a wedding and a precursor

7/1/07

as of this date, my former roommate, alex the indie music hookup, is married. there were three highlights to his wedding:

first, it was the best wedding i've ever attended that consisted entirely of recorded music. well, i can't be entirely certain of that, but generally i tend to think that live musicians provide weddings with a special, unique feel that is noticeably absent when another recording of pachelbel's canon hits the stereo. somehow sappy wedding music that's live is infinitely more tolerable than sappy music from a CD. however, despite my strongly pro-live perspective, i was happily suprised by alex and katie's wedding. they picked a satisfying selection of contemporary songs that lent their wedding a fresh gravity. the only potential for a musical frown during the event was that they didn't hire our band--that's right, they marched out of the sanctuary to sufjan's "chicago" (!) and they didn't hire us. maybe they thought i was too busy with my usher duties.

second, the food was delicious.

and third, the pastor. he wasn't delicious, and he wasn't a highlight in the traditional sense of the word. it was his first wedding and his sermon aimed at the epic rather than the simple. i think he was trying to read through the bible in 80 days or three wedding services, whichever came first. still, he didn't stutter, stammer, or stare blankly at the waiting couple. it was a decent first time.

no, his highlightyness was more related to his role as the protagonist in a behind-the-scenes tale of mystery and mayhem than any personal trait.

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST!

sufjan stevens cover

i'm a world famous musician! my band just aired our music video for sufjan stevens's "chicago" on youtube. i'm the fellow on secondo piano and occasional background vocals.



(if you press play and the video appears to be slow or perpetually loading, click the youtube logo in the right-hand corner of the video screen and follow it to the youtube site. also, be sure to take part in the first ever 17 point scale poll--see the side bar--and leave poll-related comments here on this post.)

an overdose of euphoria

wednesday was a good day, a really good day. i got some reassuring news from my boss, successfully coached my first ever soccer practice, crashed out a lively version of ben folds's "fired," performed secondo piano on our jolly rendition of sufjan stevens' "chicago," watched two episodes of lost, and discovered my 6th favorite flavor of ice cream (slow-churned american idol).

but when i awoke this morning, my head was in a vice. i had an insufferable headache, perhaps an ego hangover.

you see, until yesterday, i was rather suspicious that my soccer experiment would explode in my face. thus, i half-expected to be sitting cross-legged and alone at our first scheduled practice. instead, i had five enthusiastic soccer pupils chasing each other through cones and, surprise, surprise, thanking me for my patience. and then the ben folds cover was punctuated with the unfamiliar sounds of shouts and applause; from my bench at the piano, the green-bean-twenty sounded more like one hundred. and so now i wonder somewhat abstractly if perhaps it's more than possible for one to get too much of a good thing.

of course, i doubt that my happy night really caused the headache, but the hand-in-hand nature of good and bad, black and white, falling and faith seems an intangible truth.

i encountered this strange blending of absolutes as i worked on the ADRC newsletter at work this week. in an email to the s.o. i explained that "for the first time ever, i have a sense of what to write and how to write it, but it's interesting that this sense of 'this could work' is also accompanied by an odd feeling of 'now don't screw this up--this could be your one opportunity of writing clarity.'" it's as if the universe commands that a burst of productive creativity (or any goodness) is necessarily followed by a lull of frustrating ineptitude (or badness).

i started this post with some references to soccer, so i suppose it's only fitting to return to sports. i tend to spend my morning commutes listening to talk radio or kjr 950 hosts mitch levy and steve sandmeyer. on wednesday morning, the pair were discussing the mariners 11-3 victory over the division-leading angels. sandmeyer was defending the levy theory, which purports that by scoring 7 unnecessary runs, the m's may have tipped baseball karma in anaheim's favor for the remainder of the series. again, there's no statistical support for this theory, but perhaps the universe demands moderation. perhaps ichiro--he of two strange statements and a future pitching career--should have saved some of those 5 hits for the next night. perhaps in the interest of future good days, i should politely ask people to refrain from compliments or applause, perhaps a disapproving grunt might be good now and again
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andrew david. "the jaguar temple. rarrrrrrr!" tikal, guatemala.

PS the music links are to youtube. i realized that it was silly to link to amazon, because amazon only allows you to play a little sample of songs whereas youtube has the entire song. i'll continue with this strategy for all future music links. however, these links also have their disadvantages--you must suffer through some dancing girls and a little speech by sufjan.

some of the others in a live concert at the green bean

that's right, my new band, some of the others, will be performing at the green bean open-mic night on wednesday. we're a cover band that focuses exclusively on sufjan stevens classics. more particularly, we have trained our euphonic sights on chicago, one of the singles from come on, feel the illinoise (check out track #9). some day we may broaden our repetoire to include other sufjan songs and perhaps even some muse but in the meantime, our guitarist, trombonist, accordionist, violinist, marimba-ist, vocalists, and pianists make chicago a spectacle that is more than worth the drive (or flight).

we'll be playing sometime after 9pm. incidentally, the green bean is greenwood's favorite non-profit coffee shop. you can find it next door to the tap root theater at 210 n 85th st. also, some of the others is a name that i coined just now, so don't be surprised if mari (our illustrious leader) introduces us by some other name (e.g., sufvan stejens) at the show. (some of the others seemed an apt name because the band consists of some of the players from our soccer team, the others, and then some others.)

for those of you who are very ill and can't make it to our second debut, i hope to have some bootleg youtube footage for you in the next few days.

the s.o. "contemplating the d-c-g sequence of chicago." cahal pech, san ignacio town, belize.

crazy weekend, boring post

i haven't posted a weekend wrap-up in a long time, but today the bliss must end. over the course of the weekend, i completed the following activities

• watched 300 with sean, rebecca, mark, and golden boy
• sat in a bar and quizzed tavia, brook, veronica, and devon about whitney, the birthday girl
• played pull tabs
• tossed a bowling ball in the general direction of some pins
• kicked a soccer ball with mark
• ran to the carkeek park beach (6m) as part of my training for the marathon in which i probably won't run
• competed in the st. patrick's day dash (5k)
• at broccoli with my breakfast
• biked to beth's in sandals and pajamas
• rehearsed mari's arrangement of "chicago!" with my fellow bandmates (we haven't yet discussed an offical moniker)
• climbed on my roof in a failed attempt to break into our house
• hired a locksmith to perform the aforementioned break-in

however, i did not complete the following:

• pay my taxes
• watch tsotsi, the son, or babetta's feast
• update the movies on my blog

and that's all i have to say for now.


andrew david. "as i prepared for the next shot, an ooze monster jumped out of the hazardous waste bin and mauled me" seattle VAPSHCS, wa.