Haleas flasdj fk-w0rnv

Yeah... That's about all I got.

I"m taking a fucking break from Access '07. Brain is fried from trying to get a new database up and running for the office. It'll be great on the resume. It'll be great once I get it done. I dunno.

I put in my notice at the photocopy job. I had a long day on Monday and decided that I'm very, very, very unhappy with where I am and what I'm doing and need to kick my ass out of this stupid rut. I can't justify making the kind of money I make when I am capable of earning so much more for doing more challenging work. And stuff and things.

Where the i Divides has a show on Saturday in Kenosha, WI. What a trip!!! I haven't thought much about it. I finished off another new song that I've been kicking around since last fall. Then a new idea. Sure. The first album ain't done with the mixing process and we're already working on the next album. It's just a reference for the new material. It may be a while before that stuff get anywhere near a studio. The Quisling material, on the other hand, may be done over the next few months...

What's Quisling? It's the Nirvana-esque band I started last week after Joe gave me the impression he may be quitting the band. I put together two songs so far, musically. I still need to record them and kick out some lyrics for singin'. Eventuall we'll play shows around town and sell garage demos on burned CDs made with my computer and a few microphones. Rock and roll through and through. People will say, "Why does this sound like you recorded it in a barn?" and I'll relpy, "because it was."

What I'm most iimpressed with about all of this is that if someone had told me two years ago that I would be able to write a song in a matter of hours, and then bust out another one in the same night, I would have not believed them. Yet, now here I sit on a pile of songs and music that I've put together and there's always ideas for more. I think it was an interview with the New Pornographers that I read about that time that I realized that I wanted to 'crank' out more songs. Good songs. Bad songs. Filler. It didn't matter. The good would move on and the bad would fall away but they'd be done.

And special b-day wishes to my sis.

Just a thought

Why is it that people who use "religion" to their advantage to get elected lack the conscience or understanding that their conduct should reflect those values?

What the hell ever happened to honesty, compassion, and concern for your fellow man or woman regardless of who they are or their profession. (See the story of Jesus and the Woman at the Well.)

I'd much rather have those things than any religious affiliation or religious endorsement for someone I would potentially vote for.

Personal news update

Last post was me on a misery Monday. I've been ground down by the constant recording sessions debacles that seem to be cropping up. (Crapping up?) Over the weekend, I finished guitar tracks and some organ tracks. Travis has this super awesome vintage GE organ that has a fan in it. You plug it in and press a key and it opens a valve that lets air through to create a sound. It's pitched different than a true 440 so we're going to have to shift the entire track but thank god for protools (sometimes).

Saturday went well. Stuff was accomplished. I'm still not happy with the solo I recorded for the song "Jerkwater". It's not quite right. It's there, it's okay, but it lacks the power and flow that I need it to have. I listened to some Tool yesterday and am thinking I'm going to use that as a point of reference for that song. Acoustic guitar tracks on the song "Stepped Oustide" need to be re-recorded since we used Travis' Kingston and it's next to impossible to tune and my acoustic tuner needs new batteries. I'll have to drag my Oscar Schmidt acoustic in. The strings are probably rusted to hell and will break when I start playing but that'll just add to the overall effect I was going for with the Kingston. And then we got to Sunday...

Joe was late due to the time shift. We hammered away at one song for three point five hours with retakes and punches but it just wasn't coming out quite right. Then we switched songs and that wasn't working to well either. Compounded with the fact that Joe has changed most of the lyrics that he's had for the last year, it wasn't a good session. By the end, he was sprawled out on the floor, destitute and forlorn. So we listened to all of the songs, what we have so far and that just shot his confidence till the clip was empty. Stupid singers and their esteem issues. He said that "Plastic Head" needs to be retracked. All of it. The song was too slow. That'll take a day to do the instruments. He said that the solo on "One Day" needs to be the one I recorded for the demo. He wants to redo all vocal tracks. (roll eyes.)

So I had this haunting sensation on Monday that everything I was doing was wrong. Working on music is just a pipe dream that's going to go nowhere and I'm just living in Madison right now pretty much for the music. If it weren't for the band, I'd probably be living in Montana right now. I almost moved on Tuesday. Packed up and left. Figure out the situation after the deed was done.

Tuesday came and went with me pushing through the day. I filled out my application for paralegal school and sent it in. I've had it for almost a month now and it took me five minutes to fill out. No commitment, just the idea of doing something that I'm not apeshit hogwash crazy about, and going to school for it. But it travels, like turning wrenches or pouring drinks. You can do it anywhere.

So that's it. I'm in a funk... the rickety funk of springtime doldrums. Pushing myself past the easy road to depression and keeping focused on getting myself out from under the opression of the B.O.A Constrictor so I can finally tell them to fuck off for good.

Gotta get some work done now. These services don't enter themselves into the computer.

Self-indlugent crap post

"Don't fret precious I'm here, step away from the window and go back to sleep.

Lay your head down child. I won't let the boogeymen come. Count their bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums. Pay no mind to the rabble. Pay no mind to the rabble.

Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums.

Pay no mind what other voices say. They don't care about you, like I do, (like I do.) Safe from pain, and truth, and choice, and other poison devils, see, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do.

Just stay with me, safe and ignorant. Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. I'll be the one to protect you from your enemies and all your demons. I'll be the one to protect you from a will to survive and a voice of reason. I'll be the one to protect you from your enemies and your choices son. They're one and the same.

I must isolate you. Isolate and save you from yourself.

Stay with me, safe and ignorant. Just stay with me. I'll hold you and protect you from the other ones.

The evil ones, don't love you son. Go back to sleep."


* * * * *

I miss the tall green grass turned brown full of grasshoppers as mule deer stare silently stoic on the rise above the gravel road for running in the middle of nowhere soon too soon turned into "Suburbia" with fake trees and sod lawns meticulously watered each night like robbers-stealing-gold-from-the-only-stagecoach-through-these-parts out of the river that pulls all the silt from the fires of last summer down to the ocean if not for the hydroelectric dams.

I miss sitting in one spot for hours and moving the world beneath wheels while the dreams of sessions in isolation booths spill their woven magic into my state of staring and moon craters and sand blasting and cigarette smoke for miles.

I miss lack of hope.

I miss that the most.

Meow Meow

This is almost as good as Chamberlain auditioning for Danny J's Metal Project. Hailing a taxi from Trav's, rollin' out to Mt. Horeb.

But it comes nowhere close to Travis putting on his own production of A Streetcar Named Desire with his cats. That would be worth a website. Not to mention totally worth seeing, even with the nip floatin' around.

(rather than mention anything about the Libby verdict. It's just unfortunate that nothing is going to be done about the rest of them. Hit the scapegoat with a few years in minimum security and then let him out and no one will remember it. It'll be forgotten by '08 anyway unless Cheney decides he has a chance at being president.)

Recording up-to-date

The band has been left out of the discussion mix for a while. We've been recording through the month of February, pretty much every Saturday and Sunday.

Yesterday was the first day of vocal tracking. Joe was spot on for some songs and sounded good all around. He had been practicing. I noticed one song that was "finished" has either a guitar or a bass track that out of tune. I'm hoping that it's not the bass. If it is, I have to re-rent the amp we used, and I don't really want to do that.

There are guitar parts that need to be retooled. Several solos that still need to be worked out. It's been a long process of weekends spent listening actively. And that's the part that really wears you out.

We (the band) are hoping to have all twelve tracks "in the can" in three to four more sessions. That's including acoustic guitar parts, the remaining electric guitar parts, keyboard parts, vocals on half the songs (roughly) and several re-records of bass tracks. I'm tired of being optimistic about this process ever being over. It'll end, eventually.

And then you can buy it. But why would you want to?

More from the land of milk an' honey

This seems to keep showing up.

Enough to make me wonder.

Then, there's this article from yesterday. It was about stuff and I can't find it now. Whatever.

So I did find this one.

I'm just a little bummed out by this information. When I was in high school, tracking students to college was the thing to do. Everyone was going to college to get a degree and a good paying job. No one ever took the time to say, "Hey, these assholes from the credit card companies want to turn you into their slave. They'll do their darndest, more so than the armed forces recruiters. You would be better served by staying away from them at all costs." Instead, they educated us to not use drugs.

So now, I abuse drugs to escape from the predicament. I still believe I can do anything. But I don't think that I'm good enough for anyone to really notice. Just an average Thimble-thumper pushing the shopping cart down the street picking up cans to recycle for change.