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Journal NOTE   This is my old journal. I'll soon be working on a new blog/newsletter/something or other. It's amazing to go back and read this stuff I wrote when I first moved to NYC. Please forgive if some of the links are no longer working. This journal has been moved a bunch of times now. Enjoy! :) Messenger 7/5/2002 3:30:15 AM  While wandering about Union Square with my mandolin tonight I met these 2 girls (Lola and Wallace). One of them said, "Hey, when are you going to play, so we can sit next to you." I said that I was looking for someone to accompany... She then asked me, "Think we can see the fireworks from here?" I said, that there was mass exodus to the east side. She thanked me and chatted me a bit. I gave her some other info, then she said, "I knew you would have a message for us." Unity Square v1.5 7/5/2002 3:34:27 AM  Tonight I headed down to Union Square with my mandolin. I figured I would find someone playing something down there. I ended up seeing Chris, who is this guy from Chile. He plays doumbek. Killer player. I ended up spending about 2 hours playing mandolin, while he drummed, and "Sunshine" free-style rapped over us. It was pretty cool I must say. It's awesome when random people of random backgrounds can spontaneously make music without even speaking to each other... Shoreleave 7/16/2002 4:51:07 PM  Went to shoreleave this past weekend. It's this awesome sci-fi con that I look foward to every year. I get my Gelf gear on, and basically begin drinking on friday and finish on sunday :) This year I met lots of great storm troopers and klingons, as well as a host of other great people (lots of newbies). Spike from Buffy was there... his autograph line was insane. I don't go there to get autographs... I just go to be super-social and have a great time :) As usual.. the bar acted as an Elf-Magnet, and I spent most of my time there, playing mandolin and such... Oh, and check this out... The Rave was great on Saturday night... I danced from midnight till 4am... did the glowsticks thing and everything :) Catholic Girls In Trouble 7/16/2002 4:54:55 PM  Saw something pretty random after the central park drummer circle this weekend. There was a bunch of girls in catholic school girl outfits with swords (and YES, I was not dreaming) :) They were doing some random version of Romeo and Juliet. They were actually all quite cute... however I find theatre people wacky... And Yes I find them wacky, but MY running around the woods dressed like an elf with a sword is normal :) Anti-Pasta 7/17/2002 11:15:56 PM  I'm writing this in a state of buzzing :) weeeeee :) Went out to this Italian place on Mulberry St. tonight for a friend's birthday (pretty much smack in the middle of little italy) :) Anyhow.. the place doesn't ask you what you want, thy just put food in ya... gotta love stuff like that :) weeee eat drink and be merry! Cause Gelf The Elf says s0 When the lights... 7/20/2002 11:58:58 PM  So today, wacky... Something happend to some con-ed building. As I walked down brodway, toward washington square park. The west side of the street had no power, while the east side did! Restaurants were outside bar-b-que'ing or doing whatever they could... The Streets were kinda weird. Lights working/not working. When the city is in a weird state... you just know... There so many people giving off all sorts of energies... You can just feel something huge is amiss somewhere... That's a Rap 7/20/2002 11:59:32 PM  So tonight... Christian and I are jamming in union square... Doing the mandolin/dombek rythm thingy... and like... this guy walks by drunk with beer in a starbucks cup :) Started talking about how he's a "lyricist" and is gigging later on. I ask him if he can free-style rap over us. So he busts out the ryhmes. Totally impressive. Just went on and on (and on, on and on)... After a bit, this kid walks by with killer dreads. Hears the guy free-style rapping, then they bust out into a free-style-rap-battle. It was totally intense. I can't write lyrics when I sit down and focus... these guys we're "flowin with this". Wow! Card-On 7/27/2002 12:54:12 AM  So I got this groovy sound card. Lets me record up to 4 instruments simultaneously. I can playback as many tracks as my processor can handle. The signal is soooooo clear, no hummin/buzzin or anything... just pure clean sound... mmmmm so I recorded test2.mp3 and test3.mp3. Cheesy, but nifty :) I'm playing all the instruments (djembe, doumbek, mandolin, bass, shaker and guitar). Brennamead 8/2/2002 11:59:02 PM  Weeee! Went to mead party at my friend Brennagyn's place on Long Island. I think we made some peach batch. I brought my young (but almost ready) clove batch... mmmmm... Met some new random people who were cool. We all drank and hung out. I think I played some songs and people sang (very well i might add) in drunken stuperness. I woke up with the most insane headache ever... I think i sword fought a bit drunk also... hmm.. gotta stop doing that... Demons! 8/4/2002 7:22:19 PM  While walking around Union Square today... these 2 girls where on a bench with these demon puppet things. They were promoting their show "Persephone". It's part of the Fringe Festival. Somehow, I ended up jamming random show tunes on mandolin, while they sung in raspy voices. They split up after a bit, and I sat with one of them and sung about how they were doing a play, being silly etc. People seemed to dug it. We scared lots of little kids. It was fun :) Little shop of nonexistance 8/11/2002 7:30:07 PM  Went on a quest the other day to seek out "Little Shop of Hops". Supposed to be the last brew store in NYC. Guess what... I went to where it was supposed to be. Went inside... looked a mess, totally in disarray. Just random dusty shelves of random stuff. Walked on to the back where I saw 6 people sitting around. Went up to them... I was like, "Where is the brew store"... one of them laughed and said, "the brew store is across the street".. pointing to the deli. They noticed i had a mandolin. Asked me to play.. so i hit a couple chords... then the dude starting saying (in a semi-rapping manner): "Smack the bitch! Smack the bitch!" Needless to say, I left there somewhat quickly... Rockstar 8/18/2002 9:18:54 AM  Friday night, my band played BBKings. We were the first of 7 acts to be on stage. This company HearZMusic.com hooked it up. We had an awesome show. Everyone there was so nice to us. All the bands we're great. The HearZMusic people took care of us well. BBKings is an awesome room to play. Like, real groups play there. The bands shared a dressing room back stage that had a star on it :) I felt like for 30 minutes I was a rock star. Bring Da' Noize! 8/18/2002 9:29:09 AM  Holy Cow! As part of the indie sessions. They had a bunch of bands play Saturday night (as well as friday). I saw this group Powder. Which, well, you just have to see them live to understand. Ridiculous stage show. The last group to play was Public Enemy. Yes. Public Enemy. Their show was fuckin killer. They had a drummer, bassist, guitarist, 2 dj's. ChuckD and Flava. The show was killer, each song just went one right into each other. Every song was loud and amazing. I jumped around, had a great time. I actually ended up making my way over to this one dj. He would mix/scratch albumns so ridiculously fast! Like... really fast. Afterwards, I went up to him and told him how I saw the turntables we're really his instrument. The dude was totally friendly. Talked to me for a bit. Then I nagged him to give me his copy of the setlist :) McHeroin 8/19/2002 10:09:57 PM  Had a f'd up moment tonight. I got out of the subway on 28th and park ave, and decided to go to McDonalds (haven't had McD's for a long time). All of a sudden, a fire truck pulls up. Bunch of FDNY guys come into the place. The manager says, "there is some guy in the bathroom... been there for a while." The open the door. This guy is in there. Heroin needle still in his arm. At first they were all rushing around. Then they stopped... Karma 8/28/2002 11:36:30 AM  I felt as though my Karma was kinda off the other day... In an attempt to fix it, I seeked out water. I figured.. Manhattan is an island, i should be able to get to water :) I walked down 23rd to the East. Found some bike/walk trail that goes all down the east side of manhattan. I walked from 23rd st, all the way to Brookly Bridge. Took me about 1.5 hours. I stopped at any places where I could hear the water ebbing the shore... Vittorio! 9/2/2002 12:24:00 PM  I am going to be doing the mixing/mastering of this new age pianist "Vittorio". He writes that like relaxing stuff, that you hear with rain/thunder in the background. I tossed up a rough studio sample of his piano playing. Sit back, and light up a candle to this one... Unity Square v2.0 9/12/2002 6:14:56 PM  Last night, I went down to Union Square to run an Open Jam. I picked up 2 Tamborines, Claves, 2 small egg shakers, 1 metal shaker, and a bell thing. I also brought with me my big dJembe and my smaller drum.... and my mandolin. I found a bunch of people playing some music.. and I asked if I could join. I layed out all my percussion on the ground and told everyone they could pick up and play whatever they wanted. Me (on mandolin) and this guy "Steve" (on guitar) jammed out all the cover songs we knew (mostly Beatles tunes) and some others like Lean On Me and Amazing grace. After a while of playing, I looked up, and noticed that 75 to 100 people where around me. All singing, smiling... rows and rows of people... Afterwards people thanked me for lifting their spririts, and donating my good energy... Waaahh? 10/5/2002 4:03:44 PM  Last night, I finally got my friend Christian to come by to record music. He's this random dude from Chile that I jam with in Union Square. Anyhoo... we recorded this thing last night. I'm playing Mandolin, Bass and Acoustic Guitar. Christian is playing Doumbek, Claves, and 2 kinds of Shakers. It's some pretty interesting stuff. Not exactly sure what genre it is... Morning 10/20/2002 10:28:10 PM  I just recorded this just now. I figured maybe I'd record myself playing some guitar stuff. I called this Morning. I'm not exactly sure why, considering I made it at night. Maybe it reminded me of a particular morning or something... Patient 10/20/2002 11:10:15 PM  Another random recording... Sometimes someone takes a chance and is patient with you. I don't know if I've ever returned that favor to someone... But if I did, this is how it would sound. She Said 10/22/2002 9:46:11 PM  I'm not sure what made me record this one...maybe it was something she said? I Will Try 10/23/2002 8:18:22 PM  I think I'm going to keep recording until I have an albumn's worth of stuff :) Maybe people will like listening to my random kinda chillin guitar music with drop D in everything.. anyhow... I don't know what makes this different...but this time.. I Will Try... The Past 10/23/2002 9:44:16 PM  Sometimes it's difficult...you're afraid...you're safe in knowing what you have right now...but most of the time, you are better off...saying goodbye to The Past. Dreams 10/28/2002 7:50:20 PM  This is what happens when I learn about tuning DADGAD... Every once in a while... I have like super weird Dreams. Not Alone 10/28/2002 7:59:42 PM  It is hard to get over it. You want to do something entirely yourself. Maybe it is just so that you can say you did. However... I have found that great things have to be done Not Alone. Rose 10/30/2002 11:03:28 PM  Tuning this time: EADGAE <-- B is A :) .... I want to get close to you... but holding you is like holding a Rose. Clarity 11/3/2002 5:30:24 PM  The other day, I was laying on my futon trying to take a nap. In my grogyness I had a Taoist epiphany. I don't really remember it much, except for something like, the way to become part of the universe is to not try too hard at it. Something like that. Also, we're already part of the universe anyhow, so you don't really need to worry about it. Anyhow... every once in a while, I have a moment of Clarity. Fighting Crime 11/3/2002 5:38:12 PM  This happened a bunch of weeks ago, and I just forgot to journal it... I was having dinner one night with this friend of mine, on the corner of 7th and A I think. When we finished dinner, we walked to the corner and tried to figure out where we were going to go next. We both happened to notice this man sitting against the wall... he leaned as far over as he could and stretched his arm out to grab this girls purse (she was sitting and eating and didn't notice). I had to do something, so I asked the man really loud, "Hey! Is that your purse?". He said, "yeah why? are you a cop?" Then he started to walk away. I went up to the girl and told her, "hey that guy just stole your purse." And she got up and ran after him. He was already across the block. It seemed he wouldn't give it to her at first, but she eventually got it. Happy 11/3/2002 7:59:08 PM  I wrote this song in literally a bunch of minutes or so. I think it took me longer to record and upload it then actually write it :) It features lots of cheasy chords. But these cheasy chords make me Happy :) Halloween Randomness 11/10/2002 10:29:10 AM  I should have written this a week or so ago :) But anyhow... On Halloween, I put on my elf gear and walked around the city. As I walked down 6th, I heard someone say "Carmine?"... It ended up being this girl Carrie-Anne, who was my 3rd girlfriend ever. From like 9th grade. She's pretty cool. She's married, and living way up town. I asked how she recognized me, she was like, "I knew you did this kinda stuff"... After a while, I decided to head down to Union Square. I heard someone else say "Carmine?", it ended up being my cousin Joe, who I have not seen for 7 to 8 years! He's like 24 now. So last time I saw him, he was a teenager. Freaky... Oh, and finally, I had my mandolin on me. I jammed with some folks who were living out of their van. They ended up being SCA people. Knew all about the elfness. Oh and actually finally... there were these 2 guys who kept sitting on a chair with wheels, and people would like push them for a long time, then let go, and the chair would roll across the square jump a set of steps, go some more, jump another set of steps... Take 7 11/10/2002 3:25:47 PM  I wrote this riff a while ago, when I was 17 or so. It's quite changed to fit the style i'm doing now-ish. Any how most of the song is in 7 (nifty eh). I named it Take 7. Kinda a reference to one of my fav jazz tunes Take 5 (which is in 5) :). Monsters 11/10/2002 3:55:17 PM  If I had these little mischevious yet cute Monsters running around my apartment, this is the song they would write. You got to imagine during the repeating part, that they are saying, "we're the monsters deh dehhh, we're the monsters deh dehhh..." The fun part is, I uploaded the Take 7 song, then sat down with the guitar again, came up with this one in like 10 minutes, recorded it/mp3 and uploaded :) Fun... Home 11/15/2002 3:06:31 AM  I really did not want to go to sleep tonight until I wrote something. The chorus chords here just kinda came to me ish. I had it in my head and just kept trying different chords till it sounded as I heard... hmm sleep time for me.....Sometimes, you keep trying different things. No matter what you do, none of them is what makes you happy, and in reality.. you are just trying to go Home. Tonight's song brought to you by the letters DADGBD :) Eternity 11/15/2002 8:48:30 PM  This one took me a while to write.. well kinda. It's a bunch of different ideas i've had over the past week that I just kinda tossed together ish... I think it works. The name Eternity refers more to being in the place eternity (not taking an eternity). If that makes sense. The End 11/26/2002 11:31:06 PM  I decided to take all these songs, re-record them all nice, and make an albumn of them. Even though this is The End... The bridge has a hope to it... Breakfast Brew 11/29/2002 5:29:12 PM  Tuning a piano takes like almost 3 hours... So while the guy was doing it, I decided to make some Mead! The breakfast brew was so popular, I decided to make more. I used 15 lbs of honey, 2 vanilla beans, and a bunch of cinnemon sticks. Mmm... Give me a call in 3 months... it's gonna be yummy! :) Distant Land 11/29/2002 11:19:17 PM  This is kinda neato. I think I ended up playing some scale from some Distant Land... More tuning of DADGAD. I, You 12/5/2002 9:20:11 PM  This one is kinda repetitive-ish. But like, I really wanted to do something with this nifty DADF#AD tuning i've been playing with. This has a, I love you and I have no idea what to do kinda sound to it... well to me at least... I called it I,You because I think the title, I love you woulda been too cheasy... The Taylor 12/9/2002 2:30:49 PM  So I went to the store the other day to pick up a case for my acoustic... and well I came home with a new acoustic (and a case).. so I guess it wasn't a total failed trip :) Anyhow. I got this Taylor. Not one of those super expensive ones. This really inexpensive Big Baby model. Which is smaller than your average size guitar. It'll be great for gigging in the subway, or taking to a friend's for a party. I guess this is the first song she wanted to play. Chance 12/12/2002 12:41:48 AM  Sometimes you have to take a chance. This does not mean, leaving things to chance... but taking a chance.. or.. something like that. Maybe I should stop recording/uploading after midnight. Oh, and don't get me wet or something like that too. What ever happened to Gizmo? Sign 12/14/2002 1:28:27 PM  I saw a Sign today. It was in the 28th street (6 train) subway station. But still... it was a sign... Piano Test 12/14/2002 8:07:23 PM  So like... I decided to record some piano. It's still a new instrument to me, and i'm mostly just playing around and improvising and stuff. Anyhoo... here is me playing some piano. Don't Know 12/16/2002 9:43:21 PM  You ever get like... so hurt/angry/mad/frustrated/etc. you don't know what to do? Although I did know I wanted to use drop D tuning and my Taylor... weeee In Love 12/17/2002 7:15:28 PM  You ever like... one day just realize.. Wow.. I love so-and-so. It just kinda hits you all of a sudden. It's like.. starting today I am in love. The last time this happened to me.. I think this is what it sounded like... Oh.. I am also in love with drop D tuning capo 2. :) (behold my dorkness) Courage 12/19/2002 9:20:33 AM  So after work yesterday... I came home.. practiced 3 of my songs so I could go to this open mic. I felt good, and headed down. When I got there, the place was empty. Turns out some of the tennants complained about the noise (a real shame, because the place is wonderful). I started to head home, but then I turned around. "I'm going to play my 3 damn songs!" I thought. So I headed into the 14th st subway. I found a hallway where the ceiling was low. I took out my guitar, left the case open in front of me. I played my 3 songs. Lots of people walked by... this one kid went past me, then turned around about 20 feet away, then came back, and tossed some change. I made a wopping 36 cents. Lord of the Dance? 12/20/2002 3:55:30 AM  So like.. right now i'm so wste err wasted.. fucik damnnit.. went to www.zenwarp.com party.. LOTR 2 weo er towers party.. lots of scantily clad goth chicks with elf ears... like orc dudes dancing with swords.. umm.. fairys.. cute as fuck ones.. umm.. dammit.. oh.. met a bunch of great petridish.net people. and like lots of great sca people. i drank my god damn elf ass off and dance my god damn ass off... err fuck elf i'm an elf.. weeeee fuck UPDATE: This girl I know took lots of Pictures!!!! Wind 12/28/2002 10:14:32 PM  got Bored... looked at some of my friend's live journals.. saw one of these things.. blah blah blah.. You're wind! You are a very kind and sympathetic person. Whoever DOESN'T like you has a mental disorder, because you are a loving and caring gentle soul. What element are you? Unnecessary 12/30/2002 12:38:21 PM  The other night I went out with a bunch of petridish.net people for kareoke at Tracy J's (by union square). I had 3 kamakasis.. the drinks were great.. food was good. I sung guns n roses Patience... wee. Met lots of people... had a super good time :) Afterwards though.. woo 3am.. I still felt like doing something... I went with Rigel to Coyote Ugly... Never been there before... but he's the guy to go with... He's the Norm of Coyote Ugly... anyhoo.. I had some jagermeister (I think).. one of the bartender women got on the bar.. got some guys girlfriend up there.. with much reluctance convinved the guys girlfriend to take her top off... weeee Started walking home.. realized that i was going in the wrong direction.. got a cab.. didn't have enough money for the cab.. but the cab driver was ok with it! The next day, my head felt like it was in a vice... The night was awesome, but the trip to Coyote Ugly... totally unnecessary :) Legend of Gelf 1/3/2003 9:36:56 AM  Got REALLY bored last night... Made this :) My couple of second tribute to the Legend of Zelda. Which is really more about the little elf dude than Zelda if you think about it :) Happy Thing 1/3/2003 5:02:18 PM  My friend Christian stopped by late last night, and we recorded this happy thing. He's playing 2 doumbek's, claves, egg shakers, metal shakers. I'm playing 2 guitars, 2 mandolins and bass. This is a mesh of random parts from some of my other tunes. Weeeee! 1/5/2003 10:52:02 PM  Had a Mead party on saturday night. It was truly successful. Had lots of petridish people come, as well as long island friends, as well as city friends, as well as random people from other countries :) 24 people total in my apartment. A new record. We made the "Golden Mead".. Mangos.. this time.. in Orange Blossom honey.. mmmmmmmm gonna be some good stuff :) Oooo.. for a good time... soak mango in peach snapps... each :) Also.. letting mangos sit in orange blossom honey... mmm.. I'm all abou the sweet stuff :) Phat Beatz 1/12/2003 1:29:32 AM  So tonight I went into the 14th street subway with Christian. We both played drums. We laid down the ill beats y0... wee.. Played in the subway station from 11:30pm till 1am. Like tons of people who walked by stopped to dance for a while. Lots of people passing us smiling and stuff... It was a good time... Oh.. we made about $6... I let Chris have it. I'm not sure what exactly that guy does to have money for food and stuff... Gettin' Middle Eastern on Y0 Ass! 1/12/2003 11:13:23 PM  So I signed up for a middle eastern drum class. It's every Sunday afternoon. Took the first class today. My teacher is an amazing doumbek player. She's like.. ridiculously good... I went to see her perform tonight at this cafe. There were bellydancers, an oud player, bass player, it was incredible. This one bellydancer danced with a plate load of candles on her head! So I talked to my buddy christian about my lessons and stuff. Turns out when he first came to NYC from chile, he learned from the same person! Knew exactly who my teacher was. Seems she's famous around here... Random eh. Oh.. I also had crazy deja' vu' like ALL day today... Interview with a Moron 1/14/2003 11:05:16 PM  So I'm interviewing people today for a programmer position at my company. This kid comes in. He had down on his resume that he worked for this one website. When he listed the stuff he did, I knew he was lying... why... because I wrote that website years ago. I'm like, "hey, says here on your resume, you re-did the entire site... funny... i looked at the site and all of my old code is still there.." The best part was when we mentioned we had company X as a client (I'm hoping he thought we JUST got them as a client). His response was, "Really, well you have your work cut out for you, their website sucks." Moron didn't realize they've been a client of ours for over 2 years. Even if this kid actually had the skills, I could never hire someone soooooooo stupid. This is what happens when you swim on the shallow end of the gene pool. Subway Series 1/19/2003 2:22:11 AM  So tonight I took my little djembe, my bag of percussion tricks and my mandolin, and went to NYC Drum and Dance drum circle... Played for a bunch of hours. Afterwards, a bunch of us hit Republic for some food. Afterwards, when we got into the subway, I figured... we're here, we got drums... lets jam. I jammed with this woman Kim. Her and I were actually pretty rockin together. We followed each other very well considering we had just met. After an hour or so, I ran into some people from Petridish.net. We managed to convince them to play some claves and tambourine for a bit. Very proud of them... My hands are killin' me. 3 to 4 hours of drumming, followed by 2 to 3 hours of drumming :) I'm pretty hard core :) Update: Pics on petridish.net. Can't Live Without My Radio 1/21/2003 8:59:49 AM  This Sunday (01/26/03) at 9pm, my band Paige 23, will get our song "Love You Anway" played on Q104.3 Radio!!!! Weee!!! So like, everyone tune their radio in on Sunday night at 9pm :) You can listen to the station online here. Total Chaos!!! 1/23/2003 11:12:00 AM  So yesterday... I get in to work.. and shortly after, our main file server's hard drive took a crap... A bunch of clients called, and my workload got huge... then at 4:45 or so.. my 80s casio calculator wrist-watch crashed. Yes... crashed! I noticed an hour later that it was still 4:45... Days like this... I wish I stayed in bed... Neutral Good Elf Bard Ranger 1/25/2003 4:05:42 PM  I Started a live journal for Gelf The Elf.. "Neutral Good Elf Bard Ranger"... so basically i'm a Taosist Musician.. (duh!)... Find out What D&D Character Are You? Mead and Swords 1/27/2003 3:49:38 PM  So on Sunday, I had Regyt, Andrew of Penguin and Nate over. We made the tribute batch of mead. Weee to clove... Andrew and I got happily drunk, and then I showed people how to sword fight in my living room :) Pictures are here. Today is Good 1/29/2003 12:26:44 AM  2 good things today... It seems as though my CD is ready on mp3.com. I ordered a copy of it, so I can double-check it's ok before I tell the world :) I went to this show tonight of my drum teacher and students. There were AMAZING bellydancers... great drumming... I think I saw this dude do that double-voice singing thing... not sure exactly :) At the end, I jammed with some of her other students... It was awesome... I learned some new tricks... :) Gelfling! 1/29/2003 8:12:41 PM  Well... duh! You are a Gelfling! You are extremely loyal, honorable, and caring; you do not stand for injustice. You are extremely brave when you have to be, and will sometimes fight if provoked. What Race are You from The Dark Crystal? YES!!!!!!!!! 1/30/2003 3:51:58 PM  My CD is now available! I got my first copy in the mail today :) You can pickup a copy here. This album is a personal victory for me. I've been a musician for over 10 years, and this is my first time writing my own stuff. I always felt that everyone around me was so good at writing songs... and that mine were not good enough... I also can not write lyrics... but one day.. I decided... f'it. I'm going to write instrumental guitar stuff that makes me happy... Each song is a little theme or anthem, born from emotions, brought on by someone else... Goddess 2/3/2003 9:28:35 AM  Went to a show last night... saw amazing musicians.. This one girl was soo super-jazzy... Played guitar and sung.. and scatted... killer voice! Whenever I see a show... i'm like.. damn... I need to go home and practice like RIGHT NOW... What made my day though, was when I got home, I had a message on my answering machine from my friend Dave "The Rave" regarding my CD... "Dude! Track 4!" Was the entire content of the message... but got the point across :) Thanks Dave! :) Grilled Cheese 2/4/2003 12:39:29 AM  I'm working on making one of my journals into a book. Grilled Cheese is a collection of cute random thoughts I had. Written mostly while riding the subway. Each little thingy is just a quick page long. Made to be read while riding a subway or while on the crapper or something :) PDF Sample of the first 10 pages. Soft Rock Star 2/5/2003 3:22:42 PM  My song "She Said" is #53 in Soft Rock on mp3.com! Highest i've been so far. If I can get a bunch of more plays within the same day... maybe i'll be a soft rock star (not a soft porn star). You can stream the song FREE (even works on slow connections) from mp3.com Neutral 2/6/2003 2:04:25 PM  Damn my balaced Libraness... How evil are you? Angels 2/12/2003 9:23:24 PM  Today when I was getting on my subway, I saw this man laying flat on his back on the ground in the subway station. Two women were checking his pulse and tending to him... He looked out cold. Do not even know if he was alive... But those random women tending to this complete stranger... Angels... Holy Crap! 2/18/2003 11:34:17 PM  So I am in the super market getting some orange juice... I look on my shoulder, and notice some bird crapped on me. Which is weird.. cause there are no birds out... Today just did not work out as planned. Rank 2/19/2003 4:40:11 PM  Nice! So I look at my mp3.com stats today. I have the #22 and #26 through #33 spots in Soft Rock! That's like... ridiculous :) I guess no one listened to anything else but me during the blizzard :) This kicks ass :) Go there now! Hook me up. Raqin' 2/24/2003 8:10:20 PM  So this weekend, I went on a Doumbek retreat with my teacher Raquy and The Messengers (about 20 of the other doumbek students). It was upstate at this biiiiiig huge house in the woods. I basically got there and drummed and played mandolin for hours and hours and hours... If I could sum up the weekend in one word, it would be: doumbek, riq, drumming, jamming, napping, dancing, "special-tea", four, five, six, seven, nine, ten, fourteen, syncopation and cookies. UPDATE: Pictures are here. Recital 2/26/2003 8:22:02 PM  So last night was my Doumbek recital. When I got to the place, I helped some of the beginners practice. Then my teacher came up to me and asked me if I wanted to do a solo for a bellydancer. I was nervous about playing by myself, so I got this guy Rami to play who is pretty damn good. I was pretty happy and stuff. My solo was pretty cool at first.. the end of it was kinda sloppy :) But that's ok :) I played the intermediate piece too. That went really well. We were all very tight. All the people in the classes, and all the musicians I've met recently have been such great people. Everyone is so nice and helpful. I also learned like a belly dance move or two :) Me and Elana practicing (thanks Amit!) movie. Da' Plane! Da' Plane! 3/2/2003 7:05:40 PM  So.. this weekend.. I went up to visit Willow and Elam. I drank mead, ate food, played doumbek and got a Tattoo on my left arm. (picture below). What a great weekend :) Homeless 3/6/2003 1:06:37 AM  I was just in the Lyric diner (good french onion soup). It is pretty late. This homeless person came in. The owner was really nice to the person. But after a while, had to make the person leave. As I was leaving, I saw an ambulance from Beth Israel hospital pull up... I walked up 3rd ave, and I saw a homeless person sleeping in one of those 24 atm thingies. The ones you need your card to get into... As I walked up the street, I saw a cop car, and I thought to tell the cop about how there was a homeless guy sleeping in the atm thingy. But then I thought..."why... I should just let the homeless guy get his sleep." Then I thought to myself... (not sure who pointed this out). But there is a great way to get food and a room...be a criminal... You are actually better off being a criminal than being an honest homeless person... Then that got me thinking... Is there a way to help homeless people. Do they want to be helped? Can we get a bunch of smart people in a room... give them some starbucks, and can they solve the problems of the world... fa'shizzle dizzle 3/15/2003 12:00:06 AM  I don't know why... but I get such a kick out of Snoop Dogg. Check out this website: urbandictionary.com An exerpt from the site: fo' shizzle my nizzle "'fo shizz-ul my nizz-ul'" slang for "why certainly my good man" often associtaed with famous rapper "Snoop Dogg." Can be combined with many other words to form a quite entertaining sentance/conversation. See example! What's the dizzle? I got's no clizzle! You heard the new Snoop D O double gizzle? Fo Shizzle, my mizzle if you know what mizzle ya hizzle? Fo shizzle! Peace baby bizzle! Really Random 3/19/2003 9:48:12 PM  So like... the other week I went to see this girl I know play at Mickey's Blue Bar on Ave C. While she's playing I talk to the girl who booked all the acts that night. When I mention my name, she asks what band I'm in. Then she says, "you know my mom!"... I'm like.. "really? how?" She said, "You met my mom on a bus, she's in a wheelchair"... Turns out, the one time I took a bus home from work ever, I helped this woman who was in a wheelchair. I talked to her the entire ride, then made sure when she got to her stop that she got off the bus, and across the street safe and sound. Who knew a bunch of months later at 11pm on a thursday i'd meet her daughter in some bar i'd never been to... I don't understand how there are 8 million people in new york city, and this stuff happens to me all the time... More than meets the eye 3/21/2003 7:47:14 PM  Umm.. this just rocks... Optimus Prime is heading out to the Middle East with his guard unit on Wednesday to provide fire protection for airfields under combat... read. Practice 3/21/2003 8:21:48 PM  Tonight, I got together with a bellydancer (ironically named Paige)... to work on what we are going to do at this thingy on the 25th. Here is the mp3 of what we're doing basically. It's repetitive and stuff for dancing... Got some flubs in it :) But you'll get the idea... Airspace 3/28/2003 9:26:55 AM  The other day, when I was walking to work, I looked up and I saw 3 helicopters. They were in a semi-circle formation over what seemed to be time-square. I looked to the south, and I saw a 4th helicopter on the way. I don't know about you, but I still get freaked out when there are things in Mahattan's airspace. Virginity 3/29/2003 12:40:58 AM  So tonight I lost my open-mic virginity... well, the first time playing myself.. My own stuff... my carmine acoustic stuff. It went really really well. I played at PostScript. This coffee house in the basement of a chapel at Columbia University. It's such a great room. Entirely made of stone. Like a small dungeon or something. Also.. no microphone... but no need. The room acoustics are great. People seem to dig my stuff too... made me happy... I feel great right now... Bored 3/30/2003 6:57:41 PM  This is what happens, when I have nothing to do, and all my recording stuff hooked up :) Yes... I am really bored. Mangia 4/18/2003 7:08:35 PM  We got lunch catered at work today. We had some food left over, so I got it all together in a box, and went to Union Square. I was specifically looking for those homeless kids near union square that always have a dog. I did not find any, so I gave the box to a homeless couple in the Park. They said, "God Bless you, whatever we do not eat we will give away to someone else..." I thought after this that if there was a way to give away the food we did not eat, we could probably feed all the homeless people on left over pizza crusts alone... Sunny Day 5/7/2003 7:58:11 PM  I figured out what is fundamentally wrong with the universe.... we have snow days instead of sunny days. Why when it's nasty as hell out, should we stay in and home from work. We should stay home when it's too sunny out (not too nasty out). Imagine if you got a call in the morning, "please do not come into work today, it is too damn nice out" Central Park West 5/11/2003 2:42:29 AM  So tonight... this is random. Last minute I end up playing bass doumbek with my teacher at a party on the upper west side. Central park west. The apartment was #3. Yes not 3A or something 3 because the apartment was the ENTIRE floor. There was even a guy there with a shaved head wearing all black serving drinks and stuff. Everyone was pretty nice. Our job was to play along to regular kinda trance music. There was goooooood wine! And great birthday cake. The apartment had a HUUUUGE living room, and a couple bedrooms, and a gorgeous bathroom, and a huge dining room, and huge kitchen, and another room that was all wood, and another... I got an inside view into how the beautiful people party... Irony is.. they still need us lowly people for fun :) Infamous Carmine 5/16/2003 9:36:25 AM  I worked late the other night... I got on the 6 train at the City Hall/BrooklynBridge stop. There was no one on the train pretty much, except for me and this one guy. The guy comes up to me and says, "Is your name Carmine?"... I say, "umm.. yeah..." He says, "I'm a Carmine too! I've been to Carmine.com. You work down here right? And you play in a band. I recognized you with the long hair. You also know my friend David that is a drummer..." So I dedicate this post to Carmine. :) Sightings 5/21/2003 8:43:53 AM  Ok... so I got this email from someone the other day: "I was in NYC visiting a friend today. We were on a bus going to a play and I looked over and saw a guy from the back who looked like you. He was wearing jeans and had long hair. So I take another look and see that he has a mandolin and a drum with him. As the bus is driving by, I look at his face...looks like you! So, were you around 24th and 2nd avenue around 3ish today? What are the chances that in a huge city like NY, that I'd see you?" Well, it was me... so as far as I can tell... If you see someone you know in New York City, it is most likely me. :) Sunday Morning 5/26/2003 4:09:34 PM  So... I haven't recorded an acoustic guitar thing for a while. Been busy learning other instruments and stuff... Anyhoo... Had a friend coming over the other day. Was going to record her and stuff. Before she got there, I setup the microphones and decided to test them out. I played acoustic guitar and recorded it. This is entirely made up on the spot stuff I did one Sunday Morning. 420 6/7/2003 4:29:24 PM  My first time :) Newsworthy 6/23/2003 4:24:43 PM  So I was about to play Cafe Figaro the other night. One of the other musicians noticed channel 9 news was outside interviewing people. They suggested I go out to the news people and try to get them to film the belly dance show. So I went up to them, told them about the show, and they were like, "hey can we talk to you about the weather?" And I said "Sure.." As you may know.. it has rainined for days now... They asked me random questions such as, "So what does the sun look like?" and I responded, "You can't look at the sun! That's bad for your eyes." Then they were like, "So what's it like when the sun is out." And the news guy was wearing the news guy coat so I said, "well people wear less clothes.. not like you." He laughed and said, "this is the newsman uniform." And I said, "Yeah... do they give you a paycheck and that coat?" He laughed and said, "OK Thanks Wise-Ass" Update 9/25/2003 5:55:42 PM  So... I haven't posted to my journal for a long time. I guess I've been busy and stuff. A lot is going on. I now play every sunday at Cafe Figaro. I'm playing the big bass doumbek. I also started doing my own show-ish with Cristian (the guy from my Unity Square project). I've played lots of little shows here and there. I played this St. Marks street faire, as well as the Cloisters Ren Faire. My band Paige 23 is recording a new album. It sounds awesome... Secret sneak peak here shhh :) My life is good... I am working a lot and playing a lot. Oh.. I started to learn some Italian, and I think I am going to go to Italy before the years end. Sometimes I feel like I need to get off this island... and I mean.. gooooo and not go to another island, like long island or staten island... Birthday! 10/12/2003 8:32:39 PM  I'm 28 now... I've done a lot... I still have so much to do... Damn! 10/13/2003 8:04:37 PM  Ok, so this is me playing hip-hop beats on the turkish doumbek, and my buddy Jie-Song playing violin. This sounds like some wicked gangster/mob background music or something... Have a listen. This is just like... hook up 2 microphones, hit record... and see what happens... Breathing 1/23/2004 11:53:36 PM  Ya know that Van Halen song.. that's like.. "How do I know when it's love"... TRUE love is like breathing... Turquoise 1/23/2004 11:54:18 PM  I had this really neat kinda sci-fi dream last night. I dreamt I was in some type of institution or something... like we all took classes together and ate together... everyone was pretty normal... except for these 3 kids. They would NEVER speak. And we were not allowed to speak to them. One day, this girl with blue/green eyes... appropriately named "Turquoise" spoke to me. She never spoke to anyone. But for some reason picked me. After she did, I was yelled at and "the damage I did would take weeks to undo." Then later in the dream, she spoke to me again. This time her and the other 2 kids who did not speak ever were seperated from us and locked in some room. I went up to the wall and kinda leaned on it and put my hand on it. Turquoise sent me images telepathically of outdoors stuff... trees/sky/grass, etc. I knew she wanted me to help her "escape"... I left the place momentarily... but when I got back, I noticed there were firetrucks and police cars in front of the institution... she had created a diversion somehow... I found her later walking down the sidewalk with her head covered I recognized her by her eyes... She was happy to be free... then I woke up... Southpark 1/25/2004 4:37:47 PM  I've always wondered what I would look like as a character from a cartoon. Make one yourself here. Six 2/16/2004 4:11:51 PM  So the other weekend, I went on another doumbek retreat. There were about 15 of us this time. Mostly intermediate to advanced students... It was cold upstate :) But tons of fun... Everyone's skill level has increased greatly from last year... It was nice to breath some clean air and eat good home cooked vegan food :) I had this serene 5 minute moment... My friend Amal was playing a rhythm in 6 (a Morrocan rhythm)... I just sat there and soloed.. but I was VERY relaxed... I just kinda let my hands do whatever they wanted and I didn't get in there way... It was amazing... my best soloing ever, and very non intentional... just sitting there doing my thing... 5 2/18/2004 7:02:30 PM  Today is Team5's fifth birthday/anniversary. Five years ago, I quit the place I was working for. I was unhappy with how my bosses ran things, how they lied to clients, etc. I wanted to do it the right way. I started the company in my bedroom on Long Island... 5 years later.. I'm on Wall St. in Manhattan. I have great partners, hard-working employees, and I love the clients I work with, they have all been so good to us over the years. Life is good. Bass...Dumbek 3/7/2004 5:38:07 PM  I was testing a new microphone setup for recording my bass dumbek... I recorded this. It's pretty bassy... I've been inspired lately by this Morrocan 6/8... Leavin' on a Jet Plane.. 4/2/2004 12:37:46 PM  Well.. I'm off to Italy! I have no real plans... i'm made no reservations... I'm basically packed with clothes and my doumbek and i'm heading off... I'll update this from time to time as I find internet cafe's and stuff... Ciao! Rome if you want to... 4/3/2004 12:28:09 PM  I am in Rome! It's amazing! There is lots of old stuff here :) I spent the past bunch of hours just walking and walking... I just happen to pick a hotel that is 8 blocks from the collaseum... Everything here is beautiful... I saw a homeless guy.. he had on a suit jacket... Rome is kinda like NYC.. as if the village was the entire city... except like.. instead of Union Square.. Rome has a Collaseum.... and instead of Central Park.. Rome has the ancient city. Oh.. also.. across the street from my hotel is a series of musical instrument stores... I want to live here... Florence 4/4/2004 12:42:52 PM  I ended up going to Florence today... I was going to go to Naples... but from what I hear... Naples is a tough town... I wanted to get more used to Italy first... I went to the train station and hopped on the next train to Florence. I basically.. arrived... got a hotel room. Took out my drum and played in park. Then walked... and walked.. and walked. I didn't get a tourist map or anything.. I just walked in a direction. I'd see a tall building and go to check it out. Everything in Florence is beautiful. It looks like those pictures.... with the red roof tops and churches talled than the homes... oh... Not many people know this but Firenze (Florence) is the Italian word for "We don't F'around when it comes to churches" seriously.. There are tons of them here... You think your church is cool... I know a church in Florence that will kick your church's ass! Oh.. if you're lost... and you're a statue of an uncercumcized naked man... you're in Florence. Pisa! Pisa! 4/5/2004 7:23:40 AM  I am Pisa... It's a pretty small city. The train ride from Florence to Pisa was $5 (Nice!) only 1 hour. I got off the train and headed in the general direction of the tower. There are a couple of museums here and some churches... I got to the tower eventually... oh.. if you think you're the first person to take a picture of your friend with them as if they are holding up (or pushing down) the tower.. you're not... It seems people do this all day here... I actually took pictures of the people taking pictures of their friends... I got lost walking back to the train station... I didn't realize my map wasn't oriented north-south, but rather.. with the train station at the bottom and the tower on top... And today.. following the crowd of people didn't work. People are on there way to work and going to school... I found a high school here... Also.. everyone bikes around these cities.. and mopeds... everywhere... The weird thing about the bikes are.. they aren't like our bikes.. everyone has some oooold bike that's all old metal with the metal fenders that would scratch the wheel sometime.. and the seats with the to big ass springs... I'm tired today... My sleep schedule is all wack... Oh last night I watched the end of "Contact" on RAI channel 4... They were having a movie marathon... All american movies... but in Italian... I am heading back to florence to nap.. I was thinking of going to sienca today as well.. but the train ride is almost 2 hours and I need some sleep... Venice is for Carmines 4/6/2004 2:17:50 PM  Ok.. now this is a good story... This morning I was going to go to Perugia and Assisi... But, when I got to the train station, I thought... Is there anywhere else in the North I want to go before I start heading south. I looked at my Italy map.. and thought.. I HAVE to go to Venice. I went to a ticket machine, the next train was in 30 minutes. I got my ticket and that was it. I sat next to this very nice couple from Canada and chatted with them most of the way. When I got to Venice... I got a hotel room $50.. not bad... They have cheaper rooms... but I am sans-plans guy.... So.. I decided to walk around.. Not many know this, but Venizia (Venice) Is Italian for "This place is an f'in Labyrinth." Seriously... the place is almost an imposibility.. a maze of rivers/canals with small bridges and little groupings of shops. I like it here. You MUST speak/understand Italian here. The further you go from the train station.. The less and less Italian people speak. If I was a highlander immortal guy. I'd have my final sword fight here. Ok... so I am walking randomly... But heading to San Marco (HUGE SQUARE) I am just heading in that direction... I turn down a street... and I pass someone who looks familiar... I turn back and ask the guy, "What's your Name?"... He says "Carmine"... I was like "You're Carmine Appice... I am Carmine... I have Carmine.com." Carmine Appice is like... famous drummer guy... has played on tons of albums... We chatted for a bit... He was hanging out with The Radio Chick and a bunch of other people. Ok... so while turning down a random street, in a city I didn't even plan on going to, in a country I have never been.. I run into another Carmine... I am not sure at this point if my life is totally random or totally predictable... I almost expect stuff like this nowadays... Clarity/Cheap Wine/Ghetto 4/7/2004 4:17:07 PM  I am still in Venice. It rained last night, and I really wanted to take photos. I walked all over today, trying to find this spot I had found yesterday. I couldn't find it. I also looked around for this wine place and couldn't find it either. As I was walking randomly today... I passed an Egyptian place called Sahara. It didn't open until 7pm... and.. guess what... I couldn't find it... Venice has taught me something... Something I have always kind of known... but it smacked me in the head with it. If you want to find something... don't look for it. And if you try to hard to find something... you'll definately not find it. Wine is cheap here... $1 per glass... I stopped at this place today where this woman pumps wine right out of the glass carboy into a plastic bottle for you. A liter of wine is $2... I got half. Which is 2 to 3 glasses of wine.. for $1!!! Also... I walked around the Jewish Ghetto for a while and took some pictures... I found a jewish restaurant on this corner that had some rabi's praying like crazy... I looked at the menu... it was italian food, but with hummus and cous cous and stuff... Then I happened to finally recognize the area... I was hoping the jewish neighboorhood would lead me to the Egyptian restaurant... but yeah.. I know... fat chance with that one... from what I hear, it usually works the other way around... Supidi Trenitalia Bastardi! 4/8/2004 12:15:41 PM  So.. I am in Verona... irony is... I was planning on coming here... then this morning, when I got to the train station, there was a train to naples leaving at the same time as Verona... The train to Naples would have gotten me there at 4pm... Which would have given me tons of time. So... I had to take the train from Venzia Mestre (a stop or two away)... I asked when the next train for Mestre was... and where... and I hopped no the train. So... the train TOTALLY PASSES THE STOP... I learned some new Italian as the other passengers started freaking out. Well.. I got to Mestre... 2 hours late for my train. It was a beautiful day, and I thought.. well maybe it is better to be outside.. then to waste a beautiful day on the train. I decided to take a train at midnight tonight.. that will get to Naples at 9am... So I decided to pass the time.. I would go to Verona... and here I am... Verona has an first centuray A.D. Arena. Kinda like a mini-mini-mini colleum. Sting is going to be here in June. I also checked out a couple of churches, the cathedral and Castle Vecchio. I saw this girl playing hammered duclimer today with 2 accordian players. She was fantastic... super duper fast and had uber control of the thing. Romeo and Juliet are from here... Or the story was inspired here or something. I stopped outside of Romeo's houss (you can't go inside..= and I went inside Juliet's house. In the house is some random stuff... Nothing terribly exciting, however... in the courtyard.. EVERYONE takes some gum or sticky stuff and writes a little love note and puts it on the wall... The stuff is ALL over... Juliet's house is around the corner from Romeo's house...who knew he was into the girl next door type... Roots... and sand.. 4/9/2004 2:03:02 PM  I am on the Island of Ischia. My dad's side of the family is from here (from what I hear)... Last night I took a train from Venice to Naples overnight Midnight-9am... Remind me not to do that again... I took the ferry from Naples to Ischia this morning. I got here... took a shower and headed off... I started walking around a bit. Ischia is BEAUTIFUL... I am in the Port area... Lots of tourists here. People speak very little english here. Especially the inhabitants... It's raining (again)... which is dampening my spirits a bit.... However... earlier.. I took a walk and found the beach (yes.. ischia is beachy)... I walked for a while till I came upon some rocks... then I climbed across them around the island for a bit... till I reached the port area again. It took a while and tired me out. I got some food and took a nap.. When I awoke.. raining (again)... I took the bus to Ischia Ponte.. which is this tiny tiny island that houses a Medeival Castle! They have a meseum of weapons and torture devices... It closed when I got there...(today is not my day)... If the weather is good tomorrow.. I am going to stay here and check out the gardens and hot springs here. You can bathe in/near the hot springs.. Ischia is one of those volcanicly formed islands or something... It's so Beautiful Here 4/11/2004 3:50:31 PM  So.. right after my last post... I took a walk... I figured I'd plan my next couple of days and relax... I haven't posted in a while... because I've been having sooo much fun... things turned around right after my last post.... I walked down Ischia Porto, and I came across this bar with a neon sign with a guitar... There were two guys in there playing all these Italian songs. I went back to my hotel and grabbed my drum and came back. It's the kinda gig where anyone can really play along as long as they follow. I played for like 2 hours. It was just like playing the Figaro back in NYC. Lots of songs in a language I don't know... It was great! The next day I went to Ischia Point and I was able to get inside the Castle. The castle is ok, but the VIEW of Ischia is amazing. Every 10 feet was like another opportunity for a picture perfect... uh picture... Later that day I went to the Montello Gardens. There are tons of different kinds of plants there from around the entire world. Also... beautiful amazing incredible views of Ischia. I ended the day by playing in that bar again (they asked me to come back).... Oh.. that night.. this guy was in there eating... He walked outside out of nowhere... and when he came back in, he had this HUGE suitcase... When he opened it up.. He had the Cadillac of Accordians. It was all black and shiny and HUGE and it was loud as hell. He was an amazing player and the whole room lit up when this guy was playing. Oh.. I stoped at Procidia... It's a tiny Island right near Ischia... well.. that's about all about that... This morning, I went to Capri, and took a boat tour around the Island. The water is Azure. Not blue... but this Azure beautiful blue color. I avoided cities today and stuck to the beautiful places After Capri... I headed to Sorrento where I am now. I am in a youth hostel ($16 for the night). There is this guy who plays guitar in my room... We went down to a park and played for a bit.. Now I am going to use the money I saved to buy some drinks... (whispered) I visit dead places... 4/12/2004 5:28:31 PM  So last night I slept in Sorrento. I made a new friend or two... This morning I went to Pompeii. It's like... a real city. Has... well had... food places, stores, entertainment, parks, and even 1 bedroom apartments. The entire city is walls made of stone/brick. As I walked around... I made jokes like, "I wonder if there is ever a rock shortage in Italy back then..." and about signs for recycling rocks... Then the ever popular, "Collums, Collums... Get your collumns hereeeeeeeee" I walked around pompeii for 3 hours... Then.. Train to Naples.. then Train to Rome. I got a hotel 2 blocks from Rome Termini. The hotel staff took out a map for me and drew a course for me to walk in to see Rome... I only had a couple of hours... They were great. I saw Piazza San Pietro (it's huuuge)... I saw the Castel Angelo.. well on the outside... I saw the Pantheon, and some other Piazza with fountains.. and some other one... Rome has some pretty bad ass foutains... I did 10 days in Italy... No plans... No reservations at hotels... It was basically like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books Tomorrow... I am going to do a final souvenier shoping and dash around Rome.. then I head home... Reflections of a Mead Party 4/25/2004 11:01:03 AM  So, I finally had another Mead Party... I was way overdue... About 25-30 people came over. It was a typical party at my place... There was mead drinking, mead making, jamming, juggling, manly folk dancing, freestyle-rapping, and atari. Everyone had a great time. Anoush brought romanian string cheese and something else kinda wacky, but it was damn good. Jie stole the show with the rhyming freestyling... People literally clapped and cheared... it was intense... Of course, the petridish.net photo crew was there so... If you missed it.. Here are photos taken by: Danielle,   Destiny,   Alex,   Mike and Andrew T.U.R.T.L.E. Power 5/14/2004 7:42:05 PM  When I was a kid... I was realllly into the teenage mutant ninja turtles... I had the comics hanging up on my bedroom wall... and I had the little action figures... and I watched the show, and played the video game... When I was younger.. I also had this friend named Tess... she was this cute little artist girl... she loved the turtles so I thought that was cool :) So one day I drew this for her :) I think I copied it off the back of some comic... On the Rhode 7/19/2004 7:25:58 AM  I spent this past weekend in Rhode Island. A friend of mine was performing in a bellydance show. She emailed me that they needed drummers, and hooked me up with the woman running the show. We emailed back and forth for a bunch of weeks... I took amtrak to Providence, and that was my first time meeting the person... Her house was HUUUUGE on a HUUUGE plot of property with a big big big pool.. and a little mini-house next to her house... The mini-house had her dance studio in it, a bedroom and a bathroom. (I'm seen bedrooms in manhattan the size of the bathroom :)) Anyhow... I ran a drum workshop on friday night, as well as played some oud... It was soooo much fun. I don't think her dancers had heard/danced to live music like that before. Everyone was super nice. I did my best to whip the drummers into shape for the show Saturday... I woke up Saturday morning... played some oud... worked on the pieces the dancers were going to do. The show was at this park. There were lots of little booths selling art and stuff.. It was crazy h0t out... I was sweatin all over... The show went well. I played for a couple hundred people... Got lost driving back to NYC... got home... practiced some more... Aziza! 7/22/2004 7:20:35 AM  So, I have been learning the oud... well... really apply my guitar and mandolin knowledge to the oud :) I still need to learn lots of technique stuff... I have been trying a little bit each night to learn Aziza. It's the "trojan warhorse" of bellydance tunes... a MUST know... I worked on it last night... fell asleep on my futon.. woke up at 6am.. decided to give it another go... I FINALLY know all the parts (I think)... now if I could just play the whole thing through without messing up :) It's Time... 8/17/2004 11:18:16 PM  So a couple of weeks ago... I woke up on Saturday... looked in the mirror and thought... "It's Time..." I said to a friend of mine... "I'm thinking about cutting my hair" and she said, "Let's go RIGHT NOW!"... so I got breakfast at Cafe Mogador... then she took me to the hair cutters on Astor Place. $12 later.. I'm a short hair guy... I donated my hair to lochs? locks? for love.... they make wigs for kids with cancer... I guess someone needed that hair more than me... I do have some weirdnesses with phantom hair... where I put on a shoulder bag and try to move my hair out from under the strap... and I got REALLY weirded out when I went to drink from a water fountain and tried to hold my hair back... No matter how much shampoo I use it's too much... I've gotten only compliments so far... everyone seems to love it... especially me... X Prize 10/4/2004 6:51:09 PM  This is something I am thouroughly (or however you spell that) excited about... The X-Prize is a $10 million prize for the first civilian space flight. So... someone did it! What i'm excited about is... if you watch Star Trek... peace on earth sets in when they take the first flight with warp drive, and the vulcans find us... Everyone has a new goal... CNN has a story. These guys got into space on $20-$30 million... tons and tons cheaper than NASA... This is going to shake things up... If a country wants to get into space, they can spend $25 million and have that ability... no more chosen few getting into space... The final frontier can now be the next frontier... Oh. and sorry for all the terrible paraphrasing above... I'm so excited... and I just can't hide it... Mr. Rakkasah 10/10/2004 10:23:06 AM  I had sooooooo much fun this past weekend. I performed at Rakkasah East. Rakkasah is all day performances, and all day shopping. Big big big bellydance convention. I performed on friday night with Pangia. Afterwards, I started a party in the hotel's bar with the help of a bunch of great musicians and of course 50 or so bellydancers. On Saturday, I performed with Pangia and Scott Wilson. I also do a great duet with Lara. All day, people were asking me if another party was going to happen... When I got back to the hotel Saturday night, there was over 60 people there waiting for me. More musicians came to play. The place was PACKED! The hotel staff was turning away people from coming into the bar because of the amount of people. We played until 2am or so. Woke up on sunday... played with Pangia and Scott Wilson again... then went home to NYC, to play at Cafe Figaro. I think over a 3 day period, I played for 12 to 16 hours comprising 20+ drum solos. I met tons of great people, and had an amazing time... can't wait till next year... 29... 10/13/2004 2:30:28 AM  So my birthday ended a couple of hours ago... I had dinner with some close friends, then snuck out for a couple of drinks with a new friend... I looked at my posting from last year... I wrote that I still have so much to do. I think I realized this year, that I still have so much to learn... Mmmmm... 2004 .... 10/26/2004 12:17:07 PM  I'm not normally into stupid math tricks... but this one involves chocolate... so it's worth it :) I CAN CALCULATE YOUR AGE BY CHOCOLATE..... DON'T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST! 1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate. (More than once but less than 10) 2. Multiply this number by 2 (Just to be bold). 3. Add 5. (For Sunday) 4. Multiply by 50. I'll wait while you get the calculator... 5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1754....If you haven't, then add 1753. 6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born. You should have a three digit number... The first digit of this was your original number (i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week). The next two numbers are........... YOUR AGE! (Oh YES, it is!!!!!) THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2004) IT WILL EVER WORK, SO SPREAD IT AROUND WHILE IT LASTS. People Are Dumb 11/3/2004 3:10:31 PM  Last night... I was scared to go to sleep... I was afraid that if I slept, when I awoke, Bush would be president. I understand multivariant calculus, and I can't understand how someone would vote for Bush. Seriously... since Bush has been in office, the economy has gone to crap and we've spent billions on a war. Over 50 billion (with a B)? I think... There are only 50 million (with an M) living there.... I think if we gave Iraqi's each $1000 american.. they might not hate us so much... For 50 billion we could feed the entire country of Iraq for years and years... it would be enough money to move the entire population of the country to some other country... Instead... people died... and I have friends who are GENIUSes with NO JOB. I checked the stats for Manhattan. 82% voted for Kerry! (whew!) SFE Compressed 11/22/2004 1:46:56 PM  So last night I spent some time compressing some video footage of my new group Stone Forest Ensemble. We're a world music/classical/hip-hop group... Combining strings (violin and cello) with percussion (doumbek and djembe) with a dash of freestyle rap! You can download 9 juicy minutes of our columbia performance here. Pieeeeeeeeee 11/26/2004 3:10:37 PM  Thanksgiving! 5 kinds of Pie! Apple, Cherry, Pecan, Pudding and Pumpkin... yes! Nice Balls! 11/26/2004 8:08:46 PM  Friend of mine just sent me this link... This is pretty impressive... Guy plays Piano with his Juggling Balls. Not Alone (again) 12/1/2004 11:52:16 PM  I wrote/recorded this album in 2002. At the time I was in a relationship and in love. The person I was with and little tiny events here and there that happened between us and between myself an other people inspired me to write these songs. I kept my guitar out (never in the case) and my microphone setup (so I could record at anytime). Alot of these are very spontaneous. I would come home from work, think of a couple ideas then record a song. I hope you enjoy them. I also included the original cover/insert art as .jpg files. I used them on mp3.com (way back in the day). If you read my journal (wayyy back), you can see the meaning of each song... Download the Entire Albumn (47meg .zip file) Fresh Eggs 12/7/2004 12:00:10 AM  So this past weekend, I was in Mt. Shasta California. Home of well.. a mountain called Shasta... I think the orange soda comes from there. Danon bottled water.. bottled there... and also... Pangia! Pangia is a group that I play with at Rakkasah. Features Pat Olsen on Oud and Denise Mannion on keyboard. They flew me into California to play doumbek on their upcoming album (I'm actually playing doumbek, bass doumbek and riq). I played a show Friday night and recorded all day Saturday and all day Sunday. I'm totally exausted. I had a great time. Denise and Pat live in a cute house in the middle of nowhere. They have 20 chickens, a bunch of peacocks, 2 dogs, and I think I counted 3 cats. The house is powered by a couple of solar panels, a windmill and a generator. The highlight of the weekend... When I woke up on Friday morning, Pat said, "do you want some eggs for breakfast?" Then he went outside and came back with eggs. I was like, "umm.. did you just get those from chickens?" They were the freshest and BEST damn eggs I ever have. Wooo-hoo! for free-range happy chickens! Rakkasah Day 0 (San Francisco) 3/18/2005 1:06:08 PM  I'm in California! I'm here for Rakkasah West. It's the 25th anniversary of this huuuuuuge bellydance festival. There are people here from all over California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, even Germany and Japan. Pangia (the group whose new cd I am on), took me on a great tour! We went to 3 different music stores! I got to go to the Lark in the morning store. It's like Carmine musical instrument fantasy land... crazyness.. tons and tons of strange instruments you won't find anywhere. All these crazy string instruments, drums, horns, flutes... At the last minute, I ended up buying a new huuuuuuge frame drum from a place called Clarion Music. Oh... what totally rocked is... we actually drove down that curvey road you see in all those movies... and I saw the Golden Gate bridge. For lunch we went to this place in china town that had the BEST damn dim sum i've ever had. Dinner was at Pasha... Such a good story from there... coming up next post :) Dine Like a Sultan 3/28/2005 8:11:24 AM  We walked into Pasha Restaurant on thursday night. The ceiling looks like your inside a huge tent. There are tons of little seats and those turkish metal circle tables everywhere. It's dimly lit inside. The walls are covered in hand made tapestries. The owner "Jalal" came right up to us. It turns out he has know Denise and Pat from Pangia for years. Jalal is an AMAZING qanun player. When I told him I was from New York City he asked me about all the great musicians and how they were doing and such. He knew everyone. I told Jalal I played doumbek and he said, "You want a doumbek? I sell it to you." There was live music (by Jalal and this egyptian doumbek player) and a bellydancer. The band was great, the dancer was great... the food.. was pricey but great :) What was particularly cool, was that by Jalal's feet, he had a bunch of buttons that worked the lights. So he could flash on the lights bright (or turn them off) when a song ended/started by stepping on them. During the show, some of the waiters handed out Fez Hats... turns out towards the end of the show, whoever got one had to get up and dance. It was cute, the dancer taught a couple moves, and if people applauded, you got a little piece of paper that you graduated from Pasha's school of bellydance. I'd highly recommend this place... tons of fun. Sooooooo when the show was done... Pat and I noticed an extra Qanun on the wall. We asked Jalal about it, and he said... "You like it? I sell it to you." Pat/Denise and Jalal talked about west coast musicians for a while. Then Pat and I got on stage and played a couple of tunes.... Got off stage... I talked to Jalal and I said, "you seem to be the guy who'd know... Where can I get a Davul in this town?". A davul is a large turkish drum you strag over your shoulders (kinda like one of those big drums you'd see in a marching band.. only smaller). Jalal said, "You want one? I sell it to you." Update 7/25/2005 9:54:55 PM  For the first time in a long time, I updated my show listings on my website. I have actually been playing TONS of shows all over the place on doumbek as well as oud, as well as playing with Paige 23. Over the past bunch of months, lots of stuff has happened. I never did finish writing about Rakkasah West... Here is what has happened in the past bunch of months in a nutshell. I went to music/dance camp. My oud lessons this year were transforming... My whole understanding and approach to the oud has been upgraded... The student musicians are getting better and better. When I play with the peeps from Khafif... we sound pretty damn cool... and I love being "the oud guy" :) I've decided to go to Pennsic. This will be my first time ever. 10,000 people doing renesaince stuff. Music, Dancing, Swordfighting, Armor, mead drinking, debauchery :) I got a ticket in the park recently for my SMALL amp. Which is ridiculous... no warning no nothing.. just "No amplified sound in the park, here's a sitation". When I asked about it, I turned my amp off immediately. Then I realized the cop gave someone right before me a ticket, then me, then the breakdancers with their boombox, then someone else... then a skateboarder... insanity... Of course people started to freak out, cause the EXCESIVE ticket giving was just completely not needed. It was 7pm on a Friday... no one was being too loud... they just felt like giving out tickets I assume... Apparently 6 drummers is ok, but my Double-A battery powered amp is not. So I took my drums over to the breakdancers (now not using their stereo)... and I "Dropped the ill beats" It was pretty damn cool.. huuuge circle of people formed and watched... Sleep time for me... there was more stories in all that somewhere... Pennsic 8/28/2005 6:23:03 AM  So... I went to my first Pennsic.... and I had an amazing time... I have numerous stories to tell... here is one... Random story... One night... I was at Vlad's (party/drum circle place)... and I was kinda leading the jam... just playing bass doumbek... no solos... and I found myself doing this alot... leading by playing bass... Then some random dude just gets right and front of me and says, "you got anything?" or something like "let's see what you got" or something... And then he straddled his doumbek and started going tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka tek ka Really fast or something... like.. he was HITTING his drum and not playing his drum... I've never had so many people go to hand my a regular doumbek so fast... But I was like... nah... that's ok... So then I switched to the Saidi ... that goes TK D TK D D TK T TK and all my drum peeps followed... And the random guy was lost as hell.. but still wailing away... then a couple dancers yelled at him to stop and just play the doums.... and they were like.... .. DOUM.... DOUM DOUM..... It was pretty funny... Pennsic Melody Jam 9/6/2005 9:57:01 AM  One of my favorite times at Pennsic was the Melody Jam (hosted by Touch The Earth). Instead of just drumming, it was string instruments with accompanying percussion. Someone recorded me playing my cumbus there. Check out these mp3s. Fire Dance Ya Ein Mawlaten More Melody Jam 9/7/2005 8:14:41 PM  Got some more recordings from the melody jam. This one is myself on cumbus playing this turkish tune called Hijaz Dolap. Hijaz is the scale/mode, Dolap means.... umm.. someone told me it means "container or cabinet or closet" or something... Anyhoo... There are little breaks in the song, and each drummer playing with me does a little solo/fill thing. It's pretty cute... it came out a bit messy :) but was tons of fun :) Hijaz Dolap 30 is the new 20 11/10/2005 3:41:04 PM  I can't believe It has been almost 2 months since my last post... It seems as every post starts with "so much has happened since my last post..." Well... so much has... I'm not even sure what to start with exactly. October 12th was my 30th birthday... Rakkasah East 2005!... My becoming a full time musician... Whaaa? Yes... I'm a full time musician now. I've been working full time since I was in college. Never taking a break... I think when I was younger, I wanted lots of money, and lots of umm... stuff... but now adays I don't need so much "stuff". I want to be spending my time doing things that are fulfilling to me. People say time is money... although... money is not time. No amount of money can buy back last night... it's gone. Over time, I've found that the most fulfilling thing for me to do is teach. I also love performing. I'm going to be spending my time now traveling all over teaching doumbek workshops and performing. My new lifestyle is amazing and I'm happy I have the time to take care of Carmine stuff. My best friends Vince and Allison have been amazingly supportive of my career/life change, and have done so much to hear/put up with me over the past bunch of months when I was making my decision, I can only hope to someday thank them with the same patience they gave me. Djinn! 11/20/2005 1:27:19 AM  Finally! A band name :) After much mulling over things such as: Haflacopter, Haflaholics, Jimmy Hafla, Carmine and the Masmoodies, Carmine and the Newbians, etc. Finally made a decisision on calling the band Djinn! Djinn is an arabic word, it's the plural of genie... That makes us wish granters. Wish 1: There be bellydancing... Wish 2: There be Live Music! (that's us!) Wish 3: Have it in Brooklyn! Waaaaaaa? Yep! Starting November 30th, we're doing a live music/dance night at a cool as hell place called My Moon in Williamsburgh Brooklyn. It's just 3 blocks from the first L train stop! Every Wednesday night, there is going to be a FREE bellydance lesson at 8, and then live performances by 2 belly dancers (one cabaret, one tribal). This is awesome! The band is me on Oud/Cumbus, Brian Carter on Doumbek, ad Brad Mack on Bass Doumbek. Our first 2 dancers to kick off this every week event is Kaeshi and Sera. I'm super excited about this! I feel like I finally have my own home... My Moon Raqs! 12/1/2005 11:25:25 AM  So :) Here's how last night went :) I got there early, so I could figure out the sound in the place and setup microphones and all that... When I got there, the mics/sound were already setup! And, as I got chairs and stuff for myself, they carried all of my stuff and helped me and were super nice... When I walked in, I noticed they setup a ton of tables to form a massive elevated dancing space for the dancer. You can see the dancer from ANYWHERE in the place.. and... no need to dance between tables and stuff... The start of the show was kinda shaky for me... I was really nervous, and something was wierd with the sound... the speaker we were going to use ended up being on the fritz, so we used the speaker I was using to listen to myself as our main speaker... So I couldn't hear myself so well... :( Kaeshi was our first dancer. When I found out she was going to be our first, I was totally psyched. She's a fanastic superstar dancer. ALWAYS a good performance. We played Lailet Hob, Erev Shel Shoshanim and did a drum solo. When Kaeshi asked me for Lailet Hob early in the week... I practiced and practiced and practiced that song... it's a big Arabic classic. After Kaeshi's performance, we played a whole bunch of songs until Sera came out. Pete List joined us on djembe. I put down the strings and picked up the bass doumbek, and we did our tribal set. By this time, the sound was all worked out, and I was a lot more relaxed and confident in what I was doing... Sera was also super fantastic. The tribal was a nice contrast to the cabaret performance. We did no melody, and all percussion. I made up everything on the spot and it worked out awesome! At the end of Sera's performance, she got people up to dance... now this was my FAVORITE part... the whole night.. no one was dancing except for my friend Melissa the Loud (who is always dancing... she's great stuff)... Before the show started, Sera did a free bellydance class. All those people got up... We totally kicked up the music, and I felt amazing. I have never felt so good taking solos in my life. The energy was high... I was relaxed and just having a good time playing good music! I'm looking forward to next week :) Jesus! 12/19/2005 12:25:18 AM  Had a weird realization today... Seems there are lots of people... Who hate people from the Middle East... Yet those same people love Jesus... Who is from Israel... Which is in the Middle East. I haven't even really thought about this stuff for a long time now. But there are people who think everyone from the Middle East wants to bomb us, yet that wear Jesus around their neck... Who is from the Middle East... WTF?!?!?! Movin' On Up! 12/19/2005 3:27:28 PM  Cooooooooool! Where did the Jefferson's move on up to? Here!!! Why I live in this town... 12/29/2005 12:14:12 AM  So I was coming home from My Moon with a bunch of new friends. My moon totally rocked tonight! Anyhoo... I get off of the L train on my stop (14th St. and 1st Ave.). I start walking up the steps, but I hear some girl playing guitar and singing. I tell my friends that I'm going to stay down here and play with the person... When I walked back down the steps, I found out the girl singing and playing was on the OPPOSITE platform. So... I kneeled down, took out my drum, and jammed with her... across the platform! We played a couple tunes like this. It was one of those New York City moments. After a while, I went upstairs, crossed the street, and came down the steps and sat with her and jammed for while. We sounded great! We played U2's One, Seal's Crazy, Natalie Merchant's?? Thank You, and Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground... This is why I live in this town... Turkish Instrumental Meets Brooklyn 1/25/2006 8:42:35 AM  Nihavent Longa with Djinn Stylin' I woke up early this morning for some reason... so I cut up a recording I made of a Djinn practice from a couple of weeks ago... I've listened to this like 10 times today... the ending cracks me up :) It's this Turkish, let's see how fast we can play the notes in the maqam song... I'm playing Oud here... I think Brad is playing Riq.. Pete List is beat boxing and making other random noises :) This is definately worth a listen :) to see what happens when Turkish Instrumental meets Brooklyn... Djinn Practice 01/07/06 Nihavent Longa DC Carmine 2/27/2006 11:09:20 AM  A bunch of weeks ago I did a drum workshop and hafla at Zarbek Studios in D.C. The workshops were very well attended and the hafla afterwards was tons of fun. I love my new musical life :) I did 2 workshops, one beginner and one intermediate level. The workshop attendees were a mix between random people, people from Shore Leave, people from Rakkasah and people from Pennsic. It really means a lot to me when people who have taken a workshop with me before come to another one. I was beyond surprised to see "my worlds collide" as my Trekkie Friends (umm sorry.. the cool ones are "Trekkers") were hanging out with my bellydance friends. I got to show lots of GREAT material in the intermediate workshop. Lots of tips and tricks for soloing and playing for dancers as well as ways to "beautify your baladi". What really made the workshops wonderful (for me) is that people complimented me specifically on my teaching style/technique... This means tons as I gave up my previous CEO corporate life to teach music... If you miss this note, we'll all Bb 2/27/2006 12:08:36 PM  A couple weeks ago, Melissa (Clarinet/Pittsburgh/Khafif) came to visit me for the weekend. I met Melissa at Folk Tours camp a couple years ago. At pennsic this past year, we spent lots of time practicing and playing music. We spent a lot of our time with this visit practicing and learning new songs. She came in Friday night, and well.. we did lots of drinking :) but... we spend Saturday morning practicing and we took a Turkish music lesson from Umut! Umut is this AMAZING Kanun player here in the city. The lesson was pretty intense. We would play songs and play B (natural) B kinda half-flat, B half-flat and B more than half-flat and normal Bb (flat) all in the same song! Saturday night was the hafla! We played lots of great classic bellydance tunes. I love having another melody player.. I had a great time performing alongside Melissa and the boys from Djinn. We did experience some technical difficulties that night... I learned alot about sound equipment and power really quick that night :) Sunday we spent yet more time practicing and learning songs. We went through alot of the songs I know (Arabic Cabaret bellydance songs). Big classics like Leilet Hob. Sunday night was Figaro! I had sooooooo much fun drumming that night. Willa came too and I don't think Willa or Melissa had really seen me drum a show before. Melissa got up towards the end and played Uskudara on her clarinet with the group. She sounded great! Monday was... yep.. more practicing... this time I learned some of Melissa's songs. Lots of pennsic favorites and songs she did often with Khafif. Monday night we hit up a Hooka Bar. We brought our instruments with us. This place was on 60th between 1st and 2nd. The owner was amazing to us. I played my oud and he sung all these songs. We got some great rice pudding and tea with our hooka. What was really random is Melissa and I looked online to find the words to Ya Ein Mawlatin (known as Shoshkin or "the saidi song") and we just could not find the lyrics. buuuuuuuuut.. the owner of the hooka place knew them and wrote them down for me... I Love New York... In Retrospect... 4/7/2006 6:14:32 AM  My band Paige 23's new cd In Retrospect is out! Whaaa? Yeah! I've been in this band for over 6 years now. This is our second cd. I love the songs on the CD, lots of great songs of love found then lost, then found again.. and then sometimes lost again :) My fellow band members have always been a pleasure to make music with. Paige brings a song to us at rehersal and we try to bandify the song. Most of the time the songs come together within 15 minutes. If it takes longer than that, or it's a struggle or we're forcing it, we let it go... Rakkasah West 2006 4/17/2006 1:55:16 PM  Yeah, I know I'm writing about Rakkasah West 2006 like almost month after it happened :) This one thing made me so happy. When I got there, and got to my booth, there was a badge there waiting for me... a nice shiny badge with my name on it. But what was cool is that instead of a generic P-Touch label covered badge I had a permanent one... I know it sounds kinda silly.. but the little badge solidified everything I've been doing over the past bunch of years. I love love love love teaching people to play doumbek... I left the corporate world to follow my love of music and teaching. The shiny piece of plastic with my name engraved on it made me feel as though the bellydance community digs my teaching... And it felt great to put on my shiny piece of plastic with the words... "Rakkash Teacher Carmine Guida" Cümbüs Noodle 5/19/2006 8:00:44 AM  A while ago I started (on tribe.net) a group for fans of the Cümbüs The members are from all over the place. I'm great to meet others who are falling in love with this super cool instrument. I have a woping 22 members :) Melissa the Loud and I are having a who will have less members in their tribe contest. She has the Hurdy Gurdy Tribe. I thought it would be nice to upload a clip of just me playing so the members of the group could hear it... (and maybe get some others to put up some clips too)... I'm not sure what the difference between a Noodle and a Taksim... But here is my Cümbüs Noodle iTunes Me!!! 6/19/2006 7:59:16 AM  My Not Alone album is now on iTunes!!! Woooo!!! This is my all acoustic guitar instrumentals album!!! Nice... I'm super excited. It makes it all more real in some way... Click Here to check it out on iTunes. Or search for "carmine guida" P.S. I want to give mad props to the folks at CDBaby.com for making this so easy to do... it's a wonderful site and every unsigned artist should use them... Crossing the Bridge Diner 7/7/2006 10:40:29 AM  A couple weeks ago was F.A.L.O.'s annual Springfest! I've been going to this event for the past 8 years (I think). You know.. the usual.. dress up like an elf, run around the woods, fight with padded swords, play lots of music kind of thing. On our way up, Vince, Teal and I stopped at this random diner in the middle of nowhere. I had this pretty cool 50s theme to it. Anyhoo... we were talking about movies we had all seen recently. I started talking about Crossing The Bridge. It's a movie about music in Istanbul. I had just said a couple of sentences about it, when a woman at the booth in front of us said, "At the Angelica theater in Manhattan?" Holy Canoli... turns out she had seen the movie the same day I did, only during lunch time and I saw it at night. What are the chances, that someone who had seen an independent film the same day I did, at the same theater in Manhattan would be sitting next to me at some random diner in the middle of nowhere? This is why I blog... Djinn comes to Manhattan 7/7/2006 10:52:09 AM  Last Month, my group Djinn performed at Lafayette Grill. It was one of our first performances outside of Brooklyn (and inside Manhattan). Whenever I perform at a new place, I always get nervous (yeah still). The night rocked... here's how it went. When we first got there, the place was kinda empty... after a while about 30 people showed up... which doesn't look like much as LG is pretty large... We got setup and did a soundcheck, and everything was pretty normal. Sera taught a dance class... she was fantastic as usual.. the amount of people started to pick up big time. I was especially happy to see lots of folks from the Cabaret dance community. I've been going to their gigs for a long time... it was nice that they were checking out what I'm up to, and what the Tribal scene is like here in NYC. Djinn kicked in... and we sounded AWESOME... I felt amazing! The sound was GREAT at LG. I've never heard the band sound so good... people got up and danced... (by this time about 70 people were in the crowd). The place was packed... weeeee Sera, Darshan Sarah Locke and Susan Frankovich all performed. They were all very strong. Everyone was fantastic in their own way. Each performance was stunning/amazing/diverse/cool/breathtaking/wanted-to-see-more... During the middle of the show, we were asked to come back (and we are!). I also want to note that the staff of Lafayette Grill treated us extremely well... probably the best of any venue I have played yet. India Love 7/7/2006 11:36:03 AM  So... I don't usually go over my credit card bill much... but this time I just happen too.. and I noticed some strange charges... $1000 to Save the children charity $638 to Verio... Then... yeah.. a whole bunch of Indian dating websites... Apparently someone got hold of my Corporate Credit card (I have NO IDEA how this happened).... I use it for online stuff sure.. but ONLY for business related purchases... no umm.. questionable websites :) Anyway... whoever got the card signed up for like 6 matchmaking websites... fropper.com, match.com, some IndiaLoveSomething site and a bunch others... poor guy... how did he intend to pay for all the dates he got from these websites with no credit card of his own :) I'm really big in Japan 7/18/2006 7:49:16 AM  So... every month I get checks from CD Baby and Film Baby for sales of my Shake Em Up bellydance drum solos DVD. I noticed someone in Japan keeps buying 5 copies every month... so I googled and googled and found this: (scroll about halfway down) Japanese Bellydance Shop? Neon's gothic DVD is there too! Niiiiiice! :) CUMBUS DOWN!!!! 8/28/2006 5:59:23 AM  :( :( While I was at Pennsic, I was sitting at the Touch The Earth booth. I leaned my Cumbus on the bench I was sitting on and I was giving an impromtu lesson... Out of nowhere, my cumbus fell down 1 foot.. and EXPLODED... We just looked at it on the ground in a bunch of pieces and were in complete disbelief! I've dropped it tons of times, it's been knocked over at clubs/bars. The one time it falls 1 foot onto GRASS (yeah, not a concrete club floor). It breaks :( I took a look and noticed the L shaped bracket (replaceable) with connects the neck to the body snapped right in half. A piece of it was on the neck and the other piece on the bowl. This is why I didn't just sit there and cry. I figured the bracket was a replacible thing. The neck was fine, the bowl was fine, the strings were even fine. Just this one piece. Now here in the U.S. you can't just go to Guitar Center or Sam Ash and get Cumbus replacement pieces.... I saw Jas (from Khafif) right after my Cumbus broke. He told me he had a friend with a machine shop in Pittsburgh who could put the piece back together. I gave him the 2 pieces and walked back with my almost dead cumbus :( (what's in the picture). Within a couple of days, I got the piece back (in one piece). Jas's friend said it was a very porus piece of metal kind of crapily made, and that he could make me a steel one of I wanted (wooo ooo). When I get to Istanbul in a week, I'm going to try to get some replacement parts :) I'm kinda stuck here if something goes wrong with mine again. Many thanks to Jas and Jas's friend (who'se name I never got). For fixing the broken thingy. And thanks to my friends who were supportive through the temporary loss of one of my favorite instruments. Pennsic 2006 Week 1 9/21/2006 5:57:48 AM  Yeah.. I know it's way overdue.. but I just realized I never really did blog about pennsic... So i'll make 2 entries... one for each week. Last pennsic (i'm talking 2005)... was my first. I had soooo much fun playing music and partying and especially teaching, that when I returned home, I decided to sell my business and make music my full time job. This pennsic reaffirmed my decision... big time! This Pennsic (now my second) was all about the music. I played EVERY NIGHT with Melissa (clarinet) at a party, sometimes 2 sometimes 3 parties in one night. This pennsic I went during setup week. It was a real pleasure. There wasn't that many people around. There were no lines at the food courts, no lines in the showers. The water was actually warm :) The parties were more low-key but still awesome with great people whom I loved spending time with. This year I camped across from Orluk Oasis with Durr. Which is also close to 3 skulls (right behind us) where Suave and Conner camp. Also close to where Samira Shurik camps and also close to Pandora's Box, Pentwyvrn and many other great camps with great parties. Melissa and I were pretty much on tour all pensic... the first week went like this... Monday - Wolf Den We showed up. No one was doing anything! People were hanging out and drinking and chatting... Durr was there and some others waiting. Melissa and I took out our instruments of mass destruction and started the party going. The drumemrs kicked in. It was great. The hosts were very nice to us offering us drinks and stuff and making sure we were ok. After a while, more and more and more drummers showed up, and I decided to stop playing to let it become a drum jam.... I lead the drumming for a while (someone was nice enough to loan me a drum) the drummers were awesome and it started to set the tone of good drumming for the rest of pennsic... I could tell people were getting the idea that it'll be different this year.. . the musical bar will get raised... Tuesday - Orluk Hafla I love love love playing at Orluk. This hafla was great. Good music, good amount of people. Chengir told stories. We were accompanied by some great musicians and people. I'm a really big fan of the Orluk area for a hafla. Wednesday - Orluk impromtu hafla So.. with nothing to do Wednesday.. Melissa and I talked to Durr and others and decieded "let's turn the lights on". Not an official hafla.... but.. let's turn the lights on, take out our instruments and see what happens. We invited people we knew to come down and dance. It was a nice more initimate hafla... I really like switching from huge party one night to something more intimate the next. Pennsic is a great chance to connect with people I do not see to often... Thursday - Watan Watan's hafla's rock! Aminah is our gracious host. She treats Melissa and I very well. We had food! Now... this year... this hafla really kicked ass! I think by this time, Melissa and I had played 3 parties already.. so by now we were much tighter, more organized and just playing better more freely, more exciting etc. We attracted alot of drummers to us this night. But it was different... the people who played with us were actually listening to what Melissa and I were doing. I became known as the "Cat Hearder" Since I can talk when I play (Melissa can not on clarinet) I was able to cue the drummers on rhythm changes in songs. The all followed great! The energy level was high and everyone held it together great without being too loud, crazy, etc. It was a night of GREAT music! As a result... We got some great drummers to play with us the rest of pennsic. These guys and gals were great to spend time with and make music with. Also.. special shout out to Melissa my partner in crime for doing some of the sexiest taksim's ever heard at Pennsic :) Friday - Raquy After Party, Ochoda Raquy stopped into Pennic to do a show on the first Friday. Before Pennsic, she stopped by my house and we ran through a bunch of her songs (I already know a bunch of them). During her show (which was KILLER!) I played mostly Riq, but also some bass doumbek. The performance tent was PACKED. The show was completely awesome. I was really excited to accompany Raquy. I played about half of her set. Following Raquy... Melissa, Me, Zahira and Conner did a short set of bellydance tunes. People cleared chairs out of the way and made a quick dance floor space. It was a spontaneous small club :) TONS of people dancing in small space. I invited Samira onto the stage, Suave and others... The time went by really fast, next thing I know the person running the tent was telling us to stop... ah well.. off to the next party.. When we finished playing like 15 people were like, "Umm.. where are you guys going? Because where you're going, we want to be!" (a great compliment that made me feel good about the music that Melissa and I were providing for people)... We went over to Ochoda with a big group of musicians and dancers. When we got there, the party had already started with Sadika, Jas and others. I chilled out for a while enjoyed the music, and eventually hooked up my oud and stuff. Now here is the kicker... we were playing some song (I forget if it was Sisler or Istemem Babachim) but when the solo section came up, people were still playing Ayub and would not switch to Malfuf.. so Melissa shouts... "CAN I PLEASE GET A MALFUF!!!!" (or something like that). It was a pretty classic Melissa moment :) Saturday - Watan Back at Watan on Saturday.. only even better.. Now Melissa and I had been playing together for 6 or 7 haflas. Melissa did another one of the most sexiest taksim's ever with a nice slow sexy chiftitelli that even the drummers felt was hotness at it's slow tempo. I really felt the drummers connecting to us this time. The musical bar had been raised... Welcome Back Carmine 11/8/2007 12:42:18 AM  I always get this itch every 2 years...the need to change my website. I always feel as each iteration gets better and better. Showing the current state of, well, me. November 1st was the 2nd year anniversary of me leaving work and beginning my life is a full time musician. Since leaving work, I've been to Turkey, Greece, Hungary and Mexico. I've also been to several states throughout the country. Most importantly I have touched tons of people. It brings me great joy to have people who have never played a musical instrument before take one of my workshops and leave being able to play a bunch of rhythms. I used to not understand how people went to work at 9am and left at 5pm and LEFT WORK. But now I understand completely. There is more to life to work... "no is buildings, is peoples". I have left this journal behind. But I'm returning to it now. I want to make it more than an advertisement, and return it and myself to the original state of innocence, wanderlust and self realization. Time Management 1/1/2008 10:25:45 AM  I had a time management meeting with myself the other day. When I had Team5, I was working a regular 9 to 5ish kind of work week. These days, I don't even set my alarm clock anymore. I just wake up when I wake up, and sleep when I want to sleep. Not having a defined work week and not being in an office environment is great because I can "make my own hours". I know that people think musician (or other creative type) equals lazy. That people "without jobs" don't do work. I feel as though I do more work than ever. I just enjoy it and it doesn't seem like work. I do feel as though I am trying to get too much done. I have LOTS of ideas for projects (CDs, DVDs) as well as websites and other projects. (I'd love to get my book done eventually too!). With all these things I need to think "what can I REALISTICALLY do in the next year". If I spend hours and hours making CDs then I'm NOT spending hours and hours promoting them which is a problem. I also feel that if I try to get a bit less done, I'll get more done. I have so many ideas for projects that I find myself thinking about them in circles where I could just be thinking about 2 and spend the time working on them. It's all in finding a balance.

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