sometimes it snows in april

I read the news and now I'm sitting in a public place eating chicken and waffle fries while my children scream and frolic with their friends in a plastic room that smells like feet.

The loss of Prince is shocking and sad for a great many of reasons. The man was only fifty seven! He was arguably at the top of his game (does he ever fail to astound when he's holding a guitar?) Oh, and also, like Bowie, he seemed impossibly, eternally ageless. 

I grew hearing of Prince and occasionally happening upon one of his songs here and there on the radio and the bygone music television channels of my youth. However, my real introduction to  the breadth of his mad genius came via one of my closest high school friends. 

 Beginning my junior year of high school and lasting well into our college days I spent countless hours as one of a rotating cast of characters riding in my friend Patrick's car. I remember he had one of those multiple disc changers that he had to load from the trunk. Among others, Patrick's compact disc collection consisted of Parliament, Lenny Kravitz, Queen, and mostly Prince. A shit ton of Prince. Our wise ass crew was never without a soundtrack to accompany our teenage shenanigans and you best believe those shenanigans were riding high on some funky New Power soul. 

Over the years, I became familiar with albums like Lovesexy and Sign O The Times and songs like "She's Always In My Hair" which weren't anything of which I had previously been aware or expected. I joined my friend on many a trek to record stores in search of one more Prince bootleg. I found myself caught up in conversations revolving around the details of this man's peculiar relationships with protégés and record companies. Eventually, regardless of how obsessive i may have found my friend's fandom to be, I got it. It only takes one glimpse of this guy letting loose on a guitar solo to realize you're experiencing something special. That swagger. That sly grin. Effortlessly manipulating that guitar. He was like Mozart and Hendrix and James Brown and like no one else before or after. 

 Many have and will continue to write more adequate words than I'm certainly able to conjure. These are my memories. Just a few memories of my formative years. Years which were set to a good deal of music composed and performed by this guy who changed his name as much as he changed his wardrobe. I'm grateful for the inspiration he's given to artists over the years. I'm grateful for these memories. 

Thanks Patrick. 

 Thanks Prince. 

my ally

This week, we celebrate sixty five youthful years of a son, brother, friend, teacher, father, mentor, grandfather, hero. 

I've forever admired my dad for so many reasons. We are incredibly different human beings and yet I consider him to be one of my closest allies. When he didn't know what else to do with me, he loved me. We've grown together. He makes me feel like he's my biggest fan and I hope that he knows that I am his. There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not grateful for his presence in my life. 

He held my ankle when I first learned to ride an incredibly still horse.

Together we crept through a sea of white people in incredibly tight short shorts...

And laughed at our fortune when we successfully made it out unscathed.

We once celebrated his birthday with a chocolate Garfield cake and I missed my chance to photograph him. Enduring one of my mild temper tantrums, he kept as cool, calm, and collected as anyone could expect while continuing to pose when I retrieved my camera.

Always a class act.

Let's cleanse the pallet with this adorable snapshot of the two of us passed out after an intense episode of M*A*S*H (I can only assume).

If there was ever any doubt about the man's style, one need look no further than this.

Here's to you, Dad!

what is and is not love

for no one (or welcome to the new age)

On a cold night in the twelfth month of the two-thousand and fifteenth year of our Lord, armed with nothing but his tone-deaf acoustic six-string, American treasure - singer-songwriter-noisemaker - Joel Rockey entered Space Station Caleb (the current ramshackle recording facility employed by The Mustard Room Sound Recordings) with the intention of recording tracks for a handful of new original compositions. However, in a twist of creative defiance, he let the tape machine roll as he instead plowed through an assortment of songs written by other people. No one else was present. No one cared. And yet here it is forever documented in this collection of zeros and ones for no one to listen to ever. Welcome to the new age, nerds.

a little bit off the top (slow and steady wins the race)

The monstrous maple who once encroached upon our roof and sprinkled our gutters with tiny helicopters has been scalped significantly. The results are startling. We thought it the perfect opportunity to compare the current street view with one from last summer.

Whoa.

Carry on.

here's what i think

An old friend reached out to me to ask if he could commission a drawing. He gave me these words:

"A bad mother funkin blues man! 

Thinking of a blues guitar player on a strat. 

What do you think?"

This dude measures 22x15 inches. He was signed and sent to the northeast side of Indy to live on someone else's wall. This was fun. Anyone else want to commission a drawing?

Holla.

holey dryer exhaust, batman

When renovating a home, sometimes one must make a four inch wide hole clean through an exterior wall for the purpose of venting one's dryer. This is just the way it is. Sooner or later, the time comes when cutting that hole just cannot be put off any longer.  You've got to hoist that monstrous ladder, crawl to the top rung and awkwardly handle sharp power tools at dangerous altitudes. But don't worry because if you measure and cut correctly, and if you're a little bit lucky, you just might be able to fit a dryer vent through that hole which can actually function to divert from your home the exhausted hot air that will soon be drying your recently laundered socks and undergarments. 

Here's a peek at the soon-to-be laundry nook in our soon-to-be family bathroom...

Things are looking right nice up there, folks! 

More on that bathroom very soon.

After attempting to install a less expensive aluminum dryer vent that fell apart several times, we returned to our local hardware retailer to exchange it for the more sleek, pricey, structurally sound model. As difficult as this decision was we were ultimately quite satisfied with the results. Sometimes, if you want a project done right, you got to spend them dollars. Amiright?

Ta-da!

Finally, as promised...

Batman.

So hawt.