Rants and Raves

Hi friends,

Yeah, I know I was shy about writing there for awhile, sorry about that.

Enough about me talking about me, how about you talking about me? OK, well, Gary just finished a wonderful new instrumental record from one of the great guitarists/orchestrationist (!?) of our “time”; Adrian Belew. His Power Trio recorded mostly live in Adrian’s studio at his Ponderosa there near Nashville. I had the privilage of mixing the tracks in the evenings in my own studio prior to Adrian’s visit with me here in San Francisco. His visit with me was pure joy, we just had tons of laughs together, we’ve always had that for some reason. We put the final touches on it, then I mastered it up and now it is on the market (Aug 3rd). the album is entitled “e” and features Julie and Eric Slick, a brother/sister team that would make Karen Carpenter sit up in her grave. Ok, that was crass. But anyway, Julie is a total monster bassist and Eric is waay beyond drumming - he’s superb. These two provide the most amazing “wall of sound” (Wallace Hound??) behind Adrain’s many guitar personalities. When you think Adrian is playing a piano, he’s really playing guitar. Weird shit like that. And the grooves on this record are killah, I mean there are some really hard-drivin’-never-in-4/4-where-the-hell-is-”one” grooves and a half. Anyway, my audio life is complete, at last.

Oh, there was an article in the Ohio University Today magazine this quarter featuring a page and a half of pictures and interview on…me. As you might know, I’m an Ohio University alumni. I am very honored that they wrote this article about me. In life, sometimes when I was young in college I’d see those glossy college alumni mags that come out semi-annually and think, “it WOULD be cool to be in there someday”. Well, I got to have that experience twice in my lifetime so far, and I’m really grateful for it.

More…what else…oh yeah, I know I need to update the file photos because Mrs. Platt is ex-Mrs. Platt now, Randy Nelson isn’t at Pixar any longer, and I’m not a Red Potato now, so there’s been lots of changes going on that need updating. New pics are on the way. I’ve been a bit preoccupied.

My experience with SAE Institutes has been very good. This is a school that I recently joined as VP of Academics and Regulatory Compliance in February. (There is a press release on Google about it) I’m a “change agent” basically. We are implementing a brand new degree program, and we’re in the process of licensing and accrediting the six SAE Institute schools in the USA. (NYC, Atlanta, Miami, Nashville, San Fran, Los Angeles). The people are fantastic, and we are making huge changes that require lots of cooperation and I am happy to report that the experience is better than expected. We’re really getting it going, it’s just so much fun. TON of work, but fun to see the transformation!

My son, Preston, goes off to Chico State this Fall, in about a week actually. Gonna miss him when he’s gone. His brother, Alex, is gonna have the car and the TV and all of it to himself for the first time. Trust me, Alex is going to miss him too once the exhilaration wears off. ha!

Also, I’m moving back into my house at 31 Columbia Court in September, I bought out my ex and now I’ll be living there instead of the gutter I live in now…juuust kidding. My place is nice enough, but I miss my home.

Nuff for now, this blog was a personal one. Next time I’ll rant. yeah!

smilez,

Gary

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 1:01 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.