One of my wife’s friends sent us a Christmas card that said something like “May the coming year bring lots of changes.” It sounded disturbingly close to a Chinese curse that goes something like, “May your future be filled with change.” (I’ve read that this is actually a mistranslation or interpretation of another subtle Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Ouch. Too late.) (more…)

I don’t really get complimented much on music, ever. Which is fine, I’m not fishing for anything, and I sort of walked away from the compliment-drawing world when I moved toward being a jazz musician anyway. Heh…

Just read one of the nicer things I’ve seen written about me on Peter Breslin’s blog, Stochasiticactus, and I don’t know if he or Dave Wayne wrote it, but in a description of Dave’s recent projects, I’m referred to as “the jaw-droppingly great keyboardist Robert Muller.” That’s one for the archives.

One of the only other ones that’s stuck in my mind was an email from a stranger that described a piece of music I’d done as “a mindblowing landscape of funk,” I’ll probably have that put on my business cards at some point like when Wile E. Coyote puts “genius” on his.

I got back from Alaska last Monday evening, the trip was great. The music went well, I loved travelling with everyone I was with.

After our first gig, a guy came up to me, Larry Mitchell and Howard Cloud. I’m 6′0″ and the shortest of the group, and the guy says, “First, I’d like to say that you all look a lot bigger in person than you did on that stage. Wow!”

He was a nice guy, Terry, and he’d enjoyed the music and came over to chat. He looked first at Larry and said something like, “You - you’ve got that funky… Larry Graham… cool guitar stuff up in there.” He turns to Howard and says, “And you, you’ve got some Brothers Johnson stuff going on and…” he holds his hands up and makes bass-slapping gestures. I eagerly await my turn, and he turns to me and says, “You, you’re a white guy, and you come from wherever you came from.”

We all sort of freeze with an awkward half-smile and I think I say “uh, thanks?” We busted up about it later. If it was a compliment, it was pretty hard to decipher. If it was a backhanded insult, it was also pretty unclear, because at the end of the day, I am white, and I do come from wherever I come from.

I’ve been sleeping outside lately. I’ve never done it much before, but the weather has been so beautiful and tempting that I got a cheap tent on my birthday. Initially I had it set up inside the skeleton of my half-complete garage so my daughter and I could play in it, which we did, but in order to get some sleep, I’d need to get serious and put some pegs in the ground somewhere and whatnot. So it’s set up right outside my bedroom. (more…)

I had a rehearsal in Albuquerque, the first with Joy Harjo and her band, and it was fun. As I was picking up my last load of equipment, I hopped up the low stage, maybe 2 and a half feet, but I didn’t see the lip around the bottom. My sandal caught under the lip, and that mashed my toes into the stage as though I’d kicked it as hard as I could. The followup trip and BOOM onto the stage looked a little dramatic, but I played it off like nothing happened and stoically loaded my last equipment into my car. I sat in the drivers seat for a second and when I grabbed the 3 middle toes on my right foot, “something warn’t right,” and pain shot up my neck. I’d broken at least one toe again, I do it at least once a year. (more…)

I’ve been accused by those close to me to be occasionally… well, dark. Downright cynical even. This is not new, and it doesn’t bother me. I definitely have a pessimistic streak, but it’s not overpowering; I’m definitely not a pessimist, I just don’t think every cloud has a silver lining. (more…)

I’m like Christopher Walken in the Deadzone - with computers. I get eerie insights into how and when a computer’s going to die, or have a bad experience. Usually just from touching it. I’ve been having those feelings about my laptop, and once my subconcious tricks me into actually backing up important files, well, buckle up. Something’s going to go down. (more…)

I was just shopping at my local grocery store. I’m in the checkout line as someone else is finishing, all my stuff is on the conveyer belt thing, and I remembered that my wife asked me to pick up some chocolate that she likes. It’s not far from the cash register, so I bolt and get it. The cashier’s started ringing me up, and he gives me a look. The look reminded me of a similar one I was going to get if I forgot the Diet Coke that Anette’s sister had requested and was one of the main points of my little jaunt to the store, so I bolted again and brought back 2 two-liter bottles. He was still ringing me up, so I hadn’t really held anyone up, but my man looks genuinely salty. I tried to make a joke, “Do NOT go home without the Diet Coke.” Ha ha ha. He looks at me like I’m a piece of shit, and then gets to my liquor purchase. (more…)

I was standing next to my pickup putting gas in it. A red Chevy pickup at the little mini-mart backed out of a parking spot to drive off; nothing weird about it, I’m still kind of a car dork and pay attention to makes and models of the vehicles around me. There were two locals inside, and they slowed down as they were driving by me, I couldn’t tell what they were looking at, so I just kind of stared into the distance. I figured they were looking at people behind me or something, if even that, it’s not weird for people to drive slowly out of a gas station or to pause for a second after they’ve backed out of a spot.

They started to drive away. Then they stopped, and backed up and paused directly in front of my pickup. They were both looking straight at me with the window down and my eyes snapped to theirs when I realized they were looking at me and not someone behind me. The driver had a bandana on and he was smiling, the passenger had a goatee and a crew cut and tattoos all the way up his face and he wasn’t smiling at all. The driver leaned forward and said, “Hey, white boy - it’s not polite to not say ‘hi’ back to someone.” (more…)