Thursday, October 27, 2011

Bookmark Mining



I'm always leaving things in books that I used as a bookmark while reading a book. Our book club is reading "A Farewell to Arms" a book I happen to have already read. I dug out my copy to brush up and found the two scanned items above.

Boarding Passes are a very common item to find in books. I come across them in a lot of used books in book stores even. I am always tickled though to find one of my own because it gives me a very specific date when I happened to be in a certain place.

Using the ticket as a reference I found a blog I wrote about the trip. I wrote in great detail about the event leading up to the sound check without even talking about the show. If I recall the show was fairly good and there were people there. Our friends from Hays, KS. Dennis and Ingrid were in attendance.

What I found most funny about this ticket stub though is what is not mentioned in the blog entry. The ticket is from our return trip to LA, and it's a flight that we missed. I'm not sure if this is the original boarding pass or the boarding pass for the flight we missed. We should have known better then booking an early morning flight for a group of degenerates. I'm not sure exactly what happened with missing the flight. I remember Devin realizing it was going to be a problem getting to the airport, and I believe his plan was to stay up all night to be sure he could rouse everyone. Somewhere involving alcohol and sleep deprivation that plan fell apart, probably something to do with me and my ex. Luckily we manage to get out of town on the next flight and home safely to LA.

The other item I found in the book is Devin's sequence notes for the SG song "Static Cling". I find these items a lot. I can only partially read what it means. On the left under the title it lists all the different sections of the song, with the number of where that portion is saved in the Korg Electribe Sequencer. To the right of that is a listing of the different sounds on the Electribe. Below and corresponding to each part of the song is a list of the actual sounds that occur in each sequence. for example, the first one saved sequence B43 is the pre chorus to static cling. The chart on the right shows that in that part of the song there is a bass drum, a bass synth a piano and a lead synth. At least I assume that is what L means. Devin always had to make these charts because when recording these songs onto our 16 track we would have to hook the two machines together using midi, and then solo each individual sound in the sequence and play the song the entire way through. Since we were using the 16 track as the master and the electribe as the slave it would then line up perfectly(K, if you are reading this you know that perfectly is a relative term and that on the sample level this actually gave us some problems down the road) and give me final mix control.

It's funny to me that these two items are in the book, because Static Cling contains the line "The only new york you brought with you". I like every thing about this song except how ridiculous the story behind it was. It was basically a fuck you song to a "rival" band who didn't think twice about our band. It was total an imaginary story line about people we didn't hardly even know and certainly had no rational reason to have a beef with. I actual met the to girls from this band years later in a totally new situation. I didn't at first even recognize them. One of them remembered me and we had a great talk about old times and I got to know them for real. They were great and it made me laugh to think about this song.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Massive Unexplainable

My life in the present is difficult to relate to in blog format. Or maybe it's difficult to explain or express. I realize though that the point of this blog has never been to explain at all, but merely to attempt to express and hopefully later recall.
After my neck injury I have have started to rebuild a new push up routine. I have decided to do it a bit more safely this time and take two days a week off, plus the weekend. This morning is the first morning where I have started to feel the exhilaration of power come back. It's a nice feeling to do something stupidly physically during a day of staring at a computer.

In three weeks I will travel to Paris. Angela and I will be meeting Devin and Dylan there for a week. I am so excited. I've started taking a crash course in french using Rosetta Stone. At this point it feels like a fun game, I don't know how helpful it will be in the long run but it's fun for now. In a couple of days though I feel as though I've learned as much french as I did spanish in 2 years of high school.

The move is coming along. we put the first coat of yellow paint on Angie's room last night. It's bright and lovely. Another coat will get applied in the next couple of days.

Angela had a burlesque prop custom built by ex Invis Matter Bass player Ben. It's a giant inflatable swan with an ego box. the ego box contains a power cord and pump and wheels for portability. It's very well made. It's an exciting time to see Angela pulling so much of this together. She has spent years researching and studying, and budgeting for costume and props. Now she will move into the final stages of decoration and costume and planning a new routine. She has selected a secret new song to dance to. I can't wait to see it performed.

Turbo Sunshine is coming along in a most surprising way. Angie and I have been going to our rehearsal space downtown twice a week working on our parts. Devin and Elene come along when time permits. For now Angela and I have the most work to do anyway. each week Angie picks up a new layer of intricacy, it has me most excited. I want turbo to be a very concise deliberate band, and we are well on the way to becoming that. I have some re-writing to do on early turbo songs, and at least one new song dying to be born. I think we will be ready to gig early in 2012.

I'm excited for the holidays coming up. Thanksgiving I will make a turkey for Angie's family in San Diego and on Yuletide my family will be here.

Huge shout out to Devin for having another Delicious Documentary this past weekend. He made yummy food and we enjoyed the film "Cropsey"

A couple other docs I've recently loved:

American: The Bill Hicks Story

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

I just finished reading David Brin's Kiln People. I wasn't as in love with the end as I was the whole book but it was such a fantastic journey that it doesn't matter one bit. Now that I've read the entire Brin Catalog I'm pleased to see he has a new one coming out next year.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Progress computing

My new computer on the table.

Monday, October 03, 2011

Staging area

I've just finished a 12 minute nap. Laying in bed with the cats, hopeful about my evening and all the nice things in store.

Dog is dead

Sunday, October 02, 2011

Saturday, October 01, 2011

Nugget horses

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