Keep Those Hands Busy

Being in the midst of a very up and down summer: Quit a band that really messed with me... continues to mess with me, having a big family crisis with my dad that i was directly in my line of work and turned my head and emotions inside, but it's still been a beautiful summer and i'm trying not to take that for granted.
A goal for awhile has been to build a cigar box guitar, making things by hand as much as possible - from nut and bridge out of antler/bone, to detailing the wood, hand made piezo pick ups and keeping a focus on my desired semi-deco approach. A slow labour of love and a learning curve that has me really juiced to keep up with building cigar box guitars, wiring homemade pedals and really taking the love of guitars and accessories and mixing them with a love for working with hands and making it with style, thought and some of me.
So here is a link for the detailed photo set of my first cigar box guitar build.

PS: i still need a idea for a volume knob, so feel free to pass those along.


Find more photos like this on Cigar Box Nation

That and Those That Matter

In looking at the idea of jumping ship and leaving where i am currently living has led me to really focus on a few things that seem small at first examination but turn out huge with a small amount of applied focus. First is vain and degrading but honest: just how much i own, how much crap there is surrounding me... all of us. Second, the things that really matter like the events and areas that mean something to you in whatever stink-town or shit situation you're looking at bailing out of. Thirdly, perhaps most importantly are the people.
i've been trying to really cut down on how much i own. Eliminate the things that aren't necessary, especially if i don't love it. The amount of garbage that when you're really looking at it is insane. Shitty DVDs, weird little appliances, old shoes, crapped out electronics, and accessories for things you can no longer identify become sickening. The list is endless as is all the crap. i've recently been going through boxes, literally, full of stuff that i used when i first moved out... why the hell do i need so many glasses and mugs?!?! My god. The Salvation Army has been seeing a lot my old stuff. i hope that in some small way my stupid self-excess can benefit someone in some way.
The second one has been a very hard mixed blessing. As i think and feel more and more about the things i'm involved in the bigger the questions seem to become as do questions about motivation, sacrifice, desire, dreams... acceptance, even. Being a part of a music scene and more emotionally in a band i love has been strangely been the biggest mixed blessing of them all. i truly love this band, i love the music we play and i love the people in it so much but i'm also realizing that my willingness to commit to it is no longer what it once was. i appreciate the challenge of this loving dichotomy. It hurts realizing this, but in a way the draining and emotional charge that keeps coming with this kind of questioning is in a way revitalizing. Most of the time our lives seem so full of acceptance of what has just always been. At least in re-evaluation of my loved things i can understand more about my loves, the things i want to be a part of and myself.
Lastly, the heart breaker... the  connection... the relationships, the god damned people. Family and friends, their influence on our day to day lives are hard to really quantify without allowing yourself to register the hurt and loss that will ultimately accompany this change of winds.
All of this if done honestly really allows one to see the good in many places, things and people that you may not expect. The hilariously awful truth in the ying-yang, in all things terrific and special there is some small amount of crap, and in all things shit storm and intolerable is some small piece of gold.

In craving an adventure and a change i faced these all before but it has been probably 9 nines since my last one. This time things seem somehow gigantically bigger.

Connections and Cold Memories

Have you ever had a moment in life where you've been interacting with someone and felt that you might have been this same person if only a couple of choices, lucky breaks or downright random things might have happened along the way? That though your histories, past or many, many things might be different that there is a kinship beyond others you've known?
i have recently been struck by this feeling again. This time my professional life and responsibilities brought in contact with this person. There was a sense that when i was dealing with this person that without knowing them i could have been them in another life. The connection was immediate and struck me so that i've been thinking about it solid since. It made my day a bit distracting and led me to reflect about how much the things we don't choose end up impacting our lives. Life is so full of uneven roads and unexpected potholes along the way. So many choose to believe that these mere highways are meant to lead us somewhere personal, original and just for us. For me, i am feeling more and more that the roads, the universe and life is totally indifferent and why shouldn't it be. In some ways that is a freeing thought and feeling but also leaves the responsibility for all we can control solely on us.
The connection i shared with this person led me to reflect that the things that truly change and form who we become is thinner and more transparent than any us of truly expect or obviously acknowledge. The things that make us up are only microscopically different from a tree, a cat, a car, or a brick, and the only differences we see between people are the taught and learned cultural, ethnic, spiritual and circumstantial garbage that we drag around with us as we age and learn from the places and people we have encountered.
So thin yet so defining in so many ways.

i don't expect to understand these moments, frankly speaking that feeling and moment might be simply my own, perhaps these moments are not something others can identify with, but this is the second time i've felt this feeling in the past 5 or 6 years. Each time it stops me dead. Last time it was in my personal life, and i've tried desperately to maintain contact and a friendship with that person. This time because it's been under my professional capacity i feel somehow more responsible for this person more than most others i've dealt with.

#mebutnotme