Well I figured out in the night that I had food poisoning. Thai food. Never again. Slept all day and all night, then woke up bright and early Tuesday. It’s amazing the difference 24 hours of sleep can make. Lillie got me Saltines and Ginger ale. Have you tried them lately? Wow are they good. But I felt like I was going to die, and even thought for a moment it might feel better to die than to have a stomach ache like that. Tidied up the studio Tuesday morning and listened to a radio station in Boulder, Co. on my phone. I really like listening to different cities and hearing the advertisements, the accents. The app is called 00Radio and you can get it here if you have iphone. Went to the park with the dogs, then to Wykoff, then to Smith and Wiles. Home and cleaned up a bit, sent some letters and emails. The “Our Idiot Brother” soundtrack came out today! And Paste Magazine is streaming it, although they didn’t mention my song in the review. It was mainly about the Fruitbats guy, and Dolly and Willie, and Nina Persson. But I think Lillie and I will go to the theater Friday when the film comes out. Lillie made pasta with spinach and it was yummy, then she made a chocolate cake. I worked on a new Silver Seas song called “Blue Eyes” and read the paper. The scary thing is the oceans now. We need to leave them alone for a while and let them replenish themselves, but so many peoples livelihoods are dependent on fishing. We need to find some other work for these guys. Cleaning up the oceans. An internationally funded ocean cleaning task force. Anyway, I’m not eating wild caught fish if I can help it. Just farm. Oh, and then there was a funny thing about “Arthur”, and I actually got my feelings hurt because none of my friends re-tweeted my twitter about it. Isn’t it funny how easy it is to get your feelings hurt? I try to re-tweet whenever I can, but you know, things go unnoticed. I think there is a general feeling around that my stuff should be noticed more than it is, and I agree with that, just don’t know what to do about it. You don’t want  to be that guy that’s like “Retweet! Retweet!” all the time. I would never ask someone to. Oh! I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Pee Wee Herman (Paul Ruebens) wrote me back an answer to my question about weather he laughs at his own movies or not:

paul_reubens:

daniel, i almost never laugh out loud at myself. although recently i did when i saw a clip of me on the phone in texas trying to prove where i am by singing The STars at Night and holding the receiver outside the phone booth to hear the sound of Texans walking by singing the response.

Well the Remains played at the basement last night. It was awesome! I was grinning the whole time. They sounded great. William Tyler was there. The DJ was also great. He played “I am superman” by The Clique and boy that’s a good record. Wrote with Matt Hires and Jamie Kenney. He’s a great keyboardist and all round musician and he’s like me, he loves to laugh. It sounds cheesy to say that but really, those are my favorite people. The ones who love to laugh. Anyway what else? Went to Turnip Truck for lunch, very good mostly, and guess who was there? Lillie and Tiger and Leann! They sat with us, then we got espresso and went back to work. Still very hot in the middle of the day, but hints of fall can be found around the edges. Garden somewhat of a disaster this year, except for the peppers which are marvy. We were trying to make the lyrics really good so we stayed there till 8, then I went by Rukkus to see if I could find Jamie Tate. Then finally home, and I had a whisky and some lasagne Liz Workman made and we watched “Diary of A Wimpy Kid 2″ and laughed at Twitter. Bed at 12;30.

Arthur is up on itunes us! Well let’s see. Cereal for breakfast. Looked for Josh on Skype but he wasn’t around. Worked on new song idea: “Blue Eyes” – Twittered a bit. Lillie went to the store and Grimey came by. He held baby for a bit. She was smiling at him, flirting with him.  It was kind of funny because it was the first time Lillie leaves me alone with Tiger and here comes Mike and we are drinking beers and she’s just sleeping away like a champ. Then to Imogene and Willie to play a short set with Jessie Baylin. It’s a cool thing they have going over there. You can drink some free beer and the taco truck pulls up and you can buy a taco if you want to, I didn’t because the line was so long. There were a lot of people there and Keegan Dewitt kicked it off. He was being very funny and endearing to the crowd, starting songs several times and all that kind of stuff. Isacca sang, and she has a good voice. Saw so many people there, Kat and Kate, met Hattie May, Leisa and Tommy Hans daughter, saw Gill. What else? Erin McCarley. Met Nathan Followill’s parents. Very nice. Holly Williams was there, and Chris. Jessie’s set was great and Madi Diaz sounded very good as well. Briefly went to Kat’s house after the show and she’s obsessed with Dirt Dancing. Then I saw on CNN late that they are re-making it. Could be good, I suppose. Got home and made an omelet and hit the hay.

Every once in a while I feel overwhelmed -like I have too many ideas, not enough time to complete them all, which is true. This is when I like to do a little light “cataloguing” – where I sit down at my writing studio and don’t write any new ideas – no riffs or beats or chords, I just go through and capture and label old ones. I get a fresh SD card for the Edirol and start filling it up with whatever disparate random ideas I’ve been throwing on Garage Band, Ableton, Logic, the phone voice memo, whatever. Just start compiling them, so I have a master list of ideas to work from. What if one isn’t any good? Fuck it, I don’t record it. Usually I can find a lost gem when I do this…not always, but usually.  Something I threw over my shoulder and listening back, it’s not bad. It might need phase 2 of working it out but it’s a good start. I recommend cataloguing if you are like me and you excel at “phase 1″ – the initial gist of the idea, but have trouble following through. This helps, it starts to show you what you actually have. I like to have some dream time, when I am up in the air, following my imagination wherever it goes, but if I always do this, I have a lot of recordings of me strumming a c major 7 chord for 20 minutes. Sometimes you need different approaches to solve problems. Try cataloguing! You might find you have what you need in spare parts, you just need to label it (key, BPM, time sig, lyrics)

On my way to the park in the morning, I listen to NPR.  This morning it was Vanessa Carlton. She was talking about her new record and it sounded good. But what I liked about it most were the chord changes when the chorus hits – they were uncommon. Unexpected. Like in “Mushaboom” when the wonderful Feist sings: “O -O O O Old dirt road – Knee-e-e-e-e – deep snow” – It hits you out of nowhere and you feel exhilarated, or at least I did the first time I heard it. So the first feeling I feel when I hear an uncommon change is jealousy. Then it gives way to respect, and if it’s done properly, (and by that I mean not random) it’s the stuff of dreams. And I was also so mad when this song of Feist’s was covered by James Blake before I could do it.

Big storms coming in here apparently. I “storm-proofed” the outside, tipping over the fire pit so it doesn’t fill with water and tying down whatever isn’t. I play a few songs before Jeremy Lister (who’s record I play guitar on) on Friday at the Mercy Lounge… Haven’t decided what songs to do yet…Maybe a new thing called “Wolfie” i’ve been playing around the house. Been grilling a lot of things on the grill. I wanted to keep the veggie thing going then I got a sudden craving for barbecue chicken. Hmm. Beer is nice as well!