Don't wax philisopical at the mall.

I'm so glad I have a oxygen-deprived brain.

I've gone to heaven and seen the light. Well then.

The Dualist is just as stupid as the Monist. And just because something seems to be a certain way doesn't imply, explicitly, that that's the way things are, in actuality.

My feeling of sadness doesn't feel the same as the feeling of having a brick bounce off my face. Ergo, there is a spirit that is encased in the shell of my corpreal self.

Sorry, don't like to explain everything but this is a start. I don't like to rip off other people's stories but it's an incite-ful topic. Or, just talking about God and the WhatNot of worship in a faith that is not grounded in E-M-P-I-R-I-C-A-L knowledge. Not that I'm saying that the whole a prioir/a posteriori is the be-all-end-all-of-truth either.

back to work

Back from the Birkebiner. Long weekend vacation, hurray!

Lots of work piled up on my desk. Too damn busy to post more.

Drone 2

There is a radio station that I listen to at work. WORT. They are in the midst of their winter pledge drive. I feel like they just finished up their last one a month ago. It's pretty annoying... more so than the Jazz in the afterknoon.

Life would be better if I constantly had people hounding me for my hard-earned money to keep either their radio stations on the air, snakes out of Ireland, retards out of the oval office, or for their overpriced hair care products and nicotine/alcohol habits.

Oh well. I got a call from Jardine's mother last night. She went on and on about how I had used her and Jardine in my story. True story. The lady that was saying "get your freak on." Man, that made my day.

Freak mode is On.

Sleep, My Old Nemesis

It's another messed up day at work with the damn software taking a crap, same time as it did yesterday. I've got to figure this out one of these days, a new program for us to use here. It wasn't going to happen today because I spent time not working reading RATYWT. This is just some downright upleft saturnalia for the mind.

Last night I actually got some sleep and only woke up once at two thirty. Eight hours is a long time to sleep.

The new amp showed up yesterday too. Hurray. Next practice is only eleven days away. Ugh. Can't wait that long. Still need to get a dedicated drummer and I haven't been looking too hard this last month. Something's got to give eventually, right? All I have to do is sit back and collect, right?

Can this one tired soul make it through the day and come up with a solution to the problems of the world. Like my truck was sprayed with snow plow spray this afterknoon. That's gotta stop. Stop. Stop. Never anytime to get down or stop. Keep this train rolling. I want to work on the trains some more. With my girlfriend and her two dogs. There's never enough time for grape soda either. Just stuck drinking the Mingus Dew. "Ahhhhhh... Mingus Dew."

I put this post up earlier today. It pales in comparison to a 5'4" 300# woman in an orange jacket waddling down the street saying, "Get your freak on. Everybody's getting their freak on." She's not singing. She's just saying it like a mother would say it to her children if they were misbehaving in public. "Johnny, stop picking your nose!" or "Jardine, get that lightbulb out of your brothers mouth! I don't care if I told you to put it in there! Get it out!!!"

Get your freak on. Everybody's getting their freak on. What does that even mean?

Drone

A lazy filter hangs in the air today. Giants of industry and commerce steal seconds from me and I can only recall the discussion of satan and the dream stealers that occured on Saturday. Not really a discussion, more like a motivational exorcism of addiciton. Uplifting.

I put effort into creation. I have to put more that I am capable of into creating. What else is there to do. Passive entertainment is for the masses that care not to think active engagement. Sit do I and intake that which is my drowning folly.

Band practice worked well on Saturday as well. Joe doesn't like his melody on "Excuse me sir, can I have my soul back." I told him to give it time. No drummer and a handful of songs. We have time to work these things out. The problem with the drummer that I wasn't quite sure of it's source seems to be the lack of dedication to the idea of the band. Practice and insistence that her playing should be perfected in her own right. Not happening.

Quaking earth underfoot. Chronos and John Barleycorn. Where are the hours needed for those that have to work more?

I wish it would never stop.

Snow
It started last night around 7 p.m.
Kept going all day so far. On and off.
It's like that David Cross story from his CD "Shut Up! You Fucking Baby" He talks about how America still executes mentally retarded people and he doesn't even have to know that it's happening, he can just feel it. He gets a spring in his step. Anyway. I get that way when it snows. Today has been just an absolutely great day.
Never been Happier.

Music as Art/Commodity Revisited
The importance of establishing credibility goes as far as a Milli Vanilli T-Shirt. All I need is that shirt and I've got it made. No one can argue with me about my street cred. (partially cuz I don't care) because I've got a t-shirt of two dancers who faked their way to a grammy. How can you even argue with that? What? That's right, You can't.

I am not an artist. I am a sonic architect. Architects make money. They sell their products. That seems to make sense.

The beast opera

I put my foot in my mouth once. It tasted like foot. Shoot. Been reading lots of stuff online today. There ain't much at work to do. Made lots of lame-as-sin photocopies at the other job. I'm gunna have to go back there this afternoon. Not excited by the prospects of that.

Conversely,

I do have a "Card Party" tonight. I wish that there was a better name for it. Card Party sounds lame-as-sin. T-Bone said last night something about some guy. "(can't remember the specific name) had a patch on his butt, the children would chase him." Something to that effect. It had me laughing for a while. Maybe instead of Card Party I should call it, "Patch o' the Ass" and let the children from around town chase me. Word!

The whole deal with the card game is that it cuts into my normal workout routine. I decided that I'm going to head to the gym right after work tonight, something that I never do. We'll see how crowded it is and if I should make it a part of my normal routine every night. I usually go later so there isn't a crowd but it's also a second drive into town from home.

The final note is that the PA is now not going to be loaned to me. I guess that I'm such a disreputable character that I am not allowed to have items loaned to me. It's a longer story that I don't want to get into here. Also, the parties involved are respectable people and I harbor no ill will. It seems as though there are forces at work that want to crush my dreams and laugh at them. Bella! Ha! "This is what I think of your feelings."

Tuesdays and Thursdays

Seems that Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days that I have time to do this posting. Went out for lunch today at an overpriced coffee/wine shop. It was tasty and expensive.

The new owners of the Copy Shop are still in town. I was told that if I wanted to, I could sleep in today. I did. It's been a long time since I've been able to do that. I went to the gym last night and worked my legs and did my chest/triceps workouts. I'm tired from that and sleep is a great thing that I don't get enough of. Um. Yeah, that made sense.

No word from the new prospective drummer. He must be in some parallel universe. There are a few more people I can try to contact. The current drummer is taking the next few weeks off for work and stuff. Oh well. The amp is finally on it's way. The PA is being borrowed... it's like I've almost got a band man.

That's it. I've got Valentine Fever. Something possessed me to wear a red fleece today. It wasn't because I love to be festive. I hate holidays. Except the violent ones.

Is it over yet?

I spent the evening consuming beer and conversation with an old high school friend. He asked me why I didn't just bag up my courage and try to get into music production.

It just hadn't hit me yet.

What did hit me was a setback on my computer which decided that the soundcard was going to die. Now what am I supposed to do? (Buy a new one I guess.) I've probably got the afternoon off from the copyshop job for an exclusive dual service out of town. "It's Doctors and Lawyers, and the end of the world, small furry creatures mean the end of the world." God, now I just wasted an half an hour checking out shit on the Dead Milkmen Site. I love them dearly.

I'm gunna Rock Out NOW!

Wizz Kidd

I wanted to rant and rave about how infrequently some people update their blogs. My life is pretty boring otherwise. I don't have much time to watch television. Machette Shisler is coming over for a preplanned songwriting session this evening. Won't be able to watch the Office or My Name Is Earl. Oh well.

I guess that makes it more 'entirely understandishable' when Someone has monotypes to do rather than put stuff up on her blog... er I mean stuff on his or her blog... Not naming names.... Kristim...

Keeps on coming

More boring updates. The sister got on the road this morning, long before I got up. The dog was at the door again. Pretty annoying. There was another accident last night. Found out in a relaxed way so it was not as alarming as it could have been. Another rear-ender. Some dumb kid not paying attention. Went to the gym and started up after a week of not working out. My pecs and triceps are sore now. Didn't get into the pool but that's alright. I smoked a carton of cigarettes last week. I am weening myself off of them again. Might have a good starting intro to American Song 1. I'll give Trav a chance to rate how it sounds/works this evening. Going to try to get to the gym again tonight for the back/biceps segment.

For some reason, I keep thinking about an old middle school keyboarding class and how we used to copy a line of text and then paste it in. The teacher would walk by and then we would quickly try to highlight a line without her seeing and then hit the "control C", type another line and then hit "control V". The stupid kids would copy five lines at a time and she knew they were terrible at touch typing so they would get caught bacuse they had more lines typed than the fast typers. I would just throw one in for a better score. Now, the sad part is that I didn't need to cheat. (Not that I'm a great typer now or then, but I just had to convince myself that it would pay off to be able to type faster and without looking at my fingers... not like Aaron, that was always so funny to watch him peck on messenger with the other, Mary Kay selling, Kristin and try to convince her to go out with him, all while he's pissmire-drunk... Ahh... good times!)

Hey, who thought the Superbowl was Great? Huh? EH?

Let's all go get some ice cream and talk about how we felt after they gave that touchdown to Roethlisberger. Go Broncos!

This is not a sports forum, end of sports discussion.

Busiest Weekend Ever!

This past week has sucked so hard, it's not even funny. Well, funny in that, "I feel funny," sort of way. Where to start? Lets start with getting this work out of the way.

Topic One: Band
The band had some setbacks this week with the lack of time for me to put into the creation of more music and the weekday practice sessions with Circu$ Million$. The practice we had on Saturday was rough, needless to say. Joe met the drummer as well. He was throughly dissapointed with the lack of skill and also the short amount of time we had to play on Saturday because she had plans that didn't let us get to the last few songs. Ugh. So the drummer is in question right now. I asked her if she wanted a better CD to practice with and she replied that she probably won't have time to practice. (That was a really bad thing to say.) I've begun the search for a better drummer.
We also watched a documentary called "Dig!". It would be so cool to be in a band like that. Also, I used to dislike the Dandy Warhols, but now I hate them completely. The interviews with the members of the Warhols were the most infuriating scenes of footage I've watched in a long while. Pretention and art are not mutually inclusive but rather should be mutually exclusive, yet the public fails to notice. (Who am I to speak for the Public?)

Topic Two: Funeral
There were lots of people at the wake on Friday evening. There were lots of people at the funeral. Dave didn't realize that I was wearing what I was wearing and said that I needed to change quickly before the service started. I feel like, to a certain degree, I stood out like a sore thumb with my brown canvas pants and red plaid flannel shirt, which was my grandfather's. I don't have much more to say about the service or anything regarding this part of last week. There is a web site that will host the foundation deal.

Thanks to everyone for support.

Topic Three: My Sister's Return
Also on Saturday, my sister returned from her seven month tour of Europe. I got home late on Saturday night 'cause T-Rex and I were watching this horrible 80's B-movie on public access. It made watching "Coven" from "American Movie" seem to make more sense.
My first hello's were, "Welcome home stranger. Where are my presents?" Of course, she's thoughtful and had presents. I got a hand made backgammon board and a british candybar along with a sweet pair of boxers... Finnish boxers with Moomin on them.
There's also the invite to the Berkie at the end of the month. I'll probably go just to get the hell out of town and spend some time in the northwoods. I hear they have snow there.

Topic Four: Chicago Denizens
Kristin Sucks! Burn!!! Classic Burn!!! Yeah.

Social role of the Smokie Treats

This is almost an interesting idea. This woman is on the radio and she's been talking about her book and there's almost this creepy parallel between her reviews on amazon and my interest in the program. At first it was intriguing and now it's getting more and more boring, but to say the least, it is a good mirror.

I've had people point out my social setting interaction skills, or better put, lack thereof, (but I'm not socially inept, it's more like I don't really care all that much about following convention.) They normally bring up the ones where I talk real low and don't make much eye contact and sit by myself and don't flit about and make a complete ass of myself in the showboat sort of way. (That's reserved for special drunken occasions or when I just feel like running my mouth in that satirical in an irony, "I'm making fun of you by aping and doing a better job of making myself look like an ass for real above and beyond your sorry attempt at being your dumb self.") Or perhaps it's more to do with a deepseeded lack of self-esteem. I learned about self-esteem in middle school health class. I thought it was a lame concept with a disconnected symbol and as relevant as it is for eleven year old children to know about their self-esteem and to understand how to weild it like a sword, slicing down all foes who would thus smite them of their own accord. Reveling in their successes with smokie treats pilfered from their fallen adversaries.

Now there is a social circle I understand. The smokers club. If you smoke, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, then you'll just have to find out on your own. "That's a good smoker." Like that ferret that hides the empty cigarette boxes.

More Bits about Andy

Here's one article.

The Initial article about the accident wasn't in the archives, or I couldn't find it.

I'll have some pictures to post soon. There are lots of great pictures. The halloween ones are the best. There's even a picture of when we played a talent show without a bass player.

Sunday seems like ages ago.

His family is also setting up a website. www.andyeastman.org but it won't be up for a little while. They are going to be using it for donations for a fund to support music education for children.