Greetings from the Trenches

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2390470473924634382.post-80998694080361866592008-03-07T00:14:00.009-06:002008-03-07T01:23:16.629-06:00Greetings from the Trenches<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_k9lcnc5tklQ/R9DfJ6A3EjI/AAAAAAAAAF8/RnJ_pwsR2i4/s1600-h/dwightbaker.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_k9lcnc5tklQ/R9DfJ6A3EjI/AAAAAAAAAF8/RnJ_pwsR2i4/s320/dwightbaker.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174881333133382194" border="0" /></a> It's Thelma. One of these guys is my brother. The other isn't. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_k9lcnc5tklQ/R9DhAaA3EkI/AAAAAAAAAGE/k-2PFNg6XF0/s1600-h/m_ae641da610dcac24b8ff0316a4e1ad74.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 179px; height: 263px;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_k9lcnc5tklQ/R9DhAaA3EkI/AAAAAAAAAGE/k-2PFNg6XF0/s320/m_ae641da610dcac24b8ff0316a4e1ad74.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174883368947880514" border="0" /></a> He's not Louise's brother, either. He's Dwight Baker, my songwriting partner for the week. And he's a handful. He's been making fun of me for 3 days. "You're so passive-aggressive! You hated my idea and you just gave me that 'uh-huh' face." Guilty as charged. See, co-writing is really hard. You have to do all these things I'm notoriously bad at. Like keep your mouth shut while you try out somebody else's (usually bad) ideas. Then try to shut your brain up while you try out your own. You basically pull teeth out of each other's heads for, like, 7 hours straight. Then you go home, drink a beer, and try NOT to think about the song for a few hours (which is impossible). So you go back and mess around with the lyrics while the other person isn't around. As big of a pain as it is (and just look at Dwight, what a smartass) I'm actually having a blast. I'm sort of relieved to be writing; as many of you know I'm notoriously neurotic about it and always convinced I've written the very last song I will ever write, ever. Anyway, I've known Dwight for a pretty long time. He used to play drums in my band, way back before I even made my first record. He got to where he'd just say "thanks" when people would tell him it was good to see me and Darin working together again. Everything Dwight touches turns to gold. When I met him he was playing in a band and running a small record label that he subsequently sold for way more money than I'd ever made. After that he built a studio and started producing records. Oh, and writing songs for the bands he produced. Not much really happened with the songwriting until this past year, when four of them ended up on a record that sold 2 million copies. Now he's getting calls for country songs, which is a problem because he doesn't really write those. That's where I come in. We've written two songs in the past three days, so technically we're one song behind. Two days to go. We'll see how it shakes out. Oh yeah, and I had a great cooking class last night. Here's one of the recipes: Take some strawberries, puree them in the blender and put a few glugs of Grand Marnier in. And some vanilla. Then scoop some vanilla ice cream into a champagne glass and pour some of the strawberry stuff in. Then pour champagne on top of that. Put some whipped cream on the top. Celebrate something you just created....Two girls were leaving Texas...http://www.blogger.com/profile/08440580407286095722noreply@blogger.com