Table of Contents, No Appendix: Part One

It's obvious that I haven't blogged since post-Thanksgiving. All 3 of my readers, raise your hands and start asking the questions.

Where have I been, you ask? Well, let me tell you!

In my previous entry I was talking about the birthday boy and my hungry aching brain. I suppose my journey begins on December 1st. I taught lessons all day at the Wilmington School of Rock and probably made some kids unhappy. I've been doing this thing where I just throw on the metronome if the kid hasn't practiced. My time playing isn't even spectacular yet, so I figure I'll get my students to have good time when they're my age. The day flew by because I was basically en route to New York City to see Ween. I decided to get them Christmas presents so I went to Book Haven and picked out a fairly unique selection. I got a book on Frank Lloyd Wright for Claude, a book called Jazz Matters for Dave, a book on Jazz Piano for Glenn, and a book on The Aesthetics of Rock for Mickey. I got Aaron a book too, but he left before I could give it to him.
There was an after party at the lovely Monica Hampton's apartment and I attempted to make people laugh by posing as the current Vice Magazine cover boy. I don't have the before and after pictures from the party, but I rolled up my sleeves to look like this:

Our hair similarities are uncanny, non?

I spent the majority of the party hanging out with the Seahag (Sound of Urchin, Project/Object). He has an obsession with a face I make sometimes when I play drums. He calls it the "nerd face". I make sure to do the "nerd face" as much as possible in his presence.
After the party I went back to midtown and slept on the couch of a sort-of-famous music school. You may have heard of it.
It was convenient, it's only a few blocks from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I needed to hop on a 12:00 bus to Boston because I was going to have a lesson with my teacher Kenwood Dennard (Sting, Jaco Pastorious, everybody in the world, etc.) the next day at 6:00 PM. I got to Boston at around 4:20 in the afternoon and I began walk from South Station to the Berklee complex. My luck has been wonderful lately, and it started snowing as soon as I left the station.
I should've estimated the time to walk there more approximately. I walk way too fast, and I ended up there an hour early. I decided to explore Boston and I walked several blocks south to the cheapest pizza place I could find. I had two slices of vegetarian pizza that were so ungodly that I considered eating meat again, albeit only for two seconds. Not only that, but my heinous meal was grease-laden and filling, providing me with an uneasy stomach right before an intense lesson. I walked back to Berklee and I was still too early. I started calling Kenwood on his cell phone so he could let me into the building.

No answer.

I figured he must've been deep into a hyper-complex drumbeat with one of his more accomplished students. But the fact is, my ears were just about ready to snap right off from the sub-zero temperature. I called again.

No answer.

I was starting to get suspicious but I continued to give him the benefit of the doubt. I then called a whole bunch of random people from my phonebook. I had to fend off the bitter cold that immersed my entire body by sober dialing and pretending like I had no nerve endings.

The cold wasn't funny anymore and luckily an older guitar student graciously let me into the building. I called Kenwood one last time and I finally got an answer. It turns out he was hanging at the Pastorious estate in Florida celebrating the life of Jaco. He forgot to call. It's okay, I still love him. We can't remember everything, and this kind of stuff happens.

I will share my favorite line from the call:

"Wait, don't you come all the way from Philadelphia?"

"Yeah."

"That's incredible. I'm giving you a free lesson."

And then I started walking back to South Station, to catch my 8:30 bus to upstate New York.