Apartment for Rent

I've decided to take a break. My voice has been getting pretty raggedy, and while that would be great for the Tom Waits project, I think i need to put the brakes on that if I expect to keep doing this. I even went as far as to gargle salt water, which tasted like whale sweat. I'm not sure what to do with the extra blog space I'm not using though. Maybe I'll convert this blog into an apartment and charge rent. Make me an offer. The location is really great; it's just down the street from Facebook and a grocery store. The schools are hit-or-miss, and there's some pretty rascally delinquents in the Youtube comment section, but other than that I think it would be a great place to live.

This picture has dual symbolism:
1) It's No-Shave November, a month for epic beards
2) This whole being sick thing is really Yoko-ing up my Beatles vibe.

Yesterday

I have been inconsistent, and I'm very sorry. However, I'm quite determined to post tonight. It's late, but I'm hoping that my closet will be sound-proof enough not to wake my roommates. If it does, my sincerest apologies. Have a glass of my milk and go back to bed.*

*It's a trick. I have no milk.

This is a song about 37 minutes ago.

We Can Work It Out

Today's song is We Can Work It Out. The song is about how disagreements are really easy to resolve if you agree with me. Words to live by. Big gigantic gracias to friend and bandmate Chris Gerber, rockin the tambourine and backup vocals.



Of special note are my inability to fit my gigantic head in the frame and my rudimentary attempt at multiple camera angles. Enjoy.

And Your Bird Can Sing

If you ask me why I haven't posted for an entire week, I'll probably give you some canned answer about how busy I've been; indeed, I'll probably tell you that school and work formed an evil alliance with the intent to keep me from seeing the light of day, that the school/work monster wants me to die of rickets. But the truth is that i have been straight-up stymied by this song. I still am. In many respects, "And Your Bird Can Sing" is just a regular Beatles song: tight harmonies, catchy melody, overall cohesive ensemble-ness. But it has this double guitar riff played by George and Paul that, while totally awesome, sounds like something from Sound Of Music when I played it on piano. You'll note that you could easily start singing "Do, a deer, a female deer" after the intro.
So I finally decided I had to man up and do it.



Also, I have a total cold. Are you tired of my complaining yet? Me too.

On a better note, check out this Beatles art by my friend Apryl Melancon. It's totally rad. You should check out her website.

This Boy

So there we were, fourth-grade field trip to the zoo. It smelled like a mix of tide water and feces, which was probably because we stood between the otters and the capybara. The aristocratic scent of obscenely-priced churros wafted from a stand. It was pure heaven I wandered over to said stand and proffered up a handful of quarters.

"One churro please," I said.

"Seven dollars," said Churro-Stand Man, his voice muffled by his large mustache. I started to count out quarters. My math-minded readers already know that at these exorbitant prices, I would need 28 quarters.  And my elementary-school fashion-minded readers will remember that cargo shorts hit the big time around 1999. My pockets could carry 20 quarters, max. I had some nickels mixed in there too. Needless to say, I came up short. So I scooped my quarters into my hand, and then funneled them back into my pocket. Then the teacher called my name and we moved into the monkey house. That churro smell still slipped through the wire fence, and sidestepped past the angry orangutans and found its way into my nostrils. I needed 8 quarters, badly. Even though I'd have to clutch them in my hands (all pants-pockets were at capacity). I scoured the floor of the monkey house and moved on to the snake house. I found some pennies with gum on them; they weren't worth it. I also found a couple beads. 

Long story short, I never found two dollars that day, but I recently had a cream-filled churro and it was totally worth the wait.

Who likes churros?

This Boy.

Martha My Dear

Faithful readers may be wondering about my bag that I lost on the train. Here's the deal. I called the lost and found, on Wednesday, and a girl named Gretchen answered.
"Hi, I lost a laptop bag on the light rail last night. It's bla bla bla bla bla."
"Ok, let me go check the lost and found."
I then waited on hold for like ten minutes while a recording detailing the ongoing labor disputes among transportation workers played on repeat.
Finally, a real voice:
"Hi, this is Gretchen, can I help you?"
"Umm, I talked to you a few minutes ago about a bag?"
"Oh sorry, I totally got distracted. I didn't see your bag."
I was picturing her coming upon all the forgotten action figures that kids leave between the cushions on all the buses in the Phoenix metro area.
"Ok," I said, "'Thanks.'" (note the quotes within quotes. I was doing those with my fingers.)
"Yeah, call back tomorrow."

So I did.

Real Love

I don't smoke, but I know a lot of people who do. At shows, it's really hard to look cool without a cigarette. So, I have come up with an invention that remedies this situation. I call it the Ciggy Pop. You can make one yourself if you wish. All you need is:

One (1) lollipop (I recommend the blue Tootsie pops.)

One (1) cigarette (they don't sell them in singles so you'll either have to borrow one from a friend or wait til they die. It won't be long.)

One (1) toothpick or something.

Instructions:
1. Using the toothpick, remove the filter and some of the tobacco
2. Insert sucker
3. Look Cool

Enjoy. Also, here's a song. It's called "Real Love." It was never released, but it's quite good.

Your Mother Should Know

The Accordion is harder than sin to play. Mine (a child's size) weighs a good 35 pounds, and my muscles ache after playing for anything more than ten minutes. But how did this mixture of piano and bellows come into being? Who was the mastermind that put that that whole shebang together? I bring you: the story of the accordion. 

Some say that the accordion was invented by a certain  Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann (Wallenstein Goethe Smith) in Berlin, Germany. The first accordions were  diatonic, which means that they could only play in one key, which means that you'd have to have multiple accordions if you wanted to play songs in different keys, sort of like with harmonicas. Shortly afterward, the accordion gained popularity in many countries. It became an integral part of folk music in many countries especially in Eastern Europe.  As time went on, music and the use of the accordion evolved. This is a direct quote from wikipedia (aka the Fountain of Absolute Truth):

Accordionists in heavy metal make their most extensive appearances in the folk metal sub-genre, and are otherwise generally rare. Full-time accordionists in folk metal seem even rarer, but they are still utilized for studio work, as flexible keyboardists are usually more accessible for live performances.

Who the eff knew there was a folk metal genre? Where was I? I would be all over that. While neither genre, standing alone, appeals to me entirely, the two together make for quite the shindig. I'm picturing Kirk Hammet playing accordion on a supercharged metallic version of Blowing in the Wind. Quite the spectacle. 
I recently attended the arizona accordion club and let me tell you, those cats can blow. Here is my mediocre accordion playing on the Beatles' "Your Mother Should Know."

A Hard Day's Night

I did a quick count last night of how many Beatles songs I know. I went down the list and if I was familiar enough with it to sing a few lines, i counted it. I figured that my pretty extensive knowledge of the White Album and Abbey Road would boost my score; I listened to those two pretty consistently growing up. But the rest I had only passing familiarity with. Of the 207 I recognized 117. In a glass-half-empty way, that's sort of pitiful. I couldn't even recall a melody to almost half of the Beatles' songs. But in a glass-half-full sort of way, though, the Beatles wrote songs memorable enough that I could recall more than a hundred of them by name alone. I have recreated the list here for your enjoyment. Try it out. Proclaim your score to the world, unless your score is higher than mine, in which case kindly keep it to yourself. Whoever gets the highest score wins the right (nay, the privilege) to cut his or her own hair.

Here's A Hard Day's Night, performed on the Phoenix light rail. I left my bag on the train, so check back tomorrow to see what shakes out in that department. Will society prove itself worthy to survive the flood, or is the world we live in just one giant ball of selfish poop? Pins and needles.

It's All Too Much

"It's All Too Much" is by George Harrison. It was written and recorded during the Sgt. Pepper's sessions and was scheduled to appear on "Magical Mystery Tour," but was bumped off. It finally appeared on the "Yellow Submarine" Soundtrack. The song pretty much consists of two chords and loads of acid.

I shot this video in the park by my house. Stay tuned after the feature presentation for some footage of the stately Canada Goose in its natural habitat.

Two of Us

Today I visited my brother Simon in Flagstaff. He has a ukelele and is way cooler than me, which may have something to do with the fact that he has recently met Ke$ha. We played "Two of Us."


Then we played Four of Us, with the help of some special guests.


"Two of Us" was written by Paul McCartney about his soon-to-be wife, Linda.

Come Together

Today I enlisted the help of friend and bandmate Trevor Denton

Good sound is coming. Don't you fret yourself.

I think it's time I delineated my goals with this whole project. As you can see in this video, I am barely passable at any sort of guitar playing that isn't chords. But over the course of these next 200-some days I hope to change that. My goal throughout this whole thing is to be a better, more spontaneous musician. I do most videos in one or two takes, accepting any little mistakes. My goal isn't perfection for each given video, but that each time I'll improve, add a little something new to the mix.

Taxman

The Beatles' "Taxman," a biting indictment of 1960's British fiscal policy, gives voice to the bitterness of the middle- and working-class families. The song was written by George Harrison, when he found out that the British government had imposed a 95% super tax on the highest tax bracket. At the time, there was a general distrust of taxes, which manifested itself not only in song, but it political uprisings as well. This lack of support for taxes was fomented by rumors of great excess in the aristocratic class. For example, Sir Lord Very Reverend Henry Wallaceford Dogrumple's appropriation of taxes to fund his cheese-sculpting habit. The British government responded saying that the seal fur used to make beefeaters' hats had grown very expensive, and needed to be imported from Luxembourg at £10,000 a barrel. The cost was so great because Luxembourg has only seven seals, all of which are in zoos around the country. If one has any degree of familiarity with the Luxembourgish, one knows that they are very fond of their seals.

All my loving

Have you ever wondered what your steering wheel sees while you drive? There's an answer: nostrils.



Mine can't even fit into the shot.

I filmed this video on my back balcony.



Side-note: Youtube totally over-achieved on this one. Check it out. 197% loaded. I watched it later and it turned out that the other 97% was an episode of Magnum, PI.

I'm Looking Through You

Hello, and welcome back from the weekend. I rediscovered tetris on Saturday. When I was younger, I totally got addicted to tetris, along with the rest of my family. We had this little handheld game that I won because I had sold 13,000 rolls of wrapping paper for the school fundraiser (totally worth it). I would stay up late into the night hunched over with a flashlight building walls with little tetraminos, until my mother would poke her head in the door and whisper/yell, "Are you still playing that ridiculous game? Give it to me. You've abused the privilege."
"Aww come on, mom! I'm on a tear. Total high score opportunity."
"No. Absolutely not. You need to go to bed. Young boys need their sleep and I'll not have you up to all hours rotting your brain with that drivel... wah wah wah waaah wah."
She tore the game from my hands; this was fairly easy due to the pressure-sweat that had been building up on my hands since level 7. I slept fitfully, having many nightmares.
In the morning, when I went out to the kitchen to grab a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats, I found my mom sitting at the kitchen table playing tetris, puffy bags under her eyes.
"How's the drivel?" I asked.
"I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about," she whimpered, "I think I've got carpal tunnel. Get the shoehorn and help me pry my fingers away."
I obliged her, and then she made me a Belgian waffle. As I packed my backpack, I stealthily slid the handheld game into the big pocket. My mom caught me. "I think you better leave that here," she said.
"You just want to play it."
"No, I just want you to do well in school."
"No you don't!" I yelled "You just want to beat my high score."
"Nonsense. I beat that last night. It was pretty easy."
And so, for the second time in eight hours, she wrestled the game from me. And when i came home from school, there she was, hunched over the game. My dad came home and confiscated the game from both of us. "You just want to play it yourself," we both muttered, Gollum-like.
"Don't be silly. I'm your father. I'm a bastion of self-control."

Dinnertime. We all gathered around the table and dug in. All but one. My mom called for him. No response.
"Jon-Erik, go get your dad. He's in our room."
So I went to my parents' room. The door was closed. I knocked, and heard the little sounds of something small being shoved somewhere hidden.
"What?" his voice came from behind the door.
"Dinner."
"Ok."
He emerged from the room, pale and rubbing his wrists. I knew it. We were like coins scraping the gum from each other. Every time one of us was unwillingly freed, another was willingly stuck. *

What does that have to do with today's song? I leave it to you, my dear viewer, to draw your own parallels. Let me know if you think of some good ones. Sir Paul McCartney wrote this song about his then-girlfriend Jane Asher, who had started wearing only cellophane.

My access to recording equipment is sort of spotty, and when I get a hold of some, I often give up on figuring out how to use it. This should be resolved within this week. In the meantime, these videos with that obnoxious ringing in the background will have to do.

*This account of my childhood is heavily fictionalized: my mother never made me Belgian Waffles.

All You Need Is Love

Tomorrow is John Lennon's Birthday. He would have been 70. Happy Birthday, John Lennon.

I'm joined on today's song by a young performer by the name of Emma Nissen. She's got pipes, so watch out. Actually I am completely upstaged in this video by her. Enjoy.

She Said She Said

She Said She said is a song about an acid trip that the Beatles (minus the sweater-vest-clad McCartney) took with Peter Fonda, son of Henry Fonda. Henry Fonda was the good guy in 12 Angry Men. The guy who does the voice of Piglet was in that movie too. So, they're all at this secluded house in a canyon, resting up during a break from their European tour. Girls are trying to get in, climbing down the walls of the canyon and over the fence. It was like the end of Scarface. They kept finding girls hiding under the tables and jumping out of closets and the like. John and George and Ringo were trippin pretty hard; George thought he was going to die. Peter Fonda, who had accidentally shot himself in the stomach as a child, said, "Don't worry. I know what it's like to be dead," which is quite possibly the least comforting thing ever. At this point, they were all sitting in the tub, which, according to some accounts, was full of maple syrup. John was like, "Hey man, don't bring that in here. You make me feel like I've never been born." And then they all fell asleep. And then later John Lennon wrote this song, in which Peter Fonda turned into a girl. This is one of the only Beatles songs in which Paul McCartney didn't do anything: No bass, no vocals, no nothing.

The acoustics in this tub were pleasant.

Yes It Is

Today's song is Yes It Is.
No it's not.
Yes it is.
No.
Yes.

Seriously.

Last night I fell asleep writing. I was doing old-school writing, pen-and-paper style. When I woke up this morning, I found this on my bedsheets:

You're welcome for the free advertising, State Farm. Do you insure linens?

But what am I to make of this impromoptu Rorschach test? What is it? Antarctica? A cowering gerbil? Hello Kitty?

Yes it is.

One more? One more.

Help!

Ever since I started this project (yesterday), the Beatles have been showing up everywhere. This Wilford Brimley look-alike on the train  was wearing a Beatles shirt. His pot belly distorted their faces, making Ringo's head look even more bulbous than usual. I asked him what his favorite Beatles song was; he said Yellow submarine. 

Help!

Oh-Blog-Di, Oh-Blog-Da

Who didn't cry during Star Wars Episode I? In a deeply touching scene, a young Anakin Skywalker asks Qui-Gon Jinn/Aslan, "How many stars are up there?"
"Billions," answered Qui-Gon
"Has anyone ever been to them all?"
"Not likely."
"I'm gonna be the first one to see them all!" said Future-Darth Vader. Then Qui-Gon made a call to Obi-Wan Kenobi on a ladies' razor. 

        

That got me thinking: How many Beatles songs are there?
"207," said Google, "not including covers."
"Has anyone ever played them all?"
"Aside from the Beatles?"
"I'm gonna be the first to play them all!" I exclaimed. 
I hatched a plan to play a Beatles song every day until I had played them all. I had played a few before, but as I scanned down the list, I was amazed at the how many I was completely unfamiliar with. Sure, it would be fun to play all the big ones, but I didn't want to eat all my marshmallows first. So, I decided to choose a random one every day. Then I asked myself, "Why don't I share this little project with the world? I could write a daily blog, like a musical Julie and Julia, but less gay. Who wouldn't love that?"
"Julie and Julia was delightful," Myself answered quickly.


I brainstormed with my brother, Simon, about possible names for the blog. The ones we came up with are here:

• An Apple a Day
• A Day In The Life (x207)
• Here Comes the Fun
• The Continuing Story Of Jon-Erik
• I Will (Play Every Beatles Song. Just You Wait)
• Yesterday (I Played A Beatles Song. Tomorrow I Will Too.)
• I am the WalAwesome
• Get Back (You people that say I can't play every Beatles Song)
• Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Relentless Playing Of Beatles Songs
• P.S. You Love Me
• I Want To Hold Your Face
• Don't Let Me Down (Watch My Blog)
• Back In The You Read My Blog      *note – it's better if you sing it, but still not good
• Magical Mystery Blog
• While My Guitar Gently Plays Every Beatles Song
• Jon-Erik's Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Let It Blog
• Why Don't We Do It In The Road (And By "It," I Mean Play Every Single Beatles Song Ever)

So, the first song randomly chosen was "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." This seemed fitting, as it's a song that isn't exactly my favorite, and I'll probably butcher it. I dug into it a little more; it was actually voted the worst song of all time. I don't know when this poll was taken but it was clearly before this and this and this and this and this and this and this happened. In any case, "Ob-La-Di" has one of the best/worst pickup lines ever. It's right there in the first verse: "Desmond says to Molly, 'Girl, I like your face...'" Next thing you know they're getting married. Removed from the maniacally euphoric context of the song, it sounds even weirder. Paul McCartney originally wanted to record the song at a slower tempo. John Lennon absolutely hated this song; he thought it was completely trite and meaningless. He called Ob-La-Di more of "Paul's granny sh--." Ironic coming from the guy wearing the same glasses as Mrs. Claus.  So, one day, fed up and totally baked, Lennon came into the studio and started playing the opening chords all fast and happy. Totally a "That Thing You Do" moment. Sort of.

Feel free to post better names for this blog, comments, and complaints (thanks for ruining my favorite Beatles song, etc.) below.