Update Blog:

I'm a Singer, Lyricist, and Songwriter looking for somebody to team up with and to take my music in a different direction.  Thinking piano, acoustic guitar, or even a DJ live-mixing my tracks and yours, with vocals by me or both of us.  I own a digital piano that I can offer for rehearsals and gigs.  So if you live in the greater Tampa Bay area, and if coffee shops and art bars sound good to you as venues, get back to me soon.  I'm eager to get this ball rolling.

I've been playing around with a new toy, a composing app, and I've laid out a rough draft for the title track on my solo project:  “Optimal Optical & the Auditory Story of the Mind”.  Basically, I figured I'd update yinz guys on the direction in which my solo project is headed:  to showcase the sounds I'm expanding on, and also the composing process that I'm developing.  Lyrics for this track can also be found on my bandcamp, soundcloud, and reverbnation music sites.  You can find this song, and all of my other ones, on the music player below.

After much back and forth in my mind, I've decided to apply to the Creative Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University.  Moving forward on this, I've also decided to submit Kuderski's and my 2nd album as a portfolio.  It's not required in any way for me to do so, but with my age as a factor, I figure every little bit of effort on my part is vital in securing a place as a student there.

I intend to begin the BHA program (Bachelors of Humanities and Arts) during my sophomore year.  As I've also made clear, I will apply as a composition major.  What would be really great is if I could teach as a Professor at CMU.  I know that I'm crazy about this University.  Plain and simple, it's one of my homes, of which I have three.

I extend an open ear to listen without prejudice, if any of you need somebody to lend an ear.  I'm online throughout the day, so...  no worries needed there.  I may write a lot, but when you talk I'm all ears.  I'm right here.

Keep on keeping on,
Hobbes

Never really knew Jerry Garcia.  I had a chance to go to a Grateful Dead concert, but turned down my then girlfriend because I had an English assignment to finish.  That's not it, obviously.  From my most recent past life insight, something which I have no tangible way of proving, I remember being at Woodstock in 1969 and dying there, but I have no clear image of watching The Grateful Dead.  Best to not guess at that matter.

So I'm driving down the street on the South Side of Pittsburgh, which is a mecca of bars, drugs, and Classic Rock 'n' Roll blaring out of every window down the main street.  I see a crowd of people, looking like Hippies, celebrating with a drumming circle, while police officers stand by, ready to bust that first person who lights a jay.  That was enough for me, a then 19 yo college student to pull over and park around the block.

What I had no idea about was the reason why they were gathered there:  August 9th, 1995.  I never really knew Jerry Garcia, but he suffered a heart attack that day, and didn't pull out of it.  When he had died, so did decades of the The Grateful Dead's long legacy.  You just can't replace a lead singer of that caliber and play on, without being reminded of and feeling that hole where the person had been.

So, I'm at this drumming circle, and although I was drumming, I wasn't doing a very good job of it, so I politely and in a timely manner excused myself from the circle.  I did, however, have my backpack of notebooks, pens, and random assorted knickknacks, and wasn't doing a very good job of contributing to the general atmosphere.  So I turned to writing a summary of what was happening there.  Just a little piece on everything I was thinking and feeling, and the gist that I was having of what this event meant in a greater sense.  It came out of that.  I wrote about the people there that night.  I wrote a lot more about their kindness and unabashed outpouring of sympathy, compassion, and happiness...

It's still the happiness part that sticks with me.  They called him Papa Bear, and as far as I can understand they loved him so much that happiness was the only way they expressed themselves.  They were the first funeral celebration I had known.  They just loved to love.  That's really all that I can say of them, And that's also basically what I said in the short piece of prose that I wrote, then set on the ground, and put a candle on it so that it wouldn't blow away.

When I was done dancing and celebrating with the friends I had met that day, I started to hear talk of a letter, my letter, being phenomenal.  I mean, that...  I got back over there to see teardrops on the paper. There was also a pigeon feather, with wax from the candle holding it onto the paper.  They had decorated it.  I didn't understand fully, before that moment, just how much the words that I write can affect others.  And that was the one thing.  I choose them more carefully now, and do just a bit better every day, I think.

I held onto that paper letter for a number of years.  Eventually it just sort of disappeared, but I hold onto the memory of the night, and every once in a while I write a bit about it, like today.  It was my first funeral celebration, and the happiest one, too.  I never really knew Jerry Garcia.  That night though, I met his family, and they will always celebrate his love with anyone who wants to hear Uncle John's Band play on, and on, and on...

One feature on pretty much every smartphone is the auto-correct function.  Now, recently I've been in a writing slump when it comes to song lyrics.  Normally I can punch out three or four full songs in about a week.  So I decided to open the evernote app, and see how auto-correct might help.  I chose one letter to start off with, then a suggested word, and then let the feature do the rest.  I was stunned at how the words, that I edited within this new creative tool, summed up my then current mood.  The creative juices were flowing, and slowly I picked up on a theme.  Having discovered that theme, it became far easier for me to edit as I went along.

I don't recommend too much editing until you discover a theme in your writing.  This method lends itself to opening up one's mind to more literary possibilities, and in my case, that was exactly what I needed this time around.  And so, here's the song that I wrote.


"A new way known, and all that is home"
--Hobbes Deutsch, Jr.

I'm trying to find a place where you can get the chance to see... this vitality. Because there's a difference between what is all here now, and what could be the wonderful beauty of this most important part of our lives.

Honestly, sometimes... I don't know. I’m just trying to get somewhere in a prayer, without a hell fire and brimstone scare. You see, that's the unspoken creed here, and the cost is our injury from that sort of thing. Oh... where there is injury your pardon, Lord. Oh… where there is injury your pardon, Lord. Oh Lord, where there is injury...

So please, consider praying for the next great day. I'm sure that you have viewed the violence in our silence... please hurry too, and choose. I guarantee they will be here soon. These days will be loved, the most important part of our lives.

If not now... when ? Can we do this... again ?
If I walk into your light, hold you slow like back then,
would we be just so lost in a choked up dream ?
would the night break into an early morning scream ?
A new way known, and all that is home.

If not now... when ? Can we do this... again ?
If I walk into your light, hold you slow like back then,
would we be just so lost in a choked up dream ?
would the night break into an early morning scream ?
A new way known, and all that is home.