lazy TV watching weekend

elizabeth watched a lot of the OC (laugh it up), South Park, and 24 this weekend. we also happened to eat out thrice this weekend: Chili's, Johnny Carino's and Cici's Pizza.

only two weeks until spring break. isn't that wild?

i got decisions to make soon. big decisions.

i'm listening to "Changes" by David Bowie.

mm.

anything else?

gah! i have a lesson tomorrow.

inspiration transpiration

i saw the One O'Clock lab band play with Phil Woods tonight. i always get really exited and inspired to practice after i hear good music performed.

i have so many different directions that i want to go. i definitely want to work on my improv on the trumpet, as well as work a little on my upper register that is finally starting to exist. i also want to learn how to play the trombone. additionally, i'm thinking about getting back some of my long lost jazz piano skills and maybe auditioning for lab band on piano.

elizabeth gave me a picture snow globe with two pictures of her and i for our 5 month anniversary today! it's sitting on my desk. elizabeth makes me happy.

where my stats are at

looking at my web stats, i'm informed that in this month alone, i've had 1297 unique visitors and 11568 hits to my website. i don't even think i know 1297 people.

so people who read this site and maybe lurk around, or maybe if i don't even know you, leave a comment so maybe i can have some idea of who exactly the hell found my site by way of searching for "bishop don magic juan."

speaking of which, i have some search keyphrases to share. some of them will have the number of people who've found my site by entering the phrase into a search engine

• bishop don magic juan: 22
• bishop don juan: 15
• magic don juan: 2
• raspberry chocolate mouse torte: 2
• don magic juan arch bishop pics
• asian video porn
• cici's pizza is the best
• music from napoleon dynamite
• butt cleavage pants
• sam cassell alien
• hilarious chat logs
• cosby impressions
• don bishop juan life
• halverson windmill
• anything the killers band
• waht is capicola
• fran ferdinand
• bishop don magic the juan
• teenage asians
• can't turn a ho
• bishop magic don
• undercover bears
• she whores
• unreal hooters
• girl scout cookies hoe down
• don magic juan arch bishop
• pictures of kids sleeping on the floor

phil woods goes to white castle

Phil Woods is at UNT this week, and came to two of my classes. he was wearing a black White Castle t-shirt. it literally made my day.

mondays and usually tuesdays are turning out to be nigh endless days. yesterday i didn't really have much time to do anything. the only "relaxing" time was dinner and watching 24, which by the way, is getting really really good. i won't talk about it here for the sake of spoilers.

i did a couple hours of work putting my arrangement of "The Natives are Restless Tonight" into Finale. I think it'll sound good if i've voiced everything decently. i'll do some more work and maybe take it into lab band later this week.

weather right now

that is all

NOTE TO SELF

JOHN GUARI: SOMEDAY, YOU MUST ARRANGE "ME AND MRS. JONES" FOR BIG BAND.

NOTE TO EVERYONE ELSE: I TOTALLY CALL DIBS ON THIS TUNE, DO NOT STEAL IT FROM MEEEEEEE EEEEEE AAAAAAANDDD MISSUS, MISSUS JONES MISSUSJONESMISSUSJONES!!!!111111ONEONEONEONE two

breathing room

up until maybe an hour and 1/2 ago i'd been busy pretty much every hour of every day.

i got to play some tunes with some kids today (said in my best Brett Bullion impression).

i recently downloaded the Firefox Web Browser. it has some cool features, such as tabbed browsing, but i have a couple issues with it. it doesn't want to separate Big Text like this from smaller text, meaning there is sometimes an overlap. also, it seems certain Xanga sites won't let me comment. maybe that was a fluke. i haven't found anything significantly better than IE except the tabbed browsing. i'm sure there are benefits i'm overlooking or just not utilizing, though.

congratulations to Josh and Melanie, they had a child, a baby girl, tonight!

i'm still practicing a lot, and also composing/arranging quite a bit. i'm getting more and more excited about composing/arranging. i'm pondering the likelihood that i could (possibly) double major in jazz arranging, since it seems like a lot of general jazz stuff overlaps from the jazz performance major. it's just a thought right now, but it's there.

i have lots of little ideas bouncing around in my head regarding arranging. like how one would go about condensing the Thad Jones tune, "Us" for a small combo, or for an a capella horn section, a la the Horn Heads. check out the Horn Heads if you haven't, by the way.

boy this is a lot of typing!

les yeux sans visage

imaginary john guari points awarded to who first posts the artist and title of the song whence came those lyrics.

busiest week yet

guh.

on monday, i had a 5-hour playing-wise day. incredibly busy. my Thad/Mel CDs came, and i've had "Us" cycling through my head all week.

tuesday was even busier than monday. i did some arranging for my first project, "The Natives are Restless," by Horace Silver. I did some more arranging today, and shall do some more tomorrow. it's really fun. i want to hear what it all sounds like played in a big band.

wednesday used to be the busiest day. today was really kind of relaxed in comparison to the past two days. the trombones joined the trumpets for departmental, where the bass trombonist for the chicago symphony from 1940 to 1985 came and talked about tromboney things.

improv 2, at least for the time being, is becoming manageable due to vast amounts of practicing. i really need to focus some more on my classical stuff though, because i've been neglecting it for jazz.

i saw the 7 and 8 o clock lab bands play at the syndicate tonight. jeremy subbed in BOTH lab bands, sight reading the music on the gig. way to go, guy! right now, the big competition just to be in lab bands is in the saxes and rhythm sections. there are more than enough of those kinds of instruments, while lots of trumpets and trombones double (or triple) up in bands.

now i'm listening to "Quietude" and getting ready for bed. thursday will be a walk in the (Central) Park (North).

Friday will be lax, too. I have a required recital to go to at 8:00 that's preventing elizabeth and i from going to her parents' house on friday. we'll end up going on saturday and staying overnight, though it would've been nice to spend the whole weekend. oh well, trumpet performance masters students need to do their recitals. it's the way of the world.

D8

i launched a preemptive valentine's day strike on my unsuspecting girlfriend by taking her to P.F. Chang's last night.

i built in lots of time for preparations, as well as me getting lost and using Mom-star to navigate my way through the streets of Dallas, a place i'd never driven through. despite my misinterpretation of yahoo maps, we ended up at P.F. Chang's 20 minutes early, and had a ridiculously good meal.

We had the lettuce wraps (with tofu instead of chicken), she had salmon and i had shrimp, and we ended the meal with the Great Wall of Chocolate, which kept the Mongorians out of china.

what is guari

Guari is:

• a nuclear-capable, mid-range Pakistani rocket
  
• elise guari, an elementary school principal
  
• 
  an Andean God of the Sea
  
• an actor and martial artist
  
• a Panamanian English Creole
  
• a video rental store in the Caribbean island of Bonaire
  
• jason guari, a Florida Lawyer
• john guari, a Connecticut police officer (we're related, i believe)
  
• a deviant art member, whose original creations include Pika-clops. i'm not even joking around.
  
• a, um...38 year-old gay male seeking men ages 23-39. (no link provided (don't even ask (i'll kill you)))
  
• poet Guari Delgado
  
• a city in Papua New Guinea. location 8.06.42S, 146.52.28E
  
• Dan Guari, an artist in the Nashville area.
  
• Christine Guari, Director of Nursing Services at Matulaitis Nursing Home
  
• Joan Guari, Attorney at Law in Scranton, PA
  
• Guari Khan, a Mongol Leader in 1642
  

that's most of what i can find. for now.

DREAMS COME TRUE

OMFG

May 17th, 2005

new mars volta

Frances the Mute is pretty good. i dont like it as much as De-Loused in the Comatorium though.

btw the Mars Volta is a pretentious prog rock band. know and love their ridiculous 13 minute songs.

jazz high

i had an awesome time playing at the syndicate this evening. thanks to the people who came out to support the four and the five o clock lab bands this night!

the five did really well, especially our first half. i personally feel that tonight i played the best i ever have at a syndicate gig. it's a good feeling. i also played my melodica on "F.M." i should have gotten a picture of that, but most of you can either remember or imagine what it would've looked like.

my week is nearly done.

kief away!

elizabeth and i totally watched 9 episodes from the first season of 24 this weekend. she is so hooked.

omfg hammer

everyone go here and scroll down and watch the Frito Lay commercial. easily the best commercial of the entire super bowl.

it's the weekend (all weekend long)

so i woke up to elizabeth telling me to wake up at around 10:15. she'd gotten done with all her classes for the day. the only thing i was required to be at was trumpet sectional at 2. i (of course) was grumpy and wanted to go to bed. i told jeremy to turn off my alarm (now that i'm on the top bunk, turning off my alarm involves getting out of bed). he did, and the next thing i remember, i woke up, looked at the clock and it was 12:10 in the afternoon.

i got up, ate a quick lunch/breakfast and practiced trumpet for an hour, then went to my sectional, which ended up being almost 2 hours long. it was good though, because last semester i had 2 sectionals total, both lasting about 35 minutes each. so far in the five o'clock we've had 2 with both being at least an hour long.

on that note (lol), come support ben kelly and i (and jeremy) by coming out to see us at the syndicate on wednesday the 9th of february from 9:00 PM to midnight. only four dollars for 3 hours of good fun and heckling.

elizabeth and i joined ben, franklin, jennifer, rob, rhonda and jennifer's roommate leah at Tia's Tex-Mex restaurant for a frickin' awesome and fun time. after having some really really good flautas magnifico, elizabeth and i went and rented Chocolat which was a good movie. it's almost bed time now.

in about 12 hours i have funk band rehearsal. i like playing the trumpet. i hope people will pay me to do it.

new music 02-03-05

• Stan Kenton - Portraits on Standards
• John Fedchock - New York Big Band
• Count Basie Orchestra - Live at the Sands (Before Frank)
• Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra - Presenting Joe Williams and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra

in addition, i order these CDs off Amazon.com:

• Thad/Mel - Consummation
• Thad/Mel - Central Park North
• Buddy Rich - Wham

in case you couldn't tell, i'm totally digging on the Big Band stuff right now. before i came to UNT i wasn't really into, and now that i'm playing in a more proficient lab band and am starting to arrange for big band in arranging II, i'm getting really excited about all the musical possibilities an 17+ piece big band can offer (i'm a huge nerd).

The Joe Williams with Thad/Mel album is REALLY good. i'm not familiar with a lot of jazz singers, but i like what i know of joe williams.

free practice time

so improv 2 has me practicing a whole ton. i played like 6 hours total yesterday and (i must calculate this in my head) maybe 4 1/2 today. sometimes i get in a mode where i just won't feel like practicing. now isn't one of those times. it's a great thing, i am going to try to stay in this mode for as long as i can.

i haven't really done much classical trumpet playing. :-\ i suppose i should devote some attention to that, as i need to pass my upper division barrier this semester.

so much posting about music and busyness. more of the same tomorrow most likely.

mondays are the longest

my day today

• 10:00 Theory IV
• 11:00Arranging II
• 12:00 Practicing
• 1:00 - 1:20 Lunch
• 1:20-1:50 Practicing
• 2:00 Lesson
• 3:00 Improv II
• 5:00 5 O'Clock Lab Band
• 6:00 8 O'Clock Lab Band
• 7:00 Dinner
• 8:00 24!
• 9:00 - 11:00
• Practicing

mondays will pretty much always be the hardest day for me.

now i shall unwind by listening to "A Child is Born," by Thad Jones