It's my perpetual lack of focus that will destroy me if I let it. It sure seems like I spend hours writing songs, but I spend more time playing through fake books and zoning out with a pen in my hand. It doesn't take me a particularly long time to finish a song, but it takes me forever to start one.

Pretty soon it's going to be New Years, and Beach Party is supposed to have another EP and an album finished.

Thunder in the Valley
I played a gig out on the Van Ness extension Tuesday, accompanying a violinist during dinner at a PBS [several]- hundred-dollar-a-plate fundraiser. Patrick plays exceedingly well, and surprisingly imaginatively. I just don't know if I can afford him if I ever want him to play for something.

The people were pleasant, they had spicy cheese, and during dinner we watched lightning skip toward us menacingly. Before the keynote speaker, the host of "California Gold" (the theme song to which Patrick and I attempted to play unsuccessfully) was able to extoll the virtues of public television to Fresno's cultural elite, the sky opened up, and everybody was skuttled to shelter.

The next night, Beach Party played for Cigar Fest, our first gig in over a month. We moved some CDs, got the word around about our Koffeeheads homecoming, and played to a completely apathetic crowd. Some girls watched us from the the other side of police tape, and they would have appreciated us more if we'd played "Smoke Two Joints," but they cared enough to stick around.

Songs, Though...
What can I do but keep plugging away?

I need to find a groove. A pattern for writing songs. I've been making more lists, and that helps me organize my head a little better.

Ah, fuck it. I'll just give everybody in Beach Party a copy of the Real Book, and we'll play PBS fundraisers till we're married and start teaching.

-Max

Beach Party information here. The Olympian Menace EP is mixed, mastered, and on the shelves.

Once my insurance goes through, I'm going to see my chiropractor and a dermatologist. These are the things I look forward to in my current state of early-onset middle age. Maybe I should just clear my schedule for some debauchery. I've earned that much, right? Hell, the word "party" is in my band's name. We should set the standard!

In the real world, I'm still wracking my head for songs. That seven-disc epic about the end times isn't going to record itself.

CMT is putting Tommy (!) on next summer. Dr. Becker says he's open to suggestions about how to un-boring Brigadoon a little, and Sean wants PA to do a show in the tradition of Moulin Rouge.

"I'm no good at breaking up with girls man, I don't know how I'm gonna do it."

"Dude, there's gotta be fifty ways to leave a lover..."

RSA's got some life in it yet.

-Max

At the White House web site, currently in two spots close to the top of the page, there is a link to:

Discuss Faith-Based Hurricane Relief Efforts Jim Towey, Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, will discuss the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance and faith-based efforts to assist those affected by Hurricane Katrina Friday at 2 pm (ET).

-Max

Waiting to make copies in the back of the RSA office, keeping a low profile. Work's going great, and I'm excited about the possibilities. Trying to get some buddies of mine from high school to sing again. It's that time of the season already.

-Max

Beach Party is finishing up with our current recording venture, and we'll have our first EP out dead soon. It has a surprising amount of muscle, and I think the songs I'm writing for us reflect that development.

James Rabbit is on recording hiatus at this point, while we spearhead a fabulously, bombastically, grandiloquently epic recording project that will eventually span seven discs. "The main goal is completion," says Tyler, which is really the most we can hope for. Our Ring Cycle, with more aliens.

Work is good and satisfying, only a mite unreal. I just graduated from that place a year and a half ago.

The house that Andy, Padro, Drew and I were hoping to appropriate was flatly refused us by Andy's dad, so the residence hunt continues.

-Max

Los Hooligans played our last gig of the season downtown on the Fulton Mall. Due to a mishap with a sustain pedal, the keyboard made no sound for most of our set. For some reason, Kopi, Channel 26's friendly weather man shot footage of us playing, and got about four extended close-ups of my fingers faking up-beats. There was little tension between Kopi and our guitarist, Channel 47's A.J. Fox.

Navigating the Bureaucracy

I attended Fresno Unified's orientation for classified staff members, and the union rep was very nice, if perhaps a little addled. She got us very excited about our cut rates on movie and Disneyland tickets, and talked a little about the union's legal protection. I, in a flush of pinko unionite pride, put myself down for an extra four dollars a month, for membership to the Victory Club.

Next, a women from administrative personnel expounded on the incompetence of the union rep and then told us what all the papers we had signed last week meant. I am a chapter 27 employee, step one. Once I've got sixty units of school done, I'll move up to step two and get a sixty-one cent raise.

Tomorrow I start work, and I'll be playing piano all day.

-Max

No-Town Nocturne

Happy that we all made it home alive after a tumultuous gig in Hollywood with the illustrious No-Tones. The show itself went off well, even if the crowd was only there for the headlining space rock band. They were respectful of us and laughed at our jokes.

Right now I'm trying to write an album for Grayson and get in the mindset for work, which starts the day after tomorrow finally.

-Max