While watching TV recently, a commercial came on for the American Express business card. In it, a man puts down his credit card to pay for lunch. On his card is a drawing of the comic book character The Flash, and he is laughed at, presumably for being childish, unattractive, and for maxing out his toy Playskool credit card.

But out of the corner of my eye, something else caught my attention about his card. Take a closer look at the screen shot below:

That’s right; thanks to DVRs and the ability to pause TV, I was able to confirm that it is indeed my credit card, which the dude must have stolen from me. And yes, my Brown Fabrics company is thriving.

Dear Ringo Starr,
Hi. It’s Evan. You don’t know me, but I’m a lifelong Beatles fan. There seem to be a lot of those out there, and apparently you’ve come across quite a few in your day. I’m sure you’ve gotten lots of fan mail saying how much your music has meant to them, how they can’t even convey the importance of Beatles songs in their life. They probably ask for a lot of autographs, too–for a little memento that maybe they’ve somehow managed to express a fraction of their appreciation to you.

But no more, I suppose. After seeing the video you posted on your website last week telling people not to send you any mail (presumably ever again) starting October 20th because you’ll just throw it in the dumpster, I figured it just must have been too much for you.

Maybe it’s only fair. You’ve spent decades having to scribble your name with a Sharpie, maybe you think that you deserve a break. I sign credit card receipts far more than autographs, so there’s no real way for me to empathize with you. But I just thought I’d throw a few off-the-cuff thoughts your way, from the perspective of a fan and wannabe musician, to maybe make your next attempt at something like this go a little more smoothly:

1) You know what’s a lot easier than making half your fans think you’re a jerk by telling them you’ll throw out anything they send without a second thought? Just stopping without telling anyone. If I sent you a Beatles lunchbox to sign and never got it back, I’d say “that’s too bad. I didn’t really expect Ringo Starr to mail something back to me anyway.” Then I’d forget about it forever and still think you were likely a charming guy.

2) Next time you decide to alienate a portion of your fanbase, try not to leave any loopholes open. For example, you only requested that no one send you fan mail or stuff to sign anymore. I couldn’t help but notice you failed to mention anything about hate mail, which ironically you may be receiving a lot more of soon (not from me, of course).

3) Don’t patronize us by continually saying “peace and love” to dull the blow of your message. If that got people out of stuff, it would have been used countless times in history. The folks at Enron could have said, “peace and love everyone, we screwed you out of your life’s savings while we got even richer, but we’re doing it with peace and love,” and all the employees would have said “well, my life may be ruined, but at least the CEO was shooting me some super positive vibes!”

I guess you’re a really important guy. I guess you chose this seemingly arbitrary moment in time for a good reason. And I guess this letter just missed being posted on October 20th, but please don’t try to throw my humble little website away. Not that you’ll be reading this anyway… You have far too many better things to do.

Sincerely,
Evan.
(Still a Beatles fan.)

I wanted to write a quick note in mourning of Richard Wright, the keyboardist for Pink Floyd who died today. While it’s hard to pick favorite bands, Pink Floyd will forever be somewhere in my personal top 10. Their music still stands out as a rare example of something that goes against the grain but still achieves massive global success. They’re an inspiration to anyone who hopes to make music based on the merits of music alone and would like to think said music could still connect with a large audience. There are few, if any, bands that I can think of that can even begin to be compared to Pink Floyd.

Though largely unsung, Wright was a key (and founding) member of the band. His keyboard parts were integral in filling out their signature sound and were often the bed over which David Gilmour would play his solos. Also, he sang on more songs than I think many people realize, as I myself mistakenly associated some vocals to Gilmour when they were actually Wright.

I guess all I am saying is that while there will no doubt be a whole lot of hoopla when Gilmour or Roger Waters sadly leave us, Wright probably won’t quite get the attention he deserves (maybe I’m wrong). This is a genuinely sad day for rock musicians everywhere. Thanks, Richard, for the music you gave me!

I dug this one out of the ol’ photo archive:

Christmas morning, still in my PJs. Besides the fact that I’m playing it left-handed (how could I be so ignorant???) I think this is good foreshadowing. That Kermit the Frog banjo is pretty awesome. I really, really loved banjos when I was little. I even got one at some point, but I can’t play it very well. It’s time to learn so I can do justice to the enthusiastic kid in this picture.

I never quite understood when people worried about their personal indie cred. For some people, listening to a pop band that sounds polished and radio-ready is equivalent to selling their soul to Lucifer. That sentiment is fine if the band sucks. But what if the song really is catchy and really is fun to listen to? You shouldn’t have to apologize for anything. Sure, maybe you’re a devout follower of Bright Eyes, but so what if you hear a Paramore song on the radio and think “hey, that actually kinda rocks?” You’ve done nothing wrong. If someone else thinks you’re somehow less legit as a human being now, I don’t know why you’d want to hang out with them in the first place. Their approval means nothing.

The opposite situation is just as mystifying. With some people, if you say “hey, you should listen to ‘Red Eyes and Tears’ by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, it’s a bitchin’ song,” they’ll crinkle their nose and say “I’ve never heard them on KROQ, I don’t want to listen to them.” What they don’t seem to realize is that they had never heard of the All-American Rejects a couple years ago, but the band still existed. There’s a LOT of great music that will never be heard on the radio. There’s also a LOT of ass-kickin’ tunes that rock the airwaves. And it’s more than OK to listen to them both.

It’s sort of like clothing, and how people dress like hipsters, goths, punks, rockers, or whatever. In order to completely fit in and be accepted into certain walks of life, you have to dress like them. (This doesn’t apply to everyone, of course, but I generalize to make a point.) I can think of nothing more ironic than the cliques that represent rebels or outcasts that won’t embrace you unless you look like they do. No one has dressed a certain way their whole lives. They’re all changing their lifestyles to fit in where they feel like they belong. Personally, I’d rather belong right where I already am.

Or maybe I don’t really belong anywhere. That’s sort of how it’s always been, anyway. I never really fit into a certain group in High School. But I never really cared. I always felt like being in one group would limit my access to the others, that I could never get the full experience of life from a single perspective.

But forget that philosophical crap. I’m talking about music. Listen to what you like, period. Forget all the pretense and preconceptions and just enjoy music for what it is. Remember why you love it in the first place. Only then can you really appreciate everything it has to offer. I like Crowded House. I like Elliott Smith. I like AC/DC. I like Muddy Waters. I like Elbow. I like Aerosmith. I don’t care who thinks what about the music I listen to. And I don’t care that the way I dress doesn’t do much to define who I am (though that could always change as I am making my way through an image-obsessed music industry).

Sometimes I don’t fit in as well because of this attitude. But I’ve found that fitting in less often means standing out more.

Nothing here is set in stone
Nothing’s ever set in stone
Everything I have some day will fall apart and fade away

-The Bravery

Why do humans search for meaning in life? Why does the fear of regret prompt us to follow dreams, pursue grand plans, and make us try to live a life that will serve a purpose and allow us to say “I lived a meaningful life” before we die? Is the fear of being forgotten in our genes? Do atheists and theists alike agree that there is some bigger picture that we have a duty to minister to? Why is it part of human instinct to justify one’s own existence?

No other animal does that. Every other being has the same instinct, purpose, and day to day goal: survival. Sure, we have that instinct, but the ability to ask “why” makes our lives completely unique. In some ways I’ve answered my own question: with more advanced brain power, we can’t help but kill some time wondering about shit. Who hasn’t looked at a dog and thought, “boy it would be nice to just sit around all day, be happy and not get bored.” But it’s like Marvin the Paranoid Android from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; he’s so amazingly smart that you couldn’t possibly give him something to think about that would completely cure his boredom or ease his depression. We have to occupy ourselves with curiosity.

But while I am sporadically envious of the blissfully ignorant, my abstract thinking ability has also revealed to me the ludicrousness and futility that is the survival instinct in itself. Our own demise is guaranteed, even most animals seem to realize that. So not only do we fight to last as long as we can, we have the irresistible urge to procreate to ensure that something of ourselves or our species continues on. But why? What is the point of surviving only to meet our ultimate doom when the planet is destroyed or when the universe collapses back on itself?

There may be an abundance of unknowns regarding life, but one of the few things we know with some certainty is that everything we know will come to an end at some point, even if that point is in the distant future. So is our constant clamoring for meaning simply our way of dealing with this one seemingly unavoidable truth, this great uncertainty caused by a single certainty?

Well, I have my personal theories. But who the hell knows?

I finally got to see one of my favorite bands, Supergrass, play live this past Saturday. They don’t have a huge fan base in America, and as far as I can tell they don’t come out here too often to play. I’ve been wanting to see them for a while and this was one of my first opportunities.

Many people who have actually heard Supergrass have only heard the song “Alright” from the Clueless soundtrack way back when and said, “oh they’re that band that plays bratty britpop-punky music.” It’s not an entirely untrue statement, by any means. Their first album, I Should Coco (which included “Alright”), was chock full of this kind of music. But at the same time, the album forays into much more mellow territory in the second half, and even the teen-punk moments hint at a more complex undertone. I first heard the album as a pre-teen when my older brother bought; I thought it was catchy.

But when I was 17 and living in Scotland for a semester of my junior year of high school, I heard a side of Supergrass that I hadn’t before when the song “Moving” was played in a music store I was browsing. I bought the album and immersed myself in its unique chord progressions and dark vocal harmonies. Later I ended up rediscovering the catchiness of their debut, and I became completely convinced when I listened to Road to Rouen, a collection of thoughtful, melodic, nuanced music that I didn’t even realize the band was capable of.

Road to Rouen turned me from a casual fan into a big fan. I finally realized that the musical complexity I felt I had been hearing in their earlier work was confirmed and this was a genuinely great band who really knew how to write good songs. Their live show didn’t make me want to back away from that stance.

The mix of the concert could have been a little better (when is it really perfect, anyway?), and I would have liked to hear more bass and drums. But Supergrass had great energy, played a great set, and rocked the shit out of the show. I could have used a few more songs, but they had another shindig going down at the Avalon afterwards that night, so the band clearly didn’t have much of a choice. Plus, when you see a band with six albums of material, you’re bound to be left wanting to hear a few extra songs.

It’s funny how seeing a band live can have them make total sense to you, answering questions you’ve had in your head about how they tick that you can only guess the answers to by listening to recordings. I can say I’d see Supergrass any chance I get from here on out. They are a true rock ‘n’ roll band.

For my brother’s birthday, I bought him a ticket to Body Worlds, the museum exhibit where they take actual plasticized bodies, strip them of their skin, and display the wonders of the human body in all its icky glory. Two things in particular struck me while I was strolling down cadaver lane.

One was the fact that I really wasn’t particularly weirded out by the whole experience. Sure, I was looking at some guy’s intestines without so much as a sliver of glass between his bowels and my face, but there was really only one time that I actually made the connection in my head that these were real people. Most of it still looked fake, or my brain just insisted on interpreting it as such. The only things that were kinda creepy were the eyeballs which, ironically, were the only fake parts on the bodies.

But overall, there was only one part of the whole exhibit that was a little weird to me. I called it the “dead baby room.” They had specimens of babies in various stages of the pregnancy; early examples were in test tube-like thingies and sorta looked like tadpoles or a cloud of spores (yeah, I know there are no actual spores, but that’s what it looked like). At eight weeks it really looked like a tiny, translucent baby with eyeballs, fingers and everything, no bigger than my thumb.

But soon I came face to face with much more developed dead babies curled up peacefully in glass cases. They were totally intact, not dissected like the other people. And it was eerie. I was just looking at actual dead babies in glass boxes. I mean, what if that had been your child? These ain’t no Cabbage Patch Kids. In fact, there were two nuns near us who left to go get their tickets back as soon as they saw their first placenta in this display. And here’s how Body Worlds instilled confidence into more socially conservative visitors: a sign that said that all of the specimens died of natural causes “to the best of their knowledge.” Uh, great. Why not just go ahead and lie a bit and say you know for a fact it’s not a room full of abortions?

Anyway, the other thing that struck me was how much sick fun some of these people must have had posing the bodies. There’s a dude with his chest split open, holding all of his internal organs above him. There’s a woman whose spine is yanked out perpendicular to her body, tearing open a gaping hole in her back. I mean, look at this shit! It’s a dude holding his own skin! I can just see the scientists sitting around, going, “hey, let’s take this dude’s penis and split it down the middle, peeling the sides off like a banana so it’s just the head floating and attached via the urethra to the guy’s body. And let’s have him leaping over a hurdle at the same time!” You think that last one was a joke? Cause it wasn’t.

Anyway, I found the whole thing pretty fascinating, and if there’s an exhibit in your area and you’ve considered checking it out, I say go for it. It’s worth the $20 ticket. Oh, but it’s probably not the best first date idea. Just so you know.

There are very few people I know who wouldn’t agree that money is a pain in the ass. Those who disagree probably have a lot of it. Actually, I think wealthy people are probably equally bothered by it. Honestly, I’ve never cared that much about money, otherwise I’d have majored in finance and jumped straight into Wall Street. Among the many risks of being a musician is a huge financial one, but I don’t care because all I want to do is make music, and if I’m not doing that I won’t be happy. And that’s the point, isn’t it? Every day my heart aches a little more when I’m not able to devote myself 100% to what I love to do. But no matter how little I care about money, I still need (and want) it, and it sure would be nice to have a lot of it. Because maybe money can’t buy happiness, but there is one thing it can buy: Freedom. Sweet, sugary freedom.

The music-money relationship is a tricky one. For a very large portion of people out there that are earning money from a day job, it’s all about business. To make money from music, you inevitably have to turn it into a business, and turn your band and your CD into the product you’re selling. Someone once told me, “make it fun, don’t make it work.” Well, the point of trying to make music my “work” is because it’s always fun. Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it. Don’t we all want a fun job? That’s all I’m trying to get for myself. When I make it work, it’s the most fun work I’ve ever done. It makes me want to work.

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And the only prescription is some new music that I play on. In this case, my good friend Genevieve has been working hard on her first album for a long time now, and it’s finally finished and ready for an eager public to soak it in. She’s a pop/folk singer-songwriter, and this record is chock full of well-crafted tunes, organic sounding production and interesting arrangements (plus lots of great vocals and harmonies by Genevieve, who has an uncommonly good singing voice). I play most of the acoustic guitars on the CD, plus I rock some electric and even mandolin on one track. A few fellow Shaimus fellas (Shaimites?) were heavily involved in the production, so it’s got that going for it, too.

So go ahead and take a listen… You can hear four full songs in all their glory on her Myspace profile, or hear long samples of every song (and buy the damn thing) at CD Baby. This is music for a rainy day. Or a sunny day. Or for night time. Maybe even dusk or dawn. But only dawn if you’ve been up all night. Otherwise, just stay in bed.