Thinking back, in situations where I was sharing a bed with somebody… womens, really, as I never had to share the bed with one of my siblings… I have always slept on the right side of the bed.  The Right Side (as opposed to the left) from the point of view of laying in the bed…  Which would be The Left Side, when looking at the bed, from the POV of the foot of the bed… I wonder which reference people most commonly use… but I digress.

I have always slept on the right side.  I tend to sleep on my side, and a few years ago, I separated my left shoulder, so it feels a bit better to sleep on my right shoulder, which is more easily facilitated when one is on the right side of the bed… but I seem to remember it from far before that… from back to the first time I ever slept in a bed with another person on a regular basis… Adult Baby Steps…

Sure, once in a while, you can switch it up… but there’s always that preferred and silently reserved side…

And then, recently, when I was thinking back, I thought back some more, a bit further, to what side of the bed my dad used to sleep on, back when he slept next to Mom, and not alone…

And

He slept on the right side too.

I remember because I have an image of where my parents’ bed used to be, in their room, and how it looked, and dad’s shit was always on the right side of the bed (which should maybe be referred to as the left side, cuz I remember more looking at the bed, than being in the bed… but I digress again)

So, that’s curious.  I wonder how many other men sleep on the right side of the bed.

I wonder what side of the bed you typically sleep on…?

ALSO

We played a show at Humboldt State University’s The Depot Venue on Campus there, up there in The Lovely Northwestern tip of California..... And it was very fun.  Strix Vega opened the show and rarely have I met three such nice well practiced friendly professional young studly Rock Stars with whom it was pleasurable to share a show.  The small attentive crowd fueled passionate up-creepings from our deep downs, and we had a good time playing pretty music.  Thanks to anybody who had anything to do with that.

The New Album is nearing the Mastering Stage… and then just to get some money and press some Disks.  Plenty of Shows Upcoming.  Etc.

ALSO

To whom it may concern:  STOP FUCKING DRIVING EVERYWHERE, PLEASE.  I Love You, and I pretty much understand the why’s… but it’s getting ever-harder to see the stars at night (due to particulate-matter-in-the-air pollution and NOT light pollution), and I’d like to pass you smiley on the street once in a while…

Love,

Dean

Be Brave Bold Robot....

....Monica Topping For the Times-Standard....

..Posted: ..03/05/2009.. 01:25:44 AM PST....

..Dean Haakenson is either a member of Be Brave Bold Robot or he is Be Brave Bold Robot -- it really depends on the show.

.. ..
With that, Be Brave Bold Robot is both a band and a project. The band's most recent line-up has up to five regular members at any given moment, though keyboard and guitar player Brian Jackson just transplanted from the Be Brave Bold Robot's hometown of ....Sacramento.... to ....Portland...., last week. ....
Haakenson is the lead singer and guitar player for Be Brave Bold Robot. A solo show can find him singing the band's songs, exchanging playful banter with the audience and breaking out in freestyle raps, inspired by his surroundings. ....
As a band, freestyle raps still happen, but the group settles into a flow that's both sweet and a little uncomfortable. Haakenson seems nervous, his singing voice turning into a deep growl at times, but accompanied by the sweetness of the lyrics, the nervousness feels right -- like that's what's supposed to happen. ....
Heather Phillips sings backup for Be Brave Bold Robot, along with Matty Gerken on bass and backup vocals and Tony Ledesma on drums. This line-up, including ....Jackson...., is the group that will be found on the band's forthcoming record, tentatively titled “Take a Deep Breath,” due out in a few months. Without ....Jackson...., this is the line-up that will play at Muddy's Hot Cup in Northtown Arcata on Saturday night. ....
Haakenson has a penchant for speaking in run-on sentences, especially when talking about his band. ....
”I think to be the type of user of the English language that I would like to be, which is somebody that likes to not be so specific sometimes, I think that I'll have to say that (Be Brave Bold Robot is both) a project and a band,” says Haakenson. “I really enjoy when it is acknowledged and I enjoy that it can exist as something that is not a full band, which would just be me and whoever else I decide that I want to have play with me, and still be able to call that Be Brave Bold Robot because the name itself, like with any band name or title of a company or an organization, it carries a certain amount of weight that goes beyond that needing a title for something, such as can make people come...to a show or something...because they have heard of the name before.” ....
In a sense, the band really is a project at its core -- the lineup for any given show is mostly dependent on who's available to play. Bass player Gerken is very busy, says Haakenson, so on the occasion that he can play a show, they will often put Gerken's “baby,” a project called Nice Monster, on the bill as well. ....
Nice Monster will be playing this mini-tour with Be Brave Bold Robot. The tour will include at least the show at Muddy's on Saturday, but they hope maybe the opportunity to play a house show will pop up for Friday night. Show details are on Be Brave Bold Robot's Myspace page at www.myspace.com/bebraveboldrobot. ....
Saturday's all-ages show at Muddy's will also include local musician John Ludington, who has played in his band, the Tao Jonesers, in the past, but performs on his own, currently. ....

There is a $3 cover and the show starts at ..8 p.m.......
 

Hi.  I went to Japan.  I didn't blog about it.  There were a limited number of photos taken, and I have posted only a few in the photos section. 

I'm sorry I don't have more to share... but if you want to know anything, please feel free to ask.  I will tell you that my US Navy Master at Arms brother and his Naval buddies had a saying that I found amusing;

When in doubt, "Hai" it out.

Hai = Yes

and it seems to be used for more than just answering in the affirmative, much like "Yes" is used to indicate several varying emotions and intentions in English...

In Japan, I saw "Hai" mean,

"yes"

"yes, I know what you are saying"

"yes, that way that you are pointing to and telling me about"

"okay, thanks, yes"

"Yes, it's you!"

"Oh Boy."

etc.

so, when you are being spoken to by a Japanese person who is telling you something, and you are done speaking with them, either because you cannot understand them, or you get their point, but don't know enough Japanese to smoothly change the subject:

Bow and say "Hai" a lot... you know, in a conversational way...

I find it satisfying when I notice how much bowing (or respectful body movements of all varieties) and smiling and making eye contact and not uttering a sound, can communicate in this diverse world.

When in doubt, Yes it out.

also, I learned that:

"Don't Touch My Mustache", when said quickly, sounds like

"Doi Tashe Mashite"

(the "O"s like "Coal", the "A"s like "Awe", the "I"s like "EE", the "E"s like the "A"s in "Ape" and "Ate" and "A Sexy Ape Ate my underwear"… and the "U"s like "OO")

which means "You're Welcome"… approximately.  It's an equivalent phrasing… I think maybe literal translations are where things get lost in translation.  So, one who is new to a completely foreign language would probably be best to memorize these equivalent phrasings while at the same time doing the natural work of figuring out how the language actually works… and in no time… well, some shorter-than-you-think amount of time… the two efforts will culminate in a glorious epiphany of language synergy where you become wiser and the language becomes larger (in per capita worldwide usage)…

I think that's what might happen…

I'll let you know after I have studied a language long enough to know…

still working on that damned album.

Happy New Year!

-Dean

I live in a quaint little “Victorian” 4 unit apartment building.  All One-Bedrooms, Shotgun front to back, I’m on the top, and my ceilings are high.  After several months, It’s beginning to feel like home.  Good sound insulation, working wall heater.  Places for all my stuff (which means I must not accumulate too much more... cheers to that.)  Downstairs and diagonal to me is this Older Hispanic Lady.  She lives alone and collects disability… and I’ve noticed she doesn’t leave her apartment much.  She has a friend, 35-ish years old to her 55, Hispanic, Odd Job Taker when he can.  He seems like a nice guy overall, speaks a small amount of English.  She speaks English well.  They are always hanging out.  I think he sleeps there most nights.  I speculate that they are lovers, as she is an attractive 55, and he is a slightly dumpy 35… but that is unfounded, really.

I’ll come home and speak broken Spanish to them and we usually have a nice conversation where I learn some Spanish, he learns some English, and I have connected with my neighbors like a good neighbor should.

Late at night, often, I will hear him knock loudly on her door… as though she doesn’t want him there… and then it stops, and I assume she has opened the door… as though she knows he has nowhere else to go, and that their friendship has turned into an addiction.

They Drink.

Last night/this morning, 2 AM, this neighbor, Flora, knocked on my door, at the top of the stairs, ripping me from the fabric of dream into a cold dark rapping reality. 

She’s knocked on my door once before, to borrow some money. 

This time, her mouth was bleeding, and she was crying.

“Can I talk to you” she said under whimper, replying to my blurted closed door “What?!”

I knew it had something to do with her friend/lover/addiction.

I put on my robe, annoyed at her inability to handle her problems, at being rousted at such an hour... and then I got angry, as a survival tool.  I hazily prepared myself for him being drunk and ready to fight… I suppose it’s probably better to be over the top in a situation where there is an unknown element of Danger, as opposed to being vulnerable and “nice”… but it’s always unnerving to pump oneself up to manifest monster.

“Jeez Louise, What Happened?!”

we descended the short stairs to her front door, her all the while telling me that her friend, Ivan, kicked her in the face.  Ivan walked up from the kitchen area, reeking of alcohol, saying in a fairly calm and surprised defensive tone,

“No Dean, Dean!  She’s Crazy!... Noooo She’s Crazy!”

I might believe him, despite the fact that her mouth was bleeding. 

She’s often prone to paranoid accusations about the world around our apartment building and how they are out to get her.  If there is someone who makes them self a victim on a regular basis, it’s her. 

So I just try to show her kindness.

But not last night.

Yelling, I demand whether or not she wants me to call the police, or the hospital for her bloody mouth.  She just keeps whimpering that he kicked her.  I yell at him to leave, Leave Right Now, or I’m going to call the cops…  Really the only thing for me to do – Make the alleged Violator leave, and if he won’t, call the community authorities.

I want to work things out with my neighbors without involving the authorities with every fiber of my being… but in this situation.  2 AM, bloody mouth, nothing to work out, old lady knocking on my door… 911 came to mind.  Thirty seconds longer, I yell at him to leave, he says Okay, and then just stands there.  She’s whimpering the whole time. 

“That’s it, I’m calling the cops!”, I march upstairs (close and lock the door, still pumped and panicky), and dial 911, and report my neighbor and her friend and domestic violence involved dispute…

a knock on my door 10 minutes later, a calm policeman asks me if I am the one who called, and to identify my downstairs neighbor, her back turned at the bottom of the stairs, speaking to the other Police Officer down there.  He thanks me, I thank him, and have a surprisingly easy time of beginning to fall back into slumber.

I wonder and hope that I have not damaged anything too badly by involving the authorities.  Will they hate me from now on, Flora and her friend?  Well, you shouldn’t do things like this in the middle of the night, Flora.  Will Ivan be deported?!  Oh god, I think he might be in America -“sans documentation”… well, too late now…

Twenty minutes later, Ivan’s loud knocking on Flora’s door taps me in the eardrum.  It would appear that Flora didn’t want to press charges or anything (just wanted to get the neighbor Dean involved?!), and sweet talked the cops out of the situation.

Addiction.

Typically, I am unnerved by the Police.  I have been doing illegal things for years (JayWalking, running stop signs on desolate roads, you know, that sort of thing).  I’ve heard stories of Power Hungry Police overstepping their boundaries and raping people of their civil liberties.

But, honestly, last night, I was glad I called the police.  It quelled my wonder about how much more severe the fighting downstairs could get, and when I would be able to remove myself from that situation… I let myself put faith in the fact that the police would know if the situation warranted whatever action, and they would be a much needed warning to the drunk and unmanageable.

That being said:

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=887949

Saturday will be a fun fun night of Lots of Words and Folksy Singer/Songwriter Guitar Songy Action the likes of which are rarely equaled… and never for the Five Dollar Cover Charge…

It’s a Christmas-y fun show at

The Fox and Goose

(10^th and R Streets, ....1001 R Street...., in Downtown ....Sacramento....)

Saturday, Dec. 20, 2008..

9pm.., $5

All My Good Friends (BBBR Brian Jackson and his A New Hope companion Kevin, good stuff)

.. ..

Justin Farren

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Devin Farren

.. ..

Sulky Darky

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Keir Wilkinson (French blues guitarist in the body of a Homecoming King)

.. ..

John Ludington and Andrea

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And me and Brian playing getting some Be Brave Action.

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Also, January 10, in 2009, at the Fox and Goose again, will be the

Nice Monster EP Release Party,

with the full Be Brave Bold Robot band, back together and in full on Rocking Mode.

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.. ..

Thanks for reading.

Warm Saturnalia Love to you,

Dean

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