ben wakeman : : Journal

Eatting, Writing, Living Large

May 1, 2006

So, as you can see by the date since my last confession, I've been busy. Time gets away from me these days like it never has before --- as sure sign that I'm getting old. I just finished a two week long detox clense where I did a lot of juice fasting and and ate only brown rice, fresh fruits and vegetables. I'm glad I did it, because I feel great now, but I am very glad it's over. I was one ornery son-of-a-bitch ;-)

I've been doing a fair amount of writing lately as well. I recently finished up a tune called "Waiting for Love," with the brilliant guitar player Charles Williams. I've done some distance writing with Kristian Bush of Sugarland in an effort to sharpen my commercial writing chops. I hope to get some songs cut by a major label artist this year so I'm trying to learn everything I can about how that world works. I know it's a small, tight-knit group of writers and it's very hard to break into from the outside, but I've got nothing but time. In other writing news, Pat Walsh and I have started a small songwriter's group that meets once a month to swap songs, share ideas and collaborate. I love to hear new songs and discover why writers make the choices they do. It's amazing to me how many ways there are to express the same idea.

In Screen Door news, Tom and I are in the home stretch of completing the new CD. We have booked recording time with Gerry Hanson, engineer, drummer extrordinaire, who will be playing on six tracks. We are also looking forward to a long awaited return to Eddie's Attic on May 20th. We have not been playing out for a while and are starting to get the itch. It should be a fun show.

On the homefront, I finally finished the major patio project in the backyard, 2000 bricks and 2 tons of sand later. It's kind of funny to expend all this effort fixing up the yard when we won't even be able to tolerate stepping out there for the next 4 months because of the heat and the mosquitos. Though, as for the mosquitos, I have a plan! Bat houses. For my next trick, the boys and I are going to be constructing our very own bat houses. One bat can consume between 600-1000 mosquitos in a single hour. I'll let you know how it goes.