TIME TO GO TO TRIAL

(i fell in love with a) rainbow cake

2006-01-07T21:45:54Z

dude. my ipod is fucking broken. this is agonizing. i kinda saw it coming though, from the second i took it out of the box.. there's no ESP involved, i just know i don't do good with easily-breakable items. this includes babies and fine china, so it's good i didn't get either of those for christmas.

that "hostel" movie's pretty good. i went and saw it by myself and appropriately enough couldn't finish my popcorn once awful things started happening to the protagonists. it wasn't terribly scary, per se. just awfully gory. if you played mortal kombat when you were a kid, this movie probably won't really affect you. i will say that my favorite part was (SPOILER!) when adorable cat/dog super-team milo and otis saved the day. i didn't see that coming.

i'll be back at my apartment within twenty-four hours, which feels odd since i've gotten so comfortable here in birmingham. all the people i was staying around to see took off today (or will be tomorrow) and i suppose that the town just isn't as exciting as a result. i got a job at a record store that i'm ridiculously excited about and i want it to start now instead of tuesday.

dude. mike jones is AWESOME.

purple dinosaur affection

2006-01-01T21:41:41Z

and i spend new year's day in birmingham. a long, long time ago, i planned on going back to tuscaloosa on the day after christmas but frankly i've become very comfortable here at home where i'm surrounded by family members i see less than i should and dear friends that i see once in a blue moon. now i'm going to go retreat to my grandparents' in the country for a few days to sit on their porch and hang out with crickets, who i will not be bumming cigarettes to this time. fucking mooches, all of them.

my inevitable return to tuscaloosa will be on wednesday because i mysteriously landed a job interview at a record store, which will save me from having to take delivery orders and make sandwiches all the time like i had planned on doing. i'll probably skitter right back up to birmingham afterwards to get a few more days in with mah people from far away.

hope everyone had a good new year's. i'm madly in love with everyone i got mildly wasted with last night. signed, sealed, delivered.

process

2005-12-16T11:02:26Z

i think that the most important thing i've learned this past semester is that there is a humungous gap between having ideas and being able to feasibly execute them. i've also determined that school may not be the place for me right now. i'm pretty set on what i want to do and frankly, french class isn't really pushing me towards that. so a note to the charming grad student that looked good in a mini-skirt that taught the FR101 class i dropped: i'm sorry i became completely apathetic towards your course and blew it off, but it's not helping me write good songs or become better at anything involved with making music.

i'm taking next semester off to see how far i can go with making music. i've gotten a lot closer to where i need to be over the past few months and i want the trend to continue. i'll be jumping right back into academia when summer hits, but i'll probably get a reasonable major like english or something. i don't really think you can learn what i want to do in school, so i'm not going to even attempt that route.

i've been watching so much fresh prince of bel-air. i hated this show when i was a kid but now that it's the only thing on when i'm awake through the night (on repeat!), it's not so bad.

punx not daed

2005-12-11T05:10:48Z

the past thirty-six hours have potentially been the most productive thirty-six hours of my young life. there has been lots of coffee involved. i want to extend a very heartfelt thanks to the abby go-go guys for living close to my apartment so i can walk over there and gush about how much i love distortion when i need a break from tweaking knobs, and also to my mom for calling me a billion times a day and making sure i'm still sane. at least, i am on the phone.

oh, i watched scarface for the first time. interesting movie.
"hey main, why don't you put some reverb on that synth line main?"
rewlf ~

also: someone save me from the new madonna single. it's despicably catchy and she's wearing this hot gymnast outfit in the video. jesus christ.

i cut through cans (when you're in my hands)

2005-12-04T08:21:58Z

i think i'm going to buy a synthesizer. i like making weird noises, it seems like the right thing to do. it's like how if i really liked knives, i'd buy the set i see in the damned infomercial at three in the morning every day. or if i was a firearm enthusiast, i'd buy a street sweeper. but yes, i'm probably going to buy a synthesizer and show the world how much i love the music from those mega man games i played so much when i was kid. and by world, i mean my (incredibly awesome) next door neighbor when she can hear me playing it at three in the morning, coincidentally when that ginsu 5000 informerical comes on.

speaking of nintendo music: http://www.wayfar.net/0xf00000_overview.php
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD I MUST GO BUY AN NES NOW BWAAAAAH D:

y'know who's awesome? zz fucking top. gimme all your lovin'.

addendum: well, it's twenty-four hours later. as predicted, i bought a synthesizer.

a chromatic map of the stability knob

2005-12-01T12:26:02Z

the creator of my favorite musical gadget told me that no one else out of the musical clientele he deals with (including one of my heroes, robert fripp of king crimson!) is doing what i'm doing with his pedal and said i was "pioneering" something. why would anyone put a pie on their ear?

in other news, people do pretty weird/dumb/uncharacteristic things when romance gets involved. this isn't one of those cryptic livejournal statements based around a specific incident i got involved in, it's just an observation on people in general.

IF YOU AIN'T NO PUNK
HOLLA "WE WANT PRE-NUPT!, WE WANT PRE-NUPT!"

spinning clothesline

2005-11-21T06:03:23Z

well, let's see. what did i get today? i got an awesome old member's only jacket, a neat corduroy blazer my dad wore in the seventies and.. oh yeah! mono. i got mono. that's my favorite of the three, the highlight of my day. ... i woke up today with the terrible clogged-pipes-sore-throat-y feeling strep usually comes on with, went to the doctor, and to my surprise got a nifty little "mono and you" pamphlet. mono and me, holding hands, skipping through the park on a sunny afternoon with some hippie playing an acoustic guitar in the background. but yeah, it's not contagious anymore. apparently that's all done with. so if i've shared a drink or eating utenstil with you (none of you) or made out with you (all of you) lately, watch your back. mono's gunnin' for your ass. but now i'm not contagious, just weak and prone to falling asleep at inappropriate times. kind of like how i am normally. i really like this member's only jacket, though.

someone help me in my time of need. play me in scrabble. the normal scrabble companions provide no challenge anymore and i must find new blood (that's not infected with mono). the tiles are all i've got!

i saw jurassic park this weekend for the billionth time. that movie ain't shit until goldblum appears on screen, i swear.

duk @ 2005-11-19T05:09:00

2005-11-19T11:11:41Z

crippling shyness: check

geez, alcohol's supposed to do a number on that. you're letting me down, cheap beer!

slewp john bee

2005-11-10T07:19:36Z

progress continues at a fast clip! i'm very pleased. i'm thrilled to death whenever i'm in the presence of any of my friends, even though i still find the time to hole up in my apartment from like midnight 'til six or seven in the morning playing guitar and recording stuff. i currently find myself intrigued by a certain lass, and as a result i have no idea what to say to her. surprise, surprise! just intrigued. nothing unreasonable, geez. i'm listening to massive amounts of "pet sounds" and guided by voices. anytime i hear anyone talk about expensive musical equipment i just want to take the meager set-up i have and write awesome songs to prove that incredible gear isn't necessary to write a decent song. i'm getting there, i'm getting there, i'm getting there.

i would throw in an appropriate quote from a pertinent song right here, but i can't necessarily fit multiple layers of gorgeous backing vocals between quotation marks. my bad!

ADDENDUM: I LOVE MY HEADPHONES. they're like pillows on my ears that don't keep my (awesome!) neigbbor awake.. until i start playing guitar.

duk @ 2005-11-01T15:29:00

2005-11-01T20:32:13Z

i've hit a personal high and a personal low at the same time.
i'm alternately incredibly distressed for the present and ridiculously excited about the future.
no one ever got anywhere without taking risks.

duk @ 2005-10-31T18:59:00

2005-11-01T00:00:36Z

oh dude.
ohhhhhhhhhhhh dude.
shit's about to get real.
how real? REAL REAL.

MAGIC!

SWEDES. AND MONEY. SWEDES AND MONEY.

2005-10-31T10:26:45Z

AGGH! swedish people from all over the past few decades have me out-hooked, out-synthed, out-rocked and out-experimented to an almost infinite degree. good god. note to self, move to sweden. drink their water. lots of it.

in addition to this epiphany, i have a mysterious surplus of cash. and i don't want to spend it on musical equipment (for once) or anything illegal. i'm gonna do something nice for somebody. i love life.

i once had a dream so i packed up and split for the city

2005-10-31T05:45:44Z

and a little over twenty-four hours later, i feel much better thanks. while everyone else i know got tore up from the floor up, i went through like a gallon of apple cider, watched "ferris bueller's day off" (and then "death wish", which was made surreal by the side-effects of the cold medicine) and slept for like fifteen hours. i laid down the scrabble tiles with deborah and secured victory using a yiddish word, which i was very proud of. and then today i got a new pedal (!@#!@3) and then got dinner at yet another seedy italian place in downtown birmingham. there are so many of them! i love it!

my mom disapproves of my "there goes my gun" hoodie but is tickled pink by the fact that i listen to the beach boys' "pet sounds" so much. there has to be a happy medium in there somewhere.

license to ill

2005-10-30T00:03:50Z

why am i sick today? is this some sort of karmic retribution for me not having a reasonable halloween costume? yeah, maybe i could have stepped away from the guitar long enough to go whip something up... i'm sorry, i really am! but i guess i'm paying for it now. all i want to do right now is flee to birmingham, play scrabble with my sister (while keeping a safe distance from her of course) and listen to animal collective. their slow, droney stuff. because that's how the world feels right now.

ipod + blankets + cocoa + housecat = jesus, i hope i feel better tomorrow.

~when daniel was in egyptland~
~let my daniel goooooooooooo~

lovely rita, meter maid! (NOTHING CAN COME BETWEEN US!)

2005-10-28T21:53:10Z

so maybe i should've put more time into nothing the differences between a bunch of piano pieces for today's theory quiz.. *ahem* well, at the very least, me and my professor sat around in his office and dissected old madonna (wtf!) performances for like an hour after class. "look at how she commands the crowd!" my grade can weather a nick and/or scrape and besides, last night was totally worth mislabelling someone's first movement as their second. thursdays should all be so exciting! spirits remain ridiculously high.

and then at the sandwich shop, the girl at the counter went on for like two minutes about how she liked my belt buckle (wtf! #2) and my dissheveled mess of hair and then proceeded to charge me a singular dollar for what i should have paid like five for. i'm not complaining! i guess this means i should go about business without having had a shower all the time...?

dear sandwich girl,
i appreciate you layin' down the discount on my behalf. you didn't even charge me for extra mushrooms. despite all this, i'm already enthralled with someone who doesn't smell like coldcuts, so our relationship ends at the register.

sincerely (but no longer hungrily),
dan wakefield

duk @ 2005-10-23T17:50:00

2005-10-23T23:04:05Z

everytime i walk into a guitar store, there are certain songs that i can count on hearing some jerk fumbling through in the corner on a guitar he can't afford. "stairway to heaven" is the first thing that leaps to mind, and there's a lot of that one song by kansas that everyone knows too. there's a piano store by my dad's house and as i drove by it i wondered if there are gold standards that amateur pianists whip out to subconsciously show off to the other people in the store. probably some classical piano piece that i'm unfamiliar with. i'm sure it's no different from a guitar store once you get past the surface of things; the people at the piano store will probably be wearing shirts and ties instead of t-shirts for poison's latest reunion tour, that's all. they both dream of you putting down thousands of dollars on their behalf.

if somebody gave me a baby grand though, i can't say i'd mind. i'd even buy a powdered wig. like in that biz markie video.

RUNNIN' WITH THE DEVIL

2005-10-23T00:27:42Z

newest addition to my list of things to do before i die:
MEET DAVID LEE ROTH.

best. frontman. ever. bar none.
i want to sit down, have EXTREME tea with him, and figure out how he ticks. we'll talk shit about hagar and discuss technique for doing aerial splits.
and he's jewish! who knew?!

big budget special effects

2005-10-21T10:53:01Z

and once again i find myself awake at five-thirty in the morning, fresh off of a productive early morning (and night, and afternoon) of recording stuff. this has become the norm as of late and i really don't mind that considering that i do so love to make music, but i should probably stop running off of vault and ritz crackers at some point in the near future. long-term goal. i will say that having only one actual go-to/sit-down class is a little confining where social interaction is concerned. i see my friends everyday but i took seeing like a bajillion different people in a whole mess of classes every day for granted every semester until now. i mean, i like having my schedule free of academic obligations like it is, but i'm the only student in both of the courses i take care of in the cold void of apartment number 42. at least i spend excessive amounts of time working on my stuff. musical productivity outweighs any potential threat of cabin fever and i'll probably miss this next semester when i have five actual classes again. this semester's like a big musical haze where all the days run together and occasionally stuff i'm really proud of pops out. progress!

i have determined that the cycle of writing, immediately recording, and then immediately forgetting said song and moving onto something new is probably not good in the long run. if i'm doing this with entertaining an audience in mind, i've gotta get these suckers down on a single guitar and get 'em all shiny and exciting. whereas now i'm constantly slangin' my shit at my friends over AIM and e-mail, soon i'll be bugging them to sit down with me and a geetar and let me belt something out. why this didn't strike me any earlier, i have no idea. geez, dan. "bring palm of hand to back of head in a quick slapping motion. repeat. then repeat some more".

i like tonight's song more than the last one. and i liked the last one more than the one before. et cetera.

this weekend is going to be drunktacular. i'm mighty excited!

duk @ 2005-10-18T20:30:00

2005-10-19T00:53:17Z

by hook or by crook, i will make my heroes proud soon.
on my own terms, in my own time.

kevin shields
david bowie
brian eno
those friedberger kids
neil young
my parents
my spaniard homeboy, ben chapman

danny's gotta do what's best for danny.

the past is the present the future is mine

HAW HAW HALLOWEEN

2005-10-17T04:31:23Z

okay kids. what should i be for halloween?

"pirate" would be too easy because my goatee makes me look like one every day as it is. and "the artist formerly known as prince" would require a total absence of dignity, even though he is a bad-ass musician. (purple rain was awesome, for the record.) i don't have enough purple in my wardrobe for that one anyways.

by default, i think i'm going to whip up some sort of cardboard box knight thing, which could be ridiculously awesome if i could pull it off correctly. boxes masterfully taped together and accented with black sharpie. i'd even make a little sword and shield. but if something better is suggested, i'll attempt that. no promises! but i'll consider it.

ADDENDUM: prince is doable but only if i can find the right costume! anyone got a frilly-collared shirt?
I WOULD
DIE 4
U
thanks.

duk @ 2005-10-15T19:15:00

2005-10-15T23:17:16Z

i am currently filming a scene in my new film "the never-ending west side story" in which a knife fight takes place between two rival gang members on top of falcor while he is flying over eternia. it's gonna be pretty awesome.

exit-in part deux

2005-10-15T09:38:09Z

whoooooa, dude.

devendra banhart is a magical piece of human being. he picks a guitar and shit gets all enchanted, i swear. the voice! the crazy dancing! the backing band! the guy's nuts, but that makes him infinitely more entertaining. i don't think i've had such a flat-out enjoyable excursion in a very long time. this was of course also due to the fantastic opening act (bunny brains, who are weird as hell) and my delightful travelling companion for the day, mary. a million (edit: a bajillion!) thanks in her direction for putting up with me for a long period of time that went by very quickly as a result of all the fun i was having.

seeing that man in action just made me want to run home and play guitar. to be precise, i was driven home. and now i'm going to play guitar until the sun comes up. good morning!

duk @ 2005-10-13T16:41:00

2005-10-13T20:47:39Z

excessively mopey british people make boring music.
excessively mopey american people who try to make music like british people are even worse.

duk @ 2005-10-12T18:43:00

2005-10-12T22:46:39Z

and then my friday night got a bajillion percent more exciting! devendra banhart! in tennessee! with my friend mary! just like that!

"hey dan. how excited are you?"

dude. sooooooooooooooo excited. i'm gonna get so close to the stage that i can smell the hippie funk comin' offa that guy, i swear.

keep yourself from freezin' (you know that she's the reason)

2005-10-10T12:10:15Z

it is officially the time of year where i whip out my hoodies and double the amount of pockets i have at my disposal at any given time. YES! TAKE THAT SHIT TO TRIAL!

i was talking with my mom earlier about how i need a photo of her to hang on my fridge and she immediately gave me a picture of her from the seventies, when she lived in israel. she's holding what looks like a powerful rifle of some sort and aiming at something off-camera. it's amazing. it's going right next to the t-rex and the aced music theory homework. anytime she calls me at an inoppurtune time, i'll immediately think "mom could bust a cap into me if i don't take this".

"winter of love" is currently a distorted chord progression and two out-of-sync vocal tracks. but soon it'll be a lot more than that! excitement ensues.