The Studio

So, I still have not heard everything I played in the studio last week.  I had a feeling it would be different from anything anyone has heard from me.  The sound was so good for how I wanted to play, it was hard to go wrong.  I could go from the very faintest of whispers on up to a trumpet blast. But mostly the change has been the chord use.  Growly, flowy chords.

I think I may be on to a style.  Aboriginal, urban swamp harmonica, played cleanly and dynamically so that even the sound engineer was blown away with the way it grew out of whatever the viola was laying down at times.

I heard just a little of what was recorded, and I would be hard pressed to do as well without hearing it some more.  That was an inspired day. And now they've put in some harmonies. That and the instrumental background work give it a real multi dimensional feel.  There are some surprisingly unique and good sounds on this cd.  I can't wait until it is mixed and I can hear it.  Although I may be there for the mixing.  I usually keep my mouth shut and let them do their thing.  If asked, and if I have a strong opinion, I will express it.

Lifted this pic off their website.  The recoding room and isolation booth are on other side of glass.  Not a huge control board but pretty much state of art. They do a lot of TV work and such too.  Anyway, so far I like what they do and how they do it.  Thomas the sound engineer is probably the key to all of it. 
There are a couple of very good rolling chairs that are good for your back, not shown.  End product will tell the tale.
You can't tell from this angle but there is a double door between the recording area and the control room.

This has been the best all around recording experience so far.  I think it is the first time I recorded in the big room with mics and baffles all around, and did not hold a microphone.  And it would pick it up if I just thought about a whisper of a sound.

It is driving me crazy not hearing it all.  What I did hear is musically beyond anything I've done.  Maybe musically is right.  Playing off the viola lady who has a doctorate in music or music education. That must count for something in music.  Anyway, I think the blend on the recording is pretty good on some of what I heard.  I hope it is the same all through.

This project may end up better than expected.  Any time people record on a shoestring, it is very tough to get a result that doesn't sound wrong somehow.  Over produced.  Under produced.  Ill conceived.  A friend of ours did a cd there, on a similar budget.  They did a decent job, and he has won some awards.  I did not know there were organizations that held such ceremonies on lesser levels than grammys and such.

Whatever the deal, I really like Sande's lyrics, and the music in general.  I have been looking for the evolution this recording project has brought.  It influenced me and the viola for sure.  Probably bass and singer too.  But the trickiest part and the defining aspect of the background and accent is the viola harp blend and interaction.  That is probably what has encouraged some of the chords.  They seem to blend with the viola.

I think you will be surprised at the sound.  Had I not played on it, I would not be sure what instrument I was hearing, much of the time.  And that was the goal, I guess.  I had forgotten until I heard the bits I did yesterday.  They put in some harmonies, but they had the balance set so harp and viola were way down or off. And they did not do all songs or go through the entire song.

Maybe Autism, or Depression or wrong place at wrong time

It makes me angry sometimes.  Other times I am left kind of empty and confused by it.  It, of course, is that thing I have not been able to get past.  Hardly anyone has.

There is anger at people who back in my youth claimed I did not try, or did not live up to some mysterious expectation based on that which I either did not know, or by design had been hidden from me, ensuring my ignorance.  There is anger at people who even now would decide that my failures are somehow an insult to them, or a license to scold me for under-achieving.

It is not fun for me, and hasn't been for a long time.  Mostly because I don't get it. Or something.  And I have no excuse and no good description of the way this stuff works.  Sadness chases me.  I will change things yet.

So, thanks for the anger.  I may become angry enough not to accept defeat. That would take lots of anger because I am tired, beat, and mostly feel like wasted space.  That is just the way of it.

I still may become angry enough to make "them" eat their words or otherwise cease to have a shred of power or influence over me.  What's the charm of pour salt and vinegar into wounds?  That is all it is when I am admonished for not being better than I am, and living up to imaginary potential or level of life which eludes me.   These are not the easiest of times or the worst.

I have a very simple set of goals that need achieving.  Once they are met.  I can go anywhere or nowhere, in peace.

Here's Where The Balance Gets Tipped

People who think I am a real moron and totally suffering from oppositional defiant disorder regarding authority, especially governments,  tend to think that governments and unions are their unconditionally loving friends, and that they are all about furthering the noble facets of human endeavor.

Maybe there is a shred of truth there.  Mostly, though, I think they get in the way.  I believe energy sources would have advanced much more rapidly without the help of such authorities.  They make doing it yourself illegal in many places. Construction advances are slow to happen because zoning and such tends to spec in the crony pals who write the laws.

The shifty oligarchy types are troublesome, I agree.  How to keep them at bay is probably where we differ.  I firmly believe one way to ensure a more harmonious world is through technology.  But it has to be of the sort that enables the greatest number of people to have comfort and freedom to thrive.  In reality, turning the human race into less of a wretched, pain wracked species and moving toward a great standard of living which continually improves is possible.  Just not very likely.

Depending upon locale, most homes can be built more cheaply and be self sufficient with a combination of strategies at play.  Geo thermal is possible in many areas for cooling and heating since near constant temperatures can be had underground--and not that far in most regions.  Like solar, you use it where practical and it may be mostly for maintaining interior temperature.

Also, with new materials or even recycled, dwellings can be more build into hillsides and such so that they are more protected against extremes of various sorts, including tornadoes.  Seriously, the world of creative new means of construction, inexpensive, easy to assemble mini-homes, modular complexes, all of it should be booming.  Housing should be becoming less expensive from the construction angle, by my thinking.

Just like what I do in my own life, humanity, such as it is, tends to install its own limits and shackle itself for no real good reason.  Maybe people just hate to admit they do not know it all.  I think a lot of scientists have that problem.  They are fine when it all resides in their wheelhouse, then someone discovers more and it changes the status quo. Some would kill to keep new info out of their fields.  It threatens their stature.

Anyway, if you really think there is a genuine crisis, which is due to people wanting a better standard of living, and not caused by small minded and short sighted power lust and greed, then you and I do not think alike.

I know from trying to work with people on developing things that most people will just rush in rather than look at any collateral damage, and try to assess all relevant factors.  That is annoying and can be heartbreaking.  That rush born of misguided ideas regarding free enterprise or capitalism or business, has cost humanity greatly.  It is abusive and irresponsible.  But somehow accepted.

Just look at almost any workplace.  There are multitudes of people who suspend morality every day for a low wage.  For 40k or 25k per year, people will suspend all integrity depending upon what the boss or "corporate" pushes them to do.  I have seen it many times.  And it usually involves not being 100% honest and fair with the customer, or other employees.  Crazy.  I see it everywhere.

There are drawbacks to living in a "Mother may I?" society.  It slows true progress, damages large land areas, promotes poverty and general weirdness.  There you have it.   A lot is possible, but not at this rate.  The reality of the world is--and I know this meets with little accord from most--it is possible for a place like the USA to isolate economically and thrive.  But not under current methods of regulation where government's use of force is used according to which crony outfit is calling the shots.  It is organized and legal crime.  I am not necessarily advocating isolationism, but disagree with those who discount the degree of self sufficiency this country could achieve.

I wonder if taxis will get smart meters, like they use here for the power company.  It would automatically vary the rate according to the intensity of that tenth or sixth or whatever divisions they use of a mile.  So the most intense gets the top rate.  Don't worry about definition of intense. They will take care of deciding that.  What more can you want? It's only fair

Election Outcomes

What determines the final outcome in a high stakes game like the USA presidential contest is a mystery sometimes.  Sometimes not.

I often think it is the ineptness of one party's players, or the other's.  Maybe that is calculated.  However it is done, the two parties have managed to lock themselves in with favorable laws for them and somewhat draconian for upstart third party challengers.   Often, those are the only ones whose positions are clear; Libertarian, Green, maybe some others.

It looks to me like the majority of people I know either support Bernie or Trump.  Didn't the media say they both do well with uneducated and mutated humans?  I'm pretty sure they did.

Even so, I wonder if the picture we are given is completely manipulative or without guile.   Possibly somewhere in between.  Most of my life I hated the gray area, yet it is only reality.  Blind idealism holds to the theory despite its reduced ability to predict and/or explain an outcome. Tends to set up a false description.

It has been a game played by both men and women for ages--don't be fooled by feel-good victim pandering

I've heard interesting rumors about Cathy.  But then, I've heard rumors about living people who class themselves as "leaders", too.  Even Hillary doesn't have as colorful a rep as Cat, though.  All the men get compared to Hitler.  I heard one Mussolini jab along the way.  Only one--ever.

I can imitate Bernie better than I can any of the other candidates.  That is worth something.  It is weird, but I would rather see Trump vs Bernie than any of the other popular possibilities.  And not because of the probable winner in that.  I am not sure who would win between those two.  I am not positive it would matter.

So, since I only know people who are for one or the other of those two, the actual candidates will be Hillary and Cruz.  That is how life works; how it appears to me is usually not the way it really is.

What people accept is beyond me.  The envy taxes that people support come back to bite those who really don't need to be robbed.  All of it is complicated so that those who can afford it get people to play the system for them while others of us come out missing big shark-bite chunks of ourselves. Sad.

And that is why getting married young,  busting ass to lift the spirits and efforts of your mate, having children that actually don't mind your company--most of the time, building a family is the best and most smart thing you can do.  If you do it right, your offspring won't be psychos or gleefully masochistic, chronic victims.

And if you are lucky, you will never be in a spot in which you even have to consciously verbalize or stop and consider what's important. If you are lucky you will be living it, so this will read somewhat different from how it was written.

I, Too, Disagree

Geez.  I happened to read a post--a few or more down from this.  OMG.  What a bunch of garbage!  I don't even agree with myself.  Wha..???

Conspiracy? Perhaps THAT is what makes a Subaru a Subaru

Sometimes one finds that he needs to replace parking lights and such on his 2008 Subaru Forester.  No longer just for LGBT, etc.  So, to replace some bulbs, it appears that the whole headlight assembly has to come out.  Mine does anyway.  

Nowhere does anyone really explain how to do this on the internet.  Not on youtube or other.  And it is different for some years.  So you will hear discussion of an '05, but even then, very vague discussion of actually removing things.

Apparently the bumper skin comes off, then you can unbolt the thing.  I do not like bumper skins and the stupid clips they use to hold it together.  

I am really surprised at the lack of good information there is.  I guess I will have to decide if I can find a way to do this without the nonsense.

Subaru claims that love is what makes them what they are.  I say that what they are is a big conspiracy against owners who do not want to spend much money so they do some things themselves.  They know it's true.   That's why they distracted people's attention by letting dogs drive in a commercial.  

Nothing is sacred any more.  

Still, I would like it if they made certain parts user friendly.  In this case it would not even alter the appearance.  

After a couple hundred thousand miles there is no way around having to put some money for this or that.  Especially on a dirt road.

Really. All that to trade out the headlight lens?  

Oh, wait.  There are presidential hijinks aplenty lately.  I haven't really heard enough to comment. I hear a sound bite here and a sound bite there.  Just enough to know that these are very strange times. 

I wonder if anyone can imagine the horror as I read what I write.  To think that this is how it is in my world is highly depressing.  Something as simple as a stupid headlight assembly is actually a start toward where I need to go.  

Adolfest

In an effort to settle this question once and for all, I suggest a nationwide, week long holiday we will call Adolphest.   We will devise a series of contests in which contestants are tracked to see who is the ultimate Hitler.  So many people get compared to him, but can they all really be worthy of the title, neo-Hitler?  No, only the very most truly Adolf-like.

I have an advantage because I have German blood and don't eat meat.  But I am not in power, or seeking it at this time.  However, if drafted by public mandate, I will reconsider.

So, we should have this fest and determine who gets to be compared to Hitler for a year.  This would, hopefully, reduce the abundance of very weak comparisons, and maybe get rid of some confusion.  Then I'll know just who to oppose for being most like Hitler.

As it is, I cannot be sure.  Is Bush the real Hitler?  Obama?  Trump?  I have seen pictures where they have the mustache.   I haven't seen it on Hillary, I don't think.  That would be a pretty good one, so I suggest the professional Hitler revisionists and comparers get busy to include Hillary--the first American woman to be publicly and regularly compared to Adolf.  History in the making.  The mustache would totally work in her case.

At the end of the fest we will see who is crowned our new Faux Fuhrer for the year.  Then it will be just bad form to start comparing others to Adolf as well.  If you say Trump is the new Hitler, you cannot also label Bush or Obama or Hillary.  See?  Easy rules, and it is time we got this thing under control.

And what a fun holiday!!

We'll have parties all week, do medical experiments upon our enemies while comparing them to the SS, the whole shebang.  Fun Fun Fun.

So write your elected representatives and tell 'em we want Adolfest!

He'll Tell "Em

So, outside the VFW, where I played a last minute show with Valor and Lace, I hear some possibly tipsy people talking politics.  Loudly.   "Hell yea, I'm for Trump!  I like people who will tell it like it is.  He ain't afraid to look across the aisle and say, 'You're a dumbass!'."

It gave me pause.  Then I thought to myself, democrats have been looking across the aisle and telling third parties worldwide that the across the aisle person is a dumbass or worse for as long as I can remember.

The things said when Bush was president were mostly more hostile than the insults thrown at Obama.  No one wants to admit it because, if republicans and others used the same rhetoric and vitriol that was used on Bush, the racism accusations would be even louder, more pervasive and shrill than they are now.  So, in the spirit of the Big Pretense, people tiptoe around, even when being hostile, due to all the racial, tribal political dynamics that have been cultivated the last eight years.

The politics of ethnicity and condition of birth have been played for a long time.  But the progress toward peaceful coexistence reversed under Obama.  Blame him or guilty crackers, awful republicans, black panthers, or Trump.  No matter.  Racial issues have been made worse and, in many cases, fabricated to further the aims of that political faction.  Or so it seems.  I'm not sure who all calls the shots.  I don't think it is Barack, or even Michele.

Those who said things that even I hesitate to repeat regarding Bush and his family are outraged at the lack of respect for the office, etc. by opponents of Obama.  It happens.  My president is a victim.  Yours is the anti-Christ.  And, of course, your guy is Just Like Hitler!

I consider the Obama administration to be one the most racially divisive and inflammatory ever.  Some of that is natural because he is part black.  But mostly it is a ploy to cement all alleged minority groups, even if they aren't a minority, like women.  Any wedge that can be driven to pit groups against one another, especially against white men,  is used to keep the turmoil alive.  Black against white.  Hispanic (a made up race) against white (also kind of made up?), women against men (especially if the men are white); these are all tools of the trade.

Look across the aisle and say, "You are a dumbass!!".  First let us have the black females do this.  Then hispanics.  The women of all sorts.  Then white men.  My bet is that the latter will immediately be showered with accusations of racism, sexism, xenophobia, islamophobia (which I suffer from, and will continue until that cult ceases to creep me out), homophobia (which I mostly only suffer from because it is not a political philosophy and I am sick of it), etc.  The point is that we have double and triple standards, at least.

Whether a Trump in power calling the other side dumbass will actually sooth my disgust with the oligarchy is another question.  I doubt it.  Half truths on any side of a question are still less that full truth.  And that is what we have ruling the day.  Partial truth and half baked solutions and descriptions of what needs solving.  That is how people get played and special interests, (those who pull the puppet strings), get their way.  And people really do not see it.  Even when they think they do.

Just listen to them.  They tell you they see all this corruption, "follow the money", blablabla, but then they jump on some half baked, only partially true bandwagon.  Because it is easier than not jumping on a satisfactory bandwagon which would win approval of dimwitted friends who can't hold a complete thought.  Acceptance is the reward, and that is all that matters.

I'm heading off to a Bernie rally to see if I can pick up chicks by agreeing with everything and expressing my white guilt as eloquently as possible.

If You Want It To Be, Create It!!

That almost describes what I was thinking.  For example, people can posture all they want about "alternative fuels" and this and that, somehow confusing the ability to subsidize, punish, and regulate with the ability to invent or create.

It is a waste to argue the point with people.   They either like the coercive aspects of government's involvement in research and development, and energy creation and use, or they don't.  I am one who does not.  Through all the official boasting of how their regulations have resulted in improvement, true progress in fields like energy is retarded by our government and those who direct it.  They will milk every dime out of the status quo, as they quietly lay siege to emerging markets and technologies.

Then, like we have seen many times in the last twenty years, they will pretend to be cutting edge crusaders.  They will also enjoy government subsidies and other market manipulation in their favor.

Whatever.  To the point.  Trying to identify and accept reality is not easy these days.  And I think I know why.

It is that "it"factor.  But it could work to advantage.  I have another plan.

I realize since I cannot even describe the sort of thing that happens, allegedly due to an inner malady, there is no point even discussing it when I can help it.  It does pose some challenges.  Not nearly as troublesome as what most people seem to endure.  No wonder humanity is so pissed off---they are mostly beset by pain and limitation.  

I think there is a tendency to personalize happenstance as some conspiracy against us, or a punishment.   Kind of a ritual in which people pretend that they don't know what we do, and visa versa.   I almost said, "we".  That presumes a lot when people say "we".  I resent it when people speak for everyone.  Then again, maybe they only mean the ones legitimately on board with their agenda.

The best one can do, in some cases, is to avoid looking in the mirror, in order to dodge relentless self-condemnation.  Or if one is really fortunate, finding some other way to react which is more enjoyable.

Ego Trip? Let Me Show You How It Is Done

Sunday.  10:00 A.M. in a friggin SoCal coffee house in La Mesa or somewhere.  One of those little offshoots of El Cajon or San Diego.  I cannot tell the difference.  Alpine is not like that.  You know where it is, and where you are not in Alpine, you can pretty well sense it.

Anyway, I cannot believe I agree to play music at 10:00 AM on Sunday.   Being the ego tripping pro, I made it a point to do a lot of gentle, lower register stuff, relatively speaking.  People could be hung over or who knows what6.  It is an artsy neighborhood.

The big surprise is that I think I was on it.  When couples come in and stop and people point at you as you are playing, making comments to their friends and it seems positive; that's ego trip time.  And right then is when I hit that wrong note.

I'm pretty sure there is plenty on that particular folly in the Bible.  And maybe elsewhere.

When you do things like that, you have to laugh; get all full of yourself like it matters, and then get your come uppance.   The you and your in that context is actually I and mine.  Although me and mine sounds better.

There are some limiting factors lately but I doubt anyone has caught on about that.  Compensate by improving whatever can be improved.   Glad I don't smoke.   Is it over 2 years already?  Whoa!  It is. That means it has been too long not seeing my cousins and some other people.  Get over to Texas and Mississippi and FLA one of these days.  Could happen.

I have figured out that my greatest fans are people who appear to have wandered off from some sort of care facility.  The degree of security is questionable.   And though many may come off as innocently goofy and mentally impaired, something tells me that same empty lunatic smile might be on their faces while stabbing their siblings as they sleep.  Just a hint of a creepy feel.

But they are my fans and love to ask odd questions about harmonicas and why I carry a bunch of them.  I wish I could remember the odd questions.  The kind of thing that leaves you wondering what the real motive for the interaction might have been.

I liked it better when my fans were overwhelmingly middle aged women and four year olds.  Mostly girls in that group too.   Who doesn't like women and four year olds?  Maybe I was an idiot to leave Memphis.  Well, we already established that I am somewhat idiotic at times.

Moving here was not such a bad move though.  I am spoiled by the landscape and by being able to get gasoline without two or three gimme dollah guys trying to shake me down.  And usually with a racial undertone in the mix.  I do not miss that BS at all.