Onward & Upward

Below is the last of my MySpace blog greatest hits and (mostly) misses. From here on out, everything will be new material. Maybe not fresh, and probably not regular.

Some things worth mentioning...in three or four years' time, I've mellowed a bit with regard to politics. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a junky, but I no longer hate Democrats, and I no longer call myself a Republican. I loath both parties equally, and I long for the day when free thinkers (kind of like the founding fathers) can get into power and right this sinking ship we're in. So to all my lefty friends, if you've read from the beginning, my apologies if I seemed harsh. At the time I was. My meds are on now...and I'm feeling much better!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

It’s all over but the crying Current mood: bummed Category: News and Politics Well, I'll say this: The Democrats (and Obama) ran one HELLUVA campaign. I've been an observer of politics since I was knee high to a June Bug, and never have I seen such a well organized effort to take a political office. Conversely, the GOP did everything it could to lose this race, and did so in fine fashion. Hats off to you my friends. In 2000 you pushed McCain out of the way because he was too much of the "maverick" (honestly...he looks nothing like Tom Cruise. Tom Skerritt, maybe...but I digress) and pushed "The Shrub" (George W.) into office because he was more aligned with the evangelical, and fundamental religious right (The Moral Majority which is neither, actually, Jerry Fallwell, et al) that preferred to base legislation and governance on the bible and not the Constitution. Then in 2008, when McCain (the maverick) started winning primaries, and it all but appeared that he'd be the party nominee, the GOP brass decided that they had to mold him to fit the far-right and religious right form. What they really succeeded in doing was turning the maverick into the "angry white dude" that turned off so many. Sadly, there are a ton of un- (or under-) educated folks that vote based on soundbytes and images. That's a poor commentary on our nation as a whole, but it's also not the point of this posting. The point is this: REPLUBLICANISM is DEAD! Fin. Kaput. Auf wiedersehen. So long, farewell, goodbye! The only reason McCain got as many votes as he did (46-48% depending on which source you trust) is because there were a HUGE number of people like me who voted not so much for McCain as we voted against Obama. I didn't rally under my GOP flag. Fuck that and fuck their little club. The GOP hasn't represented me and my views since I was in high school and learned to think for myself, and question everything. I'm NOT a Republican, and don't you dare label me as one!!! The only thing the GOP had to keep me on their side was the fact that I had even less in common with the Democratic party. That's it, really. Pretty sad. Now that Republicanism as we know it is dead, perhaps the Conservatives (like me) can take the party back, and inject a little bit of fresh air into it. Change (like the Obama rally cry) is not always bad, and this is coming from an OCD person that abhors change. The right kind of change is a fantastic thing, and since we live in a dynamic world, we need a dynamic party that is willing to adapt to stay alive. Ronald Regan was a great man, and perhaps one of the greatest presidents this nation has ever had. A throwback to some Regan conservatism would not be such a bad idea...as long as it is mingled (and not just casually so) with some adaptability, and flung far, far away for morality-based legislation. To the GOP: So the 8 year experiment went horribly awry. Acknowledge, re-group, and move on. Show me and the rest of the conservative "sinners" how the GOP can become the party of "change" (since everyone likes that word so much). Study the mechanics of the Obama campaign, and learn from them. Compare and contrast their campaign with your own, and learn why theirs was so effective in galvanizing support, and your own was so effective is creating dissent from within. Most importantly, stop thumping your bibles long enough to pick up a magazine and read an article with some *gasp* SCIENCE in it! Embrace the academic and scientific world, and learn to look past your own noses. I understand that a very large portion of the population holds religion (and religious dogma), theology, and morality in such high regard that they become intertwined with politics, but that has to be stopped, or at least tempered to keep people like me from just giving up. KEEP YOUR RELIGION OUT OF MY LIFE! Yes, I know this country was founded on (among other things) religious freedom, but that means I'm just as free to NOT worship your god/cow/great pickle in the sky as you are to do so. My only hope (there's another buzzword...) is that the propaganda about Obama is only partially true. Even if he's a flaming pinko-commie-Marxist there's only so much he can do without the support of congress (the opposite of "progress"...) and the American people. If he goes too deep into the Socialist territory, he'll be gone soon enough. The people of this nation won't stand for it, I believe. Time will tell. Ahh well...it was the outcome I predicted, and perhaps it's the outcome we needed. When the dust settles, we'll still be fighting a global war on terror, the economy will still be in the shitter, foreign policy will still take years to repair, and meanwhile we still fester in our own stupidity here at home. It's gonna take a long time to get out of this handbasket, and I'm not so sure that Obama or the GOP-created FrankenMcCain can do much about it. See yall in 4 years...MAN I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!

Herr'cane Names

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Hurricane Names Current mood: argumentative Here's a brain fart I've been sitting on for a while now. You know what they say about holding farts in, right? You shouldn't do it because then they travel up your spine, into your brain, and that's where shitty ideas come from. That was a joke, people. Shitty ideas come from Congress, not holding farts in. Anyway, now that Hurr'cane Season '08 is (almost) completely behind us, I feel it's safe to speak out on something that's bothered me since...2005, and that's the assignment of human names to potentially deadly weather events. Quite simply, I don't think it should be done, and because this is my blog, I'm going to tell you why, and yes I will show my work. For background info, see the following Wikipedia article that explains the naming of North Atlantic Storms Wiki - Storm Names info. It'll help. So where was I? Oh yeah. Here we go: 1. We don't name any other weather event. Think about it...have you ever heard of a Tornado being referred to by a name? How about Nor' Easters? Tsunamis? Nope. All are capable of causing great destruction and loss of life and property, but none are ever given human names. Why should hurricanes be any different? 2. Giving human names to something that is potentially linked to death and destruction isn't really fair to folks walking among us with the same (or similar) name. Case in point: Katrina. I've known a young lady named Katrina for about a dozen years now, since she was a bratty high school kid with braces. She has since grown into a wonderful young lady, and I don't really think she has a hateful bone in her body. Yet after the events of 2005 her name is now indelibly (and unwittingly) linked to the deaths of over 2000 people, human suffering of epic proportions, and property losses in the hundreds of billions of dollars. After the storm hit she said "Two weeks ago people couldn't even spell my name, and now everyone says 'Oh...like the hurricane.'". She now goes by "Kate". At least they retired the name "Katrina" so she'll never have to face this again, right? Wrong. You see, next year (2009) you'll note that "Kate" is the designated "K" letter. She just can't win. Also, I have a neighbor named Gustav. I didn't know that until my wife made me attend our block's version of "Night Out Against Crime" (which is another rant for another day). He seemed like a nice enough guy. Family man, keeps his house up, doesn't junk up the neighborhood. Well luckily this year Hurricane Gustav was more of a nuisance than anything else to us here in LA, but still, he's now linked in the minds of many to long evacuation trips, expensive hotel stays, crappy shelter conditions, etc. 3. People don't take seriously something so deadly when it's named after the guy that bags your groceries. I'm sorry, but as much of a weather geek as I am, I don't feel any sense of danger from "Hurricane Gabrielle". Sounds like a damn Disney princess. If they want folks to pay attention, and to get that sense of impending danger to they'll take personal responsibility for once and not depend of the guv'mit to drag their sorry asses out of harms way...sorry, I went on a tangent there. Anyway, if they must use names for these storms, why not use something like "Slagador" or "Death Cloud From Hell" or "yo ass is gonna drown if'n you don't get in that '89 Cutlass with the snap-on spinner hub caps you get at the Wal Marts because yo broke ass can't afford real 24" Dubs and git the fuuuuck outta town!". I can tell you this...if the Weather Gnome (Bob Breck) gets on the teevee and starts yelling about "Hurricane Pit Bull", I'm going to take notice. (NB-There is absolutely nothing wrong with or bad about Pit Bulls. I was merely going for the connotative connection, not implying in any way, shape, or form that pit bulls are any more or less dangerous than other dog breeds) So there's 3 reasons. I can provide more, but it's lunch time. In the meantime, be sure to check out the band No Fuego and their awesome song "KKKatrina". No Fuego is one of the (very) few bands I ALWAYS enjoyed working with, and they're even opening up for the Dropkick Murphy's at the HoB in November. "KKKatrina" is probably my favorite song about that damn storm, followed closely by "We've Got Each Other" by The Imagination Movers. Shut up. I like 'em, the boy likes 'em, they're local guys, and it ain't fucking Barney or Elmo. *shudder*

Calm before the storm

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Calm before the storm... Current mood: exhausted ...sort of. I guess you could call us calm. We're too fucking tired to be anything else. It's about 10 minutes to 4pm on Sunday. We've been up for the better part of 2 days prepping for Gustav. The house is as secure as we can make it. Gas is turned off, and everything is unplugged. We started this morning at 2am after about 90 minutes of sleep. Fitfull sleep. Too nervous to sleep, really. We were supposed to leave at 3am, but we ran into a few technical difficulties, and I had to check the locks 3 times, even though I knew I locked them the first time. OCD is a bitch. So anyway, 3:23am was the official departure time. Under normal circumstances it is exactly 180 miles from my front door to the hotel parking lot in Jackson, MS. 3 hours with light traffic. When we evac'd for Katrina, it was a 3.5 hour trip, and that included stopping to feed the 5 month old baby. Not bad considering. the key was we left at 4am, and Contraflow had been implemented for hours at that point. This time, Contraflow didn't start until 4am, and we were to be one of the first to try it out. Bad timing. Overall it took us 6 hours plus or minus a few minutes (we're still kinda fuzzy on what day it is) which still isn't that bad considering some folks have been on the highway for 12 hours or more. Their problem is they are trying to use the major highways to get wherever they are going. I learned a long time ago that you need to have a Louisiana Atlas in your vehicle (or a really cool NAV unit). Fuck traffic. I'll drive 100 miles extra to get where I'm going as opposed to taking a clogged highway to get to point b. The people in the New Orleans area are just married to I-10. We used secondary roads whenever possible, and didn't have many slowdowns. I-55N turned into bumper to bumper for about an hour right before contraflow started, and at that point we covered 5 miles in 1 hour. Again after the end of contraflow, we did another 5 miles in 1 hour, but the remaining 4 hours (including potty breaks) were at times wide open. According to the Tundra, we averaged a speed of 27.9 mph, and I averaged 16.4 mpg on half a tank. Pretty damn impressive for a 6000+ truck loaded down with everything I could fit in it including a big-ass dog and 20 gallons of extra fuel (fuck running out of gas. Be prepared, people. It's the motto of the Boy Scouts). All in all, it's not bad considering all that we've had to battle against just to get here. I've been battling the flu since friday, and functioning in the heat on an empty stomach can get rough. I took more naps than Sean did. I had to. The fever had me on my ass. The hotel where we're staying is the same one we've evac'd to for Ivan in '04 and Katrina in '05. It was kinda dumpy in '04, very dumpy in '05, and an absolute dump in '08. BUT...it's got a bed, relatively cold AC, and a toilet that flushes. The rest are all details. The cats are finally coming out from under the bed. Mac (dog) finally took a shit. Everyone has pooped, so I can rest now. Not really. I can't nap. I'm past the point of short sleep being beneficial, so I need to just stick it out until bed time. The mets are cautiously downgrading Gus...so there may be a light at the end of this tunnel. However, Gustav hasn't been very predictable since Haiti, though, so I won't believe anything until the sonofabitch makes landfall, and I get word that my house is dry. Fingers crossed...

Juggling sucks

Friday, October 05, 2007

From the hills to the hell... Category: Life Since we last shared time, deAr reader, I have managed to make it home on quite possibly the 3rd or 4th worst flight I have ever been on. And I've been on a bunch. Just in case you were wondering, I still hate flying. Never mind the 30 minutes to check in, and the extra hour in line for the security checkpoint. (Note to self...12g stainless steel barbells in one's ear set off the metal detectors) Made it home in one piece, though, on a Friday evening. Since I couldn't get in touch with my ride to let her know I was early, I got to sit around Louis Armstrong International Airport for almost an hour. Sidebar~No one in NOLA calls it Louis Armstrong International Airport. Most of us call it "the airport" and if you're old enough "Moisant Field". And the "International" part is a misnomer because I seriously doubt you could catch a flight going anywhere decent out of that shithole airport. Unless you count anywhere else...since NOLA may as well be our own country, one could argue that every flight is international. End sidebar~ But anyway, the place is a dump. I think the last time they slapped a coat of paint on the place was when Nixon was in office. I swear I saw the set from Laugh In down by the luggage carousel. Saturday was the LSU v Tulane game in the 'Dome, and I got to spend quality time with some important folks in my life. Good times. LSU's offensive line was, at times, offensive, but they showed up in the second half. Sunday...what a day. The day before test day. T-minus 24 hours. At some point in the day I told Sean to stop jumping on the couch because he was gonna fall and I was NOT going to the hospital today. So what did Captain Dumbass do? I cut my hand wide open with a VERY sharp knife while cutting an apple. How do I know it was very sharp? Because I sharpened it earlier that day. I was cutting a plum for Sean and it was a bit dull, so I sharpened it. It's not rocket surgery, folks. 3 stitches and half a pint of blood lost later, I have this: and this: and one final shot of the lovely couple: Sorry I didn't get any gore shots, but I was busy cursing and hollering for Colette to stop worrying about how she looked and get me to the fucking hospital. And one final note for all you kids out there...keep your knives sharp. The difference between 3 stitches in a straight line and 10 in a jagged line is a sharp blade. And stay away from the Henkels 5 star knives. Yeah, they're good (and expensive) but the 4 star series has a better grip. Wustoff has good knives too.

Geez...where ya been?

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Geez...where ya been? Current mood: tired Category: Travel and Places Yes, I know. I haven't posted a blog in like 7 months, and here I go with this drivel. hEY...IT'S MY BLOG. Crap. CAPS LOCK got stuck again. So today began my week-long journey to the east coast to prepare for my exam next monday. What exam? The Customs Broker's Examination I've been studying my ass off for over the last 3 or so months. 3 months of nights and weekends with my nose buried in roughly 35-3600 pages of federal regulations wasn't enough. I have to sign up for a week of intense review. 1200 miles from home. By myself. At least it's on the company dime. So I get on the plane this afternoon, flight 1854 to Charlotte, and the first thing I realize (aside from the fact that the plane is full) is that the plane is full. Of people wearing South Carolina garb. And here's my happy little ass wearing an LSU cap, LSU shirt, and my LSU Crocs because my boots are still wet from the LSU game yesterday...against South Carolina. I'm surrounded by Steve Spurrier look-alikes (folks, the visor fad is over. Please read your memos), in a pressurized metal Tylenol with wings, and who is the only LSU fan on the plane? Yeah. They let me have it. Most were cool about it though, and surprisingly enough, everyone was talking about how good of a time they had, and how great Tiger fans were, etc. Good show, LSU fans! Even more surprising was that so many of the SC folks mentioned how they really didn't LIKE Spurrier...but they wanted wins. Whatever...he's a whore just like Saban. But this isn't a football blog... Anyway, the pilot comes on the intercom, and he's got a Southern drawl. Somehow I always feel better when the pilot has a twang in his voice. Dunno why. But he does, and I relax. For those that don't know, I don't like flying. If man were intended to fly, he would have been born with wings. I'm not afraid to fly...I just don't like it. But it beats driving a full day each way. Take off, land, nothing special. Southern boy comes over the intercom..."Welcome to Charlotte, North Carolina, local time is ... and current temp is 93 degrees with a humidity around 80-85%". Wait. What? I chose this destination in the mountains to get away from oppressive heat and humidity, not make my eardrums pop for an hour and forty-five minutes to get more of the same! Oh well... Get into the hotel room, unpack, and go on a beer hunt. There's a Kwik-E-Mart down the hill (they have hills here...it's the derndest thing) that sells beer on sundays (yay!) and half a dozen restaurants/food joints, including where I ate dinner tonite, Chili's (boo!). At least I got a Guinness. Granted, at $6 a beer, I shoulda skipped the food and gotten a drink at the gentlemen's club next door. The sights would have been a lot better than the Sunday night waitress crew at Chili's. One would hope anyway. Too bad I don't like strip clubs... Back to my room, and time for nite-nite. I'm tired, and I have a long day tomorrow. Gotta get used to this hour time change. It's fucking up my program. I miss my son. And my wife, but mostly my son. And the dog. Tomorrow will be easier...I'm sure.

60 Second album review-Cry Mortal

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

60 second album review-CRY MORTAL Current mood: working Category: Music Yeah, right. Like I can do ANYTHING that quickly. OK, well there is that ONE thing, but my wife assures me that it happens to all guys. All joking aside, I felt like banging the drum for a local band. Cry Mortal's "think" is my new all-time favorite album of the week. For those of you who may or may not know, I occasionally dust my mixing fingers off for bands I like, or at least ones that are willing to pay me lotsa money. Cry Mortal is one of the former. I have regretfully only mixed these guys one time, but I was hooked from that point on. What got me initially was the slightly offbeat email demeanor of Will Jaeger, the band's drummer. He has a rather dry wit about him, and just like my martinis, I appreciate my humor dry, thank you very much. Once that first gig at The Bar was over after an extended late-night set, there was no turning back. I flat out DIG these guys' music. Live, they are a thrill to watch and listen to, so I was quite happy when I found out they were almost finished producing their full length release "think". That was way back in mid-summer of 2006. I got my copy of the disc last Friday, in early February. Worth the wait, lemme tell ya. The album is a VERY adequate reproduction of the live experience, minus a lot of sweat and some technical issues that seem to plague Kenny Phillips' bass rig quite often. And beer, but you can certainly crack open a cold one and listen to this disc. The album is one of the most consistent I have listened to in a very long time. The songs stand out from each other as individuals, but all have a very common something that makes them similar. For instance, the guitar tone rarely changes from start to finish. This is not a problem or even an annoyance to me, though, as the songs can change gears with lightning-fast speed, so it's nice to have that common thread holding everything together. That's sort of a hallmark of Progressive Rock, of which I am a big fan, and is one reason I consider Cry Mortal to be among the leaders of the "Neo-Prog" wave I'm trying to foster. I may have just invented yet another sub-genre of music… Carroll Trull's vocal stylings are at times acute, but are always melodic enough to stay in check with the overall song. It's quite obvious that he's got a great voice, and knows how to use it judiciously. For you metal-head purists out there, the screams are there, but you've got to listen for them. It's refreshing to not hear Cookie Monster deep throat the mic for 65 minutes. Lyrics are spouted in a sometimes staccato fashion, and other times they just roll off Carroll's tongue, but they are never forced. The backups from Kenny and Will add a tremendous depth to the vocals overall. As a trio, it's always a chore to fill out a sound the same way a 4 or 5 piece group can. This is where Kenny's bass lines fill the bill. In fact, my biggest complaint about the whole album is that I can't hear the bass lines clearly enough. However, I haven't evaluated this disc on anything more than my truck stereo, and my PC at work, and I'm admittedly biased towards bass, as it is the instrument I play the most. Kenny's tones are at times warm and mellow, and then growling as the song changes demand, and his fretwork is phenomenal as evidenced on track 9, "This Foot Did Slip". Never, though, is it pretentious or over-the-top. Carroll's guitar is front-and-center throughout the whole album. As with the bass, though, it's never too flashy, or show-offey (yes, I know that isn't a real word). The whole band is extremely talented, and the songs are, in typical progressive fashion, very technical. I wouldn't say there as detailed as Emerson Lake & Palmer, Dream Theater, or Rush, but the songs can certainly hold their own here. Having seen these guys live, and witnessed the tendons and muscles in Carroll's & Kenny's arms tighten up by mid-set, I can certainly say as a musician that these are by no means three chord chumps. These guys are tighter than a virgin on prom night, which directly lends itself to their full sound. Will knows when to play a killer fill, and when to hold back to just keep the rhythm alive with Kenny. With all the hairpin turns in the songs, he goes from death metal-esque hi-hat/snare gallops to a swing beat effortlessly, and never misses on any of the odd (as in not-so-common) time signatures that predominate the sonic landscape of this album. I have noticed that the band mentions "The Dark Tower" from time to time on their website and MySpace. I don't read Stephen King so I'm not sure what it's all about, or if it even relates to the lyrics in any way. Apologies in advance to whomever wrote the lyrics, as I really didn't pay any attention to them. One day I'll sit down to analyze and critique them, but that's another blog for another year. All in all, this is an excellent CD. The recording is high quality, which is a breath of fresh air after getting all the "homebrew" demos that I sort through on a regular basis. With technology advancing the way it has, everyone can record a good sounding disc for very little money, but there's something to be said for a professional helping the process. Sonically, this is about as good as you're gonna get without spending Metallica money and 9 months and three therapists in a studio. Whatever Cry Mortal spent on production and pressing of this album was worth it. So long story short, check out NOLA's own Cry Mortal. Tell 'em I sent ya. Feb 23rd they'll be at the House of Blues Parish Room along with another favorite local band of mine, Runoft (who take technicality to a new level themselves), and a band I haven't seen in over 2 years, People on the Side. If you look very hard, you just may even find me in the crowd.