soundcloud.com/philbowles

Here’s my question for you all:

As I work to get my music prepared for the internet, which would you be more interested in hearing – solo acoustic songs (with some vocal overdubs and maybe a second acoustic guitar) or full band arrangements of songs? I’m going to be placing it all for sale so you can download it if you’d like to listen to me more than streaming online.

I could also do an album of both – two versions of each song. What do you guys think?

Typically I’ll blog about my sickness, but I’m not really all that keen to share the details of my sinuses with you, and I’m sure the last thing you want to read about on the internet is snot and boogers.

My new best friend.

A little news: my music page is coming shortly – more than likely early next week – at BandCamp, where you’ll be able to stream songs I’ve written and purchase them in a variety of forms. I’ll be posting some tracks that have never been released, as well as some older recordings, and then as I work on more new material, that will also be available there.

I’m also finalizing a Life List, inspired by my amazing friend Amber, whose own Life List you can read here. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish lately, seeing as I’ve outlived Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, and that horse-faced British chick, so it will be interesting and I’m really excited to share it with you all as I publish it and move forward. For more on Life Lists, check this link here.

Figured I’d answer this since I always love hearing the answers on the show, and it would give my new readers and old friends a little more insight into Zen Philism.

What turns you on?
Confidence.

What turns you off?
Complacency.

What is your favorite word?
Ridiculous.

What is your least favorite word?
No.

What sound or noise do you love?
The roar of the crowd when the lights drop at a Phish show.

What sound or noise do you hate?
Bad feedback

What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
Professional food critic.

What profession other than yours would you not want to attempt?
Plumber.

What is your favorite swear word?
Fuck.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say to you as you enter the Pearly Gates?

“It all worked out in the end, right?”

But when I got here, there was a hole in me.

It was like someone took a piece of me away as soon as I got back into my car, and I began to feel drained. I needed to sleep, that much I knew, but this was much more than standard jet lag and holiday fatigue – it was a lack of my soul.

A few weeks ago, my good friend Amber came out for a conference. She spent her last day in town with me, and made a comment that, at the time, I admittedly shrugged off:

“You don’t belong here.”

After I dropped her at the airport later in the evening and drove back to my apartment, I thought more about it. Looking around me in the darkness at the palm trees and open night sky, I probably startled the neighbors with my shout as it finally occurred to me.

She was right.

I don’t belong here.

And that, my friends, is where this story begins. Escape from LA is not just a cheesy Kurt Russell movie – it’s my current goal.

I’m back.

I’m not sure how many iterations of this I’ve gone through (I started counting when I woke up this morning and then lost track because it was when I woke up this morning), but in keeping with my previous blog titles dating back to 2002, only a slight variation on titles results in this lovely piece of work with which you are now presented.

Why did I stop? Where did I go?

I guess I stopped my previous blog somewhere around 2009. Things began to get crazy in the summer and fall of that year, and I didn’t have the time or patience to write for the internet. I was, by no means, slouching in my writing – I would actually go so far as to say that 2009 was my most productive writing year, but it was all for school.

When you write all the time, working to earn a degree in writing, the simple pleasure of writing for yourself – for the anonymous and not-so-anonymous masses to read – losses its luster very quickly. Similarly, I have taken up work writing (mostly) for a living, and at the end of the day, I often find myself at home with the urge to write for me, but without the energy.

That’s changed.

I realized over the last few days that my own writing is too important to me to place as something secondary. This is my own life, and I am meant to enjoy it. When I stop writing for myself – and for you lovely people out there on the internet, obviously – my brain becomes a can of Coke, rife with idea-carbonation, and it is consistently being shaken by a paint mixer. I can’t not write. I have to write. It may not be an every day thing – in fact, if it is, I’m probably unemployed, in which case, a Paypal button will appear for donations – but it needs to happen regularly because my life has too many moments that are worth not only living and experiencing, but writing down as well.

So here we go folks. As I write this, I’m 35,000 feet in the air above Nebraska. A fun place to say you started your blog.

Or restarted.

Let’s get this show on the road.