Groggy. I feel kinda hungover, but I didn't drink. Was up until 4:30 last night writing a new song. Just put some green tea on, and I'm going to drop a shot of Chinese Ginseng in it to get me moving. We have the day off today, Chaney and Dave are both in separate studios doing tracks.

Monday we ran the set, and I had been working on songs on the weekend, so I had some new stuff to play. The instrumental that I had been calling "DaveJam", is now "Punish Me". It's a song about someone who gets their excitement only with a little pain involved, if you know what I mean.

There was also a part of mine I came up with in rehearsal a few weeks ago, a "weary" progression, that I put lyrics and chorus to called "Blue Bruises". We played both of those for a bit, and played our new arrangement of what used to be called "Nothing Wrong with Me". We had re-tooled it and killed the old chorus last week, and built a really moody one.

Yesterday, I got some lyrics for it, but they were loose and fuzzy, the title I was working with was "Down They Fall". We had some more work to do on this explosive bridge instrumental section, so we did that and called it a day. Last night I had the song ringing in my head and felt that the words/idea of the song were floating around just on the edge of my conciousness. That's what it feels like when the creativity flows or the "sprits" are around; like you are always on the verge of remembering something, and when you get it, find that it was the thing that wanted to come out. I went to dinner at a little place in Hollywood called "Home", and brought my sketchbook just in case anything happened. I was thinking that "Down They Fall" was a good idea for the song, but might not be the final title.

I saw on the drink menu “Bloody Mary” and it struck me as a good song title. The words were buzzing around my head when we got home. I spent some time reading a pre-release version of Dave’s “Don’t Try This at Home” book, and the first chapter, he mentions a drug dealer that used to come to his house named “Mary”. Then it felt like lightning struck. This whole story started writing itself in my head, this image of a beautiful dealer in the Hollywood Hills that was always just a call away. The music to the song after we had re-worked it has a kinetic, busy, kind of “antsy” verse, and a very different sounding, dramatic minor-feel chorus. The Bloody Mary idea fit right into the framework. I scribbled notes and phrases in bed, then when they kept coming, I went into my workroom and started singing them with the acoustic. The song fell together in my most favorite way, like it was writing itself. It’s really an intoxicating feeling when it happens like this, almost addictive. I miss this feeling when it’s not around. Songs tend to travel in packs, so I am hoping something else comes along this week.

So far, here are the finished songs in order of completion: She Won’t Last, Unholy Ghost, The Loophole, Ashes, Outsider, Skin of Your Soul, Half Hearted, and Bloody Mary. (Punish Me is still without a finished verse melody/lyrics).

This afternoon had a good online chat with Freak, White Pony, and BradK: our Panic Agency “Lead Agents”. We are going to team up and get a Panic Agency message board happening. It’s really cool to have help with the Agency, as I plan on devoting all my creative web time to The Panic Channel site, and their energy and creativity will really augment what we are trying to accomplish online.