Last night...

    I stuck out my thumb just past the one stop light on vashon island for the second time, and a white work truck that had been waiting at the red signal pulled through the intersection and over next to the curb where I was standing with a beautiful woman with whom I shared our first kiss minutes before. I opened the door and inside sat a friendly-looking man with glasses, a salt-and-paprika beard, and a faded baseball cap with a metal clasp in the back. "Are you going towards the ferry?" I asked, and he nodded. I quickly kissed my girl goodbye as I got in the passenger seat. "Just one," I mentioned to the driver. I closed the door, waved goodbye to my date (who lives close to where we were), and the white pickup drove into the night.
     "What's your name?" I asked the friendly stranger as we wound along Vashon Highway, the dark artery of the island.
    "Coffee heath bar?" he replied, and extended a freshly cracked pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream with a spoon stuck in it cockeyed. I accepted readily, ate a few spoonfuls, and I asked his name again, this time to no response. I ate more ice cream.
    "What do you do for work?" Some obscure answer about water consulting, then, almost as an afterthought, "...I also teach nonviolent communication."
   This intrigued me. Earlier that day I had been talking with Jean about that very subject. His friend Sarah brought it up when we met at the public house last week, and her words had resonated with Jean and he had been bringing it up in different situations. Now, here I found myself with a generous soul who again brought up, "...nonviolent communication. Its about looking past the words someone is saying, looking past the emotional content and reading into the deep dream and desire that everyone is trying to express, what everyone is really trying to say" he explained.
     "And what is that?" I asked. He went on to say that really the questions on everyone's mind are "How can you make my life more wonderful?" and "How can I make your life more wonderful?" All anyone wants is to be able to accept people and be accepted, be loved, and be heard he told me. I told him of moments when I might be talking with a friend and I might raise my voice. He told me that's just the desire to be heard. It brought me back to discussions with Jean about what Sarah had said, that one person has one point of view, another person has a different one, and if each person can understand the other point of view, and stand in the other person's shoes, then they can reach an understanding.
     As we approached the ferry landing, the driver continued talking and the thoughts connected in my mind. All that any human wants is to feel that brotherhood, sisterhood, that total love, acceptance, and acknowledgment from people around them. The anger, the sadness, and the fear that is transmuted when we communicate stems from a misunderstanding, from someone not feeling heard. If we practice nonviolent communication, we can perpetuate love and understanding and we can teach ourselves and others how to really be good to each other. Let me put an emphasis on "ourselves." It's so easy to write off somebody's actions as offensive or somehow contradictory to our values, but if we can look past that and see  into the dreams that we all share then we can work through those differences, hand in hand, brother and sister, all bound by love...
    The truck was now stopped, and cars were pouring onto the ferry. I had to get going. I thanked the driver from the bottom of my heart, shook his hand, and asked one more time, "What was your name, sir?"
     "Doug," he said with a smile. "Yours?"
     "Andy." I replied, and wishing Doug a goodnight I walked down towards the water. The gate had already closed between the road and the ferry, and I was the last one on the boat before It disembarked back across the sound to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal.

Boulder 2

I'm here in Denver International Airport waiting at the gate for my flight to leave for PHX. Once there, I'll simply have to wait in my seat while people deboard, board, wait while the flight attendants say the same thing they said a couple hours before, and then hopefully get a little half-sleep before touching down in Seattle. At the moment, I have about three hours in this airport to reflect on everything that has transpired in the past two weeks.

I saw some people who I hadn't seen in years and it felt like just days. I reconnected with old friends, and I made new friends. In a few cases, I turned some loose relationships into new friendships that I hope will last in my absence. I have had a little reconciliation for trespasses against me, and while I don't feel a total sense of closure, there are some things I can move on from now; I can keep my eyes on the road ahead.
I had some crazy nights like only Boulder can offer, and I have had some incredibly peaceful nights and days like I haven't known for a long time. I've seen beautiful sun, beautiful mountains, beautiful women, and many more of the beautiful things that boulder has to offer.

The most beautiful part of Colorado is the people. In particular the musicians I get to play with when I am here. It's a good group of friendly, honest people who all love to play music. I came out in part to do a gig, but even though two bookings fell through, a wonderful opportunity opened up a couple days ago, and it was the perfect cap on this Colorado adventure

I played a satisfying amount of music with a diverse crew on Saturday night. The band Lunch Box hosted a day-long jam session/house concert in Nederland complete with a full drum kit including a Roland SPD; a full keyboard rig comprised of a Microkorg, a Yamaha Motif, and an old Hammond spinnet organ with drawbars (I think it might have been an A-3 but I never checked); a whole host of top-of-the-line guitar amps; lights; a 16-track digital recording rig; and to top it off a keg of Hazed & Infused that lasted for many hours of jamming.
I arrived with Technicolor Tone Factory around four o'clock in the afternoon, and music had already commenced. Over the course of the day, the sound of jams and performances by Lunch Box, Technicolor Tone Factory, The Magic Beans, and others filled the high-ceilinged  living room. By 2 AM, TTF had finished their second set and the crowd had become increasingly more select. A few minutes later I stood up to play the first live Sonic Geometry set since February in Boston, and it was very well received by those who were there to receive it. The reactions I received have given me supreme confidence to go forward with what I have been doing all this time.
When the clock struck 4:20 we were still passing an acoustic guitar around the campfire, everyone joining in familiar songs. My dear friend Jarrod (guitar player for TTF) and I had a moment to sing each others' songs, an opportunity that has come much too rare in the past couple years. Hopefully soon he and I will share that opportunity again. Until that time, I'll sing about my brother.

Geometry

I got the name Sonic Geometry when I was 15 or 16. I was at my friend Zach's house, and he had an M-audio usb keyboard, the first usb controller i ever plugged into a computer. I plugged it into my PowerBook G3 and fired up Garageband. All night long I tinkered with sounds, amazed at the vast sound palette that had just opened up before me. I made a simple psy trance track and called "Reverb and Desire" and under artist I typed Sonic Geometry. I don't know if it was a misheard lyric, something I had read on the internet or what, but I had the words "sonic" and "geometry" in my head and next to one another they sounded right. For a long time it was good enough.
One night after playing a house party in Boston, a young reveler asked me why I called the music Sonic Geometry. She didn't see the connection, she said, between the music and the name, and I had no satisfying answer. This question led me on a journey through dusty tomes and ancient records, antique measuring systems and their sacred roots, and ultimately to the deeply metaphysical question, "What is our reality made of?"

To that question I may never know the answer, but I have discovered that if we look at small particles like cells, they have many geometric structures in them based on simple, small whole number ratios that are present all through nature, as well as in art and music. The smaller we go, down to atoms and subatomic particles, the rule of ratios holds true, and geometric forms still spring from the most microscopic of woodwork. This seems to indicate there is a structure, simple and beautiful, upon which we stretch the canvas of our manifested reality. No matter if we look closely with a microscope or step back to see the big picture, the world turns into a beautiful kaleidoscope and we witness The Sacred Geometry of Life...

Boulder

Touched down in Denver at 9:00 PM last night, crashed in Westminster, and now I'm here in Boulder. Ahhh, what a beautiful place, what a beautiful feeling. Seeing all the sun and the people gets me goin...I'm waiting at a friends house waiting for a new musical toy to arrive in the mail, in the mean time trying to link up so I can sink in with everyone now that I'm back in the swing of this neverland. Also, putting last tweaks on my Ableton sets in preparation for music making over the next week and a half. Now to it...

-Andy

Journeys

Life is a journey, literally. Last August I left the apartment I had for two years in Colorado for big promises in Louisiana, but before the end of December I was en route to my parents' house in Massachusetts where I stayed. I came to Seattle in March, and here I've stayed, though the circle will be complete when I fly into Denver tonight for a two-week visit to my favorite state. In the more typical metaphorical sense, the "journey of life" has been even greater and more expansive than my physical travels across the United States. I have had the opportunity to learn both beautiful truths and harsh lessons, I have struggled in the face of adversity, and I will struggle more, but these are the tribulations that give way only to blissful metamorphosis of the spirit.