After a long, quiet, winter and spring, I've been back into the music lately. No small thanks to JC and Mara, who've reminded me why it's so freaking fun! And why the work is worth it. I hope everyone listens, and enjoys.

Click here for NEW MUSIC

AND I'm playing at Burning Man!! How amazing is that. Opulent Temple, 1:30pm on Saturday, 8/30. Can't wait.

Much love to the world

Mandy

i feel like i'm waking up from a long sleep. Well I just did ::stretch!:: but i'm talking figuratively. I've woken up, looked around me, and my life is different again. The sun is shining, it's warm, and I have this feeling of being all dressed up with nowhere to go, no one to go with.

Yeah, I know, it's just feelings, they come and go. But I'm hoping this summer I can juggle all my priorities to make some space for fun, freedom, dancing, laying out on the grass with some good books, barbeques, soccer/frisbee/wiffleball, and I hope people will come play along. I need to get out of this damn apartment more.

My life is changing again, for the better, yes, but it still makes me unsure. I have a new job, again! And I hope that I will have it for many years to come. I'm back in MI, this time at Roland, and it just feels SO great to work with colleagues who respect you, value your opinions, and GENUINELY want you to succeed and shoot for the moon. Whether or not I get there in a large corporation, takes time, and patience, and patience, and patience. Which my last jobs have taught me is the single most important thing to have in work, life, relationships, etc.

Anyone know a good lookout spot in Burbank, Glendale? Where you can, you know, not get hassled by neighbors or the cops at 4am? I need a new thinking spot :)

So strange, this being alone, but you'd think i'd be used to it by now :)

Here's what I wrote last year (I like this tradition):

"So I don't know what 2007 holds. I think it will be a year of planning, silently slinking behind the scenes for world domination. Time for calm contemplation. Time for myself. Time for creativity and music. Time to reconnect. Time to think. Time. In general. I am going to slow down this year, value quality over quantity. It's not a party if it happens every night, you know."

Well 2007 was aight. I did end up valuing quality over quantity. Still a bunch of changes. I'm getting tired of changes. But I'm starting to, maybe, be getting used to it? I moved out of Nana's house and set up shop in a lovely apartment in Glendale, I had the best DJ year of my LIFE!!! The spring was great. I played at Vanguard, at Circus, at EM Sundays, at E3rd Steakhouse...I still want to thank all the great people who came out to see me play, especially my boys of the 4:Score crew. And Brian and Natalie are MARRIED!!! OMG, how great.

After I did a double header at circus and EM Sunday (and moved in the same weekend!!) I just...stopped. I didn't pick up a mixer in months. I just....stopped. I felt guilty about it, too. I think I just was tired of promoting for 3 weeks and then playing for one week for free. It wasn't that I didn't like DJing, I LOVED that part, but it was everything else. I just wanted to stop the schmoozing and just be me.

And the same thing with my job at M-Audio. I loved my job, but I was tired of overlooking all the things I didn't like about it to hold on. So I took a job outside of the M-I industry, for a shot at a decent salary and a chance to grow in my career. I still miss pro audio, maybe I'll go back someday, but for now, I have to see where this leads.

I feel like it was the second half of the year that I started to do what I hoped with 2007. Be myself. Slow down, take time, to slink behind the scenes. So that's where I am right now. I'm working on some tracks (WOOOOO Color of Night!) and I think much headway will be made on that front in 2008. With a little, okay, a LOT of help from my awesome musically talented friends.

The biggest change in 2007 was Ivan leaving. It really has taken a lot of getting used to not having him around. But things have gotten better. Things are okay. And I think whatever happens, it will be okay. But that's the problem....things aren't the best they could be. But my boat is evening out its keel, or something. That's the best i can hope for.

So 2008? My resolution is to watch my mind constantly, for signs of negativity and self doubt, self-defeating thoughts, because really, I'm my own worst enemy. Life is going to deal its cards to me, and until I can deal with things positively, I'm just going to be all the same. A very wise man said, "You life is nothing but what you have thought." So I'm working on thinking differently. Then maybe things can really change for the better. And stay that way. Maybe :)?

"Here Without You Baby"

I'm not writing down the lyrics because they are just SO bad. So cheesy, and just embarrassing that this is a song I'm actually SINGING right now. At least it's kind of in my vocal range.

Everyone says that there's times where shitty love song lyrics are actually the only thing that make sense to you. I hate that, because not only does this happen at the times you're feeling most down, but to add to it, you feel like a chump because no-talent hacks can capture exactly how you feel.

Gives me hope for my future as a producer though.

I love :)

I'm thinking about taking some music classes at SMC, starting with...uh...Music 1. Anyone taken it before?

I just figured it was time to start playing more than other people's music, as my friends always tease me. Who knows if it'll be any good... ;)

"Someone Great"

I wish that we could talk about it,
But there, that's the problem.
With someone new I couldn't start it,
Too late, for beginnings.
The little things that made me nervous,
Are gone, in a moment.
I miss the way we used to argue,
Locked, in your basement.

I wake up and the phone is ringing,
Surprised, as it's early.
And that should be the perfect warning,
That something's, a problem.
To tell the truth I saw it coming,
The way, you were breathing.
But nothing can prepare you for it,
The voice, on the other, end.

The worst is all the lovely weather,
I'm stunned, it's not raining.
The coffee isn't even bitter,
Because, what's the difference?
There's all the work that needs to be done,
It's late, for revision.
There's all the time and all the planning,
And songs, to be finished.

And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
Till the day it stops

And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
Till the day it stops

And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
Till the day it stops

And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
Till the day it stops

And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
And it keeps coming,
Till the day it stops.

I wish that we could talk about it,
But there, that's the problem.
With someone new I could have started,
Too late, for beginnings.
You're smaller than my wife imagined,
Surprised, you were human.
There shouldn't be this ring of silence,
But what, are the options?

When someone great is gone.
When someone great is gone.
When someone great is gone.
When someone great is gone.
When someone great is gone.
When someone great is gone.
When someone great is gone.
When someone great is gone.
When someone great is gone.

We're safe, for the moment.
Saved,
For the moment.

Sucks.

Aw well...have fun!

A

Please stop for a moment before you jump on the Hillary train. Just think. THINK!!!!! DAMMIT.

Do you realize if Hillary wins, it will be 20 YEARS of two families ruling our country? Clinton and Bush. This probably isn't the right term, but I'm thinking socioeconomic monarchy...

There are more candidates out there than just the powerful family legacies. And they might even do more good.


****************
PEGGY NOONAN
The Trance
Bush . . . Clinton . . . Bush . . . Clinton . . . Getting very sleepy . . .

Friday, October 5, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Barack Obama has a great thinking look. I mean the look he gets on his face when he's thinking, not the look he presents in debate, where they all control their faces knowing they may be in the reaction shot and fearing they'll look shrewd and clever, as opposed to open and strong. I mean the look he gets in an interview or conversation when he's listening and not conscious of his expression. It's a very present look. He seems more in the moment than handling the moment. I've noticed this the past few months, since he entered the national stage. I wonder if I'm watching him more closely than his fellow Democrats are.

Mr. Obama often seems to be thinking when he speaks, too, and this comes somehow as a relief, in comparison, say, to Hillary Clinton and President Bush, both of whom often seem to be trying to remember the answer they'd agreed upon with staff. What's the phrase we use about education? Hit Search Function. Hit Open. Right-click. "Equity in education is essential, Tim . . ."

You get the impression Mr. Obama trusts himself to think, as if something good might happen if he does. What a concept. Anyway, I've started to lean forward a little when he talks.

But he doesn't stand a chance, right? His main competitor, Mrs. Clinton, is this week's invincible. She broke through 50% for the first time in a big national poll--53% saying they would support her, a full 33 points more than Obama. Her third quarter fund raising beat everyone else's. "It's all over but the voting," said Rep. Tom Petri, who will probably get pummeled a bit by the campaign for premature triumphalism. But he only said what a lot of people are starting to think.

Some Democrats seem proud they already know who their candidate is, unlike those messy Republicans who haven't been able to resolve the issue. But should it be resolved before people vote?

Has the Democratic Party noticed it actually has some impressive candidates? They should not be written off, and when you think about it, it's weird that they're being written off. Joe Biden used to seem mildly giddy, vain but in a small way, not a big and interesting way. (Big is LBJ: Ah will impose mah will. Small: Where's my hair-sculpting gel?) But it has been 35 years since he became a figure in Washington, and in the past few years in particular he has been ahead of his peers on Iraq--ahead with warnings, ahead with tripartite thinking, ahead with a seriousness and sobriety about the fix we're in. He is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he's been reading daily threat reports for a long time. He is impressive. Why don't the Democrats notice?

Chris Dodd is the head of the Senate Banking Committee, and nothing if not sophisticated. In the post-9/11 world, sophisticated is not so bad. He's been in the Senate 27 years. In earlier years his thinking on government, his assumptions about what can and should be expected of it, veered from the utopian to the world-weary, and were sometimes both at once. But if you listen to him and watch him in debate, you might legitimately conclude this is a candidate who understands how it all works and what time it is. He's one of the grown-ups.

Anybody notice?

Mr. Obama's experience, as we all know, is as limited as Mrs. Clinton's, which is to say limited indeed. She has held elective office for only 6 1/2 years. Before that she was first lady of Arkansas and then first lady of the United States. He has held national office for only 3 1/2 years, and before that was a state legislator for eight years. But he has impressed people, and not with money, résumé or clout but something rarer, natural gifts. That's not nothing. Big talent is rare, and deserves consideration.

And yet the Democrats remain in their Hillary trance.

Not all, of course. Each candidate has his band of supporters, his little base. Mr. Obama is fortunate to have one with the grace and vigor of Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's great staffer and speechwriter, who told me this week, "I am supporting Obama." He has known and liked the other main candidates, has "no objection to a female commander-in-chief and no ill feelings stemming from the Clinton stains on the escutcheon of the White House." But Mr. Obama is "the one serious potential nominee of the Democratic Party who is most likely to win" and most likely "to end the tragic occupation of Iraq on terms compatible with our country's best interests and traditional values."

When I asked if his support was connected in any way to the idea of breaking away from the Bush-Clinton-Bush rotation, he said, "Above all, I believe this country needs change, and continuing the 20-year hold on the White House of the same two families is not my idea of change."

That to me gets to the heart of the problem and the heart of The Trance. Mrs. Clinton is so far ahead so early on for the same reason Mr. Bush was so far ahead so early on in 2000, and after only six years as governor, with no previous offices behind him.

It is the nature of modern politics. A political family gains allies--retainers, supporters, hangers-on, admirers, associates, in-house Machiavellis. The bigger the government, the more ways allies can be awarded, which binds them more closely. Your destiny is theirs. Members of the court recruit others. Money lines spread person to person, company to company, board to board, mover to mover.

The most important part is the money lines. Power is expensive. The second most important part is the word "winner." The Bushes are winners; the Clintons are winners. We know this, they've won. The Bushes are wired into the Republican money-line system; the Clintons are wired into the Democratic money-line system. For a generation, two generations now, they have had the same dynamics in play, only their friends are on the blue team, not the red, or the red, not the blue.

They are, both groups, up and ready and good to go every election cycle. They are machines. There are good people on each side, idealists, the hopeful, those convinced the triumph of their views will make our country better. And there are those on each side who are not so wonderful, not so well-meaning, not well-meaning at all. And some are idiots, but very comfortable ones.

Is this good for our democracy, this air of inevitability? Is it good in terms of how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves? Or is it something we want to break out of, like a trance?

It would be understandable if they were families of a most extraordinary natural distinction and self-sacrifice. But these are not the Adamses of Massachusetts we're talking about. You've noticed, right?

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.

Copyright © 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I've gotten some musical inspiration lately, it's been nice.

It's really great what can happen when you stop thinking and just...listen.