Mecca

My new favorite pizza place is on Haight Street, and I will go out of my way when I’m in the mood for pizza. When you walk in, a young Middle Eastern man, late 20’s maybe early 30’s sits behind a black and white security camera monitor listening to an audio recording of the reading of the Q’uran. On the walls are posters describing the history of Islam, images of Mecca (with thousands of worshipers), an explanation of the Muslim religion.

I’m impressed and inspired by the devotion some of the Muslims I know have to God. And I’m particularly moved by the way some describe God – some of the most beautiful language (My friend Mohommed once said that ‘Allah’ literally means “the Breath” – Al=The and Ah=ahhhh, and describes the power of God’s word). I find it interesting, too, that Christians, Muslims, and Jews all essentially worship the same God. Yet there is so much violence between them.

Tonight I went to another kind of mecca. I spent four hours in the recording studio at Digidesign, a company that makes the recording industry’s leading recording software (ProTools). My sound engineer is a good friend who in addition to being a DJ also writes the software.

I got the grand after-hours tour, and spent a few hours singing my heart out into the world’s most exquisite recording equipment. Rus wants to make it a regular thing, and (again) I can’t wait. Tonight’s session was alright – it took me a while to get comfortable in the new setting, and I’m getting sick, so my voice was crap.

But I learned a lot, now have access to a world-class recording environment (now Rus and I just need to develop the talent to use it!) and I know it’s just going to keep on getting better.

Now that my throat is burning, and it’s nearly 4:30 in the morning, I’m gonna sign off.