8-11-08

hi!  how are you?  last night we camped out in the woods of oregon.  matt made some bad ass potato soup over the campfire.  beer under the stars.  big fat moon through the trees.  sleeping on the floor of the forest is kinda awesome.  it made me wonder what it was like for those original homies making their way back in the early days.  of course i have those weird thoughts every time i camp out.  like, watching the fire boogie about i started thinking about the sun and the fire being essentially the same stuff.  ya know?  kinda cool.  i love the smell of the air in the woods.  so rich and fresh.  i could tell the trees were happy to have us hang!

this morning we drove up through washington state and crossed the border under the shadows of the clouds.  this world is so beautiful.  how do we not notice the beauty moment by moment!?!  so strange how distracting billboards and cellphones and bills can be.  i catch myself in moments of forgetting and gently bring myself back into awareness of the magic of the moment.  feel them bones!  breathe that breath!  what a buzz.  i love you guys and you love the world or you wouldn't be stickin' around through all the headaches and heartaches.  you da bomb digs.  love you!  see you!

c

8-10-08

hey there.  out on the road with matt pryor having tons of fun.  yesterday we drove through wyoming and as the mountains started to creep up, the rolling hills looked like a frozen ocean.  every day we try to find a local brewery to try different brews, which has been interesting and fun fun fun.  we ate at squatters brewery in salt lake city last night and matt and i both tried the Devastator, which is their strongest ale.  good!  it's a lot of fun being back in the van and seeing the gorgeous scrolling landscapes. 

so, we've played four shows and each show has been a blast.  i've been playing your requests which you guys emailed me, and also a bunch of requests taken at the show.  as an experiment, i've also been doing these super weird drawings and selling them.  the first night in minneapolis i sold out of all my drawings, so i figured if the demand is there, i'll keep doing them.  it's actually a lot of fun!  and since each drawing is totally one of a kind and definitely cannot be reproduced, whoever buys the drawings has a unique piece of chris conley memorabilia which no one else in the world can get their hands on.  fun.

today we have a day off and we're driving up into washington state to camp out and cook out before crossing the border into cananda for monday's show in vancouver.  stoked for a night in the woods.  and perhaps we'll find another brewery and sample their lager!  it's been great to hang out with all you guys at the shows.  it's nice to be face to face and share the smiles!  well, hope you're doing fine and i hope to see you soon at one of our shows!

c

8-06-08

hey there i'm in minneapolis today to start tour with matt pryor.  it's been way over a year since i played solo.  i'm excited for the intimacy.  i've been getting lots of emails about song requests for the shows.  thank you, that makes it easier for me to choose which songs to play out of the hundred plus in our catalogue, and i'm sure it's fun for you guys too. 

when i woke up i took three deep breaths and walked down stairs and out over the highway to the gas station to buy a bottle of water.  walking back, i noticed how thick and slimy the air was over the highway from all the carbon dioxide.  it was interesting, i was just reading in a book called "the complete guide to chi-gung" that the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes it harder for our bodies to get enough oxygen, which in turn makes each organ work harder and exhausts the heart.  the author, daniel ried, was suggesting that when our bodies are not properly oxygenated, they get sick and irritable.  actually, he mentions an interesting discovery made in 1931 by Dr. Otto Warburg.  Dr. Warburg received the Nobel Prize in medicine that year for his discovery that "the primary condition associated with all forms of cancer is severe deprivation of oxygen to the cells of the affected tissues, and that cancer cannot occur in tissues that are sufficiently oxygenated."  pretty interesting, no? 

it's odd that a discovery like this is relatively ignored by western medicine.  have you ever had a doctor ask you about breathing patterns?  (although i suppose that would be pretty bad business for the big drug companies if everyone realized they could stay healthy by eating well and breathing consciously, instead of taking fifteen different pills.)  but essentially, the rise of cancer can be directly linked to the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  there's hardly any clean oxygen anymore, although taking conscious deep breaths will help pump whatever fresh oxygen is there throughout the blood system, and will alleviate exhaustion.

my theory is that our bodies get bogged down by shitty food and pollution in the air we breathe, and when our bodies are run down, we get irritable and depressed and angry and then we break down and feel like we can't do a single thing and then self-loathing kicks in.  in reality, we're just unhealthy.  so much of our mental pollution is caused by environmental and nutritional pollution.  and on that note, if anybody coming to the shows with matt would like to prepare a vegetarian or vegan meal to bring to me at the show, i will gladly sit down and enjoy it with you and we can talk about life and the world.  let's get together and hang!  fun times shall ensue!  love you!

chris