How to Succeed at Racing

Can summer really be almost over? What a summer it has been... From the wedding to triathlons to album/music stuff...

Right now, the focus is on the Chicago Triathlon (this Sunday), our last race of four... the training has been amazing... in spite of a couple minor injuries (and in Andrea's case, one larger freak injury, which she has overcome like a champ) we have been training largely healthy since March... six full months of early Sunday mornings, 800 milligrams of ibuprofen, aching muscles, tired brains, jackassery on the lakefront...

And now, a chance to do our first "second race." Cannot wait. The weather looks clear... a bit warm but otherwise okay. The lake water temperature has been wonderful this year, and need only hold on for two more days...

With support from Andrea, I'm already eyeing the Madison Ironman race next September... which is crazy but... why not? If you told me in summer of '06 that I could run a marathon (or even a half-marathon) I would have laughed. I had never run more than 4 miles. Since then, I've done several half-marathons and two full marathons, not to mention numerous 10k races. If you had told me in the winter of 2008, when we started swimming at our gym, that I would get to the point where I could swim a mile in Lake Michigan on a day when there was a "small craft advisory" I would have laughed. I could barely swim two laps in a pool without stopping.

And the two most important steps for success in ANYTHING are: 1. Start. 2. Don't stop.

And I've started. And I haven't stopped yet. Which must mean I'm succeeding...

One lake training swim
One brutal mid-day 10k
One weekend brick
One achy morning
One blister
One sunburn
At a time.
jbg

Songs for You

CHICAGO Everything must start at the end So I'll write you here to Chicago Every note your heart will mend As I write you here to Chicago This is for you The things you couldn't say When times were blue Your "Bleeding into gray" 'Cause you deserve one too Until the day you came Here To Chicago To stay Here In Chicago Stay Here In Chicago Stay Here With me

MAYBE Maybe you hurt me 'cause you knew from the start Knew we were meant to be apart Maybe we should have just stayed away And moved on Maybe we tried cause we had nowhere else to go And love was just a one-chance show Thought that the rings upon our fingers Would fix us up Now I can smile at the thought of the miles We put between us Driving the roads, running on hope That we'd change Closing our eyes As we kiss our goodbyes Until next time And next time And finally you're here Where I am Maybe there was something in those summer nights In small-town dust and football lights But maybe it wasn't enough To see us through Maybe we watched it all slip away In each and every passing day And maybe looking back, all along, I knew too Now I can cry at the thought of the miles I put between us Chasing a dream, just out of reach It would stay Closing our eyes As we kiss our goodbye There's no next time No next time And finally you're gone And I'm here I'm here

FOR THE BEST How could you go And move on so fast? And walk through the door? And bury the past? I guess it's for the best I'm reaching out Not sure what I want But I know what I don't And I guess that's enough Maybe it's for the best It's the sound of making do It's the sound of life without you It's the sound of the choices we make And the promises we break And on up the coast To your beautiful life In house with a yard Two kids and a wife Maybe it's for the best It's the sound of growing up It's the sound of moving on from love It's the sound of losing the light Not willing to fight

BRIANNE Brianne... Do you know what you meant? I still have the box you made I still keep the games we played Locked up in here Brianne... Do you know what you were? The child I never bore My chance to be something more To someone in need I can still Hear your voice On Christmas morn Brianne... I'm so sorry my dear I didn't do enough I didn't see all the stuff A mother should have seen Brianne... I'm so happy you're clear Of that disaster zone And that you're not alone Maybe I'll meet him someday I can still Hear your voice I can still See your eyes When I said Goodbye Brianne...

GRAY Not again I felt this way before Then no words come out Choking on the quiet doubt Of all we planned I remember when I thought I knew the score Then it all changed again I was left with no defense A broken glass Looking back What if you came? What if I stayed? What if we let the days Fade away into gray? So much for something new This boat is sinking fast Try to patch the hole with work Try to save a soul from hurt Try to rescue light from dark Try to fix a broken heart Try to find a better way Try and try and try and Fail again I remember when What if you came? What if I stayed? What if we let the days Fade away into gray? Fade away into gray I'm fading, anyway

ERASE Gonna give my dog away Gonna move down by the bay Gonna sink into the city And be erased Gonna make a lot of bills Gonna do a lot of pills Gonna watch my blood run into the water Like an oil spill Hey look at all my friends! Hey look it's all pretend! I like this plastic life It's easier than love And lord knows... I'm done with love Gonna give to you my body Gonna give you what's left of my heart Gonna pray that you don't run away And leave me in the dark You can use me like you want 'Cause I can't feel a thing You can bruise me and abuse me And I still won't feel the sting Hey look at all my friends! Hey look it's all pretend! I like this plastic life It's easier than love And lord knows... I'm done with love Lord knows... I'll never really love again

NO, NO, NO You left me with a note No one should have to hold You left me with nowhere to go You left me with no, no, no A long time ago I wanted out of this hole But you told me no, no, no You sold me "no, don't go" "No, don't go" Years down the road When my love wants to know If I was over you I'll tell him "yes, yes, yes" I'll sell him "yes, yes, yes" I'll yell out "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes"

PAPER AND BONE Checking off days On the calendar page It's been a year Gone from the place I couldn't stay And now I'm out of here I had to cry And come all these miles Only to leave What's another goodbye As hard as I've tried Well I don't believe in love I don't believe in anything Out on the road Just embers and smoke Into the sun Nothing to show But echoes and ghosts From which to run Now that I know I'm just paper and bone And nothing more How can I hope To not be alone When I don't believe in love I don't believe in anything I don't believe in love I don't believe in anything 

BECAUSE OF YOU It's winter on the Plains And there's ice in the veins But in this country's heart I found a start I found a spark Because of you Days become weeks and months And soon spring will come The wind doesn't cut the skin 'Cause I'm letting light in I'm ready to win Because of you I'm ready for it all To finally come true I'm ready now to fall Into Chicago And stay Here In Chicago And stay Because Of you

BELIEVE That night When you came to me I watched you dress and leave At first light Breaking over the streets Wrapped in the sheets With you The thread That drew us to here Through heartache and fear And blues You said "I'm not going away I promise to stay For the rest of our days With you" In my dreams I can see us growing old When I breathe Your fire's taking hold When I cry I feel your fingers digging in In the sky We're washed of all our sins Your melodies, your melodies You sing my heart to sleep And when the morning light comes creeping in The healing is complete I'm yours, I'm yours Promise you won't leave I'm yours, I'm yours I believe, I believe In you I believe in me I believe it's true I believe...

 jbg

Thus Far

I've been digging deep lately... My first summer as a musician and a musician only has been thrilling for reasons personal, professional and creative.

The personal part is easy: I got married. To my soulmate and perfect partner. Surrounded by family and friends. And the event surpassed even our lofty expectations.

We've also crushed an entire season of triathlon training, with our third of four races at the end of July and one more in August... and they've gone well enough that I'm seriously entertaining signing up and training for the Ironman in Madison next year... as insane as that is.

The professional part is coming along as I juggle a full and Protean teaching schedule with Paper Arrows, Quell Records, The Odyssey, and more.

The creative part? In just a few short weeks Paper Arrows will take over I.V. Lab Studios for three full days to record our third album. We're going to approach this record a little differently than the first two in that we're all going to get in a room together and track as a live band. And then piece together the overdubs with the live tracks as the core.

The first two records were built separately around acoustic recordings I made. Which was great and a testament to Jay as a producer and all of us as musicians. But this new record... has to have a different feel. It needs to be a band in a room playing songs. Jay speaks of these new tunes as glowingly as I've heard him speak of any of our projects... and I can't wait to work face to face with him and Darren and Drew.

It will be intense and a bit of a high wire act, but I'm confident it will be exactly what it needs to be. I'm tentatively calling this record "In the Morning." It's hopeful and intimate. Energetic and tender. Simple but sophisticated.

It's the P to the S of Look Alive and the M of Things We Would Rather Lose (and no, that's not an S&M comment like that, you perv.) It's the Return of the Jedi to the...

You get the idea. I've also managed to write nearly an entire album of songs on the piano, 80% of it in one week, where I was cranking out 2 songs a day, an unheard of pace for me... writing on the piano has been fascinating and amazing... and I know that even if the songs never see the light of day, spending some time and energy creating on the piano has made me a much better writer.


Also, this group of songs is one of my first shots in a while (since the Odyssey?) at writing mostly non-autobiographically... the songs tell someone else's story. Which needs to be told.

So... as I struggle to write the last song of this cycle... I'm not sure what I want to do with all of them. I believe the answer will present itself in due time. It always does, in some form.

It's how I've gotten this far. And this far is pretty damn good and getting better...

XO

jbg

11:12

Things are happening... albums are scheduled to be recorded, races are being run, lovers are getting united...

It's all wonderful. It's all a little unbelievable. Not that we're complaining.

We deserve to win sometimes. Or at least, set personal records. How many things have I done in the last 4 years that I thought I could never do? What is the common presence? Who is the common presence? Is triathloning (I am determined to make this word a verb... why not?) not the perfect metaphor for life? What a cheesy middle school lit class statement. 

Not metaphor as much as training... Triathloning is the perfect example of shit happens, figure it out, deal with it, move forward, manage pain, keep moving forward, finish. Do your best. Deal with the factors your can, manage the external circumstances beyond your control, of which there are MANY. 

That's the way life is... weird like that.

It pushes you towards people and things... sometimes without reason, sometimes so incredibly, so inexplicably, so tenuously... it's enough to make two perfect pagans believe that there's something out there... something at work... Something that every once in awhile, when you've been beaten down, when you've suffered through pain... when you've done your best, made mistakes, dealt with shit... when you've wished and wished and closed your eyes and wished some more and thought it was all for naught... Suddenly grants you your wishes.

And then... What's next?

What do you do when your wishes are granted?

You close your eyes and wish some more... And dismount from your bike, hustle into transition 2, pull your running shoes on... And shuffle out onto the run course on fatigued legs. With a big smile on your face.

A big smile on your tear-stained, blue-eyed face.

XO

jbg

Fading Days

In February, I was really struggling to put a capstone on the material for the new record... I had a solid group of 7 tunes culled mostly from my 2009 early morning writing sessions.

I had a re-written version of Lonesome Sound. And I had Smoke and Ash, which finally came together after a year of lurking in pieces and various failed attempts to pair a strong chorus with a commensurately strong song (say that 10 times fast). But still, the group felt incomplete... and I really wanted to wind up with 10 tunes.

Enter Fading Days. I've mentioned here before that the last two groups of songs I've written have had turning points where I'm able to see the context of the record as a whole and then write to that context... I unconsciously (or subconsciously) write myself into a group of songs and then very consciously try to write myself out of it.

But this group... I never really had that moment. Sure I could see what the record was going to be about, I could trace the themes and overall tone... but I wasn't really writing at these themes the way I had previously.

Interestingly, if I had one complaint about the 9 tunes we chose, it was that they were overwhelmingly positive and hopeful. Which was a double-edged sword... as the third record in the tried and true trilogy formula (introduction/crisis/resolution) this one had to be positive and hopeful... and frankly, my life is so positive and hopeful right now (knock on wood) that the material was, as previous records have been, just an honest reflection of me and my daily existence...

Buuuuttttttttt... I really like material that even at its most positive has a dark edge or three... a little twist or contending strand that balances it out... 'cause reality, even at its best, still has thorns. One of my favorite examples is any love song of the "''til death do us part" variety... sweet and beautiful, but, if done right, also a reminder of mortality... if that makes sense.

So in February, I lost my voice for a couple of weeks... a sinus infection was to blame. Very frustrating. But one day at the gym, a disembodied lyric from a verse I had scrapped months before crawled back into my head, this time in the form of a big hooky chorus...

** Do the echoes ever keep you up at night? Why did someone have to leave for us to get it right? It's okay to still have fading days I know you do... **

Later that day, I sat down and hashed out the music I heard in my head... and even tried to sing the chorus in my best Tom Waits voice... and then got to work at wood-shedding out the verses... Jay had pushed me to really work on my imagery and metaphors for this record and I took that to heart for this tune especially... very quickly I had all the verse lyrics and music and set the song aside until my voice healed.

Once I could sing it, I realized that I needed a bridge... and what was more, it seemed like the entire record was turning on this one particular passage... these 3 or 4 lines of lyrics. I've had that happen with a song before, but never with an entire record... it's a bizarre feeling... you feel like whatever content you put in even one line will be the line through which the whole group of songs is refracted...

On an even more specific level, I got down to literally the last line I needed to write and I STILL felt like the record was up for grabs... Amazing. Writing never ceases to take my breath away. Or frustrate me. Or both.

Anyway... after a week or so of trying line after line after line for this oh so important moment... I finally got it. As usual, it was way simpler than I was making it... Of course the postscript to this is that after Jay and I met to do some pre-production work, we decided that Smoke and Ash needed a bridge and I had a similar experience with those lyrics, but Fading Days still feels like the lynchpin... So... with much ado...

FADING DAYS If I could take your scars I'd lay them in a line And fix the skin with needle and thread Like the thread that runs from your life to mine And pulled us in until we met If I could live your days I'd put them in the ground And work the dirt until the colors bloomed Like the red that runs in rivers in these rooms Within my heart as it beats for you Do the echoes ever keep you up at night? Why did someone have to leave for us to get it right? It's okay to still have fading days I know you do If I could catch your tears I'd pour them in the sea Where they would mix and finally disappear When they were gone you know our lives would be as clear As the lights on the lines that lead us here Do the echoes ever keep you up at night? Why did someone have to leave for us to get it right? It's okay to still have fading days You know I do Where there is none Don't look for pain You can call it love 'Cause all love's not the same If we can stay then we'll both be saved Do the echoes ever keep you up at night? Why did someone have to leave for us to get it right? It's okay to still have fading days I know you do 

jbg