You've come a long way, baby.

Tomorrow, my baby girl will be 1 year old. It's still surreal to me that she exists. This morning she wasn't feeling good or was overly tired, but for whatever reason, she was extra snugly. She isn't one to ever stop moving so if she actually stops long enough to give you a hug, it's a special thing. God, it broke my heart, in the best possible way. It did, however, make it extra sucky that I won't be home again to see her today.

Leah and I are so lucky. We could not have asked for a more beautiful child. I could not have asked for a more beautiful wife.

Tonight is the big EP release show at Encore in Austin. All the VIP tickets sold out, and I believe that the general admissions are doing really well too. This show is the brainchild of our manager, and one of my best friends, Paul. This is a picture of Paul's son, Ryan, and Harper (and my leg). I think it's fairly representative of Paul's and my relationship. He thinks up some cockamamie idea, smiles like it's the most brilliant thing anyone has ever thought of, and I go along with it, though always with the "what the hell?" look.



Should be a good weekend, though, a busy one, and, hopefully, not a stressful one. We have a show tonight, Harper's birthday party tomorrow afternoon, another show tomorrow night, and Mother's Day on Sunday, all while entertaining family.

Leah and I saw Kick-Ass last night and loved it. Really funny, really intense, and really well done all over.

DID YOU KNOW: It's considered an insult to tip in Iceland?

It looks like Kyle T. Sims is the first to receive, and tweet, my thank you note and his new copy of Songs for Staying In. It's a good one.


If you can't read it, this is what it says:

I've always hated writing thank you notes but I haven't minded these. Probably because, usually, these things have to be so proper, like for wedding gifts from relatives you barely know. But with these, I can say whatever I want or do this: PENIS PENIS PENIS, and no one will scold me. Thanks for buying our EP. Taylor & QC

COMEDY GOLD!

So, today, I've promised to rant about tipping. First off, let me say that I have no problem tipping waiters/waitresses in a restaurant where they are constantly serving you. I understand that in that situation, you are paying one price for the meal, and then compensating the waiter/waitress for their services with a tip.

A gray area is a place like Sonic. Recently, my boss and I were at a Sonic and he pulled out a few dollar bills. I said "You're not going to tip the Sonic girl, are you?" He said he was, so I asked "why?" This is a valid question because, to me, they are not wait staff. They carry your food, at most, 50ft and then you never see them again. They have essentially added one useless middleman to the drive-thru experience. Surely, I thought, they are not paid like wait staff, as my boss suggested. We decided to ask. Turns out, they ARE paid like waitstaff, and rely on tips, but it's not exactly like that. They all pool their tips and then the company fills in the gaps to guarantee them all at least minimum wage. I kind of felt like an asshole for having never tipped Sonic girls, but not really, because I'm more than happy to walk the 20 or so feet and carry my own food to my car. They're not doing me any huge favor, really. So I'll still not be tipping people at Sonic and still think its ridiculous that they're considered wait staff, but I understand if people want to tip there and will no longer chastise them for doing so.

Now pizza delivery is a bitch. If I'm charged a delivery fee then you're getting nothing from me, because I've already paid for the delivery. If it's a "free" delivery, then I may throw in a few bucks if my pizza arrived in a timely manner.

The thing that really blows my mind is haircuts. There is a place in Cedar Park called Two Hotties haircuts. It's completely geared towards men and, one day, this man needed a haircut and the other place I go was really busy, so I ventured in. There was signage all over the place about tipping. "Be a big tipper!" "Join the big tippers club! etc..." and there was even a sign by the door that said "If you didn't tip, please tell us why." It made me really uncomfortable, because I cannot think of one good reason to tip for a haircut. Can you, really? The haircut is the product, the product costs $15, I pay $15 for the product, end transaction. Why would I pay $18 for a product that cost $15? If you think your haircut is worth $18 then charge $18, don't try and guilt me into tipping you. They haven't provided you with anything extra, they've only provided you with the service that you have paid for. So why tip? It's not like a came in for a shampoo and they threw in the haircut. Ridiculous.

Can you think of any other situations in which tipping is expected, though, completely ridiculous?

Also, I wrote a little something about Leah for Mother's Day on Offbeat Mama, if anyone is interested.

Jesus made me do it!

The National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional as it represents a governmental endorsement of religion. Past that, it's also something that Yeshua found distasteful. Personally, I've always hated public prayer. Hated it when I was a Christian, probably more than I do now, because of this verse:

"And whenever you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people. I tell you with certainty, they have their full reward! But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees from the hidden place will reward you." Matthew 6:5-6

So a judge, who actually read the constitution, decided that the National Day Of Prayer was unconstitutional, and now all of Texas' political leaders' panties are in a twist. "They can't take prayer away from us!!!BLAHBLAHBLAH!!!" I wonder if it will ever dawn on them that no one is trying to take anything away from them, but it's just not the government's place to endorse it. I also wonder if it will ever dawn on them that two hands engaged in labor are more useful that a million clasped in prayer. But whatever, pray your little heart out, Rick Perry. Whatever gets those votes, which is what this is all about anyway. If you ask any of them if they think there's any advantage in praying in public vs. privately, I'm sure they would all say that they believe god hears their private prayers just as well. So why do they insist on being "hypocrites?" Yeshua's words, not mine...well, both of ours I guess.

I'm not terribly concerned either way, just seems like a waste for our political leaders to be spending their time and energy on something like this, instead of the thousands of people unemployed, or underemployed, or starving, or uninsured, etc. in our country/state/county/city/neighborhood.

I was thinking about blogging about how much I hate the concept of tipping today, but maybe I'll do that tomorrow. I'm so full of RAGE!!!

Also, the final Quiet Company mini-doc is up at Quiet Company Music Dot Com.

The real injustice is that Muppet Babies is unlikely to come out on DVD.

Rehearsal last night was good and all the kinks have been worked out, assuming that everyone remembers how we worked the kinks out when we get on stage. I think the rehearsal space felt hotter than it ever has, and after a few hours, we all felt like we didn't have much more to give, and called it a night. There's not a lot of ventilation in the room we practice in, and when you fill it with 6 bodies and 3 tube amps, the heat accumulates. We used to practice in my garage, which was pretty awful in the summer. By the end of a lot of practices, we would all have stripped to our boxer shorts, and we'd still be miserable. So, count our blessings and all that.

When I got home, I watched the back half of an episode of "Intervention" with Leah. That show is so depressing. But intriguing. At one point I turned to Leah and said "We just have to keep our kids off drugs." I'm not scared of pot. Almost everyone tries it at some point, and as those things go, it's virtually harmless. By the time Harper is old enough to care, it might even be legal and then who really gives a shit? But every time you hear some story about someone being brutally murdered, though, it's always drug related. Nothing good can come from being into real drugs, as far as I can see.

Tomorrow, I guess that Matt and I are going down to the News 8 building to record an acoustic version of "It's better to spend money..." for their Summer Rooftop music series. I fully expect it to suck since we will have maybe 5 minutes before we record it to rehearse it. I hate that shit. I hate "acoustic versions." I don't want to hear anyone else's "acoustic version" either, because what it really is, is the "boring version." It's like thin crust pizza. Maybe some people like it but, to me, it's like "Hey, can I pay you the same price for less food please?" After this one, I'd like to say that I'm not doing any more. Unless we know it's going to sound OK, and be something we're happy with, it's a total waste of time, in my humble opinion.

Smurf you, and smurf your family.

The new record, Together, by The New Pornographers, is pretty great. I love that band.
I am concerned, however, about the new Apples in Stereo record. I've barely listened to it, but what I've heard hasn't excited me. So far, it seems like they took the handful of things that I didn't like about their last record and made an entire record out of those things. I really shouldn't say anything until I've had time to absorb the whole record. I really hope I end up loving it because I, generally, think that they're great.

I'm excited about practice tonight. Everyone will know their parts on the new songs tonight and we'll get to hear "Preaching to the Choir Invisible, Part II" fully developed for the first time. Should be fun.

I've been writing thank you cards to go with all our online orders of the new EP today. They're pretty random and sound more like an exercise in stream of consciousness writing than traditional thank you notes but they're a good time, nonetheless. My favorite one goes like this: "Hey pal! Thanks for smurfing our record. I hope you smurf it. If you don't, I'm going to smurf my smurf up your smurf. So don't smurf with us. Smurf, Taylor & QC"

Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible...

Last night was an interesting night. We played in Waco at Common Grounds, which is on Baylor campus. It was the first night that we had our EPs so we went ahead and sold them. I'm not sure exactly how we did but Paul said we did well, so that's good. It was also the first time anyone heard "Preaching To The Choir Invisible, Part I." We all loved playing it live. I think, more than we expected. And we played it well, so I was really happy. Paul kept commenting on the strangeness of debuting that song on one of the most Baptist campuses in America. Maybe it was weird or offensive to some people, but if it was, no one said so. In fact, someone did come up to me and thank me for not censoring ourselves because of our proximity to Baylor. The song isn't obscene, but it may be uncomfortably personal for some people. Betsy said she liked it but she did feel "heavy" after we played it. Whatever that means.

We were talking about it on the way home and I confess that I do worry a little bit about losing religious fans, but at the same time I feel like even most liberal, self aware, Christians are going to find a lot to relate to in the new songs. Surely, everyone has felt like they're praying to nothing at one point or another, even if they're determined to hold on to their faith.

Anyway, Paul had the idea of having a contest where people make Quiet Company essay videos and the winner got to ride along with us last night. So, in the van, we had myself, Matt, Paul, Justin (our video director), Greg (from the Austin Music Examiner), and Jaqueline (our contest winner). Tommy and Jeff both took their own cars for their own reasons. Everyone was nice and cool and I think had a good time. I'm hoping that Greg embellishes on his adventures with us in whatever story he writes about it. Something like, "I woke up on the floor of Quiet Company's van with the band members standing circled around me, dressed in blood red cloaks, holding candles and chanting in unison. I had strange bruises all over my body and what looked like Stigmata..." You know, something more interesting than, "they fed me pizza and made fun of Owl City a lot." Which is what really happened.

Anyway, the show was fantastic. Since the other two bands also featured ex-members of Jeff's old band, Ethan Durelle, they had a reunion show after our set. It was really good to see them play again. I love watching Jeff play drums and I don't get to as much now that he's always behind me, so that was nice. I still love that band and I wish they'd just found another drummer when Jeff left and continued making music. They were, without a doubt, one of my all time favorite bands to play with.

So it goes.

If my friend, Matt, is ever eaten by a shark, I've agreed to hunt/kill that shark and feed it to people at his wake so that Matt lives on in all of us

Yesterday, Leah and I took her father and his wife to Austin's Park and Pizza.

I don't know if anything kills my mood the way a bad game of Lazer Tag can. As much as I love the game, I seem to be on the receiving end of a curse. Whichever Lazer pack I pick will most certainly malfunction on some level. Usually, it's something small like, "My rapid-fire won't work." Yesterday, my pack would take hits, and my lazer would shoot, but it would not register on anyone else. I was utterly defenseless and just wandered around being murdered. I came in last place, with a whopping 0 points. I didn't want to play anymore after that. Besides, it smelled like B.O. in there, something fierce. And don't say that I just suck, I tested my gun at point blank range several times and it just didn't work.

Austin's Park and Pizza sucks ass. There are so many things there that should be awesome, lazer tag, go carts, video games, mini golf, batting cages, pizza buffet, etc. But somehow, nothing is as cool as it should be. The employees couldn't possibly care less and Leah said "Surely, these people are getting minimum wage." I proposed that, perhaps, they weren't being paid at all and were, in fact, slaves.

I think the best thing we did was the batting cages. I've always hated baseball because its so damn boring, but we had a lot of fun at the batting cages. I'm actually pretty great...as long as someone is lobbing softballs slowly at me.

We ended the evening by, unwisely, doing the spinning teacups on a full stomach. I can spin the shit out of those things and did so, at my wife's request. And that is why I felt bad for the next hour and a half.

Oh well, still not a bad way to kill an evening.

Todd and Hollie, graciously, babysat for us, so we got to hang out with them for a while when we got home, which I was glad of. We're getting pretty close to their due date, and then who knows how often we'll see them. I hope it's still often, though.

Also, when I got home there were about 7 boxes full of our new EP waiting in my foyer. They look and sound fantastic. Yay, discmakers!

So tonight, we'll be on channel 10 in Austin on the Infynit Hour, playing a live set (God, I hope it sounds good) and tomorrow, we'll be in Waco at Common Grounds and we'll be selling the EP a little early.
Good times.

Did everyone download the mix I made you? What were your favorite tracks? Were there any artists that you didn't know that you want to hear more of now?