Don't Tell Blake But...

Firstly, we're mastering Eleven North with Alan Douches tomorrow at West West Side Studios. That will be fun.

Secondly (the don't tell blake part)...

Well he wants to just record a bunch of songs and maybe make a , but I want to make an overly indulgent and overly long album called Metro North. To sort of go with Eleven North. Only instead of writing all these songs in a psychiatric ward, I wrote these songs listening to the Metro North go past my apartment on 116th Street. And here would be the Track List:

1. The White Lights Up At Bloomingdales Bring Me Down
2. The Cold Wind Blows on the Soulless Soul
3. My Own David To Kiss
4. Keep Me Away From the Mirror
5. Open E (You Can Play Anything With An...)
6. Hecksher Field #3
7. Idaho Song #1
8. Alexander Hamilton's Grave
9. I'm In the Spare Bedroom
10. Deep in My Heart
11. Copywrite Owner
12. Will There Ever Be Anyone
13. No Men, Amen
14. Ben, Whenever Your Secret Becomes Old News
15. Fictional Song
16. The Wagon Bridge
17. At Night I Sleep With the Devil
18. Treasure Cloutier
19. Idaho Song #2
20. 25

My favorite song is probably 25. It's my attempt at writing an annoying family carride song. Where the lyrics just go...

I am only 1 year old, I was born a year ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 2 years old, I was born 2 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 3 years old, I was born 3 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 4 years old, I was born 4 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 5 years old, I was born 5 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 6 years old, I was born 6 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 7 years old, I was born 7 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 8 years old, I was born 8 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 9 years old, I was born 9 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 10 years old, I was born 10 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 11 years old, I was born 11 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 12 years old, I was born 12 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 13 years old, I was born 13 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 14 years old, I was born 14 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 15 years old, I was born 15 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 16 years old, I was born 16 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 17 years old, I was born 17 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 18 years old, I was born 18 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 19 years old, I was born 19 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 20 years old, I was born 20 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 21 years old, I was born 21 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 22 years old, I was born 22 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 23 years old, I was born 23 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 24 years old, I was born 24 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.

All the way to 25. I was listening to it on the train. And I'm listening to it right now. And I think maybe when we record it I'll just kinda keep going until I get to 25. And the guitar and my singing will be consistent and annoying, but we'll add a new instrument for each verse. Like this.

1. Just me singing alone.
2. Singing with the guitar.
3. Add a triangle.
4. Add a tambourine.
5. Add another guitar.
6. Add a flute
7. Add a piano.
8. Add a violin.
9. Add another singer.
10. Add a banjo.
11. Add a kick drum.
12. Add a bass.
13. Add an electric guitar.
14. Add a cello.
14. Add another singer.
15. Add a trumpet.
16. Add a xylophone.
17. Add a trombone.
18. Add a tuba.
19. Add a whale noise.
20. Add my mom singing.
21. Add a baby crying.
22. Add a keyboard playing fart noises.
23. Add a french horn.
24. Add some yodeling.

All the way to 25. OR.... It could just be me and guitar for the 1st verse and then have different people of the appropriate ages sing the other parts. Are kids smart enough at age 2 to sing songs with words?

And then after we release the overly indulgent and overly long Metro North, we'll release the overly indulgent but not too long Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle album thing. The tracklist for that will be:

1. My Brother's Brother
2. Halfway Between
3. Human Love
4. I'm Building a Machine
5. April I Will
6. Saddest Clown
7. Role Model
8. Let's Paint the Town Red With the Blood of the Humans Instead of Protecting Them What Do They Care About Us*
9. Cement Sky

*This title is given with the provision that something as ridiculously long as it doesn't show up on the next Sufjan Stevens album, whenever that happens.

So that's about it for now. I got an A on my Greek and Latin Roots of English test!!! But I got apiphobia wrong. Apparently that is not the fear of apes.

Bullet in my Teeth: A Piece of Shit by Carl Creighton

Bullet in my Teeth

Caught a bullet in my teeth
Like a bumble-bee in a mason jar
Swallowed the bullet and pulled it out my stomach

Stopped a pistol with my ear
Heard it buzzing like a humming bird
Sweetly over summers and other lovely seasons

The world has opened up and is swallowing, swallowing

Hecksher Field #3: A Poem by Carl Creighton

Hecksher Field #3

Hecksher field #3 is closed forever
Or at least the winter months
I once saw a game on that field

I sat in the back
On the sunwarmed bleechers
Trading quips with the other girls
Whose men played on that field

You rotate your bat
Three times behind your shoulder
And when it came time to swing
You sent that ball sailing
And your body was running
And your face was smiling
And you team it was cheering
And for once you were winning.

Hecksher field #3 isn't closed forever
And when the summer comes
Let us play a game on that field

anything i can do to keep from studying

What am I doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing wrong what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what wrong am i doing what wrong am i doing what wrong am i doing what wrong am i doing what am i doing wrong what wrong am wrong i wrong doing wrong

carl creighton is taking over this blog

So this blog has been almost only about music stuff, but I think I'm going to take it over and write stuff about other stuff now too.

I'm feeling kinda lonely. I miss my family a lot, but I also miss myself. I've been trying on all these different personas since I lost my job in March. When you're not doing something meaningless and stupid for 30 hours a week, you have a lot more time to think about what you actually want to do with your life. I registered for the LSAT yesterday. Part of me feels like just registering is going to satisfy me as much as actually becoming a lawyer. So I'll probably not even take the test. But I told my parents I might move back home and go to the law school at the U of M (Minnesota, not Missouri). The tuition there for a nonresident (which I think I am now) is only a little less than going to Columbia. Which is probably the best law school in the country. Which is also why I probably wouldn't get accepted to it.

I'm getting my BA next January, I think. This guy from the unemployment office called me today (well I called him back, anyway) and he grilled me about what my career goals are and about the classes I'm taking right now. He didn't believe Politics of Queer Sexuality was a real class. My mom prefers to call it Politics of Gays because she finds the word Queer offensive. Which is kinda cute.

We booked a mastering session at West Westside for Eleven North. June 26th at 11AM. I wonder what will happen after that.

Have a show tomorrow which I don't think anybody is coming to. And I have to leave right after I get done playing to see Bonnie Prince Billy at the Apollo. Which is really sleezy since the show I'm playing is the CD release party for Linda Draper, who invited me to play and is playing right after me.

I think my writing ability has gotten increasingly worse.

Life and stuff

11 North is coming to an end. Just have to mix Fire in the Ward and some other little things, like make my harmonies at the end of Christian Girl less experimental (off-pitch). In the meantime I've recorded the double album follow up to 11 North on the external mic of my new lap top (thanks mom and dad)! I've devised a new method of writing songs which consists of writing the beginnings of songs and then recording this and making up lyrics for the end parts. Sometimes it works (like on this Alexander Hamilton song I wrote) and sometimes it just ends in me mumbling words like "fjksf gjdhjfuhg sjfdhufg these words suck" like on this "Will There Ever Be Anyone" song. Either way, it's cool.

Also not working anymore. And going to Paris and Dublin next week. That should be fun.

11 NORTH!! AHAHAHAHA

We are so close to being finished mixing it's not even funny (thus the AHAHAHAHA of excitement and awe in the subject and not the HAHAHAHA of laughter). We've mixed all the songs but one. I can't believe how professional the songs sound. The instruments are really to die for. I've learned one important thing while making this album: the tenor sax can do anything.