David Gray w. Aqualung

Last night I finally got to take a few friends up on a late birthday present. The giving was not late, but the present was, and worth the wait. They had bought some David Gray concert tickets for his concert on Nov 2, which happens to be my birthday. Unfortunately, the concert was cancelled last minute because of some throat problems.

Fast forward to yesterday. It had been a busy day, and for some reason, it just seemed terribly random to be going to a concert. I was rather tired, but once we stepped inside verizon wireless theater and heard aqualung, I was ready. I was really excited to see aqualung, have listened to him for a while and have wanted to check him out in concert (originally, he was not on the bill). We walked into the middle of "Strange and Beautiful", one of my favorite songs. Unfortunately it was well over by the time we found our seats ("Yes sir, these are right down there in the middle.", we were on the opposite aisle and had the adventurous task of weaving through a jungle of seated torsos [and there is always the fight club dilemma, do you pass with the crotch or the ass?).


aqualung

The second song they played I had never heard, but at the end they deconstructed into a sort of radiohead-like beautiful sound garden. We showed up late, so only caught four or five songs, but it was a great show.

After the set change, the lights dimmed and the crowd rumbled, the band flew out, with the drummer going nuts trying to hype the crowd even more. David then came out and sat at the piano. He started playing, and when he started to sing, I was impressed with the quality of his voice, it is even better live than on the cd's. Then his cellist started in, the timbre of the strings mixed with his vocals was prodigious.

I have always admired the percussive precision displayed in his records, and have just assumed it was due to the use of a drum machine. To my bewilderment, his drummer is just that good. He did not miss a beat the entire concert, his hands were a steady blur, with a stick twirl into a dramatic pose at the end of each song.

The middle/end of the concert became a little slow. It may be because of the two beers, but it seemed that his choice of several mellow tunes in a row put me into a state of sweet sleep. I finally stirred, and tapped my foot to the beat to try to keep myself attentive. He brought the tempo of the songs back up and I was fine.

He started his encore with babylon, and followed with three more tunes to end the concert.

One of my favorite aspects of the concert was the lighting during David Gray. The had a large screen behind the band, and had spotlights to silhouette the individual members as they played. It was a virtual dreamscape, perfectly blending visual beauty to the sound of piano, cello, and drums. My favorite show was when a giant fuzzy edged david gray was projected in the center, with the crisp shadow of the cellist looming low in the corner, the outline of her body flowing into that of her instrument.

By the end of the concert, I was ready for bed, but that had to do with physical exhaustion, the concert was great.

jp

Just Opened

Vineyard: Lindemans
Type: Cabernet Sauvignon (Bin 45)
Country: Australia
Region:South Eastern (?,that's all I got)
Year: 2005
Price: $6.45 (yep, I'm cheap)
My Rating: 78

I must preface this by saying that I love wine, but have never written about it before, hence I have no idea why I am starting now, it just struck me as a good idea. So, it will be interesting, it will be fun, and you may even take something away (read: hangover).

Overall, not a bad wine by any stretch, but not a great one either. I started off by judging the feel of the bottle. It has a nice weight, but the balance was off, it just seemed to list to the left. And come on Henry, this is a bottle of wine, not a bottle of grape juice... get creative with the label! You are selling it for less than $7, Donald Trump will never get within 5 feet of this wine, I am your target market; young, fun, and cheap.

Uncorked...

Now to the fun part, opening the bottle and draining the contents (never in one sitting, of course). Mr. Lindeman has found the worlds thickest foil. I had to cut twice (and with these guns, that's saying something). Then to the cork, or lack thereof; another sell-out to the man-made crap. I will admit that is came out effortlessly (once again, may be the guns), but it seemed too easy...

Another note on my testing methods; how can you taste the wine if you only have a few drops in your glass, I do the full pour right away (its more fun). Being a cab, the color was; well, red. After the requisite connoisseur swirling; the deep inhale, the cough, and a less deep inhale. There is slightly overwhelming smell of alcohol, but it is wine. Flowers emerge (as a guy, I don't know what kind), bright flowers. From the smell, it is obvious that the flavors will be tight. They are, not quite as opened and flowing as you would hope, but it is a 2005 and has not had much time to mellow. It has a fruity flavor, distinctly cherry.

For an everyday wine, it is good, and at under $7 it is a bargain. Don't expect too much, but it is on par with the $10-12 bottles.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

jp

New Holga Pics

Last Sunday I holed up at my parents again and scanned some more Holga pics. Here is a sneak peak, the rest can be viewed at my Flicker page:

These are from last years July 4th party, graciously hosted by the Pfieffers.

Ahh, fun in the sand.

Where's the bathroom?

The men observing and reminicsing.

I kind of messed up the frame overlap, but I still like it.

Matt, Brenden, and I on our last minute roadtrip to Lake Charles for some poker fun:

My foiled attempt at flashing Matt the bird.

Matt in his "I don't give a damn" pose.

Brended waiting for our table at Cracker Barrel. Mmm... hashbrown casserole.

Hope you enjoy,

jp

Gaps in History : My Muddy Name

To fill you in on the backbeat; during high-school I recieved the nickname Mudboy due to my immaculate cleanliness.

Yeah right, the real story... My group of friends and I would congregate at least three times a week at my place to play poker (...addicted much?). Well, one day I was helping my dad in the front pasture, feeding cows, mending fence or something. With this my series of unfortunate events began.

First, it started to rain. For most, this means time to head in and clean up; not my dad, and therefore not me. We toiled and toiled, he worked me raw, water in the boots and mud in the hair (dont ask, I have no idea how that happened). Then, to add to my agony, a line of cars started up our driveway, apparently an emergency poker game had been called to ease the oncoming withdrawals. Watching them in their dry comfy cars, lit a fire under my ass. Five minutes later I was sitting at the poker table changing chips. Then it happened.

"Geez Josh, your like a mudboy or something."

Immediately "Josh" was a distant memory, hello Mudboy. I hated it, but after a few years it started to grow on me. Now it is a part of me, and fitting; not in the dirt and grime way, but in the way I have come to see the interconnectedness of the world and its events.

jp

Photoshop Phun

As you may have noticed, I have veered away from the default header and added my own twist. First, thanks to Jason Gaylor for the wonderful floral brushes. Also, the picture is from SXC, an excelent resource for stock photography.

I have been thinking what to do for a while. I wanted something organic. I have a beautiful shot of a spring meadow I took in New Mexico, but decided it wouldn't do.



That is when I ran upon Jason's brushes. I found his work at Screen Grab Confab, v.5 (hosted on Flickr), from a link at Stylegala. Check both sites out, they are great (stylegala is my digital crack).

A brief time in photoshop and waalla!

jp

Diamond in the Rough

This morning I was searching google for some insight into CS Lewis' thoughts on the redemption of the "unsaved". I ran across this site and have to share it, rather entertaining.

CS Lewis Exposed

I'm scared.

jp

Slap Me... Now

Matt and I have had the Olympics on the tube while lounging around. We were watching downhill, absolutely amazed at the speed and agility of the athletes. The problem is that they kept switching to figure skating (maybe agile, but who cares?). What the hell?

Anywho, after mocking for a while, and mimicing the announcers "Ohh, what a marvelous triple-toe-tappidy-tap-thingy" (anything that can be commented on with "ohh" is not a sport), I actually started commenting myself, in an unfortunately non-mocking manner. "She's right, he really did use up all his energy on stupid stuff." Luckily I caught myself.

"Matt, slap me."

Need Sleepy...

Man, I am becoming an unintentional work-aholic. This season of my life is acutely defined by that four letter word. While it has been rediculous hours, I cannot say it is all bad. I am actually really enjoying being busy, I have been very productive and feel that a sense of accomplishment at the success we are achieving.

It is a trade-off, though. Work, while great and enjoyable in its own way, has definitely cut into my usual social activities. For instance, right now it is 11:30 at night; I got home at 10:15 and had drawings to revise, so I actually was on my own time at about 11:00. And all of that is after getting 4.5 hours of sleep last night. And, yes, I am aware that I must be psycotic, why the hell am I not in bed? Well, I really wanted a glass of wine, so what else to do while I emerse myself in its ruby goodness?

I have been having fun on the side. Sunday I treked up to Tomball and bummed at the padres for a while. I used my dad's new scanner to scan in some of my medium format negatives. That was relaxing, and fun. It inspired me to knock the dust off my Holga and start shooting again. I figure that if I can learn to process my own negatives, I can just scan and print; later processing fees. Plus, this should open the door for all sorts of creativity. Enough talk, here are some of my favorite scans below;


This is a house on Montrose owned by some art foundation, unfortunately it is now demolished (even more so) and it looks like a commercial building is taking its stead.


A picture I took on the way home from Albuquerque.


This is not my Holga, it was taken with an old Minolta Autocord (twin lens). A long(ish) exposure of a stream in Colorado.


This was on a missions trip to Honduras through Living Water International. This was also the first drilling rig I was exposed to, who knew?


Ok, seriously, I have to go to bed, you've kept me up long enough.

American Headturners

Friday a man who does not even speak english helped me catch a glimpse of my core nature, it was rather ghastly. Arpicio is one of the field hands who has been working with me for the past few days. After a hard days work, I drive him and another back to their house (it is only a few minutes down the road from me), but friday the drive took an unexpected turn.

We were stopped at a red light when a homeless man started weaving through the jungle of chrome begging for money. When he arrived at my passenger-side window, I naturally turned to look through my drivers side window. Arpicio, however, began to dig in his pockets, extracting a dollar bill - he rolled down the window and gave it to the man on the street. I was taken aback, Arpicio cannot make much more than minimum wage, he shares a house with other migrant workers to save money, yet he gave without hesitation when the opportunity arose.

A few minutes later, while pondering the generosity shown, I actually caught myself stealing a glance at a BMW in a car lot. I have no desire for a luxury car, yet I was still there admiring its beauty. What is wrong with me? I turn my head from a homeless man and cast my gaze upon a car, a mere trinket?

Unfortunately I believe my reaction to the beggar was indicative of a broadly held perspective, ignore the ugly and think about what will make you "better".

jp

PS - I would be remiss not to note that the beggar looked quite strung out, and while the issue of supporting people in such situations is an issue to ponder, my reaction was still revolting.

The Trip

The rumor is that a picture is worth a thousand words so I feel that the best way to share my European experiences with you is through the lens. You can see several of our trip pictures on my flicker page here. I will try to post a few stories in the next few weeks, but in the mean time I hope this will do.

You may also find some posts on Jasies blog "The Jasie Journal" and Justins "News and Noise".

jp

Yes, I Procrastinate... A Lot.

Ok, so I am back in Houston after the usual trains planes and automobiles routine. However, you may note that my last post consisted of my leaving Houston and arriving in London. Where is the trip? you may ask. Well, its coming... in a while.

So I landed in Houston after 24 hours of travel, and am still exhausted. I am wrapping up my first full day back, and I stress the word FULL. Looking back, I think I had an entire 2 minutes of "easing" myself back into work before an all out asault on the next bit of my life ensued. I have mounds of paperwork to go through for accounting, then I start on taxes (thank you, uncle sam :( ), but before I get there I have to remove all our equipment from a jobsite (this is tomarrow and the next day), wire wells for a new job, and prepare to set them on Monday. I can hardly fit that into a sentence, let alone my schedule, well I guess this is my new and improved schedule.

Oh well, I am grateful to be busy. I do hope I can recover somewhat, of course that will probably occur on my next vacation.

To all my friends (and family, hey sis) relax for me on Thursday and let me know how it goes.

Adios,
jp