just the punter.

I just came "home" (my uncle's house in Franklin, TN) from "work" (landscaping/slave labor with my 2nd cousin), and I found myself, once again, perusing facebook, twitter and various friends' blogs. Somewhere between pseudo-homoerotic balk-talking with a good buddy (and great drummer http://www.myspace.com/drummerdavechallenger) and swooning over the world's greatest neighbors in Stephenville, TX's blog (http://sarahsteeleblog.blogspot.com), I figured I should bother both of you here with some ramblings...

I've been gigging around Nashville with my dad's '69 P-bass with lots of incredible musicians. I'd like to do this more, and I think I will... I hope I will...... Seeing as how I just got off the phone with some artist management reps from Music Row, I'm at least heading in the direction of more gigs (which may lead to musical shafting with no pay and multiple freebirding, but, as I have been wisely told by the old man, "a gig is a gig is a gig...). The real point (and main success of the last few months) is that I've learned a lot about my musicality -- what I have and (more importantly/abundantly) what I lack. I now now where I'm headed... but you now what they say...

"Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now"

by "they" I of course mean uncle Bob....

He should probably be referred to in the 3rd-person pronoun exclusively in the "Royal We."

I'm almost sure that's correct... Dr. Tanter: please read that and correct me... Mowing too much grass and playing too many Hank Williams Jr. songs to remember my grammar too well...

On a much bigger note, I still love my wife and kids as though I had polio and they are whatever gave my dad that nickel-sezed dent on his upper-arm.

Norah, 6 months, is turning into a person.
It's weird.
She can crawl about 2 feet without screaming in frustraton (and lingering hunger, since she probably ate like 40 minutes ago, which is way too long for her between meals, it seems).

Oivia is a person now... nolo contesto...

She has a very defined and refined sense of humor... most of which revolves around toots and calling things silly...
She makes me laugh like nobody else has ever succeeded.
She also hasn't laid a brown nugget in her big-girl panties in about 2 months...
...which is awesome.
...probably the most awesome thing any parent can hear learn of their child...

Ashton is the man.
She's teaching elementary special-ed to some of the most deserving (and now lucky) kids in Metro Nashville.
I don't know how she does half the things she does in a day.

.... and she's still smokin hot...

We're buying a house, too. Some sucker in Knoxville has approved us for a mortgage.

So we've got that goin' for us....

... I'm still waiting for the Dalai Lama to tell me that on my deathbed I will receive total consciousness.... then all will be righted... I suppose.

Very good friends of mine are engaged or recently married... None of them will read this... I don't find them the bloggy-type.

They're all great people, and I wish them the best, but unfortunately the other 3/4 of their families will never be as good as mine.

This is what it feels like to be the back-up punter on a state-championship team; and it is awesome.

this is what "adult" is supposed to feel like?

I'm 24 now and rapidly approaching that lovely day where I am awarded a discount on my auto insurance for having lived 25 years without using too many airbags, am still happily married and continually learning what a dunce I and other husbands are, have two healthy, poop-producing daughters to stare at longingly full of wonderment, and a need for a new driver's license, seeing as how I am no longer a resident of Texas, but rather a squatter at my uncle's house in Tennessee while I scrounge and scratch my way though downtown Nashville in search of gigs on bass .

The aforementioned blurb of a definition is pretty much how I can nutshell myself these days. I used to think that I would have more to say about myself as I got older, but I am slowly coming to understand that as I age "I" become much less prevalent in my little world's stage. Granted, I am here, and "I" am more-or-less a constant player in my world's script, but I am steadily learning that I don't have the lead role.... I like to believe that I am higher up on the pay-totem than the chorus members, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have all figured a way to form some sort of coalition or cooperative to snag some extra bills under the table that I didn't even know to count in the safe...

All that to say, I'm just getting older, and I just don't care as much... about myself... I guess...

I DO care about myself, but not in terms of serving myself or creating a basis upon which to build my self's future edifice, or some other philosophical crap... I'm here to be a husband to my wonderful wife whom I desperately need to readily have my lines prompted so that I don't get hit in the face with a big fat tomato. And I am here to be a father to two girls who, with their current level-of-skills combined, wouldn't be able to open an Advil bottle. I have to teach them things. And I suppose that I have to convince them that some of those things were from my brain, and not just from my wife's or from someone else in my family or little-world's stage who know more than me.

These are all good things, by the way... I've got something figured out that a lot of people never even know exist: I'm not the best/smartest/funniest/purtiest/goodest person I know, but I know how to learn from them, or at least stand next to them and clap first...

What I do know how to be, is a fine supporter. I was a decent offensive lineman, a good little brother, a fair-enough youngest son, and a golf-clappable junior-high trombonist. I'm not a quarterback, or an only son and heir to the British Crown, or a symphony-ready whateveritsacalled.... I am a good husband, and I am a good dad.

And I think I've got at least one foot in the door of being a reliable bass player in Nashville.

You see, I've been in this wonderful, middle-Tennesseean town for about a month now. I left a job in west Texas helping kids find homes and seeing paperwork get filed into black holes of drawers, to come to Nashville to be a bass player. I've held basses and played them on stages around Texas and the southern US for 8 years or so, and I've never considered myself to to be a "bass player" or a "musician."  I guess I do now, because that's how I intend to spend the next 20+ years or so paying for my family to get from one day to the next, and I've already started with a few steady gigs already lined up over the next few weeks.


That's really weird. How many times, before you get married/have kids/"grow up"/get outta college/blahblah do you think "how am I gonna put food on the table, pay rent, keep the lights on, buy new shoes for 3rd and 1st grade girls, pay hospital bills for the first time they break their arm, pay bail for what I do to the first boy who makes them cry, take my wife on dates, and a bunch of other stuff that our parents have done for us and their parents did for them and so on for decades?

I've been letting that little egg sizzle on the back-burner of my cortexes for more than three years. And that delicious little well-cooked poultry diamond has led me here.
To Nashville.
With two basses.
And a guitar.
And an amp.
And a cab.
And one car to share with a hero/teacher/wife.
And two kids' carseats.
And one duffel bag of clothes that fit into one drawer for me.
And (at least) 700 tubs of clothes and toys for the three female Hoopers of my clan.
And a lot of books I haven't read.

I live with my uncle and his family in Franklin, Tennessee, about a 30 minute drive from downtown Nashville. They have been the most wonderful of hosts, and they insist on us staying here long enough for my grandchildren to use the other bedroom.

And I have met some of the most talented, humble, non-drunk or -stupid musicians on the planet, each of who has been completely receptive and helpful.

And I have been blessed enough to be able to move a 2-year-old, a 10-day-old, and a wife of four years(ish) and all our crap we couldn't sell on craigslist in Texas, without a single bump in the road worth mentioning.

Ladies and gentlemen: do not ever feel like you have to take some job you don't want, or like you have to do anything that you don't feel is the absolute best thing for you to do for YOU AND YOURS.

I'm kind-of an idiot, and check me out.... When I fill out W2s, I have what the state and the country recognize as people who depend on me....... and they all let me.... and I do my best.... and nobody has fallen into a wood-chipper yet, so I call this whole "heading a family" thing a success so far.

That's what parenting is all about: keep you kids out of wood chippers.

That's the secret.

you're welcome.


Ill try and do this bloggy blog thing more often, so you guys can have something more to do at work or at 3am.

(There are probably some typos back there.... don't hate me for it, and save your breath. It took me five years to get an English degree, and I've wasted a lot of its knowledge reading stuff and saying "ooo, he has a typo... tisk, tisk..." Typo/grammar/spelling-tisking doesn't do anything, no matter how many boogery tears we frag our monitors, books, magazines and newspapers with.... just smile instead, and drink some coffee.)

-Caleb

babies and u-hauls and cash, oh my....

So I'm moving to Tennessee in a month's time, and I'm taking my wife, 2-year-old daughter, and will-be-2(ish)-week-old daughter with me.
This, so I've come to figure, is my attempt at being a professional musician. Seven years of playing 3-minute-long juke-joint tunes to drunk, unloved second-uncles and vomiting, in-heat college kids has given me enough of a basis upon which to build a career to feed my family; at least that's what I'm telling myself - but it just doesn't sound or look as pretty when it's coming out of my mouth or the three fingers on each hand that know how to type.
I've sent a few resumes out to people in Nashville in half-hearted hopes of gaining employment with a publishing company, newspaper, magazine, non-profit, or any other company who giggles every time they see a English B.A.-er  trying to thesaurus-force his flowery-prose-riddled resume and cover letter into something that says "Even though my 24 years have obviously not produced a single idea  a to which direction I want to take my money-earning life, I have suddenly decided that I have more employee-like qualities that I'm sure you would like to see put in action at your company...."
But anyone with half a brain and a sense of humor could read what I send out and see that I know much more about why e. e. cummings doesn't spell his name "E. E. Cummings" than anything relevant.



What they don't know (though some in Nashville probably do), is that I just want to play bass. I want to move to a city where music is played and recorded by thousands of people every day, and I want to somehow wedge myself into that mix so I can become a better play and a legitimate musician. I don't want your niece to have my poster on her wall.... I don't want YOU to have poster on your wall. I just want to have my phone number in enough drummers' and producers' phones that I can get a few calls every week to come in for a session or show up for bus-call, and I want to play every song perfectly, just as they expect it. I have zero intentions of being the next Victor Wooten or playing in a Weather Report cover band. I just want to be the guy that plays the root, and plays it nice and good-like.

But this whole situation gives me anxiety (which is weird for a guy who doesn't really worry about anything except which side of the sink dirty dishes are put "in the hole" for hand washing's "on deck" to be then placed in the batter's box of a disinfecting dishwasher....).
Plain and simple, I don't want to be a loser. There are thousands and thousands of losers out there who are just like me; they have no band, no waiting list of studios/musicians/gigs piling up in their voicemails, minimal studio experience, lots of crappy bar experience, lots of pictures with them in long hair, and really nice bass equipment. To make things more interesting, I have an awesome wife who completely supports me, and she knows exactly what she wants and will soon land an awesome job in Nashville. I also have the (almost) 2 kids that need things like food, and clothes, and a dad who is home to read them books that he didn't have to steal....

There is a very fine line between a musician and a guy who doesn't want to work a "real job."
......
So.... if any of you know anyone who lives in Nashville and needs a bass player, or someone with an English degree, let me know..... I will oblige them..........

jobby job

I've not written in a long time, mostly because I've been too busy finishing college and starting this job I've been locked into since August 2010.
I work with foster kids.
Actually, that's a front... I do paperwork, most of which is paperwork that the state caseworkers or the people above or below me in the child-care-totem don't want to do. So this is my domain, sitting here, in this black, vinyl, slightly broken, uncomfortable chair where I am office-equipment-locked. Under my elbows is an 80s model desk with non-functioning drop-file drawers holding a phone that I sort-of know how to use, a coffee mug full of writing utensils of various shade, a four-inch fan, a Jeff Beck CD, a stapler, three different sized stickey notes, my cell phone, my mac (I can't use the office-issued computer... it's weird... don't tell HR), and some dell speakers I found in a storage shed belonging to the agency that have surprisingly good bass-response. To my right is a wall with a four-foot cork-board holding highlighter-scribblings by Olivia, come pictures, a heart-shaped button of John and Yoko, a birthday card with a picture of three pre-teen girls from the 70s that reads "'My mommy said love made me.' 'My mommy said God made me.' 'My mommy said I came from a fifth of Jack and a snowstorm,'" some forms pinned up with sewing needles, and some animals my grandfather whittled before he died next to some that he taught me how to whittle.
Behind me is a window and a two-drawer filing cabinet that usually works (which has replaced the old one that doesn't have a key and had to be opened with a screwdriver and ambition).
To my left is a bookshelf with a bunch of crap on it like Rolling Stone magazines, a sante coffee mug, some cascade files, an Ernest Hemingway book, some pictures of the wife and kid, some more folders of stuff, my diploma in a purple tube, and a statue of a little boy with a kite, upon which I have placed Mardi Gras beads and a Masonic light bulb.
On the other side of my desk are two uncomfortable chairs in which I've only sat once, separated by a table holding a frosted-glass chess set (I've played one full game with a coworker and half of one game with a 10-year-old girl), and a Scentsy wick-less candle shaped like a tiki man. It currently is burning the "thunderstorm" flavor, but it smells like blue soap.
This is where I spend 40-70 hours per week.
But I do have a window, and I'm the only person in this building with a window that has a view of the parking lot, so I can see every person who comes and goes, which is what I spend a lot of my time doing. I also only have cell-phone reception in my office when my face and the phone are pressed up against the glass of the window, so this makes for interesting conversations.
My walls have decor ranging from a cactus-shaped santa hanging from chili-pepper-lights to an autographed Victor Wooten poster.
People call my office "crazy" or "weird."
I call it the best thing I can think of to distract me from the fact that I'm here, and not at home with the wife and kid, or on the road to another gig at a place I've never played.
so it goes.

unCostello

Having technical difficulties with the blog-ometer

I really wish everyone just wrote letters now.

I don't care for TV or e-mail or other things that format what you do or watch or whatever for you.

it makes us dumber.

It's made me dumber than I should be because I've spent a lot of my life TVing, texting, blogging, surfing (the Webernet), and not enough time doing things that matter

like reading.

so I'll whine about it here.

in an evil blog.

So all none of you can uncare.

wooooo hooooo.

I would like to be more like Elvis Costello and e. e. cummings....

except for cummings's whole "have an affair with your best friend's wife (an father a child whom you refuse to legally claim, later adopt, and eventually lose in a subsequent divorce, resulting in that child not knowing who her real father is until her 20s) only find that it's okay because he's gay and everyone involved is too rich and morally inept for it to even matter" thing.

But I think Costello has cool glasses........ and guitars.

and he's the last person on Earth too afraid to write a queer pop song and make it rock too hard for radio.

And he's friends with David Letterman,

I mean, come one....... it's Letterman.


I once saw Billy Gibbons's business card (as if ZZ Top's guitarist needs one).
on one side it read: "Billy Gibbons / Guitar"
and on the other: "A friend of Eric Clapton"

It was the most honest and awesome thing I've ever seen.

And I've seen my 13-month-old daughter cry beatle-mania style at the sight of a Barney episode.

Beat either one of those and I'll give you two gold stars.

16 candles

i just went to chicago lat weekend.

did you know the guy that made "16 candles" and "the breakfast club" and all those 80's awesome movies was from chicago........... andhe died...... i don't know if he died recently...... in fact, i'm not even certain that he died...

it's very possible i jsut made that up....

but i'm not gonna go research for you guys right now......... maybe later... or i'm sure someone will comment and be like "no, caleb..... mr. blahblah is still alive and is growing a cherry orchard in the south of washington state now with his wife, 7 persian cats and 0 persian rugs...." or something....

i don't really care....

i mean, i DID care when i found out he was from chicago while i was in chicago, and when i found out whatever other information (death, life, whatever) i discovered while there.......

but now?.........
........ notsomuch......


so i'm 23 today.

that's exciting, right?

the most exciting birthday i ever had was my 10th; "i now have 2 whole digits in my age."
i doubt i knew what "digits" were at age 10.....
idunno, maybe i did....... is that normal for kids (look around... look around...... noone's around me.... feel weird for looking around........ feel weird for typing this..........)
the second most exciting was 13. i thought ot myself, "i am now allowed to gripe and behave like a 4-year-old due to my initiation into teenage-dom."

but 23 is just a couple years since legal drinking and a couple years to an auto insurance break.

so all week i've been forgetting.

ashton has been reminding me.

and it's not because i "don't like getting old" or whatever. i don't feel like i've "lost my youth" or "missed out on stuff" or "haven't lived up to my expectations"....

naw.

i've already done all that.

and the worrying just makes me older quicker.

so i try not to do it so much anymore.

i'd rather watch olivia (10 mo. old daughter) play with stuff.

right now she's playing with ashton's keys.

she ls like $500 in baby/toddler toys, and she always plays with keys and empty water bottles...
so i'm never buying her anything.

when she wants a new car, i'll just buy her a box of water bottles, drink them all in front of her and tell her to have a go.

haha

mentally and emotionally torturing your teenage kids must be, like, the most gratifying experience of any parent's life.

haha

hahaha

that's funny.

i just made an "A" in a parenting class this summer at Tarleton (upper-level elective)

i kept most of my thoughts to myself during class......

Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" in blaring in my living room iPod player thingy right now....

that doesn't really hold any significance in this web-versation other than i couldn't think of anything else worth saying.....

come on, i'm 23 now...... i'm practically 45.....

married, kid, bad knees, trick back........

..... sounds like 45 to me....

i'm gonna go eat something soft.....

-caleb