Will it go 'round in circles?

This happens about once a year. I rediscover the John Mayer that I love. I know. I have a tendency to be gross about my fandom. But I don't care. This time, it was Taylor Hicks' fault. Well, there were several things -- some involving Taylor, some not.

One of them happened when I was in the shower, and I had my iPod/FM transmitter/jalopy stereo system going. And Taylor's live version of "Tighten Up" came up on shuffle. He started off the jam telling about how the song was from 1973 -- think that's wrong, by the way -- and he was singing it. You know, the year. And he starts doing this "Way back, way back, way back, way back in nineteen seeeeventy-three" scat type thing. And that's when I had the epiphany. This style reminded me so much of some of John Mayer's stuff. I went back and listened to "1983" and some other live tunes. The pieces started falling together.

I had read -- somewhere in what I like to call my "research" -- that Taylor (yes, first name basis...you want a piece of me?) wants to tour with John Mayer. I kind of laughed at that, but now, I'm catching the groove of this. It all makes sense.

I've been doing this thing which John Mayer once called a musical family tree, or something. Basically, it's just listening to the music that influences the music you like, and you keep moving around, listening to the influencing artists. It wasn't long before I got to the Taylor Hicks/Ray Charles/John Mayer connection. There are some other overlapping things, yes.

Turns out, though, that it's that "soul thing" (I wrote a sufficiently cheesy journal on my Last.fm page about it) that ties them up together so nicely in the music-loving part of my brain. It's when each performance of a song is an individual work of art. The music and lyrics as they appear on a page might very well be art, but when they are given breath, that's when they come alive -- obviously. I've watched somewhere around six or seven versions of Taylor singing that semi-lifeless "Do I Make You Proud" song, and each time, he does what he can to give it breath. He injects a little improv, and you know, soul. And it works. Not every singer can do that. It really does take an artist.

That's why, back in the day, I could listen to three different versions of "Your Body is a Wonderland" or "Daughters" or "Something's Missing" or "Covered in Rain" and it felt fresh and soulful each time. And that's the point, apparently, because as it turns out, John Mayer has a MySpace and uses the blog feature. And on there, he mentions something about the Trio song "Vultures" going on his new album (next month, maybe!) and being a different creature than the one we know because it has grown. A song is not just a song. The performance -- the living soul in it -- has everything in the world to do with it. It's not art until there is actually an artist behind it.

That's the problem. There is so much music right now -- pop crap -- that is just manufactured. For instance, I really like Maroon 5, but I remember at the Nashville show, I was so impressed with how much the song sounded exactly like the record. And that didn't sit well with me. Now I know why.

I mentioned this on the Last.fm thing. I like the imperfect music. It's like that thing Holly talks about -- the "needing to be airbrushed" factor. I like the music that isn't flawless. It's when the sour notes in Taylor's version of Elton John's "Levon" and John's "Man on the Side" become the highlight of the song that you've found something. It's a little bit of Soul peeking out. Paula Abdul might be hopped up on OxyContin, but I think she was actually right when she told Randy that what might seem pitchy to him is really the essence of Taylor. When the song's grabbed ahold of you and those kind of notes bust out, it's real. And that's what I like. Real.

I remember the first time I encountered it. About eight minutes into John's nine-minute version of "Covered in Rain" on Any Given Thursday, he comes up for air after about four minutes of tripped-out jamming. After a little bridgey thing, he starts singing the chorus again, and it is this huge burst of emotion. And the song was no longer just a song. It's the same thing that happened when Holly and I first heard the acoustic version of "Disease." It will make you cry, and you almost cannot explain why. But it's because it's not fake music. Turns out that Rob Thomas has a soul.

So, yes. That's what I love. Real music, warts and all.

As a closer here, I have a few John Mayer things that I didn't know until just recently:

Again, the Continuum album is supposed to come out some time soon.

He's on the Cars soundtrack. The folks at iTunes won't let you just download his version of "Route 66" though. It's an "album only" track.

I bought the new Dixie Chicks album about a week ago, and today, I found out that he's featured as the lead guitarist on the track "I Hope." I don't know how I missed that.

And like I said, he's blogging on MySpace. And has been for a long time. Check it out. The man has the best vocabulary I've ever seen in my life.

Is this goodbye?

Well, today has certainly been interesting.

I was going to watch Kathryn while Sissy paid a visit to the dentist. I was going to meet her in Draffenville at 1:40. I left my apartment at about ten til 1:00, and at 1:25, I was still sitting in construction traffic -- not even out of Murray. I'm not even sure if I'd passed Circus Skate yet. But finally, they let us through, and I turned into the Draffenville DQ right on time. Sissy was coming down the road behind me, so I did a little doughnut in the parking lot and jumped back in the road. And then about a quarter of mile from the dentist's office, it happened.

Yep, I had a wreck. The car in front of Sissy came to a complete stop because it was making a lefthand turn, but it had to wait for oncoming traffic to pass. She got stopped. I got stopped. The car behind me, however, was cruising on at about 35 miles an hour. Into my rear end. And it bumped me toward the left -- also commonly known as "the other lane." Luckily, Sissy's bumper kept me from sliding into the path of an oncoming car. Narrowly missed, indeed. My right headlight area crashed into her left taillight area. So there we were in a three-car pile-up of sorts.

Without going into all the details about the police report and the crazy tow truck driver who sped off without me giving him a destination, I'll say this. The woman who hit me has all the responsibility. Her insurance is supposed to pay for my damage and Sissy's, too. The tow truck driver suggested that my car might be totalled because it's a 1998. The frame might be buckled. I don't know. I do know that when we finally had the police officer call the driver and get him redirected toward Murray Auto Body, he set off down the road with my muffler dragging along behind the car. It probably fell off somewhere on 641, who knows.

The car, at least, did not burst into flames between the accident scene and Murray. My old Taurus has been hanging out at Sissy's as a spare vehicle, so I got it. On the way home, I swung by the body shop, and it was sitting there looking sad and droopy in the drawers.

I hope this isn't goodbye for the Buh-yoo-ick. We have lots of niiice memories.

All centered now.

I finally figured out how to center my blog. It's a glorious day.

The iPod recovered. And I hooked myself up with an FM transmitter -- as Holly suggested -- and now I can enjoy my music in the car. I very excited about this. Now, I could stand to get a charger to go with it. It really never ends.

Well, I found a new best friend: Last.fm. I'm finding and enjoying all kinds of new music. The problem is that my iTunes bill is racking up. Not cool.

Tomorrow's the first official 5-week summer class Wednesday off. This makes me happy. It's not as if I am dedicated every fiber of my being to this class anyway, but it will be nice to have it out of my hair.

I have a few goals for these five weeks, and I'm not meeting them very quickly. I need to find a job for next semester. I need to work on Fulbright things, and by that, I mean that I need to find out about the program in general. And I need to be working on Spanish. I have hardly practiced since school's been out, aside from singing some along with some CDs I got in Spain. How am I going to be of any use in Mexico come August?

I'm going to watch Kathryn tomorrow while Sissy goes to the dentist. So. Yeah.

I've discovered -- long ago, actually -- that I have a very difficult time finding a way to end a blog entry. Perhaps I should think up something creative to do instead of just concluding with, "Well, I guess that's all I have to say about that."

Thanks, Forrest.

It's going around.

It seems all of my unnecessary technological comforts are crapping out on me.

The real disaster is the ol' digital camera. In my heart, I am unwilling to lay the Canon Powershot SD100 (aka Really Really Obsolete) Digital Elph to rest. Partially because I just re-upped my Flickr account. Apparently, I have dropped it or jabbed it with a sharp object in the LCD screen region. When I turn it on, it looks like digitally shattered glass. When Holly and I were at Nick's and I was getting ready to show her a picture on the camera, it took me a minute or so to realize that this wasn't a picture I had taken. Anyhow, the dismay is great. The seemingly nice four-year service plan I purchased does not indeed include accidental damage. So here I am. It can still take pictures I suppose, but fun stuff like aperture and shutter speed -- which I have just learned how to use in my photography class -- are now completely beyond my control. It's a sad day.

And now, my iPod is going through its first big crisis. Something about a corrupt file. It's pretending that I didn't just spend something like twenty minutes creating all new playlists. There's no music to be found on it, but interestingly enough, there is no free disk space either. So I'm downloading some God-Help-Me-Save-the-iPod application from the Apple website. I'm assuming this problem is recoverable.

I think I'm going to do some sort of burnt offering and spread the ashes around my laptop. Just in case.

He shall beat Levon.

The first week of my second summer class has already passed. Amazing how quickly that week went by compared to the first week of the two-week course. I guess everything really is a bit relative. Anyway, this education class I'm taking now is probably going to be quite easier than the photography, but you know, it'll be five weeks of suckiness. I don't know. My boat's just not a-floating with it.

However, this weekend has been good. My Best Friend Forever Slash came down and saw me. We had us a fun weekend full of various quantities of things like making tacos, walking to the BP, going to Tessa's wedding, spending too much money (see: next item in list), securing Seattle plans, but mostly being disgusting about Taylor Hicks. When you listen to a mix CD of his Idol performances on repeat, a strange thing starts to happen. You realize that all of his songs are really about an assortment of abuse and harassment. Who knew?

It's definitely shower time, so oughta be taking care of that business here in a minute.

Geek update: Harry Potter scarf is almost two-thirds done. That mother is going to be forever long. As a matter of fact, the pattern that I'm using called for four skeins of the red yarn, but I'm definitely running out. No doubt I'll be warm come winter.