Triana's Music Trivia (07.31.16)

It's early on a Monday morning, and I'm bouncing off the walls with happy excitement. Those statements may seem incompatible with each other, but it's true. As I mentioned yesterday, my band They Stole My Crayon, having recently wrapped up the recording and mixing of our debut album, had sent off the stereo tracks to be mastered at Abbey Road Studios on Saturday. I must say that at the moment my alarm went off at 6AM today, I wasn't exactly a bastion of cheer. But even before I got some outstanding news, I was already feeling pretty good for a Monday. Last night, I got to perform live for one of my best friends, Jess Smith, for the eleventh anniversary of her Second Life-based event Triana's Music Trivia.

I'll come back to that in a moment. So, feeling pretty good about a very fun show I'd done along with Kat, I showered and dressed, and then (as routine would dictate), entered my office to check my email. Betwixt and between some work-related messages and the usual influx of spam was a message from Abbey Road. It said, simply, this:

Your project has been allocated and it is with our engineer Geoff Pesche, to be delivered to you in 5 days.

Wait... seriously?!?!?! Geoff Pesche?!?!?! Working on our music?!?!?! This is insane! This is amazing! This is... okay, I'll stop hyperventilating for a moment. I'll not dwell on this too much here, but Geoff Pesche is an internationally-acclaimed mastering engineer who is one of the best in the business. We would have been completely happy to have any of Abbey Road's mastering engineers taking on the task of working on our album, of course; just being selected to work there means you are at the top of your craft. But Geoff Pesche, my God! This guy is a hero of mine as an audio engineer. The list of music he's worked on over the last 30 or so years is astounding. It includes some artists and bands you might have heard of, like Coldplay, Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, Tina Turner, Gorillaz, Daughter, MIA, Blur, Ed Sheeran, Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue... okay, I'll stop now. Wait, one more thing: he mastered the biggest-selling 12" vinyl single of all time: "Blue Monday" by New Order. Jesus!

Here's a recent interview with Geoff that explains a bit about what he does.

So, now I'm finally calming down about that amazing bit of news to the point that I can tell you about my show last night for Triana's Music Trivia. A little background: when Kat and I got into Second Life in 2006, one of the first things we found to do that was cool and fun was an event called Triana's Music Trivia. Held on Sunday nights at 7PM SLT, it's been the one thing in SL that we've continued doing continuously for the entire period we've been in world, close to ten years now. Triana even pre-dates our relatively long-term participation in the virtual world, having recently celebrated her 12th rezday, and it's been eleven years since she started running her trivia game. We go for the trivia, but we've stayed for the people, several of whom have been there with us each Sunday evening for a decade. They've become great friends... especially Triana herself, with whom our relationship has expanded into the real world. We've taken a number of vacations together and she is as close to Kat and I as anyone we know. Once or twice a year, I've performed at her virtual place for special events, and my show there is always super interesting, since I tend to play music that I don't do anywhere else.

Kat joins me onstage for some Bowie and Crayon tunes. Photo and top photo by Triana.

Having way too much fun with our friends at TMT. Photo by Triana.

Rocking Tirana's attic. I like playing house parties in real or virtual worlds. Photo by Triana.

Last night's show was particularly great. For one reason, I was joined onstage by Kat, who has gained more and more confidence in her ability as a live musician due to her work alongside of me and Bunny in They Stole My Crayon. Another reason -- which I didn't bother dwelling on much during the show itself -- is that the set list had some particular significance in several ways. It was the first show I'd done there since the passing of David Bowie and Prince, so I made sure to have some of both artists' music in the set... Triana is a big fan of both, so it made sense. I also did some Beatles, in honor of our music being worked on at Abbey Road. And, unsurprisingly, we did several Crayon tunes for the same reason.

TMT set list...
Airport Bar (Martin Courtney)
Triana (Zak Claxton)
†*Changes (David Bowie)
†*Suffragette City (David Bowie)
†Blew The Dust Away (They Stole My Crayon)
†Vendetta (They Stole My Crayon)
†Things Under Trees (They Stole My Crayon)
Summer Breeze (Seals & Crofts)
*Desert Lily (Zak Claxton)
*Good Morning Good Morning (Beatles)
*Not Freebird (Lynyrd Skynyrd/Zak Claxton)
Take Me With U (Prince)
You're Like a Cloud (Zak Claxton)
Tribute (Tenacious D)

*Indicates a song I've never played before in SL.
†Indicates the songs on which Kat performed with me.

Huge thanks to all of our friends who've been a part of our lives through TMT over the years, especially those who were at the show last night. You rule, and we love you all!

They Stole My Crayon Album Being Mastered at Abbey Road

There are four steps to creating recorded music. There are actually about 700 steps, but they can all be broken down into four main activities:

- Writing
- Recording
- Mixing
- Mastering

So, you write some music, and if you intend on singing, you write some lyrics. Then you record your music. Simple enough. Then your music is mixed, which means that the various parts that make up your song... the drums, the bass, the guitars, the keyboards, the vocals and so on, are literally mixed together in some way you find pleasing, hopefully. But what the hell is that last step?

Mastering involves taking a mixed piece of music and making it ready for listening on various media, from digital downloads to vinyl albums. It's also a final opportunity to make sure that there's consistency throughout a song, or through a number of songs. You don't want to release music where the volume levels are jumping around, or where one song sounds really dull while another sounds overly crisp and brittle. Or maybe you do, but at least you want to do it on purpose. That's what mastering is. However the master turns out is how it will sound when you upload it to iTunes or Spotify, or gets sent to radio stations, or when you have a bunch of CDs duplicated. The art of mastering involves more than great gear in a great room; it's really about the ears and the skill of the mastering engineer, whose work will end up being the final word on what people will hear when they play your music.

Crayon History
As all of my readers know, I (along with my lady Christina Lee and my pal Bunny Knutson) formed a band called They Stole My Crayon back in 2012. For the first couple of years, we were mostly trying to find our sound as a band as we wrote song after song. Side note: I can't tell you the number of songs we wrote and recorded demos for that we eventually discarded, once we locked into what we really wanted to be. It was in early 2015 that we really gained a focus on our band, and put the pedal to the metal in creating the twelve songs that would be selected for our debut album. Almost all of the instrumental tracks were recorded at mine and Bunny's home studios (Frothy Studios and The Rabbit Hutch, respectively), and then last summer, we recorded all of the album's vocals at a couple of productive sessions at Phil O'Keefe's Sound Sanctuary Recording in Hesperia, CA.

The Crayon, July 2016 (Bunny Knutson, Christina Lee, Zak Claxton).

Once everything was recorded, we started sending those tracks to our friend Spencer Crewe in St. John's, NL (that's in Canada, for the geographically impaired). Spencer did a fantastic job, and we continually were still refining little aspects of the songs as we went along. So, steps one, two, and three were handled, but we still needed a solution for that final step. I know plenty of excellent and talented mastering engineers, local and otherwise. We had a limited budget, like most independent bands, and wanted to choose a solution that would fit our high standards of sonic excellence along with the relative lack of money in our pockets. So we made the obvious choice: we're having the album mastered at the world's most famous recording studios... Abbey Road Studios in London, UK.

What the What?!?!?
Yeah, you read it right. Abbey Road Studios. Yes, that Abbey Road Studios. The place where The Beatles created nearly all of their albums and singles. The place where Pink Floyd recorded Dark Side of the Moon. In more recent years, everyone from U2 to Radiohead to Gorillaz to Lady Gaga have used Abbey Road's services. The list of artists who have recorded, mixed, or mastered their music at Abbey Road is astounding. Many of the techniques for creatively recording music that are now in widespread use were literally invented there.

How, then, can some random band that no one has heard of like They Stole My Crayon be able to work with such a prestigious facility? It's very simple. As the music industry has changed drastically over the past 20 or so years in the digital download era, studios like Abbey Road that formerly had a steady flow of high-dollar business coming in from huge record labels and film studios were experiencing a dramatic drop in business. Many studios have gone under as a result. But Abbey Road did something very smart: in 2009, they began making the technologies of digital transmission work for them instead of against them by offering an online mastering program. I think the video below explains exactly how it works very nicely.


And here's the part that helped us make our decision: it's not nearly as expensive as you'd imagine to have your music mastered at Abbey Road. In fact, it's quite a bit less expensive than a number of the options we'd been considering previous to discovering their online mastering service.

Yesterday (Saturday July 30), we uploaded the high-resolution, uncompressed stereo WAV files that Spencer had helped create to Abbey Road. Within a week or so, we will have those twelve songs returned to us after they've been worked on by one of the several acclaimed mastering engineers who work there. And that is when -- pending a few final details -- we can release the album to the public.

It's all very exciting, and somewhat daunting, but we're finally at the end of the long road of making an album of which we're all extraordinarily proud. And if all goes well, sometime in the next couple of weeks or so, you'll get to finally hear it too.

Elysium City of Templemore (07.16.16)

Contain your shock; I finally played another show in Second Life. Yes, while there was once a time that I happily took on three or more shows per week, it's now about a once per month occasion when I play live in SL. All for good reasons, of course. But when I do play live in SL these days, as rare as that is, it becomes a very special event. And yesterday's show at the grand opening of Elysium City of Templemore was certainly special, in many ways.

First, as most of you readers know, Templemore isn't a new concept. My friend Luis Lockjaw created and ran an earlier version, called Hesperia of Templemore, which I first played in February 2014 and would subsequently play many more times before it closed in July of last year. In fact, I performed at the final show there, which was something that Luis mentioned to my manager Maali Beck when he booked me to open his all-new Second Life sim, Elysium City of Templemore. I'd helped close the old place, he said; he wanted me back to help open the new one.

I couldn't say "yes" quickly enough. Not to spend an excessive amount of time dwelling on this, but Luis is just a fucking genius when it comes to designing Second Life environments. He obviously has tremendous artistic vision, and the vibe of the places he creates is simply like no other. His places are amazing combinations of beauty and decay, dream and nightmare. I've become pretty blasé about design over the nearly ten years I've spent in SL, but every build Luis does is so good that I'd be happy just hanging out there with nothing to do but wander around marveling at the creative skill it took to make it.

As if all that wasn't enough, a few days before the show, Luis announced the full lineup. The event started at 3PM with Caasi Ansar, followed by my show at 4PM. Then came Sassy Nitely, Gravey Jones, and Phemie Alcott, and then DJ Malachi Decuir to close out the evening. All of these people are among my personal favorite talents in SL. I was honored just to be involved. The show itself went really well, I'm happy to say. We had a large crowd that included many friends, and despite my relative rustiness from having performed less frequently, I felt like my singing and playing went just fine, and people seemed happy. I ask for nothing more than that.

Photos by Kat.

Templemore set list...
Pink Moon (Nick Drake)
Sleeper in the Valley (Laura Veirs)
*Something Else (Zak Claxton)
Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
Carry Me Ohio (Sun Kil Moon)
Blew The Dust Away (They Stole My Crayon)
Gardenia (Iggy Pop)
Sour Girl (Stone Temple Pilots)
Falling Down (Zak Claxton)
Northern Highway (Martin Courtney)
Underwater Underground (They Stole My Crayon)
After The Goldrush (Neil Young)
*Sassy Take the Stage (Zak Claxton Improv)

*Indicates the first time I've performed this song in SL.

Massive thanks to all who came out to the new Templemore to see my show, with extra special high-fives to the following who helped support it.
Diana Renoir, Lilmissbo Resident, JueL Resistance, Grace Sixpence, RoxxyyRoller Resident, Kransten Resident, Sassy Nitely, Eli Schlegel, Sesh Kamachi, TheaDee Resident, Kat Claxton, Templemore's terrific hostess Bee Blackrain, and everyone involved in the new Elysium City... especially my friend and SoCal homie Luis Lockjaw.

New Zak Song: "Something Else"

I've written here before about my process of creating new music... mostly coming to the conclusion that I don't actually have a process, and that it is, in actuality, some mystical magic shit that either happens or doesn't. But I have narrowed down a few points:

1. I tend to write music when I am in front of some kind of music-making thing (a guitar, a piano, a computer running music production software, etc.).
2. I tend to write music when I am not distracted by other life things -- much of which is also very important to me, like being a responsible adult, a parent, a love interest, and those other roles that musicians often (but shouldn't) call distractions.

But beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. I often pick up a guitar in a peaceful and quiet environment, and nothing new even comes close to happening. I've also "tried" to write a song... disaster. "Trying" to write is pretty much a guarantee for writing your absolute worst, most derivative, and completely unexciting music. That's where the filler on an album comes from, when a songwriter has a burst of two or three genuine tunes, and then realizes that he or she needs another ten to fill it up. My advice: don't do it. Wait until you have more actual songs, or just release singles or EPs.

All killer. No filler. Working on music in my new little studio.

Anyway, as my readers know, I recently moved, and it wasn't a simple or easy move. Granted, it was only a half block to the west, but the move ended up stretching out over weeks, and we still have boxes in our living room to sort through a month after starting the process. Anyway, per above, there was no way in hell I was going to write music during that time frame. I was mentally and physically exhausted for a good portion of it, and then my focus was on catching up with the more responsible aspects of my life that were pushed back via the move. It wasn't until last week when I started getting back into my routine of picking up an instrument and playing when I had a spare moment to do so.

Sometimes, at least for me, that's a good time to write. You're approaching it from a fresh angle, having not played in awhile, and perhaps consciously or otherwise, you have some ideas bottled up. But as I also said above, for the love of God, do not try and write a song. Instead, just be within playing proximity of an instrument, and see what happens when you make contact with it. No pressure. Play a few notes or a chord, and then maybe another. Nod your head a bit, perhaps settling on a tempo and feel. Mumble some sounds that might one day be a melody and some lyrics. If it happens, it happens. If not, go do something else.

Hey, that's the name of my new song
Inadvertent mention, or Freudian slip? I have no idea. But here's how I wrote my new song "Something Else".

One night last week, I picked up my Martin D-18V, which has been the conduit for many songs I've written. The chord progression came to me all at once. I didn't stop and wait to write a bridge, or a chorus. I just flowed through the whole thing as it came to me. A good sign, not stopping. I did a quick recording of that, just to make sure I wouldn't forget it the next day. That was all, for the time being.

I didn't know what I was going to do. I highly recommend not knowing what you're doing, by the way.

On Saturday, Kat was reading or napping or something. I decided to fire up Logic Pro, my current preferred music production software. I didn't know what I was going to do. I highly recommend not knowing what you're doing, by the way. But then I recalled that I'd done that little tune the other day, and gave it a listen. Yup, that would work. So I gave some thought -- but not too much thought -- to what the drums and bass might sound like, and then I recorded those. Then I re-recorded the guitar part I'd written previously, and added some little vibe ambience that came to me on the spot. Later that night, I played my in-progress tune over and over again, probably to Kat's dismay. But before I went to sleep, I had a pretty good idea of the melody.

When I'm in the middle of a tune like that, I want to keep the flow going. After coffee and breakfast on Sunday morning, I went straight back to the song. I had the tune and a sort-of melody, but I had no words to sing. This is a problem. Songs require singing. Side note: some of you use the term "instrumental song". This is, by definition, impossible. Songs are sung. Tunes can be played, orchestras can be performed, instrumentals can be realized, but only songs can be sung.

But I digress. I put on the music, and then started writing things that came to mind. I suppose the feel of the music does sway what lyrics I write. I hope so, anyway. I do try and knock out lyrics as quickly as I can after writing new music. It keeps the vibe that much more consistent. Also, as I learned from Neil Young, I don't edit myself very much. I try and write through the song, and then go back and make small tweaks to assist with the phrasing and such, or to make sure the emotional impact of the song is consistent throughout.

So, I suddenly had lyrics, and it was time to sing them, which I quickly did. Then I did a fast mix of the song, and plopped it up on Soundcloud to share with my friends. And that's where we are right now, my friends. What happens next? Well, I'll probably go through the same process again, to re-record my quick ideas and get them polished up some, and perhaps add to them if I feel it will suit the song.

That's it. That's how I write a song. This was of no help to anyone trying to write a song of their own (and remember, never try and write a song). But perhaps it was interesting in its complete vagueness. Enjoy the tune.

Bonaventure Square (06.16.16)

Doing what I do at Bonaventure Square in SL. Photo by Maali Beck.

It's Monday morning, and I'm enjoying a cup of coffee in the near silence of my new home. It really is quiet here compared to my old place, which is literally 100 yards southeast of here. But the old place is situated on a very busy street, and just being one street over into the little neighborhood where I live in Redondo Beach makes a world of difference, especially in the mornings while people hurrying to work and school would be revving their engines and honking their horns. All I hear right now is the tiny clicks of my keyboard as I write this post. It is, in an overused but appropriate word, nice.

Thursday evening, of course, was quite a bit louder in here as I undertook my first live show in Second Life since my hiatus during the move. As my dear readers know, the majority of my time spent on music in 2016 has been focused toward wrapping up the debut album of my band They Stole My Crayon. As a result of that and other reasons, I've done less SL shows so far this year than at any point since I started playing there regularly in 2007. It's like anything else in life; you need to sometimes make decisions that prioritize one thing over another, even if you'd rather be able to do both. Time is cruel; there's never enough to do everything you'd like.

So, perhaps needless to say, it felt great getting back into doing live shows with my debut appearance at Bonaventure Square. The name is appropriate; the place resembles an outdoor square in an upper-class urban retail area like Rodeo Drive or Midtown Manhattan. The people who run the place -- Meredith Lundquist-Panthar and Candi Lundquist -- seem very nice. So nice, in fact, that despite my only pulling in a tiny crowd, they enjoyed the show enough to want me back there. The reasons for the tiny crowd are completely understandable. First, I'm really not an artist who focuses mostly on SL, so I never am a huge draw regardless. Second, I'd been out of SL for six weeks, so out of sight is out of mind in any world. And thirdly, sometimes the unavailability of a few key friends who tend to pull in other friends can have a big impact. Finally, my show was scheduled there on its own, with no performance happening at adjacent times to my show to pull in some other attendees.

Keep in mind that I'm not complaining at all. The show itself went great. I'd have liked more people around to hear it, but we had a good number of the Zaksters there, and the folks who run Bonaventure Square suggested that next time, my show gets scheduled in between some other acts. It's a good plan, and I look forward to that. But regardless, I'm happy with the music I did, and was in a good mood the entire time, so I'm definitely looking forward to performing there again with a bunch more people there to enjoy it along with me. One other note about the music: I debuted "Carry Me Ohio" by Sun Kil Moon, and I can tell you now that I'll be doing that one again many times in the future.

Bonaventure Square set list...
Airport Bar (Martin Courtney)
*Carry Me Ohio (Sun Kil Moon)
Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie)
Blew The Dust Away (They Stole My Crayon)
Wonderwall (Oasis)
*Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
Sex & Candy (Marcy Playground)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Never Run Away (Kurt Vile)
Pancho & Lefty (Townes Van Zandt)
California (Joni Mitchell)
Northern Sky (Nick Drake)
Desire Lines (Deerhunter)

*Indicates the first time I've performed this song in SL.

Huge thanks to the folks who made it out to my "come back" show at Bonaventure Square, especially the following who helped support the show!
RoxxyyRoller Resident, RansomTalmidge Resident, Richy Nervous, Sesh Kamachi, TheaDee Resident, my great manager Maali Beck and Bonaventure's Meredith Panther!

Thanks Bernie, and Welcome Hillary

I voted in the California primary yesterday. Did it matter? Yeah, it mattered a lot.

Yesterday was the California primary, and I voted. It had been a long time since I bothered voting in a primary, but not because I'm a political slacker. California, the nation's most populous state (with the highest number of delegates at stake by far), is always scheduled near the end of the primary cycle. By the time we get to vote, the candidates are almost always all but completely determined. But not this year. There was still a mathematical possibility that my preferred candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, could overwhelmingly win the state and potentially receive the nomination of the party.

That didn't happen, and there are plenty of people who -- having finally found a candidate who truly speaks to the issues they find important -- are going to be bitter and disappointed today. There are those who are -- quite understandably -- completely disillusioned about the entire political process. I'm not one of them. Let me explain a few things.

Take The Test
First and foremost, as difficult as it is at this juncture, try putting your perceptions aside for a moment and focus on what really matters, which are the issues. There are a number of online locations where you can take an in-depth look at each major issue facing the country today, and see which candidate is most aligned with your views. The most popular (and probable best) one is called "I Side With". Go ahead and try it out. Go in as deep as you have time for in each category. It will probably take you about 10-15 minutes. I'll wait right here.

Done? Alright, let's take a look at the results, or at least my results.

As expected for a person with a fairly liberal outlook, my candidate is and always has been Bernie Sanders, who did indeed receive my vote in the primaries. Also not surprising: as a person who finds environmental issues very important, Jill Stein of the Green Party would be a good choice for me if she were in any way electable. But look at the actual percentages. Per their stated positions that are on record, I agree with 96% of Sanders' and Stein's policy issues... and 95% of Hillary Clinton's. In other words, whether I like Clinton or not, only one percentage point separates her and Sanders regarding the only thing that actually matters: the issues and policies the next President will support.

"No Sanders? I hate Hillary! I'm going Trump!"
I'm going to tell you something: if you're one of the thankfully small number of people who would choose to vote for Donald Trump now that Bernie is out of the race, you have some serious problems. I don't mean that as an insult; I mean that you don't have an understanding of what the role of President of the United States is all about. You may have liked Bernie because of his "political outsider" status, and frankly, so did I (and still do). But the reason you vote for a POTUS is that you feel that his or her position, as the leading influencer of the direction of the country, is most closely aligned with your own beliefs. And let me ask this: if your beliefs are that closely aligned with Trump's, why were you interested in Bernie Sanders in the first place? They are extreme polar opposites in terms of how they would affect your lifestyle as an American. There's no possible way that a person with a sane, rational mind would switch to being a Trump supporter, unless they never had an understanding of what Bernie is all about. I can promise that it's not what Bernie would want, and sometime in the next short while, I suspect Bernie will directly state this as well.

So that's it? It was all for nothing?
Oh, hell no. What Bernie did was amazing. He educated a huge portion of the populace about the details of topics like income inequality, climate change, racial injustice, and treatment of LGBT people. There are literally millions of people who -- as a direct result of Bernie's message -- became politically aware and active after years and years of apathy. And guess what? Just because the general election will not have Bernie becoming the President doesn't mean that the spark he lit under millions of Americans will die out. Bernie Sanders successfully created a movement that will hold the U.S. government to higher standards at all levels. In almost all meaningful ways, his campaign was a greater success than anyone could have imagined.

I am proud that I supported Bernie, and the ideals that he championed during the campaign are those that I believe in, and will continue pushing in every way I can. But the first and foremost way I can try and ensure that the United States doesn't become some kind of dystopian nightmare and a totalitarian regime led by a sociopathic monster is by throwing my support behind Hillary Clinton. If I don't do that, I am tacitly saying that I am okay with Donald Trump, a thoroughly despicable human being whose outlook is the opposite of everything I hold true, becoming President. I will use every ounce of my small amount of influence to make sure that doesn't happen, for the sake of myself and my son and those near and dear to me.

Therefore, while I love Bernie and hope that his message reverberates for years and years to come, I am officially supporting Hillary Clinton for President of the USA in the general election. No matter what you believe about our political system, if your stance on the important issues is closer to her's than to Trump's, I highly recommend you do the same. I also encourage you to talk about this... with me, with your family, with your friends. With fellow Bernie supporters. With anyone who thinks that Trump is a better option. Your best way of making sure that Bernie's campaign wasn't for naught is to make sure that the country doesn't go in the literal opposite direction of his policies that you've supported so strongly.

Please keep that in mind come November. And, as always, thanks for reading.

1995

Trying (and failing) to find stuff after the move.

It was July 1995, I was 26 years old, and I needed a place to live.

Actually, I had a place to live, and it was fine, sort of. It was a one-bedroom apartment in Torrance, CA, situated on busy Artesia Boulevard, so close to the overpass of the 405 freeway that the smell of exhaust fumes was a regular aspect of my daily existence. If I recall correctly, my rent there was $600 a month. I lived there with my then-wife, whom I'd married in 1993. We didn't have a child. It was, as I said, fine.

But it was a long way from ideal. The building was old, and shit was falling apart. Like, bad stuff. Plumbing was a serious problem. The neighborhood itself wasn't the greatest by a long shot. And I'd been out of college and at my job for several years, and was making pretty good money for a young dude. So, we decided it was time to move. Back in that pre-Internet era, just finding a place for rent was kind of a pain in the ass. I suppose I did what people did then, which was to look through newspapers and such. We checked out a couple of places in Torrance, assuming that a) we couldn't afford anything closer to the ocean and b) anywhere else was going to be an even worse situation.

But then one day, as we were driving around on our way somewhere, I took a left onto Beryl Street from 190th, and saw a big "FOR RENT" sign on a front lawn. I assumed that there was no way we could afford living in this nice neighborhood, but since we didn't have anything to lose, we stopped by to check it out. The place seemed unimaginably huge compared to where we'd been living. I was surprised to find out that the rent was $895... something that was within our range at the time. There were rental applications sitting on the counter, so we filled one out and left. I saw that other apps had been submitted, and didn't have high hopes about getting the place. But the next day, my phone rang, and an older man with a heavy Asian accent was asking me when I wanted to move in.

His name was Sherman Yu, and I told him that we could move any time. I met him back at the apartment, handed over a check to cover our first month's rent and a deposit before he could change his mind, and -- still in some degree of disbelief -- went back to start packing our small number of possessions. We moved into our place on Beryl Street the following month, in August 1995.

Two Decades Later...
It's been almost 21 years since that day, and you could say a lot has happened. In 1999, my son was born. The following year, I got laid off the only job I'd had since college (panic!), only to get a new and better job a couple of weeks later (whew!). That job lasted a few years, which kind of coincided with my marriage eroding. In 2003, I started my own marketing services company which I still run today. That same year, I first made the acquaintance of a lady named Christina who would eventually have a significant impact on my life, and whom I started seeing romantically a couple of years later. In 2008, the larger, two-story front unit opened up in the same building, and I jumped on it. Christina moved down here that September, living just a half block away for the subsequent 7-1/2 years.

We had always intended on sharing a place to live, but there was no specific deadline to do so. I'd had a vague idea that we would move ahead with that plan in 2018, after my son graduated from high school. However, sometimes opportunity knocks, and you should be ready to answer the door. Around the start of May, we found out that a home here in our neighborhood was becoming available. It was pretty much perfect for our needs... two-story, four bedroom, two-car attached garage, nice large patio. Big open living room/dining room area. Completely renovated interior. We didn't have to think much about it; we put in an application right away. A couple of days later, we found out that we got the place.

Since that moment, life went into a whirlwind as the process of moving began. I won't bore you with those details... moving is as shitty as anything that most humans go through multiple times in their lives. And frankly, we're still not done with that process; there is still a lot of cleanup work and collection of random crap that remains in my old place. But as of today -- June 2, 2016 -- I am writing from my office in my lovely new home. And lovely it is. A huge improvement from our former places. And, of course, I am finally living with Christina, which is something we've both wanted for a long, long time.

So here I am, trying to get our new place put together while sorting through a sea of boxes, and at the same time trying to get work done so I can earn enough money to live in this large and lovely home. But I'm not worried. Everything is coming together very nicely. Life is short, and the living quality improvement more than makes up for the temporary pain in the ass of this big transition.