I'd like to wish everyone keeping up with this thing a prosperous 2007. I woke up this morning, thinking that I should send an individual email to everyone I know. But that's quite a bunch of people and such a thing would litterally take me a couple of hours. Therefore I descided I'd just put it up here, and let you all email me. So I can take my time to write a proper response to everyone.
A lot has happened in the past few weeks. Some of you are pretty much up to date on the subject, but I'll put it up here so nobody gets left out. I felt kind of reserved about putting things up here before they'd actually happen, so that will explain the lack of updates over the past month, though I've kept in touch with folks through email.
My time volunteering making records has since ended. No, it's not that I didn't do a good job, and no, it's not like I had a falling out, but due to circumstances wich I'm unfortunatly unable to disclose publicly (though those who are in contact with me through email know), it had to end. I got an amazing body of work done in just seven weeks, though, so I'm quite satisfied. Since I still felt that it was too early to return home I asked Tim if he knew of any opertunities for me to play music. Playing music is and was the reason I came out to the North America's in the first place. And sure enough, Abe Reid (remember Abe?) was looking for people to play with. So, he and his wife picked me up December 21st (my pop's birthday, coincidentally) and after spending a week at his mom's in Statesville, NC - celebrating christmas - we went up to a place near Baltimore, Maryland - where we're currently residing at his manager's pad. A horsefarm. So far, we've went over a dozen or so songs. Things have been going good. Playing bass, guitar and shoveling horseshit every morning. That's just a little bit of comic relief, actually, it involves a little bit more than just that. We take them out into the fields, clean their stalls (scoop the poop and pee) replenish their supply of water and refill their bowls of food and hay. After that, it's music time. We went over to some friends yesterday for a small new years party and Abe and I played a bunch of songs. It made me smile; the first song we played was the cowboy song I've send to a bunch of you folks. Made me feel good. He ditched his guitar and just started playing harp during 'Smoke Stacked Lighning'. Boy, was I glad I'd picked up on it a few weeks ago! All in all I felt pretty good about the entire thing. Sitting here, writing this little piece, it reminds me of being on stage with Mario Lali/Fatso Jetson just 10 months earlier, the Troubadour in Los Angelos. When you're performing in front of people, and you've got a capable band, you don't get nervous. Atleast, I don't, no more.
There you have it, the gist of what has happened so far. Fare thy well, in this seventh year of the all too futuristic sounding second millenium. It's all just numbers, anyway. Don't let them devils fool you, stay true and close to what's real. There are two kinds of suffering, the kind that leads to more suffering, and the kind that leads to the end of suffering. Put that in your pipe and sit on it for a while.
Love,
'El Maximo'
