You know what I rarely ever do?
I so rarely ever update this damned thing.
so whatever is written below has been that way for a couple of years now.
There are a few things that are absolutes in my life.
Among these are:
***I have a huge crush on the band Deerhoof. They always make me smile and when I watch a live video at home I always end up yelling and screaming.
***Live Prince shows do the same. I've been a Prince fan for nearly 25 years now. Although his records of the past 10 years have sucked pretty hard.
***If I could physically meld with any piece of music it would be the original piano rendition of "Pictures At an Exhibition" by Modest Mussorgsky. In fact I have blown up at least 3 speakers in my quest for this. My profile song is a noisy recording of it.
***I'm not the most organized individual. Rather cluttered.
***"If I Loved You" is one of the greatest songs ever written. From the musical "Carousel" by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein.
***I am primarily an introvert. Too many people or too much stimuli makes my head rush a million miles per hour. It's like the scene in 2001 when he's going through all the colours.
***If ever I were to stop playing music and performing my life would probably end. Or I'd go completely crazy. Well, too late on the latter.
***I don't believe in a god in the way that most organized religions do. There is not one superpower controlling everything. And to think that we humans are the most important thing in the universe is just plain silly. How egotistical. We're just a part of the whole machine of life like everything else.
***I love extreme weather and natural craziness. Examples: earthquakes, volcano eruptions (i'm relatively near Mt St. Helens. the last eruption was on my birthday. and i remember the big one in 1980, snow (particularly driving in the hills with snow), the ice-storm of 1997, the wind storm of 2006...all that stuff. I get so excited when these things happen.
***I hate humidity. It turns me into a whiny 3 year old brat.
***The piece "Fratres" by Arvo Part has become my sonic mantra, no matter which arrangement. I would like another piece of his, "Spiegel im Spiegel" (mirror in the mirror), played at my memorial service when i kick it sometime down the road.
***Waking up in the morning sucks.
***Waking up in the afternoon sucks.
***Waking up at night sucks.
***Actually, waking up in general just sucks. This isn't to mean that I hate *being* awake. It's the process of waking up that bites hard. i wish there was a way to just bypass that first hour of the day. Skip over to when I'm dressed and actually doing something.
***I'm the only one in my family without at least a master's degree. I do have a BA. My dad's a MD and both my mum and sister have master's.
***I really like all people, even the ones that tend to annoy or piss me off.
I'm a musician. Though it does not pay the bills, nor do I want it to, that is what I am. Primarily I am a cellist but also play keyboards, guitars, and bass and a few "lucky" people get to hear me sing. I also write and record. I love spending hours experimenting with my equipment creating 'soundscapes' and noise. I generally do not put my music info on this page. If you're intersted check out my MySpace music site. HTTP://WWW.MYSPACE.COM/DEREKMJOHNSON For a living I am a Rural mail carrier for the US Post Office. I really like my postal job. The unfortunate thing is that I'm a substitute so I'm on-call every day and sometimes I won't know I'm working until the morning of. I get to drive around in the middle of nowhere for several hours listening to whatever I want. It's like getting paid for a Sunday drive. A great job minus the uncertainty of weekly hours and how hard it is on my car. I recently 'retired' from teaching private cello lessons. I was so sick of using up my free day of the week. Now I have more time for gigs and my own music and such. ----------------------------------------------------
In general I very much enjoy spending time by myself to sink into my head. I love being out with people though so it's not like I'm just a hermit. My friends make me very happy and I missed them so much while I was hidden away in a marriage.
But now I'm out and about and am ejoying all my old and new friends. I appreciate them much more now. :)Ok, now to be a bit more blunt about my eccentricities and such. I can have a tendancy to be obsessive about things. This can be both good and bad. Good in that things will get done in a maticulous manner. A lot can be accomplished and great strides can be made. Bad in that a lot of time can get wasted on insignificant details. Sometimes I think it can freak out new friends because the way I tend to generally oporate is that I'll spend a significant amount of time with a given individual or group of individuals and then travel on to another person or persons. It is my assumption that this can be overwhealming to some. I don't really know because no one tells me.
Also, I can psychoanalyze myself and situations to death; to the point of things not making sence anymore. I'll write more later.
