Delay

*Listen to this song as you read*

The trip is now going to start in mid-August.

Reasons:

1. I still have to graduate. I have to finish an online class, and I haven’t started.
2. Tusko, my band, is making an album (hopefully you followed directions and are listening to a song from it).
3. I need to make more money. The trip will be cheap, but not free.
4. I want to experience different weather. If I had left at the start of summer, the entire trip would have been hot.
5. I’m going to make a documentary along the way. More on this later, perhaps.

To the three or four of you interested in the trip, sorry for the delay.

The song you were probably not listening to is the same one from a few posts ago. We’ve just added vocals, trumpet, and guitar. Many more songs to come.

Statistics Project

As nothing more than filler, I’m showing you my statistics project. I’d never tried to do a multi-track recording of myself like this, so I kept the song simple (3 chords total).

Let me know what you think.

More posts will come starting June 4th

The very end of my formal education is in a few weeks, and I’ve been trying to pass my classes so I can keep it that way. For this reason, I haven’t posted recently.

Coming shortly will be a video about how I sleep in my Accord, as well as more music. Keep checking in. Thanks.

So this post has some content, here’s a video I did for my government class. I had to make a video about William Taft. Apparently President Taft was too large for the White House bathtub and had to get a new one installed. This is always mentioned in history books, for some reason.

“Welcome to heaven, here’s your harp. Welcome to hell, here’s your accordion.”

I love the sound of the accordion. Though most-often heard in traditional German/Italian folk, it still sounds great in modern music. The notion that the accordion’s unique timbre is unpleasant both confuses and entertains me. Here’s an excerpt from Wiki’s article on the accordion:

While the accordion is a versatile instrument and is widely played throughout the world, it is not universally respected. The 1954 Edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes the accordion as producing “quite the most unpleasant musical sound ever devised by the inventor’s and the instrument maker’s ingenuity”. The instrument has been the butt of jokes at least since 1866, when the French painter and cartoonist, Honoré Daumier (1808-1879), created by zincography a picture published in Le Journal Amusant of an accordionist and a man playing snooker who stated in the caption: “One does not yet have the right to kill the people who play this instrument, but there is hope that we will soon get it.” A more recent 1986 jibe is one from Gary Larson, author of The Far Side, who drew a cartoon with the dialogues: “Welcome to heaven, here’s your harp. Welcome to hell, here’s your accordion.”

So what’s my deal with accordions? Well, I’d been wanting to get one for a while, and I just did. I bought it off Craigslist four days ago and am still figuring out how everything works. The best thing about the accordion for me is portability. After playing only the piano for most of my life, I really appreciate being able to create music somewhere other than my house’s dining room.

So, that is what Chris and I did today. We usually write our band’s music outside, but this was the first time writing something that included accordion. Laurel Mountain’s (the elementary school where Chris and I went to) playground is nice because there are usually some people there, but it’s empty enough so that we aren’t disturbing them, although there was once a little kid who let us know we were disturbing him by throwing sand at us.

This is what we came up with today. It was written rather quickly. I hope you enjoy the song, although it is unfinished and is lacking trumpet and bass parts, which are typically provided by Jayhee and Kevin, respectively.

Timelapse

Here’s a little test I did. Hopefully I’ll be able to do many timelapses on the road (of more interesting subjects), but I need to get a laptop… Not sure about that. I’m wearing the somewhat nice clothes because I had a piano recital this morning. At the recital everybody asked me where I’m applying to college, and I just said “oh, I’m not sure yet” even though I’m certain about my decision to not apply anywhere. The frequency of that type of question is only going to get worse. My parents believe in the popular notion that all smart people go to college, so they’re visibly embarrassed when I mention my plans to others. Oh well…

Higher quality link: http://vimeo.com/4348164

I’m looking forward to your comments.

Books

I’ll be reading a lot on the trip. Any recommendations? What is everyone’s favorite book?

Don’t worry about trying to pick something that I would like. Just comment with your favorite book and what makes it good (without giving anything away). Thanks.

Unrelated: The concert with Satellite Soldiers and Koinae went very well. Here are some pictures of our band (Tusko). I’m pretty sure 95% of the people reading this know what I look like, but for those who don’t, I’m the one in the red.

Thanks to Areeb for the pics. Here’s his blog: http://areebmasood.com/

Guns, knives, mace

A lot of people are telling me that I’m going to die on this trip.

Over Easter dinner I was told that Michael Jordan’s dad was killed while sleeping in his car. This was apparently proof that somebody is going to try to kill me while I’m sleeping in my car.

Anyway, to answer the question: no, I’m not going to bring a gun. I guess I sort of trust people more than I should. My buddy Reid once said that if everybody knew the complete life story of everybody else, people wouldn’t hate each other. I thought that was pretty profound. I’m still going to use discretion, but I’m not worried.

Actually, maybe I will bring a knife. One of those “survival knives” that come with fire starter and fishing hooks and stuff. Like this:

Let me know what you think. Is any self defense stuff necessary in your opinion?

Route

Here’s a rough estimate of what might happen.

There’s also a chance that I venture up to Alaska through Canada, but I’m still trying to figure out if it’s possible, not to mention I didn’t know how to include that on the map.

Also, thank you everybody who has recommended music in my previous post. I truly like every single artist recommended, and I’m usually pretty picky about what I like. I appreciate it. I’m going to need more recommendations though because it’s going to be a long trip. Keep them coming.

Tunes

Other than scenery, one of the best things about driving is the ability to listen deeply to music in full albums instead of the typical “background noise” style of listening.

Instead of listening to music that I’ve heard before, I’m going to try to get into genres that I’m not very familiar with, but I need some places to start. Any recommendations? Post a comment.

I’m open to any style. What I listen to now is most-often called “indie rock,” so suggest anything that is not similar to that.

On a somewhat related note, the band I am a part of, Tusko, is playing at La Zona Rosa on Friday the 17th, so you should come check us out if you’re in Austin. We’re just a warm-up band but we still try to be good. I haven’t really posted anything on the blog in the past few days due to a lot of practicing for this show. http://www.lazonarosa.com/

Wisdom

It has become a goal of mine to learn as much as I can about life as soon as possible. I think that if I do not actively search for wisdom, then by the time I figure out the best way for me to live, it will be too late. A problem for me is that I am naturally very cynical. I’ve been looking for ways to combat this cynicism for quite some time, and I just stumbled upon something that left me with rare optimism.

ARTICLE

It’s a quick, 5-minute read that helps make me aware of the natural, unconscious urge to think selfishly and negatively. I couldn’t find a way to not paraphrase this brilliant speech into a cliche, so just read it instead of listening to my rambling.