the sun, life, update

You know, the sun does something to you. Its like a wonderful “ray” of goodness beaming down on your face. Life has been good lately. The album for “Gordon Avenue” is coming along well. We have 21 songs that are all potentials. Now comes the hard work of picking about 12 songs from that batch. Which is A LOT harder than I ever thought it would be!

Cutting songs feels sort of like cutting memories from your life! Or like leaving a piece of your heart behind. Seriously, it sucks. Which I guess is a good problem…better to have too many good songs than to be struggling to get enough songs that don’t suck!

So be looking for the album to come out late Septmeber. It could very well be the best thing that ever happened to you! =)

So I was just thinking…since I’m now out of school for the rest. of. my. life…I’m never going to be able to have a Summer Break ever again! AHHHHHH! What happened? Now I know why so many “non-kids” are so freak’n stressed all the time. The “fun” has been removed from their face and replaced with a look of fish that just discovered Oxygen. As a kid Summer was like the Only Hope…the one thing that kept me going…kept me from dropping out of school and joining a circus…but now…uh oh…

Maybe what we all need is an official summer break for everyone! Like make it a law that no one works for the summer! Think of how relaxed everyone would be! Now I know all you “realists” are freaking out going, “But what about this? What about that? How would you make money….” You ruin my fun.

risky biznas bananas

Hands trembling. Mind racing. “What am I doing!?” The little man who lives in my head screaming, “Are you INSANE?!”

You know that crazy little expiration date on milk? That little sucker may be the scariest thing in the world! Its funny though. There are so many warning labels that NO ONE pays attention too. Like smoking: This will definetly KILL you.

“Oh what do they know!”

But that expiration date…some people would rather kill an innocent baby sheep than break that barrier!

Have you ever had milk the day after the day? It scares the hell out of you doesn’t it!? If your gonna drink milk after its expired…why don’t you just rub honey over your Entire Body and take a jog through a forest!?

And that is exactly what I did today. I grabbed the Honey Brush and painted myself with it!

Now before you judge me…I want you to know a very important fact: it wasn’t actually milk. It was a wonderful Odwalla protein shake! None the less, What the heck was I thinking?!!

But hey, what’s a life without a little risk? It’s not a life worth living, I’ll tell you that.

Seriously, how many people go through life without taking any risks at all?

When I was a little tot I used to snow ski all the time! One day when I was skiing with an older, much better, friend of mine he told me something that I’ve never been able to get out of my head. As we were riding up the lift he turned to me and said, “Gordon. You need to Crash more.”

He reason was simple: If you crash…that means that you’re pushing yourself. And when you push yourself…you get better.

huh. I think I need to risk more in my life. Most of the time the only reason I don’t is because of fear.

But heres the deal: Risk little. Get little.

The best things in life come with the most sacrifice.

Unexpectedalism…

One of my favorite things is when the huge grand barriers of generic typecasting is broken by the least expected of people.

This morning as I sat down in my usual coffee house, with my Wondrously Tall Latte, I heard the familiar sound of sport talk coming across the way. As I looked up to perceptually familiarize myself with the analysts I was caught by surprise to see that across the room, at a tall round table, there sat two old woman in their 70’s! The one on the left was stating emphatically to her friend across from her, who was joyously sipping her hot tea, “The Lakers are really going to have to win this game or they’re going to be down 3-0! And no team has ever come back from that!“

Speechless. The only words I had was a big smile and silent chuckle.

These quite possibly could be the coolest old ladies ever! Can you imagine your Grandma calling you up telling you to get the grill out cause the game is on? That would be amazing. simply. amazing.

It’s moments like that these that you can’t let slip pass your conscious! I think that it’s little things like these that allow you to find joy every day of your life…..no matter how bad the weather is!

Vital Friends and the “Mula”

This week has been one of those really busy weeks. I think that sometimes I wish there was no such thing as money! Its just one of those things…you love it and hate it all at the same time! I hate the fact that it can hold you back so much from doing what you really want to do. Even if you have a ton of money, and you can get what ever the heck you want…then you got to worry about not losing it all! Mmmm….its one of those circular problem things I think.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had with someone once. I was at my daily coffee shop and I started talking to this guy across from me. After exchanging a few “What do you do you?” questions back and forth he asked me, “So how is this music thing making you money?” I responded with something about how eventually I hoped to make a living off of it and how money wasn’t really that important to me anyway…and then I finished with the great declaration that… “There are more important things in life than money!”

His response caught me off guard a little bit….

“Yea…tell that to the Homeless person.”

ummmmmmm….yea….

I have to admit……I didn’t have anything to say…there was even apart of me that said, “wow…good point.”

But he was wrong. Seriously! I figured it out!

I was talking to my dad later that week and he mentioned that he was reading this book called “Vital Friends.” Come to find out, the author of this book had recently done a huge study on the cause of Homelessness and its relation to Friendship. The finding was awesome.

What they found was that before each homeless person became homeless, there was a huge crisis in their life. Now, it is during these huge crisis’ in our lives that most of us turn to our friends to help us out…but what if you had no friends?  The Result?  Homelessness! In each one of these cases there was found to be no true friendships in the lives of these people!

So…its true! Money is not everything. Friendship is.

Seriously too Serious

So I heard an amazing joke yesterday from one of my friends.

What’s the difference between a Musician and a 14″ Pizza?

Now don’t just look at the answer! Come. On. You didn’t even think about did you? Maybe I won’t even give you the answer…I mean I give you a great thinking joke and all you do is quickly read on without even stopping to ponder a great question! ….ok….I forgive you…i guess…

Ok…so you ready for it?….

A 14″ PIzza can feed a Family of 4!!

Even though a part of me resented this comment…I couldn’t help but laugh!

I think one of the greatest qualities one can obtain is the ability to laugh oneself when we begin to take ourselves too seriously.  This may be one of the hardest things too learn, but I tell you, I think its one of the best lessons in life that I’ve been taught.

I don’t know about you, but that joke was something I really needed to hear!

Pair-a-dime

Busyness.

Its that one thing that causes so much stress.

Busyness.

It keeps us from those we love.

Busyness.

I hate it…and yet…

without it I feel…purposeless…lazy…pretty much like a loser. Why is that?

Just one those weird things that I’ve been thinking about. Hmm….

2 Ways Rock your Flock

As I caught the flying object with a precise one handed “grab” the thought went through my head, “I love Cinderella stories.” Opening the tiny wrapper I popped in the bubbly deliciousness into my mouth and started chewing.  Have you noticed how good Trident has gotten!  Talk about a comeback.  It wasn’t long ago that Trident was the nasty, tasteless, old person gum.  But now…eating Trident is like party in my mouth!  I can not resist…

I just want to stop and thank everybody who came out to support me and my band “Gordon Avenue” this last Saturday Night at the Satyricon.  It is hard for me to find the words to say to express how that made me and all the guys feel.  Being a musician is one of those interesting careers where you can so easily find yourself  lost in the pit of despair one moment and on the highest mountain the next.   So to see so many people show up…well lets just say…it was very encouraging!

So whats next?  Well, we as a band have some exciting news.  We have discovered 2 ways…two opportunities really…to guarantee…with a 100% success rate…that you… ROCK YOUR FLOCK!

You can do it by coming to our 2 next shows!  No seriously…your flock does need to rock…its good for your health! =)

The first one is an acoustic show at “Muddy Waters Coffeehouse.” on May 25 at 3pm.
This  is going to be awesome and very different from our normal “full-band” shows, because its Unplugged!
..and this will give you a chance to hears some songs that you won’t hear us play in any other venue! And did I mention it’s FREE! Heck yes!

Muddy Waters Coffeehouse
www. muddywatersportland.
com
2908 Se Belmont St
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 233-1923

The Second Show is @ Hawthorn Theater on June 4, 7pm.

This will be a show to NOT MISS! cost is $8 when pre-ordered!

June 4 @ Hawthorne Theatre (Full Band)
www. hawthornetheatre.
com
3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 233-7100

gratitude from Rocktitude

Well I have to say that I am a little nervous.  My band has our first big show in Portland this Saturday at the Satyricon and while…yes it will be amazing…I always get a little nervous.  Which I guess is a good thing…cause you can know for sure that I really care about it!  So none the less, I’ve been really busy.

I have been overwhelmed by the response of people who are coming to the show!  It means a lot to know that over 100 people have gotten tickets and many more are coming that haven’t gotten tickets yet.  So if your reading this and you’ve decided to help a brotha out by coming to the show, I want to say thank you!

See you at the show!

A zipper into the mind of Gordon….

Welcome everybody to my blog.  I thought that this blog would be a great for ya’ll to get to know me a little better.  If your anything like me you have a lot of thoughts go through your head in a day.  I know that I probably think way to much.

I look forward to seeing what happens with this blog!