Author: jae

Saturday morning we watched a couple of Cat Stevens videos that Lisa had downloaded from god knows where. i had no idea that he ever made a bona-fide music video, but there they were in all their weird glory. she pointed out how he “caresses the air” with his cheek when he sings. only she could have figured out what he was really doing.

that’s just one of a million really good examples of how she’s so very amazing and special and full of magic and mystery.

the way she dances when she’s happy and excited, for no outwardly apparent reason, is another.

she’s managed to make positive changes in me somehow. right out of the blue. i’m back to writing stories after an eleven year hiatus, and i’m no longer an escape artist. i’m becoming more and more willing to do things that i wouldn’t have previously. and i’m vastly happier.

i’m so in love with her.

this is a problem i’ve been having for a long, long time. well, a short time, when compared to the vastness of Time itself, but let’s just say it’s been a decade or more in the pot.

and maybe i’m just being obstinate…

see, i don’t like the numbers that most physicists generally associate with such things as the size and age of the universe. i refuse to believe them, in fact. to say that the Earth is roughly a few billion years old is one thing, but that the universe is only 12-14 billion years old? that makes the span of the Earth’s existence match a full 25% of the lifetime of the universe itself (so far). i’d like to think that the universe is far older than that. when i was a kid, i’d read an estimate of 18-20 billion years, and i have little problem with that, but lately all i’ve been reading are estimates ranging from 12-14, and never more than that. i have no real argument, it just seems to me that the universe must be vastly older than we think.

which brings us to length. we seem to have little problem in assuming that the universe stretches out a fairly equal distance on all sides from the Earth. this is because that’s all we can see or measure with our finest equipment, and it’s all we can fathom mathematically, due to the age and rate of expansion that we have been thus far able to observe (or extrapolate). so does that make the Earth the center of the universe or something? ha! doubtful. of course, the Earth would be the center of the observable universe, but why isn’t anyone ever publically making assumptions that we’re way off-angle, that we’re maybe closer to something like a third of the distance from the edge to the center.

once again, i have zero facts to support my case. all i have is what i think, and what i think just makes more sense to me than the extrapolations of paid sophists.

i think that the universe is probably a hell of a lot bigger and older than what anyone has come up with so far. it’s probably so god damn big that it repeats itself, or appears to, every few gazillion lightyears, and it’s probably so fucking old that what we call the “Big Bang” has happened several thousand times already, and the last event was maybe even as long ago as a trillion or more years, or at least a few dozen billion.

that’s what i think. and i’m very probably way off base. i’m likely even wronger than the mainstream physicists!

but here’s something: they’re always talking about how everything seems to be expanding, and in a seemingly ridiculous twist, that it seems to be expanding away from the Earth… as if we were truly located at the Center of Everything! but what most people don’t seem to realize is that when the whole thing is expanding and getting less dense, any point you observe things from would appear to be the center. that’s because any point you observe the expansion from is itself getting farther away from its surroundings; everything is moving away from everything else. there need not be a center (for any practical purpose), because it’s only getting less and less dense. physicists know this, but the general public don’t seem to understand it very well. so this much has been a sort of Public Service Announcement, for those of you who may not have realized.

so my point is that we’re not at the center, and that any calculations made based on the assumption that we’re anywhere near to the center cannot be remotely correct. and we can’t tell where the center is, because all we can see is light from a distance away from us, in lightyears, that happens to be equal to the age of the universe, in years. and there’s no conceivable way to measure things otherwise. but the first wave of expansion was undoubtably matter travelling at literally impossible, faster-than-light speeds (which in turn means infinite mass; Q.E.D. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity), which means the universe may be millions of times larger than it is old; and if it’s that much larger than we suspected, then our calculations for its age may also be affected, and it might well be that much older as well.

ok, my little unsophisticated, uneducated, and thoroughly unqualified geekrant is done. go about your business in a disorderly fashion.

ganked from mistressxenobia:

Your meme, should you choose to accept it, is to rank the following bands in order, from COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT to COULDN’T CARE LESS. To add value to this process, you must also add one band to the list, and remove one band from the list, before passing the meme on (including these instructions).

The Beatles
U2
The Doors
Johnny Cash
David Bowie
Queen
The Pixies
Fleetwood Mac
REM
Rush
Duran Duran
The Sex Pistols

i removed The Cramps (awww!) and added U2.
this was TIGHT. the only way i can sleep at night, knowing who all i’ve relegated towards the bottom of the list, is by imagining that this is just the top of a list of my 1,000 favorite bands. i really could’ve added about 20 more bands on here without even blinking or thinking.

new Musician’s Friend catalog came today. once again, no guitars that fit my specs/configuration. what i need is something with a Strat or Soloist style body (though anything, really, will do, as long as it’s comfortable and has at least one cutaway for the high-end fretting), WITH a double locking tremolo (prefer Floyd Rose style), 2 single coil and 1 humbucking pickups, volume & tone knobs, and (here’s the thing i just can’t seem to find) 3 mini-toggle switches for my weird-assed custom electronics. i prefer black or deep blue with black hardware, but i’ll take whatever the hell i can find. i also need an acoustic 6-string.

but i did find a few cool things to add to my wishlist, including a few real interesting instruments i want to get for a friend of mine who’s going to wind up being a multi-instrumentalist. she’s picking up the guitar really quickly, so i’m thinking about getting a Jasmine (by Takamine) for her.

now i need to find money. i hope something happens soon; i’ve secretly drained my $3k inheritance (until now, it’s been my safety cushion) down to a few hundred bucks (over about 2 years), and i’ve almost nothing left in my checking account now, plus about $10 in my pocket. i STILL haven’t been paid by my last remaining web client for the last few months. tomorrow night i’m sending them an invoice, even though they’ve sent me no work for September. hopefully they’ll get the fucking hint. things are getting particularly dire at this point.

yesterday’s DDN classified ads were maybe the thinnest i’ve seen yet. it’s amazing the amount of experience employers now want for even the most mundane of jobs. with so many unemployed people out there, i guess that’s become the norm now. it’s a shame, because i don’t have real solid qualifications for anything besides washing dishes, and i can’t live on less than $8/hr. most of the jobs i’m seeing seem to be of the “you’ll take $6.75 an hour and you’ll be goddamn happy about it” variety.

i’m really really hoping that i can do some work with Finite Monkey, but i’m afraid i just don’t have the skill level they probably want. i’m really good with CSS 2 and XHTML 1.0 (like 99% of everybody else out there), a veritable master of HTML 4.01 (who isn’t?), and handy enough with PHP (though i really only know about 15% of the language core and don’t even have OOP concepts down yet), but that’s really about it. there’s not much else i can really do, besides fuck around with graphics and make simple Flash widgets.

i can’t sleep. i’m still all wound up. not negatively. i’m just awaiting news, which my body doesn’t seem to be able to fucking realize may take weeks or even months to arrive. sleep, damn you, sleep!

so i’m reading Harry Potter (1st book). and goddammit, i like the darned thing. it’s really fucking good stuff! the only thing wrong with Harry Potter is the Potter-heads. they’re always going on and on and on, about Harry Potter this, and Grumblebuck the Enchanted Monkey (or what-have-you) that. mind, i actually secretly enjoy it when my dear friend and partner goes on and on about it; she gets so excited, and that makes me smile all over and inside, and it’s just wonderful to see and hear her talk about anything she loves, with that ultra-charming girlish zeal of hers. but it can be awfully annoying sometimes how popular a thing (any thing) gets, because people always go apeshit over things, which is exactly why Star Trek actually went to hell (but i digress).

and speaking of books + her, i’ve been meaning to get around to reading Thomas Merton for ages now; and since she’s been talking about him again recently, i’ve decided that the next chance i get (when i get a few quid in my pocket and find myself in The Right Part of Town, that is), i’m going to take the plunge and read New Seeds of Contemplation (or, hell, whatever else i find by him).

ok, christ, i can’t help it… let me just quickly vocalize it yet again: she’s so amazing and thoughtful and intelligent and the fact that Merton changed her life a couple years ago while she was being a vagabond hipster in China has always really intrigued me, and made me realize just what an incredible and vibrant and unique and fascinating personality she has… so any book or film or anything that’s touched her so profoundly i’ve just got to check into, because she’s really a remarkable human being, and i at least want to be just half as Aware, too.

and speaking of books in general, i’d like to recommend the following:
Joseph Campbell- Myths to Live By
Gary Zukav- The Dancing Wu Li Masters (physics as zen)
Erich Fromm- The Art of Being
William James- The Varieties of Religious Experience
Denton Welch- In Youth is Pleasure (fiction)
Jean-Paul Sartre- Le Nausée (seminal existentialist fiction)
Lewis Thomas- The Lives of a Cell
Jean Cocteau (attrib.)- Le Livre Blanc

got my HOSA power cable for the Juno-106 today. it’s not a perfect fit, but it shore as hell works. it doesn’t require conditioning or a transformer, so i’m SET!

and i turned it on, to see if everything still worked (it’s about 15+ years old, and i have not used it in about 5 years).

not only does it still work, but all of my presets were still available. wtf kind of battery is it using?!

so i’m good to go. i just need to comp my 3 vocal takes together into one usable track (whichever bits are less off-key will get pasted together; and yes, that’s how everybody else does it), and then overdub some keyboard parts, then some tasty guitar fills, and i’ll have that song, hopefully, bettered.

holy god it’s fucking MOVING!

thanks to tyrsalvia and metaphorge for being so incomprehensibly twisted as to also dig having their brains melted into goo by unutterably maddening optical illusions.

Item the FIrst:
lately LiveJournal is getting to be a bit too much for me. i find myself with less and less time to read my friends page, what with having a new thing going on with a remarkable girl, trying to complete my redesign, writing and recording new music, and various other things. i’ve got about 60 mutual friends, maybe another 50 or so who don’t link back to me, maybe 20 or 30 feeds, and over 200 communities. generally speaking, my default friends page only includes the 60 mutual friends and a few select communities and feeds. it’s getting harder and harder to not skim, and that makes me feel terrible. i really want to have the time to read everything that everyone writes, but these days, i hardly ever do, even the people i’ve always really liked a lot and whose insightful journalling i really enjoy from my brains to my balls.

with that in mind, i’m offering you all a way out. if you don’t read me that often, if you think me boring and self-centered, if you’re sick and tired of me, then delete me and i will actually be relieved, and i won’t fault you for it. it will help me out. if you for whatever reason don’t want to delete me, then that’s cool, too. but seriously, if my journal is not a thing you’re into, then who could blame you for that? needless to say, i’ll miss you. but sometimes we all need to pare down to basics and live a more spartan life for a while, while other things are going on. i leave it up to you, because i honestly would not choose to delete any of you myself. i adore all of you too much and it would feel like cutting off an arm or something. if, on the other hand (no pun intended), my arm should suddenly get sick of me and fall off, i could learn to live with it – since i’d have to anyway.

Item the Second:
i’m a boring, mindless ape. i write a lot, but i don’t speak enough. i don’t talk very well, i don’t think. i’m trying. i hate to inform you, but i’m not as smart as i make myself out to be. i just happen to have my hand in a lot of areas in life; but i don’t understand any of them completely. i’m better-rounded than most, perhaps, but probably just as dumb, if not worse. often, instead of actually thinking, i’ll just sit there in a zen-like trance, just reveling in the BEINGNESS (particularly when i’m with someone, otherwise, by myself, i think in language). an afterthought: i think that my years of nearly complete social isolation in Jacksonville may have played a role in my inability to communicate well verbally (and probably why i’m so fucking self-absorbed).

Item the Third:
the reason why my friend and i work so well together after all this time: we like a lot of the same things, have similar opinions on a lot of philosophical and political issues, and often even do things the same way, or have synchronistic timing. the things we’re NOT alike on are all complimentary things; where i don’t like something, she does, and vice versa… so we fill out the spaces, and hardly a thing seems to get past without one or both of us taking notice. we’re like some kind of symbiotic spongetrap. and where i sometimes have a somewhat feminine outlook or reaction to things, she has a sort of masculine self-image; even though plainly i’m a hairy knuckledragger, and she’s very femme. and i think we may have similar viewpoints about bisexuality.

Item the Fnordth:
i’m somewhat frightened by the bad news that always seems to make its way to me every day. “we’re sorry, but not only do you not qualify for this job, but you are a dork, a jerk, you smell funny, and we just don’t like you one bit.” “I’d like to meet up and hang out with you at some point, but the fact of the matter is that unfortunately, I simply do not choose to do so at this time.” “I’m getting rapidly bored with you, so let’s end this.” but i’m used to it, or should be anyway.

Item the Nth:
secrets need vectors. if you do something WRONG, don’t keep it to yourself. tell whomever you have wronged. it may hurt them, but you’ll feel better, and most importantly, you won’t need to do it again, because you’ll have chosen the right vector. this was inspired by a dilemma posed on an Indianapolis radio station i was listening to in the car yesterday, and has nothing to do with any person or situation with which i am familiar, to the best of my knowledge.

Item the Fifth:
Dr. Drew today on Fresh Air said that when you’re an addict, you lose the ability to explore other minds. that really hit me hard, being an addict of alcohol and nicotine and caffeine and a former addict of other chemicals. i realized that i am just now simultaneously trying to solve both the interconnectivity problem, and the substance abuse problem. i’ve got the substances mostly licked, although i’m probably still far from being completely over them.

sorry for the massive missive.

very beautiful prints at a totally sweet price. you should buy at least nine. they’d make really bad-ass gifts, too, especially with the holidays (and all those birthdays of your St. Valentine’s Day-conceived friends) coming up.

got an email from my dear old friend Trish. i hope she’s doing okay. she sounded like she was getting over a big hurdle. making plans to meet up with her in Yellow Springs and drink and dance and catch up. i miss me some Tricia! what an awesome woman.

also maybe have plans for an October 4th meeting with the finite monkey people. if all goes well, i may even see some work come my way, so this is a crucial, crucial thing. but hell, if nothing else, i’ll get to see my old friend (and art co-conspirator – we collaborated on a few art pieces and even some theatre back in the day) Tami, so it’s a big plus by default anyway!

i got to see my sweet friend today before picking up my grandfather from the Amtrak station in Indy (downtown – way away from where i thought i had to pick him up). even the short time her and i had was lovely, although i was pretty beat after driving on little sleep and a slight hangover, and was nervous as hell about hanging out at her work, so i know i wasn’t very talkative (boo on me for being boring). i sure hope she doesn’t get in any trouble because of me. that would be my shit luck. i missed her online tonight, though, and i hope she had a good night, and that i didn’t miss An Important Conversation, or the chance to give her some support (though i hope more that she didn’t have any particularly dire need of any… y’know?). i feel kind of bad, but my grandfather had countless emails to check of course.

and boo hiss on more new job leads that turn out to require elaborate degrees, and knowledge of Java and ASP and Oracle and other stuff that i don’t work with.

i wish i had time to actually read LiveJournal anymore. gimme a link if you have something important going on. as always, i’ll be your friend whenever you need it. i love all you beautiful freaks, and i mean that from the bottom of my heart.

am unmentionably exhausted. must retire.

two new very short stories.

eleven part roy
bedbugs

forget that song, i hate it, it’s the stupidest song ever. i’m done with it. completely done with it. it’s not a problem with recording or performing it for tape or anything like that. it’s just that it’s a terribly dumb song! it’s been done, it’s been done far better, and it’s a six minute cliche that needs to be buried under the ground and never disturbed.

i think i may be done with music altogether. shut the fuck up.

…but on the upside, i now know that my song is THEORETICALLY 120 measures long.

and if it’s not, i’m fucked.

jesus. programming decent, interesting drum patterns is a bitch and a half! i’m up to 16 different patterns for this song. and that’s just the first draft! i think i might just stick to what i have.

now i’ve got to outline it. and set up the track in sequence, which means laying out all the various patterns i have and deciding which ones goes should where. for a six minute song, i guess it’ll probably take about an hour or so.

don’t ever let anyone tell you that analog doesn’t SUCK ASS.

and i haven’t even gotten to actually recording a damn thing yet.

boom snick-a boom, boom boom snick-a boom-boom.

that song i’ve been harping on about…

here’s a 128kbps version – 5.4mb
also, 160kbps – 6.8mb
and 196kbps – 8.1mb
and a 256kbps version – 10.8mb

the lower-quality one sounds HORRIBLE because mp3 compression on up-front cymbals sounds like shit. so i don’t recommend it.

but i’m serious – the 128kbps version sounds seriously shitty. i’m only putting it up in case you have a lousy dialup connection like me or just don’t want some huge shitfile clogging up your hard drive.

keep in mind that this is simply a rough demo version. that’s a scratch piano and scratch vocal, and it’s meant to just be a sort of placeholder, and eventually be replaced by an overdub. the entire thing was recorded in a total of 3 passes: 1 take for the drums and piano, and another for the vocals, plus a punch-in for the last section.

SO IT’S CRAPPY. this is just so you can hear what i have in mind for the final song.

and here’s the lyrics.

and TONY – comment and let me know whatcha think!

i think i’m pretty much ready to start recording basics for that song, which still has no title. i’ve got everything set up and a scratch drum track to sync to. i just need to place mics and record a couple passes for a scratch piano/vocal and then overdub final stereo piano, vocal, stereo keyboards, and a guitar or two. with any amount of luck, i’ll soon have something to work with and maybe even make a rough mix out of.

here’s what it looks like, if you’d like to play along.

intro
C – Gm – A – Bb

verse
Ab – Cm | Ab – Cm | Ab – Cm | F – Cm | F – Cm
a ghost on earth, i come to your door…
smear my hands across the panes
let me in
let me in…
an empty vessel, so far from its source
i scratch my fingers upon the glass
let me in,
let me in…

interlude
Bb – F – Ab – Eb | F – Eb – Bb – F

verse
Ab – Cm | Ab – Cm | Ab – Cm | F – Cm | F – Cm
it’s too cold out here, far from life.
do you remember when i was
more than this,
more than this?
i once was warmed; it seems so long ago.
i wear your name across my heart.
can you feel,
can you feel me?

interlude A
Bb – F – Ab – Eb

bridge
Bb – F – Ab – Eb
if only i could speak to you now
i’d show you how i’ve put up a fight.
no more wondering what has become,
no need to cry, here in the night.

interlude B
F – Eb – Bb – F

verse
Ab – Cm | Ab – Cm | Ab – Cm | F – Cm | F – Cm
and i’m so sore, having walked a thousand miles.
a wisp of smoke in the dark
make me real
make me real…
across the silence, you feel like i’m there;
say my name, and i’ll appear
make me real,
make me real…

interlude
Bb – F – Ab – Eb | F – Eb – Bb – F

prechorus
F – C/E – Cm/Eb – Bb/D

chorus
F – C/E – Eb – Bb/G,A,Bb
and i’m fighting for a way to get in;
didn’t you think i’d come back for you?
and i’m finding out a way to begin;
so many things have come to be true.
no more hiding in the shadows again;
open your eyes (no more fear) you can see.
and my vapor it resolves into skin.
wouldn’t you know?, you do this to me.

rideout
F – C/E – Eb – Bb/G,A,Bb
and the grey light recedes into daylight….

my next song is going to be some balls-out rock and roll.

i am so proud of Michael Franti. Spearhead‘s new album is the CD of the month at WYSO. any cat who named his second band Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, managed to have a huge single called “Television: The Drug of the Nation” (complete with a video in heavy rotation on MTV’s 120 Minutes), recorded an extra-long album with William S. fucking Burroughs, and, over ten years later, continues to make positive, socially-conscious hip-hop music (no gangsta violence or bling-bling crap) is ALL RIGHT. if i saw him on the street, i would all but throw him in my van and make sweet love to him. he’s that freaking great.

the washing machine is out. so now on top of cleaning my room up and moving the synthesizer in and shopping and repairing the cream-colored acoustic for Lisa and trying to finish writing the new song and figuring out the most feasible way to make a really good recording of it, i have to do my laundry uptown at the ‘mat. which sucks, because i must have 30 fuckin’ loads of it.

the new song is coming along really well, and i’ve pretty much got the first minute or so down. i have no words for the chorus, which i think will start off as just an instrumental interlude between the first two verses, and then become the major theme of the second half of the thing. it’s certainly a different kind of song than i’m used to writing. it’s not “verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus,” but more like “verse, prechorus-to-chorus interlude, verse, (who knows what’s next).”

the only serious problem is that i really like big wide 8 minute rock concertos like Radiohead does, but i wish i could make a fuckin’ compact song for once. something around 3 minutes or so. so i feel like i’m being a little overindulgent. and here’s the crux: it needs a whole 3rd verse really badly, which entails another interlude to go between the verses.

so now i must be up to about 2:30 or even 3:00 already and there’s STILL not a chorus in sight! this bothers me, so i might have to make something in the interlude a bit more hooky. it’s somber, but it’s got to have a catch, a hook somehow… but i can’t extend it any more or it’ll turn into some stupid pomp ballad or something.

got to keep on hacking away at it. i’ll do laundry later. i need to get this song finished and recorded, and i have so little precious time to do it!

i can’t wait to post this thing. i think it’s really going to be a lovely song. definitely the most haunting sounding thing i’ve ever done.

i don’t know where these things come from, so i can’t quite take credit, which leaves me just enough freedom to go ahead and say: it’s really a fucking beautiful thing, man.

and for the record, it’s only ostensibly about a ghosted lover. it’s also allegorical. i’ll explain later. well, no, i’ll explain it now. the gist is this: i was once only ones and zeros to my friend and lover, and now i’m made real. that should tell you what i have in mind for the lyrics in the second half. it starts somber but gets a bit more uplifting, hopefully to an almost ecstatic point at the end.

i just tried those first few lyrics to make sure that they fit.

they fit. beautifully so.

so now i actually have (gasp!) a melody. and i can sing it with no serious problems.

i still think the chorus is a little bright, though. i’ll probably change it a little bit at some point.

shit, i really like writing songs, especially when things really start going so well. i get on this sort of kick.

fuck loop-kiddies.

i’m writing a song on the piano. i’m not sure if i’ve ever actually done that before.

it’s, y’know, kind of mopey sounding. until i fit some lyrics in anyway. and then it’ll probably just get worse and turn into some kind of weepy goddamn ballad or some shit. if that should actually happen, kill me.

but it’s got some interesting chord changes, which surprised me. i didn’t know i had it in me. it’s mostly major chords, but they sound minor when they rub all up against each other. so that’s kinda cool.

it goes something like

verse:
||: Ab – Cm :||: Ab – Cm – F – Cm :||

chorus:
||: F – Eb – Bb – F :||

bridge:
||: C – Gm – A – Bb :||

cool article in the Lansing State Journal about my town, found completely on a whim.

damn, i love Dayton.