i'm listening to a random compilation of blue eyed soul on the spotify. i should really get away from spotify but fuck it's just way too convenient to not. it's the early morning in the beginning of the work week and i just really wanted to start it off right with the young rascals "it's a beautiful morning". it is a beautiful morning and i'm trying to start this week off on a real nice, smooth crystal clear but no pressure HIGH NOTE. after writing in here i need to choose the first song of my show and start programming today's playlist.... in exchange for MONEY (bc that is part of my job) and idk. it's pretty good out there or rather, in here, right now. things are kinda not good out there actually and i've been ignoring it. i wonder how long i can keep this up before people either start getting very exasperated with me and/or follow suit and join me. or stuff just implodes and i don't know if shit hits the fan and it all gets destroyed (our country) then i guess it was meant to be - it was just this country's turn to take a fucking hit and remind the rest of the world again to try and not repeat history. i don't think we as a species will ever learn. it's not in our nature as stupidity seems to keep happening again and again and over and over. here's the thing and the bottom line, all we have is now. and if that's the case i cannot even for one second spend too much time worrying, hurrying, ruminating. yet i do spend time in that way - it creeps up. i guess i'm writing as a reminder to focus on the present moment.

well it happened. and it was really, really, really special. it was everything i hoped for and more really. he encored with Uncle Walter! it was extremely lovely to be amongst my ben folds loving people. the aging, graying band dorks of yore - and i didn't get the memo i was supposed to wear my thick, coke-bottle glasses to the show (instead of my contacts!) but it was okay. i showed up in my purple polka-dotted dress and my bright-white vans and an armful of 11 paper airplanes all with ben folds five requests. i felt like the biggest queen dork of all the dorks on the planet. and i fucking loved it.

one week until i see Ben Folds play the piano (and haven't seen it since December 2001) and my mind is exploding. what will life be like after i see this show? pretty sad and depressing and lackluster i think. first off i'm so glad i went ahead and bought the ticket to this show. second off i'm so glad that i am having a ben folds/five resurgence in a BIG way right now. it's timed appropriately. third off, i feel like i'm 18 years old again about to go see the five at the Riviera in Chicago literally counting down the seconds. i know it's not exactly going to be like that, but it's going to be something pretty special. and the stoke lever on the stoke level machine broke the fuck off.

i'm battling with whether or not to purchase this VIP package that includes a before the show show. it's probably a go even though I haven't purchased it yet. something about it makes me feel like a giant dork. but a giant dork in the best way.

i've been falling and enjoying going down a big ben folds five hole since the ride, since i realized truly amongst strangers/friends how much this band really means to me and to all of us. the depth of this hole i've been falling down is a loooong way down. i've watched every single early youtube interview i can find and all the reunion interviews as well. read all the published articles and didn't like some of them! i'm almost done listening to ben folds' memoir being read by ben himself. i bought a ticket to his paper airplane tour show in Salem in september. i'm currently going through it with the ben folds five.

so i originally excluded this album for the bike ride because when i was a teenager on the magical armchair listserv we all had a lot of mixed reviews about it. it was their breakup album too so i just always kind of had a bad taste about it - also it was just soooo out there from their other stuff. i remember the first listen i was like whoa, what? i really tired to like the songs i spent a lot of time listening to it and even memorizing some lyrics, as i listen now and find out i still know them. listening at 43 as opposed to 18 is something i can't really explain with words except my distaste of it is now somewhat glaringly embarrassing. but you know what, i got there. i get it now. and i'll celebrate that realization with another listen.

i'm leading a ben folds five bike ride this summer and honestly i can't stop thinking about anything else. all i do is listen to ben folds five and muse fondly on how very special it truly really ALL IS. i've reunited with the piano solo at the end of "philosophy" and it is so good. so fucking good. it is the next level.

like who says pianos can't rock? who the fuck says that? there are really no words how much this band means to me and meant to me when i was a teenager. seriously no words. it either clicks or it doesn't. i can only see the part about it clicking though.

creating the playlist has been surprisingly challenging. i've never programmed a playlist for a bike ride before and i am loving it. the thing with ben folds five is listening to their albums as a whole from top to bottom is kinda the way to do it. the stuff all goes together and a bunch of somewhat related stories (especially the reinhold messner album which is a true concept album) but the dilemma i have is the ride will be over by the time we get to "kate" and that doesn't seem right. this is an opportunity for a peppering of songs to shine from the various 3 albums. i've compromised with chunks. i want to get this right - i want to pay homage to the band and the fans via bikes and biking speakers with as much respect as i can possibly exude.

listening to james taylor and thinking about one of my college roomies, laura. we spent a lot of time listening to james taylor, burning incense and smoking bowls while both avoiding class. it always kinda puts me to that place. james taylor has such a beautiful voice it's so mellow and chill and like the epitome of relaxation but i've heard that back in the day he was a real prickly jerk kinda with a pretty bad heroin addiction. i wonder if the heroin was the result of the chill voice and demeanor? i digress because it doesn't matter, i love his music. there's 2 versions of this song - the one on the hits compilation which is a more upbeat faster version (the one me and laura used to listen to) and then there's the one off his self-titled first release James Taylor. that's the one i'm tuned in to now - it's very stripped down with this incredible old-timey intro. i've always loved the lyrics of the chorus "and i feel fine anytime she's around me now, she's around me now almost all the time and if i'm well you can tell she's been with me now, she's been with me now quite a long, long time and i feel fine." when i think about things like all the things the depth of things, honestly it's this kind of stuff that's the most important and the most inspirational. there's so many ways to muck shit up out there - to muck up the good things, the human things but at the end of the day it feels good to just have this aspiration of being someone who feels that way. it comes down to the most basic things you know - to enjoy spending time with someone, feeling good around them, feeling better off having spent time with the people that mean something to you. the human connection right? written so eloquently via james taylor. i just found out that this song inspired George Harrison's "Something" which is a song that i also really love. i like hearing about love written and sung about in the most simple, honest, and vulnerable of ways. like george harrison's song too "you ask me if our love will grow? i don't know, i don't know." the uncertainty of love, for me, feels like it's highlighted around every corner. that's just my own personal experience but kinda feels like no matter how much it sucks or hurts, we all just keep going back for more and more and more and more. the human way. this has turned in to one big paragraph ramble but i'll say that james taylor keeps me believing in love.

everytime i hear this song (and in my life it honestly seems like i hear this song a lot) i always always always think about this teenaged kid who was the son of a co-worker at the health foods store in crested butte. I can't remember his name now bc i am a middle-aged granny that smokes a lot of weed, but he worked at the store during the summer as extra help and i really took a liking to the kid. he was bright and funny and sarcastic but also very helpful and sweet and i tried really hard to get him to laugh. i told my co-worker (his mom) that he was such a fun hang that was going to be such a chill dude as an adult and she totally agreed and loved the praise. just a little intro about the kid but i digress.

one day we're working at the store switching through the sirius radio stations and i'm always defaulting to 80's or new wave and take on me aha comes on. and i'm like "dude have you ever seen the video for take on me?" and he's all "video? no - who is that? what are you talking about?" and then i all go "dude you have no idea how state of the art and ahead of it's time this animated comic/reality music video was at the time. it's so cool - it is literally going to blow your mind. let's watch it let me cue it up on the youtube."

so i do all that and we watch it and afterwards he gives me the most perfect, Oscar-worthy "what's the big deal" look and roll of the eyes of all time. it was extremely noteworthy - i can see it now. in which I responded, "dude don't you see how cool that was though????"

tonight i got paid to write a 400+ word essay about a jazz record i love called shadows and light by joni mitchell. it was hard because writing about music is always hard and writing about your favorite music is pretty much impossible, but i just finished it - sent it to the editors and I FEEL ALIVE. i always feel like this when i write something i feel something about. like Q in Wonder Boys ...

I..... AM A WRITER.

YES Owner of a Lonely Heart will forever and ever gooooooooooooooooooooooo AMEN.

just an incredible evening of music has just unfolded and I feel extremely grateful that all the things brought me to that moment in time. that was a gift that was bestowed upon me. what an honor truly like wow u guys. my damn mind just got blown to pieces.

it's a moody sunday morning and i could be a mirror of it with the past things that have been going on. working on my show and it's fun sometimes when i'm working on my show and i come across a song i haven't listened to in awhile (not jazz) and it breaks up the monotony and i appreciate it. today it's an appropriate gem by the name of "don't think twice, it's all right" by bob dylan. this is the quintessential breakup song isn't it? i'm annoyed that the lyrics (also mirror) how i am currently feeling and that this hasn't been the first time and i guess it won't be the last if we're being real here. i can't imagine it not being the last with this track record. sigh. break ups are so stupid at first but then really smart later and also how do you break up when you're not even in a relationship? and also if some people (1 person) thought that was a relationship enough to put an ex partner label on it, some people (1 person) is severely delusional in the definition of partner but i digress.

without further adieu, here are the perfect, most timely, most likely to allude to "fuck you" in the chorus - breakup lyrics of all time (and as always - thank you for everything, bobby d):

… It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe If'n you don't know by now And it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe It'll never do somehow When your rooster crows at the break of dawn Look out your window and I'll be gone You're the reason I'm a-traveling on But don't think twice, it's all right

… And it ain't no use in turning on your light, babe That light I never knowed And it ain't no use in turning on your light, babe I'm on the dark side of the road But I wish there was somethin' you would do or say To try and make me change my mind and stay But we never did too much talking anyway But don't think twice, it's all right

… So it ain't no use in calling out my name, gal Like you never done before And it ain't no use in calling out my name, gal I can't hear you anymore I'm a-thinking and a-wonderin' walking down the road I once loved a woman, a child, I'm told I give her my heart but she wanted my soul But don't think twice, it's all right

ignore all my lovely praise about Sonos radio i take it all the way fuck BACK. they play the same songs on repeat all day everyday and then they freakin PUT THE WRONG ARTISTS UNDER THE SONG and they do this FREQUENTLY, these CORPORATE FUCKS. i loathe sonos. and my work refuses to play the community radio jazz station that i FRICKIN DJ FOR and i am OVER IT.