Pleased to Meet You

Because what the world needs now is another open forum of closed minds, thoughtless dreamers, dreamless thinkers, idealists, surrealists, doctors, painters, preachers, entertainers, mathematicians, crooked physicians, right-wingers, wrong-wingers, left-wingers, and even misguided song-singers - here it is: my blog.

But before I get right into the blogness of it all, I want to use this first of many entries to answer some of your questions, such as, "what will you write about in this blog," and "do you know what time Starbucks closes on Thursday."

What you won't see:

There are a few blog stereotypes I'll try to stay away from, for example:
Music/movie/book recommendations given as "prescriptions for coolness." In other words, this (thank God) isn't Oprah's Book Club. Feel free to ignore me, disagree with me, or even launch arbitrary insults at me if I praise the groundbreaking cinematography of Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding or call Bono a geriatric poser named Phil. The discussion is what's important.

Also, although I write at length about the inspiration, vision, and revision of a song, I try to avoid talking too much about meaning. For example, "I wrote 'Elaine' about this girl Nancy who stood me up when we were supposed to go cosmic bowling. The 'night-time shrew' was actually her parole officer..." That stuff tends to limit me as a songwriter, you as a listener, and Nancy as a fine, upstanding young woman.

Finally, I'll cautiously avoid the most common (and funniest) blog stereotype: angst-y, interpersonal melodrama! Something like, "I walked to Starbucks today listening to My Chemical Romance, wearing my charcoal beret low so nobody-especially Jillian-would recognize me. I so hoped that the light drizzle and pumpkin scone would cleanse my soul of her deceit, but it only reminded me of Rufus's party, the night when everything changed. Current mood: woebegone." And so on.

What you will see:

Practically anything that springs into my mind, onto my keyboard, and out to your world. This can include: what I'm listening to/watching/reading and why I'm listening to/watching/reading it, a closer look at the songwriting process, the performing process, even business of music process, and generally what it's like doing what I do for a living.
Really, the potential topics are unlimited, so long as this writer remains un-blocked.

My goal is to post at least once a week, which means you're more than welcome to come after me with a mallet should I fail to fulfill that promise. However, I can't promise that I won't be waiting for you with a larger mallet and burly friends.

When my friend, roommate, and webmaster, Jeet, suggested adding this feature to the site, I knew I didn't want it to be a me-talk-you-listen platform. Ideally, this blog should spark discussion, bridge gaps, turn fans into friends, friends into fans, or even just give those 9-5ers out there something entertaining to read for a few minutes. Use the comments to respond directly to the topic of that post, but also don't hesitate to use them to ask me questions, ask each other questions, tell me about a show you caught, request songs for the next show, basically anything you can dream up. It's your blog-world, Anonymous Reader-I'm just blog-livin' in it.

Around the bend,
Chris

Next week: The Things That Make Life Worth Living, tentatively subtitled "Not Cold Weather, Old Age, or Baseball."