i live with three friends in a small apartment in a neighborhood called the mission. it's a primarily hispanic neighborhood with an ever-growing population of hipsters and yuppies. our specific section of the district is distinctly hispanic, but that will change soon - on the corner of 18th and mission, a fashion boutique has opened that sells mens' trousers on sale for $145. (right next to the smoke shop that sells the cheapest cigarettes in the city, and one of the most inexpensive grocery stores in town).

i work as a freelance programmer and currently have two main gigs - first, a part-time web development job for a small educational services company in oakland. they've built an online community for teachers (k-12, and some professors) to teach each other how to use technology in the classroom and to develop technology-based activities for their students. it's a fun job, with cool people, and i get to do relatively creative things with a lot of freedom.

my other job is working on a research project at the berkeley school of public health, maintaining and improving the computer interface to a device they've created that measures small-particle air pollution in third-world homes. their goal is to correlate air quality to specific health issues, i think, though i'm not too familiar with the health issues involved. they have major sites in guatemala and india, with smaller sites all over the world. i have to finish a bunch of stuff this week before a professor goes off to set up projects in africa. this job is very exciting, though the work itself leaves a bit to be desired at this point - i think that over time, i'll have the opportunity to do some pretty amazing stuff.

i mostly work from home or this small space i've rented in a big warehouse full of creative types. the rest of the time, i run the record label or try to make music or other such things.

though i'm always trying to improve my situation, i think that, overall, i'm as happy as i've been in quite a long time. and that's a good feeling.

hi friends,

it has been a long time since i updated this journal. a lot of things have happened. here are some of them:

* i quit my old job
* i moved to san francisco
* i started a record label
* i ate brie and batard last night

i don't know whether to keep this journal around or not - it has been coming and going for really almost 5 years now (not always on livejournal). maybe this is just a test. sometimes writing helps me figure things out and sometimes it doesn't. we'll see.

i hope you're all well.

your friend,
david milad.

seattle peeps: join us for a

** game night **
benefiting moveon.org
open to you & your friends

bring your favorite games (trivial pursuit, taboo, scattergories, uno, hungry hungry hippos, etc)

7pm-11pm
saturday, september 11
1610 2nd ave w, seattle
between blaine & garfield on the top of queen anne

RSVP, but if you decide you want to come anyway, do so!

beer & snacks provided.
$7 recommended *minimum* donation, but we'll accept anything. if you can afford $15, give it!
*all* of your money goes to moveon. no one turned away for lack of funds.

moveon.org needs your help to ensure that people in battleground states vote this november 2nd. republican voters are far more likely to turn out than democratic leaning voters, so this election will likely hinge on voter turnout effors.

if you can't make it, donate to moveon.org or america coming together (http://actforvictory.org)

any questions, just ask.

seattleites:

party @ my apartment for mi cumpleanos -

saturday, august 28, 2004 c.e.
starting at 9ish for reals
411 e. republican #6
directions heeere
there will be beer and music and such and it will hopefully be crowded

lots of things have happened and are happening in my life

i am starting a record label and i will be soliciting the help of you out there who have done the same - more on it as soon as we finish the website and figure out wtf we want to do

ok till then be well

this
is
really
happening.

use your cellphone minutes to
register voters in swing states.

this sunday, 3pm (calls stop at 6pm)
bring your friends and your mobiles.

411 e. republican #6
in seattle on capitol hill (between bellevue & summit)
food / beverages both provided and welcome

please rsvp at http://action.moveon.org/phone/selectmtg.html?event_ids=153326
(but if you don't rsvp, show up anyway)

for more info: e-mail dave@lightness.org
or call 206.329.3692

stop talking / start doing
lightness.org / moveon.org

please forward to your friends

i keep planning for the future, and it's getting closer.

"the worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly."

"everything everyone does is so-- i don't know, not wrong, or mean, or even stupid necessarily. but just so tiny and meaningless and-- sad-making."

haven't written in awhile. two thoughts fill up my brain these days: music & someone in san francisco.

wrote and recorded three songs in the past two weeks. they're pretty straightforward, rock/folk based songs right now, with simple chord progressions and lyrics. i hope to add some interesting production and whatnot (eg electronics/keyboards and guitar effects) to them in the next days. all of them were really written within the span of about a week... i spent the weekend fine-tuning the recordings, and now i'm waiting for a new microphone and preamp to arrive (tomorrow) so that i might re-record the vocals, which sound pretty flat. i'm always nervous about recording my voice, but i'm especially nervous when recording my own music... i've been double-tracking the main melody on all of the tracks because i'm not satisfied with the recorded sound of my voice right now. hopefully with a (much) better mic and a bit more confidence in my own melodies, things will improve soon.

i haven't really been able to write a song in a week. it feels like i spent so much creative energy in such a short span of time.. i've been trying to take a break from my songs the past couple of days. hopefully i'll be able to write a song or two before i head off to san francisco. it would be nice to arrive with an original EP of five tunes in hand. i still feel so nervous playing my music for people, but that's lessening as time goes on...

oh so tired. i've got training at 8:30am through thursday, and i'll probably be staying till like 6 or 6:30 every day anyway. ick. but i'm seeing low on thursday. and i hope to spend this weekend recording. hopefully a little inspiration will strike before then. i've got ideas.. maybe i just need to write more things down.

bye.

practicing the piano is very meditative for me. it's fantastic to be learning a new instrument, and at the same time be learning some music theory that makes sense out of all of the things i've been hearing for years.

wrote a song last night that i worked on today - i've decided to record every idea i have, just in case an idea forms into something whole. and i'm pretty satisfied with the results so far.

work is sucking pretty bad right now, but that's right on schedule - up and down in two week intervals.

going to san francisco again in a little less than a month... having someone new to share things with is fantastic.

enough for now - i'm a bit sick, so i should be getting to sleep. this weekend is jason's last weekend here. i hope we can make it a good one.

goodnight.
dave

*from an email written on saturday:*

this is the first saturday evening i've spent at home since before christmas. i left portland early because i wanted/needed to spend some time by myself, in my own place, so that i might process and decompress. so many things have happened in the past few weeks - such a contrast with the tedium of the five-day work week.

last night i played my first solo show with original material, as the show-opener at a small cafe in portland. it went well - not fantastically well, but well. the most important thing i learned: i like playing my own music better than i like playing other people's music. it's funny how long it took to learn such a simple thing. i felt wonderful to play my own songs. to look into the crowd and see people watching and listening. so much more satisfying than playing covers, which is what i've been doing for years.

i bought a used copy of rilke's "letters to a young poet" on the way to dinner tonight. i read it several years ago while camping with some friends, but it didn't really strike me then - now, however, i think i really *need* to read it. must i make music? the answer is yes, a simple, definite yes - and answering that question for myself was/is important.

yet i'm still frightened of actually singing my own music - everything i've done so far is instrumental. writing and sharing poetry is difficult enough; singing poetry is simply terrifying. i've only performed my own vocal songs for others a few times in my life. this is one of my goals for the near future: to remedy this situation. but patience, patience.

i plan to do a lot of musicmaking in the next days/weeks.. we'll see how that goes. a keyboard has arrived in the mail for me, and having a new instrument around has been inspiring so far...

*and from now:*

i worked till 8pm today by choice, trying to get as much done whilst my spirits are high so that i can maybe leave early on friday and enjoy the feeling of having a pseudo-3-day-weekend. however, there's basically a ton of crap for me to do from now till then, so we'll see how that goes. and i'm oh so tired. despite telling myself that i will spend more time this week making music, i haven't really done much tonight- more tinkering and practicing on the keyboard. but i'm excited because i start taking piano lessons on wednesday - i need some direction so i can improve my piano/keyboard skillz.

maybe i should set a goal of making one song every week or two - not necessarily finishing it, but having an actual song that's mostly done and recorded. it's kind of sad in a way, but in my current situation i need deadlines to ensure that i actually do finish some things. if jason and i hadn't played that show back in november, we never would have finished a bunch of tunes. so maybe i'll plan on a solo show at my apt. sometime in late feb/early mar and go from there.

anyway. it's almost midnight and i'm tired. i think i'm just going to read until i fall asleep.

goodnight-
dave

today might as well be an official snow day in the city of seattle. a few inches have already fallen, with more on the way. roads are closed, stoplights have turned into stopsigns. most of my coworkers aren't going to be @ work today, which means working from home is the order of the day. (incidentally, there are so many people doing the same that ms's servers can't seem to handle it. funny.)

so this morning i walked to the grocery store to get some essentials (eggs, bread, soymilk, OJ), and i'm settling in to try and get my work done. also, i plan to do the following things today:

1) make music
2) take a bath
3) make some eggs for lunch
4) make more music

not necessarily in that order, of course.

it's funny how things sometimes work out just when you really need them to. today will help me achieve a bit of stability for awhile.

also, in the "funny how things.." dept, jason mistakenly packed up the power cord for my midi controller, which prevented me from playing keyboard last night. when i went grocery shopping this morn, i stopped by fred meyer to see if they had any universal power adaptors. they didn't, but i did notice that a lot of the cordless phones operated on the same voltage and similar power levels... so when i got home i dug out my old cordless and, sho' nuff, the derned thing powers my keyboard just fine! huzzah.

ok. to work, if i can. then i will select at leisure from my list of things to do.

ok. first things first - i'm playing a show this weekend in portland, ore. if you're in the area, feel free to stop on by the red black cafe starting at around 7pm. i'll probably be the first one on, doing some guitary stuff and ambienty/electronicky stuff. i'm kind of nervous about it all but feeling good. my plan is to spend the entire week cooped up in my apartment making music. my new keyboard arrives on wednesday, which is super cool, but i won't be taking it with me to p'land. jason is letting me borrow his synth for the weekend - it's a bit more portable. more on music later this week..? we'll see how it goes.

ok.

so my time in s.f. was tres fantastique, as expected. i really love just/stephen/caitlin et al. and the city is amazing. makes me really want to live in it. new year's party consisted of lots of dancing, talking, gin & tonics and hot cider, my special 2.5hr new year's party mix, some dudes, meeting hil's friend mara, and sleeping on the floor.

the rest of the weekend involved movies and amoeba and talking, talking, talking- with the end result being almost complete frustration/desperation with the current state of things, with the need to work some job that i don't like.

after staying up too late and talking and thinking too much i barely made it through work today.

but with a little music, some food, the american splendor anthology, a drink, and a little guitar, everything is ok. for now. i just feel so much more neurotic lately than usual- i feel the urgent need to change things, to make beautiful things, to stop driving, to live intentionally. and my brain gets so tired from work and from working myself up about these things. and my eyes get so tired from staring at computer screens.

i'd better go. next time i hope i'll be less disjointed and more stable. i've been thinking about caitlin a lot. more on that later, too..?

goodnight
dave

it's snowing in seattle. really snowing. this is not supposed to happen. but it has been fun - coffee (chai, really), then running outside to engage in winter hijinks.

tomorrow, off to san francisco for new years. very excited. but i'm oh so tired from being in michigan over christmas, and i still didn't get to see everyone there. and family can be weird sometimes. too weird. i always thought of myself as a direct product of my upbringing - privileged, if you will - but sometimes that's hard to see when i'm basically the only non-conservative there. i don't watch fox news, i don't support the war, i care about the environment. maybe i'm the only one besides my brother, and even then i wonder what he really thinks sometimes. and i often think that maybe i learned a lot from my mom, but i can't ask her about it. and my dad has a girlfriend now, which is weird enough- but seeing their interactions is even weirder.

i don't really want to go back for awhile. not that i don't want to see my friends, but because i can't really handle my family right now. and i'm going through enough on my own, trying to figure out what i want to do. i dread the moment when i will reveal my plans of musicianship and its associated penury and rejection of the life that was perhaps set up for me from the start.

but enough of that for now. there are better things to think about. i'm going to see justin and stephen and caitlin and perhaps carter, and be in san francisco, and be away from work for awhile. when i get back, jason will be gone, which is too bad, but it'll give me time to a) rest and b) bond with my spankin new keyboard, on which i hope to learn how to play piano and also learn the basics of sound synthesis. three cheers for nerddom.

and three cheers for good friends, whatever their distance.

ok

doing radio now, 4am michigan time. scheduled to do 2-6pm as well. been here since 1, will probably be here till 6 or so or until i fall asleep.

if you're around, feel free to stop by WCBN tomorrow afternoon- twould be nice to see you-

[it was christmas today, with family- more on that later]

arvo part is my hero

burning cds for people when i should be sleeping.

be back in the great lakes state not too long from now.

inspiration comes and goes and mostly goes.

after dinner, i decided i should record covers of patsy cline songs to give to people, but it turns out that my voice isn't as nice as hers. still might do it, though. but it's discouraging to hear yourself played back through little speakers placed directly next to your ears. but i like so much the idea of a little christmas ep to give to people. though i'm not sure what sad patsy cline songs have to do with christmas anyway.

this weekend: vancouver? portland? more music?

perhaps i draw too much upon my inbox as a source of journal inspiration:

verbatim excerpts from email subjects.

damp and mouldy
muffled and false
was crawling towards
irresolutely: but what
did i know
scrutinizing some inconspicuous
boxoffice girl wrinkled
of stone because
you still look the same

looking back on that, post-1:27am, it looks pretty bad. but it's there, there's no going back now. i reject you, backspace key! and all of your metaphorical/metaphysical implications!

i don't know what sort of mood i'm in-

sort of detached from myself, looking at myslef typing on the keys with the glow of the monitor reflecting off my glasses. it hurts my head and my heart to think of how many hours a day i spend in front of a computer.

on the horizon: christmas in michigan (filmed on location - perhaps an ideal setting ), new year's in san francisco.

justin had many handwritten notes taped to his wall, one of which semi-ironically proclaimed, "A TWENTYSOMETHING SPEAKS!!" and that is how i feel right now.

over the past month i've been trying to figure out what i really want to do and where i should go over the next weeks/months/years/&c and have come to a few conclusions. i need to spend more time making music, studying music, taking music more seriously. i spent too much time in college working with computers and now i think i have some catching up to do in music - i've had little formal instruction. eventually i think i would like to go to school for digital media/computer music.

i would also like to get back into photography.

and to make more friends here, as my bestest friend (sir jmperez) is leaving quite soon.

my brain has stopped working so i think i'll go to bed - goodnight, perhaps we'll hear more soon -

would anyone in the southeastern lower michigan area like to hang out next week (wed, thu, fri, sat)? it's been awhile, but i think it would be fun. reply or email dave at lightness dot org.

it's november already, and my surprised tone is indebted to the central contradiction of time that has been a theme for me lately: it seems like so much has time has passed (i have done so many things, so much has happened), but then again it seems like i moved here such a short time ago (four months ago i was still travelling in europe).

i'll try to sum it all up here: life is good. i am grateful to have such wonderful friends. and my job has been getting steadily better as i form stronger friendships with the people i work with. i have read more books in the past few months than i read throughout my last 2 years of school. and - perhaps most important for me - i'm finally writing interesting music, music that i'm excited about and interested in.

a couple of saturdays from now, my friend jason and i will play a house show with our band, elska. and i'm super excited about it. a group of friends volunteered their house as a setting for the evening's festivities, which was fortunate because i don't think i can fit that many people comfortably into my apartment. there's so much to think about.. jason and i have been working on songs for a couple of months now. a while back, we decided we wanted to have a show because it would give us a goal, a push to get a set of songs in a performable state. it's worked pretty well so far. i'm nervous because we haven't had tons of time to practice, and some of the songs are still unfinished (and probably will be when we play them), but it feels great to be doing this.

even better than having a show, i'm making music on a regular basis. jason is a great person to collaborate with. i think we're good for each other musically. he is (fortunately for him, not as fortunately for me) moving (back) to san francisco in a couple of months, but i think we'll keep collaborating on songs. which makes me happy. and i want to keep making music, to try new things and different things and to have some record of the sounds and songs i write. it's a wonderful thing, this making music thing.

tomorrow, i'm heading off to san francisco to visit justin and steven et al. we're seeing keith jarrett sunday night at the san francisco jazz fest, which was the excuse for me to come down and visit. i'm really looking forward to seeing him and sharing our experiences away from michigan. we still talk on the phone pretty often, thanks to free nights/weekends. i'll probably be heading down there for new year's as well, which is an exciting thought.

soundtracks to recent days/weeks/months: both shins albums, rachel's "systems/layers", yo la tengo's penultimate album and the preceding one, books "lemon of pink", slowdive "souvlaki." and i finally got "greetings from michigan," though i had to special order it.

i just finished reading "lolita" today and it crushed me. and "the station agent" is a good movie.

erm. rather than turn this into a catalogue of things i've seen, heard, and read lately, i think i'll cut it off here. i am thinking a lot about michigan and the people that i no longer see but still want to keep in touch with. i put together a little thing to send to people, and left some at wcbn a while back, but i haven't sent them to people. i'll do so soon, perhaps putting together a little holiday package for people far away from me. yes, that seems like a good idea.

goodnight.

love
dave