Journey of the Wood

The big fat studio move is officially underway! I'm packing up my office (other than the computer I'm currently typing this on) and preparing to walk it a few feet out to the garage. Yay!

A few months ago, the garage looked like this:

(That's my Dad, rolling important green stuff onto the floor before he placed the plywood.)











Here is the flooring we purchased. Pergo. It's interesting, the concept of a floor in a box.

The flooring sat quietly and considered its next move.










While our backs were turned, Pergo ninja'd his way to the garage and hid.

















He spied the bare plywood and got ideas.















He laid down and made the room all shiny and cozy.











Okay, I wish. Really though, my Dad slaved over sticky glue and interlocking laminate pieces all night. But it looks really nice.

Today he put in the baseboards, and the room is finally ready for me to move into. Which means I have to unplug this computer. Now...

Home Depot

I absolutely can't stand going to Home Depot. I mean, okay, there is the obvious reason: I'm a musician, clearly not a handyman. Not somebody who knows about band saws and drill bits and ballpeen hammers. Not somebody who could build you a nice bookshelf. No.

But aside from that, the very second I walk through the massive and boring doors of Home Depot, I can feel the energy sapping out of me. The horrible flourescent light, the ugly factory-ness of it all, and that smell. What is that smell?

Nobody is around to help you. And when somebody is around, they don't WANT to help you. They want you to know everything about band saws and drill bits and ballpeen hammers, and just get it yourself! Otherwise, they hate you. You waste their time. You make them earn their salary. I mean, they already have to work in this terribly lit, warehousy, smelly place. The last thing they need is somebody with questions.

This week, it seems like I'm at Home Depot every day. So, that's been fun.

HP Hates Me

Every light on my printer is blinking. Every last one. And there's a big flashing "E" too. Why? It's full of ink and paper. Maybe it just died of old age.

All I wanted to do was transfer my digital pictures from my camera to my computer through my formerly trusty printer. I've done it a thousand times.

I thought technology was supposed to make our lives easier. Mostly, it's like a quirky roomate who has his own agenda, and suffers frequent emotional breakdowns. I just sort of co-exist with it, and on good days, it's kind to me and enables me to work faster. On bad days, I spend most of my time reassuring it with loving words, and praying that it doesn't finally succumb to depression and end it all.

A couple months ago, on of my hard drives died. My music hard drive. The one with all my clients on it. Awesome!

I called IBM. Their answer: "We expect a drive to die after 4 to 5 years." (Don't expect to see that printed on any of their advertising). They just build them to fail. It would be one thing if they made shoes or something, but hard drives? They really expect you to lose all your data every few years?

Luckily, I had most of it backed up. Except for the client I was working for at the time. Major bummer. I had to start all over on the mix. It's not like IBM would lose money if their products lasted; it's been working for Volvo for years!

I unplugged my printer, and plugged it back in. The lights came on one by one, and then went off. The flashing "E" was replaced by a ready light. Lovely.

So I tried to transfer my pictures again. "An internal programming error has occured."

Well how nice for it.

Okay, For Real This Time

I've blogged before.

I have a whole big fat blog at Xanga, where you can read about my disasterous tour, which was going quite swimmingly, and then quickly went up in flames -- in a very literal way.

But after the disaster died down, so did the blog...and it slowly became just a spot to post about upcoming work-related items...not so fun to read.

Fortunately, this is one of the few times in life that I can just say "Let's just start over." So I'm saying it.

Who am I? Why, I'm Mike Schmid. This is me:

(Looking oh so melancholy, cause someone took away my pet donkey or something.)

I'm a singer/songwriter. I get paid to be melancholy. Well, except for when I don't get paid. Then I just AM melancholy. But I digress.

BIO TIME!! (We'll just get this out of the way now, and then we'll not speak of it again) -- I grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, hated high school, narrowly escaped with my life and attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, where I graduated in 2001 with a degree in Songwriting. Yeah, that's not a typo -- you can actually get a degree in that. It's a really expensive piece of paper that doesn't mean anything to anyone. The hope is that it enables you to write better songs. But I digress again.

After college, I moved out to L.A., just like every other musician ever, because where else could a navelgazing folkpoppie go? New York is too dirty and crowded, and Nashville is too clean and empty. My delightful college friend Nicole VanBuren moved out with me, cause she was way too fun to leave behind. And also cause she wanted to live in L.A.

Like many Angelenos, I came out here with big dreams, and quickly settled for something less. Everybody knows the air quality in L.A. is hilarious (you can see the air -- that can't be good!), and basically it made me a complete wreck, coupled with the fact that there was nasty black mold where I was living, and I was allergic.

I got really sick. I lost my voice. I had a sore throat every night. So I started seeing doctors left and right like a speed dater with nothing to lose. Nobody could fix me.

In 2003, I moved out of my place in Mar Vista (not the epitome of glamour) to a house in Hollywood. I felt much much better in my new place, like a different person, and I wrote a song called "Born Yesterday" to celebrate. Life was good.

This one time, I had eye surgery. I was on valium. The aforementioned Nicole was taking care of me. Yadda yadda yadda -- we fell in love and dated and got married.

She's the most wonderful lovely silly brilliant girl I've ever met. It's a cliche, but she's my best friend. We call it BIG LOVE (and we were calling it that before the TV show!) We probably spend too much time together, because we don't like to be apart, you know, to go to the bathroom and such.

Yeah. We're one of those couples.

Most songs I write lately are about her, or based on an assignment she gave me. I was worried maybe I'd lose my edge when I got married. How can I be melancholy when I'm so happy!? But she knows about art, and she loves it when people go there.

Anyway, we just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary on March 11. And we're expecting our very first (and hopefully only) child in April.

He's a little boy. And we love him already. He kicks in the cutest ways.

It's strange to have a baby. Especially since Nic and I feel like we're still toddlers ourselves. The Babies are having babies! What will we do!? It's been a little stressful preparing for him. So many things to buy! Strollers, mattresses, bottles, nipples, bottle warmers, bottle sterilizers, swings, cribs, friends...

Fortunately, Nicole has been snatching up all the baby clothes in the known universe, so he will be well-outfitted into his twilight years.

My sweet parents are in town, helping us convert our garage into a studio. I've been kicked out of my office, which will become the baby room.

And Nic and I spent the entire day painting. I have red and brown and white all over my everything.

Other things about me: I'm lactose intolerant, but I take pills for it, I'm addicted to video games, but I have no time to play them, I love cats and dogs, but I'm allergic.

I produce other singer/songwriters, I license lots of music to TV shows (lately I've been on NBC's The Black Donnellys, Oxygen's The Bad Girls Club, and ABC's All My Children and One Ocean View), and I have three albums out. Other sites about me:

www.mikeschmid.com (my official website - whatever that means)
www.myspace.com/mikeschmid (hear more music, be my friend)
www.flickr.com/photos/mikeschmid (pictures - did you know I'm an amateur photographer?)
www.cdbaby.com/cd/schmid2 (where to buy my newest full-length album)
www.broadjam/mikeschmid (my download store - which includes non-album tracks)

Also, all my albums are available on iTunes.

BIO/VANITY SECTION COMPLETE!

Is that all? Sure. Have I left anything to blog about? I guess we'll see. But this time, I'm serious!