April 6, 2008 + "Why Music Sucks."
    Current Listening:  The Enemy - We'll Live And Die In These Towns, Manic Street Preachers - Lipstick Traces and Adrian Belew - Side Three 
    Current Reading:  (still) Homage To Catalonia - George Orwell
    After a long discussion with Tom (guitarist in The Silent Screen) last night, I have decided that, for me, music sucks.  Mainly, alas, because I am old.  I loved the days of working at Record Alley in high school and college, having new CD's come out, getting promo copies, putting promo posters up on the walls and all that.  I love (and loved) buying new CD's and actually reading the liner notes, reading the lyrics, looking at the cover art.  The music wasn't, and isn't, the only art.  The packaging is inherently, to me, part of the experience.  
    And something you don't get with downloading music.
    A downloaded song is only part, albeit the greater part, of the experience.  
    I feel very old.  
    While I do have an mp3 player, it is not an iPod (I won't buy into Apple's business dealings), but an off-brand that, oddly enough, will play damn near anything regardless of where it comes from or where it is ripped from.  Nice, eh?  
    And I don't, really, much longer feel for any major label.  They missed the boat.  They lost at Napster, though it may have seemed that they won.  The precendents set will haunt music for years.  I hate saying it, but steal from the majors - they've been stealing from their artists, and you, for years.  Be good to the independents.  If you like a CD, buy it, and buy merchandise directly from the band's website so that money goes to them, the artists.
    Stuck between two worlds.  I love and convenience of CD's, and mp3's, but loved LP artwork.  I started working at Record Alley at the very tail end of vinyl, so I know that world, and I saw the transition, vinyl and tape to disks.  I was there when the longbox died out (thankfully, though it helped with the artwork - there were a few longboxes that I kept just for that).  C'est la vie.  The world of music now sucks because it's sucking the art away with it.  
    Again, I feel old.
    From Homage To Catalonia:
    "...I admit it was not pleasant, especially when one thought of some of the people responsible for it.  It is not a nice thing to see a Spanish boy of fifteen carried down the line on a stretcher, with a dazed white face looking out from among the blankets, and to think of the sleek persons in London and Paris who are writing pamphlets to prove that this boy is a Fascist in disguise.  One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting...It is the same in all the wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near the front line trench except on the briefest of propaganda tours...this war is a racket like all other wars."
    -  George Orwell, on the Spanish Civil War, in which he fought


March 18, 2008 + "Passing, Waiting, Standing, Thinking."
    Current Listening:  Dug Pinnick - Strum Some Up, Guns n' Roses  - Appetite For Destruction, Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible, Placebo - Without You I'm Nothing  and various pieces of John Williams and Iannis Xenakis compositions.
    Recently Read:  War Is A Racket - Brigadier General Smedly D. Butler, The Antichrist - Friedrich Nietzsche and finished Owls Of The World  - Dr. James R. Duncan
    Currently Reading:  Amerika - Franz Kafka, Homage To Catalonia - George Orwell, A Season In Hell - Arthur Rimbaud  and The Society Of The Spectacle (re-read) - Guy DeBord

    So I have to say that boredom is at the peak right now.  Football season is long over.  Baseball is just sort of getting started.  Hockey is in the low level stage pending the playoff pushes that are upcoming.  What else is there?  Basketball?  Yeah, sure.  I'm sorry, but I like defense.  I like hockey and soccer, where a couple hour's worth of guts and torture can come down to the one play that means a win or a loss.  I like football, where strategy and tactics (sometimes) mean more than talent alone.  And, yes, I hate basketball.  Actually, I abhor basketball.  Almost as much as auto racing, bowling on t.v. or golf on t.v.
    I'm intrigued by the fact that R.E.M has a new album coming out.  They're playing the snot out of the new single on some Sirius stations.  It's good, but as Dave and I talked about a few days ago, something's missing and that missing thing is Bill Berry.  Nothing against Bill Rieflin, who I think is currently R.E.M's skinsman of choice, but there was a chemistry between those four gents that far exceeded any of them on their own.  The best bands are usually like this.  Or the best teams of songwriters.  It's like relationships in general.  You can't deny chemistry.
    I'm feeling rather lost lately.  Mainly creatively.  As if I'm in a lull, gliding, sliding through some sick pit of soul-sucking cretinism that just won't let go.  Like that lady that was stuck on the john for two years.
    Okay, maybe not that bad.  Or violently stupid.
    That's the funny thing.  In our world today, things like that are entirely plausible.  That humanity is made of mostly of complete imbeciles and inept clods has made us all, even the ones that don't fit that mold of lowest common denominator dickhead, totally accepting of mediocrity and idiocy.  What happened to respect?  Earned respect, that is.  What happened to honor, most of all of oneself?
    Maybe I'm barking of the wrong tree here.  Maybe there is no tree.  Maybe I'm a dog howling in a desert, unaware that along with there being no trees, there is no water for miles, but there are many, many lost denizens of despair ready to latch a chain to my collar and drag me down with them.

February 2, 2008 + "Thoughts."
   Current Listening:  Gang Of Four - Entertainment!, Warren Zevon - Genius and Manic Street Preachers - Lifeblood
   Current Reading:  Free Lunch (how the wealthiest Americans enrish themselves at government expense and stick you withe the bill) by David Cay Johnston and The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzche
    On the State Of The Union Address:
    -  President Bush states that he will veto any tax increase to cross his desk...
    -  President Bush seeks billions upon billions not only for the "war on terror" but for other government spending, but wants to cut the pork barrel spending...
    -  Yet we're billions upon billions of dollars in debt, to countries that we consider beneath us (or our government does)...
    -  When this Administration came to power, our budget was balanced and the U.S.A. was out of debt, in the black...
    -  After seven years of "Republican conservatism" we are in the hole, in debt, indebted to nations that, were they to call in the marks, would bankrupt what was once the richest nation in the world (which came about through the hard work of middle America, not politicians)...
    -  I don't know that there is an answer in our upcoming election, but the fact that most of the above statements were given ovations in the Capital truly sickened me.

    After 9/11 we invaded Afghanistan to get al Quaeda who were, I suppose, to blame and at fault.  We did not succeed, but we did tear down the government in that country.  I don't doubt the Taliban's wrongdoings as they were and had been reported upon for years.  A plus that they were rent from power.  Our presence there remains and that war on the ground continues.
    We attacked Iraq and tore down their government due to a) supposed possession of WMD, b) ties to al Quaeda and c) President Bush's hatred of Hussein.  No WMD were found because there were none to find.  Hussein did not have ties to al Quaeda because he didn't trust bin Laden (or any Fundamentalist...and our President is a Fundamentalist, by the way).  Many deaths of both civilians and our soldiers for a "war on terror"...a war on a concept.
    CONCEPTS CAN BE MANIPULATED, FOLKS!  That's why they called it a "war on terror" and our Congress and our people have bought it hook, line and sinker.  And continue to do so.
    -  Our troops are brave and fighting to defend us...Yes, they are brave and deserve our respect and to be treated that way and to not be called upon to be an Imperial force unless we tell them  up front, which we haven't.  I've no issue with our troops, many in my family and among my friends have served and they have my utmost respect and love.
    -  We must ok this spending to give them what they need...hmmm, set up the argument so that, if you disagree, you're unpatriotic...nice one, manipulating our leaders.  Can I see the accounting for how much of that money went for equipment?

    If I seem disturbed, and possibly apoplectic with rage, you're right.

    We have the greatest nation on earth, the chance to prove that people, homo sapiens, are intelligent and can manage themselves, and we're a bunch of lemmings being lead to the cliff by shrews.
 

December 25, 2007 + "2007...Get Me Outta This Place!"
   So, I have to agree with Bunny that 2007 has been a disquieting, dismal year overall and I'm quite prepared to see it go.  This is, in most ways, due to the political landscape and our distorted sense of justice in the United States, along with our willingness to sit mostly idle while our rights are rescinded, our money wasted and our futures bartered for foreign change.  Case in point:  Exxon has still, 18 years after the fact, not paid restitution for the Exxon-Valdez disaster.  I thought we prided ourselves on doing the right thing in the U.S. - but apparently that does not count when big business is involved.  At that point it becomes "litigate till they give up."
    Or certain computer manufacturers that put on their boxes that certain products work with certain OS's but, lo and behold, when you install the software for said product it warns of potential operating deficiencies with your certain OS that the box said it would work with and, worse still, it infiltrates your computer and locks you out, mouse-less.  Joy.  I should be used to this though...my mouse luck has always been outstandingly bad, but the one I was gifted with is a very nice one and, once I speak with the manufacturers I hope to have a resolution.
    In good things though, I offer my Top Ten Musical Releases Of 2007 for your perusal:
    1.   Manic Street Preachers - Send Away The Tigers
    2.   Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin
    3.   Type O Negative - Dead Again
    4.   David Byrne - Live From Austin, TX
    5.   The Enemy - We'll Live And Die In These Towns
    6.   Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War
    7.   David Torn - Prezens
    8.   British Sea Power - Krankenhaus? e.p.
    9.   Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet
    10. The Afghan Whigs - Unbreakable: A Retrospective
    I would be interested in hearing yours, if anyone is still reading this journal due to the slowdown in entries.  I will be gearing up again in 2008, I think, moving on to Journal X and rolling out more stuff.  Till then, Happy New Year, kids!

October 28, 2007 + "Where Ya Been, Zippy?"
    Current Listening:  Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War, The New Pornographers - Challengers, John Fogerty - Revival, Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin and Maximo Park - Missing Songs
    Current Reading:  The Coming Of The Third Reich by Richard J. Evans and The Art Of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi and Miles Smit
    The books I'm reading, by the way, sort of necessitate each other.  They also tie in with current politics as the events outlined in The Coming Of The Third Reich, in many ways, mirror our current history we're living.  Also, deception is rampant.  Just as Hitler figured out that you give people a quick soundbite, act as if you mean it with every fiber of your being, hook 'em, reel 'em in and gut 'em before they realize they're shooting innocent people for you, so do our current politicians reward our trust with soundbites, vapid variances on tired themes as opposed to true issues and nice haircuts.
    For example, incumbant KY governor Ernie Fletcher believes the entire upcoming election comes down to his opponent, Steve Beshear, being open to casino gambling in KY while he is not.  Governor Fletcher, by the way, used his 5th Amendment rights to steer clear of testifying and was able to let his cronies off the hook in some major hiring issues a short time ago.
    The important thing is this:  if Fletcher is indeed correct and gambling will bring crime and distress to KY, then Louisville, Lexington and Florence should all be simmering beds of horror and filth (and, granted, each is in its own way, but not to the extent that Fletcher's t.v. campaign would have you believe).  You see, we gamble on horse racing here in KY.  We like horses a lot, enough to race them there critters and *gasp* gamble on the outcome.
    Indeed.
    Oh, and why over a month since my last update?  Mainly, work.  I work so much at a computer that the thought of coming to my home computer and doing an update was just ugly.  Among other things.
    And this is short.  So much I should've said, thought to say over the past weeks.  Needed the break though.
    I'll try not to be so long this time.

August 18, 2007 + "Preconceptions."
    Current Listening:  The Enemy - We'll Live And Die In These Towns, Interpol - Our Love To Admire and Ned's Atomic Dustbin - God Fodder
    Current Reading:  Noam Chomsky - Failed States and Philip Toshio Sudo - Zen Guitar
  I'm realizing with great malice and fervor lately that I need to more and more rail down my preconceptions and accept the reality of the moment over what I interpret as the truth simply because of history and rhetoric.  Moments change and feelings change and everything has to be allowed to flow and become, rather than just be.
    There is no being.  There is only becoming.  The movement.  The growth.
    Musically, I feel at an impasse.  Learning Stick is taking a determination that I've not mastered and I find myself becoming like a stone in the stream, being worn away, rather than allowing the stream to create something new of me.  It is not like bass, which came, slowly, to be sure, but came and grew on and with me.  Of course, I was much younger.
    I found learning Spanish in junior high school much, much easier than the Spanish I took in high school, which was very much easier than the Spanish I took in college.  You would think, wouldn't you, that it would get progressively easier?  It did not.  And I am loathe to admit that now, at this point in time, I barely remember how to conjugate any verbs and can barely utter a recognizable Spanish statement other than tengo un dolor de mi cabeza.  I have a headache.
    Music is much harder as you get older because your mind gets so full of yesterdays.  Like life.  Living is harder because we tend to not only go about our day, but to also pull along a cart full of yesterdays.  Some of this is necessary.  Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it (except for politicians, who seem ready, willing and able to continually repeat the idiocies of yesterdays).  The balance, the delicate balance of experience mixing with the now to create tomorrow.  Like a wonderful pie, or a perfect spaghetti sauce, it takes just the right combinations, the right pinches of all the necessary ingredients, otherwise it is inedible.  Or a troubled today and hazy tomorrow, as the case may be.
    Also, Scriptus Live, the radio show that I hosted for five years on WAIF in Cincinnati, may make a return soon via a podcast available for free online.  I've been listening to some of the tapes I have of shows, going back to 1997, and at the behest of Bunny am considering the options.  I'm open to any and all ideas.  I miss the radio time, I must admit.

July 25, 2007 + "Squattle."
  Current Listening:  D.A.D. - Soft Dogs, Jack Kerouac - Reads On The Road and The Afghan Whigs - Unbreakable
  Just Finished Reading:  J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows (brilliant ending to an epic series)
    Lately it occurred to me that suicide would, in some cases, be an apt alternative to dealing with medical insurance companies and their ilk.  Wading through an automated system, hanging on a phone for fifteen minutes to speak to a live person, being transferred to a different person, waiting on the line, being transferred again and so on and so forth.  Only to find that either their "tier" system of coverage for medicines changed without their telling you and your copay went up over 100% or that certain items just don't meet their criteria for the deductible.  Fuck them.  I'm diabetic, so I have to wrangle this crap monthly, with copays changing and other idiocy.  "Why not just change your medicine to the one they cover with the lowest copay?"  Ah, yes, well, changing insulins or changing other medications, it ain't that easy.  Certain things work well for me and I tend to stick to them...so it's my fault when my monthly payout to the vultures is higher.  Sure.
    The U.S. citizenry pays more for healthcare, yet is unhealthier, than any nation in the world.
    Hmmm...flaw(s) in the system, methinks?
    In any other venture, if your payout achieved these results, someone would get fired.  Or shot.  With a syringe.  Full of battery acid.  Just kidding, just kidding.
    In other news, The Silent Screen has a vocalist and we're working to get the band up to speed with both older material and to continue the writing that began prior to the assimilation.  Expect fall for shows and a new recording, I hope.
  Rendering The Impossible, the book that's been done for years, but not manufactured or distributed, may bite the big one and be a massive "never released gem" of the DKP catalog.  I'm thinking of just scrapping the project and starting over as a multimedia affair.  I've been handling and working with the 98% finished product for, let's be honest, years now, and if I've not plunged ahead and put it out, there must be some background psychological reason why aside from the dismal state of central Kentucky's writing scene that type of stuff.
    July is almost at an end...late summer comes, then fall...yahoo....

July 2, 2007 + "Lawn & Loathing In Georgetown."
  Current Listening:  Young Modern  - Silverchair (brilliant album; heard the tune Straight Lines on Sirius and was lucky enough to find an Australian import of the disk, utterly awesome.)
    We had to put our oldest cat, Percey, to sleep on Saturday.  A short time ago we'd noticed a lump on her cheek and it took a while but it was finally diagnosed as chondrosarcoma (bone cancer.)  She'd done well for a while, but finally succumbed to having issues eating and breathing and we knew her time had come.  Even knowing and being able to prepare, as much as anyone can prepare for such a thing, didn't help.
    Percey wasn't antisocial.  She just had catitude.  You would pet her when she pleased, not when you pleased.  She would play when she pleased, not when you pleased.  She would lie in the sun and watch birds and it was your job to not mess with her during this time.  And she was a brilliantly loving, personable cat too.  Her own little person.  And we will always miss her.
    Lest anyone not know this already, the very best show on television is House, M.D.  It has taken its rightful place in my television pantheon alongside Northern Exposure and M*A*S*H as being the top of a fairly miserable heap of mush.  House, M.D. is the best written show I've seen in years and I am utterly hooked on it.  And Hugh Laurie is god, as far as actors go.  The rest of the cast is fantastic.  For some reason I can't quit picturing the character Dr. Wilson in a Puck outfit doing A Midsummer Night's Dream though.  Strange.
    Cut the grass tonight after work.  Lots of it was weeds, actually.  But I cut it nonetheless.  I swore that if I got home and my neighbor to the left had cut, I would too.  The bastard (said affectionately - they're good folks) had cut and doomed me.  Doomed me, I say.  I did find that Pink's I'm Not Dead is a good CD to cut grass to.  Did the backyard to Piece Of Mind  by Iron Maiden.
    I hate cutting grass.  Utterly futile.  Waste of time.  You'd think I'd be happy that I hadn't had to cut in a month due to our drought conditions, but no.  I'm still bitter.  Angry.
    Not really.  I just feel like House....

June 26, 2007 + "Stick This."
  Current Reading:  Interventions by Noam Chomsky
    Current Listening:  Courage - Paula Cole, Chrome - Catherine Wheel and Deadwing - Porcupine Tree
    I have begun something new musically, that is, I'm attempting to learn a new instrument.  I have finally, after saving money for quite some time and getting extraordinarily lucky, gotten a Chapman Stick.  A teak Grand 12-string, to be exact.  And I can't play it a lick yet.  Well, I can.  I'm making wallops of noise.  It's just terribly odd to have a stringed instrument on me that isn't played like my other stringed instruments, even when I've been precocious and tapped a la Stu Hamm, Billy Sheehan or the gent from Lord Tracy, it's nothing like the finesse & control needed for the Stick.
    And I'm also learning, yet again, that the years of not learning more theory were bad, bad, bad.  I took bass lessons for two years and learned to play, sort of.  Most of my learning came in bands and by writing, learning things through attrition and experience.  Part of it, of course, was a lack of patience.  I just want(ed) to play!  And play I did.
    Which is not to say that it will prove to be an overall hindrance with the Stick, just that I'm having to change gears and adjust my line of thinking to fit a new regime of noise-making power.  It will take a while, but I'll get it.
    Question:  are we a  democracy, by definition, or are we merely puppets on proverbial strings, dancing in the winds of whim and mirth created by a 1% that controls the powers and our lives?  Are we who we think we are?  Dare we look in the mirror?
    Oh, and why does anyone bother with the United Nations anymore?  We've scoffed at it (the "we" here being our government, not me or, I assume, you, dear reader) for decades now.  I, personally, would side with the U.N. rather than the U.S. if only because I still harbor respect for other sovereign nations.  I'm in the minority, I know.
    Lately I feel like  a haze has been covering my input.  As if I'm seeing things, but my Kantian lenses are dirty, smudged by the muck of daily life.  But, then, daily life is life.  This isn't a game show.  No trial runs.  Do it or don't.
    I'm also feeling increasingly isolated as an artist.  Yeah, I know...woe is me, right?  I'm in another dead zone.  Inspiration seems to be lacking (I know it's all around), ideas are churning beneath the surface and not in view (I know it's just a matter of casting the net deeper) and everything is just terribly negative (um, yeah).
    And with that, we head into the second half of 2007.  Bon voyage....

June 16, 2007 + "Hot Zone."
    Current Listening:  Trey Gunn - Raw Power, the Amnesty International John Lennon covers album benefiting Darfur, Midnight Oil - Bird Noises and Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
  Currently Reading:  The Hot Zone by Richard Preston and The Beatles by Bob Spitz
    Recently Completed:  The Wit & Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln by James C. Hughes, Weird Cures by Sandra Salmans and Joel Fram and Playing President by Robert Scheer
    I didn't particularly like Robert Scheer's book, outlining various interviews and his thoughts on Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush, but the thing that struck me as true is something he said, that the road to the presidency forces men (soon to be women as well) to shut down their true feelings and forces an attempt to be all things to all people.  In that, their views are skewed and they end up as something completely different by the time they reach the White House.  In a parliamentary system, you're honed by your brothers & sisters in the leadership roles around you and are more, shall we say, prepared and able to be yourself and be true to your ideals and mores upon being sent into ultimate leadership.
    C'est la vie.  Were it not for our new interweb and information, some true and most not, things may not have become this way.
    The fact that humanity is split into so few groups is astounding.  Those who work.  Those who are poor based upon environment.  Those who are put on pedestals because of their birth.  Those who lead.  We have the wealth of this world and we squander it.  We invent ways to kill rather than to heal.  We fight over land.  Our greed has been and will continue to be our undoing.
    When people in this county can feel comfortable buying $800 pairs of shoes, or spending $200 on a meal for two, that is a problem.  Of course, am I a part of this?
    To a certain extent, sure.  I'm a product of my environment as well.  I've been saving for a couple years for a new musical instrument.  I recently purchased it and will have it in-hand this week.  It cost a lot of money.  Should I have instead given that money to a local shelter or to A.I.?
    Perhaps.
    I'm greedy just like everyone, just like you.
    I'm just another cockroach on the pile, another pig squealing in the barnyard, another vulture hovering above the dying animals below me.

June 3, 2007 + "What that there?"
  Current Listening:  Oxygene8 - Freak Of Chance, Manic Street Preachers - Send Away The Tigers, Mansun - Six and Allan Holdsworth - All Night Wrong - Live in Japan 2002
  Current Reading:  bits here, bits there...nothing's really caught on...writing more than reading right now
    So Tracy and I went out to breakfast at a local eating emporium with a breakfast bar/buffet.  Seated behind Tracy, in my direct sight, was a quartet of NASCAR fans.  The NASCAR part only matters in that the Dale Earnhardt Jr. shirts were the most visible attire.  Seemingly nice enough folks, but at one point the gent just opposite me called our waitress over and pointed to his plate and asked, "what that there?"
    Our waitress was a tad confused, as was I till I E.T.'ed my neck a bit and caught site of the LBT's (little black things) swimming in juice on his nearly empty plate.
    "Um...er...looks like bits of sausage...."
    "What I thought too...I dipped out the last sausages and them there came with 'em...I et ("eat" pronounced to make you believe it was a past tense of itself as opposed to the more commen "ate") a few.  They ain't bad, no sir, but I not sure, now.  Thought maybe I ask what is!"
    "Ok...um...."
    "Thank ya, now!"  At which time he got up and went back to the bar.
    At this point the waitress was confussed (read as confused, but more than confused, not quite dazed but still requiring a different word, thus the addition of an "s") but went about her business.
    Indeed.  What that there?

June 1, 2007 + "Yes."
    Current Listening:  Manic Street Preachers - Send Away The Tigers and King Crimson - Discipline
    Just Finished Reading:  I'll Sleep When I'm Dead - The Dirty Life And Times Of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon and Tales From The Reds Dugout by Tom Browning...currently reading: nothing
    Ha...yesterday was another birthday gone...whoo-hoo!  Have gotten some super nifty gifts thus far, however.  More to come on one of them in the near future.
    This entry is really more of a placeholder.  The political realm is nothing but a minefield.  Music is solace and release, but not cathartic at present (a minor difference.)  Work is work.  Home life is great except for Percey, who has cancer but is doing okay.
    I used the term "blech" in the last entry and was asked about pronunciation...picture yourself coughing up a hairball.  That'll do it.

May 20, 2007 + "Rock."
  Current Listening:  Funeral For A Friend - Tales Don't Tell Themselves, Maximo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures, The Afghan Whigs - 1965 and a variety of Manic Street Preachers stuff in preparation for the arrival of their newest, Send Away The Tigers which, I'm sure, I could've already flapped my wings, gone to London, picked up a copy and flapped my way home for how long it's taking to get here (import only, alas, at this time)
    Current Reading:  Apocalypse 2012  by Lawrence E. Joseph
    I had my own personal apocalypse at practice tonight...haven't changed the strings on the Spector in, well, months...many months...a long time...so long that, though they're coated strings, they're long past dead.  Should've taken the Tobias, I know, or the Yamaha, but by golly I wanted to play the Spector.
    After we were done, to force myself to change them, I took the strings off prior to putting it in the case.  What I forgot, however, is that the bridge saddles on the Spector are not "attached," as in they're held in place by the tension of the strings passing over them.  I set the bass down and, blech, they fell to the floor.  Nice.  So now I have a puzzle to do as I restring the bass.
    And I loathe stringing my instruments.  Almost as much as I loathe cutting grass.  Almost, but not quite.  I think it's the fear of screwing it up, since my sets generally cost into the $50 to $60 range each, that's an expensive screw up if I do.  Now, you may ask, have I ever screwed up?
    No.
    Not yet.
    Doesn't mean it won't happen tonight, though.
    I'm a week or so away from my birthday, for whatever that's worth.  Another year in the bag, man.  Passed.  Passing.  As soon as you're born, you're dying, it's just a matter of how you choose to spend that time.  And your bill could be laid on the table at any time.  Don't forget to tip the waitress.  She could trip you on your way out.
    Okay...I've put it off long enough.  I'm off to restring the Spector.  I have strings for all the others in-hand, too.  Maybe I'll skive off work tomorrow and have a string-a-thon!  What a hideous, awful thing to think about.  Ugliness.

May 6, 2007 + "Age."
    Current Listening:  Oxygene8, LaughingStock, Manic Street Preachers, Phil Cody & Cloud Cult - various for each
    Current Reading:  still The Tipping Point, but slowing down due to tacking up real world examples of my own for each chapter's points and making each section relevant to myself...'tis a very, very keen book
    I'm appointing a title for our current time...I am dubbing it the AGE OF POLLUTION .  A nice follow-up to the Industrial Age and/or the Techological Age, I think.
    I don't mean pollution simply in the industrial waste idea, either.  I mean the pollution of knowledge, the pollution of god, the pollution of our reasoning and the pollution of our future, along with the literal pollution we have thrown into our living world, our habitat.
    We are cats whose litter box has not been changed for a week.
    We are birds whose newspaper at the bottom of the cage is fetid and reeking.
    We are politicians whose press clippings are rife with the truth of our lies.
    We could change things.  We could clean the box, the cage, the world.
    But will we?
    Do we have the strength of character, of heart and mind?
    To be continued....

May 1, 2007 + "Spreading."
    Current Listening:  Oxygene8 - Poetica, Adrian Belew - Side Two and Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible
    Current Reading:  The Tipping Point  by Malcolm Gladwell
    We have three cats.
    Percey was chosen from a shelter by Tracy shortly after we started dating, so she's been around for a while.
    Anitya rode to where Tracy works in the engine compartment of a coworker's car and came to us from there.
    Roger showed up on our porch, became a friend, and was taken in after being injured in a fight.
    We just found out that Percey has cancer.  Chondrosarcoma, to be exact, in her right lower jaw.
    She seems okay right now.  After treating her for potential infections and having no results, the biopsy results came back yesterday and the news hit us pretty hard.  I think things like this are a (not so) gentle reminder to appreciate each day or, as Warren Zevon said, enjoy every sandwich.
    And the rest of life goes on.  The Silent Screen will begin recording some new material soon.  I'll begin a new year soon (aka have a birthday.)  We grow.  We move.
    We are products of our decisions, just as much as of the impact of our environment.

April 15, 2007 + "Variety Pack."
    General Anthony Zinni (retired), on Meet The Press this morning, spoke of Iraq in terms of needing to stay in the region, but build a coalition and gain support from allies and the others in the region for security and peace.
    I'm sorry, but wasn't that what the United Nations was sort of, maybe, created for?   Security and Peace?  Oh, I forgot, we blew them off and went into Iraq a few years ago anyway.  My bad.
    So, years later, we want what we had and dismissed.
    Great.
    Don Imus.  So his comments were indeed insensitive and, well, stupid.  For a guy who can do such terrific, insightful interviews, it is (and always has been) an enigma to me the way he'd shoot his mouth off.  He was a walking ad hominem statement factory, and it has finally sunk him.
    But don't think that Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton actually, directly, got him fired.  Radio is all about ratings and dollars.  Imus had and would continue to have ratings.  When sponsors, under pressure from various sides, pulled their big dollar advertising agreements, that's what got him fired.  Money.  Had those sponsors stayed on, he would have served a minor suspension and been back in action in May.
    See the movie, Pan's Labyrinth.
    The more I play fretless, the more I like it.
    Happy Birthday (today) to Tracy!
    Happy Birthday (tomorrow) to my Mom!
 

April 7, 2007 + "Snow."
    God, I love snow.  I love cold days.  Chillier, autumn days are great, too, but colder, winter days are the best.
    We had a mild snowstorm here last night.  Been cold since a front moved through, but last evening we actually got snow and there's a fine, sugary dusting on the ground right now, still.
    Today is a bit of a free day, nothing in particular planned.  Will sit down and work some on the book, more planning than anything.  Text is ready, recording of the accompaniment (which is still a hope, dream, a maybe) needs planning and work.  Such a long gestation period, it's been.
    Some friends stick with you, through just about anything.  Some come, fade, come again.  Some are there, then gone.  I have the same thing with bands.  I pick some up, digging a few things they do, and come and go from them.  Some, I pick up at the beginning and remain loyal to through different phases and things, regardless, because they speak to me.  I hope that The Silent Screen can be that for someone (many?) someday.  There are only a few like that for me, but I relish having them.  Sort of grew up with a few, like Manic Street Preachers and King's X.  There's something amazing about having touchpoints in your life that match a band's releases, sort of like a separate timeline to go by.
    Enough yapping...there's sunlight shining on the snow and it won't be here much longer....

March 29, 2007 + "The Race."
    In the course of watching a six-part BBC documentary on Auschwitz, I realized something disturbing.
    It really is true that the winners write the history.
    Let me precede this by saying that genocide is, obviously, wrong.  I am no anti-Semitic.  I'm not anti-anything except for ignorance and stupidity, hence my distaste for most of the human race...especially when most folks that are ignorant or stupid are that way of their own choosing.
    The way the Nazi SS soldiers recounted their days at Auschwitz (various parts/camps of it) was harrowing in that they freely bought into their government's build up of the feelings that Jews were evil, controllers of the world and ready to take over everything.  That they had endless funds and abilities and were just waiting to slit your throat.  Evil, no good.  Wrong.  Bad.
    Inculcated in them from birth, for some.  From the burning of the Reichstadt in 1933, the Nazi party had a goose-stepping boot fully on the throat of reason in Germany.  Building their own truth.  As the saying goes, Nationalism is a created product.
    Turn the mirror on how our government talks of those that are "against us" and "terrorists" and part of an "Axis of evil."
    No difference.
    So right and wrong will come down to the winners.
    Of course, I believe in the USA, freedom of choice and expression, freedom of religion (Christian or otherwise).  Even with my recent turn on capitalism, it's about the best choice out there until we reasoning folk are able to reason our way over the speedbump that is compassion and true freedom.
    But I wonder how much of what we hear is right.  The Nazis were wrong.  Brazen racism is wrong.  But are we right in what we're doing and how we're trying to handle the world?  Have things blurred to the point where no one is right, but we're all a little bit wrong?
    Just as Jews rose up at different points in Auschwitz, only to be stamped back down, others will rise up against oppressive forces or regimes.  The dictator's biggest fear is his own people.
    Genocide is wrong.
    Sometimes regicide is right.

March 25, 2007 + "Cut That Out."
  Current Listening:  Type O Negative - Dead Again, Rush - Hemispheres and Adrian Belew - Side Three
  Current Reading:  American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips (still) and Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
    As many of you longtime readers know, I'm not a fan of smokers or users of tobacco-based products.  Not due to the products themselves or some silly health issue...by God, your body is yours and if you choose to inhale noxious, toxic substances, more power to ye.  It's because, by far, most folks that use this crap are litterers of the highest (lowest?) order.  From dim-witted morons dropping their half-used cigarettes out the windows of their cars to that jackass that spit a "chaw" of tobacco out by the gas pump I patronized this morning, most of these folks are simply filthy.
    Not that I'm the cleanest person in the world.  I'm not.  But if I'm done with a piece of chewing gum, I either find a trash can or I spit it into the grass, not onto the concrete.  It's common courtesy.  I don't want your gum on my shoe any more than you want mine on yours.
    And while I'm on that, let me just say that I'm not the best driver in the world.  I admit this.  But having lived in Central Kentucky for a number of years now and being able to compare/contrast drivers between here and Cincinnati, drivers down here are, well, just bloody awful.  On any given day I get cut off at least twice, usually for no good reason, turn signals are simply not used and people have a tendency to vary from 40 mph to 65 mph from minute to minute in a zone clearly labeled with a speed limit of 55 mph.  It's like they forget they have to step on the gas, realize it and gun the engine to "catch up," then forget to stay on the accelerator.  Maybe they're actually goldfish.  I don't know.
    Anyway, the tobacco thing comes from my taking my lawn mowin' gas can to get filled up for the first mow of the season, pulling it from my vehicle and setting it down right in the aforementioned "chaw."  Ya-freakin'-hoo, boys & girls.  Animals.  All y'all.
    And the grass was then cut and the gods did smile upon my half-dead lawn, where the ivy that was unleashed in the front yard four years ago has finally grabbed a foot(root?)hold and where things are just picking up steam in the back.
    Scot, why do you hate summer?  Grass.  Cutting it.  If I could afford fence-to-fence Astroturf, I'd be there in a heartbeat.  Then I'd just have to vacuum it every so often, spray it down, maybe.
  The Silent Screen is working on mucho new material of a much different flair.  Tom's been writing a lot on the acoustic, which has led me to more fretless playing and all of us sort of expanding our palettes quite a bit.  A good thing.  We may not be anyone's favorite band (yet), but by golly we're going to be the most eclectic.  Don't like what you're hearing?  Wait three minutes.  And that is a good thing.  The best part of it?  I've heard bands that practice the theory of expansion, eclecticism and such, and a lot of the time they end up sounding schizophrenic.  Thus far, we're not, and I don't think we will.  Our personalities come through too much.  It's always going to be us, whether it's a blazing rock song in 11 or an acoustic, jazz-driven tune.
    I'm off to rest, relax, play some football (of the Madden variety) and write (later, after dark).
    As Jerry's French cousin used to say, "Touche, pussycat!"

March 3, 2007 + "Good Stuff."
  Current Listening:  John Cale - The Island Years, The Primitives - The Best Of  and Orson - Bright Idea
    Current Reading:  American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips
    Had a full day of shooting for Meet Cleaver Theater today and it went extremely well.  In the couple of years that we've been doing the B-Movie/Horror Hosting show, we've been constantly revising, revisiting and refining what we do and, as such, our characters and sketches have gotten increasingly better.  Bunny takes the bulk of the load, not only handling the main character, but the editing of the raw footage, but all of us (he, Jeanne, Tracy and I) work so well together that it's not work at all.  Just a great, fun time, brainstorming things and immediately setting them to tape sometimes.  Occasionally it's cold work, like today, running around in what I can only describe as a Druid's garb, menacing bird feeders and fir trees and having Butch attempt to thwart me with cheese slices, but it's all in a day's filming, you know?  Good stuff, indeed.
  The Silent Screen's recording that has been going on for a couple of weeks is at a bump in the road, but we're hopping over it with aplomb, as we typically do with obstacles.  We had worked out a deal with a new studio around town to be their recording guinnea pig to help them work out the kinks in their set up and building and, in turn, we'd lay down our tracks for free and help them get moving.  Well, the partners we were working with had a falling out, so things are halted right now, but just for a short time.  We had everything done except for final vocals on a couple of tracks and mixing and, luckily enough, they were using Cubase as their recording software and that's what I have on my home studio, so, voila, we can finish it on our own time.  Shame of it is, they had a nice room there (we got really good sounds in there.)
    Seems to me I had a new book finished a couple of years ago and never released it.  Did I?  Yes, indeed I did. Rendering The Impossible was and is it's name.  Bunny noted that, based on my live readings, an accompanying CD would be pretty nifty.  I agreed, especially after listening to a Viggo Mortensen disk that came with one of his books that I have called Recent Forgeries.  Again, good stuff.  Manufacturing is still an issue.  The culture of the area in which I live is still an issue.  But the work is there, along with additional, newer things to be added and amended into it.  It will be completed by the end of 2007 lest I become Peter Gabriel-like and begin a project one day and finish it a decade later.  No offense...I love Peter, but come on.
    All for now...life is good, love is good, our government is dismal but the peoples' light will shine on.

February 16, 2007 + "Bone."
    I've begun to make it a habit to pull out a CD that I know I haven't listened to in a good long while when I'm doing chores around the house, like dishes & such, and give it a spin.  I do have a lot of CD's.  I'm a bit of a music whore, I admit.
    Anyway, I'd totally forgotten how great Tim Booth's album, Bone, is.  He was the lead singer in the British band, James.  I don't know that he's done any other solo work after leaving James, but Bone is a terrific album and well worth the dough I plunked down for it a few years ago.
    I'd promised, sort of, a friend of mine at work a rant in this entry.  He had the same complaint a lot of folks have, that I don't update a whole lot anymore.  You're all right.  I see folks that "blog" every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and I just can't fathom that, though there was a time (see the links to my other journals above) when I did update much more often.
    I've just had more of a tendency to keep a lot of the things bottled up a bit more lately.  Rather than get on here and rant on specifics, I censor my output here and funnel it into poetry and songs and other things.  Perhaps I shouldn't, but I think it's much safer.
    Alas, due to impending snowy doom, filming for Meet Cleaver Theatre has been postponed for tomorrow.  I'm itching to get back to it.  Many scripts await and many characters to be hashed up, spindled and torn asunder.  Well.  Sock puppets too.
    Did you ever notice that, even when things are looking up and starting to go well, some people will still complain about the same old crap?  Some people just can't stand prosperity?  It's like they get off, become literally orgasmic, over having strife and idiocy in their lives.  I just don't understand.  And some folks think they know everything when they, in truth, only see one side of a many-sided object but think they have the full truth and flaunt it about.
    *sigh*
    I deal with it on a daily basis.  But I'm guessing you do too, right?  Of course you do.
    Recording on Sunday...overdubs & vocals.  Should be a gas, especially with my currently sore throat & sinus issues.  I used to love winter, adore it, as a matter of fact, but lately we're just not getting along.  I want much snow and 25 degree temperatures for an extended period.  An actual winter, you know?  Not sleet & slush and zero degrees for one day, then a full meltdown.  That, my friends, sucks.
    But you can't have everything.  I'll take what I can get because I know, soon enough, I'll be cutting grass again.  *shudder*  No need for thoughts of that right now.  Let's stick to cold & sneezy, eh?

February 10, 2007 + "Fabrication."
    Current Listening:  Cold War Kids - Robbers & Cowards, Damone - Out Here All Night and Lily Allen - Alright, Still...
   First off, whoo-hoo about the Colts winning the Super Bowl.  I'm happy for them, I'm happy for Tony Dungy and I'm happy that I ended the season picking the last game correctly.  The Pro Bowl, while mildly entertaining, is currently on tv and I must say, I couldn't care less who wins, but I'm glad Dave Moore of the Buccaneers was added to the team as the NFC's long snapper.
    Fabrication.  The U.S. is putting together reasons to attack Iran.  With a force that is already stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan and bunches of other places.  We're not the world police force, folks.  And attacking Iran won't solve anything.  I'm sick to death of this whole shoot-first-talk-diplomacy-later attitude.  For Vladimir Putin, Russia's President, to have said what he did is a stake in the heart of George Bush's administration.  For a Russian President to call out a U.S. President on foreign policy, and be utterly correct, is a stunner.
    The Silent Screen is recording tomorrow...should be fun.  I don't particularly like recording, but the four songs we're laying down are winners (I'm biased, though...I think all of our tunes are winners) and it'll be interesting to see how they come out sounding as we're playing the role of "guinea pigs" for a new studio in the area.
    Oh, and in the "current listening" area up there, let me just say that Damone's cover of Iron Maiden's Wasted Years is completely and utterly fantastic.

February 1, 2007 + "Down."
    "To desire to make a style is an apology for one's anxiety."  - Willem de Kooning
    Smart man, that Dane.
    Since I missed on the NFC game two weeks ago, let me change my Super Bowl pick.  Colts 24 - Bears 21 in Overtime amid the mud and rain of the weirdest weather to beat upon a Super Bowl in years.
    I feel utterly down.  Completely spent.  And, yet, for nothing, it seems.  I feel lost.  Hopeless.  Downtrodden.  No reason for it.  As Churchill used to say, the black dog is on my shoulder and he ain't wagging his tail, he's chewing upon my soul.
    Everything is in pieces.  Chaotic.  Restless.  It seems like (emphasis on the "seems" here) I can't get anything together anymore.  Even having trouble gathering my thoughts about me.
    Labs tomorrow morning, a couple hours of doing nothing, then a doctor appointment and maybe more labs.  Lovely.  Happy days.  Need to practice too, and work on pounding some new tunes into my thick skull.
  The Silent Screen has a gig this Saturday, the 3rd, at the Northside YMCA in Lexington.  Should be fun, but one of the opening bands called Dave and told him they only have about 1/2 hour's worth of material due to personnel changes and such.  My question would be whether it was worth it for them all to drive from NKY to Lexington for a 1/2 hour set?  Who knows.  Dave found a friend of his, Adrea LaRoche, to open along with Javelin Catch and we've expanded our set to include four more songs, so the time will be filled admirably I'm sure.  Oh, the original openers, Shivas Irons, pulled out for unknown reasons.
    Jesus, like it ain't hard enough to get gigs and people are pulling out?  Obviously, I don't know the circumstances, but  it seems strange to me.
    Go Colts and we'll talk again soon....

January 14, 2007 + "Football II."
    Yowza, those were some games, eh?
    I was a fairly average 2 for 4 in my picks.  I missed both AFC games, hit on both NFC games and really didn't come close on any of the scores.  So, without further ado, my Championship Game picks:
    AFC:
  New England 17 - Indianapolis 27.  It won't come down to Adam Vinatieri's kicking, but it will come down to Indy's suddenly ripping defense and Peyton Manning finding his way with the ball again.  The RCA Dome will rock as the Colts finally deliver a Championship.
    NFC:
  New Orleans 24 - Chicago 23.  It'll be close all the way.  Seattle showed some holes in that Chicago D that had been partially opened in the last few weeks of the regular season and Deuce & Reggie will find their own ways to dance through the holes like Shaun Alexander did.  In the end, John Carney takes the Saints to the Championship.
    And the Super Bowl?  Colts 38 - Saints 12.  Tony Dungy gets the monkey off his back and sends him to San Diego where Marty Schottenheimer just adds another one to his collection.

January 11, 2007 + "Football."
  Okay, so the Buccaneers and the Bengals are both sitting at home right now, thinking about the playoffs instead of preparing for games.  The Bengals, a completely above-average team that had a completely average (8 - 8) season, the Bucs, a completely enigmatic team that had a completely subpar...well...horrendous (4 - 12) season.  So where do I go from here with my football addiction?
    Well, I am a fan of the Colts due to their coach, Tony Dungy.  However, I think they're going to get their caps peeled back in Baltimore this weekend.
    That leaves the San Diego Chargers, mainly for Marty Schottenheimer, the best head coach in the game that's just gotten whipped when he's started sniffing a Super Bowl appearance.  He's sort of like Dan Reeves, except Dan got his whippings in the big game itself.  Both are strange examples - technically exceptional coaches that just haven't gotten there, or haven't won it.  If you were an NFL owner, you'd shoot someone to get either one of them to coach your team, even knowing that they're a bit, well, star-crossed.  Alas, Tony Dungy is very close to falling into this category with them.
    So, with that, here are my picks for this weekend's divisional contests, in case you care...which, if you've read this far, you probably do....
  AFC Games:
  Indianapolis Colts 17 - Baltimore Ravens 27 as the Irsays try to make a quick exit after the game.
  New England Patriots 13 - San Diego Chargers 31 as Marty-ball runs over the Pats' secondary;  Asante Samuel will pick Phillip Rivers off at least once, but it won't be nearly enough.
  NFC Games:
    Seattle Seahawks 0 - Chicago Bears 10 as defense does win this game - set your alarm for 2.5 hours after kickoff so you can quit snoring and do something else.
  Philadelphia Eagles 38 - New Orleans Saints 35 as it turns into a shootout that David Akers wins in the final seconds.

January 5, 2007 + "Randumbness."
  Welcome to my first journal entry of 2007, and it will truly be some dumb stuff.  Random stuff.  Yes, truthful stuff.  Important stuff, too.
  Meet Cleaver Theatre got some great P.R. in being mentioned in an article on horror hosts in Rue Morgue magazine, a digest on Horror in Culture & Entertainment.  See page 23 in the November 2006 issue where our mention is.  There's also a great pic of our buddy, Count Gore de Vol.
  The Silent Screen has finalized our first gig of 2007.  It'll be on Saturday, February 3rd in Lexington, KY.  Rather than being at a club or beer hall, we're doing an all ages show (awesome), booking a local YMCA hall.  It's all music, baby.  We're playing with Shivas Irons and Javelin Catch.
    It was nearly 60 degrees in our part of the world today.  Global warming not a truth, huh?  Things aren't changing, huh?  Can't tell anything about weather except for the last 80 or so years, huh?  News flash:  ice cores and such can give a ton of information on atmospheric gases going back thousands of years.  While the environment does shift and there have been ice ages and such, never in our planet's history have things shifted this drastically over a few decade's time.    The industrial revolution and our greed and arrogance are dooming future generations.  Moderation is, and always has been, a key to good, sustained life.
    I wish politicians would just cut the b.s. and say what they mean.  The one gentleman that swore his oath of service on the Q'uran a few days ago, well, why would anyone want him to swear his oath on a book (the Bible) that he does not place his faith and belief system in?  What is the point of that?  Contrary to one elected official's statement, and darn me for not writing his name down, the country is not based on the Bible, though I admit and admire its relevance, but rather the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Sorry, folks, but that's the way it is.
    The Q'uran that he swore on, by the way, for those that didn't know, was one of many non-Christian theological texts owned by and donated to the Library of Congress by Thomas Jefferson.
    Music is a frustration and a love.  My playing saddens me lately.  The more I practice, the sloppier and less inspired I seem to be playing (and writing).  Sad.
    Yet, here's the conundrum:  feeling versus being.  I feel that way.  Is it true?  I'm far too close to the action to know for sure.  I am objective and, thus, biased.  I see, I hear, I feel and (I think) I know.

December 21, 2006 + "Found It!!!"
    About a year and a half ago I lost my wedding ring.
    Absolutely, beyond any reason or search, lost it.  Even rented a metal detector and scavenged the front yard in case it had slipped off or fallen from my pocket while I cut grass or some such thing.
    Tracy wasn't angry, but I was.  Obviously.  I was going to take some savings and replace it, but didn't, and we'd talked about it several times that, sure as anything, as soon as we replaced it, it would turn up.
    So, time passed.
    A couple of weeks ago, she gave in and told me that she was getting me a new ring for a Christmas present.  How could I say no, especially after so many fruitless searches and time passing.  We went and picked it out, an exact duplicate of my original.
    One of her Christmas presents this year is a new chaise lounge for her office, replacing the two chairs she'd had.  The chairs had seen some wear and the lounge is much nicer in there.  My folks, who are redoing their lower level (very, very nicely, I might add), wanted the chairs for their rec area down there.
    The chairs had been in our garage for a couple weeks and Tracy wanted to clean them thoroughly prior to me taking them up today.  I didn't think they needed it as we'd kept them up while they were in the house, but she knows best in cases like these.
    You can guess where this is headed by now, right?
    No?  Okay, here's the punchline.
    I was moving a few odds & ends into the garage for storage over the winter and, on a pass back to the house, Tracy stood there smiling at me.  She'd been using our small hand vacuum on the gold chair.
    "Guess what I found?" she asked.
    I knew before she told me.  I knew it because we'd just replaced it.
    "I was vacuuming and heard a kerplunk, popped open the vacuum and...."
    "I don't want to see it.  Don't wanna...."
   "Hold out your hand," she said, smiling.
    My ring.
    It had, somehow, found its way into the depths of the gold chair.  Now, in all fairness, though both chairs had been searched very well, it is an old chair and, as with many old things, holds many mysteries.  One of which it gave up prior to going to live with my parents.
    So, I now have two rings...a slightly beat up one to wear to work and a new, shiny one to wear the rest of the time.  Same size and everything.
    In other news, I'm turning into my paternal grandfather.  He had a habit, more like a ritual, of taking a handful of pills prior to lunch.  Vitamins.  He was on no maintenance medications.  As far as I know, he hadn't seen a doctor in years prior to his passing in 1995 at age 83.  But a handful of various colours and types of pills.  He could name 'em all off, dosages and what they were & did.
    I've taken to my ritual prior to bedtime, but it's so darned similar that its eerie.  Now, in all fairness, three of my pills are actually prescribed maintenance medications.  The others, though, are things I've picked up along the way, the newest being pycnogenol.  It just struck me tonight that somehow, some way, I've probably inherited this from Grandpa.
    I haven't seen my father's pill-taking lately...I wouldn't be surprised if he's doing it too, though.  We're all the same apple in a lot of ways.

December 18, 2006 + "Down & Dirty."
    Current Reading:  De Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens & Annalyn Swan
    Current Listening:  Warts And All  by The Silent Screen (live demos), The Secret Of Elena's Tomb by ...Trail Of Dead and a variety of songs & recordings from the sixties featuring my friend, John Reynolds
    So I left band practice last night feeling awful.  I'd played terribly, sung worse and just generally had a bad night.  We verge on art/noise rock sometimes, so in spots it wasn't obvious, but in others it was pretty blatant...head knows that the next note is a G, soul feels the G coming, fingers know they're supposed to go to G...alas, they decide to go all bebop & avant garde and go to C instead.  In some cases, not a huge deal.  Where it happened, though, ugliness.  Sheer ugliness.
    Better to happen in practice, though.  Our next gig is February 3rd in Lexington, a show that Dave's coordinating.  Not in a bar (thank god), but an all ages show.  Further details will be posted here and in various other places as they solidify.
    Had another visit to the coolest eye specialist around, Dr. R., on Thursday and came out smelling like a rose.  Third year in a row with no worsening or proliferation of my mild diabetic retinopathy <insert "whoo-hoo" here>.  Living right has its advantages.  My average HbA1c for 2006 is 6.1 <insert another "whoo-hoo" here>.  Cholesterol is better than, I would daresay, most of you reading this.  Not to brag on it, but my tendency is to be high there and I've been way, way under my marks for a good long while now.  All in all, my only issue is my weight, which is a constant source of amusement, frustration and enigmatisation.
    The book I'm reading right now is a biography of Willem de Kooning, one of my favorite artists, along with Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Georgia O'Keefe and H.R. Giger, among others.  Fascinating story, and I'm just to his mid-twenties, not even really into his heavy work stages.  It's artists like him, like Mark Strand (poet), like Tony Levin (bassist), like David Torn & Adrian Belew (guitarists) that fascinate and inspire me with their yearning and learning and experimentation.
    Speaking of experimentation, I had my identity horked.  Somehow, some schlub in Europe (I assume) snagged my credit card number and started doing tap dances with it in the Netherlands and Sweden, the no good bastard.  I've diverted all available police from Scotland Yard that weren't working on the Suffolk Murders to go in and take the dude (or dudette) out and handle it with extreme prejudice.  Accounts have been canceled and alarms raised...may the scumbag(s) rot in a cavernous tomb filled with the bile of a thousand horned demons while listening to Bette Midler sing The Rose to a backing track recorded by Menudo.
    And on that happy thought, in case I don't post again till after, Happy Holidaze!

December 4, 2006 + "Feeling Poorly, Medical Blues."
  So I awaken this morning at my usual time, test my blood glucose...200 mg/dl...not good.  Check my insulin pump infusion site and...hmmm...the tubing has come out of the quick disconnect fitting.  No signs of a struggle.  It's as if the glue or whatever holds the tubing in the plastic QD just let loose.  Again, not good.  Top that off with a sinus headache the likes of which are seldom seen in these parts and it felt like a day to burn my last vacation hours of the year, which is why I'm writing this now.
    So I put in a new infusion set and plan to call the manufacturer later today.  Things like this just can't happen.  I figure to just be 200, it must have just popped off within a couple hours of when I got up, but regardless, it can't happen.
  The Silent Screen had practice last night and we tightened up a new song, originally titled Long Walk Downtown but now changed to Crack The Mirror, I think.  I generally only recycle plastics, paper and aluminum, but the lyrics are recycled from a long, long time ago.  They were worthy of keeping and reworking and they've finally found a home with some music Tom started at last week's practice.  The hitch?  It's actually pretty much a pop song.  Not that Epilogue, another newer one isn't, but this one is pop & basic through and through.
    We all like it, but we all felt kind of dirty...like we weren't trying to stretch out enough on it and make it extraordinary.  But, then, sometimes simple is simply extraordinary.  Sometimes simplicity says what an odd time signature can't.  It's certainly far from lowest common denominator rock, that's for sure, and that's enough for me.
    Then, sort of to make myself feel better, I started playing a circular rhythm on bass...can't tell you a definite time signature because, well, it'll depend on how you choose to count it *smile*...and started working some of Dave's words into it...one extreme to the other, one of the very coolest things about this band is that we can run from one end of the playing field to the other in mere moments and still sound so good.
    Off to take another advil migraine and go back to bed.

December 1, 2006 + "Almost There."
  Current Reading:  Ghosthunting Ohio by John B. Kachuba
    Current Listening:  So Divided  by ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Empire by Kasabian and Commemoration And Amnesia by Patrick Jones
    The book listed above was a whim, sort of.  Tracy and I were at a local bookstore and I was browsing and saw the title, flipped through the book, was intrigued and decided to get it, then looked to see who'd written it.  Lo and behold, I know the guy!  Very strange.  John used to run the Artsapalooza festival in Loveland, OH, which a couple of my previous bands had played at and that I'd done some poetry readings at.  Super guy and a great author, as is his wife, Mary Newman.
    The new ...Trail Of Dead album is pretty darned cool, as is the Kasabian.  Patrick Jones is the brother of Nicky Wire (Jones) of Manic Street Preachers and a highly regarded author/poet in the UK.  Good luck finding the disc if you want a copy...it took me three months to finally get mine, but well worth the wait.
    Riddle me this, Batman:  so the new representative from Minneapolis, who is Muslim, wants to put his hand on the Q'uran during his swearing in as opposed to the Christian Bible.  People are raising a stink.
    To me, silliness.
    The point of the book is to have an object of faith that means something to you, not to promote or affirm A FAITH.  It's about you swearing to do your best, or to tell the truth, and swear or affirm it by something that means something to you.  In that sense, let the man use the Q'uran.  If it were me, I'd want Dark Harbor by Mark Strand.
    And that brings up something Tracy and I wondered...if you're Jewish and you have to testify, and they ask you to put your hand on the Bible, do you swear to tell only half the truth, since part of the book holds no weight to you, or do you ask for a copy with just the Old Testament?  I'm not joking, by the way...I really want to know an answer to this.
    December is upon us too.  Holidaze.  Gifts.  *sigh*
    But I'm tired and, since the weather went from 64 degrees upon my waking at 5:00 AM this morning to 34 degrees by 11:00 AM this morning, I feel an early night is called for.
 

November 20, 2006 + "Thanks...Yeah, Thanks."
    Current Reading:  nothing!  Magazines, while I await my new book.  TBC.
    Current Listening:  Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go 10th Anniversary Edition, Nicky Wire - I Killed The Zeitgeist and James Dean Bradfield - Great Western
    For those of you not familiar, Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield are the bassist/lyricist and guitarist/vocalist of Manic Street Preachers.  I'm finding both of their solo albums, recorded this during during a hiatus from MSP, to be very intriguing, mainly because, if you put them together in a blender, you'd get the Preachers.  They're very, very different albums.  Nicky's is very much a spoken word, avant garde thing and Bradfield's is very much a melodic, classic song-based dish.  Put them together with Sean Moore's percussion and you have MSP.  Very cool.
    Okay, for NFL fans, why is it that everyone pronounces Kevin Kaesviharn's name correctly, but it seems no one can pronounce my name, Kaeff, correctly.  Dig the first three letters...K - A - E...pronounce it as Kay...then add F - F to it and you have...RIGHT!  Kaeff!  Very good, everyone gets a gold star and a lollipop.  Kevin Kaesviharn, a safety for the Cincinnati Bengals, is pronounced the same way, just with a different ending.  And I've not heard anyone, even the potentially illiterate Dave Lapham (Bengals color announcer on their radio broadcasts), mispronounce his name as Kossviharn or Keesviharn.
    Bastards.
    One of the reasons I'm not reading anything right now is that I just finished reading Stalin by Edvard Radinsky.  Plowed by it.  Hit by it.  Disgusted by it.  Weirded out by it.  Struck by how often the doings of the tyrant Stalin seemed to hit close to home because of how our country, the USA, is run, or has been run for a while now.  Even going back beyond 2000.
    Breed fear.  Cultivate fear.  Kill.  Allow them to be killed.  Be the saviour.  But always have them fear.
    *sigh*
    Anyway...if I don't write again, Happy Turkey Day folks!

November 14, 2006 + "Jackie Coogan."
    Watching the DVD's of The Addams Family I can't help but be struck by how, if anyone had any sense, they should have cast Ed Hamell from Hamell On Trial as Uncle Fester in those movies.  And the movies sucked.  Badly.  If your name isn't Astin, you're not going to be playing Gomez.  Sorry.  And I really think the only person that could've played Fester is Ed.
    Anyway....
  The Silent Screen is moving right along, writing some very interesting and varied stuff.  We make the most of our time, that's for sure.  I can't wait to record again, actually, and coming from me that's certainly saying something.  I generally hate recording.  To the point that I'd rather not even demo stuff on my own, just keep notes and throw stuff out occasionally at practice.
    Work is going well.  Strange, eh?  All it takes is a positive presence in charge and things can turn themselves.  It's still up to the work, and hard work is good work because now it's progressive work, as opposed to work for work's sake.
   I need to rearrange my office.  There's barely room to walk, much less hook up my effects and gear and actually learn more about my new delay toy.  I hate that I accumulate so much stuff.  Not crap, mind you, but stuff.  I'd much rather live a very spartan existence.  A couple posters on the walls, books and instruments, my computer.  But it grows from there.  With a computer, you have discs & paper.  With instruments you have other gear.  With books you have more and more books.  Ugh.
    Ah, but the election, huh?  Democrats heading for power.  'Pubs trying to sneak some last lashes with the whips.  Bush going back on what he want back on what he went back on when he said x, y and z.  And all the political banter now is about how can the 'Pubs get power back as opposed to how can the Dems take power.
    You see the correlation there?  Power, babies, power.
    Ain't no right, only power.
    Ain't no truth, only power.
    Ain't no elections, only entertainment.
    It can change though.  It can.  I truly believe that.
    And even with a change in "power," I'm not changing the chorus to one of our new songs:
  There's nothing like a child for a president
        There's nothing like a congress full of miscreants
        There's nothing like ignoring all the warnings
        And there's nothing like a nuclear winter to cure global warming
  (c) 2006 The Silent Screen: Lyrics: Kaeff  Music: Kaeff/Baker/Chapman  Published by Diabolical Kitten Publishing (ASCAP)

  Because, you see, they're all still miscreants, just more of one colour than the other.  Sound like I'm untrusting?  No, no, I trust in our system.  If I see change, perhaps the words will change.  Doubtful.
    I feel like Kevin Carter.
 

October 27, 2006 + "Culture Of Fear."
    Nothing like some conservative talk radio to spark a riot, y'know?
    Actually, just some anger in me.  It happened by accident.  Scanning through Sirius on our way home from a nice dinner out, we came across the Michael Reagan Show.  Yes, Ronald's son.
   During the course of about five minutes of the show, wherein he touched on Michael J. Fox (Parkinson's Disease), Rush Limbaugh (reaction to Michael J. Fox) and Ronald Reagan (the media and his Dad), he referenced "the Left" more than a dozen times regarding what "the Left" wants us to believe, how "the Left" is using Michael J. Fox and how "the Left" is leading our country astray.
    Can someone tell me who in the hell "the Left" is?
    I'll tell you who it is.
    It is a fucking figment of some public relations firms' dreams, a ghost, a chimera meant to give people a carrot to chase as they round the track pulling the rich one percent of America behind them.
    Just like "the Terrorists."
    There are groups of terrorists, yes.  But a War On "Terror"?  A war on a nebulous, smoke-filled idea that has no empirical basis in reality?  How in the hell can we allow that to happen, much less to believe that such a war, such a fiction, can be won?  A war, my friends, must be specific.  Just like a shot from a gun.  If you're just firing willy nilly into a cloudy haze, you may hit something, but chances are you're simply going to stir the echoes of some type of idea of reality, not hitting anything tangible, while you instead bump your head into walls of your own creation.
    "The Left," the "War on Terror," "Family Values" and things of that nature are images, ideas and scenes from fiction.  There is no hard truth in any of them.  Even if you're liberal (Left?), chances are you're conservative on some thing, like your money, perhaps.  But the splintering caused by hacks on the radio and television has endangered this nation and our founding principles.  The only side we all need to be on is our side.
    Just as the Marxist ideals and Communist hope faded after Lenin's October Revolution due to the need for the Bolsheviks to retain power, our freedoms are fading with each new political generations' need to gain more power, money and self-image.  And each euphemism we give to things that do not exist as tangible, real groups is another nail in the coffin of liberty.
    Am I part of "the Left"?  Probably not.  More a middle-of-the road guy, myself.
    Am I a "Terrorist"?  Some might say so, after reading the above, but I don't think so.
    "Family Values"?  Brothers & Sisters, if you have family values, you're probably sick like I am right now.
    We need to get our shit together, cut through the lies, get an air gun and a big compressor, blow the clouds out of the way and take down the puppet masters that are running those two-bit theatrical smoke machines because our view needs to be clear, especially come November 7th.

October 14, 2006 + "Random Stuffins"
    Just some random thoughts and stuff....
    As for the baseball postseason, I am and have been supporting Detroit for a couple of reasons.  First, they had traded for Sean Casey (1B), a former Red, and one of my favorite players.  Second, Jim Leyland.  Third, what a turnaround the franchise has had.  It's good to see that old English "D" winning games.  And with Magglio Ordonez's walkoff homer tonight to win the American League Championship, well, it's all good.
    Football?  The Buccaneers' age on defense has caught up with them.  I think they can right the ship and end up 8 - 8 if they pull some things together, but I fully expect Cincinnati's Rudi Johnson to make like a freight train through gauze tomorrow against the Bucs' front seven.
    Music?  Ah, music.  The band toured a local studio last Wednesday and, yowza, what a facility it is.  It wouldn't surprise me to see them have more and more national & international artists come through for sessions.  Fantastic place.   We're in the process of writing and honing new material, looking for gigs and such.  Possibly with an eye toward recording again in early '07.  All good.
    And, alas, I have to say that I just don't like Wilco.  I've tried.  Really, I have.  I'm sorry Tom *smile*.  I do like the drummer's work and some of the other stuff on the live discs I've borrowed, but I just can't get into it for some reason.
    I do, however, like Mute Math.  I like some John Cale stuff that I missed early on - Paris 1919 is a great album.  James Dean Bradfield's solo album, The Great Western, is superb.  Radio 4 is cool.  I wasn't going to pick up R.E.M.'s latest collection of their IRS Records years (as I already have all those discs), but I found a copy with a bonus disc of some really nifty outtakes, live and demo stuff, so I did.  The new Muse album is fantastic.  I'm recently taken with The Call, another band I missed out on years ago.
    Enough for now...back to watching baseball, playing with a new pedal and other stuff around the house....

October 1, 2006 + "Who?"
    I wonder sometimes who I am, exactly.  And what my purpose is, exactly.
    Can I define myself without music?  No.
    Can I define myself without writing?  No.
    And yet, these omnipresent things in my life are barely noticable to most people that know me.
    Then there's the definition of "know" to deal with.
    And mortality in general.
    I love the autumn not only because of the chilled temperatures, but for the questions it raises.  As the season winds down into winter, so does life and these questions are begged.
    Who am I and where am I going?

September 19, 2006 + "Belief System."
  So, for the first time in a long time I see a light of hope where I work.  I shall not say more for it is not prudent, but let me just say that things are getting better and I'm thankful for it.
    And to our president and Iran's president, I have this indictment:  children.  You're both children.
    "I'm not going to his speech at the U.N. - he's a poopiehead!"
    "Well, I'm not going to his speech - he's a dork!"
    Of course, that's not what either said, but you know it's what they both meant to say.
  Points:
    - it's not any of our business if Iran has nuclear weapons...if I lived in the Middle East, with all the screwed up, power-hungry nut jobs over there, I'd want the biggest damned bombs I could get my hands on too.
    - we've got the bomb(s)...why shouldn't they?  Israel's got them, too.  If I were Iran, I'd want them just to attain the same thing that kept the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. on an even keel, that being mutually assured destruction, baby.  Oh, Mr. Oppenheimer, whatever your dream actually was, in reality it was simply mad, man!
    - it's all about oil, baby.  In the end, it's all about oil.
    - and money.  Black gold, Texas tea.
    Let's get back to some basics.  First, violent struggle leads to violent struggle.  Wars solve nothing except to a) make money for those in the correct industries (ie Dick Cheney), b) thin out the herd (because we're so overpopulated) and c) make for good television.
    To me, none of those three is a particularly good reason.
    Second, a war on terror.  I'm more and more stunned by this.  Generally, when one wages war, one attacks a defined, solid force.  Not a nebulous, potentially highly fictionalized entity.  And if it is actually a war on terror, are we and our "coalition" also targeting the IRA, Hezbollah, etc.?  Or is it just those terrorists we tend to think are in Afghanistan (an area necessary for potentially profitable oil pipelines and such) and Iraq (which has no WMD's and had no ties to al quaeda but, somehow, was a terrorist once they outlived their usefulness as a pawn to use against Iran)?  Oh, and Iraq has lots of oil.  Lots of oil.  And Halliburton (again, see Mr. Cheney) has the connections to feed our troops and rebuild oil equipment and, wow, they don't even have to win a bidding process.
    If I seem to be down on everything, I am.
    And the more I read, research and discover, the more futile it all seems to be.  I feel like I'm living in an ant farm.
    I'd give anything for another Thomas Jefferson or Che Guevera today.

September 6, 2006 + "A Few Days Away."
    It was on September 28th of 2005 that I officially left my last band, Season One.  Here I am just a bit less than a year from that anniversary, so I figured now might be a good time for some reflection.  When I left that band, amid musical differences and some personality conflicts, I set out a very specific goal of what I wanted my next project to be like.  I posted those ideas (ideals?) on a website for others to peruse.  Here is the thumbnail sketch, cut & pasted, from that site:

  The goal of  The Silent Screen is simple:  eclectic rock music, riff-oriented but with intelligence and soul, not funky or bluesy but with a more progressive bent (think Peter Gabriel meets King's X while John Fogerty & Adrian Belew riff in the background and Hunter Thompson & Christopher Walken discuss politics over coffee)...not a progressive band, per se, but striving to be extraordinary rather than ordinary.
* It should be a place of open-ended songwriting, a place to push the proverbial envelope and hopefully stumble upon some new territory.
* Lyrically heartfelt and poignant, but also with a political edge at times, substantive and diverse.
* Musically challenging, but never to a point of beating someone over the head rather than inviting them into the experience.
* High expectations within the group, but sans ego.

    So I hoped I would find a lot.  For those of you in bands, you realize how difficult it is to find bandmates with just something in common, much less a lot in common.  I was, and am, extraordinarily lucky in this case.  I set out what I wanted in the words above from that website and I got it with The Silent Screen.
    The funny thing is, shortly after I left the previous band, a former member of that band e-mailed and had some fairly harsh words for what I was looking for, essentially saying if these were the things I wanted then I should just do a solo project because I'd never find them.  I was, indirectly, called an egomaniacal, ham-fisted despot.
    C'est la vie.
    In the end, all that matters is that the band I left played a few more gigs and fell apart while I put together The Silent Screen with Tom & Dave and we're making the kind of music I'd dreamed of for a number of years.
    Tom, along with being an excellent songwriter, is easily the most diverse and imaginative guitarist I've had the pleasure of playing with, and that, trust me, takes a lot of different talented folks into account.  Dave, along with being a rock solid drummer, is also intensely creative and always on the hunt for new & better ways to weave the rhythms of our songs.  And that's a bit of a funny thing, because he'd played in that band I left last year (an early version of it, anyway) and we always had rhythmic issues...not so much he and I, but he and the guitarists.  Having played with Dave consistently and written with him for the better part of a year now I can make a firm statement that the issues were not his.
    Again, c'est la vie.
    Here's to new beginnings, creative ventures and good music, eh?
    I'm off to grab some coffee (well, diet mountain dew for me) with Chris and...well...Hunter will be there in spirit.  Maybe Jim Marrs will show up, too.</