This month had forty four posts, including this one, yielding roughly 1.42 posts per day. So how did we spend this month of countering writer's block and pretending to be nice while not getting laid?
Posts this month: 44
Posts per day: 1.42
Number of posts that were musically related: 13 (29.5% of total, about once every two or three days)
Number of music related posts that were about recording: 6 (13.6% of total, about once every five days)
Number of new tags introduced: 3 ("Fuck Yeah", "Space Exploration", "Travel"; occurring once every 14.67 days)
Number of tags deleted: 1 ("Literature", condensed into "Books")
Most popular post theme: Copping out, admitted to or just obvious in 6 posts
Shortest post: Yeah Yeah (4 words)
Longest post: The first three minutes, four seconds of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" video (1623 words)
Number of times in that post I referenced the iconic Niagara Falls scene from Superman II: 4 (Once every 405.75 words)
Amount of time it actually takes Superman to save that kid: 28.4sTotal height of Niagara Falls: 52m
Gravitational constant: 9.8m/s2
Actual time it would take for that kid to hit the surface: 3.3s
Number of seconds Superman needs to shave off his game: 25.1s
Or else:
Friday, July 31, 2009
Sound Design And Assembly July 31st, 2009
 | I gave it over to a guest host this month. Enjoy the silence. |
Thursday, July 30, 2009
So, you've probably noticed...
Yesterday I copped out, posted a video, and called it a day. Well, two videos each in a separate post because I couldn't exactly draw a coherent line between the TRON: Legacy trailer and How To Get A Leg Up In Porn, but you get me. Today is going to be no different, in terms of copping out. I wanted to go with a "Can We All Agree On Something" or a "Some Things In Life, You Just Can't Explain", but those formats are limiting and I have to supply the appropriate context for this situation.
I was sitting in the office at the hostel last night, when this little Asian cat that from a certain angle kind of looks like Ando from Heroes comes into the office and asks if he can ask me a question. It's not like I'm going to say, "No," but I hear the breaks in his English and the tiny xenophobe inside me has a feeling that this could go one of two ways: We'll either come to the conclusion that we can't communicate with each other, or I'll give him directions to the Mall of America.
Because everybody wants to go to the fucking Mall of America. Whether they're from Toledo, OH or Toledo, Spain; Paris, TX or Paris, France; they all want to see the Mall of America. Even if they've seen the Louvre and the marvels of humankind's artistic development contained therein; even if they've made pilgrimages to the Vatican or the Wailing Wall; even if they have swam with dolphins or sharks, even if they're on a goddamned waiting list to be a space tourist, they want to see the Fucking Mall of Fucking America.
Turns out that we're not going to be able to communicate with each other. His question, of course, is, "How do I get to Denver?" He asks this as he puts a map with driving directions from Minneapolis to Denver in front of me, thus establishing that he's already found the answer. That the printed out map is folded up into quadrants and dog-eared at the corners indicates to me that this answer has lived in his pocket for quite a while.
Of course, since I never looked up this information, I tell him I don't know.
* I wanted to find a way to throw out the idea that, you know, the U.S. is a big place. It's not just an hour drive. Like when people think that my being from Bowling Green means I know so-and-so from Toledo which means I know so-and-so from Cleveland or Columbus; I tell them, you know, Ohio's a whole state. We're kind of a big state. We don't all know each other.
** Which you would think would be unnecessary, since he has a Yahoo! Map print out. Mapquest is to web maps as Kleenex is to tissues. How my saying "Mapquest" to you means to strictly use Mapquest is as ridiculous as if I suggested that I would blow my nose in only Kleenex brand tissue.
I was sitting in the office at the hostel last night, when this little Asian cat that from a certain angle kind of looks like Ando from Heroes comes into the office and asks if he can ask me a question. It's not like I'm going to say, "No," but I hear the breaks in his English and the tiny xenophobe inside me has a feeling that this could go one of two ways: We'll either come to the conclusion that we can't communicate with each other, or I'll give him directions to the Mall of America.
Because everybody wants to go to the fucking Mall of America. Whether they're from Toledo, OH or Toledo, Spain; Paris, TX or Paris, France; they all want to see the Mall of America. Even if they've seen the Louvre and the marvels of humankind's artistic development contained therein; even if they've made pilgrimages to the Vatican or the Wailing Wall; even if they have swam with dolphins or sharks, even if they're on a goddamned waiting list to be a space tourist, they want to see the Fucking Mall of Fucking America.
Turns out that we're not going to be able to communicate with each other. His question, of course, is, "How do I get to Denver?" He asks this as he puts a map with driving directions from Minneapolis to Denver in front of me, thus establishing that he's already found the answer. That the printed out map is folded up into quadrants and dog-eared at the corners indicates to me that this answer has lived in his pocket for quite a while.
Of course, since I never looked up this information, I tell him I don't know.
"No?"Then he turned around and left. I went back to playing Tetris.
No.
"You don't know?"
I don't know.
"I'm trying to get to Denver."
Yeah, but I don't know how to get there. I'd follow the map.
[Pointing at the map.] "Do I go this way?"
Looks like it.
"So I go this way?"
Probably. It's about a thousand miles away [wrong] and I've never been to Denver so I don't know.*
"Right. So do I just go this way?"
Yeah, that's about [reconsidering] eight hundred miles away [wrong] and I've never been there. [The actual distance is nine hundred twelve miles.] I'd say Mapquest it or Google Map it.**
"I don't know."
You don't know?
"I don't know."
Well, I don't know either.
"Oh. OK."
* I wanted to find a way to throw out the idea that, you know, the U.S. is a big place. It's not just an hour drive. Like when people think that my being from Bowling Green means I know so-and-so from Toledo which means I know so-and-so from Cleveland or Columbus; I tell them, you know, Ohio's a whole state. We're kind of a big state. We don't all know each other.
** Which you would think would be unnecessary, since he has a Yahoo! Map print out. Mapquest is to web maps as Kleenex is to tissues. How my saying "Mapquest" to you means to strictly use Mapquest is as ridiculous as if I suggested that I would blow my nose in only Kleenex brand tissue.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
"TRON Legacy" trailer.
You need to watch this before it gets yanked from its host site.
Y'all know what I'm doing in 2010.
Y'all know what I'm doing in 2010.
Not Safe For Wednesday
Really. At some point, this will undoubtedly get yanked down. If that should happen, simply Google "Washington State Adult Entertainment Commission".
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
One of Yesterday's Mixing Sessions
| Level | Pan | EQ/Filter | Dynamic | Time-Based | Issues / Notes | |
| Kick | +2.5dB | Midnight | HP ~ 50Hz ~ 50%Q Bell ~ -1.5dB ~ 136Hz ~ 75%Q HS ~ -6dB ~ 616Hz ~ 0%Q | |||
| Snare | -1.5dB | 2330 | Notch ~ 2218Hz ~ 90%Q | |||
| Rack | -7.5dB | 0100 | ||||
| Floor | -7dB | 0130 | ||||
| Hat | -15dB | 2200 | Threshold: -30dB Ratio: 3:1 Attack: 0ms Release: 340ms Gain: +6dB | |||
| Ride | -16.5dB | 0115 | ||||
| Crash | -6dB | 0145 | Notch ~ 800Hz ~ 61%Q | |||
| Bass | AT: -6dB WE: -2dB | AT: 2230 WE: 0015 | LP ~ 2.5kHz ~ 4dB/8ve | Threshold: -14dB Ratio: 2:1 Knee: Soft Attack: 5ms Release: 295ms Gain: +6dB | ||
| "Clean" Jaguar | AT: +2dB WE: -3dB | AT: 0130 WE: 2300 | ||||
| "Treble" Jaguar | AT: -3.5dB WE: 0dB | AT: 2330 WE: 0130 | Idea for the sound came from overloading two channels on a Behringer mixer, running a guitar directly into a channel EQ'd to favor treble and then patching that channel, via aux send, to another channel EQ'd to favor bass. Channel levels were then adjusted to meet unity gain when silent. Because I had no idea how to recreate this on a guitar amp, I just set the fuzz box's distortion level at half way and the tone to full treble to recreate a sound that's just breaking up. | |||
| "Full" Jaguar | AT: -3dB WE: -2dB | AT: 2200 WE: 0200 | Normal settings. Basically, enough distortion to kill an elephant at five hundred yards. | |||
| Second "Clean" Jaguar | AT: -1.5dB WE: -7.5dB | AT: 2230 WE: 0030 | Tremolo added after tracking. | |||
| Wine Glasses | -24dB | Midnight | Quarter note single repeat delay. | Recorded from side rather than above, thus resulting in an amplitude-based LFO effect occuring at double the frequency of the physical excitation of the glasses. | ||
| Bottles | -5dB | Midnight | Quarter note single repeat delay. | Quiet signal. Mixed in behind bass. | ||
| Vocal | 0dB | Midnight | HP ~ 300Hz ~ 6dB/8ve | Gate: Threshold: -33dB Depth: -∞ Attack: 0ms Hold: 120ms Release: 120ms Lookahead: 30ms Compressor: Threshold: -20dB Ratio: 3.33:1 Knee: Soft Attack: 5ms Release: 195ms Gain: +6dB | ||
| "Jazz Drums" | -6dB | Midnight | Brushes arranged in half-time. |
Dave hates this idea.
I, for one, love it. I love it to the point where I'm not beating around the bush telling you about this one, either. I'm remaking Small Wonder.
You bet your ass I'm fuckin' serious.
Here's the plan: I make the pilot episode. Then I pitch it. I sell it. I make money from it. I never have anything to do with it again.
"But Charlie, what makes your version different from the original?"
I'm glad you asked that, inquisitive reader. Here are the major differences:
You know what else? When I was twelve, I'd have fucked a twelve year old fuck-bot. When I was sixteen, I'd have fucked a sixteen year old fuck-bot. When I'm thirty, I'll fuck a thirty year old fuck-bot. And when I'm fifty five, I'm going to fuck a twenty year old fuck-bot. That's how life works. Look, if I've got a fuck-bot that lives in my closet, I'm eventually going to fuck it. I don't see where you're having trouble with this. Can we get back to the bullet pointed list, now, please?
Thank you. God.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ, you're so pedestrian.
Of course, like all great plans, there's a hitch: I need to shoot the pilot. I can not walk into a pitch meeting empty handed. I won't even get a pitch meeting unless I have a multimedia presentation. I have to have something I can slap down on the table and say, "Check the fuck out of this shit out," because all I'm looking to do is sell the idea. Just, "Hey, I've got an idea. It comes with a multimedia presentation. Would you like to buy the idea? Fifty grand. Here you go."
Dave, it should be noted, really does hate this idea.
You bet your ass I'm fuckin' serious.
Here's the plan: I make the pilot episode. Then I pitch it. I sell it. I make money from it. I never have anything to do with it again.
"But Charlie, what makes your version different from the original?"
I'm glad you asked that, inquisitive reader. Here are the major differences:
- Ted Lawson, the dad, is no longer a bumbling robotics technician who assembles Vicki in the bedroom during his down time between getting home and eating dinner. That was straight bullshit. If he was that skilled, he should've gotten that meeting with his boss. No. We're changing this shit. Ted Lawson is now a lowly robotics technician who's been told by the Department of Defense that androids are too hot, politically. Ted "goes rogue" and over the course of months (as indicated by a montage) painstakingly assembles Vicki in his basement lab.
Also, we're going to pick an actor that doesn't look like he drives a molestation van.
Come on. We were all thinking it. - Really, can we make the Joan Lawson bitchier? Because this one has the most empty personality of any TV mom I've ever seen, and that's including The Hogan Family-era Sandy Duncan.
We're getting a whole new mom for this show. She's still going to be supportive of Ted's endeavors, but she won't be no damned dish rag. She's going to make Claire's mom on Heroes look like a regular mouth-breather. - Jamie Lawson is a useless douche. But I dig his Gremlins pyjamas. Can we do something along the lines of making him not being a useless douche? Because without him, there's no reason to have Gremlins pyjamas and those are going to be integral to the show.
Also, he's going to fuck the robot. - Now, about Vicki -
- Now, about Vicki -
- Now, about -
You know what else? When I was twelve, I'd have fucked a twelve year old fuck-bot. When I was sixteen, I'd have fucked a sixteen year old fuck-bot. When I'm thirty, I'll fuck a thirty year old fuck-bot. And when I'm fifty five, I'm going to fuck a twenty year old fuck-bot. That's how life works. Look, if I've got a fuck-bot that lives in my closet, I'm eventually going to fuck it. I don't see where you're having trouble with this. Can we get back to the bullet pointed list, now, please?
Thank you. God.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ, you're so pedestrian.
- Now, about Vicki: Doing only a few things different with her. First of all, I can't trust a little kid to have a computer voice all the time. Therefore, we're running her voice through a vocoder. Secondly, we're updating her technology. No more serial port in her left armpit. We're going with firewire. Thirdly, the "C" in "Voice Input Child Identicant" now stands for "Combat". Because, come on, why the hell was this guy building a little girl robot?
Really.
Of course, like all great plans, there's a hitch: I need to shoot the pilot. I can not walk into a pitch meeting empty handed. I won't even get a pitch meeting unless I have a multimedia presentation. I have to have something I can slap down on the table and say, "Check the fuck out of this shit out," because all I'm looking to do is sell the idea. Just, "Hey, I've got an idea. It comes with a multimedia presentation. Would you like to buy the idea? Fifty grand. Here you go."
Dave, it should be noted, really does hate this idea.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The first three minutes, four seconds of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" video.
Before we go any further, please understand that I didn't want to do a Lady Gaga themed article, but then I saw a picture of her when I was perusing Billboard, which is where I go whenever I have no idea for the day's post and feel like coming away empty handed. Thus following suit; nothing here comes to us courtesy of Billboard. Again.
Fuck you, Billboard. You're worthless and you smell as musty as the Grammies.
So I do a Google Video search because I need to remind myself why I'm supposed to not like anything she does (contributing author Daver has a particularly spiteful payload of vitriol which is aimed in her general direction), and what I find is a bunch of bland bullshit dance-flavored techno-pop of a variety that manages to slap the dick out of Katy Perry's post-Christian-teen-sensation mouth and replace it with a pacifier. Katy Perry might dig some cherry chapstick, Lady Gaga looks at her with a singular cocked eye brow and says, "Chapstick? The fuck, man? I want Eurotrash jizm."
What I'm trying to say is: The bass is a square wave oscillator and a woman is autotune-singing some horribly rhymed stanzas about cock sucking. I think. I really don't venture any further than about twelve seconds into any of these things so if I hear a square wave oscillator bass and something about suckin' cock, I'm going to assume that that's the gist of the entire song. I have no reason to believe otherwise.
Then I encounter this:
Harkening back to the bloated likes of Guns 'N' Roses, Lady Gaga has made one of those "movie videos". Mind you, I watched only the prologue, so I don't know anything about this song but, trust me, this shit is ridiculous on its own.
00:00 - 00:07 - Some tech bullshit that the RIAA probably standardized ten years ago for providing credits and stats that nobody, not even the RIAA cares about. Circle wipe to opening credits.
00:07 - 00:27 - Exterior of a house I doubt Lady Gaga owns (or maybe she does, I am terribly out of touch with the kids these days) with picture postcard font credits.
00:27 - 00:44 - Interior of house, piano in background. Credits indicate that Lady Gaga will be starring in her own video - well, thank the Baby Christ for that - along side some guy named Alexander Skarsgård, who I've never heard of so I Googled him to see if he's important. According to IMDb he's on that True Blood show, which I think is about vampires, but the title reminds me of There Will Be Blood, which was about oil. Lady Gaga at least gets points for not picking someone from the cast of Twilight.
00:44 - 00:47 - First occurence of US$100 bills appearing with Lady Gaga's face on them.
00:47 - 00:56 - Title card. Big, dumb title card. I've seen .gifs animated with more fluidity than this bullshit.
00:56 - 01:20 - Skarsgård is absolutely about crawling all the fuck over Gaga, as they exchange sweet nothings in some indeterminable foreign language. At about 01:02, and I actually have to replay this three times because I can't make heads or tails of it, Gaga says to Skarsgård what clearly sounds like the words "puss puss" which translate, according to the subtitles "kiss kiss". We now know that they are speaking Swedish. We're also granting Lady Gaga a few more points because, really, I've never had a woman say "puss puss" to me while rolling around in bed. Part of me thinks that would be hot until...
01:20 - Second occurence of Lady Gaga's face on United States bank notes, meaning two things: First, why the hell are they speaking Swedish and handling American dollars? Second, if this in the States, that means that she just called to Skarsgård like he was a cat.
01:25 - "Lady Gaga Reaches the Top Yet Again" appears on the front page of a fictional newspaper, The Evening Star. This is in the English language as well, confirming my suspicion that she just called to Skarsgård like a cat.
01:33 - Porno gasp is heard, shot of mounted ram's head on a wall is displayed. Taxidermy is sexy to the Swedes.
01:51 - Gaga fleetingly looks like the hairdresser. Hopefully, she can even briefly fuck better.
01:52 - It is revealed that Skarsgård is going for the danger-fuck. Kinkster that I am, I cannot abide by the danger-fuck. There's just something about being responsible for somebody not falling off a railing that kills my boner.
This kid's dad didn't have a boner for two years. It should be noted that two years was also the amount of time both parents spent in court once Child Protective Services heard about the great job they did of keeping their kid from hopping the damned railing.
01:55 - First requisite camera view finder POV shot.
01:57 - Skarsgård asks Gaga if she trusts him. Because he's holding her. On a railing. And he's about to thrust his penis into her in a direction that would lead to the not-safe side of the railing.
01:58 - Lady Gaga answers incorrectly.
Do I need to point this out again?
02:00 - Skarsgård starts jamming Gaga's head all over the fucking place like he's trying to shake a baby to stop it from crying. (I'm just full of bad parenting jokes this afternoon.)
02:02 - Second requisite camera view finder POV shot. This is from a different angle.
02:03 - Skarsgård is distracted. Why is he distracted? He has Lady Gaga's life in his hands. OK, well, actually he's got Lady Gaga's head in his hands but, still, hombre, you're going for the danger-fuck. There has never been a more appropriate time for you to pay attention to what the hell you are doing!
02:05 - In the third requisite camera view finder POV shot, we see that Skarsgård is looking at the first photographer from 01:55.
02:06 - Lady Gaga can sense something is wrong. Is it her beau's distraction? Is it her ass cheeks veering dangerously closer to the edge of the not-safe side of the railing? Is it because nobody in the throes of passion needs to be sporting that much bling?
02:07 - Lady Gaga begins struggling. Fourth requisite camera view finder POV shot occurs from the photographer at 02:02. Skarsgård is clearly seen moving his hands to the appropriate area for making sure his danger-fuck does not go awry: the waist.
02:08 - Lady Gaga forgets the safe word, hopes Skarsgård takes her seriously.
02:10 - A third photographer joins us for our fifth camera view finder POV shot. Skarsgård is seen just kind of holding Gaga, not really trying to do anything about keeping her from squirming all over the damned place. On a railing. That's really high up.
Assume Colonel Klink voice and say: Skarsgård!!!
02:11 - Struggle ensues. On a railing. That's really high up. Most normal people would probably do the sensible thing and consider not engaging in the danger-fuck at about this point. Most normal people would endure a life of being called a pussy by their ignorant and not-as-adventurous-anyway friends every time the subject of the "aborted danger-fuck" came up, secure in knowing that nobody fucking died on account of the blasted idea rather than actually trying to corral a lover squirming like a four year old at the barber's for the first time and watching them plummet to their death.
Skarsgård is not a normal person.
02:13 - Requisite camera view finder POV shots now occurring with alarming frequency. Skarsgård is grabbing Gaga by the face now. I think it's pretty safe to say that even a safety-fuck is out of the question at this point.
02:15 - Skarsgård tells Gaga to look into the camera as he puts her at a 45o angle over the not-safe side of the fucking railing. I'm having trouble deciding if this is an idiot or a dick move.
02:16 - Gaga asks Skarsgård what he's doing. From the looks of things, he's not keeping a very good grip on her.
02:17 - Skarsgård looks in to camera with this look on his face as though to say, are you getting this?
02:18 - Gaga again says, "Stop". Skarsgård goes for the throat.
02:19 - Concern for Gaga's safety at this point manifests itself as a lump in my throat. Really, pause that shit at 02:19 and tell me that any of this shit looked like it could have possibly been misconstrued as a good idea.
I bet this kid thought it was an awesome idea, too.
02:19 - 02:22 - Holy crap!
02:23 - Gaga slugs Skarsgård. Hate to break it to you, Gaga, but right now, seeing as how he's the one with your life in his hands, punching him might not be such a hot idea.
02:26 - Skarsgård retaliates against Gaga's insolence by cocking her over the railing at 90o.
02:28 - Gaga is done fucking around. She indicates this by breaking the champagne on Skarsgård's head. Skarsgård amazingly does not lose his grip...
02:29 - Instead, he just throws the bitch over the railing.
02:29 - 02:34 - Skarsgård is pretty smug for having just committed second degree murder with witness. With cameras.
02:35 - 02:55 - Circle wipe to Lady Gaga falling against a pop art background that was cool the first time I saw it without the pop art background. When it was in the Evil Dead trilogy.
02:55 - Lady Gaga's body, displaying a preposterous absence of blood, is surrounded by photographers, none of whom seem to be saying to each other, "Uh, guys, you think we should take this shit with Skarsgård, you know, killing somebody to the cops?"
02:58 - The Evening Star headline reads: "Lady Gaga Hits Rock Bottom". Accompanying photograph looks like the fucking Black Dahlia murder.
02:58 - 03:04 - Montage of newspaper headlines and photographers not doing shit like calling 911 or trying to help or chasing down Skarsgård.
03:04 - Music begins, I lose interest.
Fuck you, Billboard. You're worthless and you smell as musty as the Grammies.
So I do a Google Video search because I need to remind myself why I'm supposed to not like anything she does (contributing author Daver has a particularly spiteful payload of vitriol which is aimed in her general direction), and what I find is a bunch of bland bullshit dance-flavored techno-pop of a variety that manages to slap the dick out of Katy Perry's post-Christian-teen-sensation mouth and replace it with a pacifier. Katy Perry might dig some cherry chapstick, Lady Gaga looks at her with a singular cocked eye brow and says, "Chapstick? The fuck, man? I want Eurotrash jizm."
What I'm trying to say is: The bass is a square wave oscillator and a woman is autotune-singing some horribly rhymed stanzas about cock sucking. I think. I really don't venture any further than about twelve seconds into any of these things so if I hear a square wave oscillator bass and something about suckin' cock, I'm going to assume that that's the gist of the entire song. I have no reason to believe otherwise.
Then I encounter this:
Harkening back to the bloated likes of Guns 'N' Roses, Lady Gaga has made one of those "movie videos". Mind you, I watched only the prologue, so I don't know anything about this song but, trust me, this shit is ridiculous on its own.
00:00 - 00:07 - Some tech bullshit that the RIAA probably standardized ten years ago for providing credits and stats that nobody, not even the RIAA cares about. Circle wipe to opening credits.
00:07 - 00:27 - Exterior of a house I doubt Lady Gaga owns (or maybe she does, I am terribly out of touch with the kids these days) with picture postcard font credits.
00:27 - 00:44 - Interior of house, piano in background. Credits indicate that Lady Gaga will be starring in her own video - well, thank the Baby Christ for that - along side some guy named Alexander Skarsgård, who I've never heard of so I Googled him to see if he's important. According to IMDb he's on that True Blood show, which I think is about vampires, but the title reminds me of There Will Be Blood, which was about oil. Lady Gaga at least gets points for not picking someone from the cast of Twilight.
00:44 - 00:47 - First occurence of US$100 bills appearing with Lady Gaga's face on them.
00:47 - 00:56 - Title card. Big, dumb title card. I've seen .gifs animated with more fluidity than this bullshit.
00:56 - 01:20 - Skarsgård is absolutely about crawling all the fuck over Gaga, as they exchange sweet nothings in some indeterminable foreign language. At about 01:02, and I actually have to replay this three times because I can't make heads or tails of it, Gaga says to Skarsgård what clearly sounds like the words "puss puss" which translate, according to the subtitles "kiss kiss". We now know that they are speaking Swedish. We're also granting Lady Gaga a few more points because, really, I've never had a woman say "puss puss" to me while rolling around in bed. Part of me thinks that would be hot until...
01:20 - Second occurence of Lady Gaga's face on United States bank notes, meaning two things: First, why the hell are they speaking Swedish and handling American dollars? Second, if this in the States, that means that she just called to Skarsgård like he was a cat.
01:25 - "Lady Gaga Reaches the Top Yet Again" appears on the front page of a fictional newspaper, The Evening Star. This is in the English language as well, confirming my suspicion that she just called to Skarsgård like a cat.
01:33 - Porno gasp is heard, shot of mounted ram's head on a wall is displayed. Taxidermy is sexy to the Swedes.
01:51 - Gaga fleetingly looks like the hairdresser. Hopefully, she can even briefly fuck better.
01:52 - It is revealed that Skarsgård is going for the danger-fuck. Kinkster that I am, I cannot abide by the danger-fuck. There's just something about being responsible for somebody not falling off a railing that kills my boner.
This kid's dad didn't have a boner for two years. It should be noted that two years was also the amount of time both parents spent in court once Child Protective Services heard about the great job they did of keeping their kid from hopping the damned railing.
01:55 - First requisite camera view finder POV shot.
01:57 - Skarsgård asks Gaga if she trusts him. Because he's holding her. On a railing. And he's about to thrust his penis into her in a direction that would lead to the not-safe side of the railing.
01:58 - Lady Gaga answers incorrectly.
Do I need to point this out again?
02:00 - Skarsgård starts jamming Gaga's head all over the fucking place like he's trying to shake a baby to stop it from crying. (I'm just full of bad parenting jokes this afternoon.)
02:02 - Second requisite camera view finder POV shot. This is from a different angle.
02:03 - Skarsgård is distracted. Why is he distracted? He has Lady Gaga's life in his hands. OK, well, actually he's got Lady Gaga's head in his hands but, still, hombre, you're going for the danger-fuck. There has never been a more appropriate time for you to pay attention to what the hell you are doing!
02:05 - In the third requisite camera view finder POV shot, we see that Skarsgård is looking at the first photographer from 01:55.
02:06 - Lady Gaga can sense something is wrong. Is it her beau's distraction? Is it her ass cheeks veering dangerously closer to the edge of the not-safe side of the railing? Is it because nobody in the throes of passion needs to be sporting that much bling?
02:07 - Lady Gaga begins struggling. Fourth requisite camera view finder POV shot occurs from the photographer at 02:02. Skarsgård is clearly seen moving his hands to the appropriate area for making sure his danger-fuck does not go awry: the waist.
02:08 - Lady Gaga forgets the safe word, hopes Skarsgård takes her seriously.
02:10 - A third photographer joins us for our fifth camera view finder POV shot. Skarsgård is seen just kind of holding Gaga, not really trying to do anything about keeping her from squirming all over the damned place. On a railing. That's really high up.
Assume Colonel Klink voice and say: Skarsgård!!!
02:11 - Struggle ensues. On a railing. That's really high up. Most normal people would probably do the sensible thing and consider not engaging in the danger-fuck at about this point. Most normal people would endure a life of being called a pussy by their ignorant and not-as-adventurous-anyway friends every time the subject of the "aborted danger-fuck" came up, secure in knowing that nobody fucking died on account of the blasted idea rather than actually trying to corral a lover squirming like a four year old at the barber's for the first time and watching them plummet to their death.
Skarsgård is not a normal person.
02:13 - Requisite camera view finder POV shots now occurring with alarming frequency. Skarsgård is grabbing Gaga by the face now. I think it's pretty safe to say that even a safety-fuck is out of the question at this point.
02:15 - Skarsgård tells Gaga to look into the camera as he puts her at a 45o angle over the not-safe side of the fucking railing. I'm having trouble deciding if this is an idiot or a dick move.
02:16 - Gaga asks Skarsgård what he's doing. From the looks of things, he's not keeping a very good grip on her.
02:17 - Skarsgård looks in to camera with this look on his face as though to say, are you getting this?
02:18 - Gaga again says, "Stop". Skarsgård goes for the throat.
02:19 - Concern for Gaga's safety at this point manifests itself as a lump in my throat. Really, pause that shit at 02:19 and tell me that any of this shit looked like it could have possibly been misconstrued as a good idea.
I bet this kid thought it was an awesome idea, too.
02:19 - 02:22 - Holy crap!
02:23 - Gaga slugs Skarsgård. Hate to break it to you, Gaga, but right now, seeing as how he's the one with your life in his hands, punching him might not be such a hot idea.
02:26 - Skarsgård retaliates against Gaga's insolence by cocking her over the railing at 90o.
02:28 - Gaga is done fucking around. She indicates this by breaking the champagne on Skarsgård's head. Skarsgård amazingly does not lose his grip...
02:29 - Instead, he just throws the bitch over the railing.
02:29 - 02:34 - Skarsgård is pretty smug for having just committed second degree murder with witness. With cameras.
02:35 - 02:55 - Circle wipe to Lady Gaga falling against a pop art background that was cool the first time I saw it without the pop art background. When it was in the Evil Dead trilogy.
02:55 - Lady Gaga's body, displaying a preposterous absence of blood, is surrounded by photographers, none of whom seem to be saying to each other, "Uh, guys, you think we should take this shit with Skarsgård, you know, killing somebody to the cops?"
02:58 - The Evening Star headline reads: "Lady Gaga Hits Rock Bottom". Accompanying photograph looks like the fucking Black Dahlia murder.
02:58 - 03:04 - Montage of newspaper headlines and photographers not doing shit like calling 911 or trying to help or chasing down Skarsgård.
03:04 - Music begins, I lose interest.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Yesterday's Tracking Session
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Then there were some huge-assed fireworks coming from downtown or over by the river for the Aquatennial. Those were cool.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
My role in the travel food chain.
So here's my current problem: I am surrounded by beautiful women. We have the aforementioned French Canadian Sparkle Motion gang, we have a pair of just-turned-twenty-one-and-love-Watermelon-Pucker Latinas from Kansas, and we have what looks to be a woman closer to my age who has enough fashion know-how to make a striped sweater work with a plaid skirt, then she ties it together with cowboy boots and accessorizes the ensemble with a bandanna around the neck.
It's almost like if this guy had a nightmare about Gary Cooper fucking Cindy Lauper.So there's my dilemma: I'm surrounded by a half-dozen women of varying ethnicity and age. And you know who's checking me out? None of them, no.
There's an eleven year old, or at least she's probably eleven, I figure she's either ten or twelve so I split the difference, who keeps sneaking little peaks at me. Honestly, it's kind of cute because I remember when I was that age and I was exposed to social situations where I had to interact minimally with women more than twice my age while being dragged along on vacation with my parents to any number of eight-hour-drive-away events in which neither my brother or I were interested. The hot waitress, the hot front desk lady, the hot snow cone girl, didn't matter; who ever she was offered a brief day dream escape from the stifling circumstances which was having to stay tethered to my parents and doofy-assed brother in 98oF* heat to walk around whatever Miles Of Quilts Inside A Sheet-Metal Hangar Expo was occuring that year that my mom was losing her nut over and the old man would stand with my brother and I outside, chomping incessantly on one Winston after another, probably internally cursing the heat while out loud making damned sure that Joe and I knew better than to go about causing trouble which was an impossible feat when you consider neither of us was allowed more than a half a yard away from him. Really, Dad, would it have been so bad to give Joe and I each a buck or two and let us go to one of the freak shows or something at the county fair so we could marvel at the ingenuity of stuffing a fake kitten into a jar? Would it have been so bad? Huh?
Pictured: The source of my stunted sense of individual development and overinflated mistrust of the outside world. On the bright side, at least he didn't wear a fanny pack.So, yeah, I get it. I get that this kid has been in the back seat of a car with parents who don't believe in air conditioning (Hey, it's what they told me when I asked if I could adjust the room temperature for them.) for hours innumerable and has finally come across an unrelated male of the species. I get that. I'm not going to gripe about some kid finally being granted subject matter about which she can day dream while she's here to visit her mom's second cousin or some other relative that she's never met that makes macaroni salad with apples in it and has weird TV stations. She's got something to focus on other than the fact that her dad wears a fanny pack. Cool. I'm not bothered by that; the way I see it, I'm a part of a long chain of travel industry workers that serve as day dream fodder for children who were never asked what they really wanted to do on a vacation. It's like I'm repaying my debt to society; for those women who are now probably a good deal into their late thirties / early forties who tolerated the eleven year old me peaking at them around corners, I now accept my role.
What I am bothered about is that, in the entire time that I've worked here, there has been only one woman my damned age who showed even the most passing of interest in me, and I think she was just being friendly. As in "friend". As in "nobody's gettin' in anybody's pants tonight". One woman. My type. More importantly (at least in the context of this post), my age. Happened just once. Months ago. Winter. Never saw her again. Never exchanged email addresses or...
At any rate, I'm surrounded by a half dozen beautiful women, none of whom show any particular interest in me.
*That's not "Fahrenheit", that's "Fuckin'".
ADDENDUM: You've gotta check this shit out.
It's almost like if this guy had a nightmare about Gary Cooper fucking Cindy Lauper.
There's an eleven year old, or at least she's probably eleven, I figure she's either ten or twelve so I split the difference, who keeps sneaking little peaks at me. Honestly, it's kind of cute because I remember when I was that age and I was exposed to social situations where I had to interact minimally with women more than twice my age while being dragged along on vacation with my parents to any number of eight-hour-drive-away events in which neither my brother or I were interested. The hot waitress, the hot front desk lady, the hot snow cone girl, didn't matter; who ever she was offered a brief day dream escape from the stifling circumstances which was having to stay tethered to my parents and doofy-assed brother in 98oF* heat to walk around whatever Miles Of Quilts Inside A Sheet-Metal Hangar Expo was occuring that year that my mom was losing her nut over and the old man would stand with my brother and I outside, chomping incessantly on one Winston after another, probably internally cursing the heat while out loud making damned sure that Joe and I knew better than to go about causing trouble which was an impossible feat when you consider neither of us was allowed more than a half a yard away from him. Really, Dad, would it have been so bad to give Joe and I each a buck or two and let us go to one of the freak shows or something at the county fair so we could marvel at the ingenuity of stuffing a fake kitten into a jar? Would it have been so bad? Huh?
Pictured: The source of my stunted sense of individual development and overinflated mistrust of the outside world. On the bright side, at least he didn't wear a fanny pack.
What I am bothered about is that, in the entire time that I've worked here, there has been only one woman my damned age who showed even the most passing of interest in me, and I think she was just being friendly. As in "friend". As in "nobody's gettin' in anybody's pants tonight". One woman. My type. More importantly (at least in the context of this post), my age. Happened just once. Months ago. Winter. Never saw her again. Never exchanged email addresses or...
At any rate, I'm surrounded by a half dozen beautiful women, none of whom show any particular interest in me.
*That's not "Fahrenheit", that's "Fuckin'".
ADDENDUM: You've gotta check this shit out.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Yes. I did take a picture of my cooking.
 | That's one of the vegetarian stuffed peppers I made yesterday. It's a green bell lined with colby jack and stuffed with a homemade beans and rice concoction that involved corn, red and green chilies, diced white onion and the green bell top, seasoned with minced garlic, cumin, and ground corriander. (And butter. I mean, can you season things with butter? 'Cause I do.) Then topped with slices of colby jack and a slice of white onion. Wrapped in foil and placed in an oven while the oven began preheating to 450oF, then given and extra five minutes for good measure. Cheese was nice and stringy and the pepper was hot but still crisp. Wound up splashing a bit of hot sauce on it. |
Yesterday's Hostel Incident Reports
- At approximately 2120CDT, an unidentified male telephoned the hostel office with an inquiry. What follows is an as-close-to-verbatim-as-memory-allows transcript of the telephone exchange between said unidentified male and the staff on duty.
[phone rings]
Minneapolis International Hostel.
"Hi! I'm actually on my way to your Chicago location and I left my shampoo at your Minneapolis location and I was wondering if you could ship that over to me."
What?
"Well, I'm on my way to your Chicago location -"
Sir, we don't have a Chicago location.
"It's called Chicago International Hostel."
Right. We're Minneapolis International Hostel.
"Yeah and I'm going to your Chicago location."
Oh, we're not a franchise, sir; you know anybody can put 'international' in their business name, it's just -
"Yeah, but I made my reservations through the same site."
Hostelworld.com?
"Yeah."
That's just the site we use for our booking, sir.
"Oh. OK. Well, can you still send the shampoo to me?"
[pause]
"I mean -"
Uh... uh... no.
"No?"
That's just not something we do. I mean, you gotta understand that we're not going to take time away from our jobs to go down to the post office with a bottle of shampoo and then have to pay for - I mean, is it a prescription shampoo?
"No, no."
No?
"No, I just feel bad about leaving it behind."
[pause]
"You know -"
And you're in Chicago, sir?
"Well, I'm on my way there, now."
I'm fairly certain you can procure more shampoo in Chicago, sir.
"Right, I mean -"
You know shipping on the shampoo is going to cost more than just buying a new bottle of shampoo.
"Oh, I'd pay for shipping, I mean -"
Right, because we'd expect you to reimburse us, but the cost would outweigh the benefits. I'd recommend you just buy another bottle of shampoo.
"So, you won't ship me the shampoo?"
No, that's just not something we do.
"Oh."
[pause]
"Well, thanks, I guess."
Yeah, have a good night.
[end communique] - After closing, staff was off duty, outside with "regulars" enjoying alcoholic beverages. At approximately 2220CDT, an unidentified male approached the porch at the rear of the hostel. Displaying a Nordic accent, the man inquired as to how enter the hostel. Staff on duty did not identify himself as an employee, instead telling this man, "Yeah, they close at ten."
Unidentified man claimed to have made a reservation "a minute ago" and had tried contacting the office on both lines to no avail.
Staff, still not identifying himself, informed the man that the office closed at ten and that the website mentions this in four places. The man then asked to confirm, "So there's nobody in there who can let me in?"
He was informed that there was indeed not anybody. Staff repeated, "Because, yeah, they close at ten. They, start checking people in again at one."
Unidentified man stated, "That doesn't help me," and then left. - At approximately 2250-2255, two unidentified males approached the porch at the rear of the hostel. One of them, displaying a nondescript European accent, asked, "Is there nobody in the hostel?"
Staff, after two Beck's and a shot of Smirnoff, still not identifying himself, replied, "Hostel's closed."
The man asked, "For good?" to which the staff clarified that it was only for the night. The man asked, "So there's nobody to check me in?"
Staff reminded the man that it is mentioned in four places on the website, mentioned repeatedly over the phone, and then stated again in confirmation emails that the office closes at ten.
The man stated, "But we had a reservation!"
Staff, still not identifying himself but dangerously close to playing his hand said, "Right, but they close at ten."
The unidentified men left.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Some things in life, you just can't explain.
Like when somebody invites somebody else out right in front of you and tells you that you're not invited because it's "not your thing", then they call you up and ask you for directions to said event to which you were not invited.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Charlie vs. Canadian Dancers
Already, right out of the gate, two barely legal French Canadian broads came in wearing matching short shorts and track jackets (in red, with white stripes on the sleeves and "CANADA" in block letters on the back) asking for the updated access code. So I give them the new code and send them on their collective way, which is more than certainly down to the convention center where this year's sixty-seventh Sparkle Motion gathering is going down.
That's not saying that this is the sixty-seventh year there's been a teenage dance troupe convention, that's saying that this is the sixty-seventh time this year.
OK, so sixty seven is an exaggeration, the number is probably closer to six or seven, but that's still a lot of teenage girl dance troupin'. And of course, all the Yankee girls have to get all snooty and have Mommy (because you know Daddy don't give a shit about no dance troupe) pay for a room at the Hilton which is connected directly to the convention center via the Skyway, so they can get to and fro without having to worry about ever interacting with the scummy outside world that is Minneapolis, the world capital of violent crime against teenage girl dance troupes.
French Canadian women, however, have already had a hard enough time crossing over the border and want something a little nicer, homier, more classically refined than the Hilton to calm their nerves since, after all, they've been dance-training for the express purpose of going to compete on foreign soil, so they make the mistake of checking into this dump.
Am I griping about the presence of French Canadian jail bait? No. Would you?
What I will gripe about is the group of five Manitoban hipsters who came to town for the Sonic Youth show last night with their ripped girl-pants, multiple bandannas, and weed-whacker-accident haircuts practicing karate-kick-dance-moves out in the living room out in the living room until I showed up with my Vietnam-era fatigue pants and shaved head at the first sound of somebody falling on their ass, because I run shit like that.
Boss Lady, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she is on her morning off, came walking through as I poked my head in the living room, giving the subtle and wordless yet still authoritarian indication that, "Hey, fellas, I like Sonic Youth and Bruce Lee, too. But I'm in charge, this is not a dojo, and if you want to dance, the Convention Center is six blocks that way. Don't worry, those girl pants you're all wearing will easily pass for tights.
"Oh, and not one of you looks like you could hold down an actual adult job with those dumb-assed haircuts. Enjoy the freedom of childhood while you can."
Yes, that was indeed the message I wanted them to infer from my presence. Boss Lady shoots me a look as though to say, "Is everything all right?", I shrug toward her as though to say, "Nothing I can't handle," and Haircut 100 out there just kind of stood in a semi-circle not immediately grasping the wordless, draconian, platonic boss/underling love that just occured, though knowing full well that they shouldn't be practicing whatever figure skater bullshit they were trying to perfect.
One of them, a blonde unibrowed chap who appeared to have rented out time in wind tunnel where he could stand sideways to get his hair to stick out to the side at 90o, came into the office and asked, "Hey, I gotta question before we go. That little tree out back? With all the little black berries? What's that called?"
I told him I didn't know, then jokingly added that I wouldn't eat the berries.
Flock of Seagulls replied, "Uh... Oh." Looking at his friends with worried yet composed panic he said, "I guess I'll be fine."
The seven foot tall one sporting something between a pompadour and a fauxhawk said, "The squirrels were going nuts for those."
Yup.
"Alright. Thanks, man," as he took off to get back in the car to Canada.
If this kid really did eat the berries, I doubt they'll get as far as Brainerd before the kid starts convulsing like that scene in Total Recall.
That's not saying that this is the sixty-seventh year there's been a teenage dance troupe convention, that's saying that this is the sixty-seventh time this year.
OK, so sixty seven is an exaggeration, the number is probably closer to six or seven, but that's still a lot of teenage girl dance troupin'. And of course, all the Yankee girls have to get all snooty and have Mommy (because you know Daddy don't give a shit about no dance troupe) pay for a room at the Hilton which is connected directly to the convention center via the Skyway, so they can get to and fro without having to worry about ever interacting with the scummy outside world that is Minneapolis, the world capital of violent crime against teenage girl dance troupes.
French Canadian women, however, have already had a hard enough time crossing over the border and want something a little nicer, homier, more classically refined than the Hilton to calm their nerves since, after all, they've been dance-training for the express purpose of going to compete on foreign soil, so they make the mistake of checking into this dump.
Am I griping about the presence of French Canadian jail bait? No. Would you?
What I will gripe about is the group of five Manitoban hipsters who came to town for the Sonic Youth show last night with their ripped girl-pants, multiple bandannas, and weed-whacker-accident haircuts practicing karate-kick-dance-moves out in the living room out in the living room until I showed up with my Vietnam-era fatigue pants and shaved head at the first sound of somebody falling on their ass, because I run shit like that.
Boss Lady, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she is on her morning off, came walking through as I poked my head in the living room, giving the subtle and wordless yet still authoritarian indication that, "Hey, fellas, I like Sonic Youth and Bruce Lee, too. But I'm in charge, this is not a dojo, and if you want to dance, the Convention Center is six blocks that way. Don't worry, those girl pants you're all wearing will easily pass for tights.
"Oh, and not one of you looks like you could hold down an actual adult job with those dumb-assed haircuts. Enjoy the freedom of childhood while you can."
Yes, that was indeed the message I wanted them to infer from my presence. Boss Lady shoots me a look as though to say, "Is everything all right?", I shrug toward her as though to say, "Nothing I can't handle," and Haircut 100 out there just kind of stood in a semi-circle not immediately grasping the wordless, draconian, platonic boss/underling love that just occured, though knowing full well that they shouldn't be practicing whatever figure skater bullshit they were trying to perfect.
One of them, a blonde unibrowed chap who appeared to have rented out time in wind tunnel where he could stand sideways to get his hair to stick out to the side at 90o, came into the office and asked, "Hey, I gotta question before we go. That little tree out back? With all the little black berries? What's that called?"
I told him I didn't know, then jokingly added that I wouldn't eat the berries.
Flock of Seagulls replied, "Uh... Oh." Looking at his friends with worried yet composed panic he said, "I guess I'll be fine."
The seven foot tall one sporting something between a pompadour and a fauxhawk said, "The squirrels were going nuts for those."
Let's go back through that, paraphrasingly:I'm sitting here at the desk wondering if I should call poison control or the hospital or what for Flowbee over here when the four out of the five of them that congregated in the office decided to just leave en masse; a minute and a half later, the one who had enough sense to wear a hat came in and said, "My buddies leave?"
Jack-off Number 1: "I just ate some shit that might make our trip back to Manitoba a certifiably bowel-shaking hell-storm of cold-sweats, delusions, and shit-pants."
Jack-off Number 2: "Yeah, squirrels love that shit."
Yup.
"Alright. Thanks, man," as he took off to get back in the car to Canada.
If this kid really did eat the berries, I doubt they'll get as far as Brainerd before the kid starts convulsing like that scene in Total Recall.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
An unexpected rainy day.
Haven't had one for a while so, today, I'm couching it. A few sandwiches, a few cocktails, a couple episodes of Parking Wars and Operation Repo. I dunno, maybe later I'll hit the studio, but all I really need to do is lay down vocals.
Actually found a few older pieces and have been sifting through the latest sessions to pick and choose what's going on this new record. The original version of "Death Rattle On Murgatroid" (titled simply "Murgatroid") will be rearing its ugly head in its original form, which was a batch of tape experiments splicing together portions of older KRAKOA songs that were actually just noises; klings und klangs from between ze notes.
Since these tape splices are from older sessions (read: from when I had no idea what the fuck I was doing), the drums are absolutely squashed (and subsequently blurred) by multi-band compression and the bass lacks low end.
To add definition, I did three things:
| Saturday | Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | |
| Track | ||||
| Mix | Editin'. | Editin'. | Nothin'. | Intendin' to do nothin'. |
Since these tape splices are from older sessions (read: from when I had no idea what the fuck I was doing), the drums are absolutely squashed (and subsequently blurred) by multi-band compression and the bass lacks low end.
To add definition, I did three things:
- Despite that it's near impossible to expand something once it's compressed, I threw an expander on the old rendered track.
- On top of the old, over-compressed drums, I threw across a new drum program, uncompressed and with no reverberation.
- Under the old bass track, I put a sine-wave oscillator mimicing the bassline.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Really should've posted this yesterday.
 | Yesterday, since I turned 281/2, I decided to shave my head right down to the scalp. Of course, having 281/2 years worth of hair means my scalp has never been subjected to a blade, resulting in my skin peeling a bit. Here's what I propose, though: Aside from trimming things up around the edges and keeping things neat, I will not cut my hair or shave my beard from here until my birthday proper. Every month on the 19th, I will document the hair growth here. |
Great Moments In Space Exploration
Forty years ago today, the United States of Fucking America put a man on the moon. Let's take a look at the moments that lead up to this awesome event the only way we can do it at Sound Design and Assembly.
1945: Wernher von Braun, a noted Nazi rocket scientist, surrenders to the U.S.
To work with Walt Disney.
1957: After years of just blasting shit into space, the Soviets (then known as Commies) got the idea to shoot a dog into space because, apparently, common sense dictates... uh... Wait, what? At any rate, Laika is the first mammal to orbit the Earth and the first mammal to die orbiting the Earth. She has since been memorialized on countless Soviet postage stamps and in one Arcade Fire song. Sort of.
1958: Despite the U.S. having a massive "let's-shoot-some-monkeys-into-space-just-to-see-how-high-we-can-shoot-a-monkey-into-space" fetish since 1952, Gordo, a squirrel monkey, is one of the first monkeys shot into space. He and his craft are never retrieved after the parachute failed to open upon re-entry. He and his buddies were regularly strapped into harnesses that made them look like Darkman.
1960: Rocket scientist Mikhail Yangel steps away for a smoke while his superior officer, Chief Marshall of Artillery Mitrofan Nedelin pulls up a lawn chair to get fucking disintergrated by flaming acid in what is now known as the Nedelin Catastrophe. Yangel goes on to blame himself for the death of roughly one hundred twenty people, despite that it was Nedelin's impatience that lead to the disaster seen below.
1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to orbit the Earth, thus earning him more metal around his neck than Mr. T.
1969: The U.S., ever jealous of Russian bling, says, "Fuck that," and puts men on the moon. A lot. Ad nauseum, even.
Just look at Google Moon to get a sense of good ol' fashioned U.S. overkill.
Points between 1969 and 1996: Rocks collected. Pictures taken. Shit blows up. Funding goes down the toilet.
1996: Please enjoy this video of Buzz Aldrin putting some pip-squeak conspiracy theorist in his place after he calls Aldrin "a coward, a liar, and a thief".
Aldrin is sixty six years old in this video. Anyway, Aldrin was tricked into being told that he would be speaking on a Japanese children's television program about space or science or some such crap and when he showed up, Bart Sibrel appeared trying to get Aldrin to swear on a bible that the moon landing never occured.
1945: Wernher von Braun, a noted Nazi rocket scientist, surrenders to the U.S.
To work with Walt Disney.
1957: After years of just blasting shit into space, the Soviets (then known as Commies) got the idea to shoot a dog into space because, apparently, common sense dictates... uh... Wait, what? At any rate, Laika is the first mammal to orbit the Earth and the first mammal to die orbiting the Earth. She has since been memorialized on countless Soviet postage stamps and in one Arcade Fire song. Sort of.
1958: Despite the U.S. having a massive "let's-shoot-some-monkeys-into-space-just-to-see-how-high-we-can-shoot-a-monkey-into-space" fetish since 1952, Gordo, a squirrel monkey, is one of the first monkeys shot into space. He and his craft are never retrieved after the parachute failed to open upon re-entry. He and his buddies were regularly strapped into harnesses that made them look like Darkman.
1960: Rocket scientist Mikhail Yangel steps away for a smoke while his superior officer, Chief Marshall of Artillery Mitrofan Nedelin pulls up a lawn chair to get fucking disintergrated by flaming acid in what is now known as the Nedelin Catastrophe. Yangel goes on to blame himself for the death of roughly one hundred twenty people, despite that it was Nedelin's impatience that lead to the disaster seen below.
1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to orbit the Earth, thus earning him more metal around his neck than Mr. T.
1969: The U.S., ever jealous of Russian bling, says, "Fuck that," and puts men on the moon. A lot. Ad nauseum, even.
Points between 1969 and 1996: Rocks collected. Pictures taken. Shit blows up. Funding goes down the toilet.
1996: Please enjoy this video of Buzz Aldrin putting some pip-squeak conspiracy theorist in his place after he calls Aldrin "a coward, a liar, and a thief".
Aldrin is sixty six years old in this video. Anyway, Aldrin was tricked into being told that he would be speaking on a Japanese children's television program about space or science or some such crap and when he showed up, Bart Sibrel appeared trying to get Aldrin to swear on a bible that the moon landing never occured.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
It's my half-birthday. Can't I get at least half a piece of ass?
Believe me, for a minute I was going to cop out and simply re-post the original half-birthday post, but I really don't feel like doing that.
Today's plans essentially involve a little bit of practice, a little bit of grilling, and a six pack of Killian's Irish Red. This half-birthday, I'm flying solo because... well... look they can't all be winners okay?
There is a fetching, lanky Irish woman in the hostel at present who is due for departure within two hours. Her accent is thick as hell and gets the Mick in me going. Her last name, O'Byrne, she pronounces as O-BUY-urrnh. I don't know, though; she has a 651 area code, so it's not like this is the last chance I would have to ever see her again.
But listen to me. Jeeze-Louise. I don't get any for two and a half weeks and I start talking about a woman for whom I made a reservation and saw once in passing like that? Jeeze-Louise, I really am hard up. I didn't even tell you guys about the Swiss butterface. I mean really. Hard up. When all you're basing it on is the accent? That's hard up. Well, there's the accent and the fact that I could walk away saying, "Yeah, I nailed a Swiss butterface." Any of you motherfuckers ever nail a Swiss butterface? No. No you haven't nailed a Swiss butterface. So if I nail a Swiss butterface in the next few days, don't hate. Would I prefer the Irish beanpole out there in the kitchen? Yes, yes I would. But that's not to say that I would not give the Swiss butterface a good ol' fashioned Rogerin'. Just hit it from the back and make her sing "Schweizerpsalm".
Of course, you have to keep in mind that these eroto-humorous constructions are based on the popular misconception that this is a supreme tail getting job. Allow me to debunk the myth.
First of all, nobody's really all that interested in the staff, nobody intelligent or sane anyway. The piece of ass that Georgie picked up was a U.S. Marine who had no earthly idea what the fuck a crossword puzzle was (seriously). The one woman that was interested in me was a seventeen year old molestation victim. Guests are interested in other guests because it's a hell of a lot more convenient to keep your partner from that one nocturne of indiscretion on the other side of the globe. And hey, just like I focus more on the Swiss part than the butterface part, the guests are sitting there thinking "I've never banged a nine-fingered Israeli." I mean, come on. When you're confronted by the choice between a Minnesotan and a nine-fingered Israeli, which would you pick? Why fuck one of us when you can get some ass from a New Zealander? And you know what the Kiwi's thinking: "Let's see. I'm here for a week. I have plenty of time to fuck a Minnesotan. But there's a Texan right here for only two nights. I've never fucked a Texan." And believe me, that I'm actually an Ohioan is actually a bigger turn off to the lady-guests.
Second of all (here we go), we live in a patriarchy, which means women are not out to fuck by virtue of their gender. In fact, the reason why it's harder for guys to get a piece of ass than it is for women is precisely because women get bombarded with sexual advances quite regularly to the point of repulsion. That is why the "anonymous traveler" fantasy is near purely male. Unless, of course, we're talking about a female who hasn't gotten some in a while; after all, just because we live in a patriarchy doesn't take away from sexual needs.
Thirdly, people don't check in for the purpose of just fucking the first thing that indicates that it is indeed alive. People check in for the purpose of establishing a temporary central locale for while they are away from familiar surroundings. In this temporary locale, the staff are merely a hassle with which to deal when directions to some place or an extra towel is needed. For real, ninety percent of these whiny, prissy, pampered fuck-wits think we're lazy assholes with authoritarian superiority complexes.
ANYway, the Irish woman just left while some Massachusetts ass-hat came in to extend his stay, doing the night-by-night thing, which means I didn't even get a chance to do the lame-o "How was your stay? What's your next stop?" awkward bullshit thing to try to strike up a conversation that would lead to sex with someone who's on their way out the door anyhow. She just dropped off her key and left.
Only other option, and when I say "option" I mean "future failed attempt at sexual conquest" will be the four foot tall stoner broad from Cleveland. You would think that the Ohio thing would have us bonding our asses off, but no. You see, she's in Minnesota, she's going to want a Minnesotan if she wants it at all. Think about it. If you go to France, are you going to want to want a Pabst? No. You're going to want to drink some fancy French shit; sample some local culture. Once I played my hand as an Ohioan (without first checking her area code), I pretty much sealed the no-ass-gettin' envelope and sent it off to just-going-to-have-to-jerk-off-again town via priority mail. For real, I think I've flogged the bishop more in the past two and a half weeks than I did the entire time I was fifteen.
Today's plans essentially involve a little bit of practice, a little bit of grilling, and a six pack of Killian's Irish Red. This half-birthday, I'm flying solo because... well... look they can't all be winners okay?
2008: KRAKOA plays SHOW005. (+) Personnel = Charlie (guitar / moog) + Joe (bass) (+) + drum program. Robin Hood Hills open. (+) Teenage girls keep sneaking into my skanky airplane bathroom to drink box wine out of a KFC cup. (+)I'm wondering if anything will happen this year.
Verdict: Winner.
2007: Sallie Mae proves that absolutely nobody under their employ has any fucking idea what the hell they're doing by trying to charge a college student US$1.5K/month without notifying him. (-)
Verdict: Loser.
2006: Firstmark proves that at least one person under their employ has no fucking idea how to open an envelope, thus destroying the money order I sent them. (-) This, to them, means I am late making a payment. (-)
Verdict: Loser.
2005: Angie is not in town. (+) I'm pretty sure at the time I am out getting drunk at Howard's because nobody's telling me I can't. (+)
Verdict: Winner.
2004: Go and see one of Hubbcap's first shows. (+) Put about eight shots of Jameson on Angie's tab (+) then leave without telling her because I feel ignored that night. (-)
Verdict: Winner.
There is a fetching, lanky Irish woman in the hostel at present who is due for departure within two hours. Her accent is thick as hell and gets the Mick in me going. Her last name, O'Byrne, she pronounces as O-BUY-urrnh. I don't know, though; she has a 651 area code, so it's not like this is the last chance I would have to ever see her again.
But listen to me. Jeeze-Louise. I don't get any for two and a half weeks and I start talking about a woman for whom I made a reservation and saw once in passing like that? Jeeze-Louise, I really am hard up. I didn't even tell you guys about the Swiss butterface. I mean really. Hard up. When all you're basing it on is the accent? That's hard up. Well, there's the accent and the fact that I could walk away saying, "Yeah, I nailed a Swiss butterface." Any of you motherfuckers ever nail a Swiss butterface? No. No you haven't nailed a Swiss butterface. So if I nail a Swiss butterface in the next few days, don't hate. Would I prefer the Irish beanpole out there in the kitchen? Yes, yes I would. But that's not to say that I would not give the Swiss butterface a good ol' fashioned Rogerin'. Just hit it from the back and make her sing "Schweizerpsalm".
Of course, you have to keep in mind that these eroto-humorous constructions are based on the popular misconception that this is a supreme tail getting job. Allow me to debunk the myth.
First of all, nobody's really all that interested in the staff, nobody intelligent or sane anyway. The piece of ass that Georgie picked up was a U.S. Marine who had no earthly idea what the fuck a crossword puzzle was (seriously). The one woman that was interested in me was a seventeen year old molestation victim. Guests are interested in other guests because it's a hell of a lot more convenient to keep your partner from that one nocturne of indiscretion on the other side of the globe. And hey, just like I focus more on the Swiss part than the butterface part, the guests are sitting there thinking "I've never banged a nine-fingered Israeli." I mean, come on. When you're confronted by the choice between a Minnesotan and a nine-fingered Israeli, which would you pick? Why fuck one of us when you can get some ass from a New Zealander? And you know what the Kiwi's thinking: "Let's see. I'm here for a week. I have plenty of time to fuck a Minnesotan. But there's a Texan right here for only two nights. I've never fucked a Texan." And believe me, that I'm actually an Ohioan is actually a bigger turn off to the lady-guests.
Second of all (here we go), we live in a patriarchy, which means women are not out to fuck by virtue of their gender. In fact, the reason why it's harder for guys to get a piece of ass than it is for women is precisely because women get bombarded with sexual advances quite regularly to the point of repulsion. That is why the "anonymous traveler" fantasy is near purely male. Unless, of course, we're talking about a female who hasn't gotten some in a while; after all, just because we live in a patriarchy doesn't take away from sexual needs.
Thirdly, people don't check in for the purpose of just fucking the first thing that indicates that it is indeed alive. People check in for the purpose of establishing a temporary central locale for while they are away from familiar surroundings. In this temporary locale, the staff are merely a hassle with which to deal when directions to some place or an extra towel is needed. For real, ninety percent of these whiny, prissy, pampered fuck-wits think we're lazy assholes with authoritarian superiority complexes.
ANYway, the Irish woman just left while some Massachusetts ass-hat came in to extend his stay, doing the night-by-night thing, which means I didn't even get a chance to do the lame-o "How was your stay? What's your next stop?" awkward bullshit thing to try to strike up a conversation that would lead to sex with someone who's on their way out the door anyhow. She just dropped off her key and left.
Only other option, and when I say "option" I mean "future failed attempt at sexual conquest" will be the four foot tall stoner broad from Cleveland. You would think that the Ohio thing would have us bonding our asses off, but no. You see, she's in Minnesota, she's going to want a Minnesotan if she wants it at all. Think about it. If you go to France, are you going to want to want a Pabst? No. You're going to want to drink some fancy French shit; sample some local culture. Once I played my hand as an Ohioan (without first checking her area code), I pretty much sealed the no-ass-gettin' envelope and sent it off to just-going-to-have-to-jerk-off-again town via priority mail. For real, I think I've flogged the bishop more in the past two and a half weeks than I did the entire time I was fifteen.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Charlie? Are you copping out again?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been posting a lot of videos with a paragraph lately; as I've said before, July is the fucking Dead Zone around these here parts. In fact, I'm half-convinced that I should just take off July of 2010. But, just to warn you, I'm toying with the notion of a fairly big post in the next few days. Don't get your hopes up; if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Got it.
Anyway, last night was pretty fun. Got off the clock and a couple hostel guests decided to try to get me drunk and talk records. They nearly succeeded, but I did get to talk about music, vodka, and French women with a pair of Yanks, a pair of Frogs, a Swiss guy, and a guy from Belize all the while drinking a few Black Labels, which is why I practiced self-control. Black Label, as I explained it to my brother, is out for blood. I have never had my cranium so perilously close to implosion as the one morning after experience I had with that foul swill and even after last night's modest intake, the portion of my brain that resides near the crown of my skull produced a mild throb that took a good half hour to relegate itself to twitching this morning. How Kirian swears by the shit, I'll never know.
Anyway, the conversation going how it normally does, I had to ask the one question that was on everybody's minds from our international intoxicant benefactors: Do you guys have an easier time getting tail here on account of your accents? They each found a way to talk around the subject without actually giving an answer, but they did say that French women don't dig American or British accents. Women of other nationalities may dig them, but French women in general find that native English speakers have unattractive accents. So that explains it; I was wondering why I've never scored a French chick.
Anyway, last night was pretty fun. Got off the clock and a couple hostel guests decided to try to get me drunk and talk records. They nearly succeeded, but I did get to talk about music, vodka, and French women with a pair of Yanks, a pair of Frogs, a Swiss guy, and a guy from Belize all the while drinking a few Black Labels, which is why I practiced self-control. Black Label, as I explained it to my brother, is out for blood. I have never had my cranium so perilously close to implosion as the one morning after experience I had with that foul swill and even after last night's modest intake, the portion of my brain that resides near the crown of my skull produced a mild throb that took a good half hour to relegate itself to twitching this morning. How Kirian swears by the shit, I'll never know.
Anyway, the conversation going how it normally does, I had to ask the one question that was on everybody's minds from our international intoxicant benefactors: Do you guys have an easier time getting tail here on account of your accents? They each found a way to talk around the subject without actually giving an answer, but they did say that French women don't dig American or British accents. Women of other nationalities may dig them, but French women in general find that native English speakers have unattractive accents. So that explains it; I was wondering why I've never scored a French chick.
Harvey Milk Interview
| Continuing with my knack for finding videos of bands talking (as opposed to what they should be doing, which is rocking), may I present to you, oh, my little illiterati, Woodshop Productions' Joe Walker (of Breakfast at Sulimay's fame) interviewing Harvey Milk before a Philadelphia show back in December '08. The tiny thing that struck me as awesome about this interview was that Harvey Milk guitarist/vocalist Creston Spiers makes a passing reference to Life... The Best Game In Town getting reviewed on Breakfast at Sulimay's. |
Friday, July 17, 2009
Vivian Girls Interview Videos
| First up, an interview from Exhibition Meal back in May when Vivian Girls were in Minneapolis and nobody fucking told me about it so of course I wasn't there. Dig Kickball Katy talking about the recording process, analog versus digital and cold-assed studios. | |
| Then, part of Amoeba Records' "What's In My Bag?" series. Check out the mad record collecting skills on Kickball Katy, rattling off record labels and recording engineers, thus reaffirming why she's the Vivian Girl on whom I have a crush. Be sure to also check out the one with Dave Grohl to hear about some 80s/90s hardcore 7" singles, punker fights, and see how puffy-looking he's gotten. But what do you want? The guy is forty years old ferfucksake and his hair looks great. Yes, I did just say that. | |
| Lastly, check out this interview Vivian Girls did with Nardwuar. If you're not familiar with Nardwuar, just be forewarned that he's a (harmless) crazy motherfucker who exhaustively researches his interview subjects (victims). |
Lee Ranaldo Radio Interview on CFRU
 | Another of the last of my discoveries from an EA informant: A radio interview with Lee Ranaldo on Guelph, Ontario's CFRU 93.3 FM. The link to the full length show is kind of a goofy one, there's six minutes of the BBC World Service preceding the show, and according to the host, it will be up for only forty five days. I've been toying with the idea of truncating the file down to strictly the interview with Lee with a not-so-goofy link but, since it would be permanant, I would have to convert the file to a lower bitrate. See, there's songs in there and Sonic Youth have probably given permission to host their material on line for the aforementioned forty five days. Only way to justify screwing over a band in whom I have only a passing interest and a DJ I've never met is to make the thing sound like shit. If you're a die hard Sonic Youth fan who really needs to hear this, leave a comment if this link doesn't work and I'll think about it. Also be sure to check out video of Lee talking about his customized "Jazzblaster" at YouTube. |
Thursday, July 16, 2009
UTAH: Land of the Ass Whoopin'.
The past week, two weeks, something like that, basically since July began, I've been struggling to come up with consistent material. So all I've got today is this subject posted on the EA forums, shortly after I left the group. (Yeah, I deleted my account.)
There's this group of cats in the hardcore punk community, called Friends Stand United, a name which has been converted into the acronym FSU. Considering I'm not from Boston, I've never heard of these guys.
Apparently, in the early 80s, the Boston hardcore scene was lousy with Nazi skinheads. (And if you have only a rudimentary understanding of punk history, then you need to know that the "Nazi" designation in this instance is required.) FSU was a group of hardcore kids that said, "Fuck it. Let's kick 'em out." And why not? Would you want a bunch of Neo-Nazis in your punk clubs? I wouldn't want Neo-Nazis in my punk clubs.
OK, I'd let one in. But I'd tell her my mother is black after I skeet on her.
But as with most groups brought together espousing a philosophy founded on brotherhood, community, and ass whoopin's, things got out of hand , and the acronym FSU has been converted into the backronym Fuck Shit Up. Oh, they still use Friends Stand United, but don't forget that the Friends Stand United to Fuck Shit Up.
When FSU ran out of Nazis, they started policing the scene. Somebody started fuckin' up here and there, they'd get an ass whoopin', simple as that. Granted, it's a four-person ass whoopin' where the assailants won't hesitate to kick you in the mouth or stick you with a flick knife, but it's still simple. So simple and effective is this method of policing that like any good idea, it caught on and there has been what you might call "company expansion". According to Wikipedia:
Let's just say it like this: According to the July 14th press release from the fucking FBI ferfucksake (I mean, come on. You know you're into some fucked up shit when you've got the FBI's attention.), one of the founding members of the FSU "allegedly extorted $5,000 from an unnamed victim" while "the victim's band was taking part in an alternative music and extreme sports festival that tours North America in the spring and summer". And I think you can extrapolate from the information so far which method was used to attain the US$5K from Mr. Unnamed Victim.
You see, here's what happened: The victim got his ass whooped in Boston, Mokena, IL, and Orlando and then agreed to pay US$5K. He was guaranteed safety in Jersey, Philly, and Arizona. So, just for shits and giggles, he got another ass whoopin' in (for the ultimate shits and giggles) Salt Lake City.
Now, when a loosely organized ass-whoopin'-handin'-out community whoops your ass in fucking Orlando (hey, they never promised safety in the Magic Kingdom), you tend to get a little pissed off about it and you hand over to law enforcement professionals all those phone calls that you taped where you were being charged US$5K to not get your ass whooped. When you get your ass handed to you in the ice cream capital of the US*, however, the shit's personal.
And so it was that on July 13th, 2009 the FBI finally got off their asses (after having received the complaint in December 2005 and letting the victim receive a proper Joseph Smith themed ass whoopin' on February 21st, 2006) and arrested Elgin Nathan James for alleged extortion, chief amongst the ass whoopers and the latest addition to the Sundance film festival.
Yes, Sundance.
Sundance in Park City.
Park City, UT.
What the fuck is it with these guys and Utah?
* Source: Mormons.
There's this group of cats in the hardcore punk community, called Friends Stand United, a name which has been converted into the acronym FSU. Considering I'm not from Boston, I've never heard of these guys.
Apparently, in the early 80s, the Boston hardcore scene was lousy with Nazi skinheads. (And if you have only a rudimentary understanding of punk history, then you need to know that the "Nazi" designation in this instance is required.) FSU was a group of hardcore kids that said, "Fuck it. Let's kick 'em out." And why not? Would you want a bunch of Neo-Nazis in your punk clubs? I wouldn't want Neo-Nazis in my punk clubs.
OK, I'd let one in. But I'd tell her my mother is black after I skeet on her.
But as with most groups brought together espousing a philosophy founded on brotherhood, community, and ass whoopin's, things got out of hand , and the acronym FSU has been converted into the backronym Fuck Shit Up. Oh, they still use Friends Stand United, but don't forget that the Friends Stand United to Fuck Shit Up.
When FSU ran out of Nazis, they started policing the scene. Somebody started fuckin' up here and there, they'd get an ass whoopin', simple as that. Granted, it's a four-person ass whoopin' where the assailants won't hesitate to kick you in the mouth or stick you with a flick knife, but it's still simple. So simple and effective is this method of policing that like any good idea, it caught on and there has been what you might call "company expansion". According to Wikipedia:
To date there have been FSU chapters in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Portland Maine, Seattle, and Los Angeles.Well, then there's a matter of when things cease to be a matter of scenes policing themselves and, well, kind of...
Let's just say it like this: According to the July 14th press release from the fucking FBI ferfucksake (I mean, come on. You know you're into some fucked up shit when you've got the FBI's attention.), one of the founding members of the FSU "allegedly extorted $5,000 from an unnamed victim" while "the victim's band was taking part in an alternative music and extreme sports festival that tours North America in the spring and summer". And I think you can extrapolate from the information so far which method was used to attain the US$5K from Mr. Unnamed Victim.
You see, here's what happened: The victim got his ass whooped in Boston, Mokena, IL, and Orlando and then agreed to pay US$5K. He was guaranteed safety in Jersey, Philly, and Arizona. So, just for shits and giggles, he got another ass whoopin' in (for the ultimate shits and giggles) Salt Lake City.
Now, when a loosely organized ass-whoopin'-handin'-out community whoops your ass in fucking Orlando (hey, they never promised safety in the Magic Kingdom), you tend to get a little pissed off about it and you hand over to law enforcement professionals all those phone calls that you taped where you were being charged US$5K to not get your ass whooped. When you get your ass handed to you in the ice cream capital of the US*, however, the shit's personal.
And so it was that on July 13th, 2009 the FBI finally got off their asses (after having received the complaint in December 2005 and letting the victim receive a proper Joseph Smith themed ass whoopin' on February 21st, 2006) and arrested Elgin Nathan James for alleged extortion, chief amongst the ass whoopers and the latest addition to the Sundance film festival.
Yes, Sundance.
Sundance in Park City.
Park City, UT.
What the fuck is it with these guys and Utah?
* Source: Mormons.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Today is the fourteenth. (Bastille Day.)
Well, ten days ago fourteen years ago when I was fourteen, the Foo Fighters released their first record and I bought it.First of all, this is the only Foo Fighters record I even like.
Secondly, I think it still holds up.
Thirdly, when I first heard it, I was dismayed at first that it didn't sound like Nirvana. But then I got to the fourth song ("Alone + Easy Target") and I thought that was really good.
Fourthly, when I first heard it, I had also decided that I was going to make my own literary decisions, as eighth grade was over and high school looked to be a place where book reports were a phenomenon of educational relic. (What? Like I've said before, I was a sheltered child. All I knew about high school was Saved by the Bell.) So instead of having to put up with whatever crap a teacher would insist I read (see The Great Gatsby, The Member of the Wedding, and there was some other book I hated so much that I burned the fucker), I decided I was going to try my hand at reading Dante's Divine Comedy. Not Inferno, no, I was too superior for that. When I found out that Inferno was merely the first part of a trilogy, I was bound and determined to read the whole fucking thing. Because I was that superior.
By the way, you know how I even found out about this? I saw Inferno in an old Looney Tunes short, then I went and looked it up in an encyclopedia. A real, tangible encyclopedia. Because you know what? The internet was a rich person thing in 1995 and it was all dial up. Not only could most people not afford the internet, but it was just faster to look stuff up in books even if you did have it.Of course, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Consider, first of all, that Dante's Divine Comedy is written in verse form, not prose. Consider also that it was written over the course of thirteen years. In Italy. In the earliest part of the fourteenth century. And on top of all of this, the first third of this book is full of jokes about people ripping themselves open. You read that right. The word "comedy" in the title is not ironic, and fourteenth century Italians didn't fuck around with their visions of Hell.This has been another sidebar with Old Man Charlie.
Now, don't get me wrong, seeing a bunch of nearly six hundred year old bas-reliefs of people with their heads enveloped buy locusts, bees, and mosquitoes while demons boil them in vats of dogs eating their genitals is scary for somebody who grew up not wanting to go outside based solely on the idea that "outside = sunburn". So, the scary part? That's held up well. The jokes, though? Well, Dante was into fart jokes. How in the hell do you go about turning Hell into a gigantic fart joke?
This shit's fucking hysterical.
But my god how I tried.
It was a cool summer day and I lay on the floor up in my bedroom in Custar, OH, bumping the first Foo Fighters' record and reading Dante's Divine Comedy. Somehow, these two things became ever intertwined with each other and my brain associates the two. So when I stumble upon the occasional Alighierian verse, I start hearing that record, and when I hear that record, I see those freaky-assed bas-reliefs and woodcuts. Which is what I'm sure is exactly what Dave Grohl was looking for when he made that record.
C'mon in, nigga! Foo Fighters just wrappin' up their sound check!
As I was making coffee and sitting down at the island counter to pound out today's post, I was wondering, "What the fuck am I going to talk about?" Failing to find a subject, I decided to look up July 14th from 2007 to cop out and do another classic post. Turns out that there was no July 14th post from 2007, so I decided to look up 2008's July 14th post and there wasn't one that year, either.
So I figured I would do a quick write up about the first Foo Fighters record, but I couldn't do that without bringing up Dante's Divine Comedy because these two things are forever fused with each other. You win some, you lose some.
I didn't take a half hour to stitch this together to not post it.
Monday, July 13, 2009
On this day two years ago, I was an angry, angry man.
Pardon the "classic post" from July 13th, 2007, but I've been staring at the screen for an hour and a half and all I can think of is running out and getting spaghetti sauce. Could be marinara, could be alfredo, whatever, I just need something I can put on pasta and I don't have enough vegetables to warrant a pesto.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll pardon the tone of this post; I was still very green at blogging at the time. Complicating matters was that I was blogging under time constraints from having to use public computers, that I was an alcoholic and an insomniac, that I was angry at my ex-fiancée for stranding me in the big city on my own, and (as you're about to read) that I was getting the least romantic ass-reaming I've ever received from my student loan lender.
As with most of the "classic posts", where I see something that needs amending, I'll slip into something more comfortable to do so, and as with all "classic posts", this one is indeed abridged.
But, man, if I wasn't one angry motherfucker back then.
Charlie the Taoist vs. the Corporate Beard
I've got a chip on my shoulder and no mother-loving dip, so to speak.
Let's start with Sallie Mae, who, unbeknownst to me, decided that they were just going to take me out of deferment status WHILE I WAS STILL IN SCHOOL, FERFUCKSAKE! That's right, regardless of whether I was in school, therefore incapable of working 40 hours a week (and I was busting my ass to make 32 hours), therefore incapable of paying $1500 per month (and that's a rough estimate, as each and every department that I've been in contact with seems to have different numbers; one said $1100, one said $1400, one said $1500), Sallie Mae just up and decided that I had run out my deferments (which is bullshit, according to IPR's director of financial aid; I can defer for up to 24 months, my deferment schedule would've barely given a baby kiss to month 21). So instead of sending me a bill (as we had been through it roughly a half dozen times, now) in a timely fashion, they decided to wait until I was 20 days overdue on a $1500 payment to call my cosigners. Sallie Mae has insisted that they emailed me a bill. Nobody emails a fucking bill. I ought to know, because I never got one. I check my school email every week for the latest job leads. I don't see any fucking bills. (And it should be known that I do consider these "fucking" bills, as lately every time I fart it sounds like a whistle.) So I really only had 10 days to get paperwork together and fight this got-damned mess (clever bastards, they are, making me late, trying to strong arm me on account of their interdepartmental screw up), and then when I got the paper work together, they wanted to come up with some bullshit excuse, so of course I go to the school to sic my junkyard dogs on them. Everybody knows I want to nail Maureen, Still do. that's a given, but now I must use her for something other than the fuck-puppet I so debauchedly thought about whilst rendering my blubber into oil. That's a good one. I ought to reuse that. I've got to use her for her powers of revenge, like mothra-fucking Taarna the Tarakian at the end of Heavy Metal, B.
That's that. And that being that, for what it is, brings us to yesterday, in a little section I like to call:
CORN-FED CRACKER-ASSED KRAUT/LIMEY WHITEBOY FROM HONKY TOWN LEARNS THE MEANING OF THE WORD "DISCRIMINATION".
It happened at work, again. Again. The subject of why I don't sign my name to the list comes up, again. Y'see, we have to sign this fucking sheet every time we complete our paperwork, Oh, man, I fucking hated that list. It was basically the "Who can we fire?" list. and I don't do it. I have my reasons. Nobody bothers to ask me why, I don't bother to tell anybody why. Because I was never officially required to sign the thing, only requested to "play ball". After all, what am I going to do, make a big spectacle out of it, raise my voice every time I could just (and do) quietly decline and say "Taoists don't frown upon much, but if they do frown on anything it's competition!" Since then I've lightened up on things but you know how it is; when you first find something you believe in, you are completely 100% about it. But I still tell people to go fuck themselves when they say, "But you like baseball." Sure, and you read the Bible and fuck before marriage. Eat my ass. But yesterday at work, people wanted to know why, again, and chief among those was the Queen of the Shit-Heap herself, Trimstin. You see, I called her Trimstin as a reference to the landlady in Next Friday, to whom Ice Cube says, "I like how you got that trimmed up," in reference to her moustache. Because, you see, Trimstin has a moustache. So now we've got two or three people in the office raising their voice and me raising my voice to say that I just want left out of it when Trimstin decides to pronounce loudly that my beliefs are "primitive". "Primitive". Just so everybody's on the same page here, please refer to the link above for Taoism Does that link even work anymore?, and then check these definitions for "primitive" as supplied by Merriam-Websters, B.
Thank you, Webster.
- Main Entry:
- 1prim·i·tive
- Pronunciation:
- ..'pri-m?-tiv..
- Function:
- adjective
- Etymology:
- Middle English primitif, from Latin primitivus first formed, from primitiae first fruits, from primus first — more at prime
- Date:
- 14th century
1 a: not derived : original, primary b: assumed as a basis; especially : axiomatic <primitive concepts>2 a: of or relating to the earliest age or period : primevalprimitive church> b: closely approximating an early ancestral type : little evolved <primitive mammals> c: belonging to or characteristic of an early stage of development : crude, rudimentary <primitive technology> d: of, relating to, or constituting the assumed parent speech of related languages <primitive Germanic>3 a: elemental, naturalprimitive feelings of vengeance — John Mackwood> b: of, relating to, or produced by a people or culture that is nonindustrial and often nonliterate and tribal <primitive art> c: naive d (1): self-taught, untutored <primitive craftsmen> (2): produced by a self-taught artist primitive painting>1 a: something primitive; specifically : a primitive idea, term, or proposition b: a root word 2 a (1) an artist of an early period of a culture or artistic movement (2): a later imitator or follower of such an artist b (1): a self-taught artist (2): an artist whose work is marked by directness and naïveté c: a work of art produced by a primitive artist d: a typically rough or simple usually handmade and antique home accessory or furnishing 3 a: a member of a primitive people b: an unsophisticated person
- Main Entry:
- 2primitive
- Function:
- noun
- Date:
- 15th century
So, now I'm getting steamed Getting steamed now again, too, but it's old news. but insisting that the office is not the time or place to have this conversation and from Wendy I get, "Oh, come on, Charlie, we're just joking around."
I respond with, "Yeah, real funny, what do you believe in, by the way?"
That's when Trimstin comes out with "Charlie, you need to take a chill-pill [yes, she said the words "chill-pill"], this is not an appropriate conversation for the office." What a fucking mastery of the obvious.
If it pleases the court, I would like to revisit something I said three paragraphs ago:So I'm standing there thinking "Well fucking duh!" So I says to her, "I am chill, I want out of the conversation."
So, now I'm [...] insisting that the office is not the time or place to have this conversation...
And let's see what happened in the last paragraph:
That's when Trimstin comes out with "Charlie [...] this is not an appropriate conversation for the office."
Trimstin tells me again to chill out, by again using the words "chill-pill". Now she's yelling that she's not even joking. Well, I can't let the bitch have the last word, so I get it in there and I go back to work. WHISKEY. TANGO. FOXTROT. Fuck it. Who cares? Blah, blah, blah, you're all a bunch of fucking imbeciles, let me do my job.
Y'know, when Kathleen in upper management bitched about the Christmas tree offending her Jewish heritage, they took the thing down, no questions asked. And of course, they quietly bitched about Christmas spirit and shit like that. Mr. Honky McTaoism says he doesn't like competition, and he's a figure of fun and everybody, his own fucking lady-friend included, tells him his belief is full of shit and that he's wrong about competition. George even wanted to challenge me on my beliefs because I play Uno and enjoy baseball, insisting that it's like a Jewish person that won't eat bread off of a plate that has pork on it. (Which is to her awfully silly and doesn't make much sense, despite that these people live their fucking religion, and she's probably only studied it, at most, so, yeah, let's all tell the Kosher Jews to "lighten up" based solely on the fact that their beliefs are foreign to us and they should really try to be more like us, then let's burn a cross on someone's lawn during Kwaanza, why don't we?)
Wait wait wait, can we rewind the tape and play that last part again?Was I asking to be challenged? Did I ever claim to be a textbook definition of Taoism and inner-peace and whatnot? At the time, yeah, I was pretty zealous. Fuck no, got-damnit. Cock-suckers.
... they should really try to be more like us, then let's-
No no no, the part before that.
George even wanted to challenge me on my beliefs -
Yeah, that one.
George even wanted to challenge me on my beliefs because I play Uno and enjoy baseball, insisting that it's like a Jewish person that won't eat bread off of a plate that has pork on it.
Can I see that in a bold?
George even wanted to challenge me on my beliefs because I play Uno and enjoy baseball, insisting that it's like a Jewish person that won't eat bread off of a plate that has pork on it.
Thank you. I now know why we broke up.
Oh, and I'm changing my name to Cathal. It's the Gaelic for Charlie. And we've seen how well that worked out.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Some things in life, you just can't explain.
Like a grown man who drinks the hell out of some 3.2% and brings (and leaves behind) his own Miss Piggy pillow case.
Yesterday's Sessions
I was in a fantastic mood yesterday; I don't know what came over me; I was volunteering to help people move couches, I felt no need to have more than the one glass of wine I had with lunch, I beat off twice; just in a fantastic mood. And then, while my chili was simmering, I got to thinking, "Why don't I record some wine glasses?"
So I raided the cupboard for the wine glasses and then went about collecting all the bottles in the house that could so I could do that jug band thing, and the next thing you know the time I spent eating a bowl of chili for lunch was the last time I was above ground yesterday. The compulsion to just work on stuff overtook me so I wound up with two new pieces tracked and half-mixed.
The cool thing about the musical wine glasses, though, is when you view the digital representation of the waveforms they generate, you can see a naturally sinusoidal amplitude modulation which occurs at what would appear to be double the frequency of the oscillation applied to them. This makes me think that there must be an inverse oscillation occurring 90o out of phase, which would kind of make sense when you consider I mic'd these from the side rather than from above. (What? I never did this before.) As my finger oscillates the glass, I'm creating compressions and rarefactions of air which give us the note, the LFO that's occurring is probably due to the spatial compression and rarefaction of my finger in relation to the microphone. Why the LFO frequency is occurring at double the rate at which I played the glass is beyond me, though.
Wrapped up working on things about midnight then watched two episodes of Heroes and went to bed. Got back up this morning at 0645 and I gotta tell ya, my mood today is OK. It's not on par with yesterday (I aint liftin' no fuckin' couch today.) but it's still pretty good, I guess.
So I raided the cupboard for the wine glasses and then went about collecting all the bottles in the house that could so I could do that jug band thing, and the next thing you know the time I spent eating a bowl of chili for lunch was the last time I was above ground yesterday. The compulsion to just work on stuff overtook me so I wound up with two new pieces tracked and half-mixed.
The cool thing about the musical wine glasses, though, is when you view the digital representation of the waveforms they generate, you can see a naturally sinusoidal amplitude modulation which occurs at what would appear to be double the frequency of the oscillation applied to them. This makes me think that there must be an inverse oscillation occurring 90o out of phase, which would kind of make sense when you consider I mic'd these from the side rather than from above. (What? I never did this before.) As my finger oscillates the glass, I'm creating compressions and rarefactions of air which give us the note, the LFO that's occurring is probably due to the spatial compression and rarefaction of my finger in relation to the microphone. Why the LFO frequency is occurring at double the rate at which I played the glass is beyond me, though.
Wrapped up working on things about midnight then watched two episodes of Heroes and went to bed. Got back up this morning at 0645 and I gotta tell ya, my mood today is OK. It's not on par with yesterday (I aint liftin' no fuckin' couch today.) but it's still pretty good, I guess.
|
|
| Level | Pan | EQ/Filter | Dynamic | Time-Based | Issues / Notes | |
| Kick | +2.5dB | Midnight | HP ~ 50Hz ~ 50%Q Bell ~ -1.5dB ~ 136Hz ~ 75%Q HS ~ -6dB ~ 616Hz ~ 0%Q | |||
| Snare | 0dB | 2330 | Notch ~ 2218Hz ~ 90%Q | |||
| Rack | -7.5dB | 0100 | ||||
| Floor | -7dB | 0130 | ||||
| Hat | -12.5dB | 2200 | Threshold: -30dB Ratio: 3:1 Attack: 0ms Release: 340ms Gain: +6dB | |||
| Ride | -12dB | 0115 | ||||
| Crash | -12dB | 0145 | Notch ~ 800Hz ~ 61%Q | |||
| Bass | 0dB | AT: 2330 WE: 0015 | Threshold: -12dB Ratio: 3.33:1 Attack: 12ms Release: 417ms Gain: +4dB | |||
| Jaguar (1, 2, and 3) | -6dB | AT: 0030 WE: 2345 |
| Level | Pan | EQ/Filter | Dynamic | Time-Based | Issues / Notes | |
| Kick | +2.5dB | Midnight | HP ~ 50Hz ~ 50%Q Bell ~ -1.5dB ~ 136Hz ~ 75%Q HS ~ -6dB ~ 616Hz ~ 0%Q | |||
| Snare | 0dB | 2330 | Notch ~ 2218Hz ~ 90%Q | |||
| Rack | -7.5dB | 0100 | ||||
| Floor | -7dB | 0130 | ||||
| Hat | -12.5dB | 2200 | Threshold: -30dB Ratio: 3:1 Attack: 0ms Release: 340ms Gain: +6dB | |||
| Ride | -16.5dB | 0115 | ||||
| Crash | -6dB | 0145 | Notch ~ 800Hz ~ 61%Q | |||
| Bass | AT: -4dB WE: 0dB | AT: 2230 WE: 0100 | Threshold: -14dB Ratio: 2:1 Attack: 5ms Release: 295ms Gain: +6dB | |||
| Jaguar | 1: AT:-2dB, WE: 0dB 2: AT: -8dB, WE: -6dB 3: AT: -14dB, WE: -12dB 4: AT: -6dB, WE: -12dB | 1, 2, 3: AT: 0130, WE: 2300 4: AT: 2230, WE: 0100 | ||||
| Glass | Wine glasses: -21dB Bottles: -5dB | 300ms 50% feedback |
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Some things in life, you just can't explain.
Like having the theme from Yogi Bear stuck in your head.
Friday, July 10, 2009
What the hell are we going to do on Friday, now?
OK, so yeah, yesterday, I copped out and gave you a Cthulhu Cthursday. I think I noted yesterday that there's a precedent for slowness in July, so there's that.
Sssooo... I guess since... Well, I'll explain it again for the newcomers. I'm an early riser and I work second shift. Granted, there are nine hours between 0700 and 1600, so I could be making musics in that time but I'm the only one in the house that wakes up in the morning on a regular basis. George doesn't get up until 1300, Dave sleeps during the day due to third shift, and Laura's schedule is all over the place (as an example, yesterday she got home at 0530 and had to return to work at 1100). My music makings time is as limited as it's ever been, so when I do get around to handle music related things outside of our Saturday through Tuesday schedule, it's mundane stuff or stuff we've gone over before, things like making stems, sifting through material I may or may not use, yada yada yada... Basically, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are the Dead Zone, here.
What I have left is the hostel to gripe about and even though we're half full over there, it's been remarkably slow, aside from last night when I had three check ins during the last half hour of my shift. The check in process at the hostel is more involved than it is at, say, your average Best Western or Holiday Inn; in fact, it's fairly close to a five star, US$X00/night hotel (I use "X" in place of a number because I don't know what the fuck those places go for, but I suspect that X ≥ 2), in that we detail the house rules; we give you a tour; we explain how everything works; we show you to your room; and, if you're hot, tiny, old, or crippled, we help you with your luggage... This five minutes is the most time you will ever have to spend with the staff. It is five minutes of important shit we want you to know and, like anything else in life, you'll need only half of it.
And believe me, when this five minutes is up, we want as much to do with you as you want to do with us. You're looking to explore museums and eat local cuisine and attend whatever conference you're in town for or you're just passing through, shit like that. We're looking to play Tetris and post LOLCat pictures on internet discussion forums when we're not beating off in a vacant room and explaining our absence from the office as "housekeeping" because there's a cute punker girl sitting barefoot and eating some organic nachos in our line of sight from the office door that got us all worked up. OK?
But the fact remains that we have to spend five minutes together and that's the point: shit takes five minutes. So when you get three check ins in a row at 2130 and you have to close up at 2200...
I had nothing, nothing all night and all of a sudden, BOOM! three in a row. This takes me all the way to 2145 which is right about when I start counting down the till, taking out the trash, shutting things off, yada yada yada...
The second guy, I gotta tell ya, was a pain in the ass. First of all, he's from the bustling metropolis of Grand Forks, ND, so his backwoods ass is afraid of the big city. I know this because - well, here:
So I give this asshole the tour and I have to do it with a smile on my face because some Welsh prick gave me a terrible review and Boss Lady... Let's just say I have to smile from now on.
Quick rant: I'm a twenty eight year old man. I have a college degree. I have been actively looking for work for two years. I have a twenty nine hour per week job that pays US$750/hr. I'm expected to smile.
So I'm giving the Grand Wizard from the North Dakota chapter over here the tour and I show him to his room: the fifteen-bed male dorm. I tell him he can have any bed that is obviously unoccupied.
At junctions such as this, when people are worried about their stuff, I normally relay this philosophy to them. This asshole heard only this emit from my mouth:
Sssooo... I guess since... Well, I'll explain it again for the newcomers. I'm an early riser and I work second shift. Granted, there are nine hours between 0700 and 1600, so I could be making musics in that time but I'm the only one in the house that wakes up in the morning on a regular basis. George doesn't get up until 1300, Dave sleeps during the day due to third shift, and Laura's schedule is all over the place (as an example, yesterday she got home at 0530 and had to return to work at 1100). My music makings time is as limited as it's ever been, so when I do get around to handle music related things outside of our Saturday through Tuesday schedule, it's mundane stuff or stuff we've gone over before, things like making stems, sifting through material I may or may not use, yada yada yada... Basically, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are the Dead Zone, here.
What I have left is the hostel to gripe about and even though we're half full over there, it's been remarkably slow, aside from last night when I had three check ins during the last half hour of my shift. The check in process at the hostel is more involved than it is at, say, your average Best Western or Holiday Inn; in fact, it's fairly close to a five star, US$X00/night hotel (I use "X" in place of a number because I don't know what the fuck those places go for, but I suspect that X ≥ 2), in that we detail the house rules; we give you a tour; we explain how everything works; we show you to your room; and, if you're hot, tiny, old, or crippled, we help you with your luggage... This five minutes is the most time you will ever have to spend with the staff. It is five minutes of important shit we want you to know and, like anything else in life, you'll need only half of it.
And believe me, when this five minutes is up, we want as much to do with you as you want to do with us. You're looking to explore museums and eat local cuisine and attend whatever conference you're in town for or you're just passing through, shit like that. We're looking to play Tetris and post LOLCat pictures on internet discussion forums when we're not beating off in a vacant room and explaining our absence from the office as "housekeeping" because there's a cute punker girl sitting barefoot and eating some organic nachos in our line of sight from the office door that got us all worked up. OK?
But the fact remains that we have to spend five minutes together and that's the point: shit takes five minutes. So when you get three check ins in a row at 2130 and you have to close up at 2200...
I had nothing, nothing all night and all of a sudden, BOOM! three in a row. This takes me all the way to 2145 which is right about when I start counting down the till, taking out the trash, shutting things off, yada yada yada...
The second guy, I gotta tell ya, was a pain in the ass. First of all, he's from the bustling metropolis of Grand Forks, ND, so his backwoods ass is afraid of the big city. I know this because - well, here:
"Where can I park my car?"Need that one again?
You can park out here on Stevens or 24th.
"On the street?"
Uh, yeah.
"Is there parking in back?"
Huh? Oh, no. That drive way back there actually serves as the driveway for two residences and two businesses, so we have to keep that area clear.
"So I can't park back there?"
Nope.
"How do I know it's safe?"
I'm sorry?
"My car, how do I know my car is safe?"
Well, there's museum security, park police, and metro police that patrol this area twenty four hours a day so it's pretty safe.
"Oh, OK. It's just that I saw a lot of people out there and I got scared."
"I saw a lot of people out there and I got scared."He literally said that. He saw a lot of people and he got scared. I guess it kind of makes sense, Grand Forks, ND is the kind of bullshit Caucasian culturally desolate backwater that makes Mayberry look like Detroit. Chances are, this guy just saw his first black person and it freaked his shit out because he'd "never sawed a colored before" outside of New York City or Los Angeles on TV. To this dumbass yokel, the existence of black people must be some sort of coastal phenomenon. Further, I speculate that because of his isolation from the rest of the world, he's probably like one of those Civil War soldiers that never received word that the war is over, which is to say, he probably thinks there's still a white man in the White House.
So I give this asshole the tour and I have to do it with a smile on my face because some Welsh prick gave me a terrible review and Boss Lady... Let's just say I have to smile from now on.
Quick rant: I'm a twenty eight year old man. I have a college degree. I have been actively looking for work for two years. I have a twenty nine hour per week job that pays US$750/hr. I'm expected to smile.
So I'm giving the Grand Wizard from the North Dakota chapter over here the tour and I show him to his room: the fifteen-bed male dorm. I tell him he can have any bed that is obviously unoccupied.
"Any bed?"I do not have time for this shit. I've had a lousy work week so far and I am not getting held past closing for this dipshit. So I begin walking around the room, pointing at the unoccupied beds:
Well, any of the unoccupied ones, yeah.
"How do I know if it's unoccupied?"
Well, it's not made. You see? Those over there (pointing at occupied beds) are made and have luggage next to them, so you can tell there's somebody in them. This one here (pointing at unoccupied bed) has the blanket and pillow folded at the end of the bed, so you can tell it's not occupied.
"But how do I know - I mean - What if somebody is in that bed?"
You can take this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, or this one.That's right, I talked to this dumbass like he still played with Playskool toys. I watch him pick a bed and tell him that staff is in the office until ten pm, so if he needs anything, he needs to tell me in the next twenty minutes. He asks:
"Where can I put my stuff?"There's this line I picked up from one of our regulars, he's been traveling between Florida and Alaska four times a year for three or four years now. Our hostel is a favored layover of his, pretty much because he likes to stop in and get drunk with the night crew (meaning me). He explained luggage theft like this: "People in hostels already have enough stuff to carry, they don't want to add to that pile of stuff by stealing anything." This has proven true time and again and there has, during my employ, been only one instance of theft.
Next to your bed?
Nervous guffaw then, realizing that I'm serious, his faces falls and he asks, "How do I know it's safe?"
At junctions such as this, when people are worried about their stuff, I normally relay this philosophy to them. This asshole heard only this emit from my mouth:
It'll be safe.He looked at me with wide eyes and slackened jaw and emitted another of his nervous guffaws. I asked him if he needed anything else. He said something to the effect of the negative and I reminded him that I would be in the office for only another twenty minutes as I left the dorm.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Fifty / fifty shot we're getting a thunderstorm today.
Believe me, I tried today. I really tried. I eventually decided to call this one a wash and just repost one of the so-called "classic posts" from 2007. There was no July 9th post. For shits and giggles, I decided to look up last year's July 9th post. No dice. So it makes sense that I'm stuck; there has, until now, never been a July 9th post. Further, looking over some of the old material, July has traditionally been a slow month. This would explain how we go from two posts per day to struggling for one. Let's just call it a wash.
No! Let's call it a cliché! Let's do a Cthulhu Cthursday!
No! Let's call it a cliché! Let's do a Cthulhu Cthursday!
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
No sessions yesterday.
The most musical things I did over the past two days were buying bass strings and making stems. That was about it aside from sorting through all the stuff I'd been concocting. Searched high and low for The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., turned out it's not something you can find on Hulu and the more *ahem* "less than legal" avenues offer only a 10GB version. Built a scarf rack for Georgie. Mopped cat pee. Ate a lot of corned beef. Did a lot of dishes.
Ran into the Gerbs on the way to Gangchen with Georgie. Lots of metros, homos, and hipsters in there last night, packed in like sardines and they all got pissy when I tried to move through. You've never seen so many grown men shamelessly wearing coochie-cutting Daisy Dukes in your life. (I have, but that's because I go to gay bars. The drinks are stronger, the prices are cheaper, and I'm still waiting for the instance where my dashing good looks scores me a few free drinks.) Turned out it was some guy Richard's birthday and all fifty of his closest friends chipped in and got him a chocolate dick cake.
Some guy tried hassling me for change in the bathroom. I'm standing there, in the urinal, with my dick in my hand and this guy starts hassling me for change so he can get a night in a St. Paul homeless shelter. The guy had nicer clothes on than I did and he decides to start hassling me for change while I'm trying to piss. I tell him I spent all my money on the bar tab and he gets this angry look on his face and asks, "You mean you got no change?" I repeat myself while leaving the bathroom with a still full bladder. He starts hassling the guy taking a shit as I leave.
I see him come out of the bathroom and Georgie and Gerbs are ready to go, so back into the head I go to evacuate my bladder. I come back out and have to make my way through the throbbing, thonged throng of screaming, flailing merries and ladies wearing stylish hats with long sweater dresses over tights to get over to George and Gerbs and we leave from there, and I see the bathroom pan-handler leaning on a car talking to some woman. Sometimes, most of the time, I really don't get Minneapolitans.
Ran into the Gerbs on the way to Gangchen with Georgie. Lots of metros, homos, and hipsters in there last night, packed in like sardines and they all got pissy when I tried to move through. You've never seen so many grown men shamelessly wearing coochie-cutting Daisy Dukes in your life. (I have, but that's because I go to gay bars. The drinks are stronger, the prices are cheaper, and I'm still waiting for the instance where my dashing good looks scores me a few free drinks.) Turned out it was some guy Richard's birthday and all fifty of his closest friends chipped in and got him a chocolate dick cake.
Some guy tried hassling me for change in the bathroom. I'm standing there, in the urinal, with my dick in my hand and this guy starts hassling me for change so he can get a night in a St. Paul homeless shelter. The guy had nicer clothes on than I did and he decides to start hassling me for change while I'm trying to piss. I tell him I spent all my money on the bar tab and he gets this angry look on his face and asks, "You mean you got no change?" I repeat myself while leaving the bathroom with a still full bladder. He starts hassling the guy taking a shit as I leave.
I see him come out of the bathroom and Georgie and Gerbs are ready to go, so back into the head I go to evacuate my bladder. I come back out and have to make my way through the throbbing, thonged throng of screaming, flailing merries and ladies wearing stylish hats with long sweater dresses over tights to get over to George and Gerbs and we leave from there, and I see the bathroom pan-handler leaning on a car talking to some woman. Sometimes, most of the time, I really don't get Minneapolitans.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Busy day, yesterday.
All times are approximate and in Central Daylight Savings.
0700: Awake. Turn off alarm clock. Let cat in. Play opossum. Cat leaves.
0800: Awake. Wonder why the hell I slept in.
0800 - 0830: Feed cat. Find Dave passed out on couch. Poop. Shave. Shower.
0830 - 1100: Wash, dry, and fold laundry. Do dishes (x2). Drink coffee (one pot).
1100 - 1220: Cash paycheck at the check cashing joint, tenth one. Free. Go to Aldi, think about catching the 2 Westbound for the return home, only to see it fly by as I exit Aldi. No biggy. (Trip: 2 miles.)
1220 - 1230: Put groceries away. Drink one quart of cold water.
1230 - 1350: Go to post office down town. Encounter first woman with large red and black butterfly tattoo. Purchase money orders. Pay "big" student loan bill and the credit card bill. Encounter second woman with a large red and black butterfly tattoo. Go to bank. Make deposit. Exchange niceties with Banker Steve. In skyway, encounter third woman with large red and black butterfly tattoo. On return home, purchase cat food, cat litter, and a can of corned beef. (Trip: 3 miles.)
1350 - 1400: Drink one quart of cold water.
1400 - 1440: Go to guitar shop. Encounter fourth woman with large red and black butterfly tattoo. Purchase bass strings. Hear customer ask clerk who he liked more, Led Zeppelin or Whitesnake. Clerk replies, "Whitesnake." Want to scream so many things at this point that I'm lucky my brain doesn't explode from the sudden flood of words. Stop in at different liquor store. Long haired guy in back looked like one of the guys from Fu Manchu. Purchase twelve pack of Olde English 800 for weekend (my weekend being Monday and Tuesday). Guy behind counter wearing sleeveless black t-shirt with a horror movie poster on it. Run into Georgie outside the house as she's departing for downtown. (Trip: 2 miles.)
1440 - 1500: Restring bass.
1500 - 1530: Make pizza. Do dishes.
1530 - 1610: Lunch. Shoot shit with Dave.
1610 - 1620: Field call from Georgie. Bank fucked her again. Not happy with her sister.
1620 - 1700: Go to bodega. Purchase two orange push-ups. Take one to Georgie at the hostel.
1700 - 1800: Have beer with Dave. Make stems.
At this point, time becomes irrelevant.
Practice.
Hang out with Dave and Rob. Start fire. Georgie returns home from work at around 2200, joins group.
Georgie and I watch Heroes.
End of day.
I aint doin' shit, today.
0700: Awake. Turn off alarm clock. Let cat in. Play opossum. Cat leaves.
0800: Awake. Wonder why the hell I slept in.
0800 - 0830: Feed cat. Find Dave passed out on couch. Poop. Shave. Shower.
0830 - 1100: Wash, dry, and fold laundry. Do dishes (x2). Drink coffee (one pot).
1100 - 1220: Cash paycheck at the check cashing joint, tenth one. Free. Go to Aldi, think about catching the 2 Westbound for the return home, only to see it fly by as I exit Aldi. No biggy. (Trip: 2 miles.)
1220 - 1230: Put groceries away. Drink one quart of cold water.
1230 - 1350: Go to post office down town. Encounter first woman with large red and black butterfly tattoo. Purchase money orders. Pay "big" student loan bill and the credit card bill. Encounter second woman with a large red and black butterfly tattoo. Go to bank. Make deposit. Exchange niceties with Banker Steve. In skyway, encounter third woman with large red and black butterfly tattoo. On return home, purchase cat food, cat litter, and a can of corned beef. (Trip: 3 miles.)
1350 - 1400: Drink one quart of cold water.
1400 - 1440: Go to guitar shop. Encounter fourth woman with large red and black butterfly tattoo. Purchase bass strings. Hear customer ask clerk who he liked more, Led Zeppelin or Whitesnake. Clerk replies, "Whitesnake." Want to scream so many things at this point that I'm lucky my brain doesn't explode from the sudden flood of words. Stop in at different liquor store. Long haired guy in back looked like one of the guys from Fu Manchu. Purchase twelve pack of Olde English 800 for weekend (my weekend being Monday and Tuesday). Guy behind counter wearing sleeveless black t-shirt with a horror movie poster on it. Run into Georgie outside the house as she's departing for downtown. (Trip: 2 miles.)
1440 - 1500: Restring bass.
1500 - 1530: Make pizza. Do dishes.
1530 - 1610: Lunch. Shoot shit with Dave.
1610 - 1620: Field call from Georgie. Bank fucked her again. Not happy with her sister.
1620 - 1700: Go to bodega. Purchase two orange push-ups. Take one to Georgie at the hostel.
1700 - 1800: Have beer with Dave. Make stems.
At this point, time becomes irrelevant.
Practice.
Hang out with Dave and Rob. Start fire. Georgie returns home from work at around 2200, joins group.
Georgie and I watch Heroes.
End of day.
I aint doin' shit, today.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Another piece of my innocence is on the brink of death.
I don't care if it's going to be the fourth movie or if it's going to be a remake of the first or what; the Evil Dead trilogy does not need to be added to, "reimagined", "rebooted", or otherwise messed with.
I'm going to call Sam Raimi up, take him to lunch and talk some sense into him; say, "Sam. Really. You have Spider-Man money. You don't need to do this, Sam. Your place in history is secure, you know that right? The trilogy is beyond cult following. Hell, my mom loves Army of Darkness, Sam, my MOM. Granted, my mom isn't like other moms, Sam. My mom likes White Zombie, so...
"ANYWAY, Sam, please, leave the trilogy alone. I have so few things that I hold sacred about the entertainment industry left in my life. You know they turned CBGB's into a clothing store!? I never got to see CBGB's, Sam. The Evil Dead trilogy is all I have left, Sam, and you want to go and fuck that up for me. You want to destroy the last piece of my child-like soul and eternally ruin my love of cinema. Why, Sam? Why do you want to kill my child within?
"Please, Sam. Let it go. It's OK to let things go, really.
"Look, I'm going to call Bruce and Rob after this, see if I can have a sit down with them, too, because it's not about you, Sam. It's about the movies. It's always been about the movies. And, yeah, you're still going to get my seven dollars when the fourth one hits the theaters because I know I can't stop you from committing the most reprehensible act of cinematic treason in recorded history, nor will I be able to stay away from any element of the franchise you and your friends built.
"But, really, Sam, please, Sam. Reconsider. For me, the guy who exchanged nothing but Evil Dead related gifts with his brother every Xmas and birthday for three years running, Sam. Please and thank you."
And after that point, I will get up and leave. Sam, sitting there in slack-jawed for a few moments, won't realize until I'm halfway down the block that I stuck him with the bill.
After all, he makes Spider-Man money; he can't pick up lunch?
I'm going to call Sam Raimi up, take him to lunch and talk some sense into him; say, "Sam. Really. You have Spider-Man money. You don't need to do this, Sam. Your place in history is secure, you know that right? The trilogy is beyond cult following. Hell, my mom loves Army of Darkness, Sam, my MOM. Granted, my mom isn't like other moms, Sam. My mom likes White Zombie, so...
"ANYWAY, Sam, please, leave the trilogy alone. I have so few things that I hold sacred about the entertainment industry left in my life. You know they turned CBGB's into a clothing store!? I never got to see CBGB's, Sam. The Evil Dead trilogy is all I have left, Sam, and you want to go and fuck that up for me. You want to destroy the last piece of my child-like soul and eternally ruin my love of cinema. Why, Sam? Why do you want to kill my child within?
"Please, Sam. Let it go. It's OK to let things go, really.
"Look, I'm going to call Bruce and Rob after this, see if I can have a sit down with them, too, because it's not about you, Sam. It's about the movies. It's always been about the movies. And, yeah, you're still going to get my seven dollars when the fourth one hits the theaters because I know I can't stop you from committing the most reprehensible act of cinematic treason in recorded history, nor will I be able to stay away from any element of the franchise you and your friends built.
"But, really, Sam, please, Sam. Reconsider. For me, the guy who exchanged nothing but Evil Dead related gifts with his brother every Xmas and birthday for three years running, Sam. Please and thank you."
And after that point, I will get up and leave. Sam, sitting there in slack-jawed for a few moments, won't realize until I'm halfway down the block that I stuck him with the bill.
After all, he makes Spider-Man money; he can't pick up lunch?
Yesterday's Tracking Sessions
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I played the bass finger-style to get more of an "authentic" country sound, or as authentic as a guy playing a Jazz Bass copy through a close-mic'd solid state amp can sound. I also sought a more full-bodied guitar sound and went with the Duo-Sonic, which was suitable since I didn't have a lot of big, loud sound for which I generally need the Jaguar's more cutting timbre.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Yesterday's Tracking Sessions
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When I got home, though, I began work on a stoner metal piece for which I got the idea while reading up on will-o'-wisps, which are creeping little bioluminescent swamp farts that backwoods hillbillies think are demons or some shit. This one was a royal pain in the arse as it switches from 3/4 time to 8/8 half way through the song and then it abruptly shifts to 9/4 for the coda. We're talking about it going from a slow groove to Bad Brains fast to just a Diazepam stumble/crawl from one measure to the next. For some reason, the guitar was completed in one take, but the bass required three.
That and I also broke the low E on the bass, which was fun. Meant I had to go digging for the old bass strings to see if I still had an old low E string I could throw on until I got to the guitar shop. (I did.) The first bass take was a wash since the low E went out of tune (naturally) and the second one because I flubbed it, but the third one was good and required only a quick punch in.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Graves of the Endless Fall is back!
 | Fort Wayne, Indiana's GRAVES OF THE ENDLESS FALL is back together. According to their MSpac blog from back in May, the reunion (I hate that word for any band that hasn't been broken up for at least ten years) began as the guys from Graves getting together and practicing weekly with no really solid plans regarding whether this was reinitiating the band. So it was kind of like what happens when you start getting together with your ex strictly for the sex. Well, sure enough, as much as they told themselves and each other that, "Hey, we know what this is and we know that this isn't anything serious; it's just a little bit of fun between consenting adults," they still wound up digging up their old feelings for each other and are now back together. No word yet on how long they're going to be together this time around, so be sure to check them out while they're out and about this time. I was lucky enough to catch them once or twice when they came through Bowling Green, OH and they were a fucking blast. Think stoner metal meshed with thrash metal with portions crust punk sprinkled on top as composed by guys that listen to Joy Division's Complete BBC Recordings and Strauss waltzes. |
Friday, July 03, 2009
Thank God It's Briday
In alphabetical order:
| This is an eighteen year old with her entire productive life ahead of her....  | So what makes any of us think that she's genuinely interested in this jackass?  |
While I find another subject to beat the shit out of to death, enjoy a New Zealand Flight Safety Video...
Thursday, July 02, 2009
The charger on this 'puter died.
Specifically, the actual power cord part, before the transformer, yeah, the plug. That died. The rest of the power cord is fine. I know this because I found a power cord that fit the transformer. A two year run with no major problems? Not bad.
But I go looking for the appropriate part on line, find that it's US$25 (my warranty's expired) and also find that there's a shit-ton of people out there who have nothing but hate toward Dell. Their complaints are valid, I'll grant them that, but their experiences are nothing but the opposite I had with Dell until my warranty ran out, and when my warranty ran out, I was just pissy because they wanted to charge me for the service call.
Anyway, so I'm reading all these stories about how horrible an experience each person has had with Dell and starting to get weirded out. I mean, my parents, my ex, and I have had nothing but trouble with HPs. I figured "Fuck it, I'm getting a Dell," and had nothing but good experiences after that, even if they couldn't figure out why playing YouTube in full screen crashes my display driver. Anything else in full screen is fine, but try to stream something (particularly YouTube) in full screen and the screen goes black. I hit ESC to exit full screen and the screen comes back and a little notification window will pop up that says "Display Driver Stopped Working". Yeah, Dell doesn't know how to fix that.
Anyhow, I'm just blathering now. Here, watch this:
Note that this is not a YouTube video. We're bumping this shit in full screen.
But I go looking for the appropriate part on line, find that it's US$25 (my warranty's expired) and also find that there's a shit-ton of people out there who have nothing but hate toward Dell. Their complaints are valid, I'll grant them that, but their experiences are nothing but the opposite I had with Dell until my warranty ran out, and when my warranty ran out, I was just pissy because they wanted to charge me for the service call.
Anyway, so I'm reading all these stories about how horrible an experience each person has had with Dell and starting to get weirded out. I mean, my parents, my ex, and I have had nothing but trouble with HPs. I figured "Fuck it, I'm getting a Dell," and had nothing but good experiences after that, even if they couldn't figure out why playing YouTube in full screen crashes my display driver. Anything else in full screen is fine, but try to stream something (particularly YouTube) in full screen and the screen goes black. I hit ESC to exit full screen and the screen comes back and a little notification window will pop up that says "Display Driver Stopped Working". Yeah, Dell doesn't know how to fix that.
Anyhow, I'm just blathering now. Here, watch this:
Note that this is not a YouTube video. We're bumping this shit in full screen.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
How do we begin July?
By working day shift, in the middle of the week. Boss Lady called me up while I was at the museum yesterday (Where security followed me around in the least inconspicuous manner possible because, you know, the things they don't have in a frame or case are super easy enough to fit into a messenger bag, the same messenger bag where I was busy pulling my notebook from every three minutes. Motherfucker, do I look like some Great Muppet Caper-ass cat burglar?), where folks looked at me funny because my ringtone is loud as fuck in the Frank Lloyd Wright hallway exhibit. Directly across from that was the picture window with the Minneapolis skyline, which the museum managed to turn into an exhibit with a little plaque that numbered and named the buildings you see.
Mind you, that's downtown Minneapolis, where Hennepin, Nicollet, and Marquette all run parallel to each other as one ginormous, murderous-road-rage-inducing, transportation artery that, when put together, total twelve lanes (six in one direction, two in another, two turn lanes, two bike lanes, and Nicollet is bus, taxi, and emergency vehicles only downtown, so its two lanes are not counted here) of bumper-to-bumper clogged Autobahn madness narrowed worse by MNDOT's decision to repave Marquette and 2nd Ave, so all traffic is Hennepin or 3rd Ave.
Anyway, while I get that major metropoli don't just spring up over night, that they indeed take decades or even centuries to develop, it's still a mind bender, albeit a pleasant one, to see that this was Minneapolis one hundred seven years ago:
That's a painting titled "A Rainy Evening On Hennepin Avenue" by Robert Koehler circa 1902. That was Minneapolis. (And I hope you appreciate that shot because my shitty camera phone kept making a blurry mess out of everything, thus requiring nine or ten shots of some things.)
Anyhow, here, have a chart:
Anyway, while I get that major metropoli don't just spring up over night, that they indeed take decades or even centuries to develop, it's still a mind bender, albeit a pleasant one, to see that this was Minneapolis one hundred seven years ago:
Anyhow, here, have a chart:
| Saturday | Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | |
| Track | I went the fuck outside. | X | I went the fuck outside. | I went the fuck to the museum. |
| Mix | I went the fuck outside. | I went the fuck outside. | Looked at me some damn art. |
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