California

So, I'm back from San Diego and am nearly over my usual post-California depression. I always get in a fairly serious funk because I'm leaving the homeland. The place that I get and that gets me. My home. The west (the best). Cali. Cal. The golden state. Blah-blah-blah. And I'm always leaving the best-est of friends behind.

Fuck! Whatever. I'm still (and I mean it) going back someday. I may be old and crippled and full of dementia, but I'm totally (and I mean it) going back. Quote me, suckers.

1. Speaking of dementia.... Huh? What was I saying? Dammit, this always happens.... Oh yeah, speaking of dementia, I feel it's perfectly acceptable to not want to be an old geezer who can't even remember the last time I.... Huh? Who are you? Oh yeah, I don't want to be a baby again. I don't want to be fed. I don't want to be fucking changed. Nope.

I think the best course of actions is as follows:

1. Place loaded, cocked .45 (a la HST) in a safe deposit box.
2. Place tattoo in obvious place that says, "If this tattoo doesn't make any sense get your ass to the Main Street Bank - safe deposit box 1024 (key and directions are in pink elephant on mantle [or whatever, details can be worked out]) - look inside - thank self for the future gift."
3. Follow instructions.
4. Thank self for future gift.
5. Boom! Ha-ha!

I know, people are all bummed out about this rather practical directive. But, I believe that's just them having death denial issues. People don't want to be like that. I certainly don't. Uh-uh, nope. No way. Anyway...what was I saying.

Oh yeah, San Diego. What did I do?

2. I went on a mountain bike ride. No, not a recreational ride. I mean a real ride. With five other guys that were either good, young, knowledgeable of the terrain, or in good shape. Or combinations therein. Me? I was none of the above. The last time I went on a real ride was like in 1995. Ha! So, whatever, you only live once, right? See above, what, I'm not going to go? No way. I'm going every time until I literally cannot.

So, this one guy, Doug (who used to be a road bike racer at UCLA, i.e. chops city), asks me, "so you ride?" I'm like, "Nope. Not in a long time." He laughs like I'm kidding. Whatever. Oh, and I haven't ridden clip-less in a decade either. Basically, I was headed out to die.

These guys kicked my ass. I knew I was in trouble at minute 3 into the two plus hour ride when we "dropped in" here (see pic). Yes, there's a trail there. This is the biggest trail of the ride. The best part was this bushwhacked loop that was actually under the sage brush. There was a canopy. So, you are simultaneously trying to ride single-track, loose dirt trails and not take your head off.

I could go on. Let's just say, I only fell about five times. Ran completely out of energy. Walked the bike down and up several hills (the best part of being my age is knowing my limits) and opted out of two loops. I survived with only one sore ass and a few very minor scrapes. Good for me. Ha! Somehow this is a victory.

The worst part is now I have the bug. In my head I'm all like, shit, I could easily do this - there were several times on the ride where I had my legs/chops and felt natural - if only I had the equipment. The slippery slope.

3. I discovered the Orioles were in town. In San Diego. God bless interleague play. Blech! So, through the magic of Fathers Day, Mark and I ended up with tickets (to the Toyota Terrace level - $49.50 seats).

No, I know there has always been a lot of advertising in baseball and all of professional sports. But, sometimes you have to laugh at what has to be either shrewd marketing or just plain careless marketing. I mean, Toyota Terrace? WTF?

At what point are the returns to your company not equal or greater than the cash you laid out? I mean, Toyota Terrace? So, Hebrew National feels it's a wise business decision to sponsor the little "Guess the Attendance" schtick in the 8th. Like, "I had such a good time at the game. Especially the Petco Park Guess the Attendance presented by Hebrew National. I was right on too guessing 24,384 paid tickets." So, am I to go buy some franks now? Like I said, WTF?

In fact, there's no longer a moment of peace in any professional - major or minor - event. We entered to the recorded announcements about how to enjoy our "Petco Park experience" to having to sit through dozens, possibly hundreds of ads interspersed throughout the game. Each batter even had 30 seconds of some lame ass song to accompany him to the plate.

Anyway.... Where was I? Oh yeah, so I'm back from San Diego and am nearly over my usual post-California depression. I always get in a fairly serious funk because I'm leaving the homeland. The place that I get and that gets me. My home. The west (the best). Cali. Cal. The golden state. Blah-blah-blah. And I'm always leaving the best-est of friends behind.

✝he $in 'Zin€ @ 10 meMento sTyle

I stumbled across my very own ✝he $in 'Zin€ by chance the other day

[Zine is short for magazine]

The focus is on each of the seven deadly sins, sin zine, The Sin Zine

✝he $in 'Zin€

[Clever]

It was a collaborative piece that reads as an homage to zines

I guess I wanted to make something referencing work that influenced me

I mentioned that I had found this project and now I'm asked questions about it

It's an inexplicable project even for me and that's a weird thing to say

The stylized script, "✝he $in 'Zin€," renders it unsearchable 

[Of course]

It does not appear on this blog and relevant searches turn up little

I first searched "sin zine" and got nothing at all

 

I also got nothing for "zine" or "✝he $in 'Zin€" and far too much for "sin"

But this product would have paired "sin" and "zine"

The stylized script, "✝he $in 'Zin€," renders it unsearchable

This was a dead end

So I went to the email archives

I actually thought I would find something

I  got nothing for "the sin zine" or "✝he $in 'Zin€" and far too much for "sin"

But I found a little breadcrumb treat when I searched "zine"

 

"Zine" returned five results: two ads, two others, and a emailing from me to me

[Of course]

So I opened the mail from me to me and found t ahis grenade:

🚨Future Gift alert🚨   🚨Future Gift alert🚨   🚨Future Gift alert🚨  

I sent myself a comic

[Of course]

Achewood of course and this comic of course:

This one: [clicky]

This one:

 

We thought 2007 was strange but we knew absolutely nothing 

That is pretty funny

[Reagan and both Bushes wore tan suits]

Nothing is really that funny anymore

Funny, strange? Sure

Funny, funny? Not really

See?

A classic diversion by a classic diversionist

But we were trying to find out about ✝he $in 'Zin€

[TGA]

There was a reason I was searching archives for ✝he $in 'Zin€

Because I remember very little about why or how ✝he $in 'Zin€ happened

I see it was quite intentional

[Of course]

And it was self-limiting which is pretty smart regardless of why

Pdfs so they can be downloaded and printed

[Download and print it is how it works]

It was wildly collaborative almost impressively so 

I guess I talked to people

I guess I convinced people

So how did that happen?

I don't remember

Why did it happen?

"I don't recall"

- Ronald Reagan

Clearly by hosting it on Tumblr I was segregating it or burying it

Or stashing it for safe keeping

This is like a treat in a paper bag: a Food Enrichment Exercise

I found no reference to this zine other than a tiny link on the blog

[Exhibit at right -------------------------------------------------- >]

In a stylized script--"✝he $in 'Zin€--that renders it unsearchable 

I found nothing in the email archives that go back that far

But that's the whole thing

Aside from the deliberate rabbit holing future gift special

Getting the art away from context

Stripping it away from context

Removing art from context

Maybe only when I cannot remember how or why something was made

Does it become a finished piece

"I'm a real boy!"

-Pinocchio

 This piece is a 10 years old

✝he $in 'Zin€

[Previously Untitled]

Now that all the baggage has worn off, I can definitely say that Vota Asi is one of the very finest Kingdom of Leisure tracks.

Credit where credit is due though; fate played a significant hand in its creation, at least from the production side. Actually, from what I remember, fate was a huge part of the performance side too. It sounds like they knew what the hell they were doing. Maybe they did. Accidental? Who's to say?

Nuances. Touches. I happened across it bookended by the Beatles Norwegian Wood and Soundgarden's Dusty.

In fact, and I just realized this, the whole tKoL experience was all a big "future gift." It's like they went forward in time, five ten or more years and left little gifts (or mines or pointers or whatever), but it ceases to amaze that when you're lost, there are these pointers to help out along the way.

What is it parents are taught to say, "you may not like it now, but investing in your education now will pay off in the future." Some shit like that. Well, if you break ass and spend a couple of years making stuff, then dispersing it into the universe, it'll all come raining down some day.

Vota Asi

So you're too cool for romance
just get some on the side
I'm a peace loving man but you made the wrong woman cry

Think you can just walk in walk out
Snakes in the house snakes in the grass
And you thought I was joking when I said I'd kick your ass

She ain't no toy she's family
you should have left her all alone
Well you're a bad motherfucker but you're a long way from home

So you're still looking in bushes
for what you got right in your hand
blowing at boulders kicking at quicksand

We'll you messed with the wrong tribe
when you said you had to go
Well this is her consolation prize sideshow Romeo

Future Gift

Holeshots at Starting Lines

It is 2009 and we are all now going through The Change.

Barack Obama (the metaphor, not the person) was elected and the world is beginning to breathe with a little more ease, finally. Again. Not that Barack's (the person, not the metaphor) going to magically heal the planet of all its woes, but we can stop pressin' so much. Even though times are beat and will get beater, we can at least stop some of The Dread and get on with how we're going to finish this thing out. In style...with a gangster lean. [Note to Barack: chill on the emailings, son. You're making all that Hope 'n Change shit look scripted and small, seriously, dude. Stop beggin' like a bum at Union Station]

This, though, I do know, the creators are feeling it too. Something's happening. I said it just yesterday. This is, in fact, what I wrote, "Oh shit. A thing has begun. Shit just coming together. Art. Music. Words. Webs. Enlightened tymes." It's like a giant single-pole, single-throw toggle switch was flipped (hand of G-d?); everybody, those who matter anyhow, skidding to abrupt halts, looking into weird mirrors, and completely reevaluating all our art situations. I know this because it is all around me like scabies, like mopes. Like mopes with scabies. Like mopes on scabies.

Some recent observations:

• Chris at Achewood stopped juggling and decided to reschedule the meeting rather than show up tardy and run out of time (metaphor, the sequel) [clicky]. Mad props.

• The Blognigger shut the factory down at the turn of the new year. The creator of the most genius art arc of 2008 tied everything up in a huge red bow and hid that "everything" up in the attic only to be taken down years from now and cherished like the future gift it is. All apples and honey, whomever this mensch is.

• Big Dave Wave went back to the archives for a much needed continuity check: [clicky]. Just so it's documented, Big Dave Wave has always been the fuel and one of the main engines that keeps this thing pushing forward.

• Tribesman and webmaster, Ben, said, "Keeeep Producing, Man!"

• Scharpling freshened up too [clicky].

• Lily got a new camera.

• Betsy said, "Be bold, and the mighty forces will come to your aid. Don't wait. Our time is short. Patience is different than waiting. Waiting is withholding, and hanging onto expectation. Do what matters now, say what matters now. Don't wait."

• My good friend and reconciler, The FoOl, knocked it around in his latest Trainspotting post: [clicky] "The skin on your face looks aged, your teeth yellow and your hair thins out." A post I will definitely have comments for.

• The B has asked for and shall receive high-top Chuck Taylor All Stars [I'm doing something right].

• And finally, my primary collaborator, partner-in-the-crimes, spiritual advisor, and teacher, Richey Powell, said AFTER SENDING OVER SOME TRACKS AND INSTRUCTIONS:

"Like the half-black/half-white man said, 2009 is a time for shit to change (I'm paraphrasing). Onstad. BN. The myth of home equity. We're all sick and tired of the itchy, wet, wool covering our eyes. Mother of Christ, I'm so sick of it all.

Ty Hardaway, what say we monster the fuck out of 2009?

And I don't give a shit if anyone sees it or anyone notices or anyone gives a ratcrap. That's just how it's going to be with me this year."

Monster the fuck it shall be then. Did someone question how seriously I took yourself? I'll just say people sometimes process me as unserious because I disarm them with unseriousness. Vulcan-Jedi mindfuck. But as Elliot Aronson's popularly understood First Law dictates: "People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy."

But, and here's where it gets middlespace, Elliot Aronson (thesis advisor and graduate school professor) is massive enough to have more than one First Law. Man's a genius, what laws do you have? Here's another Elliot Aronson First Law:

"People who are afraid to make mistakes are unlikely to make ANYTHING of great value."

We've paid the dues, we've made the mistakes, and the fears are now gone. Now, let's go the fuck alpha on America v.02. It's Game time. It became official yesterday when I pulled out the Jimi Hendrix "special" wah-wah pedal to work on "TRACKS AND INSTRUCTIONS" from Richey and on the very same day, and independently, Chris Onstad published a panel where a character said, "Say, you got one 'a those wah-wah crybaby guitar pedals?"

Consumption is the old. Production is the new. It's all beginnings. Doy.

Here We Go

I've Always Been This Awkward - Sixteen

Sixteen

How To Make Your Next Record Album

One of the most difficult things you can do is make yourself your next record album. The making of part is actually kind of easy, that's not the problem at all. It's the getting started part that's an angry, spiteful asshole! Typically once you've actually started, you're well on your way to completion, and barring catastrophe it's the lesser of the record-making battles. If you can get into a flow, you'll tidy things up in a month or two, typically.

But getting started? Believe me, pre-production is a series of heavy sighs and embarrassing missteps. Pre-production is all about ADD where the slightest hint of anything else happening in the world will distract you and postpone you for yet another day. Adderall would be a handy little helper.

There are generally two ways to start a record album and here's another Handy Guide:

Method One to Get Started Making Your Next Record Album – You practice the new songs that you have recently written about everything and nothing. You either rehearse your new songs during formal rehearsals with your band or you play some of the "new ones" during your gigs until they're ready to record. Often this method involves the booking of rehearsal space and the booking of so-called "gigs." Then there's the hiring of producers, engineers, and any additional musicians you may need. Method One requires a lot of focused planning, budgeting, and the diligent adherence to schedule and budget. You rehearse until you're nice and tight because studio time is preciously expensive. We'll call this method the "conventional," or "smartbomb," method dependent on who is actually fronting the money to make your next record album. Don't get me wrong, you'll end up paying for every last penny of it at some point, and if you're recording for a record company then paying might be feel more like a student loan in that you'll be paying for your next record album for the next 20 years. Maybe it's more like a mortgage.

Method Two to Get Started Making Your Next Record Album – The other way to start your next record album is based on fate. Not the hokey-pokey superstitious/omen type of fate but the coincidental timing of brain, will, and circumstances. It has little to nothing to do with songs either. That is, sometimes your prefrontal cortex begins to vibrate with gamma rhythms and you feel an "insight" to "get this era recorded" just like that. You feel oddly genius and mope. Your brain simply on its very own or through specific and deliberate or deeply subconscious stimulation decides for you that the time has come to make your next record album. For the lack of a better term, this method is known as the "epiphinal," or "tKoL," method. You have little control of what is happening to you because your brain has hi-jacked all systems. You can either fight it or roll with it (known in the literature as "the flight or roll response").

I'm going to ramble about Method Two for a while since Method One makes no sense to me at all. The feeling that you should start making your next record album could happen anywhere or at any time. You somehow believe yourself to have a sudden knowledge that it is time to make your next record album. Intellectually you fight this urge because you tell yourself that, for a million reasons, you're just not ready. You conclude everything from having no "songs" written to having no "time" to make your next record album. You justify the suppression of these urges by reminding yourself that you "just made an album." You remind yourself of your blog, of your photography, of your board responsibilities, of your thousand other "commitments" that leave you with precious time for friends and family. You just can't make a record right now. You contend that you're not set up to record this record. You believe that you're missing some key instrument or software component.

But the brain, that goddamn demon mass up there in your skull, is already making your next record for you. It's taking in ideas, it's processing notions that will serve as the rough framework for your next record album.

You find yourself, despite your brain-fight, doing little things in preparation. You record snippets of everyday sounds just to hear it. You note things. You drop the notion of "pre-production" in casual conversations. You listen a little closer to your favorite songs. You pay attention to engineering. You test some waters in many little ways. But you're certain that you're not going to do this because you're not ready to make your next record album. It's impossible. It's like dating after a bad break-up. You don't feel you've reached a particular threshold or something.

And why do you fight this effort so strongly? Why is it so painful to get started making your next record? Because it's goddamn fucking hard, that's why. And no matter how brilliant your next record album is, you'll never appreciate it fully. It'll always be about that error here and the levels there and every little mistake magnified a
hundredthousand times that cause you to not enjoy the fruits of your efforts for years and years down the road. You will skip it on the iPod shuffle every single time. You will play zero tracks for your pals. It's simply a short-term lose-lose proposition; very hard work for very little reward.

And not only is making your next record actually a difficult thing to execute, it also takes a little something out of you. It maims you in small ways. No matter how much it adds to your life, no matter how rewarding it ultimately is for you, no matter the satisfaction of completion you might get, making your next record album will kill you a little more than it will prolong your life. It's like cigarettes, alcohol, or any of the other classes of harmful addictives. Like piranha, making records will nibble at you until you drown a sad, unfortunate skeleton.

But your brain is all, "Go!" So you consider it all at 3:20 AM. Over and over.

That is exactly why the making of part is so easy. The brain has already moved on by that point. Next! While you were fighting yourself over whether or not you make new art for the humans of the world (as opposed to watching the TeeVee by yourself), your brain has already put into place everything your conscious and willful mind and body will need to execute your new record album. To not make the record is a terrible thing to waste.

No, you are not Mozart and you will never be. There are no finished compositions queued-up and ready to write in your head. Your brain has just and only set up a ready framework for you to use. The rest of record album making takes work. Actual work. Real work. And you're still exhausted over the go/no-go battle. You have cognitive dissonance. You are a fool and a sucker and a slave and a bitch to your own brain. You are in that Matrix movie or some shit.

Sure, you have nothing formally prepared. So! Once you commit your willful and conscious mind and once you finish the big, dramatic play called "Pre-production," you can just turn on the recorders and get to recording stuff. Then you can mix it just so. Then you can master it just, just so. Then you can market it. Then you can distribute it somehow. Then you can suffer the indignity of feedback from friends, family, and mopes alike ("Dude, I like your CD, can I borrow a twenty?"). But, record what? And, why? Shit if I know, I ain't Kreskin. Nor am I Mozart. I'm not even smartbomb. Neither are you. It's beyond control! It's the Outer Limits!

So just open your eyes and look around yourself. Better yet, open your ears. Those are the head-holes you're going to need the most for your next record album. Like my old mentor Ralph used to say, "Don't ask – do!" Like Nike says, "Just Do It!" You don't have to try from this point on. Nor is there need for any more self-battle. You shouldn't even think much anymore. Your brain has done most of the heavy lifting. You just have to ride it out. Just fucking Go Dog, Go!

Your next record album doesn't even have to be a collection of unrelated songs that you hope to someday get on the radio. That's aiming much too low. That's so Method One. Just make it happen. Impress yourself. Make yourself jealous of how dumb you were for questioning your brain in the first place.

I'm talking about creating. I'm talking about creating the truest audio version of the definition of words "record" and "album": A collection of moments that documents time, place, or context; an interpretive manifestation of thoughts and ideas as expressed within the context of personal or intimate experiential journeys. You have the opportunity to make something to personally reference years out and go, "Oh, shiiiiit!" You have the power to make something that stimulates your memory cells and devices. A future gift to and for yourself.

Oh, and when I said "you" before, I meant, "me." I'm almost past the "fighting phase" and am actually dipping my toes into the "doing shit" one.

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I've Always Been This Awkward

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