Archive for category Ａｂｏｕｔ

Starting a standard format for weekly meta posts. My reading and study backlog is getting under control now and nothing crazy is going on so I’m going to write more again. Obviously I spare to one meta post a week, but if they start piling up I’m going to feel like a real asshole with no clever title or anything, a blog full of excuses, a house of lies, a Beckett play with NO AUDIENCE. “Oh, look at me in the depths of existential angst with this audience of thousands and critical acclaim, respect from my fellow artists.” Sure, bub. I guess you’re bleak. Lo, but it is I who blog the blart of darkness. None have obscured their toil in more frosty a blackness; it is like unto the proverbial liquorice milkshake, inside the proverbial broken refrigerator at the bottom of the proverbial dead sea, inside the proverbial overlong sentence inside the proverbial blog no one reads. Ugh! That’s rough. Is it even possible to go on?
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Started this post on 4/20. Had some stuff to say. Then I got hung up on the title. There’s a thing in WordPress (there it is) where it automatically capitalizes the WP so the spelling is “on brand” I guess is how they would say it. No big deal, but this is Hitler’s bday. I am not a fan, and don’t like to make any hints otherwise. Of course, if you have not read much anti-fascist literature (or websites) you may not be hip to the common abbreviation of “White Power”. I’m following people on twitter who use WP for “West Philly”. They are not Nazis(, Mom). But I would never use it for anything. WordPress for is always one word, no big P. Outside of WordPress that is.

Also this logo is not an endorsement of the terrible president, mediocre Wu-Tang album or absolutely wonderful Hello Project unit...or maybe it is. I do not work for the company.

I should mention at this time I was not high. That’s my totally sober thinking process. You can see how weed doesn’t really work that great for me. Haven’t touched the stuff in years, or any stuff, which basically means avoiding all friends. I am in favor of full legalization, not so I use it, but so I can not feel the need to prove I’m down with law-breaking. It would become a super-corporate branded product overnight and lose all coolness. You’d no longer need to know a guy to score, you’d just hit up 7-11. The same people would do it, but would have to be the ones making the lame excuse for engaging in such uncool behavior and then I guess would try to get you to snort bath salts or cat litter or whatever. (“Dude, I can’t snort this litter by myself, I’d feel like some kind of loser.”) Not against it, I’m just saying.

All that stuff is nothing like drinking, obvs. Oh shit, it’s also nothing like blogging. Total thinking out loud moment. See, I was going to try to pressure more peeps onto WordPress. Most of you/my blog buddies of the past used to use livejournal or Blogger, and now use Tumblr, Twitter, or gave up and just use Facebook. I use the downloaded platform WordPress on my own server, which is admittedly, a bit much. But normal people can use wordpress.com and the whole thing is free and easy as stolen cat litter. I used to say it was for more ~advanced~ internetters, but they make the interface easier every time they update the thing. Yeah, some people use Tumblr just like lj. Most don’t. Nobody cares about pics of your lunch, man. How are you doing? Some of that lj oversharing could get gross and we got over that, but c’mon…a lot of people I new used to write every damn day, like, paragraphs! Twitter is cool, but remember paragraphs not being a special occasion? It wasn’t that long ago. Message board people—where did some of these people go? Some of the best stuff I’ve read online is from people who never had a blog, some went straight into freelancing I guess. That would be the smart option. But some of you have got to be like me: really smart, and yet on another level really, really dumb. Wait, that’s not very convincing. I’m being an asshole again aren’t I. Mostly to myself this time, too. I am the worst. Join me?

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The Philadelphia Art Museum has an ongoing concert series call Art After 5
. I’ve never gone to it. I love the Art Museum but I usually go on Sundays when it’s free. Usually because I’m broke but also because it’s like church to me. It’s the only place I get those churchy feelings since before I figured they were making all that up shit up. Let’s not get too heavy into it.

But it’s also the anniversary of the Japan’s 3/11 disaster (already yesterday there), and the Japan Society donation box over on the right is not going anywhere. One of their members recorded their moment of silence this afternoon:

A moment of silence for Tohoku 3/11 at Japan Society by suteebu

There’s nothing else I can say about it.

The museum did not have a moment of silence. It was the day before. That would be a bit much, wouldn’t it? They had a rock show to put on. (It was creepily silent in the rest of the museum I wondered off in after the show, never seen it so empty.) I came in halfway during the first set and the modest setup thundered through the entire lobby of the west entrance. The front hall where they performed is marble floor-to-ceiling and that ceiling is 100-foot high. (I’m guessing.) It’s not the ideal place for a rock band. There were some mic feedback issues but overall the sound was nothing as bad as say, the cheap seats at Madison Square Garden. Here is my watercolor impression of the band from the marble staircase/bleacher seating:

I’ve been trying to not pressure myself into carrying around a real camera again, but that is obviously bullshit. I’m just being lazy now. See that glitch in there? Happens all the time now to some degree when I send something to flicker or email. Sometimes the result is interesting. Here it isn’t. And the lens is obviously wacked. Whatever, you get the idea. It’s a weird setup. You got some tables on the sides too, they had like, art food: wine, hors d’oeuvres, etc. As a former art student I am a great lover of art food, when free. Here it was not. I did without.

Now you might be thinking, this is all pretty Not Punk Rock. No…if you think Punk is a list of should and shouldn’ts, I guess not. None of my various contradictory sensibilities were offended. I think punk is about reality and the reality is that hall is an alternative venue. And I think the Museum is a place for any kind of work which you mentally have to put in it’s own context. That said, the people who insisted on getting served while in the bleacher seats where a bit distracting. I’m strictly a cafeteria-eater at this place. I can’t get into the upper-class aspect of it. (Literally.) Even waiters seem like a class above me. Sometimes I think, one day that could me…a waiter. Damn. It is but a dream, and I remain…a fool. What?

I got up closer for the encore, but I don’t know what I was thinking with this overglaze. Did I mention a kid was dancing up front the whole time so they let him play maracas? That happened. It was him and then a hippie grandmother and then maybe some secretaries? That’s probably wrong, but they were some professionally attired middle-aged women in there too on the dance floor for the last couple numbers. Then a fight broke out, the curtains were lit on fire, and they smashed the Archer statue with their guitars, rode it down the steps and straight out the front door, marble chunks flying everywhere. Nah, that last part didn’t happen. That’d make the news.

Someone from Philly’s Japan American Society posted this video on twitter:

I’m in the shot somewhere. Big time fame. %

Had a dream last night I was in the mob. I was the driver for a hitman. Dropping him off at the mall, he told me to be in the the exact spot in exactly 42 minutes. I said no problem, went home and took a nap. (I don’t think I’ve ever gone to sleep and woken up in a dream before.) It was 10:45 at night. I was on my way out the door when the dream ended. This could still work out. He’ll understand I’m just not that punctual, right? What time was it when I dropped him off anyway? The mall’s only 15 minutes away. It’ll be cool.

Another related dream had me as the hitman having shot a girl. I didn’t shoot her in the dream, it had already happened. The problem was, she lived so she moved in with me. It was an understandably tense living situation, especially since I hadn’t figured out if she was really that tough to survive or if she was really a zombie. We decided to make out. Zombies are not known to trick people into making out with them before killing them but it still seemed like a possibility. Yet, it was a risk I was willing to take. I woke up.

One day I was driving with my father. There was a car show nearby or something, so we’re riding down the turnpike or wherever and there’s suddenly classic cars all over the road. My father can name the make and model year of almost any car. “Wow, a ’59 Ford! A ’69 Chevy! What’s that…a ’77…uh…what year were you born?”

So…my sister had a kid last week. Her second but the the first boy. I’m not going to be blogging family news and issues but I feel like if this blog sticks around (it exists mostly to get me to stick with something) when this kid gets old enough to read it, that it doesn’t seem like the event of his birth is trivial compared to details about artifacts of pop culture. Happy birthday, Owen.

A record review blog would be a great distraction for someone with a boringly stable, well-figured out life. It’s a running joke that I never get to it but it really can’t be a priority. This is the thing with the photography too. I kinda hate saying that I gave up getting better at it. I really had a passion for it for a long time, it seemed like my thing. But it’s everyone’s thing now. I used to shoot multiple rolls of film a week. There’s nothing special about shooting a lot now, it costs nothing. It’s like having a lot of records. Just having a collection was used to be a thing. Everyone has a great collection now. You’ve got to do something extra. It sucks, but I’m not having kids. I gotta do something. I’m not one of these people that thinks they’re special and that everything they do is great. I need to be the best at something. It’s not at simple as that, but…oh shit maybe it is as simple as that. Yeah, I guess that’s that. Time to sweep some floors. %

I hate to break character but no fool is clowning me this time next year when the world has not yet ended. I did not get religious. I’m not a Republican. I believe in higher taxes for everyone, mandatory same-sex marriage, and teaching Freemasonry in schools. (Which, like algebra, the kids may never use but at the very least they will be able to understand music videos.)

So some of these lists got a little crazy. Glad I got them done tho. I think I could have done a better job with 2001. I think some of that 2nd part was 2002. You know that whole 9/11 thing…people think it’s funny now but… Uh. Yeah that messed things up a bit. Some missing chunks towards the end of that year. I’ve averaged the two years together in my head and lost focus on the more positive, social stuff that was happening. (Like social drinking.) But there’s only ten things in a top ten list so the most intense things make it. That’s what is so dumb about trying to sum up a whole year with ten things in general. The picks are for real but I’m making fun of the list format, or the idea of trying to sum up everything at once. But I like the idea of more really specific lists. That’s where things get interesting, the more it gets away from critical consensus of what’s “Best”. I think I have my links and feeds and twitters in order where it’s the stuff I care about following. I don’t need to weigh in on the Pitchfork list every year, or whatever. (I should really catch up on The Roots tho at least, I’m 3 albums behind now.) Lotta bandcamp albums to go through. Think I’ve lowered the standard or set the tone enough….I’m just a message board dude with a graphic design fetish. Aside from the life issues, that’s all this is.

Coming up on a month post-JLPT. December is pretty brutal for getting anything done, so the Ankis have piled up pretty high. Getting better at customizing the thing, deleting cards I really know well (being careful with that but I think the katakana cards are safe to ditch), adding a new deck for words and expressions I find on blogs. Maybe get to editing the song decks. (Altho I’m not sure how great the song vocab is for learning what words can mean in context of a song.) Gotta make some kind of jump to try to apply this to something.

Got to get on ebay as a regular thing. Def a lot of things I could get rid of, I just can’t get it organized.

Working with a higher bass tuning. Had the C# 3rds tuning for a while, which I should really write up or do some youtube vids. (This is something I attempted to explain in the podcast.) I started using the tuning as a way to simplify using a numeric notation system for microtones, and learn general music theory better but it’s interesting by itself. Now it’s starting with E because I’m just playing along with songs and I wanted a higher range, but the thing sounds better under higher tension. Built up the finger muscles where it doesn’t bother me (thumb and wrist were killing me for a long time). Tried playing guitar a little the other day, don’t have the guitar callouses anymore, kinda sucks but I never got good at actually playing, I just like it for drones. I think bass might be my main instrument. I’m a total moron. I can’t believe any of this.

Ok, it’s time to delete the whole blog. It’s all done. We’ve done it. Everything’s resolved. No, wait. Come back, It’ll be fine.%

Next: reviews…?