Start over, every single day...

I'm goal oriented and I work to keep my priorities in order so my only real New Year's resolution is the one I tell myself everyday --  don't give up.  Still and all, that monthly assessment is in order. Here's what shook loose, off the cuff.

1. I have to physically wear myself out everyday or I'll go nuts.   It can't be any one thing, with the exception of boxing, which makes me very happy.  ClassPass could be the answer to my prayers.
2. I've made a lot of progress physically but I hit a wall after Thanksgiving. To climb over it, I'm going to combine RealAge and the Eat Clean Program as a birthday present to myself.
3. If I don't practice guitar every single day for a few hours, I'll forget everything I've learned in a matter of minutes. At least, that's the way it feels, so far.  I can't even talk about my banjo.  I'm getting a grip on all this by taking voice/piano/theory lessons with Nancy Marano, starting at the end of the month.
   

There are some habits I'm glad I never picked up, like smoking cigarettes (or anything else), recreational drugs or drinking copious amounts of alcohol.  There are other habits I'm glad I started way early, like slathering my entire body with sunscreen and moisturizer everyday. Monthly spa visits and a gym membership didn't hurt, either. Now it's time to surrender the rest of whatever it is that I'm holding onto for dear life -- but for the moment, I'll start with processed sugar, salt and corn, soy and wheat gluten.

Starting today, I've got 21 days to eat clean. Let the games begin. 

Pick Up The Pieces

As I get my priorities in order and piece together the rest of the year, this song by the Average White Band is on permanent repeat in my head, so I thought I'd share.  Somehow, through a flurry of to do lists, phone calls and flow charts,  everything is taking shape in this effortless way that smells like a promise foretold.  Winter is the perfect moment to hibernate, work on new ideas, work on self.  I've got a new cookbook, a new blank book, I'm re-reading books on music publishing.   I submitted songs to the IMAs and the ISC.  No matter how much I practice, it's never enough.

I'm clocking 6 miles and 20 flights of stairs every day on my fitbit. To get this chunk off of my midsection, I'm going to have to double those numbers and eat clean. I need new ASICS running shoes and my mornings in the gym until spring to pull that off.  A ten week timetable is doable. The dental surgery I've been putting off will even things out. So will a month of unlimited yoga. 

Talk about eating clean: I'm doing the winter farm share from the Corbin Hill Food Project -- and I got a lamb share, too.

And then there's the banjo in the living room that's on permanent loan from Mike that won't stop glaring at me because I haven't touched it in forever. So that's it -- I'm getting cheap weekly lessons, I'm going to touch it all the time. Clawhammer, here I come.

My Baby Taylor hasn't let me down yet. I used it to write my next album -- which is done, more or less.  More songs keep churning out of me, though.  I want to record, mix and master it before the end of the year, no matter what. A spring 2016 release would be ideal. I'll be in Europe on tour in March, God willing.  In the meantime, I'm a performing musician with HAI, working on a set of holy blues and learning how to sing all over again. At least that's the way it feels these days.

Hilliard Greene promised me music theory lessons.  The junk room is starting to look like a junk room. I want to try the tasting menu at Minton's.  I have to go down south to see my Godbabies.  I need a backup pair of my favorite Sam Edelman pumps, in black.  The wine rack in our bar is completely empty.  I have to get a Fender Strat, for the road.

I have to pick up the pieces.

That Gratitude List

Someone encouraged me to create a gratitude list instead of making pithy resolutions for the new year.  To be honest, there's no room for resolutions in my life. I'm constantly chipping away at my goals and priorities, and something usually comes along and turns everything upside down when I least expect it. That forces an overhaul, of sorts. And then I start all over again, in the middle of everything.  I'm so used to getting the rug pulled out from under me in some way or another that I'm not so sure I'd know any other way to live.  It's kept me hungry.  So there's that.

Here it is, before it changes into something else. 

1. I am so grateful to be alive -- right here, right now. Period.
2. God's presence in my life is a beautiful thing. 
3. I'm grateful to my younger self for taking such good care of my body and I'm grateful to who I am now, for the drive to maintain it.
4. MPB makes me want to be a better man and every day, there is more love.
5. I'm grateful for my family: the ones who raised me, the ones that God sent to me and the ones who are growing me up as an artist, who inspire me and compel me to get better at all of this.
6. I'm grateful for my "mentor" James "Blood" Ulmer.  Then again, he's not my mentor at all. I don't know what he is to me.  There's too much in there to say any one thing. I love him more than he will ever know.  That's what he is -- the one who is dear.
7. To feel inspiration move through me and change me as it does so is a privilege.  I'm eternally grateful for my life as an artist.
8. Here's another debt I owe to my younger self: I'm grateful for my tenacity. I didn't give up on my talent or myself.   I developed what I had and then I came to NYC. Once I took root here, I didn't quit. I stuck with it and I kept growing. God help me, I'm still growing. God help me. The bottom line is, I am responsible for the talent that God has given me. What could be worse than having talent and doing nothing with it?
9. I'm grateful that I make my art, my way.  The songs on my latest album sound as good as they did the first time I heard them in my head.  That's nothing short of a miracle.
10. And last but not least, I'm grateful that I'm still in New York City and that I'm still in an increasingly gentrified Harlem.