Duderonomy

The Big Lebowski is an odd movie. Not that I don't like it, I do very much, it's just unusual. It seems that the plot of the movie doesn't really matter that much. What makes the movie enjoyable is its mood and humor. These are accomplished by it off beat dialog and it's soundtrack. (That's something I should probably try to remember as I think about ideas for promotional music videos for our current projects.) Whenever I hear Bob Dylan's The Man in Me, I now associate it with the movie. (The same could be said about the Stuck in the Middle scene in Reservoir Dogs.) The association of the song with the movie and vice versa is a testament to how well they compliment each other.

I was thinking about the Dude tonight because I stumbled on to the fact that there is now a religion called Dudeism, otherwise known as The Church of the Latter Day Dude. As a Lay-Dude, my understanding of Dudeism is that it's a take on Taoism as espoused through the words of the Dude. So, you know, you can take'r easy, or what have you. On the website you can read about the Dude-liness of Great Dudes or even become a Dudeist Priest.

This also reminds me that not too long ago I was reading Heinlein, and found that there is a Church of All Worlds based on Stranger in a Strange Land. However, the Church of All Worlds' site isn't nearly as entertaining, and it appears that it has also been in the process of "being updated" for a long time so it is somewhat out of date.

Mental Plasticity

Yeah... So... The Grammy's, eh? It seems that almost everything I've read is about Adele. Undoubtedly Adele has an incredible voice, but honestly, what competition did have last year. I also noticed that Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennet won for their duet. It just really seems like some people like to give awards away for dying. The problem with that would be that it's a publicity stunt you can only pull once... usually. And I really have to ask, when did they start giving away Grammy's for liner notes? Obviously there are times when you'll find some interesting information in liner notes. I think I'm going to try an experiment: I'm going to try to start a conversation with, "Hey, did you hear that some compilation album of 60's jazz that you've probably never heard of won a Grammy for best liner notes?" I'm just curious to see what kind of reactions I'll get.

The second big winner of the night was the Foo Fighters. I admire Dave Grohl. He's a talented, he's a multi-instrumentalist, he knows how to write and connect with people, and he's dedicated. He has to be one of the hardest working people in entertainment at the moment. Besides Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, he's had two smaller projects called Pocketwatch and Probot. He's played drums for:

Buzz Osbourne
Mike Watt
Killing Joke
Tony Iommi
Tenacious D
Cat Power
Queens of the Stone Age
Nine Inch Nails
Garbage
Pete Yorn
Neil Young
David Bowie
Them Crooked Vultures

I'm certain there's more. It's an impressive list, not just for it's size, but also the quality and variety of the collaborations.

Somewhat related to hard work, WSJ has a review of Guitar Zero by Gary Marcus. Marcus is a neuroscientist and sets out to correct some misguided notions on brain plasticity, specifically the idea that:

"the brain's circuitry was only alterable in certain 'critical periods,' or brief windows of extreme plasticity; these were thought to occur in childhood, when experience helped to form the brain's circuitry. The conventional wisdom was that certain skills must be learned early on; it was generally 'too late' for adults to pick up a new language or musical skill. Plasticity was for kids."

He does this while documenting his experience learning guitar in his book, and conducting interviews from musicians.

"Guitarist Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), we learn, didn't start playing until he was 17, but he practiced six hours a day for four years while a doing an undergraduate degree at Harvard... 'Guitar Zero' makes some delightful counterintuitive fine points. Kids are not quicker learners; but they are more persistent. Kids will practice riffs over and over, just as they will play a new videogame ad nauseam."

So not only is creativity good for the soul, but anyone can get there through hard work.

I Am Furious (Yellow)

I've been angry more than usual lately. I somewhat feel guilty about it. I know I shouldn't feel guilty about it because that only makes me feel worse. I've said before that it's easier to just feel angry than it is to be confused. It's a form of escapism, in a way.

I feel almost like Homer Simpson, or at least Bart's version of Homer in the Angry Dad comic he made. I'm Homer and I have Clayton Bigsby sitting on my right shoulder saying, "Don't let the liberal media tell you how to think and feel. If you have hate in your heart let it out!" On my left shoulder sits Darth Vader: "Feel the power of the dark side."

Not that anger is necessarily bad. It can at times be useful. I can actually be a pretty good motivator as long as you don't get so steamed up that you can't do anything. I really think that all of our emotions can be good in moderation. The "in moderation" part is important. Being angry all the time is tiresome like holding a shield to deflect a dragon's flame. Sooner or later your arms are going to give out, and then you get burned.

So why am I angry? It's mostly my fault. I never learned how to set boundaries for myself properly. Partially it's because I'm so easy going. For many things in life, I just couldn't care less about them. Some people might think I don't care about anything, but when one of the things that I really do care about gets crossed. I take it personally. I try to be nice about it, but then I stew it over.

I try to tell myself to stop. If a thought is not useful I try to tell myself just that: "Stop. This is not a useful line of thinking. Lock it in a box and forget it." Sometimes it's just not that easy to do. Distraction can help. I can watch a comedy, make a dumb photoshop of Homer, Clayton, and Vader, write in this blog, or listen to the most relaxing song ever. A friend of mine just called and told me her problems. It seems that listening may be a way to distract yourself from anger because I feel better now.



I think what I feel guilty about the most is that I've let my anger slow down my progress in some of my projects, but I shouldn't even feel guilty about that. I should just be more dedicated. I should get to work. I'm only 7,500 words into my novel, and creativity is good for the soul.

Musical Drum Stools

Musicians are inherently unstable. I can say this because I am one. It seems that, many times, the better the musician the more unstable. Many stories are public knowledge, like Hendrix or Cobain, but stories like those are tied into the fame they gained. Some might think that fame was the root cause. While there is a bit of truth to that, fame is not the only cause. I've run across plenty of drama from musicians who were never famous.

One of the first times I played in front of an audience, I met a tall, long haired guy who slightly resembled Kurt Cobain. He played too loud on a crappy guitar, but he had a pretty decent punk rock scream. (Think Tourette's by Nirvana.) A couple of years later I joined a band that he played drums for. Before that time I didn't even know that he did play drums. It turns out that he was phenomenal, an absolute monster behind the set. We played a few shows. I thought we sounded great. We practiced three days a week. Then we didn't hear from this drummer for over a week. After two weeks we found another drummer to fill in for our last show. I never did hear why he quit showing up. I heard he had a heart attack a few years back, less than a year after he cleaned himself up and quit using.

Another time, I was in a cover bar band with an older drummer. He was dating this skinny old hag. She was constantly blitzed out of her mind. One night while we were playing, she was doing her usual routine of humping tables, support beams, chairs, and anything else that was handy. This particular bar had a mentally challenged guy that was somewhat of a regular, and she was so trashed that she didn't notice this guys hand up in her crotch as she was grinding. Or maybe she did, but liked it. I don't know. I didn't ask.

A short time later she was dancing with a fairly nicely dressed guy and kissing him. Our drummer started to argue with the guy over the PA, and when that didn't settle the matter to his liking he started throwing drum sticks at him during Sweet Child O' Mine. I think he hit about four people throwing things in a tiny crowded bar, and soon the two were in each other's faces while we were still playing. (You know it's a very, very long song.*) Our drummer didn't have a great meter even when he tried to concentrate (burn out) much less when he another guy are about to come to blows. I quit playing entirely since I could no longer tell where the beat was, and the rest of the band followed shortly after. Needless to say we fired that drummer. What he does on stage reflects on all of us. I was embarrassed. Besides, I haven't been in a fight since seventh grade, and I don't plan on getting in to one for his dumb ass.

We found a replacement for that drummer so we could get back to slumming it up in the bars. Our new drummer was another one of those monster drummers like the Kurt Cobain look alike, and he had a good meter, whenever he wasn't on something. We played for a couple of years, and then he too disappeared, for about six weeks. When we finally found out that overdosed on heroin, and was forced into rehab.

So why are musicians so unstable? I think it has to do with expressiveness. The best music takes you on a journey, (Pink Floyd and Tool are incredible at that) and real musicians are able to express that. Every instrument is different, has it own personality, wants to be held a certain way. A good musician can feel that and adapt to it. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a roller coaster at times. I have somewhat of a theory that everyone should date musicians. Musicians are fun, responsive, and intimate. The same instinct that lets a musician feel the personality of an instrument can make a the musician responsive to an intimate person too. (It's hard to explain just try it and find out.)

But if you don't like a musician's flaws... No, if you don't LOVE a musician's flaws then don't marry them or plan on having a long term relationship. (Loving someones flaws is a large subject and I plan to write an entire post on it some time.) If you don't love their flaws then have fun while you can. Enjoy the moment, but know that it's temporary because they will get worse and better on the roller coaster of life and musician's swings high and low tend to be more exaggerated than most.



*The quote comes from Days of Graduation by the Drive by Truckers, and yes I know the quote was actually about Freebird.

Simplicity: Design and Life

I know exactly what time today that I'm going to get pissed off. It's pathetic really. First, I've had a fairly decent day. I finished 2 designs for different projects. One was for Brother Down:

Brother Down always jokes that if one of them gets too drunk and falls off the stage then everyone should yell, "Brother Down!" The other logo they use is a chalk outline of a body, like a crime scene, so that's where the caution tape fits in. The caution tape also supplies the color scheme. Black and yellow, it's high contrast, simple and effective. It will also translate easily to a t-shirt. They manufacturer will only need to print one color, yellow, on to a black shirt, and will also save money with only one color ink in it can be printed in one pass and you won't have to worry about any alignment issues.

I was asked to make the chalk outline logo out of caution tape also, for the back of the shirt:

Here is a big difference. Even with only two colors, it's messy, cluttered, and it's difficult to even distinguish what the image is supposed to be. The logo may not be clear, but message couldn't be any clearer: Keep it simple stupid. It's the only way to go.

I also finished a logo for Slacker Ambition:

The same principles apply to this logo. Slacker Ambition's music is eclectic, at least as eclectic as a mix tape, if not more so. Since Slacker Ambition doesn't play live often a logo of a recording is effective in a second context as well. Also, since Slacker Ambition is usually not quite as aggressive as Brother Down so a nice shade of blue is more appropriate than Brother Down's grab your attention yellow on black. Once again, simple is in.

Well, that was the good part, back to the bad. I've been trying to follow James Altucher's advice on how to deal with crappy people. The first rule is to cut out the crap, quite literally, by disassociating yourself from the crappy people. Once more simplicity is the answer. Make your life simpler by eliminating the drama. The only problem is this is damn near impossible to do. Why? Because they're everywhere.

Dumb, fake, vain, shallow, insipid, hateful, and manipulative people, the world is full of them. I've lowered my standards about as far as I care to, and yet somehow, I'm still usually disappointed. I'm tempted to think that it's just me: that I expect to much or that I'm being irrational. But I have to ask myself, why shouldn't I expect people to be honest, genuine, and caring? I'm not asking anyone to be a saint, (God knows I'm not.) and I don't expect everyone to start telling me their darkest secrets. I just want people to be themselves. If they don't want someone to know something they don't have to lie. Just don't talk about it. Care enough about other people to not hurt them by lying and being manipulative. If this makes me irrational then I don't want to be rational.

"The rational man adapts himself to the world. The irrational man tries to adapt the world to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the irrational man."
-George Bernard Shaw

I don't agree with much of what Shaw wrote, but I agree with him pretty closely here.

Slacker Ambition

I've been playing and recording music since 1997 under one particular name. A friend of mine and I used to pass time at work by doing rune readings. It seemed that nearly every time he drew the first rune, the rune that describes the self or your current situation, he drew the warrior. I had a tendency to draw one particular rune also, not the warrior, a different rune. We would sometimes jokingly call each other by those names.

In 1997, I found myself for the first time without a band so as I sat down with my four track tape recorder to write some songs I used my rune name. Actually, every time that I've done a project on my own I've used that name for it. Now that you can google anything I've found that there was a regional band that used that name from 1995 to 1999. I think that I first heard about the band sometime around 2001.

Since they were no longer using the name and I had already been using it for four years I decided not to worry about it. I didn't really give it any thought, which was a mistake on my part, until I tried to sell my music on line.

That was when I ran in to a little trouble with the other band. Actually I think they were getting the profit, if there was any, from my work on one particular site. (If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not saying the band name because I don't think I owe them the publicity.) So for the last three years I've let my solo work sit on the back burner while I've worked on other projects, another mistake on my part.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been searching for a name to restart the project. I googled every name I thought of and every name was taken, sometimes by multiple bands. I've finally found a name that's suitable for me, and after googling it, it appears to not be already taken so I'm claiming it now.

On February 3rd, 2012 my project is officially known as Slacker Ambition.

The Torture Never Stops

Flies all green and buzzin' in this dungeon of despair.
An evil prince eats a steamin' pig in the chambers right near there.
He eats the snouts an trotters first!
The loins and the groins are soon dispersed.
His carvin' style is well rehearsed.
He stands and shouts "All men be cursed!"
And disagrees, well no one darest.

-Frank Zappa

I was in a relationship with someone I cared for dearly. When the relationship ended I learned some things. About me, her, love, loss, and life in general. I guess I shouldn't say I "learned" anything because I keep learning those same lessons. I couldn't believe the things I learned about her. I compartmentalized her in my mind. This couldn't be the person I loved. She was gone. All that was left behind was this monster.
It's cliched because it's true: time does soften the pain a wound. Eventually, the monster fades and starts to resemble the woman you loved. Sometimes too much so. Sometimes that's a heavy load to bear too. Sometimes it's easier to just be angry than to deal with confusion.

Sometimes you take things too far. Not that you pushed them to the limit, but that you let yourself become too entwined in it. Between the fond reminiscing, the touching embraces, the sweaty lust, and the plans for the future you loose a part of yourself. Then suddenly you're the asshole when the rules change on you, and you "learn" all those lessons again.

Sometimes someone who has no clue, can say something so out of context and vile that it makes you want to spit bile. Sometimes you want to loose yourself in a bottle or tear through five women in seven months. It's part revenge because you know she hates it, and part escapism because you do too. Just don't pretend you didn't care about them at all because if you didn't you would feel guilty.

Flies all green and buzzin' in this dungeon of despair.
Who are all those prisoners that's shut away down there?
Are they crazy? Are they sainted?
Are they heroes someone painted?
It had never been explained since first it was created.
See a dungeon like a sin
Requires naught but lockin' in
Of any anything that's ever been.
That's what's the deal we're dealin' in.

-Frank Zappa 

In the middle of all this one of the five wants to talk. I try to talk, but she only wants to talk about you subject. I can't talk about what she wants. I have no answers for her. I have no answers for myself. I need to talk, but she doesn't want to talk about my problems. She thinks she does, but she doesn't have any answers for me. If she did then she wouldn't be asking me what she always does. She's afraid of pushing me away so she says so, which of course, pushes me away. That's what's the deal we're dealin' in.

All men be cursed!