I climbed into the silver Ford Wagon and slid onto my seat. As soon as the A/C kicked on I could smell the faint fumes of Marlboro Lights and spicy cologne. The cord of the radar detector dangled from the sun shade above the driver's head to the cigarette. With the roar of the engine turning over comes lights and many beeps from the little black box in the sun shade. There are a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses in the middle console that I desperately want to try on. As the car starts to move the wind blows hair in my face poking my eyes. I move my head to the side adjusting to avoid further injury. I glance into the back seat and see computer parts and pieces everywhere. Jimmy Page is now shredding his double neck guitar on the stock stereo. I feel free, cool, and grown up all at once. I can't wait to be just like the driver of this new Ford Wagon.

This is the memory that came to me today when I had to drive an old Ford Wagon at work.

Peace and love,
RJ Dietrich

It's only been about a week since the tour ended and I can't help but think about the next lag. Thoughts of New England coffee houses, meeting new artists, making new friends and fans. Oh, touring is the life. I get to spend all day with my favorite people, then every night I get to share my music with others, one of my favorite activities.

I have been very busy this last week promoting the new cd, booking shows and working on new music. Kare booked a show at Hot Topic in the mall. I always thought it would be cool to play a show in the mall.  Now I will get to test my theory out. I wonder if the mall cops will throw me out if I handbill at the mall before the show. I'm promoting an event that will be taking place in the mall. I guess there's only one way to find out.

I have been enjoying my day job lately. I'm not sure if it's because I have so many positive things going on with my real passion in life or if it's my new assignment at work or both. My new assignment is more laid back than the last. I have been enjoying my extra days off quite a bit!

Kare and I have been working on new music for the next cd. I think it will be done sometime in the late winter early spring. The goal is to have it ready for the next summer tour. We are also working on getting some additional merch such as stickers and t-shirts. The cd will be on sale at iTunes and other online retailers in the next few weeks. We are so excited about this. You can buy the physical cd on our website right now.

It's the sidewalk I miss the most.

Peace and Love,
RJ

I love local music. Hearing artists pour their hearts and souls out is an experience like no other.

I love performing my music live. It's great to be able to share my art with friends and strangers. The feelings of community and shared experience are wonderful.

One aspect of performing live I have come to look forward to at every show, is the performances of the other acts. The energy and music is awesome. I came home from a show recently and immediately picked up my guitar and wrote a new song.

I was thinking about this today after reflecting on the show we played last night. So I decided to make a playlist that is comprised of all local artists and put it on my MySpace page. I have performed with many of these artists and they are amazing live.

Please take a minute to listen to some of these tracks. Even if you just listen to the beginning of each one I'm sure you will find something you will enjoy. Just click on the word "playlist" at the bottom of the music player on my page.

If you haven't checked out a live local performance lately, go check your community rag and find out what's going on this weekend.

If you don't want to leave the house this Friday then be sure to watch Essential Machine's online internet show. It starts at 9:00pm and it's free!
 Just visit http://essentialmachine.com

I will be blogging again soon!

Peace and love,
RJ

Rain brings forth detailed memories of childhood. The grey sky conjures figure eights on two wheels and "The world is ending, the world is ending" exploding from my mouth. I wished that everyday could be grey and rainy. Oh how the world would be different. No more intensely oppressive Florida sun using my brain for a punching bag. No more sweat rolling down my face.  I craved the intoxicating smell of dirt that saturated the air. As soon as it hit my nostrils my body tingled as if the rain penetrated the skin. The excitement that came with precipitation and lack of UV rays was one of a kind. I'm not sure if it was the weather or the doom's day games that got me so psyched, but I would bet it was a little bit of both.

Here is a video I love. I may have posted it before, but it's worth a second glance. This guy makes me want to practice the guitar! I'm about to start working in the studio. More soon!

Thank goodness for people like Dennis, who looks at things from the prospective of the innocent and gives a voice to the unheard.

I wish this clip had aired on prime time television instead of C-Span. I love watching C-Span. It really gives me great insight into what is going on in our government. I don't need to see a ten second clip on CNN, then hear the talking heads go on and on about it. They sound so absurd rambling on and on. Are we unable to come up with our own opinions? Why can't we see the whole clip, then contemplate it? All without being told what it means or how we are supposed to interpret.

I have started working out after work. No I'm not curling fifty pound weights to make my biceps grow into shapes that are inhuman. I'm just doing a nice thirty minute workout with a little bit of cardio mixed with weight training. It feels nice to get back to pushing my body out of it's comfort zone.

 I did unfortunately push my body way out of it's comfort zone into it's ow that fucking hurt zone last night. I woke up this morning feeling like someone had implanted a metal rod with barbs all over it into my neck.  I guess my body was pissed at me for waking it up. As a result of my workout fun, I smelled like eye-burning mintastical goodness today at work. Oh how my co-workers love me. Other then the kinked neck I felt really great today. I'm going to work very hard to keep this up.

Peace and Love,
RJ 

In the winter here in my new home of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, the meteorologists seem to have a problem predicting the weather. Sometimes their wisdom points to a bad ice storm on its way to clobber us. This prompts Karen to drive all the way back to my workplace and drop off the car. Only to have it merely rain all day and night. Other times Karen and I will check the weather channel and the computer for the latest forecast (we are quite thorough the two of us) and find that there is not supposed to be any precipitation what-so-ever. So it looks like a perfect day for Karen to drive me to work. This is almost always the day of the surprise snow storm that no one knew was coming. Having been born and raised in the "Sunshine State" I'm not used to such glaring mistakes when it comes to the weather. Sure the weather person might say that it's going to be mostly sunny one day and it turns out to be somewhat sunny. But for the most part it's hot and wet and it rains a lot. Here in the Mid-Atlantic we have a wide variety of names for the wet substance that falls from the sky in the winter. For example there's sleet (I'm still not sure what that is), snow, hail, freezing rain, and of course my personal favorite wintry mix. This variety of titles doesn't seem to help when it comes to predicting the weather. At least this unpredictable weather only lasts for about two months. After that we return to more predictable things like rain, wind, sun, and clouds. All of this weather talk got me to thinking about changing my profession. I'm starting to think it would be great to be a weather person here in Pittsburgh. For instance if I felt like being a slack ass one day I could just stand in front of the green screen, turn on the weather map, close my eyes and throw some icons up on the map. A little wind here and how about some wintry mix there. No one seems to get angry at them when they're wrong. People even seem to like their local weather guesser. So if you turn on your T.V. and see me blathering away about the wintry mix that's on its way you'll know why.

Love and Peace,
RJ