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This post is for my San Diego band. We are going to be playing a benefit gig in a few weeks, and a couple of the guys wanted some stuff.

It’s here!

All I have To Say Is…..

DO NOT TEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE (Maybe one of many…): So It Begins!!!! After all these years, I may finally have a reason to watch the Grammys this year!

It's Bad Movie Saturday!!!

So, here I am at home on a Saturday afternoon. Normally I would have band practice today,  but today I resigned from the Fresno band, Sugarfly. I like the band-mates, they are good guys, I loved the musicianship; guitarist Chris and drummer Brian are superb players. I also looked forward to working with former CPG vox Jason again. But the musical direction we were moving toward was not the type of music I want to play. The songs we were working on incorporates styles similar to Black Crows and Jeff Buckley. I want to do songs that are more pop oriented; songs that follow the sensibilities of artists such as Dire Straits, Police, and Neil Finn / Crowded House. For all the reasons to be in the band, I know I would not have been happy over an extended period of time, so I decided not to string them along. Now they can find a player who is into the same grove that they are. Even if I hadn’t quit the band, I would have stayed home today anyway, as I seem to have caught a nice little cough from my students (thanks guys) and have been feeling under the weather. I needed the rest.
So anyway this afternoon I tuned into the HD channels on the telly (that’s British for television), and ended up watch two of the more horrible movies ever made. First there was Orca. It’s a Richard Harris vehicle about a fisherman and his killer whale – a really, REALLY pissed off killer whale. Before I tell you anything about the movie, you should know two “facts” of nature that will explain everything:

1. Whales, unlike selfish humans, mate for life.

2. If the whale mate dies, the whale will forevermore wander the ocean, depressed over its loss, pining for the fjords.

So at the beginning of the movie RH’s character, Bill, or Charlie, or whatever, catches, on accident, a female Orca in his fishing net. Well instead of immediately cutting the thing loose, he drags it shipboard, ’cause if he doesn’t, he’ll lose the rest of the catch in the net. Greedy bastard! By taking the out of the ocean, he dooms the whale to death. But before she dies, she stillbirths a cute, little, premature baby Orca. Here’s the problem. The mom’s mate is watching the whole thing from the water. Killing his soul-mate is one thing, but causing the death of the little orcaling, well, this means war!!! The rest of the movie is a whale-tail of revenge. I won’t bother you with the details, because it is not worth either your time or mine. Lets just say it’s cool when Bo Derek gets her leg bit off by the whale, punishment no doubt for bad acting, and revenge IS a dish best sered cold.

The other movie was “Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone”.  Google it. It is sooo bad, it doesn’t even have its own Wiki page.

What Do We Know, And How Do We Measure It???

At the blog, Verifrank, there is post reflecting on the disconnect between what people think about the United States and immigration trends. The former says, basically, we stink, yet the latter indicates millions of people risking their lives to come and start a new life here. Do we stink, really? I mean, the sewer really really stinks, and as a result, there are few people lining up to hang curtains from the grates (Christo did, but he’s an artist and all artists are a bit “off”, so “The Gates” don’t count). So what gives? The blooger ponders….

I wonder if theres a sort of ‘natural reflex’ to just tell the pollsters what they want to hear, rather than tell them what you actually think.

What about the Consumer Confidence Index? How often do we hear that the figure is low, and it shows the average consumer believes their economic situation is bad, yet at the same time retail profits, as are most economic indicators, are up. I have never been much of a believer in the concept of “talking down the economy“. If that worked, then the economy would be in the pits, judging from all the negative leaning reporting on all things economic (Democrats, Krugman, I’m looking your way). Consumers perceptions on economic reality are betrayed by their spending habits; their flapping wallets tell us what we want to know about the health of the economy, not their flapping lips.

Hat Tip: Insta-P.

In Case You Didn't Know…..

…. God Hates Fags!

Yeah. We Know. We Know.

But alcohol induced incestual date rape? Well, that’s OK, I guess (Genesis 19:30 – 19:38).

Now, have a nice day!

Hat Tip: Sully.

So This Is How They Hook You…

An old friend from way way back, who is wanting to get in touch with me, sent me a link via Classmates. They say you can access info for free and they entice you to enter your name and email into the data base. Only after you sign up for the free account do you realize just how limited your options are using the free service. You can look at a list of name of people from your high school who are also members, but you can’t contact them, and if they contact you, you can’t read the e-mail unless you buy the “Gold” or “Platinum” upgrade.

You think, eh, I didn’t have a great high school experience so I won’t need the upgrade.

But then when you start looking at the names of all those classmates, so many of whom didn’t even know you existed (what, don’t pity me, I was boring), but some of whom it would be nice to touch base with again, you start asking; should I open my wallet and pay the $2.95 per month to get in contact with people I probably have nothing in common with. Not only that, since I was way, way in the proverbial closet in those days, the people I went to hich school with never really knew me!

But still, it would be nice….

Tribal Instincts – Self Segregation.

This is one of my comments on blog-pal Citizen Duex’s Haze Gray Blog. I don’t even know what the original topic was, but the comments concerning sociology were outstanding. CD and Scoot share their thoughts and experiences of people tending to segregate themselves into groups with which they have similar things in common. Scoot mentions racial comfort zones his students segregate themselves into. CD mentions he’s seen the same thing within the military. I add my two cents worth:

To me it’s the answer to the question of why we have gangs, and why it’s so hard to keep kids from joining…

…And political parties are nothing if no glorified gangs. Why do you think Jeffersons ideal of a partyless American government failed. After the revolutionary war, we were united in victory. Being a humanist and enlightenment fellow, he thought we would resist the baser instincts of tribalism in government, i.e. no political parties. He figured the American revolution was also the casting out of factionalism – that we were all Americans and that would be the glue that kept us together and united. He envisioned a government free of the influence from political parties.

He was wrong. No sooner did we start living with the Articles of Confederation, than we started using the State as the common ground to bond our tribes. Then when we ditched the AoC for the Constitution, arguments over the strength of that government structure created the division that fostered the formation of the stronger govt. Federalist vs the weaker govt. Republicans. Of coarse, Jefferson is probably as reponsible as anyone for the formation of that divide with his behind the scenes machinations against Hamilton (desevred), Adams (misguided), and even a little toward Washington himself (wrongheaded).

PS. To be clear, I’m not dissing TJ, just looking at his role in forming his “gang”.

Are ones choice of “blog-pals” also an example of self-segregation?

Inspire Me, The Re Re Re Mix

I am in the proccess of rebuilding the “Hear Ye, Hear Ye” section on the blog, as there was no way to simply transfer the code. The following post was written in April of 2005. This is the first time I have tried to link directly to the new sonicfrog ftp site. I hope this works.

Here are a couple of tracks is a track from my Sand Diego band Rare Form, circa 1993. This is the cover band that I still belong to even though I now live in Fresno, 348 miles away. The tape this came from has four songs on it, but two are still missing the vocals. We only had a four track recorder and a few hours, so each song was recorded in one or two takes. These songs were pulled from an old cassette, so the sound quality is not as good as I would like. But I have spent a lot of time trying to improve the sound of the tracks using an audio editing program called “Cool Edit Pro”. It amazes me what technology has brought to the average Joe’s fingertips.

When I listen to the bass line on “Inspire Me” I almost believe that I might just be able to play the contraption. I am very proud of that one. I actually goofed a couple of times in the recording. At the beginning of the solo, on the second note, I play a “B” but I meant to play a “D”. I used to be mad at myself for that, until one day (probably two years later I’m so dense) I realized “Hey, That actually works better than the thing I wanted to do!” Recording is like that. There are also some tasty slidey bass bits going on toward the end of the second verse. The funny thing is, I did not remember doing it when we recorded the song. Recording is like that. Sometimes you get in a groove while playing a good song and do little thing you’re not aware of, but it’s caught on tape. I had to sit down and learn the new part I created, but I didn’t know how I did it! I just knew it sounded really good. And Cliff’s guitar solo on this song is simple yet stunning. I never tire of hearing it!

The Temporal Motivational Theory

Some brainy scientist says he’s found the mathematical formula describing procrastination:

E x V / ΓD.

Here is the article. It sounds way cool, but, eh, I’ll read it tomorrow.

Hat Tip: Slashdot.

PS. I still haven’t figured out how to spell check on this blog. Eh, I’ll do it tomorrow.

Resistance To Earmark Reforms…..

…. by Repub… no that would be Democrats!

Good for Nancy Pelosi (mostly). She’s is certainly tackling a lot of the issues she said she would. Earmarks seem to be a top priority. Sen. Harry Reid??? He… well, not so much. One old-guard Senator tries to explain why the House version of the bill is not acceptable:

Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also said the DeMint (read Pelosi) provision was “unworkable” because it was so broad it could be applied to thousands of projects included in federal spending bills.

Uhm, isn’t that the whole point to accountability; making it broad and encompassing?

PS. I’m not a big fan of the “(mostly)” source Washington Times. Put kindly, they are often utterly blinded by their, oh, slight partisan leanings. They have been blatantly wrong on a story on more than one occation. But the votes are in and, yes, it does smell fishy!

Hat Tip: Insta-P