for a while figuring out the chords to one of Tommy’s songs. Then we went to “Ken’s” sushi and Tommy had a cold sake, so I had one, after all it was friday, and Tommy thinks my interview website is a good idea, and he was really encouraging me about it. One thing we could do would be to make a standard interview but everybody would hate that, unless it was really clever. Went home and tried to take a nap, but my Grandma needed brownies, so we made some, and Jeremy Lister came by and dropped of my guitar. Got the crazy idea to go to Mario’s and I went to the website, and it says Mick Jagger was there and the Rolling Stones were throwing pasta at the walls to see if it was “Al-Dente”. But the last review was from 2004, and the menu looked pretty dense, so I don’t know. I started to get sort of intimidated, but luckily Lynn called and said Bob was getting tired, so we didn’t have to go which was sort of a relief because I bet it would have been really expensive. So we went to Bosco’s instead and it was good. Had 2 beers and a ceasar salad with anchoives and a barbecue chicken pizza.
Then I went to Hopkins, and Leslie went to Clayton and it was like we were living in 2 different apartments. Watched some Dog Whisperer and went to bed.

Got to sleep in for once! It was a miracle! But there was still lots of watering and other chores to do. Beautiful day. Not too hot. Leslie goes back to work tomorrow for 5 days in a row! She was running some errands. Bob was going to come up for breakfast, but he forgot he had Dr. Shang. Made Migas for my Grandma and I. Lex called and wants me to play “World Cafe” with Mindy Smith if it would work out, but it’s right at the end of the Bees tour, so we’ll see. Jeremy Lister called and he feels bad about something that happened to my guitar. Talked to Liz and the Bees tour is coming together, but I missed the conference call about the video. I don’t know what I was thinking. My cell phone won’t ring at Hopkins. Tom Littlfield came over and we played ukuleles for a while, and then we went to lunch. Guess where. Yup. Athens. But I had what I wanted, which was a B.L.T with fries, so there you go. How can you complain about that? The Nashville Scene printed my letter to the editor. Went to dinner at Bob and Lynn’s and it was Ravioli and greeen beans. It was an excellent meal, and after dinner we talked for a while, and Leslie was fascinating. She was talking about the differences between Roman and American societies, and Christianity. Leslie went home because she had to pack, so I went home and did some internet and went to bed.

Walked early, then went to brunch with my Grandma and Leslie. Athens again. Then we went to Grimey’s and I got Midlake’s “Van Occupanther” and the new album by Keane because I heard one of the songs on the radio and I really liked it. Then I went home and picked up my ukuleles and went to Sam Ashworth and Matt Slocum’s studio, where Meg Thompson was recording. Dave Jacques was there and I think the drummer’s name was Lyndsey? But the studio was nice and Meg is so funny. I was switching keys of the song we were recording really fast and we were both laughing! Then I went home and made some phone calls, and then we went to Chinatown and got some take-out and Leslie came over and we ate Chinese and went to bed.

Went to a breakfast meeting at Athens and I sure have been going there a lot. I had 2 eggs and bacon with hash browns and toast and coffee ($8) and it was good. But the bacon was a little flat. Like they put that smasher thing on it. The meeting was with Mike Grimes and Trisha Brantley and we were picking songs for Guilty Pleasures. Mike and Trisha do most of it, I just come up with unreasonable suggestions. I thought “Sailing” went over really well, but nobody’s asked me to do it again. Then Leslie called and she needed some medicine at the hospital, so I took it to her. Went back to Hopkins and worked on Reggae songs and a Bob Marley song came on the XM radio “Could You Be Loved?” and it was awesome! The bass part is so cool. So then I picked up some Chinese take-out and had it with my grandma. ($14) and Leslie came over. Then I got dressed and went to the Basement to play with Jessica Maros, and Gina Gershon was there. Curt Perkins came too and Troy Verges and there were a lot of people I didn’t know. But the gig was fun but it was kind of dark so I couldn’t read my charts and I forgot my little light, but I thought we sounded good. Then we hung out for a while and Mike played an excellent record by a band from Texas called “Midlake” so I made a vow to go to Grimey’s tomorrow and buy it. But we needed to get up early, so we went home.