Writing a few songs now. as always. Writing songs. Not finishing any. Or finishing them and never returning to them much after that. there's that whole, ‘o.k. fine I won't abandon you unfinished but I'm never coming back after this you know’ kind of thing with me and songs lately.... Maria full of grace was o.k. but still just so ME. tired of the ME sound. Tired of my way doing things. today got the glimpses of a new one, maybe about San Francisco, a scene in San Francisco, like that. but again I just keep setting the guitar down tired of hearing myself go to the same things....

the sun is setting. A mild wind. We walk to the beach. I scream ‘fuck. God. fuck’ a couple of times. ‘what?’ ‘nothing. Just have to get to the next place now with the songwriting. Have to get to a new me. feels a lot like ten years ago. When I had reached the end of regular tuning songwriting on the guitar. I just sat there and played with tuning pegs until when I strummed something cool came out. what I ended up with was an Open D9 it turns out. and the first song I wrote like that was ‘Bored.’ because that's exactly what I was feeling in that moment. from there came lots of variations of open Ds, and open G and open A, and open Em and from those spaces great songs were written. so I'm not worried too much. Just what's the word... impatient. I know something is coming. A whole new way of doing it. I'm just tired of listening to what I'm creating now while I wait. I could always move back to piano but again the piano is still strung the same as other pianos so you're still going to hit relatively the same notes and chords and still have that ‘western music’ sound to it. gotta be a way to go totally out.

a three doors down song comes on. I go to flip it. ‘hey I like that song. you don't?’ its not that I don't like it. I just hate shit when its so formulaic. I already know what's going to come next. ‘that's not formulaic?’ she says pointing to the new gwen stefani CD I want to put in. ‘well this may be formulaic too, but it’s just so damn creative, you never know what's coming next. really exciting stuff here....’

I'll tell you this Fishy. this is all going to come down to you. you're either going to do it or you're not.

Current spin: Gwen's new one, or is this her first one? either way, VERY pop and formulaic, screaming ‘we want a hit, we want a hit’ from the first note... Wins the award for the most contrived musical project since Cher’s last CD ‘do you believe’ that took five years, six songwriters and five producers etc... but you know, it’s just so fucking creative and catchy.... its like a musical smorgasbord... I get and learn a lot out of projects like this. you can’t help but admire it. rock or not rock... dig it.
 
Also, secret machine, nowhere again is a great song. (now to prove that I'm totally schizophrenic) you know sometimes music doesn’t have to break any molds or go off in some totally different direction. Sometimes it can just be so cool that its good just being normal. That's the way this song is. that's the way the strokes are. you hear them and you think you are hearing some long lost Lou reed or Iggy pop album and its great just like that.