Web Log March 6th through March 19th, 2005
Saturday, March 19, 2005
New post of Ana last night. For mixing, I'm beginning to make use of so-called 'auxiliary tracks' in Pro Tools. This, for the purpose of mixing using submixes. The idea is that you group the tracks. Let's say you have four vocal tracks, three guitar tracks and one track each for bass, piano & drums. You designate one auxiliary track to control each group of tracks. So you get the best blend you can of the vocals and run 'em through auxiliary track #1 and then you blend the guitars and run them all through auxiliary track #2 and then you mix the bass, piano & drums and run them through auxiliary track #3. That way, when you go to create a final mix, you will only be adjusting three levels instead of ten...and it's bound to be more refined. :->))
From Nebraska, comes a cautionary tale about what we might unwittingly project upon our kids. But I suppose there's no making sense of this, after all.
Friday, March 18, 2005 Happy Birthday, Leatha!
Yes! I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack from my urban expedition! I did NOT, after all, fall victim to one of the vagrants making his home in one of the wrecks (like a spider beneath a sink) in the outer reaches of the yard. I did NOT get whacked over the head with a tire iron and ascend into heaven (or wherever the hell I'll be going). SO much to blog about today...and so little time to blog about it.
The first news item that caught my attention this morning (over
(under?) my first cup of tea) concerned developments in the Terri
Schiavo story. Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert et
al. have exceeded even my fierce expectations in their tireless struggle to
perform ever-greater feats of hypocrisy. Many of these same
"pro-life" legislators, now so oddly concerned with prolonging the
"life" of someone who has already been comatose for fifteen years (and
whom dozens of doctors have declared brain-dead), have already shown themselves
to be not-beyond impugning the patriotism of anyone who has suggested that the
ongoing Iraq War (with its attendant death and destruction) was (and is)
one Bad Idea! One is nudged
to imagine that, but for their unwavering "reverence for life", these
National leaders would countenance an even greater toll (of soldiers and
civilians alike) in their zeal (no longer to wrest control of the
country
from one who would use weapons-of mass-destruction but)
to "spread freedom and democracy" around the globe. Yeah, right.
The latest word is that Terri Schiavo herself is among those subpoenaed to
appear next week before a Congressional Committee! I'm not sure it can get any
more bizarre...but stay tuned.
The second news item (carried over from yesterday) involves the Congressional hearings on performance-enhancing drugs in our National Pastime (gimme a break!). [Hey...I hate to be a gnat-strainer here but: shouldn't it oughta be 'Pasttime' (two 't's'?)? Oh well.] Dunno about you, but I don't give a bloody stool what these witless beefcakes ingest before, after or even during their stupid game! I'm even a baseball fan (of sorts)! I go way back to the Ebbets Field days of the Brooklyn Dodgers, I do. But I STILL don't believe that steroid use among baseball players should be the subject of a GD Congressional inquiry (fer the love of Mary)...particularly with so much other horrible stuff going on every day. Isn't it queer that, in their concern for the 'example being set for our young people' by these overpaid, muscle-bound cabbage-heads, the Congress persons have uttered not a word about the shameless hawking of beer ('the Bud Light player of the game', for example) during ALL radio and TV broadcasts? Surely, alcoholism is already a much greater threat to the once-and-future well-being of our society than steroids will ever be!
My baby sister reminded me, this afternoon of this, from James Joyce: "I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church; and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile and cunning."
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Posted a still-rough Pro Tools production of Ana last night. The hurried mix (with its brazen cymbal crashes) is almost funny in places and many a part should be redone...but I'm havin' tunzafun learning to play drums and tryin' 2 write tight bass lines! I consider this production to represent the blastula stage of where I'm lookin' to go with these home recordings.
Gee...I just listened to the aforementioned mix and it needs
remixing fer sher. Aural fatigue must set in last night. The piano be too loud
and the vocals too soft. Later for that. First:
In the event...that no entry appears tomorrow...please notify the authorities
that my remains may likely be found among the wrecks at the 'Pick'n Pull' (or is
it 'U-Pull-It'?) yard on Market off Rumrill in Richmond. Me & Skip be goin'
there this morning on an urban fishing expedition. 
Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Thirty-seventh anniversary of the My Lai massacre.
There have been occasions in my life (though not many) on which I have experienced a fleeting understanding of why somebody (anybody!) would want to play golf! Yes. But I have yet even once to understand why anyone is threatened by same-sex marriage. Why would anyone want to deny gay people the right to be as miserable as us heteros?
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Uh Oh! The ides!
Monday, March 14, 2005 Albert Einstein was born 126 years ago today.
“What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26).
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Last night was a late one for this old barker. It was the final performance of Maggie's play (written & directed by students...a so-called 'Thespian Production'). The 'Little Theater' of the high school was sold out (roughly, 200 people) and that certainly was gratifying for this impressive group of kids who worked so hard and so well together over almost three months. Maggie wanted me to write a 'review' of the play in this Blog but I demurred. I feel that it's not at all useful (or appropriate) for someone to evaluate the result as if it were a commercial venture. Suffice it to say that the actors put their hearts (and not inconsiderable talents) on display and the audience loved it. The script itself had a promising premise even though I (not alone) must argue that (at two hours and forty-five minutes...a 'bladder buster') it suffered from insufficient editing. Only one bathroom was provided (during a ten-minute intermission) for the two hundred. One gentleman (not a whole lot older than yours truly) couldn't wait and actually crashed the exit gate with twenty minutes (or so) still on the dial!
"Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it
does not turn him into a monster.
If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you." Fred
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Yesterday, television news was dominated by the Atlanta courtroom shooting story. It was a made-for-TV tragedy, presented on an otherwise slow day...what with the Michael Jackson trial in recess. In addition to the incessant retelling of the day's bloody violence, viewers were strung along by references to the 'background story': the lurid crime for which the defendant was on trial. Sex and violins! On such days I wonder what stories go unreported. After all, every day there's the same amount of broadcast time to fill up. Who watches this stuff? :->))
Friday, March 11, 2005
"If you don't have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me."
Help me! Why are SO MANY PEOPLE unable to get it right? Every three or four minutes...in real life and on the boob tube, you hear someone say "I could care less!" or "He could care less!" One more once: the expression should be "couldn't care less"! If you say you "could care less", you are saying, in effect, that you care more than the minimum! You are saying the opposite of what you intend to say!
And...grim news this morning from Atlanta...the in-courtroom shooting. What makes it remarkable is that the suspect used the gun of a court deputy! One has to wonder how security procedures could be SO loose as to allow such a thing to happen!
Thursday, March 10, 2005
I haven't turned the heater on in two days and I'm not
complaining that things are a good bit warmer than they were this time last
week.
My broadband is back up. This is pretty weird but it DOES seems that both my and
my neighbor's Netgear router failed (independently) on the same night!
OK...maybe the failures were NOT independent. Maybe, somehow, somebody
"zapped" the routers through the cable modem line. Far-fetched? I
guess. But the fact is, I went out (in desperation) and simply bought a new
router...since Comcast insisted that MY router must have crashed. They didn't
change anything on their end...they said. The new router fixed things. Remember:
seemingly unlikely things are increasingly likely to happen if you
live long enough! Although, over the long haul, a coin toss should result
in about a 50-50 split between coming up heads and coming up tails...if you flip
the coin enough times then it becomes increasingly likely that you will see
stretches...streaks during which heads (or tails) comes up a seemingly unlikely
number of times-in-a-row. Right?
I'm continuing to refine Li'l Bit Harder.
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 Maggie's play opens tonight!
Y'ever think about how many things get said (and told) to people just because they (these things) are NOT true? A simple, everyday example is when you call a big company and have to go through their touch-tone system: they always, at some juncture, tell you how your call is VERY important to them! The last time I called Sears I almost gave up 'cuz they've installed this deadly voice recognition system which somebody, evidently, decided was a great idea! Well...I suppose it WOULD be a great idea...except for it doesn't work! I mean, I've hardly ever even peeked outside this country. I speak unaccented English and four out of five times, the system misunderstands me. Perhaps it hasn't been programmed to recognize scatological colloquialisms.
Just posted an 'enhanced' version of Li'l Bit Harder, featuring my newly-acquired (and still rough-hewn) understanding of how to use MIDI files and 'advanced' mixing techniques in Pro Tools. OK...maybe I'm only up to about the third grade now and 'graduation' is still a while away...but I DO feel like I'm pointed in the right direction at last.
Tuesday, March 8, 2005 Happy Birthday, Patrice!
Where there's smoke, there's fire.
Well...leave it to Comcast! I only now (slightly past 11:00 AM) was able to get my broadband connection up and running. In consultation with my identically-configured neighbor...she was told by the line crew people (that she called out) that our Netgear routers (which we only purchased last year in response to another unannounced protocol change by these clowns!) are no longer compatible with the Comcast system! So it appears that we are constrained to one computer connection at a time for the moment unless and until we rent a different router from (guess who) Comcast! Why I oughta! I shoulda known...for the last three or four weeks, Comcast has been hawking the "upgrade" they were about to visit on us! Only trouble is...I'm not thirteen years old and I'm not Michael Jackson and I DON'T happen to get off playing stupid video games online or listening to dumbass rap music or songs of prepubescent angst!
Monday, March 7, 2005 Happy Birthday, Dawn!
Vinny Woods introduced me to the (call them) "concepts" of (call it) "Western Mysticism", premised on the observation that almost all of us spend almost all of our "waking" hours in a state of unconsciousness...one more akin to actual sleep (even) than sleep itself. "So what?" I would respond. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise", as my mom would often spit up. Vinny (a Scorpio and Cal Economics Graduate student) would come back: "The objective here is to reach a state of awareness wherein you will cease to "identify" with your self. Not only will you cease to matter to your self (making you unoffendable), but soon (after only about forty years of this) you will even "dis-identify" with the physical manifestation (your body) of your self. At this stage, you are prepared to outlive your body. You will be immortal! Yes! Eternal!"
"There are three Ways:
1st. Instinctive, fakir.
2nd. Monk, emotional.
3rd. Intellectual, Raja Yogi.
These ways are always open...but are 'impossible'.
Fakir becomes paralyzed, body ruined.
Monk becomes 'stupid saint', incapable of impartial thought.
Yogi knows...but is too weak to do."
There is, yet, a "Fourth
Way".
Sunday, March 6, 2005
Not for, but by our sins are we punished.
It's not wrong because it's a sin.
It's a sin because it's wrong.
If you do what you should not,
Then you must bear what you would not
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked:
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" Galatians
6:7
Gene Scott died on February 21st at the age of 75. The NYT only today got around to running his obituary. Gene had always advocated faith-healing in order to "give God the first shot". But last September, when his prostate cancer had already done a bit of its unpleasant business, he acquiesced to surgery. Bizarre and deranged are only two adjectives well-applied to Mr. Scott. Not for no reason was he called the Shock-Jock of televangelism.