Category: blogging

Where write about writing, and my website sounds familiar.

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home it is

Hi.  This space is where I write on the internet.  Below is a sampling of some of that writing.  You can read it if you want, and it may even change on some days.

I know people tend to skip the paragraph when I talk about music, and that’s fine really… I don’t have a gun.  But, for my sake, I’d ask you sometimes try to muddle through – I often bury very real commentary in there.  Sometimes some of my favorite bits of writing I do are some of the talk-ups I’ve done for this record or that song.  Again, you don’t have to like what I like, or even like what don’t like, or even anything at all – I still don’t have a gun.  That said, here’s a paragraph on music.

I really never thought I’d like this Bon Iver album everyone’s been conferring sainthood upon over the last half of the year.  Turns out, while it’s not gonna top my list, it’s actually really good.  Maybe it’s that the lonely unaccompanied guitar and soft double-tracked vocals are speaking to the general melancholy I’ve been mired in the past month (self-imposed or not).  Instrumentally it’s built of twigs, but tunefully it’s strong as steel – something that’s sometimes hard to do without getting stuck sounding like some Mazzy Star wrist-slitting dirge.  What’s more, it lends itself well to the cold weather (which may be exacerbating that melancholy, come to think of it) – so it fits well with the clouds and morning fog.  I like it; I really do.  At least it’ll hold me until Merriweather Post Pavilion leaks…

Evenings lately I’ve been spending my post-work time helping out as a backstage guy for our church’s Christmas production (I attach little microphones to peoples’ ears, tape them down to their faces, and tuck the transmitter packs somewhere conspicuous in their costumes).  I’ve actually enjoyed the post-work “work” quite a bit, I never was much of a “drama” guy in school – and watching the people work (it is a full production, quite serious business to a novice like me) while safely in the wings has been interesting and fun.  I haven’t got to see Keaton but for in the early morning before work the past few days, but tonight was the last night of rehearsal so I’m released until the actual show nights at this point.  I know, you’re thinking, “Dave, spending your evenings at church doesn’t sound much like you.”  Yeah, well, maybe it doesn’t… but, then again, maybe it will.

I know I’ve written about it before… but I love the random urge to just “keep driving.”  You know, the moment when, as you’re driving along the highway homeward, you start thinking, “What if I just sped right past my exit and didn’t look back?”  I thought that the other day, imagining Sharaun and Keaton in the car with me.  Just drive on… right into the horizon.  Sleep where you get tired, eat where you get hungry, and stop where you please.  Maybe visit long-lost relatives, or national parks, or just the open road.  Just drive on… put something good and long on the stereo and settle in.  I guess I’d have to stop somewhere tho… and home really is the best place I know, so… home it is.

Goodnight.

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I deserve this weekend, I swear.

It’s Friday!  It’s Friday!

I can’t believe the week is over.  I deserve this weekend, I swear.

This evening, Sharaun and I had dinner with the elderly couple from church we occasionally bring dinner to (I didn’t know how to write that sentence without using the word “dinner” twice).  I always have a good time doing this, not just for feeling charitable, but for the company and getting to talk to folks with a full-life of experience on which to base their opinions.

I went back over the past five or six entries I’ve written tonight, doing a little touch-up editing.  I rarely ever do this, but after a quick review of the last few posts I’ve turned out (on the commode today, using the handy iPhone) I was shocked to see a string of horrible grammar, half-completed sentences, and word-reuse.  This kind of thing comes from writing too fast and not reviewing before posting, which, when you boil it down, is just laziness.  Hopefully, looking back through this thing sometime in the future, I’ll be able to have a bit more respect for myself.

Tonight (as you read this), I’m invited to a “soup and sweater” party.  This is a new kind of party concept for me.  But, it’s also something I think I can totally get on-board with.  I love soup… like, almost as much as I love potatoes kinda love.  And, I’m also partial to sweaters.  The theme (winter, or somesuch) is not lost on me, so there’s kitsch value too.  The twist, however, is that we’re supposed to wear obnoxious sweaters to the soup and sweater party.  Personally, I’ve got a real humdinger.  Wait… I’m writing this and… I’m realizing… just how old I am.  Not a foam party; not a toga party; a soup and sweater party!  Know what… I don’t care.  I’m gonna wear my ridiculous sweater and eat bowlful after bowlful of soup.  Sue me.

Saturday, I’m going to watch football all day… maybe drink beer… maybe eat bean-dip.  Then Sunday, we’re scheduled to get some “official” family photos done by our very talented pro-photog friend (and occasional sounds familiar commenter), Megan.  I’m quite excited about this – as we’ve never had any sort of “official” photos done of us… and, don’t think us horrible parents please, but we’ve never had professional portraits of Keaton done either (I know some people who do it monthly for their kids).  She usually shares some “sneak peek” photos on her blog(s) after a session, and I’ll link ’em here if and when she does for our go at it Sunday.

Busy weekend, but better than work.

And finally, as a quick follow-up to my autotune comments of yesterday, the message boards are coming down hard on Kanye too.  Here is a short roundup of some of my favorite comments about autotune on 808s & Heartbreak:

Ahahaha. This album is whack. Seriously, what is it that makes artists these days think that autotune is actually worth using?

… the sound of your voice contorted by autotone has made me projectile vomit on multiple occasions

… all of the vocals are singing with heavy autotune, no rapping (except by Young Jeezy on “Amazing”),  musically it isn’t even really hip-hop, and the production is innovative as usual.

I don’t like it. The autotune aspect continues to be overused to the point of irrelevance.

i really hate the autotune. These songs could be so much better if he had never discovered its existence. I don’t know if i can handle a whole album of it. GOD**** AUTOTUNE!

wow this album is going to be fucking terrible. he doesn’t even attempt to learn to sing…he breathes at incredibly awkward times and the autotuning is just fucking ridiculous. and ffs every song is literally the same instrumentation: drumline, synthesized dull piano beat, and maybe a horn or so.

Autotune is shit and he’s obviously too dumb/arrogant to realize it.

fuuuccckkk.  the autotune makes me want to go kill something.

I dunno, I think autotune is okay on a song or two, but if he uses it on the whole album it’s going to be fucking annoying.

Ahhh… vindication from other snobs… what every music nut craves.  Feels good to be right, though.

Goodnight.

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producers of the genre, please heed my call!!

I wrote a whole entry last night and scrapped it around 11:30pm.  Just wasn’t going anywhere.

I’d like to address now my now more-than-obviously clear divergence from my previous posting frequency.  Wasn’t long ago I was hitting every single weekday without fail, day after day (or night after night, as my writing goes).  If you follow this page at all, you’ll know that posting has fallen way off from those days gone by.  On average now, I’d guess I miss two out of the five days I used to post.  I dunno… I still start out each day intending to write… I just don’t always get around to it.  Most of the time this isn’t a sin of omission but rather one of commission.  I choose not to write; usually, I have nothing to write about.  I don’t know if this is the new model or an extended phase.  But, I still have a desire to write… and I’ll continue to do so whenever I feel like I can.

Yesterday and today at work I had a measurably better days than my recent run of stinkers.  Mostly because I avoided thinking about and working on the one set of tasks that is giving me so much grief.  I know, you, being prudent, would dive headlong into those unsavory tasks until they were done – and I considered that too.  Ultimately, however, I found that delaying the inevitable difficulty for some temporary relief was my preferred avenue.  So, I worked on a bunch of smaller tasks that needed doing, and used my personal time well to take care of tasks outside the realm of work (can you tell that getting things done makes me feel happy?).  But, none of this is particularly interesting… so let’s move along.

Oh, the new Kanye leaked recently… and it makes me need to talk about the state of hip-hop and wanna-be hip-hop lately…

Producers of the genre, please heed my call!!  Stop it already with the mother-humpin’ autotune!

I’m not kidding, it was stale so many months ago, and it can only “fix” so much.  I understand you’re now using it as a stylistic element, like the quirky background sounds Timbaland’s production made ubiquitous years ago, or the No Limits sound, or the Neptunes sound, or the Mace sound, or the Nelly sound.  But, look, people, while everyone knows what’s hot in hip-hop is cyclical and the “in” sound typically follows and emulates one producer or a stable of artists  – the autotune abuse needs to stop.  If that means we lose T-Pain forever, so be it.

When every single song on your album (and I’m looking at you, Mr. 808s & Heartbreak West) is sung via autotune it truly grates on ones ears.  In fact, it becomes unlistenable.  When every single song on the radio is “enhanced” through autotune, it’s awful.  If I wanted to listen to a robot “sing” perfectly-keyed click-to-pitch ballads… well, let’s just say I would never want that.

Just stop it.  Stop it.  This has to end.

Goodnight.

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not retiring tomorrow

Tuesday night and the iPod has shuffled up some fine Grateful Dead, an extended jam on “Playin’ In the Band” from early ’73 in Nebraska.  The Dead sound good to me nearly all of the time, and only occasionally do I find myself out of the mood (if I can use that phrase) for some good ol’ noodling around.

And, in other music-related news, I saw this jarring headline on NME this evening: Led Zeppelin to tour with Robert Plant replacement!  Why oh why Zep?  Is this some ploy to get Plant to step in at the last minute despite his public statements he’s not interested?  Some kind of rock ‘n’ roll supergroup “bluff?”  I mean, with Sharaun going to her third New Kids on the Block show this weekend (and this one a world away on the other coast of the dang US), and our agreement that I could pay whatever the cost to see a reunited Zeppelin as turnabout for the money she burned reliving thirteen – you’d think I’d be happy.  But… no Plant?  Argh; just argh.

I didn’t write last night, or, rather, I wrote a bunch of unfinished and disjointed stuff that I just couldn’t massage into a viable post so I scrapped it altogether.  Tonight, I’m hoping for different results.  I’ve just put Keaton down to bed and Sharaun is at volleyball (man, it sure seems like I’ve been getting more than my share of evenings alone lately) – so I have the place to myself.  Although, I have to admit I didn’t use the time doing anything super exciting: washed the dishes from dinner, tidied the kitchen, played with Keaton, and listened to some tunes.  And that brings us to the present…

This past Saturday the college football crowd at the house for the games was a swollen one, one of the better Saturdays of the season thus far.  At some point, being that the majority of attendees are friends of mine from the sawmill, the discussion turned to all things finance and bailout.  Somehow, this led to a “401k-off” where each of us in turn logged onto our retirement portfolios online to look at our “yearly change” percents for 2008 so far.  The game being simple: whoever had lost the least this year wins.

There were seven people who participated, and, of those seven, the winner had lost 39%.  Yes folks, that was the winner; the guy who was only down 39% on the year.  Surprisingly, I took second place by only being off 42.6%.  The “loser” was down a future-mortgaging 48%.  To be perfectly clear, those are all negative numbers.  This, my friends, is what inspired the newest tombstone in our front-yard Halloween cemetery… whcih can be seen accompanying this post.  Good thing we’re not retiring tomorrow, eh?

Sorry for skippin’ so many of my normal dailies lately folks (if you can call them “normal” anymore).  Work is getting progressively busier, and will only get moreso as we move into 2009.  I’m not giving up on blogging by a long shot, I still enjoy it immensely… but if I had to bet I’d say this year brings down my overall frequency average a mite.  Bummer.

Stick with me, OK?  Goodnight.

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imposters!

Tuesday night and I’m stuck here again, right around that part where I begin everything with something like, “XXXday night and here I am again.”  I guess I could just say something like: “Hey Tuesday folks,” or maybe, “One day closer to hump day, one hump day closer to the weekend.”  Something like that.

Ween is on the iPod (Sharaun is at her volleyball game, so I get another TV-free all-tunes evening), I saw these guys when I was around fifteen in some small hole-in-the-wall club in Melbourne, Florida.  Myself and a crew of about six guys got dropped off by someone’s folks, and proceeded to hang out in front of the gas station asking random sketchy-looking dudes if they’d buy us beer.  After striking out, we entered the club empty-handed – no beer, no dope, no nothing.  For fourteen year old punks, the prospects were slim.  But we still had the show.

We regarded Ween as mostly a joke, as we were listening to the Pure Guava album at the time and songs like “Push the Lil’ Daisies” didn’t do much to bolster any “serious musician” cred.  But, at the show, Ween was amazing (I’ve looked and looked and looked online for a bootleg of that particular show, would be amazing to hear it again all these years later… and Ween has a fanatic fanbase of live show collectors, so I assume it’ll show up eventually).  They played a blistering million-minute cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain,” which proved they could play… so why all the crap on the records?

We begged them for “Big Jilm,” which had become a running joke amongst the group as maybe the most retarded song ever made (sorry retarded people).  They replied that the tape loop for that song was busted, and this had us howling almost as much as when they launched into tracks like “Hey Fat Boy, Asshole,” and, “Flies On My Dick,” which they dedicated to their grandparents – who were actually in the audience.  What an amazing night for some kids…

Oh gosh look, I wrote about it before, and seem to remember there being dope.  Who knows…

OK, let’s move on to the meat.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a “social networking” kinda guy.  Not on MySpace, not on Facebook, not on Bebo or LinkedIn or any of those other all-the-rage sites.  Never will be either, I just don’t cotton to the canned nature of the pages and the stupid back-and-forth banter.  So, that’s something you now know about me.

My brother, however, has a MySpace profile.  Now, I know I don’t write about my brother much here on the bloggy-blog-blog, but he’s a good guy and I like him a lot.  I don’t deride him for having a MySpace thingy – I know plenty of people who have ’em, it’s totally cool.  In fact, I used to visit his page occasionally just to see what he had posted or what his buddies (or whatever MySpace dubs them) were talking about.

Some time ago (been a long while now), my bro set his MySpace page to private.  I think this means only people he knows or has “friended” or whatever can see his stuffs.  I still have the link bookmarked though, and occasionally I’ll go there to see if maybe he’s un-privated the thing.  I never have any luck, the thing’s always still private – but I can at least see his little picture, his “current mood,” and his little tagline/motto thing.

But, what I noticed tonight, and what I wanted to write about, is the bottom of the page.  Down there after MySpace tells you the profile is “private,” it offers you a consolation prize by following up with, “Here are some public profiles you may find interesting.”  I can only assume the logic behind what I may find interesting is MySpace looking at the details behind my brother’s private profile, comparing them to the millions of other profiles on MySpace, and serving up those with some degree of commonality.  I imagine they look at age, interests, school and professional history, taste in music, links, comments, etc., etc., etc.

So, what worries me is the rank-and-file losers it pitches me as “public” stand-ins for my “private” brother.  MySpace, how dare you boil down my bro to this douchebag parade?!

Actually, I don’t know any of these guys… so I guess it’s kinda mean to assume they are, or label them as, “losers.”  Sorry guys.

For all I know, SHoRtYRoC is a Rhodes scholar.  Matt and Brian appear to share hats – so that shows kindness; and S.A.G. appears to be a real gangsta so I better reserve comment on him.  Randy and Scooter… oh Randy, oh Scooter… guys…  And I could go either way on Patrick.  But, just looking at them in aggregate, I don’t think they have much bearing on tho “who” of my little bro.

So, who is my brother?  I wrote this about him a few years ago:

Frank is my brother. His real name is John. When I was in the 4th grade (I think), I was of the opinion that the name “Frank” was one of the dumbest names a human could have (my apologies to all the Franks out there who are offended by that, but I was young). I started calling my brother Frank to be funny, or mean, or a little of both. Incredibly, the name stuck. Stuck hard. So hard, in fact, that by the time he was in high school, that’s all anyone knew him by. He even got “Frank” sewn on his Little League jacket.

Unfortunately, Frank endured many years of torture at my hands – both physical and psychological. I threw the cat in the bathtub with him; I brainwashed him into admitting guilt for things I’d done; I used to punch him as hard as I could every time I died playing Nintendo; he always had to be Luigi. When we were young, we were the best of friends. I remember playing Star Wars in the back yard, we used a shovel to dig the Sarlacc’s pit that Han got flung into (much to my mom’s chagrin). I remember tying ropes around the necks of our stuffed animals, and swinging them around in giant circles, pretending they were on some ride at the carnival. We were best buds.

I don’t know when that ended, but now we’re more like old friends who are flirting with the idea of having a brotherly relationship. My bro dropped out of high school in his junior year. We weren’t very close during those times, but I imagine he had a lot of the same experiences I did at his age… and he, too, lived through them (apparently the family mettle is strong). I hope Frank and I can get back to the days of Sarlacc pits and stuffed animal abuse one day, at least in spirit.

I wrote that sometime in 2000.  I’m happy to say that the sad-sounding ending isn’t really applicable anymore, and my brother and I have a fairly normal relationship at this point.  So, suck it MySpace.

Not comprehensive, but not bad.  Goodnight folks.

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stick to blocks

A pleasantly productive-feeling Monday at work.

As the pendulum swings, this was one of those days where I felt like some of the work I do may actually impact something for the company when all is said and done.  I guess that means later this week it’ll swing back the other way and I’ll be left reminding myself the beast wouldn’t blink were I to disappear off the Earth.  Thankfully, my family still needs me.

Well, maybe not tonight… since Sharaun’s out and I’m here alone (Keaton’s already sleeping) listening to some John Mayall on the iPod.  And, even though I’ve turned down the volume on the Halloween display’s “ambient sound” (which is just howling wind, hooting owls, and some crow-caws on an endless loop) the sound is still dribbling through the front door and driving me mad.

Mmm… gotta be some blog around here somewhere…

Usually sometime after I get home in the evening, I’ll queue up the day’s episode of Countdown and watch it.  I know, I know… it’s about as left-loving as you can get, but I sometimes temper it with some O’Reilly Factor just so I’m not 100% brain-poisoned.  Anyway, today Keaton came out and sat on my lap during the show and, after a couple minutes of watching, told me she’d like to watch a Backyardigans.  Not really thinking before replying, I chose the flat-out lying route and said, “This is The Backyardigans, babe.”  “Not it’s not!,” she corrected me, “it’s Obama!”

Wow… too much politics on the TV methinks.  I don’t need a policitaclly aware two-and-a-half year old, thank you very much.  Anyway, we already have her saying prayers for McCain and Palin every night at 5pm PST (3pm CST, 2pm EST) so the liberal Satanists don’t make all the weddings be gay weddings.  Dude, kidding… totally kidding, OK?  Sheesh.

You know what I find amazing to think about.  Once, in the year 2003, I wrote a blog on the world-wide-web about some of the silly things I used to do back in gradeschool – which, by the way, was way back in the year 1988.  Then, that entry garnered a comment from someone who was actually in that fifth-grade class with me so many years ago – and he remembered me doing the silly stuff I was writing about.  That, my friends, is one of the reasons I love blogging (not that it happens all the time or anything).  But, really, the internet has made some amazing things possible… no?

I guess I have to end this somehow…

It’s 11:16pm now and I just got up from my laptop-side perch on the couch (the iPod is playing Ben Folds Five now, their self-titled debut… a truly seminal album from my college years) to take a pee.  As I rounded the corner into the hallway I gasped aloud at what lay before me: There, at my feet, was my beautiful and sound-asleep daughter laying face-down on the carpet in the middle of the hall.  I was actually so surprised to see her there I stood shell-shocked for a few seconds before scooping her up and taking her to bed.

She does that sometimes, sneaks out of her unlocked door and army-crawls to within inches of the hallway where she can hear and/or peek out and see Sharaun and I – but we typically hear her do it and can redirect her right away. I have to think she was there for quite a while tonight, she looked completely comfortable.  Dang this lulling music and stupid howling Halloween wind for masking her telltale steady breathing!  If the iPhone camera had a flash (I know, ridiculous, right?) I would’ve snapped  a picture to accompany the entry… but as it stands you’ll have to take my word for it.

That girl is hilarious to me.  I less-than-three her so bad.

Goodnight.

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the halloween workshop

It’s nearing 2pm on this fine windows-open Sunday afternoon.

I just put Keaton down for a nap and Sharaun’s away at a baby shower.  I put on the new Of Montreal album (which is seriously growing on me, despite my initial skittishness) and decided to write a bit.  Now, writing wasn’t really my intention (nor has it been for the past week, as you’ve likely noticed if you’re a regular visitor here) – but I had no choice.

See, I had intended to get all the Halloween props down and start doing an assessment of what all needs to be repaired and what materials I’ll need to get everything back to working order.  But, all the Halloween gear is inside the fake coffin I built so many years ago to hold the pnuematic pop-up coffin dude, and that montrously heavy contraption is tied to the exposed rafters in my garage for storage (serisouly, where else am I going to store a full-size coffin?).  Problem is, other than my sneaking fear that the thing is gonna come crashing down randomly one day and wreck a car parked under it or worse smoosh someone as it falls, I can’t get the thing down all by my lonesome.  It’s just too heavy and unwieldy.  So, as Halloween prep goes, this morning was a complete loss.

Later in the day though, Sharaun got home and helped me lower the thing from it’s hold up in the rafters.  After that, I was able to get all the gear down from the various places it’s stuffed up into our roof and take a full account of things.  And, surprisingly, I’m not as concerned about the work as I was before.  Yeah, the rubber masks have all rotted and are tearing – those’ll have to be replaced, and I already knew I had to rebiuld the ghost… but everything else is just improvements: rewiring things for low-voltage operation in the name of safety, making cosmetic improvements, improving triggering and timing for the more complex animated props, etc.  I know you care dearly about all of this, so I’ll leave it at that level of detail and be done with it.  But, I’m happy to say that my side of the garage has now been officially transformed into the Halloween workshop; ’tis the season.

Shifting gears then…

Today as I walked in to pick Keaton up from her Sunday School class at church, her teacher turned to me and said, “Keaton had a day today.”  “Uh oh,” I said, recalling how we’d already struggled with her ourselves from the start as well.  “Yeah,” she continued, “I’ve never seen her like this.  Not only did she have four kicking and screaming on the ground fits, but she bullied every single kid in the class!” “Oh boy,” I sighed, looking down at our little angel sitting forlornly on a chair in all her infinite cuteness.  As Sharaun slid in beside me her teacher went on, “She pushed Madeline and pinched Matthew and just wouldn’t listen.”  Sharaun, having borne the brunt of Keaton’s earlier “No!” and hitting fit, screwed up her face and sternly asked Keaton to apologize, which she did.

Of course, after church she was a perfect little girl for me when Sharaun was away.  I sometimes think she acts out more for Sharaun than she does me, maybe because she’s got more to prove to her since she’s with her all day long or whatever.  Y’know, asserting her authority most to the one who’s the authority for most of the day, or something.  It sometimes makes me feel bad, because there are instances where she flips like a switch and instantly behaves better for me if Sharaun’s removed from the situation… but then again I also figure this is just the beginning of her wrapping me around her little finger so she can exploit me later in life.  Nah… I’m just playin’.  But I dunno y’allz… this girl can flex some bad, straight-up bad.

OK, whatever.  Goodnight.