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Cubs win again!!!!  Horns are honking, firecrackers are going off in our neighborhood, people are shrieking and yelling.  Are we going to the freakin’ World Series?  Can someone explain what is going on here?  I wish I could read some kind of Baseball for Dummies type thing.  From what I understand, tomorrow’s game will decide it, but if we win, are we really going and who are we up against?  This is so exciting and I barely know what’s going on!!!

I’m transferring lyrics from my tattered old blue notebook into my digital Circus Ponies notebook, just in case I lose it or something awful happens.  I sure wish I could find software like that for Linux!!  Anyway… I have at least **41** songs that haven’t appeared on any records yet. Maybe even more that I forgot to put in here.  Lots of them are crap, but you’d think there’d be at least ten or twelve decent ones in there?  I think I’m getting a lot closer to being ready to record a new album than I thought I was.  Still, I want MORE.  More songs, better songs, newer songs.  I know I’ll be using lots of old ones for the next album (that’s always the case) but I want to make sure I have lots of new stuff to choose from too.

Cubs win again!!!!  Helluva game, it went into eleven innings.  They are kicking ASS!!!!  Way to go Cubbies!!!!!

YEAH!!!  OWWWW!!!!!!!!  WOOOO-HOOO!!!!!!

clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap!!!!

I finished another tune!!  Yay.  (It’s called "Good To Know".) So now I have two to play for Rian when he gets back, and only eight or ten more to get written.  Heheh… maybe I can get one or two more done I hope?

John and I have been watching the playoffs every night.  Last night against the Marlins was a real nail-biter, but we ended up losing… tonight we’re whippin’ ‘em like a sorry mule.  They must have partied too hard last night!  There was a funny column in the Sun-Times today about all this hoopla.  Being a Cub fan is an exercise in futility… whole generations growing up loving a dog of a team.  We KNOW they’re total losers, and we love them anyway, it’s just part of the fun.  Now that they’re actually winning, it’s a joyous event for Chicago sports, but what’s it going to be like to follow a winning team when we’re so attached to them as losers?  Let’s just say for the sake of argument that they keep on winning here, and go to the World Series and win that — yeah right!!  I just can’t imagine this.  It would be awesome for the city — it’s already brought in millions of dollars, and Wrigleyville is looking like Times Square on New Year’s Eve every time we have a home game.  It’s just so much fun, I’m tickled to death they’re doing so well.  And I’m not even a big fan normally, just getting swept up in the excitement.  God bless America!!

Why do people keep posting hateful comments here?  I get at least one or two of these every week.  That last entry garnered a response from somebody who feels I’m the most uninteresting person ever, and that if I play guitar as well as I write, he feels sorry for me.  I assume it’s a guy anyway.  I banned him via htaccess but who knows, he’ll probably come back with another IP.  The thing is, I’m not really trying to be interesting here.  If I was, I don’t think I’d have a blog because I don’t consider what I have to say as being very interesting… I’m just writing for the sake of writing, not to entertain people.  My records are for entertaining, thank you very much.  Another one that’s been ticking me off from a few weeks ago is the gal who posted a comment to the "I hate my hair" post (maybe the silliest post I’ve ever written, it’s almost two years old now) telling me I should just cut my bangs and shut the hell up.  Why do people want to be mean to me?  I don’t think I’m putting on airs or anything, I’m just fucking living my life and I happen to be writing about it.  Go away, assholes.  I won’t let your snarky comments appear on my site, so why do you bother posting?  Just fuck off and die and stop bumming me out with your negativity.

So… omigod.  I now have a brand new amplifier, and my Dream Guitar is on its way and will be in my hot little hands in just a week or two.  Whoo-hoo!!!!!!!!!!  It’s been a long couple of days for me.  I went through a little bit of flip-flopping while I was researching guitars, but not too bad… looking at the spec sheets I couldn’t make up my mind whether a stock model 335 would be alright, or whether I wanted the 345, which is basically the same thing with slightly different hardware, binding, inlay etc.  I was even thinking I might really need a custom jobbie, I just wasn’t sure.  I went to several more guitar stores to check around and see what’s out there.  I even went back to Different Strummer to see if they’d be interested in special-ordering what I wanted, but they really only work with the acoustics, not the electrics.  So I ended up just going back to Make’n Music (the proper spelling, not "Makin’" like I thought!).  Glad I did!!

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So, Clay wants me to post the tracklist for the mix CD I made for the Rock For Kids auction.  Lots of these songs have appeared on other mixtapes I’ve made, but as I told Clay my tastes haven’t changed much in the past 10 years or so.  :-) You’ll notice most of the songs center around love, loneliness, heartbreak etc…. I’m not trying to make any statements about my mental health, it’s just the kind of songs I tend to like.  It’s funny… so many of my mixtapes end with "Love Leaks Out" by the Residents.  I guess it’s just because it’s a minute long and I’m trying to fill up the tape with something I like.  Anyway, here ’tis…

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Today (=yesterday) was my day to admire, think about and attend to many beautiful stringed instruments, some that I own and many that I don’t.  I usually take my instruments for granted so it’s about time I put some thought into it.  I have lots of instruments all over the house, all in various stages of disrepair. Most are at least in playable condition but two are not — a nice fiddle that a friend gave me, and my grandmother’s Hawaiian ukelele.  The fiddle seems to be in reasonably good shape, it only needs a new bridge.  The uke is a more beautiful instrument but is in much worse shape… it needs its bridge reattached, and new tuning pegs… also there’s a crack in the body on the front, and the back of the body is starting to separate from the binding, which is not good at all.  I’m not sure if that can be fixed without spending more money than the thing is worth, but we’ll see.  It does have great sentimental value so I’ll do whatever I can to save it.

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I just heard a big car crash on our corner.  It’s 3 in the morning… I ran outside with my cellphone and the police were already pulling up, so I went back in.  Please don’t let anybody be hurt!!  Boy… I don’t know how they got there so fast but I’m glad they did!!  Scared the shit out of me.

Look at that thing.  Look at it!!!  Is that not the most beautiful piece of candy you ever laid eyes on?  I want it so bad I want to lick it all up and down.

I’m in the market for a new guitar, but I don’t know my guitars very well.  What should I get?  I’ve always wanted a hollowbody Gretsch but I just looked at their website and it’s so confusing… they all look so nice.  I guess I need to just go to the guitar stores and try ‘em out until I find one I fall in love with, huh?  But please let me know if you know more about this stuff than I do.  I need something that sounds fantastic (for the chunky-chunk style that I have) and something that’s relatively easy to play — easy on your left hand I mean, because I don’t have the strongest hands on earth.  Can’t be too big or too little either.  Not too fancy, not too plain.  What do you think?  This thing’s gotta last me a lifetime so I have to choose wisely.  Please advise…

Tonight John and I sat down and played guitars.  We’ve been going out five years and I don’t think we’ve ever done that before!  I just kept calling out tunes and he’d follow along, we did ten or fifteen of ‘em.  It was a lot of fun, we’ll have to do it again real soon.  I need the practice, for my voice and my hands too.  My left hand gets really shaky trying to hold the chords down.  I’d be worried about arthritis except that it’s always been that way when I haven’t been practicing.  Really I just need a better guitar!  My red guitar’s pretty hard to play, and some chords are literally impossible to play due to the worn-out frets.  Maybe soon I’ll be able to get a new guitar… my grandparents sold their house and are giving me and Lucie some money, just because they want to.  Maybe a new guitar is in order… one that I can play without pain, and a new amplifier that won’t literally blow up onstage like my cheapo Peavey’s done, not once, not twice but three times!!!  And a new pair of shoes, that’s the ticket.  :-)

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I got my friend Alyce a little present.  Don’t tell her!!  She’ll find out soon enough if she doesn’t read about it here.  :-D