See ya!

Well Folks, I’m outta here. I’m packin it up and headin for the future.

Happy Holidays!

Bye

Igor Stravinsky

Late last night, I was driving home from yet another recording session with the band formerly known as Jive Market, and I got to hear something that blew me away.

First, some History:

I first learned to appreciate Stravinsky at the age of 19, when a music professor played “The Rite of Spring” at full volume in its entirety. At the time, I perceived it as primordial speed metal. That was a stupid assessment, but there are a few choice excerpts from his works that chunk chunk chunk in true metal form. I know now that this is where the comparisons end. Those chunks were but small rhythmic ripples in a vast sea of genius. Stravinsky burned every rule of musical form, structure, and composition, and from the ashes rose some of the greatest music ever written. Stravinsky is a huge branch on the musical tree that eventually sprouted the likes of King Crimson, Yes and Tool. He was the godfather of modern progressive music.

Anyhoooo, I’ve acquired a few choice CD’s through the years, and one of my favorites has long been his “Symphony in C”. The CD I have is great, but I have no idea who played or conducted it. Last night I turned on NPR and heard this, “Here is Stravinsky’s Symphony in C as conducted by the composer himself.” I had goosebumps the whole dam time. I need to find this CD.

On a side note: My musical fantasy is to assemble a band to play “The Rite of Spring”. The recipe is as follows: 6 ripping guitarist with sounds ranging from clean and beautiful to superchunky and distorted; 3 bass players, 2 drummers, and a psychopathic virtuoso pianist with an insane keyboard. All strings and wind instruments in Stravinskys arrangement would be played with multi-guitar, bass, and keyboard arrangements. The best way to accomplish this would be to take all the guys in Tool, King Crimson, Rush, Metallica, and Return to Forever, throw them in a studio, lock the doors, and not let them out until they're done. I don't think they'd appreciate that, but I'd have a hell of a CD to listen to. And when they finish “The Rite of Spring”, I’ll make them do “The 4 Seasons” by Vivaldi and “Brandenburg Concerto #5” by Bach.

The Gates of Hell

I have the urge to post something, but I don't have the urge to write anything.
That being said, heres an old post from February 2004.

The Gates of Hell

As the band arrived for practice last night, Jeremiah informed us that there was an evil 6-toed cat presently occupying the studio. We lugged our equipment in, and started setting up. When I leaned over the couch to plug my amp into the wall outlet, I saw the cute kitty cat curled into a fluffy ball. I struggled to maneuver the plug into the poorly lit outlet behind the couch, when suddenly, the fluffy kitty hurled its crazy body towards my fumbling arm. His mouth was open unnaturally wide, like a cobra striking with its jaw unhinged. Its claws were extended and it emitted an ungodly scream. The cat, (we’ll call it Satan) stopped short, then turned around and bolted like a demon through the labyrinth formed by various pieces of furniture and equipment to find a new hiding place. He did…. and for a while, we forgot about the cat. A few minutes later, we heard a new sound. It was like the squealing hinges on the gates of hell. As the gates opened wider, the painful sounds of eternal damnation overtook the squeal of the un-oiled hinges, and chills ran up our spines. It was Satan, he was behind the guitar amp now. Satan had entered the studio in a cat-carrier, and Jeremiah decided that perhaps Satan would be more comfortable and less threatening if he was in a quieter place. He approached Satan, and the gates of hell were thrown wide open. Satans wings unfurled as he took flight. He ran under, over, and through everything in the room leaving a pentagram of fury and cat-hair in his wake. Jeremiah finally got his hands on Satan, who dug his teeth and claws as deep as possible into Jeremiahs mortal flesh. He chewed and scratched and attempted to kill Jeremiah with all his might. But Jeremiah would not be beaten. Finally, he was banished to the cat-carrier, and removed from the studio. Jeremiah returned with streams of blood running down his hands and arms, and skin flapping from his hands and fingers. He cleaned his bloody wounds and sat down to gather his wits.
Satans master then entered the room, angry as hell, because Jeremiah was “mean” to Satan….. Jeremiah banished him too……….

Tiny

I’ve been resisting writing this for a long time, but I can’t hold back any more.

I work with a guy I’ll just call Tiny. Tiny isn’t a bad man, he isn’t stupid or mean or evil, but he makes me crazy. Tiny stands about 6’-1” and weighs about…hmm…I’d guess about 400 lbs. He sees himself however, as a 6’-10” 300 pound man, which he’s not. He’s just a buddha shaped fat guy that thinks he’s a gnarly giant man.

His next overwhelming feature is his voice. It’s huge. This is the loudest talkin mofo I’ve ever known in my life, and his mouth is approximately 9 feet from my ear hole for 40 hours a week. When he decides to say something, he doesn’t just say, “Hey, blah blah blah”. Instead, he rises from his tortured office chair with his phone headset around his giant neck, (which isn’t much smaller than his oversized-bald on top-hair in the back-mullet head) and begins his oration like a king addressing his subjects. He scans the office until eye contact is made, and bellows thunderously towards the unfortunate eye-contact maker for an indefinite length of time. When it’s work related, he usually just wants to tell someone about the stupidity of the person he just dealt with, or the problems he’s having with the software he’s using. Once he gets started and his giant gears start turning, however, the minor point he originally intended to relay snowballs into an unstoppable juggernaut. All you can do is break eye-contact and act like you aren’t listening anymore. This really doesn’t help much. He simply re-scans the office, without pausing, until new eye-contact is made, and continues talking as if the new “listener” were listening the whole time.

If someone actually expresses interest or participates in his conversation, he removes his headset, walks to the interested party’s desk, bends his giant body 90 degrees at the waist and relaxes on his elbows. This is absolutely horrifying. The sight of this from any angle would “scare the vultures off a guts wagon” (Tiny’s own phrase).

The real treat though, is when he starts a-talkin about his life. Oh, what a life he’s lead. The tales are as tall as they are loud. They almost always start as “when I was in college”. For example, when he heard me talking about my deck building progress with a co-worker, he chimed in and started telling us that when he was in college he built decks, and one guy hired him to build a 2000 square foot deck with curved handrails, multiple levels, curved benches, fire pits, and blah blah blah blah, and to top it all off, he built it with mahogany. When someone started talking about some silly practical joke they pulled off once, he said that he filled the principals office to the ceiling with water and catfish. You get the picture.

Oh yeah……and he stutters.
6.4 on the Richter scale

dog ball

Only 6 work days left, then I'm off for 2 solid weeks. Woohoo!
I'm so deep in work right now, I can barely see freedom on the horizon.
Anyone have a snorkle?

My buddyman is crackin me up these days with his full length sentences of baby gibberish. He's got the inflections and punctuation right, but still needs to work on his enunciation. His latest infatuation is with dogs. "Dog?" (with forefinger extended) He finds them everywhere, on books, calendars, t-shirts, magazines....... it's amazing how many images of dogs are in the world. I never realized it until he started pointing it out to me.

Another favorite of his: "Ball"
He about jumped out of the cart as we went down the decorative ball aisle at hobby lobby last night. Who buys those things anyway? There were hundreds of them. I'm surprised he has a voice left after hollering "ball" 50 times in a row. He was in ball heaven, man.

Later!

Tis the season

This weekend, our house will be magically transformed from a normal family dwelling, into a festive shrine with flashing lights and plastic facsimiles of trees, branches, berries and holly. There will be small figures of bears singing carols and wearing their warmest scarves and coats while longing for hot cocoa. There will be strategically placed candles surrounded by beds of garland. There will be Nativity scenes, carousels, Christmas villages, toy soldiers and Santas, and there will be a 1 year old tornado marveling at the abundance of new objects to throw and kick and smack with toy dinosaurs.