a writer in a police town

When I was younger and just starting to write songs (or at least poor versions thereof), I made a more or less conscious decision to avoid writing political songs. I did have pretty strong political convictions (which were, in hindsight, almost as immature as my early songs). I reasoned, however, that by the time I got a band together and played out, there was a good chance that my politics would be overtaken by events. So why try to be current?

Incidentally, as it took me several decades to actually play out, this ended up being a pretty sound decision even if for different reasons. As I write this, I'm much older (ancient, even) and  (debatably) wiser. I'm much more radical in my politics, and I get more extreme with each passing month.

I still don't do political songs, though...but now, it's not for lack of trying. The first draft of "Rise Above" (which, incidentally, will be on my new album) was very much a political rant against a specific person who has, as he's aged, started to embrace politics based seemingly on the strength of anti-intellectualism contained therein. But the structure didn't work; there was a spoken word/list portion at the end which was just too exhausting to pull off live. The first revision didn't work either, and eventually, I nuked the whole thing and made the song about (shock, shock) my depression.

It's hard, however, to avoid politics when the amount of stupidity seems to increase exponentially. With ever passing glance at the news, I become more pessimistic...and that pessimism demands an outlet.

The latest thing to hit me in the full rage triggers is the increasing police state in which we live. The idea that, in order to feel safe, we should give up all our rights is astounding to me. Couple this with authority figures arguing they should be exempt from any limits on their power, and I start to get angry.

A while back, the sleepy little midwest college town in which I live replaced all their closed circuit cameras with new hi-def ones. They also got their own SWAT unit. And their own bomb dogs. And I'm pretty sure they also have their own armored personnel carrier. And, I should be perfectly clear, we do not have a concentration of terrorists or anything around here. This stuff isn't to up the number of undergrads cited for public urination or anything . So why do we have it?

The simple answer is "because they can." What authority figure wouldn't want stronger, more potent symbols of their authority? Well, the obvious answer is "a sane one," but that's not how law enforcement has worked for some time.

This has been bothering me for some time. If I had faith in humanity, I would believe the police department's military hardware would only be used sparingly. But, as I said, I'm getting more and more radical as I age, and I can't help but ask, "if we give them all these hammers, how long before they see everyone as a nail?"

That is why I'm now sitting at my normal bar, contemplating finishing lyrics for the angriest, most political song I've ever written.

should I tell?

How may I tell you about my gig at the Old West End festival?

Should I tell you about the strange journey of trying to get our gear from our cars to the stage? Of how we had to send our bassist to hunt down a golf cart and driver?

Should I try to describe what it felt like to try to set up our gear and play while battling the distracting smell of frying elephant ears and roasting corn?

Should I mention my initial fear when my pedalboard decided not to work? Or when my low E string kept going out of tune in the middle of songs? Or of my relief at being able to cope with on the fly?

Should I mention how cool it was to finally play a band show with people I know in attendance? That I had both family and friends in the audience (in addition to whomever had to listen to us while they ate their food court offerings?)?

Should I mention just how awesome my band sounds, particularly when our trombonist is able to join us?

Should I explain how delighted I was that, as I was post-gig packing up my equipment, my daughter came over, grabbed a guitar cable and pretended it was a skip rope?

Should I try to describe the general uneasiness I felt when sitting on the back of a golf cart, straddling my gear, and tearing through the parking lot back to my car?

Should I express my joy at having the entertainment director ask me if he could call me next year and schedule me for a better timeslot?

Should I go on?

our morning festival

Tomorrow, me and my band plays The Old West End Festival. We play the Art Fair stage at 11am. I try to give my all at any show, but this one is particularly important for me.

First off, I've been trying hard to break into the Toledo market. I've played a few shows, but they have been, as a rule, last minute and weakly attended. I'm hoping that, as this is a festival, there will be more people at this one. Being the opening act on a Sunday, though, means that a crowd is not a certainty. Last year, she. The Antidepressants 1.0 played a festival in Tiffin in the early Sunday slot, we played to festival volunteers and no one else. Here's hoping we do better tomorrow...it would be nice to make some Toledo fans.

The other reason this show is important to me is that it is the next to last show for this incarnation of my band. Come July, my drummer moves away, taking our practice space and the bass equipment with him, and I will be forced to reconstruct the band yet again. So if you want to see TheMikeDuBose and the Antidepressants 3.0, you have either tomorrow or our June 26 Howard's gig, and then that is it. So, seeing as no one I know has yet to see my band, I hope some of y'all can make it.

If you're in the area, you can make an old rocker's day by simply showing up. How can you resist?

post-apocalyptic toys

As my tattoos would attest, I really like Lego. In addition to being a wonderful toy and having great philosophical implications, they are a wonderful art medium. Combine that with some inspiration, and you get awesomeness such as Lego versions of Mad Max vehicles. I really, really, really want the second one.

they really get me

Once again, The Onion is frightfully accurate. Yeah, I know they are supposed to be a parody paper, but I suspect they are really doing autobiographical research on my life. The evidence? This story: Man Honestly Thought Breakdown Would Be More Obvious to People.

post-6/4 show decap

So how did last night's show go?  The first thing you should know is warts.

I have warts on my foot. Check that. I actually have a wart colony on my right foot. You have to love the name; it makes it sound like it would be a swell place for a tropical vacation. Instead of being a nice white sand beach with cabanas, though, it instead looks kinda gross, actually. It hasn't really bothered me otherwise, so I've been dealing with it. My wife, however, found it a bit disturbing whenever she tried to gaze lovingly at my sole, so I decided to go to the podiatrist and get it taken care of.

Yesterday morning, I had a morning foot appointment. The doc removed some dead skin and then applied some of the super-duper strength foot drugs. They did this before, and that time, the medicine mildly stung. This time, it made the whole colony blister up, swell, throb, and go owie. If I wasn't so manly, I might've whimpered.

This made the day challenging. Walking sucked. Standing sucked. Doing anything which put pressure on the foot sucked. Most of all, carrying all my gear? Up stairs? That also was not pleasant. So the whole day, I was feeling a little weird. Add to that a last-minute show. Very weird. Plus, as we learned from the whole canned cider incident, weird vibes were in the air anyway.

My set went well in spite of having a mixed vibe. I was the first person of the evening who wasn't playing his acoustic guitar through an electric guitar amp...so I sounded better than the others (who were younger than I and less experienced at this kind of thing). I was gonna use my new pitch shift pedal, but the electrical plugs in the bar are bad, and my adapter kept falling out. Plus my cool mood lighting wasn't working for some reason...which I guess one should expect out of a $5 clamp light kept in the trunk of one's car. I also managed to spill my drink while setting up...not that it was the first drink ever spilled on that stage, but still.

I am, however, a professional at all this (in spite of not getting paid), so these were all easy to overcome. Plus I think I know how to properly approach a solo performance. Too many people just bust out their three chord songs one after another, with no real break from the angst. I, however, learned a very important lesson from my friend Micah Schnabel: a solo performance is still a show, and an acoustic guitar need not lead to any less intense of a set. So I have my banter, which, thanks to my teaching experience and my time doing comedy on the radio, I do pretty well. I pace my sets well. I play strange covers (last night, it was Miley Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball"). I play my kazoo (which definitely adds to my performance's element of unexpectedness and memorable). I would add to this by moving around on stage like a low-rent Angus Young, but the sweat already drips directly into my eyeballs.

I was well-received. I got applause, "woo"s, whistles, and immediate feedback (my song "How to be Cynical," off my album Skeleton Coast, apparently "rocks"). Overall, everyone seemed to like me (save the headliner Gareth Asher, who never came out of his van to see any of the openers...unbelievably rude and unprofessional, but there you go). 

I did not sell any albums, though. I pointed a few people to my Bandcamp page, and I hope they get my stuff. It would be nice if they paid for it; although I know cds are going extinct, it would still be nice to make enough money off album one to pay for album two's pressing. But in spite of the current lack of monetary support, I am making connections. It is, after all, a long game.

The one bad thing, though? When I got home? My feet were absolutely killing me. Oh well. I guess a little throbbing wart colony blister pain is worth it. It is, after all, rock and roll.

tonight's gig

I'm playing a show tonight. I only got the gig Monday. It's at one of those "bands have to sell tickets" shows. This means I am doing tonight for free, because even if I knew of people who wanted to come, three days isn't enough time to do marketing. That's okay, though... I will do these until I find someone in the Toledo area who will pay. Who knows? Maybe I'll sell a CD or two.

After I set up my merchandise table, I headed to the bar just as the first act was starting...and they informed me I was the only person they didn't know. They're doing better than me. I only know the bar staff. I sat down at the bar, and ordered a cider. The bartender brought me a can, and when I commented on how I was expecting a bottle, she said, "of course it's in a can; it is a fruit."

That's probably a sign of how the rest of the night is going to go.

creative process

I'm at Howard's for my weekly writing session...which I actually haven't done in about a month. Little changes, though. The bartender still knows my drink. I still get recognized by a barfly before I even reach the bar. When I get to my table, there's a condom packet. The packaging advertises the perfect fit by showing a (doubtlessly illegal) screen shot of Tetris. This is new, but it's so in character with my surroundings that I give it a pass.

I have, since the semester ended, been reading a songwriting book. It has had its intended effect, that is, to make me think more explicitly about things which I know mostly from learning as I go. I have several others in the apartment complex office waiting for me to pick up, and earlier, I ordered a few guides for diy musicians. It is one of my goals to, over the summer, get more serious about my music. I care too much about it to do this halfheartedly. Additionally, I suspect I actually have more talent than my album sales or concert attendance would suggest...and I guess it's time to go down kicking and screaming in my efforts to be an artist.

Inspired by my reading, my mind involuntarily generated a chord structure while I was making my peanut butter and banana sandwich lunch. I ran back to the study, broke out my acoustic, and recorded a crappy demo after stumbling over a potential chorus. However, it took me until having a depression fit while cooking dinner to come to some idea as to what the song was about.

So what is the song about? What are my songs always about? Me, of course, and my depression a little more specifically. My particular angle of attack this time is based on Wil Wheaton's maxim that depression tells lies. It certainly does, but it does more than just lie. It inspires massive jealousy, the kind that makes looking at social media a bad idea lest one start to hate one's friends for their successes and travels. It also instills doom, paranoia, and resentment, in my case, towards my sick and moody child. When all this happens, is one really living? This is on what the song (or the songwriting process, depending on one's perception) will focus.

So now I'm here to write. I've got an idea of the melody, but I'll embellish and explore that after the lyrics are in draft form. My main goal is to scribble lines into my notebook. If I'm very lucky, I might get enough to start sculpting them into a lyric.

Time to get to work.

building the Depression Monster i

A while back, I mentioned that I was starting my new album Depression Monster. This is the first of my recording blogs.

Last time, I started the recording process when I had enough songs for an album. Between then and now, I've been kind of prolific. This time I came to the process with sixteen completed songs. There are others, but they're either going to need severe revision or abandonment. The sweet sixteen? I'm pretty confident in most of them.

I do not, however, have a clear perspective on them. I only had two that I am completely sure of, and the others, well, I can't yet come to any clear judgments. And for that reason, plus the fact I had Skeleton Coast pretty exquisitely mapped out and wanted to really shake up the process, I felt the urge to get more outside opinions.

So step one was to share the songs with my coconspirators. To this end, I ordered a fairly cheap yet surprisingly decently sounding in spite of its insanely high gain USB microphone and did single track "mic in the room" demo recordings. I tried to get these as good as I could, but as these were only for internal use, I didn't get perfectionist on them or anything. I then sent these out to the guys (via Facebook message, although we plan to mostly share via SoundCloud...but I've been busy) for their takes on track choice and arrangement.

I got producer-man's take on the songs yesterday. He selected eight tracks for us to record. The two I would've fought for made the cut. I'm surprised by two other selections...but they all work together pretty well, so it should be good.

He also included his thoughts on arrangements and such...and they were fairly insanely detailed, much more than I expected. The album will be constructed on a firm sonic landscape. It will be much more open and airy than the last one; that one tended to adhere, for various reasons, to the Wall of Sound/Everything but the Kitchen Sink school of song construction. I think Pink Floyd would be a good reference point (particularly as, I am dramatically out of touch, I don't get the references my producer gave me).

I had a few suggestions on the arrangements, mostly having to do with adding a bit of grit, mostly in terms of adding weird distorted bass (as well as a touch of the obligatory distorted guitar). But my suggestions were merely fine tuning...we already have a great plan. I think the best parallel is the storyboarding for an action sequence. Now we tweak.

The next stage is to figure out how we're actually going to record...but I'm going to the producer's housewarming party this weekend, and I assume agenda-planning is on the agenda.

let's play a game!

Every so often, I like to play weird word games. Way too many people have heard my "that would be a cool band name" game. Lately, I have started thinking of a new game...and I think it would be a fun one to play with you, my readers.

The new game is called "what cool popular culture phrase would make a good epitaph?"  I've been thinking about this for a while. My entry comes from the world of 70s pop:

"I gave you my heart, and I tried to make it happen.
You gave nothing in return."

Please post your answer in the comments...unless, that is, you want to be like Lionel Ritchie's subject.

bored

During her last visit, my mother told my nephew that she had declared war on the word "bored." Being bored, she feels, just means you are not trying to find something to do. It is, it seems, a matter of taking ownership over the activities in one's life.

Coming from my mother, this is not a surprise. I remember her saying similar things when I was a kid. And as a parent myself, I can certainly relate to the logic behind such a statement. None of this, however, changes one basic fact: I am bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored.

My wife and urchin are both sick. This means that neither of them are really all that active or enchanting (this weekend, that is). So things like going out? Playing? Out of the question. Weekends are always a bit questionable with my kid anyway. She gets more weekend time with me than with her mom, so on the weekends, she tends to ignore me. When she's sick? Even more so.

So what did I do today? I ran the dishwasher. I made stock. I sorted and took out the recycling. I made freezer burritos. I went to the grocery store. I watched a bunch of My Little Pony with my daughter (who was ignoring me). Nice show, but I was really hoping it was not the highlight of the last few days. I thought about duct-taping up the hole in my car, but I decided to leave some excitement for tomorrow.

There are a few other things at work. It's not that I don't know anybody in the area...but since I turned 40, I spend more weekends by myself than with people I know. I moved up here when I was 28, and I usually could always count on being out with people a couple of nights a week. Then, at some point, it's almost like a tap turned, and everyone disappeared. No one wants to go out.

It was somewhat easier when I still was drinking, because I could at least talk to bartenders. Clean living might be healthier. It is not, however, any less boring.

full day

I played two shows today with my trombonist. For the first, we got paid in eggs, honey, plants, green onions, and organic jelly. For the second one, I finally sold the seventeenth copy of my album...plus one of my own songs got a better reaction than my Mikey Cyrus, and I had people pogo-ing to another.

Dreams do come true, people.

shifting versions

While I was recording my album Skeleton Coast, my producer asked me why I didn't assemble a band...so I could promote the album with more complete performances. At the time, though, I already had a rock and roll band, and I was quite happy also doing solo performances. I had one music outlet which allowed me to make noise and another which allowed me to be self-sufficient.

But between the end of recording and the release, I got accepted for a local music fest. I got a wild hair and decided to put together a solo band...so I could at least hear a full version of the songs once. We decided on a band name (The Antidepressants). Then the bassist had to drop out, so I had to reshuffle the lineup from beta into version 1.1 even before our first gig. In the end, though, we did the gig and did a good job. I liked the feeling of leading my own outfit instead of just being the "insert noise here" guy. As we played the festival, I had high hopes for more...but then, for a myriad of reasons, we broke up within a few days.

My rock band also broke up almost simultaneously, though, so in a matter of days, I went from having it all musically to having hardly any outlet other than just plunking on guitar. I did quickly join Midwest Tourist, and I love playing in this band. It does not, however, really fulfill my need to play loud guitar. There was one show where our normal guitarist couldn't make it, and I had to fill in on guitar instead of sticking to my normal banjo. It was fun, but it changed the band music way too much...my drummer said it was almost as if we changed genres, and I had to agree.

I had real hopes to play with my own band again, but I really had no clear idea if I ever would be able to so. Musicians are usually a fickle group, though, and it's not like I was getting more friends or free time. But when I got another festival gig, the old familiar wild hair struck again. Plus my body was at too desperate of a state of rock and roll withdrawal...so once again, I decided I needed another group of musicians.

The Antidepressants 2.0 only took a bit of wrangling to assemble. The first practice went well. The second practice went so well, I felt inclined to ask everyone if they might want to play together in the future... and they agreed. I had a rock band again! We played the festival, and it went great. I booked a show, and it also went well. Life was good!

When I attempted to set up another practice after our second gig, though, the drummer told me he couldn't commit to very much over the summer. I panicked, but my bassist announced that he'd solved the problem: he had found another bassist, and he was going to move to drums. And thus The Antidepressants 3.0 was born.

Of course, this level of certainty didn't even last ten minutes, because right after telling me about our new lineup, he informed me he was going to be moving at the end of the summer. Version 3.0 of my band might be ready, with gigs booked and everything, but it apparently has a built-in shelf life.

So now, I'm left with two opposing missions: prepare for the immediate active future of my band while simultaneously contemplating just how I might possibly assemble yet another version. This one is compounded by the fact my current bassist is borrowing his bass from my drummer...the same drummer who is out of here in a few months. This is no simple band realignment but a total reconstruction. My trombonist is staying, but I now need a new full rhythm section.

Problem is, however, I have no idea where to get either a new bassist or drummer. Where I will get both? No clue. The producer for my second album has offered to play drums, but he also told me he'd probably be moving in December. This would mean that version 4.0, which would replace the temporary version 3.0, would itself be temporary...and that I would have to immediately start work on version 4.0.

Frankly, I'm getting confused just thinking about it. I have no idea how or even if things are gonna work out. I guess I should be sort of confident. After all, if I can make this work three times, then what's to say I can't do so again? And again? Continuity would be nice...but I guess I gotta do what I gotta do. At any rate, I can always just do things myself if it comes to that.

If you, dear reader, is either a bassist or a drummer, though, you should really give me your number.

Magic 8 Ball needed

Is there legitimate reason to be hopeful at all about politics? Normally, I would say that any optimism in this area is really just delayed disappointment. After all, I didn't expect Obama to increase the police state when I went knocking on doors on his behalf.

This time, though, presidential politics could get interesting. Why? Bernie Sanders is running... and if there's anyone who can upend the process (as Matt Taibbe argues), it's Bernie.

Still, it would be nice if someone or something could tell me if I should I should have hope.

research ideas for sale i

I get a lot of ideas which could easily become focuses of my research. The thing is, I no longer do research, and I have no real intention of doing any for as long as I live. Usually, when I get one of these ideas, I just try to figure some way to beat it out of my head before moving on to more productive lines of inquiry (such as how to perfect my hot chocolate recipe). Now, however, I have another idea: license them out to people who in the academic game yet not completely disillusioned by said game. For a modest fee, this idea can be yours. Here's my first possibility:

For a while, I have been fascinated with fake product reviews on Amazon. I particularly love it when they move into activism (usually aimed at some example of industry malfeasance). The most known of these are the Amazon user reviews for the Bic Cristal 'For Her' pen. Yes, this is a pen specifically marketed towards females. It differs from normal pens by having a daintier barrel and pastel packaging.

This is truly a product which deserves to be mocked, and the customers do so in wonderful ways. One of my favorite parts of this listing is in the user questions. Someone asks if the pen is safe for her husband to use, and the reply is "It is unknown if a male can actually use these with their big strong hands they might just end up snapping the pen which would result in ink spillage and possible ink stains." And if someone is not currently working on an analysis of the gender activism in the contents, I would be mightily surprised.

My idea for sale, though, goes deeper into the phenomenon. The product in question is the AudioQuest K2 Terminated Speaker Cable. Unlike the pens, this originally became the target of snarky reviews because it was listed with a $6800 price tag. The reviews are generally great. What's even better, though, is that one reviewer went further and created a science fiction story review.

Hence, my brilliant idea: literary analysis of sarcastic/activist Amazon reviews!

agony and the ordinary

The hardest thing I ever have to do is, while in the midst of a depression fit, try and perform some/any normal task. Everything in my mind wants me to shut down and whimper. Every part of my body wants me to just stagnate. When I, on top of all this, have to hold back the floodgates to do something... total and complete hell.

it runs in the family!

I'm in my study grading. My daughter came in, climbed on the futon, grabbed my mandolin, and started strumming. This, however, wasn't enough. She soon started singing a number of her own composition. I'm not 100% sure what it was about, but I know it started, "some things are big, some things are small."

Her mom came in to change my kid's socks. As soon as she finished, my daughter turned to me and asked, "would you like me to play more songs for you?"

That's my girl.

the greatest thing you will see today, 4/21

Ever wonder what classic video games would look like if done by renaissance artists? Well, wonder no more. Isn't this a great time to be alive?

wisdom

I'm at the coffee shop with my kid. John Mayer comes on the radio, and she turns to me and says, "this is good music to go to sleep to." Wise beyond her years, my girl.

letting the Depression Monster loose

In the very immediate future, I will start recording the follow-up to my debut solo album Skeleton Coast. I swore this wouldn't happen until I broke even on album one (I still need some sales to hit this mark), but an unexpected opportunity arose...so it's time to start album prep work.

I had a blast recording Skeleton Coast, and I'm fiercely proud of it. This one will, however, be different. For one, I'm collaborating with two people not on my first album. The producer will be Nic, a drummer/musician/instrumentalist. I will also be joined by my high school friend Thom, a bassist/fuzz pedal aficionado. Different band equals different vibe by default. But there will be other, more conscious differences.

First, the actual recording structure will be different, primarily because Thom lives in California. Yes, this is going to be a long distance band! I'm excited to see how this will affect the final result.

This will also be a much more acoustic album for me. The main texture will be of acoustic guitar, with liberal doses of banjo and mandolin thrown in. I'm not saying I won't pick up the electric, because I will...I've got a great sounding new amp that I want you to hear.

Part of the reason I won't be slathering distorted electric on this is that we will be going for completely different textures. The producer really knows his electric toys. Furthermore, the bassist loves his effects almost as much as I love mine, and you don't hear enough distorted bass in this world...so if I can help you hear more, then I must do so.

I also expect there will be much less layering. One Skeleton Coast song (can't remember which) has six guitars and mandolin, plus a few ambient sound tracks...in addition to bass, drums, vocals. I'm really gonna try to not employ the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach this time.

I also hope this goes a bit quicker this time. I'm generally not a huge fan of the recording process...it's too "hurry up and wait" for my tastes. Last time, we were going at it for five months or so, which meant I hurried up to wait an awful lot. This time, I'd like to save my sanity a bit.

What won't change is the lyrical themes. I did try to move in different directions, but the depression monster started to rear its ugly head every time I set pen to paper. Oh well...better to have him running rampant in my words than in my life. This is why I've decided to name the album Depression Monster...give the bastard some credit, you know.

I've also decided to blog the whole process...so watch this space for more details...and start saving your money for your own copy when I finally get to release Depression Monster.

It should be good.

goosebumps

It's true that I might be setting myself up for heartache, but I gotta admit: I'm pretty psyched. Why? This:

and now, to balance the doom, a moment of cuteness

My daughter and I have an interesting dynamic. When my wife is home, my kid likes to play hard to get with me. She'll duck out of the way when I try to hug her. Lately, if I do kiss her, she'll tell me she took the kiss and threw it out the window (or something even sillier). It's a fun game we play, all the more contrasted that, when it's just the two of us, we'll often "play a game of hug & a kiss."

Yesterday, when she woke up, she came into my room to snuggle. After a few minutes, she turned to me and said, "Daddy, when we play hug & kiss in my bedroom, I put your kisses in my heart." Of course, I started to liquify. But then she clarified: "My heart is in my back. That's because I'm a unicorn." I started to laugh, and then she looked at me, adopted the look of a sage, and informed me that "girls are unicorns, and boys are trucks."

Where trucks keep their heart, however, is still a mystery.

an update on pain

A while back, I chronicled my increasing incidents of arthritis. This post provoked a bit of reaction, most humorously from my mother, who told me that entering middle age was really entering "a world of pain." Pleasant woman, my mum, particularly when she uses language cribbed from professional wrestlers.

Shortly before writing the post, I started to experience discomfort in my right hip. I thought I'd pulled a muscle or something...but seeing as the pain still hasn't gone away, I guess you can chalk up another body part to the arthritis monster. I've been puzzling for ages as to why all my arthritis seems confined to my right side. This morning, however, there was a bit of soreness in my left thumb. Yay.

Be prepared for an increase in the admittedly sizable volume of moaning! Also, I probably should start buying Aleve by the barrel.

in defense of bullies

If you've been following (or even glancing at) my "time to be scared" category, you know that I am particularly afraid of government surveillance. This just happens to coincide with the articles I've ran across. I actually have much greater--exponentially larger, in fact--hatred of the world of big business. Big business, in my opinion, is a much greater and inescapable force of oppression in most people's lives. That people trust businesses more than government? This makes no sense to me at all.

So, when I ran across the editorial "It's Okay to Bully Corporations," I couldn't help but be a little thrilled. I completely agree with the point that we should use every tool in our power to fight for economic justice. But I'm enough of a wordsmith (sorry to be pretentious, but I can't think of a better term) to really cheer for the article's claims about diction. I have more than a bit of wrath for anyone who co-opts the language of the oppressed to support the oppressors.

We should also be allowed to bully those nimrods.

time to be scared v

By now, you know that I'm not the biggest fan of the NSA. I am a firm believer in the right to privacy. Privacy is important for many reasons beside the "I want to get away with something illegal" excuse. But don't take it from me. Instead, listen to the expert:

What bugs me about the NSA is the attitude that anyone concerned with privacy must be a terrorist. Hell, just using online privacy tools makes you a surveillance target. For this reason if no other, everyone should download Tor and use it to browse the most disturbing sites they can find...you know, just to make the NSA's job more interesting.

The wacky folks at the NSA are, however, now one-upping themselves. NSA director Michael S. Rogers now wants front door access to all cryptography used in the US.  In simple terms, they're saying that no one should be able to have any secrets or information the government cannot access at will. This frightens me. I don't really think the government is pure evil. However, making them all-powerful and giving them the tools to invade every aspect of each citizen's life seems a little too trusting...not to mention a bad idea, because it would take just one evil person armed with the right tools to destroy you.

Some say that if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't need privacy. I say that if you have nothing to hide, then you should be the one speaking out most vociferously in its defense.

it's been that kind of day

One of the best things about embracing the randomness of life is that it saves one a lot of trouble and heartache. If, for instance, one has the kind of afternoon as have I, it's easier to believe that there's no order...because if there was, I'd feel way too persecuted to be able to function. It's hard to be paranoid if you know that life is just a bunch of random, heartless crap.

time to be scared iv

Our country is so obsessed with terrorists that we put up with the TSA's security theater and the NSA's massive domestic spying operation in spite of the dubious success rate of these agencies's invasions of privacy. Yet who's the biggest enemy? As it turns out, police are more likely to kill you than a terrorist.

Feel safe?

career planning

My 3.75 year old (who should really be sleeping) informed me she was getting ready for "super hero unicorn school." The school apparently provided her with her Hello Kitty backpack. The cape (a bra, with her head through one of the arm holes) is her own.

stupid fingers, dead skin, and pain

Dead skin. My fingers are coated with it, calluses like I've never had before. Tender, sore fingertips.

I've been playing guitar about thirty years. Before that, I played classical violin for a few years. I played bass in the high school jazz band for a year (the band teacher really hated me). I briefly dabbled on the dulcimer. A while back, I bought a 6 string banjo which is strung like a guitar (some people call this a banjitar; these people should suffer great pain and agony for their sins). So I have a varied background on many stringed instruments.

None of these has confounded me like does the mandolin. It's tuned way differently than the guitar, so not only does no knowledge translate, my knowledge of the guitar fretboard actually interferes with my mandolin attempts. The frets are very close together, so my fingers have to bend in new ways...so I don't even have muscle memory from which to pull. It has thin double strings under high tension, and these dig into my fingers.

I bought it over a year ago, but after playing it for a few weeks and a brief appearance on my album (just buy it already), I got busy and set it down. When I realized it had been months and months since I put it away, I vowed to make a concerted effort to become competent on the thing. For the last couple of weeks, I've been spending at least a couple of hours a day practicing. Today, I had stupid fingers that didn't want to cooperate with my brain (which itself had trouble switching into mando mode), but that's just part of it.

I don't expect to become bluegrass good on the thing...just competent enough to add different textures to my solo act and my next album. It's going slow, and it can be unbelievably frustrating, particularly with nights like tonight, where I was having trouble finishing a single song without stops and starts...but overall, I am (very) slowly getting better.

It's good, though, to challenge one's self, to push one's boundaries. Plus now, I can brag about my suddenly awesome calluses! Yeah....maybe that will make them ignore my whining about finger pain...

joy and chaos

When I was younger, I used to believe in such things as order, fate, justice, and the like. I used to believe that hard work would inevitably lead to success. I used to think that there was such a thing as right and wrong. Karma, just desserts, whatever you want to call it...while I didn't think of it on the level of dogma, I did believe there was some kind of general structure at work in the universe.

Over the years, this certainty burnt away, and I realized that there was no structure to speak of, that the world was essentially random. I knew this on some deep level, but it took a while for this awareness to reach my consciousness...and when it did (the great mental breakdown of 2011), it leveled it to me. Typical existential depression, yes, but one never expects it when it happens.

It took ages to find my way through the worst of the depression. I never found the structure again or the certainty...and I'm certain it never existed in the first place. Dealing with it was never about reconnecting with the order, though. What I instead had to do was just come to terms with the chaos, embrace it.

So how does one embrace chaos? I used to think the drinking helped, but I found out when I quit , my ability to cope only increased. The music helps. The best thing, though, is finding and latching onto any burst of joy, particularly those outside of any expectations.

Luckily, I have a secret weapon: my child. She constantly exceeds any expectations I might have...it seems she's constantly coming at the world from an odd angle. This would make me wonder, if she didn't have such joy...and if she didn't spread that joy so easily. She's the perfect embrace of joy and chaos.

Case in point? Earlier this week, she was running through the house, and she tripped. I asked her if she was okay, and she said, "yeah,...I tripped when my unicorn tail got tangled up in bubble wrap." She then got up, smiled, and went back to running.

How can one be depressed when in the presence of that?

two quick observations

First: Danger 5 is the best television show ever.

Second: One of the most entertaining tasks one can do is go to Etsy, do a search for Cthulhu, and browse the results.

shaking in 3...2...

Ever had a "guess I had too much coffee at brunch" moment? That's me right now.

pills and aching joints

I never got to know my grandmother all that well, but the pain is making me think of her.

My dad was in the Air Force, and although I was born in America, my first memories are of Germany, where we lived until I was seven. My grandmother only came over to visit once, and she was not a good traveler. She was exactly the kind of person who would complain that the food wasn't the same as back home, that they didn't put ice in the sodas...you get the idea. When we moved to South Carolina, we spent a few weeks down in Florida at her house. I know this would've been a good time to try and know her better, but I was a shy kid and was still a bit shaken up by the move to do much of anything.

When my dad retired, we moved down to Florida...to live in her old house, actually. She was close by, but I still never really got to know her that well. My parents tell me it was because she wasn't easy to know, but I suspect the truth is more that I was still a shy and painfully awkward kid...and becoming a teenager didn't help at all. Still, I did try, but I suspect there was some basic incompatibility at work. 

What I do remember most vividly is staying over at her house and watching her in the morning. After she got me cereal (which, after I put some sugar on my corn flakes, she made me stir it into the milk for some reason), she started to massage her swollen knuckles for a minute before taking some pills from her industrial-size bottle of Tylenol. When I asked her about it, she told me that arthritis was just something that happened to us when we got older. But I was in my teens, and the entire concept of getting older seemed somewhere between remote and implausable.

A few years ago, after one of my old band's first shows, my shoulder started hurting. I told my singer it was because I carried her heavy amplifier, but I suspected that wasn't the truth...and she even refused to accept the guilt trip. The shoulder pain persisted, though, and after a few runs to the doctor and through physical therapy, I had a diagnosis: a compressed spinal disk along with arthritis in my shoulder.

This wasn't all that much of a shock to me. I went to the college in the "sling your backpack only over one shoulder" era, and I had played music for (I was shocked to realize) decades at that point...so wear and tear was only to be expected. It was only when getting a suit for a wedding when this was really driven home, when the seamstress informed me that one of my shoulders (the aching one in question) was actually measurably taller than the other. One of my first thoughts was that if I found any more physical deformities, I could change careers and enter a circus freak show...but another early thought was of my grandmother's swollen knuckles.

I soon found I could crack my shoulder joint at will when the arthritis was (to use my grandmother's phrase) flaring up. In some ways, I could look on this as a war wound, a physical manifestation of my suffering for my art and my scholarship. When I told this to my parents, they informed me that being a martyr was also something I probably got from my grandmother. But then one day a few years ago, I started to feel the same twang in one of my fingers. Pretty soon, I could pop it on command. Not every day hurts, but enough days hurt to make me have my own industrial size bottle of pills in my own medicine cabinet, which, with every pain and prescription, starts to resemble that of my grandmother even more.

The last few days, I've started to feel that pain in one of my thumbs...which is undoubtedly proof the arthritis's sphere of influence is surely expanding. The pain usually is pretty ignorable, though. On its most intense days, it's simply annoying yet usually easily treatable. Compared to my recent kidney stone pain, it's quite laughable.Yet it's still troubling. So far, it has stayed out of the hand which fingers notes on my guitars. But I'm beginning to realize that it will eventually grow, spread, start to disrupt, and maybe even take away my music...which is sobering and more than a little scary.

This morning, on the drive to work, the pain started to flair. After pulling into the lot, I sat in my parked car and broke into my car's emergency supply of pain pills. After swallowing, I rubbed my sore hand for a minute. It was only then when I realized that I now am beginning to know my grandmother a bit better.

a random thought while grading

I like the letter x. You hardly see the letter x anywhere. I'd like to humbly suggest we, as a society, start using the x to pluralize words. This would lead to several advantages. First, this would solve the whole issue of whether to use just an apostrophe or an apostrophe-s when making a plural word possessive. Secondly, it would lead to more x in our writing, which is good, because x is the coolest looking of all the letters.

omens?

Every so often, I teach movies. Today, we're watching The Matrix. Just as we got to the scene where Morpheus introduces Neo to the matrix, one of the lights in our classroom starts going on and off on its own.

It's hard not to read something into this...

playing season has begun

I played my second show with my band The Antidepressants on Friday. It was quite fun. Only one major screw-up, but we recovered quickly enough. Everything else sounded really good, and we got a few complements on our songs. We even made money, which is a rarity for a bar show!

I thought about doing a good recap of the night, but then I saw a friend mention grading and remembered everything I have to do...so work won out. But, as I was plowing through my own grading, I got a call from one of the people from the Old West End Festival in Toledo...and he quickly booked us for the 2015 festival. We'll be playing at the Art Fair stage on Sunday, June 7th, at 11am.

I hope to follow this up with more festival shows. The band's first gig was at a festival, which was nice as it gives the band immediate exposure to people who don't just know someone in the group. My drummer specifically asked to do more festivals, as they let him get to bed on time. Last year, I played at the Tiffin Music & Art Festival and A Dam Good Time, and I hope to do both again. I've also got feelers out to a whole bunch of other festivals and bars, so if all goes well, I'll be filling up the ole booking calendar. This is nice, as I go crazy if I don't play out regularly.

I was at a friend's birthday party last night, and I ran into a guitarist from another local band. He gave me several leads on music venues in Findlay, OH. I have a listing of clubs in Ann Arbor MI which I plan on hitting soon. And I'm open to play anywhere else anyone suggests.

So go out there and find me places to play! I'm not proud! I'll even do bot-mitzvahs!

my musical self

Most musician friends think of me as an equipment junkie. I am particularly known/mocked for my love of effects pedals; when, for instance, I told an old bassist that I was paring down my pedalboard, she asked me if I was sick. All I really want, though, is a decent tone...if I can get something I like by plugging straight in, I'm happy.

Most musicians with whom I've played think I'm a solo-crazy freak. A former singer used to say, when showing us a new song, would say, "...and here's where Mike can wank." And, to be honest, it was kinda fun to be told to solo endlessly. But that's what the songs called for, and that's really my main concern. In my solo band, I only have leads in a third of the songs.

To the extent that anyone thinks anything of me as a musician, I would suspect there's a certain amount of misconceptions. I'm not addicted to effects, guitar solos, heavy distortion, a few simple chord structures, kazoos, or anything else. I try to fit in with whatever musical environment in which I find myself...which is what I think any musician should do.

This doesn't mean I don't have a distinct musical personality; I certainly do. I did not really notice it, however, until I made my album (which you should buy immediately). I didn't hear it when I started to do solo shows, because I was locked into the singer/songwriter model (which is admittedly limiting, but in a fun way). But, with my very own awesome band, I can create worlds that are my own...and it's glorious.

Tonight, I have the first in-town performance of my band TheMikeDuBose and the Antidepressants. Our only other gig so far has been a music festival, but that was out of town, and we were the first act (so our set was short and subsequently sparsely attended). Tonight, we have the full set on a Friday night, at my favorite bar, with other awesome bands. And we even have a cool gig flyer!

I hope people make it to the show, because I am fiercely proud of our songs. I have a great drummer and bassist who have both intensity and swagger. I have an awesome horn player. The sound has the perfect mix of swing, catchiness, humor, and grit. This is the closest I've been to letting out the sound that's inside my head.

"It should be fun" doesn't begin to describe it.

the importance of environment

So this semester, I have two Comp II classes. One talks. The other doesn't. Talking class is generally lively and intrigued. Quiet class is generally catatonic. I'm doing the exact same thing in each class and getting radically different results. I have to keep remembering that's just how it is.

Today's example was that we're talking about technological literacy, the accelerating rate of technological change, and the impact of those on definitions of humanity. For the kicker, I show them Ray Kurtzweil's truly mind-bending TED talk:



We get to the part where he's talking about nanobot red blood cells which, if someone replaces 10% of their own red blood cells with the nanobots, that person would be able to sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath or sit at the bottom of a swimming pool for four hours.

The talking class's jaws drop. The quiet class? An honest 50% of them are checking their phones.

Sometimes that's just how it is.

scales of power

Ever wonder how to quantify things? There's fast...there's faster...and now, thanks to my daughter, I now know there's "rainbow jetpack poodle fast."

the value of children

I spend all day Monday and Wednesday with my daughter. Inevitably, this ends up teaching me many things. Today, I learned:

1. that I have the kind of kid whose first words of the day can be "If I were in the freezer, I would be very cold."
2. that advanced vocabulary can be funny coming from a not-yet four year old. We were doing some shopping today. As we were leaving the apartment complex, we had to go around a parked utilities truck. This prompted her to exclaim, "what in the world is going on???"
3. that she has a fun conception of family. I was getting her out of her car seat before going into a store, when she told me, "me, you, and mommy share one body but have three heads."

important information

Was just in my local coffee shop / used bookstore, and I overheard someone say "boys who poop their pants don't get frozen yogurt."

This seemed important enough to share. Now you know.

a modest suggestion that I might not suck

I was just walking through the parking lot on my way to my car, when I was flagged down by another guy in the lot. Turns out, he was a student of mine a couple years back. He told me that he's now a student teacher at a local school, and they are doing feminist readings of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He then thanked me, and he told me that I was one of the few people he had the taught him how to do stuff, taught him the skills, taught him the theories.

Excuse me...I think I have something in my eye.

exterminate!

When the BBC finished the first episode of Doctor Who, they apparently donated two of the original Dalek props to the Dr. Barnardo's Homes for Children. There's all kinds of tales (some undoubtedly apocryphal) about various Doctor Who props turning up all around England. Now this is some cryptozoology I can get behind.

the future is here!

Screw the "where's my jetpack?" crowd of naysayers. Did you know that we now have the ability to turn on our computers or phones and see a sunset on Mars? How much more futuristic do you need?

on ego

You'd think I'd know ego when I saw it. 

Last week, I ran across the article Keith Richards Is Not a Second Banana: The Guitarist's Conundrum, and it got me thinking about the nature of ego. Normally, I picture ego as the "hey, look at how awesome I am. Look at me. LOOK!!!" thing. You know, the lead singer thing. And this is something which generally bugs the hell out of me. It's one of the things which has turned me towards Indy music and away from any music from the mainstream. And it's not regulated to music; the increased prevalence of this attitude in the NFL is one of the reasons I abandoned the sport. This tasks me.

I like to think of my approach to music as being more workmanlike than anything. I know many won't believe this, but I don't play guitar in bands for my ego. Honestly. If I did, I would have to be the most delusional person in the world. I have, after all, played for empty rooms, and while doing so, the biggest thought I had was just how funny was the whole situation.

Playing was never an ego thing for me. While most of my friends would admit to picking up instruments to look cool or to get girls, that was never in my thoughts. I just wanted to be able to build something, to create something out of nothing, to be in charge of something over which I had full power. If my playing sucks, it's because of me. If I do well, it's because of me. Take autotune and other such abominations out of the equation, and music becomes a sort of meritocracy. Yeah, some people might have an easier time picking up an instrument, but those who work at it will become better. Work tends to level the playing field...and I like this, particularly as I've found it not to be the case in so many other elements of life.

Not picking up an instrument for ego might be believable, but it gets a bit harder to swallow when you make the move to live performance. If it's not for ego, then why would someone climb up on a stage and do this for the public? Why else would I invest my time and money I will never recoup to record an album if it wasn't to make myself feel more important? Truth is, there's always an element of commerce and public relations when you make the move from bedroom to stage, and it would be dishonest not to admit it.

This, I am beginning to realize, is where one's definition of ego comes into play. If ego is just the lusty adoption of lead singer behavior, then I would be right there with the punks in voicing my disdain. But in my solo career, I have to do a ton of this "pay attention to me" stuff as a matter of necessity. I have to do PR. I have to brand myself. I have to flyer. I have to banter. I have to schmooze. I have to ingratiate myself to bookers and bar owners. Yes, there are parts I actually enjoy (designing flyers, for instance, allows me to locate my inner visual artist). Much of it, however, makes me feel dirty...like an ego faker.

Which brings me back to the article. If singers are the ones who crave the spotlight but guitarists (as the article suggests) are more interested in nonchalantly building everything and holding it together...well, who's to say that ego lies in one side or another? And who's to say that desiring the role of public face is any cheaper than wanting to be the all-knowing creator? Is behind the scenes really more a morally pure position than out in front?

Is there really a distinction here? Are they divisible in the first place?

When I had my big mental breakdown of 2011, I had a very unhelpful session with a counselor. In prepping for the session, I tried to boil down all my anxieties about becoming a father, about failing in my attempted career as a professor, about the lackluster reception of my scholarship, all of this I tried to distill to its essence. The best I came up with was, "how am I supposed to continue, how am I supposed to raise and nurture a new life, when I've come to the realization that there is no justice in our lives, that hard work will not necessarily pay off, that we're all at the mercy of random, uncaring forces?"

The doctor had no answers for me. At the time, I suspected it was just because he was bad at his job...or just didn't like me enough to put in the effort. Now, though, I'm beginning to suspect that the lack of insight was really due to my own failure to properly judge the situation. I was mistaking lack of visible ego for moral purity. I was thinking that simply wanting something enough and sweating a lot in an effort to reach that goal would be enough. Is it possible, I'm beginning to wonder, that I failed because I lacked...ego?

Yeah, I wasn't an attention-grasping academic. But I'm beginning to think I failed ultimately because I wasn't egotistical enough to sculpt my work to the places where it might be well-received. Yeah, my lack of  ego made me not try to be an obnoxious bink. But it also stopped me from thinking strategically about my scholarship. It stopped me from promoting myself once I did figure out how to make something that everyone might want. I thought that if I followed my muse, fame and fortune would naturally follow. That, I think, was my downfall.

Now I'm beginning to realize that ego would've helped. As a musician, I've tried to find a niche my music can fill. Why didn't I do the same with my scholarship? I promote myself as a musician. Why didn't I do that as a thinker? Why didn't I realize that being unfocused and unstrategic was not being pure and honest to my muse...but was instead just setting myself up for insignificance? Ego would've helped.

I'm not saying if I would've had ego, everything would've worked out. Hell, I do all the self-promoting ego crap in my music career but still am relatively insignificant on the scene. But maybe I would've stood a better shot.

Maybe this means I need to be the new priest of ego. I must stop people from making my mistake of not thinking enough as an entity to be promoted. I will spread my new knowledge to the masses Ego, I will proclaim, is good. Ego, my inner Gordon Gekko yells, works. Ego for all!

Or is that too much lead singer-esque?

on expectations suddenly diminished

I'm a teacher. This means that I spent my Spring Break the way teachers normally do: getting caught up with grading. There were no vacations, no beach hijinks, no narrowly avoided arrests, nothing all that exciting. I looked after my kid and I graded. Still, I didn't actually get the grading caught up until last Tuesday....well after the break had ended. At least that was better than Fall semester, where my surgeries meant I was always two to three weeks behind.

My standard line to people, who asked about my Spring Break, was that I graded, but it was all worthwhile, because I was caught up...at least until Thursday (today), when I get three classes worth of assignments in. Yes, I'm fairly aware this is the "woe is me" routine. The thing is, when I got to lesson planning this morning, I found out I was wrong in my calculations and only had assignments coming in from one class rather than three. Now I'm faced with a relatively easy grading load which I should finish handily tomorrow afternoon. Now I won't have to stay in the study all weekend doing miserable work. Now I can actually enjoy time with my family.

I'm not sure how to take this.

long live the boob tube

We are living in the golden age of television. I've been saying this for quite some time. TV has, for some time, been a superior medium when compared to films. There's just so much better stuff being produced. Rather than bore you with my own ramblings on the subject, though, I'm just going to refer you to the article 5 Ways TV and Movies are Becoming the Same Thing (but TV is better).

ramifications of warrior culture

I quit watching football a while ago. So far, nothing has made me question that decision. Now, though, with the news that San Francisco plate Chris Borland is retiring after one year due to fears of brain injury, that decision is pretty strongly reaffirmed.

This Sports on Earth article on the possible ramifications of Borland's decision spells out the issue quite clearly. One of the most telling quotes:

" This is the problem for the NFL. The response is not to change the game itself; the response is to find people who do not understand that the game needs to be changed. It sees players -- humans -- as churn … as short-term investments, solely. It is pretending that everything is fine because the money is flowing so freely."

observations of an alcohol quitter

I am, for all intensive reasons, predominantly a non-drinker. Ever since my pseudo-gout (that I can have a gout-which-is-not-gout still cracks me up), I have cut out most all my drinking. I was never an alcoholic...but I was a drunk. I loved drinking. I unrepentantly drank to excess. I loved beer. I loved bars. But when one wakes up and it feels like someone has taken a sledgehammer to one's foot, alcohol becomes very expendable. When I heard it was also a kidney stone trigger, I was definitely out.

Don't get me wrong. I was not an "I will never touch another drop of alcohol again" quitter. I have, if the mood strikes me just right, ordered the occasional beer or cider...but that's kind of rare. I've even just went out to drink on a few occasions. But, for the most part, I'm pretty dry...and that leads to some interesting observations:

• I'm more aware than ever that alcohol is a drug. It's a drug just like marijuana is a drug, like cocaine is a drug, like opiates are drugs. The only real difference is that, in our country, alcohol is sanctioned, while the others are not. As a result of this sanction, most people see it as just another product (albeit one which makes you feel funny). But no: drug city.
• As a result of fully realizing alcohol is a drug, how our society sanctions this drug use becomes increasingly funny. A bar, for instance, is a specific place set aside for people to do a drug. Eating out is often accompanied by "and would you like a drug with that?" There are billboards, television ads, and celebrity endorsements for a recreational drug. Things I used to consider normal now seem really weird as a result of this observation.
• This, as a result, makes the behavior of drug users seem quite strange. Many people order cheap beer, well liquor, or combinations thereof. These people now seem like "I just wanna get high and have no other concerns. Taste? Fun? Sorry...not interested." And we cater to these people! When vaporized alcohol becomes a serious thing, this tendency will increase.
• As a musician, though, my main creative outlet is playing for people who come to a business to do drugs. Yeah, I could play the occasional coffee shop open mic session, but honestly, people don't really go to coffee shops to listen to music. There might not be much reward to playing in bars, but there's no tangible reward to playing in not-bars.
• This makes me think interesting things about why people go to drug-oriented businesses to listen to music. Does that say something about the general public's desire for art? That they can't really handle watching art unless they're under the influence? Or is it just one of those mystery-of-capitalism things?
• None of this, for the record, has made me anti-alcohol or anti-bar. If people are making themselves happy, more power to them...as long as they aren't hurting anyone else or themselves. 
• If anything, thinking of alcohol as a drug makes me more supportive of drug legalization efforts. That we favor alcohol but say other drugs are bad is just kind of random. Hell, if I were emperor, I would legalize everything. Even battlefield and all...plus I wonder how different it would be playing a show in a meth bar or an LSD bar. Would a heroin bar be a better place to play than a valium bar? The mind boggles. Plus this would have the added benefit of undermining the industrial prison complex and the gung ho police, which would, for the record, be a good thing.
• While I don't get people to hang out with me all that much anyway, when they do, I notice that, as I'm drinking, they tend to cut down on their own drinking. I've tried to make it plain that my desire to be sober shouldn't impact them at all, but inevitably, people who come out with me tend to drink less.

Intoxicating observations, eh?

shamrocks, stereotypes, and stupid behavior.

Today is St. Patrick's Day. A holiday...where one has to work. Wee.

When I was still drinking, we used to refer to this as "amateur day." It's largely used by the amateurs as an excuse to behave badly and do things which would normally just tick off everyone around them. In Bowling Green, the bars open at a responsible 5:30am, and students are drunk as early as seven. When I taught in town, we used to get warnings to just send drunk students home. One St. Patrick's Day, I was eating lunch at the local diner, and I heard these drunk undergrads in the next booth bragging about how one of them had already puked on the dance floor in one of the clubs. While this might be entertaining for children, as a true drinker, I never would've wanted to see it under the logic that being drunk isn't an excuse for being a jerk. Now I don't drink, my tolerance is even lower.

Critically, I can't help but think of today as Formerly Oppressed But Now Accepted White Person Identity Strategic Appropriation Day. Yeah, this is unwieldy, and I'm aware that even the acronym (FOBNAWPISAD) wouldn't even catch on. Depending on who you want to believe, my mother's side of the family might've come to England from Ireland. This means that I have as much if not more right to claim this identity than most of the revelers. Yet I still don't claim it today even though it might mean something for me...because I never claim it during the rest of the year. And even if I did claim it, all claiming to be Irish today really means is 1) wearing green, 2) drinking until one is five miles past excess, and 3) getting into fights. Sorry, but I'm not really in favor of negative stereotypes, even if in the service of a buzz.

Realistically, then, this is yet another holiday which has no real meaning to me...and it's not even as fun or as Freudian as Groundhog's Day. Some of my favorite bands are playing out tonight, so I might venture out later if I don't have band practice. My only hope would be that by then, all the idiots will have already worn themselves out.

Really, the only positive thing about this holiday is oddly colored fast food milkshakes.

Bah humbug.

on branding and the humble kazoo

I played a show this Wednesday. Earlier that day, I got an unsolicited text from a former singer, who informed me that he would boycott any future performance which include me playing kazoo. It is, for the record, dismaying when one's art is not fully appreciated. Nevertheless, the major thing about which this got me thinking (other, that is, than this guy's obsessive grumpiness) was about branding.

Once you move from the couch to the stage, you automatically enter the great debate between commerce and art...whether you like it or not. Selling out really isn't the issue, as next to none of us make any measurable amount of money anyway. For Indy musicians at my stage, this mostly entails marketing and branding. Both of these are rife with problems...problems beyond not generally being the strongest suit of Indy musicians.

Marketing is a toughie. Flyers are a necessity (and a cool keepsake), but where to hang them? Around here, we've got the bar itself and not a whole lot of other places. Social media would seem to be an easy one, but Facebook only sends out like 10-15% of a band's posts. Screw getting a decent return rate if hardly anyone gets to see it in the first place. Zines are a no-go, as the aforementioned ineffective social media has already driven them out of business. And advertising in any other sense costs money, and that is something us Indy musicians don't tend to have.

This leaves branding. In story, this means, "how do I distinguish myself from the great swaths of musical humanity who also bash on guitars and wail depressing lyrics?" Talent, unfortunately, does very little to get anyone noticed. This is unfortunate yet still very true. Breaking out of the pack really means making one's self distinguishable in some way. It might only be a way to move from "I saw that guy who plays songs" to "I saw that guy who plays songs dedicated to antidepressant pharmaceutical manufacturers." And this might not seem like all that positive a move. Yet for some of us, it's all we've got.

My approach is to play to my main strength, namely that I'm a reasonably clever weirdo. This is the logic to the dedications to Zoloft's creators. This is the logic to my cool logo/sticker. This is the logic behind incorporating humor and interesting metaphors into my lyrics (an approach which surprisingly few songwriters use). And this is also the logic behind the kazoo. Yeah, I play it because I can't play harmonica. Yeah, I think a sonic change is good. But the main reason is that it's hard to forget a kazoo solo or the person who plays it.

Last Wednesday, I played an open mic night. Instead of the expected 4-5 songs, I got 8-9. I got a great response. People both clapped and "woo"ed. I got complements on my beard. At one point, I even had people singing along (to the chorus of The Isley Brothers's "You've Lost That Loving Feeling." And yes, I played my kazoo.

I played pretty good...and I think I gave the audience plenty of reasons to remember me. It didn't lead to any album sales, though, and what impact it will have on attendance at future gigs is uncertain. But what else, really, can I do?

Of course, I'm open to hearing other ideas on self-promotion. And if any of y'all want to rent me a billboard to advertise my next gig, well, I think my ego could take it.

time to be scared iii

I'd like to fully admit that my last few political posts have been just slightly paranoid. I won't bother to use the "a paranoid is merely someone in full possession of the facts line," but there is, in our current climate, plenty of reason to feed the fear. Never mind our congress actively trying to undermine talks with Iran. Today's thing that has me scared? Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina today announced that if he were elected, his first act would be to use the military to force congress to pass his agenda.

I am not, for the record, worried that Lindsey Graham will actually do this if elected president because, paranoid though I may be, I don't really think he's actually going to become president. What I am worried about, though, is that there will be people who will hear this and rush to the defense of this treasonous pinhead. After all, what has democracy and law ever done for us?

Shudder.

art of the day, 3/11/15

I love me some good recontextualization. Today's example is the art of Franco Brambilla, who takes 1970s postcards and adds sci-fi images. Brilliant.

tragedy

It is one of the greatest tragedies of my life that I have never had occasion to say, "it's nightfall...the beast approaches."

upcoming shows

I have a few shows coming up in the immediate future. First off, I will be playing a half-hour set at Hump Day Review this Wednesday. This is at Stone's Throw in Bowling Green. I should hit the stage at 9:30. I know that at the very least, I'll debut a new cover song. I might also have an original or two to world premier, but that all depends on how tomorrow goes.

I will be doing a show with my backing band The Antidepressants on Friday, March 27th. We are playing with two touring bands (Annabelle Black and Nuaudio), as well as Bowling Green's own Black Swamp Casket Company. This will be a fun one, because...well, it's at Howard's Club H, which is always fun.

But this will also be the second show and BG debut with my band. We're a power trio with horns (well, really trombone). It's definitely hard rock, but with a twist. During our last practice, my instructions to the rhythm section were "pretend that you're either a studio musician in Muscle Shoals or that you're a member of Booker T and the MGs. If you're heard what I do, then just imagine melding it with 60s R&B. Then you'd have a pretty good idea what to expect.

I also have one of my three hour solo performances coming up. I'll be playing again at Stone's Throw in Bowling Green. This one will be April 4th, and I'll be playing from 8-11. This one will have a mix of originals and cover songs. I've been learning an awful lot of new stuff for this. I'm expanding my cover repertoire to include more old-school R&B; not only is it very cool and danceable, it's also an utter blast to sing. I have also learned a few new weird cover songs from the 1980s. It's been way too long since I've done this kind of gig, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Of course, your support would be greatly appreciated at any of these shows. I do this for the love of the music, but knowing that someone else also appreciates what I do is unbelievable. I will, for the record, have copies of my album for sale at all future gigs.

a random universe and daughter

One of the unusual aspects of my life is that I'm home with my daughter more often than most fathers are able to be. This is an absolute blessing, but it isn't normal by any stretch...which makes my life a bit more surreal than in the past. This is compounded by the fact that my daughter is definitely my child in temperament, which generally manifests itself in two ways: she has a highly variable tolerance for cuteness, and she embraces randomness. This enriches and weirdens my life in many ways.

First, many people assume I'm a full time stay at home father. I would love this, but for whatever reason, my wife has yet to become the president of her university...so work, alas, is still my fate. But those who only know me casually can be astounded when they find out I in fact have a job. When me and my kid are out together, I know that filters the way people see me. I don't really care, to be honest...but it would be intellectually interesting to have more data on how that affects people's perceptions of yours truly.

I have noticed, however, that I have more cute females smile at me when I'm with my girl. It is important I never view this as an ego thing, however. They obviously smile at me because (1) my kid is indeed unbelievably cute, (2) it is a rarity seeing a father and daughter together in public...at least in the middle of a weekday, and (3) when I'm with my girl, I am clearly not a threat to any single female in the area.We went to our local coffee shop today. As expected, I got a large number of strangers (predominantly cute females) smiling at the two of us. I tried not to give it too much thought...I find this approach is better for my sanity.

After we had our snacks and looked at the kid books, she wanted to sit at the table with the built-in giant chess board and play. The first game was remarkable mostly for my daughter's flagrant disregard for the rules of piece movement. After a certain amount of time, she informed me that I lost and she won. I reset the board. This time, halfway through, I decided to adopt her disregard for the rules. My knights hung out together to tell stories...and then so did hers. My pawns started to dance...and then did hers. Then I decided to start stacking my rooks...so of course my daughter followed suit.  Game three entailed us moving our pieces at the same exact time. Game four was notable for my daughter's directions that we had to move more than one piece at a time. And of course, my kid's estimation, she won and I lost every single game.

When we left, I stopped at a gas station. After filling up my tank, I drove to the car wash behind the station. As it's March, it's finally time to wash a winter's worth of salt and road grime off my car. I explained the process to my daughter, who kept repeating, "I've never seen a car wash before." When the machine started, my daughter moved to saying "cool" and laughing. When we left, she told me she couldn't wait to see her Mommy and explain how car washes work.

There was no grand lesson from the day other than I enjoy my kid's company immensely...but I already knew that. Part of the fun is seeing the way she fits together experiences. There is no agenda, but even though she has a much narrower pool of experiences from which to compare and establish context, she still amazes me with some of the connections she makes. She moves from point to point in such interesting and wonderful ways, I feel myself a better person just for being with her.

Hey, maybe that's why the cute girls are smiling at me...

time to be scared ii

I've been in more than one argument about our surveillance state, where my opponent supports public surveillance cameras, has claimed "you only need to be scared of them if you're doing something wrong. This, in my mind, opens up the argument to hypotheticals, my favorite being, "what happens when the government wants you to install them in your house?" My opponents inevitably then claim it will never come to that.


One thing I know? Never say never. Because in England, the highest ranking police officer just suggested people install them in their houses. England, for those not in the know, has been miles ahead of America in terms of public surveillance. The town of King's Lynn even brags about  having the first public spying program in the country.

Undoubtedly, these can be used in very real ways to help in the fight against crime. My problem, however, is it's only a short leap to using these to serve private (rather than public) agendas. Also, I don't trust the security of their computer systems. Also, while I am in many aspects a liberal, I don't trust the government enough to say, "hey, feel free to record every aspect of my life!"

Again, don't make me agree with the libertarians.

time to be scared

The biggest nightmare right now is internet privacy and security. It's always been a good idea to be careful with one's online activities. There are, after all, a lot of creeps out there who will try to invade your privacy and steal your stuff. The saddest part nowadays, however, is that one of the most powerful perpetrators of privacy invasions is our own government, particularly the NSA. Now they want to not have to go to the trouble to, you know, follow the law.

Come on, y'all. Please don't make me agree with the libertarians.

breaking a cardinal rule

They say that you should never talk about religion or politics in public. Well, screw that, because this is my blog...and I'll alienate people if I want to.

I understand the desire to want to do away with tyranny. With our current government's support of spying, black ops, and drone death, I understand how someone might be worried about government as tyranny. Hell, there are some government projects that give me the heebey-jeebies. Drug testing is one of the biggest. In general, drug testing ends up being one of those things that succeeds in letting its supporters feel morally superior. It doesn't really accomplish a whole lot else. It, much like the TSA's airport security rules, is more theater of self-importance than practical in any way. Want more details? Then familiarize yourself with What 7 States Discovered After Spending More Than $1 Million Drug Testing Welfare Recipients. This shocks and upsets me on so many levels.

Personally, I tend to think big business is responsible for the removal of more liberty and rights than government. At the very least, they're the ones who are screwing me over more at the minute. The weirdest part is that many of the scariest government activities come from conservatives, who are supposed to be against government intrusion. The drug testing thing? Republican governors. The TSA and Patriot Act? Started under a GOP administration (although continued under our current president). The whole gay marriage ban movement? Again, this is from conservatives who are normally against government curtailing of rights. Hypocrites are fun, aren't they?

To be fair, not all those on the right support this kind of oversight/intrusion. Libertarians inevitably agree with my disdain for all the stuff mentioned so far in this post. Nice in theory. In practice, though, Libertarianism generally ends up being more about the freedom from responsibility than any other kind of freedom. This article Libertarianism is for petulant children is a bit harsh, but it's not all that wrong. Hell, I've seen people try to argue that even the FCC's net neutrality ruling was government tyranny.

Maybe it's just that some people want to complain. What we need is someone who can walk the line between the two sides. Keep us caring for each other, level the playing field, keep us safe, and then go the hell away. People like that don't seem to exist within politics, however.

Solutions welcomed.

programming note

A few weeks ago, I started doing a weekly post of cool links I've discovered in the past seven or so days. It seemed like a good idea. I've decided to cut it out, though. I've been accumulating way too many of them, and I find myself really wanting to talk a little bit about each. So no more Weekly Lynx. You're gonna get them whenever I can actually write them up.

Prepare for the deluge.

birthday voyage

I was at my favorite bar last night. One of the many very cool bartenders and I were talking. I've known her for some time...she used to be the most abusive and coolest of the late night staff at the area diner. Partway through, she told me, "this cute guy who only comes into town a few times of year told me he thought I was about 32...so of course I got his number."

We laughed together for a few moments. I responded with the story of when another bartender told me she thought I was about 34, and I grabbed her shoulders for a very sincere yet overly dramatic "thank you!!!" Of course, this led to the inevitable "how old are you anyway?" I told her that she wore her age well, and she told me "you wear your age very well." I almost wanted to blush.

I've got a song which has the lyric "I still think of myself as a teen, but the world just won't agree...it only seems to notice the lines on my face." This is only half true (my songs are rarely autobiographical...or, for that matter, all that true); I do feel much younger (particularly mentally) than my physical age, but I've been hit with an onslaught of people who claim I definitely don't look my age. I don't understand this, but I'm okay with it nonetheless.

I was out last night because at 12:01am, it was my 44th birthday. I went out with a friend. For the first time in over three years, someone's wanted to celebrate with me. Actually, now I think of it, my 40th was the last birthday party I had. Maybe that's why people make such a big deal of 40...it marks the end of parties. Just a theory.

Anyway, I had a great time, and the only real reason i'm feeling older today is the stupid two week cold I'm battling.

I've spent the day curled up under a blanket, reading a World War II history. My daughter has been more excited about it being my birthday than I. Every so often, my phone will go off to let me know someone else has Facebook-wished me a birthday...which is cool, but I'd rather have them close so we can hang out. Other than that, not much has happened.

When I was younger, birthdays were monumental, an event. Not any more, though. Getting birthday brownies is cool, but it's a far cry from the parties in my past. I don't even think about gifts anymore...it's not that I don't want stuff, but the only things I want are way out of my financial bracket...which, now that I think of it, is pretty much the same thing.

Maybe that is the only real sign of getting older, that the landmarks get less important than the voyage itself. Maybe.

Birthdays are, however, still a great excuse to get a little drunk and listen to rock and roll.

(Blog post 800. Thanks for reading.)