My Internet is disconnected. Apparently, there is a billing issue. Uggggg. Gonna have to sit on the phone for 45 minutes interacting with computer menus to get my Internet access up and running again: Press 1 for this sucks Press 2 for kill me now or press 3 for talk to a live operator.
I'm at my office cubicle typing this in... I can't figure out if my getting on here during work is an example of dedication to writing daily or sheer apathy towards working.
Will write soon.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
This can't be Cleveland
Blue skies, sun, 70 degrees. This can't be Cleveland.
A very un-Novemberlike day made for a very un-Clevelandesque landscape. It's usually frigid and gray and dead all over by this time each year. In the winter, we can go weeks without seeing the sun. In fact, they say that only Seattle rivals Cleveland when it comes to cloudy days, and winter is especially sunless.
Winter gets to you after a while, and I can sense that weather and its blah skies are just on the doorstep.
How perfect it would have been to follow that sun west today- just keep driving until I hit New Mexico or Arizona, hell maybe even continue on to the San Juaquin Valley or some magical place like that. It's been three years since the last time I wandered West. And I miss the excitement of getting in the car and driving until your legs cramp up.
A very un-Novemberlike day made for a very un-Clevelandesque landscape. It's usually frigid and gray and dead all over by this time each year. In the winter, we can go weeks without seeing the sun. In fact, they say that only Seattle rivals Cleveland when it comes to cloudy days, and winter is especially sunless.
Winter gets to you after a while, and I can sense that weather and its blah skies are just on the doorstep.
How perfect it would have been to follow that sun west today- just keep driving until I hit New Mexico or Arizona, hell maybe even continue on to the San Juaquin Valley or some magical place like that. It's been three years since the last time I wandered West. And I miss the excitement of getting in the car and driving until your legs cramp up.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Plugging in
It took over 9 years, but I finally put a new battery in my electric bass today. Apparently, the on-board EQ system (which is really just 4 shiny, unmarked knobs on the front of my bass) needs a 9-volt battery to run. Without a working battery, my electric bass is silent.
Long ago, I realized my bass's coma-like state was likely brought on by a dead battery, but my interest and inspiration to get the overpriced thing running again had waned. In 1999, just when I was in the full throws of a music-centered existence, I was working at a recording studio. It was exciting for about a day, until I realized I would have to listen to the same song hundreds of times a day. It was like torture when it was a good song, you can't imagine the suffering when songs were terrible - which most of them were. Reference point: I remember one teenage death metal band I recorded had a song with a screaming chorus of "WHYYYYYYYYY?" Over and over and over and over finally culminating in a whimpering: "I can smell you from here, bitch." Yeah, good stuff.
Needless to say this quite quickly drained my enthusiasm for music. At the time, I was entertaining thoughts of becoming a professional bass player. It would have been the culmination of a dream that began in high school. By 1998 my last year as an undergrad, I was in a pretty serious band. Over the course of two years, we played many dives in Cleveland and around Northeast Ohio. I'd like to think we were entertaining. I mean we really did write some catchy alt-rock songs - really. But alas, like most bands, we were done in by in-fighting and jealousy. We went our separate ways in the winter of 1999, leaving only a 3-song demo CD and countless memories of smoky bars and ear-splitting sound checks.
I don't know if the nostalgia hit me or if I was embarrassed by my purchasing a top of the line instrument only to have it sit untouched for 9 years, but today I finally decided to change that battery and plug in.
Who knows what this will lead to, maybe I'll learn some jazz, something new and exciting and challenging. Something.
Long ago, I realized my bass's coma-like state was likely brought on by a dead battery, but my interest and inspiration to get the overpriced thing running again had waned. In 1999, just when I was in the full throws of a music-centered existence, I was working at a recording studio. It was exciting for about a day, until I realized I would have to listen to the same song hundreds of times a day. It was like torture when it was a good song, you can't imagine the suffering when songs were terrible - which most of them were. Reference point: I remember one teenage death metal band I recorded had a song with a screaming chorus of "WHYYYYYYYYY?" Over and over and over and over finally culminating in a whimpering: "I can smell you from here, bitch." Yeah, good stuff.
Needless to say this quite quickly drained my enthusiasm for music. At the time, I was entertaining thoughts of becoming a professional bass player. It would have been the culmination of a dream that began in high school. By 1998 my last year as an undergrad, I was in a pretty serious band. Over the course of two years, we played many dives in Cleveland and around Northeast Ohio. I'd like to think we were entertaining. I mean we really did write some catchy alt-rock songs - really. But alas, like most bands, we were done in by in-fighting and jealousy. We went our separate ways in the winter of 1999, leaving only a 3-song demo CD and countless memories of smoky bars and ear-splitting sound checks.
I don't know if the nostalgia hit me or if I was embarrassed by my purchasing a top of the line instrument only to have it sit untouched for 9 years, but today I finally decided to change that battery and plug in.
Who knows what this will lead to, maybe I'll learn some jazz, something new and exciting and challenging. Something.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Kerouac
I just finished the Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac. I found the style a little gimmicky until I reached the end and realized the bull-rush prose - no punctuation and frequent asides - were all tied in to the story.
Kerouac's stuff has really influenced me. Of course, I don't hold any misconceptions about him or his writing - he was a slobbering, bullying drunk most of the hours he was awake for many years. There is footage on Youtube of him outside a NY bar being ultra-aggressive and seemingly manic in discussion with some woman; even Ginsberg is visibly disturbed by his antics.
His prose is far from magical, most of the time it is clunky and vague. However, the ideas that Kerouac expressed and his philosophy is thoroughly engaging. He laid it all out there. He expressed with honesty and striking guts.
I admire his belief that true writing should be like jazz: an expression of what you are feeling at the time with no filter, no rethinking, straight from the head to the typewriter. Even if this didn't create the most amazing prose, it did give you a literal explanation of what Kerouac was feeling at the time.
I also greatly respect his anti-materialism, his anti-consumerism. This was in striking contrast to prevailing post WWII America and certainly to 21st Century American thought. Kerouac got off on experiencing the people and places in America. Too often today, our experiences are hinged to materialistic conceptions of good times: Disneyland, Las Vegas, big weddings, etc. Kerouac and the beats were all about sensing and experiencing each other, irrespective of price tags and marketing driven pseudo-events.
Kerouac's stuff has really influenced me. Of course, I don't hold any misconceptions about him or his writing - he was a slobbering, bullying drunk most of the hours he was awake for many years. There is footage on Youtube of him outside a NY bar being ultra-aggressive and seemingly manic in discussion with some woman; even Ginsberg is visibly disturbed by his antics.
His prose is far from magical, most of the time it is clunky and vague. However, the ideas that Kerouac expressed and his philosophy is thoroughly engaging. He laid it all out there. He expressed with honesty and striking guts.
I admire his belief that true writing should be like jazz: an expression of what you are feeling at the time with no filter, no rethinking, straight from the head to the typewriter. Even if this didn't create the most amazing prose, it did give you a literal explanation of what Kerouac was feeling at the time.
I also greatly respect his anti-materialism, his anti-consumerism. This was in striking contrast to prevailing post WWII America and certainly to 21st Century American thought. Kerouac got off on experiencing the people and places in America. Too often today, our experiences are hinged to materialistic conceptions of good times: Disneyland, Las Vegas, big weddings, etc. Kerouac and the beats were all about sensing and experiencing each other, irrespective of price tags and marketing driven pseudo-events.
The Marathoners
The line trickles forward, their long stringy muscles powering legs on and on through fog of 45 degree November morning. Sweater-clad volunteers offer up paper cups of water and “you’re doing great” encouragement…and the sun inches higher.
A soft tap tap of airy footsteps echoes, proclaiming their presence. Sweat beads up on grimacing faces; eyes squint out the bright reflections from the dew-speckled landscape. They move along, driven by dogged determination…and the sun inches higher.
One by one they pass me as I wait quietly, warm and reflecting in my four-door Grand Marquis. I can hear their numbers flap, taped loosely to the front of light-as-a-feather tank tops. Almost out of sight now, I drive away, envious…and the sun inches higher.
A soft tap tap of airy footsteps echoes, proclaiming their presence. Sweat beads up on grimacing faces; eyes squint out the bright reflections from the dew-speckled landscape. They move along, driven by dogged determination…and the sun inches higher.
One by one they pass me as I wait quietly, warm and reflecting in my four-door Grand Marquis. I can hear their numbers flap, taped loosely to the front of light-as-a-feather tank tops. Almost out of sight now, I drive away, envious…and the sun inches higher.
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