the embarrassment

Kids on my Lawn

2010-05-22T04:12:00.002-08:00

This morning I awoke to the sound of a kind of pathetic half-cawing coming from the back window. There was a family of crows - two juveniles and four or five adults - just hanging out in the back yard. The young crows were about two thirds the size of the full grown crows, and they sort of stood around and whined while the adults perched in tree branches or walked around (crows do a lot of walking, and I imagine that this is probably what dinosaurs looked like walking around - goose stepping, heads bobbing) foraging for whatever it is crows eat - stink bugs one hopes - and occasionally dropping one in the young crows' mouths.

As this goes on, a couple pairs of young squirrels show up who have obviously had way too much sugar and are madly running all over each other, through the crows and around and around tree trunks. Though there was no direct squirrel-crow kid play, there was a surprising amount of tolerance, with only the occasional caw and wing flap if the squirrels got too obnoxious. Meanwhile a rabbit sits under a tree watching the whole scene. and also tolerating the squirrel rambunctiousness, at least for a dew minutes until finally hopping away in disgust.

Separation Anxiety

2008-08-21T09:07:00.000-08:00

I am living in a divided marriage. Lizzie is continuing to work in Florida where the work is good and the horses sound. I am in Baltimore where the job, band, and house are. We see each other once a month - either here or there, and otherwise communicate by Gmail chat or by watching internet weather radar picture from where the other is.

I've always thought that one of the strengths of our relationship is that we both are very independent, leading separate lives within the marriage. I don't ride horses, she doesn't ride scooters. Separate beds (for sleeping.) So I guess we are testing this theory out. So far so good.

Anyway, it gives me a lot of time to focus on finishing songs for the new Jennifers album.

Friday Fill In

2008-07-27T16:59:00.002-08:00

From the Friday Fill-Ins blog.

Here we go:

1. I believe whatever doesn't kill you can still hurt a lot.

2. If you're good at something, do it often.

3. Why so corrupt?.

4. Something is out there, it's trying to sell me a car.

5. If my life were a sitcom, it would be titled "Cancelled!".

6. Sitting on my back porch [if you don't have one, use your imagination] I see bats.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to reminiscing about last night, tomorrow my plans include reminiscing about tonight and Sunday, I want to make plans for next weekend!

Self-Curating World

2008-07-21T08:00:00.002-08:00

It seems that the world is now self-curating. The old model of librarians, curators and researchers collecting material in a thoughtful and well organized way, and producing cohesive collections is becoming, to some degree, obsolete. Such work involved finding obscure works moldering in someones attic and collecting, organizing and presenting them to the world.

Nowadays those works stay in the attic, but the owner digitizes them and uploads them to YouTube. The search function is now the curator. These days I find myself keeping YouTube and WikiPedia open in a browser when I read, and when an event, person or performance is referenced, nine times out of ten it's on YouTube.

I read Joe Boyd's "White Bicycles" memoir recently, about his musical experiences in the 50's and 60's. He was everywhere things were happening, from Jazz to folk to high mod happenings. I was amazed at how many of these events are now on YouTube, from Dylan going electric, to Pink Floyd at the UFO club. Even obscure English folk musicians have a clip or two that some fan has uploaded. It's like everything now has a multi-media addendum available at the click of a search button.

This is not a new insight. There are books written about how well-programmed search engines reduce the need for organizing information. I'm just amazed at how well the world is now curating itself. YouTube was devised as a way for people to create their own content - movies of their cats or bike stunts. But I think it's true worth is in the amount rare footage that has previously been unavailable.

As a music fan, I'm astounded that there exists footage of things like the Velvet Underground performing at the NYC Psychiatrists convention on 1/13/1966 (the exact day I was born), the Talking Heads at CBGB's performing in 1976 as a nervous three piece before Jerry Harrison joined, Tom Verlaine teaching Television songs to Richard Hell (who seems like a slow learner), and the single best concert film ever - Talking Heads live on Italian TV in 1980. It blows "Stop Making Sense" out of the water, which is no mean feat. And I don't even need to post links to these clips (they get taken down and re-upped anyway), just go to YouTube and search.

Tornadic Activity

2008-03-10T07:15:00.003-08:00

How's this for a feeling of utter helplessness:

This is a screenshot of the local weather radar that my true love emailed from Florida on Friday morning. She is down there for the winter, living in a double-wide trailer on a horse farm. The storm system did produce a tornado that killed two people about ten miles down the road. I have never felt more surreally helpless watching the radar swirl with red right over the little "x" where I know she is.

Snip Snip, ha ha.

2008-02-22T19:03:00.004-08:00

And it's done. After talking for years about getting a vasectomy, I finally put my money where my, uh, balls are. It was a very quick and relatively painless procedure; fifteen minutes in a chair with a little Novocaine. While it was going on, the doctor tried to keep me distracted with some jokes. This was a little unnerving, as he was getting a little too excited in the telling, and I kept expecting him to get all gesticulate-y in the telling. Not so funny when he literally has you by the balls. The one joke he told that I remember:

Guy goes to his surgeon and says he wants to be castrated. After much back and forth he finally convinces the surgeon to do it, saying it's something he always wanted, and wishes he had had done as a child. So after it's done he's in the recovery room, where he strikes up a conversation with another patient: "What did you have done?" The other patient says "circumcision." First guy says "THAT's the word."

funny.

Now I get to ice my sac.

Damn Democrats

2008-01-19T17:43:00.000-08:00

As a middle to upper level State government bureaucrat, I bob just below the political surface. A layer or two above me are the appointed positions that cycle through the agency at least as often as the election cycle. When the Republicans took the State House four years ago, I found a nice niche where I could keep my head down and survive fairly well. I remember joking that when the Democrats take power again, I'd be hanged as a collaborator.

Well they did take power again. I avoided the noose, but at times that seems like it would be preferable. You see the Republicans appointed some very nice, well meaning, (and well connected) people who did some good things, but generally did not have much if any experience in running a large agency. And there never seemed to be much of a sense of urgency to anything. The Republicans' famous disdain for government manifested itself not so much through any active destruction, as much as a sort of drifting neglect. The Democrats on the other hand, expect government to do a lot. A hell of a lot. Large, long term planning projects that has sort of dribbled along are now all of a sudden top priority. Sleepy bureaucrats (like me) that had dutifully checked in and out with a yawn are all of a sudden pulling evening and weekend duty trying to save the world, put a man on the moon by the end of the decade sorta thing.

Which is all fine. I voted for them, and that's what I want government to do. But for a guy like me that is a nine to fiver who expects to have a lot of energy left over for a wife, a band, a brass quintet, two dogs and an orchestra, it is quite a change of pace. The good news is that the current crop of appointees really do seem to know what they are doing, with a surfeit of experience and ideas. It will be a hell of a ride.

War on Bicycle Accidents

2006-09-26T18:37:00.000-08:00

So why have there been no major terrorist attacks in the US in the since 9/11? About the same as why there were none in five years before 9/11. Maybe it's because terrorrists aren't the existential threat ready to wipe away our civilization that they are made out to be by this admisistration.

I ain't afraid of no terrorists. 9/11 was pretty spectacular, but the attackers were really just lucky. Truth be told a whole lot more people in the US and worldwide are killed by ____ than by terrorists. Fill in the blank with just about anything.

Terrorism should be treated as a minor annoyance, like bicycle accidents. Yes we should pursue policies and procedures to minimize it, but it ain't something to throw 300 Billion dollars at.

The fact that there have been no terrorist-caused deaths in the US since 9/11 has nothing to do with the war in Iraq "fighting them there so we don't have to fight 'em here," and everything to do with the fact that terrorists really ain't much of a threat. Never really have been. As you were.

Kill the Middlemen

2006-09-07T10:59:00.000-08:00

David Byrne has a journal entry musing on the Spiral Frog iTunes challenger. He thinks a Google like search-based, ad-supported distributed pay-for-download system is probably in the works.

My ideal model would be a simple web-shopping engine that bands could run from their own sites, where fans can download a DRM-free mp3 directly, after paying 49 cents or whatever. Why have a middleman at all, be it Google, Advertisers, iTunes, labels etc? You'd need softwarde that generates a one-time dynamic link so the customer can get the mp3 but not mail or post the link elsewhere. Most long-tail indie bands/groups would have a fairly low-volume need for bandwidth.

Music fans do a pretty good job of finding stuff they like - reading blogs, magazines, Pandora, internet/sat radio, etc. They should just be able to go to the band's website, push a paypal button, pay a few cents, and get a one-time download link. No DRM or advertising required. This should be easy. If it exists I'd love to find out about it.

All About The Wilsons

2006-07-25T09:31:00.000-08:00

I wish a Democratic candidate would run on a platform of removing the profit motive from war. The military-industrial complex has so thoroughly permeated the government, and this administration in particular, that market forces alone seem to be dictating US foreign policy.

How long should the US stay in Iraq? As long as there are US tax dollars that can be shoveled into the coffers of KBR, Halliburton, Lockheed, Northrop Grummand and their ilk. How long should Israel's incursion into Lebanon last? The answer will have nothing to do with what's in the best interest of the Lebanese or Israelis, or even US citizens.

Not to say that any of these need necessarily be conscious decisions on the part of policymakers (though on Cheney's part, they most assuredly are.) It's just that it is in the financial interest of powerful well connected corporations to prolong lucrative contract situations as long as possible., (contracts that are generally no-bid, but that's another issue.)

This is all laid out in the film Why We Fight, which I haven't seen, but the main thesis seems to explain a lot more about current US foreign policy decisions than any other theory. Ike predicted it 50 years ago. It's not about oil, or freedom, or terra, or US interests. It's not even about the Benjamins, it's all about the Wilsons . A few billion here a few billion there. Pretty soon you're talking real money. Your grandchildrens money.

Studio Time

2006-07-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

We spent two days in the studio this weekend, putting down the backing tracks for what I hope will be the final two songs on the new CD. This project has now spanned over three years in terms of recording, a few more of writing. I understand why this is - we all have full lives outside the band - wives, houses, jobs, film-festivals, school - so we are a band moving in slow motion.

These are also the only two songs we've recorded that we've never played live. They both have a different, less urgent feel than our others and I wonder if that's why. The first is our first ever let-loose-and-jam song, and it kind of worked. I'll know better looking back at it after a while. We are not really jam players. Joe S and I do try to get the interlocking guitars thing down, but I'm not sure it really works in the end. I also had to record really small no-support vocals which was not easy.

The second song "Starfleet Academy" we had to finish the arrangement in the studio with a lot of useful suggestions by Dave N the engineer. I got to play a theremin solo which I think I may actually have a talent for. I may have to get one of those.

Skizz added a lot of extra percussion to some of the previous tracks - maraccas, tambourine, claves. These are really sounding great. I hope this thing gets some distribution. I think there are a lot of folks out there who would like it.

Welcome

2006-05-03T08:16:00.000-08:00

Nothing to see here yet. Check theJennifers.com for current goings-on.