cool friends - it's a GOOD thing!
1:26 p.m.

i'm home for lunch right now, not much time to write...

BUT, tonight i'm gonna embarrass rob and tell you all why he's such a cool guy and such a good friend to have around...

and a little about why if i had a son, i'd want him to be just like jr...

(it's FUN to make boys blush!)

so, y'all come back real soon, okey-dokey?

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5:46 p.m.

home. work was busy...i did about 2 dozen rolls all by myself. plus several photo cd's, western union, blah, blah, blah.

ok, i think it's time for a quick visit to boyscondo/montreal boys live/flirt4free for a little monkey spankage (3 live video feeds, amazing). and then after that a nice hot vanilla-scented milk bath (i'm a BIG girly-man), and THEN i'll be all pruney-fingered and relaxed and ready for a little writing...back soon.

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8:46 p.m.

ha! 3 hours to the minute...funny.

ok, i'm a wrinkly vanilla bean right now...i just had dinner, a chicken breast poached in chicken broth and some emeril's lemon, rosemary, and garlic dressing i got from the mark-down bin at safeway - 99 cents. and i had some noodles with a little butter and what was left of the reduced liquid from the pan i cooked the chicken in...ooh, that was the best part, that reduction...i guess cuz it had a little fat from the chicken in it, and with the rosemary, mmmmm! it thickened up quite nicely, and really made the noodles special.

so, yeah, i'm all satiated, clean, and relaxed, with a full tummy and lots of empty space in this here entry to fill, so i guess i'll talk about rob...

that's the picture i did of rob...our friend shawn took the photo and i did a little this and that to it...

ok, here's some info:

rob and i worked together for something like 10 years.
i guess we bonded over musical tastes.
rob was born in '67, i think it was right around the time sgt. pepper came out.
funnily enough, he's quite the expert on music from that era.
the stones, the who, beatles, kinks, byrds, beach boys, velvet underground...rob has a couple thousand cd's.

(i mean, I'M the one who should know all that stuff, i was THERE, for cryin' out loud! oh, i'm familiar with a lot of that stuff, but you know me...1977 RULES!)

and rob really KNOWS this stuff, he's not a casual listener at all.

not to say that rob lives in the past, oh, no. some more recent stuff that means a lot to him: r.e.m., replacements, springsteen, elliot smith, oh god, there's too much to mention...and he's an up-to-the moment kind of guy, drooling over the newest wilco album.

other stuff that rob likes: hitchcock movies, steinbeck, and, uh, seinfeld. haha, i love to give rob shit about seinfeld, cuz he was so into it, and i never was. there was this thing rob used to do...something would come up in conversation, and rob would say "oh, there was a seinfeld about that!" i mean, i could have been talking about somebody who got their toe cut off with a lawnmower and then their dog ate the toe...there would have been a fucking seinfeld about it! i had a dream that he did that to me in the breakroom at work, and i went totally ballistic on him, overturning tables and such!

but it's ok...i can always counter with some goofy brian eno theory...that one about there not being enough "africa" in computers...i think that rob thought that was the biggest bullshit statement...i can bring it up at the most ridiculous times...for instance: if ever i was riding along with rob and we had a flat tire...let's say he was having trouble getting the jack to work...well, i would HAVE to say "you know rob, the problem with the common everyday tire jack is...IT DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH AFRICA IN IT."

oh my god, rob would probably grunt and groan and turn the truck upside down and change the tire that way!

it's kind of a private joke that no one else would get, so...sorry if it doesn't seem funny, but believe me it is! if only brian eno had been on seinfeld...

see, i have brian eno, and rob has brian wilson.

rob knows a lot about the beach boys, especially when brian started getting into his pet sounds/smile era. most people only know the early surf/cars/girls stuff...i hate that stuff, but rob has enlightened me to the genius that brian wilson was...or is? a very dark, twisted, hurting genius. i call rob a beach boys scholar, but i dont think he sees it that way...he's just very very into that particular bit of history. he's got this one box set of bootlegs that's all good vibrations outakes, alternate takes, fragments, a capella stuff..it's exausting...but again, if i had some eno shit like that, i'd be in heaven!

rob also has a lot of stuff from "smile" the great unreleased masterpiece...he put together a cd for me that has the songs in the running order that it's believed brian had planned, had the record ever come out...now that's quite a gift!

the whole brian wilson story is so amazing, how he cracked up in the 60's, the period where he stayed in bed for a couple of years, the whole mess that the beach boys became...lawsuits, drugs, deaths...i could go on and on. but what i'm trying to say here is that i'm glad rob's focused my attention on all this, it's something i want to get into much deeper some day...

rob is also a musician himself...go to robchritensen.com for more info...listen to a few songs (click on "links")...read some of the great reviews rob's gotten...buy a cd!

oh, and rob's diary is sweetsci...that's short for sweet science, the name of rob's music label...and also what some people call boxing, "the sweet science".

BOXING! oh my, does rob love boxing! that's his other big passion...rob is part way through working on a huge project, a book of boxing records...fight results, stats, it's amazing. it's so massive i can't really get my mind around it, not being a big fan of the sport, but man, it's a huge undertaking. that project's kind of on the back burner right now, but he can start it up again anytime, and i'm sure that someday it's gonna see the light of day.

so why am i doing all this anyway? cuz rob is my friend and i love him, that's why...by the way, rob's straight (not that there's anything wrong with that - oooh, i did a seinfeld!), but not narrow, as they say...and ladies, he's single! (oh, he's gonna hate that!) so c'mon, gals, drop by his diary and sprinkle a little sugar...oh god, i'm in big trouble now!

for several years, rob wrote a column in TAPE OP magazine, something any musicians recording at home should check out.

anyhoo, i'm glad rob came back from portland...for all the reasons above and more. as you may know, rob is back in school. he's gonna be a teacher. a great one, i think.

a few weekends ago i helped rob lug his new couch up the stairs to his new apartment. i hung around for a while. we watched the new dvd collection of bowie videos...i saw that "jean jeanie" clip for the first time in about 20 years...some of the live footage i'm SURE was shot at winterland, i can tell by how low the balcony behind the stage was...and remember...I WAS THERE! some of the other videos i'd never seen before, like some of bowie's british tv appearances...they did that thing where the music was pre-recorded, but the singing was live...lots of cool stuff. then we watched some beach boys stuff, including this hilarious scene where belushi and ackroyd were dressed as cops and they come to brian's house and rouse him out of bed and attempt to get him to go surfing! oh god, i remember that tv special! then he played me some alternate versions of some bech boys songs..it was a great evening...i didn't get off the couch for 4 hours!

and i was thinking, "god, i wish jr could be here!" jr's only 18, but he reminds me so much of rob, as far as musical tastes are concerned...jr's into so much good stuff, it amazes me. we were chatting one night and he was asking me if i knew of laura nyro...now, she's a bit obscure these days...i asked jr how he had heard of her. he said that she was mentioned by joni mitchell in some early '90's interview...now, see...

THIS IS THE SAME EXACT THING THAT ROB DOES!

i love it!

let's say we're talking about springsteen...i'll make some comment, and rob will say something like, "oh yeah, he talked about that a lot in that big interview in '89".

now, i don't mean that rob has a photographic memory or anything...

BUT THE BOY KNOWS HIS SHIT!

and that's why i hope that me and rob and jr get a chance to hang out sometime, cuz it is gonna be fun! (jr will be around here for the summer i hope, and he might be taking a year off school, so hopefully it'll happen). it's funny...rob is twice as old as jr, and i'm 10 years older than rob...what a funky bunch we'd make!

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ok, i think i've embarrassed rob enough here, don't ya think?

it's almost midnight, and i've gotta be at work at 6:00 a.m as usual...so good night, my peeps...michael